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Could you send me a detailed copy of your floor plan? Ideally, SVG? Thanks! Oh, and anything else the robot sends too, like your IP address and maybe GPS coordi

Could you send me a detailed copy of your floor plan? Ideally, SVG? Thanks! Oh, and anything else the robot sends too, like your IP address and maybe GPS coordinates? If you're willing to send, great -- thank you. I'd love to know, for undisclosed reasons. My email is in my profile, and you can even encrypt the files you send me using PGP. Although note that I'll be putting it on my Azure account and leaving it there for eternity. If you're not willing to send me that, then please don't even try the "you've got nothing to hide" line, because you clearly do! I'm going to start challenging this every time I hear this excuse because it's demonstrably nonsense when challenged. You won't send me that SVG because you know I have no fucking business knowing what your house looks like. Neither does the robot cleaning company. The files could be kept on the device without any real loss of functionality. As Washuu posted below, they are now selling these floor plans. Should I make money off the floor plan you send me?

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
But couldn't this all be found out in public records? Look up the neighborhood, then who built the homes. Most builders don't have more than a few dozen floor plans.
- ancarda 9y ago
  In that case, why don't the companies just access those public files? Why build their own floor plans and send them back to the cloud to be sold? Why is there even a market for buying floor plans from people who didn't realize they were being mapped from their fucking vacuum cleaner. You can't even trust a vacuum cleaner. I'm really coming to despise technology companies.
  - megaman22 9y ago
    Because real houses almost never match the plans? This seems a little paranoid. Everybody does this kind of mapping. Call Home Depot to get an estimate for flooring, and the person they send out laser measures everything and sends you floor plans back accurate to the quarter inch.
Benjamin_Dobell 9y ago
I agree with most of what you said, except this bit... > I have no f---ing business knowing what your house looks like. Neither does the robot cleaning company. The files could be kept on the device without any real loss of functionality. As Washuu posted below, they are now selling these floor plans. Should I make money off the floor plan you send me? They quite literally do have a business that requires them to know your floor plan, or at least to do a good job. Whether or not they upload it anywhere may be a different matter. I have a robot that maps my floor plan - admittedly poorly, as we don't let it into every room and it's lidar, so a bit rough and contains no information about doors, windows, or anything I own in my home - but them sending me a push notification to my mobile phone when the robot either completes the cleaning or gets stuck is great. I just open the mobile app and I can see a rough map showing where the robot has been or where they are (if it's stuck), it is actually incredibly useful. I don't at all question your right to not want a company having that information, I totally get it, but honestly myself and a lot of other people use Google services frequently, so in terms of privacy invasion this is so far down the list it doesn't even register. Yes I've made the choice to use Google services, just as I've made the choice to use a robot vacuum that connect to wi-fi and tells me information I believe is useful. I do however dislike you suggesting that my robot vacuum should have it's functionality limited because you don't like the company collecting information. Particularly when there's already a super simple solution... just don't setup wi-fi on the robot vac. Problem solved.
- ancarda 9y ago
  >They quite literally do have a business that requires them to know your floor plan No they don't. Let me be quite clear here: The robot must know your floor plan. The company doesn't need to. Analogy here: Apple sold me a computer running macOS. I get regular updates for XProtect, the built in Anti-Virus. They don't need to know what software I have installed, but the computer does to run that program. That's the difference here -- the local device vs the company (really their cloud). >Whether or not they upload it anywhere may be a different matter. Do they need the floor plans in the cloud? Or can the software work with it on the device, that's my question. Even privacy aside, does that mean if the company goes bankrupt, or my internet connection isn't working, that my vacuum cleaner is now broken? Even though the software on board could continue functioning fine? There's a longevity concern here -- I could be throwing away a device after months, despite it being functional. >I do however dislike you suggesting that my robot vacuum should have it's functionality limited because you don't like the company collecting information. Nothing you suggested above requires the cloud. Your phone could connect to the robot, through the cloud proxy for when you are not on your Wi-Fi network / otherwise cannot make a direct connection, and could pull the floor plan data from that. The fact this would also work over the LAN would provide a bit of capability to continue customizing the robot and seeing data even after the company's cloud has disappeared. I can't play some games because they had DRM for servers that no longer exist. It really sucks. Additionally, I'm more asking for transparency and choice, rather than "no cloud features". I just see people trying to justify forced cloud features as "your privacy doesn't matter".
shaki-dora 9y ago
|-=-=-| | | | LR | | | |-- --| | | * | |-- - | | |B| | |R| | |-| || | ||Kitch| | | | | |-- --| | | || || || BR || | | |-==--| All rather approximate. Each - is about 1m. * is main door. Address is Laustizer Str. 24, Berlin. Second Floor on the left.
- titzer 9y ago
  Pics or it didn't happen
  - titzer 9y ago
    People can't take a joke. Haha.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dgudkov 9y ago
  I noticed that entire building facades on your street are hidden in Google Street View (https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP). I'm curious why is that so? Is it possible due to GDPR?
  - ancarda 9y ago
    Possibly German privacy laws? AFAIK they are fairly strong
  - detaro 9y ago
    Way older than GDPR, opting out has been possible for Streetview as long as it is available in Germany. Many people didn't like the idea of Streetview, and the legal status isn't entirely clear (exceptions for photography in public are fairly limited in Germany), so Google added this instead of risking larger PR and legal problems.
  - lobster_johnson 9y ago
munin 9y ago
> Could you send me a detailed copy of your floor plan? This is in the listing information on houses, if you have a business relationship with someone where you know their address, you also know their floor plan.
- lotyrin 9y ago
  More than this, in many jurisdictions, it'll be available publicly from a records office even if your home hasn't ever been listed for sale.
astura 9y ago
Ummm.... Your floorplan is public information... Mine is easy to look up on my towns website. It even shows the location of outdoor features like patios and fences.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

