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That's ridiculous, why? I'd understand some sort of certification process and requiring certified products to have ample warnings but why should it be illegal?

• maltalex 9y ago
  Same reason it's illegal to drive a car that's not certified for roads or build a building that don't meet safety standards. You have a right to pose a danger to yourself. You don't have a right to pose a danger to others.
  • dfox 9y ago
    In my opinion you should be liable for any such danger you pose to others with the ability to shift that liability to whoever sold you source of such danger while assuring you that it is safe. In fact it is then inconsequential whether some device puts you in direct danger or in danger of somebody comming after you for putting them in danger.
    • maltalex 9y ago
      > In my opinion you should be liable for any such danger you pose to others with the ability to shift that liability to whoever sold you source of such danger while assuring you that it is safe. Right. So you, the little guy, is going to shift the blame to a rich company that does this for a living. Say it's a company such as Google which makes some IoT devices. Would you be able to prove in court, and in front of their engineers and lawyers that they've sold you an insecure device? Do you even have access to their source code?
• wyldfire 9y ago
  > I'd understand some sort of certification process and requiring certified products to have ample warnings but why should it be illegal? Maybe our current situation is what it might've been like when we had devices that could generate and receive RF emissions but before there was an FCC/global regulatory distribution of spectrum. If that analogy holds at all, perhaps that might be why it should be illegal to manufacture or import devices which don't conform.
• joe_the_user 9y ago
  The reason a static device connected to the Internet with terrible security should be prohibited is the same reason that devices not meeting FCC certification standards are prohibited. Both such devices do as much if not more harm to your neighbor as to you. An electrical appliance that interferes with TV broadcasts may not bother you but it bothers your neighbor. An IoT camera that's hacked to DoS a hospital may not bother you but it bothers the patients of the hospital. In some fictional Libertarian wonderland, these problems could be dealt with neighbors suing neighbors but in the real world we need the state to regulate products with serious cost "externalities".
• dfox 9y ago
  I think that EU's approach to this is in its idea the correct one: whoever imports and sells stuff (the legal term is AFAIK "introduces to common market") has to declare that it conforms to relevant safety regulations and is then held responsible should that declaration prove to be wrong. (Slight implementation problem is that the punishment incurred for that is usually too small, typically it boils down to ban of sale of the item involved without any punitive fines)