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Internet slowdowns at home aren't just annoying anymore. They can be hazardous to your health or dangerous if you're in an area that freezes.
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.
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. In this case, when said ISP believes you're doing something illegal.
As part of its throttling routine, Armstrong Zoom's warning letter openly threatens its suspected file-sharing customers about its ability to use or control their webcams and connected thermostats.
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."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/05/pirates-risk-being-left-in-the-cold/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday January 08 2018, @08:16PM (25 children)
Another Reason Not to Buy IOT Crap.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Monday January 08 2018, @08:30PM (5 children)
The headline is wrong and laughably bad but what do you expect from a low common denominator "tech" site like engadget. The ISP isn't fucking with your dumb IoT devices. They are simply a casualty of having your service throttled.
This is a double warning to anyone looking to do stupid shit like control/monitor your home over the INTERNET or pirate awful television shows and films.
(Score: 5, Touché) by maxwell demon on Monday January 08 2018, @08:33PM (2 children)
You mean they make an exception for those who only pirate excellent stuff? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday January 08 2018, @09:28PM (1 child)
> You mean they make an exception for those who only pirate excellent stuff? :-)
Yeah, but they get to decide whose opinion defines excellent, and you have to guess.
[for example: excellent may be "stuff where rights holders are little guys with no lawyers who are not members of rights holders lawyering clubs etc."]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:36PM
Dooood! What's mine say?
Sweet! What's......
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 08 2018, @08:49PM
This is nothing new since early dialup days. I had one ISP who started getting overwhelmed with customers, unable to provide acceptable service. I habitually downloaded newsgroups overnight, in large part because their bandwidth was so laughably inadequate that it took 8 hours to get what should have been 5 minutes over a 1200 baud modem. Nothing illegal, wasn't posting much at all, just hooked up at bedtime and read the content in the morning. They terminated me for "violating their TOS" - I pressed them on what part of the TOS, they declined to specify just parroted "violating the TOS."
'salright, I was on month-to-month with them anyway. Friend of mine had signed up for a whole year to get the 12th month free - all 11 months he paid for were worth what he paid for the 12th - they never did get the bandwidth sorted, e-mails would transfer below 30cps, Netscape was completely unusable.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:19PM
> This is a double warning to anyone looking to do stupid shit like control/monitor your home over the INTERNET or pirate awful television shows and films.
Also a warning to those who have kids or open wifi networks, those who let their friends and family use a closed wifi network, and grandmas who get accused of torrenting the latest blockbuster without ever hearing about torrent or having the client installed. Hey, if they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be accused, amirite? Freeze to death, dirty pirate grandma. (Hint: the hit-rate of copyright trolls accusing correct people is abysmally low.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @08:37PM (8 children)
Also a reason we need net neutrality.
And competition at the last mile ISP connection.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:02PM (2 children)
Having both seems like it could result in some regulatory weirdness. My thought is a compromise; neutrality regulations for monopolies (or hell, include duopolies if you like, but draw the line somewhere), while leaving vibrant markets with competition free of such regulation. Perhaps most importantly, the most stringent net neutrality regulation applied to any ISP still making use of a municipal exclusivity agreement, so as to incentivize voluntarily giving it up. Those things were designed with entirely unnecessary cable TV in mind, not a vital utility such as Internet access.
We've seen that innovation doesn't happen when there's no competition in the form of dark fiber being laid but never connected, and stagnating performance with increasing prices. You want the handcuffs taken off, show that you can play well with others.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 08 2018, @09:31PM (1 child)
I am not convinced that is a good idea. What possible good could result? It is entirely possible that even with, say, four competitors, they could all be abusive, without any direct conspiracy between them.
In another sense, it is like saying, well, if there is a free market, and enough different oil companies, we don't need any regulation on pollution, because the market will decide which one is killing us the least.
I am not for excessive regulation. But if we're talking about a regulation that you're assuming they wouldn't violate, then why not keep the regulation to guarantee that?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:56AM
No, you're absolutely right. It's not even a reasonable point of discussion. They should be and must be regulated for the internet to work. You don't let power companies come into your home and drill down into your daily life and habits. You don't let libraries follow you home and watch he reads the books and if you maybe lend one over the fence to your neighbor for a weekend. You don't let your roofer come back 30 days later and inspect what goods you are storing in your house, "to check for their legality".
