I had a weird thing, I abandoned a reddit account after a 3 day ban over a month back. I cleared the cookies, presumed it was logged out. Cleared all cookies, cache, history, all of that like 20 times, and after clicking on a few reddit posts as search results to get links to streaming shows, I noticed it had me logged in somehow.

I never even set it up to automatically log me in, or even fill in my username. I had to type in my username and then select my password from the manager by hand.

How is it it apparently kept me logged in for a month, or at least every time I found a reddit thread on a search engine and clicked on it? Am I hacked?

So there is nothing about like niche hobbies on there? Like gourmet mushroom cultivation, or brewing I take it?

Yes probably justified with arguments to prevent people from sharing child abuse pictures.

I don’t care about downvotes. That is interesting, my point that it’s better to not have internet capable appliances in the first place is valid, as well as the point that you can only minimize the potential to be spied on not eliminate it, I would strongly presume the NSA has a backdoor for instance. Suspect the manufacturers have ones too. Possibly fusible links to brick them all to boot, as is rumoured.

But it’s good to minimize the danger if you insist on having them, and with phones and computers we all do now. The post would garner more engagement and less such flak if it just explained that in the post page and not assume everyone s a linux developer

If you want to call ranting making valid points not addressed in the post. There is no reason to have internet connected everything, you cannot trust that they aren’t exporting your data even with home assistant. You should address that in your post or expect such commentary.

Oh idk about vulnerabilities being limited to sophisticated actors like the nsa in the us or the five eyes countries that give an end run around prohibitions on spying on their own citizens purportedly leading spying in member country then sharing it back with them, even when it’s cia doing all the spying and just forwarding it to the uk and back with a letterhead.

Corporate interests themselves have vulnerabilities written into everything. Palantir type companies, a bunch of super shady Israeli companies that repurposed the most malicious codes ever written, written by our intelligence agencies to target Iran and the like, (flame, others,) to spy on computers, phones, and everything connected.

But also just data brokers in general are hooked into data flows those manufacturers said they weren’t taking and ineviably are caught taking anyway because who is going to stop them, and what are they going to do about it when they find out? And the answer is if some do gooder catches them and forces the authorities to act, they will just have to pay lawyers to negotiate a payoff to the government without admitting responsibility, and are mostly insulated from consumer lawsuits anyway as ToS agreements force all of their purchasers to waive their rights to sue in using those products. You are also criminally liable for changing the code on any of them, or even breaking any electronic “lock,” on any of the electronics.

So if there was a vulnerability and you publicized it and a how to fix the software the feds could charge you with a serious felony. Based on some 1998 law to protect cd companies, and I think a newer law as well.

Back up what statements? That corporations spy on us and can’t be trusted? And to suggest that surrendering even the capability for everything you do to be garnered by hackers in addition to just accepting the nsa and cia wil get their hands on it and run it through ai threat detection and then disseminate their half baked conclusions to agencies and business secretly in a way that will affect everything but you will never know or be able to challenge, is a threat whether you realize it or not. Social credit scores run by palantir types but not at all limited to them. Privatized social credit scoring at that, owned by the antichrist himself.

Well obviously I did have no idea what home assistant was. On this forum that should be expected and answered in the post itself however. Obviously you are going to get that, along with people that skip it entirely because of it.

My point is not to buy internet connected devices that have no business being internet capable in the first place.

Then that there are vulnerabilities in the security that can be exploited even when you think you are safe. It’s great to minimize the vulnerabilities, not as great as not enshitifying those appliances in the first place.

Also on this forum you should anticipate that attitude and address it in the post.

While that sounds interesting, my broader point is you should buy non connected appliances. That you can’t trust you will be able to keep that information from data brokers.

There are base exploits written into the internet as we know it, you can’t trust you can keep them out, even in knowing all of that, but yes maybe I came across half cocked there I could’ve made my point less dickishly sorry. And if _* you do decide to have smart devices, and we already do with our computers and phones so it’s almost a moot point without addressing that (with open source phones and operating systems on computers,) it’s better to have a system to minimize the possible fuckery ports.

Because the internet is corrupted at a base level, moreso than you know.

Condemning owning “smart devices” is not half baked, it’s common sense and you trusting you can keep them from spying on you is naive, and as I told another person, you should get checked for taxoplasmosis, which affects the fear center in the brain and could be widespread. I’m serious about that too.

I’m not sure you don’t have taxoplasmosis, a brain parasite all mammals can harbour, passed between cats and rodents, the rodents lose their fear of cats as it affects their fear center. Up to 30% of the population could have it, it explains a lot.

I don’t think you understand that these devices are not secure. By design they aren’t secure, they collect more than they let on, that information is accessed by data brokers. To trust manufacturers in saying information is not being collected despite the capability for it in the machines, to trust they aren’t sharing data, aren’t selling it, is laughably naive this 2026. It doesn’t matter what they told you, you are surrendering your information to data brokers one way or another, and by extension to the worst people in the world, that can and will use that information against you whether it is readily apparent how or not.

I know smart devices spy on us, collect our data, and transmit it to data brokers, even when they say they don’t. Even if your home assistant didn’t share the information, it would be garnered by the government and or data brokers. That anonymized information is not, by combining sets of data they can identify everyone involved, and so forth.

Why do you need a toaster that can be controlled to the internet, a washing machine, a dishwasher? Thermostat you could argue could be helpful, although that gives hackers an ability to change your temperature when you are away. There is no good reason for any of these devices to be collecting this information on us, even if you don’t see the danger in it on it’s face.

You are giving the makers of so called smart appliances the benefit of the doubt? That’s laughable. Anyone not born yesterday should be well aware all the data collected by these devices is being shared, despite what they say, and it ends up with data brokers that sell it to anyone, including in whole to the federal government that distributes it to agencies, and does the devil knows what else with it.

What? You are here for integrating all electronics into some internet connected spying machine to record everything we do and send it to data brokers/ peter thiel, bezos’ house?

“Integrating” your tv, your thermostat, your refrigerator, toaster, oven, microwave, etc., into a subscription model in time at that. You will be paying money or forced to watch ads for using your own purchased electronics that were owned unreservedly in full in all generations prior, but now you are in effect just renting their operating system of the device, and criminally forbidden from changing/editing it. Hackers, the government, business groups, other organized interests can brick all your appliances at any moment, or spy on everyone in the vicinity.

The people I’ve spoken with are all against these so called smart devices, the purveyors of which are removed from consequence as long as they share/sell the information to the government as well, not the least removed from consequence for flooding social media with influence operations, mechanized, now with ai chatbots new models coming soon, to drown out real people, give them a false impression of how the public feels, instill a hopelessness, and sell things just like this.

Ignorant of what they are doing acceding to the oligarchy in accepting, paying for the spyware, giving a mass of information to those interests and by extension the government, foreign governments, hackers, organized interests, ect, that previous oligarchies and tyrants couldn’t dream of,

The doj could do better, they are ordered not to.