this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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The smart vacuum cleaner was remotely bricked for not collecting data.

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[–] UndergroundGoblin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You could just setup a dedicated VLAN without Internet access to prevent this. Right?

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Maybe in some cases. My robot stores it's smart map on the cloud, which means of you cut off the internet it loses a lot of features.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

No, because that's what he did

[–] pipi1234@lemmy.world 57 points 2 days ago (2 children)

In case you have a robot vacuum and want to run it cloudless you can check Valetudo.

It's been running my vacuum the last 4 years and I couldn't find any downsides (There are several extra functions if you like to tinker around with home assistant and the likes)

If you have any doubts or need assistance with installing it, I would be happy to give you a hand :-)

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unfortunately this doesn't support Roomba.

I am running my Roomba fully offline via HomeAssistant now. I can't access the cleaning maps, but the rest works well (granted, all it could ever do is "start" and "return home" in the first place).

Funnily enough, the robot is continually panicking about the time now, it literally pings an NTP server every 10s (which is blocked by my router)

[–] pipi1234@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Fuck Roombas! I returned mine after 3 days due to several very painful knocks on my feet. Those fuckers are feet killers!

[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Absolutely love Valetudo! I just got some stickers to put on mine.

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 184 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Having someone use a remote kill command for an item you bought for reasons other than imminent threats to safety ought to be illegal. This shouldn’t be treated differently from a car salesman bricking your windshield after you drive off the lot.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In germany there's the "Computer sabotage" crime.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 2 days ago

The issue you’ll run into is that the data runs through their servers, and you ages to let them kill it off. Should that be legal? I honestly don’t know. But they shouldn’t force you to use their servers to begin with, which would make the entire issue moot.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 60 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Conversely, instead of blocking the data transfer, have it send false data. Maybe a few drop table inserts.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

Spam them so hard they'll blacklist your device

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 days ago

I do this when a job makes me install productivity tracking software. Surprisingly easy to gin up fake screenshots and JSON of your activities and inject it into the program. All it does is upload the records from a user folder every X minutes