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What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

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Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#61

Post by freehunter »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #44
freehunter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I've always found with the California warnings is that they're so damn generic. There's nothing forcing companies to tell you what compound is harmful, where it is, or what it's used for.. A fishing sinker made from lead is pretty obvious when you see that warning. There's only one ingredient, lead, and it's obvious why it's harmful. But when you buy a complex product that says "this product contains chem…

Even if they did, would it matter? It would be some chemical term, like the one you see in an ingedient list, that is meaningless to most people. And these are places, not products...with gardens. Even if they use organic pesticides, they probably still have to put up the warning.

>And these are places, not products

Those places have products that contain the toxic chemical, An apartment building is not poisonous by itself, they contain products that contain the harmful chemical. That's what they should be warning you about.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#62

Post by guest »

This rant about societal evolution is mostly based on grounded political science and governance.

tldr: Regulation drives technological evolution, access to information drives product requirements when physical regulation is not there. Without information the free market stagnates (read; fails over time as an efficient tool to drive society forwards).

If the world will be reigned by fascism, the increase in technological requirements (increasing requirements on efficiency, availability, longetivety etc) will solely be on the consumer (read more; the enlightened consumer) - without as much, precise and accessible information as possible that system will fall. Those who favours less information are the same with one or more tied interests to upkeeping status quo. Regressives (majority of the conservatives) are not for meritocracy as the context change pushing meritocracy is upsetting status quo by default. If you like to be cynic the "war" to be allowed to know (the age of missinformation) is allready here with manipulated narratives and fake mainstream news.

Regulation is an easier way to sustain a minimum of increasing requirements and when that is not there (inter)nets (read; communication/access to information) will play a key role to technological evolution.

Hopefully this means someone has gotten a little better insight into correlation and causation.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#63

Post by lucb1e »

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Simple rule: I buy it, I own it and it should not need an external service to operate. If it does then I'm not buying it. None of those grafted on services for me, I really have yet to see anything that was so compelling that I would give up and consent to essentially renting a device and having an account with some service to make it useful. That way you also don't need to warn anybody about the lousy security, I'm…

> it should not need an external service to operate. If it does then I'm not buying it.

And how do you know, pre-purchase, whether it does?

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#64

Post by npsimons »

throw2016 wrote: post #53
oneweekwonder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> standards-based protocols Ok seeing we talking IoT what standard: of the top of my head mqtt, coap, http/rest, soap? Those are just communication protocols. Now we still need to standardize the application data layer jsonschema, swagger/openapi, wsdl? and most of the time the vendor wants to own the application for their benefit. Also the classic xkcd of standards leading to more standards is so true. As you mentio…

This self serving 'general public don't care' argument by software folks is becoming tired and cliched. The general public doesn't care about freedom of press. Let's take that away. The general public doesn't care about elections. Let's take that away. People use these self serving assumptions of ignorance to empower themselves. You have a ton of devices and things you use in your everyday life. Why should a doctor o…

> That's why you need standards, so vague terms like the 'general public don't care' are not used to abuse them.

I wouldn't argue so much for standards of technology, as for standards of conduct. It's funny you mention doctors and civil engineers, two professions with high ethical standards precisely because they went through the same painful growth the software industry is going through now.

The 'general public', quite frankly, is ignorant about a great many things. And let's be honest: it is very rare indeed to be the kind of person with the aptitude, time and willingness to become a polymath to the point that you'll never be scammed in any field, ever. It is incumbent upon us, the knowledgeable and ethical practicioners of our field, to hold not just ourselves, but our whole industry to a higher standard. Thus, discussions such as this one on HN where we point out that IoT devices could cause a world of hurt because of all the make-a-quick-buck hucksters who couldn't be arsed to do due diligience.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#65

Post by npsimons »

lucb1e wrote: post #63
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Simple rule: I buy it, I own it and it should not need an external service to operate. If it does then I'm not buying it. None of those grafted on services for me, I really have yet to see anything that was so compelling that I would give up and consent to essentially renting a device and having an account with some service to make it useful. That way you also don't need to warn anybody about the lousy security, I'm…

> it should not need an external service to operate. If it does then I'm not buying it. And how do you know, pre-purchase, whether it does?

