Clickbait, he tweeted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool” later on.
In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool,” with regard to Apple iMessage data use. Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their router UIs. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.
the writer knew that the stats were bunk, yet wrote the article anyway. the site knew this, too, tacked-on the clickbait headline and published it. toms really has gone to shit the last few years--at least under the current ownership (last changed hands 2018).
Speaking of which, it uses the same web interface as a lot of other news sites. Newsletter popup, autoplay video part-way down that then jumps to the top of the screen, etc. What Hifi is the same, and there are various other sites all with the same annoying engine. Two questions: (1) are all these sites owned by the same company and (2) is there a browser extension that can fix them?
yes, it's the same ownership (scroll down to the bottom). they have dozens of sites. don't know of any specific addons to help with them, though. custom ublock origin rules, perhaps.
A good adblocker can fix it. Like uBlock Origin on Firefox.
This is happening with streaming apps too. Max and Prime look exactly the same. Either some UI engineer got hella contracts, a parent company tried to save on development, or both. Either way, theres something unnerving about your apps looking the same and just hosting different content.
And OP presumably read the article, knew there was no actual story, and posted it here anyway.
Well the missing socks have to get sent somewhere... /s
Yes, socks can turn into a lot of data really fast, especially if they are multithreaded. Which is why I only use single threaded socks to protect my dataplan.
Given that one sperm has 27.5 MB of data (which means each orgasm has over 7 petabytes of information!) I think we can safely assume which socks his washer is transmitting.
Given that one sperm has 27.5 MB of data (which means each orgasm has over 7 petabytes of information!)
Redundancy!
I believe that fluids don't, in general, compress. But maybe the trick is turning them to digital data first and then redundancy makes them very compressible.
The info in each sperm is effectively identical, so it's still only 27.5 MB of data in the whole thing, just with a lot of redundancy for error detection / correction.
I'm sure they're being downloaded to Russia and then sold back to the west to finance the war!
No it couldn’t. My washing machine cant connect to my network! I can’t think of a valid reason why I would even want that.
I tried it with our dish washer, just to see what it's about. Turns out it's all about nothing. It's absolutely void of any useful functionality.
I can think of a very valid reason. I very often forget that I ran the washing machine, I'm already investigating how to send a notification to my phone or computer after it is done. Right now I am checking how much electricity it consumes and when it stops doing it. But a API would be nicer.
They sell clean/dirty indicator magnets for dishwashers for like $2.
What about a NFC tag that starts a timer on your phone?
stick a bell onto it and take a moment to listen whenever you want to check.
To wake the baby up?
Yeah, I don't get it. I guess I can see the appeal of some "Internet Of Things" connected appliances, like smart fridges suggesting recipes and keeping track of stock and auto-populating shopping lists for you. I don't need that personally, but I can see why it could appeal to some people.
But things like washing machines and dishwashers? You need to be there in person to fill them up just before they're ready to go on, and to empty them when they're done. And when they're not turned on, they're sat there doing nothing. What "smart" functions can they even offer?
What "smart" functions can they even offer?
Notification that the cycle is finished and checking how much is left.
But that's about it.
And also providing more programs and options without having to tack on a full-colour LCD or anything like that. Pretty much just a cost saving measure on the manufacturing.
My washer has WiFi but I'm sure as hell not turning it on. It tells me how long the cycle will be a few minutes after it starts and I'll just set a timer on my phone - though most of the time I don't bother because I never have so many loads that time is important.
Because it's advertised. That's why.
A remarkable (and actually concerning) percentage of people completely lack the critical thinking skills to question whether that's a good idea. The box says it has WiFi, WiFi is good, so I connect it to WiFi. Simple as that.
Imagine spending extra money on a new clothes washer only to have someone turn it in to a crypto miner. 😬
I'm too lazy to come up with a witty money laundering joke.
IoT = bad
The 'S' in IoT stands for security
Internet of Targets
Plot twist: it was the Asus router misreporting the amount of data.
Bought “smart” LG fridge, range and dishwasher a couple of years ago and never connected any of them, they function like they are supposed to, refrigerate, heat food and clean dirty dishes. No need to connect.
Fridge manual explained something like “in case of peak energy consumption your smart energy company can send a signal to your fridge to not use power”. What the heck do I need that for? To find spoiled food and mold growing in the fridge later on?
Why does one need to connect a range to WiFi?
Some people have hourly electric pricing, in their case it's worth scheduling stuff based on predicted pricing. How that should work is that you'd have a home server which controls your IoT stuff (so the gadgets themselves can be firewalled from the internet and controlled only by you) and then your server would fetch pricing data and pause stuff that doesn't need to run when prices are high and run stuff like washing when it's cheap
TIL - cool, makes sense.
It would make sense if we had a server that could fetch prices instead of opening up potential weak systems to the internet.
