SFHalfling

IoT has been giving a bad rep lately mostly due because the stacks that are running on embedded devices are difficult to fix for vulnerabilities, especially if they are using a custom OS that does not receive fixes for vulnerabilities

IoT has been given a bad rep due to a complete and utter lack of security procedures, not due to the stack it's built on.

The stack doesn't lead to software having hard coded admin passwords or being open to injection style attacks, throwing something together in a couple of weeks / months and not designing with security in mind causes the issues.

Updates allow you to fix these after it happens, but most shouldn't appear in the first place if developed properly.

Motherboard wi-fi is usually on a separate board that can be removed, or if not it can be disabled in BIOS or worst case disable the device in Windows.

I don't know about this place, but if I was doing public facing computers like this, I'd disable USB in BIOS then glue gun the physical ports.

Lifeprotip: If someone is blackmailing you - don't pay, you can't win.

See black mirror s3e4 for this as well.

Oops meant ep3, the one that had the teenager wanking in it.

Its far, far more expensive than on the continent, generally overcrowded and people don't really talk to each other on it.

The main reason for the cost etc is because of the age of the system, being amongst the first to create a national railway, stations were built for the traffic of the 1800s, not 21st century populations. People in the UK just don't talk to strangers in the same way that other nations do, probably due to the isolation that being an island nation instils.

Having said all that, I've never seen a train more than 5-10mins late for no good reason, and if you travel off peak times you can normally snag a seat if you are amongst the first few stops to board. And if you are in trouble / talk to whoever you are near most people will talk back, and pretty much everyone will help, we're just a fairly private nation.