Tag: Wi-Fi

Cloud-Based Smart Home Gadgets Keep Getting Bricked Because You No Longer Own What You Buy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

from the I’m-sorry-I-can’t-do-that,-Dave… dept

Fri, Sep 2nd 2022 12:32pm – Karl Bode

We’ve noted more times than I can count how you no longer really own the things you buy. Whether it’s smart home hardware, or routers that become useless paperweights when the manufacturer implodes, or post-purchase firmware updates that actively make your device less useful, you simply never know if the product you bought yesterday will be the same product you think you own tomorrow.

Cloud-Based Smart Home Gadgets Keep Getting Bricked Because You No Longer Own What You Buy

Interesting title…

How to Defeat a Boston Dynamics Robot in Mortal Combat

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How to Defeat a Boston Dynamics Robot in Mortal Combat

On Twitter, @LenKusov pointed out some highlights from the manual, starting with the removable lithium-ion battery pack. (A lot of what you need to know is in the battery section of the manual.) They theorize that if you can flip the thing on its back or otherwise reach its underbelly, you could grab the battery pack’s handle and pull it out, disabling the robot. The whole thread reads like directions for taking out a machine in Horizon Zero Dawn, but that’s just the world we’re living these days.

“PSA: if you or someone nearby are being brutalized by a police Spot robot and can get a hand or something underneath, grab this handle and yank it forward,” LenKusov wrote. “This releases the battery, instantly disabling the robot. Keep your hands away from joints, Spot WILL crush your fingers.”

SCREENSHOT VIA BOSTON DYMANICS

A Short Comment on a Big Danger — “Internet of Things”

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A Short Comment on a Big Danger

The US Air Force’s Research Lab (yes, it has its own lab) has recently signed a contract to test new software of a company called SignalFrame, a Washington DC wireless tech company. The company’s new software is able to access smartphones, and from your phone jump off to access any other wireless or bluetooth device in the near vicinity. To quote from the article today in the Wall St. Journal, the smartphone is used “as a window onto usage of hundreds of millions of computers, routers, fitness trackers, modern automobiles and other networked devices, known collectively as the ‘Internet of Things’.”

Related:

Next Step in Government Data Tracking Is the Internet of Things

U. S. government agencies from the military to law enforcement have been buying up mobile-phone data from the private sector to use in gathering intelligence, monitoring adversaries and apprehending criminals.

H/T: The New Dark Age