Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Netherlands Gets First Nationwide 'Internet of Things' (phys.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the flat-as-a-pancake-terrain dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Netherlands has become the first country in the world to implement a nationwide long-range (LoRa) network for the Internet of Things, says Dutch telecoms group KPN on Thursday. "As from today the KPN LoRa network is available throughout The Netherlands," KPN said in a statement. Phys.Org reports: "The rollout of a low data rate (LoRa) mobile communications network is critical to connect objects as many may not be able to link up with home or work Wi-Fi networks to gain Internet access. The LoRa network is complementary to KPN's networks for the 2G, 3G and 4G phones. KPN has already reached deals to connect some 1.5 million objects, a number which should steadily grow now that the LoRa network is available across the country. Tests are being carried out at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam -- one of Europe's busiest air hubs -- for baggage handling. Meanwhile in the Utrecht rail station an experiment is under way to allow LoRa to monitor rail switches."

9 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Keep in mind where the word "sabotage" originated. by cunina · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A country-wide interconnected Internet of things is exactly what hostile cyber warriors dream of.

  2. Re:Reasons why I don't like the Internet of Things by NotInHere · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This only works as long as not everybody is doing it. The moment that happens, the manufacturers will make the device broken unless you connect it to the internet all the time. The device will open one connection, only one: to the manufacturer. It'll be TLS encrypted and will use public key pinning. All the traffic the device will cause will go through that connection.

    No firewall will help against that.

  3. Re:What does this mean? by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's just the fucking internet

    It's just the fucking internet if you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

    Now if you feel the desire to educate yourself why not start with how well you will be posting on Slashdot on a network with a datarate of 0.3kbps to 50kbps. Then ask yourself why the country with the 6th highest average internet speed would roll out something so slow. Finally estimate how long you can surf the internet from a single AA battery.

    Now when all of this sounds absurd to you maybe so will your idea that "It's just the fucking internet".

  4. OMG they will watch me everywhere by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Except they won't. This is a technology not unlike Television and the Internet. The IoT revolution in the personal space is about gathering your personal data, but guess what, no one is going to roll out a nation wide network so that someone can read your thermostat.

    This is a good example of practical IoT, not this bastardised thing about lightswitches and toasters which the unwashed are convinced is all there is about it. We're talking massive amounts of useful sensor data that can now be connected just as before ... except without SIM cards, without taking up resources on local mobile phone systems and without the incredible battery drain and big solar panels that current devices have.

    Before everyone freaks out about what an invasion of privacy this is, remember that IoT is just a rebranded way of saying "sensor network" and all those fancy new technologies behind them are nothing more than reading those sensors in a way that consumes much less power than before.

    1. Re:OMG they will watch me everywhere by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      but guess what, no one is going to roll out a nation wide network so that someone can read your thermostat.

      Nobody rolled out the Internet so that someone can read your thermostat, but amazingly, that is one of the many security and privacy issues that have come up once thermostats started being connected to the Internet. I.e., it isn't the REASON for the IoT network, but that doesn't mean there isn't somebody ready to try doing it just to prove they can.

      and all those fancy new technologies behind them are nothing more than reading those sensors in a way that consumes much less power than before.

      Oh, ok. So it cannot be an invasion of privacy because whatever is watching you uses much less power than before.

      Right now, today, there are concerns about privacy and security when Internet connectable things show up in people's houses. There are easily predicted issues of both for more advanced devices as they begin to show up. I hate to tell you, but none of those issues will be resolved just because the devices will use a lot less power than they did before.

      And the issues will not be made better when the device you bought yesterday could be blocked by adding it's MAC address at your home router, but tomorrow there will be a ubiquitous wireless national network that you cannot block carrying the data the device creates to places you don't want it to go.

  5. Re:Reasons why I don't like the Internet of Things by mark-t · · Score: 2

    If the fridge transmitted untrustworthy data, you would use a firewall to block all of it... and probably not allow it to have a public-facing IP address at all. To allow remote access to information it might provide, you would use another local machine on your network that does have a public facing IP (or can otherwise be accessed remotely). Instead of querying your fridge directly, you would query that other machine instead, which could pass on a request to your fridge about its contents on the same network, but would only transmit the information about the fridge contents that you actually asked for. Any pictures of your crotch that your fridge wanted to transmit would stay inside of your network, and would never go anywhere else.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  6. Re:Keep in mind where the word "sabotage" originat by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 3, Informative

    It comes from the French language, not Dutch. The Dutch have "klompen", not "sabot".

  7. Re:Reasons why I don't like the Internet of Things by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    It totally does matter.

    1) You give the fridge unfettered access to anything it wants.

    or

    2) You come home from work and your ice cream has melted and the milk's gone manky.

    Those are the options when you have refrigeration as a service.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  8. not the first nationwide long range network IOT by phsdv · · Score: 2

    Don't believe all this marketing crap. This is definitely not the first nationwide long range network IOT network. The French did beat the Dutch on this with their SigFox network (in early 2015. source). Sigfox is even rolled out nation wide in the Netherlands already. As is in Spain, Portugal and Ireland. And many countries will follow, like the USA, Brazil and Germany. Good thing is that Sigfox does not know about roaming, Sigfox will work no matter where you are as long you have coverage and your device is operating in the same frequency band. As Europe it operates in the 868 MHz and USA in the 902 MHz ISM band.