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Comment by mvid | Hacker News Reader

So you won’t even be able to isolate devices to your home network anymore, they will be phoning home by satellite

That's already possible, it's just expensive. Remember when the kindles[1] used to have the option for built-in 2G/3G connectivity "for life" to download books from Amazon that you never had to sign up for or maintain or pay for. Until networks dropped support for 2G and 3G in 2021.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

I've explicitly bought all my Kindles with that feature. Amazon cheaped out a few years ago and it barely works on my 3rd Gen Oasis, which uses LTE

For small amounts of data transmit only you can do LoRawan with The Things Network for free.

Network map:

https://ttnmapper.org/heatmap/

So that started out as unlimited. After people abused it to tether it got dropped to like 50mb of non amazon traffic a month.

I think more worrying is devices mesh networking with devices owned by your neighbors.

Exactly, like Amazon sidewalk. They market it as an easy configuration feature but it can also be used for tracking and telemetry. So your smart TV can call home even when you don't connect your own WiFi.

Regular companies are gonna need SCIFs.

It won't work very well indoors anyway. If at all.

Amazon sidewalk is a much bigger threat in this regard. I'm really glad we don't have this in Europe.

Never mind corporations, your next 'smart TV' will need a SCIF.

My custom home, if I ever build one myself, is going to be a faraday cage.

Arguably all your IoT devices already do. There were multiple startups advertising "routing at the edge" or some other such bullshit maybe ~5 years ago. I have no idea what happened with those ventures but these days multiple ISPs offer the general public roaming WiFi access via the APs of their customers so I think it's safe to say that ship has long since sailed.

Come to think of it how cheap are LoRaWAN radios these days? That's another option.

I'm sure this costs money to use, just like regular cell service would for the same theoretical IoT device. That's probably the main barrier to having its own network.

Phoning home with a few packets here and there via the cell network is quite cheap. An adversary, pardon I mean OEM, doesn't need to upload 4k video to gain value here.

I mean, if you're looking to spy on or attack someone with wealth it's probably well worth it for some organizations.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work indoors.

If anyone walks past your house with a device in the same bluetooth p2p network as your device this is already true (Amazon sidewalk). This could give them a more uninterrupted connection though.

I think these e.g. Verizon guest wifi:s might be used to try to spy on us too.

Future homes will have built in Faraday cages.

If you've got stucco siding and radiant insulation in your attic, you've got the home of the future.

Stucco is not conductive? So it wouldn't work as a signal blocker

Stucco itself is not conductive, but it's usually applied on a base of metal mesh (similar to chicken wire, but apparently actual chicken wire isn't appropriate). Some projects use fiberglass mesh as the lath, and some may use traditional wood lath, but my understanding is the majority of stucco for house construction uses metal wire mesh for the lath.

Ah cool I had no idea thanks!

Ps in order to be an effective Faraday cage it must also be grounded and no gaps in the metal may be larger than the wavelength that needs to be blocked. Which is only a couple centimetres (or around an inch or so) for the highest ones

Stucco mesh needs to have no gaps for its structural needs, it's commonly overlapped by 3-6 inches. And, depending on the surface, the mesh may embed into the ground, offering a ground connection (if poor)...

The mesh does have many openings, but they are around the size you mention, so it should be ok-ish.

Otoh, there's like doors and windows. I believe a partial faraday cage still significantly reduces signal strength though. It'a difficult to use cell networks in my parents' stucco house, but step outside and it's fine. But stucco is also very similar to concrete, so that could be it, too.

Awesome insight.

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