Regarding DVRs like TIVO and others

However, unlike most computers, the Internet of Things devices are on all the time, and there’s no user interface for even tech-savvy consumers to monitor the machines’ activities. As one Silicon Valley technologist (who requested anonymity because he works for a firm that makes some of these devices) put it, “My TiVo needs an internet link only to download TV guide metadata every fortnight, but as far as I know it’s also working overtime serving viruses or DNS attacks.”

end partial quote from:

We Left the Internet Vulnerable to Hackers. Now We're Paying the Price.

I was having trouble with my TIVO recently and getting a (V52) error message (which usually means a weak signal. However, that was not the problem when the Tech came. However, he was telling me about a new Comcast DVR they are renting and selling? that saves your DVRed programs in the cloud instead of on 4 hard drives like my present TIVO does. I was thinking about how DVRs in homes across the U.S. were used to cause 110 million dollars in damage to about 100 online companies in the U.S. last Friday and also wondering if my TIVO was one of those hacked for this purpose?

 I don't know and likely never will because like all of you if your DVR was hacked to be used like this in a Denial of Service attack 99% of you will never know unless you know how to find out. I don't, do you?

One of the reasons we don't know is that they are not really designed for customers to ever find out whether our specific DVRs have been compromised to be used as an online weapon. 

For example, I didn't know my DVR even had a password or who exactly would even want to use it? So, in the Internet of things there is a great deal that none of us know. For example, who else but you is looking at through your baby monitors or security cameras throughout your house besides you and your family? The internet of things in some ways is just another privacy invasion of each of our lives that none of us is told about.

For example, if you have most dvrs, or even cable boxes did you know that absolutely everything you watch on TV is recorded so companies know what you watch, when you watch it, what time of day you are doing this etc.? Also, one of my thoughts is: "Who is this information sold to or used by?"