Ahhh, this is some Black Mirror level stuff. Get reported to Amazon for something that was actually just a misunderstanding, get immediately locked out of everything you own that runs their...
Ahhh, this is some Black Mirror level stuff. Get reported to Amazon for something that was actually just a misunderstanding, get immediately locked out of everything you own that runs their software. Never mind the fact that no company should have (or be given) this level of control over one's life and home, whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? It reads like there was actual footage of the not-an-incident, so why couldn't Amazon check out the interaction first before cutting this guy off?
A terrifying thought is that the same systems as China's social credit score exist in the west, they're just obfuscated, managed and run by private companies.
A terrifying thought is that the same systems as China's social credit score exist in the west, they're just obfuscated, managed and run by private companies.
Would you be in favor of mandatory warning labels on things that aren't yours when you buy it? It does not have to be open source, and the vendor doesn't have support your messing with your...
Would you be in favor of mandatory warning labels on things that aren't yours when you buy it?
It does not have to be open source, and the vendor doesn't have support your messing with your device. They just have to disclose dependencies.
Examples:
buying a device called "xyz speaker" only to discover they go out of their way to lock it down (e.g.: encrypted boot sequence) to work only with the xyz streaming service and be trash otherwise, not actually a normal speaker when xyz decides your device is obsolete now.
buying a software product that says it can transform text descriptions into images, but it asks a server to generate it for you and doesn't work offline
buying a fitness tracker that records your heartbeat, but it doesn't show it to you: it first requires uploading the data to the vendor, after which the app can download it from that server and display it.
These example are sold as a thing, except it cannot perform its advertised functions without service, which seems misleading to me.
Absolutely, and since everything ends up being obsolete, I'd be in favor of also putting an expiration date that tell at least until when support is guaranteed, that aldo comes with financial...
Absolutely, and since everything ends up being obsolete, I'd be in favor of also putting an expiration date that tell at least until when support is guaranteed, that aldo comes with financial penalties if they fall short, with some way to avoid the penalty if they offer a firmware update that makes it usable even without the service.
Better than the status quo so I'm in favor, but I do want to point out the caveat that if they fail to meet the "guaranteed" support date, then those financial penalties are also likely to not be...
Better than the status quo so I'm in favor, but I do want to point out the caveat that if they fail to meet the "guaranteed" support date, then those financial penalties are also likely to not be paid. Having transparency until when you can expect it (in a good case), though, would be something at least, so yeah I'd vote for that.
Anything with an expiration date would also act as a warning label in the sense that I meant it, so that serves that purpose as well.
One way to ensure compliance would be to collect an xx$ amount on each devices (some kind of lifetime guarantee tax) sold in a sort of trust fund that they can collect after the "expiration date",...
One way to ensure compliance would be to collect an xx$ amount on each devices (some kind of lifetime guarantee tax) sold in a sort of trust fund that they can collect after the "expiration date", otherwise they forfeit the amount collected and returned to the customers affected.
What’s to stop them from making it “set to expire” in a month and then just continue as usual? Sure, people might not buy them at first, but if it became common for all devices to have a short...
What’s to stop them from making it “set to expire” in a month and then just continue as usual?
Sure, people might not buy them at first, but if it became common for all devices to have a short expiration but “they support it past then anyway,” then people would just start to ignore the expirations.
I'm a bit more extreme–I think it should be flat out illegal to call it a purchase, or any synonym of that. My biggest gripe is with video games. Despite what the button on Steam says, you have...
I'm a bit more extreme–I think it should be flat out illegal to call it a purchase, or any synonym of that. My biggest gripe is with video games. Despite what the button on Steam says, you have never bought a video game via their service–you've only ever bought temporary, revokable licences to download and play those games for now. That needs to be called what it is–lease, not buy.
It should be illegal to sell hardware that's fully functional on its own, yet requires a connection to someone else's computer to be used. Your BMW already has heated seats, and they should not be allowed to sell that hardware to you and then remotely shut it down. Heads should be rolling (figuratively, of course) for that nonsense.
