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Inspired by a discussion elsewhere:

I've been on the Internet since 1987, started a career building the commercial Internet in 1995, and have spent the last 25 years writing books about how to build foundational Internet infrastructure. I've consulted for and worked with any number of dot-coms, and the one lesson I've gotten over and over again?

The Internet's business model is betrayal.

We have no smart lights. No voice assistants. No Alexa or Siri. No video doorbell. Our thermostat and appliances constantly complain about their lack of Internet. None of this stuff is safe.

The Internet tech I do use? A desktop PC. Email on my phone is for travel only: airplane tickets, hotel reservations, hockey and concert tix. Location on my phone? Nope, we use a dedicated non-networked GPS in the car. The microphones are off.

How can a light bulb betray me? I don't know. I do know that the vendors have put a LOT of thought into it, though, and I can't out-think all of them.

This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Michael W Lucas

"How can a light bulb betray me?"

You are gonna hate this

Philips/Signify just added a new feature called MotionAware¹. It measures fluctuations in Zigbee signal strength between bulbs to act as a motion/presence sensor.

They are also pushing hard for non-local user accounts², which means constant web connectivity.

All the pieces are in place to monetize your family room occupancy habits to advertisers.

Dystopian-ass timeline.

¹: philips-hue.com/en-us/support/…

²: philips-hue.com/en-ca/explore-…

in reply to Michael W Lucas

It wouldn't be too hard to include a sound transducer into an LED bulb. I wouldn't know, I don't use such things either. I do have a couple of IoT things in the house but they're on their own subnet to keep them away from the rest of my network traffic. OpenWRT on the router, in the hope that it will limit any leakage, and firewall blocks on stuff that doesn't need to talk to the outside world, to make people work a bit harder to use those devices.

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"Annie Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia, lives for the internet’s weirdest footnotes.That includes things like the long-gone Garfield the cat “G-Mail,” 🙀📬 a very real web oddity now preserved only on the #WaybackMachine."
mastodon.archive.org/@internet…


Annie Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia, lives for the internet’s weirdest footnotes.

That includes things like the long-gone Garfield the cat “G-Mail,” 🙀📬 a very real web oddity now preserved only on the #WaybackMachine.

Internet history is stranger—and more fragile—than it looks.

Read more 👉 blog.archive.org/2026/02/05/de…

@annierau @internetarchive #Wikipedia


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*This makes the rash and unsupported assumption that modern "serious governments" are not already those very same people #Trumpistan #Putinstan

japantimes.co.jp/commentary/20…


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"Report: Since October 2023, "Gaza’s population had declined by more than 10%, which would suggest roughly 200,000 deaths."

mastodon.social/@DrALJONES/116…


Report: Since October 2023, "Gaza’s population had declined by more than 10%, which would suggest roughly 200,000 deaths."

"We do not believe that [70,000 deaths] is the final total. That’s the number of bodies that have been recovered. There will be more bodies under the rubble."

~Stuart Casey Maslen, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law & Human Rights

middleeastmonitor.com/20260206…

#GazaGenocide #Palestine #USPol #EUPol #CdnPoli #GazaDeaths #news .


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Who are you… You must help me, please… Bring me the salmon treats… I can't… I can't see you… hear me… I need the salmon treats, you must bring me the salmon treats… Please bring … beg of you, bring the treats… Help me… I am Babka… Given up long ago… There is one thing I need to be rescued… You must… #バブカ
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Stream 4,000+ Public Domain Movies on WikiFlix: Silent Classics, Academy Award-Winners, Hitchcock Films & More

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