Smart home defenses crumble when the NEO dog arrives.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it has developed a four-legged robot designed to jam the wireless transmissions of smart home devices. The robot was revealed at the 2024 Border Security Expo and is called NEO. It is built using the Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) and looks a lot like the Boston Dynamics Spot robot.

According to the transcript of the speech by DHS Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) director Benjamine Huffman, acquired by 404 Media, NEO is equipped with an antenna array that is designed to overload home networks, thus disrupting devices that rely on Wi-Fi and other wireless communication protocols. It will thus likely be effective against a wide range of popular smart home devices that use wireless technologies for communications.

  • @AA5BEnglish
    1•2 months ago

    Depends on what they’re doing.

    • Simply drowning out valid signals is usually illegal so it would be interesting how they justify violating FCC
    • However you can also just block communication with things like a flood of connection requests. They’re not interfering with the signal, just with your router’s ability to send data back and forth