21 ms·
I'm getting ready to go full Battlestar Galactica in all of my appliances. It's now difficult to find high end washers and ovens without these features. At le
by buddylw 7y ago
I'm getting ready to go full Battlestar Galactica in all of my appliances. It's now difficult to find high end washers and ovens without these features.
At least right now we can choose not to connect the devices, but what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether, like with Tesla and other high end modern cars?
I don't think I'm just being a Luddite. This really seems like a bad idea. We need some way to assure security and limit data collection.
- Barrin92 7y agoprivacy legislation like the GDPR is a good start. In the US at least California seems on their way to come up with stronger privacy legislation and hopefully it'll spill over.
- kop316 7y agoThankfully it isn't quite that simple for electronics in the US. If it is sold commericially, it has to be registered with the FCC. In this way, you at least know if it has WiFi, LTE, etc, and can see the module that is installed on it. This makes it much easier to go into the device and physically disable the radios on it. Heck, maybe that is something like iFixit could do, have a how to to completely remove radio capabilities.
- echelon 7y agoThe average consumer won't be able (or even know) to disable built-in telemetry. As you can see from Facebook, invasive ads, DNA kits, and Alexa, most won't even care. We've lost this battle. Our warnings weren't strong enough to win over those interested in convenience.
- duckMuppet 7y agoWell if they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to hide...
- mnm1 7y agoSo you're the guy walking around naked, taking shits and pissing in public while giving strangers all your bank logins. All because you have nothing to hide. How dignified. Now please stop.
- hellisothers 7y agoFor those downvoting I’m assuming this is sarcasm :D
- duckMuppet 7y ago:)
- rhizome 7y agoHere's a joke that's just as good: you know what happens when you assume, don't you?
- Scoundreller 7y agoAnd those pesky opt-outs are irrelevant anyway: we’ll just interpolate them from the available data.
- x0x0 7y agoI disagree. See the CA privacy law (CCPA) and the successor that will be on the ballot in November. Those give us the chance to establish meaningful defaults.
- maksimum 7y ago> We've lost this battle. I think you could look at the battle/war from a different perspectives, and come up with different conclusions. In the mainstream (whatever that is?) it appears that convenience wins. And hardware/software vendors seem to make the assumption that customers won't complain if their data is harvested. I think that's where you're coming from? On the (privacy) enthusiast things, the horizon looks much better. We've got great software that makes self-hosting easier: FreeNAS, Nextcloud, Docker, Plex, NixOS, etc. We have more choice in phones: we can still use "dumbphones", or use open source operating systems, or choose manufacturers with better privacy track records. I'm not familiar with consumer electronics as much, but buying low end/dumb devices (TVs, appliances) is still viable. And the open source home automation movement keeps getting traction with hardware and software.
- saagarjha 7y ago> We have more choice in phones: we can still use "dumbphones", or use open source operating systems, or choose manufacturers with better privacy track records. There are zero options on the market right now that come close to a modern smartphone.
- Avamander 7y agoPinePhone? Librem? Even freed Android phones are actually very close.
- setpatchaddress 7y agoDumb TVs are not available anymore. I would gladly buy one with decent image quality if such existed.
- mirimir 7y agoSo just buy a large display. And sit closer. Also makes it easier to watch DVDs and torrented stuff.
- hypnotode 7y agoThey do, they just don't call them TVs. Look up commercial digital displays, exact same brands with the same screens as the consumer model but no tracking and bloatware. Of course, without the subsidies from selling your data, they're going to run you an extra 30-50%
- thih9 7y ago> have a how to to completely remove radio capabilities. We have no guarantee these devices would continue to work after such operation.
- netsharc 7y agoLike Zune's DRM (luckily before Zune died they let purchasers download MP3s). I wonder what funny failure scenarios we'll see in the future. On the topic of Samsung, their "smart" Fridge had issues when Google changed its API: https://support.google.com/calendar/forum/AAAAd3GaXpEWgy9gKkxhFo https://support.google.com/calendar/forum/AAAAd3GaXpEWgy9gKk... , but at least that's some stupid feature and not a fridge's main feature...
