7 ms·

The scariest part about the Internet of Things

27 points by Libertatea 13y ago

discostrings 13y ago
I got to 'Ten years ago, the word "smartphone" didn't exist' and stopped. I know it's just a topic-establishing observation, but it's terribly incorrect.[0] If the writer couldn't be bothered to check that basic claim, I can only assume it's a fluff piece. [0] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone-assault-3002124261 http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone-assault-3...
- fr0sty 13y ago
  Linked article is just over 11 years old. Is the author's rounding of 11 years down to 10 that offensive?
  - discostrings 13y ago
    Actually, yes. It wouldn't mind if the term originated 11 years ago and the author stated it was coined 10 years ago. But the author claimed it was less than 10 years old, and the term was around for many years before 2002--I just found that article as a quick example for younger readers who might think the term "smartphone" developed as a generic word for "iPhone-like device"--it may seem crazy, but some people actually think this, and the article's opening supports that narrative. Inaccurate, unthoughtful statements like this lead us to forget history, and they especially do a disservice to articles contemplating developments in the near future. I think it's relevant to the article that "smartphone" was a part of tech and business life and news before it became a household term--these products see a lot of development and a niche user base before, suddenly, everyone has them. That nascent period, during which products' dangers can be considered and hopefully diminished, is essential.
  - tedunangst 13y ago
    How hard would it have been to pop over to Wikipedia and read that Ericsson used the term smartphone in 1997?
wreegab 13y ago
Excerpt: "it also vastly expands the universe of things that could go wrong, particularly when it comes to privacy". Very funny, from an article sitting in a web page filled with tracker scripts and whatnot.
- acheron 13y ago
  Indeed. I got 9 Ghostery blocks there.
gooderlooking 13y ago
"Just because I know how to write PHP doesn't mean I understand these vulnerabilities at all." Ouch. You need to know a lot more than PHP to make your toaster talk to your dishwasher. And I'm pretty certain it's not the Maytag Man who's going to make it happen. The concern over securing mesh networks is real, but the argument in the article is terrible.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  I don't know... a lot of terrible wifi router software is written in PHP, and it's not clear that you can expect something different from your microwave.
sdrinf 13y ago
Honest question: under what circumstances would it be beneficial for my dishwasher to be "smart" at all, let alone be connected to the Internet? If that isn't a demonstrative example, what specific devices _would_ be useful to have Internet connectivity, and in what specific ways?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Remote temperature monitoring (and control). Current devices at least feel expensive, and they are generally some combination of arcane and crappy. I guess Nest is figuring this space out. At a low enough price point, being able to turn off lights and stuff like that is great, especially if there isn't much setting up involved. Lots of other things benefit from some sort of connectivity, being able to do data collection and monitoring over a network enables a much more passive approach (which I expect means more people will take advantage of the opportunity...).
- Symmetry 13y ago
  A whole lot of stuff related to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid
- antimagic 13y ago
  Remote diagnostics. The technician should already more or less know what is wrong with your machine before leaving the depot, which means s/he will already have the right parts / tools to get it fixed.
- pcunite 13y ago
  Send you a text when it is done or out of rinse aid. The text would actually go to your sibling so they can do their new chore.
- dublinben 13y ago
  A smart dishwasher could be programmed to run at the point in the day when your solar hot water heater reaches a certain temperature, or when electricity prices reach a certain level.
- 13y ago
gmuslera 13y ago
If security cameras teach us something, is that they are riddled with security bugs, never updated, and with hardcoded backdoors/admin passwords. The internet of things have high chances to make that problem worse, as it will give remote action more than just monitoring. And that without even taking into account our friends at the NSA and similar, that will require remote access to anything popular.
Pxtl 13y ago
I disagree that the wifi is a terrible single-point-of-failure. The chief concern in privacy security is not a criminal on the street or a member of your local police department - it's a vast swarm of overseas hackers or massive advertising conglomerates. For that case? Keeping the data in your home is fine. Doubleclick and Tribalfusion aren't going to be wardriving your neighborhood. Honestly, I'm waiting for somebody to make the one-stop zero-configuration grandma-friendly home server device. Something that gives you a DropBox-like file-server with optional internet-cloud mirroring, has a media bay with one-button backup functionality so you can easily get a detached hard-copy, runs a Print server and DNLA, its own Gmail-like webmail/imap system. If you make it a wifi router, it can also run its own domain and whatnot. The problem, of course, is half the ISPs provide a wifi router that isn't grandma-friendly to configure. Have all your home devices talk to that thing and not the Internet.
