What about the IoT?
Every day the technology advances faster and faster and we can find more and more devices connect to the internet network allowing you to manage every aspect of your life.
The IoT stands for Internet of Things and basically refers to the ability of a device for connecting to the web. Those devices can be visible and interact between each of them. The goal of the IoT is to allow the interconnection between devices without the interference of a person.
But, what kind of devices could be connected with the IoT? Actually, everything could be connected, sensors, appliances such as the refrigerator, or healthcare devices for monitoring your health status.
To better understand what we are talking about, let me give you some examples:
- Smartwatches
Those gadgets have many uses. You can receive calls, messages, monitor your blood pressure and heart rate, the smartwatch could also save your life. Imagine that you are running outside and you fall down, your gadget would notice the change in your pressure and heart rate and would send an SOS message to your emergency contact with your ubication.
Take into account that many of these watches don't have to be connected via Bluetooth with a smartphone to work properly, the technology always goes one step ahead.
- Smart homes
There are some devices with an internet connection that allow you to do things like turn on and off the lights, put on some music, control a camera or have a notification when you need more milk. With Apps like Amazon Alexa, you can control those devices from your smartphone thanks to the internet connection just by pressing a button on the smartphone’s screen. One of the goals of the IoT with smart homes is to make able the gadgets to order your groceries or control the temperature by themself without the intervention of humans.
- Glucose Monitoring.
Nowadays it is possible to control the glucose level in the blood with the help of some apps with a wearable device or inclusive an embedded body sensor. Patients with diabetes can have a better life controlling their disease and having updated information about their health. Those health care devices are connected to an app or webpage where the data is stored. The main benefit to the health of the person is that the gadgets send a notification or alarm when the glucose levels of the patient are too low making possible to act faster in these cases.
The IoT impacts the life of a person in many ways but it is also used in the manufacturing industry. The industrial IoT has the same meaning as the IoT but it refers to the interconnection of machines and industrial equipment to the internet network. There are many pros in the industry when a business has a smart factory system. Below you can find some of them:
- This connection makes possible the automation of some steps of the processes in a factory.
- Manufacturers can control the status of the equipment and machines of the factory to prevent future bad scenarios and to prevent wasting of production time and resources.
- It improves the production times helping the employees with the production process.
- It makes it possible to manage the inventory of a factory. The employees can also know where are the products they need for their work thanks to the GPS location.
- The Industrial IoT can also contribute to the employee's safety by looking for potentially dangerous problems during production times.
Adapting a factory to the IIot has also some challenges. Starting with the security because a connected device may be at risk of cyber threats. The second challenge is Interoperability between the intervened equipment. Not all machines are compatible with the same software, systems, and technologies. The last one could be the insufficient expertise in the industry, updating a factory needs a huge human effort, resources, and time investment.
IoT and data collection
For longtime devices have been connected to the internet network but the IoT proposes to do it in a different way.
As we said before, the goal is that the devices are connected to the internet and between each other making it possible to collect data and information and transmitting it to other devices. This data could be saved and analyzed to improve the operation of the device itself or improving other devices and technologies.
The data collection could also help to better know the user and their needs to improve or develop new gadgets.
IoT privacy and security
With Iot probably every device will be connected to the network in the future, for this reason, security and privacy are relevant aspects related to the IoT.
One of the possible problems would be related to the number of devices connected. In a connected world, where each connected gadget has a unique ID, it will be very difficult to identify billions of devices and to have an updated database. According to estimates, by the year 2021 more than 50 billion devices are already smart devices and connected to the internet. In the close future, managing the devices and their addressing will be difficult even for IPv6.
Another possible issue could be the needs of each device, not all devices need the same security protocols so having a standard is an actual problem. Take into account that there are hundreds of types of different devices that have to be protected from hundred types of different attacks.
We talked earlier about the IoT and data collection, now imagine that our information is stored in huge databases around the world. Who can access our personal information? Is my info safe? Could someone hack the databases and stole our information? The answer may be yes. Every device connected to the network is vulnerable at some point. The challenge for the IoT is to assure the security and privacy of the people.
Nowadays we can find some Privacy Enhancing Technologies developed to protect our devices and our personal security. Next, you will find a small list of available technologies:
- Transport Layer Security(TLS): It increases confidentiality and integrity of data in IoT.
- Encryption: Can be done to manteind data integrity during the transportation phase of the data.
- Onion Routing: Encrypts and merges internet traffic from various sources. Data is warped into the numerous layers of encryption.
As a final conclusion, I will say that the IoT is here to stay, the internet of things is the future and soon we will see a world more and more connected. Let’s remember that 20 years ago it seemed impossible to us to have a telephone with all the tools and possibilities that we have now, or to turn on your microwave to heat your food while you were on your way home was something that could not be done even in dreams, now it is a reality. Technology will continue to amaze us with its advancements.
