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by matthewmacleod 3525 days ago
I think that's okay.

We don't expect all homeowners to be, say, experts in electrical wiring, or gas supply, plumbing, drainage, or waste management. But all of these things—if they are poorly modified, managed, or maintained—can cause impacts on third parties. In the case of networked devices, the possible impact on third parties is even greater. We also enforce strong regulation on these systems – defining what may and may not be legally connected to public utility networks, for example.

We would probably expect a homeowner to hire a tradesperson to maintain these services, and in some cases it's legally mandated that only a qualified person may install or modify these systems. Is it then unreasonable to kick consumers off of the Internet when they install poorly-maintained devices, and require them to resolve the problem – perhaps by hiring the networking equivalent of a qualified plumber?

3 comments

Then we need to regulate the installation and maintenance of home networks like we do plumbing and electric. This is not a small requirement, and given the current ubiquity of home networks and networked devices it will be an incredible challenge to implement.

Probably a startup idea or two would come out of that sort of regulation. Now that, to install that Nanny Cam, I have to hire a certified network administrator.

If the ISP were held responsible by contract, the ISP could either transfer that responsibility as described above or they could just filter their outbound a little harder. The latter solution seems more practical.
Or they could go the cheap route, and have a whitelist of devices you're allowed to use on your network.

Huh, weird, this whitelist seems to mostly consist of devices the ISP would be glad to rent out to you on a monthly basis...

What sort of regulation are you referring to? I'm not a plumber or electrician but I replace broken faucets and light switches. No certification required.
I was more referring to requiring homes be up to code. You're right that individual projects don't really require anything special, more important when building new buildings.
I feel like Amazon, Best Buy and new egg could get together and create a standard for IoT devices, no? Though I guess they'd get hit with antitrust.
I'm not all that familiar with standards bodies, but is it common for retailers to create standards? Isn't it often the case that industry does this?