Birdnow's Aviary

March 28, 2026

The Fishbowl

Timothy Birdnow

I wrote about this long ago here at The Aviary; robot vacuum cleaners are designed to spy on you and it's not just the manufacturer who can access that data - or do other things with the crazy robot maids, but the U.S. government.

'Maybe It Wasn't a Bug…' Internet Weighs In on Man Who Discovered He Could Access 7,000 Robotic Vacuums

Bug? No, it's a design feature.

FTA:

It all started when Azdoufal had the bright idea to connect his DJI Romo robot vacuum to a PlayStation 5 game controller.

"But when his homegrown remote control app started talking to DJI’s servers, it wasn’t just one vacuum cleaner that replied,” Hollister reported. "Roughly 7,000 of them, all around the world, began treating Azdoufal like their boss.”

Azdoufal found he could control other vacuums, monitor their audio and video, and watch them map out houses.

This, of course, would be very useful to law enforcement, as well as for espionage. In the wrong hands it's better than a wiretap.

And you are bringing a pair of eyeballs when you bring one of these gadgets into your home. Those eyeballs MAY be friendly or maybe not.

We were lucky this Spanish engineer was a good guy who didn't want to exploit this. Imagine how easy it would be to steal someone's identity with such a gadget; just look at some mail set down on a coffee table or whatnot.

Of course the machine is making a map of your house and if the authorities want to come get you they will know exactly where you are. That may not seem that big a deal to most people but trust me it is if the authorities are the wrong people.

Increasingly Americans are careless with their privacy and their security. Did you know that every modern television has a camera on it that can broadcast to the government and you don't even know it's there? It's true and turning your t.v. off won't stop access. This is literally George Orwell's nightmare scenario. Oh, and the authorities can turn your television on or off if they see fit whether you want them to or not.

The other day my t.v. kept turning itself back on after I shut it off. It made me wonder if the authorities weren't conducting a test of the system.

I eventually had to just mute the stupid thing. In about half an hour it went off.

And cell phones all have GPS trackers so the authorities can know your whereabouts at any time they like - even if the phone is turned off. You have to pull the battery to shut that feature down.

Ditto laptops and most modern laptops have batteries that cannot be removed.

And of course laptops and smart phones all have video cameras on them so the authorities can watch you if you have them out.

But that's just technology; people are busily putting every aspect of their lives online on social media platforms. I once read a quote by a CIA operative who said that for years they had schemed to find ways to get information on people and they never thought of the obvious; just ask them for it. People are eager to hand it over to total strangers these days.

So robot cleaning machines that spy on you should come as no surprise as we increasingly live in a fishbowl society. And whoever has the techspertise to access the spyware will wind up being king, or at least filthy rich off of what he can steal from the fool who let his information be stolen from him through the promises made for advanced technology.

I have become increasingly luddite in my old age, but I may well have the last laugh.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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