Yes, this is scary. IMHO people should not allow any internet connected device in their home apart from an actual computer or phone.
It is one of those things that you think, “Oh, never mind, I have nothing to hide.”
Really? Your vacuum cleaner knows that on Tuesday, at 6.15, you went to get dinner and see a movie with your partner, leaving your 15 year old daughter alone in the home until you returned at 10.30.
How will it know that? Well, think about it. If it is detecting things, it must also detect the change in position of things, i.e. motion. If there are three people in the home normally, it can detect three places where motion occurs. So it knows that there are three sources of motion; and two of those motion sources move to the front door, and then out of range. Only one remains.
That’s already a pretty strong indication of who is in your home, and plenty of burglars would love to know that stuff. But if you add that to search history, purchases, restaurant bookings, social media, and so on, it very quickly paints a detailed picture.
All this information is susceptible to leaks, all of it is for sale, and all of it will be used in ways hostile to you. The entire industry of Big Data exists precisely to organize and make sense of this information for marketing and other purposes. Why do you think the intelligence agencies want to get all this stuff, even to the extent of breaking encryption to do it?
We have all seen how frequently personal data has been leaked. Crikey, a few days ago Sweden managed to leak personal data for almost all its citizens. Sweden! This is what happens even when you have the best practices, least corruption, and best history of reliability, managed by an accredited and respected government agency. They just leaked, among other things, detailed personal information on people in witness protection, specialist military, police suspects, and on and on it goes. This stuff was simply emailed out and available for years. It still is!
If that’s what happens with the Swedish Transport Agency, what do you think it’s like with the billions of leaky, poorly designed, insecure, not updated, crap gadgets pouring out of China?
The only rational assumption at this point in time is that all data is likely to be leaked and sold on the dark web.
Criminals who purchase this data will know when you leave home and when you are likely to return. And they will know that your daughter is home alone.
Do you still have nothing to hide?
If you ever think about getting any internet-connected device for your home, apart from an actual PC, you need to read this first:
https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en
And when you need to clean your house, well, this has been good enough for monks for 2500 years.
