Re: Security News This Week: Hackers Are Erasing Western Digital Hard Drives Remotely

"AJL" <[email protected]> wrote
    Mayayana wrote:
|
| > When your "smart" thermostat is hacked to freeze your pipes (not to
| > mention the extensive spying Google does on their thermostats) you
| > can blame it on a software bug, or a missed update, or faulty
| > configuration, or whatever.
|
| Or the power company? My electric company gives away free smart
| thermostats. We are now having a severe heat wave. The electric company
| remotely raised the temperature on everybody's thermostat a few
| degrees to lessen the strain on the power grid.
|

 I saw that.

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/21/06/19/2122221/some-texans-surprised-their-smart-thermostats-are-being-raised-remotely

  There was an argument in a Reddit privacy forum. Apparently some
people were stunned that their thermostat was taken over, while
others said they had agreed to it in exchange for lower rates. But
the reported case seemed fishy: People "agreed" in exchange for
being entered into some sort of mickey mouse sweepstakes. But
who would even think of needing to agree to, or watch out for,
such a thing when simply buying a thermostat?

  Google came to my mind because I just started reading The Age
of Surveillance Capitalism. In the introduction the author uses the
example of Google's Nest thermostat, which has app tie-ins, motion
detectors, and connections to other devices that can allow Google
to track and study people's activities around the house. A study
showed that anyone attempting to actually have a real contract
to approve of all such spying through the device would require
over 1,000 contracts... And of course, these things have been
hacked. But the people who buy them don't think of that. Nor
should they. The tech geniuses are all telling them it's the
greatest thing since sliced bread. You can probably get an app
to have your Nest call for your Egg McMuffin to be delivered as
soon as the connected security cameras detect your eyes opening.
Who wouldn't want that? :)