Manufacturer Remotely Bricks Smart Vacuum After Its Owner Blocked It From Collecting Data (tomshardware.com) 123
"An engineer got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device," writes Tom's Hardware.
"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... He sent it to the service center multiple times, wherein the technicians would turn it on and see nothing wrong with the vacuum. When they returned it to him, it would work for a few days and then fail to boot again... [H]e decided to disassemble the thing to determine what killed it and to see if he could get it working again...
[He discovered] a GD32F103 microcontroller to manage its plethora of sensors, including Lidar, gyroscopes, and encoders. He created PCB connectors and wrote Python scripts to control them with a computer, presumably to test each piece individually and identify what went wrong. From there, he built a Raspberry Pi joystick to manually drive the vacuum, proving that there was nothing wrong with the hardware. From this, he looked at its software and operating system, and that's where he discovered the dark truth: his smart vacuum was a security nightmare and a black hole for his personal data.
First of all, it's Android Debug Bridge, which gives him full root access to the vacuum, wasn't protected by any kind of password or encryption. The manufacturer added a makeshift security protocol by omitting a crucial file, which caused it to disconnect soon after booting, but Harishankar easily bypassed it. He then discovered that it used Google Cartographer to build a live 3D map of his home. This isn't unusual, by far. After all, it's a smart vacuum, and it needs that data to navigate around his home. However, the concerning thing is that it was sending off all this data to the manufacturer's server. It makes sense for the device to send this data to the manufacturer, as its onboard SoC is nowhere near powerful enough to process all that data. However, it seems that iLife did not clear this with its customers.
Furthermore, the engineer made one disturbing discovery — deep in the logs of his non-functioning smart vacuum, he found a command with a timestamp that matched exactly the time the gadget stopped working. This was clearly a kill command, and after he reversed it and rebooted the appliance, it roared back to life.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader registrations_suck for sharing the article.
"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... He sent it to the service center multiple times, wherein the technicians would turn it on and see nothing wrong with the vacuum. When they returned it to him, it would work for a few days and then fail to boot again... [H]e decided to disassemble the thing to determine what killed it and to see if he could get it working again...
[He discovered] a GD32F103 microcontroller to manage its plethora of sensors, including Lidar, gyroscopes, and encoders. He created PCB connectors and wrote Python scripts to control them with a computer, presumably to test each piece individually and identify what went wrong. From there, he built a Raspberry Pi joystick to manually drive the vacuum, proving that there was nothing wrong with the hardware. From this, he looked at its software and operating system, and that's where he discovered the dark truth: his smart vacuum was a security nightmare and a black hole for his personal data.
First of all, it's Android Debug Bridge, which gives him full root access to the vacuum, wasn't protected by any kind of password or encryption. The manufacturer added a makeshift security protocol by omitting a crucial file, which caused it to disconnect soon after booting, but Harishankar easily bypassed it. He then discovered that it used Google Cartographer to build a live 3D map of his home. This isn't unusual, by far. After all, it's a smart vacuum, and it needs that data to navigate around his home. However, the concerning thing is that it was sending off all this data to the manufacturer's server. It makes sense for the device to send this data to the manufacturer, as its onboard SoC is nowhere near powerful enough to process all that data. However, it seems that iLife did not clear this with its customers.
Furthermore, the engineer made one disturbing discovery — deep in the logs of his non-functioning smart vacuum, he found a command with a timestamp that matched exactly the time the gadget stopped working. This was clearly a kill command, and after he reversed it and rebooted the appliance, it roared back to life.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader registrations_suck for sharing the article.
One thing to keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
It’s designed to feed the company’s data systems first, and clean your floors second.
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AI rewrite summary in style of a Conan novel (Score:2)
Reading the summary it seems that a GPT could rewrite it in the style of Robert Howard's Conan as the summary reads like a car chase movie script.
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... He sent it to the service center multiple times, wherein the technicians would turn it on and see nothing wrong with the vacuum. When they re
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But that is how it works. Just because you pay it doesn't mean that you're not the product. The more money the better, that's capitalism.
Tempest, meet teapot (Score:2)
After Alexa, anyone surprised by this?
