According to Intel IoT is expected to be a multi-trillion-dollar market, with 50 billion devices creating 44 zettabytes (or 44 trillion gigabytes) of data annually by 2020. But that widely cited 50 billion IoT devices in 2020 number is clearly not correct! Forecast of 50 Billion Devices by 2020 Is Outdated. In 2017 we should be talking about about some sensible numbers. The current count is somewhere between Gartner’s estimate of 6.4 billion (which doesn’t include smartphones, tablets, and computers), International Data Corporation’s estimate of 9 billion (which also excludes those devices), and IHS’s estimate of 17.6 billion (with all such devices included). Both Ericsson and Evans have lowered their expectations from 50 billion for 2020: Evans, who is now CTO of Stringify, says he expects to see 30 billion connected devices by then, while Ericsson figures on 28 billion by 2021.
Connectivity and security will be key features for Internet of Things processors in 2017. Microcontroller (MCU) makers will continue to target their products at the Internet of Things (IoT) in 2017 by giving more focus on battery life, more connectivity of various types, and greater security. The new architectures are almost sure to spawn a multitude of IoT MCUs in 2017 from manufacturers who adopt ARM’s core designs.
ARM will be big. Last year, ARM’s partners shipped 15 billion chips based on its architectures. The trend toward IoT processors will go well beyond ARM licensees. Intel rolled out the Intel Atom E3900 Series for IoT applications. And do not forget MIPS an RISC-V.
FPGA manufacturers are pushing their products to IoT market. They promise that FPGAs solve challenges at the core of IoT implementation: making IoT devices power efficient, handling incompatible interfaces, and providing a processing growth path to handle the inevitable increase in device performance requirement.
Energy harvesting field will become interesting in 2017 as it is more broadly adopted. Energy harvesting is becoming the way forward to help supplement battery power or lose the need for it altogether. Generally researchers are eyeing energy-harvesting to power ultra-low-power devices, wearable technology, and other things that don’t need a lot of power or don’t come in a battery-friendly form factor.
Low power wide area networks (LPWA) networks (also known as NarrowBand IoT) will be hot in 2017. There is hope that f LPWA nets will act as a catalyst, changing the nature of the embedded and machine-to-machine markets as NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low cost, long battery life, and enabling a large number of connected devices. The markets will become a kind of do-it-yourselfers paradise of modules and services, blurring the lines between vendors, users and partners. At the same time for years to come, the market for low power wide area networks (LPWA) will be as fragmented and is already in a race to the bottom (Sigfox, said to be promising costs approaching $1 per node per year). Competing technologies include Sigfox, LoRa Alliance, LTE Cat 1, LTE Cat M1 (eMTC), LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT) and other sub-gigahertz options almost too numerous to enumerate.
We are starting to see a battle between different IoT technologies, and in few years to come we will see which are winners and which technologies will be lost in the fight. Sigfox and Lora are currently starting well, but telecom operators with mobile networks NB-IoT will try hit the race heavily in 2017. Vendors prep Cat M1, NB1 for 2017: The Cat M1 standard delivers up to 380 Kbits/second over a 1.4 MHz channel. NB-1 handles up to 40 Kbits/s over 200 kHz channels. Vendors hope the 7-billion-unit installed base of cellular M2M modules expands. It’s too early to tell which technologies will be mainstream and which niche. It could be that cellular NB-IOT was too late, it will fail in the short term, it can win in the long term, and the industry will struggle to make any money from it. At $2 a year, 20 billion devices will contribute around 4% of current global mobile subscription revenues.
New versions of communication standards will be taken into use in 2017. For example Bluetooth 5 that adds more speed and IoT functionality. In 2017, we will see an increase in the number of devices with the new Bluetooth 5 standard.
Industrial IoT to gain traction in 2017. Industrial applications ultimately have the greater transformative potential than consumer products, offering users real returns on investment (ROI) rather than just enhanced convenience or “cool factor”. But the industrial sector is conservative and has been slow to embrace an industrial IoT (IIoT), but is seems that they are getting interested now. During the past year there has been considerable progress in removing many of the barriers to IIoT adoption. A global wide implementation of an IIoT is many years away, of course. The issues of standards and interoperability will most likely remain unresolved for several years to come, but progress is being made. The Industrial Internet Consortium released a framework to support development of standards and best practices for IIoT security.
The IIoT market is certainly poised to grow. A Genpact research study, for instance, indicates that more than 80% of large companies believe that the IIoT will be essential to their future success. In a recent market analysis by Industry ARC, for instance, the projected value of the IIoT market will reach more than $120 billion by 2021. Research firm Markets and Markets is even more optimistic, pegging IIoT growth at a CAGR of 8% to more than $150 billion by 2020. And the benefits will follow. By GE’s estimate, the IIoT will stimulate an increase in the global GDP of $10 to $15 trillion over the next 20 years.
Systems integrators are seeking a quick way to enter the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market. So expect to see many plug and play IoT sensor systems unveiled. There were many releses in 2016, and expect to see more in 2017. Expect to see device, connectivity and cloud service to be marketed as one packet.
IoT analytics will be talked a lot in 2017. Many companies will promise to turn Big Data insights into bigger solutions. For industrial customers Big Data analytics is promised to drive operational efficiencies, cut costs, boosting production, and improving worker productivity. There are many IIoT analytic solution and platform suppliers already on the market and a growing number of companies are now addressing industrial analytics use.
In 2016 it was all bout getting the IoT devices connected to cloud. In 2017 we will see increased talk about fog computing. Fog computing is new IoT trend pushed by Cisco and many other companies. As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, decentralized, distributed-intelligence concepts such as “fog computing” are taking hold to address the need for lower latencies, improved security, lower power consumption, and higher reliability. The basic premise of fog computing is classic decentralization whereby some processing and storage functions are better performed locally instead of sending data all the way from the sensor, to the cloud, and back again to an actuator. This demands smarter sensors and new wireless sensor network architectures. Groups such as the Open Fog Consortium have formed to define how it should best be done. You might start to want to be able to run the same code in cloud and your IoT device.
The situation in IoT security in 2016 was already Hacking the IoT: As Bad As I Feared It’d Be and there is nothing that would indicate that the situation will not get any better in 2017. A veritable army of Internet-connected equipment has been circumvented of late, due to vulnerabilities in its hardware, software or both … “smart” TVs, set-top boxes and PVRs, along with IP cameras, routers, DSL, fiber and cable modems, printers and standalone print servers, NASs, cellular hot spots, and probably plenty of other gear. IoT world at the moment is full of vulnerable devices, and it will take years to get then replaces with more secure devices. Those vulnerable devices can be used to make huge DDoS attacks against Internet services. The 2016 October 21 cyberattacks on Dyn brought to light how easily many IoT devices can be compromised. I expect that kind of incidents will happen more in 2017 as DDoS botnets are pretty easy to build with tools available on-line. There’s no question that everyone in the chain – manufacturers, retailers and consumers – have to do a better job securing connected devices.When it comes to IoT, more security is needed.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT May Need Sub-50-Cent SoCs
Panel previews rough road to 2027 end nodes
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332517
The future of the Internet of Things could depend on a chip that sells for less than 50 cents, according to a panel of technologists at ARM TechCon here. SoCs will need new kinds of memories, connectivity and sensors to scale to dimensions the IoT will demand, but the path to get there is still unclear, they said.
Today’s SRAM and flash memories, Bluetooth interfaces and sensors consume too much power to serve volume IoT nodes in 2027, panelists said. They sketched out a few possibilities for what may replace them.