ISPs can fuck right off with making any sort of judgement calls on packet contents, packet types, and packet volume that's within their advertised bitrate and bandwidth. If this takes federal legislation to put them in line then so be it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @09:23PM (3 children)
We need an Open Source, Citizen's alternative to corporate-controlled networks. Mesh networks are one, but laggy. Would it make more sense to launch a whole bunch of cubesats that sidestep the AT&Ts of the world?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday January 08 2018, @09:57PM
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday January 08 2018, @10:10PM
Yep. It's called "municipal FTTH" [techtarget.com] or "last mile" [wikipedia.org] infrastructure, with ISPs connecting to those networks and *competing* on price, performance, quality of service, features and (lack of) abusive TOS.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:30PM
We need the Soylnet. Come on TMB!
Soylnet? Soylentnet? Intersoyl?
Peoplenet!!
Supposably? Supposably.
Someone ate Ethanol-Fuelled and spontaneously combusted? Supposably!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:48AM
But this isn't a neutrality issue, if you actually look past the clickbait headline. If you violate their ToS they may throttle all your traffic equally, which may include traffic for any IoT crap you may use.
It is an argument for more competition though.
(Score: 4, Informative) by SomeGuy on Monday January 08 2018, @09:15PM (9 children)
Or more importantly, to insist on non-IOT.
Last year I got a new AC unit, and the installers tried to shove one of those IOT thermostats down my throat, even though I had specified a simple thermostat up front. It was hell getting the them to install the correct thermostat and getting the unit properly configured to use it. It turns out these "modern" air conditioners actually REQUIRE a retarded "smart thermostat" to operate 100% properly, the ability to use a normal on/off thermostat is implemented as a half-assed afterthought. (Also, Protip: always get a price breakdown that specifies the cost of the thermostat). Oh, and "Reliable Heating and Air" of Atlanta Georgia are complete incompetent boobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @09:49PM (1 child)
As in, without a "smart" thermostat you will not be able to get hourly readings while sitting in a plane over the North Pole, or it won't turn the furnace on unless it downloaded updated firmware over the network after the NSA approval for heat was granted?
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:58PM
No, as in the blower would run too fast with a normal thermostat (instead of variable speed controlled), causing condensation on the evaporator coils to splash up in to the ductwork, where loads of mold then grew and made me very physically ill.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Apparition on Monday January 08 2018, @10:00PM (3 children)
It's too late. More and more appliances and devices are becoming "smart" with no "dumb" equivalents for sale. Try to find a new "dumb" television for sale in 2018. I tried about a year ago, and couldn't do it. It's only a matter of time before refrigerators, dishwashers, thermostats, etc. follow suit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:08AM
They are actually still 'smart tvs' under the hood, but AFAIK have no wifi or other provisions for network access. They DO however apparently run linux under the hood based on research into them.
They are both budget brands, may have dead/stuck pixels, but with 2160p at 250-500 dollars for 42->60+ inch screens, they seem like a decent deal, especially if you're trying to get something newer/higher res and don't want it phoning home, or worse yet spying on you with a webcam or microphone built in.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:01AM (1 child)
I got a Samsung TV about 3 years ago. It was the last dumb model on the shelf. I actually bought it from a Best Buy! The salesman there was shocked that I didn't want the smart TV version. Why would I want to pay more for a laggy java shit interface and spyware? puzzling.
It hasn't gotten really bad yet though. It will be bad when some sort of network validation is required to enable core features of the device. It's coming, no doubt about it. They will get there through all the standard underhanded bullshit. Unadvertised restrictions hidden in the details. Shipping broken firmware and then "highly recommending" a patch to make the device usable. All the bullshit they are pulling in video games now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:22PM
Does it have a true off switch? That is, not just a standby, but a real off which actually physically cuts the power?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 08 2018, @11:05PM
Huh? I just had a new heat pump installed and they put in the cheapest, most feature-less Honeywell thermostat you could possibly find. There's 2 buttons on it: up and down.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday January 09 2018, @12:58AM (1 child)
Most of appliances have computers inside and computers don't have on/off switches for a long time already. Besides, it's unethical to kill our new AI masters.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday January 09 2018, @06:33AM
There are still power supply units that have a power switch. Granted, it's in an inconvenient position (since it's part of the PSU), other than the prominent standby button on the front.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.