This is a valuable lesson for any manufacturer: never awaken the nerd sleeping inside your customer, because his wrath shall be terrible.
In this case the warning was quite literal.
The company annoyed a buyer enough to push him into full blown nerd mode. He tore the product apart, reverse engineered every part, and then published a step by step guide showing exactly how to disable "kill switch" that prevented the use of the product without the vendor spying on the user.
What started as a minor grievance became a public, technical exposé that left the maker exposed and embarrassed.
Moral of the story: underestimate your users at your own peril.
The Day My Smart Vacuum Turned Against Me
Update: This post seems to have struck a nerve and went very wide. As I will not be able to answer every comment, I want to add a few points:
... Show more...This is a valuable lesson for any manufacturer: never awaken the nerd sleeping inside your customer, because his wrath shall be terrible.
In this case the warning was quite literal.
The company annoyed a buyer enough to push him into full blown nerd mode. He tore the product apart, reverse engineered every part, and then published a step by step guide showing exactly how to disable "kill switch" that prevented the use of the product without the vendor spying on the user.
What started as a minor grievance became a public, technical exposé that left the maker exposed and embarrassed.
Moral of the story: underestimate your users at your own peril.
The Day My Smart Vacuum Turned Against Me
Update: This post seems to have struck a nerve and went very wide. As I will not be able to answer every comment, I want to add a few points:
- The linked article was not written by me. It came to me on a different channel (Discord). I only wrote the post on Mastodon.
- The top image in the article looks AI generated. It is no a good image, but in my view less irritating than an advertisement (which is far more common).
- Some people suggest the article itself is AI generated. I don't think this is the case. I wouldn't rule out he author wrote the text in a different language and used AI for translation assistance.
- The claims in the article are not fully backed by the linked repo, but the general statement is correct and IMHO important.
Would you allow a stranger to drive a camera-equipped computer around your living room? You might have already done so without even realizing it.
The Beginning: A Curious Experiment
It all started innocently enough.
Harishankar (Small World)
DoNotPunchDown
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Spy Stuff
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Prof. Sam Lawler
in reply to Spy Stuff • • •Spy Stuff
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Maria Shanle
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Spy Stuff
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •DePaelzerBu
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Appreciate your work...
...but damn, those ARE some super cute baby goats. 😃
@qwertziop
NoBorg
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Nice article and you are totally right.
But I see your article is from 2021, and we had that horrible surprise now in 2025 that is pushing EU to send more satellites (We need to help Ukraine, and they can't depend on Musk's Starlink :/ ).
To make matters worst, this article (but the info should be verified by Europeans, because Americans have played that trick before... remember the weapons of mass destruction from Irak, a total false claim).
edition.cnn.com/2025/03/21/chi…
Blåhaj_båt
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •johngough
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 likes this.
aya☺️
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •Shadedlady
in reply to Prof. Sam Lawler • • •