If It Uses Electricity, It Will Connect To the Internet: F-Secure's CRO (theregister.co.uk)

New submitter evolutionary writes: According to F-Secure's Chief Research Officer "IoT is unavoidable. If it uses electricity, it will become a computer. If it uses electricity, it will be online. In future, you will only buy IoT appliances, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not." F-Secure's new product to help mitigate data leakage, "Sense", is a IoT Firewall, combining a traditional firewall with a cloud service and uses concepts including behaviour-based blocking and device reputation to figure out whether you have insecure devices.

Comments

I don't think so.

[captaindomon]

I get his point - more things will be connected to the internet. But more things will also not be. The internet is a utility now, it's not just new and shiny. Sure, there will be coffee machines that are connected to the internet you can buy, but there will be a ton of people that don't want them and want a normal coffee machine. If you don't believe me, look at pets.com and the bubble burst. Seemed at the time that everything would be purchased through a web site. Sure, Amazon has some pet food sales. But people aren't ever going to stop buying dog food locally.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

Let's take his own example: An Internet connected toaster. Why the **** would my toaster need to be connected? His point is that the toaster company would add Internet to my toaster regardless if I want it so they can collect analytics. I use my toaster twice a year. Even if I leave it connected, the data they collect will be of little use. If they really want to connect everything, I'll just leave things unplugged. Or not connect them to my home network. Or get another model that doesn't have a connection.

Re: I don't think so.

[WarJolt]

Retail is dying. Get over it. That has nothing to do with the article. If you don't want an electric coffee machine then use a French press.

Re:I don't think so.

[Jason Levine]

We use our toaster often, but unplug it when we're not using it. If our toaster was Internet-connected, would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast? Because if that's the case, I'll do what you do and buy a non-Internet-connected toaster or not connect it to my home network. (If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.)

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if I leave it connected, the data they collect will be of little use.

Two issues with this line of thinking:

• They will install hybrid WiFi/GSM transceivers like the NEST thermostats dide.
• They will stick cameras and microphones in it and claim it's for "hand gesture control" or "voice commands" like the NEST thermostats did.

Nobody gives a shit how much toast you make, certainly not enough to go through the engineering efforts and added cost in general of sensors, controllers and backup batteries with the electronics similarly made to operate when "offline" (unplugged) for prolonged periods, whatever you say/do around the toaster on the other hand is information they can sell.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use my toaster twice a year. Even if I leave it connected, the data they collect will be of little use.

You may, but others will use it every day to make breakfast. And this goes well beyond toasters, into everything.

If they really want to connect everything, I'll just leave things unplugged.

You may, because you're thinking about it rationally and making an informed choice, but most people will not. You will be out-voted in your consumer preferences a million to one.

Or not connect them to my home network.

Then the device you bought will not function. This is a known issue with IoT and the direction is to deny functionality unless the device can phone home.

Or get another model that doesn't have a connection.

Eventually, there will be no such models. That is already starting to be the case in some areas.

I'm with you, but we're gonna lose badly, because the public at large will accept any amount of privacy intrusion without complaint.

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

You assume that you have a choice to connect these things to the internet if you want to use them. Think again.

The makers of such devices have a huge interest in you being connected to the internet. Mostly to send data to them. About you and your consumer habits. Do you have a faint idea how much it's worth to know when you watch TV, what you watch and when and how often you switch between channels? How you choose your TV shows? That's market research you can take straight to the bank. At the very least they will make it as inconvenient as possible to NOT connect that TV to the internet.

At worst they'll get into bed with the DRM crowd that would of course want to know when you watch what content, for how long and if at all possible with how many people in the room.

Buying a device without internet connection? Why would anyone want to make one? Equipping the TV with an internet jack is dirt cheap by now. It's a feature you can put onto that neat feature list we all like so much when we decide for a new TV ("Well, this one has 8 features I don't need, but this one only 7, guess I'll buy the one with the 8!"), and it's, as said before, a good way to siphon valuable and marketable data. OF COURSE every TV will come with network ability. And you will be bothered and badgered until you connect it.

But what about the people without internet? Nobody gives a fuck about Ma and Pa Walton. Blunt and direct, nobody cares about them. They buy a new TV when the old one croaks, not when the next gen comes out and you could see the wrinkles on your favorite star in higher resolution. They are no market. At least none anyone gives a shit about.

Re: I don't think so.

[Rockoon]

French Press's can be electric.

Were you trying to make some sort of logical argument? If so, you need to start with logic.

Re:I don't think so.

[Beau1080p]

We use our toaster often, but unplug it when we're not using it. If our toaster was Internet-connected, would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast? Because if that's the case, I'll do what you do and buy a non-Internet-connected toaster or not connect it to my home network. (If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.)

Oh, ye of little imaginationne!

You'd give that 0.0005 seconds of your life up if that toaster had sensors in it to be sure that your toast was not burnt and not underdone *every* time you made toast. Ever stand there for ten minutes wasting away just trying to get that perfect slice? This is where you will buy an "Internet Toaster" and the tech will win.

-=# Beau $=-
(senior Editor)

Re: I don't think so.

[gnick]

If you don't want an electric coffee machine then use a French press.

There's a middle ground between a French press and a coffee maker that tracks my brewing habits. No matter how prevalent these smart devices get, there will always be a demand for dumb ones. And where there's demand, there's supply.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

You assume that you have a choice to connect these things to the internet if you want to use them. Think again.

Of course I have a choice, even if I have to enforce it by ripping out an antenna, putting the damned thing in a Faraday cage, or just sticking to the inevitable cheapest of cheap brands that won't ever spend the extra couple of cents to put the circuitry in.

Re:I don't think so.

[hey!]

Individual businesses may fail, but businesses as a whole will keep trying until someone succeeds at getting their technological hooks into you. It isn't customer demand driving this, nor is it customer benefit (you can't be *that* naive). What's driving this is a fundamental fact of marketing: new customers are expensive to find.

So when you as a customer are seeking a transaction, I as a marketer am seeking to parlay that transaction into a relationship. This is apparent if you look at something like a so-called "dealer warranty" for your new car, which if you read the fine print requires you to get oil changes at that dealer much more frequently than the manufacturer recommends, at a price named by the dealer.

Digital technology transforms the marketplace into something like a dating service where everyone you meet will be a stalker. You buy a tractor from John Deere, Deere tries to create a future revenue stream by forcing you to use an authorized repair center.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the device will refuse to function. "please establish the network connection to continue".

And it is FAR more profitable to collect data on your consumer behavior than not to, so there will eventually be no devices without IoT functionality in some domains. Why would they leave profit on the floor?

You are making a fundamental mistake by thinking than YOUR preferences (and mine too...) make the least bit of difference. They do not, when the vast majority of the marketplace will not care how much you abuse them.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

Eventually, there will be no such models. That is already starting to be the case in some areas.

Well his point is that every manufacturer will install a 2 cent sensor. Have he talked to manufacturers? A 2 cent increase in the cost of a product is not something all manufacturers want. The low cost manufacturers are not going for that because their business model is to crank out the cheapest stuff possible with little involvement with the consumer.

For example, the cheapest DVDs for a long time at Walmart simply ignored region locking. While it was not advertised as such, I suspect the manufacturers originally made a model to pass muster with the studios and later removed all region encoding features because it was simply cheaper to manufacturer. I can't see how these same manufacturers will ensure IoT works in their devices for the long term. Internet sometimes is flaky in computers much less appliances. The first devices will be IoT but then after numerous returns because it doesn't work right, the manufacturers will simply disable them.

Re:I don't think so.

[freeze128]

Around here, people like to go to cabins at the lake to relax. These cabins often have no internet access, but the visitors still want toast, microwaves, refrigerators, etc.

Companies that REQUIRE internet access for electric can openers are shooting themselves in the foot.

Re:I don't think so.

[xfade551]

Let's take an even better example... my reciprocating saw (a.k.a. "sawzall") and other corded power tools.

Re:I don't think so.

[ColdWetDog]

Nope, but that's not the way it will happen. The Internet Toaster won't care if my toast is perfect. It WILL care what brand of bread I use and will want to tell me about other wonderful choices in the world of sliced bread. And THAT will take 15 seconds, be associated with an annoying noise, voice and / or blinky light.

Then the company that made the toaster will shut off the server for reasons unclear in the engineering world. I won't be able to put another slice of bread in it until I either buy a subscription to toast.biz or another fucking toaster.

It's not the microprocessor and sensor suite that is the issue (although you can overthink a problem pretty easily these days). It's the connection to the cloud for no apparent gain other than to line somebody else's pockets.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I use my toaster twice a year. Even if I leave it connected, the data they collect will be of little use."

You couldn't be more wrong. They will collect every crumb of data from you
they can get. Then they will feed it all into a neural network to make
all kinds of predictions about your behaviour. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what immediately popped into my head, when you said " would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast?":
http://www.ganssle.com/articles/toastallessons.htm

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong. I carry a couple of computers with wireless interfaces in my pocket, and I don't mean phones. Every SIM-card is a computer, with processor, ROM, RAM, flash memory and I/O. Many bank cards and credit cards are computers with NFC. Computers are dirt cheap. They will be in everything. It will be more expensive to not have a computer in something electric, if only for power management. When you can tell your digital home assistant to turn your lights on and off, a toaster that isn't connected will seem out of place. Convenience wins every time. It will happen.

Re:I don't think so.

[rahvin112]

His argument is that non-internet toaster won't be produced. The problem with that is that no matter how inexpensive that internet connection module gets, it still adds cost to what is the most basic of electrical devices around (AC Electricity directly connected to heating wires, a simple mechanical switch and spring). A toaster is actually a perfect example of a device that might be sold internet connected, but will never ever be ONLY sold as internet connected. And the simple reason is that internet connection stuff would add cost and the 90% of people that don't want an internet connected toaster wouldn't pay the extra $$ for the connection.

Re: I don't think so.

[ColdWetDog]

Yes! Coffee is going to become scarcer due to Global Warming. Extract ALL of the goodness from the beans before it's too late.

And you can use the residue to dissolve annoying relatives without leaving any forensic evidence.

Re:I don't think so.

[hawguy]

Nobody gives a shit how much toast you make, certainly not enough to go through the engineering efforts and added cost in general of sensors, controllers and backup batteries with the electronics similarly made to operate when "offline" (unplugged) for prolonged periods, whatever you say/do around the toaster on the other hand is information they can sell.

My grocery store, bread baker and bread-flour producer all have great interest in how much toast I make, how it correlates with other products/services I use, and how to get me to make more toast. And they don't care if the wifi chipset adds $3 to the price of my toaster and they'll get me to pay for it by claiming that the internet connected toaster is "cloud connected" to ensure perfect toast every time.

Re:I don't think so.

[sunking2]

His point is that the engineering costs will be so low because it'll be sold as single component there will be no reason not to put it in. Of course the same thing was said about RFID 20 years ago and while its certainly used quite a bit, it's hardly taken over the world like it was supposed to. And that's much simpler.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh my latest toaster is so dumb. It beeps when you start toasting. As if I didn't know what I just did. WTF.

Re:I don't think so.

[hawguy]

I use my toaster twice a year. Even if I leave it connected, the data they collect will be of little use.

But there are other products you do use every day that will also be sending data -- the value isn't in the data from one single product, it's aggregating data from your entire house.

My electric toothbrush already has bluetooth. I have no idea what the phone app does, but I'm sure some people use it and their phone sends back brushing activity and other data back to the company.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

Define "so low". Some low-cost manufacturers barely adhere to safety standards much less add-on features.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it becomes impossible to buy non-IoT appliances, they will not be connected to my home network. Or will be connected to a device that makes it think its connected when its not. As for devices that connect via 3g/4g phone networks, my home can become a Faraday Cage if necessary to block these signals.

However, I see this article as just another load of BS by someone hoping to capitalize on people's fears of being spied uopn! There are enough of us that won't buy these IoT spy devices that there will always be a market for non-connected devices. And as long as there is a market, someone will make and sell them!

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

Then they will make it very, very, VERY inconvenient not to connect them to the internet, at the very least.

The market for such devices is rather small, so given the "danger" of people buying them who could else be forced into giving up their data buying them and thus not providing data that can be sold for lots of money, it's unlikely that any maker of appliances would endanger his data harvesting for such comparably insignificant gains.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

So... the network connectivity does what for a device that uses sensors?

