Understanding IoT, things that communicate with each other?
So, I bet you’ve heard the term IoT before, maybe at work, in a family gathering, with friends in some social event, but, have you ever wonder what really is IoT, how it works and what is its importance in today’s world?. Well if you want to know all and more of this stuff, join me in my adventure of understanding “The Internet of Things”.
We as humans have this need inside, to be more connected, we’re a social specie after all, add up to this fact, there is also the need of doing more stuff in less time so we can enjoy with the people we love the most. To meet those needs we were able to create some technology that allowed us to break the space and time barriers.
As we know, in today’s world, if we want to talk to someone that is on the other side of the world, we can do it by call, by sending a message on any social media, by making a video call, by sending an email, etc. but this was not possible some time ago, it only became reality thanks to the human capacity of creating technology to meet those needs known now as the internet.
What is the internet?
The internet, as we know, is a enormous network that help us stay connected, this amazing technology has its beginnings in the 60’s, when computers were so big that could occupy an entire room, the uses and main focus of this technology was, to be able to share information.
What wikipedia says about the internet:
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.
The internet, and the connection it offers is possible thanks to thousands of thousands of submarine cables that go around the world to power and support it, here’s what CNN says about this cables:
Today, there are around 380 underwater cables in operation around the world, spanning a length of over 1.2 million kilometers (745,645 miles).
Underwater cables are the invisible force driving the modern internet, with many in recent years being funded by internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They carry almost all our communications and yet — in a world of wireless networking and smartphones — we are barely aware that they exist.
And here, an image taken from submarinecablemap, to show the submarine cable map through the world:
Awesome right?, as we were able to develop new technology such as mobile phones, smartphones, tables, and all sorts of devices, “The Internet of Things” began growing more and more. Without us even noticing, now our devices were connected to the internet, our cars, our thermostats, even our watches were connected to the internet so as more devices got connected the more the IoT became apparent.
What is IoT?
Kevin Aston, coined the “The Internet of Things”, as a way to describe the network connecting physical world devices to the internet, On the interview: Kevin Ashton Describes “the Internet of Things”, made by the smithsonian magazine, Ashton answered the following when asked to describe “The Internet of Things”:
In the twentieth century, computers were brains without senses — they only knew what we told them. That was a huge limitation: there is many billion times more information in the world than people could possibly type in through a keyboard or scan with a barcode. In the twenty-first century, because of the Internet of Things, computers can sense things for themselves. It’s only been a few years, but we already take networked sensors for granted. One example is GPS-based location sensing. Civilian GPS was first authorized by congress in 2000, and the GPS systems in cellphones were not tested until 2004. Yet it’s already hard to imagine a world without GPS: it helps us find our way around. In the imminent future, it will enable things like self-driving cars, which will give us back the 20 days a year we spend doing nothing but driving, will save 40,000 lives a year in the U.S. alone, will reduce traffic and pollution, and will allow cities to grow without devoting as much land to roads.
In simple words, The internet of Things or short IoT is a phrase that helps us describe the millions of millions of devices connected to the internet and that constantly are sending and receiving information thus allowing them to share, analyze, process, and even store this information thanks to the internet.
This image can help us understand this better:
The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data. Thanks to the arrival of super-cheap computer chips and the ubiquity of wireless networks, it’s possible to turn anything, from something as small as a pill to something as big as an aeroplane, into a part of the IoT. Connecting up all these different objects and adding sensors to them adds a level of digital intelligence to devices that would be otherwise dumb, enabling them to communicate real-time data without involving a human being. The Internet of Things is making the fabric of the world around us more smarter and more responsive, merging the digital and physical universes.
In a nutshell, the Internet of Things is the concept of connecting any device (so long as it has an on/off switch) to the Internet and to other connected devices. The IoT is a giant network of connected things and people — all of which collect and share data about the way they are used and about the environment around them.
That includes an extraordinary number of objects of all shapes and sizes — from smart microwaves, which automatically cook your food for the right length of time, to self-driving cars, whose complex sensors detect objects in their path, to wearable fitness devices that measure your heart rate and the number of steps you’ve taken that day, then use that information to suggest exercise plans tailored to you. There are even connected footballs that can track how far and fast they are thrown and record those statistics via an app for future training purposes.
So the IoT is present in our daily lives and growing more each time, imagine for example the following situation: Mark is a man that lives alone, he wakes up every morning and just by pressing a button on his phone, his coffee machine activates and prepares the coffee for breakfast, this machine keeps track of how much coffee Mark drinks, alerts him when its getting out of stock, so he could ask for more coffee, Marks also uses a heart rate monitoring bracelet that maintains him informed about his heart health; well, one day Mark goes to bed and at midnight its heart starts to beat faster and faster, the bracelet analyzes the heart beat rate and concludes that Mark is about to have a heart attack, so sends and alert to the hospital informing Mark’s health status and location, so an ambulance is sent to Mark’s place, then they take him to the hospital as fast as they can, in the way to hospital, thanks to the information send by the bracelet, the doctors are already analyzing Mark’s condition so when he gets there the adequate treatment gets applied. The ambulance arrives to the hospital, the doctors treat Mark and when he wakes up he realizes that everything is okay, all thanks to the IoT that predicted and informed at the right moment to take action.
