Will smart appliances be used to spy on you?

March 20th, 2012

Appliance News

Smart, connected appliances may help spy agencies keep an eye on our movements and habits at home, says the head of the CIA, according to Wired.com.

That’s right, I spy with my little dishwasher!

It might seem ridiculous to think that hackers, be they legit government spies or not, would be interested in knowing how many calories your meal in the oven has, or when the milk in your fridge will expire, information courtesy of your smart appliances.

But how would it feel to suspect that the TV is watching and listening to you, rather than other way around. Or that by adjusting your lighting or heating settings you could let thieves know if you were home or not.

Or perhaps just the idea of strangers knowing the intimate details of your life is maddening enough.

While down under the invasion of privacy into our homes – our castles – might raise questions, it seems that authorities in the United States might relish the opportunity to tag appliances.

In fact the report from Spencer Ackerman at Wired, says the CIA “cannot wait to spy on you” through connected appliances.

CIA Director David Petraeus was recently quoted that the emergence of wired devices, or the “Internet of Things” will have a “transformational effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

He reckons the household spies could  “change our notions of secrecy” and “our notions of identity and secrecy.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said.

“The latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.”