sensor Archives

sensor

U.S. looks to create an ‘Internet of Postal Things’ – Computerworld

June 19, 2014 Paul Roberts

There’s an interesting article by Patrick Thibodeau over at Computerworld about how the U.S. Postal Service is soliciting ideas about leveraging Internet of Things technologies throughout its (massive) system. The Postal Service published a solicitation for a “supplier who has the expertise and critical knowledge of the Internet of Things,” as well as (big) data analytics. The goal is to harness data from throughout the Postal Service’s massive infrastructure in order to increase efficiency and lower costs. The U.S. Postal Service is one of world’s most extensive and efficient. But it has also been bleeding red ink in recent years. The Services reported a $15.9 billion net loss in fiscal year 2012 – much of it tied to mandated payments to meet future retiree health benefits. Those losses have narrowed in recent years. In May, the USPO reported a net loss of $1.9 billion in the second quarter and increased […]

Wired Imagines Our Dystopian Connected Home Future

June 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

Over at Wired.com, the ever-provocative Matt Honan has a great little thought exercise on the “nightmare” that could come from connected home technology gone wrong. His piece, The Nightmare on Connected Home Street, is a first person narrative of a man who wakes up to discover he’s transformed into a cockroach inhabiting a virus infected home. “Technically it’s malware. But there’s no patch yet, and pretty much everyone’s got it. Homes up and down the block are lit up, even at this early hour. Thankfully this one is fairly benign. It sets off the alarm with music I blacklisted decades ago on Pandora. It takes a picture of me as I get out of the shower every morning and uploads it to Facebook. No big deal.” The story goes on to chronicle some of the other dystopian features of connected home malware – the hacked “Dropcam Total Home Immersion” account that […]

Survey: Consumers Growing Wary of Information Sharing

June 4, 2014 Paul Roberts

A survey by the business information service Lexis Nexis finds that consumers have grown more wary of programs that ask them to share data in exchange for improved services or other offerings. Editor’s note: LexisNexis has clarified that its survey was released in August, 2013, not October, 2013. The story has been corrected to reflect that information. – Paul 6/4/2014 The survey of 2,072 consumers, aged 21 to 74, was conducted in October 2013 by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. It found consumers were more wary of sharing information online, including at social networking and online banking sites than they were three years earlier. “Consumers are less comfortable with information sharing than three years ago,” the survey concluded. The survey was released in concert with Telematics Detroit 2014, a conference focused on information systems used in vehicles. It was designed to measure consumers’ awareness of- and interest in so-called “use based insurance” (or UBI) – sometimes referred […]

Video: The Internet of Things and Enterprise Risk

May 29, 2014 Paul Roberts

The Security Ledger recently hosted our inaugural event: The Security of Things Forum (SECOT). This was a high-energy, day long conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that brought together subject experts, executives and thought leaders from disparate areas like high tech, finance and industrial systems to talk about the tsunami of change that is the Internet of Things. One of the big questions hovering over the event: how will IoT technologies and services change the security paradigm that we’ve all be operating under- but especially in enterprises. In fact, IoT and enterprise was the topic of our very first discussion of the day: a panel chaired by Chris Rezendes of INEX Advisors, a leading consultancy focusing on IoT. SECoT Forum 2014 – Democratized Data, IOT and Enterprise Risk from Exhibitor Media Group on Vimeo It’s a really big and messy problem. As panelist Ken Pfeil of Pioneer Investments pointed out: the hack of […]

GE Opens Purse To Boost IoT Security

May 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

One of the big questions looming over Internet of Things with regard to cyber security is how well legacy security products will adjust to the IoT context. I think its safe to say that many of the tools and technologies that populate traditional IT environments (think: antivirus) aren’t well suited to use with Internet of Things devices which are often power and resource-constrained. IoT is a “ten-years-from-now” problem for enterprises. But for manufacturers like GE, it’s a “today” problem. That’s why GE is already investing in technology that it thinks is well suited to securing IoT and industrial environments. Last week, the company announced one such deal: acquiring the firm WurldTech of Vancouver Canada. The deal, announced on May 9th, will add Wurldtech’s technology and professional services to GE’s portfolio, with GE saying that Wurldtech products and services will “help to enhance the reliability of Industrial Internet operations.” Wurldtech makes security […]