2024-01-30 07:31:04
No less than 46 customers online: we have specially checked for you how many devices and gadgets are currently connected to our home router, and therefore to the Internet. Currently, let’s say a normal evening where the whole family is at home and enjoying their interconnected screen(s) and gadget(s). Fortunately, this is not the case every evening or every day, but let us get back to business: 46 customers online. And there are many of them, from ‘classic’ laptops, smartphones, consoles, decoders or smart TVs to power outlets, thermostats, sensors, lamps and other smart hubs, without forgetting – obviously – the car, the bike , the washing machine, the toothbrush or the scales. Just do the check yourself: the number of connected devices at home will surprise you.
The very recent high mass of consumer electronics – the CES show in Las Vegas – revealed a whole new offering in this area. With AI – unsurprisingly – as the common thread. Even if we could of course elaborate on the term AI. Indeed, each software is not necessarily the perfect example of artificial intelligence. We have already mentioned it in these columns, specifying that certain ‘advanced algorithms’ turn out to be in practice more like process automation. Or as we wrote seven years ago already: “It is not because a device is ‘smart’ that it is truly intelligent, or even self-learning. » Many of today’s ‘AI-enabled’ devices once carried the label ‘smart’. And before that, we simply spoke of ‘connected’. Now, we are all connected: with the public Internet, a cloud or a server which, remotely, controls your device. No Internet? No device! Or in the best case, limited functionality. No more cloud service because the provider ceases all activity? Overnight, your smart watch becomes a ‘beast’ watch. In short, until you notice or discover that ‘smart’ and AI are only as intelligent as the server that keeps their brains alive.
Are you confident in your entire home IoT?
But what should worry us most in 2024 is data and cybersecurity. In the case of smartphone apps or intelligent ‘participatory’ assistants, most of us have now understood: our data is indeed used as currency. And we always understand better that caution is necessary, that we should not share our data with anything and anyone. However, we fear that this concept is not or insufficiently understood for any intelligent, connected or ‘AI-powered’ electronic device. However, the breakthrough of AI only amplifies this phenomenon. Take the example of Baracoda’s Bmind Smart Mirror, one of the stars of CES. A smart mirror which, by analyzing the bags under your eyes, concludes that you have slept poorly and ‘sees’ how you feel, which allows it to recommend meditation exercises or light therapy. How does it work ? A set of sensors, computer vision and large language models (LLM) that analyze your words, gestures and facial expressions. It’s obviously up to you to decide if you see an interest in it and imagine the volume of (unique) data generated by this ‘mental health coach’. But what about the data produced? Are they only shared with you? Are they traveling in the cloud – waiting for a hacker to pass through? And are you sure that Baracoda – have you ever heard of them before? – is not going to sell them off in a lucrative trade deal?
And what about cybersecurity? Common sense would dictate that we talk about ‘security by design’, but how many of these gadgets really include security as standard from the early stages of their development? Attacks by IoT zombie armies – the so-called botnets of connected attack devices – prove that there are mostly insecure devices. Already in 2016, some estimated following the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack by such a ‘botnet’ that no less than 6 billion devices were connected to the Internet. And in 2023, estimates spoke of 17 billion, while by 2027, the IoT Analytics firm mentions the milestone of 30 billion. How much data will these devices generate? Where, how and by whom? And how big can a botnet reach? At least not with my ‘beast’ mirror: it will remain analog.
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