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The Internet Of Things Is Becoming More Difficult To Escape (npr.org)
An anonymous reader writes: After a long day, many of us try to set down our technology and unplug from the world around us. But, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center, over the next few years, that will become much more difficult to do. The Internet of things will continue to spread between now and 2026, until human and machine connectivity becomes ubiquitous and unavoidably present, according to experts who participated in what Pew described as a "nonscientific canvassing." About 1,200 participants were asked: "As automobiles, medical devices, smart TVs, manufacturing equipment and other tools and infrastructure are networked, is it likely that attacks, hacks or ransomware concerns in the next decade will cause significant numbers of people to decide to disconnect, or will the trend toward greater connectivity of objects and people continue unabated?" The answers they gave were telling: 15 percent said significant numbers of people would disconnect while 85 percent said most people would just move more deeply into connected life. Unplugging is futile, and plugging in is unavoidable. It's already difficult to create distance from the technology that surrounds us, but as connectivity increases, it might become impossible to do so.
It's not 'unavoidable' in any way shape or form and this whole story is complete and utter BULLSHIT. You do not have to BUY ANY 'IoT' things AT ALL to start with, and you do not HAVE to use them, either.
> concerns in the next decade will cause significant numbers of people to decide to disconnect
Not in the next decade, but now.
30 years ago I wanted things like "networked thermostat or blinds or whatever", it was called domotic, it was on an intranet and it seems cool, but very expensive.
Now there is a lot of connected devices (some still $$$) but there is no way I want my devices on others people servers (clouds) with poor security and closed firmware.
And you know what, finally, we don't need IoT, I don't need my washer/dryer on the internet, I can close my blinds myself too.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
I don't need nor want crap like my thermostat, refrigerator, etc being connected to the internet. It offers no ACTUAL benefit, but very real privacy and safety concerns. No thank you, not in my house!
Why would you want to add all this complexity to your life, I just don't get it. Appliances are supposed to free up your time but if you go gonzo trying to optimize their use you will achieve exactly the opposite.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The internet of things is a mess. I really dislike that catchphrase too. I believe the idea of a physical connection to the internet being unavoidable is very much a logical fallacy.
I prefer things that do not loop in because I can control them better. When I buy them I own those products and that means I get to decide how to use them.
The moment I realized I would have to install an app to make my coffee maker work, was the same moment I bought a stainless microfilter and a french press and took that thing back to the store.
Throw out anything that loops in -- you don't need it! The ONLY reason they want to do that is to get you hooked. Either so you don't use someone else's coffee or so you don't use refilled ink. Whatever. Just put your money on good quality gear that is more analog and you'll be MUCH happier.
And the last place one should look for any kind of scientific discovery is through non-scientific canvassing. The opinions of the unwashed masses are popular ones, but that does in no means make them correct.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The old science fiction cliche repeated again
Resistance is futile!
Resistance is useless!
Writing/reading is one of the first technologies, and no one considers escaping from that.
The IoT and related technologies are still young and not assimilated into culture the way other more mature ideas are.
That gives me hope about the future, that maybe the things from sci-fi and things promised by futurology will one day be real.
The real reason incandescent lightbulbs were terminated is that LED bulbs are so much easier to build advanced tracking electronics into without notice, and since they last much longer the devices will be in place for much longer...
Paranoia or Future Reality, you decide. Something to make you wonder the next time you see an abnormally cheap LED bulb.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This article focused on how people put up with risk to get what they want, their prime example was car accidents are accepted to because we love cars.
The problem is that the LOT usually is for the benefit of the COMPANY, not the owner. They find something that people want just a little bit and sell it based on that convenience. Take the silly "BUG MY HOUSE" products now being sold, that offer internet searches and music in exchange for letting companies place always on microphones in your home. Huge benefit to the corporations, hue invasion of your privacy, all in exchange for not having to take your phone out of your pocket and tap one button before making the request.
Yes, silly people buy these things. But people d not have to. Their advantage is minimal and I truly doubt it will ever achieve the ubiquity of cars, fridges, TVs, etc.
This is typical. In general IOT is not a huge innovation allowing new consumer things for a minor cost, instead it is a huge corporate benefit with a minor consumer benefit.
It's not revolutionizing our life, it is just revolutionizing corporate business.
As such, it will probably be similar to Premium cable channels, like HBO. Some people, but not all or even most, will buy these things. Many people will refuse.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I don't have one of those. I am not missing out on anything.
IoT needs to be something more than a wireless light switches and blinkenlights.
Scott Adams might be right. God committed suicide and we are the aftermath trying to put him back together again. Once computers are omnipresent, our only choice will be to become one with the hive mind.
