We're Surrounded by Billions of Internet-Connected Devices. Can We Trust Them?
newsweek.com
newsweek.com
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 entertainment system, then they're completely nuts. Get the internet out of my car, I already have a phone for that.
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 my lifetime will be a rather old one.
I recently came to this conclusion, for similar but not identical reasons. Modern vehicles have increasingly complex electronic and mechanical systems wrapped around the engine to improve efficiency. The complexity is becoming a risk, in my opinion, due to the potential cost of maintaining the vehicle beyond 5 years of age.
My usual buy in is around 5 years old, and the cars I have access to now are a huge liability due to all the additional features that can go wrong (DPF, EGR, variable vane turbo etc etc).
My next vehicle will be an old, normally aspirated, petrol engine with the simplest wiring loom I can find.
0: https://qz.com/1737145/the-economics-of-driving-seven-teslas...
Connected and what controls what are two different things people do not jump off the cliff just yet
> 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.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/five-...
Five months after returning rental car, man still has remote control Man can still track vehicle, lock and unlock it, and start and stop its engine.
I'll use this as an excuse to buy a 70's Alfa next time I'm car shopping.
Think you have a future of cycling ahead of you. I'd be surprised if overair updates aren't standard in <3 years on all cars.
Even that is problematic. Insurance, congestion charge etc
See also Norway's rules about electric cars. That sky high adoption is a direct result of weapons grade carrot & stick to force it
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.
I live in Puerto Rico where a Tesla doesn't make much sense due to the infrastructure, but these numbers still made my neck hurt with a little bit with FOMO.
I was very excited when they were first announced and was heavily considering the Model 3 as an option before it was released. Then I started reading about the features; touch screen controls, OTA updates, telemetry. None of those things are features to me, they are detriments.
Touch screen means that I have to context switch when adjusting temp.
OTA updates means that my car can end up bricked or have a buggy update.
Telemetry is removal of my privacy.
I don't doubt those numbers at all, but here's the trick: I'll bet you could find similar numbers for just about any electric vehicle. And here's why: the odds are extremely good that if you own an electric vehicle, it's your first electric vehicle. The market just isn't that old. I bought one of the first Nissan Leafs, and it's only eight years old.
Okay, so if we can agree that most EV owners are on their first EV, then of course 98% of them are going to buy another one because regardless of make or model, EVs are just that good. Yeah, yeah, you drive from SF to LA every day, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about people that already decided to buy an EV. I'd venture that many are like me, and after a bit feel that ICEs are downright primitive. So their next car is going to be an EV, and why not buy the one I'm already happy with?
Case in point, the current release that has been rolling out over the last week or so definitely has some ominous bug reports.
But on the other hand, updates aren't forced, you can cancel them when they're offered.
It's a double edge sword, really. I've had several cars that desperately needed an update but it was impossible to get. I think I lean in the direction of having OTA updates available, as long as I maintain 100% control of them. And I need to be able to control data from my car going into the cloud. I think Tesla has both of these covered, though it could be implemented more elegantly.
Tesla does over-the-air updates that make fairly significant changes to the way the car operates.
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 be stuck with caveat emptor levels of consumer protection.
Your neighbour’s video doorbell will have the easiest time picking up on your face, but your neighbour’s cloud WiFi AP will surely see your WiFi devices coming and going in WiFi range through the day, and how long will it be before Siri is listening to your upstairs neighbor’s footsteps and telling you they’re unusually quiet for this time of the week and maybe you should check on them in the mandatory gig economy of social care?
For anyone who's curious, I think that would be "Caveat vicinus emptoris". I only mention it because that should be its own thing, to "beware of spillover from stupid consumers".
More likely the Ring camera will spot someone that's not in the national Amazon facial database and urge you to report them to ICE.
I’m more worried about blackmailers prying into sex lives.
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.
This is dangerous to all of us, even if you don't own any IOT devices.
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 each other; office, living room and outside but that’s a story for another day...at least I got him to replace it with a UniFi AP.
I like UniFi protect because all the data stays at my house and their cameras are strictly no subscriptions.
www.reddit.com/r/theinternetofshit
Of course not.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/
expanded to every type of IoT. Imagine a kind of mandatory labelling for any device with data-capture and/or telemetry capabilities.
/end thread
If you want LAN only, you really need to put the device on a LAN that is actually isolated, and use a trusted device to bridge that gap so that you can shuttle commands and responses from your actual network.
I cobbled together my own system that works kind of like this using a raspberry pi and hostapd, and it works quite well for most things.
And if you dig around and aren't all that choosy on features, you can often find Foscams on close out or otherwise dirt cheap. Some I have were $35, with panning; no optical zoom at that price, though.