A hard lesson from IoT

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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the "nom de plume" of Cassandra, born in 2005.

Cassandra, having reached number 500 (best wishes!), warns us of the risks of the cloud and IoT starting from the company's recent bankruptcy Insteon.

This article was written on April 23, 2022 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 500/ A hard lesson from IoT

The Insteon case demonstrates the transience of IoT objects, and that consumers can no longer remain silent

Last Friday the 15th was worse than Friday the 13th and 17th combined for customers of Insteon, who had bought IoT objects or created home automation systems using components from this manufacturer.

In fact, when the company has closed shack and puppets overnight, the managers fled (some deleting all traces of their belonging to the company even from LinkedIn and changing nicknames) and ownership of the company passed to a liquidator body, all customers found themselves with apps with gray icons and elegant objects”dead”.

It didn't take long for them to realize that they had lost all the money it had cost them, and all the time they had dedicated to it. They ended up with elegant bricks, good only as paperweights or to be thrown into the wall as an outlet.

Now, the 24 well-informed readers certainly imagine that Cassandra is interested in what is right about the fact itself; they know very well that he has repeated this prophecy many times in the last ten years, and that, deep down, he is sorry for the company's customers (almost all Americans).

But Cassandra has to repeat that today those customers are fine with it, rather that she is happy that such an exemplary case occurred and "Perfect”, so that it can serve as an example and lesson.

Lesson to whom? To the poor people who find themselves with an expensive dead thermostat or a home automation system paralyzed forever? 

Absolutely no! Lesson for all those who have invested hundreds or thousands of Euros in objects which, fortunately for them, they are still functional, and who can therefore draw lessons from it, without immediate damage, for their future, and above all for the future of their next purchases.

There is also a very important aspect that makes Cassandra satisfied, not in a malicious way, with the sudden and traumatizing way in which the story unfolded. 

In fact, in the attitude “pusillanimous” of all the actors involved, Cassandra glimpses their fear, and for us the hope, that this time the regulatory bodies, primarily the American ones, will necessarily have to intervene, given that the event, if not counteracted, could also cause a trend reversal in a market, such as that of the IoT, which until yesterday had explosive growth, but is already suffering from the recession of the pandemic and war.

This can also be understood from the “news", given by Insteon's liquidator, that the cloud software that drove their products "could be” be made available to customers.

Let's not fool ourselves; first of all the software is an important financial asset also for the liquidator, and then we are no longer in 2005 at the time of Nabaztag, when their relatively simple cloud software was re-engineered by groups of enthusiasts, which still today (like Cassandra) keeps them in good health.

Current IoT cloud software is much more complex and runs on equally complex hardware; It is unlikely that anyone will have enough desire, money and time to put Insteon's back into operation, even if it were made available. Anyone wishing to get an idea of the complexity of IoT in the cloud could read at least the first part of this course, still very current, prepared byCassandra's alter-ego.

But this time, according to Cassandra, the industrial and financial world of IoT cannot simply afford to ignore the matter; someone probably"will ride"the matter, and somehow laws and regulations will begin to take these situations into account and regulate them"first”, putting in some rhyme, even if shy, “legal stake” to companies in the sector. 

Maybe a start.

He who sells does notobjects", but "cloud service terminals” should offer information and guarantees to its customers, so that they are aware that they are not buying a complete object, but one that will forever depend on the good financial health and will of its manufacturer.

Like on cigarette packs, on the elegant boxes of IoT objects there should be impressive ads and repellent images, bordered with thick black margins

“Be careful, this item contains Cloud, and can seriously harm your mood and your financesAnd"

“Attention, this object can stop working at any time and without warning”

 This would also be the right time for consumer associations to stop dealing only with fabric softeners or the prices of laptops, and start carrying out a healthy lobbying action to pass laws and regulations that adequately regulate these hybrid material/immaterial objects, sold as if they were things"normal", without even providing, as for packaged foods, a "Expiration date".

But all this will be useless, and the change will never happen, if legions of consumers continue to buy these elegant boxes without any guarantee, and happily put them on themselves or in their homes.

Anyone who understands even just a little about IT or electronics (is there a difference between the two now?) must realize that the IoT is in itself a labile object and dependent on others, and that they cannot buy it on impulse without having guarantees on the duration of the corresponding cloud service, or on its autonomous (perhaps partial) functioning without cloud.

In short, it must be understood that the only safe IoT is the one made, or at least managed, entirely in-house.

And he should hear as a moral duty to inform, every time he sees similar situations at the homes of friends and relatives, the unaware buyers of objects "possessed by the devil” and not from them, of what can happen to them at any moment.

And explain to them who the real owners of what they believe they have bought are.

Editor's note: I don't know if any of the 24 indestructible readers have noticed that we have, I really don't know how, reached number 500 of this successful and long-lived column, which has been going on since distant times. September 1, 2005. In any case, I hope it was useful and enjoyable to read for everyone, at least as much as writing it was for me. Thank you.

Marco Calamari

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