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Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

tomshardware.com

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Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#11

Post by [deleted] »

MostlyStable wrote: post #9
sema4hacker wrote: post #4

I wish I had the abilities of the engineer, plus the time he could devote to the problem.

There is a significantly easier option (although still more work than just buying a vacuum and using it as the manufacturer intended): get one of the Valetudo supported vacuums[0]. This firmware replacement blocks telemetry and allows for near complete feature parity with the original firmware, and flashing is (usually) relatively simple. Certainly much simpler than the process described here. [0] https://valetudo.cl…

[deleted]

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#12

Post by below43 »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #5
homeonthemtn wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> Why would they not be homogenous? Why would a business have the power to decide what should and what shouldn't be homogeneous about the property of others? A transaction took place, property has legally changed hands and the former owner is exerting control over property that isn't theirs any more. How about if the builder of your house comes into your home via an access route unknown to you, and starts rearranging…

This is a cool article, and neat he got it working in the end.

One thing that is odd - if he blocked it calling home, it doesn't make sense that the kill code was issued remotely. It makes more sense that there is a line of code internally that kills the machine when it can't call home (which would be far less malicious).

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#13

Post by Zak »

homeonthemtn wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> As the business running the servers of smart vacuums, if I saw an atypical device reporting in, without context, I too would kill that device.

If you want to block a device from accessing your servers because it's behaving in an odd way, such as this one that was contacting the update server but not the telemetry server, that's not entirely unreasonable. Sending it a command to modify its software to stop it from operating entirely is outrageous.

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#14

Post by sidewndr46 »

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #3
homeonthemtn wrote: post #2

[flagged]

The business has no right to remotely kill a device purchased by an end user.

You don't own the software on the device, they do. If they choose to revoke that license, that is their choice.

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#16

Post by dylan604 »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #5
homeonthemtn wrote: post #2

[flagged]

> Why would they not be homogenous? Why would a business have the power to decide what should and what shouldn't be homogeneous about the property of others? A transaction took place, property has legally changed hands and the former owner is exerting control over property that isn't theirs any more. How about if the builder of your house comes into your home via an access route unknown to you, and starts rearranging…

> How about if the builder of your house comes into your home via an access route unknown to you, and starts rearranging where things are placed, or where you and your wife are placed, etc. in order to maintain homogeneous layout?

I've seen this movie. Only, the twist was that the home was built 100+ years ago and the builder long since dead. The family living in the home currently had to resort to an exorcist.

Edit to say that the sarcasm is direct rebuttal with the preposterous nature of the hypothetical.

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#18

Post by chrismcb »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #14
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The business has no right to remotely kill a device purchased by an end user.

You don't own the software on the device, they do. If they choose to revoke that license, that is their choice.

Well, no. You can't just revoke a license. As far as owning the software in the device, I works would argue that you do own a copy of it. I'm sure there is some buried tos claiming you just own a license to run it, and I know this is still being litigated. But when the average person purchases someone their expectation is that they've purchased it, not licensed it.

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#19

Post by xupybd »

charcircuit wrote: post #15

I suspect this is not the full story. Why would someone waste their time manually disabling a device? That makes me think that this device was doing something malicous to their servers, enough to trip an alert.

Not really. They probably flagged this as someone modifying the device and thought it could be someone reverse engineering it.

Re: Vacuum bricked after user blocks data collection – user mods it to run anyway

#20

Post by dylan604 »

"From there, he built a Raspberry Pi joystick to manually drive the vacuum, proving that there was nothing wrong with the hardware."

He should make these and sell them. It would be worth it to just drive it in "discovery" mode and give it the exact path to follow while cleaning. The constant inability to learn the floor plan is beyond annoying.

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