General, IoT
by Gossiper Boy

What are your smart devices doing at your home, really?

Most of the people who are using smart devices at their home believe that you give up a little privacy, and you get some convenience or some price breaks in return. Is it really the case?

There is a huge business, maybe trillions of dollar business behind it…

I will define it as one of the scariest businesses in the world but not many people are actually aware of it…

Surveillance economy or Surveillance business

This #Gossipiece shares a great, funny and introspective Ted talk was given by Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu.

Once your smart devices can talk to you, who else are they talking to? Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu wanted to find out — so they outfitted Hill’s apartment with 18 different internet-connected devices and built a special router to track how often they contacted their servers and see what they were reporting back. The results were surprising — and more than a little bit creepy. Learn more about what the data from your smart devices reveals about your sleep schedule, TV binges and even your tooth-brushing habits — and how tech companies could use it to target and profile you. (This talk contains mature language.)

I am not going to answer anything or give any opinion about data privacy or internet security. I only want to leave 3 simple questions to you:

  • Who should own the data?
  • Who can use the data?
  • How to prevent those “bad” guys from abusing your data? (e.g., Law, regulations, technologies)