24. Internet of Things (IoT): Growth, Challenges, and Security

The Internet of things (IoT). What is it? Why is it exciting so many in the technology and innovation communities? The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) was initially proposed by Kevin Ashton in 1998 [1], while he was working at P&G to launch a line of cosmetics for Oil of Olay. Because the father of IoT, as many call him, was bothered that this one shade of lipstick in his cosmetic line always seemed to be sold out in all his London, UK, local stores, he wanted to know where his lipstick was and what was happening to it. No one could tell him. When UK retailers experimenting with loyalty cards with a tiny “radio-enabled” chip, later called RFID, showed these to him, it gave him an idea of tracking his lipstick shade. He took the radio microchip out of the credit card and stuck it on his lipstick shade to see if a wireless network could pick up data on a card and tell him what shelf in the store the lipstick was on. By so doing, he started the forces that created the IoT. In about a decade, the simple idea and experiment have been extended to support pervasive connectivity and the integration of a variety of objects big and small creating an ecosystem of interconnected communication network whose devices or communication nodes are everyday electronic objects like mobile devices, entertainment devices in your home, fridges and temperature control devices, garage door openers, cloth and dish washers, and the list goes on and on. When network connectivity is achieved, it allows all these devices to talk to each other by sending and receiving data. This connectivity of things started long ago with the interconnection of computing devices to form the traditional computer network. Upon that a conceptual model of connectivity of all devices that can communicate and receive data forming a far wider communication network, the “Internet of Things,” was born.