Ideally, a 2027 end node SoC will consume just 10 microwatts/MHz and send and transmit data on a radio drawing only 1 or 2 milliwatts, said Jason Hillyard, a director of software in ARM’s wireless group. His “slideware SoC” used a new architecture built of subthreshold circuits suited for its energy harvesting power source.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SIGHT: For the Blind
https://www.hackster.io/foxlab/sight-for-the-blind-c1e1b9?utm_campaign=shared&utm_medium=a100e6a7d94b&utm_source=facebook
A pair of smart glasses for the blind. Powered by Android Things and TensorFlow.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technology For The Privileged
https://semiengineering.com/technology-for-the-privileged/
Will technology improve life for everyone or just a privileged few? Understanding some of the implications should become part of product planning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Updating Things: IETF bods suggest standard
Proposal offers proper authentication, verification and over-the-air delivery
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/31/ietf_internet_of_things_update_security/
A trio of ARM engineers have devoted some of their free time* to working up an architecture to address the problem of delivering software updates to internet-connected things.
Repeated IoT breaches – whether it’s cameras, light bulbs, toys or various kinds of sex toys – have made it painfully clear that too many Things aren’t updated, and/or can’t be.
In this so-far-informational Internet Draft, Brendan Moran, Milosch Meriac and Hannes Tschofenig note that the problem is worse “when devices have a long lifetime, are deployed in remote or inaccessible areas or where manual intervention is cost prohibitive or otherwise difficult”.
Updates have to use authentication to ensure malicious updates are an impossibility, and also protected against recovering the binary.
Other requirements are that updates are medium-agnostic, support broadcast delivery, are secure, can use a small bootloader, don’t need a new firmware format, and have “robust permissions” (including authoring, storage, apply the update, approval, and qualification).
A Firmware Update Architecture for Internet of Things Devices
draft-moran-suit-architecture-00
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-moran-suit-architecture-00
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Anyone Listening When We Talk About Cybersecurity?
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/anyone-listening-when-we-talk-about-cybersecurity/104595267057713?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1808&elq_cid=876648
Op-Ed: Cybersecurity was a part of most discussions at this year’s Arm TechCon. But are the warnings, and even the solutions, falling on deaf ears?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner Report – Maverick Research – The Edge Will Eat the Cloud
https://www.equinix.nl/digital-edge/analyst-reports/gartner-the-edge-will-eat-the-cloud/?ls=Email&lsd=17q4_enterprise_digital-edge-2017_analyst-reports/gartner-the-edge-will-eat-the-cloud__promo-email-initial_nl-en&utm_campaign=digital-edge-2017&utm_source=&utm_medium=promo-email&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVdVMlpHWmhNV1ZrTkdSbCIsInQiOiJRV0I5c1wvUmZVUVNpNHBkaE0wZDVSQUJzaXpTbVVTODF1bkhaRWVoXC9KS0ZPeCtlWjlLNjFZSzJzSzNsUnhNWjd0eWlPaTA2QWZ3UGZBVFVcL1lWWWNiNVlmbGZhOEFSK201NmttTVNoVkliZjUwZlFCZDZJajVLcVJoQlBKckROSSJ9
The growth of the Internet of Things and the upcoming trend toward more immersive and interactive user interfaces will flip the center of gravity of data production and computing away from central data centers and out to the edge. This research contradicts prevailing views on the future of cloud computing, the topology of computing architectures and the nature of applications as we move toward digital business. Instead of continued growth of mega data centers, compute and storage will move toward the edge, due to the Internet of Things and new user/machine interfaces.
Invest in architecture and technologies that help address the increased criticality and user experience that digital business demands.
Build strategies for future applications that factor in latency, location, federation and autonomy, as well as determining placement at the edge, cloud and in between.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Add 3G cellular connectivity to your next project with Particle’s Electron 3G Kit
https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/add-3g-cellular-connectivity-to-your-next-project?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_term=research_events&utm_content=arrow_newsletter&utm_campaign=arrow_emea_en_seo-newsletter_oct2017
If you ever wanted an easy way to add 3G cellular connectivity to your IoT project or product, Particle’s Electron 3G Development Kit is the right dev kit for you. This dev kit makes setup easy so you can quickly start configuring your Electron 3G to get cellular connectivity.
The Electron 3G kit comes with a SIM card (Nano 4FF) that has three months of a 1MB monthly data plan included. Its specs include a STM32F205 ARM Cortex M3 Microcontroller that has 1MB Flash and 128K RAM, the U-Blox SARA U-series (3G) cellular modem, and 30 mixed-input GPIOs with advance peripherals.
Its content include the Particle Electron PCB, the Particle SIM card, a Li-Po battery (2000mAh), a Taoglas Cellular Antenna , a USB cable, a breadboard, a Pinout reference card, and components for a sample product.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Secure and Protect Sensitive Data on Connected IoT Devices
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/how-to-secure-and-protect-sensitive-data-on-connected-iot-devices-212b360a-abeb-45fe-a5f7-f79efe8d429d?contactid=1&PC=L&c=2017_10_31_esd_newsletter_update_v10_october
Connected IoT devices are becoming more functionally rich–not only in capabilities, but in the data they generate and transmit. As these devices blend seamlessly into our daily lives, it’s vital that developers secure and protect the data in these devices from being stolen or manipulated.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Grid Security: Communication and Security Capabilities at the OS Level
https://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/smart-grid-security-communication-and-security-capabilities-at-the-os-level-4d075f23-2f40-497e-8b7d-fcb2959bc3a1?contactid=1&PC=L&c=2017_10_31_esd_newsletter_update_v10_october
Smart energy is an all-inclusive term that refers to upgrading the energy grid so it can support bi-directional flow of energy and data. Such an endeavor involves adding connectivity, communication, and security features not only to the smart grid but to the many devices connected to a smart grid. But how do you ensure all devices on the network are secure?
Tomi Engdahl says:
C’mon, edgelords: The APIs are ours to command – do we do good or evil?
Edge computing is awesome and scary
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/31/doing_good_with_iot/
Edge computing is the pendulum swinging away from the idea of big, centralised servers back to distributed systems. It’s the idea that instead of centralising all of our workloads in big clouds we bring the computing closer to the devices requesting that compute power.
The idea is that edge computing solves whole new classes of workloads for which the latency involved with cloud is just too high. The power of the edge is greater than the sum of its parts.
The driverless car is held up as a good use case for edge computing: not just the vehicle as the device, but the vehicles festooned with devices. These cars will scan their surroundings and communicate with one another as well as incalculable other machines that will emit beacons of various types.
While driverless cars will have a limited capacity to analyse problems in real time, there are real-world limits to how much compute power we can practicably and efficiently cram into them.
If all cars in a given area had the ability to stream some or all of their data to a physically proximate server farm then that server farm could greatly enhance the decision-making capabilities of those vehicles.
A driverless car isn’t going to do much better than a human; it can’t see around corners all that much better than we can. The driverless car around the corner, however, can see what’s going on in its vicinity. And multiple cars around multiple corners provide enough data to know what’s what, what’s where and start making predictions about the vectors of all the moving pieces. Maybe we even throw in some extra sensors on lampposts and the like to make life easier.
Cloud data centres can be tens or even hundreds of milliseconds away. At 60kmph, 100ms is 1.67 metres. That’s more than enough to kill someone. The speed of light is unforgiving that way. Place a local number cruncher in there and your 100ms round trip becomes 5-10ms.
Of course, edge computing isn’t just about cars. There’s a strong Big Brother camp, too. They’ve been popping up at conferences promising to track patients at hospitals, children in schools, and prisoners in jails.
