In the In-class activity, we talked about whether or not we supported whether driverless cars should be connected to the internet. Due to hacking, it may not be good that a car is connected to the internet, and that is what my group argued in the response. We were mainly focused on how it can be used to kill or kidnap people. However, I was wondering if there were other nefarious possibilities that you could do to a car connected to the internet as well. I found answers thanks to an article on Forbes.com by Jamie Carter.
Accidents don’t even need to be created, a hacker can just slow down or stop cars on busy areas. Creating gridlock can be a very effective way of disrupting a city. Work can decrease as people are unable to get to work. Freight can’t travel from one point to another. A hacker can effectively greatly reduce the economic output of a city by causing minor disturbances in key locations that would cause the most traffic.
It’s also interesting to think about how that can be used militarily. Logistics can be very important for military operations. Being able to shut down the transportation of supplies is a key to warfare, and has been used plenty of times throughout history, such as German U-boats sinking supplies heading towards Britain in both World Wars. An equivalent to that which involves remotely accessing an enemy’s supply lines would be very effective.
References: Carter, Jamie, (5 March 2019,) “Hacked Driverless Cars Could Cause Collisions And Gridlock In Cities, Say Researchers”, Forbes.com. Retrieved on 28 September 2019 From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2019/03/05/hacked-driverless-cars-could-cause-collisions-and-gridlock-in-cities-say-researchers/#4eb5b0fe2a09
This post made me look up some details about the internet of things, and I found that some of the potential danger of IoT is pretty horrible. For example, according to Terry Dunlap (2017), in 2016, CNN reported that “The FDA confirmed that St. Jude Medical’s implantable cardiac devices have vulnerabilities that could allow a hacker to access a device. Once in, they could deplete the battery or administer incorrect pacing or shocks, the FDA said.” This vulnerability will prevent physicians from getting the devices’ data. Also, if cardiac devices don’t work, patients may lose heart functions and have heart attacks.
IoT still has tons of vulnerabilities, but there’s no way we can prevent IoT era from happening because it can do so many good things to our life. According to Brandon Gaille (2016), except that IoT can make various information in our life easier to manage, IoT can also make the world more automated, which will lead to the fact that “make products and services more affordable” because many manufacturing processes can be automated, and “some of the savings generated could be transferred to consumers. ” What’s more, the data spreading would also be faster and access to the data would also be easier.
All in all, although IoT technology, for now, is not safe and private enough, it still has a lot of advantages that can not be missed. I believe that in the future, with further development of the IoT industry, many related policies would come up to regulate the whole industry.
Sources:
https://www.iotforall.com/5-worst-iot-hacking-vulnerabilities/
https://brandongaille.com/16-pros-and-cons-of-the-internet-of-things/