- jdnenej 7y agoGames have been becoming unplayable due to DRM servers shutting down. IoT devices are becoming bricks when they go out of support. DRM and internet dependency are the ultimate tools in capitalisms planned obsolescence toolbox. You no longer have to wait for a product to fail, you can simply remotely destroy it so the customer buys a new one.
- pdkl95 7y agoWhile topics like privacy and DRM are important, framing the discussion in those terms de facto obscures/distracts from the issue of property rights. Using someone's property (to e.g. to spy on them) after they purchased it is usually some sort of crime: trespassing, theft, vandalism, etc. If "intellectual property" is "property", then destroying someone's property (with DRM or other remote control) is a crime such as vandalism. The manufacturer lost their rights at the first sale of the good to the customer. This is why tech companies have been pushing to reframe the sales of their goods as a service. They abuse[1] copyright by claiming yu need to license the software/firmware. This is like claiming when you purchase a book it isn't your property because they only "licensed" the book's story. However, trying to extend copyright (which only grants rights related to making more copies) into property rights is a misuse of copyright[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_misuse
- PaulWaldman 7y agoCan there be a balance? I'd love to remotely control and view the status of my appliances without sending the telemetry to the OEM. Physically disabling all the radios would prohibit this functionality.
- NeutronStar 7y agoWhitelist you IP?
- ljm 7y agoI reckon that, given enough time, it’ll go the same was as everything else. Either you pay a subscription to remote it (and the inevitable ads that will appear), or you pay a premium for something without that functionality. I don’t see how this stops. Advertisers will stop at nothing to invade your life, and businesses are more than happy to facilitate them if they get some more money out of it.
- PaulWaldman 7y agoAgreed. Adding to this, consumers in general are failing to quantify the cost of giving up their personal data.
- ljm 7y agoEven more, how do we quantify the price of our attention and our lives? You can use Facebook for free but as well as having hyper-targeted adverts thrown in your face, they are also vacuuming any single point of individuality you might possess, because everyone in the industry is brokering the data like a private commodity that we can never actually know anything about. IMO, Facebook is not worth the price of that level of pervasive, perverse, surveillance. Neither is Google. Things like GDPR absolutely help but they're not retroactive, and chances are there is no way of clearing all of that up given how many millions of servers might have a trace of it. Our current situation is where technology is leeching from humanity but humanity is okay with it because they get stuff for free.
- babuskov 7y ago> This makes it much easier to go into the device and physically disable the radios on it. Wouldn't opening the device void the warranty?
- kop316 7y agoNope! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/11/those-stickers-warning-that-repairs-will-void-your-warranty-are-nonsense-ftc-says/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/11...
- lonelappde 7y agoThat's for removing a sticker. Not for removing a whole module or messing with wiring.
- kop316 7y agoThe law quoted states a manufacturer cannot invoke a void warrenty for modifications unrelated to the warrenty claim. For example, if I replace the radio in my car, the manufacturer cannot said i voided my warrenty if the engine has problems (unless the modification did damage it). So I would argue yes, if i disable the radios and something unrelated is damaged, then the warranty is still valid.
- lonelappde 7y agoNo doubt it's a judgment call for the court, but your car radio is farther from the engine then your TV wifi module is from the TV receiver. Your TV is all likely to be on the same DC circuit, maybe even all soldered together on one board.
- sokoloff 7y agoWhy are people so worried about preserving the warranty on their electronics? If it lasted 30 days and you don’t break it while futzing with it, it’s likely to work through the warranty period anyway. If it doesn’t, buy another one. TVs are ridiculously inexpensive now. I see people online waiting years (perhaps 5% of their life) to mod their cars or electronics for fear of losing the warranty. Side note: Magnuson-Moss in the US prevents manufacturers from failing to honor their warranty because of totally unrelated modifications (or for opening a device without damaging it). “Warranty void if sticker removed” is almost certainly inaccurate legally.
