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It's sad, but the first thing I think of now when I see or read about a new IoT technology is "what extra data about me does this expose to bulk collection prog
by TrevorJ 11y ago
It's sad, but the first thing I think of now when I see or read about a new IoT technology is "what extra data about me does this expose to bulk collection programs and advertisers?"
Disney has some really amazing tech where a smartwatch device can detect what dumb object you are holding, be it a pair of scissors, your refrigerator handle, hand tools, etc. This kind of tech would be absolutely game changing for many people on a fundamental level, but when you think about what could be learned about you from mining that data, and then you realise it would be foolish to think that you can somehow keep that data private.... Gah, it just pisses me off that we have to assume any new info we create about ourselves digitally will likely be abused.
On the other hand, maybe once tech enables governments to know every detail of your life down to the most private level people will get fed up and things will change. Phone calls and email are one thing, but IoT means every moment of your life, every activity, every preference, every habit could be exposed catalogued and stored.
- dasboth 11y agoIoT scares me for that very reason. I don't like the idea of people trying to infer things about me by how often I use my toaster, and I don't feel like I gain enough by my household appliances connecting to the internet to offset that privacy issue.
- TrevorJ 11y agoTo me, that feeling is a fundamental warning that something is deeply wrong with the way we handle privacy in modern society. It should be completely unacceptable that we have to worry about this.
- krapp 11y agoThe incentive isn't there for building secure IoT products, but products that use online connectivity to offset costs by capturing value back from the consumer. When every refrigerator built monitors your purchases and consumption on behalf of the manufacturer, the store you bought it from and the companies who made the food in it, and probably the pizza box you just stuffed in there knows what shows you're watching, what are people going to do, just go back to using iceboxes?
- TrevorJ 11y agoAnd even if devices are designed to be secure, what good does it do when agencies with nearly unlimited resources actively try to subvert it?
- fucking_tragedy 11y agoData collection like this may seem innocuous if its used for advertising, but it's available to anyone with enough power or money to infer what they want from it. It's a KGB wet dream.
- privacy101 11y agoIoT doesn't have to share any data with third parties... it could be shared with you on the local network or your own server... but many devices make it hard... so you have to be careful.
- TrevorJ 11y agoThat's correct, but with what we know now it can be pretty much assumed that any security there is will be actively subverted by agencies, companies or both.