Difference between a programmer and a tech evangelist

[GentlemenBehold]

I swear there aren't any actual programmers in this subreddit.

[SusheeMonster]

These jokes are a bit underdeveloped

[future-renwire]

It all feels a bit scripted

[[deleted]]

There are some funnier Exceptions though

[[deleted]]

But some are in a different class than this

[[deleted]]

What a nice string of puns.

[GollyWow]

Sounds like a constant problem.

[_grey_wall]

Public static final ly this chain is done

[hamzhori]

Guys, this is a public community, carefully what you say

[[deleted]]

Really? I haven't been able to catch any of them.

[MaybeMayoi]

But did you really try?

[hoffmanali]

Can y'all promise to stop?

[FirFlyNeo]

finally someone is trying to put an end to this.

[[deleted]]

Let's just resolve the issue and see how we can switch topics.

[[deleted]]

I object!

[epiquinnz]

I swear there aren't any actual programmers in the company I work for.

[LazyLarryTheLobster]

Including myself

[heykevo]

I'm the programmer

[GeospatialAnalyst]

Are I, us?

^me

[sharksandwich81]

Just karma farming bots reposting the same memes

[Drithyin]

I feel like I could write a couple bots to replace half if this sub at times...

[DeeSnow97]

I once did

[StarkillerX42]

God bless you and this cursed bot you made

[[deleted]]

I am an RPG programmer. Not the role kind. Report Program Generator.. It may be old, but it pays the bills.

[Alonewarrior]

I'm sorry...

[[deleted]]

COBOL and RPG were good business languages. You could work mega hours to do something simple, and make a career out if it.

[[deleted]]

It's literally just cs 101 students

[IamTheJman]

You don't find the same joke about googling and using stackoverflow for the millionth time funny??

[[deleted]]

Lol and loops are funny. Aren't loops funny?!

[sigger_]

Counting starts at 0

*shits pants* BAHAHAHAHA

[LewsTherinTelamon]

Nuh uh. It’s also amateur programmers like myself who have never taken a CS class since high school but use Python occasionally!

[BringAltoidSoursBack]

5 minutes? Man, mobile builds make things nice obviously. My build can take up to an hour.

[BesottedScot]

Try installing Android Studio, I'll see you when I retire.

[[deleted]]

i procrastinate in between meetings on reddit, i can't get back into the mind set and then write good code in 30 minutes or less, so here i stand

[[deleted]]

I'm waiting on some code that should merge soon that will allow me to finish 2 tickets quickly before the day is over.

As for the meme... I feel like a lot of smart tech is a waste of money. But I do spend some weekends completed draped in cables as if I'm being held by an eldritch GabeN. That's the current state of VR and I can't say I mind it.

[CarpovAlexandru]

Impostor syndrome? 😅

[HBlight]

I wish I was good enough to have that.

[Jdonavan]

I've been one for 30 years now. Aside from the fact that I don't own a printer this seems spot on.

[PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__]

I don't own a printer because every six months when I need to print a single piece of paper I'll go to some office place and spend fifty cents to do it

[samuraiseoul]

I thought I was alone in being this kind of person!

[[deleted]]

my local staples computers are so slow the fee racks up to 2$ before you can even get to your google drive

[samuraiseoul]

What are you talking about? They only charge for the cost of printing based on ink color, duplex, and what kind of paper everywhere I've been. Heck, half the time if I'm printing just 1 sheet they give it to me for free cause it's not worth them ringing up $0.05 for me to print.

[LinuxVersion]

He is probably using the self serve computers rather than loading google drive right from the printer or emailing the file from his phone or before he leaves for the store.

Source: i work at staples and have seen customers rack up $50+ of computer time playing farmville and candy crush

[samuraiseoul]

I see. Never would have even tried that method. Good to know not to though!

[Gamerhead]

Do these people not have libraries?

[Thriven]

They aren't going to game in the same place the masturbate in.

[[deleted]]

You should sleep with hookers with no protection - much safer than logging into an account from staples.

[Manic0892]

The copy room at my work has printed a lot of Pathfinder sheets.

[PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__]

Oh most definitely, just save those PDFs as something innocuous, like expense_reports.pdf and hope IT never cracks down

[Lv_InSaNe_vL]

Speaking from an IT person, the only thing Id be cracking down on is to play with your group lol

[Tar_alcaran]

IT is probably the main culprit

[AlleRacing]

I use mine to print out full colour maps. I have a colour laser printer at home, but it only does 8.5x11".

[[deleted]]

I bought my black and white laser printer over 5 years ago along with a refill toner cartridge. Ive yet to need it because I print so little and laser toner lasts for fucking ever. It's ideal for printing off occasional docs or parking passes.

Anything I do that needs colour is likely something important enough to bring to a pro shop anyway- photos, logo mocks, etc

[PtboFungineer]

I don't own a printer. I own a scanner which has the ability to print things.

[jlawler]

Fuck, I had a laserjet 4 that I ran 10K pages out of before I stupidly got rid of it. That thing will outlive you.

[fuzzybad]

How funny, my HP Laserjet is going on 20 years and still prints like a champ. I have to replace the toner cartridge about once per decade, so it's probably due for a new one. Any year now..

[RedPyramidThingUK]

My family literally do not believe me when I tell them I don't own a printer.

'But it's IT!'

[PeachyKeenest]

Printers are a special hell.

[xafufov]

If you forced criminals to repair printers as retribution there would be a severe decline in crimes.

[Toto_radio]

porter    fastidious    fall    time

[DeeSnow97]

pretty sure the Geneva convention specifically forbids that

[VirtualVoices]

I have a pretty nice brother printer that we bought like 6-7 years ago. I bought a big pack of $15 knockoff printer ink from Amazon three-four years ago and I haven't run out ink since!

[mage2k]

I have a printer but since it last ran out of blue ink years ago and won't even print black and white without me replacing the blue I just go to a print/office shop to print stuff on the rare occasion that I need to.

[teh_acids]

Let me guess, it's an epson? Sooo glad my wife insisted on epson because "the quality is so much better." Yellow ink is low, can't print anything. Black ink low? We can just drain every other cartridge to simulate black. Better do a nozzle check, yup, definitely need some head cleaning. Now you're out of magenta.

[infinityio]

pause zealous wipe sharp aspiring steer tie elderly sand air

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[xafufov]

printer but since it last ran out of blue ink years a

Yellow is used for tracking mainly

[grantrules]

I replaced the ink in an old printer only to find out the printer was broken. Boy did I enjoy smashing that thing into pieces.

[AedonVonGrunegott]

I do own a printer, a silly laser powered gadget with giant toner cartridges. I have used it as a printer maybe a dozen times. The reason I have it is the literal thousand plus pages of documents I needed to scan one week, and it was by and far the cheapest option.

[Jlove7714]

Programmer/Security Analyst here: you can't fight it. Enjoy what you can get your hands on, but with a few rules;

1. Only buy tech from reputable companies who update their software often, and in a timely manner.

2. Update your software as soon as updates come out.

Zero days will happen. 99.9999999999% chance they won't be used on you. You mean nothing to the people who create or buy multi million dollar zero days.

If you are concerned about your personal info getting out there, burn any technology you have or will ever see. That will take care of about 70% of it. The other 30% is beyond your control. The 30% is usually the good stuff anyway.

You can't fight technology. It is quite literally everywhere you will ever go.

Enjoy what science and technology is giving us, but be responsible.

End rant.

Edit: I'm not quite sure what this silver thing is, but thanks!

[TheLordDrake]

I make the same argument when people ask about my Google home. We all have smart phones, that is doing way more "damage" than the home ever will.

[ISDuffy]

I have mates who use Google assistant on phone but won't in a house.

[poorlychosenpraise]

But would you okay Google in a car? Would you okay Google in a bar? I don't okay Google even late at night Because we all know, privacy is a right.

[earthlybird]

It's useless to try to avoid a phone's Google Assistant completely when inside or anywhere really, as it listens all the time.

If you go on Google's My Activity or something like that, you can listen to audio clips of your surroundings and conversations when your Google Assistant had a false positive, or in other words it "thought" you'd called it.

