Smart lamps, cameras, loudspeakers, air filters, vacuum cleaners: The Internet of Things is home to a lot of nice smart products. But a reckless update policy of manufacturers, who deliberately turn faultless products into electronic waste after only a few […]
Every time the political elite meets for the digital summit, formerly the “national IT summit”, we hear the usual phrases. Talking about the emancipation of large American corporations, about the “German Cloud”, the necessary broadband expansion. This is all correct and important. But let’s be honest, usually it is not more than buzzword bingo, the desire to distinquish oneself. But reality is different.
Agile – That sounds fresh, that sounds dynamic: Somehow word has got around that this must be the ultimate in development philosophy. Even people who have not yet developed anything in their lives except perhaps a healthy appetite, like to ask if they would also “develop agile”. It’s probably one of the buzzwords of recent years. But is Agile always the right approach? Does it automatically guarantee a usable or customer-oriented product?
The smart meter rollout is currently one of the dominant topics in the energy industry. The basic idea is simple: give consumers more information about your energy consumption, then they will behave more energy – and price-consciously. The means to an end: the smart meter. But what came out of the further implementation is neither intelligent nor smart. What’s going on?
The year is 2018. Everywhere we see digital services: In online banking, in telecommunications, in the logistics industry or in trade. Rental car, taxi, pizza delivery, dental appointments: We organize everything at the touch of a finger on the smartphone. […]
Ms. K. leaves her office on the fifth floor. The sensors at the exit register her leaving – no other sensors in the rooms detect any other people present. The building’s IoT systems switch off lighting and air conditioning. On […]
IoT vs. M2M: Is the Internet of Things the same old model of machine-to-machine communication of the 1990s, packed in new clothing?.
In a recent tweet, researcher Ankit Anubhav, specialized in IoT security, drew attention on a list circling the internet, containing thousands of IP addresses of IoT devices including their login data. Many of the devices are still accessible via Telnet, some of them already have been taken over by botnets. What baffles is that despite the many incidents related to poorly secured IoT devices and constant warnings from security professionals, most of the logins couldn’t been easier to guess: When “admin:admin” or “root:123456” grants access to a device, calling it “hacking” to take control already sounds like an insult. My plea: Think of security first, when you think of the IoT!
Recently I, once again, had the pleasure of participating in an event devoted entirely to the subject of digitization. Core thesis: Digitization comes faster than expected. So far so good. However, I had certain misgivings about the practical relevance of the thesis. I was proven right
