Kohler’s “encrypted” smart toilet watches you poop
For just $599 and your dignity, Kohler’s new “smart” toilet cam will lovingly photograph your excrement. Ostensibly to analyze your gut health, but, and this is a big but, share those snapshots with the cloud. Nothing says privacy like a lens staring up from your plumbing and a company pretending Transport Layer Security is “end-to-end encryption.”
The company’s use of the expression “end-to-end encryption” is, however, wrong, as security researcher Simon Fondrie-Teitler pointed out in a blog post on Tuesday.
By reading Kohler’s privacy policy, it’s clear that the company is referring to the type of encryption that secures data as it travels over the internet, known as TLS encryption — the same that powers HTTPS websites.
Using the right terms matters, especially in the context of users’ privacy concerns. Using the expression end-to-end encryption — widely adopted by messaging apps such as iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp — to describe TLS encryption is wrong, and can potentially confuse users who see that expression and think Kohler actually cannot see the pictures that the camera takes.
When Kohler claims their toilet camera data is encrypted with TLS, they mean it’s protected while being sent to their servers, but they can still read it once it arrives. So, if they claim “end-to-end encryption,” that’s misleading. Only true E2EE would prevent Kohler from accessing your flushable intel.
But my gi tract is _already_ end-to-end encrypted! It obeys Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's
First Law: "It goes in. It must come out.", and that's good enough for me!
And for those who need a refresher: "If you push something hard enough, it will fall over — Fudd's First Law of Opposition."
Thank you, Firesign Theater, for making my teenly years memorable ...
As they say, just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should, dear Kohler. Now we wait for smart Kleenex to arrive.