Posted on 02/24/2026 11:08:40 PM PST by srmanuel
A software engineer in Spain, used an AI assistant to reverse engineer how a robot vacuum cleaner communicated with DJI cloud servers so he could control his vacuum using the joystick on his game controller and inadvertently took control of over 7000 remote vacuum cleaners which allowed him full control over devices in 24 countries, he had full access to the audio and video coming from the devices, he could control the movement of the devices and was able to produce a detailed map of where the devices were located. Fortunately, the individual reported the security flaw to the company who quickly fixed the issue, DJI is a Chinese Company, and you have to wonder if the flaw was really a feature in disguise allowing Chinese Intelligence a way to spy on potentially hundreds of thousands of people without their knowledge.
OK, so how about my DJI drone?
Why would anyone not assume that a Chinese manufacturer, where an internet connected device communicates with a Chinese server, ISN’T collecting information you wouldn’t want it to?
I just assume they’re doing this.
I bought a “Chuwi” brand tablet for under $70, had good specs. I figured it was probably trash but for that price I took a chance. The device worked as well as I’d hoped, really good...amazing price! Then I went to log into Google....aaaaaand paused. I realized I have ZERO idea of what is actually running on this thing. The Android OS could easily have Chinese modifications to scrape account credentials. Maybe the price of the tablet makes the Trojan Horse, you bring it into your house and enter account details to all sorts of things. How much might that be worth?
I don’t *know* it is doing anything malicious. I KNOW it could be - so I just use it for web browsing and YouTube, without logins. The Chinese have zero accountability, my trust is at zero with them - especially considering we don’t trust the non-Chinese brands (Apple, Samsung, ...) either. Although they’re at least within countries that respect privacy laws.
Chinese garbarge designed to spy on the world
It’s time for some AIs to create some good firewalls.
Robot-vacuum-army
Sounds like a good band name...
We’ve known that those vacuums map floorplans and have cameras for years.
And it’s hard to find one that doesn’t connect to wifi anymore.
And when the Sleep Number delivery guys wanted to connect our bed to our wifi ... NOOO! What the hell, anyhow? Our BED?
I think cats are behind this whole thing.
And cat litter boxes. Some of those automatic cleaning litter boxes I see advertised require a WiFi connection. A litter box.
“Some of those automatic cleaning litter boxes I see advertised require a WiFi connection.”
We’ve had cats for over 30 years, and I’ve never even heard of such a thing, but I do believe it. THAT is over the line.
Yep. I have two gingers and it’s just not that much work to scoop their box a couple of times a day and change it out about once a week. And I have a lightweight stick-vac to run around the vicinity daily to get any litter that might be on the floor, which takes all of two minutes.
Here’s just one example of a litter box that requires WiFi and an app:
We had eight at one time, which required multiple boxes which we were OCD about cleaning. Not understanding how wifi could help. Ridiculous.
When we sold the house, we caged the kitties and took them to the cat-living neighbors next door when the house was showed. The eventual buyers couldn’t believe we had any cats. And all without wifi ... go figure.
Interesting...
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