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Don't Pirate Or We'll Mess With Your Connected Thermostats, Warns East Coast ISP (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cold-moves dept.

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.

12 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Hyperbole much? by Obfuscant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bandwidth throttling for customers in those areas who have connected thermostats could mean the difference between sickness and health, or even life and death.

    If you are needing to adjust your thermostat using the network, that means you aren't at home to do it manually. You are not where the thermostat controls the temperature. I.e., if you freeze to death because you didn't walk across the room to turn the thermostat up, it ain't the ISPs fault.

    Yeah, maybe death of your pet fish if you aren't home to turn it up and the tank gets too cold, but "difference between ... life and death" is not something you usually hear with reference to fish.

    Or are people facing death from the cold really so lazy that they'd rather freeze than walk across the room?

    1. Re:Hyperbole much? by FudRucker · · Score: 1, Insightful

      what about the elderly and disabled, people unable to get up and walk, i taken my mother in as a house guest because i dont want to see her in a nursing home, she is 86 years old and in a wheelchair, she could not get to the thermostat if her life depended on it,

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    2. Re:Hyperbole much? by darthsilun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the ISP messes with your thermostat it is their fault. If they do it in the middle of the night when you're asleep, it's their fault. If they do it when you're away and your pipes freeze and flood your house, it's their fault.

      They have no business messing with your thermostat. They aren't the police, or the FBI. It's not their job to enforce the law.

      And if I had the misfortune to be a customer, you can bet I'd be shopping for another ISP right about now.

    3. Re:Hyperbole much? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're not "messing with your thermostat." They're messing with your internet connection, which you've connected your thermostat to.

      If lack of internet connectivity is going to cause your house to flood, or your granny to die, then you probably need to re-evaluate how you're using these devices.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    4. Re:Hyperbole much? by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If the ISP messes with your thermostat it is their fault.

      Stand still and think for a minute. If an ISP throttles or shuts off your internet connection for any reason, what effect will that have on your internet-controlled thermostat?

      1. 1. It will turn the temperature setting down.
      2. 2. It will turn the temperature setting up.
      3. 3. It will turn your furnace off completely.
      4. 4. You will not be able to change your temperature setting using the external internet, but can still operate it on the local internal network, and otherwise nothing is different including the manual controls.

      The correct answer is "4". The setting you had in place before the network interruption takes place will continue.

      Answers 1-3 are all what could be considered "messing with your thermostat", but only if the ISP actually makes the changes to the settings and not the stupid thermostat changes how it works when it loses a network connection. "Turn all heat off unless there is a constant network connection to some server in China" is a stupid and dangerous operating mode, and you need to blame the thermostat maker for that, not the ISP.

      For the person whose grandmother cannot operate a thermostat unless it is internet connected, then I suggest you get her a locally controlled thermostat instead of relying on the external internet. It is quite possible that the external internet will fail during a severe weather event and she'll be dead even if the ISP had nothing to do with it. Even just a local power failure could take out the wireless access point that the thermostat connects to, as well as the internet modem. This is not a case of the ISP turning something into a "matter of life or death", it's a case of poor planning on how to deal with common modes of failure resulting in a "matter of life or death."

    5. Re:Hyperbole much? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What kind of internet-connected thermostat needs a lot of bandwidth anyway? These things should be able to run on a 300bps modem.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re:Hyperbole much? by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i taken my mother in as a house guest

      Then it is YOUR responsibility to manage the thermostat, and if you set it at a level where she will freeze to death it will be your responsbility, not the ISPs. If you leave her alone in the house and set it so she will freeze, and then depend on being able to get in from the external internet to turn it back up so she doesn't (ha ha granny, feel how cold it is? where's my inheritance? Put me back in the will. Ok, now you get heat again!) then don't blame the ISP when your plot is foiled by a network outage.

      Maybe just leave the thermostat set at a livable temperature and you won't have to worry about network failures from any source or reason.

    7. Re: Hyperbole much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How about the situation where the internet is being used by a vulnerable customer to signal for assistance?
      What about where it is being used to monitor an elderly relative to ensure they haven't fallen / died?
      What about the people who rely on internet cameras/security devices?
      People who have heart monitor/drug delivery/other medical devices....?

      And ALL the replies I have seen so far assume the person IS pirating... Even the courts in the USA (who are often represented here as technologically illiterate) seem to realise that an IP address is NOT a pointer to an individual.

  2. This is why we need bet neutrality by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've said it before, and i will say it again: Your internet provider is a conduit on which multiple services rely. It cannot and should not, by law, be used to control or limit access, or police content either of it's own accord or upon request of external parties.


    Of course, personally, I am strongly against connecting any devices (other than computers) in my home to the outside facing network, but that's beside the point.

  3. I've got this great idea by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You wouldn't have to worry about your ability to turn it up remotely if you didn't turn it down to start with before you left home.

    It's a pretty well know fact that it takes [i]more[/i] energy to change the temperature in a home than to maintain a set temperature. If you're only in the house every other season that's one thing, but it's these people who insist on micromanaging their heating and cooling on an hourly basis who are missing the point.

    And as for those people who are worried about pipes freezing -- they shouldn't be turning their furnace completely off to start with. Leave the thermostat at 50 degrees at least. Leave the cabinets open to allow the pipes better circulation with the warm air in the house (it's not like you're home anyway to be bothered by those doors), get pipe warmers and just hook them up and leave them plugged in. Heck. I bet you could set up a smarthome system that would turn them on and off for you using local temperature sensors (no internet needed). But instead, you buy a three hundred dollar thermostat and pay for internet service for an empty house for months you're not there, and you call this "saving money".

  4. Re:dont mess with my thermostat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just report them to the authorities.
    This threat is no different from "It is a nice house you have here, would be unfortunate if something were to happen to it."

    It is illegal as fuck for them to make a statement like this.

    They aren't law enforcement. If they have a problem with someones possibly illegal online activities they should report it and let a court determine if the action was a copyright violation or not.
    Taking the law in your own hands isn't generally accepted.

  5. Re:dont mess with my thermostat by serutan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree that ISPs shouldn't act as copyright cops, judges and juries, but this one isn't threatening to mess with anybody's thermostat. They're just threatening to throttle bandwidth, which realistically could affect the operation of net-enabled devices if say a bit torrent client is hogging the connection.