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Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

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Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#441

Post by tharkun__ »

dotancohen wrote: post #379
tharkun__ wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why I personally try to stay away from as many of these things/devices as I can reasonably do. TV: just don't buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi. You can hook up your cable box if you have that or stream from Netflix and such. Sure, even Netflix makes it hard as you can't get 5.1 surround but I'll take that and 2.0 -> 5.1 upmix over buying a Smart TV…

> Games: Kerbal Space program sounds fun. Lots of mentions on HN. Apparently after some company bought them up changes of this sort have been made. The changes to Kerbal are in Kerbal Space Program 2, not the original KSP. I highly recommend KSP, go ahead and get it. KSP 2 will have better graphics and add some new capabilities to the game, but honestly you could play KSP for years (I have) and not get tired of the g…

That would be sweet if I mixed this up! Will have to look into it. Thanks!

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#442

Post by tharkun__ »

tharkun__ wrote: post #323
Sebb767 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TV: just don't buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi. You can hook up your cable box if you have that or stream from Netflix and such. Sure, even Netflix makes it hard as you can't get 5.1 surround but I'll take that and 2.0 -> 5.1 upmix over buying a Smart TV any day! I've looked into this, but this option is really not great, either: - Large Monitors are unavailabl…

I looked into it too ;) - Large Monitors are unavailable or (if you use business monitors) a lot more expensive and usually don't have latest panel tech. Agree, monitors in regular TV sizes are way more expensive than the largest 'cheap' monitors. But I'd rather make a decision between paying $300 CAD for a 32" monitor that is 'large enough' but not huge or a ~43" monitor that is way larger, has 4k etc. and costs ~$1…

After a good nights sleep I think I want to revise this (can't edit).

I think it's prudent not to even buy a Smart TV and use it in "dumb mode". If we do this, we are not voting with our wallet. I'm not sure how likely we would be to have a large enough effect numbers wise but one can try. If we don't try, we've already lost.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#443

Post by sfg »

gorjusborg wrote: post #17

This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices. If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period. I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day…

Don't connect them to the internet.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#444

Post by VRay »

Arnavion wrote: post #195
fragmede wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The remedy for that is to emulate the server The remedy for that is to encrypt the communication The remedy for that is to MITM the server connection The remedy for that is HSTS... It's a cat a mouse game, the better solution for society (imo) is to have specific rights enshrined by law to allow for a qualified 3rd parties to access a system's internals.

The one advantage of playing the cat-and-mouse game is that the longer it goes on, the more complexity ends up being in the firmware (TLS, HPKP, etc as you already listed), which increases the likelihood of a bug that can be exploited to take over it.

In that vein, it might be worth noting that this thing is just a treadmill. There's this whole fancy computer attached probably via just a handful of very simple wires to the actual treadmill part that anyone cares about. If they get too obnoxious about the computer, you can just open the treadmill, yank the computer out, and replace it with something from China that costs $20

Of course, that'll then get attacked via the legal system for violating DRM.. ugh

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#445

Post by mikestew »

CountDrewku wrote: post #436
mikestew wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise devices. Then you need to make an effort, because it's really not hard to understand if one has even just a bit of life experience as an adult. But it sounds like an excuse to brag about the harsh weather one runs in, and those damned kids and their video games or something. Here, I'll one-up you: I regularly ran in snow and sub-zero (Fahrenheit, bitches) tem…

I don't need to do anything bud. I think they're a stupid waste of money. I have no problem without them. They're a marketing scam, have fun wasting money for a worse exercise experience. Is there a reason it upsets you that I don't like them? I have no problem making time because exercise is a priority for me. For you, it's an after thought that you need to cram into your terrible lifestyle and that's the entire pro…

Dude, calm down and go for a run. Remember, you're just as awesome as you think you are!

