Boing Boing Staging

Guy returns his "smart" light bulbs, discovers he can still control them after someone else buys them


You know what’s great about putting wifi-enabled, Turing-complete computers into things like lightbulbs? Not. A. Single. Fucking. Thing.


In the latest installment in the Internet of Shit edition of the unanticipated (but totally predictable) consequences, Americablog editor John Aravosis discovered that the Philips Hue lightbulbs he returned to Amazon were now on in someone else’s house — but still under his control.


He discovered this because the new owner, “Amanda Jean,” initialized the bulbs, and then his Hue app started to send him a stream of updates from Amanda Jean’s house, along with the address for her IoT hub and her email address.


He writes, “Because I’m a nice guy, I deleted my account, which I’m hoping didn’t just delete her account.”

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY, modified)

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