Defining the IoT
While any new generation prides itself on the technological advancements it enjoys compared to its forebears, it is not uncommon for each to dismiss or simply not acknowledge the enormity of thought, innovation, collaboration, competition, and connections throughout history that made, say, smartphones or unmanned aircraft possible. The reality is that while previous generations may not have enjoyed the realizations in gadgetry we have today, they most certainly did envision them. Science fiction has always served as a frighteningly predictive medium, whether it's Arthur C. Clarke's envisioning of Earth-orbiting satellites or E.E. "Doc" Smith's classic sci-fi stories melding the universe of thought and action together (reminiscent of today's phenomenal, new brain-machine interfaces). While the term and acronym IoT is new, the ideas of today's and tomorrow's IoT are not.
Consider one of the greatest engineering pioneers, Nikola Tesla, who in a 1926 interview with Colliers magazine said:
"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket."
Source: http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1926-01-30.htmv
In 1950, the British scientist Alan Turing was quoted as saying:
"It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child."
Source: A. M. Turing (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind 49: 433-460
No doubt, the incredible advancements in digital processing, communications, manufacturing, sensors, and control are bringing to life the realistic imaginings of both our current generation and our forebears. Such advancements provide us a powerful metaphor of the very ecosystem of the thoughts, needs, and wants that drive us to build new tools and solutions we both want for enjoyment and need for survival.
We arrive then at the problem of how to define the IoT and how to distinguish the IoT from today's Internet of, well, computers. The IoT is certainly not a new term for mobile-to-mobile technology. It is far more. While many definitions of the IoT exist, we will primarily lean on the following three throughout this book:
- The ITU's member-approved definition defines the IoT as "A global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving, interoperable information and communication technologies."
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/rec.aspx?rec=y.2060
- The IEEE's small environment description of the IoT is "An IoT is a network that connects uniquely identifiable "things" to the Internet. The "things" have sensing/actuation and potential programmability capabilities. Through the exploitation of the unique identification and sensing, information about the "thing" can be collected and the state of the "thing" can be changed from anywhere, anytime, by anything."
- The IEEE's large environment scenario describes the IoT as "Internet of Things envisions a self-configuring, adaptive, complex network that interconnects things to the Internet through the use of standard communication protocols. The interconnected things have physical or virtual representation in the digital world, sensing/actuation capability, a programmability feature, and are uniquely identifiable. The representation contains information including the thing's identity, status, location, or any other business, social or privately relevant information. The things offer services, with or without human intervention, through the exploitation of unique identification, data capture and communication, and actuation capability. The service is exploited through the use of intelligent interfaces and is made available anywhere, anytime, and for anything taking security into consideration."
Each of these definitions is complementary. They overlap and describe just about anything that can be dreamed up and physically or logically connected to anything else over a diverse, Internet-connected world.
Cybersecurity versus IoT security and cyber-physical systems
IoT security is not traditional cybersecurity, but a fusion of cybersecurity with other engineering disciplines. It addresses much more than mere data, servers, network infrastructure, and information security. Rather, it includes the direct or distributed monitoring and/or control of the state of physical systems connected over the Internet. In other words, a large element of what distinguishes the IoT from cybersecurity is what many industry practitioners today refer to as cyber-physical systems. Cybersecurity, if you like that term at all, generally does not address the physical and security aspects of the hardware device or the physical world interactions it can have. Digital control of physical processes over networks makes the IoT unique in that the security equation is not limited to basic information assurance principles of confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, and so on, but also that of physical resources and machines that originate and receive that information in the physical world. In other words, the IoT has very real analog and physical elements. IoT devices are physical things, many of which are safety-related. Therefore, the compromise of such devices may lead to physical harm of persons and property, even death.
The subject of IoT security, then, is not the application of a single, static set of meta-security rules as they apply to networked devices and hosts. It requires a unique application for each system and system-of-systems in which IoT devices participate. IoT devices have many different embodiments, but collectively, an IoT device is almost anything possessing the following properties:
- Ability to communicate either directly on, or indirectly over the Internet
- Manipulates or monitors something physical (in the device or the device's medium or environment), that is, the thing itself, or a direct connection to a thing
Cognizant of these two properties, anything physical can be an IoT device because anything physical today can be connected to the Internet with the appropriate electronic interfaces. The security of the IoT device is then a function of the device's use, the physical process or state impacted by or controlled by the device, and the sensitivity of the systems to which the device connects.
Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are a huge, overlapping subset of the IoT. They fuse a broad range of engineering disciplines, each with a historically well-defined scope that includes the essential theory, lore, application, and relevant subject matter needed by their respective practitioners. These topics range from engineering dynamics, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, control theory, digital design, and many others. So, what is the difference between the IoT and CPSs? Borrowing from the IEEE, the principal difference is that a CPS comprising connected sensors, actuators, and monitoring/control systems do not necessarily have to be connected to the Internet. A CPS can be isolated from the Internet and still achieve its business objective. From a communications perspective, an IoT is comprised of things that, necessarily and by definition, are connected to the Internet and through some aggregation of applications achieve some business objective.
Note
Note that CPS, even if technically air-gapped from the Internet, will almost always be connected in some way to the Internet, whether through its supply chain, operating personnel, or out-of-band software patch management system.
In other words, it is worthwhile to think of the IoT as a superset of CPS, as CPS can be enveloped into the IoT simply by connectivity to the Internet. A CPS is generally a rigorously engineered system designed for safety, security, and functionality. Emergent enterprise IoT deployments should take lessons learned from the engineering rigor associated with CPS.
