Security is indeed a poorly addressed problem. October’s internet outage was caused by IP cameras, which have notorious poor protection. In this case, a negligent factory default password. It doesn’t take a genius to go over every IP number possible with a known password. What is more difficult is targeting a specific home.

The possibility of burning the house down did cross my mind, but more because of the many opportunities for malfunctions. What if I set automation to turn on my oven, but when it sends the off signal, my WiFi fails, my internet access is blocked by my provider, or the servers of ifttt.com or D-link are temporarily out of service? Moral of the story is you don’t want to hook IoT up to anything important.

I might want a RaspBerry Pi, but the price tag, learning curve and electronics seem too much of a hassle for now. The ability to send IR signals would be interesting though. Maybe if I’m all done programming A.I., my next hobby can be electronics.

IoT security always make me think of that Columbo episode, “How to Dial a Murder”.

Dave Morton - Nov 19, 2016:

Carl B - Nov 19, 2016:

Using open source IoT devices (Arduino, RaspPi, etc.) is one option for preventing your IoT devices from being inducted into a botnet…

Not to mention that either are (relatively) inexpensive, and (I think) can be outfitted with infrared output devices that can be programmed to emit the required IR signals to control your TV, stereo, etc. ...

Cost is $30 USD for a full sized RP ($5 for a “Zero” board), add $25 for 8MP camera module and then you have a pretty affordable face detector, motion detector, and of course stereo audio in/out (on the RP) for the voice recognition and TTS.  Adding IR or even 2.5 MHz RC is only an add-on board away.  Add $20 used monitor for displaying the 3D avatar synched to the TTS, etc and you are still <$100.  The software is all open-source too, so modifications are reasonably straight forward.

As it happens I already have all those items in my toolbox and I already have a lot of experience using them in conjunction with my robotics work, so I know that you are grossly underestimating the amount of time that it takes to source and integrate all those components, never mind assemble them into a system that is safe and which will last as long as a commercial quality system.

There are lots and lots of videos on youtube of people demonstrating how they put together such systems. They are fun to try to make them, but take a look and judge for yourselves if they were worth the effort if you just want something that works.

Andrew Smith - Nov 20, 2016:

As it happens I already have all those items in my toolbox and I already have a lot of experience using them in conjunction with my robotics work, so I know that you are grossly underestimating the amount of time that it takes to source and integrate all those components, never mind assemble them into a system that is safe and which will last as long as a commercial quality system.

I too have all of these items, and have put them together as I described, but as you say with some effort.  When I say “some effort” that is being highly relative since the open-source nature of the platform makes each component a multi-coder effort, and the more folks who are interested in making things like intelligent voice-driven avatar agents, the more relevant ready to use (or just optimized/faster) code libraries will be added.  The amount of effort needed to make a voice commanded (or over the built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, or ethernet)  IR transmitter is ridiculously easy with all the youtube tutorials and whatnot.  Sourcing the hardware and software is simple, I mean all of it is available on-line, with the hardware cost (and power requirements) minimal and the software free; not sure why you say its hard to source?

Also, you may have misunderstood me, I was not referring to a “commercial quality system”, but a way of putting together a hack-safe DIY IoT device related to chat bots and automation.  However, the opportunity is certainly there for monetization since integration of all those components could make for a compelling(?) open-source product.

Carl B - Nov 20, 2016:

Sourcing the hardware and software is simple, I mean all of it is available on-line, with the hardware cost (and power requirements) minimal and the software free; not sure why you say its hard to source?

Living in the USA you are possibly unaware that there are other countries but I can assure you that there are and a lot of them are better than yours. I live on a remote island and while I do at least have gigabit fibre to my home, it can take quite a while for physical packages to arrive. My RPi3 and Camera shipped from a neighbouring island and arrived the next day, but other essential items like prototyping boards, level shifters and accelerometers can take up to 6 weeks to get here. It can mess up an otherwise smooth R&D work flow.

Also, you may have misunderstood me…

You most certainly misunderstood me. All I’m saying is that no matter how smart you are, all is for nothing if you are surrounded by ignorant neighbours who are too dumb to check the settings on their store bought IoT devices. No matter how competent the manufacturers of those devices are, they still have to make the default settings so that said devices will work out of the box, without technical support, or they will be driven out of business because the devices won’t sell or will be returned to the store, or will be too expensive to support.

Sadly it will probably take legislation and regulation to fix this problem. In most places you are supposed to have a drivers licence to drive a car on a public road and it would probably be a good thing if people had to have a licence to connect a device to the internet too. Without requiring that minimum level of competence, IoT devices (except yours of course) will continue to fall easy prey to hackers with anti-social intent.

Andrew Smith - Nov 20, 2016:

Living in the USA you are possibly unaware that there are other countries but I can assure you that there are and a lot of them are better than yours….

Ad hominem attacks are both unproductive and unnecessary.