I decided to read the original wired.com article on hacking X-10 and Z-Wave and, as I expected, found the
hackers as clueless as the editors who promulgated their nonsense.
In the home automation environment, encryption (whether properly or improperly applied) serves only one purpose - to market premium priced systems to the gullible. Even if encrypted, if the same signal always results in the same action, all one needs do (if they want to
gaslight the neighbors) is record the signals and play them back at random. And, as any X-10 user who has experienced the
endless dim phenomenon knows, it is easy to jam the power-line. Jamming the RF frequencies (310MHz or 433.92MHz) is also easy to do.
The only thing that might provide a modicum of security would be rolling codes (like those used by garage door remotes) which would add more cost than can be justified. Plus, I recently read (and don't recall where) about two university researchers who had found a way to break the KeeLoq rolling code system, sold by Microchip and widely used in the automotive industry, which only required being in close proximity to the keyfob for about 30 minutes.
The X-10
hackers could make far more profitable use of their time by hacking KeeLoq and stealing the neighbor's BMW.
