We really are being spied on!!!

[MoKelly]

When it comes to "information technology" it's like one of the VPs of the company I used to work for was fond of saying: "There's a cop on every corner, so if you do something like surf **** on your computer at work, you're gonna get caught."

The absolute best, most effective method of control is making people believe they are being watched. It’s also cheap and requires no resources. You don’t even have to watch if people believe they are being watched.

MoKelly

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Luckily this was during the winter months, so glad they didn,t ask me to put one in my Monster Miata during the summer, or one of the other summer toys. LOL

That camel's nose is now well inside the tent. They'll probably raise the rates on your high performance toys next time around unless you install more of those spy modules. ing insurance companies!

 

[RedNeckGeek]

A few years back, someone connected their smart lock to Home kit. Neighbour showed him it was a bad idea when he yelled from outside the door "hey Siri, unlock the door" and the door unlocked. It made the news and believe Apple fixed it by preventing a door from being unlocked (I don't have an Apple ecosystem so not sure how they 'fixed' it). My smart lock doesn't allow remote unlocking, just locking and its connection is only local to my Zigbee hub.

I refuse to install any smart locks; just too many ways for them to be hacked. Besides, with all the sliding glass doors here, anyone that really wants in can pick up a rock and use it as a key.

I do wish Apple provided a way to disable Siri on a device level, though. I like the idea of being able to control devices from the Home app, especially when I'm not home. It might be a false sense of security, but I think Apple's encryption and data security protocols are strong enough to keep the hackers at bay. But I don't like the idea of Siri mistakenly playing with those switches, and I don't know of a way to prevent it at this point.

 

[cqaigy2]

That's why the brain of my system is an open sourced project (Home Assistant) running locally on a Raspberry Pie, not in the cloud. Alexa is just a 'guest' to this system and I decide what it can see or not.

My smart plugs are meant to be cloud based, but I flashed an open source firmware on them (Tasmota, to which I've personally contributed) so they have no internet access.

If I were to lose Internet access, beside voice commands through Alexa, everything would keep working.

Oh great, another rabbit hole im going to go down. I bought a smart power plug to play with, i'll have to check out home assistant and Tasmota.

I don't have many smart items, Tv is too old, but is connected to Nvidia shield, that can take voice commands. Then i started messing around with pihole and killed the ability to do voice commands, my wife wasn't too happy, but she's gotten used to it, i hooked a keyboard and mouse to the shield.

 

[Diggin It]

Whoever 'they' are it's easy to understand the manpower and reason to spy on us are something to worry about.

No matter which party is in control in ...

It's not that complicated. It's all about money. Plain and simple. Data is money. They more data they collect, the more they can sell.

THAT should be illegal.

 

[CobyRupert]

It's not that complicated. It's all about money. Plain and simple. Data is money. They more data they collect, the more they can sell.

THAT should be illegal.

You mean Google and Facebook don’t provide all those services to people for free out of the goodness of their hearts? Gasp!

 

[Industrial Toys]

Was watching something on personal digital security. If you have a phone and credit/debit cards you really can't hide. Virtually impossible. If they can't find you via GPS, they can find you through triangulation, and then where you used your cards. Good reason to KEEP a CASH SYSTEM.

 

[California]

That's why the brain of my system is an open sourced project (Home Assistant) running locally on a Raspberry Pie, not in the cloud. Alexa is just a 'guest' to this system and I decide what it can see or not.

My smart plugs are meant to be cloud based, but I flashed an open source firmware on them (Tasmota, to which I've personally contributed) so they have no internet access.

If I were to lose Internet access, beside voice commands through Alexa, everything would keep working.

Tell us more about how to get started with Tasmota!

Being Old School (and having been responsible for information security audits in the ancient world) my use of Smart technology is limited to outdoor lighting to see wildlife and the light I need to back the tractor into its barn stall. Hacking those would be harmless. Nothing else is 'Smart'. I'm not in a hurry to jump into the 21st century beyond this lighting until I have more control over where the data goes.

No Facebook here, WhatsAp only at the demand of my kids. And of course the 'Google knows all' inherent in web access is inescapable.

Tasmota sounds interesting!

 

[SylvainG]

At the cottage, I had a security laminate installed on all the accessible windows (second floor windows that don't have a balcony don't have the laminate). If someone tries to break those windows, it will shatter but remain in place. Should be picked up by the glass break detector and sound the alarm. The idea here is to confuse the would be robber. He'll hear the alarm and still not being able to get in the cottage, he would take off. Hasn't been tested yet (knock on wood)

Closest of a break-in since I installed the alarm system in 2008 was two 12 years old kids in 2012 went in my temporary shelter and tripped the motion detector. Got them on camera. Showed their face at the local corner store. Clerk told me where they live and I had a talk with their parents. Never had an issue since (again, knock on wood).

I refuse to install any smart locks; just too many ways for them to be hacked. Besides, with all the sliding glass doors here, anyone that really wants in can pick up a rock and use it as a key.

I do wish Apple provided a way to disable Siri on a device level, though. I like the idea of being able to control devices from the Home app, especially when I'm not home. It might be a false sense of security, but I think Apple's encryption and data security protocols are strong enough to keep the hackers at bay. But I don't like the idea of Siri mistakenly playing with those switches, and I don't know of a way to prevent it at this point.

 

[IXLR8]

I do wish Apple provided a way to disable Siri on a device level, though. I like the idea of being able to control devices from the Home app, especially when I'm not home. It might be a false sense of security, but I think Apple's encryption and data security protocols are strong enough to keep the hackers at bay. But I don't like the idea of Siri mistakenly playing with those switches, and I don't know of a way to prevent it at this point.

I have no use for Siri, so I didn't enable it when I activated my iPhone. I can say any of the Siri commands and nothing happens.