It would be an interesting change for sure, if we required changing all the "buy" buttons to "license" buttons. Not sure how stores would have to implement that, training employees to use correct...
It would be an interesting change for sure, if we required changing all the "buy" buttons to "license" buttons. Not sure how stores would have to implement that, training employees to use correct terminology and using mystery buyers to check compliance? But either way, I imagine that anything you can buy-to-own gets a competitive advantage!
I agree, but the cynical side of me sees things going this way: "By buying and using this device you agree to our terms and conditions." Terms and conditions: "These terms and conditions may be...
I agree, but the cynical side of me sees things going this way: "By buying and using this device you agree to our terms and conditions."
Terms and conditions: "These terms and conditions may be modified at any time."
Some devices go on the market with the intention that they'll be bricked later, but others don't. For those that don't, those companies will want to reserve the right to do so in the future.
Businesses' goal is to make as much money as possible, but while they may look for edges and corner cases, it is my experience that reputable/legit businesses stay within the law so long as the...
Businesses' goal is to make as much money as possible, but while they may look for edges and corner cases, it is my experience that reputable/legit businesses stay within the law so long as the law is clear and you can be sued for violation.
If one has to legally declare when a "thing" or "product" for sale cannot stand on its own but depends on a service, then it wouldn't stand to reason that they can just turn around 3 weeks later and undo that with a ToS update and malicious update being pushed. That's somewhere between false advertising, fraud, and/or vandalism of a device that isn't theirs (can sue for damages as well as have criminal proceeds I'd guess). I'm sure you will be able to find fraudsters and sellers in other jurisdictions that do this, but generally I wouldn't expect this to be the norm. If my hypothetical law would come into force in the first place.
That's exactly why I had so much trouble buying a slightly-better-than-toy drone: I couldn't find one that does not rely on some kind of app that the manufacturer can't just arbitrarily turn off...
That's exactly why I had so much trouble buying a slightly-better-than-toy drone: I couldn't find one that does not rely on some kind of app that the manufacturer can't just arbitrarily turn off or force updates on. [Y'all, I'd love suggestions]
I don't own the device I'm just paying for a "season pass".
I have two google home devices sitting around not plugged in because it got enshittified: when we first got it it was great and responsive and answered questions. Increasingly got worse and worse until we literally pulled the plug.
And as I type this the office ladies are shouting at Alexa trying to get it to play different mix of songs, and commiserating to one another that they'd already tried and can't customize its playlist. We're back to being on the bloody radio.
Now now, The Companies HAVE to collect your data... how else will they make a profit? Oh yeah, by selling the right products for the right price. How silly. Honestly, the amount of behaviour like...
Now now, The Companies HAVE to collect your data... how else will they make a profit?
Oh yeah, by selling the right products for the right price. How silly.
Honestly, the amount of behaviour like this that firms put out now makes me less and less inclined to buy products.
We have to make sure the welfare gravy trains keep running for the most privileged members of our society afterall. On a less cynical note it's nice to see consumer production laws improve in the...
We have to make sure the welfare gravy trains keep running for the least most privileged members of our society afterall.
On a less cynical note it's nice to see consumer production laws improve in the EU, and certain the less I buy the better it is for the planet.
For drones, you could look into the FPV community. There are a lot of DIY / RTF / intercompatible options in this space that aren't DJI et al. What setup exactly depends on what you want to use...
For drones, you could look into the FPV community. There are a lot of DIY / RTF / intercompatible options in this space that aren't DJI et al. What setup exactly depends on what you want to use the drone for. Some common ones are: For the fun of flying itself ("Freestyle", "Racing"), Indoor ("Whoops"), for Filming ("Cinematic") or Exploration ("Long-Range")
Good resources are the /r/fpv subreddit, https://oscarliang.com/ or Joshua Bardwell on YouTube if you want to get into this hobby.
As @Qgel said look at FPV drones. You can build everything yourself and never have to deal with DJI's bullshit...Even while using some DJI equipment (camera and goggles). There are other options...
As @Qgel said look at FPV drones. You can build everything yourself and never have to deal with DJI's bullshit...Even while using some DJI equipment (camera and goggles). There are other options for HD video now, so you don't even have to go near DJI.
The "best" control link now, ExpressLRS, is open source, fairly cheap, and supported on more than a few radios (controllers).
Buy a decent controller, and sim, practice. Then order/build an ExpressLRS FPV drone with HD video. You've then got something better and cheaper than DJI, without all the restrictions.
Just don't fly like a dumbass, drones are still aircraft.
As always, the word "cloud" could be replaced with the phrase "someone else's computer," and it would be a better description. The people who own that computer can do whatever they want with it,...
As always, the word "cloud" could be replaced with the phrase "someone else's computer," and it would be a better description. The people who own that computer can do whatever they want with it, including looking at everything you have stored on it, and telling you to pound sand when they don't want your stuff on it anymore.
For certain things, that's not an issue–I'm not upset that Autodesk has copies of all the 3d printed doodads and whatsits I've designed using their services–those aren't secrets, and I have local STL files for everything I want to keep. I'm perfectly happy that Thingiverse stores and shares what I make so that others can download and use/improve upon it.
But there's no reason that someone else's computer should have access to my thermostat, or lights, or car's AC, or home surveillance systems. I don't trust my own family with that kind of control over my life. Anything that can be controlled by physical buttons is. Any data that needs stored is stored locally.
I'm sorry but I don't care what a person does or says. There is 0 reason for a user to be banned from using devices that control their home. I can't even begin to fathom why there is even a...
I'm sorry but I don't care what a person does or says. There is 0 reason for a user to be banned from using devices that control their home. I can't even begin to fathom why there is even a connection between these services and the delivery service, and especially why the hearsay of a single random person gets to undermine your day to day life.
If I were that person, I would not just be "considering" leaving that ecosystem; I'd be out.
I encourage folks to click through in the article to read the original blog post and watch the included Louis Rossmann video on the subject if you’re interested in a bit more detail to the story.
The blog post is way more interesting and in depth then whatever that article was... The blog post also has a video update from Brandon Jackson that gives a lot of context regarding what they are...
The blog post is way more interesting and in depth then whatever that article was...
These companies and others have too much control. Just recently Twilio booted my company off their platform - we had one message with a cannabis client and they took issue. We're not selling,...
These companies and others have too much control. Just recently Twilio booted my company off their platform - we had one message with a cannabis client and they took issue. We're not selling, we're not touching cannabis but any messages about cannabis, or related to cannabis or possibly about cannabis are not allowed on their network.
So we're booted off. And there is no process to appeal. Quite a disruption for my small business.
How can we get control back from these corporate overloards
This is horrible - precisely why I will never use any smart home appliances that I am not 100% in control of. If it doesn’t work without a connection to some company’s servers, then it’s not...
This is horrible - precisely why I will never use any smart home appliances that I am not 100% in control of. If it doesn’t work without a connection to some company’s servers, then it’s not yours. Data privacy concerns aside (of which Amazon is a particularly egregious offender), I just don’t want to end up with a product that doesn’t work because the internet is down, their servers are down, or they just decide not to support it any more. The list of problems with these centralized smart home solutions just goes on and on.
As a Tweet I saw once said: “Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart. Tech workers: The only technology in my house is a printer, and I keep a gun next to it in case it makes a noise I don't recognize.”
If I don't laugh, I'll cry. That's pretty much my mood these days, especially with stories like this. What a bleak, grey dystopia we're finding ourselves in. Cyberpunk, but make it... boring.
If I don't laugh, I'll cry.
That's pretty much my mood these days, especially with stories like this. What a bleak, grey dystopia we're finding ourselves in. Cyberpunk, but make it... boring.
I just flashed back to Space Odyssey 2001: "Im sorry Dave, Im afraid I can't do that" For the younger set, in Stanley Kubrick's classic film in 1968, HAL, the computer that controls the entire...
For the younger set, in Stanley Kubrick's classic film in 1968, HAL, the computer that controls the entire space station is an AI that slowly takes over control to the point that it no longer follows the commands it's given. Dave gives it a command to open the pod doors and HAL, in a creepy monotone, refuses with that famous line because he knows Dave is going to try and destroy him.
It always amazes me that the things that are envisioned as flights of fancy, years later become reality - like a software engineer being locked out of his own home automation because a voice controlled 'AI' doesnt like something he said. Welcome to the past future.
It's even more dystopian than that -- his AI doesn't like something his AI's company says his AI company's delivery driver says his automatic doorbell said It's a long ass chain of...
doesnt like something he said. Welcome to the past future.
It's even more dystopian than that -- his AI doesn't like something his AI's company says his AI company's delivery driver says his automatic doorbell said
It's a long ass chain of he-said-she-saids that all ends at a another robot
I want to say this is the type of person who should know better, but I personally know quite a few people who are more than tech-savvy, and yet tie a vital part of their lives to Amazon, Google,...
Brandon Jackson, who works as an engineer at Microsoft
I want to say this is the type of person who should know better, but I personally know quite a few people who are more than tech-savvy, and yet tie a vital part of their lives to Amazon, Google, or Apple, without any second thought or backup plan.
Edit:
I am seriously considering discontinuing my use of Amazon Echo devices
Oh well, if he's only "considering it" after being locked out of everything for a week...
As someone with a Home Assistant instance, a big fear is my raspberry pi crashing and taking all automations my partner relies on with it. Stories like these also make me hesitant to make my house...
As someone with a Home Assistant instance, a big fear is my raspberry pi crashing and taking all automations my partner relies on with it. Stories like these also make me hesitant to make my house even "smarter".
I have an online backup, which would start working again in half a days work. But no immediate take-overs, no. Would not yet know where to start with that, if i'm honest.
I have an online backup, which would start working again in half a days work. But no immediate take-overs, no. Would not yet know where to start with that, if i'm honest.
I don't know enough about pi's to tell you where to start, but I'll be rather surprised if no one has done this. I think maybe their forums would work best? https://forums.raspberrypi.com/ You can...
I don't know enough about pi's to tell you where to start, but I'll be rather surprised if no one has done this. I think maybe their forums would work best? https://forums.raspberrypi.com/
This is an excellent time to plug for you guys the concept of home assistant and zigbee/ z wave devices. With home assistance you can set up and run your own smart home using a raspberry pi and a...
This is an excellent time to plug for you guys the concept of home assistant and zigbee/ z wave devices.
With home assistance you can set up and run your own smart home using a raspberry pi and a couple of USB plugs. It gives you full control over your whole house, you can program the way everything behaves and set up dashboards.
In the last couple of updates they even started working on a very preliminary implementation of things like a voice assistant, and with the increasing popularity and ease of access of LLMs, I bet you were likely to see a time in the near future we have a full-blown voice assistant that can talk to you like a person that you can run in your own house.
I changed it to "Man unable to interact with any of his smart devices for a week after delivery driver accuses him of being racist". Is that better? If not, feel free to suggest another.
I changed it to "Man unable to interact with any of his smart devices for a week after delivery driver accuses him of being racist". Is that better? If not, feel free to suggest another.
Sure, the whole "smart home" thing is extreme to me, but what about devices we all rely upon? What if Google or Apple locks your phone? What if Microsoft arbitrarily decides you're banned from...
Sure, the whole "smart home" thing is extreme to me, but what about devices we all rely upon? What if Google or Apple locks your phone? What if Microsoft arbitrarily decides you're banned from using Windows? Even if we aren't using these "smart home" devices, we're all locked in, one way or another. Imagine if Uber erroneously charged you $300 and refused to refund it. You could do a chargeback, but you'd get banned from Uber for life.
This worried me a bit when buying an expensive Pixel phone. What if it got lost in shipping, and Google support did nothing? I would have to decide between eating the $1000 cost, or doing a credit card chargeback and losing everything on google drive, docs, sheets, gmail, and probably more that I haven't thought of yet. The consumer protection regulations of the old days are irrelevant now that these corporations are so big that they can turn your digital life upside down. Next, they'll ban your account for participating in a class action against them.
This actually does happen, and, as you might expect, it’s an absolute fucking nightmare: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
Not contradicting you, but this is why people should be getting familiar with Linux for desktop, Graphene or Lineage OS for the phone, privacy minded apps and services, etc. There is a trade off...
Not contradicting you, but this is why people should be getting familiar with Linux for desktop, Graphene or Lineage OS for the phone, privacy minded apps and services, etc. There is a trade off of convenience, but if you're at the point where a corporation rules your life, how much is this convenience really worth?
Frankly, as I’ve been transitioning to these things, I’ve really not noticed much inconvenience, even. Especially Linux has been a breeze to use. Turns out, when the software you use respects its...
Frankly, as I’ve been transitioning to these things, I’ve really not noticed much inconvenience, even. Especially Linux has been a breeze to use.
Turns out, when the software you use respects its users, it tends to care about having a good UX.
Precisely why I dont put anything on google drive or anywhere on the cloud. Why would I want to put all my info, in particular all my financial somewhere that I have no idea where its stored, who...
Precisely why I dont put anything on google drive or anywhere on the cloud. Why would I want to put all my info, in particular all my financial somewhere that I have no idea where its stored, who has access to it or how I could ever delete it if I wanted to. Sure its more convenient (especially when your SSD bites the bullet) but its the price for a bit of privacy.
Ahhh, this is some Black Mirror level stuff. Get reported to Amazon for something that was actually just a misunderstanding, get immediately locked out of everything you own that runs their software. Never mind the fact that no company should have (or be given) this level of control over one's life and home, whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? It reads like there was actual footage of the not-an-incident, so why couldn't Amazon check out the interaction first before cutting this guy off?
This is similar to what social credit score is trying to accomplish and is coming with CBDC and Digital IDs, China is an example of it.
A terrifying thought is that the same systems as China's social credit score exist in the west, they're just obfuscated, managed and run by private companies.
As a coin roll hunter and metal detectorists, I'll cry if we get rid of coins, I hope its years before a central bank digital currency comes out
On the other hand if coins go out of production, they'll go up in value. You'll be rich!
At the risk of post necromancy, you might find this video and its thread illuminating :)
Thanks.
Unfortunately we are already importing r/worldnews level of fake news and misinformation with the reddit influx.
That's the thing with these connected devices, you don't really own them unless you can make them work when they're disconnected from the cloud.
Would you be in favor of mandatory warning labels on things that aren't yours when you buy it?
It does not have to be open source, and the vendor doesn't have support your messing with your device. They just have to disclose dependencies.
Examples:
These example are sold as a thing, except it cannot perform its advertised functions without service, which seems misleading to me.
Absolutely, and since everything ends up being obsolete, I'd be in favor of also putting an expiration date that tell at least until when support is guaranteed, that aldo comes with financial penalties if they fall short, with some way to avoid the penalty if they offer a firmware update that makes it usable even without the service.
Better than the status quo so I'm in favor, but I do want to point out the caveat that if they fail to meet the "guaranteed" support date, then those financial penalties are also likely to not be paid. Having transparency until when you can expect it (in a good case), though, would be something at least, so yeah I'd vote for that.
Anything with an expiration date would also act as a warning label in the sense that I meant it, so that serves that purpose as well.
One way to ensure compliance would be to collect an xx$ amount on each devices (some kind of lifetime guarantee tax) sold in a sort of trust fund that they can collect after the "expiration date", otherwise they forfeit the amount collected and returned to the customers affected.
What’s to stop them from making it “set to expire” in a month and then just continue as usual?
Sure, people might not buy them at first, but if it became common for all devices to have a short expiration but “they support it past then anyway,” then people would just start to ignore the expirations.
Personally I would take this is a message that the company isn't serious about their products or about their financial viability.
I'm a bit more extreme–I think it should be flat out illegal to call it a purchase, or any synonym of that. My biggest gripe is with video games. Despite what the button on Steam says, you have never bought a video game via their service–you've only ever bought temporary, revokable licences to download and play those games for now. That needs to be called what it is–lease, not buy.
It should be illegal to sell hardware that's fully functional on its own, yet requires a connection to someone else's computer to be used. Your BMW already has heated seats, and they should not be allowed to sell that hardware to you and then remotely shut it down. Heads should be rolling (figuratively, of course) for that nonsense.
It would be an interesting change for sure, if we required changing all the "buy" buttons to "license" buttons. Not sure how stores would have to implement that, training employees to use correct terminology and using mystery buyers to check compliance? But either way, I imagine that anything you can buy-to-own gets a competitive advantage!
I agree, but the cynical side of me sees things going this way: "By buying and using this device you agree to our terms and conditions."
Terms and conditions: "These terms and conditions may be modified at any time."
Some devices go on the market with the intention that they'll be bricked later, but others don't. For those that don't, those companies will want to reserve the right to do so in the future.
Businesses' goal is to make as much money as possible, but while they may look for edges and corner cases, it is my experience that reputable/legit businesses stay within the law so long as the law is clear and you can be sued for violation.
If one has to legally declare when a "thing" or "product" for sale cannot stand on its own but depends on a service, then it wouldn't stand to reason that they can just turn around 3 weeks later and undo that with a ToS update and malicious update being pushed. That's somewhere between false advertising, fraud, and/or vandalism of a device that isn't theirs (can sue for damages as well as have criminal proceeds I'd guess). I'm sure you will be able to find fraudsters and sellers in other jurisdictions that do this, but generally I wouldn't expect this to be the norm. If my hypothetical law would come into force in the first place.
That's still useful because you know that they CAN brick it, even if you don't know whether or not they plan to actually do that
That's exactly why I had so much trouble buying a slightly-better-than-toy drone: I couldn't find one that does not rely on some kind of app that the manufacturer can't just arbitrarily turn off or force updates on. [Y'all, I'd love suggestions]
I don't own the device I'm just paying for a "season pass".
I have two google home devices sitting around not plugged in because it got enshittified: when we first got it it was great and responsive and answered questions. Increasingly got worse and worse until we literally pulled the plug.
And as I type this the office ladies are shouting at Alexa trying to get it to play different mix of songs, and commiserating to one another that they'd already tried and can't customize its playlist. We're back to being on the bloody radio.
Now now, The Companies HAVE to collect your data... how else will they make a profit?
Oh yeah, by selling the right products for the right price. How silly.
Honestly, the amount of behaviour like this that firms put out now makes me less and less inclined to buy products.
We have to make sure the welfare gravy trains keep running for the
leastmost privileged members of our society afterall.On a less cynical note it's nice to see consumer production laws improve in the EU, and certain the less I buy the better it is for the planet.
For drones, you could look into the FPV community. There are a lot of DIY / RTF / intercompatible options in this space that aren't DJI et al. What setup exactly depends on what you want to use the drone for. Some common ones are: For the fun of flying itself ("Freestyle", "Racing"), Indoor ("Whoops"), for Filming ("Cinematic") or Exploration ("Long-Range")
Good resources are the /r/fpv subreddit, https://oscarliang.com/ or Joshua Bardwell on YouTube if you want to get into this hobby.