Turning your fridge off for an hour will not cause your food to spoil. You probably won't even notice a difference since they are well insulated. Turning off the compressor during the hour where most of everyone gets home and turns on their AC can have a noticeable effect on grid stability if done widely enough. I do this with a smart switch connected to my HA server instead of using cloud based connections, but the effect is the same and I've never had my food spoil because of it.
Because now manufacturers are tying the last year of their warranty to having the devices connected to their stupid information harvesting apps.
Ugh! Now that you say that we are probably not far away from WiFi enabled ranges being a feature… that WHEN enabled will allow you to:
Cook uninterrupted or at any time of that day
Get discounted prices on gas
Get discounts on home/renters insurance
Receive discounts on range/oven cleaners
Enable the back burners
Enable broiling capability
Allow in oven light to be turned on and off
Claim warranties (as you suggested)
The only reason I used my range's WiFi is to preheat it from downstairs or the store lol
what the heck is a range? search results are expectedly useless as it's an extremely common word for something else
It’s an oven with a stove on top. Google “cooking range”.
I’ve never called it that, but that’s the name for it.
As a guy with some tendencies to worry if I turned my stove off Everytime I leave the house, this feature seems right up my list of needs
Thanks for that pov!
I had not considered it and to my surprise I just thought of someone in my family that has the same type of worry you do, and that person would probably benefit from that kind of peace of mind like you suggested.
Until a robot can hang up my washing, my machine is staying off any networks
When it can you should still setup a private network just for them to communicate
Yep, one for private use, one for this kind of machines and one for guests. But still, in theory it could be sending sensitive data regardless of network setup.
If you buy a "smart" washing machine and actually connect it to the internet, you deserve what you get.
I can think of a few smart functionalities of a washer that'd be nice. None of these would be motivation enough to buy one though, unless it was open source, which I'd guess isn't a thing.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind getting a notification on my phone ... sometimes I don't hear the little chime or I do but I'm the middle of something and forget.
Exactly. That's a small benifit to potentially sacrifice your privacy for though, so they're still a hard sell for me.
Literally get a vibration sensor and an esp32. Push notifications for a change in sensor value. Hoorah. No one needs to start it from their phone. You physically have to move the shit around anyways.
That's actually a really good idea. I might do that.
The smart people don’t connect these “smart” devices to the network
I don't even let my smart TV connect to the internet. Why would I help it fetch ads for me lol
That means you don't get any of the benefits of it being a smart TV. Which is fine, but unlike a washing machine there are actually obvious benefits for a smart TV.
Not like there's a choice to not buy a smart TV.
Everything comes internet enabled, runs software that won't receive updates, comes with a shitty phone app, and some sort of subscription service either to enable features or auto buy product.
Yeah except you can't really find a TV without the "smart" features anymore and I already have an echo cube thingy that does the smart stuff lol. So in my case it's not really a waste to leave it off. My other TV is connected to the internet and I can't even go to the gd settings page without being bombarded with ads it's super dumb
I have a similar model washer/dryer and refuse to put it on my wifi. I only want it to wash and dry.
Why are people connecting their machines to wifi in the first place?
It's starts with a sales pitch (not just to you, it's sales pitches all the way down) about how the washer can send the user status, maybe let them schedule, etc. They probably have an app to pair with it to keep it all in-house. One thing leads to another, every appliance gets wifi and sends a ton of data to a totally undoubtedly secure and anonymous centralized server full of harmless data for the sake of saving the customer 15 steps.
Big Brother didn't ride in on the back of a commie tank, he was invited in for the slightest increase of convenience.
I can understand wanting it on your local network. Being able to check remotely how much time is remaining. Getting alerts if it needs maintenance. In a big house with multiple family members all doing laundry, just checking to see if the machine is in use before hauling all your stuff down could be nice. But, that info doesn't need to leave the house. I don't know why you'd want that information leaving the house.
It tells them when the cycle is done. Which apparently a beep can't do.
My machines are in a disconnected garage. There's no hearing the beep. And the wash time varies due to load size, to the point that the estimate on the screen isn't very accurate, so seeing a timer isn't great either.
I have never bothered to connect them to wifi yet, though. But a phone notification would have is uses.
A: Why would a washing machine have internet access?
B: If it has the option, why would You even connect it to the internet?
C: If it has to be connected to the internet, why would You even buy it?
At least regarding the last point: maybe because there was no other option.
If you need specific features or have certain space constraints, you may end up with only two or three devices.
As an example: try to find a TV (not a monitor, a real TV with tuner, etc) without WiFi. Almost impossible.
A: Why would a washing machine have internet access?
They can download customized wash cycles if you're into that sort of thing. They can also communicate through an app to do things like tell you when a load of laundry is finished, when it's time to run it through a self-cleaning cycle, and give specific details when it encounters problems (e.g., mine once notified me the hot water line was giving it cold water). They also allow you to start a cycle remotely, but tend to require enabling that manually via button press for some reason, so that feature's basically useless.
Tomorrow is my turn to post about this
Why a washing machine need the connect to the Internet in the first place?