On a more serious note, computers have been for several decades now enhancing our human ability. Very few jobs are immune as a person that uses a computer can out compete the person who doesn't. In areas like accounting, one person can now do the job that 10 people used to do. As computers continue to make humans better, smarter, and more efficient, it will be hard to hide. Unfortunately though, making a job more efficient doesn't mean that the job becomes more enjoyable. In a lot of cases, by making jobs more efficient, we are taking the enjoyment out of them. I'm not sure what the solution is to this.
Industrial IoT Strategy Is Top Of Mind For Partners....yep, harder. http://www.crn.com/news/intern...
... these things had good security. It seems that you can't go a month without hearing about some IoT hack or another. It's bad enough when it's an IoT camera in a kid's toy (or nursery camera), but how long before somebody uses an IoT stove to start a house fire?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The opinions of the unwashed masses are popular ones, but that does in no means make them correct.
There was this guy that wanted to prove this exact thing, trouble was:
Statistician Francis Galton observed that the median guess, 1207 pounds, was accurate within 1% of the true weight of 1198 pounds*
He ended up proving the thing he wanted to disprove.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd
What is really unavoidable is the Resistance to this state of affairs. Fifteen percent of discontent will be enough to start it. I think there are at least 1 billion people who will refuse to be enslaved by corporations and governments. The future is bleak. IoT will bring more misery into our midst.
...it is what it is connected to! I like the idea of devices all around me sending information to a central information hub that I can query and control. I don't like the idea of each device sending sensitive information to its 'true owner's web server' somewhere in the cloud where it can be mined, hacked, or outright stolen by an employee. I don't want all those companies able to disconnect me from my data just because I don't feel like paying some exorbitant monthly fee. There are a whole host of issues with the current IoT architecture. We need a completely different architecture where all MY devices send and receive data to/from MY central controller. I get to choose how the data is used and who I want to share it with.
I bought one of these awesome, super duper water coolers from NZXT. The Kraken X62
https://www.nzxt.com/products/kraken-x62
Pretty cool colors and what not. The control panel for it (CAM software) asks for a cloud login which then of course runs every time you login. There seemed to be a problem just after I got it where the settings for fan, pump, and colors would not save between restarts. It has a guest mode, but even that lost settings or would insist on loading with reduced functionality without the cloud login. Huge support thread ensued.
http://support.camwebapp.com/forums/252256-cam-bugs/suggestions/17316232-kraken-x62
You know it's getting bad when even a CPU cooler "requires" a cloud login to work properly.
What's increasingly difficult to stomach is festering evil pervading tech industry.
Used to be somewhat focused on creating better tools to get shit done.
Now it's basically marketing Trojan horses to the public. Massive firms engaged in intentionally psychologically engineering products to maximize technological addiction and pervasive cyber stalking leveraged against consumer to ensure not one extra cent is ever left on the table.
The reality has always been dwindling returns on connectivity. IoT goons are laughably unable to communicate a coherent value proposition. Just spraying Internet dust all over the place isn't going to make anyone's lives better except those few behind the scenes leveraging marketing terms and virtue signaling to justify further ownage of the user to say nothing of creating unnecessary vectors for compromise by governments and criminal organizations the world over.
The road to hell is the path of least resistance.
Here is why people embrace the IoT no matter what.
If I could I would travel back in time to set up a second Slashdot account, spending decades living on the proceeds of my foreknowledge just to arrive at this moment in time where my elderly account could mod up your comment since it had not yet posted.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just because someone else wants to make a buck of your devices/info being "in the cloud" doesn't mean you have to use their services.
Any basic devices can be made in to a iot devices using a $3 sensor and a $3.50 module using either and esp8266 or the ESP32 or an nrf51822 if all you need is Bluetooth. Run node-red and you have you own intranet iot, put a router on it and you've got "web".
A couple of afternoons and you can have chains of monitors with PID control and event management, and no data leakage or some new start-up collapsing and taking your iot with it.
You just have to do nothing. And don't give any of your devices your WiFi password.
I guess you've never read the Consumer Reports magazine. For decades, Jeep has been among the very worst automobiles on the market. All the US made cars were poorly rated, especially Chrysler cars and less so GM cars. But Jeep was just awful.
Additionally, a motorcycle gang was just busted for exclusively stealing Jeeps. They were able to get key code info from a dealer and they discovered that it was easy to open the hood from outside and disable the alarm system.
Yes, avoid IoT crap while you can, but note that even the dinosaur Jeep is full of hackable stuff.
...omphaloskepsis often...
It's about control, specifically, controlling your behavior.
Smart Fridges: Monitor your eating habits. Later, using social media, they can shame the fatties. Competitions on who eats less, who uses more high-value , high margin ingredients. Get "points" and score higher than your friends. Make sure to make good use of the chocolate ration!
Washers: Wash when water is readily available. Washing during a drought, get shamed.Washing too early? Too often? Get named and shamed. Make good use of the water ration citizen!
Home security. Come home late? early, must not be working hard enough. Let big brother know when it's ok to root through your stuff. Make good use of the day citizen!
Stoves : Not cooking enough? Using too much of the electricity or gas ration? get named and shamed!
Lights: Leaving the lights on? Get named and shamed, make good use of the electricity ration citizen!
Cars: Driving too much, making too many detours, not using gas efficiently? get named and shamed citizen! make good use of the petroleum ration!
my wife's new vehicle comes with 3G internet built-in... there are dubious for-pay features, but even if you don't pay, they're apparently required to give you free 911 and Assistance calling.
This is one of the few areas where I have a legitimate ethical dilemma about requiring IoT-style connectivity.
Having a vehicle summon help automatically after an accident and provide advance information to emergency services if no-one in the vehicle is able to do so is literally a life-saver, and is fast becoming a legally mandated feature of new vehicles in much of the world.
On the other hand, having such a phone-home system used for anything else, including things like sending telemetry data back to the vehicle manufacturer or dealer about anything whatsoever, is well into creepy surveillance world. Having anything other than one-way communication available is also a potential security risk.
I have a tracker in my car anyway. It was required to get insurance from literally anyone I asked, and insurance is a legal requirement in my country regardless of its practical benefit. But the tracker is operated by an independent company, whose agreement is with me and me alone, and is not connected to any other system other than I think for power. The only thing anyone can do with it is activate the tracking system so police can try to locate the vehicle if necessary, and they have no incentive to do that other than at my request or in a genuine emergency.
If I could buy a new vehicle with no remote communications but the anti-theft and emergency-call functionality and any self-contained radio or navigation systems I chose to include, that would be great. But of course no-one wants to sell me one any more, because too many people think having an integral WiFi hotspot follow them everywhere they go is wonderful and have no idea of the potential downsides.
Sadly, given the safety, efficiency and comfort improvements of modern vehicles, cars are one of the few devices where updating to something much more connected really will be a practical necessity before long. At least for now I can still buy one that I theoretically control myself, and there's apparently some information out there about the electronics so I can make a slightly informed decision about who the least bad options are from a security and privacy perspective.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I admire the sentiment, but unless you really are going to live as a hermit off the grid, just doing what you can to avoid this sort of intrusion personally is never going to be enough in our brave new world. What we actually need is for our laws and more importantly the social/ethical views motivating them to catch up with the capabilities of modern technologies.
The real solution to excessive privacy intrusions and security lapses by businesses is remarkably simple: they just have to cost the businesses and those running them significantly more than they stood to gain.
The real solution to excessive privacy intrusions and security lapses by governments is for enough people to become aware of them and the negative consequences that the political will moves.
Unfortunately the latter is probably a prerequisite for the former as well. Even more unfortunately it probably means multiple very bad things have to happen very visibly and to a lot of people to overcome the ignorance/apathy surrounding these issues among non-geeks.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... Until it is *mandatory* to connect your IOT fridge to the internet, which i am pretty sure will never happen (data protection, right of consummer, and the problem of legacy place without internet) , what's the problem to buy an IOT fridge which is not connected to anything whatsoever ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's not just IoT: In last few months, everything Android has been getting voice activation. No, I do not need my calculator to use 'full network access'. That's another weakness a hacker/cracker can exploit to steal my identity.
Why would you want to add all this complexity to your life
You don't. The purpose of all this is to spy on you and record your every move, permanently archiving the data to be either sold for profit or used against you. You can bet your house the only benefit to you, if any, will be trivial.
Disagree. It will always be possible to turn data or wifi or ethernet cable off. Not all people want "all time connected" devices. I don't want my fridge reminding me of sh*t, neither my other appliances. I still allow my TV and mobile to show weather forecast. But I shut Google Now, and am past two years with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts deleted.
All those "connections" are, really, not important for our daily life to go on appropriately.
Kerosene fridge, anyone? God bless the Amish.
"News" About the The Internet Of Things Is Becoming More Difficult To Escape
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
...is widespread advanced brickerbot software. When everybody's internet-connected-whatever gets bricked a week after they buy it, the manufacturers will feel pain. And I can assure you that they probably don't have a clue about real security, either.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Jeep has been among the very worst automobiles on the market.
I have a 1993 Jeep its a great car realiable and gets where I want to go and has NO IoT.