As @Qgel said look at FPV drones. You can build everything yourself and never have to deal with DJI's bullshit...Even while using some DJI equipment (camera and goggles). There are other options for HD video now, so you don't even have to go near DJI.
The "best" control link now, ExpressLRS, is open source, fairly cheap, and supported on more than a few radios (controllers).
Buy a decent controller, and sim, practice. Then order/build an ExpressLRS FPV drone with HD video. You've then got something better and cheaper than DJI, without all the restrictions.
Just don't fly like a dumbass, drones are still aircraft.
As always, the word "cloud" could be replaced with the phrase "someone else's computer," and it would be a better description. The people who own that computer can do whatever they want with it, including looking at everything you have stored on it, and telling you to pound sand when they don't want your stuff on it anymore.
For certain things, that's not an issue–I'm not upset that Autodesk has copies of all the 3d printed doodads and whatsits I've designed using their services–those aren't secrets, and I have local STL files for everything I want to keep. I'm perfectly happy that Thingiverse stores and shares what I make so that others can download and use/improve upon it.
But there's no reason that someone else's computer should have access to my thermostat, or lights, or car's AC, or home surveillance systems. I don't trust my own family with that kind of control over my life. Anything that can be controlled by physical buttons is. Any data that needs stored is stored locally.
I'm sorry but I don't care what a person does or says. There is 0 reason for a user to be banned from using devices that control their home. I can't even begin to fathom why there is even a connection between these services and the delivery service, and especially why the hearsay of a single random person gets to undermine your day to day life.
If I were that person, I would not just be "considering" leaving that ecosystem; I'd be out.
I encourage folks to click through in the article to read the original blog post and watch the included Louis Rossmann video on the subject if you’re interested in a bit more detail to the story.
The blog post is way more interesting and in depth then whatever that article was...
The blog post also has a video update from Brandon Jackson that gives a lot of context regarding what they are trying to accomplish with this post.
The Customer's Perspective in the Amazon Account Lock out
These companies and others have too much control. Just recently Twilio booted my company off their platform - we had one message with a cannabis client and they took issue. We're not selling, we're not touching cannabis but any messages about cannabis, or related to cannabis or possibly about cannabis are not allowed on their network.
So we're booted off. And there is no process to appeal. Quite a disruption for my small business.
How can we get control back from these corporate overloards
This is horrible - precisely why I will never use any smart home appliances that I am not 100% in control of. If it doesn’t work without a connection to some company’s servers, then it’s not yours. Data privacy concerns aside (of which Amazon is a particularly egregious offender), I just don’t want to end up with a product that doesn’t work because the internet is down, their servers are down, or they just decide not to support it any more. The list of problems with these centralized smart home solutions just goes on and on.
As a Tweet I saw once said: “Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart. Tech workers: The only technology in my house is a printer, and I keep a gun next to it in case it makes a noise I don't recognize.”
If I don't laugh, I'll cry.
That's pretty much my mood these days, especially with stories like this. What a bleak, grey dystopia we're finding ourselves in. Cyberpunk, but make it... boring.
I just flashed back to Space Odyssey 2001: "Im sorry Dave, Im afraid I can't do that"
For the younger set, in Stanley Kubrick's classic film in 1968, HAL, the computer that controls the entire space station is an AI that slowly takes over control to the point that it no longer follows the commands it's given. Dave gives it a command to open the pod doors and HAL, in a creepy monotone, refuses with that famous line because he knows Dave is going to try and destroy him.
It always amazes me that the things that are envisioned as flights of fancy, years later become reality - like a software engineer being locked out of his own home automation because a voice controlled 'AI' doesnt like something he said. Welcome to the
pastfuture.It's even more dystopian than that -- his AI doesn't like something his AI's company says his AI company's delivery driver says his automatic doorbell said
It's a long ass chain of he-said-she-saids that all ends at a another robot
I want to say this is the type of person who should know better, but I personally know quite a few people who are more than tech-savvy, and yet tie a vital part of their lives to Amazon, Google, or Apple, without any second thought or backup plan.
