[dathos]

I live off-grid, power and water wise, and it really irked me that the monitoring coming with my inverter is only available online. Even when there is a network available the app will not work. I fixed this by getting a raspberry pi connected and reading it from there, but if I disconnect the inverter from the internet it will create a new network so now there is always an open network in the middle of nowhere with no option to disable it.

I'm thinking about screwing it open and desoldering the wifi module but honestly I'll replace it in the next couple of years so I'd rather not kill myself by making a mistake.

[ansible]

The high-voltage side should be separated from the electronics, so it shouldn't be dangerous if you are observant.

It may be sufficient to just disconnect the antennas from the WiFi module, that will help prevent any network connections.

[Nextgrid]

Disconnecting the antenna would still have leakage at close range. Grounding the antenna might be a better option. But in practice, the dangers highlighted by the article only surface when an attacker has control of many solar plants at scale.

Compromising an individual one by getting close-range physical access will be a local annoyance but wouldn't scale to a level where it can threaten the grid, so it limits the pool of potential attackers to local vandals (which can achieve their goals easier by just throwing rocks at your panels).

[ijustlovemath]

Without an antenna, even at close range, initial handshakes will fail or be unreliable.

[serial_dev]

Disclaimer, ymmw, if you have no clue about these systems (average people), you can still easily kill yourself in the process.

[grecy]

What inverter do you have? Many like the Fronius have a removable networking card.

[m463]

why can't people just make stuff and sell it?

[Spivak]

Because humans are an ongoing cost and no one has figured how to sell non-consumable slowly depreciating goods as one-off purchases and keep paying your employees once you saturate your market.

Option 1: Artificially sell the thing as an ongoing cost.

Option 2: Artificially make the depreciation cycle faster. Get consumers to regularly replace it anyway with upgrades or trend changes.

Option 3: Make ongoing money from the item via a side-channel (tvs are great at this one)

Option 4: Manufacture and sell a huge number of different goods across market segments and weather the slow depreciation cycle (Oxo does this).

Option 5: Sell some consumable good you can get recurring revenue from along side the item (Coffee pods, printer ink)

Option 6: Make up the money on maintenance, repairs, and financing. Become a bank.

Option 7: Make your money in some other sustainable profitable business and drop the product once you've gotten what you can for it.

All of these kinda suck and option 1 is easy to implement.

[callmeal]

>keep paying your employees once you saturate your market.

employees? they get fired once the market is saturated and demand flattens. ITYM shareholders.

When you look at it from that angle, another possible solution is:

- downsize manufacturing plant/capacity to make it match (or slightly exceed) replacement demand.

But that would mean a steady state profit margin (and not a cancerously growing one), so it will never fly.

[lotsofpulp]

In a developed country, there are lots of regulations and liabilities you are exposed to once you start selling something.