it's pretty amazing how much technology has advanced but at the
same time how far backwards things have slid. Every appliance is
connected to the internet, down to your lightbulbs. All those
devices, sending endless chatter to some unknown server and some
company to be sold and resold with all of your personally
identifying information in tow. Recently my apartment switched
the thermostat, door locks (yay), and a few outlets to "smart
devices". They billed this as a perk and an upgrade. The hub talks
to the devices through z wave i think it's called. The hub can
connect to your wifi or has a 4g modem as backup,
I did some experimenting and connected it to my wifi. i noticed
that i was still able to control the devices even when my modem
was offline. Strange, why does it need to connect to the internet?
I fired up wireshark and started snooping. Every 30 seconds or so
it was phoning home to some address. Explore around a little with
the domain that it was phoning to and find out the server is in
China and that this same "smart home service" is used by many of
the manufacturers of other smart hubs. Very cool, my thermostat
phoning home to China. Did anyone ever stop and wonder "do I need
to connect this to the internet?" Does the ability to change the
temp from your couch outweigh the invasion of your privacy? Does
the average person even care anymore?
I dont know which is scarier: how quickly and completly the level
of surveilance that your devices perform on you or the general
publics uninterested apathy towards it all.
Apologies for typos, writing this from my phone via Terminus. Vim
is hard on a touch keyboard.
