Spitballing IoT Security

Ronald F. Guilmette rfg at tristatelogic.com
Thu Oct 27 18:55:38 UTC 2016


In message <20161027112940.GB17170 at ussenterprise.ufp.org>, 
Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org> wrote:

>Actually, they encourage you to trade {your old iPhone} in...
>...
>If your device is too old for that program, they will still take
>it for free and recycle it in an enviornmentally friendly way...

OK, so good on them.  I do compliment them for their apparent willingness
to take back this pile of leachable heavy metals and do something
responsible with it.

But to come back to the point, what if I really don't -want- to give
Apple another several hundred dollars this year?  The baby needs shoes,
the gas tank is empty, and maybe I just don't -have- $600+ dollars this
month to further enrich their shareholders.

My iPhone 3GS still works just fine, for the most part, so if I don't
really need all of the new whiz bang features of the newer ones, why
would I fork over big bucks to replace it?  Just because TV commercials
entice me to do so??

The problem is, as I have said, this device is now the Apple equivalent
of Windows XP.  There could be a horrendous collection of a dozen or
more known critical security bugs in the thing by now, but as someone
noted, the last update Apple issued for the thing was in Feb 2014.

In the medical field, they use the term "orphan drugs" to refer to drugs
that have such a low return on investment that no manufacturer has any
interest in them anymore.  We don't use that terminology in the tech
field because it would be redundant.  *Every* tech product either already
is, or soon will be, an orphan.

You can't *force* people to throw away or trade-in their old tech products,
especially when, from the user's point of view, there doesn't -seem- to be
anything wrong with them... like all of those pre- Sept. 2015 Internet video
cameras.  (Well, -in theory- you could force people to do this.  You could
legislate an Obamacare-esque tax which penalized everyone who -didn't-
throw away or trade-in their old tech gadgets after, say, 4 years, but I
don't think that would go down very well.)


Regards,
rfg



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