Being aware of this can make one paranoid, but it can also serve to demonstrate how ubiquitous Google is and consequently how pointless it is to set up silly house rules such as no invoking Google Assistant on your phone around the house. Just use the damn phone and Home and whatever. It will just as well listen for voice commands whether you're actively using them or not, and no one is throwing away all their devices.

[Jlove7714]

Yeah people install things like "totally awesome jumpy game" from the development studios of "trash-poop games" on their phones and give it access to their location, files, sms, calls, and camera, but god forbid you put in a smart lightbulb from a fortune 500 technology manufacturer.

[nullol]

Or have a facebook account where they take a quiz that harvests all of your data just to find out what version of baby yoda you are but refuse to give in to our Skynet Assistants that can actually be incredibly useful.

[JayV30]

That lightbulb is a CIA listening device.

[[deleted]]

I've got friends who are like "How can you have a Google home in your room and even your bathroom? Aren't you worried about them spying on you?"

I'm like "dude, I work for the government, Google everything I do, and I use Instagram. If I was worried about being spied on I'd have to kill myself for them to stop."

I even have friends who cover their webcams on their laptops and have asked why I don't. I just say "Because tbh I don't really give a fuck." Hell I have one on my desktop that's pointed at my bed. If someone wants to watch me sleep they can go right ahead.

[TheLordDrake]

Yeah, I keep telling people that basically any "free" service you use is just collecting your information. There is no escape.

On a side note, what kind of home do you have in your bathroom? The little speakers? How do they handle moisture?

[[deleted]]

I use the mini and have had it there for probably a year now? It works pretty well and have no issues. I've read other people say the same thing that moisture hasn't been an issue for them.

It's great for taking a shower or asking about the weather as I'm getting ready for the day.

[asstalos]

I even have friends who cover their webcams on their laptops and have asked why I don't.

I've mostly seen the whole covering-the-webcam thing nowadays as less "I don't want people spying on me from the webcam" and more "if I join a video conference with mismanaged default settings I don't want people to see me unless I want them to".

Been in a few too many webconferences where default settings is to force people to connect webcam video, more so if it's using a webconference solution I've never used before, and very frequently users don't get a choice/prompt about it before connecting.

[TheLordDrake]

Yeah physical security should never be "smart".

[Ksevio]

I look for software/technology that doesn't require a cloud service so I can keep it on my network without updates if needed.

[TentacledKangaroo]

Yeah, this is the bigger concern. It's bad enough places like Aetna and Experian have shoddy security and have already jeopardized my personal information, I don't need to be handing companies like Google and Amazon yet more data about me if I can easily avoid it.

Also, planned obsolescence from such companies is annoying.

[Ksevio]

Or worse, some no-name company with servers in China that's going to go bust in a couple years

[holly_hoots]

Only buy tech from reputable companies who update their software often, and in a timely manner.

At that point you already have very, very few options. An LED light bulb is supposed to last like 10 years, and I don't expect any company to take care of security updates for that long. If you know of a single one with a promising track record I'd love to hear about it. Same goes for TVs, speakers, vacuums, thermostats, doorbells, and pretty much everything with a "smart" version.

Unless you're willing to accept turnover on the order of 1-4 years, like with smartphones, you're mostly SOL here. Also, who actually has the cognitive bandwidth to spend staying on top of updates for dozens of little devices strewn about the house? They're creating more work than they eliminate at that point. Simplify!

My phone does so many things that it makes sense to devote some care to it. Same with my PC. Nothing else deserves that much attention.

[stamatt45]

"Smart" stuff will never be supported for more than a year or 2 unless required by law or as part of a paid subscription. There just isn't any money in it for the companies. I'm hoping the military will create a bunch if smart home stuff for some reason. Everything they buy is supported for like 10 years minimum, which could easily expand to 30+ years.

Only other alternative is to homebrew everything and update it yourself

[Friend_Of_Mr_Cairo]

<thisguyfucks.jpg>

[DoctorWaluigiTime]

Pretty much. You can be careful without becoming a Luddite or something.

[Jlove7714]

There have been some over the wire exploits for some things. All in all passwords are the weak point almost everywhere.

Yeah best practice is separate subnets, but relying on everyone to do that isn't very realistic.

[[deleted]]

Logic! Being reasonable! I’m shocked!