For some real imagination, I suppose I could have a toaster that could burn patterns/images onto my toast where I'd need to download these pattern sets on-the-fly. I could also have multiple devices that communicate so my toaster is primed but coordinating cooktime with my coffee maker so both finish at approximately the same time, saving energy and giving a desirable fresh hot meal with no reheating.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

And they don't care if the wifi chipset adds $3 to the price of my toaster and they'll get me to pay for it by claiming that the internet connected toaster is "cloud connected" to ensure perfect toast every time.

Yes but they don't have to shoulder the cost of it, the toaster manufacturer does. How are manufacturers going to recoup the cost? Could they sell the data to others? Sure, but here's the problem: they have to design the toaster to ensure the data feed works long enough to get their cost back. Some low cost manufacturers don't really care that their devices last more than a year (so that it expires out of warranty). I can't see them caring about IoT. The high end manufacturers might care.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well his point is that every manufacturer will install a 2 cent sensor. Have he talked to manufacturers? A 2 cent increase in the cost of a product is not something all manufacturers want.

They will want it if the inclusion of the 2 cent sensor lets them collect a buck fifty of saleable data over the life of the device.

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

They need internet connection because that way they can call the ambulance when you hurt yourself by noticing blood on the blade.

I dare you to ponder what it would take for a government to think "Good idea, let's make this mandatory!"

Re:I don't think so.

[Chris Mattern]

This. Do you seriously think your IoT toaster is only sending data about the toast you make? No, it's not.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. You're so funny. If the devices cannot connect, they will not work. If they cannot communicate with their servers, they will not work. If you tamper with them, they will not work. In the end, you will submit. You may cry, pull your hair, wring your little hands... But you cannot fight this. You simply can't. Accept it. Surrender now to the inevitable... Or commit suicide. This is the only choice you have.

Re:I don't think so.

[AmiMoJo]

How about a free toaster if you plug it in for at least 16 hours a day? And by the way it has a microphone and a screen showing adverts on it... And it etches adverts into the toast as well... But it's free!

Re:I don't think so.

[alvinrod]

If your smart-toaster is incapable of functioning without booting and connecting to the internet, it is poorly designed. Any smart device that isn't a good device first is going to be a failure no matter how many bells and whistles it has on top of it. About the only nice feature I can think of for a smart toaster would be to remind me the evening before to pre-load some bread into it so that it can start toasting it at a set time in the morning, or if its really smart after it knows that I'll want my toast to be ready in a few minutes (say after it knows I've showered and brushed my teeth) from the present moment.

But I should always be able to just slap some bread in it and push the lever down no matter if its done booting or isn't on the network. A toaster that can't make toast is useless regardless of whether it's a so-called smart device or not.

Re:I don't think so.

[geekmux]

I get his point - more things will be connected to the internet. But more things will also not be. The internet is a utility now, it's not just new and shiny. Sure, there will be coffee machines that are connected to the internet you can buy, but there will be a ton of people that don't want them and want a normal coffee machine.

His point was centered around the fact that you won't be even offered a choice in the future, thanks to Greed. No manufacturer will simply be satisfied with the one-time profit created from a "dumb" coffee machine. They will want many sources of revenue coming from aggregating their customer usage data and selling and re-selling it over and over again. Along with coffee subscription services, and accessories that report back to the infamous cloud when the carbon filter is dirty and needs to be changed/ordered. It's unending, and won't stop, all because of Greed.

If you don't believe me, look at pets.com and the bubble burst. Seemed at the time that everything would be purchased through a web site.

Pets.com was then. This is now, and things change. There is an insane amount of varied products I now source from Amazon almost exclusively, as do millions of other consumers. That's just one vendor example of how easily consumer behavior can and will change. When Amazon drones reduce delivery wait times from 2 days to 2 hours, I can imagine that behavior will expand even faster.

Sure, Amazon has some pet food sales. But people aren't ever going to stop buying dog food locally.

When it comes to products like food (pet or human), the almighty price tag rules, and online e-tailers don't have anywhere near the business costs that brick and mortar alternatives must maintain, therefore they will reign supreme in price, and ultimately drive consumers away from local sales. The slow but unending death of shopping malls is a prime example of this. I buy my pet food through Amazon now. Why? Because it's cheaper.

Look at other products. How many people still buy music locally? How many bookstore chains have shut down? Local options continue to wane as we cater to the generation of digital consumers who prefer to wait 2 minutes to download an album with minimal effort vs. 2 hours to drive to a store and buy it. Now Amazon will let you try on clothing before you buy it, emulating what people used to have to fight the mall crowds for, and struggle to find their size.

Consumer behavior demanding the minimum price and maximum convenience is driving this. And I highly doubt the 10% of people who don't want this are going to be able to do a damn thing to stop it.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

They will want it if the inclusion of the 2 cent sensor lets them collect a buck fifty of saleable data over the life of the device.

Again that would require that the Internet feature functions properly over the lifetime of the device. Given the quality of most low cost devices (toasters, etc), I don't see that as a selling point to manufacturers. They only care that their products make it past warranty periods.

Re:I don't think so.

[geekmux]

We use our toaster often, but unplug it when we're not using it. If our toaster was Internet-connected, would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast? Because if that's the case, I'll do what you do and buy a non-Internet-connected toaster or not connect it to my home network. (If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.)

Do you wait to "boot up" your cable box, cell phone, or tablet every time you want to use it, or do you simply wake it up, and it's ready rather instantly?

I rest my case.

Re:I don't think so.

[gnick]

As for devices that connect via 3g/4g phone networks, my home can become a Faraday Cage if necessary to block these signals.

Turning your home into a Faraday cage seems extreme. You're going to give up your ability to use your cell phone at home in order to frustrate your toaster?

Re:I don't think so.

[gnick]

Again that would require that the Internet feature functions properly over the lifetime of the device... They only care that their products make it past warranty periods.

From the manufacturer's point of view, the warranty period IS the lifetime of the device. Any information they can collect and sell past that is just gravy.

Re:I don't think so.

[omnichad]

Yes, more standby power usage is what we need. That cable box uses almost as much electricity on standby as it does when running.

Re:I don't think so.

[Cajun Hell]

Sure, there will be coffee machines that are connected to the internet you can buy, but there will be a ton of people that don't want them and want a normal coffee machine.

Yes, but those people won't necessarily buy what they want, especially if the sticker price isn't any different (and computers are dirt cheap). They currently buy internet-connected TVs, you know. (And that's just the tip of the iceberg on people making sacrifices and tradeoffs. People do it all the time.)

Re:I don't think so.

[cayenne8]

Eventually, there will be no such models. That is already starting to be the case in some areas.

Examples of things that already are IoT only and own't function without an internet connection, please?

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude. Start your coffee then make your toast. You don't want them done at the same time, you want your coffee available when the toast is ready. And, seriously, toast is not a meal - eat more.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

We use our toaster often, but unplug it when we're not using it. If our toaster was Internet-connected, would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast? Because if that's the case, I'll do what you do and buy a non-Internet-connected toaster or not connect it to my home network. (If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.)

Not a problem for those of us who eat baguettes.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Toaster: Howdy doodly do. How's it going? I'm Talkie, Talkie Toaster, your chirpy breakfast companion. Talkie's the name, toasting's the game. Anyone like any toast?

Lister: Look, I don't want any toast, and he doesn't want any toast. In fact, no one around here wants any toast. Not now, not ever. No toast.

Toaster: How 'bout a muffin?

Lister: Or muffins. Or muffins. We don't like muffins around here. We want no muffins, no toast, no teacakes, no buns, baps, baguettes or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no pancakes, no potato cakes and no hot-cross buns and definitely no smegging flapjacks.

Toaster: Aah, so you're a waffle man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec

Re:I don't think so.

[BlueStrat]

Then they will make it very, very, VERY inconvenient not to connect them to the internet, at the very least.

The market for such devices is rather small, so given the "danger" of people buying them who could else be forced into giving up their data buying them and thus not providing data that can be sold for lots of money, it's unlikely that any maker of appliances would endanger his data harvesting for such comparably insignificant gains.

That's where there's a niche-market for tiny cottage-industries. For example, I occasionally build custom vacuum-tube guitar amplifiers either for myself or acquaintances. Unless they can figure a way to incorporate IoT into the glass envelope of a 6L6GC, 12AX7A, or EL34. :P

Strat

Re:I don't think so.

[Cid Highwind]

Game consoles and blu-ray players. "Wanna play that new game/watch that new movie? Connect me to the internet so I can download a firmware update."

TVs are headed the same way, it's getting to be impossible to find "dumb" TVs with anything but the shittiest bargain-basement LCD panels in them.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

My electric toothbrush already has bluetooth. I have no idea what the phone app does, but I'm sure some people use it and their phone sends back brushing activity and other data back to the company.

And you're happy about it and post it on Slashdot for everyone to see how clueless you are. People like you are the reason why we're in this surveillance mess.

Re:I don't think so.

[KiloByte]

If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.

Then your fire insurance won't get that 90% reduction (obviously paired with a 2000% bump of the base rate) as the data collection will be somehow marketed as a safety feature. A few years on, it'll be plain illegal to sell, then to own, a toaster without an Internet connection.

Re:I don't think so.

[Oligonicella]

I just checked WalMart. Their low-end toaster is EIGHT FRIGGIN' DOLLARS. That's for two slices, the four slice model is seventeen. Do you seriously think a toaster with the necessary circuitry and software to connect will cost the same? *Much* less that to gather the data you're implying. Check out the prices of a simple USB wifi connector. Now add that to the price of the low-end two slice model and buy yourself the four slice model w/o wifi.

Re: I don't think so.

[that this is not und]

When I push my spring loaded center punch into the screen until it *snaps* will the toaster still make nicely browned slices?

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha, we'll just need you CC info to confirm you're 18 or older and we promise we'll charge you only after we change the T&C burried in a shitload of legalese.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will make more money by collecting behavioral data than the cost of the connection module.

Re: I don't think so.

[that this is not und]

The government will require all toasters feature "EnergyStar" efficiency ratings. The payoff to the manufacturer for the additional cost is the data mining functionality.

Did you really think the smart-power socket in the wall of your apartment in the high-density housing complex (conveniently located alongside a rapid transit corridor!) would deliver power to the toaster without the proper data handshake? This isn't the dark ages anymore, you know!

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd give that 0.0005 seconds of your life up if that toaster had sensors in it to be sure that your toast was not burnt and not underdone *every* time you made toast. Ever stand there for ten minutes wasting away just trying to get that perfect slice?

No, I push a button and come back when it beeps. Perfect toast, every time. No internet, no sensors, just a toaster that isn't a piece of junk.

Re:I don't think so.

[festernd]

Bought a 4k tv early this year -- literally couldn't find one without net

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention some health monitors, where they used to connect just to your local computer. Now they require an internet connection for even basic functionality.

Captcha: asinine.

Re:I don't think so.

[Dutch Gun]

Who would willingly buy a product that purposefully makes things inconvenient for the user, or puts its makers' needs ahead of its primary function? Ask Microsoft how well that went over with the Xbox One with its "phone home once a day" requirement. Sony ate their lunch.

Consumers will still have a choice, because all it takes is ONE manufacturer to realize that privacy might be a feature worth touting to gain an edge in sales over their competitors. The idea that there won't be a single product among the hundreds or thousands per category out there that *won't* spy on you is a dystopian fantasy, something that seems strangely common here on this site.

There's another problem with this scenario. As more and more consumer data is collected, such data is going to be worth less and less. That's how markets work. An over-saturation of supply will inevitably mean driving down prices, which will in turn cut down on the incentive to do this.

And finally, this also neglects to account for the possibility of running afoul of current or future privacy laws and regulation. I think it's possible that many markets will eventually have tougher laws regulating how devices are able to snoop on people without their consent or permission. Privacy-minded individuals will simply import products from those regions.

Re:I don't think so.

[MountainLogic]

If the current direction continues, there will never be an Internet toaster. The bulk of consumer IoT devices lack the I in IoT. A device is not port of the Internet if it does not have an IP address. Until I can ping my toaster from across the planet, we do not have an IoT. We have an ioT, small "i" that is routed through a bunch of half-baked proprietary layers and protocols that is only then tunneled through the Internet to a proprietary cloud application. (Real) IoT, fusion and (real) AI have been just a few years away and will be for a long time to come.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you seriously think a toaster with the necessary circuitry and software to connect will cost the same?

