Internet of Things, “the Internet of Me”
“If you think that the internet has changed your life, think again. The IoT is about to change it all over again!” — Brendan O’Brien, Chief Architect & Co-Founder, Aria Systems.
Abstract
The Internet came about in 1989 and since then people have been trying to connect things to it. In 1990, John Romkey created a toaster that could be turned on or off over the then Internet.
Jump forward to the EU in 1996 and a call for proposals of i3 was put out. This was to develop new human-centred interfaces for interacting with information and data aimed at the broad population in general.
In 1997 Paul Saffo gave us the first description of sensors and their role in the future. Jumping to 1999 the same year that Kevin Ashton coined the phrase “Internet of Things”, Kevin and his team went on to develop Radio Frequency Identification or RFID a major leap in commercialising of IoT.
However, it wasn’t just academics that were interested in IoT back then, LG in 2000 made it clear it had plans for smart refrigerators. The US army deployed RFID in their Sexual Assault Victim Intervention Program (SAVI program) and Walmart used RFID in nearly all its shops globally.
With the rise of the cellular IoT, it is expected by 2020 there will be 20 billion connected devices. This figure varies, for example, Gartner predicts 30 billion whilst Cisco predicts 50 Billion devices connected by 2020.
One application we can expect to see a lot of IoT development in the future is in smart cities. In fact Smart cities are been set up using what is described as advanced ICT infrastructure such as IoT, IoT can be seen as a “determinant pillar” of support in what is a rather large heterogeneous network.
However one must be mindful of the deployment of IoT, there are pros and cons to every technology and as Hypponen’s law says if an appliance is ‘smart’ it’s vulnerable and this can be anything from a car, gun, TV or toothbrush.
Not everyone in the world has the same privileges as ourselves, we need to spare a thought for those less fortunate. We all live on this planet together and to exclude 60% of the population from basic Internet and by extension IoT applications which lead to education, economic growth and medical monitoring isn’t acceptable in 2018. These applications could be used in remote locations saving both money, time for government and patient including saving lives at the while creating jobs and boosting the economy.
Introduction
“When we talk about the Internet of Things, it’s not just putting RFID tags on some dumb thing so we smart people know where that dumb thing is. It’s about embedding intelligence so things become smarter and do more than they were proposed to do.” – Nicholas Negroponte (Solutions, 2018).
The first subject to discuss in this research paper is a history of IoT. This section on history isn’t meant to be a complete guide, however, it will give a decent insight to where “Internet of Things” or IoT as its otherwise known, came from and how it developed from the early days of the Internet. Next, we will mention the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPV6) which in 2011 set the path for the proliferating of IoT, which today has seen billions of devices available on the market.
Before we talk about the technology, we need to demystify the difference between BITNET and IoT. Knowing the difference between them will give us a clear understanding of the technology and its application in the field of IoT.
The next subject we will look to cover for the benefit of the reader is the development of IoT, however, we need to narrow this down to IoMe or the “Internet of Me” – Personalised IoT. In this discussion we will talk about Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), this is the godfather technology that led to the first widespread use of IoT in the early days.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is the next on our agenda, this technology is largely used in an ad-hoc scenario, and communication is through a gateway. The application of this technology is largely with sensory networks and Body Area Networks or (BAN’s).
Although ZigBee and Z-Wave will not be discussed directly in this paper from an application point of view, we couldn’t leave them out as they feature quite regularly in most technically IoT research papers. Therefore it would be an injustice to leave them out. Both ZigBee and Z-Wave are wireless technologies that work with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but also in competition with them. Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are both mentioned briefly here in the research paper as well.
Finally, we will talk about two applications of IoT under the section heading of “Internet of Me”. The first of these applications we are starting to see in communities around Ireland at the moment particular with the elderly, this is IoT and health care. This involves the wearing of sensors. A particular application is Wearable 1.0 and it’s more mature bother Wearable 2.0 which appears to be still at the development stage. Next, we will talk about BAN’s and its future application, we will briefly mention a Netflix TV Si-Fi series called “Alternative Carbon” which brings BAN’s to an extreme level.
Where would we be without parking information in the city? Which carparks are full and can I book a spot in advance? This is our next topic under “Internet of Me” here we give a brief insight into what it means to be a smart city and the role if its citizens. We will look at two cities San Francisco and Barcelona, both use a combination of parking sensors and other devices to monitor both parking spots and traffic congestion.
