Why is Google trying to be the smart ass here. Since when network access control and topology is the atribute of a web browser ? What's next ? X server ? OS kernel ?
If your router or IoT device isn’t secure any webpage online can embed a (for example)
<img src=“http://192.168.1.1/enable_remote_access.php”>
The answer is obvious, they don't know, just like I'm not very good at particle physics or repairing broken body parts.
Fairly easy: anything that's labeled "smart" or "remote control from your phone" is wrong and bad for us. We IT people should be explaining to "average laypeople" that they should never trust the industry, instead of climbing aboard the IoT bandwagon.
I had many discussions with half a dozen neighbors about Alexa after i learned that some people actually have this bundled with their ISP here in France. After i explained how it works, not a single one of them kept it.
1. It’s not just smart devices that are a risk. Eg some ISP routers are insecure.
2. Smart devices aren’t always so easy to spot. An IoT light bulb is pretty obvious. But what about a TV? These days it’s almost impossible to buy dumb TVs and most computer monitors don’t have speakers built in. So in some instances it takes extra effort to avoid smart devices.
3. Some people actually like the convenience of smart devices. I have some IoT bulbs at the bottom of my garden and they were actually the best solution to the problem I had (which I won’t bore you with here but the other options like solar lights weren’t suitable). What if someone wants to watch Netflix or Disney+, should they be denied that because they are told to avoid anything “smart”?
Saying “we shouldn’t have nice things” isn’t a good enough answer to the “how do we secure bad things” argument. It’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. And even if I agreed with you, “smart” is already in our lives, there is no way to put that genie back in the bottle even if we wanted too.
I show this crap to my friends who are jealous.
They buy this crap, then forget to install the aftermarket firmware I spend hours of my time installing so that it's a lot safer than it was.
How do I get them through the second step when half of the "normies" I know can barely pair their phone with their car without reading the manual?
Please don't. Just like with the rest of "smart" and "IoT", "just don't" is the correct answer in terms of privacy, security, and other basic human rights.
Just use a jack cable for audio "pairing" and an actual button for turning on/off lights, and a key for opening your door. It's as simple as this: really ecological, secure and user-friendly.
The computerization of the car has other negative consequences:
- cars are increasingly more expensive due to electronics (which represent up to 50% of the price of a car nowadays), and are victims of chip shortage
- cars are much harder to repair and require cracked firmware downloaded from sketchy websites or an official and super-expensive maintenance kit, which of course only works for one brand/manufacturer
- cars are much less reliable and electronics are responsible for a great number of recalled products
I miss my old autoradio with a jack input. Overall, i miss when my car was not a computer: we computer people can barely display a few pixels on a screen without writing a dozen bugs, why the hell would we responsible for making software for cars?! see also boeing scandals.
So while bluetooth is a safety improvement over the worst-case of using a mechanical car and a phone at the same time, it's part of a trend that overwhelmingly makes cars less safe and reliable.
Other car functions use computers for very different reasons. The most successful is injection timing, which does significantly improve performance. It's why we have extremely efficient small diesel engines and reasonably powerful 1L petrol engines.
"Crap" to me would be low-tech non-smart light bulbs.
That's what I buy. IMO, "smart" bulbs are dumb and unnecessary. The only time I ever need to turn a light on or off is when I'm entering or leaving a room, in which case I'm passing the light switch anyways. I have no need to be able to turn my lights on and off from my phone, and don't understand the use case.
With home networked devices the average user doesn’t know how to hide and protect those devices so here again they need professionals to do that for them too.
Windows weren’t intended to be entry points for burglaries. It just so happens that some Windows, particularly in older houses, aren’t all that secure so need additional countermeasures. Like wise for some home networking hardware.
Lots of questions as I genuinely don't know, I just turn lights on and off through switch devices mounted on walls.
...oh wait, google drive updated itself without me asking a few weeks ago, even though I haven't used it in ages, and now, randomly, every few days, I get a popup telling me I need to sign back into drive, even though I closed the system tray application. (is being annoying to the user just an inherent property of this kind of service? are they trying to compete with OneDrive for reluctant end-user obnoxiousness??) there's probably half a dozen ways to get rid of it but it's a nice periodic reminder that I really don't care for google anymore
I had the exact same experience with Epic's craptastic launcher a few years ago. Behind the scenes update followed by a sneaky autostart entry.
I hadn't used it in a while and only discovered what had happened by accident months later