The Internet of Risky Things

Preface

It’s autumn 2016. As this book is getting ready to go to press, news sources (both computing and mainstream) start reporting a massive distributed denial of service attack against Dyn’s internet infrastructure—launched from compromised devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). A security colleague jokingly asks me whether I arranged the attack as a promotion for this book. A humanities colleague asks me why there are computers inside baby monitors. A science reporter asks what I think—and sadly, I fear this is just the beginning. In autumn 2016, the smart things were only attacking traditional Internet of Computers (IoC) things, with consequences confined to computing. We may have a future where IoT and IoC things alike attack the IoT, with consequences in whatever real-world infrastructure the IoT things augment.

The Internet of Risky Things grew out of a “Sophomore Summer” course I developed and taught at Dartmouth and draws on my lifetime of experience in the interaction of security and information technology and society (including healthcare, investment banking, and 10 years working on cybersecurity in the smart grid—and even e-government at the dawn of the web). This book implicitly assumes a general college education, familiarity with the internet as a user, and the context of citizenship in the world; however, I also see the book being of value to audiences with specialties in computer science, management, research, and education.

The coming IoT distributes ...