Internet of Things Strong on Theory, Not a Reality Yet

The Internet of Things promises to change everyday life—and intelligence operations—but it remains far from reality, according to government and industry experts. Aspects ranging from security to architectures remain to be determined as changing technologies alter outlooks.

An afternoon panel at the AFCEA/INSA Intelligence and National Security Summit 2014, being held September 18-19 in Washington, D.C., discussed some of these issues. Chris Reed, program manager, Office of Smart Collection, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), said he sees a lot of potential benefits from networking a large number of devices, but many technical barriers remain before planners can unlock what those benefits are.

“We may make faulty decisions because we are operating a lot of diverse devices that were not designed originally to work together,” he pointed out.

Robert Gourley, partner, Cognitio Corporation, offered that data probably will not move via Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Better approaches are being researched, he said, and that will lead to a new transport mode.

Panel moderator Rhonda Anderson, deputy national intelligence officer for science and technology, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, noted that the United States does not have a policy for protecting these devices. And, the devices are not the only points of vulnerability.

“What is scary are the algorithms and the math,” she said.