Home Improvement → Re: Eversense or Nest thermostats

Nest is owned by Google, so unless you want to be providing Google with additional information about your schedule/lifestyle I would avoid. It is hard enough to avoid Google simply through the course of day-to-day email and internet browsing. I sure don't want my daily patterns being sold off to the highest bidder and being telegraphed to the NSA/CIA/FBI/local police. We already have enough dead dogs with SWAT teams going in today, we don't need them to have more information.

Curious, has anyone verified that the Nest is phoning home (to Google) with metrics?
And couldn't one sniff the LAN and setup blocks for out bound of that port?
(or would that defeat remote control and monitoring?)

I like the idea of a Nest but someone miffed at cost (those that get Utility discount are luckier).

The Nest devices shares the data back to the Nest company servers -- they do the analytics there and send you emailed reports on usage and how your usage compares to others in the area (aggregated).

This was from Day 1 and has nothing to do with Google's purchase.

While that might be true, I find it hard to believe that Nest's competitor (for example, Eversense), on seeing Google presumably selling the data would say "...we have data ...it's worth a lot of money, so much so, that Google sells it, but we're not like Google, so we're not going to monetize it".
Sure, Google's now the 'evil empire', but if it's worth it for Google to sell the data, I'd be willing to bet that anyone else with this 'valuable commodity', would do the same. (if not today...eventually)

For them not to do so is foolish.

"being telegraphed to the NSA/CIA/FBI/local police.

Yea, we want to make sure it's comfortable for them when they come to take away your Aluminium foil.

I think the only one that might be interested in such data would be law enforcement. But then again, they could always pull records from the utility company to get a more complete history. And if it's suspicious enough, maybe get a warrant to search the home for pot growing materials or drug manufacturing.

Though supposedly before they check utility records they have night flights that do a thermal image scan of the area they are interested in. If a house is "hot" then what it should be, then they may pull the utility records and such.

Last I heard using a thermal imaging camera on a home still requires a warrant.

The data itself is useless and Google isn't selling just your thermostat data. They aggregate it with all the other data they have. So they know, for instance from your Google Android (R) TM branded mobile phone. For instance, they know that on days when you leave work late, you might also turn up your thermostat and pick up drive-thru food. They can detect this pattern, and so when KFC says "we want to buy customers who are 15% more likely to buy drive thru food today) they can query their systems (including your nest) and determine if it is likely or not you're going to buy drive-thru. They can then deliver targeted ads through their Google brand Chrome web browser.

Or another way, what about if every time maddamx@yahoo.com emails you, you turn up your thermostat 5 degrees and then drive to the liquor store to get a bottle of wine before she makes it to your house. Liquor stores could request all the customers who are liekly to buy booze this afternoon, and that is all based on your thermostat + other data.

NO THANKS, OPT OUT FOR ME

A specific home? Or a neighborhood. For example flying over head and snapping images of a subdivision, not any one home in particular.

Thermal imaging of a home is considered a search under the fourth amendment and thus requires a warrant. Are you suggesting that amendment doesn't apply if they violate it over a large enough area?

So they can't image an area at all unless they have a warrant? Just like they can't drive by snooping for open wifi connections to snoop later.
Guess I'll put the tin foil hat away and not worry any longer about the low flying aircraft at night buzzing around the area during the spring and summer months. Ya, I'll trust the government is following the letter of the law.

I can only refer you what the Supreme Court ruled in Kyllo v. United States

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky ··· d_States

Interesting though that you are worried about thermal imaging to pinpoint a house to examine utility records when evidently law enforcement can get the neighborhood's or city's electric records with little to no effort.

"Cory Borgeson, president of the Golden Valley Electric Co. in Fairbanks, Alaska, told NPR he is stunned at how easily the government can obtain personal information with subpoenas. For instance, agents at the Drug Enforcement Administration wondered if some of Golden Valley's customers might be making or growing drugs in their homes. Drug dealers sometimes use more electricity than normal, and their power consumption records can potentially be a clue. So the DEA served a subpoena on the utility, ordering it to turn over detailed digital records on its customers' electricity use, bank and credit card accounts, and other information. Borgeson says the standard for getting a subpoena is so low that it's essentially "one agent turning to [his or her colleague] and saying, 'Would you please sign this administrative subpoena for me so I can get information?' "

Golden Valley tried unsuccessfully to block the subpoena in court by arguing that the government needed a search warrant."

»www.npr.org/blogs/alltec ··· otect-us

So, to bring this back on topic, I really don't see how the usage patterns of a home thermostat could implicate a person beyond what is already available legally to the authorities.This is an illegal search and won't hold up in a court of law. But they can get the electric records easily so it makes no sense to think that they would compromise their investigation with a warrantless search when they already have access to the utility records directly and legally.