[jakeonthemove]

Well, with the way it's been going, you'll soon have no choice but to rely on cloud services.

Everything is a goddamn service now - even my fingerprint reader wants an Internet connection - yeah, screw you Authentec!

Even managing multiple WP sites now has to be done via a third party service: https://managewp.com/ (I've got nothing against them, they're very good - in fact, there is no better local alternative, which is what makes me sad/angry).

[jacquesm]

> even my fingerprint reader wants an Internet connection

That is worrisome on many levels at once.

[jakeonthemove]

And I only found out after starting to manually block connections with a firewall... Authentec's TrueSuite became a must-install for some reason if you want to use their drivers and device on Windows.

One connection is for the software updates, and there are 2 other that I have no idea what they're used for. The TrueSuite app has an app store link and the features to export and import the fingerprint scans... So much for security...

[jacquesm]

Let's hope it is at least their software that they wrote that tries to make the connection and not something riding piggy back.

Fingerprint readers would make for a pretty good tool if you want to apprehend people on the lam, especially since you can lift their fingerprint, their location and a date/timestamp all at once. And they're self selecting in that the kind of people more likely to be doing naughty stuff would also be more likely to invest in such things as fingerprint readers.

[mattrad]

There is an alternative to managewp.com: https://wpremote.com/ (not affiliated, etc.)

It's free, and UK-based - so benefits from EU data protection. By @humanmadeltd.

EDIT: Running on EC2 AFAIK, so subject to Safe Harbor, FWIW.

[jakeonthemove]

And again, out of the user's real control... Sure, the security seems sound, but you still put all your eggs in someone else's basket, so to say, with any such cloud service.