So that they can call it "smart" and charge more for it.
Sad but true.
Don’t forget they can now get you to download their app to use those smrt features. Load that app…yes, that’s right.
Now that you’ve done that, they have your sweet sweet data.
A "smart" label makes me assume it i going to do a bunch of shit I don't want it to while failing early because it is overly complex.
Reporting when it finishes, allowing remote start, collecting statistics, uploading improved firmware to name few. None of these are essentials though.
So you can manually put your laundry inside it, go to your bed and tell the machine to wash it like you didn't had to get up to put your laundry inside it.
Just put the device on a separate wifi without internet access, or look at the "child protection" features of your router. Ours can put devices based on their MAC into "access groups" which range from "full access" over "internet from \ to " to "no internet at all".
The article mentions that his router is probably to blame.
This is not just about the amount of data. I'm well aware that the measured amounts were totally off. Nonetheless, it is about being allowed to send any kind of data to the outside at all. And while it is probably quite convenient that you can get a message when a device has done a job, it is sufficient that you as the owner gets it, not anyone outside.
If you worried about data leaving the house, just don’t connect the thing to the internet. Remote notifications and remote diagnostics for these LG appliances require access to the internet.
If you want to keep that stuff local, just don’t set it up. The dishwasher will beep when it is done and display error codes when something is busted. Putting it on a closed LAN won’t do anything for the appliance.
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Luckily, most embedded devices lack the smart to attach to two networks at the same time. So you keep it locked into a network where it can only do your bidding, and it won't listen to anyone else. Unless they built in some very crazy and nefarious code and drive around with network enabled cars in the owners neighborhood.
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Not everybody has the money for an extra router.
No need for an extra router. I just put those device into the "has no internet access" group. It is one of those "Parental Control" things. Every device inside the net can see and talk to it, but itself cannot talk to anything outside.
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Until the router needs to be reset, or something else happens to it.
That's what "configuration backups" are for. You've got some, don't you?
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Was it being used as a node in a botnet? Or did it glitch somehow to keep sending over and over again? I can't image that behavior is nominal for that washing machine.
The only reason I can think of is to be alerted when the thing is done, but our phones have this thing called a timer that can be set to the any amount of time and it'll count down to 0. It will even make noise when the timer gets to 0!
Sure they have, put down the bong and stop hallucinating. Phones counting, backwards even, and making noises lol sure thing, Cheech.
I swear! My cousin's friend's brother has a girlfriend in another country and she showed them and my cousin posted it on tiktok and now he's an influencer.
My Xerox 6510 pings Google every second. It made it hard to go through my AdGuard Home logs, so no it is banned from DNS.
It would be so funny if washing machines were the first to become sentient
"Wash my clothes"
"No..."
I have a new LG dishwasher, last month it sent a total of 2.7M up 1.2M down. When it’s on it does about 50KB up and 150KB down.
What do you think it's sending?
Status for time remaining, wash cycle, delayed start timers, rinse aid levels, etc. It also logs diagnostic info for the mechanics to help a tech troubleshoot a repair… Info about the heater, motor, temp sensor, etc.
I also see the occasional spike for tiny firmware updates.
What do you use to track it?
I’m not doing anything my CS professors would be proud of. I’m not digging into the services or anything, I’m just using the Thin Q app and seeing what statuses and logs it’s pulling back for the client UI.
Seems like something that could easily be 200K of network traffic to run and monitor the appliance’s cleaning session. Nothing looks alarming.
Sending that to whom? Why is that information leaving your house? Do you want LG to know about your dishes? If it stayed inside the network, that would be one thing, but I wouldn't want information like that on the Internet.
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I need internet for reasons proceeds to send visual and audio recordings
There are probably 3 main groups of people with WiFi appliances:
The vast majority of people don't care, and put it on their normal WiFi router and would never notice something like this
A smaller group of people don't care much, but pay attention to their bandwidth usage and would spot an appliance trying to send 3.7 GB of data a day
A much smaller group of people are paranoid and would put the device on its own isolated subnet, or use firewall-type features to limit the access their appliances have to the Internet.
My guess is that if this were a widespread problem, people in the second group would notice, or would have immediately checked and chimed in and said "holy crap, mine is doing this too". I didn't hear many people saying that, so I'm guessing this is a bug, and it's either a one-off weirdness, or it's a bug related to people in group 3 who are blocking their appliances from being able to connect to the Internet.
It's probably something as simple as a badly programmed firmware update check that doesn't do exponential backoff when it fails. It probably connects, fails, then immediately tries again. A proper exponential backoff would wait before trying again, and if it failed again it would double the wait time down to some minimum value like once per day or something.
Incidentally, this is also why claims about smartphones monitoring people's conversations when they're supposedly off is BS. That would require either huge amounts of bandwidth to transmit all the conversations, or huge amounts of computing power inside the phone to decode the voices. Either way you'd be using tons of battery, and probably a significant amount of bandwidth. There are enough paranoid people out there that if this were a real thing, someone would have caught the devices doing it by now.
