181–190 of 311 posts
All I know is that I absolutely never, ever, ever want my toothbrush to be "smart." We need to stop putting firmware in things that don't need firmware. Not everything needs a chip or intelligence. The rampant abuse of this kind of thing leads to shitty products and an uptick in electronic waste.
The chips are not a problem. Nonfree software is.
Putting firmware in shit that doesn't need firmware is itself a problem, even if it's free.
Kind of concerning this could turn into another toner ink situation
It has already happened. Philips has designated 3x months for a single toothbrush lifespan, which may or may not be the case (depending on one's toothbrush using habits) as the head clearly does not annihilate automagically after three months. For the sake of the conversation, let's say the recommendation is valid. Where it gets more interesting, though, is actually not at Philips but at shops that sell replacement h…
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I might have misinterpreted the article, but I imagine that if the NFC tag on the brush locks out, the handset is no longer able to write new data to it (no 'brush seconds' can be added to the counter). This suggests to me that the handset will not start blinking and reminding you that you need a new brush, but will be happy to brush to infinity. I cannot imagine that the handset will refuse to brush if it can't writ…
I have a third party brush head for my Philips Sonicare with none of the smart features and no electronics in the head (there's an air gap where they usually are) and it still works fine. This makes me wonder all the more why they put the effort in to secure the head.
They probably knew it was dumb but implementing it was easier than getting around all the organizational permissions to make an exception.
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Welcome Time Travellers! This is 2023 where you can find yourself locked out of your toothbrush after too many failed password attempts.
Guess we'll have to brute force clean our teeth by moving the locked toothbrush up and down, side to side, and in circular motions.
It's a toothbrush. Why does it need all this tech and an app? It's better to think about sustainability. I had an Oral B IO electric toothbrush. The retail price is nuts and the brushes are expensive and can't really be recycled. Imagine millions of these out there slowly rotting. I gave up on the IO and bought this one instead. Simple design and battery lasts longer too. https://www.trysuri.com/
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Guess we'll have to brute force clean our teeth by moving the locked toothbrush up and down, side to side, and in circular motions.
Regular toothbrushes are the plaintext todo/note taking apps of dentistry. 99% of the benefits for 1% of the work.
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Wouldn't this open them to an DoS attack? Set your flipper to fire off bad password attempts at the store and now the entire aisle of toothbrush heads are silently disabled.
It’s 5-something in the morning and I can’t stop laughing at the mental image of some guy cackling maniacally in the toiletry aisle while DoSing toothbrushes. The absolute personification of Chaotic Neutral
Fear the Toothbrush Terrorist!
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I have a third party brush head for my Philips Sonicare with none of the smart features and no electronics in the head (there's an air gap where they usually are) and it still works fine. This makes me wonder all the more why they put the effort in to secure the head.
Engineer gonna engineer. Someone probably just had the time and misplaced passion for security, and when they explained at the weekly standup that they'd added lockout after three attempts, everybody just nodded and moved on.
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Guess we'll have to brute force clean our teeth by moving the locked toothbrush up and down, side to side, and in circular motions.
Regular toothbrushes are the plaintext todo/note taking apps of dentistry. 99% of the benefits for 1% of the work.
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> I want all e-fuses to be banned, as well as any other means for manufacturers to permanently reduce, restrict, or remove functionality from products after they've been sold. One thing, I can think of, are hardware-based security devices that disable themselves after recognizing break-in attempts.
What kind of devices do you mean exactly?