“ Hey Google, what’s wrong with Alexa? ”

The convenience that IoT (Internet of Things) devices bring are second to none. From having cars that can self park to our homes being controlled from our phones, IoT devices are taking on more tasks to help us in our daily lives.

IoT devices have the ability to interact and communicate over the internet. I mean, being able to talk to a device hands-free and getting the assistance you require is pretty cool. Over the past few years the range of these devices has grown significantly from TV’s to doorbells. 

Smart homes are becoming the new norm with devices such as doorbell cameras giving the householder the ability to see who’s at the door from their phone. These doorbells can also recognise faces and detect motion, so if you’re trying to sneak someone in you better just forget about it. More recently, fridges now have the ability to connect to the internet. Imagine being able to send a tweet or post a picture from our fridge. Now I’m not old, but that is mental to me. My whole fridge that holds mummy’s stew is connected to the internet.

We can also look at the Google Home device that can turn our lights off, play music and manage our everyday tasks. But before we look into how far technology has come, let’s bring it back. We need to remember that in order for the IoT device to be at our beck and call, it first needs to be listening. This means that for the whole day this device is constantly listening to what we are saying. I’m not going to start a conspiracy theory about these devices being tapped and all, but if you talk about Jordan 1’s around the device and then later you see an advert for Jordan 1’s on  your phone, then I’m not sure what to tell you. I am currently creating my own Alexa *sticks tongue out* and the process is being filmed so watch out for the vlog!

There are a lot of flaws with IoT and the main reason is because they do not receive frequent firmware updates. In one of my previous blogs I spoke about patches and how vital they are to devices. If a device doesn’t get its regular updates it is vulnerable. For instance, Alexa was found with a few vulnerabilities that could expose users personal information such as banking data, usernames and addresses. The latest baby monitors, as crazy as it may sound, are high risk. Hackers have been known to hack into these monitors and start looking and talking through these devices. This is very worrying as end users’ privacy is on the line.

The number of IoT devices that will be used in the future is due to increase, but as humans I do feel as though we are becoming too reliant on technology and we need to regress a little bit. As technology continues to develop, IoT will be more integrated into our everyday lives. The possibilities are endless which can see the need for human resources becoming obsolete (we gotta tell Siri and that other one to pull up). We will need to see these companies make IoT devices a whole lot safer and accurate for us consumers because technology is not always reliable. 

Tips with T

– Check the privacy and security settings of your IoT devices – Keep the IoT software up to date – Change the default password on your IoT device

Encryption Competition

https://ttprotocol.wordpress.com/2020/08/18/encryption/

The bit we are all waiting for. I would like to say well done to all who were able to decrypt my message. The techniques used to decrypt the message were really good to see even though some people cheated (no names). The engagement received for this task was incredible and I will definitely be doing it in the future but it will be more difficult. To the shameless people that used different e-mail accounts to send in their answers, I respect it but I can see your IP address, you can’t fool me.

A n y w h o o o o 

My encrypted message : “ Xlivi mw rs tvmdi ”

Answer : “ There is no prize  ” –  The substitution method was the correct method to use in order to decipher the encrypted text. This particular example, the alphabet was shifted by 4 spaces. My method would have been to work out what the two letter words were in order to determine the amount of shifts and then work out the rest.  

The winner of the 2020 encryption challenge is:  Nuno

CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!!!!

I beg you split the money with me because I’m not sure who sent me to be giving away £100 like this.

Love & Guidance

TT