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More awful IoT stuff

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Re: More awful IoT stuff

#101

Post by icebraining »

iofj wrote: post #96
icebraining wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it's a project with lots of contributors, any one of them can sue¹. If no contributor can be identified, it's probably unenforceable, yes, though IANAL. ¹I believe there are some exceptions, like having contributed only an insignificant fraction of the whole work.

That reasoning works until the judge considers damages. Then let's say it's a small developer, not too much work, and no commercial interest in the code. Damages are limited, in western law, to, well, damages. You need to have suffered a financial loss, the other party needs to have violated the license/contract/law/... and you need to show the causal connection between the two. Let's say you contributed 500 lines of…

There's always statutory damages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_damages_for_copyrigh...

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#102

Post by bgentry »

CaptSpify wrote: post #71
bgentry wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The network model you describe sounds just like Apple's HomeKit.

Is that compatible with non-apple devices? I generally dislike apple philosophically, so I avoid their products.

HomeKit works with non-Apple connected devices like lights, switches, cameras, locks, etc. Apple doesn't actually make any such devices themselves. But as far as I know, you need an iOS or tvOS device to actually run the HomeKit framework and connect the devices together.

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#103

Post by steven2012 »

georgehotelling wrote: post #93
steven2012 wrote: post #65

The stuff from wirelesstags.net are generally very good. I have a bunch of sensors and their Reed sensors for detecting opening and closing of doors are very good. I hook it up with ifttt and turn on my Hue lights when I open and close my doors. Clearly not ground breaking stuff but useful. The Hue lights are great but expensive. The Hue switch made things a lot more useful as well. I'm waiting for them to come out w…

The wirelesstags.net stuff looks good, but it also is tied to their cloud services. I couldn't find a local API to talk to their bridge device. The nice thing about Hue is that their bridge can run completely disconnected from the internet and still respond to RESTful API requests, which means that when Phillips end-of-lifes Hue my bridge will keep working with Home Assistant.

Yes that was a concern of mine as well. They stated that if they do go out of business they would open source everything so that we could build our own solution. That's basically what convinced me to go all in with their product.

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#104

Post by ehntoo »

josho wrote: post #74
oliwarner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost its power? This is just copyright apathy. Nothing new, especially in China. Look at it from the manufacturer's point of view. They know how expensive this would be to take to China and prosecute and they know they're a tiny fish. It's simply a reasoned gamble that saying no is the fastest, most efficient way to get this dealt with. Much easier than auditing the code, having the developer separate out sensitive d…

This makes me wonder how imports are handled. If I can buy a third party power supply from a US based order system (amazon), and this ps is dangerous (eg. those knock off Apple power supplies). How is this legal, presumably the device hasn't passed safety regulations here. So, there must be some way to stop this product from entering the country. Why isn't that mechanism happening? Same applies for this device. If a…

I cannot speak to copyright, but there seem to be mechanisms in place for stopping import of trademark infringing goods to the US. See for example the run-in which SparkFun had with importing lookalike Fluke Multimeters a few years ago: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1428 and previous HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7428799

This might actually do more to confirm than dispute your comment about "laws for those with money/power", though.

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#106

Post by dimino »

diggan wrote: post #18

So there is a great amount of lists, blogposts and information about awful/bad IoT things, but if someone like me want to have a list about IoT things that are actually secure and well-working, where would I find that?

I'm a little worried the answer to this question is []. :(

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#107

Post by bloaf »

almostarockstar wrote: post #36

Sounds like there is a strong need for a standard OS build for IoT devices. I'm not expert in the area, but I would imagine a standard API could be implemented to handle the vast majority of use cases. Connecting to an app securely, turning things on and off, basic scheduling.

Imagine if everything ran a Plan9-like OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(operating_system)

That gets you:

1. Communications between devices are encrypted by the OS.

2. Access to the devices are handled with simple file-permissions.

3. Feature-providing utilities can be run either locally (i.e. on the device's CPU) or remotely (on some hub-CPU.)

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#108

Post by chdir »

CaptSpify wrote: post #66

I just blogged about this yesterday. In short: > The line in the sand for me is: network vs cloud-based systems. I want things to be network connected, but I want it for my own network only. I want to be able to control my coffee pot, but only from home. If I choose to expose this over the internet, great! It's up to me to make sure it's secure. I don't want anyone making that decision for me. I also want it to be up…

> If I choose to expose this over the internet, great!

And I can't even control which of my apps should not connect to the network. There are lots of fun apps e.g. games, photo editing etc. where internet connectivity is solely needed for ads. I'm OK with that. However I don't want them uploading any personal information to their servers. I wish I could stop that.

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#109

Post by dreamcompiler »

CaptSpify wrote: post #71
bgentry wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The network model you describe sounds just like Apple's HomeKit.

Is that compatible with non-apple devices? I generally dislike apple philosophically, so I avoid their products.

I applaud Apple for trying to make security for IoT devices less shitty. That said, Apple has never been able to make cloud services work well, and when they work at all they don't work on non-Apple platforms and they tend to get worse over time. So yeah, Apple's not an option for my home control needs either.

Re: More awful IoT stuff

#110

Post by theseatoms »

jsondata wrote: post #86
daveguy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What we need is a push for openness and interoperability in the cloud Personally I think that is the opposite of what we need. Most IoT devices should be local-network-only. So if by cloud you mean a personal cloud (local network or VPN), then yes, I agree. Otherwise keep the interwebs away from my thermostat.

That's a fair point, and I agree. However, the reality is that a major selling point for these things is along the lines of "control it from anywhere", and whether people actually need remote access or not, it seems that a lot of consumers still see it as a major upside. Maybe what we really need are more consumer-friendly, self-hosted (and secure) home VPN options. That way you can just run your services on the loca…

This sounds like the intended use case for urbit.
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