Enter developers
Cloud is becoming the way of doing business. When you disregard the sysadmin-facing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and the user-facing Software as a Service (SaaS) portions of cloud computing today, what you are left with is Platform as a Service (PaaS). PaaS provides a pre-canned environment for developers to code in with no need for sysadmins. Alongside PaaS we have proprietary public cloud services ranging from serverless to BDCA tools like machine learning, artificial intelligence and so forth.
Today’s modern applications work something like this: a script instantiates a series of PaaS environments. Application code is injected into these environments, creating a series of microservices. These microservices will listen for input data and then either farm that data directly out to a BDCA tool and then store the results or store the data and then run it through BDCA tools. Or both. The results are then made available to humans or machines to act on.
These BDCA tools are essentially filling a similar role to code libraries. Except instead of providing a simple function to convert XML to JSON they provide voice recognition, computer vision as a service, or join together a dozen different enterprise identity services to provide Single Sign On (SSO).
We are already standing on the edge
The edge is already in our workplaces and our homes. I mentioned vehicles and drones, but we also have Google’s Nest and even Amazon’s Alexa as early manifestations. With Nest, various Internet of Things devices report back to a central device. This device does some local decision making where real-time decisions matter and it farms the rest of the number crunching out to Google’s cloud.
The API presented to us is the voice interface. The latency sensitive portion of that API may consist of nothing more than “Hello, Alexa”
I have become
Some argue that edge computing is the true beginning of The Singularity. Machines already know things we’ll never understand. These individuals view the edge as a missing intermediate link in distributed machine learning. One that bridges the gap between low-powered, real-time, decision-making capability and the big number crunching capacity that centralised batch-job style clouds can offer.
The truth is, we don’t know what the edge will become, because we are the ones who will make that choice. The edge could enable machines to make our societies more efficient and capable that we can even imagine today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Manufacturing: How the Industrial Internet of Things is Enabling Factories of the Future
https://www.protolabs.com/resources/blog/smart-manufacturing-how-the-industrial-internet-of-things-is-enabling-factories-of-the-future/?utm_campaign=us-nurturing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pl&utm_content=reengage-journal-smart
From smartphones to wearable devices to automated machines, internet of things (IoT) technology offers individuals and organizations the ability to collect, monitor, and respond to data in real time—creating personalized and optimized experiences. This movement toward automation software, connected hardware, and data analysis is being mirrored within manufacturing companies looking to streamline their factory floors with the latest technological advancements.
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) represents the application of digitally connected technology across sectors like manufacturing, energy, transportation, and mining. More specifically, IIoT involves using connected devices and data analytics to optimize industrial and manufacturing operations.
A prime, tangible example of this concept is GE’s Brilliant Factory, which combines advanced manufacturing with advanced software sensors and connectivity to enhance productivity.
Digitalization has already benefited business models and processes, yet the internet of things continues to offer massive untapped potential for the industry. According to a recent McKinsey Global Institute report, IoT has a prospective economic impact of $11.1 trillion per year by 2025, which would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy.
Today, McKinsey estimates business-to-business smart technology applications make up nearly 70 percent of the entire network of IoT devices. These applications create value through forecasting and optimization, and are being implemented by many leading organizations—in particular, within the manufacturing sector.
Across all industries, sources report the manufacturing sector has been most likely to consider IoT critical to its business and invests the most in IoT software, hardware, connectivity, and services.
The growing prominence of IIoT has reshaped the manufacturing job market. Demand has shifted from production-floor workers to tech-focused positions (such as engineers and software developers) as manufacturers work toward more efficient, more sustainable, safer, and smarter operations driven by technology.
Digital manufacturing improves time-to-market by 30 percent, reduces planning and equipment costs by 40 percent, and increases overall production throughput by 15 percent, according to consulting firm CIMdata. Some estimates indicate that 3D printing, for example, can save up to 90 percent of raw material costs.
Accessing the Factory of the Future
Traditional manufacturing has been characterized by limited information exchange between machines and processes throughout the product development life cycle. Smart manufacturing technology has automated many of the design and production processes for today’s designers and engineers, forming a “digital thread” that connects all aspects of manufacturing.
Continuous Improvement
The addition of smart technology accelerates the entire manufacturing process; networked machine-to-machine communications improve both productivity and part quality. And as technology advances, digital manufacturers improve their processes. For instance, factory networks used to take 15 minutes to transfer a single file to a machine—now, with network upgrades, it takes seconds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Review: IoT Data Logging Services with MQTT
https://hackaday.com/2017/10/31/review-iot-data-logging-services-with-mqtt/
For the last few months, I had been using Sparkfun’s Phant server as a data logger for a small science project. Unfortunately, they’ve had some serious technical issues and have discontinued the service. Phant was good while it lasted: it was easy to use, free, and allowed me to download the data in a CSV format. It shared data with analog.io, which at the time was a good solution for data visualization.
While I could continue using Phant since it is an open-source project and Sparkfun kindly releases the source code for the server on Github, I thought it might be better to do some research, see what’s out there. I decided to write a minimal implementation for each platform as an interesting way to get a feel for each. To that end, I connected a DHT11 temperature/humidity sensor to a NodeMCU board to act as a simple data source.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Distributed Air Quality Monitoring (Using Taxis!)
https://www.hackster.io/james-puderer/distributed-air-quality-monitoring-using-taxis-69647e
Monitor air quality on a street-by-street level using Android Things, Google Cloud IoT, and taxis!
Air quality monitoring is a hot topic these days. No wonder, with so many recent studies showing a strong correlation between certain types of air pollution and negative health effects. However, most air quality monitoring happens at a few stations that are few and far between. Very little is understood about how pollution levels vary within a city on a street by street level, even though recent studies indicate that this might be incredibly important.
What if we used taxis to collect air quality data across the city in near realtime?
almost every single taxi in Lima has the exact same hollow vinyl taxi sign stuck to its roof.
In this project we’ll be logging: longitude, latitude, temperature, humidity, pressure, and (most importantly) air borne particulate counts (PM10 – particles with a diameter between 2.5 μm and 10 μm, PM2.5 – fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less).
The Android Things based Taxi Datalogger collects data from it’s sensors. Whenever it has network connectivity, it tries to push its sensor data (as JSON) to Google IoT Core.
Google IoT Core ensures that only authorized devices can push data (using public key cryptography). Device data is published to a Google Pub/Sub topic.
Google Dataflow reads in the sensor data from a Pub/Sub topic and adds it to a BigQuery table
Once your data is ready, you can use any number of tools to analyze and present your data (including Google Data Studio and Google Datalab). For this project we’ll keep it simple and just use Google Maps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Design and test strategy for IoT connectivity challenges
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4459021/Design-and-test-strategy-for-IoT-connectivity-challenges?utm_content=buffer0182a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
recent survey of nearly 600 designers interested in IoT design showed that the number one struggle they have is with connectivity. That doesn’t mean security isn’t a concern, it just may not be as troublesome to implement, once they get around to it.
Getting to an acceptable baseline level of security is necessary and hard, but doable, with some attention up front and the willingness to do it. So why do designers struggle with connectivity? And how can that struggle be mitigated? The answer is a better appreciation and understanding of RF design and test.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech Sector Must Uphold the Digital Social Contract says Arm CEO
https://community.arm.com/company/b/blog/posts/tech-sector-must-uphold-the-digital-social-contract
Cybercrime costs the global economy an estimated half a trillion dollars a year in economic losses, ransom payments and dealing with the resulting chaos. But while the advantages of a fully-connected world vastly outweigh the threats, achieving a digital world anchored in security needs all companies to accept their share of the responsibility to create a foundation of trust. In effect, all companies need to sign up to the Digital Social Contract (Social Contract) that obliges them to protect users.