I am waiting to see what happens when Optimus comes out. First, what they say it will do and then what it will actually do.
Re:Tempest, meet teapot (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised one would bury this much time debugging a piece of crap instead of cleaning house with a simple vacuum cleaner once every few days.
I have zero network-enabled, complex firmware-sporting vacuum cleaners and I've never seen them fail.
Even the old Eastern bloc piece of junk that my grandmother left when she passed away - I still use that one to scare the neighbour's cat when that pest climbs onto my balcony.
I've also very likely used a lot less time for cleaning than this guy for debugging, and with better results.
Re: Tempest, meet teapot (Score:4, Informative)
He didnâ(TM)t waste time to fix the vacuum. He spent his time accomplishing a security related task. His goal seems to have been to figure out what the vacuum was sending home and how to keep it from doing so. When he stored it he then had to figure out how to make it work again while not adversely affecting his privacy and security. Now heâ(TM)s sharing his knowledge with all of us so that we donâ(TM)t have the same problem. We can even take these facts and apply them to the other devices we get tempted to attach to our home networks.
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Could this be related and he's one of the contributors?
https://github.com/codetiger/V... [github.com]
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Re: Tempest, meet teapot (Score:2)
Lol, yeah. That outta stop them.
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Even the old Eastern bloc piece of junk that my grandmother left when she passed away - I still use that one to scare the neighbour's cat when that pest climbs onto my balcony.
why not just say hi to the cat and let it hang out on your balcony if it feels like it? maybe there's a spot with a good view, or nice sun.
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Because roaming cats are a pest. That particular one comes to my balcony only because birds come to drink water I leave for them during the hot summer days.
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The birds are presumably native. The cat is an invasive species that's also probably a well fed pet killing for the sheer pleasure of it. Cats are massively damaging to the environment. Letting them out of your house should be illegal.
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Precisely.
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And the starlings in particular alone have caused a LOT more ecological damage to native birds (and agriculture) than housecats ever have.
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The birds are presumably native. The cat is an invasive species that's also probably a well fed pet killing for the sheer pleasure of it. Cats are massively damaging to the environment. Letting them out of your house should be illegal.
You could say pretty much the same about humans, except for the "well fed pet" part.
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I guess you're a dog person.
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Invasive species where?
Cats haven't been nearly everywhere for centuries to millennia and the lowest estimates for homeless felines in North America alone is 60 million
Re: Tempest, meet teapot (Score:2)
probably not [slashdot.org]
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I guess you've never seen a real bird from up close, smartypants. I picked and revived about 20 that just fell off trees this summer because of the heat waves. Fly over, teach them how to find water in a parched city that has had even its fountains turned off to conserve water because of the heat waves, get that shit off my hands. I'll buy you a beer.
Meanwhile, here's a guide from a third party for you why what I do is necessary. Perhaps you can realize bootstrapping doesn't work when your environment is li
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Summary of the entire silly discussion:
a) If one favors cats over birds, cats are pets, birds are food.
b) If one favors birds over cats, birds are pets, cats are pests.
Options not included in the discussion, but welcome to make things even livelier:
d) If one favors both birds and cats, both are pets and cats walk with bright red collars and bells so the cats can roam freely and the birds can survive.
e) If one favor neither, all are hunting targets.
f) If one favors dogs, they need come and say something offt
Re:Tempest, meet teapot (Score:5, Funny)
I'm surprised one would bury this much time debugging a piece of crap instead of cleaning house with a simple vacuum cleaner once every few days.
I'm very surprised people waste their time posting on Slashdot rather than doing more productive hobbies such as learning how hardware works and hacking something for the joy of it, but here we are.
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Yeah, I'm sure you get a slight shock every time you look in the mirror.
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I'm surprised one would bury this much time debugging a piece of crap instead of cleaning house with a simple vacuum cleaner once every few days.
Do you really belong on Slashdot? He didn't hack the damned thing to get clean floors. He hacked it because he was curious about what it was doing (or not doing).
Have you fallen into 'old man who yells at the clouds' mode?
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Re: Tempest, meet teapot (Score:2)
I've also very likely used a lot less time for cleaning than this guy for debugging, and with better results.
