Shame they didn’t get access to the analytics. It would be very interesting to see the extent these data collected are used.
For instance, training voice AI on customer data. Or voice printing to make a location map of users and selling that data. Or customizing ads that show up on their devices based on what’s in the home, etc etc
That’s a tuff number boiii
You don’t have to be smart to use a broom but you have to be stupid to buy a vacuum with microphone and camera.
connected to a server outside of your house
broom gang broom gang
Or just ignorant.
tinkerer built an app to control their own device with a PlayStation controller.
who used Claude Code to reverse engineer the protocol
Did they build it though? Sounds like vibe-coding to me
the problem does not lie in the encryption used by the robot vacuum when communicating with its server, but that all the data is stored in plain text and can easily be read by anyone who gains access to the server.
Having said that, this is atrocious!
What’s the point in encrypting user data in transit if you’re just gonna leave it unencrypted at rest??
If you’re going to store user data, at least have the decency to make sure its protected against malicious actors.
It’s very lucky that the person who discovered it was a vibe-coding good Samaritan, rather than somebody willing to exploit it for money
Security? How much? No. Skip it.
What’s the point in encrypting user data in transit if you’re just gonna leave it unencrypted at rest??
Basic HTTPS does the trick of encrypting transfer, easy as fuck to set up, does not mean the app is any more secure tho.
Database encryption is usually not necessary if it is kept on a private network. Setting up sensible auth is usually enough. They kept some doors unlocked, tho.
Did they build it though? Sounds like vibe-coding to me
For all my gripes with AI/LLM and stolen valor-type misrepresentation, I’m not going to put too many asterisks on someone’s personal project. Especially when it exposes shady corporate practice. It doesn’t seem like they were professionally hired to create this app. There’s plenty of tinkerers I follow that phone a friend to get a project back on track.
But I have no idea what his day job is, being an AI Strategist
Did they build it though? Sounds like vibe-coding to me
Did you type that sentence though? It looks like keyboard manipulation to me
Ah, but the keyboard manipulation is direct, at least.
All of your interaction with technology is mediated by other technology.
We all understand that when we say ‘I went on the Internet’ we’re not picturing a person, with no technological assistance whatsoever, inducing current into a wire in encoded pulses according to IEEE 802.3 and scratching the resulting HTML in the dirt with a stick.
So, when someone comes along and says ‘Well, actually, you didn’t do anything because YOUR BROWSER went on the Internet.’ it isn’t actually describing a difference.
Here, the comment isn’t making any argument on why this differentiation matters. It’s just changing the framing to bait anti-AI engagement.
They likely also used other technology, like an IDE, syntax highlighting, auto completion, a linter, git, a programming language that they didn’t invent themselves, libraries made by others… etc.
Implying ‘if they use x tool’ then they didn’t build it is pointless gatekeeping that doesn’t add anything to the discussion except create an on-ramp for more anti-ai bot content.
As I said in my reply directly to you, I don’t have an issue with vibe-coding itself.
And I do understand that our interactions of the world are mediated by tools, but those tools are things we use to assist in our direct input.
… And even independent tools like autocompletion requires me to actually type the words I intend to use. I have a direct input on what the autocompletion does, because its completing my words, not typing them for me.
Prompting an AI to do something isn’t actually doing the thing, it’s managing another entity that does the thing for you. It’s a tool, but it’s a tool that thinks entirely for itself.
So when vibe-coders say the “coded” something the AI produced, or vibe-artists say they “drew” something an AI generated, it grinds my gears - because its not the same, and will never be.
If you code enough, if you draw enough, you get better at it. If you prompt an AI enough, you don’t get better at either of those things - you just get better at prompting the AI.
Yes, because I directly typed on that keyboard. My fingers pressed each and every key to make each and every letter of this text you’re reading.
The keyboard is a tool to interface with a computer, in the same way you need a hammer to push a nail, a screwdriver to drive a screw, or a knife cuts through things.
I didn’t ask somebody else to go hammer the nail, screw the screw, or cut the thing then take credit for doing the thing I didn’t do.
Managing a process isn’t the same as doing the process, and in the same way, prompting an AI to make code for you isn’t the same as actually making that code, and never will be.
Edit:
I should say I don’t actually have anything against Vibe-coding itself, apart from the environmental implications of AI, and for personal projects I imagine it’s probably quite useful.
What grinds my gears is when people say “they” coded something, knowing full well they didn’t write a single line of code. It’s like Vibe-artists saying they “drew” something DALI made.
Its fine to do it, but just admit that’s what you did, rather than trying to take credit for a thing you didn’t do.
In the same spirit of pointless gatekeeping.
You only pressed the buttons. That’s hardly any of the work required for your text to show up on all of our computers.
You didn’t translate the pulses from your key switches into USB signals, or write the kernel code which translated those inputs into scancodes, or write the browser code which displayed the form box that packaged your text into an HTTP POST request. None of your work went into the firmware on the routers which carried your data and you didn’t do a bit of work burying the cables between those routers.
I haven’t check but I’m pretty sure you’re not a datacenter employee in Finland so you don’t contribute to the labor required to manage the servers, you probably don’t contribute to the Lemmy project or Mozilla/Chromium projects.
Your post is the result of a huge amount of tools, services in infrastructure that you had no hand in inventing, deploying or maintaining.
All you did was provide a few grams of force to some thermoplastic and sparked a few neurons.
This code uses truly global varriables.
Nice :)
A lot of times encryption “at rest” is just encrypting the partition the DB is sitting on. There are options for encrypting the database when it’s in use, but if you don’t set up the right access controls the on-the-fly decryption can have it show up as plaintext.
The best option for this is to do the decryption/encryption in the application, so even if they get the DB credentials for the app user it’s still encrypted. One disadvantage is that you can’t do searches in the DB anymore.
Of course, all of these are in increasing level of difficulty and adding them after the fact becomes a more daunting task the longer you put it off.
The big concern should be DJI having access to cameras and microphones in who knows how many millions of households.
‘Company deliberately has control of over 6,700 robot vacuums while selling them to unsuspecting general public’
The bigger concern should be that this is how badly coded and how little concern there is about security there is with smart appliances in people’s homes.
Working as a consultant and seeing the code that runs online services made me realize how fucked up everything is and to accept that nobody knows or cares about what they are doing with other people’s integrity. AI in coding is barely making a dent in it.
That’s less of a concern over the corporate actors who have infiltrated our houses.
Even if it was completely secure, they would still have access to this information and that would be by utilised by a state in some capacity against us.
Every device we have is sending our data to these companies, our homes and streets are full of Orwellian Telescreens surveilling our every move. It’s inescapable and as the means for them to better amalgamate and act on this data increases, the bleaker our future becomes.
We should probably take “engineering” out of software titles.
Anybody can code an application, it takes a software engineer to barely code it.
I have some suggestions about how their security engineer’s routine looks like:
“AI Strategist” <vomit>
Its a pretty good example of things you can do with Claude.
