A Verge story on hacking your robot vacuum so it doesn’t phone home.
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At certain points – and I think needing to flash a third-party firmware into your robot vacuum to safeguard your privacy is one of those moments – you really need to ask whether this shit is worth it.
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Couldn’t you just make it so it’s not connected to the internet?
You’re not wrong. At a certain point it becomes exhausting. However please don’t lose sight of the fact that this is exactly what company’s want. They want us to give up all of our data because it’s too inconvenient to be upset about it.
So yes, there is likely a line drawn for when having to flash all your devices with custom firmware becomes not worth it for the individual, however the amount of data that gets collected from “smart” devices is absolutely fucking disgusting and we desperately need actual comprehensive data privacy laws.
I’d say it’s about harm reduction at this point rather than harm elimination. Do what you reasonably can to protect your privacy but don’t let your mental health suffer because you’re paranoid that someone is going to hack your robot vacuum.
My stance is to just not own one of the fucking things. There’s your harm elimination. There is no data collected for me to protect.
How about your car?
Intentionally about 20 years old and no connectivity.
What happens in 20 years when you need a new car and all of them have connectivity, even the oldest second hand ones?
I’m trying to make the best choices I can right now. In 20 years, assuming I’m still alive, I’ll try to make the best choices available to me then – which will probably be to still drive a car from circa Y2K. Cars don’t just turn to dust after 40 years. People today are absolutely horny for cars from the 50s and 60s.
Fair point
‘This shit’ referring to the vacuum or your privacy?
Asking this question on a privacy community really doesn’t look good on you.
We shouldn’t have to go to these extremes to protect ourselves… But at the same time if we don’t do this and defend our rights to do so…there will be attempts to legislate against it and make modifying your tech to protect your privacy illegal!
I wanted this person to clarify their statement, how is asking for information a bad thing?
Then allow me to clarify:
jesus CHRIST just buy an upright you ASSHOLES
my upright vacuum has a motor that could vacuum up a whole roomba. it doesn’t need to charge. it has a hepa filter so good it outperforms my actual, dedicated air purifier. it doesn’t send my floor plan and activity schedule to amazon. it doesn’t take and send dick pics of me to the CIA. it can’t talk to other devices in my house and form some weird spy mesh network. it needs to be run rarely enough that i have never felt burdened by it.
in conclusion fuck your stupid, stupid IOT dustbuster on wheels
You sound jealous.
It’s surprising how much dust my robot picks up every day. It’s very nice
There might have been some miscommunication between us. I fully support the fight for privacy and buy nothing that’s not truly under my control. I do not have a vacuum robot, I run Linux on all my computers, GrapheneOS on my phone, the only ‘smart’ thing about my car is its ability to detect when it’s dark so it can turn on my headlights, that sort of thing. But I don’t know you and your original comment didn’t make it clear to me whether you engaged in defeatist speech or were advocating for privacy.
I’m using “your” as a non-specific adjective. I could have written “fuck one’s roomba” I suppose but that doesn’t sound right at all.