Gadgets everywhere

[Bosworth]

And to pick up on another point above... I was mugged tonight, very mildly and no drama, and my phone stolen.

Who cares? All data backed up to the cloud so all photos of kids safe and sound. All data encrypted so nothing can be seen or taken. All banking apps secured with faceid, pins AND two factor authentication. Work files encrypted and immediately remote-wiped if my phone ever surfaces. The phone itself bricked by my network provider now it’s logged as stolen.

A £1000 nice phone becomes a lump of dead tech worth £30 for spares and I am absolutely indifferent to its loss - absolutely no risk to my personal security and absolutely nothing of sentimental value lost.

Annoying to have to pop to John Lewis tomorrow morning to get a new one but my bad for not paying attention to my surroundings and losing it.

Modern technology makes life safer and less likely to be used for nefarious purposes.

[jansman]

Bosworth wrote:

This thread is nuts!

Are you genuinely worried that because a washing machine has lots of red lights and an electronic control, you are at risk? Surely electricity continuity is the bigger risk to your standard of living? Or water supply? Or ability to buy detergent?



Well, our new washing machine is ‘internet ready’. Means we ‘could’ switch it on from wherever with a phone. Am I worried that I am at risk? Yes, actually!

I have a friend who installs Miele machines and driers into industrial settings. He tells people over and over,”NEVER, EVER, leave a machine unattended- they have a habit of catching fire!” Mick reckons on attending one burnt out machine a month.

Now, having experienced an idiot neighbour who torched her bathroom with unattended candles, it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to see that an internet controlled washer could pose a fire risk...

[redskies]

Hope she left having changing all the passwords and retaining internet wide control..... Ohhh 3am time to set the central heating to 300°c


It is getting to the point where every household device is becoming "smart" and knobs and switches are dying out in favour of touch screens

Not in this house!

Even the ruddy washing machine / fridge freezer you try and find one with a clockwork program knob or a fridge with capillary tube dial operated thermostat all blinking soft touch buttons and a row of led lights

Indesit. Not a screen in site, simple dial to program, button to turn it on/off. Had to get a new one recently, and picked the Indesit for that reason - the more electronics it has, the more likely it is to fail, especially with the power issues we can have up here in the back of beyond.

If it's 'internet ready' I'm not buying it. Alexa, Siri & their pals can do one as well, you couldn't pay me enough to have that rubbish in the house. No microwave - we binned one after we didn't use it for a decade - simplest stuff I can find.

[GillyBee]

Technology is like fire. A good servant and a lousy master. As Bosworth has pointed out, it can save your bacon.

But as preppers we also need to consider what happens if the "system" goes down. Can we cope? will that Internet of Things fridge or washing machine still run if the internet goes down in your house?

Can you cope if your phone dies and you do not have GPS? My partner has an acquaintance whose son spent 5 hours trying to get 5 miles home at 2am. His phone had died so his SatNav was down. He did not own or know how to read a map and all the fuel stations and small shops were closed so he couldnt ask anyone or get a battery booster or a map...... He was so reliant on the SatNav on his phone that he was unable to navigate even locally by memory or street sign.

[Arwen Thebard]

In modern day life it's generally a benefit until it doesn't work properly. In the future it will be the same, a huge advantage until it packs up and you can't fix it. Planned obsolescence has its own end of life story.

[Yorkshire Andy]

Technology is like fire. A good servant and a lousy master. As Bosworth has pointed out, it can save your bacon.

But as preppers we also need to consider what happens if the "system" goes down. Can we cope? will that Internet of Things fridge or washing machine still run if the internet goes down in your house?

Add in someone upto mischief a cyber ransomeware or dos attack by a bored 14 year old in his room

Was a death in a German hospital last week

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... n-hospital

Or someone wanting to watch good morning Britain

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2 ... v-set.html


And the day of the domestic repairs man are numbered as per the old school mechanic without the expensive up to date software / computer bits to access the washer / fridge / cars computer there is nothing they can do

Take cars there's the obd II protocols ... Great so they are open access by EU law...BUT. say it says injector 2 failure . ... The injection computer is not on the obd list so you can't code in a new injector without the manufacturers software nor diagnose air bags / abs / esp. Et all

[korolev]

Two things:
1. To Bosworth. It's not likely that your appliances will be shut down by a malicious hacker but it could be compromised to become part of a botnet and used in a ddos or ransomware attack.
Personally I'm wary of giving any device internet access through the router and regularly port sweep my network for "holes".

2. To Jansman. my next washing machine will be internet connected so that I can have it come on automatically when the solar panels are generating enough to run it for free. I take your point about fires though, I wouldn't run it if the house was unoccupied.

[Nurseandy]

Yeah, we've had a washing machine catch fire midway through a cycle. They're very heavy, however you also become instantaneously very strong as you end over end it out the back door

[Yorkshire Andy]

Anyone else see this

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bil ... ation.html

[Lemne]

This thread is nuts!

Are you genuinely worried that because a washing machine has lots of red lights and an electronic control, you are at risk? Surely electricity continuity is the bigger risk to your standard of living? Or water supply? Or ability to buy detergent?

That internet-of-things will be used to subvert you? How? A vicious strobe light effect in your kitchen?

A phone with a banking app doesn’t mean your phone can magic your money away. There are precisely zero cases of this. But hundreds of millions stolen through theft plus other related scams where people literally volunteer to give their money away to fraudsters.

This really feels like the wrong place to focus prepping energy.

Genuine question: what am I missing? Is it worth a thread to offer up concerns that could be debated and hopefully rebutted with knowledge, facts, and sensibilities?

I am allowed the opinion that I think somebody who has his whole house automated is foolish. Someone who has no light switches and the same person who had his smart boiler turn on full during the summer and he couldn't change it so spent 2 days sat out in his garden. I'm well aware as to how tech works. I have also seen the innocent smart doorbell being used by a guy from the dark web to talk to the homeowner to tell him he had been hacked. But thanks for mocking me though.

If you feel this is the wrong place to focus prepping energy then I suggest you don't do it then.