We then turn our attention to smart tourism in Natal and again touching lightly on smart city application of IoT. Through the use of smart technology in cities, money, time and discontent can be saved for both the city councils and the users of such smart systems. This smart technology comes into its own with tourism where a tourist can travel on the Internet with the Internet.
The last subject we need to talk about under “The Internet of Me” is vulnerability and security, the white elephant in the room. The problem is manufacturing companies became software companies almost overnight with little experience or knowledge in software engineering. The result is a host of devices which have been joined to the backbone of the Internet that are very vulnerable and threaten both the stability of the Internet itself and even the welfare of humans through the use of sensors and environmental devices.
Finally, we look the divide between the haves and have-nots, we look at this through answering the following question “Will the Internet of Me provide transformative opportunities for everyone involved?” From researching this question it has become evident, people around the world in what we associate with as being poor don’t lack intelligence or imagination. However what they do lack is basic access to the Internet and therefore IoT and its applications for the betterment of all.
This brings us to our conclusion where we answer one final question, “Will the Internet of Me make a significant difference in the next 3 – 5 years. As you will see there will be significant growth in all Web and Internet-based technologies especially the capture and manipulation of “Big Data”.
History of IoT – here from the beginning, we just didn’t realise it
The Internet according to (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014) came about in 1989 and since then people have been trying to connect things to it. One of the earliest examples was the “Trojan Room coffee pot”.
In 1990, John Romkey created a toaster that could be turned on or off over the then Internet. Steve Mann invented the WearCam and in 1997 Paul Saffo gave us the first description of sensors and their role in the future. (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014)
In 1999 a British technology pioneer, Kevin Ashton executive director of Auto IDCentre, MIT, coined the phrase “Internet of Things” or IoT. (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014).
In 1999 the same year that Kevin Ashton coined the phrase “Internet of Things”, Kevin and his team developed a global Radio Frequency Identification or RFID for short. This led to a major leap in commercialising of IoT according to (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014).
In an interview with Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT’s Centre for Bits and Atoms, (Euchner, 2015) asks Neil Gershenfeld “The Internet of Things has become quite a buzzword, I think you define it more precisely that some do.”
Neil’s response was that he was part of a group that started what became known as the Internet of Things. Neil goes on to say that a decade ago a group at MIT were working on embedding Internet Protocols (IP) into devices.
The group showed with a few hundred bytes of code, alongside parts that cost as little as a dollar that you could implement a minimal IP stack. (IP stack - a bunch of protocols allowing a device to talk to a network, TCP/IP, OSI).
What Neil was saying here then is, devices embedded with IP are effectively the Internet of Things. However as we will see later, there is a distinction between the Internet of Things and BITNET. We will examine this in more detail later as we take a closer look at Neil’s interview (Euchner, 2015).
However it wasn’t just academics that were interested in IoT back then, the electronics giant that is LG, in 2000 made it clear it had plans for smart refrigerators. The US army deployed RFID in their Sexual Assault Victim Intervention Program (SAVI program) and another well know American institute – Walmart used RFID in nearly all its shops globally. Even the major publishers such as Scientific American, Boston Globe and The Guardian referenced and cited articles in relation to IoT and of course its future (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014).
(Bassi, 2013) however points out in the first chapter of their book, the EU back in 1996 made a call for proposals of i3, pronounced “eye cubed”. This was to develop new human-centred interfaces for interacting with information and data aimed at the broad population in general. It begs the question then, was MIT the first true advocates of the concept of IoT or were they the first to dapple in the actual practical implementations of IoT.
This approach the EU took in relation to the i3 call for proposals, kicked started another EU funded initiative titled “The Disappearing Computer”. This was basically a cluster of 17 projects that were conducted by interdisciplinary research teams, whose job was to see how Information Technology (IT) can be diffused into everyday objects and settings, with aim of supporting and enhancing people’s lives (Bassi, 2013).
The concept of IoT that (Bassi, 2013) talks about was the coming together of several technologies and disciplines. An example that appears to emerge quite a bit when looking at IoT from a historical point of view, is Radio Frequency Identification or RFID, barcodes, development of network sensors and actuators (a type of motor used for controlling and movement in a mechanism or system are also mentioned (Mechanchi, 2015).
In fact according to (Bassi, 2013), as early as 2000, RFID’s was being rolled out across the logistics industry for tracking and tracing goods. At the same time, this was happening, research was taking off on the development of sensor networks and what we now commonly call miniaturised Smart Systems. This development of Smart Systems appears to be spurred on by improvements in reduced size and increased computing power.
