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A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is As Creepy As You Feared (nytimes.com)
schwit1 shares a report from The New York Times: More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk. [...] In recent years, the tech industry's largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. There's just one catch, which often goes unstated: If their novelties take off without any intervention or supervision from the government, we could be inviting a nightmarish set of security and privacy vulnerabilities into the world. And guess what. No one is really doing much to stop it. The industry's new goal? Not a computer on every desk nor a connection between every person, but something grander: a computer inside everything, connecting everyone.
Cars, door locks, contact lenses, clothes, toasters, refrigerators, industrial robots, fish tanks, sex toys, light bulbs, toothbrushes, motorcycle helmets -- these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting "smart." Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend -- known by the marketing catchphrase "the internet of things" -- but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung. [American cryptographer and computer security professional Bruce Schneier] argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with security and privacy for society generally. Putting a computer in everything turns the whole world into a computer security threat. [...] Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. "I can think of no industry in the past 100 years that has improved its safety and security without being compelled to do so by government."
Cars, door locks, contact lenses, clothes, toasters, refrigerators, industrial robots, fish tanks, sex toys, light bulbs, toothbrushes, motorcycle helmets -- these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting "smart." Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend -- known by the marketing catchphrase "the internet of things" -- but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung. [American cryptographer and computer security professional Bruce Schneier] argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with security and privacy for society generally. Putting a computer in everything turns the whole world into a computer security threat. [...] Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. "I can think of no industry in the past 100 years that has improved its safety and security without being compelled to do so by government."
Just like we have the "Organic" label on electronics, we should have a new label for things like TVs and other internet connected things that says that that thing does not have a microphone or video camera. I can't bring myself to give my TV my wifi password or buy a new 4k roku box because they all have microphones and cameras now!
Most of these devices are running ZigBee. ZigBee is a suite of "layers". The MAC layer is 802.15.4, network is ZigBee Pro, the application is a binary format call ZigBee Cluster Library. (Google is pushing Thread which is 802.15.4, Thread network layer, ZigBee cluster library for the application). ZigBee Smart Energy is the variant in your electric meter on the side of your house. It uses certificates, a long unique joining code, and a key agreement and certificate authentication scheme call EC-MQV to provide security. Thread has pretty good security, they use a Password Authenticated Key agreement and strong security at every level of communication. Unfortunately, in most other versions of ZigBee security is trumped by convenience.
If you want the $1 device to monitor your behavior and keep wireless contact with cloud servers, you'll probably want an OS to make things easier.
Boiler and pressure vessel safety codes, power piping design codes, and more came from ASME which is not government. The industry had to regulate itself for safety and there was not much government to regulate them over 100 years ago. So there is a counter example you arrogant asshole.
That's either a naive or a purposely misleading description of what has happened.
Insurance industry required those safety improvements from manufacturers because that reduces their risk exposure. That risk exposure exists because insurance is an industry heavily regulated by the government, and exposed to the legal system in the US, and as such must pay out valid claims. If government did not regulate insurance and courts did not compel it to pay, insurance industry would have no incentive to push other industries to improve their safety standards (as evidenced by many countries where legal system is weak or corrupt, to this day).
More directly, the US legal system gives an injured party greater ability to sue and recover damages, which in turn makes manufacturers more likely to implement safety features to protect themselves from potential liability. Again, that's part of the "government". And again we can see numerous examples of other countries with weak or corrupt legal systems, where manufacturers have no such incentives and safety is poor accordingly.
So, it would be quite correct to say that "there's no industry that's improved safety or security without governments forcing it to do so" (or, perhaps, in a wider sense "the people forcing it to do so" and "the government" being a tool of the people, which is, presumably, true in any democratic society.
How about the National Fire Protection Association, which writes the fire codes? That's another safety organization started by insurance companies, and insurance companies wouldn't insure a building unless it met fire code.
But is the fire code truly optional, or does government use penalties to coerce you to follow them?
Because you know some people would be totally fine building uninsured buildings......
It isn't that a computer in every device is an issue, it's that these computers have to be free as in beer. We've squandered the massive decrease in network cost to the point of demanding no incremental increase in cost of smart devices vs traditional. I'm all for paying a little more for a smart thermostat that doesn't tell some ad server when I get home from work. And I'm happy to pay a little for firmware upgrades to my smart switch if it means my house isn't going to become part of a bot network. And no way do I see any value in bringing microphones into my home that offer "free" services in exchange for listening to keywords and embedded sub audible sounds in TV shows. But it seems like these Internet companies (and by extension IOT companies) have such little faith in their product that they feel it necessary to give it away for nothing and then try to survive by introducing third parties for their income. Until that changes (and it doesn't help the cause when the tech press howls about the $1000 iPhone vs the $200 Android phone with "free" OS), we're going to continue down the dystopian path.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."