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

Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 477 posts

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#211

Post by yyyk »

gorjusborg wrote: post #17

This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices. If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period. I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day…

There are reasons behind updates and auto-updates. Bugs, features, users which did not consistently update and were left with insecure or buggy software. Then again, updates are also a mess.

I think this is a problem which should have a mostly technical solution: If most software was updated as today and users could rollback at will, most problems would be solved. That's a better way than making updates illegal.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#212

Post by yencabulator »

vorpalhex wrote: post #176
newaccount74 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in two or three years, when that cloud service inevitably shuts down, you'll be stuck with a pot that doesn't heat water.

The app doesn't need the cloud for bluetooth usage or basic wifi usage (though "out of your house" usage likely uses their relay service). You would no longer get "recipe of the week" stuff, but that is a small loss. The real danger is that eventually the app goes away due to not being maintained. Hopefully they release the API spec before then, but my specific device has already been reverse engineered at least.

The app will eventually stop working because of incompatible updates to the phone OS.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#213

Post by fckgw »

logicalmonster wrote: post #206

Is there any theory as to what NordicTrack hopes to gain out of preventing customers from using the screen as they see fit? NordicTrack already has the customers' money, so why would they really care? Are they trying to do some kind of advertising on the screen? Are just going through run of the mill security updates and there's bad communication between the customers and NordicTrack not understanding each other beca…

NordicTrack is owned by iFit which sells a workout subscription service. The screen is "intended" only for iFit content so they've locked users out of other uses.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#214

Post by zem »

vorpalhex wrote: post #163
imoverclocked wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pattern is pervasive. I also dislike needing an app and an internet connection for the most basic functionality with some purchased device. At some point, we need to own the things we buy and that line keeps getting pushed back further and further. Anec-data: I purchased a cooking device for my parents in December and it has a single button to turn it off. The only way to use it is with an app which requires a l…

I'm assuming you are talking about a sous vide device. This is one of the few (unrooted) smart devices I actually appreciate. You can easily configure it for a specific task (steak? chicken? brussels?), get push notifications when it's done and even turn off it's warm setting remotely if needed. And given that most of the thing is immersed in boiling hot water, it makes sense to not put controls on the device itself.

i'm glad my anova has both manual and bluetooth controls, because after the first couple of uses i simply default to manual for everything. personally i tihnk modern cellphones are remarkably clunky devices for anything other than reading books and gps. they aren't even very ergonomic as phones, they're annoying for web browsing compared to laptops, and they are definitely not satisfying to use as controls for physical devices.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#215

Post by jrowley »

LeSaucy wrote: post #201
treesknees wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely possible. The iFit app which runs on my treadmill is an embedded web browser. From "God Mode" there is an iFit Admin app which reports information such as the embedded chromium version being used for iFit. I actually walked down to the basement to test this - even when closing the iFit app while in God Mode, the physical controls on the treadmill including speed, incline, the stop button and the magneti…

C1750 treadmill, was able to drop into android launcher, install f store, dropbear. After being able to ssh into the treadmill I found the mediatek soc they use has an exploit app to get a root shell. Further decompiling of the ifit app apk shows it’s written in c#/mono, sending bytes to a usb device for treadmill control. I ran out of patience trying to intercept writes with strace and just went back to running.

The lengths a person will go to to procrastinate on starting a run ;) very impressive!

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#216

Post by [deleted] »

gorjusborg wrote: post #17

This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices. If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period. I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day…

[deleted]

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#217

Post by vlunkr »

gorjusborg wrote: post #17

This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices. If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period. I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day…

It's a tangent, but it's incredible to me that people used to ship video games and other software on physical media and it worked fine. Now you can drop a big turd on the steam store initially and it's just business as usual. Cynicism aside, I really do admire the dev and QA teams that pulled this off. It's such a different world now.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#218

Post by Dma54rhs »

bobsmooth wrote: post #209
logicalmonster wrote: post #206

Is there any theory as to what NordicTrack hopes to gain out of preventing customers from using the screen as they see fit? NordicTrack already has the customers' money, so why would they really care? Are they trying to do some kind of advertising on the screen? Are just going through run of the mill security updates and there's bad communication between the customers and NordicTrack not understanding each other beca…

So customers are forced to subscribe to their service to watch media.

Probably because they want to be the middle man for these services they provide or are going to. After all just like Apple they feel entitled to these cuts. The people who buy these gadgets are people with too much money or techbros that go out of their way to justify the control apple has over the platform or 30% apple takes.

Business wise it makes sense. And of course if everything is not locked down then you can always scare people with hackers.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#219

Post by jedberg »

Tildey wrote: post #203
charles_f wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music stand. I actually don't get the point of getting a 4000 treadmill rather than one that's half the price and an ipad

You save… uhhh… one power outlet? But really, my understanding is that these fancier treadmills map incline/speed/whatever data to the video file to make it “more realistic”. I think there may even be a sort of MMO/live ghost feature? Personally I think I’d rather just have music I like and work out at a pace that’s comfortable for me, but to each their own I suppose.

> You save… uhhh… one power outlet?

A power tap block is $3. :)

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#220

Post by cwkoss »

It should be illegal to remove features from a hardware product with a software 'update' without offering all pre-existing customers to return the hardware if they affirm the removed (or newly pay-gated) feature was a factor in making their purchase.

Customers currently have zero recourse, because they are paying for the hardware, but the software allows the hardware functionality to be changed or removed at whim without any financial risk to the company. Credit card chargebacks may work sometimes, but only if the purchase was recent: 'smart' hardware vendors often ruin their products more than 90 days after purchase.

Post reply on HN