This week Ray, Tom and Sean discuss the hacking of the adultery-centric site Ashley Madison, drones causing problems for California firefighters, and security flaws in Jeep Cherokees. That and more on this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast.

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THIS WEEK’S RUNDOWN

Ashley Madison gets hacked

Last week, hackers targeted AshleyMadison.com, an online dating site for married people looking to have an affair, and claimed to have downloaded its complete database of 37 million user profiles. The hackers, who call themselves The Impact Team, are threatening to release all the profiles publicly unless Avid Life Media, the company that owns Ashley Madison, shutters the site permanently along with sister site EstablishedMen.com.

Image credit: Ashley Madison

The hackers also take issue with Ashley Madison’s paid “full delete,” where the site charges users $19 to full erase their profile. The hackers claim that Ashley Madison does not in fact purge all of their records from their database, even after a full delete has been paid for.

Strangely, as of this podcast, the hackers have released only two of the 37 million profiles. One belongs to a man in Brockton, Massachusetts, the other to a man in Mississauga, Ontario, in Canada.

Stupid, stupid drones

Drones prevent firefighters from putting out a fire on the 15 Freeway in Southern California’s Cajon Pass. Cars were stopped on the 15 because of a wildfire and several caught fire. Firefighters were unable to get water to the cars because five drones were hovering over the site. Apparently this has been an ongoing issue with the wildfire that is so bad it’s been given a name, North Fire.

Drone operators have been flying around while firefighter helicopters have been trying to do their job. This particular incident was so bad, several people were severely burned, and twenty vehicles were completely destroyed. Two of the drones even pursued the helicopter.

In equally stupid drone news, an 18-year-old decided to attach a gun to a drone and fire the gun. He probably would have been fine if he hadn’t also decided to video record it and post the video to YouTube. The FAA is investigating the case to see if any federal laws were broken.

This isn’t the first time someone has weaponized a drone. In 2013 a company that creates screen protection built a drone, attached a gun to the gimble and shot some video of the Skynet-esque monstrosity shooting soda bottles and cans, and a Samsung Galaxy.

Hackers demonstrate exploit that allows them to remotely control Jeep Cherokee

Wired reports that white hat hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek were able to take control of a Jeep Cherokee using the Chrysler Uconnect system installed in the vehicle. The hackers performed their exploit remotely while Wired’s journalist was inside. The hacker’s code reportedly allows them to control the AC, change the volume of the stereo, control the transmission, disable the brakes, and kill the engine.

The hack comes just as senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal are introducing new legislation that will mandate digital security standards for cars and trucks.

Apple kicks Nest out of bed

Re/Code is reporting that the Apple Store no longer carries the Nest Thermostat, Nest Protect or Nest Cam online or in its retail stores.

This all happens of course after Google bought Nest last year, and Apple is about to launch the first of its HomeKit automation enabled products. No surprise, around the same time as the Nest Thermostat was taken off the shelves, the Ecobee 3, a wireless thermostat that does work with HomeKit quickly took its place.

Unfortunately, none of this is terribly surprising. Apple sold tons of fitness bands like the Jawbone Up and the Nike FuelBand… right up until they launched the Apple Watch when they quickly dumped the products off their shelves.

This could be a sign that Nest won’t support HomeKit. Which is sad for iPhone users who were looking forward to the day when we could tell Siri to turn the temperature down, like their Android friends can do with Google Now.

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The Nest Thermostat is a learning, programmable thermostat.

If you’re like most people your eyes just glazed over. I mean, those are two of the most boring words in the English language: thermostat and programmable. Thermostats are something that people use because they have to, not because they want to. They are boring gray boxes that go on the wall somewhere in your house. And, only nerds like to program stuff. I mean who enjoyed programming the time on their VCR?

What should be the most boring thing in my house is actually my favorite device in my house. Okay, let me be fair, maybe it’s my third favorite device after my Macbook and my iPhone. Let’s start with aesthetics. The thing is beautiful. It’s round, and has a glass front, and brush steel ring around the outside. It blends in and compliments every wall it is on because it reflects the colors of the wall. It doesn’t look like a gadget, It looks like a piece of modern art on my wall.

The interface is incredibly intuitive. It’s a thermostat, so to turn it up, or make it warmer, you turn it clockwise, to turn it down or make it colder, you turn it counterclockwise. Just like the old-fashioned thermostat that used to be in every school-house and home. When the AC is on, and the house is cooling, the screen is blue. When the heater is on and the house is warming, the screen is orange. So it gives you a visual indicator of what you’re heating and cooling system is doing. And, I’ll tell you, if that was all that it did, it would be a really nice thermostat. It would still be better than almost everything else on the market.

But, that’s not all that it does. One of the features that I love is that the Nest detects whether you are in the house, and if you’ve been away for a certain time, it goes into “auto?away “mode. You don’t have to worry about making sure that the air is turned down when you go on vacation anymore! Or when you go away just for the weekend.

Another great feature is that the nest thermostat connects to the Internet via your Wi-Fi network, and you can control it from the web and from your iPhone or android device. That way when you’re on your way home from your vacation, you can turn the AC back on, and it will be nice and comfortable when you walk in the door. The inherently lazy part of me also appreciates that I don’t have to get out of bed in the middle of the night when my wife complains that it’s too cold, Lord do I have to get off the couch in the middle of a movie marathon because it’s too hot. Nest Labs recently announced Works with Nest, which essentially turns a Nest Thermostat into a hub for your home automation. Companies like Whirlpool, Mercedes-Benz, and Jawbone have added integration with the Nest Thermostat into their products to make them more convenient and energy-efficient.

At this point, you probably noticed that I haven’t said anything about how to program it. Well, that is really one of the greatest things about it. You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is use it for a couple of weeks, and the Nest thermostat just figures out how long it takes your house to cool down or warm up, and it figures out how you like the temperature in your house to be and when, and sets your schedule based on how you use it. So, for instance, if you like it to be kind of cold when you go to bed but warmer when you wake up, and you always set it to 72° around 10 o’clock and 78° when you wake up at 6:00, after a couple of weeks, the thermostat will automatically set itself to cool down to 72° by 10 PM and warm back up to 78° by 6 AM. And, if you always leave the house to go to work at about 8:15 AM and get home by 6:30 PM, your house will start going into auto away mode automatically at 8:15, and it will automatically turn back on in time to have the house cooled back down by 6:30.

Americans waste a lot of energy running our our air conditioning units all the time. Most people forget or just don?t want to turn their AC up when they go to work. If you don’t think that matters, just think about this, half of most home’s electric bill is controlled by the thermostat. If you have a properly programmed thermostat, you can save 20% off of your energy costs.

Finally, the Nest Thermostat is ridiculously easy to install. It took me a total of 20 minutes. Most of that time was me reading over the instructions 4 times because I was nervous that I would mess something up. The instructions are super easy to follow, and if you have a “complicated” old thermostat like I did, all you have to do is take a picture of your old thermostat, send it to Nest, and they will email you back a custom wiring diagram. All you have to do is remove the faceplate of your old thermostat, apply the included labels, and then plug them into the Nest Thermostat base plate. Everything you will need is included in the box, including a screwdriver. But if you really don’t think you can do it, or you just don’t want to do it, Nest has certified installers that will be more than happy to take your money from you to install a Nest thermostat in your home.

The Nest Thermostat is available for $249 at Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Google Play, The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and of course, Nest.com.