So you have your WiFi password all secured, right? Now you
feel confident enough to set up your smart light bulbs to go on or off or even
dim at your command. If you’re really smart enough, you can set them to dim or
brighten to match what you’re watching on TV, like reruns of Star Trek or your DVDs of Babylon 5. And everything is secure,
right? Think again.
Your smart bulbs store your WiFi password. If you casually
throw away these bulbs, any enterprising info thief can dumpster dive and
derive your password from these innocent bulbs. And it pretty much goes
downhill from there. This was pointed out by boingboing, but if you want the
profanity-free summary, go to this forum.
This flaw may be a key plot point to one of my future
stories. Do you want to sneak into a secure facility? Get one of the discarded
lightbulbs (or something that seems just as innocuous), hack into the security
system, then make sure the system doesn’t sense you. Just make sure you use
your power for good.