- Glyptodon 13y ago
  The router is a single point of failure if it's what's hooked up to your modem, especially now that routers frequently come with questionable built in services to make your shares and such available remotely and often have very questionable decisions made when it comes to their web interfaces and even basic things like password storage. Now that may be different than 'wifi,' but color me surprised if in the average home with wifi it's not emanating from a questionably configured router running questionable firmware with a direct connection to the Internet.
- ds9 13y ago
  Saying the router is a single failure point is a backwards way of saying, let these "things" talk to the internet in other ways too! If the router is properly configured (i.e. the way the owner wants it), it can be a single point of control - and that's the best case. The real threat, mentioning which would have justified the title, is that people may not be able to opt out of all the "things" reporting to outside parties.
- JonSkeptic 13y ago
  I like that idea a lot. I would throw money at it.
Spooky23 13y ago
The scariest part about the internet of things is that we're apparently doing it without discernable purpose that delivers benefit to the consumer. In the 90's, our refrigerators were going to tell us that we're out of milk. Now our refrigerators are going to be linked to some smart grid that will let utilities shape our electricity demand. (Presumably via punitive costs) As a consumer, I say screw the internet of things. I don't want my fridge letting Heinz know when I'm out of ketchup so they can push ads to me, and I don't want my dishwasher usage habits or thermostat settings available to government agencies for "any legal purpose" or my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods.
- ihsw 13y ago
  > Now our refrigerators are going to be linked to some smart grid that will let utilities shape our electricity demand. This is already happening[1] in Ontario: homes are encouraged to have smart meters manage your central air/central heating. You may adjust the internal temperature to your liking, however there is no guarantee that it will truthfully report the temperature. I've personally experienced such deception where I would adjust the settings and the internal temperature would move to the new target without any air-con/heating being activated. It's quite frustrating because then I would further fiddle with the temperature, and then it would be too hot/too cold. [1] http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/smart-meters-and-tou-prices/ http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/smart-meters-and-tou-prices/
- jeffreyg 13y ago
  I don't want my fridge letting Heinz know when I'm out of ketchup so they can push ads to me either. But I'd like my fridge to tell Amazon so that new ketchup arrives when I need it. + obligatory mentions of security, privacy, etc..
- intopieces 13y ago
  >my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods. I think this statement communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the energy use management implemented by the SmartMeters, or an attempt to villify a fairly clever project that has the potential to save tons of electricity. For one, the SmartMeter system is entirely voluntary, and can be taken out at any time. For another, at least where I live, it applies only to A/C, and only will shut off one time, for one hour, once every week during peak usage. Please do not present promising technology like this as some kind of Orwellian spectre of tyranny. It's really not.
lazyjones 13y ago
The engineers mostly understand these Things, but they do not have the same priorities as consumers, nor do they care about privacy, security, safety (apart from compliance with regulations). A good example is the recent trouble with LG smart TVs "phoning home" and LG telling consumers basically to suck it up since they accepted the ToS. Regulations cannot fix this or prevent abuse / privacy intrusions any more than the law can prevent illegal NSA wiretapping. Consumers will never be informed enough (they mostly don't care, or do not have access to a thorough analysis of these devices' behavior), so we're basically doomed.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  I predict "Your Home IoT Firewall for Dummies" is going to sell big.
kosma 13y ago
IOT engineer here. As much as it hurts, I have to agree with the spirit of this article: we, as the industry, are simply not prepared. Your average embedded engineer does not care much about security. When you launch a hardware product, the things you care about are stability, EMC compliance, extending battery life, getting the production chain right, packaging, cost optimization and squeezing every damn bug that causes random faults (remember, this is embedded, and pretty much any exception is equivalent to an instant device reboot). Security rarely gets mentioned simply because there are dozens of more pressing issues - the most important being getting that damn thing to work. This approach has worked fine for decades simply because there was no practical way of attacking a device - until now. Firmware has always been riddled with vulnerabilities. It's just the Internet connectivity that suddenly made them exposed.

