IoT - Internet of Things
What is IoT?
IoT stands for Internet of things, but what do we refer when we say the internet of the things? This concept refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to a network (private or public), for example, the internet, where all of them could be visible and are capable of collecting and sharing data.
When we say devices, we are talking about to all kind of objects, from machines devices to ordinary objects like a toothbrush. Thanks to the arrival of cheapest computers chips and the fast forward of the wireless connections nowadays it is possible to turn anything into a part of the IoT and interact with the other devices without the human intervention.
Application fields
Now, that we already discuss the concept of IoT, I would like to talk about the different applications of IoT. As you can imagine, the application fields of this technology tend to the infinity, in order that we have the possibility of interconnect almost everything and through it we can share and collect data that then we can use for different purposes.
Some of the most important fields of applications would be:
Consumer applications
- Smart houses
- Elder care
Organizational applications
- Medical and healthcare
- Transportation
- V2X communications
- Building and home automation
Industrial applications
- Manufacturing
- Agriculture
- Maritime
Infrastructure applications
- Metropolitan scale deployments
- Energy management
领英推荐
- Environmental monitoring
Military applications
- Internet of Battlefield Things
- Ocean of Things
Product digitalization
For example, in the smart houses IoT devices are a part of the larger concept of home automation, which can include lighting, heating and air conditioning, media, security and camera systems. Long-term benefits could include energy savings by automatically ensuring lights and electronics are turned off or by making the residents in the home aware of usage and so on.
In the agriculture you can collect data of temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, pest infestation, and soil content. This data can be used to automate farming techniques, take informed decisions to improve quality and quantity, minimize risk and waste, and reduce the effort required to manage crops.
As we can se IoT is a very powerful technology that will continue growing every day.
Privacy and Security
Until now, we have talked about all the benefits of IoT but when we have so many devices interconnected and exchanging information between them the privacy of the information and the security of it networks is something to worry about.
The Most Important Security Problems with IoT Devices would be:
- Incorrect access control.
- Overly large attack surface.
- Outdated software.
- Lack of encryption.
- Application vulnerabilities.
- Lack of Trusted Execution Environment.
- Insufficient privacy protection.
- Intrusion ignorance
- Insufficient physical security
The top security problems are without a doubt related to access control and exposed services. So, IoT devices should implement best-practice security measures such as encryption.?