Here is other example of IoT taken from postcapes:
- BeClose Elderly Monitoring: One of the goals of the system is to enable those living independently to continue doing so while still providing family and caregivers a peace of mind about their wellbeing. “Has there been no activity in the house for several hours? Has Mom been out of bed for a prolonged period at night?”. The system uses a range of sensors placed throughout the home to wirelessly and discreetly track a persons routines. Open/close sensors are attached to doors and cabinets to gauge activity levels and medication usage. Presence sensors are placed beneath mattresses, chairs and even under toilet mats to monitor sleeping, sitting and bathroom use, and finally wall mounted motion sensors are used to track general activity levels throughout a day. The sensors are all connected through a base station and transmitted via cellular networks to the cloud to be analyzed and tracked. The system can be setup to notify family members (or professional caregivers) in real time if a possible issue is detected, and an online dashboard gives an analysis of sleep and activity patterns over time. The BeClose system also offers traditional emergency response features like the “BeClose button” that can be placed in the home where accidents might occur and used to call emergency services (or if preferred just contact a family member for help).
But, how does it work?
IoT devices have sensors that they use to collect data from the environment so they use this information to feed machine learning in order to understand the situation, learn and give feedback to its users, this information can be shared with other connected devices so they can also learn about people’s habit routines and preferences, and decide what to do based on this information. for example my home could have sensors that detect motion, and it can send this information to my thermostat to turn on and heat when I’m home and to turn off when I’m out, thus reducing the amount of energy that would be spend if I let the thermostat on all the time.
Some concerns about security
Due to the fact that things are continuously capturing information about us, some security concerns arises, specifically in the field of privacy, some may say, ok, the IoT is helping me, but, the I’m paying with information so personal, that if it lands in the wrong hands it would put me in jeopardy, taking the example of the house and the thermostat, if the data about the time I’m in or out my home gets in the hands of a thief, he’ll know when I’m not at home so he can enter and take everything he want. Cases like this one are also possible, that’s why, the security in IoT must be warrantied.
The internet society, gives a thought on this aspect:
The Internet of Things has arrived and it’s going to introduce incredible opportunity over the next five years. And while smart things are exactly that, the IoT industry has a long way to go in terms of overall security. Many of today’s IoT devices are rushed to market with little consideration for basic security and privacy protections: “Insecurity by design.”
This puts you and everyone else at risk: from unwittingly being spied on or having your data compromised to being unable to lock your own home. You could even become part of a botnet that attacks the Internet. Your insecure webcam — along with millions of others — could be used to attack the power grid of an entire country.
Following is a list of most common security issues, made by Thales group:
- Weak password protection: Hard-coded and embedded credentials are a danger for IT systems and as much hazardous for IoT devices. Guessable or hard-coded credentials are a windfall for hackers to attack the device directly. With default passwords, the attacker may already know the password to the machine!
- Lack of regular patches and updates and weak update mechanism: IoT products are developed with ease of use and connectivity in mind. They may be secure at the time of purchase but become vulnerable when hackers find new security issues or bugs. If they are not fixed with regular updates, the IoT devices become exposed over time.
- Insecure interfaces: All IoT devices process and communicate data. They need apps, services, and protocols for communication and many IoT vulnerabilities originate from insecure interfaces. They are related to web, application API, cloud, and mobile interfaces and can compromise the device and its data. Common issues include a lack of/or insufficient device authentication and authorization and weak encryption or none.
- Insufficient data protection (communication and storage): The most frequent concerns in the data security of IoT applications are due to insecure communications and data storage. One of the significant challenges for IoT privacy and security is that compromised devices can be used to access confidential data.
- Poor IoT device management: A study published in July 2020 analyzed over 5 million IoT, IoMT (Internet of Medical Things), and unmanaged connected devices in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing as well as life sciences. It reveals an amazing number of vulnerabilities and risks across a stunningly diverse set of connected objects. They include shadow IoT (devices in active use without IT’s knowledge), compliance violations, and US Food and Drug Administration recalled (defective and risky) medical devices.
- The IoT skill gap: Companies are facing a vital IoT skills gap that is preventing them from exploiting new opportunities to the full, according to Forbes (30 July 2019).
To address this issues, the internet society gives a list of recommendations:
- Learn how to “shop smart” for connected devices.
- Update your devices and its applications.
- Turn on strong encryption.
- Stop reusing passwords.
- Review the privacy settings on your devices and their applications.
- Use a strong password.
- Turn off the device or disconnect it from the Internet when not in use.
- Take steps to make your home network more secure.
Up to this point we may have a clearer view on what IoT is, and what its potential could be, I hope this blog post help you in some way, see you!.
