Login
You're viewing the y.diskcat.com public feed.
  • Stefan Eissingicing@chaos.social
    Nov 5, 2026, 6:04 AM

    Coffee with mother yesterday. She: „What is it with hacking refridgerators?“

    Simple greed! Fridge companies sell maintenance.

    That used to mean sending out a technician, checking, ordering parts, delivering and installing.

    With fridges on the internet, they check online for faults and send parts and the technician in one visit.

    Much cheaper!

    Unless you count the cost of proper security. Which cuts into/eliminates profits.

    Better leave that out and get promoted away before things go wrong.

    💬 2🔄 0⭐ 0

Replies

  • Piranhallamasecuredllama@infosec.exchange
    Nov 5, 2026, 8:26 AM

    @icing component sellers do not supply the maintenance contracts. Reliability matters more to users than most things in the refrigeration industry. If something increases maintenance costs end users move away from it pretty quickly.

    Connectivity with a computer interface is an easy way to update a whole manner of parameters and can even be done across multiple controllers at once. It also means that refrigerant data can be uploaded as needed. FGas regulation and other industry issues cause refrigerants to be changed within the lifetime of equipment. Sometimes the blend would not be known at the time the component was made. This requires a parameter update on the control software otherwise you need to buy an entire new component.

    The only real failing here is that the controls were connected to the wider internet rather than on internal networks only. The OEM of the component advises that it should not be connected to the public internet.

    💬 0🔄 1⭐ 2
  • Stefan Eissingicing@chaos.social
    Nov 5, 2026, 8:31 AM

    @securedllama Thanks for the insights. Assuming the supermarket chains do not manage that themselves, there are maintenance contractors and they "simplified" things for them a bit too much?

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • JP Mens™jpmens@mastodon.social
    Nov 5, 2026, 9:17 AM

    @icing what I don't understand is requiring connection *to* the fridge instead of having the fridge publish (.e. MQTT) its status *to* the company (i.e. outgoing only)

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0
  • Stefan Eissingicing@chaos.social
    Nov 5, 2026, 9:19 AM

    @jpmens That would mean the OEMs would require more than a browser from whoever maintains these things, I guess.

    And super market chains probably pick the lowest bidder to do the maintenance?

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 0