The U.S. Government Spies with Its Little Eyes Using Smart Home Devices

Your devices are spying on you

The 21th century is known as the age of smart devices. Building upon the foundation of Wi-Fi technology, more and more tools and household items become connected to the Internet. Now we have schedulable lightning, intelligent thermostat, smart TV, your whole alarm system is accessible from your phone. But total home automation holds new founded dangers many people are unaware of. Other than the fact that any cellular alarm system can be hacked with a modified radio tuner, the U.S. government seems to take advantage of security holes of the system.

James Clapper, director of the baton intelligence, has admitted that they are using smart home devices to gather intelligence on people “for their own good”. You might laugh, saying that what compromising info the thermostat or refrigerator holds against you, but smart devices are able to overhear private conversation within the household. For example, Samsung also stated in their smart TV’s manual that the devise is capable of recording anything in the living room, and they advised customers to mind their words before the television. The popular new game console, the Xbox One, was also heavily criticized because early on Microsoft insisted that the console is only usable if the Kinect checks on the living room once per day.

VPN vs fly on the wall

It’s arguable whether a backdoor access that bypasses your tool’s encryption is a good thing or not. Some people – mainly government-related – state that this is in the interest of the nation, and agents can identify potential terrorist and criminals even before they could commit the crime. Others claim that this paranoid approach harms the citizens’ right to privacy, not to mention that corrupt individuals can exploit this kind of access to harass innocent people. It’s up to you which side you pick. But if you want to add an extra layer of protection to your household, consider subscribing to a VPN network. It routes your internet connection through an international proxy server, hiding your identity and IP. You might also want to purchase Keezel once it’s out: Keezel is a crowdfunded device that connects your Wi-Fi signal to a Le VPN’s network with a press of a button.