A concept that gets us very excited is the so-called "Internet of things." After all, who wouldn't be excited about the prospect of living in a world configured like a "Jetsons" episode?
The idea, in a nutshell, is that digital connectivity should allow us to operate our total physical environment from any online device. We'll be able to do everything from monitoring railroad hardware to watering the office plants, from any location, with nothing more than a smartphone. The Internet will run our world: or rather, we'll run it, digitally and remotely, via the Web.
Thrilling, right? But, as ever, technology threatens to get way ahead of security. Sure, there are practical problems, too. Monitoring processes on a single factory floor, for example, is easy and economical compared with attempting to monitor wear and tear on tens of thousands of miles of railtrack, and the hundreds of trains that run on it.
The security implications, however, may be an even bigger obstacle to realizing a comprehensive digital environment. Almost by definition, if it's online, it's hackable. There have already been incidents of hackers gaining access to transit networks, such as the exploit last August, which compromised the VPN of a "major international airport."
In a sense, this is familiar stuff. But how about more focused attacks? Vanity Fair sent a shiver down the spine last month by speculating on how smartphones could be used to interfere with automobiles, private residences, and medical devices. The smarter your care, your home, or your medical device is, the more readily it might lend itself to hacking.
Murder by pacemaker? Implanted medical devices already transmit data about heart function to service centers via cellphone connections. But their performance can also be remotely managed, as demonstrated by a researcher at a conference in Australia last October. Barnaby Jack showed how to deliver an electric shock to a hacked pacemaker.
Imagine, too, the opportunities to interfere with a robo-car. Program your destination, sit back and relax, and hope that a targeted hack doesn't send you off a cliff.
There are rich pickings here for screenwriters, but if connectivity is going to bring big changes -- and potential benefits -- to our everyday lives, we're going to have to figure out how to save these nightmares for the movies.
there were always some dangerous means, that could harm people. I think the society should pay more attention at moral and ethical upbringing.The technologies get more and more potential to harm people, but these are people, not technologies who actually are dangerous.But you are very right, noone is ready to give up technocomfort to be more safe- we are happy to believe that we happily escape any difficulties
@Mitch - Development of technology have forgot to think of security measures, and now seem to pop up which is a social security threat. I think we are too late to roll back and correct our self; we are already so used to the techno world. Technology in the wrong hands will cause disaster.
Interesting idea, Lin. I was reading this morning about all kinds of possible regulatory interventions, and it did make me wonder about whether we might see a plurality of Webs or other platforms, not far down the road.
"The Internet will run our world: or rather, we'll run it, digitally and remotely, via the Web"
@Kim -- agree, interesting changes are coming. I just don't think that our Internet, or our Web, will be part of the picture. There will be a platform, just not one based on protocols designed decades ago.
I get the feeling you're right, Mitch. The creators of the technology may assume that security will be reviewed somewhere down the road: but there's no guarantee of that.
Nice way to put it Jabailo: if everything is connected, everything is a potential weapon against us. Now that doesn't mean everything is dangerous -- just that anything might become dangerous, if interfered with.
This is looking like technology that was deployed without thinking through the threat implications.
Ironically, as a society we're overly paranoid about security, seeing terrorists in every shoe. But in contemplating new technology we often swing too far in the other direction and fail to think through adequately how wrongdoers might exploit it
I was thinking about a scenario where someone takes control of Predator drones, but it's been done, larger scale, in the Jamie Foxx movie Stealth using a self-flying advanced fighter jet. Perhaps a sequel would have formations of buzzing quadcopters harassing citizens.
Then there was the fire sale scenario of Live Free Or Die Hard where a giant traffic jam was created in Washington DC by tweaking traffic lights. 10 years hence, it might actually be a giant demolition derby if we were to give up our driving privileges to Google Cars. Steven King might also update Christine to a 2019 model...
But sure, if Everything is a weapon...or Arm...are we privileged to have them, or should everything in our pocket arsenal be well-regulated?
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
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Edward Snowden was so convinced that the Prism program involved secretive surveillance through Internet backdoors that he walked out on his job and his girlfriend, spoke to the media, and resigned himself to jail, or worse. It turns out, he might just be wrong.
In one of the nastiest -- not to mention large scale and long-term -- hacking exploits yet to be reported, it appears that the Chinese army has been rummaging through the data of those who have served in the US Armed Forces.
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New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
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