http://wileyinformationsystemsupdates.com/2012/12/11/explainer-what-is-the-internet-of-things/
http://us.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/leweb-parallax-internet-things/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Discussion Questions:
- By having more of our lives online, will our daily lives become more visible to outsiders on the Internet?
- How do we prevent outsiders from viewing and tracking even the smallest details of our lives?
Nowadays, almost every physical item is possible to link to the Internet. In the past, maybe we would just set the alarm clock to the time that we want to wake up next day, it was just that simple. The CNN news is telling us, it is possible to link the electronic clock to the Internet via the Wi-Fi network in our home. The manufacturer of certain brand of alarm clock created a website just for controlling the alarm clock, and we can register to that website, and we can input our schedule and set alert in our own account. The alarm clock will then automatically sync with the internet, the users of this alarm clock product do not need to worry, even they forgot to set the alarm clock before they went to bed. If the alarm clock detected there is a important event in our schedule, and if we have set an alert 30 mins before the event, the alarm clock will wake the user up 30 mins before the event, so the user will not miss the event. Indeed, almost everything in our daily life can be connected to the Internet now, even simple like alarm clock, but there is a question comes to my mind. How if there is a outsider hack into our private internet, and steal some information from us. People may think it is not too dangerous to let the outsiders to know when they will wake up in the morning, but the fact is that if the outsider knows the user’s schedule very well, they can just get into your home and steal your valuable things in your home. The more visible a person to outsiders is, the more risks that person is bearing. For example, if a person bought a smart door lock, which can be connected to the internet and controlled by smart phone through the internet; if a hacker hacked into that person’s smart phone, and the hacker can just simply control the user’s phone to open the door. It is always possible to be hacked, no matter how high the internet security is. So maybe we should concern if it is really a good idea to link everything in our daily to the Internet. Indeed, the information technology brought a lot of convenience to our daily life, we still need to beware of the online security and not too depend on the technology. For example, smart home users should always keep their network secured by regularly update and upgrade their anti-virus software. Although this is a very simple way to protect the Internet, it works as the anti-virus software companies will always update their database to prevent the latest version of the hacking programs.
