Avoiding IoT

[jimbobs]

The only smart device I have is a smart meter. This was installed by force. For the dumb phone and dumb TV, those industries themselves are trying to rub out the dumb versions of their products.

Smart shoppers buy dumb products and vote with the wallet.

Yep, I've got one of those as well. They even supplied a unit that connects wirelessly to the meter and allows us to monitor electricity use but the batteries on that are long dead. I could never see the point unless they introduced continuously variable usage charges.

[sammiev]

The only smart device I have is a smart meter. This was installed by force. For the dumb phone and dumb TV, those industries themselves are trying to rub out the dumb versions of their products.

Smart shoppers buy dumb products and vote with the wallet.

Yep, I've got one of those as well. They even supplied a unit that connects wirelessly to the meter and allows us to monitor electricity use but the batteries on that are long dead. I could never see the point unless they introduced continuously variable usage charges.

Have on of those meters myself and can monitor the usage off the Hydro One web site.
Have done that for a week or two and never went back.

For other IoT devices, I wouldn't own one.

[DAMIEN1307]

majorpooper wrote..."AmTrack the USA government rail system seems to have a similar problem."...yep, "malfunction at the junction"...amtrack seems to have a problem with "derailing the choo choo"...DAMIEN

[jimallyn]

we really have to do something about our national rail system.

Whadda ya mean? We have a rail system any third world country would be proud of.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi jimallyn...you always amaze me with the generosity of your praise...lol...DAMIEN

[Portreve]

we really have to do something about our national rail system.

Whadda ya mean? We have a rail system any third world country would be proud of.

See, this is what I like about you, Jim.

You're alright in my book.

[Lucap]

Whadda ya mean? We have a rail system any third world country would be proud of.

There must be a joke about travelling on the inside of the train in there somewhere?

[catweazel]

You're alright...

Only down one side.

[Moem]

Gizmodo had a pretty good article on this subject yesterday: The house that spied on me.

[Pjotr]

Gizmodo had a pretty good article on this subject yesterday: The house that spied on me.

A bloody nightmare.

[andyO]

I received one of those "smart" meters installed by the utility company. It is handy, because I live in an old house, with dubious previous owners, the meter is located in a cupboard with a bricked up front door... so you have to get at it from above... and the top of this cupboard is such a handy place for putting wifi routers, servers etc... anyway not having to physically read the meter anymore is great!

Interestingly though the utility company said that the new meter will save me money on energy bills? They gave me a monitor with a pretty display that I can plug in to watch how much energy I use in real time. Call me old fashioned but I think I'm pretty savvy about energy usage, if something is plugged in and switched on its using energy, if its not plugged in and switched on it doesn't use energy. I don't need something that *uses energy* to point that out to me. Suffice to say I keep that monitor in a box in a drawer.

p.s. yup I really do switch everything off when its not being used. Including my modem/wifi router when everyone's in bed or out (and hasn't left a job running)!

[jimallyn]

Gizmodo had a pretty good article on this subject yesterday: The house that spied on me.

I managed to read about half the article before wondering, "why on Earth would anybody want a smart home?" and gave up. No thanks.

[BG405]

None of this IOT stuff for me. I want direct control over stuff and don't want advertisers having data on my daily life.

I do have a degree of home automation though.

• My fridge and freezer have thermostats to regulate the temperature. No silicon chips there.
• Washing machine has a programmer - a dial with motorized switching behind it. Probably a few logic chips in there, no WiFi.
• Toaster has a bimetal switch or some other non-smart contraption.
• Two knobs on the microwave, heat & time, plus a button to open the door. Nothing fancy there but it does the job.
• Various lights on dusk-to-dawn sensors and timers.

You get the picture.

For those who still need to use Windows 10, I'd recommend putting an old cut-off plug in the microphone socket in order to disable the onboard microphone, defeating Cortana's always-on surveillance. I don't know if Cortana overrides microphone settings, nor whether such settings stick.

[Portreve]

None of this IOT stuff for me. I want direct control over stuff and don't want advertisers having data on my daily life. [Emphasis added.]

There's that.

For those who still need to use Windows 10, I'd recommend putting an old cut-off plug in the microphone socket in order to disable the onboard microphone, defeating Cortana's always-on surveillance. I don't know if Cortana overrides microphone settings, nor whether such settings stick.

I'm not speaking to Cortana, but in my mind it's a bit of an open question if one can truly trust the hardware design to cut off the on-board mic if an external is connected. I wouldn't.

The more time rolls on and things happen, the more I can't see using non-Purism hardware. Seriously. Whether it's IoT or just your regular computer hardware, it's pretty obvious everyone's in bed with everyone else, and there's lots of deliberate design choices being made that would never have been made in previous eras.

[BG405]

it's a bit of an open question if one can truly trust the hardware design to cut off the on-board mic if an external is connected. I wouldn't.

I agree, but quite easy to test. Or, is it I'd open the thing and disconnect the microphone if that were possible (haven't managed to open my tablet yet, but it's not going to have Win10 on it), in preference to taking that chance.

[mike acker]

{snip}

The more time rolls on and things happen, the more I can't see using non-Purism hardware. Seriously. Whether it's IoT or just your regular computer hardware, it's pretty obvious everyone's in bed with everyone else, and there's lots of deliberate design choices being made that would never have been made in previous eras.

( sigh )

+1

[Moem]

I'm not speaking to Cortana

That's okay, she doesn't mind. She'll be listening anyway, just in case. *shudder*

The more time rolls on and things happen, the more I can't see using non-Purism hardware.

I can see where you're coming from, but I'm firmly hooked on Thinkpads. I'm not sure I can ever shake that. Then again, the newer ones tend not to have a trackpoint and that... certainly helps.

[Portreve]

Today, I had a visit to my new dentist's for another step in the overall process I'm going through. Today was the oral hygiene part and I needed a pretty serious deep cleaning. Part of the package was a new, battery-powered toothbrush. It's not an IoT device, but it has Bluetooth, and the idea is to track your cleanings and thereby your overall oral health.

If it was an IoT type device, I would have had to think long and hard about using it, though of course I did have the thought go through my mind about whether it might be a potential data leak. I really don't think so, and at worst it will report my brushing habits.

Even so, Bluetooth on a toothbrush... the 60s-era engineers who worked on the Mercury / Gemini / Apollo programs (this is referred to as the "golden age of space flight") would have killed to have access to such "trivial" miniaturization of technology.

We may gripe and complain about it, but the thought of being able to control the planning, plotting, launch, and navigation of the Apollo/Saturn stack, through all three stage separations, and then post TLI to the Moon, etc. etc. using a smartphone and a USB-interfaced adapter while playing music, or video games, or surfing Facebook, etc., would have blown their minds.

[Termy]

Someone I know recently told me they're migrating their home over to a "smart home". Can't tell you how much I laughed and shook my head. Aggravating though; he's utterly oblivious and it doesn't matter how many facts I give him, evidence I show him, or experience/knowledge I have, he'll just shrug it all off with the usual nonsense you hear, like "I've got nothing to hide", "it has encryption", "I have a password", etc. ¬_¬

[sammiev]

Someone I know recently told me they're migrating their home over to a "smart home". Can't tell you how much I laughed and shook my head. Aggravating though; he's utterly oblivious and it doesn't matter how many facts I give him, evidence I show him, or experience/knowledge I have, he'll just shrug it all off with the usual nonsense you hear, like "I've got nothing to hide", "it has encryption", "I have a password", etc. ¬_¬

He might as well run Windows 98.