A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
> Date: October 11, 2018 at 12:42:56 AM GMT+9
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> [Note:  This item comes from friend John McMullen.  John’s comment:'I disagree -- and so does Alexa!’.  DLH]
>
> A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
> By Farhad Manjoo
> Oct 10 2018
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/technology/future-internet-of-things.html>
>
> More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on 
> every desk.
>
> No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about 
> everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoft’s monopoly 
> back in the bottle.
>
> This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry. Audacious founders set their sights on something 
> hilariously out of reach — Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect everyone — and the very unlikeliness of their plans 
> insulates them from scrutiny. By the time the rest of us catch up to their effects on society, it’s often too late to 
> do much about them.
>
> It is happening again now. In recent years, the tech industry’s largest powers set their sights on a new target for 
> digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. There’s just 
> one catch, which often goes unstated: If their novelties take off without any intervention or supervision from the 
> government, we could be inviting a nightmarish set of security and privacy vulnerabilities into the world. And guess 
> what. No one is really doing much to stop it.
>
> The industry’s new goal? Not a computer on every desk nor a connection between every person, but something grander: a 
> computer inside everything, connecting everyone.
>
> Cars, door locks, contact lenses, clothes, toasters, refrigerators, industrial robots, fish tanks, sex toys, light 
> bulbs, toothbrushes, motorcycle helmets — these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting “smart.” 
> Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend — known by the marketing catchphrase “the internet of 
> things” — but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung.
>
> For instance, Amazon last month showed off a microwave powered by Alexa, its voice assistant. Amazon will sell the 
> microwave for $60, but it is also selling the chip that gives the device its smarts to other manufacturers, making 
> Alexa connectivity a just-add-water proposition for a wide variety of home appliances, like fans and toasters and 
> coffee makers. And this week, both Facebook and Google unveiled their own home “hub” devices that let you watch 
> videos and perform other digital tricks by voice.
>
> You might dismiss many of these innovations as pretty goofy and doomed to failure. But everything big in tech starts 
> out looking silly, and statistics show the internet of things is growing quickly. It is wiser, then, to imagine the 
> worst — that the digitization of just about everything is not just possible but likely, and that now is the time to 
> be freaking out about the dangers.
>
> “I’m not pessimistic generally, but it’s really hard not to be,” said Bruce Schneier, a security consultant who 
> explores the threats posed by the internet of things in a new book, “Click Here to Kill Everybody.”
>
> Mr. Schneier argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with 
> security and privacy for society generally. Putting a computer in everything turns the whole world into a computer 
> security threat — and the hacks and bugs uncovered in just the last few weeks at Facebook and Google illustrate how 
> difficult digital security is even for the biggest tech companies. In a roboticized world, hacks would not just 
> affect your data but could endanger your property, your life and even national security.
>
> Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. He calls for reimagining 
> the regulatory regime surrounding digital security in the same way the federal government altered its national 
> security apparatus after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Among other ideas, he outlines the need for a new federal 
> agency, the National Cyber Office, which he imagines researching, advising and coordinating a response to threats 
> posed by an everything-internet.
>
> “I can think of no industry in the past 100 years that has improved its safety and security without being compelled 
> to do so by government,” he wrote. But he conceded that government intervention seems unlikely at best. “In our 
> government-can’t-do-anything-ever society, I don’t see any reining in of the corporate trends,” he said.
>
> [snip]
>
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