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IoT Garage Door Opener Maker Bricks Customer's Product After Bad Review (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Denis Grisak, the man behind the Internet-connected garage opener Garadget, is having a very bad week. Grisak and his Colorado-based company SoftComplex launched Garadget, a device built using Wi-Fi-based cloud connectivity from Particle, on Indiegogo earlier this year, hitting 209 percent of his launch goal in February. But this week, his response to an unhappy customer has gotten Garadget a totally different sort of attention. On April 1, a customer who purchased Garadget on Amazon using the name R. Martin reported problems with the iPhone application that controls Garadget. He left an angry comment on the Garadget community board: "Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iPhone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here..." Shortly afterward, not having gotten a response, Martin left a 1-star review of Garadget on Amazon: "Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products." Grisak then responded by bricking Martin's product remotely, posting on the support forum: "Martin, The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums. At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection."
When someone posted details about upcoming firmware online.
Did the guy agree that his device can be disabled at any time and the server side service is not a given?
Yeah, Strisand, blah, blah, blah... But seriously, right after "People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive"? Wonder why? Crap implementations by people that counldn't care less about security (but obviously should know better), and than douche bages like this who don't know about customer service because they've never been out of their mom's basement? Nope, I'll wait a few years...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
. . . . . . reminding us that those buying IoT devices don't own anything useful, and that your f**cking GARAGE DOOR OPENER could be dependent not only on Internet connectivity but the continued willingness of a service provider (Garage Door Operation As a Service--GDOAAS?) to provide service, at whatever cost they deem fit. I'll leave my light bulbs, refrigerator, door locks, garage door opener, and thermostat off the Internet, thank you very much.
IOT is great but I'll keep out until companies understand I do not want a device that connects to thier server only and probablyu at a subscription.
But it's getting easier and easier to do your own these days with lots of great kits around, so I'm sure I'll be fine.
Anyone stupid enough to trust some small startup (or indeed megacorp) will get what they deserve.
+----------------- | What is the question!
Sometimes the customer is wrong
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Other than a method to allow a hacker unauthorized access to your home, why on god's green earth would you need a wifi powered garage door opener *for your phone*, when the tried and true RF based ones have been around for decades?
i'm 34; am i too old to understand why people would want clownshit crazy things like this?
Then it's okay.
#DeleteChrome
This sounds like a guy got one of his friends to pretend to hate the product, so he could stir up a media frenzy.
tl;dr: This is just free advertising.
This is why I don't buy ANYTHING that requires some connection to some service provider to control the device. If I cannot control it locally, without the manufacturer's servers up and my network connected to the internet, it doesn't come home. If the manufacturer wants to give me remote access to my stuff, I get that it is easiest to do this using a remote server, but if I cannot get to it locally, it doesn't get installed in my home.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
A recent Nessus scan at my job found garage door openers on the general network. O_o
This is new start up.So it used brash language. Once it becomes established player and hires suites, they will do exactly the same thing but they will say it PR bullshitese.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That was just about as stupid a move as a person can make in business. It's likely to have killed any hope they had of success. Denis Grisak might or might not be decent at technical matters, but he should never have any interaction with customers, and probable should not be included in business decisions.
Cloud capabilities should be an add-on not required. I should be able to directly connect via IP(or DDNS) to my device from my phone or computer and control it.
So this guy admitted to destroying another person's property? What a dumbass.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Internet of Tantrums.
I'm not clear on why the unit is being denied access to the server, but the customer was afforded the opportunity to return his purchase to Amazon for a refund. If the iPhone app is really that bad, I imagine that this company will have many unsatisfied customers and not be around very long.
...and raise you a poorly thought out reactive measure that will make people avoid the product as the plague that it truly is.
ONLY apps can app apps, NOT LUDDITE software!
Apps!
This kind of retaliation is no different from a cellphone service provider jamming your RF signal. The FCC (if we still had one) should step in and either fine the manufacturer for retaliatory misbehavior, or punitively shut down their internet access for a nominal period (at least a week) for abusing the privilege of being online.
Doing this periodically would send a really constructive message to many others who routinely abuse others on the net, be they bad businesses or just trolls. Access to the net is a privilege, not a right.
