Griefer hacks baby-monitor, terrifies toddler with spooky voices

[tachin1]

@woodfish

At some point in everyone’s daily life there is some piece of technology that we take for granted is safe, works, etc. Same thing here.

OK, let’s also agree that the manufacturer messed up and made a crappy product.

I’ll only point to this story as one more data point on a mounting pile of evidence that points toward Internet connected devices being considered insecure by default. Here’s hoping they gain our trust one day.

[BlobbetyBloo]

Especially for a 3 year old. That’s definitely old enough to get the adults if there is a problem.

Or if the child wants a drink of water. Or the child simply wants to let the parents know that everything has been fine for the previous five minutes. Or that it’s 3:30 AM and now it’s sunny out and it’s time to get up and watch Disney. The list goes on.

[WearySky]

@onemanmob

Unless some asshole hacked into it and started messing with the kids on the other end.

Right. But that’s not a problem with baby monitors (well, aside from this one in particular, and its awful security holes). That’s a problem with assholes.

@tachin1

Regardless of the reason (valid or not, and really who gets to decide what valid is?) for using these devices, at this point, trusting smart devices is turning out to be a silly thing to do.

@tachin1

They are not. This is hard to ignore post snowden.

@tachin1

I’ll accept we disagree, but I didn’t say people should understand, I only said smart devices and cloud technology don’t have a reputation for security and privacy. Any assumption to the contrary is unfounded.

Since you made essentially the same point a couple times, I’ll quote them all and reply once. For us folks round these parts, yes, this is absolutely true that these things are common knowledge. But for folks who aren’t technologically/security minded, though? The big cross-section of society that can’t wait for the next episode of the Kardashians? It’s definitely not common knowledge.

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I don't think it would be overly hard for a baby monitor manufacturer to, say, have an individual random default password for each internet-enabled monitor sold. This seems like a trivially simple start to protecting those who are ignorant of such things, or don't think they need to change the default password, or are too lazy to read the manual, etc.

[mallyboon]

@WearySky

Parents are suddenly putting their babies into the crib with a pillow over their head, because monitor?

Heh, that might have been why. I think the idea was that, with a monitor, parents aren’t actually checking on their babies as often, so they miss any sign that precedes SIDS. Also newer monitors/mattresses that collect information on heart rate are fallible, so they may not actually register loss of breathing. Or some sort of link between parents’ anxiety actually increasing SIDS. But the increased risk was small, statistically questionable.