The CIA wants to spy on you through your TV

Adrian Wong · Mar 17, 2012

When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are.

Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home - the rise of 'connected' gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people 'bug' their own homes, says CIA director David Petraeus.

The CIA claims it will be able to 'read' these devices via the internet - and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home.

Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps - and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.

The resultant chorus of 'connected' gadgets will be able to be read like a book - and even remote-controlled, according to CIA CIA Director David Petraeus, according to a recent report by Wired's 'Danger Room' blog.

Petraeus says that web-connected gadgets will 'transform' the art of spying - allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party.

'Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,' said Petraeus.
'Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing.'

Petraeus was speaking to a venture capital firm about new technologies which aim to add processors and web connections to previously 'dumb' home appliances such as fridges, ovens and lighting systems.
This week, one of the world's biggest chip companies, ARM, has unveiled a new processor built to work inside 'connected' white goods.

The ARM chips are smaller, lower-powered and far cheaper than previous processors - and designed to add the internet to almost every kind of electrical appliance.

It's a concept described as the 'internet of things'.

Futurists think that one day 'connected' devices will tell the internet where they are and what they are doing at all times - and will be mapped by computers as precisely as Google Maps charts the physical landscape now.

Privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned of how information such as geolocation data can be misused - but as more and more devices connect, it's clear that opportunities for surveillance will multiply. - DailyMail
Click to expand...

Scared enough to turn off that porn???

The_YongGrand · Mar 19, 2012

This is pretty scary. We should need to encrypt all the stuff a few times inside these microcontroller/processors!

Chai · Mar 19, 2012

So now CIA wants to know how often you watch pr0n...

Adrian Wong · Mar 19, 2012

Chai said: ↑

So now CIA wants to know how often you watch pr0n...
Click to expand...

Just in case they need to know what to bribe you with. LOL!

FYI, I posted this because conspiracy nuts are going crazy over this issue. They also think that governments are pushing for digital TV transmissions because it allows them to snoop on their TVs.

I'm not sure why they would be so worried. If they don't want their government to snoop on them, then don't connect their TVs to the Internet or Internet-enabled devices like Hulu or Netflix or even the WDTV Live.

jamotto · Mar 20, 2012

They have already tried Internet enabled appliances, they failed miserably.

Adrian Wong · Mar 21, 2012

Well, snooping your TV isn't as useful as snooping your computer. If I were the NSA or CIA, I would concentrate on hacking into computers than TVs and toasters. I wonder if the CIA is intentionally mentioning this to make people worry about their TVs and forget about their computers.

BTW, I think someone mentioned that the government may insert subliminal messages via digital TV... IMHO, if they wanted to do it, they can already do it via analog TV.

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