Internet Of Wild Things: How To Make All Our Wireless Gadgets Safe?
Internet is now everywhere, we use it for shopping, to make payments, to communicate with each other. It is now really important in our daily life, and now, the technology is developed enough that devices can communicate with each other, without a user. Internet of Things is already here and today, we at Jammer-Store company would like to discuss it.
Gadgets vulnerability
We are surrounded by various gadgets all the time, and most of those are connected to one global network – the Internet. It allows them to communicate with each other, and most of them are dangerous for our privacy, smartphones, various trackers and even smart TV's are trying to steal your data. But where are all those security holes? Of course, modern data transmission standards are not perfect, most of them are obsolete and really vulnerable to various hacks and exploits, but the real problems are in applications.
Dangerous applications
Applications are dangerous, especially built-in firmware, because we can not check it. In a matter of fact those applications don't even require special certificates. Many users don't even know for sure if that microchip from their gadgets has a built-in firmware, or not. But it has, and that application makes decisions, that can be really important, a special firmware may even make your dishwasher spy on you!
The prominent example is the recent scandal with LG's smart TV's, that were gathering information about what user watches, to provide targeted ads. The problem were in the fact that the gadget has collected and shared that info disregard the fact that the user has turned that option off. By the way, it was turned on by default. LG has already admitted and apologized about that fact. They've also promised to make a fix for that bug really soon.
Popular solutions
When it comes to software, the market is able to control it's quality, but the same thing doesn't work with firmware. Companies that develop those apps compete only by price, not by quality. And as long as most of firmwares are closed – the situation will remain the same. The solution probably lies in bringing all the gadgets to the same platform, like iOS, Linux or Windows. In that case all the applications may be tested and even upgraded by third parties. That will lead to competition and the quality of products will grow.
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things has to avoid closed firmware, otherwise it will become an Internet of wild things. This is extremely important for wireless gadgets, that are connected to the web constantly, you have to be sure that they don't share your data, and the only way to be 100% sure about it – is to use Wi-Fi jammers or make sure that security policies of your home wireless network are configured properly. If the situation won't change, our privacy will be at even more risk, that it is now. Because no one will know, how exactly work their gadgets, and it will be hard to make sure that your common home appliances do not spy on you.