- joeblau 7y agoI was talking to a few people in a slack channel the other day about the potential market for a whole set of "dumb" appliances. At the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a able to reach mass market because the mass consumers seem to care more about price than security.
- zzo38computer 7y agoWell, I would be interested. Also, I don't like HDMI, and I don't need such a big TV set. For TV and VCR and some stuff like that, if it uses computer system (many kind of appliances should not need any kind of computer code), having the rights provided by GPL3, and also wired IMIDI (and perhaps also IMIDI-over-IR, with a switch to disable IR entirely). And, the software should be simpler and not so slow, not so much fancy animation or otherwise bad UI (e.g. requiring you to push the arrows to select an option, even if just one button (such as a number) should do) either!
- RandomBacon 7y agoWould it be possible to build an adapter that could filter out Ethernet-over-HDMI?
- crooked-v 7y agoThere are basically zero consumer devices right now that actually support that functionality. It's not useful as a selling feature when TVs all have wifi now anyway.
- drusepth 7y agoIf you could get the price down to a comparable point, you might be able to market against the price-vs-security crowd, but I think you'd find yourself up against another large percentage of consumers that care more about features than security, which seems a lot harder to compete with when you're pitting dumb devices against smart devices.
- 7y ago
- pluszero 7y agoMaybe we should just ddos these endpoints, they don't deserve anything better.
- tome 7y agoInteresting. Rather than restricting what is sent could one just spam them with garbage so they can't distinguish what's real from what's fake?
- andrewksl 7y agoI’m worried by how much I like this idea
- twojacobtwo 7y agoWould it note be relatively trivial for the manufacturer to just filter incoming requests by whitelist of registered ids of their appliances?
- larkeith 7y agoNot really - either you send the ids unencrypted and they're trivial to falsify, or you send them securely, in which case it takes a lot more power to decrypt each request for filtering than it does for the attacker to send each new request. DDoS protection is surprisingly challenging - usually it's relegated to a CDN provider, but that would be more difficult when the actual consumers are the same people most likely to be hosting botnets.
- hanniabu 7y agoBe careful, when you mess with corporate America you're basically going head on with momma bear US government.
- ficklepickle 7y agoAssuming the aren't well programmed, it might be preferable to spoof them with junk data. Is anyone MITM-ing and publishing the data these devices are sending? It would be nice to reverse engineer and document their APIs. Somebody needs to be watching the watchers.
- Crosseye_Jack 7y ago>what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether. Narrowband IoT is the target market for that. T-Mobile has a plan where a certified module costs $5 (There is a min order to get that price, but for a large vendor that's not going to be an issue) then $6 p/year as long as you can keep below 12MB per year. But you can keep bw down by shipping the fingerprinting software with the TV and only sampling a small section of the screen (Other TV Vendors have done done this in the past too) and create the matching fingerprints in your server farm (So no need to send a full screenshot to fingerprint the show. The question is then would $25 added to the BOM cost per device be worth it to the manufacturer (Cost of the module plus 3 years of NB-IoT coverage). Though you could reduce that by getting a custom deal with the carrier where you only pay for data if you actually activate it, then only activate the module if the TV has been in use for X hours without phoning home using the customers own connection. From a cost perceptive I think we are pretty much already there.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI think we’re safe from that because enough people put their smartTVs on the network anyway. We’ll lose some precision in the data because it’s biased against grandma, but good enough to sell the reports. It may be $25/unit, but if 9/10 put their device on the network anyway, that’s $250/useful outcome.
- Crosseye_Jack 7y agoBut that $25 is if every module is activated. If the Customer connects the TV to their own network anyway then you just cancel (if even activated anyway) the data plan for that TV. My argument is more that from a cost point of view we are pretty much at the point it could be done, Not that I think it will happen any time soon (Reg's about data collection around the world are beginning to tighten up, personally I think getting the lawyers to draft up the paper work for an always connected TV for data collection alone is gonna be more the sticking point then the cost of the equipment/data to do so).