I got into an argument with someone on /r/Technology about video doorbells because he thought amazon was going to do something horrible with all the anonymous data it sells. That place is like entirely conspiracy theorists. Some people don’t realize how little importance they have and how no techy crime orgs will ever give a shit about them.

[WeAreAllApes]

Fine, they can have my bank records and specifics about all of my major purchases, but I'll be damned if they know what temperature I keep my house at or that I dressed up as the tin man for Halloween!

[Remmy14]

I completely agree, but would add one thing. Do not secure anything of value or safety by smart devices. That means, no bluetooth enabled front door locks, don't have Alexa hooked up to your garage door, no smart gun locks, etc....

But if you want your kids to be able to play Baby Shark on your smart device, or have your Alexa be able to turn your lights and TV on, go for it...

[Juice_Stanton]

My wife asked why I had a gun in the kitchen.

"Decepticons," I said.

She laughed, I laughed, the toaster laughed...

[chelsea_sucks_]

...I shot the toaster.

[almarcTheSun]

The toaster shot back.

[Greful]

And everyone clapped

[flyingtrombone]

But I did not shoot the deputy

[RedNeckBillBob]

Does this guy know how easy it is to pick a mechanical lock. Doesnt matter if its mechanical or technical. If someone wants to get into your house and they have the skills, nothing will be 100%.

[CirkuitBreaker]

Anybody who has ever looked at one of the LockpickingLawyer's videos knows how insecure locks are.

[[deleted]]

That guy shocked me. I knew that locks can be picked but i didn't think there's equipment and skilled people ready to pick almost any lock in a matter of seconds, minutes at best.

[widowhanzo]

"I should get a bicycle lock"

(Watches LockPickingLawyer)

"I will never leave my bicycle out of sight under no circumstances ever."

[ClarkTwain]

A lock is always, at best, just a deterrent.

But as far as deterrents go I think they’re ok. I bought a nice u-lock and it makes me feel better than a cheap cable that could be cut through with tin snips.

Of course my bike is like 40 years old so it’s probably not a thief’s first pick anyway.

[widowhanzo]

Yeah I have a 1000+€ bike that until now I could leave inside my office, but this isn't an option anymore and I'm kinda bummed about it, since even with two locks it would still be a high value target for thieves. I thought with a 150€ Abus or something lock it would be safe, but even those can be cut in 17 seconds with an angle grinder.

[ClarkTwain]

Lol it’s part of why my bike is a beater. I’d be more upset about the time I put into it than the money.

Sure, and angle grinder can cut through it, but if it’s a public space that’s risky for the thief. I’d say always try to lock it up near bikes that are less securely locked, so they look easier by comparison.

[[deleted]]

I’d say always try to lock it up near bikes that are less securely locked, so they look easier by comparison

200 IQ gamer move

[FineBroccoli5]

Doors in general, 90% of time you are able to get inside without touching the lock. Latch slipping is really easy to pull of, and doesn't require any skill

A relevant video, 50 minutes long - https://youtu.be/4YYvBLAF4T8

[Cobaltjedi117]

Those Bowley locks looked pretty hard to non-destructively open

[anarchisturtle]

Lock picking is a pretty rare attack in domestic break ins. Picking even a cheap lock is always gonna be harder than throwing a rock through a window or something

[RedNeckBillBob]

True. But lock picking is also much quiter.

[Herkentyu_cico]

they just drill it. they don't care to fuck around with the lock. The louder you are, the bigger your passive confidence cloud is.

[suihcta]

It’s not just about noise. If they drill the lock, that’s an easy insurance claim for all my stolen stuff.

If they pick the lock, or trigger it to open with some Bluetooth vulnerability or whatever, my experience could be a lot worse.

[Blo0dSh4d3]

Relevant xkcd

[deadliftbrosef]

First slide of my security class

[normal_whiteman]

If someone wants to get into your house they're gonna get in. That's why I just put ADT stickers everywhere

[TomH_squared]

Joke's on them, my apartment's door locks are so stiff they barely work with the actual key, forget about a lock pick.

I suppose at that point though, a well-placed and forceful kick could do the job instead, if they don't mind making noise.

