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The Smart Home Wi-Fi Trap: Are We All Being Conned by Convenience? (unknownuniverse.uk)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Mainstream tech advice treats cheap Wi-Fi smart plugs as harmless convenience, totally glossing over how much telemetry leaks out to overseas cloud servers by default.

Expecting casual users to set up VLANs and firewall drop rules just to stop a £10 light bulb from phoning home is a bit of a joke.

True privacy means local control without corporate middlemen.

Original content by The Unknown Universe, written by a human and not AI generated!

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[–] 28 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Ah, the deregulation mindset.

"If the user is unaware of it, does it really matter if they are harmed by it?"

One of the main points of society as a whole is protecting the people living in it, even if they don't know they are being harmed/exploited/poisoned/etc...

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  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago (10 children)

    There is nothing nothing to be done. Casual users will literally install wiretaps in their own homes.

    You cant help people who dont want or care for the help.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    I believe that you are both correct. 8 to 10 years ago I realized how much data these companies and governments gather about me, and it scared the shit out of me. I was not aware before that, so I had Alexas all over my house, smart devices, a Samsung SmartThings, the works.

    Then my slow walk to privacy started. My home is fully automated now, down to the sprinklers, but it's all via Home Assistant, frigate for my cameras (inside home assistant), not one of my IoT devices has access to the internet, they live in an isolated VLAN, and I haven't had any mainstream social network account or WhatsApp for over 8 years now.

    The fact is that a lot people don't care because they don't know, like me back then, but finally knowing is what jump-started this path.

    I do agree that there's no helping someone that doesn't want help, that's a hard fact, but if we do move this information around, we stand to "cure a few normies" along the way.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    I knew and I didn't care still don't about some things. And I know others who have an idea but don't care. I'd say right now I'm more anti american then anything else aobtrying to move away from their companies.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    American companies are, easily, 90%+ of this shit, so I think you're on the right path.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Smart home stuff is dominated by Tuya, which is Chinese. Even a lot of the american branded stuff is Tuya rebranded. Phillips hue is Netherlands based, and from a quick look isn't tuya. IKEA is also not tuya. The rest, I would basically guarantee are all tuya based.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Yeah, this is a fact, however, the servers used by these companies to server clients are either in the US, Europe or China. The rest of the companies are either Japanese, South Korean or American, and those companies all have to follow US laws on surveillance if they want to do any business with US citizens. And then there's the fact that every single one of them has Oauth via Google, X and meta to use the services. So, 90%+ still sounds like the correct number. I could be wrong, could be.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    You cant help people who dont want or care for the help.

    most are just intentionally made ignorant of why they should care and will start to care once informed of how it impacts them personally.

    they're like mini-republicans in that respect -- they dgaf until it impacts them personally.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    My experience is the opposite they know and they don't care.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    They're like maga -- they think they know, but will never truly know until it bites them in the ass like the Latinos that voted for trump and ended up facing deportation because if it.

    And even then it'll take a lot of time and continued pain to get them to acknowledge it -- also like the Latinos for trump. Lol

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I mean, you can -- that's what consumer protection regulations are for. It's why people can't sell themselves into slavery even I'd they're stupid enough to want to, for example.

    We could do things like, say, entirely outlawing closed-source software in smart home tech, if our government weren't usurped by oligarchs.

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