Dave Farber
2018-10-11 02:25:22 UTC
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
Date: October 11, 2018 at 12:42:56 AM GMT+9
[Note: This item comes from friend John McMullen. Johnâs comment:'I disagree -- and so does Alexa!â. DLH]
A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
By Farhad Manjoo
Oct 10 2018
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/technology/future-internet-of-things.html>
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoftâs monopoly back in the bottle.
This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry. Audacious founders set their sights on something hilariously out of reach â Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect everyone â and the very unlikeliness of their plans insulates them from scrutiny. By the time the rest of us catch up to their effects on society, itâs often too late to do much about them.
It is happening again now. In recent years, the tech industryâs largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. Thereâs 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 industryâs 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 â these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting âsmart.â Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend â known by the marketing catchphrase âthe internet of thingsâ â but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung.
For instance, Amazon last month showed off a microwave powered by Alexa, its voice assistant. Amazon will sell the microwave for $60, but it is also selling the chip that gives the device its smarts to other manufacturers, making Alexa connectivity a just-add-water proposition for a wide variety of home appliances, like fans and toasters and coffee makers. And this week, both Facebook and Google unveiled their own home âhubâ devices that let you watch videos and perform other digital tricks by voice.
You might dismiss many of these innovations as pretty goofy and doomed to failure. But everything big in tech starts out looking silly, and statistics show the internet of things is growing quickly. It is wiser, then, to imagine the worst â that the digitization of just about everything is not just possible but likely, and that now is the time to be freaking out about the dangers.
âIâm not pessimistic generally, but itâs really hard not to be,â said Bruce Schneier, a security consultant who explores the threats posed by the internet of things in a new book, âClick Here to Kill Everybody.â
Mr. 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 â and the hacks and bugs uncovered in just the last few weeks at Facebook and Google illustrate how difficult digital security is even for the biggest tech companies. In a roboticized world, hacks would not just affect your data but could endanger your property, your life and even national security.
Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. He calls for reimagining the regulatory regime surrounding digital security in the same way the federal government altered its national security apparatus after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Among other ideas, he outlines the need for a new federal agency, the National Cyber Office, which he imagines researching, advising and coordinating a response to threats posed by an everything-internet.
âI 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,â he wrote. But he conceded that government intervention seems unlikely at best. âIn our government-canât-do-anything-ever society, I donât see any reining in of the corporate trends,â he said.
[snip]
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-------------------------------------------Date: October 11, 2018 at 12:42:56 AM GMT+9
[Note: This item comes from friend John McMullen. Johnâs comment:'I disagree -- and so does Alexa!â. DLH]
A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
By Farhad Manjoo
Oct 10 2018
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/technology/future-internet-of-things.html>
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoftâs monopoly back in the bottle.
This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry. Audacious founders set their sights on something hilariously out of reach â Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect everyone â and the very unlikeliness of their plans insulates them from scrutiny. By the time the rest of us catch up to their effects on society, itâs often too late to do much about them.
It is happening again now. In recent years, the tech industryâs largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. Thereâs 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 industryâs 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 â these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting âsmart.â Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend â known by the marketing catchphrase âthe internet of thingsâ â but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung.
For instance, Amazon last month showed off a microwave powered by Alexa, its voice assistant. Amazon will sell the microwave for $60, but it is also selling the chip that gives the device its smarts to other manufacturers, making Alexa connectivity a just-add-water proposition for a wide variety of home appliances, like fans and toasters and coffee makers. And this week, both Facebook and Google unveiled their own home âhubâ devices that let you watch videos and perform other digital tricks by voice.
You might dismiss many of these innovations as pretty goofy and doomed to failure. But everything big in tech starts out looking silly, and statistics show the internet of things is growing quickly. It is wiser, then, to imagine the worst â that the digitization of just about everything is not just possible but likely, and that now is the time to be freaking out about the dangers.
âIâm not pessimistic generally, but itâs really hard not to be,â said Bruce Schneier, a security consultant who explores the threats posed by the internet of things in a new book, âClick Here to Kill Everybody.â
Mr. 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 â and the hacks and bugs uncovered in just the last few weeks at Facebook and Google illustrate how difficult digital security is even for the biggest tech companies. In a roboticized world, hacks would not just affect your data but could endanger your property, your life and even national security.
Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. He calls for reimagining the regulatory regime surrounding digital security in the same way the federal government altered its national security apparatus after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Among other ideas, he outlines the need for a new federal agency, the National Cyber Office, which he imagines researching, advising and coordinating a response to threats posed by an everything-internet.
âI 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,â he wrote. But he conceded that government intervention seems unlikely at best. âIn our government-canât-do-anything-ever society, I donât see any reining in of the corporate trends,â he said.
[snip]
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