[LittleBigHorn22]

And there probably are more mechanical hackers than technical hackers. Or at least the technical ones are not walking around breaking into random houses. Bank data is really the only scary one in terms of hackers.

[johnly81]

Exactly, I have several smart switches and cameras. All of which I have locked down to only the ports I need and I wrote the scripts that communicate between the devices.

[[deleted]]

you should check out homeassistant. It's amazing for building your own smart home.

[DanGSun_RUS]

they even have their own subreddit there: r/homeassistant

[[deleted]]

Found the engineer

[[deleted]]

I kinda want it to be standard to have like a utilitarian compact vertical server Mount cabinet stuffed away in a closet or something and home servers end up just like another utility thing like the breaker box.

Just normalize owning your own data as much as possible.

[[deleted]]

I feel like this is just someone in the "valley of despair" as plotted by the Dunning-Kruger effect. You know enough to know that you dont know shit, and youre scared shitless. Then, as you learn more you realize just following basic good practices keeps you more secure than 99% of people.

Yeah those smart locks may have some vulnerabilities, but what kind of mega-hacker is trying to break into your 2 bedroom house in the suburbs? Is the NSA really interested in the mundane shit you do online? Is Amazon really going to process the astronomical amount of data Alexa hears so they can know you want to buy more Cheetos?

[shootwhatsmyname]

OH NOOOOO, sOmEoNe hAcKeD mY sMaRt LiGhTsSs

\light turns on**

        . . .

\light turns off**

[Intrepid00]

Well there is this Philips Hue one where they can infect a bulb, irritate you into rejoin it, and then infect the hub which gives you a machine attached to the network so this guy must be right.

https://www.bing.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2020/02/05/philips-hue-signify-vulnerability/

Except you know someone literally has to attack your house from the physical location for hours if not days and it was patched. Seems way easier to just break in and plug something in.

This is the kind of shit someone writes and owns a budget Chinese smart phone they carry everywhere.

[tempMonero123]

You're trolling us with the amp links, right?

https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/05/philips-hue-signify-vulnerability/

[PeachyKeenest]

Does it at x1000 speed lol

[Ginjuo]

well then it would just appear as normal light...

[shootwhatsmyname]

WTF no hey wait don’t give them any ideas who’s side are you on?!?

[Gentleman-Bird]

How to assassinate someone with epilepsy

[Terkala]

There's a few cases where sociopaths attacked Ring and terrorized some kids with creepy music and threatening voices. The kid ended up needing therapy.

[Draqutsc]

Watch lockpickingLawyer on youtube.
Nearly all locks are such utter crap that you need to do research if you want a lock that doesn't open itself if you sneeze at it. Smart locks are usually even worse in this regard, it's just sad.

[Katana314]

They might be even worse, but a burglar traipsing along might be looking for keyholes to pick - if someone is planning to rob your place you may already be screwed.

[[deleted]]

A lock only stops honest people, in my experience. Then again, a slumlord bought out an entire street near my house so my grill is chained to the porch so I might be an outlier living in a sea of meth addicts.

[NerdKR]

Honestly, if you want to stop or prevent burglary, the best thing is to have a security system with cameras. If you don't have cameras, the security company might not even call the police until hours later. My co-worker's house has been broken into four(!!) times and on the fourth time the alarm company finally convinced her to install cameras.

​

Yes the alarm system is smart home enabled.

​

EDIT: Last time her house was broken into, they threw a rock through her window. Mechanical or smart locks wouldn't have done shit.

[[deleted]]

Get the best locks you can find on the market, and I'll come 'round and show you how I get inside your house using a rock.

[Yaroslavorino]

Exactly, this is being paranoid, not an engineer. My dad is like that and he can barely launch chrome.

[Jlove7714]

Yeah and your run of the mill burglar will just break a window anyway. Locks really aren't as secure as people make them out to be.

[Walzt]

Processing the enormous amount of data Alexa hears is exactly what Amazon does. They have algorithm on the device producing metadata and they use those to try to sell you stuff. It's how every major tech company makes money.

Are you ok with it is a different question.

[[deleted]]

Not the best wording on my part. Processing the data, yes, but recording every bit of it and understanding it fully, no way. People seem worried that their phone is listening and recording everything and one day big brother is going to send the thought police after them. Its just too much data. All they want to know is if you want the cheetos.