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#446

Post by telxosser »

charles_f wrote: post #182
jabroni_salad wrote: post #26

Jeeze, I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music stand. This is compatible not only with any commodity treadmill, but also bike trainers, ellipticals, and making vroomvroom noises on the motorcycle when it's too icy to actually ride. I could also swap out the ipad for a laptop, non-ipad tablet, or a collection of cute succulents should I desire it. snark aside, I'm a bicycle guy and I really like that…

> I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music stand. I actually don't get the point of getting a 4000 treadmill rather than one that's half the price and an ipad

I walk 60 min a day outside, rain or snow in the northeast.

A treadmill to me is just so boring and doesn't feel right compared to actually moving.

Walking outside when it is 10 degrees out with an audio book is still a better experience to me than a treadmill.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#447

Post by mdavis6890 »

A good reason why I don't like to buy smart devices.

That said, I think that if we want right-to-repair/tinker I think we also have to make reasonable concessions as well. E.g. No liability for the manufacturer due to running older or non OEM versions of software/firmware. No expectation of ongoing support or updates on those older branches. Of course liability should still exist for issues that were not caused by this alternate software even if you're running it.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#448

Post by gknoy »

Tor3 wrote: post #392
gknoy wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly inconvenient to have to use your phone as the remote, especially when you want to do something on your phone (or watch something else) while the kids watch netflix. We have disney+, and my TV apparently thinks we're not subscribed. My phone does, though, and I can cast from that. Yes, we can watch Encanto again, but it's very jarring when the normal interactions with the TV don't work.

>It's fairly inconvenient to have to use your phone as the remote, especially when you want to do something on your phone (or watch something else) while the kids watch netflix. But when you cast from an application with integrated chromecast support (as e.g. Netflix) then the phone is free to use as you wish while the kids are watching. I do this all the time. I start the cast, then use my normal TV remote to pause,…

I've been able to stream Netflix, Disney+, and Prime to my TV via chromecast, and it's a weird mix. The main detriment is that for all the apps, when streaming from my phone, people watching the TV can't use the TV+Remote to do things like pick a different episode, or pick a different show -- so this makes it already a crap alternative unless I want to be involved in all the future viewing decisions.

One nice thing about the phone apps is that you can search for a different thing to watch _while_ currently watching something. Fast-forward/rewind also tends to be a little more intuitive with adraggable progress bar, except small-scale rewinds (1-2 minutes) of a movie is _harder_ because a few pixels is difficult to select cleanly.

I will say though that Prime is _freaking fantastic_ when streamed from my phone, better even than using the native TV interface. The Prime phone app lets you navigate _by scene_ in a show (e.g. Bosch) which my tv app won't let me do. I wish Netflix and D+ would/could copy that, specifically. I wish it didn't have spoilers in scene descriptions, but being able to say, "Hey go back to the start of the council of Elrond" is really nice, rather than having to use +/- 30 second increments.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#449

Post by brokenmachine »

bierjunge wrote: post #421
patrickk wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an LG CX tv and never hooked it up to the internet. It acts as a (very pretty) yet dumb tv like the old days. An Nvidia shield handles all the streaming, kodi handles local files etc, all the media that I could possibly need. 4k is handled by default out of the box. Surround sound is handled by an AV receiver. (Atmos surround is available if I wish to further upgrade the 7.1 speakers). It can be done. Granted,…

I have bad news for you. Even if the TV is not connected to your WiFi, it could still get into the network over other devices connected via HDMI with HEC [0]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HEC

Have there been any devices confirmed to use this yet?

I'm getting so tired of these constant battles with the devices I paid for.

Re: Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills

#450

Post by makeitdouble »

xvector wrote: post #375
makeitdouble wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a different debate IMO. Not so long ago we had external storage that only worked with Sony products. We now have headphones that only work with Apple phones. Exclusivity always existed at weird levels, here the issue would be more about having the option to freeze/protect a product's software state to get out of the update treadmill.

> We now have headphones that only work with Apple phones. AirPods can be used with any phone just fine. Engineering work has been done to make them to integrate deeply into Apple's OSes, but you can definitely use them on any phone.

I was thinking about the wired lightning ones.

If we’re speaking wireless accessories I would have gone with the watch.

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