However one problem still remained, innovation solutions development was still geared towards specific applications and their relevant areas. The problem with this was lack of interoperability and interconnectivity between applications and therefore their relevant areas. This became known as the “Intranet of Things” (Bassi, 2013).
This situation couldn’t continue and like the early days of mainstream computing where there were incompatibility and proprietisation amongst innovators, a standardisation of protocols was needed and the solution was the IoT Architecture project (IOT –A).
This solution came about after more than 20 researchers from large industrial companies and research institutes collaborated to lay the bedrock of what we now know as the common architecture of IoT. This would later become known as the IoT Architectural Reference Model (ARM).
The EU was the driving force behind this project in what became known as the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program for Research and Development. This program was the force behind the development of an architecture for IoT (Bassi, 2013).
The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) which was held in Tunis in November 2005, saw the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) release what became known as the “ITU Internet Reports 2005: Internet of Things”.
This report pointed out the ubiquitous “Internet of Things”, and going on to predict that objects such as tires to toothbrushes to housing could exchange data via the Internet using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The report also went on to predict technologies such as sensor, nanotechnology and smart technology will be embedded into more widely used objects (Tao, 2012).
The giant computer corporation that is IBM in 2008 proposed the concept of ‘Smart Planet’. That’s to say IOT + Internet = Smart Planet. IBM’s idea was to use this as a strategy for economic revitalisation. The idea here is the implementation of infrastructure would lead to stimulation of economic growth, at least in the short term. This growth would promote employment (Tao, 2012).
With the arrival of IPv6 in 2011 came a massive growth in internet and networking technologies (Tao, 2012) and (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014). This coupled with entry into the market of big companies such as Cisco, IBM (already mentioned) and Ericson which took a lot of educational and commercial initiatives leading to a massive interest in IoT, we see today (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014).
Although our section here on the history of IoT was never meant to be an in-depth and complete history of IoT, which is beyond the scope of this paper. I had hoped this section, however, would give us an understanding of the early days of IoT, varies influences and how IoT came about. One thing is clear, IoT has been here from the start of the Internet, we just didn’t realise it.
Development of IoT or should I say IoM, a pragmatic outlook
BITNET vs IoT sorting out the myth
Ok it’s important we get off on the right foot here, I referring back to an interview mentioned earlier where (Euchner, 2015) was interviewing Neil Gershenfeld from MIT. An interesting point that Neil makes in his interview was the difference between BITNET and IOT.
“A lot of things called the Internet of Things today are really BITNET of Things, and they’re being done by people who don’t understand the difference between the BITNET and the Internet” (Euchner, 2015).
BITNET was a form of connection between mainframe computers, it had a very high barrier to entry. In other words, it cost loads and loads of money to make an entrance into BITNET. The reason for this is you need at least two mainframes to talk to each other, this was centrally managed. Terminals (before my day) were used to connect into mainframes (Euchner, 2015).
As (Euchner, 2015) points out it was like an old telephone network, the phone itself wasn’t defined by itself but rather by a central switch. If you added a new central switch, a big investment was needed. Therefore it was the switch that defined the phone (Euchner, 2015).
The Internet was never intended this way, in fact with the Internet what defines it is what is connected to it, at the peripheral not centrally. The Internet isn’t defined by the physical structure then, instead it works because through a common set of protocols that all connected devices use for interoperability and compatibility, everything can talk to each other. This is how the Internet grew by adding devices at the peripheral not changing what was at the centre of the Internet.
So if I said to you I had a light sensor or thermostat or some sort of switch for that matter connected to a server via a network, it is the server that defines the state of the switch or sensor, not the switch itself. In order to change the state of the switch, I have to change some configuration on the central server. Innovation needs to happen at the centre and not the edges of the network in this case.
This isn’t IoT its BITNET if it were IoT the switch or device would be a fully functional citizen or device of the network independent of the server. In fact, the server should only be interested in knowing the state of the device for data purposes such are reporting or statistics or something else. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s move on.
IoT Development – from the point of view of “Internet of Me”
Let’s now look at the first of these technologies, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). This was probably the godfather of technology that led largely to IoT development and therefore its role in IoT cannot be overstated.
RFID systems are basically a backend database network application used for data collection purposes which interface with electronic tags and readers on the front end (Tao, 2012).
