Is Blockchain The Way To Save IoT?

The internet of things (IoT) was a hot topic in tech a few years ago, with everyone and their mother pitching IoT platforms, “smart” products and automated, real-time, interconnected “things” everywhere. Though IoT is still humming along, the hype has been somewhat curbed by high deployment failure rates and the shadow cast by IoT-enabled cyberthreats like the Mirai botnet.

Gartner has warned that three-quarters of all IoT projects will take twice as long as planned to implement, and IoT security (or a lack thereof) has been called “a doomsday scenario waiting to unfold.” It turns out that IoT is hard! Tackling this complexity is core to capturing the promised benefits of IoT. In today’s increasingly digitalized world, the ability to make sensors, devices and computational “things” perform tasks and functions for us is becoming a necessity. Human beings just can’t manage the explosion of data and “interconnectedness” on their own — but we also don’t need bad bots running amok.
Establishing helpful IoT systems that run securely, efficiently and independently has proved incredibly difficult. Blockchain shows promise for easing that burden.

IoT Challenges


Cybercrime that exploits IoT devices and networks shows no sign of abatement. Thus security, privacy and identity verification remain foundational concerns in IoT deployments. Vast amounts of IoT data must be collected, transferred and delivered in a secure fashion amongst valid stakeholders, and processing now occurs at various layers within an architecture to trigger decisions at the right point. Misbehaving sources must also be detected and resolved, as device-related threats may include:

• Physical device attacks (unauthorized device control).
• Software attacks (malware such as viruses or worms).
• Network attacks (Denial of Service assaults, wireless vulnerability exploits).
• Encryption attacks (brute-force password cracking, “Man In the Middle” attacks).

The fact that there are so many types of threats and so many unsecured or poorly secured devices (and no standard authority for connectivity requirements) further confuses matters. Add to this the growing cadre of IoT communication protocols and you have an extremely complex problem that is difficult to solve at scale.

IoT Today

In spite of the Byzantine complexity and myriad threats involved, IoT adoption continues to accelerate, with analysts forecasting nearly $15 trillion in aggregate IoT investment by 2025. Why? The 2017/18 Vodafone IoT Barometer survey (download required) of 1,278 enterprise and public sector executives from 13 countries holds a clue: 74% of respondents who have adopted IoT technologies claim digital transformation is impossible without it. Basically, it doesn’t matter if it’s hard -- it has to be done if you want to do business in the modern world.
Using the Industrial Internet Consortium’s reference architecture as an example, a basic business IoT system will have enterprise, platform and “edge” tiers managing the devices themselves in addition to contextual rules, events, business state, multiple protocols, various data formats, supporting analytical models and storage — all through varied and dynamic networks. Traditional IT systems are not sufficient: Enterprise systems will need to be extended and enhanced to handle the volume, velocity and variety of data produced by IoT networks and the ability to trigger timely decisions against trusted data will need to be enabled at each level in the architecture.
This represents an awful lot of potentially vulnerable technology moving an awful lot of potentially vulnerable data and an awful lot of complexity to manage. Never mind adding the notion that we will soon have devices “paying” each other for capabilities without human involvement, thus adding to the complexity of emerging IoT systems.

Enter Blockchain

The blockchain model based on cryptographically secured, immutable distributed ledger technology and consensus could enhance IoT frameworks with more automated resource optimization and innate security by providing:

• A distributed system of record for sharing data across a network of key stakeholders.
• Embedded business terms for automating interactions between nodes in the system.
• Hash-based security, verification of identity and provenance authentication.
• Consensus and agreement models for detecting bad actors and mitigating threats.

With such features, a blockchain-enabled IoT deployment could improve overall system health and integrity by allowing devices to register and validate themselves against the network. Business logic could execute automatically via smart contracts. And with no central system to attack, threats like denial of service attacks could be inherently deterred at different layers in the architecture.
Applying a blockchain model in an IoT network could solve a host of real-world digital business issues, including:

• Analytical model tracking: Allow the system to record metadata and results about logic executed at the edge of the network for the purposes of regulatory compliance, and create an immutable history of why certain “decisions” were made during IoT processing.
• Secure software updates: The ability to publish software updates as a URL on the blockchain, along with a cryptographic hash of the update which can be validated by blockchain-connected IoT devices during the process.
• Payments and micropayments: Automated payments to business network participants based on sensor data (indicating, for example, service completion or product delivery), as well as micropayments between devices themselves in certain networks for functions and capabilities — all without human involvement.

