Princeton's IoT Inspector for analyzing network traffic

Operating Systems, Editors, and Tools
1

This was mentioned in chat and it looks interesting:
https://iot-inspector.princeton.edu/

What is Princeton IoT Inspector?

An open-source desktop tool with a one-click install process

Automatically discovers IoT devices and analyzes their network traffic

Helps you identify security and privacy issues with graphs and tables

Requires minimal technical skills and no special hardware

Use it to quickly inspect devices (e.g., from your computer) or continuously monitor your network (e.g., from a Raspberry Pi)

Related Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/1177570679232876544

2

I was considering forking that, going to school on the interface and hosting the server locally by patching the client (or spoofing their hostname locally). I have a lot of IoT devices of all kinds and although I love the concept of knowing what’s potentially going out to the cloud, I just don’t love that this information would land at Princeton without me first knowing how bad it is.

I’ve written on more than one occasion about how creepy the Alexa product line has become over time.

1 Like
3

This might be an unpopular opinion around the tech scene here, but I would never intentionally put FAANG’s IoT products in my home or car. The only IoT devices I would be comfortable using are ones that I program myself.

I do have an old “smart”-phone but wish that I didn’t. :confused:

4

Just last month, my Amazon Alexa Echo rebooted itself (spontaneously, cloud-driven of course) and lo-and-behold, the stalker feature was defaulted back on again. :hot_face: