This is a few months old, but I've just now discovered it. And it's impossibly cool: controlling your Tivo from your iPhone.

Apparently there's a telnet port open on newer Tivos that allows you to issue remote control commands over a local network. Someone's taken that functionality and wrapped it in an iPhone app, which can be installed on any jailbroken unit.

It's totally pointless, of course — aside from saving me a ten-foot trip when I find myself in the kitchen without the remote I can't imagine a use for it — but it's really, really neat.

It's also a little unsettling. I didn't have to provide any configuration; the thing just knew where to find my Tivo. And while you can't view a list of recorded programs without entering the Tivo's individual media key, it's easy to imagine some entertaining wardriving pranks that wouldn't need the key. It would be relatively trivial, for instance, to write a script that automatically deletes everyone's recorded programs, or that sets any Tivos it finds to fill up with racy content. If you set your laptop on the passenger seat and drove around the city for an evening I bet you could find at least a few dozen vulnerable machines.

Not the end of the world, perhaps, but a sign of things to come as our appliances get smarter and smarter. Secure those networks! If you want to be a generous with your wifi, get a Fonera.