Robot vacuums yell obscenities at owners after hackers take control

Hacked robot vacuum machines began spouting obscenities and slurs this week after an exploit allowed hackers to take remote control of them.

Through the Ecovacs app, he saw that a stranger was accessing its live camera feed and remote control feature. Dismissing it as some kind of glitch, Mr Swenson reset his password, rebooted the robot and sat back down on the couch beside his wife and 13-year-old son. Almost straight away, it started to move again.This time, there was no ambiguity about what was coming out of the speaker. A voice was yelling racist obscenities, loud and clear, right in front of Mr Swenson's son.

If you would like a shrieking racist vacuum cleaner, the Ecovacs Deebot X2 is available at Amazon and other online retailers. A security update is reportedly coming in November, so there's plenty of time.

Serious, now: not all hackers are buffoons, attracted here because of the apparently indifferent response from the manufacture despite the exploit receiving widespread publicity. Insecure devices are doors into secure networks.

Here's a relevant classic from the BBC, c. 1990 or thereabouts, clearly depicting our grim future of ambiguously sentient and misbehaving Internet of Shit devices: