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.

Comments

dont mess with my thermostat

[FudRucker]

or i will take an axe to your series of pipes

Re:dont mess with my thermostat

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:dont mess with my thermostat

[serutan]

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.

Re:dont mess with my thermostat

[slack_justyb]

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.

No you see lacking an FCC ruling we have to use FTC guidance on the matter (see 740 F.3d 623 [2014]). ISPs have the right under FTC rules to secure their network by any means. If they feel a copyright violation "might" happen, they have a right to secure their network and the FTC gives them any means to do that. Now you have recourse in court if you can show that they blocked your "service" and it's important that FTC meaning of "service" means that ISPs can do everything except cut you completely off, without serving you notice. So pretty much as long as you can ping 8.8.8.8 and you're doing something that gives the ISPs a reasonable cause to fear your traffic. They can do whatever the hell they like since the FCC was granted authority over "traffic" in PL104-104 sec 509 and the FCC has indicated that they're not going to stand behind you on this topic.

To anyone thinking they'd like to try their hand in court, by all means, have at it. Let me know how it went, but I can assure you it's not going to go the way you think it should.

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

Yes it is different. A house is physical and network traffic isn't. That's like the big point of why Congress really needs to fucking act on that whole NN thing. Judges don't see IP packets are things that belong to you, and until someone with law making ability says that packets on someone else's network are yours, they aren't yours, the end.

Hyperbole much?

[Obfuscant]

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?

Re:Hyperbole much?

[darthsilun]

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.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[sunking2]

Granny should have thought of that before she pirated The Girlfriend Experience.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[FrankHaynes]

Yeah, maybe death of your pet fish if you aren't home to turn it up and the tank gets too cold

When I was a little kid and my older brother went away to Boy Scout camp for the weekend, leaving me in care of his fish tank, I felt sorry for the fish having to swim around in such cold water. So I turned the tank heater all the way up so that they would be warm.

He was not the least bit happy when he came home to a bunch of dead exotic fish floating on the surface with their eyeballs popped out.

I am not qualified to be an ISP, either.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[Xenx]

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.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[aardvarkjoe]

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.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[Obfuscant]

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."

Re:Hyperbole much?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the perfect crime

Re:Hyperbole much?

[DontBeAMoran]

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

Re:Hyperbole much?

[Obfuscant]

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.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[sheramil]

One that's been taken over by a botnet and is too busy mining Dogecoins to adjust the temperature.

This is why we need bet neutrality

[110010001000]

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.

Hooray! (dupe)

[ls671]

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 ;-)

Programmable Thermostats need Backup Thermostats!

[BigBlockMopar]

Just don't trust ANY programmable thermostat, never mind the Internet-connected ones which are vulnerable to hacking and stuff like this.

Up here in Ottawa, Canada - which is damned cold at the moment, -25C but cools things as fast as if it was -40C with the wind chill - any heating system outage could do serious damage to your home.

You're not worried just about frozen pipes. I've personally seen the water in the bowl of a toilet freeze, split the bowl, and cause the tank to fall over. The fill valve in the toilet then helpfully tried to keep the tank full... tens of thousands of dollars in damage, and, to add insult to injury, a huge water bill.

It could be an asshole ISP, North Korean hackers, or it could be a pair of weak AA batteries while you're away on vacation, but the more complicated something is, the more prone it is to failure. Even a top-quality Honeywell Commercial can't turn on the heat if it's got dead batteries.

When you install a programmable thermostat, keep the old one!

Most central heating systems have thermostat terminals labeled R and W (or W1). When R is connected to W, the furnace will go through its startup rituals and produce heat. As soon as you disconnect them, the furnace will start its shutdown rituals.

Startup/shutdown may take a few seconds before the furnace appears to do anything. Any relatively modern (since 1990 or so) gas or oil furnace will do things like start the drafting fan (blows air up the chimney) and heat the igniters before it turns on the fuel, and once it has the fuel burning, it will wait until the heat exchanger is warm before it turns on the blower that moves the warm air into your home. Likewise, shutdown may take a few seconds, usually with the main blower running until the heat exchanger has given up all its heat.

Mount the old mechanical thermostat someplace where it will ensure the house never gets below about 15C. Connect its R and W (W1) terminals in parallel with the R and W terminals on your new thermostat, so that they work as an OR gate (two switches in parallel).

That way, even if the programmable - or those silly/dangerous Nest things - fails, the old-school mechanical thermostat will click the heat on.

Keep the old thermostat set to a lower temperature than the house should ever normally reach and it won't interfere with the energy-savings provided by the programmable thermostat.

When you're connecting the old thermostat as a failsafe, don't assume that the colors on the wiring mean anything - not all R terminals are connected to the red wire, and not all W terminals are connected to the white wire!

The G and the Y terminals control other functions in your furnace, no need to touch them.

R - transformer common, 24V AC
W - call for heat (W1, W2, etc. are for multistage furnaces - use W1)
Y - call for air conditioning - leave it alone
G - call for fan (the fan will start automatically when the furnace is heating or cooling, connecting R-G will cause the fan to run continuously for air flow)

Other terminals can be Googled.

Do the wiring carefully, using proper thermostat/doorbell wire. Put a sticker on your furnace to remind you of where you mounted the backup thermostat. If you're in the least bit unsure of what I'm describing, call a licensed HVAC contractor.

A final warning is that while this COULD be done with baseboards and other line-operated electric heat, it would require suitable thermostats and a licensed electrician to do it - burning your house down to save a flood is counterproductive.

This is a great way to recycle an old mercury-filled thermostat; you've changed it from hazardous waste into a safety device.