Benchmark #3 - Argument

from “When Your Stuff Spies on You”

by Stephen Ornes

1. The Internet of Things is the collection of everyday objects that can gather information then share it online. These objects use built-in sensors and other small devices to interact with the environment around them.

2. For example, “smart” basketballs or soccer balls can collect data on shooting skills to help a player improve. Smart dolls can recognize their owners and have friendly conversations. Smart cars can monitor the road for signs of danger. Even an ordinary house can become a smart home. A heater might shut itself off when it senses that the house is empty, for example. Or a lamp might turn itself off after a child falls asleep.

3. The possibilities are almost endless. But storing data about your life online,—and all the time,—brings hidden risks.

4. Smart devices collect, store and use data about the world around them. Some of these data help the device function. They might be personal,—like a user’s address, eating habits or daily routines. Someone who eavesdrops on that person’s internet connection could steal those data or tamper with a device. A hacker who can crack a family’s “smart” garage door opener might gain access to their entire home.

5. Even without a hack, the company that makes a device may use the data in ways a user doesn’t realize. Experts say that people who use smart devices need to know who sees their data and how a company will use it. But that’s not always easy to figure out. . . .

6.  The scientists who study the new ways we connect devices in our world are worried about security. They know that every new device brings new hacking risks. By focusing on those risks, however, researchers also can work on installing safeguards,—and maybe stop an attack from stealing our data, our privacy and our safety.

from “The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics”

by Kaveh Waddell

This article is an excerpt from an interview between Kaveh Waddell, a reporter, and Francine Berman, a computer-science professor and expert on computer security.

1. Waddell: To me, one of the biggest problems with the Internet of Things right now is that manufacturers are making poorly secured devices in their rush to connect every little thing they make to the internet. Is there any way to stop that from happening without turning to regulations and laws?

2. Berman: I was talking to someone the other day about baby monitors, which can be both great and pretty scary. It’s great to be able to monitor your baby and make sure that they’re okay, and it’s really scary when people are shrieking at your baby over the internet because your baby monitor got hacked. That’s poor design.

3. I think the gee-whiz aspects of the Internet of Things get a lot of attention: Oh, I can do this, and the system adapts to me in this way, and I never have to turn on the lights in my house again because my house is doing it for me.

4. But I think it’s equally important to be thinking on the social side. We don’t want to, as you point out, rush to the final result, which is maybe legislation or policy, without a lot of experience and testing and thinking about what’s in the public good.

   5.  Waddell: Are people getting distracted by that gee-whiz factor: the novelty of Alexa and internet-connected lights? Are we in the honeymoon stage right now?

   6. Berman: Right. Infrastructure is never newsworthy until it fails. To get people to think about and prioritize getting infrastructure right,—and governance and ethics and policy and social-interest structure,—is hard. Typically we’re interested in the results and the breakthroughs and the discoveries, or the really bad things that happen, like losing social-security numbers or getting hacked. It’s not newsworthy to say the water main is working, or the lights are still on.

from “Securing the Internet of Things”

by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

1. The Internet of Things refers to any object or device that sends and receives data automatically through the Internet. This rapidly expanding set of “things” includes tags (also known as labels or chips that automatically track objects), sensors, and devices that interact with people and share information machine to machine.

Why should we care?

2. Cars, appliances, wearables, lighting, healthcare, and home security all contain sensing devices that can talk to other machines and trigger additional actions. Examples include devices that direct your car to an open spot in a parking lot; mechanisms that control energy use in your home; control systems that deliver water and power to your workplace; and other tools that track your eating, sleeping, and exercise habits.

3. This technology provides a level of convenience to our lives, but it requires that we share more information than ever. The security of this information, and the security of these devices, is not always guaranteed.

What are the risks?

4. Though many security and resilience risks are not new, the scale of interconnectedness created by the Internet of Things increases the consequences of known risks and creates new ones. Attackers take advantage of this scale to infect large segments of devices at a time, allowing them access to the data on those devices or to, as part of a botnet, attack other computers or devices for malicious intent.