In this article, I will explain why the Internet of Things could mean death to your privacy.
What is IoT?
Basically, the IoT consists of "smart" devices being attached to the internet. This means that, for example, your car is connected to the internet and reports back data. This could potentially be beneficial to humanity as devices that monitor your activities could be connected to the IoT and help you on a daily basis.
Why could it destroy privacy?
Well, as explained above devices which monitor your activity are connected to the internet. This could potentially be used as a data mining tool. And when every step of you is monitored you don't have privacy anymore. This could potentially mean we have George Orwell's fiction of '1984' in reality.
Why should I care? I have nothing to hide!
Everybody should care about their privacy, even when they got nothing to hide. Because companies will sell every bit of your data just to achieve more profit. In my opinion, everybody has to choose whether they want every activity shared and sold, or not. I chose to not give away all of my data. That's why I don't use Windows, or Android with Google services.
What can you do?
Don't buy IoT devices. That's it, that's literally it. It sounds pretty simple because it is. If you don't want your data shared and sold, just don't buy devices which do this. For example, if you don't want to share data with Amazon, just don't buy an Echo. And you can easily achieve what the Echo does with a little bit of tinkering. You can use offline speech recognition on a Raspberry Pi to remote control your lights, outlets, and other devices. Yes, it's more work, but nobody will steal your privacy.
TL;DR
You should care about your privacy. Even if the media suggests the IoT is the new way the world will revolve, it's not if you don't buy it. Everything the IoT can, can be built privately, securely and offline.
But that's just my opinion on the topic. I will happily hear and respect your opinion on this in the comments. As always, do your own research. This is just a little heads-up to get you going and educate yourself on the IoT.
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