IoT Security Manifesto
Exploring new Human-centered approaches to security
http://pages.arm.com/iot-security-manifesto.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
MediaTek Shifts To IoT
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332544&
MediaTek, which has seen its share of the smartphone business plummet during the past two years, is turning to new products such as IoT chips to drive sales growth.
MediaTek is shifting to products boosting sales that in the third quarter brought in about a third of the company’s revenue. The company expects that chips for IoT, game consoles and ASICs will contribute about a third of MediaTek’s total revenue this year.
The company is selling IoT devices to new customers such as Amazon, Google and other Chinese internet companies that MediaTek declined to name. MediaTek said it also has made chips, including ASICs, that go into game consoles for Sony and Microsoft.
MediaTek’s IoT strengths include existing designs for sensors, processors, communications and power consumption, Chief Financial Officer David Ku said on a conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter 2017 financial results.
While the IoT business is growing, the pathway to the market that includes refrigerators, televisions and air conditioners remains unclear.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT & cloud security overview
https://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4459027/IoT—cloud-security-overview
While secure communication might be on everyone’s mind, few are aware of the layers of security already present, and what steps are required to make the future safer. This article summarizes some existing security mechanisms, and outlines a few principles that could shape the future of IoT and Cloud security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Lock Down Authentication Flash to Prevent Theft
https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/articles/2017/10/27/how%20to%20lock%20down%20authentication%20flash%20to%20prevent%20theft
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Customer IoT Data to Improve Products
Companies are mining IoT data from the field to track customer usage and improve design.
https://www.designnews.com/iot/using-customer-iot-data-improve-products/66587706557712?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1837&elq_cid=876648
With IoT data coming from the coffee maker, engineers can find out:
How many cups of coffee customers are making every day
Whether the coffeemaker is in a warm office or a garage
How well it’s performing
How often it’s being used
Whether the coffee is hot when it comes out of the filter
And so on. Information like this might lead to the creation of an entirely new product: a coffee maker designed to make perfect coffee in a cold garage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Blockchain is the Key to a Secure IoT
Blockchain’s first big application outside of finance should be in solving IoT’s security woes.
https://www.designnews.com/iot/how-blockchain-key-secure-iot/87877979557738?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1837&elq_cid=876648
oT cybersecurity is a complex problem, one that many experts are willing to discuss but not many engineers are not willing to tackle . But as blockchain, the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, seeks a home outside of the clandestine world of crytocurrency, it may find its greatest application in providing a desperately needed way of securing our smart factories, smart homes, and other IoT networks.
In a talk at Arm TechCon 2017, Ben Smeets, a Senior Expert in Trusted Computing at Ericsson Research, suggested blockchain as the solution to the increasingly labyrinthine task of securing an ever-increasing number of connected devices. Securing IoT, he said, will require engineers to rethink how we think of digital identity. We cannot rely on simple username/password protection to verify the ID of people and devices. Think of how many logins you have for different web services and devices such at WiFi routers already and you can see how unscalable and unruly the problem gets as the number of devices and networks increases.
Smeets and his team at Ericsson Research have proposed a new way of looking at digital Ids they call “ID Brokering.” “[With ID Brokering] identity is not the credential itself. It is the description of the link between the identifier and its credential,” Smeets said. If you use Google, Facebook, or any other single sign on service you’ve seen the convenience of having one login to access multiple services. It’s great for humans, but not so much for devices, Smeet said. What’s more, there’s only one level of security – if someone gains access to one system they have implicit access to every system by virtue of the single login. A glaring issue like this is what allows cyberattacks like the 2016 Mirai malware attack, which targeted and hijacked IoT devices, to happen. If devices only need one level of verification to access a network, then who’s to believe they aren’t doing what they’re supposed to if their credentials check out?
The solution for Smeets and his team though is not to pile on extra layers of authentication, but rather to distribute them. And that’s where blockchain comes it. Because the blockchain functions via a distributed and encrypted ledger shared across all of a network’s users and devices, it creates a network of authentication that is verifiable and not easily hacked. With blockchain implemented, a device cannot access a network unless it is verified through the entire ledger. In this scenario attacks like Mirai become significantly more difficult, if not impossible, because a hacker would need to modify the entire ledger, and not just the credentials of any one device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The vast majority of people are afraid of the capture of IoT devices
Shortly afterwards, a security company, Check Point, revealed that the LG’s robotic vacuum cleaner was the hacker’s opening. A vacuum cleaner might be mostly cleaned by itself, but the gap in your home network is always a little worrisome. So it is no wonder that, according to Gemalton’s study, 90 percent of consumers are afraid of the security of various IoT devices.
For companies, the share is even higher, at 96%. Most users are afraid that someone will capture their IoT device control. Six out of ten fear more data capture.
Gemalton’s research also reveals that two out of three businesses (67 percent) secretly capture all the data that is collected and stored on IoT devices. In this respect, the starting point is quite good.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7095-valtaosa-ihmisistae-pelkaeae-iot-laitteiden-kaappaamista
More:
http://www6.gemalto.com/state-of-iot-security-2017-press-release
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://safenet.gemalto.com/resources/data-protection/state-of-iot-security-infographic
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cyber Security In The Era Of The Smart Home
A look at the risks from connected systems and devices and what to do about them.
https://semiengineering.com/cyber-security-in-the-era-of-the-smart-home/
The global smart home market is projected to reach at least $40 billion in value by 2020. Perhaps not surprisingly, OEMs are inadvertently creating major security risks in their rush to market by shipping smart home products with inadequate security and unpatched vulnerabilities. As ABI Research Analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis notes, ignoring cybersecurity at the design level provides a wide-open door for malicious actors to exploit smart home products.
Indeed, the widespread use of vulnerable smart home devices and systems has provided an attractive platform for targeted attacks by cyber criminals and other unscrupulous operators. In one of the most high profile examples of 2016, the operation of a New Hampshire-based internet domain name system company (Dyn) was overrun by millions of requests originating from security cameras, digital video recorders and other connected smart home devices.
This white paper explores various cyber security risks originating from or impacting connected smart home systems and devices
Cyber Security in the Era of the Smart Home
http://info.rambus.com/cyber-security-in-the-era-of-the-smart-home
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Anyone Listening When We Talk About Cybersecurity?
Op-Ed: Cybersecurity was a part of most discussions at this year’s Arm TechCon. But are the warnings, and even the solutions, falling on deaf ears?
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/anyone-listening-when-we-talk-about-cybersecurity/104595267057713?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1837&elq_cid=876648
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software enables cars to auto-report diagnostics
https://semiengineering.com/system-bits-oct-31/
Thanks to researchers at MIT, it may soon be possible to hop into a ride-share car, glance at a smartphone app, and tell the driver that the car’s left front tire needs air, its air filter should be replaced next week, and its engine needs two new spark plugs.
A new smartphone app analyzes a car’s sounds and vibrations, as measured by the phone’s microphone and accelerometers. “We’re listening to the car’s breathing, and listening for when it starts to snore,” MIT research scientist Joshua Siegel says. Source: MIT
This capability may be available within the next year or two, in any car someone happens to be in, based on analysis of the car’s sounds and vibrations, as measured by the phone’s microphone and accelerometers.
Let your car tell you what it needs
MIT team develops software that can tell if tires need air, spark plugs are bad, or air filter needs replacing.
http://news.mit.edu/2017/software-let-your-car-tell-you-what-it-needs-1026
Imagine hopping into a ride-share car, glancing at your smartphone, and telling the driver that the car’s left front tire needs air, its air filter should be replaced next week, and its engine needs two new spark plugs.
