{"id":181290,"date":"2016-08-10T18:49:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T23:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/08\/10\/the-internet-of-things-got-hacked-again-things-that-go-buzz-in-the-night-edition\/"},"modified":"2016-08-10T18:49:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T23:49:00","slug":"the-internet-of-things-got-hacked-again-things-that-go-buzz-in-the-night-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/08\/10\/the-internet-of-things-got-hacked-again-things-that-go-buzz-in-the-night-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet of Things Got Hacked Again, Things that go Buzz in the Night Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
In news of the coming tech utopia, a network enabled sexual aid has been hacked<\/a>, and even in the unhacked condition, it sends personal data back to the manufacturer.<\/p>\n

The Internet of Things That Can Be Hacked grows daily. Lightbulbs<\/a>, trucks<\/a>, and fridges<\/a> all have computers inside them now, and all have been hacked by someone. But at least you don\u2019t put those inside your body. <\/p>\n

Two years ago, someone had the good idea to put a bluetooth connection inside a vibrator, and the We-Vibe 4 Plus was born. The vibrator can connect with a smartphone app that its makers say<\/a> \u201callows couples to keep their flame ignited \u2013 together or apart\u201d: that is, it can be controlled remotely, while, say, making a video call.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The consequences of a wrong number are left to reader’s imagination.<\/p>\n

But at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, two independent hackers from New Zealand, who go by the handles goldfisk and follower, revealed that the way the vibrator speaks with its controlling app isn\u2019t really secure at all \u2013 making it possible to remotely seize control of the vibrator and activate it at will.<\/p>\n

In their talk, Hacking the Internet of Vibrating Things, Follower argued that despite titters at the back of the room, the security of a sex toy should be taken seriously. \u201cThe company that makes this vibrator, Standard Innovation: They have over 2 million people using their devices, so what\u2019s at stake is 2 million people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people in the past have said it\u2019s not really a serious issue,\u201d he added, \u201cbut if you come back to the fact that we\u2019re talking about people, unwanted activation of a vibrator is potentially sexual assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potentially worse still, the pair discovered that the app itself was phoning home, letting the manufacturer discover some very intimate information about users<\/span><\/b>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

I want no part of this brave new world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In news of the coming tech utopia, a network enabled sexual aid has been hacked, and even in the unhacked condition, it sends personal data back to the manufacturer. The Internet of Things That Can Be Hacked grows daily. Lightbulbs, trucks, and fridges all have computers inside them now, and all have been hacked by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[969,997,1066,1075,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evil","category-internet","category-privacy","category-sex","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}