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Easy for you to say but harder to explain to the average layman. How do they know what is and isn’t a secure IoT bulb or router? In fact in the case of an ISP r

Easy for you to say but harder to explain to the average layman. How do they know what is and isn’t a secure IoT bulb or router? In fact in the case of an ISP router, how do they even know how to replace a router even if they did know their router was garbage?

southerntofu 5y ago
> harder to explain to the average layman Fairly easy: anything that's labeled "smart" or "remote control from your phone" is wrong and bad for us. We IT people should be explaining to "average laypeople" that they should never trust the industry, instead of climbing aboard the IoT bandwagon. I had many discussions with half a dozen neighbors about Alexa after i learned that some people actually have this bundled with their ISP here in France. After i explained how it works, not a single one of them kept it.
- laumars 5y ago
  It’s not that easy in practice because 1. It’s not just smart devices that are a risk. Eg some ISP routers are insecure. 2. Smart devices aren’t always so easy to spot. An IoT light bulb is pretty obvious. But what about a TV? These days it’s almost impossible to buy dumb TVs and most computer monitors don’t have speakers built in. So in some instances it takes extra effort to avoid smart devices. 3. Some people actually like the convenience of smart devices. I have some IoT bulbs at the bottom of my garden and they were actually the best solution to the problem I had (which I won’t bore you with here but the other options like solar lights weren’t suitable). What if someone wants to watch Netflix or Disney+, should they be denied that because they are told to avoid anything “smart”? Saying “we shouldn’t have nice things” isn’t a good enough answer to the “how do we secure bad things” argument. It’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. And even if I agreed with you, “smart” is already in our lives, there is no way to put that genie back in the bottle even if we wanted too.
ttyprintk 5y ago
Especially in the case of ISP cable modems.
lillecarl 5y ago
You parent poster is ranting in more places in this thread, with complete disregard for the fact that most people aren't professionals in the IT space. The answer is obvious, they don't know, just like I'm not very good at particle physics or repairing broken body parts.

southerntofu 5y ago

> harder to explain to the average layman Fairly easy: anything that's labeled "smart" or "remote control from your phone" is wrong and bad for us. We IT people should be explaining to "average laypeople" that they should never trust the industry, instead of climbing aboard the IoT bandwagon. I had many discussions with half a dozen neighbors about Alexa after i learned that some people actually have this bundled with their ISP here in France. After i explained how it works, not a single one of them kept it.

laumars 5y ago
It’s not that easy in practice because 1. It’s not just smart devices that are a risk. Eg some ISP routers are insecure. 2. Smart devices aren’t always so easy to spot. An IoT light bulb is pretty obvious. But what about a TV? These days it’s almost impossible to buy dumb TVs and most computer monitors don’t have speakers built in. So in some instances it takes extra effort to avoid smart devices. 3. Some people actually like the convenience of smart devices. I have some IoT bulbs at the bottom of my garden and they were actually the best solution to the problem I had (which I won’t bore you with here but the other options like solar lights weren’t suitable). What if someone wants to watch Netflix or Disney+, should they be denied that because they are told to avoid anything “smart”? Saying “we shouldn’t have nice things” isn’t a good enough answer to the “how do we secure bad things” argument. It’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. And even if I agreed with you, “smart” is already in our lives, there is no way to put that genie back in the bottle even if we wanted too.

ttyprintk 5y ago

Especially in the case of ISP cable modems.

lillecarl 5y ago

You parent poster is ranting in more places in this thread, with complete disregard for the fact that most people aren't professionals in the IT space. The answer is obvious, they don't know, just like I'm not very good at particle physics or repairing broken body parts.