The Internet of Risky Things: Trusting the Devices that Surround Us by Sean Smith

I’ve been trying to beef up my IT knowledge so I can make sure all the nifty things I want to do in my novel in progress, House Ibsen, are grounded in reality. So when I saw The Internet of Risky Things at the library, I pounced.

The book is very well-written and does an amazing job of striking the balance between detailed technical information and sufficient background material. My big overall takeaway: if you care about privacy, don’t use the Internet of Things. The amount of things that can—and probably will—go wrong is staggering! Author Sean Smith describes the issues with legacy components, the current “program now, patch later” paradigm, and security. For example, many Internet of Things devices use out-of-date components because they’re cheaper. Many of these components have bugs, but can’t be patched. Even if they can be patched, eventually they become so “old” that they’re no longer supported. This leaves millions upon millions of devices wide open to hackers. Especially when these devices are used for mission critical applications, like the power grid or pacemakers, that risk is unacceptable. Yet it runs rampant throughout the Internet of Things. Gives me the heebie-jeebies, I tell you.

On the other hand, as a writer this gives me lots of ways for both my bad- and good-guy characters to exploit Internet of Things weaknesses and make things…interesting. 🙂

THE BOTTOM LINE:

If you’re interested in this field, I highly recommend reading The Internet of Risky Things.

Smith, Sean W. The internet of risky things trusting the devices that surround us. S.l.: OReilly UK Ltd, 2017.