iot | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

Warning against the connected car

The FBI and US Department of Transport warn of risks in the connected car.

A year after hackers demonstrated the risks of connected cars, the FBI and the US Department of Transportation have warned consumers of the risks in internet connected vehicles.

This warning comes as automobile manufacturers are pushing their new breed of motor cars as being software platforms rather than vehicles and calls into question how well security and safety are being designed into their products.

One of the recurrent features of these sort of warnings is how regulators, manufacturers and software designers try to push the risks back onto consumers rather than the companies designing these systems.

Officials said that while not all car hacking incidents result in safety risks, consumers should take the appropriate steps to minimize their own risks.

It’s hard to see what consumers can really do, as most of these systems are ‘black boxes’ protected by strict terms preventing users from seeing, let alone understanding, the software running the vehicles. Customers have to trust the manufacturers to do the right thing.

For the Internet of Things, and connected cars, to be successful they have to deliver value to consumers and have the confidence of the market. Right now many of these features seem to do neither.

Bringing cybersecurity into the mainstream

The corporate world is taking security seriously says Cisco’s Chief Security and Trust Officer, John Stewart

“Cybersecurity is out of the dungeon and now selling itself as a business service,” says Cisco’s Chief Security and Trust Officer, John Stewart.

Stewart was discussing his company’s security challenges at a Cisco Live briefing at their Melbourne conference yesterday.

The shift to security as a business service follows the pattern of computerisation in business believes Stewart, “at first businesses said you can’t keep important documents on computers, then they said you could only keep important data on computers”

For Stewart, the fact c-level execs recognise the importance of cybersecurity is a positive sign that indicates organisations are taking IT and communications security seriously.

When asked what keeps him up at night, Stewart said it was worries about infrastructure security, the Ukrainian power network’s experience after an attack from a seriously motivated group of hackers indicates just how serious this is.

Interestingly Stewart remains focused on the risks of security breaches, as the Internet of Things rolls out it may well be the integrity of data streams becomes a far greater focus for system administrators and security officers.

Paul travelled to Cisco Live in Melbourne as a guest of Cisco

Coming to the end of Moore’s law

Moore’s law may be reaching its limits, but that only means things could be getting more interesting for the chip industry.

One constant in the modern computer industry is Moore’s law, the rule described by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a microprocessor will double every two years.

Nature magazine reports chip makers are now about to abandon Moore’s law as they reach the physical limits of etching an ever increasing number of transistors onto silicon.

This doesn’t mean the microprocessor industry is about to stagnate however as the demand for more mobile and energy efficient chips is expected to boom as the Internet of Things evolves and wearable technologies become commonplace.

Hacking the power grid through air conditioners

Air conditioners are the latest internet connected devices to raise security concerns

Another example of the unintended consequences of poor security in the Internet of Things is Wired’s story about the possibility of hacking the power grid by accessing smart air conditioners.

In the US, electricity companies offer deals where consumers get reduced bills in return for the utility being able to throttle the usage of air conditioners during peak power periods.

Those devices turn out not to be well secured which opens the possibility of malicious actors causing brownouts or service interruptions in a targeted areas.

Sadly this story isn’t isolated, too many connected devices have poor security that opens up the a range of risks to homeowners, businesses and the community at large.

BlackBerry’s last smartphone

The BlackBerry Priv is probably the company’s last smartphone as it pivots to being a security provider

Having written about BlackBerry’s ambitions in the marketplace for The Australian last week, it wasn’t surprising to be invited to the company’s Down Under launch of their Priv handset earlier today.

The event illustrated some brutal realities about mobile phone market and BlackBerry’s efforts to build on its strengths in the enterprise security space.

With 2.7 billion dollars of cash reserves, the company has seven years of breathing space at its current loss rates although it’s notable the stock market values the company at $3.5bn, implying investors value the business’ operations at a measly $800 million.

Given the collapse in BlackBerry’s handset business from twenty percent of the market at the beginning of the decade to an asterix today, that pessimism from investors isn’t surprising and underscores why the company is recasting itself as an enterprise security provider.