Edit:
Oh well, if he's only "considering it" after being locked out of everything for a week...
As someone with a Home Assistant instance, a big fear is my raspberry pi crashing and taking all automations my partner relies on with it. Stories like these also make me hesitant to make my house even "smarter".
Is there's no redundancy setup you can use so that if 1 fails the other takes over?
I have an online backup, which would start working again in half a days work. But no immediate take-overs, no. Would not yet know where to start with that, if i'm honest.
I don't know enough about pi's to tell you where to start, but I'll be rather surprised if no one has done this. I think maybe their forums would work best? https://forums.raspberrypi.com/
You can also search for "raspberry pi system redundancy" which has a lot of conversations about it.
This is an example of it (not sure if this would work for you tho): https://d2000.ipesoft.com/blog/two-raspberries-are-more-than-one/
This is an excellent time to plug for you guys the concept of home assistant and zigbee/ z wave devices.
With home assistance you can set up and run your own smart home using a raspberry pi and a couple of USB plugs. It gives you full control over your whole house, you can program the way everything behaves and set up dashboards.
In the last couple of updates they even started working on a very preliminary implementation of things like a voice assistant, and with the increasing popularity and ease of access of LLMs, I bet you were likely to see a time in the near future we have a full-blown voice assistant that can talk to you like a person that you can run in your own house.
Don't rely on Amazon if you can avoid it
Am I the only one that mistook this to mean that someone was locked out of their own home (unable to enter) for a week due to an accusation?
Same. Took me a bit to realize. This could probably use a title change to clarify.
cc @mycketforvirrad, @cfabbro
I changed it to "Man unable to interact with any of his smart devices for a week after delivery driver accuses him of being racist". Is that better? If not, feel free to suggest another.
That’s perfect, thanks a bunch!
That's pretty much what the clickbait headline said, so yeah.
Sure, the whole "smart home" thing is extreme to me, but what about devices we all rely upon? What if Google or Apple locks your phone? What if Microsoft arbitrarily decides you're banned from using Windows? Even if we aren't using these "smart home" devices, we're all locked in, one way or another. Imagine if Uber erroneously charged you $300 and refused to refund it. You could do a chargeback, but you'd get banned from Uber for life.
This worried me a bit when buying an expensive Pixel phone. What if it got lost in shipping, and Google support did nothing? I would have to decide between eating the $1000 cost, or doing a credit card chargeback and losing everything on google drive, docs, sheets, gmail, and probably more that I haven't thought of yet. The consumer protection regulations of the old days are irrelevant now that these corporations are so big that they can turn your digital life upside down. Next, they'll ban your account for participating in a class action against them.
This actually does happen, and, as you might expect, it’s an absolute fucking nightmare: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html
Not contradicting you, but this is why people should be getting familiar with Linux for desktop, Graphene or Lineage OS for the phone, privacy minded apps and services, etc. There is a trade off of convenience, but if you're at the point where a corporation rules your life, how much is this convenience really worth?
Frankly, as I’ve been transitioning to these things, I’ve really not noticed much inconvenience, even. Especially Linux has been a breeze to use.
Turns out, when the software you use respects its users, it tends to care about having a good UX.
Just a note: GrapheneOS is only available for Pixels, which I honestly find quite ironic but I still own one. With GrapheneOS of course though.
Precisely why I dont put anything on google drive or anywhere on the cloud. Why would I want to put all my info, in particular all my financial somewhere that I have no idea where its stored, who has access to it or how I could ever delete it if I wanted to. Sure its more convenient (especially when your SSD bites the bullet) but its the price for a bit of privacy.
I'm not a fan of Echo devices or Alexa but I wouldn't go as far as calling ALL their users stupid. Seems a bit presumptions and judgemental.