Sometimes it's about the journey. And sometimes it's about a destination that is not the one you see. Have you considered that this person enjoyed the whole process, and enjoys sharing their findings?
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"I am waiting to see what happens when Optimus comes out. First, what they say it will do and then what it will actually do"
Not hard to figure out.
Elon said he wants a bigger share of the company because he's afraid that someone will oust him & take control of the "robot army" he intends to build.
"Robot army" is all you need to know
just reverse the kill command (Score:5, Funny)
"This was clearly a kill command, and after he reversed it and rebooted the appliance, it roared back to life."
oh yeah, just reverse the kill command!
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oh yeah, just reverse the kill command!
Easily done, that’s how they multiply.
Re:just reverse the kill command (Score:5, Funny)
Wonder if there are easter eggs in the code
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And THEN what happened? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is like a cop show video that stops in the middle.
Amazon did the same thing because of bad reviews (Score:5, Interesting)
I've bought some lemons on Amazon and I'm not shy about posting reviews saying things like "It didn't work out of the box. Sent it back." or the lastest "Bought it 4 years ago (laptop fan) and it just stopped working. Don't buy this." Unfortunately, Amazon flagged my account to not allow reviews any longer, so this place is the only place that will see this review.
Bought a Dyson vacuum some 15 years ago. It's "power head" sweeper stopped working. There were no replacement parts for something this old available from Dyson or after-market. I'll never buy another Dyson product again. I expect a vacuum manufacturer to support their products for at least 20 years. Meile does. So does Electrolux.
Re:Amazon did the same thing because of bad review (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny you should mention Amazon reviews. I just posted a review where I point out that the set I was given and indeed nearly all the Star trek TNG box sets for sale on Amazon are counterfeit and buyers should beware. Amazon flagged it as not conforming to community guidelines. Anytime that might hamper business is apparently against their rules.
Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:2, Insightful)
15 years is a long time for a manufacturer to stock replacement parts. I understand auto manufacturers are supposed to stock repair parts for cars they sell for 10 years after they stop selling them.
I think dropping support after 15 years (or even 10 years) is fine. That other brands can offer support for longer periods is nice, but it likely speaks to their extensive re-use of standard parts in subsequent generations of their products.
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Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revi (Score:2)
Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:5, Informative)
Legal minimum is 12 years in EU and I would be very shocked is my vacuum cleaner would be supported for only 12. (I bought it nearly 10 years ago). First comment from my mom when I told her I chose an Electrolux: "It will work for a very long time".
There is a large amount of e-waste created by perfectly working appliances that are discarded just because some small accessory isn't available anymore. A typical yet shocking example are refrigerator doors and glass shelves.
To reduce this problem the duration of mandatory support was recently increased to 5-10 years in the EU (depending which appliance), counting after the 2 years legal warranty, making 7-12 years in practice. https://commission.europa.eu/l... [europa.eu]
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[Looks at my mom's Electrolux dumb vaccuum from the 1970s, still working]
not really electrolux (Score:2)
That Electrolux isn't really an Electrolux.
a couple of decades ago, in one of those weird corporate maneuvers, it sold the name, and now sells its vacuums under another name, while the buyer sells non-electrolux as Electrolux.
So what she knows of Electrolux from the late 20th and early 21st centuries no longer applies.
But, yes, they were very good and lasted forever. Also extremely pricey.
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15 years is a long time for a manufacturer to stock replacement parts. I understand auto manufacturers are supposed to stock repair parts for cars they sell for 10 years after they stop selling them.
I think dropping support after 15 years (or even 10 years) is fine. That other brands can offer support for longer periods is nice, but it likely speaks to their extensive re-use of standard parts in subsequent generations of their products.
And yet I can buy repair parts for a Kirby Classic III...
https://www.kirby.com/shop/knu... [kirby.com]
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So why didn't you buy a Meile or Electrolux?
Our experience in the vacuum cleaners are disposable. If you get 2 years out of it, you're lucky.
Of course we only buy ones that are $300 or less.
Seems like wife is constantly buying a new vacuum cleaner.
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I have Miele cleaners. They don't last 12 years. You were lucky.
