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LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

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Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#61

What worries me is that soon we won't be able to monitor this anymore because these devices won't be dependent on a customer-supplied internet connection anymore. Instead, they'll all have cellular connectivity and we'll have no idea what is being sent, to whom and why. And I fear that there will be no device manufacturers in the same price range left that don't include this feature. Similar to how Smart TV's are che…

Cellular providers aren't giving LG a cellular modem for free, esp. 1Gbyte/day. Unless there is going to be something that causes cellular providers to give away data, it's going to be a significant cost. The only sustainable ways for this to work is: A) for the data for LG to collect to be worth what it has to pay to the providers. Aside from hopefully unlikely things like LG collecting audio and visual from hidden…

There's always things like Amazon Sidewalk that give IoT the "best" of both worlds. Pervasive connectivity where you don't have to pay for the bandwidth yours.

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not long after, hobbyists and hackers will be hijacking that cellular connection.

CFAA violation in America, no?

I think in California it's CCPA that not only protects personal data, but also against the non-consented collection of data by devices owned by the person or in the person's own home.

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#64

What worries me is that soon we won't be able to monitor this anymore because these devices won't be dependent on a customer-supplied internet connection anymore. Instead, they'll all have cellular connectivity and we'll have no idea what is being sent, to whom and why. And I fear that there will be no device manufacturers in the same price range left that don't include this feature. Similar to how Smart TV's are che…

Not long after, hobbyists and hackers will be hijacking that cellular connection.

"A Polish charity has received a huge phone bill after it lost a GPS tracker that it had placed on the back of a stork, it's reported."

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-44645217

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#65
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have cellular connectivity Then you'll get local shops that sell the machines painted in 2-3 layers of faraday paint (or apply some sort of cage, or solder out the antenna, etc). Or perhaps just like in the old console hardmod days everyone will know someone that can "mod" your dryer so it stops being dumb and just dries your clothes.

FYI, RF paints are poor signal attenuators, even when applied in multiple coats. There’s no RF paint product that can stop commercial cell communication across usable spectrum.

Yet build a house with foil backed foam insulation from Home Depot and you'll have no mobile signal indoors... So frustrating!

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#66
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have cellular connectivity Then you'll get local shops that sell the machines painted in 2-3 layers of faraday paint (or apply some sort of cage, or solder out the antenna, etc). Or perhaps just like in the old console hardmod days everyone will know someone that can "mod" your dryer so it stops being dumb and just dries your clothes.

There is very little going on in any appliance that couldn't be run by a mechanical timer of yore. If there's ever a popular movement to remove the surveillance antifeatures from modern appliances (and I sure hope there will be!), it'll be as simple as popping in a different control board. BTW does anybody know of any pointers to community projects that are making hardware for this type of thing? I've got it on my lo…

A generic washer control board sounds like something there would be a market for today.

I could imagine a little microcontroller and say 10 relays that can control the pump, motor, valves, etc. Then you sell it together with instructions which specify how to program in which output does which function.

You could sell it to people who want to "IoT" their machines for cheap, to people who have a dead control board, and people who want to customize their appliances (eg. I need a custom wash cycle for washing extra dirty clothes).

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#67
post #10
post #2

It is likely infected and is renting residential IP to web scraping companies.

Relatively unlikely in this case because from the description is seems all the traffic is to/from one EC2 IP address.

I assune the attacker doesn't own that EC2 instance. If they did, the bandwidth costs would be prohibitive (there is no economic reason to pay XX cents per GB to send data to a tiny remote CPU for processing)

Re: LG dryer traffic – 1GB+ daily up/down

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devices will then refuse to function of they are unable to contact the mothership. I would just snip off the antenna or remove the SIM, but if I can think of that, so can the manufacturers.

In the future SIMs are probably going to be some kind of signed data blob instead of a physical card. But I guess breaking off antennas will always be a thing if you have the skill set to identify it.

You mean esims that already exist?

My sim "card" today is just an email already.

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