No, of course not. It will be free or much cheaper, which is why everyone will get them. The cost of the device will be made up in data collection, same as the business model of Facebook or Gmail. You get the service "free" and pay with your data.

Re:I don't think so.

[geekmux]

Yes, more standby power usage is what we need. That cable box uses almost as much electricity on standby as it does when running.

And your old CRT television set used 10 times the power of your new LED flat-screen. In the greater scheme of things, we've become far more efficient than we used to, even with some minor annoyances.

Besides, given how greedy the cable companies are, we likely won't have to wait long before cable boxes are extinct.

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

Soon you cannot leave profit on the floor. Because your competitor will pretty much give his fridges away, he will sell them at half your price.

Why is he doing it? Because everyone is doing it. And why can they do it? Because the other half is being paid for by whoever buys the data the fridge will collect about its buyer. You think there's a market for fridges that cost more for fewer "features"?

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck would you buy an electric toothbrush with bluetooth?

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to suggest just making a small faraday cage for the toaster itself, but actually it would even use a smaller mesh of wires just to make my own toaster and I'd probably get more uniform cooking that way...

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing trumps getting rid of the energystar rating. He's a man of the people. He's predicted the future and is fighting for us NOW!

Build the wall 2020;

Re:I don't think so.

[Oligonicella]

When you can tell your digital home assistant to turn your lights on and off, a toaster that isn't connected will seem out of place.

Then *those* people will buy connected devices. The remaining hundreds of thousands of houses w/o said DHA will not give a crap. How, pray tell, are you going to go about jamming those DHA's into those hundreds of thousands of houses?

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we know why your name is Strat. ;)

Re:I don't think so.

[omnichad]

In the greater scheme of things, we've become far more efficient than we used to

And you want to reverse course? How do you think we got there? The main reason the CRT used 10 times the power was the standby power required to keep the high-voltage capacitor ready.

Re:I don't think so.

[Oligonicella]

When it comes to products like food (pet or human), the almighty price tag rules...

Yeah, hence the huge number of brands of dog food at $5 a can just because they've got a cute Yorkshire on them and the aisles of "natural" produce. There's a hole in that logic of yours somewhere.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Individual businesses may fail, but businesses as a whole will keep trying until someone succeeds at getting their technological hooks into you. It isn't customer demand driving this, nor is it customer benefit (you can't be *that* naive). What's driving this is a fundamental fact of marketing: new customers are expensive to find.

It follows that we can't call this system "Capitalism" anymore. Capitalism is about *freedom of choice*. In a capitalist system, these manufacturers would be punished. Capitalism as we knew it is dead.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...own't function without an internet connection"
Most TVs and game consoles will work without an internet connection.

Re:I don't think so.

[Mr D from 63]

Oh, ye of little imaginationne! You'd give that 0.0005 seconds of your life up if that toaster had sensors in it to be sure that your toast was not burnt and not underdone *every* time you made toast. Ever stand there for ten minutes wasting away just trying to get that perfect slice? This is where you will buy an "Internet Toaster" and the tech will win. -=# Beau $=- (senior Editor)

possibly I might want a networked toaster that is not connected to the internet. A smart toaster (a smoaster?). Time my toast to finish exactly 15 seconds after my eggs are done. But I'll sure as heck never NEED it, and I might not want the Russians to know how dark I like my toast.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

We use our toaster often, but unplug it when we're not using it. If our toaster was Internet-connected, would we need to wait for it to boot up before we could make some toast? Because if that's the case, I'll do what you do and buy a non-Internet-connected toaster or not connect it to my home network. (If the toaster requires Internet connectivity to make toast, it will be returned ASAP and I'd post a warning online to keep others from buying that model.)

Do you wait to "boot up" your cable box, cell phone, or tablet every time you want to use it, or do you simply wake it up, and it's ready rather instantly?

I rest my case.

So, you think an always-on fire hazard is a good idea? Would you leave an always-on "internet-enabled smart" electric blanket on your bed? I wouldn't.

Re:I don't think so.

[geekmux]

In the greater scheme of things, we've become far more efficient than we used to

And you want to reverse course? How do you think we got there?

No, I don't want to reverse course, nor do I want to believe that any boot up wait time in any future device is a valid argument. My SSD-enhanced computer running a full OS cold boots in about 15 seconds today. I would imagine performance will only get better regardless of start state.

The main reason the CRT used 10 times the power was the standby power required to keep the high-voltage capacitor ready.

And I used to remember when my parents TV would have to warm up before showing a picture. I used to have to wait several minutes for the glow plugs to warm up enough to start my engine. Waiting for hardware is a hell of a lot more efficient today across the board.

Re:I don't think so.

[omnichad]

nor do I want to believe that any boot up wait time in any future device is a valid argument.

Good. You agree with the upthread comment on the end goal. The easiest solution is to not have a boot-up process at all. Makes for a very secure, unhackable device too.

And I used to remember when my parents TV would have to warm up before showing a picture.

That's an older design that didn't use standby power. Newer CRT's trickled voltage into the capacitor to reduce the wait time.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that is an awfully naive and grandiose statement. IOT hasn't exactly taken the workd by storm.

Re:I don't think so.

[Solandri]

It WILL care what brand of bread I use and will want to tell me about other wonderful choices in the world of sliced bread. And THAT will take 15 seconds, be associated with an annoying noise, voice and / or blinky light.

See, this is the difference between a device whose purpose is to display lights and make sounds (e.g. TV or laptop), versus a device where these things are superfluous. I can simply disconnect the speaker and light (replace them with resistors if the toaster is programmed to only function when they're connected), and I'm back to having a non-annoying toaster.

Re:I don't think so.

[Joe_Dragon]

concast cable will just take from there tv side and an outlet fee per IP address and force you to rent there gateway as well.

Re:I don't think so.

[jon3k]

Sure, Amazon has some pet food sales. But people aren't ever going to stop buying dog food locally.

These two sentences seem to directly contradict one another. Do you mean that SOME people will always buy it locally?

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

When toasters have to be connected to the internet to work, the idea of me buying a toaster is toast.

Besides, toasters are simple devices. My current toaster has "no user-serviceable parts" and was riveted shut. A drill fixed that, so I could repair it when crumbs caused it to malfunction when I shook it upside down to get out the last of them. I like my toasters dumb. If I wanted a smart toaster, I'd get a Cylon.

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

And they'll not want it if they can sell an un-internet-connected toaster that costs less to make for more money because it's more secure. Given the choice, and the higher reliability of the simpler device, I'd pay a $2 premium for a non-internet toaster.

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

Why the fuck would you buy an electric toothbrush with bluetooth?

Because he's stupid. Mybe the app tells him which end to put the toothpaste on, and which body opening to insert it in?

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

Do you seriously think a toaster with the necessary circuitry and software to connect will cost the same?

No, of course not. It will be free or much cheaper, which is why everyone will get them. The cost of the device will be made up in data collection, same as the business model of Facebook or Gmail. You get the service "free" and pay with your data.

1. Get all the free toasters you can
2.Sell to scrap dealer
3. PROFIT!

If they're free, I'll take every one I can get and make MY profit selling them for scrap. Which will be recycled into new free toasters that I can sell for scrap. Finally, a real use for the IoT.

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

When they're selling them for less than scrap value, their model breaks, because people will be buying them for the scrap value and they won't be able to subsidize the cost by profiting from your data. So there's a floor price below which they cannot drop.

And when their competitor says "We have a way more secure fridge that protects your personal information by never connecting to the internet" and it's the same price or even a bit more expensive, guess who gets the sale.

For those who are a few decades behind the curve:

man less
"less is more."

Re:I don't think so.

[HalAtWork]

You don't need the internet to make sure toast is not burnt. Whatever computations required on sensor data can easily be done locally.

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

There's another problem with this scenario. As more and more consumer data is collected, such data is going to be worth less and less. That's how markets work. An over-saturation of supply will inevitably mean driving down prices, which will in turn cut down on the incentive to do this.

Yep. We're already over-saturated with internet advertising, which is why the historical cost-per-click on mainline digital news media has dropped by 85%, and there's no reason to think the decline won't continue.

It's the same as how in the end bad money drives good money out of circulation, even if the mechanism isn't the same.

Re: I don't think so.

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are wrong. As more and more things go IoT the cost per unit will be significantly less than having separate manufacturing processes and production spaces. The cost of maintaining separate inventories, etc. also come into play. In the end the value of uniformity will outweigh the cost of diversity.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? F'ing hipsters.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's free!

... For now.
Terms and conditions apply.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, the cheapest DVDs for a long time at Walmart simply ignored region locking. While it was not advertised as such, I suspect the manufacturers originally made a model to pass muster with the studios and later removed all region encoding features because it was simply cheaper to manufacturer.

Not really -- region locking is purely a software function, not an additional piece of hardware on the board, so removing it doesn't change the manufacturing cost. The primary reason those cheap Chinese DVD players left out the region locking was to cater to the international market, where people who were unfortunate enough to live in Regions 2, 3, or 4 not only often had to wait months or years for a movie to get a non-R1 release, but when they did finally get a DVD release in their region, the "international" version would be missing half the special features and cost twice the price as the R1 version.

Re:I don't think so.

[Voyager529]

Consumers will still have a choice, because all it takes is ONE manufacturer to realize that privacy might be a feature worth touting to gain an edge in sales over their competitors. The idea that there won't be a single product among the hundreds or thousands per category out there that *won't* spy on you is a dystopian fantasy, something that seems strangely common here on this site.

And which fitness tracker do you recommend? If there was a FitBit sort of device that kept all the data local to my phone (or laptop ideally, but I'll compromise) and didn't require any sort of online account or data transmission, I'd buy it tomorrow. So far, Fitbit, MS Band, Apple Watch, Samsung Gear, Garmin, and Nike all require online accounts to work, even though it's not the sort of product inherently requiring an internet connection.

If there's room for half a dozen companies making fitness trackers, and zero of them have decided to make a band with local-only data mode, then it's not quite a dystopian fantasy.

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

You cannot sell a fridge that honors your customer's privacy at the same price as one that doesn't, because you being able to sell your customer's privacy is part of the revenue. If you can't sell that, someone else has to foot the bill, i.e. the customer.

And when you look at things like Facebook, tell me that there is ANY price you could sensibly demand that will be paid and that isn't to your disadvantage as a maker when you forgo the data revenue.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone sell internet connected nappies capable of transmuting the full experience, including texture, smell, taste...etc. to the CEOs of advertising targeting and data mining agencies, Ill buy then in a flash even if it is so expensive that I have to save money to afford it

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

I'm gonna stand up right now and say that if the day comes where all locally sold toasters are connected to the internet, I will enter the market with a non-internet-connected toaster.

The whole thing forgets about the demand side of supply/demand, but it is like Ohm's Law or Ying/Yang, or a coin. You can't separate the halves.

Re:I don't think so.

[Dutch Gun]

Okay, touché. I think about all you can get are pedometers if you don't want your fitness data up in the cloud.

Re:I don't think so.

[BarbaraHudson]

As I pointed out, the manufacturer can feature not connecting to the internet as a security and reliability feature and charge more for it.

Facebook has to give it away because it's so shitty they can't charge for it. And advertisers are waking up to the fact that there is no such thing as truly targeted advertising - claims by Amazon, Facebook, and Google of "laser-like focus on targets" is so laughable that the only reason it's gotten this far is because the people who do the ad buys need to help perpetuate the myth or they'll be out of a job.

Re: I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

You might have to start with the argument, if you start with logic you'll realize the lack of utility in the forum.

Re:I don't think so.

[dwywit]

Buy a "commercial display" and plug your choice of media processor into it, e.g. a laptop with a media-focussed linux distro.

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

Then the device will refuse to function.

It is just current through nichrome wire, they're not going to stop the internet from being full of mods to make it function.

It is just not doable. You can make an electric toast timer with a "light/dark" dial from parts in a junk bin; a 555 timer, a capacitor, 2 resistors, a relay, a potentiometer, done.

Re:I don't think so.

[hawguy]

My electric toothbrush already has bluetooth. I have no idea what the phone app does, but I'm sure some people use it and their phone sends back brushing activity and other data back to the company.

And you're happy about it and post it on Slashdot for everyone to see how clueless you are. People like you are the reason why we're in this surveillance mess.

I didn't buy the toothbrush for the bluetooth I bought it because it's the brand Costco had on sale, and I didn't install the app or pair it to my phone, so it's not surveilling me.

