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Author Topic: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?  (Read 3665 times)

Deemar

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What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« on: April 27, 2011, 12:39:53 PM »

I'm wondering if someone could just plug a transceiver into the outlet on the outside of my house and using a X10 remote to randomly try different house codes until they hit ones that work. Especially if I'm setting up my garage door. Any way to block this?
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dave w

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Re: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2011, 01:03:30 PM »

No.

Also it is a little risky to allow AHP / X10 to raise your garage door. X10 can false and you come home to an open garage door. Remote closing is usually all you need anyway.

Wire a magnetic window switch in series with the Universal Module / door opener so the mag switch is closed only when the door is up.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2011, 01:25:40 PM by dave w »
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Noam

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Re: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2011, 01:19:41 PM »

No.

Also it is a little risky to allow AHP / X10 to raise your garage door. X10 can false and you come home to an open garage door. Closing is usually all you need anyway.

Wire a magnetic window switch in series with the Universal Module / door opener so the mag switch is closed only when the door is up.
Well, in theory, you COULD wire a filter in-line with the exterior outlet. That SHOULD prevent any X10 signals from passing into your house from that outlet.
I guess you could add a wall switch (a non-x10 one) inside the house to cut power to the outdoor outlet when you don't need to use it. Or, just turn off the breaker if it has a dedicated circuit.
Of course, someone could stand out there with an RF remote...
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dave w

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Re: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2011, 01:44:27 PM »

Well, in theory, you COULD wire a filter in-line with the exterior outlet.

I guess you could add a wall switch (a non-x10 one) inside the house to cut power to the outdoor outlet when you don't need to use it.

Or, just turn off the breaker if it has a dedicated circuit.

Of course, someone could stand out there with an RF remote...

Yup. That was the reason of the simple "No".

From a practical stand point it would be very difficult to seal your house against external X10. But referencing Deemars question. I would never allow X10 to open garage doors, unlatch bolts, operate door strikes, etc. etc. etc. So even if someone spends three hours outside my home with a Palm Pad trying codes, the worst they will do is turn on the bedroom lights.   rofl
« Last Edit: April 27, 2011, 01:46:04 PM by dave w »
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JeffVolp

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Re: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2011, 02:58:30 PM »


While it is still not a good idea to use X10 for a high security function, it can be made somewhat more secure by placing an appliance module in series with the universal module controlling the garage door.  Set them to different unit codes.  Then the appliance module would have to be turned on first, followed by the code for the universal module.  You could use a macro to automatically turn off the appliance module after an "acceptance window" for the second code.

If your remote can easily send on two house codes, you could make this even more secure by using different house codes for the two modules.

Jeff
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Oldtimer

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Re: What's to stop someone from controlling my home?
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2011, 08:59:42 PM »

Many years ago when my mother moved into a house that backed up to our property, I installed an X-10 remote control system in her house so that if we had to go over there in an emergency we could turn on her lights from our house to get to and into her house. Of course we already had an extensive X-10 system in our house.

On one of their visits to us our daughter and her husband stayed at my mothers house.  He, being one of the only four people I've known who used X-10 early on, immediately noticed the X-10 remote control on the living room table.

About 10:30 that night as we were getting ready to go upstairs to bed all the lights in the house started to behave erratically and we were madly running around trying to figure out what was happening.

Our daughter, her husband and my mother were out in our driveway in hysterics (particularly my mother) watching us frantically run around. My son-in-law had plugged my mother's X-10 remote control into one of the outlets we had on the driveway fence to plug in the block heaters for our diesel powered cars, and used it to randomly turn our lights off and on.

Be careful, it could happen to you.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2011, 03:45:30 PM by Oldtimer »
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