The NSA Furby Documents
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The NSA Furby Documents
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Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#2Now I'm curious if there's any evidence of Furbies actually being used for espionage.
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#3Context: Furbys were the toy for a year or two, and were actively marketed as learning from speech, had an active mic, and did adjust their speech based on what they heard, "learning" to speak English from Furbish. [^1]
It's not so different from the fundamental fear of Alexa/Assistant/microphones that's fairly well diffused now.
Except the Furby actively claimed to learn how to speak based on your speech, and had a built-in feedback loop to make it appear as such.
In retrospect it looks like it more was "shift mix towards English based on how much you've heard" than "add words you heard to your speech patterns"
[^1]: https://www.listenandlearn.org/blog/no-you-cant-teach-your-f...
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#4[flagged]
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#5Whats gov policy around Alexas and like half the IOT market? My botvac even has a microphone. I'm sure it's "don't ever speak about outside of this room" sort of thing.
I guess phone calls would be over a secure line. Are there secure cell phone towers/whatever? I'm curious how gov phones are hardened.
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#6Now I'm curious if there's any evidence of Furbies actually being used for espionage.
Furbies just have a simple microcontroller and the code has been released [1]. It's a clever bit of code to give the impression of intelligence, but it doesn't have anything like the abilities in urban legends. You could put other hardware in them of course, they'd be prime targets for that kind of thing.
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#7Context: Furbys were the toy for a year or two, and were actively marketed as learning from speech, had an active mic, and did adjust their speech based on what they heard, "learning" to speak English from Furbish. [^1] It's not so different from the fundamental fear of Alexa/Assistant/microphones that's fairly well diffused now. Except the Furby actively claimed to learn how to speak based on your speech, and had a…
Many voice assistants do record your voice and send those recordings elsewhere:
e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeI...
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#8Now I'm curious if there's any evidence of Furbies actually being used for espionage.
it's certainly possible with a modified furby. there could have been a voice recorder placed inside, but that threat seems possible with other toys as well, maybe there was some opportunity due to the popularity of furbys.
in terms of the furby's unmodified hardware capabilities, the microphone was simply used for volume level reaction. reading through the furby's firmware, the mic was used as a peak volume input.
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#9Whats gov policy around Alexas and like half the IOT market? My botvac even has a microphone. I'm sure it's "don't ever speak about outside of this room" sort of thing. I guess phone calls would be over a secure line. Are there secure cell phone towers/whatever? I'm curious how gov phones are hardened.
In any SCIF or SCIF-like office space, they're all prohibited. You leave your cell phone at the front door of the secured area.
Internet access is via SIPRNet (for classified) or NIPRNet (non-classified, but secured). Phones are through dedicated secure switchboards.
The above is common in the DC area (lots of DoD contractors).
Re: The NSA Furby Documents
#10Whats gov policy around Alexas and like half the IOT market? My botvac even has a microphone. I'm sure it's "don't ever speak about outside of this room" sort of thing. I guess phone calls would be over a secure line. Are there secure cell phone towers/whatever? I'm curious how gov phones are hardened.
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