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

You could fit an ESP8266 inside just the base of a 6L6GC.

You could fit it inside a plastic washer, antenna and all. The power pins have to pass through the washer.

Luckily, radio emissions are detectable so it wouldn't be worth the effort. But don't assume the old stuff doesn't have room for new tricks.

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

When people make general statements, they're not absolute universal statements unless they contain an absolute modifier like "all."

You even understood it, as proven by your ability to offer a correction that means exactly the same thing, so it wasn't even ambiguous.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. When I was a kid they kept beating it into us that the microwave oven was supposed to replace the thermal oven. Fast forward 30 years and I have a microwave-convection oven, and a double oven (thermal). Not only did my thermal oven not go away, I have two of them now, AND the microwave has thermal too. In the future, anything that WANTS to be connected, WILL be connected. But so many things will choose to opt out. I keep reading about the income gap and how everyone needs free medical care now, so they won't have any money for this shit anyway.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Convenience wins every time. Your bet is that people won't want the convenience. You'll lose that bet.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your toaster takes 10 minutes, then you need a new toaster. And no I don't waste time trying to get a perfect slice of toast, I just make sure that when I put it in it is on the correct setting, because I always use the same type of bread, it comes out the same every fucking time.

If your toaster needs manual intervention to do its one job, then do yourself a favour and buy a new one.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

His point was centered around the fact that you won't be even offered a choice in the future, thanks to Greed. No manufacturer will simply be satisfied with the one-time profit created from a "dumb" coffee machine.

Except there'll always be small manufacturers looking to expand their business. And if no-one is making a coffee maker without an Internet of Shit connection, then they will because it will get them sales.

Re:I don't think so.

[BlueStrat]

You could fit an ESP8266 inside just the base of a 6L6GC.

Maybe, but would it survive, never mind function at full capacity, at prolonged environmental temperatures of up to 250C?

Strat

Re: I don't think so.

[BlueStrat]

Now we know why your name is Strat. ;)

Also, any guitar I pick up is 'blue' regardless of the finish. ;)

Strat

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

It could be thermally insulated so that it didn't reach anything like that temperature, yes.

Re:I don't think so.

[Scarletdown]

I would never trust a toaster with Internet access, not after an incident from a few years ago.

My girlfriend asked me once, "Why do you carry your sidearm around the house? What are you so afraid of?"
I said, "The fucking Decepticons."

She laughed, the toaster laughed, I laughed; then I shot the toaster, and my gal never questioned my habits again.

Re:I don't think so.

[Scarletdown]

Reminds me of those novelty electric hammers from the 70s and 80s. It was just a hammer with an electric cord attached.

And why have an electric toothbrush if you don't have electric teeth?

Re:I don't think so.

[BlueStrat]

It could be thermally insulated so that it didn't reach anything like that temperature, yes.

Hmm, I can't think of methods/materials one could use in such a tiny space as the interior of the base of a 6L6 to successfully passively-insulate the unit from up to 4 to 6 hours continuous exposure to temps easily exceeding 200C, and this sort of thing is kind of in my wheelhouse, as I've worked on avionics and rocket guidance systems before retiring. Tube amps are just a passion springing from the intersection of two of my loves...guitar and electronics/engineering.

I suppose if cost-per-unit and added complexity weren't an issue you could do something like add Peltier-junction cooling systems, but that's likely not practical nor cost effective. And, although you might get the thing to meet the base performance specs of a 6L6, I seriously doubt you would be able to stick a pair of those things into a '59 tweed Fender Bassman combo amplifier in place of the normal 6L6s and go play a gig. They would not be plug-n-play replacements.

That's not even touching on the fact that guitarists/musicians have very eclectic and particular preferences when it comes to their personal instrument amplifiers. Nigel Tufnel is never going to part with his rows of 100-watt Marshall Super-Leads nor be OK with sticking weird bits of silly-con into them. "It's not got nothing to do with going up to eleven, and that's one louder than ten, innit?!" :P

Anyways, it's been a pleasant thought experiment and interesting exchange, thanks for the replies!

Strat

Re:I don't think so.

[Opportunist]

As I pointed out, the manufacturer can feature not connecting to the internet as a security and reliability feature and charge more for it.

Oh yes. Tell me, how well did that work for manufacturers of inkjet printers that allowed refilling who in turn had to sell the printers for their real cost+markup instead of at a loss?

Re:I don't think so.

[Evtim]

Have you heard the expression " a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes" ? Google it.

Share and enjoy!

Re: I don't think so.

[loufoque]

Cat food is actually the only thing I use Amazon Now for.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

You are making a fundamental mistake by thinking than YOUR preferences (and mine too...) make the least bit of difference.

I think you're incorrect here, for the exact reason you stated earlier in your comment: nobody wants to leave money on the table. There will always be people like me who won't buy appliances that require internet connections. I literally can't think of a single electrical appliance that is so important that I must buy it no matter what, so I'll just pass.

Which means that there will be somebody somewhere who will want to tap a market that has been abandoned. Perhaps it would be considered "boutique" and such appliances will cost more than others, but they will be available.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy my pet food through Amazon now. Why? Because it's cheaper.

Out of curiosity, I checked the dog food that I buy. It's only available from one seller at a higher price than I can get it for locally plus $25 shipping. If Amazon can deliver a 50 pound bag of dog food to my door overnight for $30 total or less, it will get my business. Otherwise, I'll just stop at the farm store on the way home from work.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

The cheapest toaster you can get is under $10. If you need money so badly that $10 is too much for you, you have other problems than getting a free toaster.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

Since Canon is still selling a few such printers, they're apparently doing OK. I wouldn't know firsthand, though, since the fact that the inkjet printer market turned into nothing but an enormous scam meant that I stopped buying printers entirely many years ago.

Re: I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

The government will require all toasters feature "EnergyStar" efficiency ratings. The payoff to the manufacturer for the additional cost is the data mining functionality.

Yes but that does not mean the toaster will be built with enough quality to last long enough to collect data. Also it means that toaster manufacturers will have to invest in IoT designs and engineering. At this point, the designs of toasters are over 50 years old: adding in reliable Internet is fundamental change to the design.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

From the manufacturer's point of view, the warranty period IS the lifetime of the device. Any information they can collect and sell past that is just gravy.

Again, that relies on the Internet functions of the device to work properly for an extended period of time to recoup the cost. Considering that toaster manufacturers barely care that the toasting function works for any amount of time, I can't see them designing a reliable internet connection beyond the toasting function.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

The primary reason those cheap Chinese DVD players left out the region locking was to cater to the international market, where people who were unfortunate enough to live in Regions 2, 3, or 4 not only often had to wait months or years for a movie to get a non-R1 release, but when they did finally get a DVD release in their region, the "international" version would be missing half the special features and cost twice the price as the R1 version.

That doesn't explain why the DVD players were sold in Region 1. And only Region 1.

Re:I don't think so.

[UnknowingFool]

And what data would my toaster be sending besides toast? And how much would the cost of the toaster rise for every new function that is included?

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

My electric toothbrush already has bluetooth.

Why in the world does a toothbrush have to have electricity, let alone bluetooth? Personally speaking, electric toothbrushes have exactly no advantages over normal ones, and have a lot of disadvantages. Clearly, your cost/benefit calculation differs, which is fair.

But that's also the underlying point that many people are missing here: the market is not one-size-fits-all. You can have your electric toothbrush, and I can have my ordinary one, and we're both happy. Both are for sale because there's a market for both.

The same thing applies to IoT.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

it's getting to be impossible to find "dumb" TVs with anything but the shittiest bargain-basement LCD panels in them.

But I have yet to see one of those stupid smart TVs that refuse to function without an internet connection.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

If they're free, I'll take every one I can get and make MY profit selling them for scrap. Which will be recycled into new free toasters that I can sell for scrap. Finally, a real use for the IoT.

Yes, I'd be on board with this. There are already several products I buy because they contain parts that I need and can't get cheaper by themselves.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

If there's room for half a dozen companies making fitness trackers, and zero of them have decided to make a band with local-only data mode, then it's not quite a dystopian fantasy.

Then relax, because there are such fitness trackers on the market. The Jawbone Up is probably the best known one.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

Capitalism is about *freedom of choice*. In a capitalist system, these manufacturers would be punished. Capitalism as we knew it is dead.

Umm, no, that's not at all what capitalism is, or was. You're talking about the "free market" which is an entirely different thing from capitalism.

"Capitalism" is the private ownership of trade and industry.

"Free market" is about the manner in which trade is regulated.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

His point was centered around the fact that you won't be even offered a choice in the future, thanks to Greed.

Greed is what ensures that someone will be offering the choice. Someone will want to sell things to the people who simply won't buy them if they're connected.

Re: I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

When my coffee maker died, I bought a Keurig.

No matter what pod I put in, it invariably delivers a cup of liquid that is almost--but not quite--entirely unlike coffee.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry. By that time, we'll all be implanted with "smart" chips on the taste center of our brain, whose purpose it will be to convince us that the slice we're tasting is the best we've ever had, even one that was burnt to a crisp.

They might periodically induce a craving for Burger King or Oreos, but it certainly won't be in our dreams. No, sirree.

"Didn't you have ads in the 20th century ?"
"Sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and the radio. And in magazines. And at the movies. And at ballgames. And on buses, milk cartons and T-shirts and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams !"

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

I don't doubt you worked in a building where those activities were being done, but this isn't even a hard problem. You're trying to wave around some sort of authority chode, but argument from authority is crap. And you're not even claiming experience; "I did work I thought was important, a long time ago, therefore I know all about modern materials engineering." It is really weak sauce.

What is really really weak about the Peltier cooler idea is that, as with all heat exchangers, there is a net increase in heat. So if you're hiding it entirely inside another device, you're only adding another heater. The bottom of the plug socket is likely to be thermally insulated to prevent the heat from leaking into the rest of the device, so there is just no way. You'd do better with just air cooling.

If you're wondering why an IC from radio shack might not handle that temperature it is not because of the circuit, the part that does the work, it is because of the cheap plastic package it is in. Most ICs are also available in ceramic packages. Typically that means it is rated to 210C ambient. And with good thermal shielding, it isn't going to get that hot because only one side of the application package would be that hot. If ambient inside your amplifier is getting to 200C you have other problems. The base of the tube's plug doesn't get that hot, and the reason is because it has a high temperature plastic washing in between. So you if put a flexible printed circuit (made of kapton, good to 260C) with a ceramic IC somewhere inside of some plastic whose purpose is already thermal shielding, then it is safe to assume that that circuit will be somewhere in between the temperature of the tube, and the ambient temperature. And it isn't going to melt or burn.

And no, you can never put a new whatthewhat into an audiophile's favorite amplifier without losing a fatal number of style points. So that is a given.

Re:I don't think so.

[BlueStrat]

I don't doubt you worked in a building where those activities were being done, but this isn't even a hard problem. You're trying to wave around some sort of authority chode, but argument from authority is crap. And you're not even claiming experience; "I did work I thought was important, a long time ago, therefore I know all about modern materials engineering." It is really weak sauce.

Wow, dude, take the stick out of your ass and that huge chip off your shoulder! Have you got 'little-man syndrome' or something? I'm not trying to wave around any authority, just trying to have an interesting technical 'what-if', the background was just attempting to establish rapport with possibly another person with an engineering background. I was simply tossing out some random off-the-cuff thoughts, I wasn't submitting an engineering thesis, FFS!

Most ICs are also available in ceramic packages. Typically that means it is rated to 210C ambient.

Those ceramic packages also come at a premium price, again making the idea of putting them into the base of a 6L6 not practical. That 210C ambient is also likely a maximum spec and/or exposure time-limited and reliant on heatsinking and forced-air cooling. Good luck fitting that in there.

The base of the tube's plug doesn't get that hot, and the reason is because it has a high temperature plastic washing in between.

That is false for most common octal power power tubes used in guitar amplifiers. There is no "high temperature plastic 'washing'" between the glass envelope and the base. There is only a bit of high-temperature cement to aid in keeping the base attached along with the leads inside the base. Heat also gets transferred to the base's interior by the tube's pin-leads exiting the glass envelope and connecting to the pins in the base. The bases are typically made of the modern version of Bakelite which helps prevent burned fingers, plus the fact that when tubes operate in an upright position the heat rises away from the base due to convection. Many amplifiers operate power tubes inverted, Fender being prominent. I guarantee you that after an hour of operation the bases of 6L6s in a '68 Fender Twin Reverb are quite near 200C, sometimes over, and if you're foolish enough to grab one of those bases you'll leave burned flesh behind, Bakelite or not.

