To me it's rather concerning that more and more products are opting towards connecting to the internet for seemingly little reason. The costs of security on that seem somewhat astronomical.
The antidote to this could be a hardware switch, i.e. the option to completely disable wireless connectivity if the customer wishes so - in a way that is tamper-proof. But I haven't seen products that implement this so far.
A switch is not enough to prevent millions of devices from being part of a botnet if the consumers don’t see the advantage of switching it off (“why would I”). There needs to be significant motivation (fines for participating in DoS attacks) or a different default.
I just found out that I may be able to sell my 2yo car to a dealer despite still paying it up - something to do with the demand for secondhand cars being so high these days and I can get more than I owe... I digress!
Anyway, I don't really need a car but it's handy so I'm looking at a 20 year old Grand Cherokee (or possibly a Cherokee). The main reason is that it has almost no tech in it. Nothing that can serve me ads. Nothing that can track me. Nothing that can be used against me. Nothing that can be hacked. Nothing that can be remotely accessed by the manufacturer. It only contains things that make it go (and stop)!
My phone will be getting replaced with... probably the most basic thing I can get since I barely use it too.
Anyway, just wanted to chuck in my $0.02