- 7y ago
- 0_____0 7y agohave you looked into commercial variants? you can get dumb display panels geared toward that use, I'm sure the same is true for fridges, dishwashers, ovens. Aesthetics may be an issue.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoFor now. Just wait for the manufacturers to realize they can add "as a Service" to those commercial display panels. Business customers will like it because opex > capex, the vendors will argue that they need the telemetry to provide a better service, and then you won't be able to buy them as individual anyway, because there will be contracts involved.
- ReptileMan 7y agoJammer is an option. Breaking the antenna too.
- Scoundreller 7y agoOr a tiny IMSI catcher that’ll just constantly report: « Network Unavailable: Natural Disaster ». It’ll be fun to see which devices bricked themselves.
- hanniabu 7y agoI wouldn't be surprised if the devices will be bricked if they can't phone home to prevent things like this and DIY mods.
- mhh__ 7y agoDepending on how devious you're prepared to be (Perhaps to prove a point?) it may be possible to be more subtle than that and send them well-formed rubbish? (as in, by modifying the hardware - the reverse engineering probably wouldn't be too bad if you had access to high speed logic analyzers etc.) Then again, the manufacturer may program them to recognise that by making the device phone home with some kind of authentication.
- paulcole 7y ago> what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether Just like what happens when any product you like gets discontinued. You either accept the drawbacks of the alternatives and pick the next best choice or you do without it altogether. If this really becomes TV with LTE or not TV, you’ll quickly see how little people truly care. Think back to 2008-2010 and the anti-smartphone people. How many of them are still holding out?
- arpa 7y agoSurprisingly many, as market for dumbphones and burners show. You can still buy a dumbphone.
- paulcole 7y ago81% of American adults own a smartphone. Not surprisingly the 50+ demographic is least likely to own one. You’re correct that the non-smart phone market currently exists but pretty soon it’s going to be down to one or two choices at most. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
- ghaff 7y agoI sort of wonder how dumbphone sales split out between: - I don't need/want to pay for/know how to use a computer in my pocket. A phone is all I need. - My kid just needs a phone for emergencies. A smartphone will be a distraction - An actual burner phone for whatever purpose.
- hanniabu 7y agoAlso the too poor crowd. I think the only reason they still exist is because 3rd world countries use them. Although even 3rd world countries are getting upgraded to smart phones as cheap low level ones enter the market. I give it maybe 3 years until they're no longer being offered.
- 7y ago
- wallflower 7y ago> but what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether It’s worse then you think. Read dredmorbius’ comment in its entirety. > Which means that peel-and-stick computing is well within reach, if not a present reality. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21873388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21873388
- itronitron 7y agomaybe HOAs can establish community rules and set up some sort of neighborhood firewall that blocks IOT data exfiltration
- catalogia 7y agoAn HOA is the last sort of organization I'd trust to run a firewall for me. Those orgs are magnets for petty tyrants, bored stay-at-home control freaks who want to flex on the neighborhood. How many would decide to turn the internet off after 8pm "for the children" or something equally inane?
- brewdad 7y agoIf my fridge is hardcoded to phone home at 2am, it works for me. I kid.
- spitfire 7y agoI already did, over a decade ago. I tell friends "No cloud services on this ship!". They've bought into it too, buying more CD's, records and dumb only TV's. My current setup is an old 1080P Bang & Olufsen setup. Looks and sounds great. Similar with audio - B&O did airplay back in the 80's called master link. So each room in the house can play music from anywhere else. The only things networked are actual computers and phones. That's more risk than I want to handle, no need to add more. Similarly I've passed over smartwatches for good quality Swiss watches that'll still be worth something in 18 months time. I swear I'm not some character from a William Gibson novel. I expect at some point old school offline stuff will make a comeback like Vinyl has. Society lags a good 10-20 years behind the frontrunners. Sometimes more.
- stevewillows 7y agoA guy in /r/buyitforlife posted a palm pilot (Tungsten C), and it got me thinking about heading back down this road (further than I already have.) For portable audio, I'm using a souped-up iPod video. I'm thinking 2020 will be the year where I take another step in this offline direction -- at least with hardware.
