You might want to stop and think twice before buying that shiny new smart watch, smart TV, or other smart what-not that uses the web to operate — devices that comprise the Internet of Things. According to this week’s report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the Chinese government is hellbent on exploiting the Internet of Things to spy on every aspect of our lives — including the most intimate ones.
According to Gartner, the Connecticut-based global consulting giant, there are more smart gizmos connected to the Internet than people in the world. By 2020, the total population of Internet of Things devices will swell to 20.4 billion.
Because Internet-connected devices operate via the web — everything from pacemakers and baby monitors to smart toys and automobiles — they can be readily hacked. In a now-famous demonstration in St. Louis, Mo., security gurus Charles Miller and Chris Valasek took over a Jeep Cherokee driven by Andy Greenberg, a senior writer for Wired magazine. “Immediately my accelerator stopped working,” Greenberg recounts. “As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. This occurred just as I reached a long overpass, with no shoulder to offer an escape. The experiment had ceased to be fun.”
In another incident, a trio of American college students deployed Mirai, a malicious botnet that brought down huge portions of the Internet. It did so by searching out hundreds of thousands of Internet of Things devices on the web — especially security cameras and digital video recorders — commandeering them for the unprecedented attack.
On yet another occasion, a blogger codenamed “someLuser” hijacked hundreds of Trendnet security cameras, streaming their live feeds on the web for all the world to see. They included video surveillance feeds from malls, offices, warehouses, parking lots, even children’s bedrooms, complete with exact locations pinpointed on Google maps.
Popular voice-activated genies such as Amazon Echo and Google Assistant sit silently in our homes, eavesdropping on us 24/7. Smart TVs have tiny cameras and microphones designed to let us control them without getting up from our couches, but they can be hacked to spy on us. Inexpensive Internet-connected security systems such as Nest, Ring, and Brinks protect our homes from intruders, but can also be flipped to watch our every move.
This week’s U.S.-China Commission report reveals the Chinese government is feverishly researching every imaginable vulnerability, the better to spy on us. Also, the Chinese aim to flood the market with inexpensive Internet of Things devices, luring us to buy them and bring them into our homes, making us unwitting accomplices in their growing, worldwide, furtive network of eyes and ears. “The future destructive potential of unauthorized access to [Internet of Things] devices appears potentially limitless,” warns the report.
The destructive potential goes beyond secretly collecting video and audio on us. It extends to all kinds of intelligence on you and me. Your tastes in music from web-connected Bose headsets. Your viewing habits from Netflix. Your shopping lists from Amazon. Your home’s layout from iRobot’s vacuum cleaners. Even your sexual preferences. It’s all being pieced together to create detailed dossiers on us.
Without a doubt, the burgeoning Internet of Things world offers us unprecedented protections, entertainments, and conveniences. But as this week’s report reveals, it is becoming increasingly clear that as we stride into the 21st Century, surrounding ourselves with smart devices is arguably one of the dumbest things we could do to ourselves.
Michael Guillen, Phd taught physics at Harvard and was science editor at ABC News. He is the president of Spectacular Science Productions. His newest book is The End Of Life As We Know It: Ominous News From The Frontiers Of Science.
