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The three million toothbrush botnet story isn’t true.

Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social)

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/111886558855943676

The three million toothbrush botnet story isn’t true. Here’s the original source of the story: https://archive.is/2024.01.30-203406/https://www.luzernerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/kriminalitaet-die-zahnbuersten-greifen-an-das-sind-die-aktuellen-cybergefahren-und-so-koennen-sie-sich-schuetzen-ld.2569480 It’s simply a made up example. It doesn’t exist. It starts talking about NoName Ddosia, too, which also isn’t toothbrushes.

23 comments

rynzcycle

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Tomorrow: 3 Million hacked smart fridges were used to spread misinformation that the 3 million toothbrush story wasn't true.

thefartographer

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Buzzfeed: 10 tweets proving your new pizza oven hates The Pentagon

jetsetdorito

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silicon valley irl

JoMomma

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It was a psi-op to distract you from the horrible reality of the Furby Bot-net that will be the end of life as we know it

lemmydripzdotz123

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I suspect you would enjoy the story of Furbeowulf.

http://www.trygve.com/furbeowulf.html

That page is old enough that it doesn't seem to support HTTPS. If your browser automatically converts HTTP to HTTPS, you're going to get a warning about an insecure connection. Here's a wayback machine link that supports a secure connection:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230503215715/http://www.trygve.com/furbeowulf.html

ripcord

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"secure connection failed" accessing that link

lemmydripzdotz123

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Edited with explanation and alternate link.

JoMomma

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I was there, at the beginning, and I am living to see the end

bandwidthcrisis

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYLBjScgb7o

PipedLinkBot

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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=GYLBjScgb7o

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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TheBat

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Don't forget about botnet of vibrators and chastity cages!

ThetaDev

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First thing I was asking is the model of toothbrush that supposedly got hacked. AFAIK there are no mainstream electric toothbrushes with onboard WiFi. Both OralB and Philips use Bluetooth for their smart functionalities.

If the story was about smart ovens or washing machines I would have believed it.

FenrirIII

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ring ring "Hello?"

"Is your refrigerator running?"

"Yes."

"Dear God! Unplug it! Unplug it now before Skynet takes over!"

Turun

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They say the story isn't true, but the source they cite in the very next sentence says:

Das Beispiel, das wie ein Hollywood-Szenario daherkommt, hat sich wirklich so zugetragen. Es zeigt, wie vielseitig digitale Angriffe geworden sind.

(This example, which sounds like a Hollywood plot, really happened. It shows how ~~multidimensional (my mind blanks on a better translation right now)~~ EDIT: diverse cyber attacks have become)

Edit: I hate microblogging sites. Apparently the thread continues on and the company who made the statement in the cited article has backtracked and admitted that this was a hypothetical. It did not happen.

tiramichu

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Thanks for the translation.

Multivector? Multifaceted? Multimodal?

StitchIsABitch

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More like 'diverse' or 'versatile'. Although multifaceted would be the literal translation so I guess it works.

tedu

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Are you a regular reader of the Luzerner Zeitung? What do you think of their other tech reporting?

Turun

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No.

The only one I'd trust without having to do more research on their reporting quality is netzpolitik.org. Not sure how much of a newspaper they are though. I'd consider them digital activists - with sound positions based on facts, but activists nonetheless.

Cyberflunk

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Best news is news you make up! NO ONE ELSE IS COVERING IT

Bezier

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I started to become somewhat skeptical after thinking about it for a second. Well, too bad it was fake. Or good, actually.

Kazumara

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I mean we haven't seen any proof, but Stefan Züger of Fortinet told that story as a supposedly true event to Journalists of CH-Media. The very article Kevin Beaumont posts says that the scenario is a real event.

tedu

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Fortigate have issued me a statement. The toothbrush DDoS story is completely made up.

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/111892646485958733

Kazumara

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What I said was still true according to his even newer followup; Fortinet really told that to the Journalists:

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/111895724464138614

I'm really glad Kevin got them to admit it was a fabrication. The way he asserted that it was a made up example first, before having anything concrete to back it up, made him seem unreliable to me at first.

alicehughes

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