The movie ‘Matrix’ introduced us to the concept of life being a highly evolved computer simulation… Eighteen years later some of the top world scientists are arguing the idea that we are, indeed, a highly evolved computer simulation. With the way algorithms easily catch our habits and cater to our whims, and how easily the human falls in love with a robot, it makes one wonder about our wiring.
My aim is to bring the esoteric to the Internet of Things (IoT) and show and explain the wonder of how we are so compatible with the binary world. We cast (broadcast, unicast, multicast) our spells in the form of packets, the instructions that make the magic happen. We do not think of the wireless world in such a way but that is what is happening and some know it for the alchemy that it is.
The lighter side of the Internet of Things is sending an image to a printer from your phone, a video from your tablet to your flat-screen, and music from your laptop to the venue’s network where you D.J. on the weekends. Voice automated home networks are becoming common as the doorbell. The real life scenario (we are now capable of doing all of the following) is speaking into the air from your bed, beside your newly purchased significant other, and ordering food from a fully automated restaurant which is delivered by a driver-less delivery car/drone. You speak and it appears. Abracadabra!
The darker side of the Internet of Things is sending an image to a printer from your phone, a video from your tablet to your flat-screen, and music from your laptop to the venue’s network where you D.J. on the weekends but having that image grabbed from the air by software designed to intercept it, your private videos not only streamed to your television but redirected to someone’s device clever enough to hijack your radio waves, and the D.J. who left his ports open long enough on the venue’s network to have a rogue agent infiltrate and take over his laptop and thus taking over his life. Like an evil magician who knows your thoughts and can completely possess you, so are the wizards of this new world age.
There is a hidden hand behind what makes modern life so convenient and the price of this convenience is often hidden as well. Explore the ‘Rabbit Hole,’ the ‘Matrix,’ and learn the magic, see through the veil of the illusion of security. This modern renaissance is as enlightening and illuminating as Da Vinci, Galileo, and Copernicus’ day. It is also as dark as the reign of Nero and Caligula combined. New patterns of thought are going to be needed to live with and combat this new world of intuitive algorithms and wiretapping that leaves the realms of the wire and reaches the ether, where everything is up for grabs. Knowledge is indeed power and self-empowerment is absolute power, power to step into the future with confidence. Join me.