There was another one like this recently... a ham radio software maker. The software "Ham Radio Deluxe" was rendered useless through an authentication server if the customer left a bad review. Since ham radio call signs were used as the product key, they simply banned a call sign in their server.
No matter who dies it- it's very bad karma.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive
If you buy something that requires the manufacturer's equipment to operate, it means, of course, that they can effectively brick your purchase any time they want, for any reason they choose.
No price is low enough to buy something you do not actually own .
I deal directly with homeowners on stuff like this all the time, They complain when they have to do work like that or remember stuff like that. its pretty funny because the only other option is stuff like this. but you cant tell them that, as most of them have no idea how the internet or computers work. they just know that they do.
I haven't figured out what law yet, but I get the feeling that blocking all functionality of a customer's electronic device out of spite, and specifically a device for access control to a dwelling, might not have been a legal act. There might be penalties under civil or criminal law.
I'd cut more slack for an Open Source developer who simply refused to help the user because of abusive language, since that developer isn't being paid and the user didn't pay anyone for the software or service. But to lock out a paid customer...
Bruce Perens.
Screw up a firmware update resulting in a device that can not be recovered (short of using jtag or something similar), that is a bricked device.
Removing access to a critical part of a service for a product you own, just results in a useless product, but it is not bricked.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Yeah, I'm old enough I don't get it either. The only reason I can imagine my garage door being attached as an IoT, is to tell me I left it open, and to close it. Or it was opened by RF and I wasn't expecting it to. The IoT doesn't need to open my garage. Too much of a physical security risk. (RF can be the same way, but we've given up on that for a long, long time.)
I can see very limited reasons to be able to open my garage door, or front door, or side door, or whatever, remotely, over the internet. If it's an emergency, I guess I'll either have had to leave a key with someone I trust, or just tell them to bust in my window/door/etc to get in.
We tell our children: Don't share things on social media you think could come back on you later. It NEVER goes away.
If you put your doors on the IoT, it's like passing out your keys to everyone out there...and it NEVER goes away, unless you uninstall the product.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
far too easy to spend money and have it be useless
Calm down, nobody cares, we're all going down the drain due to this indifference of the greater majority.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Just wait those few months, they'll be available soon, practically for free. :)
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Back in the day, while working at the call center for an international company, we had one specific customer who logged some ridiculous number of hours on the support line for a machine he bought at Sears. At some point this company had enough and put out a support-center-wide memo instructing the technicians that the next time the guy called, we were to instruct him to take the machine back to Sears and get a refund. At some point you just have to cut your losses and move on, though the big-ass company displayed a lot more patience than this little company did.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Buy a product that allows them to lock me out of my own house..... NOT!!
Sounds like Denis Grisak is an asshole. I repeat, it sounds like Denis Grisak is an asshole.
I'd laugh if he tried to sue me for daring to say so. Any jury would take one look at this case and throw his skanky, vindictive ass right out of court.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Hold on....I need an internet connection to this asshole's server just to open mygarage door?
Who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
This incident will destroy sales of this product and likely ruin the company.
The article even included the obvious clues when it mentioned "quality assurance" and "Indiegogo", but not a single comment so far looked in that direction. Tiny bit of goodness in that some of the funny-moderated comments actually were, but it was another low-hanging target for jokes.
So why was the "quality assurance" bad? Why insufficient testing? Because the funding model of Indiegogo is bad and doesn't require it. From the Indiegogo perspective, this looks like a "success" because it got more money than it needed, but the resulting product is not good, which is bad but not any of Indiegogo's concern. There were a couple of EULA-related comments here, but they focused on the developer who got the money, not the Indiegogo funding model that gave him the money without checking for such things.
Solutions might be available. I've even written about my own favorite, a charity share brokerage focused on PROJECT MANAGEMENT so that this sort of thing won't happen. That proposal is even designed so that the brokerage can't claim success unless there's some evidence the results met their success criteria. No evidence of understanding or interest on Slashdot, so (1) Feel free to rummage among my old comments (though on Slashdot most of the discussions have been dragged down to the level of the trolls), (2) Feel free to offer your better idea (though I obviously think you're wasting your time on today's Slashdot), or (3) Ask real nicely and maybe I'll waste the keystrokes again.