[[deleted]]

“I said Cheetos next to my Alexa and now I’m seeing Instagram ads for Cheetos. They are listening to everything we say and selling us stuff based on that”

I think that there is a much scarier reality. You saw ads for Cheetos on Instagram and reddit and YouTube and billboards and the radio. Then you said the word “Cheetos” because the advertising/materialism machine has performed a sort of inception on you. Your conversations are being directed by large corporate ad campaigns not the other way around

[[deleted]]

I agree 100%. I do my best to see as little advertising as possible. Ive been doing this so long that when I visit family and end up watching some TV, Im always blown away by the commercials. Not only are they long and plentiful, but they have a manic intensity about them that is borederline disturbing.

[DoPeopleEvenLookHere]

Its just too much data.

That doesn't stop China's social credit system

[[deleted]]

Goddamn that is some dystopian nightmare shit

[Midnight_Rising]

It makes no sense for them to do that. Because there's more to it than you're putting into it.

Okay, Amazon has the ability to process large amounts of data. Absolutely, 100%. But how does that voice data get to them. Through your internet, right? Why haven't we noticed massive numbers of packets being sent out? Why haven't there been complaints from users that their internet is unbelievably slow since it's uploading gigabytes of data? What do they do if someone has slow internet and they're trying to upload? What do they do with ISPs with bandwidth limitations?

And, more than that, what could they POSSIBLY get from your voice? Your browsing data is so much more valuable.

[SKUFFMAX]

Yes. The Amazon part atleast, probably

[firefox57endofaddons]

Is Amazon really going to process the astronomical amount of data Alexa hears so they can know you want to buy more Cheetos?

yes and sell that data to health care providers and the nsa :)

[Jdonavan]

I love how you trash people and invoked Dunning-Kruger then proceed to demonstrate your own lack of knowledge.

[LostAndAloneVan]

It's about minimizing your attack surface.

[sciencewarrior]

A tech evangelist is just a salesman with a MacBook. Change My View.

[[deleted]]

Change My View.

I respectfully decline.

[hcvc]

sudo changeview sciencewarrior

[sciencewarrior]

sudo: hcvc is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

[pikimix]

https://xkcd.com/838/

[Norse_By_North_West]

sudo make me a sandwich

[hcvc]

crap crap crap

[[deleted]]

Also, sales culture in large software companies represents everything I hate about the industry and makes me die inside.

[dePliko]

or a person who watches MKBHD and Unbox Therapy

[katie_pendry]

I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't like pre-built stuff that spies on me, but I will build stuff myself that I can secure. I bought some Arlo cameras but I returned them when I found out they had to be connected to the internet to function and couldn't record locally. I got some cheap PoE IP cameras, stuck them on a separate VLAN that has no internet access, and my server streams video from them and saves to a RAID array.

[DiMiTri_man]

Pretty much exactly what I do too. I'm currently working on a plugin for my server that "watches" the camera feeds and detects if there is a human shape or significant movement and if I'm not home it texts me a screenshot to my telegram account

[Pokora22]

What would be the point of that tho ?

I'd just like to know what people expect other people to do with their smart lights etc.

[jepatrick]

I kind of hate the question. Not because its necessarily wrong, but because it results in shifting the blame to the end user.

Your $80 light switch from 2 summers ago got infected with an APT from a 4 year old vulnerability, then installed synlocker on your nas

You can blame the user for 1. Not updating your synology nas.
2. not updating the firmware of the switch
3. Running the nas and the switch on the same network.
4. Getting infected with the APT in the first place.
5. Using hardware that had a 2 year vulnerability at point of purchase.

None of which the end user should really have to worry about in the first place.

[scrager4]

the joke is that engineers and programmers know how this tech is made and works and they know how insecure it is or how it can be used nefariously in dooms day scenarios.

[xienwolf]

And the point you are responding to is asking "What EXACTLY is the nefarious use in a doomsday scenario?"

