Building IoT: Forget the vision, just show us how to build it If you’ve had all the vision you can handle, and just want to know how to actually develop devices, applications and networks to exploit the internet of things, you really need to join us next March for Building IoT London. Between March 27 and 29, we’ll be bringing together an array of experts with extensive real world …
The physical building is simple - it's just engineering.
The main emphasis should be on the software and securing that software from being hacked. Get that right and everything else should just fall into place.
The problem is that writing secure software, which implies the minimum amount of bugs possible, appears to be a lost art that requires reviving.
"just engineering ..."
If we ever should meet in person, either buy me a drink or let me slap you. Your call."
That needs more than one up vote, but sadly....
Come to think of it, the last few people i've heard be that dismissive of engineering were all salespeople or politicians (same thing, I guess?), plus one idiot who thinks marketing will save the world
"The problem is that writing secure software..."
Well, lets start with a few of the more obvious things.
1. No listening ports. None. Nada. Never ever.
2. Secure communications only & only with a central server. No peer-to-peer network communications allowed. Ever. If a peer wants to "communicate", then it has to communicate securely via the central sever.
3. Encourage the users to put all Idiot-of-Things on a separate VLAN (or LAN) from anything that matters.
4. If possible, have the Idiot-of-Thing detect if it's not behind a firewall, and if it thinks it's not, self destruct. (Or at least turn itself off.)
There are a few things that can benefit from connectivity but not the deluge of hyped, insecure rubbish that is being thought of or churned out daily.
Speaking of deluges, I keep reading IoT as IDIOT, so I am renaming it to Internet De luge of Things, it's close enough.
I can see how IoT benefits companies - but I sure as heck can't see any benefit to me as an individual. But then, I don't see any benefit in 'social media' (and it seems I was pretty much right about that, somewhat to my own surprise https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161220175543.htm) nor in modern smartphones - and yet I am NOT a Luddite. I'm grand with progress (hell, if I'd had my way, I'd be typing or dictating this from an apartment overlooking the Hellas Basin on Mars). But I'm also aware that age may be making me a tad jaded. So - what am I missing? What ARE the benefits of IoT supposed to be to the individual? (and in case anyone is wondering, I'm not being in the least bit sarky, I'd genuinely like an IoT enthusiast to explain why they think it's wonderful and what I'm missing out on).
From what i have seen you can use a mobile phone app to change the colour of some 300 quid light bulbs in your house while you are the other side of the world... top use case :)
Or maybe instead of getting your lardy arse out of the chair you can use your phone to change the temperature of the thermostat on the wall.
Can't say as either seems such a stunner to me but then I am also old enough to remember getting out of my chair to do things.
What I really really really hate are the modern contraptions like set top boxes, dvds and tvs that don't allow you to control them when they have decided they no longer want to be controlled by the enormous and over complex remote control. (And especially hate dvd players that dont let you skip the thousands of adverts for anti copy and last years great films when you just want to watch a bit of James Bond...oh for my old video recorder with its fast forward function)
I agree. I'm 66 spent 40 years in the computer industry. One quick example, smart meters provide energy companies with surge-pricing, tons of data for gameing the energy markets (spot and future), peremptory disconnection without appeal, and, of course various privacy breaches (when you are at home, whether you are growing pot (of course not!), hacker disconnection). Since there's no data port (unlike the P1 in the Netherlands) on the consumer side, there's no benefit to the consumer, except a childish smiley face thingy.
However, I do believe that there 'could' be an open source, open data IoT for the benefit of the citizen and civil society. I presented a few sketches here: http://www.hughbarnard.org/content/sensor-networks-and-social-policy-bonds in 2009 and in 2015 here: http://www.hughbarnard.org/content/living-noham Currently, of course, and as you say, Google, Amazon etc. are elbowing into this space with self-serving, privacy-eroding gadgets. Hey Alexa **** ***!
"Between March 27 and 29, we’ll be bringing together an array of experts with extensive real world experience of building - and securing - devices, networks and applications"
Could you ask these IoT experts to design the devices with a switch that renders the device OS read-only when in the OFF position.
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