Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

dillan.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 254 posts

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#181

Post by nucleardog »

flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #86
binwiederhier wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Python 2.7.18 I am not defending them for not keeping their stuff up-to-date, but it is very common practice for embedded systems to be hopelessly outdated. I've done what OP describes with IPMI/BMC systems for $mainboardmanufacturer1 and $mainboardmanufacturer2 (both really big name brands), and their BMC systems were equally outdated. It was almost comical, but really sad at the same time. Moral of the story is t…

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I do prefer not having to treat my bed as a hostile device on my network

Even if it didn’t have the intentional backdoor… you probably should be treating it as hostile anyway.

Even where not intentionally hostile, not intentionally privacy invading, not trying to fetch updates so it can show you more ads, not… most of this stuff is so hopelessly out-of-date and full of security vulnerabilities it’s only not hostile out of luck.

I don’t connect anything to WiFi unless absolutely necessary. And by that I don’t mean “the device demands it” (I just won’t buy the damn thing) but “it’s a core part of the functionality I’m asking of it”. I’ll prefer zwave/zigbee, Bluetooth, or something else wherever possible when communication is required. (If I were forced to use this bed and it had no manual controls I would definitely have used Bluetooth, avoiding this whole issue.)

And even for the devices that do get a WiFi connection… they run entirely isolated, on a separate SSID and VLAN from my normal devices and traffic, and with a whitelist for what traffic is allowed.

As far as I’m concerned the only difference between this bed and the other devices is that we know about the issues with this bed. We have no reason to believe that the other devices are any better, and in fact a pretty large body of evidence suggesting that they’re probably not.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#182

Post by asciii »

miah_ wrote: post #169

Pretty wild. I used to have one of these beds, but it was before everything got "smart". It had two corded controller's hooked up to the pump. The controller displays the number and had up/down arrow buttons to adjust. No internet required. No Linux powered microcontroller required. My bed couldn't get hacked. I slept in comfort.

This is the kind of bed I would buy. Imagine having to buy a bed with access for Wi-Fi. That’s crazy because that’s more hardware needed than just plugging the freaking thing in the wall.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#183

Post by fooqux »

reidjs wrote: post #7
dmitrygr wrote: post #2

Why does a bed need to run Linux? Why? Of all the possible timelines, we live in the dumbest. What was wrong with a plain old bed without 1GB of RAM and a full OS running on it?! It is the same everywhere. Finding a washing machine that was not WiFi-connected was a chore and I dread doing it again in ten years. As a person who's broken into O(1000) "smart" devices (for fun and for profit both), I do not want them in…

At least it doesn't run windows

It wasn't that long ago I tried to use an ATM only to find a WinCE error screen displayed on it. Scary stuff.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#184

Post by fooqux »

toast0 wrote: post #101
binwiederhier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate. As someone who has developed a Linux based appliance with over 100k live units across the globe, it seems insane to NOT have access to the thing you're selling and that you have to maintain. If your thing breaks or gets bricked by an update, you will call support and expect them to fix it. You don't want to send in your device or have a support technician come to your house to fix it. So yes, to the…

If you sold it, you should not have remote access to it. Auto-update is de facto isomorphic with remote access capability but that doesn't mean you should have a remote shell. At most, maaaaybe a way for the customer to enable a shell for developer support. Otherwise, a/b setup to avoid remote bricking, DFU or whatever current standard for customer driven unbricking in exceptional cases. But really, test all the forw…

If you have the ability to update firmware, you have the ability to add remote access whenever you like. You're already trusting the vendor either way.

That said, this current situation of an always-on SSH connection/backdoor is just begging to be exploited by an irate employee, curious intern, or worms. It's impossible to know what sort of safeguards the vendor has in place, if any.

Putting a lock on a nuke is good, but not building the nuke at all is better.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#185

Post by wil421 »

m463 wrote: post #141
Animats wrote: post #114

Next, ransomware. "Pay us $1000 or you won't be able to sleep in your bed for the next month".

Wouldn't subscriptions be next?

Pay us $50 a month and we’ll keep the other hackers at bay.

Is there a ransomware protection racket yet?

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#186

Post by robin_reala »

miah_ wrote: post #169

Pretty wild. I used to have one of these beds, but it was before everything got "smart". It had two corded controller's hooked up to the pump. The controller displays the number and had up/down arrow buttons to adjust. No internet required. No Linux powered microcontroller required. My bed couldn't get hacked. I slept in comfort.