Five major acquisitions in the last 18 months have demonstrated how BlackBerry is attempting to recast its business; security services like Good Technology and Secusmart through to warning software like At Hoc have seen the company bolster its range of offerings.

Coupled with the recent acquisitions are its own longstanding messaging and secure communications services combined with the QNX software arm that promises a far more reliable Internet of Things than many of the current operating systems being embedded into smart devices.

The Android smartphone system itself is bedevilled with dangerous apps running on outdated software and where BlackBerry hopes their PRIV handset can attract enterprise users conscious of the need to secure their employees’ devices.

For BlackBerry though, the PRIV being shipped with the Android operating system is a capitulation to the smartphone market’s stark reality where there is only demand for two products and outside players like BlackBerry or Windows are destined to wither away.

While the PRIV is a nice, albeit expensive, phone and the slide out physical keyboard is nice to use, the device seems to be a desperate attempt by the company to stay in the smartphone market.

As an outside observer it’s hard to see the justification for BlackBerry continuing as a phone manufacturer, there may be some intellectual property value from the development of the devices – although it should be noted the company only valued its IP assets at $906 million in November 2015.

While the PRIV is a perfectly good Android phone it will probably be the last smartphone BlackBerry makes, the challenge for the company’s management now is to tie together the software assets it has into a compelling suite of products for the enterprise sector.

In an age where devices of all types are going to be connected, the market for ensuring their security should be huge. Catering to that market should be BlackBerry’s greatest hope of survival.

Taking responsibility for algorithms

In a smart connected world awry algorithms pose a number of risks. What should regulators do?

Who is responsible for the effect of renegade computer programs is going to become a serious legal topic as an increasing number of things become ‘intelligent” and connected to the internet.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is one of the first regulators to start looking at how companies’ algorithms. In their just released rules for wholesale traders, the FCA sets out the responsibilities for companies and their managers.

“We are determined to embed a culture of personal responsibility within the banking sector,” says the FCA’s Acting Chief Executive Tracey McDermott. “Clear individual accountability should focus minds, drive up standards, and make firms easier to run and to supervise. And if things go wrong, it will allow senior managers to be held to account for misconduct that falls within their area of responsibility.”

The definition of ‘misconduct’ when an algorithm goes awry will undoubtedly prove contentious, as will the idea of ‘personal responsibility’ in the banking sector.

While it’s too tempting to be dismissive of such move in the financial services industry, the FCA’s regulations are a pointer of what most industries are going to face over the next ten years as the more devices make decisions for themselves or communicate with other equipment over the Internet of Things.

In many areas the question of who is responsible for a rogue computer program will be left to the uncertainties of the legal system with no doubt many surprises, injustices, inconsistencies and unintended consequences so the earlier regulators develop a framework for dealing with mishaps the better.

Should the IoT start delivering on its promise of a connected world a poorly designed algorithm in even what should be relatively trivial devices or services may have the potential to cause massive disruption and damage. It’s hard not to imagine many other regulators in other industries are looking at how to attribute responsibilities, if not minimise risk, in a smart connected world.

Securing the drones

British and American spies were able to hack into Israeli and Syrian military drones. What hope is there for ordinary computer users?

While we assume military equipment has far higher levels of IT security, it isn’t always the case reports Ars Technica.

Allegedly the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ were able to intercept the video feeds of Israeli and Syrian drone aircraft using off the shelf software. While it appears security has become more sophisticated on this equipment, it is a concern that data feeds can be monitored from military equipment.

This is even more concerning given the reliance of software and telemetry systems in modern weapons. The troubled F-35 project shows just how complex computer code has now become in military equipment and it is safe to say some of those bugs will create weaknesses in the systems.

For those of us with more modest security needs, all is not lost though as Rob Joyce, the NSA’s hacker-in-chief, has given some useful tips on how to protect your systems. These are worth following although Joyce is quite clear that you’ll have to work hard to stay ahead of a sophisticated and persistent cyber-enemy.