So you if put a flexible printed circuit (made of kapton, good to 260C) with a ceramic IC somewhere inside of some plastic whose purpose is already thermal shielding, then it is safe to assume that that circuit will be somewhere in between the temperature of the tube, and the ambient temperature. And it isn't going to melt or burn.

That might work, but there's bloody-little room in one of those bases, I know as I've had them apart many times.

It might be technically achievable, but it would not be easy or cheap, the added costs would likely negate any added value, and the value itself is still a question. What value could it add to a set of tubes in some guy's guitar amplifier?

Strat

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

You ran left, you ran right, you ran right around all of it.

That bugs are expensive does not mean that a bug can't be built into a tube amplifier. You're engaging in magical thinking to disprove the possibility of a device that actually exists, and that you simply don't know about. Weak. But weaker is that you ran left, you ran right, you ran right around all the specific factual claims and just waved your hands each time.

Re:I don't think so.

[MercTech]

Hmm, I see a market for peel and stick RF shields to keep appliances from using up domestic WiFi bandwidth. Especially since ISPs want to charge by the gigabyte instead of by the size of the pipeline.

BTW, I've been buying dog food from Amazon for about three years. I can be assured they have the brand I want and not just an empty spot on a shelf.

Re:I don't think so.

[djinn6]

One can always eat the bread cold.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the company that made the toaster will shut off the server for reasons unclear in the engineering world.

Not that unclear. They want to sell you a new one since they deliberately bricked the old one in a mandatory software update.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

> One can always eat the bread cold.

Raw toast? Ewwwww!

Re:I don't think so.

[hawguy]

My electric toothbrush already has bluetooth.

Why in the world does a toothbrush have to have electricity, let alone bluetooth? Personally speaking, electric toothbrushes have exactly no advantages over normal ones, and have a lot of disadvantages.

It's great that you have no manual dexterity problems, but when you have a disability that means you can barely hold a toothbrush let alone effectively brush for 2 minutes, then maybe you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.

Re:I don't think so.

[Voyager529]

Then relax, because there are such fitness trackers on the market. The Jawbone Up is probably the best known one.

I just looked at the support site for the Jawbone Up, and all of them require the app, which in turn requires an account to be made. Thus, [citation needed].

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

Read my comment again. I didn't dismiss it. I said that it has no value to me and acknowledged that others may legitimately find value in it.

My point is that there is a market for both sorts of things -- manual toothbrushes and electric ones. Manual toothbrushes will never go away, and neither will non-IoT devices, for the exact same reasons.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

Ack, you're right. My bad.

Re:I don't think so.

[JohnFen]

But I bet you could find one that would work even if you don't allow it to connect to the net. It'll be missing some features, but will do its job as a TV.

Re:I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the toast companies want to know exactly what you do with your toaster. Who toasts, what, how long, what bread. Bread will be connected also, because the bread companies want to know how do you chew your bread (their bread) so as you see, plenty of reasons to toast your toaster.

Re:I don't think so.

[jon3k]

What about when people make two directly contradictory general statements? I was making a guess as to what you meant, apparently I was right.

Re:I don't think so.

[Aighearach]

You actually would have to know what they mean before you theorize that they might be contradictory.

What you did is, you didn't understand, and just assumed, "Golly, maybe they even mean different things?" If you don't know what it meant, you don't fucking know if it was contradictory.

And it wasn't something I said. Somebody else said something clear. You failed to understand it. Instead of trying to understand what he said, you demanded that they agree with your correction. But it didn't need correcting. Just learn to read, and stop trying to correct people's English. You don't have a fucking clue what it should have said.

Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

Film at 11.

He's probably right about the push towards having to be online, but I fail to see how an IoT firewall should mitigate it. Especially with the increasing use of IPv6, which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted).

Good luck trying to firewall that.

Sorry, but no. If we want secure IoT devices, we have to demand them. And that means not buying the shoddy, insecure junk that's currently peddled. And I'm not even talking about any gimmicky gadgets from some Aliexpress shops, I'm talking about our "smart" TVs and other "smart" appliances made for dumb people.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a secure device more expensive? Do not want. I'll take the cheaper, insecure one and roll the dice.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that for devices over a certain price, the cost of having its own dedicated 3G connection to phone home becomes negligible. It can bypass whatever network security you put in place and do its own thing. It can also refuse to function unless it makes that connection.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

"Dear customer, it has come to our attention that a device in your network is sending out malware. Until you clean up your shit, we restrict your access to Microsoft and a selection of antivirus vendors, as detailed in the most recent adhesion contract update to your original one. When you have cleaned up your act and we feel like we'll open up your internet connection again. Since you're still bound to the contract for 2 more years and we're the only ISP in your area, you can fume as much as you like but you can as well suck our dick.

Yours,
your friendly ISP"

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[sinij]

Problem is much bigger than security. Lets say I designed a very secure smart TV that I also regularly patch. The problem of this TV listening on my conversations and inserting ads into my feed remains.

This why I think only legislative solution could work. We should have clear rights to our own data, so we can stop on-going theft of it.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

Something seems highly questionable, but perhaps with a purpose.

"If it uses electricity, it will be online."

That is debatable. It needs a network in order to be on-line! Being connected to electricity doesn't mean being connected to a network. And, adding to this, there are IoT devices that will run (or must run) from batteries. Further, what if the electricity goes out? It can't report the electricity is out if there is NO electricity to run from.

As for the F-Secure product, if an IoT device is on-line, HOW DO IT KNOW? That is, "Sense" must know about all IoT devices but if you don't know, HOW DO IT KNOW?

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anne Thwacks]

refuse to function unless it makes that connection.

I expect a very high rate of product returns, given the extreme flakiness of the internet, and complete absence of GSM for most of the planet.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[AmiMoJo]

It's an IoT firewall with "cloud service", so basically their cure is to install another of the very things that makes it insecure in the first place.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted). Good luck trying to firewall that.

Umm... Isn't granting access or not, exactly the primary function of the firewall?
When the route to internet goes directly through the firewall, anything behind it, NAT or not, can be blocked on its way in/out.
Unless these devices connect thru a network you don't control (LoRa?).

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[GuB-42]

NAT is not a security feature. It is a workaround for the lack of IPv4 addresses.
It just has the side effect of blocking some inbound connections, but if it is what you need, this can be done with a simple firewall rule, one that most home routers are likely to have enabled by default.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Rick Schumann]

How about we just don't buy them at all, and let the whole 'IoT' fad die out, like Pogs and Spinners?

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[StormReaver]

Especially with the increasing use of IPv6, which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted).

Good luck trying to firewall that.

That's rather simple to do. Unless device manufacturers are going to provide their own Internet infrastructure, they will still need your Internet connection to do their nefarious deeds.

Simply have a default I/O policy of Deny on your firewall, allow only specific devices to use your connection, and you're done. There is nothing magical about IPv6 in this regard.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[swillden]

He's probably right about the push towards having to be online, but I fail to see how an IoT firewall should mitigate it.

+1.

Firewalls were never more than a half-baked stopgap anyway, intended to band-aid over the problem that system design and implementation sucked (anti-virus is the same thing, but much, much worse -- we're getting that right with the mobile iteration, at least).

The right answer is not to employ firewalls to block access to ports that shouldn't be open... the ports just shouldn't be open. Devices should only respond to packets they're supposed to respond to, and should encrypt and authenticate the connections they are supposed to allow (which a firewall really couldn't do) using standard protocols implemented in common and well-scrutinized libraries, and should blackhole everything else. Upgrades should be silent, automatic and provided for the reasonable lifetime of the device -- which for large durable appliances is decades -- and the cost for providing that lifetime support must be priced out up front for the consumer. We'll need regulation to make sure that happens.

Actually, for all of the commenters lamenting the idea of an Internet-connected toaster, etc., regulation requiring lifetime security updates would act as a useful counterweight to the tendency to needlessly connect All The Things. Providing automatic updates for the lifetime of the appliance (what, five years, for a toaster?) will add a non-trivial cost to the price of the toaster, making it much more likely that most toasters won't be connected unless connecting them enables some really compelling feature that is worth the money.

Re: Security company scaremongering IoT

[KGIII]

It does make me curious. There are places near me that get no cell service. I am atop a mountain, more or less, and able to get two bars, sometimes. There are no wifi devices that are open for guest access - for miles. Not even the maps in GPS devices are accurate for this area. I am not even that remote. I can get grid power and Ihave DSL.

Just a bit further past me, there's no cell service for many, many miles. Hell, there's a pretty big hunk that doesn't even have power. This is a routed highway. This is in the US. I kinda figure dumb appliances will be around for a while longer.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[chihowa]

[...] which means more and more IoT devices will try to get un-NATed access to the internet (and will probably also get their wish granted). Good luck trying to firewall that.

Umm... Isn't granting access or not, exactly the primary function of the firewall?
When the route to internet goes directly through the firewall, anything behind it, NAT or not, can be blocked on its way in/out.
Unless these devices connect thru a network you don't control (LoRa?).

Nope. Common knowledge on Slashdot is that NAT is the pinnacle of security and stateful firewalls don't yet exist or don't work with IPv6. Also, sometimes "firewall" is a synonym for "NAT" and sometimes it's a synonym for "the little box that you plug into the ISP". Hopefully that firewall does NAT, or the Russian hackers will get you!

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

The problem here is the conflict of interest between you, the product's user, and its maker. Because the maker does have an interest for the product to open a port so he can communicate with it and violate your privacy, which you, very obviously, don't have.

Aside of that I'm fully with you. At the very least I would like to see makers of such devices being liable for gross negligence, most of these things don't suffer from obscure and unknown problems that require arcane knowledge of protocols unknown to mere mortals, we're talking about devices being delivered with ancient (read: multiple year old), insecure versions of standard software like SSL, announcing their insecure version to everyone who wants to know, IoT devices that have hardcoded and unchangeable passwords (or no passwords altogether), devices that connect with whatever access point they find first that isn't secured, and so on.

At the very least make the makers of such things liable for the damage caused by these mistakes that cannot even be classified as gross negligence. I think we need a new term for this level of ignorance.

Re: Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe that will be considered niche enough a situation to write off in exchange for the extra $$ obtained from required data gathering. That might not be for some time yet, but I wouldn't be soooo confident. Stupider things have happened.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

We're talking about at device they most likely designed for home users with little to no networking knowledge, and even less knowledge of IPv6. Hell, IPv6 still baffles some people who allegedly understood v4...

The main obstacle here is most likely that this firewall appliance will literally have to be sitting between the devices and whatever connection to the internet the user may have. This alone is a headache and a half, considering the various ways people connect to the internet (and how poorly some of those hodgepodge connection thingamajigs support anything but Windows PCs) and considering that the devices themselves will probably not like being firewalled and will try to get around it.

What they're trying to sell here is a firewall/router appliance that even specialized companies like Cisco can't get right, AND a packet inspection application on top of that (which has to have a secure way of getting relevant updates constantly) AND all of that in a way that allows sensible traffic speeds.

And all that for a price that doesn't make the average consumer go blind.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

NAT is as close as the average consumer gets these days to something that could resemble something like a firewall.

Yes, this can all be done quickly with a simple firewall rule. You want to teach the masses out there that think TCP might be the Chinese secret service what ports are and how to properly configure a router to forward the ones that they want? Or should we rather put them behind NATing routers and pray they don't find out how to activate UPnP?

Which one do you personally think will actually work out in a real life scenario?

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

Sorry, the internet is too important to rely on mass ADHD.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

The "magical" part of IPv6 in this regard is that your provider will assign you a sizable amount of addresses instead of one, taking away the necessity of NATing and making it "so much easier" to have your crap hooked to the internet directly. People will gladly take that offer, since a lot more of the things they have will "just work" now that they can also act as servers (which required you to configure your router to forward the traffic).

And that also means that people are much more prone to plugging their network together in a wrong way. Because it will work if you plug your IoT device in front of the firewall. Actually, my guess is that it would work a lot "better"...

