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We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

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Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#51

Post by jandrese »

pjc50 wrote: post #7

I don't think they can be trusted to be either secure or reliable or even supported. Any of them could be remotely disabled at any time as the parent company goes out of business. On the other hand, at the moment they're mostly in frivolous devices. As they become ubiquitous this is going to demand EU-level intervention, just like the existing WEEE directive against lockout chips on printer cartridges. Americans will…

Most of them would die when their goddamn unnecessary cloud services shuts down.

Others would die when you upgrade your WiFi Router and the piece of shit doesn't support the new WPA standard. Or worse, it has some ancient 802.11b chip and when it connects it cripples the rest of the network.

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#52

Post by milkytron »

jandrese wrote: post #49
semiotagonal wrote: post #13

> But Kennedy's biggest concern at the moment is in the area of automotive safety No doubt. I was pricing out a Mercedes online, and looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want. An expensive car shouldn't be acting like an Android phone. It shouldn't be connected to the internet at all. If it's updating anything other than the enterta…

I could see that being a good feature for a built-in Satnav system. Tesla does over-the-air updates that make fairly significant changes to the way the car operates.

Wouldn't Android Auto or Apple CarPlay defeat the purpose of a built-in Satnav system?

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#53

Post by jandrese »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #41
wil421 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother and father in law bought a bunch cheap WiFi security cameras off of amazon. People online were complaining they phone home all kinds of stuff to Chinese IPs. My father in laws other cameras are Nest which phone to Google but it’s a selling point. I was going to put the Chinese cameras on a subnet but I don’t want to complicate his network. My father in law has 3 routers with 3 WiFi networks competing with…

I have three Wyze cams, which pretty much fit the bill of "cheap WiFi security cams which phone home to Chinese IPs". Though you can flash them with other firmware, if you want to control that. Personally, being in the US, I am less worried about Chinese companies sharing my data with US corps or government agencies (that doesn't seem too likely, somehow) but I would certainly be more nervous if I lived in the PRC. I…

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to blackhole those IP ranges on your router? Maybe you're not afraid of the PRC company directly, but who says they aren't going to try to make a buck selling your data to whomever asks?

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#55

Post by fredgrott »

JohnFen wrote: post #28
semiotagonal wrote: post #13

> But Kennedy's biggest concern at the moment is in the area of automotive safety No doubt. I was pricing out a Mercedes online, and looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want. An expensive car shouldn't be acting like an Android phone. It shouldn't be connected to the internet at all. If it's updating anything other than the enterta…

> looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want. I agree. Under no circumstance would I buy a vehicle that is connected to the internet or is capable of wireless communications, unless I could physically disable that and still be able to use the vehicle. The industry seems to differ, though, so I pretty much expect that any car I own in…

does everyone know that cop cars are internet connected?

Connected and what controls what are two different things people do not jump off the cliff just yet

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#56

Post by JohnFen »

fredgrott wrote: post #55
JohnFen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> looking through the summary one of the standard features was "over-the-air updates". That is the last thing in the world I want. I agree. Under no circumstance would I buy a vehicle that is connected to the internet or is capable of wireless communications, unless I could physically disable that and still be able to use the vehicle. The industry seems to differ, though, so I pretty much expect that any car I own in…

does everyone know that cop cars are internet connected? Connected and what controls what are two different things people do not jump off the cliff just yet

I'm not sure I understand why you're bringing up cop cars...

> Connected and what controls what are two different things

Absolutely true, but even if it were impossible to control the car via the connection (which seems doubtful given that these cars accept OTA software updates), there's still the issue of data collection and reporting.

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#57

Post by choward »

freeflight wrote: post #32
dsalzman wrote: post #22

IOT. The S stands for security.

Some like to call it the IoS, but there the S most certainly doesn't stand for security [0]. [0] https://twitter.com/kcimc/status/1099934485301276673

Sadness?

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#58

Post by blacksmith_tb »

jandrese wrote: post #53
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have three Wyze cams, which pretty much fit the bill of "cheap WiFi security cams which phone home to Chinese IPs". Though you can flash them with other firmware, if you want to control that. Personally, being in the US, I am less worried about Chinese companies sharing my data with US corps or government agencies (that doesn't seem too likely, somehow) but I would certainly be more nervous if I lived in the PRC. I…

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to blackhole those IP ranges on your router? Maybe you're not afraid of the PRC company directly, but who says they aren't going to try to make a buck selling your data to whomever asks?

Not a bad idea (unless you flash your own firmware, since then you'd want to be able to rtsp to them), though I am still fairly skeptical the cams could intercept much on the network that wasn't encrypted, and that their tiny SOCs have the horsepower to do much of that...

Re: We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?

#60

Post by NotSammyHagar »

dvdhnt wrote: post #21
semiotagonal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, I'm not looking to buy a Tesla. I'd include touchscreens as another problem but that's separate from the article's subject.

I appreciate your consistency. We've been looking to buy an electric vehicle and thought Tesla was a no-brainer. Random reports of software issues have persuaded us to wait. Now, I'm learning there are more options from more mature brands that just don't receive as much attention as Tesla.

Every car has some random problem. Don't forget there are 30k fires every year in the engine of internal combustion engines (of course there are a lot of those cars). But no one says I won't buy a gas car because it might catch on fire. Tesla quality is generally very high. They are made by humans so there will be some problems, but they can be fixed. My car is 4.5 years old now, recently decided to buy the extended warranty and keep it till it's 8 years old.
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