Anything You Want, Only $10 a Month

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox just got a whole lot cheaper. Well, sort of. According to the Verge, the software giant is planning to adopt a model familiar to any smartphone owner and will sell its hit gaming console for just $99—if you sign a two-year contract for Xbox Live. The online entertainment service will set you back $15 a month.

For those keeping score, the new contract offer seems like a deal, but actually costs $40 more than if you paid for everything up front. Doing the latter costs $420 (about $300 for the console and another $120 for two years of Xbox Live), while the new pricing setup will cost about $460 over two years.

Microsoft’s pricing shift is a sign that even the established tech giants are embracing the Era of the Subscription. Thanks in part to the rise of cloud computing and the ubiquity of high-speed Internet, monthly subscriptions are the business model du jour in Silicon Valley (at least for those companies that have a business model). You can get unlimited amounts of almost any virtual thing you want for roughly $10 a month: movies (Netflix (NFLX), Hulu), music (Spotify, Rdio), and storage (Dropbox, Box).

The trend holds for nonvirtual products, too. Birch Box, a New York startup and emblem of a trend, sends a box of beauty samples to subscribers each month. Dollar Shave Club will—you guessed it—send monthly razor packs for as little as $1. And Amazon.com (AMZN)offers discounts on a wide variety of household goods and groceries for consumers who “subscribe” to buying the same item every few months.

Tien Tzuo, the former chief marketing officer for Salesforce.com (CRM), calls this a transition away from “a 20th century product-based, ‘buy once’ economy to a 21st century services-based ‘subscription economy.’” Maybe he’s right. Maybe this is symbolic of a shift from George W. Bush’s “ownership” society and toward a usage-based society, one where everyone rents and pay-as-you-go plans dominate. Or maybe it’s just a way for companies to make an extra 40 bucks.

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Security Cameras: Anything But Secure

I recently installed a screen on the dashboard of my new pickup truck. The screen is configured to display video transmitted wirelessly from a camera installed on the truck’s bumper, a system designed to help avoid collisions while backing up. But the monitor picks up a lot more than intended. Driving through the suburbs outside Detroit, the screen first shows the feed from one home’s front-yard security camera. Next, surveillance footage from a party store appears. Then there’s the image of a crib transmitted by someone’s baby monitor.

Such accidental neighborhood spywork—which this reporter in no way intended—reveals a fact few people realize: Many of the wireless cameras used as baby monitors, home-security gear, and even business surveillance systems are startlingly susceptible to interception. “Wireless cameras are so easy to put in, that’s the selling feature,” says Christopher Charow, the lead investigator at Lakeside Investigations in Michigan, which also operates a security and spy-gear shop. “But if it’s security you want, you might be getting the exact opposite.”

Many of the wireless cameras in use transmit video over a slice of the airwaves known as 2.4 GHz, the same sliver used by cordless phones, says Charow. Because that spectrum is crowded with lots of devices, monitors meant for one camera often unintentionally pick up signals from another. With more sophisticated tools, available at spy shops such as Lakeside for a few hundred dollars, a person can easily detect and tune into any unencrypted signal. Charow, who uses such a device to search clients’ homes for hidden cameras, demonstrates how effective it is. As he drives through the Detroit metro area, he detects cameras that show the interior of a bicycle repair shop and several shots inside private residences.

Wireless cameras made by major electronics manufacturers in the last few years use technology that makes it much more difficult for accidental voyeurism, says Kelvin Chan, a manager at Infant Optics. His company and others sell video baby monitors that use so-called frequency hopping so wireless signals are received only by the intended monitor. But the encrypted cameras typically cost more than $100 and can top $300, says Rick Krupka, vice president of business sales at Binatone, which licenses the Motorola Mobility name to sell the most popular line of baby monitors at Amazon.com (AMZN) and other sites. The same sites also sell hundreds of models of baby monitors using the unencrypted 2.4 GHz technology, some for as little as $70.

Add in the fact that many baby monitors sold years ago are still in use, either because people kept them for new children or gave them away, and it’s likely that a large number of the cameras in use today have unencrypted feeds. IHS iSuppli (IHS), which tracks parts for various industries, estimates about 134 million image sensors of the kind used in baby monitors and security cameras were shipped between 2009 and 2011.

“People probably have no idea this isn’t secure,” Charow says of the unencrypted ones. He’s driving as he says this, with his scanner propped up on the dashboard. As if to underscore his point, the scanner beeps to signal that it’s detected a video feed. On the screen, an empty baby crib is clearly visible.

The bottom line: Cheap baby monitors and surveillance cameras use wireless technology that is easy to intercept, unintentionally or not.

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