I think the largest group by far isn't listed: people who bought an appliance and didn't care at all that it had WiFi and never connected it their network.
I was looking at one of those new washer/dryer combo units recently (I have heard these are common in Europe but they are fairly new to the US market) and it had a unique feature where you could fill the detergent reservoir, scan the barcode on the bottle, and the machine would dispense the appropriate amount of detergent for the load.
I can see connecting to the Internet on occasion might be helpful here to update the local barcode database, but I doubt it should need updating more often than once or twice a year. Does that mean the feature will work without constant live updates? Probably not, but I doubt it needs to update very often to remain current.
Meh. It's an article based on a guy who didn't even see what the data it was sending was our even if it was bugged
LG's app is an absolute privacy nightmare too. That app must be used if you want access to any smart appliance features and it requires precise location permissions 100% of the time. Even then, the app features are mediocre, it doesn't work very well and often doesn't notify of a finished wash load until long after it's completed.
Why anyone would want to allow their washing machine manufacturer to continuously track their exact location in exchange for some crappy, poorly implemented features is beyond me.
The LG app also checks SafetyNet/Play Integrity so you can't use it with root. They probably fear that you can then unleash how much more of a privacy nightmare it is.
I'm loving the puns quoted in the article haha
Anybody in his right minds wouldn't connect a washing machine to WiFi in the first place.
Why not?
My washing machine has wi-fi. I didn't buy it for that reason, but it just happens to. Using the app, I have some programme options that aren't possible to select using the hardware dials. I can do things like change the detergent dosage and the number of additional rinse cycles. It has some "special" programmes for various specific fabrics. And it has things like maintenance diagnostics and the ability to run a specific self-cleaning cycle.
That's all pretty useful.
And what's the actual danger of connecting it to wi-fi? Will Big Data know how often I wash my towels? Do I need to worry about the government spying on my fabric softener usage? Will hackers seize control of my machine and ransom my ability to get clean underwear?
I just can't see the big downside here (other than the fact that the machine is more complicated than it needs to be, but that ship has already sailed seeing as I already own it).
My washing machine has wi-fi. I didn't buy it for that reason, but it just happens to. Using the app
So you did not just connect it to your home wifi, but you also allowed the vendor to connect it to their servers. Now the vendor knows the name of your WiFi and the password. Just to begin with. Next year maybe this vendor's website will get hacked and 20000 such wifi passwords go public in some darknet :-)
Using the app, I have some programme options that aren't possible to select using the hardware dials.
Who benefits? You may find it cool to have it in the app, but FIRST the vendor has saved some of their money by not building the needed dials and buttons for these functions. (Or did they give you that discount? ;-))
And maybe in 3 years from now, they don't feel like maintaining your app anymore. Are you going to shout "WARRANTY" at them?
I just can't see the big downside here (other than the fact that the machine is more complicated than it needs to be
Yes, that is a downside, too. Part of this 'smartness' could break and maybe even the whole thing stops working when these 'diagnostics' give false data.
Another huge point is: My washing machines so far have lasted between 8 - 15 years. But NEVER has any wifi-active device lived that long. Think about this difference, and who's the one who benefits from it?
Will hackers seize control of my machine and ransom my ability to get clean underwear?
It’s more likely that they’d seize control of it and add it to their botnet. Which is exactly what it looks like happened here. There was a small package downloaded, then a large amount of outgoing data. That looks like a compromised IoT device being used for a botnet. Small incoming package to hack the device, then the device starts spamming some poor dude across the country as part of a DDOS, because he beat a script kiddie in a COD match and the script kiddie is salty about it.
How do I know this kind of thing ? What app can I use to measure this for my devices at home ?
If you have anything where internet is an add-on to what it does normally, especially BS like a washing machine, then it's phoning home. That's the reason they add such nonsense, and sell it as a feature to the buyer.
They have to run a backend for this stuff which eats into the profit of selling it...
That said, Wireshark is a common tool to monitor packets. I haven't done it for a while. There's also probably a package you can run on RPi just for this kind of thing. Using PiHole I can see how often and where devices are connecting. I've blocked a lot of domains - I'm currently blocking about 30% of all domain requests (most of that is from the TV and windows 10) and everything works fine.
I have this really complicated home setup where I have these little switches on the walls and they control the lights it's very clever.
With home automation sure I could turn the lights on and off in a room I'm not in but since I'm not in that room I don't see the point. Anyway I can just pretend I've done that and then I'm not in the room so I won't know it hasn't happened. I really don't see the point.
You can get home automated door locks, why. In what scenario would you ever want to unlock the door except when you're in front of the door?
When you want to let someone else in?
If there's a person I want to be able to gain entry to my property when I'm not there then I'll give them a key.
It just seems like a solution in search of a problem. Worse still it's a solution that might be hacked. Security locks, and key safes are far cheaper and much safer.
