Fear them tooth brushes.

  • fishos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    In another posting of this, it was pointed out that this is just a game of telephone that started with someone saying “I dunno, maybe they used electric toothbrushes?!?” basically. There’s no concrete evidence of this actually occuring and is just being reposted over and over as fact now that it’s been picked up by bigger sources and now those sources are being pointed to as proof.

    I forget the name of it, but it’s when the original source is lost and all current sources are just an oroboros consuming itself. You have the original, shakey source, its picked up by a reputable source, then everyone starts sharing that as the source, giving the story credibility. Eventually everyone is just referencing a copy of a copy(sometimes with one of the copies even being credited as the OG source).

    Most outrage media is this. One person said something on social media, it gets repeated by a source that “matters”, and eventually it is “fact” with “thousands of supporters”. The Starbucks Holiday drama is usually just a handful of people on Twitter being spread around, for example.

    EDIT: FOUND IT. Was an old XKCD comic. “Citogenesis”. When people don’t pay attention to the original citation anymore because it’s been replaced by “better” citations that validate it in a weird catch-22 way.

    • OSH@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      I updated the title, but will leave it, unless the majority wishes to remove it.

      Nevertheless it’s a great reminder of what we might get ourselfs into with all these fancy IoT Devices we put into our homes.

      Here also the link to the original paywalled article that started this avalanche.

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    Is this the onion? Fucking toothbrushes? Who the fuck connects their toothbrushes to wifi?

  • edric@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    10 months ago

    I’m pretty happy with my $20 electric toothbrush with no fucking smart IoT features.

  • EmperorHenry@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Who the fuck would ever connect their fucking toothbrush to the internet?

    That’s almost as stupid as connecting your laundry machines to the internet, or your thermostat, or any other appliance in your house

  • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    None of my IoT devices can be used in a botnet because they are not connected to my wifi for internet access, dont have internet access, and get patches and security updates regularly, because they are all running on open source.

    IoT stuff is absolutely fine as long as you’re not a moron that thinks marketers need to know your brushing habits and you happily give that data without a second thought.