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The article is very vague on what actually caused the shutdown. Does he think a human triggered the kill command? Or the remote servers do this when they haven'

The article is very vague on what actually caused the shutdown. Does he think a human triggered the kill command? Or the remote servers do this when they haven't heard from the device in a while? Or the device shuts itself down if it can't reach the servers?

mindcrash 1y ago
Seemingly remote kill command, very likely punishment due to not receiving telemetry because that particular address was blocked through firewall: "2024/02/29, 14:06:55.852622 [LogKimbo][CAppSystemState] Handle message! cmd_id 501 RS_CTRL_REMOTE_EVENT, len 8 serialno 0" Note something being named RS_CTRL_REMOTE_EVENT
- stevage 1y ago
  Yes, but automatic or manual? If automatic, what exactly was the trigger? I'd have been tempted to explore this further - does sending fake or repeated telemetry satisfy it?
  - stronglikedan 1y ago
    OT, but anything automatic was manually and intentionally implemented at some point
    - hirsto 1y ago
      [dead]
    - conductr 1y ago
      But is it malicious or innocuous? I could see just the assumption being made that if it hasn’t phoned home it must be malfunctioning and ask risk mitigation then force it to brick. It’s not super unreasonable considering very few people will ever block the comms.
      - stevage 1y ago
        I think OP said it claimed to be able to work offline.
      - thfuran 1y ago
        How is that reasonable? What about loss of network access makes vacuuming less safe?
        theamk 1y ago
        it's not loss of network access, it's partial network access. There still got to be _some_ connection to get this 501 command.
        conductr 1y ago
        I wouldn’t argue it’s reasonable, but these kinds of decisions get made without much thought all the time whether we like it or not. It’s possible they just didn’t give it much thought. Or, it was just a directive from Legal and so nobody asks questions. Possibly the marketing team doesn’t even know this got made and still touts it as “works offline”. I’m not really defending it but pointing out this is still on a different plane than outright maliciousness.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Punishment due to not receiving telemetry? Please, that's fantasy land stuff. It might be a malfunction caused by his blocking, but the idea that someone in HQ was like "guys, we've got someone blocking telemetry!" "disable his vacuum, the bastard". Or in some design meeting they were like "what do we do if a handful of privacy nerds block our telemetry?" "well.. I guess we should automatically disable their vacuums in a weird way so they repeatedly send them in for repair and it costs us loads of money". Come on, at least try to live in the real world.
fckgw 1y ago
>"The manufacturer had the power to remotely disable devices and used it against me for blocking their data collection." He posits that some low-level support person triggered a remote "kill switch" because he dared to block some telemetry servers which is, frankly, ridiculous.
- Bratmon 1y ago
  So what's your explanation?
  - fwip 1y ago
    A much simpler explanation is that the device disabled itself after being unable to contact the cloud servers for X time (probably a bug), rather than an employee sending a kill command over the now-disabled cloud connection. The article is obviously AI-written, and also I very much doubt that these conclusions were reached without a sycophantic AI in their ear.
- thfuran 1y ago
  He didn't posit that it was a manual action, only that the kill command came over the network.
plasticeagle 1y ago
Most, if not all, of the article is written by AI.
- 3pt14159 1y ago
  I downvoted you for two reasons: 1. I didn't see any obvious AI ticks in the article. 2. If you want to claim that some slop is AI then please bring reasons. Even if they are the stuff of "there is too many em-dashes" then fine at least you brought something.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    Top image is definitely AI, watermarked though so they're not hiding that. I do see a lot of em dashes throughout the opening, but at least one of them seems proper. "Inside, the iLife A11 wasn’t just a vacuum cleaner; it was a small computer on wheels." is also kind of an AI tick phrasing. And there's pretty heavy use of bullet points for listing things beyond what I would normally expect from a tech blog. (Also a lot of random lines are in block quotes for emphasis, but that could be a writing quirk. Kinda weird to read though) If you go through there's at least enough of a smell I suspect someone had an AI polish or edit their actual blog post here?
    - reaperducer 1y ago
      I do see a lot of em dashes throughout the opening Maybe he's using a Mac? Those of us who have been professional writers are quite comfortable with pressing ⇧⌥-
  - mcv 1y ago
    The art is pretty obviously AI, though. But I didn't get that impression from the article.

