Internet Of Things: A Brief Overview And Significance

The Evolution of Internet of Things

Questions:

1.What are the security and privacy issues in internet of things ?

2.What are the applications of internet of things?

In simple terms internet of things is a concept of connecting the devices to the internet by simply using on and off button. It is also used to connect devices to each other. The list of things that includes is very vast and it includes many things like cell phones, wearable devices, washing machines, lamps, and anything of which one can think (Morgan, 2014).

The concept of internet of things is not very old. It all started in 1800's time period with the invention of telegraph which is called as wireless telegraphy. Then the next big step was the first radio voice transmission which was conducted in 1900. This gave a start to the necessity for developing internet of things (Postscapes, 2004).

And so began the development process of computers in 1950's. The use of internet was started as part of DARPA that is (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in the year 1962 and this was later on developed as ARPANET in the year 1969. Later commercial service providers started showing interest in the public use of ARPANET which grew as internet in today's modern world. The next step in the development of internet of things was a major step and that was the development of Global Positioning Satellites commonly known as GPS in the year 1993. And this gave a boost to the privately owned satellites as well as to the development of commercial satellite system that started orbiting in the space. The use of Internet of things into a number of technologies has been started since 2013 (Foote, 2106).

When the people didn’t even knew the term internet since then the manufacturers are using this to connect things around us (Chase, 2013).

The scope of internet of things is very wide. It has many significances in the field of technology, social as well as economic significance. Today everyday objects are connected with internet of things like utility products, consumer products as well as capital products, cars, etc. you name a thing and it is connected with internet of things in some way. Elements of internet of things that provides it a wide scope that includes- wireless sensors, wireless battery free sensors, wireless sensing networks, industrial internet, digital mechanical engineers etc. are the elements of internet of things (Tyagi, 2014).

Internet of things has the capacity as well as capabilities to transform the way of life as well as the manner one thinks, play and respond to other works. Internet of things has spread its scope in every nook and corner of the world and in every aspect of one's life like in agricultural sectors, transportation sector, in developing cities, as well as in developing any industry as well as helping it to prosper (Prasad, 2016). It is also being used in the mobile applications. It provides a huge scope to the technological companies as they get many opportunities to develop something new for the changing demand of the consumers (Sinha, 2014).

Significance of Internet of Things

As it is seen that technology is also developing with developing needs of man so it can be said that the future of the internet is very bright. Today every person belonging to any caste, race gender or anything uses internet by sitting in any corner of the world (Khan, 2015).

1. Internet of things has opened the scope of virtual networks of real world to connect with the real time people for carrying out interactions. The initial stage which was developed of internet of things is the M2M that is machine to machine connection which included several unique features as well as several subscriptions. Then came the wireless area network commonly known as (WAN). This opened a scope for operations that can be unattended without human intervention (Patel, 2014).

The major security issues related to internet of things are as follows:

1. Public Perception: this is the first issue that usually arises in front of the manufactures because usually people are scared of their data getting stolen. So this is the issue which may restrict the consumers from purchasing any products. And people even hesitate to connect to devices due to privacy concerns.
2. Vulnerability to Hacking: the fear of hacking is very major in internet of things. There are specific groups that conduct the work of hacking and spend their time on hacking other people's data or even websites are hacked by such unethical hackers. Every internet of things has certain holes in it that is tracked by these unethical hackers and then it is misused by them.
3. True Security: the companies need to develop security devices at the very stage of developing any internet of things. Network connections needs to be made secure as those are the connecting links (Meola, How the Internet of Things will affect security & privacy, 2016).
4. Front end Sensors and Equipment: this receives data with the help of built in censors. After receiving these data, they transmit this data using different modules. So this makes the machines involved in business important. So these machines need to be secured from outside access by any unethical intruder.
5. Network: network is the main part in connecting one device with other devices so it is very important that these networks should be secured properly or else due to network congestion unauthentic people can use the loop holes to intrude.
6. Back end of its system: the back end system requires special attention as at this point high security is needed. The security related to internet of things includes certain major standards that include communication layer security, confidentiality, as well as integrity of the concerned data, controlled accessibility, and the most important being the protection of privacy concern.

The major privacy issues related to the internet of things are as follows:

1. Too much data: a number of data related to individuals as well as related to then organizations are available on the internet. This gives a chance to the unethical hackers to hack in their data and misuse it. And this leaves the data of individuals vulnerable.
2. Unwanted public profile: there are a number of documents that gives the companies right to collect information related to an individual. For example, the insurance companies are authorized to gather information related to a person's health, and this is done by the insurance companies in the light of their customers. So, this leaves a scope for the hackers as well to gather any information that can be of importance to them.
3. Eavesdropping: there are chances that hackers can connect to someone's device virtually. One major example of this is, a number of German researchers were able to intercept in the unencrypted data of few people and by that they were able to see what a specific person or family was watching on a television set at that particular moment.
4. Consumer Confidence: all these above factors leaves a fear on the minds of consumers so they hesitate to purchase the products and this limits the scope and potential of internet of things(Meola, How the Internet of Things will affect security & privacy, 2016).
5. Privacy in Device: the devices like hardware device as well as the software devices contain much sensitive information that needs to be protected. If this information gets leaked any how than it can be a serious threat as the data contained by these devices can be misused in any manner. For instance, a hacker can hack a company's cameras and link it with his device and can see whatever is going on in the company and can see all the places and plan anything after that.
6. Privacy during Communication: secure communication protocol should be developed to avoid the leaking of data while the process of communications. Encryption of data is conducted to protect the data while communicating. The encryption adds data in certain packets which if stuck into congestion can be hacked.
7. Privacy in Storage: to protect the private information from being hacked it is important to protect the data stored in it. For this one should practice storing least possible information in the storage that is required. If it is compulsory then only one should keep personal information in the storage(Patel, 2014).

