Voice of the White House
October 1, 2017
Washington, D.C. When people download a film from Netflix to a flatscreen, or turn on web radio, they could be alerting unwanted watchers to exactly what they are doing and where they are. Spies will no longer have to plant bugs in your home – the rise of connected gadgets controlled by apps will mean that people bug their own homes. The CIA claims it will be able to read these devices via the internet – and perhaps even via radio waves from outside the home. Everything from remote controls to clock radios can now be controlled via apps – and chip company ARM recently unveiled low-powered, cheaper chips which will be used in everything from fridges and ovens to doorbells. These web-connected gadgets will transform the art of spying – allowing spies to monitor people automatically without planting bugs, breaking and entering or even donning a tuxedo to infiltrate a dinner party. Particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters – all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing. One of the world's biggest chip companies, ARM, has unveiled a new processor built to work inside 'connected' white goods. The ARM chips are smaller, lower-powered and far cheaper than previous processors – and designed to add the internet to almost every kind of electrical appliance. It's a concept described as the 'internet of things.'