I logged into my UniFi stack to monitor devices and it showed up. It had gotten the connection details from my wife’s phone, the other Samsung device and was transmitting data back to Google and Samsung.
So I went digging in UniFi, found it, and blocked it. Same with my HP Printer that sent almost a gig of data to Google Print Services daily.
> went digging in UniFi, found it, and blocked it
> still connected to my WiFi
Is your wife's phone also Samsung? Do Samsung phones have a habit of sharing WiFi passwords amongst themselves, or other devices with a Samsung Account? Do Samsung Accounts still exist? Is your fridge blocked, or is it still connected? If you change your WiFi SSID or password, does the fridge acquire it anew, the same way?
Even if you think they're running some sort of massive botnet, the fridge being part of it is still implausible. They probably have billions of phones and tablets alone, plenty enough to scrape/DDoS the entire internet several times over. There's no need to add clandestine hardware into non-smart fridges.
UniFi is not misrepresenting the device ID; while you’re right that happens. It didn’t here.
The Mac ID is 1c:e8:9e:3d:c4:ad and is registered to SJIT who makes IOT Devices Samsung and smart fridges.
I appreciate your skepticism, but the device is still connected to my WiFi. It has been since 2024, the Mac ID has not changed nor has its identification. I’ve also done packet tracing to determine it IS in fact the smart fridge.
As for the “clandestine hardware to non-smart fridges”. Streamlining of production lines is nothing new. Being able to datamine people’s networks is worth the 20$ hardware chip.
that does happen, but if this fridge really is connected, it is far more likely that one samsung device used Bluetooth LE to communicate its wi-fi credentials to another samsung device when they were in extremely close proximity.
This is how a new apple device can get logged into the same apple account as another device, you bring them close to each other and they communicate over BLE everything that is needed to bring the new device online and into your device ecosystem.
samsung probably isn't running a botnet, that's not why the fridge is connected; your guess is as good as mine as to what it is, but i would be surprised if it were a botnet.