OSPE - The Voice - March 2017 - 36

students

The eyes and ears of technology:
questions of security in the age of
the Internet of Things
The following article was written in collaboration with Neha Bhasin and Anne Nasato,
fourth-year chemical engineering students at the University of Toronto.

Top: Anne Nasato.
Bottom: Neha Bhasin

n January 5, 2017, many San Diego households experienced an unintended
consequence of watching the news. When news anchor Jim Patton spoke about
a little girl who had accidentally ordered a dollhouse with her parents' Alexa-powered
Amazon Echo Box-a voice command device from Amazon.com that answers questions,
plays music and controls smart devices-many viewers' Echo Boxes were inadvertently
directed to go on shopping sprees of their own.
While the voice-activated digital assistant Alexa is able to recognize speech, she
is unable to distinguish between different speakers. After the "dollhouses-for-themasses" incident, Amazon refunded those affected, however, the retrospectively
amusing event raises a more serious question for those with an Alexa Echo Box in
their home: is she always listening?
Alexa enables a level of consumer connectivity that typifies the Internet of Things
(IoT) as part of day-to-day life. The IoT, also known as "Machine to Machine" (M2M),
is composed of everyday objects that have the ability to communicate with each other
over the Internet. These network devices exchange information and perform action
without manual input or assistance from humans. Any item that can have a sensor
attached for the purpose of data collection and analysis can essentially become a part
of the IoT. In fact, most of us own at least 12 IoT-connected devices that we use on a
regular basis. Manifestations of the IoT include everything from our smartphones, to
wearables like Fitbits, to household appliances and autonomous vehicles.
Neha Bhasin and Anne Nasato, two fourth-year chemical engineering students from
the University of Toronto, captured first place in the Engineering Communications
category at the January 2017 Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC), for their
eloquent examination of the potential opportunities and pitfalls of the IoT.
"As students, it's easy to become wrapped up in a sea of deadlines, exams and
grades. Sometimes it is necessary to remember: to what end am I working? Having
the opportunity to participate in an engineering competition where communication
is the focus, is a great way to escape those bounds and begin presenting solutions
that are in touch with the real world," said Bhasin. "Choosing the +IoT as our topic
seemed like a natural fit because it is something so relevant today to anyone who
owns anything resembling a smartphone."
The wide variety of potential IoT applications means an increasingly interconnected
world. IoT devices offer a level of convenience that typically surpasses their less
dynamic counterparts, and accordingly integrate nearly seamlessly into consumer
lifestyles. In 2008, there were already more objects connected to the Internet than
people, and by 2020, experts predict the number of IoT devices will exceed 50 billion.
"The reality is, the IoT has the potential to create a very utopic or dystopic world.
We are at a pivot point where things could either go really well or really poorly, and it
depends on how much people know about the technology in our lives," says Nasato.
"Education is paramount for the safe and responsible use of these increasingly
interconnected and data-rich technologies. Engineers, who create the backbone of
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