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

On 6/30/2021 9:50 AM, nospam wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, AJL <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>>>> 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.
>> 
>>> that was something you opted into in exchange for a free
>>> thermostat.
>> 
>> I never opted in to it.
> 
> more accurately, you were automatically opted into

Nope. It is a volunteer program here. I *didn't* opt in.

> it as part of the 'free' deal, which is explained in the fine print
> which nobody reads.

I don't know the details of those who did opt in as I never got that far.

> you probably can opt-out, but i don't know if that affects it being 
> free.

The nice thing of not opting in is that I don't have to opt out.

> different companies have different deals.

Yup.

>> I do have a smart thermostat that came with my AC but I have never
>> hooked it to the WiFi. Call it paranoia?

> maybe. it's also easy to firewall it if it does something
> undesirable.

I would have kept my old dumb thermostat since I didn't really need the
extra gadgetry (YMMV) but the smart one was required with the new
AC/furnace.