As (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014) elaborates, RFID used radio frequencies to transmit data. There are two types of electronic tags that are used for collecting data. These are referred to as Active and Passive tags. The active tags have their own internal power supply, whereas the passive tags do not. Because of the size of the RFID tag, which can range from a fraction the size of your one of your fingernails to your car keys to other devices. The tags can be deployed just about anywhere regardless of environment conditions (Tao, 2012).
The use of RFID tags in logistics was for tracking and tracing goods and in transport, RFID tags were developed for use in anti-collision benchmarking protocols which prevents vehicular accidents.
Other important uses of RFID include Mobile Cardiac Telemetry Monitoring Platform. This is an innovative application of RFID in the healthcare industry which provides 24 – 7 monitoring for a patient (Eric, 2009) cited in (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014). The patient’s heartbeat is monitored and a doctor or nurse is kept up to date. This is done by receiving a regular update from the implanted device at a speed of less than a 100 milliseconds every time an update is sent (P. Suresh; J.Vijay, 2014).
Wireless sensor network (WSN), our next technology involved in IoT largely contains a battery, processor and storage. It is therefore referred to as resource constrained (Ortiz, 2014). It is made up of a large number of microsensors (a very small sensor, physical dimensions in the submicrometer to millimetre range) which are of a low cost. These sensor devices form a multihop ad hoc network with wireless communications (LI Ming-xiang, 2012) cited in (Tao, (2012).
These networks allow people to expand the ability to interact with the real world from a remote location via a connection to an ad hoc wireless network through the gateway node. The gateway node is the entrance to this WSN network (LI Ming-xiang, (2012)) cited in (Tao, (2012).
However as (Bassi, (2013) points out on page 103 of their book, the gateway is not only a link to the outside world but also collects data and analyses that data. For that reason the data identifying the network gateway and nodes should not be sent in clear, as this would allow the network to be attacked.
What WSN does then allows real-time monitoring and data access of distributed networks. This can include a number of networks within the region. For example (Bassi, (2013)) points out a WSN installed in a wine cellar can monitor environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and light intensity.
It might be worth a quick mention of IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth and ZigBee versus Z-Wave as these are wireless technologies. 802.11 is what we call Wi-Fi and it has been instrumental in the deployment of IoT. Wi-Fi allows all number of devices to connect to a wireless network and the Wi-Fi network can be deployed in remote locations irrespective of the landscape and environment constraints.
Bluetooth is a popular radio signal technology that allows devices to connect over a Personal Area Network or (PAN) operating at the range of 2.4Ghz (the original frequency). Most devices that use this network would be of the low energy type devices, hence the name Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) been associated with Bluetooth devices. Such devices that connect to such networks include everything from watches, earpieces, shoes, to mobile phones just to name a few.
Both ZigBee and Z-Wave are short-range wireless technologies are used for remote monitoring and control mostly in the home. This home network forms what we call a HAN or Home Area Network. There is a difference however between the technologies both from a specification, applications, security and standard of manufacturing point of view (Frenzel, 2012).
ZigBee is based on IEEE’s 802.15.4 PAN or Personal Area Network standards, it is also an open wireless standard in relation to the ZigBee’s Alliance and was established as far back as the 1990’s (Frenzel, 2012).
ZigBee has a range of only 10m, however, if a node is out of range and can’t talk to the central node directly adjacent nodes can relay information. The main applications for ZigBee are home automation, smart grids and remote control. (Frenzel, 2012).
ZigBee is effectively an alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth applications but also works with both of these rival technologies as well. (Frenzel, 2012).
Z-Wave came about by Zensys as a propriety wireless standard, because of this it's not an open standard and only in the last number of years has ITU included Z-Wave physical and MAC layer specifications in its G.9959 standards. These standards deal with sub 1-GHz narrowband wireless devices (Frenzel, 2012).
Z-Wave’s ranges around 30m distance from the control hub. Z-Wave is used mostly for automation and security in the home and commercial properties (Frenzel, 2012).
Like ZeeBee, Z-Wave uses a wireless mesh network technology. However, if a node is out of range and can’t talk to the central node directly, adjacent nodes can relay information. Unlike its rival ZigBee, Z-Wave can only have up to 232 nodes as opposed to 65k nodes with ZeeBee. However, multiple controller nodes can be used to partition or split the network up into segments. Each segment can have a different function, and like ZeeBee Z-Wave is an alternative to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but equally will also work with both technologies (Frenzel, 2012).
