An interesting article and tbh, I’d actually support the device (… and I’m usually very privacy focused).
According to the article the purpose of the microphone is to listen for certain keywords (ie: “help”, “call 911”, gunshots, etc) and to detect when people are vaping, etc.
I mean, I would never install one in my home, due to privacy and security concerns. But if you’re in a public place, like a school such features make sense.
If you’re being bullied or need help, having a facility member “hanging out” in the schools public bathroom would be weird, creepy, and more of an invasion of privacy than a mic in a smoke detector.
That said, students and facility should be aware of what this device is doing and why. However, this article does a very good job of summarizing that.
Yes, the devices security is rubbish, but was patched. It’s not the first IoT device to do that and it won’t be the last (unfortunately).
Thanks for sharing the article OP.
Maeve@kbin.earth 1 day ago
https://archive.is/vLAaF
“The unfortunate reality is there's a microphone connected to a computer that's connected to the network,” says Nyx. “And there's no software patching that will make that not possible to use as a listening device.”