Is Your Iron Spying on You?

[rgray]

Is Your Iron Spying on You?

QUOTE

While inspecting shipments from China, Russian customs agents found something odd. Inside several of the kettles and irons they found WiFi chips and microprocessors. If the devices were plugged in, the chips would search for unsecured WiFi networks up to 650 feet away, then “call home” to grant access to cybercriminals.

While the unusual form of cybercrime took researchers by surprise, it was only the latest in an emerging threat of hacked electronics coming straight from the Chinese factories.

There is a long list of devices riddled with backdoors, infected with malware, or fitted with spying devices before leaving Chinese factories. These range from kettles to laptops, from USB keys to cameras, and from consumer software right up to military components........

[Xairbusdriver]

Uhmn... what's an "iron?!" Do they have something to do with "kettles?" What are "kettles," anyway?

[rgray]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Dec 9 2013, 12:55 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Uhmn... what's an "iron?!" Do they have something to do with "kettles?" What are "kettles," anyway?

Ask your wife....  If you dare......  

[kimmer]

So now I need to worry about my red kettle (purchased in 2011)?

[rgray]

QUOTE(kimmer @ Dec 9 2013, 08:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So now I need to worry about my red kettle (purchased in 2011)?

After all RED is the colour of communism........    

[Paddy]

QUOTE

Where are BODUM® products manufactured?

BODUM® products are manufactured worldwide. BODUM® owns and operates a factory in Portugal and also utilizes facilities in Germany, Poland and China which meet and operate under the same social responsibility guidelines as our own factory.

Ah yes…but are the red ones from China?

Tin foil hats are starting to seem less and less absurd...

[Highmac]

The chips in kettles could be linked to the the "Smart Meters" that energy companies are pushing "to give us more accurate billing".

This site claims Smart Meters are set up to "call home" with full data of every suitable device, are hazardous to health and should be rejected on grounds of both health and privacy.

I tend towards cynicism when some big business wants to give me something "free" while trying to convince me it is trying to help me spend less. "Free lunch" usually figures in there.

That site has a template letter for us Brits to send to energy companies and MPs, spelling out why we don't want one. It contains much information, including the claim that having a smart meter in your home effectiely makes that home a "hackable node on the internet".

Clauses include:

QUOTE

23. Ethical hackers in Germany have shown how easy it is to unlawfully access data from ‘Smart’ Meters and to remotely control them. This is a risk to me, my family and our entire energy grid. Former CIA Director James Woolsey has called ‘Smart’ Grid a “really, really stupid idea”.
24. In a wireless ‘Smart’ Grid, my entire home will become a node on the Internet. This means my home and device usage will suddenly become available to hackers, who can use the data to analyse when certain people are at home, e.g. young children.
25. In the US, this data has been sold by energy companies to 3rd parties, e.g. police, corporate marketing departments and insurance companies. ‘Smart’ Meters represent pieces of invasive surveillance equipment within my home. I may have nothing to hide but I believe that I have the right to defend my privacy and my right to decide how I use my utilities which you provide to me as a service. - See more at: http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/dont-smart-m...h.j1Cm52KF.dpuf

Can't help thinking connects rather well with the recent story about LG TV sets also phoning home with detailed reports of viewing habits

All this food for thought is giving my brain indigestion

[Xairbusdriver]

So, you want to read something about what is happening to the interweb around the world and how it will affect us? Be sure to have a huge cup of coffee/tea and maybe wait until after lunch; you don't want to pass out from lack of nourishment while reading the article!

<Are We Ready for the Post-Snowden Internet? An in-depth examination of what Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA spying could mean for the future of the Internet. By Geoff Duncan, TidBITS #1202.>

QUOTE("It’s Complicated")

If there were an easy solution to the conflict between individual privacy, personal and national security, and the mass surveillance being carried out by western powers, we would have figured it out by now. The reality is that these issues have been with us for years; solutions are going to be incomplete, long-term, and messy; and conflict will only become more pronounced with our dependency on the Internet and modern communications.

[Paddy]

While I do have some concerns about Smart Meters from a privacy point of view (if indeed they're selling data to third parties etc.) - the StopSmartMeters folks are downright barmy on the health front.

For a somewhat less hysterical, much more nuanced point of view: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/pickin...tiative-report/

But hey, why let science get in the way of scaring people half to death so they'll jump on your bandwagon??