Re: Security company scaremongering IoT

[Anonymous Coward]

All they really need is a low data rate mesh network with enough nodes randomly placed to periodically establish a connection. Think of it like how oceanic buoys transmit data back home from the middle of the ocean. Every once in a while, the right satellite comes into view to be able to receive a quick burst of data. You don't have a constant connection, just enough to push the bits across. Compared to that, your situation is easy. Just make every electronic device a node in the network and make a deal with Comcast or whatever for access to their network of customer hotspots. Do it under the guise of an industry consortium and get the government to buy in to help monitor our critical infrastructure (homeland security!). Now every telephone pole is a node, every well pump, every toaster, every car, everything with a blue LED light blazing away. The more enabled devices you sell, the more pull you get in the consortium. The actual devices are the last piece of the puzzle, laying the groundwork to enable the functionality will need to come first.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Rick Schumann]

Give me one good reason why you or anyone else needs a gods-be-damned internet connected toaster, blender, refrigerator, dishwasher, clothes washer, or clothes dryer? Rhetorical question, NOBODY does, and NOBODY should waste their money on stupid things like that.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[JohnFen]

Problem is much bigger than security. Lets say I designed a very secure smart TV that I also regularly patch. The problem of this TV listening on my conversations and inserting ads into my feed remains.

Which is a security issue. Manufacturers don't see it that way, but lots of regular people do. Any device (or software) that phones home without my permission is, by definition, an insecure device even if that communications is 100% unhackable.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[JohnFen]

It's an IoT firewall with "cloud service", so basically their cure is to install another of the very things that makes it insecure in the first place.

That's insane. Any firewall with a cloud component is automatically a firewall not worth having.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[JohnFen]

Simply have a default I/O policy of Deny on your firewall, allow only specific devices to use your connection, and you're done. There is nothing magical about IPv6 in this regard.

Yes, this. This is what I've been doing for years, both at home and on my smartphone.

Re:Security company scaremongering IoT

[Opportunist]

Yes, but the makers of such appliances have a big interest in making them, because they can sell that additional information about you. This in turn allows them to offer their always-online toasters cheaper, and given that people are miserly bastards this will drive the makers of non-internet toasters out of the market because these things would have to sell for more and people don't give a fuck about privacy as long as cheap and gimmegimme. For reference, see Facebook.

Why do you think that it would suddenly matter what you, the consumer, want? What matters is what the maker of the product wants.

It doesnt have to be online

[AvderTheTerrible]

Just rip out the antenna so it can't try to get on your wifi or cellular networks. Bam, good old fashioned dumb appliance that will simply do what it was originally designed for instead of trying to integrate a billion little web marketing doodads on to a screen that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't any of these bozos see the Battlestar Galactica reboot?

Or just watch the Simpsons Halloween Y2K episode... networked toaster BAD!

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[EvilSS]

Just rip out the antenna so it can't try to get on your wifi or cellular networks. Bam, good old fashioned dumb appliance that will simply do what it was originally designed for instead of trying to integrate a billion little web marketing doodads on to a screen that shouldn't be there in the first place.

"We're sorry, there seems to be a problem connecting to the internet. You will need to complete the WiFi setup before you can make your toast"

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Anonymous Coward]

Just rip out the antenna so it can't try to get on your wifi or cellular networks. Bam, good old fashioned dumb appliance that will simply do what it was originally designed for instead of trying to integrate a billion little web marketing doodads on to a screen that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Wars have been started over lobotomized toasters, fascist.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it plugged into the electrical outlet? I'll give you a minute to ponder the implications.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Anonymous Coward]

Just rip out the antenna

antenna is molded into the plastic, good luck with that

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Opportunist]

So sorry, the boot sequence could not be completed as ordered, for some odd reason the WiFi module doesn't come online and without, I don't start. But since you didn't modify or tamper with the device, you can of course return it for a replacement!

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Opportunist]

Not that complicated to accomplish, the problem is rather that it will not only invalidate the warranty but the device will very likely refuse to work if it notices that it can't inform the world about your toast eating habits.

I mean, what good is it to me if you can make toast and I don't hear about it? Just because you paid for it doesn't mean that it should do what you want!

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Rick Schumann]

There will always be a market for basic, 'dumb' appliances and other things, because not everybody is rich, but everybody needs to live. So you don't get the shiniest new things; so what? A toaster needs to just be good at being a TOASTER. Or a coffee maker. Or a refrigerator. Or a dishwasher, clothes washer, clothes dryer, and so on. There will ALWAYS be companies that make basic, reliable things like that. Don't believe all this bullshit hype that 'everything is going to be a computer'. Not necessary. As remarkable as it may sound, common sense manages to survive.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[docfruitbat]

You joke, but my new TV demanded my WiFI password and a Roku account before it would do anything else! Heck, my new robot vacuum demanded WiFi and a vendor account too! I can easily see a toaster demanding the same. Just watch Red Dwarf some time and see how pushy a toaster can truely be! :)

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Aighearach]

Frank Herbert's son wrote 27 books about one of those wars, so it isn't like nobody knows.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can open it up, you just need to stop it connecting to the antenna. If you can't, or the whole electronics are molded into the plastic, then it becomes somewhat harder, but not impossible. X-ray it to find the antenna, and make a small incision to break the connection.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[EvilSS]

OK. Not sure why you replied to me instead of the root article, but OK.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Rick Schumann]

Amplifying your sarcasm.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[JohnFen]

Then both of those devices were, in my opinion, defective and I'd return them.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[JohnFen]

The antenna has to connect to the circuit board somewhere. I don't care if the antenna is still molded into the plastic after I've cut the traces leading to it.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[JohnFen]

the problem is rather that it will not only invalidate the warranty

Who cares about the warranty? Those things are pretty useless to begin with.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[docfruitbat]

"defective" isn't really accurate. "intrusive by design", maybe, but a defect implies a failure. This is not the case. These products work as designed. They just want access to my "private" resources (ie: access to my WiFi and, to some lesser extent, my "personal" account on "their" systems). But, it's a question of time and effort for me. It would take more time investment for me to return both items and then seek suitable replacements. In both cases, I don't really have the time to waste and their use of my "private" resources is, realistically, minimal and won't really give away any informationI I truely care about (though the vaccum does give away some aspects of the house floor plan, but no real details concerning accessing the house itself). So, these, at least, while annoying, aren't all that intrusive on my privacy. I can, if I want, simply block their access or, instead, retarget their access on to my Guest network rather than my internal network if I'm concerned about them scanning my network. But, thus far, I haven't seen any such behaviour from either device (nor any of the other, older "smart" devices I have, and that includes my cellphone). So, while annoying, their requirements are "acceptable" at the moment. I can't say that will be true of newer devices as they start to demand more and more of our personal info, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[Opportunist]

Warranty becomes pretty interesting once you broke the WiFi antenna to disconnect it and then find out that with a broken WiFi system the toaster won't finish booting properly, telling you to return it.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[EvilSS]

Ah. It's been a really long week. I blame mental fatigue and a lack of excessive coffee.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[JohnFen]

OK, then "not fit for purpose" which, from my point of view, is the same as "defective". Just because it's working as designed doesn't mean it isn't defective.

The key issue is whether or not the requirement was clearly communicated prior to purchase. If not, then it's a defect.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[JohnFen]

Not really, no.

Re:It doesnt have to be online

[docfruitbat]

How so? The TV, being a Roku-enabled device (says so on the box!), reasonably expected me to have a Roku account. I could have plugged an ethernet cable into it to bypass WiFi, but my network router is not close enough for that, hence the WiFi access. It still would have wanted the Roku account because, well, it's a Roku TV, and that's its primary design goal. The account was "free" and didn't require giving them my first-born or my kidneys, so I was OK with that. I may actually try using Roku in the future, but for now it's just an unused feature of a device that functions as a suitable display for my DVR, otherwise.
The vacuum, by contrast, is controlled from the smartphone app only (well, except for a single button on the top), and, also said so on the box. That, again, requires WiFi access. The vendor account I see as being mostly for scheduling and automated software updates rather than anything else (like spying on my vacuum buying habits), and, again I get to keep my kidneys.
I see neither as being unfit or defective because both fulfill their functions (though the vacuum is getting a little uppity lately).
I think that, with any modern technology, there is a level of expectation involved. This has changed over time, but lately wireless has come become commonplace to where vendors can reasonably expect/rely on customers to have it available for use. In their eyes, they are providing a better product and service in exchange for a little of your goodwill and network bandwidth.
I have many other devices that use the network, both wired and wireless. That isn't a bad thing, after all, the network is there to be used, so why wouldn't I use it for my TV and vacuum? But, more to the point, needing network access isn't the problem or a defect-by-design.
I think the real concern here is that IoT has had a rocky (nay infamous) start out of the gates that left many shaking their heads. It is frightening to hear about thousands of IoT devices being turned into an Army of the Undead. What we need is for vendors to stop rushing to market before thoroughly testing their products, but even that won't catch everything. Look at more mature network/computer products and see how they still fail in various ways.
I expect IoT to get better over time. It just sucks that we, the consumers, are being boosted as "beta" testers.

There's Always a Market

[Tempest_2084]

There's always a market for 'dumb' things, be it phones, tools, or appliances. Your choices may be far more limited if you don't want an IoT appliance, but you're not going to be forced to buy one. Someone will see an opportunity for non IoT items and sell to those people. That's the way the market works.

Re:There's Always a Market

[sinij]

This isn't as simple as that. If I can sell you a toaster that snoops $10 worth of data over its lifetime, then I can undercut dumb toasters by $10.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Tempest_2084]

I bet many people will pay a little more to have a dumb appliance. Especially those who are security conscious.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Opportunist]

Yes. The question is, though, whether the market is big enough and whether licensing will allow it to exist.

Imagine some company with an interest in heavy copyright enforcement establishes the next standard format. They could well demand that anyone who wants to use that format has to be connected with the internet so they can determine whether the content you try to view has been blessed by the DRM gods. No internet, no 16k smellovision for you. And no, making a TV that offers you to play it without the DRM connection is not allowed.

Re:There's Always a Market

[ColdWetDog]

Artisanal toasters. Who knew?

Re:There's Always a Market

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be banned. Because, global warming. Or something. You can't win.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Tempest_2084]

I don't think they can demand internet connections for non-recreational devices. There are always legitimate reasons why a place might not have internet access. You might get away with that for game systems and the like, but not for every day devices.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Tempest_2084]

Sadly(?) those already exist.

Re:There's Always a Market

[sinij]

"Who are security conscious" are very niche market, as such only ultra-upscale offerings would be profitable. So a $500 'artisinal' dumb toaster.

Re:There's Always a Market

[sinij]

We thought OS integrity was sacrosanct, but here we are with Windows 10 spying on you. This too will change.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Oligonicella]

Speaking of "isn't as simple"... If you undercut by any profit you'd make, you've incurred work that is completely unnecessary.

Re: There's Always a Market

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself.... I don't have Windows 10 and no Windows 10 devices are allowed in my house.

Re:There's Always a Market

[Opportunist]

At some point it will be cheaper to get cheap mobile internet than to buy an appliance that doesn't require it.

Re:There's Always a Market

[JohnFen]

Probably more like $30-$50, which is a price people are already willing to pay for toasters.

Don't think so... Then again, maybe so.

[Jhon]

I find it unlikely that my soldering will be part of the great IoT revolution.

Maybe the power-outlet it plugs in to, though...

Nope

[JohnFen]

Not in my house, it won't.

Re:Nope

[swillden]

Not in my house, it won't.

Better stock up on all the appliances you're going to need for the rest of your life, then. Because in a few years it's going to be very hard to buy appliances that don't connect.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Come back in a few years and find out just how wrong you and the author are.

Re:Nope

[swillden]

Come back in a few years and find out just how wrong you and the author are.

Come back in a few years and find out how right we are.

Re:Nope

[JohnFen]

Not in my house, it won't.

Better stock up on all the appliances you're going to need for the rest of your life, then. Because in a few years it's going to be very hard to buy appliances that don't connect.

I don't think that day will ever come for a number of reasons, but even if you're right, it's not relevant. What's relevant is that I can modify and/or isolate any appliances so they can't communicate no matter how much they want to.

Re:Nope

[bingoUV]

Ok, I like experiments, how about you make the claim falsifiable?

1. Few years : need exact date after which we can take measurements on any date

2. Very hard : what exactly does it mean? Amazon may not exist or change its business model completely, so a claim based on Amazon or a specific seller may not be good enough.

3. Don't connect : what exactly does it mean ? If it connects to the grid electricity which can be manipulated to send / receive data to power company, but we are not sure ?