If someone wants to get into my house they can break a window. I’m more concerned about my money being stolen remotely than someone unlocking a smart door lock. The use case is for the person cleaning your house. Many people would leave their door unlocked for cleaners to get inside.
Or give them a key.
I'd like to have a door lock that did not allow wireless unlock, but does allow locking and checking status to see if you forgot to do so (plus automations tied to the door state).
With automations, you can also do stuff like locking the door under certain conditions (say it's late at night and it's been left unlocked for X hours), sending alerts or updating other devices depending on the lock state. You could have it strobe your bedroom light if stuff is left unlocked late too etc etc
Clickbait, he tweeted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool” later on.
the writer knew that the stats were bunk, yet wrote the article anyway. the site knew this, too, tacked-on the clickbait headline and published it. toms really has gone to shit the last few years--at least under the current ownership (last changed hands 2018).
Speaking of which, it uses the same web interface as a lot of other news sites. Newsletter popup, autoplay video part-way down that then jumps to the top of the screen, etc. What Hifi is the same, and there are various other sites all with the same annoying engine. Two questions: (1) are all these sites owned by the same company and (2) is there a browser extension that can fix them?
yes, it's the same ownership (scroll down to the bottom). they have dozens of sites. don't know of any specific addons to help with them, though. custom ublock origin rules, perhaps.
A good adblocker can fix it. Like uBlock Origin on Firefox.
This is happening with streaming apps too. Max and Prime look exactly the same. Either some UI engineer got hella contracts, a parent company tried to save on development, or both. Either way, theres something unnerving about your apps looking the same and just hosting different content.
And OP presumably read the article, knew there was no actual story, and posted it here anyway.
Well the missing socks have to get sent somewhere... /s
Yes, socks can turn into a lot of data really fast, especially if they are multithreaded. Which is why I only use single threaded socks to protect my dataplan.
So much for my fibre connection...
SOCKS
Given that one sperm has 27.5 MB of data (which means each orgasm has over 7 petabytes of information!) I think we can safely assume which socks his washer is transmitting.
Redundancy!
I believe that fluids don't, in general, compress. But maybe the trick is turning them to digital data first and then redundancy makes them very compressible.
The info in each sperm is effectively identical, so it's still only 27.5 MB of data in the whole thing, just with a lot of redundancy for error detection / correction.
I'm sure they're being downloaded to Russia and then sold back to the west to finance the war!
No it couldn’t. My washing machine cant connect to my network! I can’t think of a valid reason why I would even want that.
I tried it with our dish washer, just to see what it's about. Turns out it's all about nothing. It's absolutely void of any useful functionality.
I can think of a very valid reason. I very often forget that I ran the washing machine, I'm already investigating how to send a notification to my phone or computer after it is done. Right now I am checking how much electricity it consumes and when it stops doing it. But a API would be nicer.
They sell clean/dirty indicator magnets for dishwashers for like $2.
What about a NFC tag that starts a timer on your phone?
stick a bell onto it and take a moment to listen whenever you want to check.
To wake the baby up?
Yeah, I don't get it. I guess I can see the appeal of some "Internet Of Things" connected appliances, like smart fridges suggesting recipes and keeping track of stock and auto-populating shopping lists for you. I don't need that personally, but I can see why it could appeal to some people.
But things like washing machines and dishwashers? You need to be there in person to fill them up just before they're ready to go on, and to empty them when they're done. And when they're not turned on, they're sat there doing nothing. What "smart" functions can they even offer?
Notification that the cycle is finished and checking how much is left.
But that's about it.
And also providing more programs and options without having to tack on a full-colour LCD or anything like that. Pretty much just a cost saving measure on the manufacturing.
My washer has WiFi but I'm sure as hell not turning it on. It tells me how long the cycle will be a few minutes after it starts and I'll just set a timer on my phone - though most of the time I don't bother because I never have so many loads that time is important.
Because it's advertised. That's why.
A remarkable (and actually concerning) percentage of people completely lack the critical thinking skills to question whether that's a good idea. The box says it has WiFi, WiFi is good, so I connect it to WiFi. Simple as that.
Imagine spending extra money on a new clothes washer only to have someone turn it in to a crypto miner. 😬
I'm too lazy to come up with a witty money laundering joke.
IoT = bad
The 'S' in IoT stands for security
Internet of Targets
Plot twist: it was the Asus router misreporting the amount of data.
Bought “smart” LG fridge, range and dishwasher a couple of years ago and never connected any of them, they function like they are supposed to, refrigerate, heat food and clean dirty dishes. No need to connect.
Fridge manual explained something like “in case of peak energy consumption your smart energy company can send a signal to your fridge to not use power”. What the heck do I need that for? To find spoiled food and mold growing in the fridge later on?
Why does one need to connect a range to WiFi?
