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IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

iotworm.eyalro.net

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Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#61

Post by sillysaurus3 »

no_wizard wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's great about this argument is how versatile it is. Climate change got you down? How about deforestation, or antibiotic overuse? Tired of people telling you not to write web applications in C? Your one liner seamlessly shuts down discussion in any of those debates! In fact: the finger-waggers have been right about this issue since approximately 1988, when Paul Graham's friend shut down much of the Internet with…

Admittedly I am now interested and, I apologize in advance if this is in the thread already and missed it (thanks poor vision!) but, would you happen to have a link or explainer as to this incident? Sounds very intriguing. Edit: Sorry everyone! I just saw it! Thank you! For those who see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm & this: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs1110/2009sp/assignments...

Thanks for the second link. It's a fascinating slice of history, particularly because it wasn't written as a historical perspective.

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#62

Post by mivok »

ekux44 wrote: post #39

Philips may have fixed the vulnerability in an update, but that's insufficient if these devices don't have high update rates. I wonder how many years until there are fewer than 15000 vulnerable Hue devices in Paris... We should hold manufacturers accountable for not aggressively pushing security updates on their users.

Hue forces updates on you every time you go into the app if there's one available, and you can't use the app until you've updated. Granted this isn't ideal if you primarily use your light switch or an amazon echo to control the lights, and fully automatic updates would probably be better, but it comes pretty close to aggressively pushing updates.

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#63

Post by midwestcode »

no_wizard wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's great about this argument is how versatile it is. Climate change got you down? How about deforestation, or antibiotic overuse? Tired of people telling you not to write web applications in C? Your one liner seamlessly shuts down discussion in any of those debates! In fact: the finger-waggers have been right about this issue since approximately 1988, when Paul Graham's friend shut down much of the Internet with…

Admittedly I am now interested and, I apologize in advance if this is in the thread already and missed it (thanks poor vision!) but, would you happen to have a link or explainer as to this incident? Sounds very intriguing. Edit: Sorry everyone! I just saw it! Thank you! For those who see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm & this: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs1110/2009sp/assignments...

Found this analysis through Wikipedia: http://spaf.cerias.purdue.edu/tech-reps/823.pdf

Fascinating stuff... Thanks for sharing!

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#65

Post by cobbzilla »

wyager wrote: post #56
mmanfrin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tragedy of the commons. No individual manufacturer really cares about the issues created by the ecosystem of IoT, so they have no real incentive to address it.

How is this "tragedy of the commons"? The only "common" they are using is the RF spectrum, which they are presumably not polluting too badly or the FCC would start smashing down doors. Let's not start claiming the internet itself somehow qualifies as a "common", because with common ownership rationally comes common censorship (as with the FCC and public broadcasts).

I think you are mistaking "tragedy of the commons". It is a behavioral outcome, where individual actors take actions that immediately benefit them, but if everyone else does the same thing, then no one wins. Overfishing a public pond is a common example (the commons is obvious here: the pond), but another great example is standing up to get a better view at a large stadium event. If you stand up, you can see better. Unfortunately, this means the person behind you also has to stand up. Once everyone is standing up, no one is any better off than if they were all sitting.

The analogy here is more like the latter: It is better for Manufacturer X to rush their IoT device to market to maximize profits, ignoring security concerns. If every manufacturer does this (the person in front of you at the stadium just stood up, so you stand up too), then whoa, we have millions of insecure devices waiting to be exploited. This is indeed a tragedy of the commons.

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#67

Post by T-Winsnes »

duaneb wrote: post #60
swiley wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We should hold manufacturers accountable for not aggressively pushing security updates on their users. There's really no way to /force/ companies to support products they release like that. The company may not even exist a few years down the road. You could force them to release the firmware source so the users/community can patch it themselves but I don't see a way to do what you're saying.

If you could sue over security this wouldn't be an issue: we'd actually have a bug program that worked. Also, the market would be harder to enter. I don't see a problem with this.

How would you sure a company that doesn't exist anymore?

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#68

Post by adrianN »

algesten wrote: post #54
adt2bt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point about internet connected light bulbs, but is there a particular reason you selected incandescents over other more energy efficient bulbs that don't have IoT capabilities?

the quality of light from your average energy bulb is typically terrible. I like warm light and whilst I know I can't see infra-red frequencies I want to see a concentration of light towards that end of the spectrum. It just makes for a much more relaxed feeling. I stockpiled too. and I have dimmers on pretty much every lamp (including the toilet), so the bulbs last for a very long time. when you don't burn them on f…

They make warm-light LED bulbs.

Re: IoT Goes Nuclear: Creating a ZigBee Chain Reaction

#70

Post by kodfodrasz »

mvindahl wrote: post #69
kodfodrasz wrote: post #66

Nuclear does not mean chain reaction. I hate these catchy titles.

Yeah, if it works (which I'm not even sure that it would), it would bear a lot of resemblance to a computer virus and no resemblance at all to a nuclear bomb.

Nuclear does not necessarily mean a bomb It mean something in the (atomic) nuclei or related to these. Forces, reactions, particles, etc.

Surely chain reaction is a member of this set, but not the only thing. Sure, most nuclear devices we hear about use the chain reaction (power plants, bombs), but an x-rax machine is also somewhat a nuclear device.

Sometimes we even induce neutron capture, which is the opposite of chain reactipn (afaik to create some special isotopes, or to start/sustain a chain reaction).

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