Collaborate Disseminate
The VTech PreComputer 1000 is a rather ancient toy computer that was available in the distant misty past of 1988. It featured a keyboard and a variety of simple learning …read more Continue reading Is Microsoft Basic Hidden In This Educational Child’s Toy?
Regular readers may be aware that I have a certain affinity for vintage VTech educational toys, especially ones that attempted to visually or even functionally tie in with contemporary computer …read more Continue reading Teardown: VTech Smart Start
Back in the early 1980s, hotshot business types on the go would have used what were referred to at the time as portable computers from companies like Osborne or Kaypro. Due to the technical limitations of the era these so-called “luggables” were only slightly smaller and lighter than contemporary desktop …read more
Back in the days before kids could be placated with a $50 Android burner phone, many a youngster was gifted a so-called “educational computer” to keep them occupied. Invariably looking like a fever dream version of the real computer their parents didn’t want to let them use, these gadgets offered …read more
Continue reading Teardown: VTech PreComputer 1000 is an Iconic PC in a Toy Wrapper
Our more youthful readers are fairly likely to have owned some incarnation of a VTech educational computer. From the mid-1980s and right up to the present day, VTech has been producing vaguely laptop shaped gadgets aimed at teaching everything from basic reading skills all the way up to world history. …read more
Attackers can boobytrap what should be access to only parent-vetted sites and can take over the webcam, speakers and microphone. Continue reading Kids’ VTech tablets vulnerable to eavesdropping hackers
The FTC settlement, one of the first reached with an internet-enabled toy manufacturer over security and privacy concerns, lets the firm off the hook in one key area: it doesn’t require VTech to admit to any wrongdoing.
Read more in my article on the … Continue reading Post-hack, VTech has to pay $650,000 in FTC settlement – but doesn’t have to admit any wrongdoing
The FTC said VTech transmitted and stored information without intrusion prevention, detection or encryption, in spite of policy claims. Continue reading Smart-toymaker VTech fined over charges of violating child privacy law
“Smart” toys are getting bigger, pricier and more complex, but are they secure? Continue reading Toys: they’re getting smarter, but are they secure?
The infamous Internet of Things vendor VTech shows how not to do parental controls. Continue reading It’s Trivially Easy to Watch Porn On a Restricted Tablet Made For Kids