As a systems engineer, I wholeheartedly agree.
Site reliability engineer here, and same. The only “smart” devices in our house are PCs I built/wiped and reconfigured myself.
+1 to this. Beside our phones there is no smart device in our home (and when not in use, they’re turned off and stored in a box to limit their ability to spy on us). No TV, no Alexa, no smart light-bulbs, no smart thermostat, no smart doorbell,…
Heck, I even stopped using my Kindle (and completely quit reading DRM-protected ebooks) because I had enough of Amazon ‘monitoring’ my reading habits.
F*ck that, I want privacy. If digital can’t give it to me, I’m going back to good analog ;)
Also, as an ex-lifelong Mac user (started in the early 80s) our PCs have been running Linux for a few years now, and so far I’ve not morphed into some kind of geeky-hairy-creature. I’m still as bald and as neatly shaved as I always have been, and I’m barely any more of a geek :P
There is one Windows machine still running at home, the one my spouse must use for her work. That being being said, seeing how great the USA-EU relationship have been since Putin’s orange angry puppet has started his new show in the oval office, and knowing the rather specific field my spouse is working in I would not be surprised if her bosses suddenly realized using Windows was not the brightest idea ever and decided to switch everyone to a less spyware-filled and a less US-owned OS alternative. We will see. Meanwhile, the webcam and microphone are constantly covered, and the PC itself is unplugged from the network (Ethernet only) and from the wall-plug after hours. Paranoid & excessive? Maybe… I’d rather be paranoid than be sorry I was not enough ;)
