"Internet of Things" Teddy Bear Leaked 2 Million Parent and Kids Message Recordings
By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
A company that sells internet-connected teddy bears that allow kids and their far-away parents to exchange heartfelt messages left more than 800,000 customer credentials, as well as two million message recordings, totally exposed online for anyone to see and listen.
Since Christmas day of last year and at least until the first week of January, Spiral Toys left customer data of its [redacted] brand on a database that wasn't behind a firewall or password-protected. The MongoDB was easy to find using [redacted], a search engine [which] makes it easy to find unprotected websites and servers, according to several security researchers who found and inspected the data.
I don't like the way devices such as a talking teddy bear are being hyped as belonging to the 'Internet Of Things', which is too broad a term to be useful.
My vote is to define such devices as belonging to the 'Internet Of Guilt'. They allow a middle class which has given up the job of raising its children to feel like we can substitute an artificial and cold symbol of love and caring for the real thing.
Bill Horne Moderator