6 ms·

One company controlling all these electronics in my house. How do people not find that disturbing?

JoBrad 6y ago
I find a security system that only lets me know when it’s been triggered useless. My wife set off our alarm the other day. I used an external webcam to verify that it was my wife, and disabled the alarm before she could put her things down and disable it herself. You can’t do that with a system that isn’t connected externally.
- est31 6y ago
  External connection != external control. Although with home security services, it's one of the areas where I think external control is advantageous because the best cameras don't help you when the thieves take the device that keeps the recordings with them.
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    > External connection != external control. Exactly this. Even in security contexts, my Home Assistant-based security system is running fully-local object detection and runs automations when "Person" shows up in an unexpected place at an unexpected time. It emails me the offending image (thereby offloading from the camera) and records video locally. If it happens at night while I'm asleep it runs a sequence of turning lights on to scare them off and then wakes me up if it didn't work. This is kind of a combo of local-only with a few pings to the outer world.
    - oauea 6y ago
      What software are you using for object detection? I'd like to extend my Home Assistant setup.
      - acidburnNSA 6y ago
        I made a custom component to integrate this object detection lib with pytorch. https://github.com/ultralytics/yolov5 https://github.com/ultralytics/yolov5 The tensorflow one it comes with didn't work on python 3.8 or on my gpu. I should blog about it.
        ViViDboarder 6y ago
        In case you do, what’s your blog so I can follow?
    - JoBrad 6y ago
      I plan on using HA for everything but the alarm system eventually. But I don’t know of a monitored system controlled by HA, do you?
  - JoBrad 6y ago
    My camera isn’t part of the alarm system (not sure I really want an alarm going off because of a camera). They are triggered by it, though.
- oauea 6y ago
  Is there any reason the manufacturer couldn't have simply supplied an additional box you put in your home, that has all the storage and processing to do all that? The only thing the manufacturer would have to do is provide a dyndns-like service.
paulcole 6y ago
There’s so many things I find disturbing that whether my is Google speaker is listening to me doesn’t even crack the Top 10. What’s the negative outcome? I don’t believe this is the start of an inevitable slippery slope decline into a Big Brother surveillance state. Yeah maybe they’ll get more data and target ads better, but that’s a good thing. I want to know about products that might interest me and then buy them!
- beardedwizard 6y ago
  you can't imagine the problem of having your private conversations recorded, then a business compelled to release them without a warrant? You can't imagine what inferences might be made about your personal conversations and sold to others? I do not think you are giving the words you say enough credit.
  - paulcole 6y ago
    Of course I can imagine those problems! Those problems are brought up literally every time I mention that in-home speakers are not the end-of-the-world-nightmare-scenario so many people treat them as. I just don’t particularly care. Also if someone wants to cut out the middleman and buy my personal conversations directly, feel free to reach out. Great value! Last night I talked about weed and Top Chef!
    - sukilot 6y ago
      Enjoy your privilege of not being interesting or important enough to be the target of criminal activity or government opppression. Millions of people aren't so lucky, and they deserve empathy as they work to build a better world for you to carelessly enjoy.
      - cameronbrown 6y ago
        How is other people's lives their responsibility?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michaelcampbell 6y ago
What bothers you more; "one", or this particular company?
- Johnyma22 6y ago
  For me; both. "one" because it is too much of a situation of "all of your eggs in one basket". I understand why people heavily invest in a specific ecosystem but I feel it's short-termism. I would be open to the argument however that tech moves so quickly that short-termism doesn't really apply to most consumer products. "particular company" because Google has been a bad actor in all of the projects I have personally been involved with where they have been involved. This is purely a personal anecdote and YMMV (and probably does). I am sure I am an exception with this opinion.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    To me it more resembles telling your secret to one trusted friend vs telling everyone you know.
tpmx 6y ago
This X-Files episode (s11e07) from the 2018 reboot season satirized something similar brilliantly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm9sbG93ZXJz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm9sbG93ZXJz

I find a security system that only lets me know when it’s been triggered useless. My wife set off our alarm the other day. I used an external webcam to verify that it was my wife, and disabled the alarm before she could put her things down and disable it herself. You can’t do that with a system that isn’t connected externally.

est31 6y ago
External connection != external control. Although with home security services, it's one of the areas where I think external control is advantageous because the best cameras don't help you when the thieves take the device that keeps the recordings with them.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  > External connection != external control. Exactly this. Even in security contexts, my Home Assistant-based security system is running fully-local object detection and runs automations when "Person" shows up in an unexpected place at an unexpected time. It emails me the offending image (thereby offloading from the camera) and records video locally. If it happens at night while I'm asleep it runs a sequence of turning lights on to scare them off and then wakes me up if it didn't work. This is kind of a combo of local-only with a few pings to the outer world.
  - oauea 6y ago
    What software are you using for object detection? I'd like to extend my Home Assistant setup.
    - acidburnNSA 6y ago
      I made a custom component to integrate this object detection lib with pytorch. https://github.com/ultralytics/yolov5 https://github.com/ultralytics/yolov5 The tensorflow one it comes with didn't work on python 3.8 or on my gpu. I should blog about it.
      - ViViDboarder 6y ago
        In case you do, what’s your blog so I can follow?
  - JoBrad 6y ago
    I plan on using HA for everything but the alarm system eventually. But I don’t know of a monitored system controlled by HA, do you?
- JoBrad 6y ago
  My camera isn’t part of the alarm system (not sure I really want an alarm going off because of a camera). They are triggered by it, though.
oauea 6y ago
Is there any reason the manufacturer couldn't have simply supplied an additional box you put in your home, that has all the storage and processing to do all that? The only thing the manufacturer would have to do is provide a dyndns-like service.

paulcole 6y ago

There’s so many things I find disturbing that whether my is Google speaker is listening to me doesn’t even crack the Top 10. What’s the negative outcome? I don’t believe this is the start of an inevitable slippery slope decline into a Big Brother surveillance state. Yeah maybe they’ll get more data and target ads better, but that’s a good thing. I want to know about products that might interest me and then buy them!

beardedwizard 6y ago
you can't imagine the problem of having your private conversations recorded, then a business compelled to release them without a warrant? You can't imagine what inferences might be made about your personal conversations and sold to others? I do not think you are giving the words you say enough credit.
- paulcole 6y ago
  Of course I can imagine those problems! Those problems are brought up literally every time I mention that in-home speakers are not the end-of-the-world-nightmare-scenario so many people treat them as. I just don’t particularly care. Also if someone wants to cut out the middleman and buy my personal conversations directly, feel free to reach out. Great value! Last night I talked about weed and Top Chef!
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Enjoy your privilege of not being interesting or important enough to be the target of criminal activity or government opppression. Millions of people aren't so lucky, and they deserve empathy as they work to build a better world for you to carelessly enjoy.
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      How is other people's lives their responsibility?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

michaelcampbell 6y ago

What bothers you more; "one", or this particular company?

Johnyma22 6y ago
For me; both. "one" because it is too much of a situation of "all of your eggs in one basket". I understand why people heavily invest in a specific ecosystem but I feel it's short-termism. I would be open to the argument however that tech moves so quickly that short-termism doesn't really apply to most consumer products. "particular company" because Google has been a bad actor in all of the projects I have personally been involved with where they have been involved. This is purely a personal anecdote and YMMV (and probably does). I am sure I am an exception with this opinion.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  To me it more resembles telling your secret to one trusted friend vs telling everyone you know.

tpmx 6y ago

This X-Files episode (s11e07) from the 2018 reboot season satirized something similar brilliantly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm9sbG93ZXJz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rm9sbG93ZXJz