New app helps you identify IoT devices around you, tells you what data they collect

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/20/a-new-app-will-help-you-identi.html

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Looks like it is all crowd sourced, Not much to see in my small town looks like Toronto has 0 IOT devices too.

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So let me get this straight:
I download an app.
I tell it ALL THE DEVICES IN MY HOME.
I will not regret this?

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Interesting. I have to wonder how much value any opt-out selection has with any vendors.

As far as I know, there are no IOT devices in my home. I’ll probably download this and check, but I run nmap against my network every couple weeks, or if I add something new to my network.

I have done some war driving (and war walking) in years past, and it was always interesting how many unsecured networks were always around.

Now if you add in default (or hardcoded) userids/passwords, and the ability to modify a device that you have discovered, we’d be talking.

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Here’s an idea: if at all possible, don’t acquire devices aside from the obvious (phone, computer, router, and possibly media center) that require access to the Internet. Those that do, block at the router from accessing anything you don’t need them to (e.g. your streaming services.)

Your TV should never need to call home to its owners – and if using it depends on calling home, you don’t own it. You at best have it as an untrustworthy houseguest.

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It’s inversely proportional to their insistence on your opening an account with them that includes personally-identifying information. The fact that the Android phone remote to Samsung “smart” TVs requires you to open a very detailed account with Samsung told me all I needed to justify using a separate box for functions they say are included in the TV itself.

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Or there’s the brute force method:

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Lmfao funded by DoD, required a hefty account and sketchy terms of service / privacy policy agreement, asks for all my IoT devices, then it’s supposed to protect me? No thanks, DoD. Not granting you permission to use my devices.

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