Open Source Summit + ELC North America 2019

A myriad of connected electronic devices can now be monitored and controlled using a smart phone, or via voice commands. User-friendly interfaces are making “smart products”, aka Internet of Things (IoT) devices, more approachable than ever. Although IoT promises to bring us numerous benefits, what are the hidden risks?

This talk will highlight 7 popular “features”, advertised as benefits, that we instead expose as “unhealthy habits”. One example is the notion of “end-to-end security”. Imagine you want to allow a brand A wireless pushbutton to control a brand B smart bulb. If each device uses end-to-end security, the result is two separate device-to-cloud walled gardens, and no interoperability.

To help overcome each unhealthy habit, we will suggest alternative solutions using Mozilla’s open source web of things framework. Mozilla envisions an open and decentralized IoT ecosystem that puts people first, to improve the privacy, security, and interoperability of connected devices.