Spy agencies looking to tap into Net-connected home appliances

Is your Internet-connected TV, radio, or dishwasher spying on you?

 

They may soon do so with the rise of smart homes that send out tagged and geolocated data, Central Intelligence Agency head David Petraeus said.

 

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," he said at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm, according to a report on Wired.com.

 

He added computing power is expected to become even more powerful with the progress to cloud computing, supercomputing, and ultimately quantum computing.

 

On the other hand, Wired.com noted new online services can be an accidental boon to spies - such as Facebook's Timeline.

 

"With the arrival of Timeline, Facebook made it super-easy to backdate your online history. Barack Obama, for instance, hasn’t been on Facebook since his birth in 1961. Creating new identities for CIA non-official cover operatives has arguably never been easier. Thank Zuck, spies. Thank Zuck," it said, with Zuck referring to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

 

A separate report on UK's The Daily Mail said that with Petraeus' scenario, everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps.

 

It noted chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells.

 

"The ARM chips are smaller, lower-powered and far cheaper than previous processors - and designed to add the internet to almost every kind of electrical appliance.  It's a concept described as the 'internet of things,'" it said. 

 

The Daily Mail also said futurists think that one day connected devices will tell the Internet where they are and what they are doing at all times.

 

Even more chilling is that they will be mapped by computers as precisely as Google Maps charts the physical landscape now.

 

"Privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned of how information such as geolocation data can be misused - but as more and more devices connect, it's clear that opportunities for surveillance will multiply," it said. — TJD, GMA News