27 points by Libertatea 13y ago

I got to 'Ten years ago, the word "smartphone" didn't exist' and stopped. I know it's just a topic-establishing observation, but it's terribly incorrect.[0] If the writer couldn't be bothered to check that basic claim, I can only assume it's a fluff piece. [0] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone-assault-3002124261 http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-launches-smartphone-assault-3...

fr0sty 13y ago
Linked article is just over 11 years old. Is the author's rounding of 11 years down to 10 that offensive?
- discostrings 13y ago
  Actually, yes. It wouldn't mind if the term originated 11 years ago and the author stated it was coined 10 years ago. But the author claimed it was less than 10 years old, and the term was around for many years before 2002--I just found that article as a quick example for younger readers who might think the term "smartphone" developed as a generic word for "iPhone-like device"--it may seem crazy, but some people actually think this, and the article's opening supports that narrative. Inaccurate, unthoughtful statements like this lead us to forget history, and they especially do a disservice to articles contemplating developments in the near future. I think it's relevant to the article that "smartphone" was a part of tech and business life and news before it became a household term--these products see a lot of development and a niche user base before, suddenly, everyone has them. That nascent period, during which products' dangers can be considered and hopefully diminished, is essential.
- tedunangst 13y ago
  How hard would it have been to pop over to Wikipedia and read that Ericsson used the term smartphone in 1997?

wreegab 13y ago

Excerpt: "it also vastly expands the universe of things that could go wrong, particularly when it comes to privacy". Very funny, from an article sitting in a web page filled with tracker scripts and whatnot.

acheron 13y ago
Indeed. I got 9 Ghostery blocks there.

gooderlooking 13y ago

"Just because I know how to write PHP doesn't mean I understand these vulnerabilities at all." Ouch. You need to know a lot more than PHP to make your toaster talk to your dishwasher. And I'm pretty certain it's not the Maytag Man who's going to make it happen. The concern over securing mesh networks is real, but the argument in the article is terrible.

Glyptodon 13y ago
I don't know... a lot of terrible wifi router software is written in PHP, and it's not clear that you can expect something different from your microwave.

sdrinf 13y ago

Honest question: under what circumstances would it be beneficial for my dishwasher to be "smart" at all, let alone be connected to the Internet? If that isn't a demonstrative example, what specific devices _would_ be useful to have Internet connectivity, and in what specific ways?

maxerickson 13y ago
Remote temperature monitoring (and control). Current devices at least feel expensive, and they are generally some combination of arcane and crappy. I guess Nest is figuring this space out. At a low enough price point, being able to turn off lights and stuff like that is great, especially if there isn't much setting up involved. Lots of other things benefit from some sort of connectivity, being able to do data collection and monitoring over a network enables a much more passive approach (which I expect means more people will take advantage of the opportunity...).
Symmetry 13y ago
A whole lot of stuff related to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid
antimagic 13y ago
Remote diagnostics. The technician should already more or less know what is wrong with your machine before leaving the depot, which means s/he will already have the right parts / tools to get it fixed.
pcunite 13y ago
Send you a text when it is done or out of rinse aid. The text would actually go to your sibling so they can do their new chore.
dublinben 13y ago
A smart dishwasher could be programmed to run at the point in the day when your solar hot water heater reaches a certain temperature, or when electricity prices reach a certain level.
13y ago

gmuslera 13y ago

If security cameras teach us something, is that they are riddled with security bugs, never updated, and with hardcoded backdoors/admin passwords. The internet of things have high chances to make that problem worse, as it will give remote action more than just monitoring. And that without even taking into account our friends at the NSA and similar, that will require remote access to anything popular.

Pxtl 13y ago

I disagree that the wifi is a terrible single-point-of-failure. The chief concern in privacy security is not a criminal on the street or a member of your local police department - it's a vast swarm of overseas hackers or massive advertising conglomerates. For that case? Keeping the data in your home is fine. Doubleclick and Tribalfusion aren't going to be wardriving your neighborhood. Honestly, I'm waiting for somebody to make the one-stop zero-configuration grandma-friendly home server device. Something that gives you a DropBox-like file-server with optional internet-cloud mirroring, has a media bay with one-button backup functionality so you can easily get a detached hard-copy, runs a Print server and DNLA, its own Gmail-like webmail/imap system. If you make it a wifi router, it can also run its own domain and whatnot. The problem, of course, is half the ISPs provide a wifi router that isn't grandma-friendly to configure. Have all your home devices talk to that thing and not the Internet.

