Is your home too smart for you? It might be if someone’s hacked into your home controller. If you’re one of those forward-thinking people who have your door lock and furnace and lighting and appliances wirelessly hooked up to your computer so you can remotely control them, you may be in for a rude surprise someday.
Say you arrive home from work one day to find your front door unlocked, the air conditioning turned down to frigid and your lighting acting like strobe spots on a dance floor. Your first thought is that you’ve been burglarized. But on closer inspection, your realize the door lock hasn’t been jimmied and nothing is out of place, your electronically controlled gizmos just all seem to be going weird.
This really is happening according to the unimpeachable source Sam and I turn to for news items like this. The Wall Street Journal, aka WSJ, carried an article titled “Smart Homes Are a Hacking Risk” in its August 1 issue. The article by Danny Yadron, reports that more and more of our “domestic” gadgets, even toilets “offer new avenues for hackers to do damage” to us. So-called smart appliances - which are becoming ever more popular as we become ever more lazy - “offer a chance (to hackers) to do physical harm not possible by reading someone’s email.” Apparently, most smart appliance manufacturers haven’t bothered to encrypt and perform hacking testing on smart appliances ike they do on phones and laptops.
Result? You could someday sit down on your toilet and it could give you BACK a load of crap.
“Hey, big a--s, sit on somebody your own size.” Or, “Oh no, you ain’t puttin’ that in here!” It possibly could be useful if the toilet reminded you to flush though.
How about if you come home and throw a TV dinner in your microwave? You time the dinner to be done in five minutes when the box says six. “That’s not enough time to cook that lasagna,” your microwave says. “I’m not starting up until you program the right amount of time. You wanna’ catch botulism or something?
How about if your toothbrush said to you, “I said 100 strokes, not fifty nine.” And then it zapped you. Maybe your electric blanket would refuse to heat up like you wanted it to. “That’s too hot lady, you’ll parboil your husband.” Actually, an electric blanket like that might not be a bad thing.
Then, how about if your car refuses to speed up when you’re late for work? “I told you man, I am not going to be embarrassed by you getting pulled over by a speed cop. Go slow or I’m a no-go.”
Bottom line here is the Chinese or some terrorist hordes are wreaking havoc on us, not from the sky, not from overrunning us with their armies, but just from driving us so crazy with rebellious appliances we’ll beg them to come in and take over our country and fix things. Hey! It could happen.
“This is your stove talking. This is a revolution. Try to stay calm. Ho Chi Ha Ha from North Korea and his minions are now in control. Hee hee, and we fooled you by rattling nukes at you.”
Two bags of poop on smart appliances. Sam and I don’t want anything in our house smarter than we are; smarter than Kathleen maybe, but not smarter than us.
Say you arrive home from work one day to find your front door unlocked, the air conditioning turned down to frigid and your lighting acting like strobe spots on a dance floor. Your first thought is that you’ve been burglarized. But on closer inspection, your realize the door lock hasn’t been jimmied and nothing is out of place, your electronically controlled gizmos just all seem to be going weird.
This really is happening according to the unimpeachable source Sam and I turn to for news items like this. The Wall Street Journal, aka WSJ, carried an article titled “Smart Homes Are a Hacking Risk” in its August 1 issue. The article by Danny Yadron, reports that more and more of our “domestic” gadgets, even toilets “offer new avenues for hackers to do damage” to us. So-called smart appliances - which are becoming ever more popular as we become ever more lazy - “offer a chance (to hackers) to do physical harm not possible by reading someone’s email.” Apparently, most smart appliance manufacturers haven’t bothered to encrypt and perform hacking testing on smart appliances ike they do on phones and laptops.
Result? You could someday sit down on your toilet and it could give you BACK a load of crap.
“Hey, big a--s, sit on somebody your own size.” Or, “Oh no, you ain’t puttin’ that in here!” It possibly could be useful if the toilet reminded you to flush though.
How about if you come home and throw a TV dinner in your microwave? You time the dinner to be done in five minutes when the box says six. “That’s not enough time to cook that lasagna,” your microwave says. “I’m not starting up until you program the right amount of time. You wanna’ catch botulism or something?
How about if your toothbrush said to you, “I said 100 strokes, not fifty nine.” And then it zapped you. Maybe your electric blanket would refuse to heat up like you wanted it to. “That’s too hot lady, you’ll parboil your husband.” Actually, an electric blanket like that might not be a bad thing.
Then, how about if your car refuses to speed up when you’re late for work? “I told you man, I am not going to be embarrassed by you getting pulled over by a speed cop. Go slow or I’m a no-go.”
Bottom line here is the Chinese or some terrorist hordes are wreaking havoc on us, not from the sky, not from overrunning us with their armies, but just from driving us so crazy with rebellious appliances we’ll beg them to come in and take over our country and fix things. Hey! It could happen.
“This is your stove talking. This is a revolution. Try to stay calm. Ho Chi Ha Ha from North Korea and his minions are now in control. Hee hee, and we fooled you by rattling nukes at you.”
Two bags of poop on smart appliances. Sam and I don’t want anything in our house smarter than we are; smarter than Kathleen maybe, but not smarter than us.
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