Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#171

Post by fivefive55 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 1:08 AM UTC

conesus wrote: post #25

I designed and built a wooden remote control[1] so I know a bit about why this is. My iOS app asks the user for location permissions because without it the remote control app won't know when to attempt to connect when you walk in the door with your iPhone but your remote is sitting at home, waiting for you to hit it to turn on your lights or play music on your Sonos. If you hit the button and nothing happens, that's…

Any reason you don't support Android? This sounded like a perfect solution to have a physical button to control my smart lights, but then I realized I can't use it.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#172

Post by wilsonnb3 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

hedora wrote: post #78

derriz wrote: post #13

At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…

Does anyone know of a good (from a privacy and usability perspective) alternative to Sonos? I plan to buy 5-6 of them sometime later this year, and for what that costs, they have no excuse to data-harvest me.

Bose has a competing range called Soundtouch, no idea what their privacy is like but usability is good.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#173

Post by edent » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 6:50 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #110

I think the obvious glaring flaw here is deciding to have a remote control for an amplifier run Android. Why on earth would that be necessary?

To clarify. The amp does have a physical infrared remote. It also has an Android app I can run on my phone.

I always know where my phone is, but the regular remote likes to hide in the sofa.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#174

Post by close04 » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 11:37 AM UTC

close04 wrote: post #28

derriz wrote: post #13

At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…

My Sonos system is by far the biggest slice in the “Blocked” pie chart of my PiHole dashboard. I have no idea how much dat still ends up on their servers because I didn’t bother to dig too deeply yet. Next step is different VLAN with no internet access.

Just for conformity so I don't bash and run, it seems Philips (Hue) has taken the crown recently with ~30 times more attempts to call home then the next culprit, Microsoft. MS also snuck ahead of Sonos.

A lot of these attempts are probably due to the fact that they fail and keep retrying. Possibly allowing them all would lead to far fewer attempts.

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#175

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Fri, Feb 22, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #145

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow... your answer makes my question sound like it was sponsored. But you are awesome. I will be making an order. I've been looking for a way to turn all the lights off in the house and shut off my kids iPad. I can do these things by going into apps on my phone, but when I'm wanting to do it I'm often REALLY exhausted and would kill for a 1 button solution. I don't quite see how I can use this to shut off the iPad ea…

You can use NFC tags in a way such that a script is run when the device comes close to the tag. I gather you can thus do things like send an API call to turn off all the lights when you put your phone on your bedside table.

That's a great suggestion. I found this project doing exactly what you describe.

https://hackaday.com/2013/02/22/nfc-tags-control-your-homes-...

Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?

#176

Post by leggomylibro » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #127

leggomylibro wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example off the top of my head: you have devices in the field which have not received an update since they were purchased 10 years ago. A common crypto algorithm gets broken to a degree where it is phased out of use industry-wide to prevent leaking user data, MitM attacks, etc. But once you flip the switch on that old crypto algorithm, your old devices can no longer be updated without a complex manual process (good l…

> What do you do? Offer the old crypto algorithms as a configuration option, or offer 2 versions of the firmware (standard vs. compatibility). Can't be prohibitively expensive, but isn't necessary when it's in the clear interest of customers not to use these old algorithms.

The issue is that you cannot forcibly update devices; not all users accept them, often because of the concerns which were being discussed in this thread.

But if you continue to 'support' the legacy algorithm to keep things working for those users, you also open them up to attack and they will surely complain if someone steals their information from "your service".