Within the next year or two, people may be able to get that kind of diagnostic information in just a few minutes, in their own cars or any car they happen to be in. They wouldn’t need to know anything about the car’s history or to connect to it in any way; the information would be derived from analyzing the car’s sounds and vibrations, as measured by the phone’s microphone and accelerometers.
The MIT research behind this idea has been reported in a series of papers, most recently in the November issue of the journal Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. The new paper’s co-authors include research scientist Joshua Siegel PhD ’16; Sanjay Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering and vice president of open learning at MIT; and two others.
A smartphone app combining the various diagnostic systems the team developed could save the average driver $125 a year and improve their overall gas mileage by a few percentage points, Siegel says. For trucks, the savings could run to $600 a year, not counting the benefits of avoiding breakdowns that could result in lost income.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Winbond Bolsters Flash Security
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332528&
The proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) has spawned numerous security and privacy challenges, prompting the development of more secure memories — particularly flash.
Winbond Electronics last week announced it was meeting these challenges with the expansion of its TrustME Secure Flash products portfolio based on the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Device Identifier Composition Engine (DICE) Architecture specification, which defines new security and privacy technologies applicable to systems and components. The goal is to provide new approaches to enhancing security and privacy with minimal silicon requirements.
The company also announced an expansion of its TrustMETM Secure Flash products portfolio aligned with Platform Security Architecture (PSA) from Arm. Winbond’s TrustMETMW75F Secure Flash provides designers with secure memory solution for IoT, mobile, artificial intelligence, and other demanding applications that call for a secure root of trust, privacy, authentication, code and data confidentiality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T Previews Edge Compute Plans
Server/storage pods target low latency apps
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332542
AT&T Labs has been quietly defining its concept of edge computers and is now slowly edging toward deploying them. Long term, the work has broad implications for the future design of both cloud and mobile systems.
AT&T defines edge compute as groups of servers and storage systems placed on the periphery of its network to deliver low latency services. It foresees a wide variety of such systems that vary in size and location depending on the application and demand.
“Edge compute is the next step in getting more out of our network, and we are busy putting together an edge computing architecture,” said Alicia Abella, a senior executive at AT&T Labs, in a keynote at the Fog World Congress here.
“We want to deploy edge compute nodes in mobile data centers, in buildings, at customers’ locations and in our central offices. Where it is…depends on where there is demand, where we have spectrum, we are developing methods for optimizing the locations,” she said.
The edge systems serve many uses. They aim to help AT&T reduce the volume of data it must carry to and from its core network. They also will enable higher quality for existing services and hopefully open the doors to new services as well.
One clear application is running video analytics for surveillance cameras. Such edge systems might use GPUs, FPGAs or other accelerators and be located in cities.
A more challenging use is handling jobs for automated vehicles because it would require a significant investment in roadside infrastructure but have an uncertain return-on-investment. Interestingly, AT&T now has 12 million smart cars on its network, a number growing by a million per quarter, she said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things should not become “Internet of Threats”
Explosion of the number and use of combined devices emphasizes the importance of security. Particularly in the United States, some politicians have labeled the Internet as a threat to the Internet (Internet of threats), which requires more stringent legislation.
Legislators are called for assistance both in the EU Data Directive and in the United States, where a special cyber shield act of 2017 is being developed. The problem lies only in the fact that hackers and other cyber racers are always pushing a step ahead of jurists and lawmakers.
The US Congress has been working for months to come up with a new cyberspace policy. To date, both Republicans and Democrats have endorsed a show where industry, equipment manufacturers, voluntarily agree to evaluate and certify the security features of their devices.
Such a proposal is, after all, pretty good, for the safety of iot devices is of course the best thing to find out before the massive entry of the devices. The idea runs at least in theory so that consumers will learn to choose the devices approved by the Cyber Security Committee to their own smartphones and cars.
It should be noted that the new law mainly defending the consumer is mostly supported by the Democrats. In President Donald Trump’s corporate governance, the adoption of such a law is unlikely.
Moreover, participation in the online security program could not be voluntary. The time a lot of service providers would probably miss out on any kind of excerpt from the scout – if not otherwise, at least on business secrets.
And yet, fine-tuned security labels do not in any way help buyers of iot devices. The entire stamping procedure seems to be designed for consumers only.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/CIO/esineiden-internetista-ei-saa-tulla-uhkien-internetia-6685322
More:
Is the U.S. finally about to take IoT security seriously?
The Cyber Shield Act of 2017 is intended to certify internet of things devices for stronger security. But it’s unlikely to change much.
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3235518/internet-of-things/is-the-u-s-finally-about-to-take-iot-security-seriously.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE:
Ayla Networks, which makes a platform to help companies manage IoT devices, raises $60M Series D, bringing total raised to $120M
Ayla Networks raises $60M in funding to simplify IoT projects
https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/11/02/ayla-networks-bags-60m-simplify-iot-projects/
For a manufacturer looking to bring a connected device to market, developing the necessary hardware features and backend support infrastructure can be a daunting task. Ayla Networks Inc. has carved out a niche for itself by helping to simplify the process.
The startup, which is based in Santa Clara, California, today announced that it’s expanding its efforts using a newly closed $60 million funding round.
Ayla sells a cloud platform that lets manufacturers support connected devices without having to build out their backend management infrastructure from scratch. Besides reducing costs, the startup said, the service can also help better meet operational demands.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Demand for modem, IoT chips helps Qualcomm top estimates
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-results/demand-for-modem-iot-chips-helps-qualcomm-top-estimates-idUSKBN1D15SU
Qualcomm Inc’s fourth-quarter profit and revenue beat market expectations as strength in its smartphone chips business was complemented by demand for chips used in automobiles and for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical IoT Heats Up
https://semiengineering.com/medical-iot-heats-up/
New technologies will revolutionize drug discovery, diagnostics and treatments, but they also create security issues with no precedent.
Ever since the IoT was first introduced as a concept, the possibility of using ordinary devices or chips for monitoring health has been mostly an unfulfilled promise.
In fact, one of the biggest selling points of smart watches and other wearables initially was the ability to monitor everything from heart irregularities to sugar levels on a continuous basis rather than a once-a-year electrocardiogram, or a blood test done multiple times a day.
Much has changed in the world of biosensors, and the fact that they haven’t shown up in mass-market consumer devices yet isn’t a reflection of all the work going on behind the scenes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Securing Smart Homes
Threat levels rise as more devices are connected. Solutions are available, but they are often ignored.
https://semiengineering.com/securing-smart-homes/
One year after Mirai malware hijacked more than 100,000 connected devices for its botnet and launched a denial of service attack — which briefly blocked access to popular sites such as Netflix, PayPal, Amazon and Twitter — IoT device makers are just beginning to get smarter about home security.
Security concerns reach deeper into the home than just the Internet gateway or a home router. They now touch everything connected to that home network, from computers and remote servers all the way to appliances such as washing machines and refrigerators.
“Someone can still remotely start your oven or stove, or start all the washing machines in a neighborhood and take the power grid down,” says Asaf Ashkenazi, senior director of product management in Rambus’ Security Division. “The system can’t distinguish between a legitimate user and a botnet that’s trying to connect. This becomes a threat to the entire Internet infrastructure.”
Distributed denial of service attacks can utilize a variety of approaches and entry points.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security For Embedded Electronics
There are specific security precautions for embedded devices and systems.
https://semiengineering.com/security-for-embedded-electronics/
The embedded systems market is expected to enjoy steady growth in the near future—provided those systems can be adequately secured.
One of the biggest challenges for embedded devices and systems, especially those employed in the Internet of Things, is adequately protecting them from increasingly sophisticated hacking. This is a new tool for criminal enterprises, and a very lucrative one because it can be done remotely with little fear of being caught. Even when hackers are caught, they rarely are prosecuted, which has not gone unnoticed by criminal enterprises. A lack of reprisal has allowed them to recruit some of the best and brightest programmers.