- dwighttk 7y agoI had bad luck with iPod hard drives... I’m surprised you’re is still working, or was there an SSD video iPod that I’m forgetting?
- amiga-workbench 7y agoYou can easily retrofit flash memory into at least some of the older iPods.
- ben1040 7y agoI assume by “souped up” they mean they modded it. You can go onto Amazon and get adapters to retrofit HDD-based iPods with flash, and a replacement battery too as long as you’re cracking it open. I did this with an old 5G video iPod and it was a 15 minute job. Worked better than new because there wasn’t the lag in switching songs from waiting for the HDD to spin up.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago> high end washers Consider Speed Queen. Best buy (pun intended) I've made in a while. Stop with Samsung and LG - all they do is chip things.
- WWLink 7y agoI've thought about getting Speed Queens next time around. As it stands though, I have the cheapest XL washer/dryer Whirlpool makes and they've held up fantastic over 5 years of heavy use. The washer is loud and makes the lights flicker, but I think that's kinda par for the course for those. I'm not sure what a high end samsung would offer over a low end whirlpool that makes it worth spending 3x more. Edit: I feel even more strongly about that and refrigerators. I definitely 100% don't want an internet connected fridge that requires security updates lol.
- daveheq 7y agoThey'll find some way to make internet required to use these devices.
- Phylter 7y agoSomething I was impressed with recently is LG and their opt in collection policies. I was able to not opt in to most of their advertising and data collection policies and only the features that required that data collection were disabled, everything else worked fine. Samsung isn't like this and I just keep my Samsung "Smart" TVs off the network. I have a Roku (just slightly better) that handles the smart part.
- beerandt 7y agoI thought LG got busted ignoring these preferences on TVs... I know they didn't offer a way to turn off in-UI advertising.
- matt-attack 7y agoI recently went to but a new range/oven. In the price range I was looking at (1-2k) it was impossible to find something that didn’t have a touchscreen with some smart feature (WiFi, Bluetooth, whatever). You had to jump up to the $3-6k range to get a “pro” model that comes completely stripped of (apparent) electronics.
- fennecfoxen 7y agoOkay, I just did a Google Search for "oven range" which led me to Best Buy's website. Literally the first one I found: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ge-5-3-cu-ft-slide-in-gas-range-stainless-steel/5979207.p?skuId=5979207 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ge-5-3-cu-ft-slide-in-gas-range... No wifi. No bluetooth. No touch screen. USD $860. It does have a basic digital display, for oven temperature, with well-defined buttons. USD $860. Did you not want those buttons either? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Unique-Prestige-24-in-2-3-cu-ft-Gas-Convection-Range-Sealed-4-Burners-in-Stainless-Steel-UGP-24V-PC1-S-S/306699762 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Unique-Prestige-24-in-2-3-cu-ft-... $980 Maybe your price range is too high.
- fma 7y agoFaraday cage your house somehow. Stick to land-line and ethernet.
- papito 7y agoWireless emissions are not the problem. No one really cares about you enough (no offense), to spy on your proximity. It's the devices in your home with outside connection. Through your ethernet.
- NickNameNick 7y agoYou can firewall your internet connection. But what can you do when these devices start using their own embedded cell modems?
- jonplackett 7y ago> full Battlestar Galactica This is a truly marvellous turn of phrase.
- Jon_Lowtek 7y agoSo say we all!
- dyukqu 7y agoI've watched the show (only once, for now) and I love it but didn't understand the reference :|
- dodobirdlord 7y agoIt refers to the human's cybersecurity technique of banning inter-computer communication. The ship Galactica survives the initial cylon attack because it's too old to have networked devices onboard.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- smolder 7y agoMore than that, the captain specifically insisted that it NOT be upgraded with networking, despite the benefits, because of the security risks.
- donatj 7y agoMy wife's CPAP machine has LTE and phones home her sleep patterns to her doctor and presumably insurance company. Whole thing makes me really uncomfortable.