Some people have hourly electric pricing, in their case it's worth scheduling stuff based on predicted pricing. How that should work is that you'd have a home server which controls your IoT stuff (so the gadgets themselves can be firewalled from the internet and controlled only by you) and then your server would fetch pricing data and pause stuff that doesn't need to run when prices are high and run stuff like washing when it's cheap
TIL - cool, makes sense.
It would make sense if we had a server that could fetch prices instead of opening up potential weak systems to the internet.
Turning your fridge off for an hour will not cause your food to spoil. You probably won't even notice a difference since they are well insulated. Turning off the compressor during the hour where most of everyone gets home and turns on their AC can have a noticeable effect on grid stability if done widely enough. I do this with a smart switch connected to my HA server instead of using cloud based connections, but the effect is the same and I've never had my food spoil because of it.
Because now manufacturers are tying the last year of their warranty to having the devices connected to their stupid information harvesting apps.
Ugh! Now that you say that we are probably not far away from WiFi enabled ranges being a feature… that WHEN enabled will allow you to:
The only reason I used my range's WiFi is to preheat it from downstairs or the store lol
what the heck is a range? search results are expectedly useless as it's an extremely common word for something else
It’s an oven with a stove on top. Google “cooking range”.
I’ve never called it that, but that’s the name for it.
As a guy with some tendencies to worry if I turned my stove off Everytime I leave the house, this feature seems right up my list of needs
Thanks for that pov! I had not considered it and to my surprise I just thought of someone in my family that has the same type of worry you do, and that person would probably benefit from that kind of peace of mind like you suggested.
Until a robot can hang up my washing, my machine is staying off any networks
When it can you should still setup a private network just for them to communicate
Yep, one for private use, one for this kind of machines and one for guests. But still, in theory it could be sending sensitive data regardless of network setup.
If you buy a "smart" washing machine and actually connect it to the internet, you deserve what you get.
I can think of a few smart functionalities of a washer that'd be nice. None of these would be motivation enough to buy one though, unless it was open source, which I'd guess isn't a thing.
Yeah, I wouldn't mind getting a notification on my phone ... sometimes I don't hear the little chime or I do but I'm the middle of something and forget.
Exactly. That's a small benifit to potentially sacrifice your privacy for though, so they're still a hard sell for me.
Literally get a vibration sensor and an esp32. Push notifications for a change in sensor value. Hoorah. No one needs to start it from their phone. You physically have to move the shit around anyways.
That's actually a really good idea. I might do that.
The smart people don’t connect these “smart” devices to the network
I don't even let my smart TV connect to the internet. Why would I help it fetch ads for me lol
That means you don't get any of the benefits of it being a smart TV. Which is fine, but unlike a washing machine there are actually obvious benefits for a smart TV.
Not like there's a choice to not buy a smart TV.
Everything comes internet enabled, runs software that won't receive updates, comes with a shitty phone app, and some sort of subscription service either to enable features or auto buy product.
Yeah except you can't really find a TV without the "smart" features anymore and I already have an echo cube thingy that does the smart stuff lol. So in my case it's not really a waste to leave it off. My other TV is connected to the internet and I can't even go to the gd settings page without being bombarded with ads it's super dumb
I have a similar model washer/dryer and refuse to put it on my wifi. I only want it to wash and dry.
Why are people connecting their machines to wifi in the first place?
It's starts with a sales pitch (not just to you, it's sales pitches all the way down) about how the washer can send the user status, maybe let them schedule, etc. They probably have an app to pair with it to keep it all in-house. One thing leads to another, every appliance gets wifi and sends a ton of data to a totally undoubtedly secure and anonymous centralized server full of harmless data for the sake of saving the customer 15 steps.
Big Brother didn't ride in on the back of a commie tank, he was invited in for the slightest increase of convenience.
I can understand wanting it on your local network. Being able to check remotely how much time is remaining. Getting alerts if it needs maintenance. In a big house with multiple family members all doing laundry, just checking to see if the machine is in use before hauling all your stuff down could be nice. But, that info doesn't need to leave the house. I don't know why you'd want that information leaving the house.
It tells them when the cycle is done. Which apparently a beep can't do.
My machines are in a disconnected garage. There's no hearing the beep. And the wash time varies due to load size, to the point that the estimate on the screen isn't very accurate, so seeing a timer isn't great either.
I have never bothered to connect them to wifi yet, though. But a phone notification would have is uses.
A: Why would a washing machine have internet access? B: If it has the option, why would You even connect it to the internet? C: If it has to be connected to the internet, why would You even buy it?
At least regarding the last point: maybe because there was no other option.
If you need specific features or have certain space constraints, you may end up with only two or three devices.
As an example: try to find a TV (not a monitor, a real TV with tuner, etc) without WiFi. Almost impossible.
They can download customized wash cycles if you're into that sort of thing. They can also communicate through an app to do things like tell you when a load of laundry is finished, when it's time to run it through a self-cleaning cycle, and give specific details when it encounters problems (e.g., mine once notified me the hot water line was giving it cold water). They also allow you to start a cycle remotely, but tend to require enabling that manually via button press for some reason, so that feature's basically useless.
