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Cisco Offers $300,000 Prize For Internet of Things Security Apps
alphadogg writes "Cisco today kicked off a contest with $300,000 in prize money that challenges security experts around the world to put together ways to secure what's now called the 'Internet of Things,' the wide range of non-traditional computing devices used on the electric grid, in healthcare and many other industries. A Cisco SVP concluded his keynote at this week's RSA Conference by announcing what he called the 'Internet of Things Security Grand Challenge.' Christopher Young said the idea is 'a contest of experts around the world to submit blueprints' for how security issues created by the Internet of Things could be addressed. It's expected that up to six winning entries would be selected and the prize money awarded at the Internet of Things Forum in the fall."
I want to keep my devices secure. This means: Let me control them. Don't require them to phone home, or to be connected beyond my local network if I don't want. If they need to talk to a server, let me run that server on my own locked down box in my own house. Let me replace the OS on the "thing", if I want, because I won't be able to trust yours, because you have every incentive to sell me down the river.
Unless I control what software is run, and what it talks to, then there can be no security for my "internet of things".
But you won't, will you? You didn't really want to know I can keep my "internet of things" secure. What you really wanted to know was: how to present a facade of broken security while data-mining me to hell.
What kind of combination of genius and moron do you have to be to solve a major security issue like this and then give it to Cisco in exchange for virtually nothing?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The whole drive behind IOT isn't convenience, it's monetization of information.
The marginal cost of a "smart" device is much more than the marginal return selling such a device on its own merits. Either you jack up the price of the device to cover the gee-whiz features or you don't, but the only reason they don't is because they have figured out how to sell this info to someone else.
The Nest is a great example. I think the last 7 day programmable thermostat I bought might have been $50; the Nest is $249 from their online store. What, exactly, does the Nest do that my Honeywell model not do for $200? It may be able to vaguely predict occupancy and make adjustments, but the "dumb" Honeywell model pretty much covers this -- we get up, we leave the house, we come home, we go to bed at about the same time. There's so few use cases where automagic adjustment would make any sense (and many where it wouldn't work).
A smart fridge is one where there's almost no use cases that don't involve product/marketing tie-ins -- selling my use of tagged products to marketers.
The only way you're going to get IOT is if you either pay the freight for the intelligence or let the device sell your info.