Danger: Your coffee maker may be spying on you!

In August Adam Levin from ABC News reported, “For Americans concerned about their privacy, the NSA data grabs are daunting, but what about the data grabs happening inside your own home, perpetrated not by the government, but by your coffee machine?”

Levin notes, “Consider every appliance and every piece of home electronics that you own. Does it gather data about how you use it? Does it connect to the Internet? If so, it could be used to spy on you. Your mobile devices, your TV, and now various other types of home appliances can be wired into a network that can track you. If those networks are hacked, information about your habits and behaviors could be available to people with nefarious goals. The same technological innovation that empowers us also makes us vulnerable to those who would exploit such advances against us.”

Levin list nine categories of ordinary home appliances that are now capable of collecting data on you including: your television, your cable box, dishwasher, toaster, your lights, your heat/AC and coffee maker.

Steve Watson in March 2012 on InfoWars.com stated, “CIA director David Petraeus has said that the rise of new “smart” gadgets means that Americans are effectively bugging their own homes, saving US spy agencies a job when it identifies any “persons of interest”.

“Speaking at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s technology investment operation, Petraeus made the comments when discussing new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously ‘dumb’ home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems,” writes Watson.

“‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said.

Simon Sharwood in his column “DON’T BREW THAT CUPPA! Your kettle could be a SPAMBOT” reports, “Russian authorities have claimed that household appliances imported from China contain tiny computers that seek out open WiFi networks and then get to work sending spam and distributing malware. St Petersburg news outlet Rosbalt reported last week that local authorities had examined kettles and irons and found “20 to 30 pieces of Chinese home appliance ‘spy’ microchips” that “sends some data to the foreign server”.

Finally Watson states, “Petraeus’ comments come in the same week that one of the biggest microchip companies in the world, ARM, unveiled new processors that are designed to give practically every household appliance an internet connection, in order that they can be remote controlled and operate in tandem with applications.

When you get your next appliance better check your privacy at you door.

RELATED COLUMN: Your Car Could be ‘Spying’ on You! US Report Reveals Carmakers are Collecting Data about Drivers’ Travel Habits

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