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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: 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.