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Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

uk.businessinsider.com

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Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I bought a Dropcam when they were a new thing. When I realized they did literally everything via a cloud service and would be a brick without that service, I was furious. The incredible arrogance of a company making a webcam that sends your video to their servers, and provides no means to use the camera in a secure/local fashion, was astonishing to me. I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge succe…

> I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge success. The level of security awareness the general public has is terrifyingly small, and companies are taking advantage of it to produce brickable devices. It is the legal variant of ransomware...They can hold your data hostage for any reason and at any time. You're completely at their mercy, with regard to pricing and availability, and you have to trust they won't fall on hard times, or get tired of running the service.

That is the difference between tech professionals and the general public. We care, others don't. Make it work, make it just expensive enough folks will buy it to fix their problem while you clean up, profit.

If you want things to change, it'll only happen with regulation.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#32

Post by anexprogrammer »

I really dislike the tendency of the new economy to simply pull the plug, not because of end of life, or unprofitability, but apparently because they're excited to work on something new.

To hell with your exciting journey, I paid good money for something I'd like to work for a reasonable length of time. I want home automation and appliances to work until they go pop.

It puts me off buying a lot of these things. We've already had smart TVs turning off features like Skype in 2 yo sets.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#33

Post by darkclarity »

chollida1 wrote: post #3

Wow, this is certainly something to think about in the age of the IoT's. I guess the question should be asked as to where the line is between when a user should and shouldn't expect a device to work. Especially in the coming age of drivers less cars. I can easily see a case where each driver-less car will need to talk to a mother-ship if for no other reason than syncing with other cars around it, getting new GPS maps…

I think the public will eventually notice that gadgets and appliances that rely on apps and internet access are a risky investment. Even multinational appliance manufacturers give up on the smart features in their TVs after several years.

Forget the high end products with their fancy features and instead stick with reliable basic/mid range products that will last for decades rather than years.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#34

Post by kefka »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #30
kefka wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a much scarier scenario... You use whatever app to summon a car. You give it a destination, and instead, the car makes a detour to the local police station. the address you entered is in a higher crime rate locality, and therefore the car owner approved further "screening". So the car goes to the local police station for a routine search of the car (authorized by car owner) and a dog search of you... Th…

There was a short story cropped up, I think here on HN, a few weeks back with exactly that scenario. My search-fu fails to find you a link.

You're right. I wasn't sure if it was here, reddit, or somewhere else. IIRC, it also had a quadcopter that jammed GPS or something, and the auto-taxi drove through a bridge and fell in the water.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#35

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I bought a Dropcam when they were a new thing. When I realized they did literally everything via a cloud service and would be a brick without that service, I was furious. The incredible arrogance of a company making a webcam that sends your video to their servers, and provides no means to use the camera in a secure/local fashion, was astonishing to me. I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge succe…

> I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge success. The level of security awareness the general public has is terrifyingly small, and companies are taking advantage of it to produce brickable devices. It is the legal variant of ransomware...They can hold your data hostage for any reason and at any time. You're completely at their mercy, with regard to pricing and availability, and you have to trust…

[deleted]

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#36

Post by jedberg »

It's interesting how so many people think this is a new problem because of IoT.

This problem has existed for years with games. If you had a game that had to be online to play, and the company decided to stop running the servers, you were screwed.

Sure, sometimes people reversed engineered it, and while the company usually didn't care, it was technically illegal.

We need some laws to protect consumers, that either say that they must release their API if they're going to shut down, or at least make reverse engineering the system legal.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#37

Post by shinykitten »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #30
kefka wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a much scarier scenario... You use whatever app to summon a car. You give it a destination, and instead, the car makes a detour to the local police station. the address you entered is in a higher crime rate locality, and therefore the car owner approved further "screening". So the car goes to the local police station for a routine search of the car (authorized by car owner) and a dog search of you... Th…

There was a short story cropped up, I think here on HN, a few weeks back with exactly that scenario. My search-fu fails to find you a link.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-star

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#38

Post by profeta »

kefka wrote: post #9
sharkweek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha - imagine a bank robbery escaping in a driverless car, only to have the manufacturer brick it during their daring escape.

I can imagine a much scarier scenario... You use whatever app to summon a car. You give it a destination, and instead, the car makes a detour to the local police station. the address you entered is in a higher crime rate locality, and therefore the car owner approved further "screening". So the car goes to the local police station for a routine search of the car (authorized by car owner) and a dog search of you... Th…

just because the car owner allow search of his property, it does not make your property available.

and i am also pretty sure even a bad lawyer could get you a criminal kidnap case out of this.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#40

Post by mhurron »

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I bought a Dropcam when they were a new thing. When I realized they did literally everything via a cloud service and would be a brick without that service, I was furious. The incredible arrogance of a company making a webcam that sends your video to their servers, and provides no means to use the camera in a secure/local fashion, was astonishing to me. I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge succe…

> arrogance of a company making a webcam that sends your video to their servers, and provides no means to use the camera in a secure/local fashion

I basically say the same thing about every 'smart home' device.

I would love to be able to query my thermostat to find out when and how long it turned the heat/AC on and whatnot, but I only want it to talk to my local wifi and devices. I don't want it to use a cloud service at all for anything ever.

I don't have that option, so I don't use them.

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