Glyptodon 13y ago
The router is a single point of failure if it's what's hooked up to your modem, especially now that routers frequently come with questionable built in services to make your shares and such available remotely and often have very questionable decisions made when it comes to their web interfaces and even basic things like password storage. Now that may be different than 'wifi,' but color me surprised if in the average home with wifi it's not emanating from a questionably configured router running questionable firmware with a direct connection to the Internet.
ds9 13y ago
Saying the router is a single failure point is a backwards way of saying, let these "things" talk to the internet in other ways too! If the router is properly configured (i.e. the way the owner wants it), it can be a single point of control - and that's the best case. The real threat, mentioning which would have justified the title, is that people may not be able to opt out of all the "things" reporting to outside parties.
JonSkeptic 13y ago
I like that idea a lot. I would throw money at it.

Spooky23 13y ago

The scariest part about the internet of things is that we're apparently doing it without discernable purpose that delivers benefit to the consumer. In the 90's, our refrigerators were going to tell us that we're out of milk. Now our refrigerators are going to be linked to some smart grid that will let utilities shape our electricity demand. (Presumably via punitive costs) As a consumer, I say screw the internet of things. I don't want my fridge letting Heinz know when I'm out of ketchup so they can push ads to me, and I don't want my dishwasher usage habits or thermostat settings available to government agencies for "any legal purpose" or my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods.

ihsw 13y ago
> Now our refrigerators are going to be linked to some smart grid that will let utilities shape our electricity demand. This is already happening[1] in Ontario: homes are encouraged to have smart meters manage your central air/central heating. You may adjust the internal temperature to your liking, however there is no guarantee that it will truthfully report the temperature. I've personally experienced such deception where I would adjust the settings and the internal temperature would move to the new target without any air-con/heating being activated. It's quite frustrating because then I would further fiddle with the temperature, and then it would be too hot/too cold. [1] http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/smart-meters-and-tou-prices/ http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/smart-meters-and-tou-prices/
jeffreyg 13y ago
I don't want my fridge letting Heinz know when I'm out of ketchup so they can push ads to me either. But I'd like my fridge to tell Amazon so that new ketchup arrives when I need it. + obligatory mentions of security, privacy, etc..
intopieces 13y ago
>my utility company demanding that I stop making ice during peak electric demand periods. I think this statement communicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the energy use management implemented by the SmartMeters, or an attempt to villify a fairly clever project that has the potential to save tons of electricity. For one, the SmartMeter system is entirely voluntary, and can be taken out at any time. For another, at least where I live, it applies only to A/C, and only will shut off one time, for one hour, once every week during peak usage. Please do not present promising technology like this as some kind of Orwellian spectre of tyranny. It's really not.

lazyjones 13y ago

The engineers mostly understand these Things, but they do not have the same priorities as consumers, nor do they care about privacy, security, safety (apart from compliance with regulations). A good example is the recent trouble with LG smart TVs "phoning home" and LG telling consumers basically to suck it up since they accepted the ToS. Regulations cannot fix this or prevent abuse / privacy intrusions any more than the law can prevent illegal NSA wiretapping. Consumers will never be informed enough (they mostly don't care, or do not have access to a thorough analysis of these devices' behavior), so we're basically doomed.

Zigurd 13y ago
I predict "Your Home IoT Firewall for Dummies" is going to sell big.

kosma 13y ago

IOT engineer here. As much as it hurts, I have to agree with the spirit of this article: we, as the industry, are simply not prepared. Your average embedded engineer does not care much about security. When you launch a hardware product, the things you care about are stability, EMC compliance, extending battery life, getting the production chain right, packaging, cost optimization and squeezing every damn bug that causes random faults (remember, this is embedded, and pretty much any exception is equivalent to an instant device reboot). Security rarely gets mentioned simply because there are dozens of more pressing issues - the most important being getting that damn thing to work. This approach has worked fine for decades simply because there was no practical way of attacking a device - until now. Firmware has always been riddled with vulnerabilities. It's just the Internet connectivity that suddenly made them exposed.