What I Learned This Week – 1/6/17
3 min read
A new year is upon us and we’re going to make it each week with a What I Learned post. Those the piles of news, reports, white papers and alerts I consume on a weekly basis there are those that stick out. Stories that are not necessarily technology related but catch my eye as interesting and do nothing more than pad my useless knowledge for a future quiz show appearance. At the end of each week I will write about three to five stories and throw some thoughts on each. A little fun for a Friday.
What I Learned – Week Ending 1/6/17
FTC Tries To Wrangle In IoT
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a contest for a tool that will help secure and manage home IoT (Internet of Things) devices. The top prize is $25,000 which seems like a large amount but the reality is the development of such tools will far exceed that cost. The real prize is bragging rights and sales opportunities of such a tool. Here’s the problem with this, a tool that does what they want will never exist. The reason being is the device makers don’t follow a standard framework nor is there any kind of IoT certification process. The proper answer is to create a review and certification process that follows the FCC process. You can’t sell a device that has radio or broadcasting capability without that FCC approved tag on it. Put the responsibility on the vendors because trying to find a central tool to manage the unmanaged crap software in IoT is a futile exercise. (You can send the $25,000 to me via PayPal or bitcoin)
Source: http://www.securityweek.com/ftc-seeks-tools-securing-home-iot-devices
Building The Fastest Elevator Is Apparently A Thing
As the world’s cities are building up rather than out it makes sense getting people up and down is needed. However how fast is a trophy that companies want to hold. It also shows how truly impatient we have become that a ride in an elevator is too much of a drag in our day. I supposed doing so in a tower that’s 100+ floors it could be. When I read the article the statements that made this worthy to write about were the stats on some of the buildings in the world. The new World Trade center’s elevator travels up at a ‘slow’ 23 mph. The Shanghai Tower travels faster than Disney’s Twilight Zone Tower Of Terror and that goes at 39 mph. There are plans for one that tops out at 44.7 mph. The one figure that blows my mind is that by 2020 it’s estimated that 40% of all the elevators in the world will be in China. Currently 5 of the top 10 fastest elevators are in China.
The Replacement Of Human Workers Continue
One of my favorite TV shows of all time, long before my time but greatly appreciated today, was the original Twilight Zone. Rod Sterling and the writers contributing to that show were geniuses ahead of their time. In today’s world one of their episodes stood out when I read this next article. The episode was “The Brain Center At Whipple’s”, the clip explains it well. it’s basically a story about a company slowly replacing workers with machines and computers. That has been happening for years, mainly in robotics and manufacturing. However, Japan is stepping it up a notch. With the advancements in Artificial Intelligence and costs coming down the next target for replacement are jobs that are mathematical and computational in nature. A Japanese company called Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance has replaced human workers with AI with calculating payouts to policy holders. That particular position is based on formulas, statistics, probabilities and enough reasoning that current computers couldn’t handle but AI with reasoning capability is. Accountants, financial planners, brokers, etc… should be greatly concerned.
Half Of All Websites Are Not Secure
I live and breathe this day in and day out. The only way to get movement is to beat it into the heads of people until they move on it before they get pwned. That is all.
End of Line.
Binary Blogger has spent 20 years in the Information Security space currently providing security solutions and evangelism to clients. From early web application programming, system administration, senior management to enterprise consulting I provide practical security analysis and solutions to help companies and individuals figure out HOW to be secure every day.
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