Fitness vs. Privacy??? Why My Treadmill Turned Into a Cybersecurity Lesson
Fitness vs. Privacy??? Why My Treadmill Turned Into a Cybersecurity Lesson When I bought my new treadmill, I was excited. It arrived in working order, looked great, and promised to help me meet my health goals. But that excitement quickly turned to concern when I realized the machine would not work unless I downloaded an app that required access to my phone calls. Yes, I said MY PHONE CALLS! My Cybersecurity brain immediately lit up with red flags. Why would a treadmill need to know who I’m calling or when? Why should something I paid for be locked behind permissions that compromise my privacy? I reached out to customer support multiple times, asking if there was any way to bypass the app and just use the treadmill manually. No Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi, no creepy app. Every time, I was told “no” that I must use the app and connect to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to “unlock” the machine. But something felt off. So I dug deeper. After researching online, I found that there is, in fact, a way ...
