We all know how the internet invades privacy more than we thought possible and to an unknowable extent, such is the pace of change. Companies such as Google know far more about people than most realise. We accept this because we see the disadvantages outweighed by the advantages of using the medium. The Internet of Things magnifies this trade-off. Insure your life and the insurance company could require devices on you that record your every movement and “catch you with the small print” if you briefly behaved in an unapproved fashion. In China there is discussion about the totalitarian government using IoT to know the location of all vehicles at all times and the identity of everyone in them.

Fridges, coffee makers, washing machines and lightbulbs will soon provide alibis or crime scene evidence according to Mark Stokes, head of digital forensics in Scotland Yard police headquarters in the UK. Digital footprints are developed that correlate with crime. In 2017, he said,

“The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the Internet of Things. A £3000 fridge with a built-in Family hub in it will soon be £400,” citing the Samsung Family Hub fridge. He said that the dates and times logged on the machine, as well as images from the camera could prove crucial in some cases. “Wireless cameras with a device may record movements of suspects and owners. Door bells that directly connect to apps on a user’s phone can show who has rung the door and the owner or others may then, if they choose to, give controlled access to the premises while away from the property. All these leave a log and a trace of activity”. He could have added that hackers could frame you too. He did say that digital forensics will be developed that permit investigators to analyse microchips and down load data rather than remove multiple devices from a crime scene for later investigation. Recently Amazon has twice declined police requests for recordings by its Echo voice controlled home entertainment system at a suspected crime scene so the officers investigating the murder in Arkansas took evidence from an electric water meter alleging that copious amounts used that day correlated with cleaning blood away on a patio.

Hackers will try to kill people by turning off or otherwise subverting their devices from embedded, connected heart pacemakers to taking command of a truck and driving it into the maximum number of people. 2016 saw two human-highjacked trucks killing many people in two countries: the IoT could come next when vehicles, including boats and aircraft, have large numbers of internet-connected devices.

Widespread hacking of smart home devices took place on October 21, 2016: this Dyn cyberattack involved multiple denial-of-service (DoS) attacks targeting systems operated by Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn which made major Internet platforms and services unavailable to large swaths of users in Europe and North America. Researchers hacked Samsung SmartThings, exposing vulnerabilities. Fundamental IoT device insecurity means that there will be an ever-expanding "threat surface area" for hackers to exploit. National critical infrastructure -- bridges, tunnels, power plants, water-treatment facilities, hospitals, emergency services, financial markets and transport are already run by computers and they are increasingly connected to the internet. Little wonder then that governments are pumping billions into technology that can minimise these types of exposure. For more see the new IDTechEx Research report, Internet of Things (IoT) 2017-2027.