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Don't Pirate Or We'll Mess With Your Connected Thermostats, Warns East Coast ISP (engadget.com)
Internet service provider Armstrong Zoom has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. and is keen to punish those it believes are using file-sharing services. According to Engadget, "the ISP's response to allegedly naughty customers is bandwidth throttling, which is when an ISP intentionally slows down your internet service based on what you're doing online. Armstrong Zoom's warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats." From the report: The East Coast company stated: "Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services." All U.S. states served by Armstrong Zoom will be experiencing temperatures around or under freezing over the weekend and into the near future. Bandwidth throttling for customers in those areas who have connected thermostats could mean the difference between sickness and health, or even life and death. Seems like an extreme punishment for any allegedly downloaded Game of Thrones cam rips.
Hooray! I remember reading the exact same story on /. a few days ago.
Let me google it, "connected thermostat site:slashdot.org". Here we go:
https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
Maybe editor should do the same and Google it before posting dupes ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
They aren't touching the thermostat. They're throttling the internet speed in response to copyright infringement notices. Their terms of use and related documentation likely covers what can happen in regards to copyright infringement. If you don't like that practice, that is a different argument.. one that I would likely side with you on. However, it's up to the customer to understand the policies and what it entails. The ISP isn't targeting smart thermostats or the like, it's only warning the customer of possible issues if their connection is throttled.