4. "Appliances" : what does it mean ? Would you select a specific type of appliance (say toaster) and place all bets on it ? Or define painstakingly the class of appliances you are talking about ?

Overestimating

[stabiesoft]

I think he is overestimating how many people will pay a subscription to a cell plan (even at 5bucks/mon that is 60 bucks/yr X #IoT devices) and if the IoT maker opts for WiFi, who says I am going to give the IoT device the password? And if the device does not work without wifi, I'll return it.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the device does not work without wifi, I'll return it.

Go ahead. They don't care. For every person like you there are a million who will accept it. You cannot influence the market in that way because there are not enough like you.

Re:Overestimating

[Opportunist]

And if the device does not work without wifi, I'll return it.

And then what? Your argument is much like "If the Bluray player doesn't let me record the signal, I return it". Yes. You can. But you can't get one that lets you.

It's by far not unlikely that you simply will not get any devices that give a shit what YOU want.

Re:Overestimating

[apoc.famine]

I think the concern doesn't quite lie in this area. The issue isn't that the device is going to cost more, it's that it's going to cost less. Why? Because they're going to mine your data for profit and show you ads.
 
So a few manufacturers start making internet connected toasters that burn images (subscription or one-time-purchase?) into the kids' toast in the morning. Those get popular. Then one of them has the bright idea to burn an advertisement on one side, while burning the Disney characters on the other, while selling the toaster for less. The rest of them get on board, and now when you go to buy a toaster, you've got mostly internet connected ones, with tiered subscription plans.
 
As an analogy, I fucking detest the giant display screens they slap in cars now, where the radio and climate controls used to be. But it's becoming harder and harder to find cars without them. The last time I looked at a model I might be interested in buying in a year or two, I asked if they came without the giant screen. Nope. Standard feature.
 
So now my options for a new car are limited, if that's a deal-breaker. Sure, you can return your toaster if it doesn't work without wifi. But if the only other ones available are cheap pieces of crap that burn your toast and fail after a year, what are you going to do? Hopefully the market recognizes that there are people like us with very strong opinions about design and implementation of tech, but that hasn't seemed to be the case in a number of market areas.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

Blueray isn't a fridge or toaster. Entertainment is optional.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy from china or Europe or russia online. There is always a choice.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

Entertainment is optional.

So is cooking and refrigeration. Try not paying the electric bill for a couple of months, you'll discover there's no law that says anyone has to provide safe food storage on your terms.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the media companies control the Blu-Ray standard, they have a vested interest in preventing Blu-Rays being recorded. The same doesn't apply to household appliances. The is no licensing body that controls what features a toaster or a fridge must have.

Re:Overestimating

[JohnFen]

Your argument is much like "If the Bluray player doesn't let me record the signal, I return it". Yes. You can. But you can't get one that lets you.

Which is why I don't own a Bluray player.

Re:Overestimating

[JohnFen]

But if the only other ones available are cheap pieces of crap that burn your toast and fail after a year, what are you going to do?

If its cheap, I'd just replace it every year. That's not a sacrifice with toasters specifically, as I have yet to find one intended for home use that actually does a good job of making toast, no matter what the price point.

So, already, there's no point to spending more than $5-$10 on a toaster.

Re:Overestimating

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet.

Re:Overestimating

[Opportunist]

Neither do I. But I do need a fridge, a dishwasher, a washing machine...

One could argue that you can live your life without any of those machines, but face it: Most people would rather bite the bullet of connecting them to the internet before even pondering doing without.

Re:Overestimating

[JohnFen]

True, but if the day comes (and I will truly be shocked if it actually does) that you really can't buy any of those things that won't work without talking on the internet, then I guarantee that someone will develop a workaround to that problem.

Re:Overestimating

[Opportunist]

Don't be surprised if that workaround gets outlawed because the maker of the appliance has bigger rights to it than you, its mere owner.

Re:Don't think so... Then again, maybe so.

[evolutionary]

Wonder if going solar would help with this idea, or would "they" just try to mic/camera my solar charged battery.

IoT sewage pump

[sinij]

After reading the article, I am looking forward to IoT sewage pump.

Re:IoT sewage pump

[Anonymous Coward]

With motion detection and log storage?

Hilarious

[argStyopa]

The guy undercuts his own point.

His claim is that every device will have cheap telemetry installed to report whatever the vendor wants to know. Which isn't unreasonable.

However, the avenue this telemetry uses is the question. "Such devices will not rely on home Wi-Fi systems, says Hypponen, rather undermining the principle behind the company's new Sense hardware." (They pretty much all use home wifi now.)

Until then, it's not a terribly difficult process to look at your wifi and disable connections from Mac addresses you don't know, or that identify as 'Toaster" or "Coffeemaker", is it? I mean, how insecure IS your wifi?

Re:Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep spreading this info around and YOU will NOT be considered a friend of this chinless EU squit... That is: until he politicks his way into all the wireless device manufacturers too and suddenly they won't block particular groups of numbers.

I can see a great future for the tinfoil manufacturers: not only hats, they'll be into Faraday-cage tea cozies and the like.

Re:Hilarious

[CanadianMacFan]

Do you think the average person even knows how to check what devices are connected to their network or even what a MAC address is?

Re:Hilarious

[gnick]

I mean, how insecure IS your wifi?

In many (most?) cases, entirely insecure.

Re:Hilarious

[JohnFen]

The average person couldn't care less about privacy and security, so I don't care what they are technically capable of. Let them have their spy machines.

I care about my own survival in an environment that has turned actively hostile to customers like myself.

Yeah, good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

My Tektronix 547 would like you to try connecting to it.

Uh huh. Right.

[Anonymous Coward]

People making ludicrous declarations like this really ought to stop for a moment and think about the silliness that they're predicting. Is there really a need for, say, my air compressor need to be on the Internet? It uses electricity, after all. Is there an advantage to reporting to someone--the Central Air Authority, I guess--that I just put air in my tires. And, of course, I expect that there's some dweeb who thinks that my smartphone receiving a text message alerting me that I just inflated my tires to 45psi is the best thing to happen in the history of the planet. It's not. Just like having every item on Earth available via the Internet is a marvelous idea... if you're a ten year old.

Re:Uh huh. Right.

[Opportunist]

But of course there is a reason for your air compressor to be on the internet. To tell its maker how and when you use it.

Huh? No, that has no use for you. Why should it? Who cares about you? It's beneficial to its maker, so it is done.

Re: Uh huh. Right.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have inflated your tires 3 times this week. Here's a dollar off coupon so you'll buy Roundies brand tires from your nearest Roundies brand tire dealer.

people predicting the future are usually wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if next week an IOT device is at the heart of another terrorist attack?

what if the ISP's get their way and are able to jack up the rates on bandwidth?

What if people start realizing that there is no incentive for manufacturers of IOT devices to give a shake about security and thus just stop buying them?

there are many ways that the future can unfold and predicting it relies on making a whole shit load of assumptions. That and this is also coming from a guy that likes locked down ecosystems, and is against user programmability. (second page, first couple paragraphs FTA). So he says that IOS is great because there is no malware except he neglects to address that the App store on every closed ecosystem has malware some where on it and the companies (google,apple,and microsoft) aren't that good at getting rid of it. So pretty much this is an add from a corporate shill that advocates for an all your eggs in one basket approach, where the basket is behind closed doors and you cant even take a look inside to see if your eggs are rotten or not...

can we make a new rule for slashdot? no more interviews or commentaries from the c-suite crowd who are politicking rather than give their honest opinion? maybe bring it back to being a news site? not a social commentary from our great and powerful overlords?

BULLSHIT.

[Rick Schumann]

Is this guy a troll or something? I've never heard anything so gods-be-damned stupid in my entire LIFE.

I see a large uptick...

[Anonymous Coward]

...in YouTube videos and independent businesses specializing in disabling the antennas in IOT devices...

alarmist nonsense

[slashmydots]

Yay, headline-bait garbage! If you don't plug an ethernet cable into it or tell it your SSID and wifi password, then I guess there's no threat at all and they won't sneakily connect to the internet without your knowing and hack your whole house and OMG your whole family is gonna die ahhhh!!!

Re:alarmist nonsense

[crtreece]

they won't sneakily connect to the internet without your knowing

What's stopping a manufacturer from putting a 3G cell transceiver in, and connecting without using any of your network resources? It's what all the hip car companies are doing nowadays. Try buying anything but a base model Chevrolet today that doesn't have ONSTAR buried so deep into the system that the car probably wouldn't work if you managed to disable it.

Re:alarmist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the device just fails to work.

Re:alarmist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Many cars already come with active, embedded cell network service. Even the Kindle had its own built-in, free cell service used to buy and download books. You're not going to know if a device connects to a network or not unless you take it apart of buy a frequency scanner.

Ignoring that for a moment, some ISPs are turning their routers into hotspots which aren't controlled by the customer. I can easily see the ISPs selling access to their wireless networks to device manufactures.

What the customer wants no longer matters.

Re:alarmist nonsense

[strikethree]

Intel CPUs have (had?) 3g modems built into them from the factory. Really, your only option is generating your own power to give to the device and placing it in a Faraday cage.

Unfortunately, a quick visit to Google only provides this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/priva...

None of that appears to be very reliable sources but meh. It is possible to do so and seeing what Microsoft is doing with the OS, it seems inconceivable that Intel is not doing something similar.

Re:alarmist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay, headline-bait garbage! If you don't plug an ethernet cable into it or tell it your SSID and wifi password, then I guess there's no threat at all and they won't sneakily connect to the internet without your knowing and hack your whole house...

Who says it will use your internet connection? They have been working for years to use ethernet over power lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_meter_reading . It doesn't require much of a stretch of the imagination to apply this to other devices on your powerline.

Re: alarmist nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Now how do I firewall my connection to the powergrid, F-Secure?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication

What about...

[jbmartin6]

My brain and nervous system use electricity. Are those going to become computers and move online? I'm willing to consider it as long as the source is audited by multiple trusted parties.

And how?

[Chris Mattern]

In order to be online, I either have to a) plug it in b) configure it with my WiFi encryption or c) provide unencrypted WiFi. It can't get online unless I put it online.

Re:And how?

[Cro Magnon]

Well, if you want to use the damn thing, you already have to plug it in. I can see them trying to force you to connect their crap to wifi or not be able to use them.

Re:And how?

[CanadianMacFan]

Or your neighbours have an open guest network.

Re:And how?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV's come with an input device (the remote) and a display device (the TV) so connecting it to a particular WiFi is feasible and could perhaps be mandatory.
Toasters have neither. So if you want to force consumers to connect your toaster to the internet, you have to:
* Somehow provide an interface for a WiFi connection. (Little screen and keyboard? Develop an app?)
* Provide support to the many, many customers who can't figure out it.
Suddenly the total cost to the manufacturer is significantly higher compared to the dumb toaster, even if the wireless receiver itself costs almost nothing.

Re: And how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or send data over the powerline.

Er what

[Anonymous Coward]

So are appliance makers going to pay for people to have internet access? What are they going to do for people who can't get access? It just seems unreadable if not completely idiotic.

Don't give it your password

[HalAtWork]

Simple as that

Backlash

[Moof123]

We have seen several years already of adding connectivity for marketing's sake alone, and with some well known disastrous results. Problems come in two camps, only the first being security of cheap poorly designed widgets. The second is plain old functionality, which is what will ultimately keep IoT from becoming truly ubiquitous and ingrained.

Even if (big IF) security was tied up with a bow, the utility side is a big one. Fly by night companies stop support for products and shut off servers within months to at most a year or two of selling a widget. Once sales drop off and they focus efforts on the next shiny object the incentive to maintain the old is just gone. Having an internet connected meat thermometer sounds great until you bust it out the next summer and find it no longer works because ACME.com is out of business or stopped supporting your MeatWand 2000.

Layered on top is the need to get the widget online and keep it online. Bashing in your WiFi password into every widget coming through the door is both a hassle and a source of fear. Want to figure out how to change your passwords on EVERY widget that uses electricity in your house if you change ISP's and get a new router? I certainly don't want to be unable to run a load of laundry to toast toast because there is an internet outage. Connectivity must then optional, and most widgets cannot be enhanced in any useful way beyond their bare utility by being connected. Most of the enhancements are of novelty value at best.

Re: Backlash

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just be like my ex wife and borrow the neighbors meatwand when the one at home stops working.....

