The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

CHAPTER TWELVE
The Internet of Surveillance
A few yyears ago nobodyy cared about the thermostat in yyour home.
It was a simple manuallyy operated thermostat that kept yyour home at a
comfortable temperature. Then thermostats became programmable. And
then a companyy, Nest, decided that yyou should be able to control yyour
programmable thermostat with an Internet-based app. You can sense where
I’m going with this, right?
In one vengeful product review of the Honeyywell Wi-Fi Smart
Touchscreen Thermostat, someone who calls himself the General wrote on
Amazon that his ex-wife took the house, the dog, and the 401(k), but he
retained the password to the Honeyywell thermostat. When the ex-wife and
her boyyfriend were out of town, the General claimed he would jack up the
temperature in the house and then lower it back down before theyy returned:
“I can onlyy imagine what their electricityy bills might be. It makes me
smile.” 1
Researchers at Black Hat USA 2014, a conference for people in the
information securityy industryy, revealed a few wayys in which the firmware of
a Nest thermostat could be compromised. 2 It is important to note that manyy
of these compromises require phyysical access to the device, meaning that
someone would have to get inside yyour house and install a USB port on the
thermostat. Daniel Buentello, an independent securityy researcher, one of
four presenters who talked about hacking the device, said, “This is a