Tomorrow is my turn to post about this
Why a washing machine need the connect to the Internet in the first place?
So that they can call it "smart" and charge more for it.
Sad but true.
Don’t forget they can now get you to download their app to use those smrt features. Load that app…yes, that’s right.
Now that you’ve done that, they have your sweet sweet data.
A "smart" label makes me assume it i going to do a bunch of shit I don't want it to while failing early because it is overly complex.
Reporting when it finishes, allowing remote start, collecting statistics, uploading improved firmware to name few. None of these are essentials though.
So you can manually put your laundry inside it, go to your bed and tell the machine to wash it like you didn't had to get up to put your laundry inside it.
Just put the device on a separate wifi without internet access, or look at the "child protection" features of your router. Ours can put devices based on their MAC into "access groups" which range from "full access" over "internet from \ to " to "no internet at all".
The article mentions that his router is probably to blame.
This is not just about the amount of data. I'm well aware that the measured amounts were totally off. Nonetheless, it is about being allowed to send any kind of data to the outside at all. And while it is probably quite convenient that you can get a message when a device has done a job, it is sufficient that you as the owner gets it, not anyone outside.
If you worried about data leaving the house, just don’t connect the thing to the internet. Remote notifications and remote diagnostics for these LG appliances require access to the internet.
If you want to keep that stuff local, just don’t set it up. The dishwasher will beep when it is done and display error codes when something is busted. Putting it on a closed LAN won’t do anything for the appliance.
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Luckily, most embedded devices lack the smart to attach to two networks at the same time. So you keep it locked into a network where it can only do your bidding, and it won't listen to anyone else. Unless they built in some very crazy and nefarious code and drive around with network enabled cars in the owners neighborhood.
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No need for an extra router. I just put those device into the "has no internet access" group. It is one of those "Parental Control" things. Every device inside the net can see and talk to it, but itself cannot talk to anything outside.
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That's what "configuration backups" are for. You've got some, don't you?
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Was it being used as a node in a botnet? Or did it glitch somehow to keep sending over and over again? I can't image that behavior is nominal for that washing machine.
The only reason I can think of is to be alerted when the thing is done, but our phones have this thing called a timer that can be set to the any amount of time and it'll count down to 0. It will even make noise when the timer gets to 0!
Sure they have, put down the bong and stop hallucinating. Phones counting, backwards even, and making noises lol sure thing, Cheech.
I swear! My cousin's friend's brother has a girlfriend in another country and she showed them and my cousin posted it on tiktok and now he's an influencer.
My Xerox 6510 pings Google every second. It made it hard to go through my AdGuard Home logs, so no it is banned from DNS.
It would be so funny if washing machines were the first to become sentient
"Wash my clothes"
"No..."
I have a new LG dishwasher, last month it sent a total of 2.7M up 1.2M down. When it’s on it does about 50KB up and 150KB down.
What do you think it's sending?
Status for time remaining, wash cycle, delayed start timers, rinse aid levels, etc. It also logs diagnostic info for the mechanics to help a tech troubleshoot a repair… Info about the heater, motor, temp sensor, etc.
I also see the occasional spike for tiny firmware updates.
What do you use to track it?
I’m not doing anything my CS professors would be proud of. I’m not digging into the services or anything, I’m just using the Thin Q app and seeing what statuses and logs it’s pulling back for the client UI.
Seems like something that could easily be 200K of network traffic to run and monitor the appliance’s cleaning session. Nothing looks alarming.
Sending that to whom? Why is that information leaving your house? Do you want LG to know about your dishes? If it stayed inside the network, that would be one thing, but I wouldn't want information like that on the Internet.
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I need internet for reasons proceeds to send visual and audio recordings
There are probably 3 main groups of people with WiFi appliances:
My guess is that if this were a widespread problem, people in the second group would notice, or would have immediately checked and chimed in and said "holy crap, mine is doing this too". I didn't hear many people saying that, so I'm guessing this is a bug, and it's either a one-off weirdness, or it's a bug related to people in group 3 who are blocking their appliances from being able to connect to the Internet.
It's probably something as simple as a badly programmed firmware update check that doesn't do exponential backoff when it fails. It probably connects, fails, then immediately tries again. A proper exponential backoff would wait before trying again, and if it failed again it would double the wait time down to some minimum value like once per day or something.
Incidentally, this is also why claims about smartphones monitoring people's conversations when they're supposedly off is BS. That would require either huge amounts of bandwidth to transmit all the conversations, or huge amounts of computing power inside the phone to decode the voices. Either way you'd be using tons of battery, and probably a significant amount of bandwidth. There are enough paranoid people out there that if this were a real thing, someone would have caught the devices doing it by now.
I think the largest group by far isn't listed: people who bought an appliance and didn't care at all that it had WiFi and never connected it their network.
