Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Thursday 14 January 2016

Making Honest Money With The Internet Of Things

I do not like the Internet Of Things.

Nest just demonstrated a great reason why. VW recently showed us what can be done when a device can detect that it's under test. At some point, increasing the smartness of a device is an expected net loss of utility, and for some devices we're clearly crossing that line.

We're not just crossing it, we're surging past it in a classic Silicon Valley feeding frenzy. Expectation that IoT will be the next big thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and market pressure favours --- nay, forces --- short-term thinking and deceptive marketing.

The good news is that if you want to cash in on the IoT boom without being part of the problem, there are ways. In ten years, when you rent an apartment or move offices, you'll want to somehow eradicate all the tiny battery-powered IoT devices installed and forgotten about by the previous tenant, which have been compromised and turned into spybots and ransomware. Someone will make a lot of money if they can solve that problem.