661–670 of 944 posts
It's reasonable to expect that a company may be expected to uphold any contracts they enter into It's reasonable to require companies to disclose their update policies and uphold those policies.
It's not reasonable for companies to be compelled to add any security updates for their IoT devices
The FCC could also stand to step up seizures of imports that lack proper EMI shielding and other compliance issues. Nobody seems to care to address those violations so why should IoT be singled out? Want to boost electronics production in the America's zone to gain independence from SEA? Stop forcing companies obeying the law to compete against law breakers.
I think that IOT device manufacturers should be required to support their device for some minimum period of time AND be obligated to release the full source code for the device once they decide to end support. This also requires releasing the keys to any firmware signing mechanism or publishing a firmware update that removes such checks. The core problem is that without control of the firmware, consumers don't really…
This is unreasonable. Code is often reused in the next generation of a product. The company may not have the rights to release all of the code.
To add to previous similar comments, I think that one of the best ways to ensure that security updates are provided is to ensure that manufacturers either commit to continuous security updates, or after a minimum sunset period during which they provide security updates (e.g. 5 years), they agree to provide source code as well as build and deployment instructions, so that the community can take over. It must be possib…
Yeah I can't see an alternative to this. I'd go further to say that to guarantee this is done, company's should be required to provide this data upfront in some encrypted form, so that it's out and public in advance and can be unlocked by a simple encryption key (an FCC escrow service would be a good idea). And that's on the "if I really thought business should get a handout" approach. Practically, I see no reason th…
An open source firmware model doesn't always make sense for businesses, but I think that for most hardware-oriented businesses, it makes perfect sense. There are plenty of business models in which the hardware itself is deeply discounted or even sold at a loss in order to sell the overall service -- the IoT portion. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that is a model that many businesses pursue. If their business model makes sense in the marketplace, I think that's fine. Plenty of consumers choose proprietary and service-oriented systems -- e.g. Apple's closed ecosystem -- and that's fine as long as the consumer safety and security is prioritized. However, I think that regulation should ensure that the right for consumers to maintain their devices should fall back to the consumers if or when these companies fail.
That being said, I think that consumers should always have a right to root their devices. If consumers decide that the iPhone or IoT light switch that they purchased does not meet their needs, there is no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to flash any firmware they want on it. In the case that hardware is sold at a loss, there should be an up-front contract with a buy-out clause, which also should be regulated to ensure that the company charges a reasonable and non-discriminatory "regular fee" for hardware independent of contracts, much like how many cellular carriers work. If the consumer chooses to "buy out" this contract in order to root their device, then that should be allowed if they pay the pro-rated "regular fee", adjusted for the amount of time they have paid into the contract.
I've considered governance models that can exist beyond the lifetime of a company that would guarantee escrow access to source code. Pitching this to a company is of course quite difficult, since no company thinks that far ahead, and many in leadership refuse to consider what happens if and when their venture fails. I think that the only way to build such a governance model is to provide an open source framework for managing both builds and OTAs that can ensure this. Escrow as a service could be built into this, using one of various cryptographic election strategies for recovering key details if an organization goes dark.
Either way, having the FCC seriously consider the security of IoT devices is a great first step, as long as it is a step and not a hurdle for innovation.
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I'm wondering why you'd have a smart oven in the first place. Seems like all risk and no reward.
Probably for some feature or astetic that's unrelated to the smart features, but is only available on the smart oven.
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Do you believe that your proposal increases the cybersecurity of society as a whole? You focus a lot on the rights and conveniences of a company, but the rights of a company are not more important that the security of society as a whole. There are good guys and bad guys out there looking for vulnerabilities. What you propose reduces the number of good guys more than it reduces the number of bad guys (since bad guys a…
I proposed a preference for systemic solutions over building a soft dependence on white hat hackers. This benefits society as a whole because it clearly delineates actions with intent. If doing X is always not allowed, then all you need to do is find people doing X and you can hold them accountable. If you allow or disallow the same activity based on merit of intent, then you increase the level of plausible deniabili…
I attempt to solve the problem by embracing chaos and empowering those who seek to do good in the chaos. I'd like to see our IT systems become so hardened that no amount of chaos can harm them. Let the grey-hats and black-hats run wild, it is possible to build our technology well enough that they can do no harm. This would require those with the most wealth and power in our society to do a little more, to take on some additional responsibility and demonstrate they are worthy of the trust and power we have given them. Let individuals be free and make the creators of our technology responsible for their own creations.
What you have proposed is what we already have, it is the status quo. When you hear about a major breach every other week, ask yourself whether or not it's working.
[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/15/f12-isnt-hacking-missouri-...
As a developer and a consumer, what I'd really like to see is: - Manufacturer voluntary guarantee of 1/3/5 years security updates with an expiration date. - Separation of functionality and security updates. - The ability to "turn off" connectivity and retain full local functionality. - An industry security certification like UL. - A single point way of identifying and validating devices. As it is, I avoid using IoT m…
> Manufacturer voluntary guarantee of 1/3/5 years security updates with an expiration date. I just have to point out that these are all extraordinarily short numbers. There are industrial control systems that are still in operation despite being made out of mechanical relays from before the advent of microprocessors. We got used to electronics getting replaced every 3-5 years because if it's a laptop by then it will…
I predict the NEC will start demanding the use of Wago style splices, no more wire nuts, due to how frequently people are swapping out smart switches and the like. Even non-smart dimmers have been changed multiple times in my residence due to evolving LED compatibility (another "wild west" situation right now). I haven't broken any copper, but the increased likelihood is pretty obvious. Electricians may start seeing more pigtails installed for no other reason than breakage.
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I think this is oversimplifying things. Is finishing the dinner more important than applying a patch that fixes actively exploited bug that locks your oven into cleaning mode and burns everything inside into ash over the next three hours? Or something that disables the safety checks and lets the oven overheat and burn your house down? (Granted, the latter shouldn't physically be possible because it should have physic…
These seem like very rare scenarios. If we're concerned about dire threats like this, the manufacturer needs a way to remotely send devices into an internet-disconnected "safe mode" before anyone's even talking about updates.
I agree that these scenarios are (relatively) far fetched _now_; but if we expect the future to include connecting appliances like that to the internet, then solving problems like those is table-stakes stuff.
I understand that enforced software updates are annoying; but for high-stakes environments like this they strike me as a lesser of the two evils.
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> Even if the owner can't control exactly what is in an update, they absolutely MUST be able to control when an update occurs. +1 for this at the consumer level. My oven may have a critical update, but - for right now - *nothing* is more critical than finishing dinner. I'll let the update apply the day after thanksgiving when I'm doing the dishes. There are a few connected appliances brands that do this well: updates…
I'm wondering why you'd have a smart oven in the first place. Seems like all risk and no reward.