> And how do you know, pre-purchase, whether it does?

By requiring a warning label on it, as the title suggests. Doesn't seem like such a silly idea now, does it?

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#66

Post by freehunter »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #57
jstanley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that is meaningless to most people. Therefore no people should be allowed to know? For what it's worth, I'm not in favour of California's labelling requirements either. But just because something is meaningless to the majority of the population doesn't mean it's meaningless to the entire population. And it is specifically the population that is interested in knowing it that finds it least meaningless!

I didn't say allowed or not. Sure, you should know that there are 15 ug of theomacrotasium among a hundred other things in your environment, but then what? Information overload means our decisions can get worse, not better, when presented with more of it. What would be more meaningful: certifications that act as abstractions for complex problems. Organic kind of acts like this already, and of course there are multipl…

How about a warning that says "The battery in this cell phone contains an amount of theomacrotasium known to cause cancer if ingested."

That's a completely actionable warning. Don't eat the contents of the battery of your cell phone.

Or how about "This carpet contains formeldahyde, which is known to cause birth defects in pregnant women. Limit exposure to this carpet for a few days after installation."

That's a good warning. That tells me what I need to know, what the risks are, and how to mitigate it.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#67

Post by ygra »

FabHK wrote: post #34
EvanAnderson wrote: post #4

I'm of the opinion that products which require a separate service to perform their advertised functions (i.e. a "cloud" service-- be it "free" with the product or subscription-based) should be clearly labeled as such. I know that I don't actually own anything that I can't self-host (or pay whoever I want to host it), but it's clear that most people don't. Public education on this front seems valuable to me (but, then…

Yes. There's this doorbell (400-1500 USD) that connects via internet to a central host, and then notifies you on your smartphone. Seems sort of a neat idea, but a house lasts several decades - is that startup and its server going to be around that long? http://www.doorbird.com

Well, not many things remain the same in a house over several decades. Yes, such a doorbell is more or less an expensive toy that likely will cease to work within half a decade, but normal doorbells tend to break once a decade as well.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#68

Post by lucb1e »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #15

It would be interesting to have a word for devices that is sort of like 'organic' for food. It would indicate that the device is self-contained and has no connectivity.

"Independent"?

I see some suggesting "no connectivity" but that would just sound like a negative thing. Typically you list features, not things it doesn't have. Sure, if you pause to think about it, we (on HN) would all figure out the benefit. But many people might not pause nor figure it out.

Independent also doesn't sound exactly right, but perhaps it's just that nobody ever used it to describe this before and I'd need to get used to it.

Edit: "Dependency-free" is not as common a word and means the same thing. That might be a little better.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#69

Post by logfromblammo »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #49
freehunter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I've always found with the California warnings is that they're so damn generic. There's nothing forcing companies to tell you what compound is harmful, where it is, or what it's used for.. A fishing sinker made from lead is pretty obvious when you see that warning. There's only one ingredient, lead, and it's obvious why it's harmful. But when you buy a complex product that says "this product contains chem…

Or how much of it there is. Parts per million/billion? I'm pretty interested in how much cadmium and mercury gets into my system because they're bad news for the brain. At the same time, mercury is also in air so it's kind of inescapable. Parts per billion is interesting information because then I can control how much I ingest the way I do for food that is fattening.

It would be much more useful if it were in the form of "This property contains substances determined by the state of California to be toxic to humans. The site report may be viewed in person at 123 Maple St, Suite 200, San Mateo, or electronically at https: //sitereport.ca.us/ "

Then the print report would basically be a binder full of MSDS-like information sheets, along with the history of measurements recorded on the site.

Online, you could see the threshold levels for single massive exposure and for casual environmental or daily occupational exposures. And maybe enter your age, sex, and weight in kg, to see how likely it is that living in your apartment will kill you.

The generic warning is useless. It ranges from "last month someone found 30cm of thermal receipt paper with bisphenol-A all over it" to "someone once dumped a 55gal drum full of dioxin right into the soil where your vegetable garden is now."

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