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We're building a new house next year. There will be no smart / aware / cloud devices anywhere in the house. There will be no conduit of information from infra

by rsync 13y ago

We're building a new house next year. There will be no smart / aware / cloud devices anywhere in the house. There will be no conduit of information from infrastructure pieces out to the world, and different systems will not be interconnected. There will be physical switches, obvious pathways and islands of simple function. There will be no wireless except for wifi, for computers, which can be disabled site-wide with a single switch. I want nothing to do with this cloud aware appliance world.

krapp 13y ago
Your opinion might be unpopular here, given the venue, but I agree with it. Social applications and cloud applications are predatory by nature, if not necessarily intent. They exist to make money, and do so by adding (in many cases) unnecessary complexity to processes which don't actually need it. Not that I have anything against startups making money per se, but I like having locks whose only purpose is to make it harder for people to break into my place and steal my stuff, not to monetize my ability to do so. What Nest is doing may or may not wind up being a net gain in terms of power usage and efficiency, but as with any company, they will optimize for profit, not the convenience or freedom of their users. I just want a thermostat to make the room hotter when I turn the knob, and not possibly break because of a firmware glitch or because of an exploit in their website.
john_b 13y ago
I'm amazed you're getting downvoted for an obvious and sensible set of statements. But I guess it's easier to downvote than articulate a counterargument. Internet of things systems have terrible security at the moment, and what many such systems presently amount to is people selling a portion of their privacy and exposing themselves to security risks to save a few bucks or have some small marginal household convenience.
- dang 13y ago
  You're right that rsync's comment does not deserve a negative score. (I suspect that somewhat overwrought language like "I want nothing to do with" tends to attract downvotes from people who already disagree with the opinion being expressed. But this is about as minor a case as you can get.) All: when you see a substantive, civil comment that's unfairly faded out, it's good community practice to upvote it back to par. In most cases, users already do. But this practice is more important now that we've made some downvotes more powerful. When a comment has been downvoted unfairly, simply upvote it and keep your own post focused on the topic at hand. If instead of its first sentence this one had said "I agree", it would be a very good comment instead of a mixed bag. A simple "I agree" or "good point" is a more effective way to pipe up for a downvoted comment than going off-topic is. Let fair-minded users notice the situation for themselves.
- rsync 13y ago
  Yes, the security is terrible, but that's not my concern ... that is, I just assume the security is terrible and that everyone understands that ... it's just a given. The real issue is the complexity of "smart" systems and how that complexity grows exponentially as you connect them together. It's just a rabbit hole you can never climb out of. Or, in the words of _Normal Accidents_, a book everyone should know well, tightly coupled systems with interactive complexity fail in a predictable way that you should expect. Add some production pressures (perhaps in the form of your wife needing the thermostat to raise right now) and you're sunk.

by rsync 13y ago

krapp 13y ago

Your opinion might be unpopular here, given the venue, but I agree with it. Social applications and cloud applications are predatory by nature, if not necessarily intent. They exist to make money, and do so by adding (in many cases) unnecessary complexity to processes which don't actually need it. Not that I have anything against startups making money per se, but I like having locks whose only purpose is to make it harder for people to break into my place and steal my stuff, not to monetize my ability to do so. What Nest is doing may or may not wind up being a net gain in terms of power usage and efficiency, but as with any company, they will optimize for profit, not the convenience or freedom of their users. I just want a thermostat to make the room hotter when I turn the knob, and not possibly break because of a firmware glitch or because of an exploit in their website.

john_b 13y ago

I'm amazed you're getting downvoted for an obvious and sensible set of statements. But I guess it's easier to downvote than articulate a counterargument. Internet of things systems have terrible security at the moment, and what many such systems presently amount to is people selling a portion of their privacy and exposing themselves to security risks to save a few bucks or have some small marginal household convenience.

dang 13y ago
You're right that rsync's comment does not deserve a negative score. (I suspect that somewhat overwrought language like "I want nothing to do with" tends to attract downvotes from people who already disagree with the opinion being expressed. But this is about as minor a case as you can get.) All: when you see a substantive, civil comment that's unfairly faded out, it's good community practice to upvote it back to par. In most cases, users already do. But this practice is more important now that we've made some downvotes more powerful. When a comment has been downvoted unfairly, simply upvote it and keep your own post focused on the topic at hand. If instead of its first sentence this one had said "I agree", it would be a very good comment instead of a mixed bag. A simple "I agree" or "good point" is a more effective way to pipe up for a downvoted comment than going off-topic is. Let fair-minded users notice the situation for themselves.
rsync 13y ago
Yes, the security is terrible, but that's not my concern ... that is, I just assume the security is terrible and that everyone understands that ... it's just a given. The real issue is the complexity of "smart" systems and how that complexity grows exponentially as you connect them together. It's just a rabbit hole you can never climb out of. Or, in the words of _Normal Accidents_, a book everyone should know well, tightly coupled systems with interactive complexity fail in a predictable way that you should expect. Add some production pressures (perhaps in the form of your wife needing the thermostat to raise right now) and you're sunk.