There’s No Such Thing As A Magic Bullet

In spite of all this potential, applying blockchain to IoT is not a cure-all. Current performance and scalability limitations are incompatible with many IoT functions. External data must be incorporated via trusted “oracles.”  A new type of blockchain platform supporting the volume of devices involved in an IoT deployment is needed, with capabilities that extend beyond today’s common models. What will likely emerge is a hybrid or polyglot architecture, with varying frameworks customized to utilize blockchain differently at IoT’s edge, platform and enterprise layers.
But as businesses continue to grapple with core IoT complexity and security problems, it is becoming obvious that blockchain-based solutions have merit and bring real value to the table.
Blockchain is not the answer to everything that ails IoT, but it can play a powerful role in solving some serious issues. It won’t save IoT, but it might just improve it.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/07/18/is-blockchain-the-way-to-save-iot/#671344f25a74

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3 Helpful Ways For Developers To Improve IoT Security On Their Devices

Following these three simple tips, you can enhance your IoT security without creating a needless hassle or paying too much as a developer.

The much-beloved Internet of Things has come to fundamentally reshape how firms in virtually every industry operate. Nonetheless, the 21st century phenomenon that’s connected us all has some significant downsides, chief among them its vulnerability to outside attacks.

As consumers and producers of IoT gadgets alike are finding their privacy and security increasingly jeopardized, many don’t know where to turn to for advice. By following these three simple tips, you can enhance your IoT security without creating a needless hassle or paying too much.

Ensure your gadgets are patchable

A staggeringly large amount of everyday IoT gadgets sold on the market come equipped with pre-prepared passwords which are essentially impossible to change, or, even worse, are just entirely impossible to patch. In the ever-changing digital world of the 21st century, IoT devices need to be patchable so they can be updated to resist the latest trends in malware attacks.

While leaders of the industry such as Apple or Microsoft take steps to send out regular updates and prevent their products from being vulnerable to the latest attack, many smaller companies fail to do the same. As more and more computers and sensors become embedded in virtually everything in society – from our infrastructure to our businesses – an unpatchable nightmare is developing. If this problem isn’t remedied soon on the supply-side of the IoT, it could unravel into an unfixable mess.

Focus on simplicity

The IoT industry is already well-acquainted with the idea of simplicity, as it’s long been a hallmark of digital gadgets. Nonetheless, many firms don’t take the steps necessary to ensure that the process of using and, critically, updating their gadgets and software is as easy as possible on the consumer-end of things.

Companies responsible for protecting your device should make the process of patching their products as easy as possible for their consumers, many of whom may not be particularly tech-literate. Users should be alerted about the latest security breaches, and receive a number of messages detailing what specific steps they need to maintain their security.

Small measures like this, which help strengthen the weakest-link in most security structures, everyday human users, can go incredibly far in strengthening your IoT security. Making it simple and easy for your users to regularly change their usernames or passwords, for instance, is a relatively stress-free change developers of IoT gadgets and applications could make to remove some vulnerabilities.

As attackers rely on hijacking huge numbers of relatively under-protected (and sometimes entirely unprotected) devices, the small steps that make even a few gadgets harder to break into can have a huge impact on their ability to successfully carry out attacks.

Don’t rely on a silver bullet

Many producers and consumers of IoT devices often have unrealistic security expectations, meaning the battle has been lost before it’s even really begun. While guaranteeing perfect security is a pipedream, those tasked with securing the IoT aren’t entirely helpless, and shouldn’t rely on a magical silver bullet to come and save them.

There is no true consensus for what the best IoT security practices are – many different experts and companies take their own unique approaches to the problem, and their responses are often very different from one another. Rather than waiting on innovation to deliver a god-sent solution to their problems, security experts would be well advised to keep pushing the envelope and trying to develop multi-faceted approaches to security.

As Wind River points out in their white paper on IoT security, itself entitled “searching for the silver bullet”, security experts would be better suited to take the developments of the last 25 years and attempt to modernize them to meet today’s problems. Constant reengineering will be necessary to meet the ever-shifting demands of tomorrow, but IoT users would be letting decades of progress go to waste if they turned their backs on yesterday’s achievements.

Building security infrastructure “from the bottom up,” as Wind River encourages, is the only effective way to guarantee the IoT well into the future. While we’re unsure of what threats we’ll face from malicious hackers and software tomorrow, we can rest assured that expanding user’s access to security features and educating the public on common security-pitfalls is a step in the right direction.

As Wind River’s paper highlights, security cannot be thought of as an after-measure. Rather, producers of IoT gadgets and apps must commit the necessary funds – no matter how expensive – to ensure security as early in the development process as possible.

