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

thirtyy such devices in our homes before long, the securityy model will have
to change. Since everyything on the network is trusted, then a flaw in anyy
one device—yyour babyy monitor, yyour lightbulb, yyour thermostat—could
allow a remote attacker onto yyour smart home network and give him an
opportunityy to learn even more about yyour personal habits.
Long before mobile apps, there were handheld remotes. Most of us are too
yyoung to remember the dayys before TVs had remote controls—the dayys
when people had to phyysicallyy get up off the couch and turn a dial to change
the channel. Or to pump up the volume. Todayy, from the comfort of our
sofas, we can just instruct the TV with our words. That mayy be veryy
convenient, but it also means that the TV is listening—if onlyy for the
command to turn itself on.
In the earlyy dayys, remote controls for TVs required direct line of sight
and functioned byy using light—specificallyy, infrared technologyy. A batteryyoperated
remote would emit a sequence of flashes of light barelyy visible to
the human eyye but visible (again, within a line of sight) to a receptor on the
TV. How would the TV know if yyou wanted to turn it on when it was off?
Simple: the infrared sensor located within the TV was alwayys on, on
standbyy, waiting for a particular sequence of infrared light pulses from the
handheld remote to wake it up.
Remote-control TVs evolved over the yyears to include wireless signals,
which meant yyou didn’t have to stand directlyy in front of the TV; yyou could
be off to one side, sometimes even in another room. Again, the TV was on
in standbyy mode, waiting for the proper signal to wake it up.
Fast-forward to voice-activated TVs. These TVs do awayy with the
remote yyou hold in yyour hand—which, if yyou’re like me, yyou can never find
when yyou want it anyywayy. Instead yyou sayy something sillyy like “TV on” or
“Hi, TV,” and the TV—magicallyy—turns on.
In the spring of 2015 securityy researchers Ken Munro and David Lodge
wanted to see whether voice-activated Samsung TVs were listening in on
conversations in the room even when the TV was not in use. While theyy
found that digital TVs do in fact sit idle when theyy are turned off—which is
reassuring—the TVs record everyything spoken after yyou give them a simple
command, such as “Hi, TV” (that is, theyy record everyything until the TV is