Not gonna happen...

[drew_92123]

More and more devices will want to connect in the future, but I'll be damned if I give them access.

Re:Not gonna happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

And they'll be damned if they'll work without you giving them access.

What's that? You'll buy one without that requirement, you say? No, you won't, because there won't be any. It is more profitable to mine your behavioral data than not to.

You'll accept it like the good little consumer drone you are, just like everyone accepted always-on DRM in game consoles like the good little consumer drones they are.

The main problem with IoT...

[Anonymous Coward]

The main problem with the IoT is that is givens hackers all over the world (lone wolves or state sponsored) the power to disrupt our society. Get the security right FIRST. Otherwise this will be a giant mess.

***SLAP!***

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a huge slap is warranted to slap companies out of their stupor, and think "should this ever even be considered to be an IoT device?"

Re:people predicting the future are usually wrong

[Opportunist]

What happens if next week an IOT device is at the heart of another terrorist attack?

It will be the news for a week then nobody gives a shit about it anymore. Why do you think this is different from the other attacks?

what if the ISP's get their way and are able to jack up the rates on bandwidth?

Why should the makers of IoT devices care? Yes, people will lament over them using their bandwidth. AFTER they bought them.

What if people start realizing that there is no incentive for manufacturers of IOT devices to give a shake about security and thus just stop buying them?

Is that a trick question? You're reading on /., so you know consumer habits when it comes to computers and internet. When, in the whole history of both of them, have security problems in any technology, in any place, in any way, EVER made people think "Hmm... maybe I shouldn't use that crap"?

your penis will become an internet connected devic

[Anonymous Coward]

Probaly not as silly as it sounds

How long before...

[knorthern knight]

Ring Ring Ring

Hello?

This is Mike from Windows-IOT. Oh my goodness gracious, we have detected that your toaster is compromised. You must do the needfull and give us access to your toaster's remote interface. And also we need your credit card number to pay for securing your toaster.

Internet Service

[Anonymous Coward]

This assumes I have internet service where I live.

Re:Internet Service

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't you're not of any interest to the market and you can be safely ignored. Either move, or stop existing.

engineer here

[Anonymous Coward]

naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I have tons of other choices with my hot air soldering gun and flash programmers.

Re: engineer here

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol how cute. That smug smile will vanish quickly enough when the harsh reality will smash it like the heel of a jackboot.

Very short-sighted

[Khyber]

"If it uses electricity, it will be online."

Like my metal detector's going to get any sort of connectivity signal A. out in the middle of nowhere desert areas and B. inside a mine shaft.

Brickerbot will destroy this model

[knorthern knight]

Manufacturers are effing *CHEAP*. Yes you might be able to mesh network a device with a 2-cent chip. But you can't make a *SECURE* device for 2 cents. You'll get the usual idiot practices of hardcoded passwords being the same for all products of the same model, communicating by cleartext telnet. When bricked devices start being returned in droves, watch for manufacturers to change their minds quickly.

Ditto for not operating when not connected. maybe Brickerbot can get some of these devices to transmit a random noise signal at max power. Eventually it'll become like wifi in my condo, where I can see 25+ neighbours' systems fighting over the same 11 channels. If it needs connectivity to work at all, a *LOT* of people will avoid it.

My toaster cries at midnight!

[WillAffleckUW]

In the long dark teatime of the soul
My toaster cries at midnight.
It has no port to connect to others
No mouth to voice it's desire to toast to perfection.

It remains, as before,
Metal heating element bars.

Which merely
toast.

Cry toast and let loose the IoT, fair Horatio!

Does Anyone Want Any Toast?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec

Drillhere.com

[that this is not und]

I still haven't seen an idea jell whose time has come. Regular people need a website where they can navigate to find the information needed to reliably de-smart their property.

An example page would read:

"To disable the 'smart connection' of your Bliengditz Toaster/Yogurtmaker, drill a hole 11mm deep with a #34 drill where shown on this diagram."

The key would be to provide the strategic information needed to disconnect devices without disabling needed functionality, i.e. to sever the net connection but leave the control logic to usefully operate the device.

It's an idea whose time has come.

of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course F-Secure's Chief Research Officer would say that.

No true.

[pubwvj]

My soldering iron uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

My drill uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

My power saw uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

My welder uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

My flashlight uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

My blender uses electricity but does not need to be connected to the internet.

There are a _LOT_ of devices that don't benefit from internet connectivity and are find just the way they are now, dumb.

K.I.S.S.

Re:No true.

[gweihir]

Indeed. Also, if it is not broken, then do not fix it.

Re:No true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they need to be connected to the internet, how else do you think our plans for world domination through a massively distributed low-power mesh network enabling us to monitor your every move are supposed to work? Um, I mean, imagine the possibilities for smart blender technology!

vibrators on the Internet

[roman_mir]

We already can have Internet capable vibrators, some are even equipped with cameras.

Isn't that great? Very useful if it has a location sensor.... where can a vibrator go?

Electric nose hair trimmers. Electric toilets (Toto and such). Electric screwdrivers. Electric knives.

All of these need to be on the Internet, how have we ever lived before being able to twitt the length of your nose hair...

Not Hotdog!

[Thud457]

geeze getta load of all these would-be 9-fingered wonders.

Re:Not Hotdog!

[Opportunist]

But it's one more security feature!

Spoken like a man selling an IoT firewall!

[DougReed]

I already saw some website recently showing all kinds of sill IoT things. Don't remember where, but seriously useless silly stuff.

Just block them.

[NoSalt]

Simply don't allow the IoT devices on your local network ... problem solved.

Re:Just block them.

[RockDoctor]

by roman_mir [..] on 2017-06-21 17:32 (#54662517) We already can have Internet capable vibrators, some are even equipped with cameras. by NoSalt ( 801989 ) [...] on 2017-06-21 18:00 (#54662787) Simply don't allow the IoT devices on your local network ... problem solved.

Or better, connect your vibrator to any under-secured network in your vicinity.

Cloud Firewall? What could go wrong?

[Pascoea]

...combining a traditional firewall with a cloud service

So it's a device that is used to restrict the access between IoT devices and the outside world, but relies on a cloud service to operate? No thanks. I'll take a router that offers me two wifi networks, one for my computers/tablets/etc and one of all of the iToasters, has the ability to block one of those from reaching the outside world, and doesn't require someone else's website to configure it.

He's ignoring the obvious.

[fahrbot-bot]

Devices may *want* to be or have the capability to be connected to the Internet, but w/o a CAT5 cable plugged into it, or a local WiFi password, it's not going to happen. If they try to use any near-by open hot-spots, I guess we can just put little Faraday cages around the damn things.

If a device doesn't work w/o being connected to the Internet, then I won't buy it.

And then there are smart people...

[gweihir]

And those will begin to see that a device that cannot connect to the internet as an advantage and that will make sure they get that.

Re:And then there are smart people...

[Tempest451]

Sure because so many people hate the Wi-Fi on their phone they constantly turn it off, so what If half their apps stop working.

Re:And then there are smart people...

[gweihir]

You seem to be confused. A phone is a _communication_ device. But for example, my water-cooker is not.

Not Seeing the Big Picture

[Tempest451]

You folks aren't seeing the big picture here. It isn't as much about the cloud IoT as it is about you local house LAN. Imagine everything you buy from furniture to toothpaste is automatically meshed into your house LAN, you can do anything from identify when the toothpaste runs out and it automatically orders more, to adapting your house's floor plan for the ideal placement of that couch you just bought before it even arrives. Anything that breaks, needs new batteries, or you want to keep track of will be meshed to your local LAN. That's the future.

Re:Not Seeing the Big Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not.

Creating needs because all are met

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats current capitalism. We don't need IoT at all, but convenience makes it feel that way. "Mental health." Stop being lazy? How are these devices going to just connect to your wifi without permission?

I can confidently say he is wrong.

[mark-t]

Although he may certainly be right about mass-market consumer devices, there will always remain at least a niche market for devices that are not connected to anything.

I mean heck... what about raw electronic components? Is he suggesting that even basic led's will connect to the internet?

My predictions for the future

[WaffleMonster]

Virus scanners will have long since been rendered obsolete.

People will demand and have the means of fully controlling their systems entirely by themselves within their own administrative domains. This will have become even easier than today's cyber stalking "cloud based" "IoT" malware "appliances" forcing you to connect to other peoples servers thousands of miles away just to adjust some widget a few feet away from you.

People will have long since gotten over marketing campaigns celebrating gadgetry with pointless complexity and features which provide no coherent value proposition to the end user.

People of the future will look back at present day with disdain and shock corporations were allowed to violate their customers privacy and security as they please with no repercussions in order to maximize profits.

Just a reason to have less stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Which IMHO is a good thing. People have way too much shit.

Cylons!

[antdude]

Frak those Cylons! Don't let them connected! Stay off!

I don't think so either.

[Anonymous Coward]

INASMUCH as wifi access points are increasingly, especially in a home or other residential environment, SECURED, in order to connect through THEM, the IoT appliances would need to know the password for at least one.

Unless of course, they use cellular connectivity to spy on you, but that require them to get the permission of at least A wireless provider, AND the cost of the transceiver would increase the final unit cost so much that for something like a coffee maker, a toaster, etc., no one would STAND for it. Hence, there will likely always be a demand for NON IoT devices and appliances.

Also, I really and truly doubt they could do it legally without the end-user's knowledge. For one thing, if it emanates RF energy, it would need an FCC compliance statement, (in the US,) which would tip you off that something's up. Hmmm... why does my TOASTER have an FCC compliance statement on it? Also, why does it do only what this $10 one does, but cost $73.95?!?

Further, even if they try to be tricky and start sneaking shit like this into our homes without FCC compliance AND a certification as to that compliance, they'd either get fined or shut down, OR, if they went around that by using some other means of communication such as ultra-high frequency sound, either way, you can tell it's doing it, just by using a radio scanner. I'm sure there are devices designed to help you detect the presence and operation, and locate the source of either radio waves coming from a device that really should NOT be emitting any, or of ultrasound, etc.

(I'm sure that elsewhere in the world, such as the EU, there are probably similar rules to whatever the FCC has here, even if not identical in all or any cases.)

I wouldn't even be too surprised if there are apps that take advantage of your smartphone's radio receivers to detect and help you triangulate such things. Going to be interesting to research this.

Not 10 Times

[kackle]

And your old CRT television set used 10 times the power of your new LED flat-screen.

As one who has repaired such items for 40 years, I cry foul. I noticed my work computer's CRT only drew 50% more current than the then-new LCDs of similar size.

What crap

[ebvwfbw]

Things are becoming junk. Buy anything lately? Doesn't seem to matter from which company. Stuff isn't made to last anymore. It's not lasting because they are making them electronic. Dishwasher for example. I own a bunch of rentals. A 1990s era dishwasher I would get about 20 years out of. I have a rental where we replaced a 1960s era dishwasher with a 2010 version. Had to service it twice, then replace it in 2015 because it was SHOT. Wires melted inside and such. Same with the range/oven. That was replaced about the same time. Also had electronic shit in it. I have one house that has a range that was installed in 1964, still going strong. It's a GE. Finding GE ovens from the 1960s in 1960s era houses still running is very common. 50 years people.

Another house I had a brand new dishwasher installed and it's been running for a whole month. Probably 4 or 5 times and the heating for drying the dishes is already not working. I also don't put crap in. I put stuff that I think I won't have to worry about for a couple of decades I hope.

So we need to push back and get rid of all of this new fangled electronic stuff. It's crap. Go back to the good old tried and true mechanics and relays and such. We don't need our stuff on the internet. Everyone knows the Internet is for porn after all.

Re:people predicting the future are usually wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens if next week an IOT device is at the heart of another terrorist attack?

It will be the news for a week then nobody gives a shit about it anymore. Why do you think this is different from the other attacks?

what if the ISP's get their way and are able to jack up the rates on bandwidth?

Why should the makers of IoT devices care? Yes, people will lament over them using their bandwidth. AFTER they bought them.

What if people start realizing that there is no incentive for manufacturers of IOT devices to give a shake about security and thus just stop buying them?

Is that a trick question? You're reading on /., so you know consumer habits when it comes to computers and internet. When, in the whole history of both of them, have security problems in any technology, in any place, in any way, EVER made people think "Hmm... maybe I shouldn't use that crap"?

AND that's the REAL problem now isn't it?