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Please excuse my potential naivete on the subject, as I don't work in the hardware space, but I asked this in the dupe yesterday and didn't get a follow up. I

Please excuse my potential naivete on the subject, as I don't work in the hardware space, but I asked this in the dupe yesterday and didn't get a follow up. I don't understand why most IoT devices require an Internet connection to work, for anything other than phoning home (data collection by the device provider). Of course, a Television is different than a Refrigerator here. Unless you live in a mansion where the distance from devices becomes significant, couldn't your "Home PC/Tablet/phone" connect to your IoT device via bluetooth or on the subnet? Exploits are still possible, but the majority of them would be localized. The cost of slightly lower ease-of-use (which can be mitigated by good OS support) would appear to have numerous security benefits.

matthewmacleod 10y ago
One of the more obvious use cases is remote control of devices – say you want to turn the heating on remotely, then at some point it's going to have to communicate outside the network. Or if you have a remotely-accessible camera. Or an alarm system that notifies you when it goes off. Or a locking system, and so on. I'm not arguing that this is a good thing, but it does explain why the devices want remote access. In an ideal world, this would function through some kind of home hub device – a single point of communication between "outside" and "inside", which has many clear benefits. In practice, it's going to be difficult to do this; devices don't use any kind of shared protocol or system that would enable this. I am currently working on an 'IoT' project, and it also connects to a central server, directly, over wifi, for exactly these reasons. It's hard to see what other approaches are possible at this stage, until there is some kind of industry-wide standard that's actually used by manufacturers.
- FilterSweep 10y ago
  > In an ideal world, this would function through some kind of home hub device – a single point of communication between "outside" and "inside", which has many clear benefits This is exactly what I was suggesting, and thanks for your input! I believe this is a space where Raspberry Pi has some potential - as there are some open sourced projects that handle some of these functions. Personal anecdote: I recently bought a PiNoIR module and plan on building a (relatively primitive) apartment security system in which the machine the camera-pi "phones home" to can send my phone Twilio SMS if any motion is detected. Problems I foresee is if the home computer is pwned, both devices can be exploited for the same nefarious task. :EDIT: Granted, most consumers don't want to "DIY" as much as I do.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> Unless you live in a mansion where the distance from devices becomes significant How do I check my cameras from work? When I realize I didn't remember to record my favorite program once I reach work, how do I fix that? > couldn't your "Home PC/Tablet/phone" connect to your IoT device via bluetooth or on the subnet? Not every customer has a NAT router setup at home. > The cost of slightly lower ease-of-use (which can be mitigated by good OS support) Lower hanging fruit would be not leaving a telnet server open on the box in the first place, which is apparently already more work than some of these companies are willing to invest. And I'm not sure how good OS support is supposed to make up for the lack of a NAT router, or how you're supposed to limit things to your home network when you want to access them from work - or how those two fundamentally incompatible goals are supposed to be made compatible by "good OS support".
anexprogrammer 10y ago
For the most part they don't. I think it's mostly groupthink and data that's driving it. No one thinks outside the loop of gather data, send home, analyse and sell, app talks to web Case in point, Musicbee - the excellent music player, has a little Android remote control app. It just operates via the local net behind the firewall. It's reliable and a well designed Android app. If Samsung, Apple, or any startup were providing this it would send all your data to the website and the app would operate via the website too. You'd gain the "convenience" of being able to change track and volume when out of earshot, and a web portal with adverts targeted on your listening and a pretty graph or two. There's no need for my toaster, dishwasher to be web aware. Living on the local net would be enough for any of the features they give.

matthewmacleod 10y ago

One of the more obvious use cases is remote control of devices – say you want to turn the heating on remotely, then at some point it's going to have to communicate outside the network. Or if you have a remotely-accessible camera. Or an alarm system that notifies you when it goes off. Or a locking system, and so on. I'm not arguing that this is a good thing, but it does explain why the devices want remote access. In an ideal world, this would function through some kind of home hub device – a single point of communication between "outside" and "inside", which has many clear benefits. In practice, it's going to be difficult to do this; devices don't use any kind of shared protocol or system that would enable this. I am currently working on an 'IoT' project, and it also connects to a central server, directly, over wifi, for exactly these reasons. It's hard to see what other approaches are possible at this stage, until there is some kind of industry-wide standard that's actually used by manufacturers.

FilterSweep 10y ago
> In an ideal world, this would function through some kind of home hub device – a single point of communication between "outside" and "inside", which has many clear benefits This is exactly what I was suggesting, and thanks for your input! I believe this is a space where Raspberry Pi has some potential - as there are some open sourced projects that handle some of these functions. Personal anecdote: I recently bought a PiNoIR module and plan on building a (relatively primitive) apartment security system in which the machine the camera-pi "phones home" to can send my phone Twilio SMS if any motion is detected. Problems I foresee is if the home computer is pwned, both devices can be exploited for the same nefarious task. :EDIT: Granted, most consumers don't want to "DIY" as much as I do.

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

> Unless you live in a mansion where the distance from devices becomes significant How do I check my cameras from work? When I realize I didn't remember to record my favorite program once I reach work, how do I fix that? > couldn't your "Home PC/Tablet/phone" connect to your IoT device via bluetooth or on the subnet? Not every customer has a NAT router setup at home. > The cost of slightly lower ease-of-use (which can be mitigated by good OS support) Lower hanging fruit would be not leaving a telnet server open on the box in the first place, which is apparently already more work than some of these companies are willing to invest. And I'm not sure how good OS support is supposed to make up for the lack of a NAT router, or how you're supposed to limit things to your home network when you want to access them from work - or how those two fundamentally incompatible goals are supposed to be made compatible by "good OS support".

anexprogrammer 10y ago

For the most part they don't. I think it's mostly groupthink and data that's driving it. No one thinks outside the loop of gather data, send home, analyse and sell, app talks to web Case in point, Musicbee - the excellent music player, has a little Android remote control app. It just operates via the local net behind the firewall. It's reliable and a well designed Android app. If Samsung, Apple, or any startup were providing this it would send all your data to the website and the app would operate via the website too. You'd gain the "convenience" of being able to change track and volume when out of earshot, and a web portal with adverts targeted on your listening and a pretty graph or two. There's no need for my toaster, dishwasher to be web aware. Living on the local net would be enough for any of the features they give.