“Internet of Me”
Health Care
With the rise of the cellular IoT, it is expected by 2020 there will be 20 billion connected devices (Bahga, 2014) cited in (Siddique, 2017). This figure varies depending on whom you ask, for example (Ludovico, 2015) states Gartner predicts 30 billion devices by 2020 whilst (Bassi, 2013) goes even further and states according to Cisco there will be 50 Billion devices connected by 2020. According (Siddique, 2017) goes on to say IoT is considered to be an enchanting technology, which will revolutionise the healthcare system with a series of cutting-edge individualised solutions.
These solutions will be ‘things’ like remote health monitoring, remote diagnostics, tele-auscultation and chronic disease management just to name a few applications (Islam, 2015) cited in (Siddique, 2017). Medication and treatment by healthcare professionals is another potential application of IoT. In fact, IoT can be used to authenticate the very medication the patient is using and even monitor drug supplies. This could then feed into the scheduling of resources in the best interest of the patient (Siddique, 2017).
All these applications can be done by sensors, other devices, smartphones and even imaging devices. A combination therefore of all these devices coupled with the patients Electronic Medical Record (EMR) all act as core essential parts of the system (Siddique, 2017).
So what are these sensors, smartphones and other devices supposed to do, well according to (Siddique, 2017) they will monitor health information of the patient such as vital signs, glucose level, changes in mood and behaviour. (Dlodlo, 2012) even goes on to say that IoT based knowledge systems will be able to detect adverse reactions to drugs in the patient, and locate both doctor and patient in relation to each other in a hospital.
A good example to use here is the Acute Infarction Ramipril Efficacy Study (AIRE) project at the University of Murcia in Spain which develops IoT technology platforms for support, monitoring, detection and predictions of anomalies in patient breathing. In fact, the same institute according to (Dlodlo, 2012) is working on an IoT device for diabetes management.
Motorola the famous phone company’s project called PERSONA, its job is to support daily life activates by detecting risk in mobility (Schaller, 2008) cited in (Siddique, 2017). Through the use of all these technologies, IoT based solutions could potentially reduce costs and time, therefore, enriching the patient experience (Siddique, 2017).
However, one thing that (Min, 2016) points out is traditional wearable devices can be uncomfortable especially for long periods of time and even the accuracy is questionable (due to changes in patient behaviour). Therefore this is where “Smart Clothing” comes in, with smart clothing wearing of such monitoring devices will be become pervasive and unobtrusive.
This point can be highlighted in relation to the emotional care of the patients (Min, 2016), for example, if a patient is wearing sensor devices that may be obvious to other people around them. This can have undesirable effects on their mood. However, this technology is becoming even more advanced and pervasive with the development of what can be seen as the movement from Wearable version 1.0 (traditional clothing) to Wearable version 2.0 (convenient, comfortable, reliable, durable and even washable) (Min, 2016).
With smart clothing, various physiological indicators of the body can be captured and send back for analysis by Medical cloud, or maybe even some analytics will be done locally. This data is sent via Wi-Fi or smartphone, so even when you leave the house and are out of range with the Wi-Fi you phone takes over as the gateway back to the cloud (Min, 2016).
An extension of this philosophy mentioned above is the Body Area Network (BAN), BAN’s are large varieties of wearable sensors or in the future, they may be implanted in the body itself. BAN’s communicate via a WSN mentioned above to a mobile device or router when in range. The data will measure and pass back to a central server for processing and long-term storage, are things like medical information like body, temperature, heart rate, limb motions etc. These measurements are much the same as Wearable version 2.0. However adding to this list is its use in implicit social interactions both private and public (Augimeri, 2010), (Augimeri, 2011) cited in (Giancarlo, 2014). In fact, during public events or gatherings, a network of such BAN’s could be utilized on an ad-hoc basis using mobile sensor infrastructure. This setup could be used in all sorts of context-aware pervasive applications, such applications could include disaster management, medical emergencies and mass events.
A brilliant example of an extreme version of BAN is the Netflix TV series “Alternative Carbon” that’s out at the moment in which a disk can be inserted into what is called ‘sleeves’ basically blank human bodies so in theory, you could live forever in the disk living in the base of the cerebral cortex of the brain. Some of these sleeves have added functionality such as heads-up visual displays and enhanced capabilities etc.
Smart City
“In the digital era, cities are assuming a relevant role as innovation drivers for firms in a different range of industry such as health, environment, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s), among others. These cities are known as smart cities” (Schaffers, 2011) cited in (Scuotto, 2016).
