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from the Protecting-the-product-or-the-public? dept.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is conducting a public hearing on the safety of internet-connected consumer products, and is requesting comments.
The Commission hearing will begin at 10 a.m., on May 16, 2018, and will conclude the same day. The Commission hearing will also be available through a webcast, but viewers will not be able to interact with the panels and presenters through the webcast.
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The growth of IoT-related products is a challenge for all CPSC stakeholders to address. Regulators, standards organizations, and business and consumer advocates must work collaboratively to develop a framework for best practices. To that end, the Commission will hold a public hearing for all interested parties on consumer product safety issues related to IoT.
Although this explicitly does not cover data security and privacy it covers many of the other issues seen with IoT devices.
Comments can be submitted to the commission through the web portal:
You may submit written comments, identified by Docket No. CPSC-2018-0007
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Electronic Submissions: Submit electronic comments to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
Seen through the Internet Of Shit twitter feed.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:31PM (11 children)
Preventing hacking into IoT devices is likely to be a safety issue depending on the IoT device.
Especially as IoT devices begin to control more important things such as heating and A/C systems. Or sump pumps. Food freezers (where food could be thawed until contaminated and then re-frozen). Opening or closing garage doors at inopportune times.
Or for instance, an unsuspecting consumer could suffer a fatal accident caused by a hacked vibrator running at much greater speed than designed.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:34PM (10 children)
I don't understand how you can build a free society if you expect government to protect people from their own stupidity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @05:41PM
By building and organizing free of charge access to gas public chambers to speed up the process.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday March 29 2018, @07:38PM (8 children)
You know, I could almost be persuaded. Maybe the government should not protect people from their own stupidity.
Mixed feelings. I want to do something horrible to criminals who prey upon the uninformed or even stupid. But I'm almost convinced the government should not protect us with warning labels that the car engine should be stopped before attempting to change the fan belt.
I would phrase it differently. Maybe the government should not interfere with people who are attempting to win the next Darwin Award [darwinawards.com].
However I'm still of a mind to try to protect people from being victimized from a phone call from "This is Windows technical support". Or rather, I'm in favor of prosecuting the fraudsters. Or impaling them.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:01PM (4 children)
I don’t understand how you think you live in a free society when things you buy aren’t safe and the harm from those insecure products you bought also you problem when misused. When you buy a gun you know very well what it is for. And how dangerous it could be. And still mistakes are made. And those mistakes are not the manufacturers. If the gun had a flaw in the safety mechanism and something goes wrong then you would expect the manufacturer to be at fault. But this is easy to understand. So easy even idiots can follow.
But with the complexities of computers present you expect that same easy to follow danger from improper handling of a gun is simply not present when Mary Jane buys a baby monitor. Has no warnings about what IoT is or it’s dangers. Sure.
See a gun is necessary and dangerous. We accept that and follow the logic of teaching how to properly handle a weapon. But things we don’t know can now be weapons. And those costs should not be unforced to learn. (Cost is whose? Paid after purchase or during is better)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:36PM (3 children)
In a fundamentally free society, you can achieve safety.
However, in a fundamentally safe society, you cannot achieve freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @08:47PM (2 children)
Nice pretend world you live in.
Huge corporations with experts in security cannot protect themselves. And suffer little when breaches are found.
So how does regular guy/gal have any chance to secure all their shit?
Even experts fail at this shit. And yet let’s make it all the full responsibility of the customer and zero on the company who sold them shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 29 2018, @10:24PM
No one argued that companies should have zero responsibility.
If anything, such responsibility should be part of the contract of service, and could be advertised to the customer by means of a widely publicized logo—just like nearly all of your boxed, prepackaged food in the U.S. has logos certifying Jewish kosher methods were used in the preparation.
It's a matter of fraud in advertising and breaches of contract. We can do this; our law—our Western culture of individual rights, responsibilities, and contractual negotiation—is capable enough to solve the problem.
It's time to get rid of this creeping non-Western idea that society must be dictated from on high by the detailed prescription of the elite political class. It's anathema to a free society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @04:45PM
huge companies are retarded af. that credit agency got "hacked" because they had an unpatched java server(java server...lmao) running on the internet that the security people didn't even know existed and the slaveware security scanner(super defense layer 2) couldn't even detect it (even though it had ports opened to the public internet). any concerned high school student could do better.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Friday March 30 2018, @09:19AM (2 children)
How about protecting you from other people's stupidity?
Or do you think that, for example, an electrical fire and explosion with burning battery acid, will somehow confine itself to affecting "owners only"?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 30 2018, @01:26PM (1 child)
I agree with you on that.
If I buy a toaster, I expect it to not burn my house down.
But there is some level of protection that has gone berserk. It might be difficult to articulate. But a digital alarm clock that has a warning not to use it underwater?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Monday April 02 2018, @10:48AM
And I'd agree with that, but at the moment ISTM that IoT devices are the wild west in terms of what gets shipped and how it changes in the field: You can qualify the software on Cad A, and deploy different software to the field, and then upgrade it again with software from V2 of the board, and minimal tests, or even no testing, on the thing the customer uses. You can deploy Li-Ion cells that are essentially bombs that rely on software to not explode, and then change the software arbitrarily. You can intentionally break products in the field. You can spam out wifi and take down everyone else’s device. You can require an upgrade to work, and change the terms of ownership or functionality on the upgrade, etc etc.
I think we're a ways away from over-regulation here.
These are all problems that the current law doesn't really account for, and having a consultation on safety with the industry, experts and anyone interested who can make a coherent argument (as per TFA) before introducing new laws or regulations seems a good way to go to me.