The disruption that can be caused by unsecured IoT devices was dramatically demonstrated a year ago, when cyberattacks on Dyn DNS (now Oracle Dyn Global Business Unit) shut down some highly popular websites for much of one day. While no attacks of similar scale have occurred since then, cybersecurity experts expect there are more to come because the motivation will be financial rather than social disruption just for the heck of it.
Transparency Market Research forecasts the worldwide embedded systems market will rise to $233.19 billion in four years, marking a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% from 2015 to 2021. The automotive industry will take a higher profile in embedded systems, TMR predicts, representing 18.3% of the embedded systems market by 2021.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Datacenter to container when the cloud is too far away
Automated production requires a delay of less than 1 millisecond (latency) between IT systems. According to Mikko Aho, Sales Manager at Rittal, a solution for many would be a preconfigured, container-built machine.
Since automated production generates a huge amount of data, and because this data has to be able to process a delay, the speed of the general clouds today is not always enough.
Thus, more and more industrial companies have introduced so-called edge data centers. According to their name, these are located at the edge of the production facilities or even directly within the factory buildings.
- Close-placed data centers are able to process the data stream required in automated production with a sufficiently low latency to enable data to be used in production and logistics management, Aho summarizes the benefits of this edge model.
The most effective solution for the edge data center is a preconfigured, ready “container bin”. On the side of the production plant, a data center located in its own dedicated space can be erected, which contains not only the servers but also everything else: the racks and other components, the power supply and the cooling
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7096&via=n&datum=2017-11-02_16:29:46&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Blockchain is the Key to a Secure IoT
Blockchain’s first big application outside of finance should be in solving IoT’s security woes.
https://www.designnews.com/iot/how-blockchain-key-secure-iot/87877979557738?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1863&elq_cid=876648
IoT cybersecurity is a complex problem, one that many experts are willing to discuss but not many engineers are not willing to tackle . But as blockchain, the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, seeks a home outside of the clandestine world of crytocurrency, it may find its greatest application in providing a desperately needed way of securing our smart factories, smart homes, and other IoT networks.
Smeets and his team at Ericsson Research have proposed a new way of looking at digital Ids they call “ID Brokering.”
https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/secure-iot-identities/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Varied Power of the Industrial IoT
While much of the IoT buzz has been going to consumer and medical products, the industrial IoT sector shows faster growth.
https://www.designnews.com/iot/varied-power-industrial-iot/89866591457695?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1863&elq_cid=876648
With Intel projecting IoT products growing to 2000 billion devices by 2020 – just three years from now – the talk of IoT-everything is running high. We’re hearing about connected watches and a multitude of medical devices. But the quickest way to a clear return-on-investment in IoT, according to analyst groups such as ARC Advisory, is in industrial settings.
Many of the technologies that make up Industrial IoT are actually well-established in their own right.
Here are the layers of IoT applications with a look at what’s emerging in eash area:
Electronics, software, sensors and actuators
These days, every consumer and industrial item with a battery or an on/off switch almost certainly includes software-controlled electronics (this is what makes it a smart product). These technologies have been around for decades. A recent trend is that component providers who offer all the digital metadata that describes their components may well have an advantage at this stage, because the metadata can feed into systems engineering and other tools, thus helping the project team structure, simulate, then plan the development project.
Connectivity
This is the means by which devices communicate with the back-end systems and includes a range of methods from proprietary to standards-based. Of course, it has been possible to connect devices for some time, but historically this has used proprietary, custom-built systems. Today, cloud computing provides a more convenient and cost-effective way to connect to other systems.
Edge computing – i.e. servers located close to the smart products or factories that act as a ‘collection point’ for the data.
Evolving connectivity standards : the Industrial Internet of Things Connectivity Framework (IIC:PUB:G5:V1.0:PB:20170228) from the IIC (Industrial Internet Consortium) lists ten Core Standard Criteria ranging from Providing syntactic interoperability to Having readily-available SDKs. Against these, it rates four Connectivity Standards – DDS; Web Services; OPC-UA and oneM2M.
distinguishing feature is that, unlike the other three, DDS has no concept of messages
Product Access and Data Routing
Almost every connected product has more than one organization interested in reading its data, and sending it commands. The Product Access and Data Routing layer controls and manages who has access to what. For example, the manufacturer of a machine, and a third-party service company may offer machine monitoring, optimization and predictive maintenance. What data will they see? What settings can they change? If something is changed, who is responsible for documenting the change and matching it to other records of use of the machine (for example, batches of food production)?
Product-Specific Software Applications
This is the heart of many new capabilities of smart, connected products. For example, a new capability to observe and analyze the status of a set of connected devices, and make a plan to operate or service them, will be provided by software in this layer.
Other Enterprise Applications
MRO (Maintenance, Repair, Operations) may well be the focus of a smart connected product initiative, perhaps a switch from fixing breakdowns to usage-based or predictive maintenance. But many MRO issues stay the same: fault handling, whether real or predicted; configuration; part or software availability for fix; schedule technician or online access to product; fix problem, report the fix; share the know-how; customer acceptance.
Rhonda Dirvin, director IoT vertical markets for ARM (now part of Softbank): “The first driver for the spread of IIoT was the proliferation of mobile phones, which drove down the cost of sensors – cameras, GPS, accelerometers.
“This drove down the cost of acquiring data. At the same time, Cloud computing emerged, which provided a platform where this data could be stored and analyzed relatively cheaply. Altogether, this provides the basic framework for IoT. Other technologies such as Big Data, AI (artificial intelligence) and Machine Learning are now coming into play to help make sense of this data, taking it to a whole new level.”
There is little doubt that the Industrial IoT will continue to be disruptive
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did you know this? Data moves from F1 with wifi
The Formula 1 car runs fast and the data generated by its sensors is monitored in real time. But how can this data be transferred to real-time vario for analysis? Wifi technology, says an interesting article in Forbes magazine.
Forbes met representatives of the Mercede F1 team during the Austin race. The article discusses the fact that two different wifi technologies are actually used in the Mersun car: a standard 5 GHz connection and shorter connections to 60 GHz. WiGig technology.
On track, the car is connected to the cage with a 5 gigahertz wifi. However, this is not a technology that would be coming to the living room router at any speed. The car produces giant sensors during the race and it needs to be immediately analyzed.
When the car travels more than 300 kilometers per hour, the receiver must compensate for the variable doppler effect both when the car approaches and farther away. Mercedes does not reveal how far their wifi link is, but Forbes says “surprisingly far”.
When the car comes to a depot, a 60 gigahertic link will be alongside the 5 gigahertz connection. Through it, data can be passed 3-4 times faster.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7109-tiesitkoe-taetae-data-siirtyy-f1-autosta-wifillae
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Device Security in Five Simple Steps
Digi International
https://www.digikey.fi/en/ptm/d/digi-international/iot-device-security-in-five-simple-steps
https://www.digikey.fi/en/ptm/d/digi-international/iot-device-security-in-five-simple-steps/tutorial
This presentation will walk through five simple steps to ensure a more secure Internet of Things approach. When planning an IoT strategy it is important to understand the risks of being attacked, which questions to ask, and what steps to take in order to ensure, strong IoT device security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
After Mirai: The new IoT scare ‘Reaper’ and what we can do about it
https://www.wespeakiot.com/mirai-new-iot-scare-reaper-can/
Mirai was just the beginning
Users probably wouldn’t even find out that their devices were being hacked. And there lies the danger: If you’re not aware that your device is doing something it shouldn’t do, you probably don’t bother much about securing your IT enviroment. While you think that everything is fine, it is actually not.
