Internet of Things (IoT) is driving Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) as the function of the web has turned on the user and now follows you wherever you take your connected device. In a sense we now gave-up our freedom to exists privately in public places because of the desire to have convenience of wifi and roaming.
Self-Sovereign ID is critical for the success of the IoT, otherwise all that two-way capability of communication must generate a return on the investment to install and adopt, massive expenditures on marketing also. Now the QR code is common place, email remains ubiquitous, as the phone number begins to gain prominence, all as means of making the sales to justify the expense.
For all the focus on Big Brother, the main driver behind the push for IoT and the need for SSI is Big Corporations, not Big Brother. The Gov has to do it for their own reasons but the gauntlet is the retailer, in their bid to save themselves from the dustbin of history, they now follow you around and seek the sell opportunity.
Economically speaking, IoT is a win-win if managed correctly. Herein lays the trap, if you provide every outlet with a digital identifier of you, then you won’t be able to regain control of them easily because you agreed to them in a promotion or as part of a reward program. SSI enables us to regain control of our identity but it also makes it much easier for people to subscribe too easily.
Reading the fine-print will be a caveat in the future, as we move into the forced marriage of IoT and SSI. These two technologies were literally made for each other, one day the Google dream will be realized, in that every single living thing on earth, will be in a searchable data base.
Below I will include Internet of Things from Wikipedia
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
The definition of the Internet of things has evolved due to the convergence of multiple technologies, real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems. Traditional fields of embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, control systems, automation (including home and building automation), and others all contribute to enabling the Internet of Things.
In the consumer market, IoT technology is most synonymous with products pertaining to the concept of the “smart home”, covering devices and appliances (such as lighting fixtures, thermostats, home security systems and cameras, and other home appliances) that support one or more common ecosystems, and can be controlled via devices associated with that ecosystem, such as smartphones and smart speakers.
There are a number of serious concerns about dangers in the growth of IoT, especially in the areas of privacy and security; and consequently industry and governmental moves to begin to address these.
History of the Internet of Things
The concept of a network of smart devices was discussed as early as 1982, with a modified Coke vending machine at Carnegie Mellon University becoming the first Internet-connected appliance, able to report its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold or not. Mark Weiser‘s 1991 paper on ubiquitous computing, “The Computer of the 21st Century”, as well as academic venues such as UbiComp and PerCom produced the contemporary vision of the IoT. In 1994, Reza Raji described the concept in IEEE Spectrum as “[moving] small packets of data to a large set of nodes, so as to integrate and automate everything from home appliances to entire factories”. Between 1993 and 1997, several companies proposed solutions like Microsoft‘s at Work or Novell‘s NEST. The field gained momentum when Bill Joy envisioned device-to-device communication as a part of his “Six Webs” framework, presented at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 1999.
The term “Internet of things” was likely coined by Kevin Ashton of Procter & Gamble, later MIT‘s Auto-ID Center, in 1999, though he prefers the phrase “Internet for things”. At that point, he viewed radio-frequency identification (RFID) as essential to the Internet of things, which would allow computers to manage all individual things.
Defining the Internet of things as “simply the point in time when more ‘things or objects’ were connected to the Internet than people”, Cisco Systems estimated that the IoT was “born” between 2008 and 2009, with the things/people ratio growing from 0.08 in 2003 to 1.84 in 2010.
Internet of Things Photo credit: kevin dooley on Visualhunt / CC BY
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