The Internet of Things: blessing or curse? That depends on how much you value your privacy against the ability of your fridge to order fresh milk. Either way, we are now more vulnerable to hackers. Here’s how.
I won’t even attempt to answer the question in my opening gambit. Who can say for sure this early whether the Internet of Things is a blessing or a curse (aside from the fact that clichés are always a curse).
For one this is something we all have to decide for ourselves – hopefully, after diligent public debate. We all have to decide what privacy is in the digital era, and whether it’s important to us. We may support more stringent data protection laws, even a global bill of rights. Or we may find ourselves in the “post-privacy” camp and not really care.
It also depends on how highly we value our digital security.
Unbeknownst to us
Take the DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack that brought down a litany of popular websites last Friday (21.10.2016).
The affected websites included Esty, Github, HBO Now, PayPal, Pinterest, Playstation Network, Recode, Reddit, Spotify, Twitter, Netflix, Yammer, and Yelp.
Your fridge, your mom’s webcam, computers at the local school, and a kid’s doll may have all taken part – without your even knowing it. Someone, somewhere launched a piece of malware called Mirai. We’ve known about Mirai – so something was in the wind. And DDoS attacks themselves have been around for ages.
