Honestly, the “Internet of Things” concept has been a growing reality for years and I still don’t understand why anyone thinks a toilet will do its thing any more efficiently if you connect it to the Internet – or in what way such people may actually be correct. I only know I’m not interested.
But fortunately our beloved protectors are far more forward-thinking than a smelly old hermit…
US intelligence chief: we might use the internet of things to spy on you
That’s not exactly what he said of course…
“In the future, intelligence services might use the [internet of things] for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” [US director of national intelligence James] Clapper said.
Clapper did not specifically name any intelligence agency as involved in household-device surveillance. But security experts examining the internet of things take as a given that the US and other surveillance services will intercept the signals the newly networked devices emit, much as they do with those from cellphones.
Engineers will always try to make simple things difficult. No, I see no reason why the appliances in my home need to talk to the Internet. Do you remember in the (I suppose) late 70’s when digital clocks became small and cheap? Manufacturers tried to put clocks into everything! Pens, cameras, jewelry, all sorts of gadgets were dammed with clocks.
It took a few years for the market to decide where clocks belonged and where they didn’t, and I still don’t agree with all of the results. Despite many predictions that we wouldn’t need them because clocks would be everywhere, wristwatches have never disappeared, and one is firmly strapped to my wrist right now. Excepting for my bedside alarm clock, it’s the only clock I really need.
The height of stupidity was our last microwave oven. Following any power failure, it would steadfastly refuse to cook anything until you set the clock. What function did the clock have in the use of the microwave? Nothing! How often do I think to look at my microwave oven to tell the time? Never!
I always hated the silly clocks in everything, and didn’t buy the product if possible. My microwave IS the only clock in the main room here, but thank goodness it will still cook if I don’t reset it. The clock in the coffeemaker has said it was 12:00 for years now… I don’t use the auto timer brew start that would require it be set. I have a small battery clock on the wall in the office, since I can’t see the time/date on the computer unless I go to the desktop. No idea why it doesn’t show in Firefox anymore. I wear a wristwatch when I go out. There’s a clock on the little emergency cell phone, which is ignored. Oh, and the alarm clock by the bed… don’t use the alarm anymore, but it is battery backup, so that’s nice.
And sometimes I remember to reset them all within a week or so of a time change. Except for the phone and the computer, of course, which already do connect with the internet and change themselves.
The phone is left in the basement unless I’m going out… so it would be very boring to monitor. I understand their interest in monitoring us via the computer and even the telephones… much as I object, but I just can’t figure out what information from the refrigerator or the toaster would interest the fuds if they could listen in that way. What’s the point?
Do you ever talk while you’re in the kitchen, ML? IoT TVs have admitted they have microphones built in so that the Right People can listen to what you say as you watch. Do you doubt that the fridges are the same? And most likely small cameras as well…
Funny you should say that, Mark. This new little tablet here has a camera that faces the user. Other than selfies, I can’t imagine what it’s for. But last weekend I experimentally hooked up a wi-fi router so I could use the tablet on the net, and before I even turned it on I put a square of electrical tape over that lens. Because … no reason, really, but it creeped me out. I want to look at the net, I’d rather the net not be able to look back in too literal a fashion.
Well Mark, anyone who listens in to the conversations in my house would be in danger of dying from boredom. So I’m hardly worried about that. (Cameras in connected toilets are an interesting, albeit sickening, idea though.
However, I believe it’s a pretty trivial thing to track anything that’s hooked to the Internet, because every device has it’s own “MAC Address”. (Like a car’s VIN number) So therefore your Internet-connected toaster could theoretically be associated with your name automatically via your credit card at purchase, and then tracked to a physical location years later if “they” wish.
From an unassailable source (Wikipedia): “According to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency has a system that tracks the movements of everyone in a city by monitoring the MAC addresses of their electronic devices.[13] As a result of users being trackable by their devices’ MAC addresses, Apple Inc. has started using random MAC addresses in their iOS line of devices while scanning for networks.[14] If random MAC addresses are not used, researchers have confirmed that it is possible to link a real identity to a particular wireless MAC address.[15]”
Don’t talk to myself much, sometimes to the dog. Don’t even have many visitors these days. I don’t own a TV, no cameras on anything, and the appliances in my house are old… really dumb ones. 🙂
I still don’t see the point of listening to people via the refrigerator… or anything else, actually. People planning to do bad things are probably aware of the potential there and would act accordingly… or if not, deserve what they get.
Still an exercise in futility/stupidity. But then, that’s what characterizes our “leaders.” No? LoL