(Schaffers, 2011) goes on to say, such open and sustainable user-driven ecosystems are improving a firm’s ability to innovate and transform the quality of life. (Von Hippel, 2005a) and (Schaffers, 2011) cited in (Scuotto, 2016) makes the following points, smart cities aim to transform rural and urban setting into places of innovation, where "innovation ecosystems” empower the user or fellow citizen to innovate and be co-creative. Thus designing innovative living and working spaces and scenarios.
It appears user-driven innovation in smart cities are the areas for testing and demonstrating of the values derived for the future of services enabled on the Internet (Schaffers, 2011) cited in (Scuotto, 2016). So how then do smart cities come about? Smart cities are been set up using what is described as advanced ICT infrastructure such as IoT if fact IoT can be seen a “determinant pillar” of support in what is a rather large heterogeneous network. What’s important here then to the ability to exchange data and the integration of that data with physical devices or “things” (SRIA, 2014) cited in (Scuotto, 2016).
Let’s look at an example that the author (Cosgrave, 2013) cited in (Scuotto, 2016) gives us. San Francisco Park, uses a series of smart sensors to communicate up to date information to users of parking spaces. This allows minimised time spent looking for parking spaces. How this actually works is the sensors gather data, this is then transferred to devices, all using wireless networks and software.
An even better example is with the city of Barcelona, the city council was determined to lower the carbon footprint by using technology. Using Wi-Fi, they were able to connect public parks, traffic systems and kiosks for regular traffic updates, reserve a parking spot and even smart tourism all whilst using a smartphone.
How this is achieved is through the use of three technologies which are a reliable easy to manage Wi-Fi network, a tracking mechanism for the movement of people and vehicles and finally an array of heterogeneous sensors to capture data on the environment and its infrastructure.
Cisco and the city formed a partnership for this to happen, Cisco deploying its Smart+Connectedtm solutions. Now they have in-ground and video-based parking sensors which communicate back to the smartphone to help with traffic situation by providing up to date information on parking this leads to less congestion and less CO2 admissions (Menon, 2017).
Other uses of this smart city coordinated technologies approach is to provide information about public transport, local businesses and attractions through the use of smartphones and also kiosks provided at strategic locations around the city like bus stops and public areas. This aids the shopping and commuter experiences for shoppers and tourists whilst lower costs of the city council (Menon, 2017).
Another example of the use of IoT personalisation in smart cities is Mobile Tourist Guides. As you may know, especially if you are a follower of Soccer, the city of Natal was selected as a case study because it was one of the host cities for the FIFA World Cup in 2014 in Brazil (Cacho, 2016).
The use of smartphone apps by tourists gives those very tourists information, promotions and geolocation of the tourist destinations (Tur, 2015) cited in (Cacho, 2016). When they arrive at their location highly personalised information is given to them to enhance their experience. This information is highly personalised because it based on the user data about location, timing and objects in the surrounding area at their destination. They basically travel “on the Internet and with the Internet” (Lamsfus, 2015), (Germann Mol, 2010), (Gretzel, 2011) cited in (Cacho, 2016). According to the author (Tussyadiah, 2007) cited in (Cacho, 2016) goes on to say that a visitor can save time, money and therefore displeasure by using the mobile tourist guide as the guide will help them in finding attraction locations as well as further information once they get there.
The Internet of Vulnerable Things – Hypponen, Mikko and Hypponen’s Law
Mikko Hypponen by his own admission has spent the last twenty-five years trying to make computers safe and as the Chief Research Officer or CRO of F-Secure a well branded Finnish Cybersecurity Company he is well placed to lecture on such issues.
“Hypponen, along with many other security experts, began taking a closer look at them. The results were very worrying indeed: these connected devices almost invariably contained significant vulnerabilities.” (Hypponen, 2017).
However, this shouldn’t come as any surprise as it has been covered in the popular press and particularly the security industry for years. In fact, many believe it’s actually getting worse. The trouble with IoT because of its link to the environment from sensors via networks and particularly the backbone of the Internet itself, it affects both the stability and that very backbone of the Internet and by extension human life. The quality of products and networks are also affected by these vulnerabilities (Hypponen, 2017).
If you look at Samsung CEO Boo-Keun Yoon and what he said back in 2015, 90% of products by Samsung will be IoT enabled by 2017 whilst by 2020 that will be 100% (Sims, 2015) cited in (Hypponen, 2017). Yoon also went on to say, they weren’t adding IoT enabled products only where there was an Internet connection and where it was of benefit to the user. No, he was saying they were adding IoT enabled devices regardless if they were of use to the user or not and Samsung is certainly not the only company at this type of activity (Hypponen, 2017).
