Lord of 7000 robots

[cunning nexus]

Hopefully you're aware, that automated robot vacuumers, those homes little assistants, have notoriously bad cybersecurity features. Around the world and across makers and models, there are several cases where a hacker has gained access to them, and chased homes pets around with them, pushed chairs around, or even made them shout profanities.

In this story, a man wasn't even trying to hack into them, but he accidentally gained control of fleet of roughly 7000 robot vacuums, their map-feature, cameras, and microphones:
https://www.theverge.com/tech/879088/dji-romo-hack-vulnerability-remote-control-camera-access-mqtt?

From the article I deduct that this happened in February 2026. Sammy Azdoufal said he was simply livetweeting everything that happened while trying to control his own robot vacuum with a PS5 gamepad.

Cloud-connected smart home devices have led to stories like this for years. (--) Issues like these can feel inevitable when so many smart home devices require a persistent internet connection to function, especially for those companies that don’t offer easy ways to report security vulnerabilities.
- https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/12/24268508/hacked-ecovacs-deebot-x2-racial-slurs-chase-pets writes in the other article from Octover 2024.

Images in this post are from the first The Verge-article.

[pearl kettle]

Makes me think of self driving cars. Terrifying to think that this could happen with such cars.

[cunning nexus]

This Mozilla Foundation article from 2023 mainly addresses data collection and privacy of cars, but...

A failure to properly address cybersecurity might explain their frankly embarrassing security and privacy track records. We only looked at the last three years, but still found plenty to go on with 17 (68%) of the car brands earning the “bad track record” ding for leaks, hacks, and breaches that threatened their drivers’ privacy.
- https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Some not-so-fun facts about these rankings:

• Tesla is only the second product we have ever reviewed to receive all of our privacy “dings.” (The first was an AI chatbot we reviewed earlier this year.) What set them apart was earning the “untrustworthy AI” ding. The brand’s AI-powered autopilot was reportedly involved in 17 deaths and 736 crashes and is currently the subject of multiple government investigations.

I recall we've had some worries over China-made buses, that they could be remotely disabled or hacked, but I can't find the Finnish articles. I do find this:

Ruter performed underground tests “inside a mountain” on two buses: the Yutong model and one from the Dutch manufacturer VDL.

While the Dutch buses “do not have the capability for autonomous software updates over the air,” Yutong “has direct digital access to each individual bus for software updates and diagnostics,” it said.

In theory, “this bus can be stopped or rendered inoperable by the manufacturer,” it said, although Yutong wouldn’t be able to remotely drive these vehicles.
- https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/china-electric-buses-denmark-norway-investigate-security-loophole-rcna242054

And I feel like.. I've seen Youtube video footage of driving cars being hacked, to test if it is possible, and they did gain control of the cars? Been a while since, cars aren't my personal passion.

Ah, the buses here are Yutong, too. This website seems to explain more in depth, and has more links to other sources at the end -- though I must say I've not run into this website before: https://nordicdefencereview.com/polands-army-shuts-the-gate-on-china-made-cars/

[pearl kettle]

Electric cars are terrifying in a second way. Any kind of crash, light, little damage or lots of damage, the battery turns into a firebll in less than two minutes.

The privacy nightmare with the cars mrntioned make me very happy my car is from the 90s. Old but secure. No data sold anywhere.