The modal commenter on today's Slashdot could not catch a clue after being stripped naked, being dipped in clue musk, and being dumped in a field of clues at the peak of clue mating season.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Come back one year!
First, people are misusing the term "bricking" in this context but I understand why. One COULD say they EFFECTIVELY bricked the device because the idiot (pardon my French) blocked the IoT Mac Address/ID of the device but technically the device wasn't actually bricked. It was effectively bricked by in fact being blocked from the required server for to have a chance of working (not that it was from the report).
Now that constitutes removing the primary function advertised/sold to the customer which legally he doesn't have the right to do unless: 1. The customer has been fully refunded + any damage caused in using his product. 2. The customer is committing acts that harm the functionality of the devices for others. 3. The customer has been proven a public threat through use of the services (basically a superset of 2). This business is probably sunk and will harm (and this is perhaps a good thing) the IoT business sector in general because people are finally becoming aware what installing IoT (I like to pronounce "idiot") devices for security in their homes; The provider of the 3rd party server could lock them out, let others in, all sorts of stuff. But I digress.
The customer can sue the manufacturer/service provider because he withdrew the core component before refunding him. That is a classic breach of contract. This business is probably finished because the owner has not only shown poor judgement, lack of legal knowledge and a serious emotional impulse control problem, but in addition to all this, a lawsuit could well bankrupt him. And the evidence is on the Internet for all to see. (and he even admitted it on the Internet...)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Agree. I'd up it a notch: Force vendors calling those things what they are - a botnet.
Your device is not under your control, but under somebody's elses. Somebody else re-interprets your instruction and hopefuly does the right thing with the device (either that, or your IoT operated microwave explodes).
I have a theory why people are ok with voluntary botnets - it is so much common in human society when you think about. Firefighters are a botnet. Portfolio management is a botnet, pretty much all of service industry is a botnet in computer terms. You're not in control, you delegate and hope for the best. As for why home appliances-as-a-service - I suppose there's this perverse satisfaction of having a tardy, 3rd party "house maid slave" just for yourself, even if you are perfectly able to open the fridge on your own (and more reliably).
It's just that us, old geeks, are not used to seeing this brought into computing - we used to be the ones fully in control. We're dinosaurs.
You make some valid points. The one I would add is, it is perhaps understandable that people who have paid money for something feel that they have some right to be heard by the manufacturer when things go awry. But as someone who follows Kodi on Twitter, I have seen for myself that even when people pay precisely zero pounds/dollars/Euros for something they still demand the right to restitution, repair, and rant at the developers when things go wrong. Even when the problems are caused by third-party add-ons.
... for reminding everyone not to buy things that require cloud access to be useful.
It's about time we get some legislations which protect customers from companies stopping services or going out of business and thereby "bricking" a product you bought.
They'd have to deposit sourcecode, patches, server installs etc. in some trust which then has to release these things to customers.
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
A simple click on the very firt link (to the Garadget site on Indiegogo) teaches me that this is NOT a garage door opener.
It is a sensor detecting whether your garage door is open. It also seems to be capable of opening/closing the garage door "by simulating taps on the wall button".
So no, the fact that this person's account was closed off does NOT mean he couldn't open his garage door anymore.
This is the reason my new hobby is dabbling in electronics, at the moment it's messing with Pi's and Arduino's but I am gearing up to move onto PIC's.
I want a smart home, but I don't want any of the expensive proprietary IoT crap that is out there at the moment. Fly by nighters, incompatible protocols, slow to fix security issues, needs internet access to work etc. etc. All my IoT devices are going to be on the LOCAL network only, I might have a outward facing port on a server for monitoring stuffs when I am away, but the devices themselves will not be outward facing.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
Many manufacturer's devices---including garage door openers---use WiFi in the customer's house from the garage. Not just this thin-skinned, vindictive manufacturer.
Yes, and the smart versions are much more functional.
I have an Insteon Hub for controlling things like light switches, outlets and lamps. Door sensors so I know when they open/close and motion sensors so lights turn on when I enter a room and automatically turn off after a period where movement isn't detected.
Being able to adjust the lights in your house or turn on an exhaust fan using your phone, computer, or a small remote control is really convenient. You won't want to go back to having to walk across the room, or to a different floor, just to flip a dumb switch.