Reposting this from here from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard.
The text in the image:
I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology
but then they have to keep that data–and you just know they keep all those passwords. (support call… q:i dunno what the password is/can’t read the sticker. a:gimme x or y off your unit, and i’ll look it up for you).
but if they do it programmatically, all they’d need is the code to recreate any password if given the constant used to create it (the ssid or mac or sn, for instance).
hopefully they would use something that can’t be obtained off the wifi broadcast, like the sn on the unit.
Hmm, yeah, good point. It could be based off a hash of the serial number or something similar.