At this point, my house is smarter than me.
I’m not joking when I say that I have come to rely upon a half dozen “smart devices” every day. In the morning I check the weather station for the day’s forecast, then might tweak the settings on the air conditioning system if the morning is particularly warm or especially chilly. Various lights inside and outside can be adjusted on the fly, and a phalanx of cameras let me ensure that a) no one is trying to break in and b) the cats aren’t trapped in the closet. All of this is wireless and can be completed via my smart phone, iPad, or any PC – whether I’m in the house or on the road. At this point, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before my electric toothbrush starts ordering its own replacement heads.
How far can smart devices and the Internet of Things go? At the consumer level, there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. In 2013, Cisco wrote that 10 billion things were connected to the internet, far more than the number of people on earth. But that number pales in comparison to the 1.5 trillion things that could be connected to one another eventually. As far as taking advantage of our internetworked potential goes, we’re still just taking baby steps.
And yet, concerns about the breakneck pace of IoT adoption are leading some to predict an imminent backlash against the industry, for a variety of reasons. One pundit has even given it a clever nickname: The Internot of Things.
Why the Concern?
Arguments that the IoT isn’t going to live up to its promises generally fall along a few similar lines: We’re already bombarded with bleeps and buzzes every minute of the day, thanks to the ubiquity of the smart phone. Now we want to add even more to that overload? Do we want or need to willingly add more complexity to our lives? And is that a good idea, from a security standpoint?
These aren’t unfamiliar arguments. Every time a new technology emerges, naysayers are quick to warn against it, afraid that we will all turn into mindless and unproductive zombies that can’t handle the crush of data. While every generation probably feels the following one can be described this way, the truth is that we’re handling things fairly well so far. The kids of the ‘80s navigated personal computers and cable TV. Today’s Millennials seem to be managing the bizarre world of life-via-cell-phone well enough.
But IoT does represent a different challenge, as prior tech advances generally saw the advent of one device at a time – television, then cell phone, then laptop, then smart phone. Society had time to adapt and figure things out before moving on to whatever was next. Now, many households are like mine, stuffed full with gizmos and gadgets meant to make us smarter about how we live – but which, in reality, require a huge amount of upkeep and troubleshooting just to keep running, and which ultimately demand more than their fair share of attention.
Is humanity going to collapse under the weight of all these devices? Let’s look at some of the biggest concerns surrounding the Internet of Things, and how they’re being addressed.
Information Overload
The question isn’t whether we can check the ambient humidity every 30 seconds. It’s whether we should. IoT devices are a bit more problematic than the traditional trappings of technology because, by design, they are always on, always reporting, always sending us updates. You can shut down your email program or turn off your cell phone, but your thermostat and your smart refrigerator will continue chatting away, collecting data and sending it to the cloud. Many of these devices generate alerts that can be difficult or impossible to ignore, and the issue is compounded when you have a complex IoT environment with dozens of smart devices.
At the industrial level, the problem is slightly different but quite a bit more serious. IoT sensors that are increasingly being embedded into machinery, vehicles, building, and other devices are generating a torrent of data that reports on their condition, 24 hours a day. The problem is that the back end generally hasn’t been built to accommodate this glut of data. Gartner has noted that this will likely cause problems for professionals who “are not prepared for the information-related implications of the Internet of Things” and estimated that a quarter of attempts to make sense of this data will ultimately be abandoned because the process is simply too complex.
Automation tools are being developed – in fact, this is one of the hottest growth areas in technology – but these are likely to find an obstacle in another area…
Compatibility Issues
When you send an email or visit a website, a very mature and well-understood series of steps take place. Devices on the internet communicate with one another through a number of common standards, protocols that keep things running surprisingly smoothly most of the time. The upshot is that if you instruct your web browser to access a web server in Bulgaria, it does so using the same steps it would if it accessed one next door.
All bets are off, however, when it comes to the Internet of Things. The problem with IoT standards is that, well, there aren’t any – not yet, anyway. This is a challenge that many have observed, but which few are interested in meaningfully addressing. The problem? In today’s tech environment, there’s no longer any real incentive to support so-called open standards. Proprietary technologies (think Apple’s iOS or Microsoft’s Windows) use their closed systems to support high prices and keep customers within their “walled gardens.” Given that many of the same companies – Google, Apple, Intel, Samsung, and more – are becoming leaders in the consumer IoT space, these exclusionary strategies aren’t going anywhere.
Standards groups exist, but there are many of them, all rough alliances among various companies that are jockeying to beat out one another. A shakeout will likely come eventually, but no one seems to be in much of a hurry to push things along in that direction.
Security
When it comes to seriousness, the generally poor security of IoT devices is probably the biggest threat out there, and it’s something that both consumers and enterprises need to take with equal seriousness. Security maven Bruce Schneier has been sounding the alarm for years, saying the landscape today looks a lot like the shoddy state of computer security from 20 years ago. “No one’s paying any attention to security, no one’s doing updates, no one knows anything – it’s all really, really bad and it’s going to come crashing down,” he said to Network World in 2015.
It hasn’t come crashing down just yet, but already things are in bad shape. Sensor-filled cars have been hacked, as have door locks, thermostats, refrigerators, and even wheelchairs. If there’s a wireless chip and a computer in it (no matter how primitive), it’s ripe for attack – and eventually some enterprising hacker will get around to finding a way inside.
What we’re likely to see first is a rise in simple pranks. Turning off your refrigerator or cranking up your furnace while you’re on vacation is a nuisance (and potentially hazardous) for consumers, but what happens when IoT sensors in the power grid get remotely shut down, or when hackers manage to send false data to, say, the sensor on an airplane engine? These are scary scenarios that many would rather not think about – but unless things change, something along these lines is probably inevitable.
Privacy
So your smart thermostat knows when you’re at home or away. Your washing machine and dishwasher report to the cloud every time you run a load. Smart door locks know who’s coming and who’s going. Who cares? Because anyone listening in would be able to quickly learn your habits and potentially use that information against you in any number of ways – the most obvious being to plan a home robbery when your devices say you are out of the house.
That’s just one aspect of the privacy implications of the Internet of Things. For a more troublesome example, consider AI systems, such as the Amazon Alexa service, which listen (and/or watch) while you’re going about your daily life. Alexa can play your music and control your lights for you, plus it can tell you about traffic conditions, arrange for a car pickup, or order you a pizza. These are handy time-savers today, as long as all those recordings aren’t being stored somewhere, forever, waiting for someone to download it all and put it on YouTube. Remember, IoT devices like these have to basically be listening all the time, waiting for you to wake them up with a special command. Privacy safeguards exist, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be bypassed by those with malicious ends in mind.
Extrapolating from there, what happens when devices like these get too smart for their own good? Could an Alexa-like device eventually know too much, then begin behaving like it knows best? Maybe Alexa doesn’t think you need another pizza after all the garbage you ate last weekend. Hey, it’s probably nothing to be afraid of. It’s for your own good.
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About the Author: Christopher Null is an award-winning business and technology journalist. His work frequently appears on Wired, PC World, and TechBeacon. Follow him on Twitter @christophernull.
