Will some smart home device makers ever grow souls??

(Please cut me a little slack on this post, dripping with sarcasm: these latest examples of some smart home device makers’ contempt/obliviousness toward customers’ privacy and security shoved me over the edge!).

Once upon a time two smart boys in their dorm room thought up a new service that really made a new technology hum. When they turned it into a tiny company, they ever adopted a cute motto: “don’t be evil.” Neat!

Then their little service got very, very big and very, very profitable. The motto? It kinda withered away. Last year it was even dropped from the company’s code of conduct.

Which, conveniently, allowed that once tiny company to produce this abomination: the Google Nest Guard (the alarm, keypad, and motion sensor portion of Nest’s Secure home protection system) featuring a mic.

Oh, did I point out that Nest didn’t mention the mic’s presence? No, that fact only emerged when it announced the Guard’s integration with Google’s Assistant voice device (Sample command: “OK, Google, surveil my family.”) and Business Insider ferreted out the mic’s presence:

“The existence of a microphone on the Nest Guard, which is the alarm, keypad, and motion-sensor component in the Nest Secure offering, was never disclosed in any of the product material for the device.”

On Tuesday, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company had made an “error.”

“The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs,” the spokesperson said. “That was an error on our part.”

Oh. All is forgiven. It was just an “error on our part.”

Except, how can I say this politely?, that’s utter baloney. It seems as if the mic just sorta got there. No engineer suggested adding it. No executives reviewing the design conveniently overlooked it.

Nope, that mic was there intentionally, and Google is so morally corrupt and/or amoral that they simply chose to ignore telling the public.

And, while we’re at it, let’s not heap all the opprobrium on Google. Amazon subsidiary Ring actually let its employees view videos shot with its doorbell device:

“These videos were unencrypted, and could be easily downloaded and shared. The team was also given a database that linked each video to the Ring customer it belonged to.”

As I’ve said many times before, my perspective on the issues of privacy and security are informed by my prior work in corporate crisis management, which taught me that far too many engineers (I have many friends in the profession, but if the shoe fits, wear it) are simply oblivious to privacy and security issues, viewing them as something to be handled through bolt-on protections after the fun part of product design is done. In fact, in adding the prior link, I came across something I wrote last year in which I quoted from the Google log — which contained nary a mention of privacy concerns — about an aspect of AI that would allow identification of what shop a batch of ramen came from. Funny, huh? No — scary.

Another lesson I drew from my past was the phenomenon of guilt by association, which is incredibly rampant right now: people conflate issues as diverse as smart home privacy violations, Russian election tampering, some men’s inability to find dates (I kid you not, and the result may be lethal for some women), the so-called “deep state,” etc., etc. The engineers I know tend to dismiss these wacky ideas because they aren’t logical. But the fact that the fears aren’t logical doesn’t mean they aren’t very, very real to those who embrace them.

That means that even those companies whose smart home devices DO contain robust privacy protections risk people rejecting their devices as well. Trust me on this one: I work every day with rational people who reject the cloud and all the services that could enrich their lives due to their fear of privacy and security violations.

That’s why responsible IoT companies must become involved in collaborations such as the Internet of Things Association, and IMC, working on collaborative strategies to deal with these issues.

Let’s not forget that these gaffes come at the same time as there’s a lot more interest among regulators and elected officials in regulating and/or even breaking up the Silicon Alley behemoths. You’d kinda think they’d be on their best behavior, not doing stupid things that just draw more criticism.

I’m fed up, and I won’t shut up. Write me if you have feasible suggestions to deal with the problem.

IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT!

I just discovered a Verge piece from last month to the effect that Google is belatedly getting religion about personal privacy, even — and this wins big points in my book — putting its privacy policies in plain English (yes!) rather than legalese. Here’s a long piece from the article. If they follow up, I’d be the first to praise them and withdraw my criticism, although not of the industry as a whole:

“So today, as Google announced that it’s going to sell a device that’s not all that different from the Facebook Portal, whose most every review wondered whether you should really invite a Facebook camera into your home, Google also decided to publicly take ownership for privacy going forward.
As we discovered in our interview with Google Nest leader Rishi Chandra, Google has created a set of plain-English privacy commitments. And while Google didn’t actually share them during today’s Google I/O keynote, they’re now available for you to read on the web.
Here’s the high-level overview:
We’ll explain our sensors and how they work. The technical specifications for our connected home devices will list all audio, video, and environmental and activity sensors—whether enabled or not. And you can find the types of data these sensors collect and how that data is used in various features in our dedicated help center page.
We’ll explain how your video footage, audio recordings, and home environment sensor readings are used to offer helpful features and services, and our commitment for how we’ll keep this data separate from advertising and ad personalization.
We’ll explain how you can control and manage your data, such as providing you with the ability to access, review, and delete audio and video stored with your Google Account at any time.
But the full document gets way more specific than that. And remarkably, a number of the promises aren’t the typical wishy-washy legalese you might expect. Some are totally unambiguous. Some of them go against the grain, like how Nest won’t let you turn off the recording light on your camera anymore because it wants to assure you!
‘Your home is a special place. It’s where you get to decide who you invite in. It‘s the place for sharing family recipes and watching babies take first steps. You want to trust the things you bring into your home. And we’re committed to earning that trust,’ Google says.”

Maybe somebody’s listening!

Sentri: example of how IoT is re-inventing tired home devices

I’ll admit it: I’ve been a design junkie since the first museum show on Shaker furniture that I saw while I was in grad school at Syracuse (come to think of it, that epiphany was really when I visited Denmark with my parents, and saw Shaker-inspired Scandinavian design by Georg Jensen et. al.). I just love things that are sleek and functional.

Sentri home security system

Now, following in the Nest’s footsteps, there’s a neat Kickstarter project, the Sentri home security system, that repeats the Nest’s double-whammy of reinventing a tired product to add IoT functionality, and make it beautiful to boot.

Sorry, ADT, but the only reason anyone would display your monitor prominently would be to scare the Bad Guys: they’re just pug-ugly. As
this picture shows, the Sentri is another work of art — and it is more versatile to boot. A built-in HD camera and sensors not only detect movement, but also temperature (a sudden spike could mean a fire), humidity and air quality.  Like the Nest, it will learn from your behavior.

I like their design principles — would that more products were based on them:

 

  • Simple elegance: The best technologies are the easiest to use. Sentri is ready to use right out of the box – simply plug it in, power on, and download the Sentri smartphone app. No assembly or installation required. Hang up your Sentri on the wall, or set it right on your shelf and let Sentri take care of the rest.
  • Intelligence within reach: Minimize the rate of false alerts and create a security system adapted specifically to you with Sentri’s built-in notification system that not only keeps you in the know, but also learns — and acts on — the alerts that matter most to you.One of the biggest challenges traditional home security systems face is that most alerts delivered are false alarms, leading to many households opting out of security systems, or simply not turning their systems on.  With Sentri, maximize your home’s security with timely and accurate alerts.
  • Empowering you: While safety at home is essential for everyone, we know that your home and what security means is as unique as you are. Take control of how your Sentri looks, feels, and behaves by customizing when and where you want to see certain information and alerts. From choosing the background for your Sentri to showing which sensors are displayed and which smart devices are connected, always stay in control of your home.

Sentri as smart home hub

OK, it doesn’t have wired-in-place switches on each window that could detect a break-in (score one for the incumbents), but on the other hand, you just plug the Sentri in and it’s ready to go. Perhaps most important, there are no monthly monitoring fees: who needs them when you get an instant alert on your smart phone if there’s a problem.  Also, there’s another bonus: it’s designed to be a smart home hub: the illustration shows it also controlling your HUE lights, WeMo sockets, and a Nest.

Before I get too rhapsodic, I’m reminded of the recent headline about a crowdfunding project that wasted millions and didn’t produce a usable project. However, overall, it seems to me that, out of the soup of crowdfunding dollars, IoT reinventions of conventional products, inspired design, and plunging sensor prices, we’re seeing a real revolution in product design and manufacturing that can pay multiple benefits to all concerned! Bravo!

 

 

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