Re:Amazon did the same thing because of bad review (Score:4, Funny)
My experience has been different. When I did my research, I found those made in Germany had great reviews, those made in Asia - not so much.
Miele vacuum cleaners last so long that my mother-in-law is still flying hers about after she replaced her broomstick.
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Like I said, I don't ask any questions. Jo don't want to get stuck with having to do it.
Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve never had a vacuum that lasts for such a short period of time. My current one (a Dyson) has been going 14 years and no reason to believe it will die anyone soon. I got rid of the 12 year old Hoover I had before only because I moved country and it wouldnâ(TM)t work with 220V. What is your wife doing to break so many vacuums, or are they just cheap crap that fails frequently? Youâ(TM)ve spent way more on vacuums than I have.
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I dunno what she is doing either.
But I know this much. Her ability to break shit seems unlimited. The list of shit, especially my shit, that she has broken is truly impressive.
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Back when I did small company tech support in the '90s, had a customer (design/print shop) who knew their shit; not technologically illiterate by any means and stuff would just break around them. And it totally pissed them off when I would show up, touch a few boxes, restart a system they'd just restarted and- everything would work correctly. Printers that had been powering up into error states would just start up fine.
Years later, ran across the lady and she was now running a dog sanctuary. She let her hus
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LOL. Thanks for the witty reply; I wish /. would let me just react like every other modern app or site.
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The quality of products has been going down due to companies and these overpaid CEOs looking to reduce quality to save the company money. Things from 14 years ago did have good quality, a new vacuum won't last as long.
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So why didn't you buy a Meile or Electrolux?
Our experience in the vacuum cleaners are disposable. If you get 2 years out of it, you're lucky.
Of course we only buy ones that are $300 or less.
Seems like wife is constantly buying a new vacuum cleaner.
"Vaccum cleaner"?
Is that what she calls it?
Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:2)
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So why didn't you buy a Meile or Electrolux?
Because hindsight is the kind of things that idiots don't know exists?
Our experience in the vacuum cleaners are disposable. If you get 2 years out of it, you're lucky.
You have bad experience. Try not buying shit. Even my cordless vacuum is going 6 years now on its second battery.
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I am very much pro consumer but I think you erxpectations are just unrealistic.
A laptoo fan breaking after four years... I mean considering how laptopa get manhandled and how much dust and debris they encounter...
Now if you can't replace the thing because the manufacturer made sure you couldn't, that would be grounds to be annoyed.
Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:2)
That's funny, because right now, I can any number of aftermarket add ons to my older cordless Dyson, I mean I can the latest add ons for new models that make mine better.....
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Re: Amazon did the same thing because of bad revie (Score:2)
I don't believe there are no after market parts for Dyson hoovers. I'll bet you can find some in China...
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You have to choose between the best cleaning and longer term support. It sucks.
Fortunately there are third parties that support older Dyson hardware. My V6 has a replacement battery from AliExpress, and it's been great for years.
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While this is certainly slimy (Score:2)
Anybody who is surprised by this is an idiot.
Re: While this is certainly slimy (Score:2)
Certainly? It's easy to assume it is, but perhaps there are actual reasons that it might be appropriate to remap the room every so often.
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What would those reasons be? I can't think of any, and I'm pretty imaginative.
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The data collection shouldn't surprise anyone, but having the company do a remote kill of the device because the user blocks data transfer that isn't in the terms of use seems like it should break a number of laws.
The 1st clue should have been: why is this online? (Score:2, Insightful)
The man bought a vacuum cleaner that required an internet connection, and that didn't make him suspicious?
Not so clever I reckon...
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It's Amazon page doesn't advertise that it requires an internet connection to function. It says you can control it from your phone. It doesn't say that's required nor that it'll stop working when your wide area network is down. Many phone controllable devices work fine when limited to your local network.
Oddly they promote their use of the SLAM algorithm, something almost every customer has no clue what that is. They need better marketers.
"Smart" (Score:2)
Not so smart after all.
All you vacuum data belong MSS :o (Score:2)
The cloud is a trap (Score:2)
Run away!
