I included a comment that is a prime example of how willfully blind people are concerning the value of privacy. This was part of a thread about a mews post of a person who had his Amazon Smart Home bricked because a delivery person thought he was racist.

It’s a troubling read, because if most people really are this way, the fight for legally enforced privacy will fail.

What do you think of this?

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Do you think they could have turned off the in the first place if they did not have personal details tied to those devices and full control of those devices?

Yes, assuming that we still need an input device of some sort. Because the input could make it give a different output, such as not running, even if it didn’t know that you were the one it was blocking.

Maybe that couldn’t cascade to all of your devices, but certainly the ones that received the input that caused them to brick themselves. But, then again in a mesh network they probably could send a brick signal to all co-networked devices.

What if someone decided to use something you did in the “privacy” of your own home to blackmail you? Embarass you? Would you feel safe?

I certainly wouldn’t like that. Fortunately, those actions are illegal. The problem here isn’t privacy, so much as it is blackmail.

It doesn’t matter to me, if a passive recording picks up me doing something embarrassing. The thing that matters is using the data in the wrong way, or not having controls around the data.

What if something you do all the time suddenly becomes illegal and you could be prosecuted based on surveillance footage inside your home?

Well, I guess I’d better stop doing that thing or move. But, that is only marginally relevant to this case.

If you are a criminal, there will be evidence of the crime.

Do you think they cannot access the video and audio from those devices?

Sure they can, but passive access isn’t a problem. The problem is using the data badly.