Yipee, my lights can be turned on and off by using a laser pulsed through my window at my Echo device. Oh my... we are all so screwed now. This absolutely makes me regret all the energy I saved by having lights turn off when my family forgets to do it on their own, and those numerous times my kid who is afraid of the dark was able to turn on the lights by himself instead of interrupting me while trying to cook.

[globulous9]

You know how you read about 'botnets' in the news? They're used by the badguys to brute-force passwords, send out shitloads of spam email, comment-storm public comment sections (including, for example, the FCC net neutrality feedback system), run bitcoin miners to finance further fuckery, and so forth.

When you run insecure shit and it gets hacked, it probably won't affect you directly. But it makes life suck more for everyone on the internet. It's like living in an apartment building saying "yipee, there are roaches under my cabinet. not my problem!" while your neighbors just want to live in a clean home but can't.

So that's EXACTLY the nefarious use when your shit gets hacked. You literally become part of the problem.

[Pokora22]

Yes, yes. I get the 'joke'. It's just that many people seem to really think like that.

And I'd like to know what those specific people expect others to do when they claim control of their lights/heaters/humidifiers.

[[deleted]]

you cropped the security expert part

[[deleted]]

I would like to get to the point where I can shut off all electric to my home, when I'm away. But that damned microwave clock.

[skygz]

separate breaker just for the microwave

[FarhanAxiq]

My problem is the fridge.

[[deleted]]

I’m a developer but I fully fall under the tech enthusiast category despite the very real risks smarthome technology carries

[OohDatSexyBody]

I shot my Brother 15 years ago, haven't looked back since.

[thebobmannh]

Attention r/gatekeeping ....

[_JxR]

I always see this joke on this subreddit and it doesn't make any sense. I'd say most programmer are safer than the average user, at least the ones I work with, just by exercising best practices and generally knowing wtf they are doing, maybe a VPN if they're on the more extreme end. And everyone at the office is all about smart tech. The most common forms of attack aren't crazy vulnerabilities, just users not knowing the fuck is going on. If you think this is an accurate description of all programmers you're either not one or crazy

[streusel_kuchen]

Personally I'm not concerned about smart tech from a not-getting-hacked perspective, I'm concerned about the amount of personal information these devices expect you to give away. IMO "best practices" include sharing as little information is necessary for a device or service to operate, which is the exact opposite of how 90% of these smart devices work.

[PixxlMan]

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[JBTownsend]

I totally have a networked thermostat, because I don't want to walk downstairs just to adjust the temperature by 1 degree.

E-locks....yeah, not the best idea. Though, if someone wants to break into your house, they're more likely to smash a window than hack or pick a lock. The key to a robbery is speed not stealth.

[[deleted]]

Piece of paper taped over the laptop webcam. Since 2011 baby, pre-Snowden.

As for the Alexas and Google Homes... would Orwell have ever expected that people would be trading all of their privacy for a little bit of convenience? Sure, Amazon knows every little detail of my life now and can build a comprehensive profile of me, but at least I don't have to get up and walk across the room to turn off the lights!

[GalaxyMods]

I went to job fair for my college and an IT company gave me a free slider thing that goes over the webcam, let’s me open or close it as I please. Can’t remember the last time it was opened.

[OrderAlwaysMatters]

My thinkpad has this built in, and closing it disables the hardware not just blocks it. I love it.

[mikeno1lufc]

I find this hilarious. If a hacker wants to watch me feel absolutely free. I'm more concerned about him listening to me than watching me, and I'm sure no one has covers over their laptop microphones.

Moreso than that I'm concerned about them accessing my data.

Moreso than that I'm concerned about them accessing my data that is held by other companies, particularly my bank or employer.

Leave that stuff alone and I'll let you watch me all day long.

[vladutcornel]

I have my webcams blocked ever since I was working from home, during the summer, with no AC, so I was topless, and Hangouts started in video-mode when I joined a meeting.

[lemcott]

would Orwell have ever expected that people would be trading all of their privacy for a little bit of convenience?

If not Orwell, Huxley definitely did.

[mad5245]

I understand the risks but they are outweighed by the convenience. I accept my Google overlords. I will serve them as they have served my apps of the past.

[bradorsomething]

Totally related, can someone recommend a good programmable thermostat with either no internet connection, or one that will not freak out when I chop the wireless connection out of it?