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from the my-thermostat-is-holding-me-hostage dept.
In more than 30 interviews with The New York Times, domestic abuse victims, their lawyers, shelter workers and emergency responders described how the technology was becoming an alarming new tool. Abusers - using apps on their smartphones, which are connected to the internet-enabled devices - would remotely control everyday objects in the home, sometimes to watch and listen, other times to scare or show power. Even after a partner had left the home, the devices often stayed and continued to be used to intimidate and confuse.
Connected home devices have increasingly cropped up in domestic abuse cases over the past year, according to those working with victims of domestic violence. Those at help lines said more people were calling in the last 12 months about losing control of Wi-Fi-enabled doors, speakers, thermostats, lights and cameras. Lawyers also said they were wrangling with how to add language to restraining orders to cover smart home technology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2018, @10:48AM
I note that CheatersSpyShop is offline... they used to be promoted by the television show "Cheaters" to document cheating spouses. But its still quite easy to put bugs in smartphones, so that you can track phones, using the same methods moms use to track kids, alzheimer parents, or finding lost pets. Its amazing how small they are making GPS trackers these days.
You can drive someone nuts with the doorbell. The powers that be have about driven me nuts with the doorbell by putting that same sound in ads. I must end up with 95 percent of my trips to answer the door as fool's errands when I have the TV on. That alone was a good motivator to not have unknown content audio sounding off in the house. Most anything I run in the background now is prerecorded playlists, with no doorbells in it.
The use of technology, and especially when our own Congress is placing obstacles to discourage standardization and encourage proprietary techniques, is enabling those who take the time to research things an incredible advantage over those trusting souls who just wanted to use it. A hacked coffeepot or cooker can be used to foul up someone else's day cleaning up messes and arriving to inedibly burned or raw meals. A hacked refrigerator can be used to deliberately spoil their food. Hacking their HVAC can get them up in the middle of the night or have them arrive at the end of the workday to a house freezing cold or unbearably hot, and a utility bill to match. Just wait until you can flush their toilet all night long. Just for fun. And turn their water heater off so they get nice cold showers before going to work. Hack the burglar alarm so it sounds off when no one is there, but wakes all their neighbors anyway.
Yes, you can make someone else's life hell, from a thousand miles away.