If everything is wireless…?

Wireless devices are no longer restricted to smart phones, laptop computers, or navigation systems for today’s higher end vehicles. Wireless systems are becoming standard equipment  in everything from televisions,  R.V.’s, and even home appliances.

With all of these wireless systems already in place, and the variety of different devices growing in number every day, I have to start to wonder when these devices will start to show up on the internet as addressable systems ready for access by any individual with a “shareware” open source piece of software designed to exploit their security.

Think about it. If all of these devices are wireless of their own accord, they all have an I.P. address with their own individual access ports. If these devices are designed to be accessed by their users from distant places, then they will be able to be accessed by anyone with the information and software necessary to do so.

Take the new HD televisions for instance. History has shown us that these televisions will most likely be wired directly to the internet through either the home’s wireless network, or more likely a dedicated system developed to connect directly to your local internet “television” provider. I can see companies such as Comcast developing programming packages as we speak.

But since these televisions  are already on the market, and since these “provider” packages are still in development, most of these T.V.’s will probably access the internet through their current home wireless networks. Just like computers with really cool screens.

In today’s average household, the wireless system is typically constantly on, but protected by WEP encryption,  and the firewalls of the connected devices. Which for the most part does a fairly decent job of protecting the average home from unauthorized systems access. But that doesn’t stop unscrupulous people from trying anyway.

Now, take a system that will most likely not only be “constant on,” but opened up in some way so that the “provider” can update your programming choices, provide updates, and possibly even some type of “buffering” signal to help seamless streaming of their content.

But unlike your computer, I can also assume that these systems will also have a lot more access “ports” for all of the different types of media that these systems and their providers will be willing and able to provide. Such as music and video games.

Which means that more than likely your stereo will be connected, your video game system, as well as the rest of the televisions in the home that have been upgraded some type of adapter.

Here’s just one foreseeable problem though.  Typically, these other systems are stand alone, and are individually protected by a general lack of integration to other systems that hold “information” such as your personal computer. As stand alone systems, there is a limited amount of information available to be gathered and used for illicit purposes. (I’m speaking generally here.)

But this will change. When the T.V. becomes the primary “system” for the household, all of these systems will integrate a lot more thoroughly than they currently are. This will of course cause be addressed by security professionals at some point, but as with any new system, the protections will be full of holes, code that is untested by time, and subject to all sorts of unknown or unforeseen  security problems.


END FOR NOW But I think I will be investigating and writing much more on this in the very near future. So for now, I’ll just leave you with that.


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