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by UnlockedSecrets 454 days ago
In terms of a threat-risk analysis, the need of a physical microphone nearby i imagine more than makes up for the risk of an adversary knowing your water quality and electrical consumption as measured by your washer in almost everyones lives atleast..
2 comments
mmooss 454 days ago
It also indicates when you are home or out, and likely an estimate of how many people live there. It could collect more data.

Those pieces of data are combined with others, to form a full picture. This device doesn't need to collect it all itself.

Survellance of private citizens is arguably the foundation of the very dangerous problems in societies around the world, taking away freedom, health, peace, and for most, prosperity. When do you stop it?

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sfn42 454 days ago
If someone can get a bug into my home I'm pretty sure they already know how many people live there and whether we're home..

Ad if someone is bugging my home I think the data transfer from my dishwasher is quite literally the least of my worries.

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05 454 days ago
> It also indicates when you are home or out

Yeah, being able to record sounds that the washer makes would probably also enable you to analyze things people say and extract much more information than 'how many people live there' and 'are they home or not'.

But fortunately for us, you need to actually press a physical button to make the machine sing the diagnostics..

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tempay 454 days ago
I think you might have missed OPs point being about acoustically sending data rather than using bluetooth/WiFi.

If someone is close enough to your home to listen to your washing machine (or more likely, inside) they can probably hear/see you more directly.

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mmooss 453 days ago
> I think you might have missed OPs point being about acoustically sending data rather than using bluetooth/WiFi

I did! Thanks.

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amy_petrik 454 days ago
the use of customer-central water usage data piques my interest. there's a huge market for selling water and waste data to advertisers and other companies interested in consumer data. This is one of my friend's startups, smartpipes, which is a type of smart sewage pipe - these smart washers remind me of smartpipe (which supports dishwasher waste!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
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