The IoT is far too wonderful to be sacrificed to malevolent attackers who seek to exploit gaps in its security. Companies and users alike must rely on their own determination and commitment to a new, ever-expanding set of security norms if they hope to benefit from the IoT well into the future.

Source: Networkworld

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How to improve tech skills while contributing to open source projects

Although some people think open source projects only need programmers—and experienced ones, at that— open source project needs go beyond the ability to write code. They also require testing, technical support, documentation, marketing, and more. And contributing to projects also is a great way to improve technical skills and connect with people who share similar interests. One barrier to participating in open source projects is not knowing how to join and get started. In this article, I'll explain how to start contributing to an open source project.
Con Kolivas, an Australian anesthesiologist, developed his own task scheduler for the Linux kernel because the one that existed was adapted for servers and did poorly with user tasks. Alexey Kuznetsov, a theoretical physicist, became a Linux hacker and a system programmer. Peter Semiletov, an IT journalist, has been developing his open source text editor, TEA, for a decade. Lesya Novaselskaya, who studied to become an autopsist, now takes part in testing an open source project. There are many more examples like these of individuals united by pursuing their interests in open source projects, while gaining experience and having fun.

Write new code

You don’t have to be an expert to start working on a project. If you know the programming language used in the project, create a new feature and offer it to the project team. Some projects are easier on novices, and others are not. Developers in novice-friendly projects, veterans and otherwise, can help you iron out the code. In any case, if your code can help other people, your contribution won’t go unnoticed.
Each project has specific internal processes with which you need to familiarize yourself before you start contributing. For example, in PostgreSQL, all processes are strictly regulated; changes to the code are sent as patches to all primary developers for a thorough study. Other projects, like Parrot, allow commits to the master branch. If the project employs GitHub, pull requests are probably involved. In other words, remember that no two projects are alike.
Each time you change the code, have in mind that you’re part of a team, and do your best to have your coding style fit the one adopted in the project. The part of the code you add or edit must not stick out from the rest. You may have your own preferences in terms of code styling, but what you commit must follow the common rules. Otherwise, it’s like saying, “I don’t like your style. Mine is better, so do it like I do.”

Prioritize defects

Code is without a doubt the basis of any project; however, writing it is not the only thing you can do to participate. Technical support is often neglected because everyone is focused on adding new features and fixing bugs. But tech support is a great place for a new contributor to start.
For example, OpenVZ has a completely open bug tracker at bugs.openvz.org. The bug tracker collects all known issues—fixed and open—that the nearly decade-old project ever had. A bug tracker is one way of establishing communication between developers and users. Continuous work on current requests provides a great opportunity to contribute. Have in mind that you may need certain access rights provided by a project manager (often given on a meritocratic basis).

Test intermediate versions

Testers interested in working on open source software may have no idea where to start. And most open source projects, commercial or not, typically don't have enough testers. Finding and sorting bugs can save time that developers spend locating issues.
If a user comments something like, “The software doesn’t work when I do these steps,” testers can examine the issue and why it happens, before sending it on to developers. Testers determine whether the problem is reproducible (and what steps are required), and what triggers the behavior in specific environments. Even if you don’t know the actual reason behind a bug, an effort to narrow down the list of possible reasons may greatly help fix it. No matter what details you as a tester manage to find, add them to the bug for everyone to see.
In my experience, open source projects typically lack resources to test new features thoroughly. So before any serious changes are introduced to the master branch, the project attempts to involve as many testers as possible by issuing a call for testing. No project possesses the amount of hardware or software configurations rivaling those available to its entire community. Because of that, OpenBSD and OpenVZ, for example, announce new features and ask for help testing them.
You can help developers test how software works on a different platforms. Your feedback will be all the more valuable if you use some kind of nonstandard hardware. If you confirm that the build works even in such an environment, you make it much easier for the project managers to assess project’s current release state.

Create tests

Most projects use software suites for code testing and those usually allow addition of custom tests. Use tools like LCOV for C to locate parts of the source code, which cannot be checked by preset tests. Then create custom tests to have these parts of code covered, as well.

Fix bugs and add features

A patch with a bug fix or a new feature is a classic way of involving people into an open source project. James Bottomley, CTO of Odin, also recommends fixing bugs and adding features to people who are willing, but do not knowing how to join a Linux project. As an example, he usually cites a case when the functionality he needed from a SIP client on Android was missing, so he created a patch and send it to the SIPdroid project.
When you create new features, adding a test for the code you’ve changed is also good. Some projects require that all bug fixes are accompanied with tests. Take notes while you look into unknown code. Even if you can’t fix the bug, describe what you’ve found out in the ticket. Doing so will help the people who will deal with the bugs after you.