Nowadays everything from smart security cameras, which are useful to odd stuff like toasters, mattresses, showerheads and even underwear have the potential to be connected to the Internet (Vanhemert, 2014), (Crook, 2016), (Krupitzer, 2015), (Graham, 2016) cited in (Hypponen, 2017). The consumer’s best interest isn’t at the forefront of such an array of devices, rather it would be in the interest of the manufacturer to collect such information. Such information would include how many cups of tea or coffee you have and how often you wash your clothes, this information can then be fed back to the manufacturer for marketing purposes amongst other uses (Hypponen, 2017)
This biggest problem here is these companies up to lately were only interested in the manufacture of their products, now within a short number of years they have turned into software companies with little knowledge or experience of software engineering and this is why there is such a big problem with vulnerabilities and IoT (Hypponen, 2017).
Hypponen’s law came about following a tweet in December 2016. I tried the address given in this article by (Hypponen, 2017) however I couldn’t find the page. Never the less Hypponen’s law simply says if an appliance is ‘smart’ it’s vulnerable. This can be a car, gun, TV or toothbrush just to name a few items (Hypponen, 2017).
With the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR at least in the EU, this might put the brakes on some of the unethical practices of the manufactures that are going around at the moment, in fact, it might even change current practices that are currently out there making it safer for users of IoT devices. It is worth reading (Hypponen, 2017), the full paper for a mindboggling insight into IoT from a security perspective for anyone that is interested.
Problems, there are always problems
Will the “Internet of Me” provide transformative opportunities for everyone involved?
Over the past 30 years the Internet has been greatly popularised and in the last number of years, we have seen a huge expansion of social media. What used to take weeks, can now be completed in minutes – electronic mail.
Equally the vast access to knowledge, science, culture and entertainment has been staggering. This is not to mention Skype and other communication platforms such as Google and Polycom just to mention a few. However, some of the poorest countries in the world don’t have access to some of the resources I have just mentioned above (Grewinsk, 2017).
I remember from personal experiences been deployed with the UN to Liberia West Africa in 2006 when half way through the trip the lights in the local city, the capital city Monrovia were turned on turned on for the first time in years upon years. It was only in 2012 that fast broadband was seen to be definitely on its way to that region of the world (Bank, 2012).
To answer the question then, will the “Internet of Me” provide transformative opportunities for everyone involved?
Well, the answer to this question is an equivocal no. As the author (Grewinsk, 2017) states
“In 2016 with 7.4bln world population, the Internet was used by 3.2bln people, that’s is over 40% world population. However, this means that nearly 60% of people in the world do not have access to the Internet nor benefits from with it offers.”
It’s fair to say then, not due to any fault of their own or lack of an innovative thought process. People around the world lack basic Internet and its wondrous opportunities to knowledge, connectivity and revolutionary possibilities. It is for that reason why the transformative opportunities will not be available to everyone. As I mentioned earlier if it can be connected and measured then why not especially if it provides some good or enhancement of one’s life and is not a cheap way for manufacturers to sell you behavioural data on the open market.
Conclusion
When I first started researching and writing this paper I felt almost immediately there was a need for a history into IoT. The presumption was this paper could be picked up by someone with a shallow understanding of IT/IS and by the end of reading the paper would have learned the basics including the history of IoT.
However, whether you’re an art student or just new to IT/IS there is a need to have an underlying understanding of the technology behind IoT, even if it’s only a theoretical knowledge. That’s how we ended up with the development of IoT from an Internet of Me point of view. In other words, I only included technologies that had and would have an influence on the topics discussed in this paper. So how come ZigBee and Z-Wave are in there and not mobile or GPS.
You don’t have to look deep into IoT both from a practitioner or theoretic point of view before you come across both ZigBee and Z-Wave and so I felt compelled to mention both in at least some detail for the benefit of the reader. I left out mobile and GPS, mobile because it’s a separate technology that acts only as a gateway back to the server.
The apps that sit on a smart device are more the Web of Things rather than IoT, an exception would be the RFID chip in Android phones, the application of which is used with Leap Cards in circulation here in Dublin mostly. GPS, well I suspect GPS in mobile phones doesn’t exist, I have to research this so don’t hold me to this one.
