Gone are the days of black hackers being limited to stealing your identity and bank details online; with today’s technology they can break into your house at night, steal the food from your fridge and murder your children!

The internet of things (IOT) is a vision whereby static objects are connected to the internet. These objects are not normally considered computers, yet they have the capacity to stream, disseminate, upload and download data, thus they transgress the borders which are traditionally assigned to them. These objects are becoming tangibly social. This raises a variety of issues and questions relating to security and surveillance; additionally it challenges the current human understanding of identity.

The art of black hacking into phones and computers via the internet has had disastrous consequences for many civilians, yet some genius had the great idea to connect a whole bunch of unanimous (and animal) objects to the internet regardless

of this, including houses, thus basically inviting thieves and murderers into the family home. This means that your front door can be unlocked, your lights turned out and your food poisoned (for those more into passive-aggressive slaughtering) via hacking. Keen yet?

There are examples of people already toying with each other. One man from Ohio, very disgruntled after his wife left him for her lover, hacked into their thermostat to make it uncomfortably cold for them during winter, and even turned it on high when they were not at home to jack up their electricity bill. It just gets better and better.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate we’ve created some cool technology and the smart house is a mint idea, but it didn’t need to go past the blueprint. I can walk to the front door if I want to lock it. If I want a coffee, I am perfectly capable of walking to the kettle myself to brew it. And if I wanted to murder someone? I have the self-respect to do it the old-fashioned way; pick a lonely house in the woods and rent a chainsaw. Or maybe just bash the door down, Hagrid style. Or maybe even use poison darts. Sorry, I’m getting off topic; I just don’t understand the need to have every. single. thing. connected to the internet. Maybe we aren’t there yet, but we are getting uncomfortably close. The massive security flaws just aren’t worth it.

-Claire