this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 days ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
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An engineer got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device. That’s when he noticed it was constantly sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer — something he hadn't consented to. The user, Harishankar, decided to block the telemetry servers' IP addresses on his network, while keeping the firmware and OTA servers open. While his smart gadget worked for a while, it just refused to turn on soon after. After a lengthy investigation, he discovered that a remote kill command had been issued to his device.

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[–] theyoyomaster@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Unfortunately this is from a Chinese company and China will never make it illegal; hell they’re more likely to pass a law requiring ILIFE to share the personal data with the government than tell them not to collect them. This could be enforced for US based companies but as long as we buy luxury goods from China this is going to be a fact of life.