However if you ever see a proper Satellite phone it’s like a ‘brick’, my reasoning is the functions of GPS you experience are in fact a number of base stations to mobile phone measurements (triangulation and time to target and back) going on in the background, in any case, it’s the same as the mobile phone scenario in that you send data back to server from via your phone. Finally, we got down to the actual business of talking about our core subject “The Internet of Me”. The first topic I discussed was the application on IoT in the health industry, this is an evolving area and I suspect will be evolving for a number of years to come.
The idea of sensors and devices reporting back to a medical cloud or similar setup in now only starting to come to fruition, well at least here in Ireland. My dear mother in law of 75 years young has a device that triggers an alarm if she falls in the house, however, it doesn’t alert the cloud or call centre while she is out, this may be a personal choice. Never the less we are starting to see these devices coming into the community only now for our older citizens. So for this technology to evolve from Wearable version 1.0 which is obvious and intrusive to version 2.0 is a big step and an improvement in both comfort, pervasive and peace of mind for the patient.
Next, we extended our discussion into BAN’s, if you remember these are Body Area Networks. At the moment these are devices or sensors that communicate via the mobile phone to the server or cloud. Wearable 1.0 and Wearable 2.0 are in fact a BAN example, however, in the future, we will see devices been implanted into the person themselves.
The second topic specific to the “Internet of Me” was smart cities. Before we delved into the topic itself, there was a need to set the image or tone of a smart city and its citizens. The most obvious problem with any city is traffic. So it was only fair then that we talked about some of the measures that are in place in cities like Barcelona, even our beloved city of Dublin and of course San Francisco Park which at the time of publishing of the particular article in question, appeared to be in the experimental stage.
Finally the white elephant in the room, security and privacy discussed in the section “Problems, there are always problems”. I remember back in Griffith College Dublin in 2000 studying IS when we were been lectured on topics of privacy and data collection from organisations. Things like selling your data on the open market and the difficult of unsubscribing from such services were all discussed.
Reflecting back on memories, I believe I thought it was all a bit farfetched back then, was I been naive yes I was. Looking at Hypponen law, it’s both interesting and equally frightening the level of manipulation that is currently going on and the level of control and manipulation that will go on in the future in relation to IoT and IoM specifically. The article I cited in this paper (Hypponen, 2017) is a must-read for anyone that wants to take a serious view on the subject of IoT.
A question was asked in the brief, will the “Internet of Me” make significant progress in the next 3-5 years? IoT was the big thing in the news just a few years ago and like everything else it faded out of the news just as quick only to reappear from time to time, However, has it gone away. No, it has not in fact and from reading around about the subject what has happened is the application has only diversified and spread out into industrial applications from factories, transport, smart cities, medical and agriculture just to name a few. IoM likewise has expanded from electronic bus and train passes to body area networks involving smart clothing. We could even see in the near future implanted chips that could go beyond the use of medical application to general purpose interaction with a host of applications from purchase to social interaction scenarios. To give you an example of the scale of things to come, (appstm, 2018) gives the following growth statistics on consumer IoT and wearables. “By 2019, 1.9 billion smart home devices are expected to be shipped. This could bring potential revenue worth $490 billion.” Another surprising statistic is centred on clothing, smart clothing to be exact. “968 thousand smart clothes made it to the consumer in 2015.”
Accordingly (appstm, 2018) states this figure will rise to 24.75 billion by 2021 that’s an increase to 71.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). This is just some of the statistics available, this certainly suggests IoT and even IoMe isn’t going anywhere. However one must be mindful of the alternative motive by manufacturers to capture personal data and use this to push advertisement towards us based on our behaviour. Worse still is the use of personal data to discriminate against us, such as the case with Insurance companies or law enforcement agencies. With the new GDPR in the EU, the next three to five years will be interesting as IoT makes huge strides into our daily lives as computing becomes even more pervasive. If Cisco’s predation mentioned earlier is anything to go by, in 2020 we will have 50 billion devices that are around ten times the world population the number of devices connected. So yes IoT and IoM will be of significance in the next 3 to 5 years, however, it will need “Big Data” as its partner to advance IoT to new levels of the appliance.
The last topic was a vital question that needed answering, it was a simple question with a straightforward answer. Will the “Internet of Me” provide transformative opportunities for everyone involved? The answer, of course, is no, considering 60% of the world population does not have access to the Internet. Yes, ever people who don’t have access to the Internet is still involved with IoT or IoM. We all live on this planet together and to exclude 60% of the population from basic Internet and by extension IoT applications like education, economic growth and medical monitoring isn’t acceptable 2018. These applications could be used in remote locations saving both money, time for government and patient including saving lives at the while creating jobs and boosting the economy.
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