Never buy any device that requires cloud access
Re: The cloud is a trap (Score:2)
People Need to Reevaluate their Purchases (Score:2)
That's one (big) reason I haven't gotten ... (Score:3)
... a Vacubot yet, even though they're getting cheaper and better to the point of actually being useful.
No effing way am I going to let some Internet of Trash device load excessive amounts of very personal and private data to some anonymous computer in the cloud. Obviously.
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Obviously, there is a difference between collecting data and doing a remote kill of the device if you block the data from going out.
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... a Vacubot yet, even though they're getting cheaper and better to the point of actually being useful.
No effing way am I going to let some Internet of Trash device load excessive amounts of very personal and private data to some anonymous computer in the cloud. Obviously.
The older vacubots didn't do any of this. I have a Roomba from 2012. It's still going strong and doesn't have *any* telemetry. No idea if you can still buy something similar, I don't know what I'll do when this one finally dies because I don't want any of the new spy vacuums in my house either.
full root access to the vacuum (Score:2)
That's why I buy "dumb" devices..no internet (Score:2)
Smart devices are about monetizing you (Score:3)
All these smart widgets, like smart phones, are designed to monetize you for advertising purposes. Thats it. Your âoesmart fridgeâ is collecting data about your grocery shopping, your smart tv is collecting information about your viewing habits. Your computer and isp are tracking your web habits, as is your favorite vpn provider. Your smart phone is collecting information about where you are going and what you are doing (even at the carrier level). Your car will soon be tracking your movements and driving habits so the data can be sold to car insurers. Itâ(TM)s all about data, ads, and finding new and better ways to drive consumption.
This entire story.. (Score:2)
This entire story both sucks and blows.
Re:How stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read the article?
It was creating and RETAINING maps of his house.
Seems like rather private data to me.
But the real crime was bricking his $300 device simply because it couldn't collect data that wasn't necessary to it functioning.
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Given that it needs said maps to do its job, and that every other robot vac does the same thing for the same reason, it's not that big a deal.
And in terms of "bricking his device", everyone automatically assumes it was malicious rather than "something has gone seriously wrong and I can't recover, I'll shut down rather than risk endangering people/property", a concept that manufacturers of self-driving cars would do well to adopt.
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Given that it needs said maps to do its job, and that every other robot vac does the same thing for the same reason, it's not that big a deal.
I have had a robot vacuum cleaner for over a decade. It doesn't do any mapping, never has, and doesn't need to in order to do its job of driving around the floors sucking up dirt. No wifi, no camera, no lidar. Just a couple of IR sensors for proximity and cliff, and a bump sensor as a backup for the IR.
Re: How stupid... (Score:2)
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Unless of course you've changed them... which we are all free to do in our homes anytime we like.
Re: How stupid... (Score:1)
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Amazon doesn't even honor their contracts. I wouldn't trust them with any personal information.
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Amazon? I very much doubt this data goes to Amazon; China is more likely. As a security professional I'd rather my vacuum didn't send data to the chinese state which informs them of where I installed the safe room in my house, or that I installed a safe room and who knows what other data and features it picks up when 3d scanning the room.
You've got the 'if you've got nothing to hide' attitude but in real life people are not only corrupt but fuckups, tests and processes accepted by authorities and courts don
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Funny the way all sorts of people are suddenly starting to deny this, when we already know that China has been gathering lists of US security people of all kinds. They have even been risking zero days to hack into various government and private databases where they can get information on such people. China has long had a policy of targeting important people in the US. Obviously, one giveaway for the kind of people that they are interested in would be either having a saferoom or having a server room. It's su
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Unless of course you've changed them... which we are all free to do in our homes anytime we like.
Or you have a TV, a safe, a bed or any other movable objects that 99% of humans own which you put on the floor and so is automatically mapped and recorded by the vacuum. These people that are denying that this matters can work that out too. Very often they work for companies that are using this data.
The real question is, why would someone deny that this is important? The answer to that is to ensure we move almost everything over to stuff that we actually own and control, including having FOSS software on al
Re:How stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it has a camera, it makes 3D maps of the house. LIDAR might not technically be the type of camera you're talking about, but it's still used to create images of things. Just because those images aren't in color doesn't mean you can't call it a camera. For LIDAR, and thus this vacuum, if it looks at you with it's lens it can trivially gather enough info to fake a 3D model of your face for facial id security systems. Chances are low that the company or hacker will do that to break into one of your accounts.
