Internet of Things News of the Week, June 30, 2017

Behind Petya was a hacker who now feels bad: This is a good story discussing both how the Petya malware was created and why, and then the incredible effects after it was tweaked and sent back out into the world with a different purpose. Instead of making money, the new version is about destruction, and Petya’s creator feels bad about that. (The Daily Beast)

Android Things has added a few key ingredients: Google released the developer preview of the management platform to handle its Android Things operating system. The  Android Things Developer Console will let developers manage their Android Things. It has necessary features such as the ability to provision and provide over-the-air updates to multiple devices in one go. But how many? It also includes the ability to roll back devices to the version before an update to help mitigate the accidental bricking of devices because of poorly written code. Honestly, this is table stakes stuff, so I want more details. (Android Developer’s Blog)

Cisco’s beefing up its Jasper IoT buy: At the Cisco Live event this week the networking company updated the Jasper wireless platform it purchased in 2016, and announced a new platform for IoT called Cisco Kinetic. The Jasper platform, which is a platform to manage cellular connections, gets more security and analytics. Cisco Kinetic is the long term play. It will act as a management platform for all types of wireless devices (not just cellular) and will extend all the way to devices at the edge of the network. It appears to be a comprehensive framework, like what the Linux Foundation is trying to do with EdgeX Foundry.

Are you building a smart city or living in one? You should read this story about what to do to protect citizen privacy. As municipalities embark on complex pilot programs with private companies, someone has to ask hard questions like “What do private companies get to do with city data?” and “Is the data processed locally or sent to the cloud”? (Citiscope)

Excellent idea for a DIY project: This post shows you how to get Google Assistant (and its superior information delivery skills) onto your Amazon Echo. Let me know if you try this. (Hackster.io)

Is this the future of facial recognition? This video discusses how Chinese companies and governments are using facial recognition and a large public surveillance network. The use cases range from getting money from an ATM with your face to getting order recommendations at KFC. It also includes police naming and shaming jaywalkers on digital signs around the city. Frankly, it is exactly what I fear when I think about massive sensor platforms tied to AI and a wonderful example of it already in use. Nothing struck me as super China-specific in these use cases, which leads me to wonder how far off this is for the U.S. (WSJ)

Got $45? Hack a wind farm!  If you have a $35 Raspberry Pi, Ethernet cable, computer skills and chutzpah then you too could hack a wind farm. At least that’s the conclusion I took away from this Wired story. It acts as a friendly reminder that for networked devices, physical security is a big deal because one breaking and entering later someone has control over an entire factory or wind farm. (Wired)

Big analytics is now tracking your Alexa and Google requests: Voice computing is so hot that Adobe plans to start tracking users as they talk to various platforms throughout the day. This means your requests to Alexa can be tied to your web surfing and other habits thanks to Adobe’s software. Apparently, wherever there is computing, there will be an ad. (VentureBeat)

Ghost ships of the IoT: Ships that were found without living crew used to be called ghost ships. Now they might just be the future. Companies are building autonomous ships with an eye toward unmanned operation in 2020. (World Economic Forum)

Samsara raised $40 million: Not a lot to say about this, but it did happen on the same week I checked in with the company to see how it was doing selling its bespoke IoT sensor and gateway package to industrial customers. Apparently, it’s going well. (Samsara)