No, 3 million electric toothbrushes were not used in a DDoS attack::A widely reported story that 3 million electric toothbrushes were hacked with malware to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is likely a hypothetical scenario instead of an actual attack.

  • kn33@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    9 months ago

    Are you talking about electric toothbrushes in general? Because I’m pretty sure they’re regarded as more effective than manual toothbrushes

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        9 months ago

        OK. Maybe I’ve just been out of the loop, but what on earth would you need BT in a toothbrush for? So you can pair it with an app and track your brushing while someone else also tracks and uses this data for profit?

        • flathead@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          9 months ago

          The primary use case is for making sure kids and elderly loved ones are brushing their teeth and keeping the brush charged. Also supposedly senses if all teeth are being properly cleaned, although based on reviews that sounds like a stretch. But yeah, the aggregated data is probably marketable somehow - I didn’t check their privacy policies.

          Electric toothbrushes are a thing. It’s understandable that the vendors would like a rationale to track usage. Not beyond the bounds of possibility that in ten years it may be impossible to buy an electric toothbrush that doesn’t track usage and try to phone home to report it.

          • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 months ago

            I’ve had an electric for well over 10 years(same one). They are so much better than normal brushes IMO.

            • flathead@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              9 months ago

              Concur. Also long time user here - but prefer to skip the data collection bit. Imagine showing up at the dentist some day and being chided for missing your back molars last Tuesday.