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Beyond Orwell: How the ‘Internet of Things’ Has Got You Surrounded
Phones, TVs, webcams, and watches are watching, listening, and reporting
In recent years, consumers have expressed fears that their smartphones could be listening to them. According to a new report published in Journal of Cyber Policy, such fears are justified.
But it goes much, much further than that.
Our cellphones, whether they are iPhones or Galaxy S9s, are listening to us and transmitting the data they hear. So are objects that include the Apple Watch, the Samsung Smart TV 9000, the Samsung Smart Dishwasher, and even the My Friend Cayla Doll.
All of these devices, analyzed in the report, are putting Americans under intense surveillance through the use of microphones, cameras, barometers, proximity sensors, ambient sensors, thermometers, Bluetooth, GPS location, and even heart rate monitors, concluded the March 2019 report “Enabling Mass Surveillance: Data Aggregation in the Age of Big Data and the Internet of Things.”
The Internet of Things (IofT) describes the concept of connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet and to one another. This makes machine-to-machine contact possible. One analyst firm says that by next year, there will be over 26 billion connected devices. This “interconnected and…