Knowing what we don’t know

Cisco’s 2016 security report show businesses are more uncertain than ever about their network defenses. This is a good thing.

The 2016 Cisco Security report is in many ways an encouraging document, while it describes a litany of threats facing the modern business the fact managers are less confident about their defenses is a good thing.

Of the 2432 security executives surveyed 59% claimed their security infrastructure was up to date against 64 percent said the same. Acknowledging this is motivating them to improve their defenses.

For industry, the real concern is the small business sector where there’s a clear decline in the use of IT security tools. As the Target breach showed, trusted contractors and suppliers provide a weakness in an organisation’s systems that malicious actors are keen to exploit.

In Cisco’s analysis, the main reasons for SMBs lack of concern is their belief they are too small to be valuable to hackers and most of their IT management is outsourced.

A shift to the cloud shouldn’t be understated, particularly given many SMBs are shifting their IT functions onto cloud services. While this doesn’t fully protect businesses, the cloud providers certainly offer a far higher level of protection that the local plumbing contractor relying on a mom and pop computer support service.

The bad guys however are responding to that shift with Cisco reporting increased browser based and DNS attacks, both of these are useful in compromising cloud computing services which means both service providers and end users have to be vigilant about security.

At all levels of business though the lack of confidence in security has major ramifications as the Internet of Things is rolled out and common devices start being connected to fragile and often compromised networks.

The good news for vendors like Cisco is this lack of confidence could spur a new wave of business investment as companies improve their network security.

Another important aspect of CIOs and business owners not being confident about their network security is they are far less likely to assume their systems are safe or to passively accept vendor assurances about their safety.

For all of us a customers and users of these technologies, a greater focus on security by the organisations we deal with should be welcomed as well.

Keeping the IoT simple and safe

Making the IoT simple and safe is the most important tasks facing Internet of Things vendors

Ten years ago a joke going around was “what if Microsoft built cars?” The answer summed up the frustrations users had with personal computers and the differences in engineering standards between traditional industries and that of the IT sector.

As we enter the Internet of Things era, that tension between consumer devices and good engineering continues as shown by a software bug that rendered Nest thermostats useless.

That poor software would drain the battery without warning the user, illustrates how poorly designed many of these devices are.

Ironically Nest’s owners, Google, held a conference earlier this week where the company’s leaders flagged the importance of standards, security and privacy.

In a call to action for the IoT industry, Google’s lead advocate Vint Cerf, also known as one of the “fathers of the Internet,” warned that compatibility, security, and privacy could be obstacles to the IoT’s success.

Reliability is also important, particularly when talking about safety and security – Nest also make carbon monoxide detectors – where a device crashing or failing can have terrible consequences.

At present most of the Internet of Things is about the gimmick of connecting devices to the cloud and controlling them from your mobile phone. Consumers are not going to embrace IoT products if they add cost, complexity and risk to their lives.

Keeping it simple and safe are probably the most important things designers of IoT devices can do.

The limitations of algorithms

Companies like Facebook and Uber are finding there are limits to what computer algorithms can acheive

Are algorithms getting too complex asks Forbes Magazine’s Kalev Leetaru in an examination of how the formulas that are increasingly governing our lives have grown beyond the understanding of their creators.

With computer code now controlling most of the devices and processes we rely on in daily life, understanding the assumptions and limitations of those programs and formulas becomes essential for designers, managers and users.

Leetaru cites the Apollo 13 malfunction and Volvo’s recent embarrassment where a self driving car nearly ran over a group of journalists however there’s no shortage of more tragic mistakes from the consequences of software design decisions, the crash of Air France 447 over the Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 228 lives where two pilots who stalled their plane due to misunderstanding the characteristics of their cockpit is one recent sad example.

As business and government becomes more dependent on software, more risks will arise from managers not understanding the limitations of the algorithms they use in their business.

Similarly a range of industries to exploit the quirks of algorithm driven markets are developing, the Search Engine Optimisation business designed to exploit quirks in Google’s search algorithm is an established example but more will come to the fore as people find ways to profit by anticipating price movements.

