cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/5717757
Today’s story is about Philips Hue by Signify. They will soon start forcing accounts on all users and upload user data to their cloud. For now, Signify says you’ll still be able to control your Hue lights locally as you’re currently used to, but we don’t know if this may change in the future. The privacy policy allows them to store the data and share it with partners.
Friends don’t let friends use
the cloudenshittified internet services. Stop signing up for subscription services for things that should never have a subscription. Stop giving companies your data. Even if they aren’t screwing you over today, they will tomorrow. It happens so often it’s just background noise on the news anymore. Just say no to putting your shit onthe cloudother people’s computers.the cloudother people’s computersI like that
I’m struggling to understand the reasoning behind this. Like these are just lightbulbs right? What’s the value in that data that I’m not seeing
Location data, when you’re home/not home, which room you’re likely in/not in. Data that costs almost nothing to produce, but can be sold for millions.
Bulbs tell them when you’re in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc. Relatively easy to combine it with smart tv, smart watch, security cam, and app/phone data to identify you exactly.
Combine it all and it’s likely they’d be able to identify you exactly and identify what you’re doing with a high degree of certainty, then micro-target you with ads or propaganda.
Honestly, there comes a point where you’d have more privacy shoving a camera up your ass. Less privacy than the DDR.
A lot of people don’t seem to understand that each individual bit of data is often not valuable in itself, but it is as part of a whole.
Basically, everything there is to know about you is a jigsaw puzzle. Many companies out there want that finished image, so they pay a premium for each individual piece of the jigsaw, and the companies you give your data to everyday are selling those pieces.
This might be a stupid question, and I don’t know if anyone would even have the knowledge to answer… but is this data ever audited? Other than possible lawsuits, what prevents me from randomly generating data points for my customers and selling them to these companies? I assume they are cross referencing with other data sets and they could catch on quickly?
As an added bonus, anything with unnecessary wireless functionality can easily be hacked, controlled and monitored by anyone savvy enough
I can think of a few companies / products that would love to know that you’re in the bathroom every couple hours, for instance.
Or even anonymised, a company or study might want to buy “average Nova Scotian time spent in living room on weekends”
Big data is worth big $$$
They’re light bulbs, they emit light, it’s literally what you’re seeing
Edit: fuck, you people don’t understand humor. Is it not open-source?
sorry, alphabet bought humor last month.
Remember, just a few years ago when the latestagecapitalism sub was created and everybody was like ha ha you lefties, and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023… good times!
and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023
I think that’s overstating it a smidge. I don’t see there being much impact for many of these companies beyond schadenfreude for those of us watching. Twitter’s going to die, but since Musk obviously doesn’t care it takes a lot of the satisfaction from it. Most of these others - I doubt it’s more than a blip.
Not that I don’t agree with and cheer for your overall point. I just don’t think most of this is moving the needle in any direction.
and now every single big corporation is self immolating in 2023
The overwhelming majority of people simply do not care. So no, they’re not self-immolating. They understand that people don’t give two shits.
Late stage capitalism is a myth.
Lately it is getting more like we are not just the consumers, we are the product. It is very uncomfortable.
Its actually illegal under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK for a product to force a change on its functionality after you bought it.
Also surprised if EU law will allow this ?
I for one will be seeking a refund for the products either directly or through a court just to show them up.Update Note Showing Consumer Rights Act 2015 “Goods Not Fit For Purpose” alone is enough to demand your money back. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/10
and as it relies on digital content to support them and this is where the main problem is, section 40 applies where they changed it for the worse
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/40Also, pretty sure it’s illegal in California to under CCPA, but there they could just turn off the lights. Which is why CCPA needs change in functionality clauses.
Hue can go fuck yourself, Phillip
Signify actually
I mean I’ll create an account and then block any of that data sharing on my router.
My whole house I sent up with Hue lights.
I’m Australian and I’ll be contacting the ACCC.
What does contacting the ACCC do exactly?
They are the reason Steam instituted a refund policy globally.
The ACCC have real teeth.
A few years ago, I declared to my family that if they bring any “smart” appliances into the house, they (the appliances) would get the sledgehammer. They (the family) didn’t understand why.
Now they understand.
Home Assistant is the way. It even brought my old Music Flow speaker back to life!
My father when my mom brought home “smart outlets”: “The coffee maker is sentient enough, I don’t need it conspiring against me with the outlet.”
The machine spirits should not talk to eachother.
Especially the toaster! It will talk if it can.
As the owner of a Victoria Arduino E1… it is not smart. They tried. My DE1XL was the better machine, for $2,000 less.
I have an adblocker for my home connection. By far, Hue subdomains are the most common blocked ones.
Philips Hue sends data to servers every few minutes.
How do you have this set up? Is the blocker software on your PC or is it a raspberry pi?
Glad I still have the old bridge which is not compatible with the current app, and so they offer the legacy app separately. Though I assume it’s only a matter of time before the bulbs I have die and new bulbs require the new bridge.
Yep, glad I have my bridge blocked off from the internet, so they can’t force an update
Been on the fence about these for a while. Guess they made up my mind for me. Thanks!
oh wow. i have the GE cync bulbs, everyone says hue is better [which may well be true, the cync app is complete ass + trying to connect / troubleshoot] but maybe this evens things
isn’t hue a kind of vietnamese soup? bun bo hue?
Hue is a city in Vietnam. It’s where bun bo hue comes from.
Yes, so is this the same Hue as in the cloud?
There’s a lesson here somewhere, but I’ll be darned if I can put my finger on what it might be.
There’s a lesson here somewhere, but I’ll be darned if I can put my finger on what it might be.
On reddit I’d be linking /r/stallmanwasright
Because, despite all his flaws, he’s been very right about the dangers proprietary software poses to user privacy, user control, and general user interests. This is but one more thing to toss on a pretty big pile.
My favorite video covering the core concepts in a fun, cartoony, 3 minute long way for anyone who has never been exposed.
Look guys I know you like your smart bulbs and your smart fridge and your smart mirror and your smart toilet paper but maybe MAYBE the inconvienence of having to get up and turn something on with a physical button and not having it connect to your phone is worth the freedom of knowing you haven’t and cannot be datacucked by every company that produces your stuff. Throw your bluetooth connected garbage in the trash and stop thinking that controlling home automation stuff with your spyware phone is cool.
Or take personal control. I have smart home stuff but I run Home Assistant and use ZWave devices, so it’s 100% local.
That’s not the easy way, though. People go for home automation in the first place to make something easy. Getting some awful proprietary spyware doodad to work with HomeAssistant is usually not the “just works” experience they’re looking for.
The average person just isn’t tech savy enough to locally host. Its easy to tell people to just host stuff themselves but its a lot of added complexity and maintenance responsibility that most just don’t want to deal with. I agree that it would be best if everyone just locally hosted all their services but we live in the real world where the average joe schmo is either too uneducated or busy with their life dramas to learn computer networking or just plain ol’ lazy and indifferent to giving up personal privacy as long as they can change RGB lighting with a phone app they are happy as peaches.
I had buttons for lights in my room as early as 1999 and I’m sure they existed before that. Also, the clapper exists lol. We don’t have to resort to a light switch like cavemen!
Lol good point!
I had to replace both my clothes washer and dishwasher in the past 6 months (19 and 22 years old respectively) and the clothes washer can connect to Wifi so I guess you can get notified that the cycle is done through their app. That feature will never get turned on. As for the dishwasher I bought the model that didn’t have Wifi. I mean yeah it’s cool we’re in the Jetsons world but the convenience you get isn’t really worth getting your information sold to everyone who wants to sell you an appliance.