mindcrash 1y ago

Seemingly remote kill command, very likely punishment due to not receiving telemetry because that particular address was blocked through firewall: "2024/02/29, 14:06:55.852622 [LogKimbo][CAppSystemState] Handle message! cmd_id 501 RS_CTRL_REMOTE_EVENT, len 8 serialno 0" Note something being named RS_CTRL_REMOTE_EVENT

stevage 1y ago
Yes, but automatic or manual? If automatic, what exactly was the trigger? I'd have been tempted to explore this further - does sending fake or repeated telemetry satisfy it?
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  OT, but anything automatic was manually and intentionally implemented at some point
  - hirsto 1y ago
    [dead]
  - conductr 1y ago
    But is it malicious or innocuous? I could see just the assumption being made that if it hasn’t phoned home it must be malfunctioning and ask risk mitigation then force it to brick. It’s not super unreasonable considering very few people will ever block the comms.
    - stevage 1y ago
      I think OP said it claimed to be able to work offline.
    - thfuran 1y ago
      How is that reasonable? What about loss of network access makes vacuuming less safe?
      - theamk 1y ago
        it's not loss of network access, it's partial network access. There still got to be _some_ connection to get this 501 command.
      - conductr 1y ago
        I wouldn’t argue it’s reasonable, but these kinds of decisions get made without much thought all the time whether we like it or not. It’s possible they just didn’t give it much thought. Or, it was just a directive from Legal and so nobody asks questions. Possibly the marketing team doesn’t even know this got made and still touts it as “works offline”. I’m not really defending it but pointing out this is still on a different plane than outright maliciousness.
IshKebab 1y ago
Punishment due to not receiving telemetry? Please, that's fantasy land stuff. It might be a malfunction caused by his blocking, but the idea that someone in HQ was like "guys, we've got someone blocking telemetry!" "disable his vacuum, the bastard". Or in some design meeting they were like "what do we do if a handful of privacy nerds block our telemetry?" "well.. I guess we should automatically disable their vacuums in a weird way so they repeatedly send them in for repair and it costs us loads of money". Come on, at least try to live in the real world.

fckgw 1y ago

>"The manufacturer had the power to remotely disable devices and used it against me for blocking their data collection." He posits that some low-level support person triggered a remote "kill switch" because he dared to block some telemetry servers which is, frankly, ridiculous.

Bratmon 1y ago
So what's your explanation?
- fwip 1y ago
  A much simpler explanation is that the device disabled itself after being unable to contact the cloud servers for X time (probably a bug), rather than an employee sending a kill command over the now-disabled cloud connection. The article is obviously AI-written, and also I very much doubt that these conclusions were reached without a sycophantic AI in their ear.
thfuran 1y ago
He didn't posit that it was a manual action, only that the kill command came over the network.

plasticeagle 1y ago

Most, if not all, of the article is written by AI.

3pt14159 1y ago
I downvoted you for two reasons: 1. I didn't see any obvious AI ticks in the article. 2. If you want to claim that some slop is AI then please bring reasons. Even if they are the stuff of "there is too many em-dashes" then fine at least you brought something.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  Top image is definitely AI, watermarked though so they're not hiding that. I do see a lot of em dashes throughout the opening, but at least one of them seems proper. "Inside, the iLife A11 wasn’t just a vacuum cleaner; it was a small computer on wheels." is also kind of an AI tick phrasing. And there's pretty heavy use of bullet points for listing things beyond what I would normally expect from a tech blog. (Also a lot of random lines are in block quotes for emphasis, but that could be a writing quirk. Kinda weird to read though) If you go through there's at least enough of a smell I suspect someone had an AI polish or edit their actual blog post here?
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    I do see a lot of em dashes throughout the opening Maybe he's using a Mac? Those of us who have been professional writers are quite comfortable with pressing ⇧⌥-
- mcv 1y ago
  The art is pretty obviously AI, though. But I didn't get that impression from the article.