Local network services for IoT devices

Local network services for IoT devices could be a game changer by Johannes Ernst

The next question then becomes: just what local network services? What’s the architecture going to look like so we can grow a big industry ecosystem around it, all without screwing the users? I don’t think anybody has all the answers yet, but this is going in the right direction! I will have some more thoughts in a future post.

Sounds great. Currently, poor security is the bane of IoT devices. I would suggest the industry put all effort into efforts to improved security and privacy features of their products. Security is the number one reason I am reluctant to have internet accessible devices in my home.

Does restricting IoT traffic to the local network mean we lose the ability to leverage the analytics or the analytics become too simplistic to be useful? Will the majority of consumers, the mass market of consumers who we need to make any product category viable, want or need to have a mini data centre in the home to manage all of this? I don't know.

The House That Spied

The House That Spied on Me (Gizmodo)

the Withings Home Wi-Fi Security Camera with Air Quality Sensors that I had set up in our living room. When the camera detects motion or noise, it automatically records what it’s seeing. That’s great if you’re worried about break-ins or how people treat your kid when you’re not around, but not great for protecting the intimacy of your home. The day after I set it up, it caught me walking through the living room naked, resulting in the very first nude video of me (that I know about), which was promptly sent to the cloud and saved to the Home Cam app on my phone. This appears to be a common problem for the smart home set.

Some of my friends and family think that the privacy and security risks from using these devices are overstated. I won’t use these devices in my home until I have a better understanding of the risks and have developed some mitigations.