Hardware Podcasts

375: Hiding in Your Roomba

Embedded.fm · 3 Jun 2021 · 54m · Episode 375

What this episode covers

Brittany Postnikoff (Straithe), a researcher and community manager at Great Scott Gadgets, discusses her master's thesis on robot social engineering and her upcoming PhD research into privacy risks posed by mobile robots in public spaces. She explains how physical robots like Roombas and Knightscope security bots exploit human trust through anthropomorphism and authority to collect sensitive data, often without user consent. Postnikoff also details her role at Great Scott Gadgets, where she manages open-source contributions for hardware tools like the HackRF and the upcoming USB toolkit Luna, emphasizing how hardware sales fund open-source development.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Great Scott Gadgets, Knightscope, Boston Dynamics
Products
Luna, HackRF, Ubertooth, Roomba, Amazon Echo

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