Reaper focuses on wireless IP cameras – for now
So far, Reaper has not carried out any attacks on the net. However, we shouldn’t wait until it happens. Unlike Mirai, that used weak password cracking, Reaper infects IoT devices by exploiting multiple IoT device vulnerabilities, mainly on wireless IP cameras. So as a user it’s mandatory to keep your network and IoT devices up-to-date. Security specialists at Netlab 360 identified several IoT vulnerability exploits integrated in the malware so far and published a list of affected vendors.
As a great weakness in the design of IoT devices Krebs mentions the inclusion of so called peer-to-peer (P2P) networking capabilities that are being implemented in countless security cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs) and various other gear.
Krebs even suggests not to use any hardware that advertises P2P functionality.
Manufacturers need easy remote maintenance
Keeping the Internet safe is a constant arms race. New technologies bring new vulnerabilities. Consumers should not install and forget. Keeping systems constantly up-to-date is mandatory.
But it’s also the duty (and challenge) of manufacturers to keep their devices easy to use but hard to hack. Unfortunately, many still tend to avoid a product design that allows painless over-the-air updates like consumers know it from smartphones or TV Set-Top-Boxes. But what is common there, should be common on every IoT device.
If all manufactures would design their products in a matter so they can be updated automatically while in service, the internet could become a lot safer place.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Repair Job Fixes Compressor, Gets in Online
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/repair-job-fixes-compressor-gets-in-online/
We’ll never cease to be amazed at the things people try to put on the Internet of Things. Some are no-brainers, like thermostats, security cameras, and garage door openers. Others, like washing machines and refrigerators, are a little on the iffy side, but you can still make a case for them. But an IoT air compressor? What’s the justification for such a thing?
As it turns out, [Boris van Galvin] had a pretty decent reason for his compressor hacks, and it appears that the IoT aspect was one of those “why not?” things.
https://hackaday.io/project/27924-iot-air-compressor
Description
Some years ago I purchased an old compressor that has been a work horse. A year ago the mechanical pressure switch and contractor’s gave out causing the compressor to no longer turn off despite trying to persuade it with a hammer.
I replaced the assembly at a cost of about $120.00
The other day to my dismay the switch failed again, this time it will not turn the compressor on.
Rather than just replace the switching system again I decided to build a new one with some smarts and using an ESP8266, a pressure sensor and a solid state relay I have begun putting together and coding a smart switching system that connected to the local network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Measuring Airflow in an HVAC System
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/04/measuring-airflow-in-an-hvac-system/
[Nubmian] wrote in to share his experiments with measuring airflow in an HVAC system. His first video deals with using with ultrasonic sensors. He found an interesting white paper that described measuring airflow with a single-path acoustic transit time flow meter. The question was, could he get the same effects with off-the-shelf components?
[Nubmian] created a rig using a pair of typical ultrasonic distance sensors. He detached the two transducers from the front of the PCB. The transducers were then extended on wires, with the “send” capsules together pointing at the “receive” capsules. [Nubmian] set the transducers up in a PVC pipe and blew air into it with a fan.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481905/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fridge Alarm Speaks, and Saves Power & Food
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/04/fridge-alarm-speaks-and-saves-power-food/
One of the most power-hungry devices in our homes, besides the air conditioner or heater, is our refrigerator and freezer. It’s especially so if the door doesn’t close all the way or the magnetic seal doesn’t seat properly. [Javier] took to solving a recurring problem with his personal fridge by attaching an alarm to the door to make sure that it doesn’t consume any more power than it absolutely needs.
At its core the device is straightforward. A micro switch powers a small microcontroller only when the door is open. If the door is open for too long, the microcontroller swings into action. The device then powers up a small wireless card (which looks like a variant of the very well-documented ESP module), that communicates with his microwave of all things, which in turn alerts him with an audible, spoken alarm that the refrigerator hasn’t closed all the way. It’s all powered with a battery that will eventually need to be recharged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsPydJf39hQ&feature=youtu.be
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s worse than having your data stolen?
https://perspectives.tieto.com/blog/2017/01/whats-worse-than-having-your-data-stolen/?utm_source=gmoa&utm_medium=facebook-paid&utm_campaign=tieto100&utm_content=kyberrikollisuus-blogi
The modern society is built on data. Having data stolen or taken hostage isn’t the biggest threat, however. If malicious attackers manage to manipulate our data without us noticing, we’re in deep trouble.
In 2010, a computer virus fed incorrect information to centrifuges in an Iranian uranium enrichment plant.
In 2012, the FBI estimated that hacked smart electricity meters had cost a Puerto Rican electric utility an annual 400 million dollars.
These are examples of tampered data wreaking havoc. No data was stolen, nothing was destroyed. Just some small tampering
In 2014, attackers tried to distort operational data from satellites belonging to the US weather agency NOAA.
January 10, 2017
What’s worse than having your data stolen?
2152 Views 0 Comments 319 Shares
Markus Melin
Head of Tieto Security Services, Tieto
The modern society is built on data. Having data stolen or taken hostage isn’t the biggest threat, however. If malicious attackers manage to manipulate our data without us noticing, we’re in deep trouble.
In 2010, a computer virus fed incorrect information to centrifuges in an Iranian uranium enrichment plant. This made the centrifuges rotate at wrong speed, which finally destroyed the system – and set Iran’s nuclear program back several years in one swift blow.
In 2012, the FBI estimated that hacked smart electricity meters had cost a Puerto Rican electric utility an annual 400 million dollars.
These are examples of tampered data wreaking havoc. No data was stolen, nothing was destroyed. Just some small tampering of changes to critical data feeds can stop an industrial plant, disrupt air traffic, and cause financial damage to businesses.
In 2014, attackers tried to distort operational data from satellites belonging to the US weather agency NOAA. The satellites’ data is crucial for disaster mapping and safeguarding air and sea traffic. Incorrect information could have caused serious trouble and life-threatening situations.
Internet of Badly Functioning Things
The World Wide Web’s founding father Tim Berners-Lee recently commented that disrupted traffic data could instruct all vehicles to take the same routes. This would grind an entire city to a halt.
With the Internet of Things, the correctness of data becomes essential. It’s all too easy to cripple a smart city by feeding wrong information to internet-connected devices.
The Guardian quotes Mr Berners-Lee: “When people are thinking about the security of their systems, they worry about other people discovering what they are doing. What they don’t think about is the possibility of things being changed.”
Not being able to trust data may shake the foundations of the way modern societies and businesses function.
But what if an attacker has ever-so-slightly changed the numbers you see in your ERP dashboard? Little by little, you start making increasingly bad decisions, because you don’t know the real situation.
The best way to protect yourself from data sabotage is to have a thorough security policy, keep a close eye on the latest developments in AI, and understand that human security experts are still necessary.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week in Review: IoT
Startup funding; Qualcomm commentary; UTC picks Microsoft Cloud.
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-70/
Farmobile has raised $18.1 million in a Series B round of funding
The agricultural Internet of Things startup will use the money to expand its operations around the world. Farmobile provides agronomic and machine data to vetted third parties. I
Ayla Networks has raised $60 million in Series D financing led by Run Liang Tai Fund and Sunsea Telecommunications Co. Ltd. Ayla Networks is partnering with Sunsea Telecommunications to form a joint venture, Ayla Sunsea, with Sunsea IoT, a subsidiary of Sunsea Telecom. Ayla is involved in Industrial IoT
Vector Limited has made “a significant investment” in mPrest and will act as a reselling partner in the Oceania region for mPrest’s “Internet of Energy” software. New Zealand-based Vector, which is a customer of mPrest, joins OurCrowd, GE Ventures, Angeleno Group, Israel Electric Corp., and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. as an investor in mPrest.
