On 9/14/2024 11:26 PM, Paul wrote:
Interesting. These companies just keep coming up with reasons
why they need personal info from you. I'm guessing that your
module is calling home with "telematics".
It is working out when his tank needs more bottles of ink :-)
If you log every print job, you can count the sheets, and
estimate when his next order of bottles will be inbound
without him knowing.
Normally, they like to push cartridges on people.
As an example of how "popular" their ink program is,
there is an ink cartridge from the program, sitting on
the top of the community mail box, and absolutely no one
has taken it home :-) My guess is, none of my fellow
citizens. have HP printers.
My HP printer also offered to sign me up for automatic ink
shipments. Though it has no idea how much ink is left. It
always estimates that I have "just a bit".
My new clothes washer offered to set me up
with an app so that I can talk to it from upstairs, and tries
to force me to wash the washing machine (!) every 30
cycles, which involves buying a bottle of special soap.
There's always some kind of logic for collecting data.
The functions of spying and features are not separate.
There was an interesting article awhile back at Ars Technica:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/half-of-smart-appliances-remain-disconnected-from-internet-makers-lament/
Manufacturers are frustrated because they thought giving
their microwave or frig wifi capability would give them spyware
data and extra income from frivolous services. But few people
are getting the apps. The "features" are mostly pointless and
increase costs. (Auto repair costs have gone crazy. For example,
$15K to fix a Rivian bumper. They used to be snap-on plastic.
They probably still are, but now they're loaded with sensitive
electronics.)
Given all that, I have no doubt whatsoever about what HP is
doing. If it weren't spyware there would be no need to "register"
to download the missing functionality for LAN operation.
This is essentially the whole idea of cloud. It's also the direction
that Win10/11 are increasingly moving. People have got so used to
it that they accept tech companies, apppliance manufacturers
and even carmakers controlling the devices they bought. And there's
always some kind of logic, however thin. ("Why go all the way to
the cellar to check your wash when you can call the machine from
the living room?") It's the gradual "kioskification" of devices. Why
sell a washing machine when you can sell a laundromat for the same
price and then charge per wash? Why sell office software when you
can rent it?
Why not get the apps? Because the services are useless and idiotic.
And because it's just a ruse for data collection and/or selling idiotic
extras. People should know this by now.
There've already been serious, real world ramifications,
such as people having their car insurance doubled because GM or some
other car company sold detailed driving data to their insurance company --
data they had no business ever collecting in the first place.
I saw a wonderful quote recently from Meredith Whittaker, the very clear-speaking CEO of Signal, who started at Google but eventually
found them too immoral:
=======
"The short answer here is that AI is a product of the mass surveillance business model in its current form. It is not a separate technological phenomenon...Well, AI is the narrative. It’s not the technology.
Surveillance
and infrastructure are the material conditions."
=======
https://www.wired.com/story/meredith-whittaker-signal/
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