But couldn't this all be found out in public records? Look up the neighborhood, then who built the homes. Most builders don't have more than a few dozen floor plans.

ancarda 9y ago
In that case, why don't the companies just access those public files? Why build their own floor plans and send them back to the cloud to be sold? Why is there even a market for buying floor plans from people who didn't realize they were being mapped from their fucking vacuum cleaner. You can't even trust a vacuum cleaner. I'm really coming to despise technology companies.
- megaman22 9y ago
  Because real houses almost never match the plans? This seems a little paranoid. Everybody does this kind of mapping. Call Home Depot to get an estimate for flooring, and the person they send out laser measures everything and sends you floor plans back accurate to the quarter inch.

Benjamin_Dobell 9y ago

I agree with most of what you said, except this bit... > I have no f---ing business knowing what your house looks like. Neither does the robot cleaning company. The files could be kept on the device without any real loss of functionality. As Washuu posted below, they are now selling these floor plans. Should I make money off the floor plan you send me? They quite literally do have a business that requires them to know your floor plan, or at least to do a good job. Whether or not they upload it anywhere may be a different matter. I have a robot that maps my floor plan - admittedly poorly, as we don't let it into every room and it's lidar, so a bit rough and contains no information about doors, windows, or anything I own in my home - but them sending me a push notification to my mobile phone when the robot either completes the cleaning or gets stuck is great. I just open the mobile app and I can see a rough map showing where the robot has been or where they are (if it's stuck), it is actually incredibly useful. I don't at all question your right to not want a company having that information, I totally get it, but honestly myself and a lot of other people use Google services frequently, so in terms of privacy invasion this is so far down the list it doesn't even register. Yes I've made the choice to use Google services, just as I've made the choice to use a robot vacuum that connect to wi-fi and tells me information I believe is useful. I do however dislike you suggesting that my robot vacuum should have it's functionality limited because you don't like the company collecting information. Particularly when there's already a super simple solution... just don't setup wi-fi on the robot vac. Problem solved.

ancarda 9y ago
>They quite literally do have a business that requires them to know your floor plan No they don't. Let me be quite clear here: The robot must know your floor plan. The company doesn't need to. Analogy here: Apple sold me a computer running macOS. I get regular updates for XProtect, the built in Anti-Virus. They don't need to know what software I have installed, but the computer does to run that program. That's the difference here -- the local device vs the company (really their cloud). >Whether or not they upload it anywhere may be a different matter. Do they need the floor plans in the cloud? Or can the software work with it on the device, that's my question. Even privacy aside, does that mean if the company goes bankrupt, or my internet connection isn't working, that my vacuum cleaner is now broken? Even though the software on board could continue functioning fine? There's a longevity concern here -- I could be throwing away a device after months, despite it being functional. >I do however dislike you suggesting that my robot vacuum should have it's functionality limited because you don't like the company collecting information. Nothing you suggested above requires the cloud. Your phone could connect to the robot, through the cloud proxy for when you are not on your Wi-Fi network / otherwise cannot make a direct connection, and could pull the floor plan data from that. The fact this would also work over the LAN would provide a bit of capability to continue customizing the robot and seeing data even after the company's cloud has disappeared. I can't play some games because they had DRM for servers that no longer exist. It really sucks. Additionally, I'm more asking for transparency and choice, rather than "no cloud features". I just see people trying to justify forced cloud features as "your privacy doesn't matter".

shaki-dora 9y ago

|-=-=-| | | | LR | | | |-- --| | | * | |-- - | | |B| | |R| | |-| || | ||Kitch| | | | | |-- --| | | || || || BR || | | |-==--| All rather approximate. Each - is about 1m. * is main door. Address is Laustizer Str. 24, Berlin. Second Floor on the left.

titzer 9y ago
Pics or it didn't happen
- titzer 9y ago
  People can't take a joke. Haha.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dgudkov 9y ago
I noticed that entire building facades on your street are hidden in Google Street View (https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP https://imgur.com/a/NzDZP). I'm curious why is that so? Is it possible due to GDPR?
- ancarda 9y ago
  Possibly German privacy laws? AFAIK they are fairly strong
- detaro 9y ago
  Way older than GDPR, opting out has been possible for Streetview as long as it is available in Germany. Many people didn't like the idea of Streetview, and the legal status isn't entirely clear (exceptions for photography in public are fairly limited in Germany), so Google added this instead of risking larger PR and legal problems.
- lobster_johnson 9y ago

munin 9y ago

> Could you send me a detailed copy of your floor plan? This is in the listing information on houses, if you have a business relationship with someone where you know their address, you also know their floor plan.

lotyrin 9y ago
More than this, in many jurisdictions, it'll be available publicly from a records office even if your home hasn't ever been listed for sale.

astura 9y ago

Ummm.... Your floorplan is public information... Mine is easy to look up on my towns website. It even shows the location of outdoor features like patios and fences.