However, chances are much higher that their model of your face, body, and walking gait gets sold to data brokers who then match that up with random other tracking systems. These are used to see how well targeting advertising is working, build profiles of what types of stores you visit and when, etc... Most of that is used to harass you and sell ads, but nowadays more and more of that data is being used for phishing explorations to try to find people breaking laws or morally objectionable things (aka blackmail material). There's a recent news story about a cop going through tracking data claiming he was looking for a 'missing person' when in reality he was stalking a women to see if she had gone to get an abortion. The 'missing person' was the fetus and he was performing a 'wellness check' on it. Another recent news story is some lady's car was tracked entering a neighborhood a bunch of times (as she was driving through), and because her hair color matched the same color of a doorbell camera of a mail thief, the cops came to her door and tried to threaten a confession out of her. Using a vacuum like this means your gait and 3D model is now in the data pool cops use to lazily compare against possible criminals.
Bonus if the vacuum sees the outline of a couple dildos and you're in one of the states were it's illegal to own a few of them. The company would get rewarded for calling the cops on you. We're running straight towards that future. You're secure in your house from the federal government, not from the state government. It's already happening with phone apps (period trackers reporting when someone loses their period for a few weeks then gets it back. That's a possible sign of an abortion. Though also of miscarriage, stress, sickness, etc... The apps make it the police's problem to figure out which.), it'll start happening with smart hardware devices soon. The tech and data pipe lines are already there, it just didn't make finical sense until recently (the newer laws which reward the person who reports the issue).
Probably with the bees (Score:2)
Yes it has a camera, it makes 3D maps of the house.[...] However, chances are much higher that their model of your face, body, and walking gait gets sold to data brokers >
See gait. Open gait, close gait.
Run run run!
--- JOSHUA LLM
Re:How stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the problem was the vacuum worked just fine with those IP addresses blocked. It had the maps to his house locally stored and vacuumed just fine.
Except when the company found out it wasn't getting that data from the vacuum, it sent the command to disable the vacuum.
In other words, it's a device that would work fine offline, but the manufacturer put some extra telemetry code in that uploads who knows what to their servers. And when they stopped getting that data, the manufacturer disables the device.
It's not a case where the device needs the cloud to work - it doesn't. If the manufacturer goes belly up tomorrow the vacuum would work just fine with what it has now until something that needs cloud functionality was required.
This is even worse that IoT devices - this is intentionally disabling a device that would work just fine offline simply because you didn't get the marketing data you wanted. In other words, it had a mandatory online component even when it wasn't necessary. Like video game single player modes that require you to be online to play.
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Like video game single player modes that require you to be online to play.
That at least has something of an anti-piracy argument. But how do you download a vacuum cleaner?
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But how do you download a vacuum cleaner?
https://www.thingiverse.com/se... [thingiverse.com]
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Or alternatively you could have read the article and discovered that actually, the company was sending bricking commands that he found by looking at the logs.
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If there is nothing in the terms and conditions for the use of the product about "sharing the data about your home", then it should be seen as illegal for the company to intentionally disable the product because you are not sharing that data. There is the further, "if the device malfunctioned due to not sharing the data but it still worked", that eliminates the "the device doesn't have enough processing power for the job".
Basically, this is a company that is doing something shady. To send a shutdown com
Re:How nefarious! (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. The device didn't notice a lack of telemetry and decide internally to stop. The shutdown was a remote command SENT to the device.
Re: How nefarious! (Score:2)
Is that substantially different? Why might it appropriate that it be stopped if it cannot reach the server? Perhaps they think it might be safer that the hoover remap the flat every so often, in case you've moved things around, or are using it in a different place...or other reasons.
Re: How nefarious! (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that substantially different? Why might it appropriate that it be stopped if it cannot reach the server?
Designed to fail is substantially different from remotely bricked. The former makes it run of the mill IoT garbage, the latter would be considered borderline illegal in some countries.