7mo ago

One does not have freedom if anyone has power over one

66 comments

"Someone hacked my washing machine" is not the cyberpunk future we wanted.
- My other computer is your washing machine
  
  Can you run Doom on it?

Why is you washing machine connected to anything to begin with? If you do not want that, you do not enable it.
- Your three free trial washes have expired, but you can continue using your washer for $20 per month*
  How many family members are in your home?
  Your account will be charged the going rate for each family member. This is for your safety. Because we said so, fuck you!
- The only possible reason for an Internet connected washing machine is to provide alerts when it is done or when it has failed.
  And honestly, if you need an alert on your phone to tell you when your washing machine has finished, you probably need to be more aware of your surroundings and learn how to prioritise tasks.
  
  The only possible reason for an Internet connected washing machine is to provide alerts when it is done or when it has failed.
  Mine just beep loudly when that happens, no internet needed.
  
  you probably need to be more aware of your surroundings and learn how to prioritise tasks.
  To be fair there's a non-negligible percentage of the population who have neuro-divergencies making that a tall order. For example, apparently it could be as high as 1 in 10 people have some form of ADHD.
  I'm not sure I've got anything actually clinically wrong with me, but I've got the memory of a sieve and a tendency to lose track of time. So I can definitely see the benefit there, and imagine it might be even more of a game changer for people actually with those conditions
  
  Two reasons I use it:
  Washing machine is not in my home, I walk through my garden to get to it. I'm lazy so I want to know when it's finished before I get disappointed. Either via mobile or tv.
  I can turn it on when my solar panels are at their highest output. Which is very handy when I'm at work for example. I just load it up and when it's good to go I turn it on.
  So, data like this is very bad. But I do see a use in the internet connection
  
  WiFi is enough to do that, no need for Internet? Unless you need to know that while away...? But a simple timer (analog or digital) would also be 95 % as accurate. Not like the program runs 30 minutes too long.
  
  I could see this maybe being useful... but for the Gods please just make it a local network thing, you shouldn't need this when you aren't home. If for any reason I need my fucking washing machine outside my local net, it'll be open source (or just custom made) and forwarded via tunneling to my domain that costs me a grand total of $4 a year.
  
  A friend has a washing machine where you can put all your stuff in, schedule it to finish at [time you're back from work] so you can immediately hang it up to dry. That ones wifi connected.
  Maybe that also works without Internet but I've only seen that feature on those connected to the Internet.
- Probably because it refuses to wash if it isn't.
  
  Then return it. Only reasonable option there is once you actually bought it.
- My washer and dryer have a whole host of features and settings locked behind connecting it to the internet. I haven't connected it and won't but I could see how those settings could be useful for big families, people with sensory needs (my cousin is autistic and has a autoimmune disorder, and his clothes have to have the right amount of softness, scent, and cleanliness.) it took his mom years to find the perfect amount of chemicals, wash time, and dry time to get his clothing right for him to wear without hurting him. I showed her the options on my units and they totally would make her life easier.
  I wish those features weren't packed with ads, had no potential to brick the appliances, and weren't capturing data but for those that don't care. Ya totally use them.

It's streaming the wash cycle. Please don't block it, I watch that.
- This is the only answer I would be ok with, streaming the wash cycle and absolutely nothing else.

My guess is that it is used bu LG to be part of a P2P net for LG content and firmware delivery for other LG products, especially TVs and phones
- Probably also uploading usage data.
- LG does not make phones anymore

Op from Jan:
https://x.com/Johnie/status/1744556503183585471
Most common theory is it was actually the guys asus router misreporting the data usage.
- I bet the appliance was hacked and it's part of a botnet
  
  Probably not.
  I work in home automation
  There's lots of educated idiots out there and lots of crap routers

This might be a silly question, but why the fuck would your washing machine need to be connected to the internet?
- So it can doomscroll like the rest of us? What's it gonna do for the 23 hours a day it's not working?
- Seriously, it's probably some shit about being able to start/stop it remotely, or get notifications when the wash cycle finishes or something like that
  I don't hate the idea of notifs when it finishes, but I'd probably get pissy at it. These "smart home" things usually get really shitty if you isolate them to your local network. Probably for advertising/data collection reasons, most won't just send the notification to the app or anything like that, it'll send it to some obscure server on the other side of the world, then they'll ping each other about 30 times, before that server eventually sends you the notification
  As to why it's using that much data, it's probably for peer-to-peer software updates. I think windows does the same thing. Some companies prioritise updates via P2P so they don't need to pay as many egress fees/maintain as much infrastructure, although they'll sell it as "making the update experience faster and more totally AWESOME for everyone involved!"
  
  Just set a timer on your phone and you get a notification when the cycle is done. No need to install yet another tracking/advertising app on your phone that will almost certainly want to send you push notifications to buy their sponsored laundry detergent.

LG Botnet Machine

Why is his washing machine connected to his router?
He did it, lmao.
Why am I wet?
~ man in pool

Last time this was mentioned I think the likely answer was that it was locked in a failed update loop. It would download a corrupted file, fail the update, then start the download again. All day, every day.
- It's a washing machine... Who the hell thought it needed an operating system!
  We've been using washing machines for decades, successfully, that just used mechanical timers. Every so often you'd have to change out the timer or some belt sure to wear. It was cheap and easy to do.
- It wasn't. It was a display error on the router. It is mentioned in a comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38984609
  
  If that was a direct link, it didn't work on mobile for me. But I found it:
  In a follow-up post a day after his initial Tweet, Johnie noted “inaccuracy in the ASUS router tool.” Other LG smart washing machine users showed device data use from their apps. It turns out that these appliances more typically use less than 1MB per day.

And last time this was posted I said my LG oven and Washer both have used less than 20megs in the last month. So the guys shit is broken.
- That's still a fuck ton of data just to give out it's current status.
  
  That's less than a megabyte a day. But still. How much does a washing machine have to say?

Who's the Manson lookalike in the pic background?
- Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber".
  
  Thanks! Still don't know why, but now I know who...

Probably bitcoin mining?

Interesting, it's all upload too. I've seen a "smart" device that just blasted out NTP packets to an unresponsive server in an infinite loop. I wonder if something like that is happening there too. That's too much data for NTP though

Maybe just don't connect it to the internet if that's the only washing machine you have access to?

Most of these cheap routers don't measure traffic properly
- How does it fuck up on bytes in and out
  
  Ip might have changed as an example..or it is recording local traffic too, etc.
  Guy might not even be looking at the right ip address or the unit might have been getting a firmware update

66 comments