[jeremy151]

My work health insurance recently offered a free scale and blood pressure monitor, I thought that's a nice perk, I'll use that, so I ordered with the intent of never using their app, just using it for my own tracking. The first time I used it, I got an email from my insurance company congratulating me and giving me suggestions. Both devices have a cellular modem in them, and arrived paired to my identity.

I destroyed them and threw them in a dumpster like that Ron Swanson gif.

All to say, little cellular modems and a small data plan are likely getting cheap enough it's worth being extra diligent about the devices we let into our homes. Probably not yet to the point of that being the case on a tv, but I could certainly see it getting to that point soon enough.

[kotaKat]

Similarly, I had a workplace dental provider ship me a ‘smart toothbrush’.

Turns out they track the aggregate of everyone’s brushing and if every employee brushes their teeth, the plan gets a discount.

”Lower rate based on group's participation in Beam Perks™ wellness program and a group aggregate Beam score of "A". Based on Beam® internal brushing and utilization data.”

[matheusmoreira]

Technology is starting to become genuinely terrifying. Computers used to sit on desks in full visibility, and we used to be in control. Now they're anywhere and everywhere, invisible, always connected, always sensing, doing god knows what, serving unknown masters, exploiting us in unfathomable ways. Absolutely horrifying.

[anonym29]

I'd have tried to disassemble it, locate the SIM card or cellular modem, and see if it could be used for other traffic. A wireguard tunnel fixes the privacy problem, and I can always use more IP addresses and bandwidth.

Until people start abusing these "features", they will not go away.

[tzs]

Be very very careful if you do that.

The data plans on some embedded modems are quite different from consumer plans. They are specifically designed for customers who have a large number of devices but only need a small amount of bandwidth on each device.

These plans might have a very low fixed monthly cost but only include a small data allowance, say 100 KB/month. That's plenty for something like a blood pressure monitor that uploads your results to your doctor or insurance company.

If you are lucky that's a hard cap and the data plan cuts off for the rest of the month when you hit it.

If you are unlucky that plan includes additional data that is very expensive. I've heard numbers like $10 for each additional 100 KB.

I definitely recall reading news articles about people who have repurposed a SIM from some device and using it for their internet access, figuring that company would not notice, and using it to watch movies and download large files.

Then the company gets their bill from their wireless service provider, and it turns out that on the long list of line items showing the cost for each modem, a single say $35 000 item really stands out when all the others are $1.

If you are lucky the company merely asks you to pay that, and if you refuse they take you to civil court where you will lose. (That's what happened in the articles I remember reading, which is how they came to the public's attention).

If you unlucky what you did also falls under your jurisdiction's "theft of services" criminal law. Worse, the amount is likely above the maximum for misdemeanor theft of services so it would be felony theft of services.

[sidewndr46]

Why not just remove the cell modem?

[_dain_]

We shouldn't have to.

[aquir]

Holy shit! I would’ve done the same! This is pure evil! I guess the box never had this info on it