Just don't get me started on "alternative medicine"...must not rant...bite tongue.

[rgray]

We have a word for "alternative-medicine" that actually works..........

We call it MEDECINE.....        

However the idea that smart meters can effect health is lunacy akin to the lunacy that suggests celphones can disturb hospital instruments or aicraft avionics......   I thought that tired old canard had long since been shot to death!!!!    

[Xairbusdriver]

Uhmn... older aircraft instruments could be affected by cell phones. Many older compasses could also be affected. A cellphone is just another radio transmitter/receiver. Usually much higher freqs than the VHF/UHF bands used in older aircraft, of course. But it would have been lunacy to have allowed cellphones (and other 2/3/4G transmitters) on aircraft without thorough testing. Nor do I want to find out that my heart bypass machine was disrupted because some idiot just couldn't stop talking to his buddies about the game last week. Just as new aircraft have been designed with better filters and better wiring shielding, medical equipment is being improved the same way.

Unfortunately, there is only one radio spectrum. Everyone has to share it. And the tele-com folks have plenty of money to buy up almost as much as they want. Down our way, some politicians see the FCC as nothing more than a money making machine to auction off that spectrum to the highest bidder regardless of who else might be using it. Many schools, churches, museums, performing artists and theaters are finding they have 10's of thousands of dollars worth of wireless microphone equipment (again, just another form of radio transmitters/receivers) that are now illegal to operate.

[Xairbusdriver]

We have a large number of kooks down here, also. Unfortunately, some are elected 'officials.' And the electric utility that serves the county is publicly owned, which means the kooks get to make decisions based on nothing more than the pseudo-science someone tells them about these meters (I don't think most of them can read, so I doubt they actually read anything about these things). Latest 'discussions' related to the belief that the meters have started fires.

There is some controversy, of course. Obviously, they save all kinds of man-hours! Fewer human meter readers needed. That means some people (voters, no less!) will lose their job! But there is also controversy about how contracts are awarded. So, the kooks know who votes for them and it's not the company that makes the meters.

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Dec 9 2013, 07:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE

Where are BODUM® products manufactured?

BODUM® products are manufactured worldwide. BODUM® owns and operates a factory in Portugal and also utilizes facilities in Germany, Poland and China which meet and operate under the same social responsibility guidelines as our own factory.

Ah yes…but are the red ones from China?

I checked and mine is!

We have a smart meter. It was let them install it or go without electricity. Since it's installation, we (supposedly) have used more electricity per month, and so our bills are higher. I smell a rat.

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

Since it's installation, we (supposedly) have used more electricity per month, and so our bills are higher.

Maybe so, but it should average out over a year or two or three or... You know the saying, "We lose a little on each sale, but we make it up in volume!"

You need to turn the modem off each night (~8pm) and back on about 10am. That thing uses electricity, too, ya no!? A timer would be easier, but unless you get a mechanical one, its clock runs on electricity and... I'd suggest buying a gas stove! You do seem to cook a lot...

Speaking of gas, I have all my money invested in gas lanterns. When this electricity fad blows over, I'll make out like a bandit! ....Or would that be like a 'rat?!'

[rgray]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Dec 10 2013, 07:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Uhmn... older aircraft instruments could be affected by cell phones. Many older compasses could also be affected. A cellphone is just another radio transmitter/receiver. Usually much higher freqs than the VHF/UHF bands used in older aircraft, of course. But it would have been lunacy to have allowed cellphones (and other 2/3/4G transmitters) on aircraft without thorough testing. Nor do I want to find out that my heart bypass machine was disrupted because some idiot just couldn't stop talking to his buddies about the game last week. Just as new aircraft have been designed with better filters and better wiring shielding, medical equipment is being improved the same way.

I can find no reference to any actual scientific research actually demonstrating cellphones affecting avionics, and not for lack of looking.  I work writing for an electromagnetic field test lab and to be certified all electronic equipment must pass strict standards as to fields produced and susceptibility to fields.  Both cellphones and aircraft equipment (down to location of antennae) are subject to strict standards.

The old canard of hospital instrument susceptibility was put to rest in The Lancet and other learned journals circa 1990 and earlier.  At that time the potential benefits of cellphone and wireless in hospitals was discussed openly.  If your medical establishment doesn't allow cellphones one has to ask what other research are they NOT reading???