Many homeowners hate PIRs. Those little bits of white plastic that sit in the corner of the room flashing away aimlessly. And requiring the drilling of holes to fix them in place or reliance on double sided tape.
But it looks like there are now ways to improve your home security without adding cameras and sensors to your walls. Linksys Aware is a new motion sensing subscription service which uses data from a mesh router to monitor a home through WiFi.
They don’t explain how it works. But I am instantly a bit concerned.
Modern technology – solving one security problem and creating another
I remember the first wireless mouse I got for my computer. I couldn’t get it to work properly. And then I saw someone else typing on my screen.
Turns out my neighbours were able to read what I was typing and vice versa. Our wireless mice were using the same frequency.
I watched Snowden earlier this year. I saw him tape over the camera on his laptop to stop the CIA/FBI from spying on him. I also saw the picture of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg with the tape over his laptop’s camera.
So I put something over the camera on my laptop. And I keep the lid closed when I am not using it.
I’ve read the reports that employees of the companies that run Alexa, Siri and Google Home can listen to conversations in your house.
And the same day that this article appeared, there was another in Forbes talking about the eavesdropping exploit in the Signal messenger app. A problem which affects Android phones. And it refers to a similar eavesdropping exploit for iPhone’s FaceTime.
We live in unusual times. I want to better understand the implications and other uses of the latest technology that can be employed to protect my home. And I want this info before I implement anything.
ANY DEVICE that can control EVERYTHING from ONE PLACE is a potential problem if it gets hacked. It may be incredibly convenient but, unless you have a super strong and unguessable password, you could be in trouble.