United Technologies has selected Microsoft to help implement its IoT operations. UTC units will use the cloud-based Azure and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for field service, sales, marketing, and preventive maintenance.
Gemalto reports that its LTE Cat M1 wireless module is certified by Verizon Communications. The company’s Cinterion EMS31 module is compatible with Gemalto’s embedded SIM for machine-to-machine and IIoT applications.
SecureRF received the “Best Contribution to IoT Security” award at Arm TechCon 2017
The company offers a free IoT Embedded Security Development Kit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MSEC keynote: Sensors will take care of us by understanding our needs
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/anablog/4459032/MSEC-keynote–Sensors-will-take-care-of-us-by-understanding-our-needs
At the MEMS and Sensors Executive Congress this week, Lama Nachman, Director of Anticipatory Computing Lab at Intel, gave the keynote, ‘Context is Everything,’ in which she told us that we have not yet reached the true potential of MEMS/sensors.
Nachman told us that in the near future, technology will take care of us by understanding our needs via sensor technology. Advanced AI systems will need to recognize our emotions with multi-modal fusion; maybe using physiology of our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, etc. Smart glasses might have an accelerometer or a microphone mounted on smart glasses and maybe a piezo sensor to examine and identify vibration. Accelerometers might be able to detect voice over a wider bandwidth, and heart rates might be able to be detected via RF reflected signals.
Smart homes will be like a ‘guardian angel’ watching our children and our elderly population, and smart manufacturing will tell a worker that they left a screwdriver in the machine they just repaired.
In sensing, sometimes noise is the signal that you want; an example would be with RFID, where a shopper might be browsing a clothing rack and we will know what they have touched, removed from the rack, how long they held it and determine whether they may buy this item or not.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connectivity options for the IoT
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4459013/Connectivity-options-for-the-IoT
The wireless connectivity options for the Internet of Things (IoT) are numerous and varied. That there are so many options is in part a function of the growing number of IoT use-case categories, each having a distinct set of requirements that balance factors including power, connectivity range, network latency, the frequency and size of data exchange, and the location(s) of processing resources.
Designers of IoT devices will have to sort out which connectivity options will make the most sense for the target application. And because most use cases are still developing and there are multiple connectivity options for each of those use cases, designers will occasionally be forced to bet on one option rather than another.
This is a rundown of prominent connectivity options for IoT, along with notes on recent developments, when applicable. The first set of options includes wireless local area network (LAN) and personal area network (PAN) standards. The second set includes wireless wide area network (WAN) standards.
Wireless LANs and PANs based on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, and Zigbee have been around for years.
It is eminently possible to create IoT networks using cellular networks, but GPRS, 3G, and LTE network connectivity can be costly; endpoints, for example, can be expensive. IoT applications are a key use case and therefore one of the leading justifications for evolving to 5G, but 5G networks designed to support IoT applications aren’t due for widespread deployment for another few years.
Consequently other low-power wide area networking (LP-WAN) connectivity options have popped up in the last few years to handle such applications. In general, WAN applications tend to be needed by enterprise and governmental customers; IoT WAN applications are likely to be little different.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Weightless: Considered the one truly open LP-WAN. There are three versions; W, N, and P. All operate in bands below 1 GHz. W is optimized for “white space” bands. N is the version considered most directly competitive with SigFox and LoRaWAN, inasmuch as it was designed for the same types of applications. The key proponent of Weightless N is the company nWave. The P version, meanwhile, is fully bidirectional in order to support more robust communications between battery-powered devices and base stations in urban environments. Hardware for P became available only in September, when Weightless SIG member Ubiik began shipping base stations, end device modules, and software for testing, evaluation, and development purposes; recipients include companies in 20 countries over five continents.
https://www.ubiik.com/single-post/2017/09/25/Weightless-LPWAN-Hardware-Officially-Shipping
Tomi Engdahl says:
FOTA: Weightless-P vs. LoRaWAN
https://www.ubiik.com/single-post/2017/03/28/FOTA-Weightless-P-vs-LoRaWAN
LoRaWAN is unable to meet a key IoT network deployment requirement: bi-directional communication to upgrade firmware-over-the-air and update security patches to end-devices that have already been deployed in the field.
The new LPWAN technology Weightless-P has taken position as the new catalyst to bring sustainable IoT networks to life.
Let’s first take a look at the three reasons why LoRaWAN is unable to support Firmware-Over-The-Air (FOTA) for a real IoT deployment.
1. With very stringent downlink limitations, LoRaWAN would take an unreasonably long time to update the firmware for a single end device. There are a few elements to take into consideration including the distance of gateway to end device and spreading factor utilised but It could potentially take weeks to send a 200K update to ONE end-device given 20 bytes on a 5-minute polling.
2. LoRaWAN gateway transmissions are uncoordinated. This means if a gateway attempts firmware downlink transmission, it will not be able to listen and receive messages from the rest of the end devices in the network. When you have thousands of end devices deployed, the end-devices won’t know the gateway is conducting a firmware upgrade and all messages being sent will be lost.
3. LoRaWAN gateways are duty cycle limited. LoRaWAN gateways can only transmit 1% of the time (ETSI), and will need all of the downlink resource for acknowledgements and MAC control messages. Very, very little would be left over for FOTA multicast. In the US, the 1% duty cycle limit does not apply so the network basically stops functioning to facilitate uplink.
Weightless-P is a narrowband LPWAN technology which supports FOTA and true bi-directional communication. Duty cycle limitations do not apply as Weightless-P utilises spectrally efficient narrowband operation and frequency hopping.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Inside Look: Weightless Starter Kit
https://www.ubiik.com/single-post/2017/10/09/An-Inside-Look-Weightless-Starter-Kit
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stacey Higginbotham / Stacey on IoT:
ADT wins temporary injunction against video doorbell maker Ring, preventing it from selling Protect security system until trial ends — ADT, which was suing Ring after the video doorbell company hired away most of the employees of Zonoff, has won a temporary injunction against Ring.
ADT wins temporary injunction against Ring’s new security system
https://staceyoniot.com/adt-wins-temporary-injunction-against-rings-new-security-system/
ADT, which was suing Ring after the video doorbell company hired away most of the employees of Zonoff, has won a temporary injunction against Ring. The injunction, issued Thursday night, will stay in effect throughout the remainder of the trial between the two companies, and prevents Ring from selling its $199 Protect security system. With the holiday season coming, and competition heating up in the security market, the decision by the Delaware Chancery Court could become a big deal for Ring.
The drama started earlier in March after Ring hired almost all of the employees from Zonoff, a company that made smart home software. Zonoff had raised money from ADT and was working with the security company to build a smart home platform. However, Zonoff had been actively seeking a buyer since the middle of 2016. After a proposed acquisition fell through, Zonoff shut its doors. A day later Ring had made job offers to all of the Zonoff employees.
ADT argued that Zonoff took that tech with it to Ring and it is being used in Ring’s security system.
Ring says that that the lawsuit was an example of ADT trying to delay the launch of a competing product
The situation is a mess, but it appears ADT has the judge on its side. ADT in October launched a new security product that combines SmartThing’s hub and software with ADT’s current monitoring. Ring launched Protect in October, adding sensors and a keypad to its outdoor cameras and video doorbell. Also in October, Wink and Nest both launched security products as well. Honeywell followed up this month with an all-in-one security product.
Clearly, companies are viewing security as the gateway to a smart home and everyone wants to fight for their share of the market.