Help maintain project infrastructure

Does DevOps interest you? Good DevOps engineers are hard to find (I can say this from my own experience). A DevOps engineer can improve their skills in projects with open infrastructure development, such as Wikipedia and the Fedora projects. OpenVZ also is moving in this direction. Setting up continuous integration for project components, creating component packages for Linux distributions, and automatic configuration of developer environments are all DevOps tasks.

Write and localize documentation

Maintaining documentation is an important part of any project that is often neglected. Moreover, often documentation is written from a perspective of someone already familiar with the software, instead of that of a new user or novice. Reading such documentation, you might get the feeling that you’re expected to know how the software works already. Often the perspective of a new user finds shortcomings in the current documentation that went unnoticed by project contributors. Besides, documentation in rapidly evolving projects becomes obsolete fast, so it needs to be updated regularly.
Thinking that documentation is unimportant is a mistake. All contributions to an open source project matter. For example, Ingo Schwarze, an OpenBSD developer who also worked at CERN, created mandoc, which is now used to format manual pages not only in OpenBSD, but also in FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFlyBSD. He also sorted out the formatting of existing man pages in the project. (For more details, read his BSDCan 2015 talk (PDF).) So if you’re interested in doing something important for the project, help improve its documentation.

Help community members

For a project to evolve, answering questions, those coming from new users in particular, is crucial. Time spent on this won’t be wasted, even if the answer is in the documentation already. As a result, you could end up with a grateful new, active contributor. Everyone has to start somewhere, and any project needs an inflow of people to advance.

Promote projects

If you have a blog, share stories about your experience in open source projects. Tell your readers about issues you stumbled upon while using open source software and how you solved them. This way you will kill two birds with one stone: You drive attention to the project, and you create a knowledge base for future contributors. A blog describing your technical achievements, research, and expertise is also a great way of sharing actual experience gained while contributing to the project, as well as solutions you found to technical issues (which might be useful if you look for new work opportunities). Many projects employ contributor blog post aggregators, often called planets, including:

• OpenVZ: https://planet.openvz.org/
• Linux kernel: http://planet.kernel.org/
• Perl: http://planet.perl.org/
• freedesktop: http://planet.freedesktop.org/
• Gnome: http://planet.gnome.org/
• Debian: http://planet.debian.net/

Posts from enthusiasts can be interesting to read, even the writer isn't formally contributing to the project.

Create design

Design is where many open source projects fail miserably. Boring websites and bland logos haunt projects, simply because contributors are focused on how the project should work, not also how it should look. So input from designers is welcome. Members of the StackExchange community tried answering questions like, “How can graphic designers contribute to open source projects?” and “How to motivate a graphic designer to join an open source project?,” but their views diverged.

Source: https://opensource.com/life/16/1/open-source-skills

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Vietnam ICT market

A report about the Vietnam ICT market, published by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in March 2012, describes Vietnam as an attractive software outsourcing destination for Canadian companies.  TMA Solutions is listed in the report as one of the largest Vietnam IT outsourcing providers.

Many indexes have shown the Vietnam ICT industry’s dramatic development over recent years.  The improvement is a result of better infrastructure, availability of devices and telecommunications, as well as human resources. While the low-cost advantage is well understood by Canadian companies,  the report also notes that the quality of human resources is high among Vietnam offshore software company. Vietnam software developers are intelligent, good at math, and hard-working.

Two other main reasons discussed in the report that make Vietnam IT outsourcing companies attractive are the strategic location of Vietnam in Southeast Asia and its population size.  These factors have helped attract global ICT and electronics manufacturing giants such as Samsung, Foxconn, Intel, NEC, Canon, and Hitachi, and many others.

One recommendation for Canadian companies who are setting up outsourcing projects with Vietnam IT outsourcing companies is to plan on sending a few talented staff to go overseas for training.  This is a common practice and helps create a more successful project.  Upon returning home, the individuals work with staff to develop their skills and pass on the knowledge 

In such a fast-growing ICT market, TMA Solutions is listed as one of largest Vietnam offshore software companies, with competencies being built around three pillars: telecom, business applications and mobile applications development. With over 18 years of experience in R&D software outsourcing, TMA has been able to win contracts from international customers such as Avaya, IBM, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, NTT, Toshiba, Telus, and NEC. The company has offices in Canada, Europe, US, Japan, and Australia, and has been witnessing an impressive growth rate of over 50% through years of operation.

