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Comment by crtified | Hacker News Reader

The so-called smart device generation was only ever a thin veneer of commercial smoke-and-mirrors over what is, in most cases, (the likes of) simple switches and timers and remote controls. Ironically made overcomplex by vendor lock-in and the "oh-so-smart" routing of your trivial controls through clunky bloated phone apps and international internet servers.

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They are, and always were, data generating devices for the companies that sell them. Little intelligence collectors.

Smart = spy

Stasi fits even better.

As in stasi phones, stasi devices, [strike]social[/strike] stasi networks... Everyone snitching on everyone, from self and family to passers-by. Everyone becoming an informal collaborator.

Spy is better. Stasi is a composite from "(Ministry for) State Security". These devices are little corporate spies, they have nothing to do with the State.

That would be right in a world where Corporations do no collaborate with the State, or lobby the State to get the laws they want.

In our world, State and Corporations are too friendly to each other.

Sure in a way it's all part of the power structure that the elites use to run things. In another very meaningful way, they are competing power structures that help balance things away from outright totalitarianism. The distinction is not meaningless by any stretch of the imagination, even it the extent and depth is debatable.

smart = vulnerable

https://blog.f-secure.com/hypponens-law-smart-vulnerable/

Can confirm.

You forgot the generous dose of planed obsolescence.

Certainly not built to last.

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