[ale] Vizio TVs Sucking Privacy

[Charles Shapiro]

To get back to the OP, Cory Doctorow has said that ensuring software
security is analogous to ensuring water quality. We have some (limited)
control over how good our water is, but ultimately we must trust the
chemists and technicians at the source of the water, whether they are at
the local municipal water plant or the factory where the water was bottled.
Sometimes even that trust is misplaced, as in Flint Michigan, other cities
with heavy metal contamination problems, and parts of Appalachia where coal
byproducts have polluted the water supply.

The companies who sell us the digital devices we use don't make those
devices secure for us. If I buy a Nest thermostat, a Vizio TV or even a
Philips Hue lightbulb, I must trust the organizations which made those
devices.  They currently have no motivation to work to deserve that
trust.   Perhaps some day after enough scandals some regulation will emerge.

I am vulnerable of course, as are we all.  The radio driver in my
smartphone, for example, is a Proprietary minefield of unexamined code and
secret security holes, in spite of the AOSP Android build on top of it.  I
have no clue at all about the software in my wife's new car, yet I trust my
life and family to it regularly.  That doesn't mean I should give up trying
to make myself safer.  If I lived in Flint, I would buy and use a water
still.  Here in Atlanta, I can use Open Source software on my computers.  I
can (for now) avoid devices like internet-connected lightbulbs, TVs which
surf the web, or TCP/IP enabled coffee pots, at least in my own home.  We
can only mitigate risk.  We cannot eliminate it, whether in our water or
our devices.

-- CHS

On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 9:07 AM, Lightner, Jeffrey <JLightner at dsservices.com
> wrote:

> My drink is Myer’s (dark Jamaican) rum and tonic.   The tonic always
> throws wait staff and bartenders off.
>
>
>
> There’s also a couple of nice dark rums from India but they are seldom
> seen here.   I had them in India and found one of them oddly enough at a
> store in Chattanooga once.
>
>
>
> The most difficult time I had finding good rum was when I lived in the
> Caribbean.   Apparently they ship all the good stuff north.   I typically
> drank Red Stripe beer instead (or of course the ubiquitous rum
> cocktail/punch everyone serves that covers the taste of the rum).   Grenada
> also had a nice local liqueur called Le Grenade made from nutmeg (which was
> their chief export along with mace, the outer covering of nutmeg).
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] *On Behalf Of *Jim
> Kinney
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 09, 2017 6:12 PM
> *To:* Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> *Subject:* Re: [ale] Vizio TVs Sucking Privacy
>
>
>
> On Thu, 2017-02-09 at 17:52 -0500, Phil Turmel wrote:
>
> On 02/09/2017 05:43 PM, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
>
>
>
> Seems my hearing is better than a few selected 20-30 yr olds.  I can
>
> here some electronic devices when charging that the whippersnappers
>
> don't hear.  Thought it was tinnitus, but when the devices aren't
>
> charging, don't hear it.  Also hear some Belkin USB charging plugs.
>
>
>
>
>
> Maybe that email proves that subliminal messages actually work.  Did >
>
>
>
> you feel an urge to drink a coke after reading it?  :p
>
>
>
> Whooooosh.
>
>
>
> Nope. Don't like coke. Prefer pretty much any other drink ... except
>
> with rum. ;)
>
>
>
>
>
> Rum and coke. Jeez, I'm going to have to have some tonight.
>
>
>
> go get a bottle of The Kraken. Black spice rum. 94 proof. Very, very tasty
> stuff!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20170210/f02f28da/attachment.html>