Any organization that develops internet of things products should also take effective measures to develop certain security measures regarding the products. Ample amount of money should be spent on developing the remedies to deal with any kind of security vulnerabilities if occurs. It is believed that companies should develop security for any internet of things at the development stage itself as a precautionary measure rather than taking it as a preventive measure. To undertake this activity, the companies should conduct a privacy risk assessment at the beginning, all the security measures should be put to test at an earlier stage only. Few other measures that can be taken for this is that the employees should be trained accordingly to deal with any kind of security issues. Service providers that provide better security should be adopted by every organization. A defence in depth approach should be developed by the organizations immediately after identifying the risks in their systems. And the major step that can be taken by a company is that they can limit the access control to a certain extent to avoid any access made by any unauthorized person, so that unethical activities can be prevented from happening. And the device as well as data related to organizations and the consumers can be protected. The other step that a company can take is that a continuous checking and evaluating system should be developed in order to identify any threat at an early stage and make further move accordingly (FTC, 2015).

1. Smart Home: one of the most popular applications of internet of things is the smart home. As these smart homes are the most affordable as well as are readily available to the consumers. The smart homes provide the people with facility to control all the home activities with their voices, and make their life more comfortable and happy to live in. All the communicational technologies as well as information technologies that are able to connect with internet are proving of utmost importance to carry out the daily household work. Smart home systems are made especially for this purpose. Today every household appliance like washing machines, ovens, coolers, air conditioners almost everything today can be controlled by remote or even by voice of a person, the internet of things has become so advanced in nature.
2. Wearable: the most famous example to site in this section is the watch made by Apple Company. Today Apple watches as well as other smart watches are doing the work of smart phones as well along with telling time. These smart watches enable the option of text messaging, as well as phone calls and many more activities that one must have not even dreamt of.
3. Smart Cities: today internet of things even has the capability of developing entire cities. They are able to solve the issue of, congestion of traffic; they can even reduce the noise and control noise pollution in a specific city. Internet of things is able to control pollution levels, reduce the rate of crime in the city and many more tasks are there that can be conducted by internet of things.
4. Connected Car: today even cars are equipped with many apps and technologies. Today vehicles can share their internet access with others as well just by connecting themselves like the wireless network.

So, it can be said that today nothing is there that is not connected or that does not involve internet of things involved in it (Meola, Internet of Things devices, applications & examples, 2016).

Conclusion

So, it can be said that though there are a number of security as well as privacy issues that are connected with internet of things it is still growing as it has the capacity of changing the entire life of persons as well as the way of thinking of every person. Internet of things has the capacity of taking the information and communication technology to new high level. It even has the potential to bring in the field of information and communication technology many new things that are only in minds of the researchers and developers of such systems. So, it is very important to tackle the issues related to its security as well as privacy as it has vast potential in it. The most important challenge of internet of things is the protection of data of individuals as well as of the organizations (Kontsevoi, 2015).

In this article topics related to the problems and challenges of security as well as privacy issues of internet of things has been dealt with detail. The in-depth application of internet of things has also been dealt with in this article in detail under different headings. This article even considers certain recommendations that can be adopted to avoid the risk related to security and privacy concerns of internet of things. Internet of things term has gained a lot of weightage in today's world, as it has the capacity of changing the future, of the way things are working today and have the potential to develop many new things and make it of use to the world.

References

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FTC. (2015, Jan 13). Internet of things Privacy and securityin a connected world. Retrieved from ftc.gov: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/federal-trade-commission-staff-report-november-2013-workshop-entitled-internet-things-privacy/150127iotrpt.pdf

Khan, F. (2015). Future Scope And Possibilities In Internet Of Things. International Conference on Advances in Engineering Science and Management (pp. 310- 312). Agra: T R Publication.

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Meola, A. (2016, dec 19). Internet of Things devices, applications & examples. Retrieved from businessinsider.com: https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-of-things-devices-applications-examples-2016-8?IR=T

Morgan, J. (2014, may 13). A Simple Explanation Of 'The Internet Of Things'. Retrieved from forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#2b7a2dc51d09

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Postscapes. (2004, may 13). Internet of things History. Retrieved from postscapes.com: https://www.postscapes.com/internet-of-things-history/

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