The properties of secure IoT devices

But that’s not what’s going to happen at all, is it? Instead, the fridge will be phoning home so the screen can deliver me more targeted advertisements.

This is happening even now, with the fridge I nearly bought 18 months ago, where it demands you replace the water filter for the ice maker every 6 months whether it needs it or not, and refuses to make ice until you do. It also validates the RFID code on the filter to ensure you bought the “genuine” $50 manufacturer one, instead of the $15 generic one with the exact same internals.

I’d be happy to allow manufacturers to record diagnostic information and send me alerts about maintenance issues, but right now they’re just using it to make my experience as a customer *worse*, not better. Until that changes, all my network-connectible appliances get their own WiFi and VLAN that’s firewalled from the family computers, and is prevented from unlimited access to the internet. It’s a PITA that I have to whitelist specific domains (Netflix.com, etc...) to allow them to do the function I bought them for.