Technology & Privacy: You know nothing

By Nigel Carson and Nelvin Tam
 

While you are home alone watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones, you’d expect to be safe from the bumps and the frights of a Winterfell night.
 

A home is a haven, a 'castle' with common law rights of peace, comfort and privacy for its rightful occupants. Our modern-day castles do not need moats or battlements as we are not at war with the barbarian hordes (or any white walkers!). Simple gates, doors and walls generally suffice.
 

While we may be alone, our homes are filled with all manner of electronic gadgets to keep us company. Clap your hands and the lights come on, ask Siri for some music and like a modern day Djinni, sweet music is delivered. Common appliances and entertainment devices have been imparted with the technology to see, hear and speak to you. Many devices, in many homes, in many places that can see and hear many things happening everywhere. Remind you of something like the three-eye raven perhaps?
 

The night is indeed dark and full of terrors. On 20 Dec 2018, the Washington Post  reported the possession-like hacking of baby monitor in a Harris County home. The parents awoke to strange sounds from the baby's room. On investigation, a voice from the camera swore abuse at the parents, claiming to be a person in the baby’s room and threatening to kidnap the baby. The baby monitor was a form of Wi-Fi camera that without proper configuration could be located and hacked through the internet.
 

In 2017, the German regulator labelled the readily available and popular “My Friend Cayla” children’s doll as "an illegal espionage apparatus" and recommended that parents destroy it . Hackers have allegedly been able to access an unsecured Bluetooth device embedded inside the doll enabling them to listen to and talk to a child playing with it. Can you imagine if Littlefinger got hold of one of these?
 

If this does not cause three blasts of the Night’s Watch horn, then consider this. Millions of smart TVs in family living rooms and bedrooms have microphones and cameras and can spy you. In 2013, hackers at a Blackhat conference demonstrated they could remotely take control of a Smart TV to use the front facing video and built-in microphone . WikiLeaks  also exposed the CIA for using a tool called "Weeping Angel" to infect Smart TVs, turning them into covert surveillance devices.
 

Any device that connects to the internet, that can listen or see is a potential spying device, allowing complete strangers, often in distant countries, to invade your home.
 

Even if a device has no microphone or video camera, what else might hackers be able to do? In July 2017, a casino fish tank with internet accessible sensors to control the temperature, cleanliness and food distribution was hacked via a vulnerability in the thermometer . Hackers then used the fish tank as a launch pad for further attacks, gaining a foothold on other computers in the wider Casino Wi-Fi network enabling the exfiltration of huge amounts of data (including high roller profiles) to a device in Finland.
 

Be careful what you bring inside your home. Here’s some tips to reduce the risk of privacy breaches in your home: