“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell
In the old spy films, there always was a microphone installed on a telephone, or a camera that came out of the roof and coiled up down the lamp in the living room. In all these scenes it was assumed that someone had entered the house and, with great ability not to be seen, installed these instruments to see and hear. What do you think if we realize that these “instruments” are already at home? Even worse, that we have put them ourselves, and we intend to put many more. Does it sounds like a warm midsummer night’s hallucination? I do not believe so. Let’s see.
Things being simplified, to be “spied”, you need to have instruments that collect information on the spot, a channel transmitting such collected data, and someone on the other side receiving, analyzing and extracting information. In the past, classic spies were facing several problems. The first, placing the instrument in the vicinity of the spied “subject”. The second, how to send the data collected by the instrument. The third, how to discern between what is interesting and what is superfluous. IoT (Internet of Things) makes it very easy. We put ourselves in the world around us. Internet transports any information collected by instruments. The great current processing power makes possible to collect vast amounts of data and processing them relentlessly in search of the information sought.
There are many examples. A few days ago were leaked some classified documents presumedly from the CIA. Among them, a method to control the microphone of the televisions equipped with voice control, being able to send the collected audio to their servers. This are the so-called Smart TV’s. Is it possible? Technically, of course. Depends on the ability of the “spy”. The microphone is there. The ability to record is there as well. The ability to communicate and connect to the internet is the base of any Smart TV. It is only a matter of access to the operating system of the Smart TV (usually a simplified version of Android), enter a program that does what we want to do (Trojan) and that’s it.
I wish it was science fiction, but this is not the case. Is anyone able to read the “privacy policy” included in any new smart device user guide? Barely, I guess. I put an example of a high-end Smart TV that has voice recognition: “…Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.….” Even if we are not watching TV, it still is listening. I’m not saying at all that the intention of any Smart TV manufacturer is to become the high-tech big brother, but the instrumental capabilities are there. This example can be replicated in any device that surrounds us able to capture information around us, and having he capacity to transmit it. Well, according to Gartner (company leader in research and technological advice), a typical house of the future 2022 will have on average up to 500 “Smart Devices”. The truth is that the number varies depending on who says so. I leave a chart with the expectations of Gartner , Intel or Cisco. Back in 2014, Cisco forecasted 50 billion devices by 2020. In 2016 it forecasted nothing less than ten times more devices by 2030.
What can we do? I doubt very much that we will be able to renounce to the comforts and services that the IoT will provide us. To ignore that reality is not an alternative. Therefore, we must be “smarter”; more careful and wary of installing all this arsenal without advice and without worrying about the consequences. If we do not do it right from the start, by the time we realize it, damage could occur and it will be too late by then.
The issue of security is not new. Although the term “computer” is going to be soon obsolete, we are quite familiar with firewalls that most people with (windows) computers has installed. Sure you have had the experience of dealing with viruses, malware, adware or worse (I hope that the latter not many). The interesting concept is to understand that this happens with a single instrument (computer). What can we control if Gartner forecast is right, and instead of one, we have 500 “smart devices” around us?
It is attributed to President Suárez (first president of democratic government of Spain, recently passed away) the phrase that supposedly directed at a congress of the defunct UCD political party congressmen (others claim it comes from some religious congregation, renowned all over the world, who indoctrinated many public men and counseling when they went out of their centers of teaching): “If you cannot be chaste, at least be cautious“. There are even people who say that comes directly from the latin “Si non castus, cautus”.
In one way or another, the essence is very clear. Since we are not going to avoid falling into the temptation of the IoT, at least let us do so with caution. The new Cyber-world is being lighting. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is just around the corner. The 5G technology is going to give vitamins (speed) to this whole system. The Internet of Things is unstoppable. Take precautions, demand cyber-security. To whom sells us a “smart device”, to whom installs us a communications system, to whom gives us access to the network (telco company), to whom sells us a service (even free) in the form of application to install.
If all of the above does not work, you can always count on the wise counsel that every concierge knows: “If you don’t want them to know about it, don’t do it.”
Francisco Canos
Article published in Spanish 13 march 2017 at:
