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IoT Is the Third Big Technology 'Wave' In the Last 50 Years, Says Harvard
dcblogs writes: The Internet of Things (IoT) may be more significant in reshaping the competitive landscape than the arrival of the Internet. Its productivity potential is so powerful it will deliver a new era of prosperity. That's the argument put forth by Michael Porter, an economist at the Harvard Business School and James Heppelmann, president and CEO of PTC, in a recent Harvard Business Review essay. PTC is a product design software firm that recently acquired machine-to-machine firm Axeda Corp. In the past 50 years, IT has delivered two major transformations or "waves," as the authors describe it. The first came in the 1960s and 1970s, with IT-enabled process automation, computer-aided design and manufacturing resource planning. The second was the Internet and everything it delivered. The third is IoT. That's a strikingly sweeping claim and there will no doubt be contrarians to Porter and Heppelmann's view. But what analysts are clear about is that IoT development today is at an early stage, perhaps at a point similar to 1995, the same year Amazon and eBay went online, followed by Netflix in 1997 and Google in 1998. People understood the trend at the time, but the big picture was still out of focus.
You don't get it. IoT is a shorthand for the idea of having lots of networked sensors and actuators. In layman's terms: setups such as self-driving cars that warn each other about road hazards.
If this is the shape of things to come then there will obviously will be plenty of work for security experts.
This is all fine and dandy as long as a few simple requirements are well understood by the technology implementers.
1) Legal liability for appliances and their cock ups is handled in much the same way as it is now.
If my toaster starts a fire and burns down my house, the insurance cuts me a check immediately while they handle the legal battle with GE (toaster manufacturer) and UL (Underwriters Laboratory who signed off on the device safety). The same legal protections for technology in appliances should be in effect. If my dishwasher gets malware (or just includes it by default) and causes my refrigerator to stop working and spoil my food, the insurance cuts me a check for my losses and to replace the defective appliances, and handles the legal issues.
2) Device interoperability needs to be as easy as antiquated analog systems.
You could hook up a TV with RCA or coax connections and be watching off a VCR or DVD player in minutes. It's ridiculous that HDMI is rarely so straightforward (it occasionally works this simply). Resolution, aspect ratio, audio stream selection, and DRM phone home setup is retarded.
3) Pick a device class to be the central hub, management, and gatekeeper. I suggest home wifi routers or a cheap, simple network bridge device.
4) Full control of permissions and actions by devices with simple to understand language.
If I don't want my washing machine downloading ads for Tide and Purex, it better f---ing not download ads. Same goes for usage tracking uploads.
5) Power usage should not significantly go up. If anything, connected devices should be able to lend clues as to how little changes can make my home greener and/or lower utility bills. Example: washing machine suggests running wash cycle at 8 PM to get out of peak usage billing. It sends me an SMS if I select, to let me know to put the clothes into the dryer.
6) Device electronics / control should be isolated to prevent the additional complication from increasing failure rate.
It's stupid, bad engineering that the more features a home appliance has, i.e. the more premium it is, the more consumers see failures. If the toaster can't get online, it better still make my toast when I press the button.
That is mainly a problem if you sign up to get something for free. I don't expect that a company that makes 50 bucks net profit off of a fridge is going to risk their reputation in order to make a tiny bit more money by selling my data.
I'm more worried that the NSA would hack into an accelerometer intended to detect vibrations of the compressor and use it as a microphone to spy on my kitchen.
If you think that manufacturers have such small profit margins, you're kidding yourself. And cross-licensing deals with big data aggregators could be huge money for that scum.
Also, those scenarios aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr