I don’t think that the issue is that people don’t know; people don’t care. They don’t understand how horrible the loss of privacy is, and think that the marginal convenience of being able to control your thermostat from your workplace, or have your refrigerator add milk to your shopping list outweighs the negatives of them being turned into botnets, or monetizing all of your data to squeeze every last penny out of you.
We also shouldn’t be conditioned to just accept terms of services with no recourse, by this point I think most people just press accept and know by now whatever it is there, isn’t worth the trouble of fighting to have it changed. So companies get to legally have a free for all with your privacy, cause you consented to things you’ll later find out you didn’t even know you consented for.
No reason to care when the TOS can be changed at any time, and who wants to read it once much less every times they want to use a thing?
@snooggums @throws_lemy @HelixDab2 @Jessvj93 tosdr is the solution to that!
It helps once, but does it push notifications when the TOS changes from the last time you read it?
The TOS could switch from protecting your data to sharing it for money at any point in time and that would apply to any existing data. Unless you know you can get them to delete it, the fact that the TOS used to say something does not matter once they change it.
@snooggums @throws_lemy @HelixDab2 @Jessvj93 ofc that’s always the risk you take when using any service. Sadly a lot of the time the ToS is so long it’d take forever to read but this is the closest I’ve been able to find to quick overviews on the the ToS of a specified service.
Note that it does not have every service critiqued as I think ppl with TOSDR manually read the ToS and evaluate.
ToS are the worst thing ever. They are “contracts” that you are required to sign to do literally anything in the world but are not allowed to negotiate and can be modified at any time without your consent and your original signing is propagated to the new contract and it is still considered binding. Also, they are allowed to put clauses in which hand over rights to your property, intellectual or otherwise, which is irrevocable and perpetual. Additionally, you have many “software” providers putting clauses in which state that you only lease the license, you do not own it. Even if you have a physical media with the software, you only purchased a lease and it is therefore illegal for you to resell it. They are also allowed to revoke your lease at anytime, without recompense of any sort. That is the real power of SaaS, not the subscription, but the fact that nobody is ever allowed to own something, no matter how much money you have paid.
Yes, as others have said, they are virtually unenforceable, but it does happen often enough to make sure you are afraid of it.
The TOS are the legal equivalent of a locked car door. It’s the bare minimum prevention against a lawsuit, but really doesn’t protect anything. It’s because they are so long and opaque that they are often unenforceable.
You say you don’t think the issue is that people don’t know then immediately begin with “they don’t understand…”
What’s the difference?
The difference is the part immediately after you stopped quoting:
They don’t understand how horrible the loss of privacy is…
What OP is saying here is that people know abstractly that smart devices are not privacy friendly, but they don’t understand how big a deal that actually can be.
So what you guys are saying is that people have no idea how much their privacy is being invaded.
Not understanding is the same as not knowing. I know that a car pollutes the environment but I don’t understand just how much. I don’t know the info.
I know that a car pollutes…
And don’t understand the extent of its impact.
Exactly, they aren’t the same.
I also feel many don’t understand the full extent, either. They’re used to using fairly secure devices in their everyday life (often not realizing how much the software they install is also spying on them), so why wouldn’t these IoT things also be secure?
In my experience, it’s all very vague and ethereal until the risks are highlighted for them. “So what if Google can read all of my emails? What could they possibly do with that information, anyway; why should I care?” is an example of a portion of a real conversation I’ve had.
What’s really maddening is realizing that secure spying is still spying.
The best solution IMO is don’t let your smart devices have access to the internet. Put them on a VLAN, block them at the firewall, whatever method you prefer. Accessing your home network remotely is one thing, but your air conditioner doesn’t need to INITIATE a connection to the outside world.
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You should never fully trust ANY device on your network. Even if it’s not collecting your personal information and sending it off to who-knows-where, there could always be a zero-day exploit just waiting for someone to find it.
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You’re correct about an outside individual accessing your network, but that still doesn’t prevent a device on your network from phoning home.
I think most people have at least some open ports, though. Isn’t port forwarding required for a lot of online games? It used to be at least.
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I honestly still don’t get, what exactly all this is for.
Why are companies pumping more and more money into advertising? What do they expect us to do? Most people can’t spend more money and if you have to increase prices because of your overblown ad budget, they’re even less likely to do so.
And what exactly are they thinking they’re getting from companies like Google and Meta? The amount of ads I get that are actually relevant and not super-obvious is miniscule. Ad tech does not work even remotely as well as advertised.
You’d be surprised the amount of times I’ve heard someone say they got something after seeing a targeted ad. I personally just zone out until the ad’s done. It’s hard to believe people actually pay attention, and then go so far as clicking the ad and buying the product.
Is it zero?
It definitely should be, but I have heard at least 2 people make that statement, so the fact that it’s not 0 is mind blowing. Maybe I just need better friends.
That’s because you’re not a typical consumer. Average consumer those ads target is a mindless capitalist zombie with the sole goal of owning more stuff. Especially in US (but not only) people are trained by their capitalist master that ‘you are what you own’ and spending money is a way of living there. I’m sure you see it everywhere. People go absolutely crazy over brands like Marvel or Star Wars and spend thousands of dollars on useless gadgets. People go crazy over snickers and buy hundredths of pairs. People go crazy over phones and and take credit just to own the latests model. And the ads are there to program those people into wanting more and more things.
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Or, bear with me, just send a massive amount of spam mails to leaked mailing lists. Maybe 1 in a million reacts and you scam them (cfr all the “Nigerian prince” scams.
A looooot less work because the victim’s will contact you themselves. No need to go and “compare which phones show up together and them figure out why they were together and then figure out if it was an affair or not and then contact them in the hopes they care enough to pay ransom”
I guess your username makes sense.
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As a high value individual you have to accept that you’ll always be a target. Nobodies like you and me on the other hand? Nobody will bother.
Will Mulder rescue me then?
Seriously, that sounds like such a bullshit approach. It’s uneconomical for the criminals. It’s super involved and doesn’t pay that much. Why would anyone do that, if regular fraud is right there to commit.
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But not like that. And not on a scale that would justify all that investment. These crimes only happen in your mind.
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You don’t get it because you don’t have the endless supply of information on ever man woman and child on earth.
The information is valuable so they can continue to squeeze every cent out of everyone I’m every way possible, including those who can’t afford to spend it.
Security risk is the bigger concern IMHO. These devices are often a security weak point for networks. Putting them on their own wifi network and then isolating that network is critical.
How can you ensure this is done? There are so many devices that need to connect to the internet and some that require access to other network devices to function.
You basically need to employ network engineering level security - very tight firewall rules, use NAT where it’s available (IPv6 removes NAT, which ipv6 apologists will tell you is a good thing - they’re wrong, as it removes per-service level control and moves it out to per-device/per-NIC), and punch very specific holes to grant access where needed.
Prevent north/south traffic entirely, limit east/west traffic heavily
Happen to have any resources outlining these steps for the average consumer?
Is Govee any better or worse than any of the other brands?
Their app is awful
Soms don’t even care.