There are 4 really bad ideas from the article:

  1. Clock is automatically updated from the internet

  2. The microwave has a web page so you can control it 
     from your phone (why not), and set up cooking 
     instructions for products

  3. Tweets after it's finished cooking something 

  4. Can be controlled with voice commands ∗∗

     ∗∗ ...not that bad, but subject to pranks and false positive 
            microwave commands, from people in the same room

This is all REALLY bad from a safety perspective. Exposing household appliances to the wilds of the internet is all kinds of dangerous. You shouldn't advertise that this is a good idea, and leave readers with the assumption that maybe it's password protected or maybe not (it is: http://www.microwavecookingdb.com/products/new?upc=871100027...), or maybe it's wrapped up in TLS/SSL and maybe not (it's not: http://www.microwavecookingdb.com/users/sign_in). Is the internet control framework just security by obscurity, operated by arbitrarily obscure URL parameters? Who knows? Maybe? (here's the code: https://github.com/ndbroadbent/raspberry_picrowave) I mean, yeah it's just a DIY project, but immediately, I see some opportunities to wreak havoc.

First of all, it's not merely polling an internet time server, but that's one port exposed to the internet, that anybody can just start dumping malicious payloads on. Second, and worst, it can be switched on from the internet. Third, it gives feedback that can be accessed by the entire internet, tells the internet what it is, and what it's doing, right now in real time, allowing an attacker to monitor the success of malicious efforts. This way, you'll know as soon as you're able to send a command to power up the microwave for one second, to test and prove the ability to control it.

People will attack these kinds of openings, just for the sheer amusement of running up a total stranger's electric bill, nevermind start a fire. This article seems relatively smart and competent, and so maybe we should ASSUME that proper security exists?

This is the kind of design inspiration that's going to encourage some other engineer (or worse, an MBA in charge of some stupid startup) to go out and expose the electric grid to twitter with some poorly tested SCADA system, and on a dark, stormy night, in the far flung future, I'm going to be eating cold beans from a can, in the dark, because of it.