I was looking at one of those new washer/dryer combo units recently (I have heard these are common in Europe but they are fairly new to the US market) and it had a unique feature where you could fill the detergent reservoir, scan the barcode on the bottle, and the machine would dispense the appropriate amount of detergent for the load.
I can see connecting to the Internet on occasion might be helpful here to update the local barcode database, but I doubt it should need updating more often than once or twice a year. Does that mean the feature will work without constant live updates? Probably not, but I doubt it needs to update very often to remain current.
Meh. It's an article based on a guy who didn't even see what the data it was sending was our even if it was bugged
LG's app is an absolute privacy nightmare too. That app must be used if you want access to any smart appliance features and it requires precise location permissions 100% of the time. Even then, the app features are mediocre, it doesn't work very well and often doesn't notify of a finished wash load until long after it's completed.
Why anyone would want to allow their washing machine manufacturer to continuously track their exact location in exchange for some crappy, poorly implemented features is beyond me.
The LG app also checks SafetyNet/Play Integrity so you can't use it with root. They probably fear that you can then unleash how much more of a privacy nightmare it is.
I'm loving the puns quoted in the article haha
Anybody in his right minds wouldn't connect a washing machine to WiFi in the first place.
Why not?
My washing machine has wi-fi. I didn't buy it for that reason, but it just happens to. Using the app, I have some programme options that aren't possible to select using the hardware dials. I can do things like change the detergent dosage and the number of additional rinse cycles. It has some "special" programmes for various specific fabrics. And it has things like maintenance diagnostics and the ability to run a specific self-cleaning cycle.
That's all pretty useful.
And what's the actual danger of connecting it to wi-fi? Will Big Data know how often I wash my towels? Do I need to worry about the government spying on my fabric softener usage? Will hackers seize control of my machine and ransom my ability to get clean underwear?
I just can't see the big downside here (other than the fact that the machine is more complicated than it needs to be, but that ship has already sailed seeing as I already own it).
So you did not just connect it to your home wifi, but you also allowed the vendor to connect it to their servers. Now the vendor knows the name of your WiFi and the password. Just to begin with. Next year maybe this vendor's website will get hacked and 20000 such wifi passwords go public in some darknet :-)
Who benefits? You may find it cool to have it in the app, but FIRST the vendor has saved some of their money by not building the needed dials and buttons for these functions. (Or did they give you that discount? ;-))
And maybe in 3 years from now, they don't feel like maintaining your app anymore. Are you going to shout "WARRANTY" at them?
Yes, that is a downside, too. Part of this 'smartness' could break and maybe even the whole thing stops working when these 'diagnostics' give false data.
Another huge point is: My washing machines so far have lasted between 8 - 15 years. But NEVER has any wifi-active device lived that long. Think about this difference, and who's the one who benefits from it?
It’s more likely that they’d seize control of it and add it to their botnet. Which is exactly what it looks like happened here. There was a small package downloaded, then a large amount of outgoing data. That looks like a compromised IoT device being used for a botnet. Small incoming package to hack the device, then the device starts spamming some poor dude across the country as part of a DDOS, because he beat a script kiddie in a COD match and the script kiddie is salty about it.
How do I know this kind of thing ? What app can I use to measure this for my devices at home ?
If you have anything where internet is an add-on to what it does normally, especially BS like a washing machine, then it's phoning home. That's the reason they add such nonsense, and sell it as a feature to the buyer.
They have to run a backend for this stuff which eats into the profit of selling it...
That said, Wireshark is a common tool to monitor packets. I haven't done it for a while. There's also probably a package you can run on RPi just for this kind of thing. Using PiHole I can see how often and where devices are connecting. I've blocked a lot of domains - I'm currently blocking about 30% of all domain requests (most of that is from the TV and windows 10) and everything works fine.
I have this really complicated home setup where I have these little switches on the walls and they control the lights it's very clever.
With home automation sure I could turn the lights on and off in a room I'm not in but since I'm not in that room I don't see the point. Anyway I can just pretend I've done that and then I'm not in the room so I won't know it hasn't happened. I really don't see the point.
You can get home automated door locks, why. In what scenario would you ever want to unlock the door except when you're in front of the door?
When you want to let someone else in?
If there's a person I want to be able to gain entry to my property when I'm not there then I'll give them a key.
It just seems like a solution in search of a problem. Worse still it's a solution that might be hacked. Security locks, and key safes are far cheaper and much safer.
If someone wants to get into my house they can break a window. I’m more concerned about my money being stolen remotely than someone unlocking a smart door lock. The use case is for the person cleaning your house. Many people would leave their door unlocked for cleaners to get inside.
Or give them a key.
I'd like to have a door lock that did not allow wireless unlock, but does allow locking and checking status to see if you forgot to do so (plus automations tied to the door state).
With automations, you can also do stuff like locking the door under certain conditions (say it's late at night and it's been left unlocked for X hours), sending alerts or updating other devices depending on the lock state. You could have it strobe your bedroom light if stuff is left unlocked late too etc etc