Source: http://www.enterprisecanadanetwork.ca/_uploads/resources/The-Information-and-Communications-Technology-Market-in-Vietnam.pdf

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Vietnam IT Outsourcing Conference 2015

Despite of the steady growth in the last 15 years and attracted many world leading companies, the Vietnam software outsourcing industry is still unknown to many outside people. To promote the industry to the world, top Vietnamese software outsourcing companies and QTSC (Quang Trung Software City) and HCA (Ho Chi Minh City Computer Associations) decided to organize a regular Vietnam IT Outsourcing Conference (VNITO).
VNITO is expected to be the biggest Vietnam IT Outsourcing conference with the  main purpose are to promote Vietnam as an emerging IT Outsourcing destination and create an effective business matching platform for buyers and Vietnamese IT Outsourcing vendors. This event is aimed attract more than 150 multi-national and high-tech companies from over 20 countries, 200 top Vietnam offshore software outsourcing companies and 20 IT universities.

This is a great opportunity for foreign companies to understand Vietnam software industry, business and investment environments as well as human resources, education and training, labor market, infrastructure, etc.

As one of the leading software outsourcing companies in Vietnam, TMA is actively participating in the organizing committee for the conference and are promoting the event through its partner network in many countries.
The first conference will be held this year on 15&16 October 2015.

1. Place: White Palace Convention Center, 194 Hoang Van Thu, Phu Nhuan District, HCMC
2. Agenda:
   • Day 1:
     • Morning: Opening, key-note speech, industry reports
     • Afternoon: Conference topics, panel discussions
     • Evening: Gala Dinner
   • Day 2:
     • Morning: Business matching
     • Afternoon: Business matching, software park tour, company visits, city tour
     • For more information, please visit the conference website: http://vnito.org

Download our white paper “The tech giants have moved to Vietnam. Why & Will you follow suit?”

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3 Reasons to Use HTML5 for Mobile App Development

While Android and iOS top the charts in the mobile app-building business, other native application-building operating systems like Blackberry, Windows and others are also making stringent efforts get their markets up. On the other side, there are constant innovations and predictions regarding new methodologies that come into the market. HTML5 is one of the most powerful and feature-rich tools to develop mobile as well as web applications. Along with the existence of native mobile application tools that enable mobile app developers to inculcate all the amendments in it, there are cross-platform tools as well that can prove advantageous in many other ways for development.

HTML5 is the main domain for most of the cross platform application development tools such as Apache Cordova, Rhodes and many others. The key to success of the HTML5 web application tool is the amount of flexibility that it gives the developer in all cases including UI, development, using scripts, and others. Some important reasons behind the adaptability of using HTML5 in mobile applications development are mentioned below.

1. Inclusion of Robust Features
With various domains of applications available in the market, it is important for developers to stick to a single utility with multiple features. HTML5 depicts the perfect platform to launch something that could amend multiple things in rapid duration, keeping the center of attraction intact. Also there have been effective apps with enhanced utility launched in the Chrome store that has given an extensive hike to HTML5 development among the mobile apps development companies. The root cause behind this is the migration of web apps and cross-linking user interfaces that can be produced in spite of giving add-on features within the application.

2. Deployment Made Much Easier
Although there are more extensive scripts and codes that are utilized in native methods of making mobile applications, there are several practices regarding the deployment on the respective app store. But for HTML5 apps, the process goes much smoother since there are fractional parts to be installed which can be easily deployed using open-source JavaScript tools while launching the app. Hosting an application is far more profitable if your app gets renowned popularity on an app store. On the other hand, native apps have various policies and terms-conditions to be followed before going live. The Chrome store has many mobile and web-based applications that are HTML5-based.

3. Easily Available Manpower
For any kind of app development, you need a front-line team of developers who can lead you through successful completion of the project. HTML5 is among the most popular tools that is used by many programmers. So, your company should be able to find HTML5 programmers easily. On the other hand, Android and iPhone developers are hard to find, and even if they are available, there is constant demand of high remunerations. So HTML5 also becomes cost-effective from a hiring point of view.

As you can see, HTML5 mobile application development is a great way to monetize your app and maximize profits. Therefore, mobile apps development companies need to focus on this new tool as a part of their business and get into the groove of HTML5 development to make a mark in a highly competitive market.

Source: http://tech.co/3-reasons-use-html5-mobile-app-development-2014-05

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