The Economist, a British magazine, recently described one of the most important technological trends affecting households and businesses.
Cars “are becoming like computers with wheels,” the article said. Diabetics wear computerized insulin pumps “that can instantly relay their vital signs to their doctors.” Smart thermostats “learn their owners’ habits and warm and chill houses accordingly.”
All these devices are connected to the Internet.
This extraordinary technological linkage among devices is known as the “Internet of things.”
The trend is opening up major economic opportunities. It’s also making society vulnerable in new and sometimes unexpected ways.
Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska is among a bipartisan group of four U.S. senators pushing the federal government to get a better handle on these technological developments so that society can maximize the private-sector opportunities, address challenges with bandwidth and be proactive in guarding against hacking.
A resolution put forward by the group and approved by the Senate notes that this technological linkage “connects tens of billions of devices worldwide and has the potential to generate trillions of dollars in economic opportunity.”
This “increased connectivity,” the resolution says, “can empower consumers in nearly every aspect of their daily lives, including in the fields of agriculture, education, energy, health care, public safety, security and transportation.”
Businesses have opportunities to “simplify logistics, cut costs in supply chains and pass savings on to consumers.”
The bipartisan group has asked the federal Government Accountability Office to do an analysis describing the economic opportunities as well as concerns involving hacking and loss of privacy.
A particular concern, The Economist notes, involves “botnets.” These are large networks of devices whose computing power is hijacked by cybercriminals and then linked together “to do everything from generating spam email to performing denial-of-service attacks, in which websites are flooded with requests and thus rendered unable to respond to legitimate users.”
The average user “would probably have no way to tell that his TV had been subverted,” the article notes, and for now, security software patches generally aren’t available for modern refrigerators or DVRs.
Still, some proactive steps have been taken. The Food and Drug Administration has issued guidelines to the manufacturers of insulin pumps and other medical devices, providing the companies with information about computer security.
Automakers, meanwhile, have begun studying options to safeguard vehicle computer systems. Some companies contract with technicians to test products and networks for hacker vulnerabilities. And on Friday, Fiat Chrysler recalled about 1.4 million U.S. cars and trucks after two hackers were able to take control of a Jeep over the Internet.
Technology is a powerful tool. But as always, it’s best to understand where we’re headed and how to get there safely.
Fischer and her colleagues are sending the right message.
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