- metanoia 7y agoIf it's a ResMed Airsense 10, you can put it on airplane mode. I checked with an RF meter and it has zero emissions afterwards. Now, the data is within your control and not sent to ResMed and other unknown parties. If your insurance company wants usage and compliance information delivered to your sleep doc, put in a SD card and hand it over the old fashioned way. Once the machine is out of warranty (or you just want the radio gone) remove it using these instructions: http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t104578/Semipermanently-disabling-modem-in-ResMed-Airsense-10.html http://www.cpaptalk.com/viewtopic/t104578/Semipermanently-di...
- arkanciscan 7y agoJust wrap all your appliances with tinfoil. Problem solved!
- x0x0 7y agoWhat you're looking for is a law. Those strictly dominate technical capabilities, and can set useful baselines that remove the need for a consumer to deeply inspect the policies of every single device or white good they buy. As Maciej points out, we don't teach people how to perform botulism tests to eat safe food; we regulate it. We desperately need something similar for privacy.
- Waterluvian 7y agoWe absolutely need consumer protection laws for this. The problem is that capitalism doesn't permit companies to simply succeed by being profitable. They must grow too. So the people who run the business are ultimately forced to squeeze every conceivable revenue stream from their products. The March towards forced online IoT and printer ink cartridge obsolescence models for everything is inevitable. Appliances used to last forever and you'd get a guy to come fix them. My dad gifted me a 40 year old jigsaw that works better than any new jigsaw I've used.
- ficklepickle 7y agoInfinite expansion with finite resources. What could go wrong?
- ric2b 7y agoHow does Capitalism force capitalism to grow? There's nothing wrong with a stable company that distributes it's profits via dividends.
- stiray 7y agoHow my devices configuration look (all their mac addresses banned on router level, they dont have access to internet): - tv, not connected to network, using raspberry pi 4 for kodi, connecting outside trough squid proxy limiting domains it can connect to. Was never connected to internet - roborock vacuum cleaner, rooted, software disabled, replaced by open source version - android deviced moved to microg lineage, armored with xprivacy lua and netguard, by default on spoofing/blocking everything and disabled on case by case basis. If application demands private informations it doesnt have access to internet - 100% self hosted, sftp for files, dns server, own mail server, squid proxy with custom scripts, blocking from domains to rewritting requests, customized searx, running on custom build freebsd - browser on all devices, heavly armored firefox - only linux and freebsd devices except android in phone (it is going to be replaced by linux/sailfish when released - cosmo communicator) - each new device bought is evaluated before buy and returned after buying if it cant be rooted/blocked from internet. - no device is bought with connectivity if not needed, following "no internet of shit principle" There are lots of details around that, ask if interested. Survailance capitalism? No thank you.
- mark-r 7y agoThe post you're replying to suggests that an independent LTE connection will be bundled into every device, so that none of the interventions you've listed will work. Good luck maintaining your bubble.
- stiray 7y agoSorry, but this is the device I will not buy. The tv I have bought was a mistake, it is my last smarttv, next one will be a monitor. Anyway, why would companies bother to install LTE module, when 99.999% of people will just plug the device to the internet? It would be hugely inefficient. This just wont happen. I have seen chips beeing replaced by another ones due to be 50 cents expensier (and hugely more capable) and the LTE claim would go for even higher costs and logistics (signing the contract with mobile provider in small country like mine? Yeah right.) for trivial number of additional coverage? You are joking, right? My bubble stands as it is. It is your ass on the line, while I will renovate the appartment in next few years and adding tin foil within insulation layer into walls (to kill the wifi disturbancens from neibours) is already planned. 534 euros of additional cost is not that much compared to 60k that it will cost in total. And dont forget about GDPR.
- mikehollinger 7y ago> At least right now we can choose not to connect the devices, but what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether, like with Tesla and other high end modern cars? This is the point of “5G” everywhere. If the underlying phys and chips are cheap, low power and licensed appropriately a lot of “dumb” stuff will suddenly become smart whether you like it or not.