What I’m trying to teach myself to do whenever I think “this is ridiculous overcomplexity” is to imagine whose life it might make simpler.

Let’s assume I have some sort of motor disability: it could be anything from Parkinsons to quadraplegia. Having a bridge out to a common controller that maybe works on speech or some other standardised input method that works for your disability is a massive benefit. And avoids having to deal with the complexities of each individual products’ inability to meet your own accessibility needs in different ways.

So much smart home stuff is basically pointless to those of us fortunate enough to have currently able bodies, and a lifesaver to the rest.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#187

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

binwiederhier wrote: post #132
Aurornis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who has developed a Linux based appliance with over 100k live units across the globe, it seems insane to NOT have access to the thing you're selling and that you have to maintain. I’ve developed Linux devices selling that many units (and more) and I’m baffled that anyone would think this is a viable way to handle things at this scale. Units like this should have a firmly read-only Linux firmware that can…

I agree that that is the gold standard. Having an immutable Linux that is well tested on your own hardware and upgraded like that. At the time I inherited a system that had 30-50k units deployed and was updated via Debian/APT. Older units were running Ubuntu 10.04 (it was 2016) and were hopelessly outdated. We managed to pull every single device to Ubuntu 16.04 and designed a fully automated image based update mechan…

I personally disagree with you, but I absolutely appreciate the perspective presented along with reasonable rationale.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#188

Post by freedomben »

rangestransform wrote: post #90
itake wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you analyze your sleeping quality and habits over time? a built in display? This reminds of the 2005: "phones shouldn't support texting. people should just call" vibes.

At most a BLE chip to send data to your phone in a way that doesn’t touch the internet

I despise the modern "smart" device and actively look for "dumb" things, but if it's going to have a BLE chip in it, it needs to be updateable to fix vulnerabilities. There are mountains of devices from earlier years that are basically wide open radios now because of this.

Personally I'd much rather the damn thing just have a built-in display with hardware controls.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#189

Post by fooqux »

nucleardog wrote: post #181
flaminHotSpeedo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I do prefer not having to treat my bed as a hostile device on my network

Even if it didn’t have the intentional backdoor… you probably should be treating it as hostile anyway. Even where not intentionally hostile, not intentionally privacy invading, not trying to fetch updates so it can show you more ads, not… most of this stuff is so hopelessly out-of-date and full of security vulnerabilities it’s only not hostile out of luck. I don’t connect anything to WiFi unless absolutely necessary.…

> And even for the devices that do get a WiFi connection… they run entirely isolated, on a separate SSID and VLAN from my normal devices and traffic, and with a whitelist for what traffic is allowed.

This is what I do today, and honestly I'm about to give up. We lost. Trying to get stuff like airplay / DLNA to work via mDNS is already impossible across subnets, and telling family to switch networks if they want to control X with their phones is just a shit solution. I have to disable 90% of my vehicle's "infotainment" screen to not feel spied upon, and which breaks the app I can use for remote starts, etc.

Maybe when the "Mega-Hack of 2025" happens and all IoT devices go nuclear something will change. But for now, if you buy a device it expects to be on one giant /24 and anything different creates problems. I'm starting to spend way more time than I want maintaining all the various pieces of networking glue that keeps my devices and home automation functioning. It's no longer fun, and I'm tired of fighting it.

I still have an ancient sleep number bed, with no connectivity. It's leaking, and old enough to drink. I'd like to replace it, but still can't bring myself to do it because of articles like this.

I've never felt more like Abe Simpson yelling at a cloud.

Re: How to get root access to your Sleep Number bed

#190

Post by freedomben »

binwiederhier wrote: post #132
Aurornis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who has developed a Linux based appliance with over 100k live units across the globe, it seems insane to NOT have access to the thing you're selling and that you have to maintain. I’ve developed Linux devices selling that many units (and more) and I’m baffled that anyone would think this is a viable way to handle things at this scale. Units like this should have a firmly read-only Linux firmware that can…

I agree that that is the gold standard. Having an immutable Linux that is well tested on your own hardware and upgraded like that. At the time I inherited a system that had 30-50k units deployed and was updated via Debian/APT. Older units were running Ubuntu 10.04 (it was 2016) and were hopelessly outdated. We managed to pull every single device to Ubuntu 16.04 and designed a fully automated image based update mechan…

Re your side note, yes this is the new HN. People use the downvote as a lazy "I disagree". On the plus side, that's mainly the people who tend to read and react within the first 30 to 60 minutes of a comment being posted. After that the votes usually right themselves.
Post reply on HN