Internet of Bings

[PhilF]

I have some more dirt on treadmills (no pun intended).

Most use a DC motor that is pulse width modulated for speed control. The DC power is supplied by a switch mode power supply.

These motor pulses are square waves, rich in harmonics. Left unfiltered, they are injected into the power line which pollutes the surrounding RF environment with very nasty noise that can extend up to 100's of MHZ, with the power line acting as a transmitting antenna.

The treadmill industry, for some reason, has decided to ignore this issue so they leave their power supplies completely unfiltered. Some are so bad that my neighbor's high-end, expensive treadmill would knock my DSL service out whenever it was in use. I had to purchase an expensive external filter and plug his treadmill into it in order to fix the problem.

So why add $5 worth of parts to each treadmill, right? Let the poor unsuspecting customers fight with troubleshooting all the interference we cause...

[retina]

Originally Posted by PhilF

So why add $5 worth of parts to each treadmill, right?

Many countries have emission regulations that would ban such products, and put the sellers at risk of prosecution if they ignore them.

Maybe you can talk to your politicians about getting some regulations to cover things like that.

That is, assuming they aren't too busy taking backhanders from the makers to keep the laws more lax.

[PhilF]

Originally Posted by retina

Many countries have emission regulations that would ban such products, and put the sellers at risk of prosecution if they ignore them.

We have plenty of said regulations, we're full up lol. But why they don't seem to apply to the treadmill industry is beyond me.

[retina]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021...stern-digital/

Western Digital, maker of the popular My Disk external hard drives, is recommending customers unplug My Disk Live storage devices from the Internet until further notice while company engineers investigate unexplained compromises that have completely wiped data from devices around the world.

At least one user has come to a very startling discovery:

“It is very scary and devastating that someone can do factory restore on my drive without any permission granted from the end user,”

Well you connected it to the Internet, so it was really just a matter of time.

Anyhow, all those drives are at least six years old (last sold in 2015), so it was well past the point where moving the data forward onto new drives was needed.

Plus where are the backups? Did people have all their drives (the live set and all the backups) as the same type and all connected 24/7?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by retina

Plus where are the backups? Did people have all their drives (the live set and all the backups) as the same type and all connected 24/7?

Even if I had perfect backups of a bricked drive, I would still be somewhat miffed at having to restore everything.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by PhilF

We have plenty of said regulations, we're full up lol. But why they don't seem to apply to the treadmill industry is beyond me.

EMI from DC motors seems to be covered by US regulations: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations Title 47: Telecommunication, PART 15 - RADIO FREQUENCY DEVICES

§15.3 Definitions.
<snip>
(n) Incidental radiator. A device that generates radio frequency energy during the course of its operation although the device is not intentionally designed to generate or emit radio frequency energy. Examples of incidental radiators are dc motors, mechanical light switches, etc.
<snip>
§15.5 General conditions of operation.
<snip>
(b) Operation of an intentional, unintentional, or incidental radiator is subject to the conditions that no harmful interference is caused and that interference must be accepted that may be caused by the operation of an authorized radio station, by another intentional or unintentional radiator, by industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) equipment, or by an incidental radiator.
<snip>
§15.13 Incidental radiators.
Manufacturers of these devices shall employ good engineering practices to minimize the risk of harmful interference.

So it would seem to be a matter of getting them enforced. You might try talking with the FCC about how the above regulations pertain to DC motors in treadmills

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by retina

Plus where are the backups? Did people have all their drives (the live set and all the backups) as the same type and all connected 24/7?

Similar devices are marketed with USB ports for plugging in external backup drives. And have only a single well known share name available for the plugged in backup drive. NAS-USB-backupdrivewithknownsharename
Redundant backup over the network to an external drive that gets filed in a metal cabinet is a way around the wiped-main-and-backup.

And if it could be bricked or wiped, one wonders what else might have been done to/with the stored data. Some sensitive data ought only be on a well stored USB stick or paper.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by kriesel

Some sensitive data ought only be on a well stored USB stick or paper.

Personally, I argue that for long-term offline, (hermetically sealed) spinning rust is still the better option over any type of solid state*.

* I'm talking in the contemporary ICT space here. Volumes of pages of QRCodes are also an option. As is pounding symbols into rocks. 9-)

[retina]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xq...s-and-location

"When I launch the app, the damned thing wants all sort of permissions: location, phone calls, media, and ... contacts??? The app won't work without these permissions,"

These situations speak to two issues: Apps that demand permissions that they don't need, and "smart" and internet of things devices that make formerly simple tasks very complicated, and open up potential privacy and security concerns.

If you have a Samsung internet-connected appliance, and are uncomfortable letting its app see all your friend's phone number, try using the newer app, or maybe just use the washer the good old fashioned way—without a phone.

People get seduced by all the shiny new tech and make their lives more complicated, less fun, and just generally worse. But they still go out and buy the next new shiny thinking it will be better.