- ddingus 7y agoExcept for a TV, and I wanted a great plasma, I just do not buy new appliances. Tons of used ones, many easy to service, parts available online for a song. Have saved serious money over the years. Have no plans to change. I hate all the extra, useless features. Just do not need any of this garbage. For the TV, it never goes online. Whatever it does, stays home.
- megablast 7y agoSamsung always seem to be the worst, whether it is recording stuff, to getting on fire. Not too hard to avoid them.
- johntash 7y agoI have a cpap machine that uses LTE (or some sort of mobile data). I had no idea that it would automatically upload my data until I logged in to their portal one day and saw a bunch of stats before realizing "Hey.. I never gave that thing my wifi information" and looked it up.
- dghughes 7y agoIt is frustrating that everything has to be connected. Pretty soon toasters will need updates before toasting. Maybe ads will be burned into the toast? For a "TV" I think I'll just get the biggest computer monitor I can and do without an actual television tuner. Most times I watch YouTube or Amazon Prime Video, more and more less Netflix and broadcast TV. Even with that setup a Pi Hole is a must.
- nesky 7y agoYou'll have to buy the monthly subscription fee to have your toast without ads.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 7y agoJust buy a projector. Those have none of the connectivity features TV advertize nowadays and size does matter for displays.
- ravenstine 7y agoSurely people can just buy used dumb-TVs? I have a much older LCD TV(admittedly Samsung, but it was a gift) from around 2011, no smart features, but it's still perfectly good and works with all my HDMI devices. If there are millions ditching their dumb-TVs for Telescreens, that must mean that there are plenty of dumb-TVs for sale on eBay and Craigslist.
- periya 7y agoThat’s what I did, bought a dumb Samsung TV in 2016 off new egg.
- archi42 7y agoBut those eventually break and the supply dries up. Not all panels are equal, so good luck finding a decent 2019 era 4k HDR monitor in 2029 or 2034. If the LCD and control board don't give up, you'll be swapping LEDs, caps and FETs sooner or later. And that's assuming HDMI will not be superseded. So, let's hope that free-market thing actually works and at some point a "dumb display" product will be available again.
- zxcb1 7y agoWhen you are no longer in control, you don't own the product. It's a redefinition of ownership and eventually things come to own you.
- est31 7y ago> what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether Seriously troubling if the only reason preventing TV manufacturers from making their devices send your data via LTE is the cost of moving the data to them. Soon you'll have to put your TV into a faraday cage or remove the LTE antenna or whatever if you appreciate any notion of privacy.
- nesky 7y agoI think it's safe to say once we're at that stage the tv's simply won't work unless connected to the network.
- megaframe 7y ago>what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough that the choice is removed altogether. Tinfoil or an ESD bag over the transmitter or MB should do the trick. It'll be the new version of putting a sticker over the camera on your laptop.
- sandworm101 7y ago>> I don't think I'm just being a Luddite. This really seems like a bad idea. We need some way to assure security and limit data collection. Don't buy a TV. Buy a "monitor" and plug it into a device over which you have proper control. Use a computer as a media player, a computer with appropriate privacy safeguards. Even samsung would never dare place a LTE connection on a monitor.
- yahwrong 7y ago> It's now difficult to find high end washers and ovens without these features. Look for quality antique appliances. They also look better and likely are better for the environment than buying new.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago"It's now difficult to find high end washers and ovens without these features." Don't buy high-end consumer units, buy industrial units instead. They won't have any fancy features like automatic program selection or whatever, but they will wash your clothes and cook your food for decades, and can stand up to uneven loads and abuse, and they can be repaired if they ever break. I refuse to let any additional "smart" things into my life. I want buttons and manual controls, no internet connections. I don't even want any program buttons on my microwave oven, I want exactly two knobs, one for power and one for time.
- PeterStuer 7y agoMy whole country has been blanketed in public WiFi access points as they were included in all but the most high end tiers of consumer broadband installations by all ISP's. Any device with WiFi can already get to the Internet regardless of your own network firewall settings using these.
- m463 7y ago> what happens if iot LTE connections get cheap enough Hey, look what I found under your kitchen cabinet... https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/Cylon_transponder https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/Cylon_transponder