However algorithms have a way to go before they fully take over, as Salon’s examination of Facebook’s news feed reveals a key part of the social media service’s deciding what appears on users screens are the decisions of around thousand ‘power users’.

The news feed algorithm had blind spots that Facebook’s data scientists couldn’t have identified on their own. It took a different kind of data—qualitative human feedback—to begin to fill them in.

While Facebook falls back on large focus groups to fill in the algorithm’s gaps, Uber has found a different problem in estimating driver arrival times where it’s currently not possible to accurately calculate estimated times of arrival in real time.

“The best way to minimise time differential issue is to communicate statistically expected time, which will result in almost always being different than actual (i.e. wrong), but will be less different/wrong on average,” says Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Uber and Facebook’s challenges with their algorithms illustrate there’s some way to go before all critical business functions can be handed over to software but as automation becomes standard in many areas, not least autonomous vehicles, the limitations of programs and the assumptions of programmers will become apparent.

When autonomous vehicles and humans collide

The interaction between humans and autonomous vehicles is not turning out well so far

With the rapid advances in driverless cars, it was only a matter of time before the question of what happens when people encounter them would be answered.

It turns out not too well for the autonomous vehicles reports Bloomberg citing a study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute that found driverless cars have accident rates double those of normal vehicles.

As it turns out, those accidents are usually minor and are caused by humans colliding with the autonomous vehicles as the law abiding computers catch drivers unawares.

That people aren’t very good at driving cars isn’t a surprise but now we’re seeing what happens when distracted, mistake prone humans encounter cautious and usually correct computers.

We now have to start thinking about what happens when artificial intelligence encounters human frailty.

How social media drove the Internet of Things hype

Was social media responsible for the IoT hype?

In our recent interview with Kevin Ashton, the man who coined the Internet of Things term, he raised an interesting thought about why the IoT had become such a popular concept.

Ashton surmised there were two factors at work, the first being a younger generation of computer users who took networked devices for granted and the other being that the rise of social media – specifically Twitter – meant the #IoT hashtag was accessible and easy to use.

And they’ve never lived in a paradigm where computers don’t gather their own information. So it’s very…the internet of things idea is incredibly natural to them. People who were using computers, let’s say, in the 80s and the early 90s, pre-internet, it can be a little less intuitive. So that’s one thing, but the other thing is, just a complete coincidence, I think, is Twitter. On the internet of things community on Twitter we use the hashtag IOT.

Now, it just so happens, first of all, IoT is very Twitter-friendly because it’s very short. But by calling this thing the internet of things, I inadvertently happened upon a three letter acronym that was distinctive. There aren’t many of those in the world. But there isn’t anything IOT stands for.

Now, we never used the term IoT in the early days because it wouldn’t mean anything to anybody, right? But I happened upon this distinctive three-letter acronym, and then Twitter came along. And it made it very easy for all these kids that were kind of internet of things natives to find one another and communicate with one another, and that really helped. That really helped. So there was some coincidence in that realm.

There’s no doubt the two factors Ashton identifies were critical in the popularity of the term but we shouldn’t overlook the marketing efforts of established hardware and software companies to find ways to make money out of the Internet of Things, what Cisco President John Chambers calls “the greatest opportunity of my lifetime.”

Coupled with the marketing efforts of big IT companies is that the IoT is now coming into its own as adding communications and computing power to almost any device becomes almost trivial. Indeed, Cisco’s often touted statistic of 50 billion connected devices by 2020 is almost certainly an understatement as everything from barbie dolls to bees to locomotives start communicating.

While the IoT is a good label and a boon to desperate marketers trying to describe what would otherwise be a mundane subject of communication protocols and hardware, the bigger forces at work are that the technologies are accessible and affordable to most businesses and individuals.

As those billions of connected Barbie Dolls and tractors roll out there’s a huge number of benefits and risks involved in networking all these devices and managing the data they generate, luckily we at least have a good term to describe the general concept.