A Fun Line About the Internet of Things: "The S in IoT stands for 'security'"

I just saw it quoted as an established saying; don't know who came up with it, but if any of you do, please let me know so I can give proper credit.

Comments

[Rossami]

It sounds like something that Bruce Scheier would say but I can't definitively attribute it to him.

The longer version ("The S in IoT stands for security. Sold Separately, that is.") is available as a t-shirt so I'm guessing that the phrase has been out there for a while. A fair number of people use variants of that quote as part of their email signature blocks.

[Purple Martin]

Schneier

[Al S]

Hmmm. There is no S in IoT.

[Eugene Volokh]

Exactly.

[Al S]

My work as a straight man is done here.

[Eugene Volokh]

And very well done.

[TPKeller]

Not sure it's original with him, but Steve Gibson has been using this in his weekly SecurityNow podcasts for years.

https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

[TPKeller]

I was able to find a transcript in which Gibson does not claim it, but he first used it November 15, 2016:

"Oh, and Leo, my favorite. I don't know who the originator was because I saw it coming from several different sources over the past week. But I just love this. I mean, I liked the acronym IDIOT, I-D-I-O-T, which of course stands for I Don't Internet of Things. But I think even better is this slogan: "The 'S' in IOT Is for Security.""

https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-586.htm

[A nerdy Fred]

Another interpretation of that acronym is Insanely Dangerous Internet of Things, which Google tells me comes from Brian Krebs.

[Sevo]

Saw a cartoon recently:
Couple welcoming another couple as guests to their abode. One of the arriving couple says loudly:
"Alexa, order three dozen pepperoni pizzas!"
Caption: 'This is the way to see if your discussions are private'.

[JWatts]

https://xkcd.com/1807/

[Sevo]

Ah, hell. Old fart memory...

[ToddR]

Recently, I was sitting in friend's living room, mentioned that I need to buy a new first aid kit. Her smart TV was on. A mere hours later, I borrowed her laptop for something and guess what ads were lining the browser? Curse you telescreen!

[nonzenze]

Another one:

"IOT" is an abbreviate for "Internet of Things" which is itself an abbreviation of "Internet of Things that should not be on the internet".

[Voize of Reazon]

There is more than one attribution floating around but none are authoritatively original. The first tweet I can find is from Oct 1 2016 and the author doesn't claim to know the source.

[gormadoc]

Here's a slightly older one from September, but it's in German. He claims his group of internet friends made it up, but I find it unlikely that the first English poster learned it from a barely-noticed German post.

Interestingly, the phrase took off only after the second time the guy posted it and almost immediately morphed and stabilized as "stands for" rather than "the s in IoT is for security".

[gormadoc]

The first mention on the internet I found is from 1/11/16, a fair amount older than the others found so far. No attribution, though.

[gormadoc]

Scratch that, I found something from 3/9/10 where a guy changed his signature on a forum to include that after posting already that day, so I know it's not a quirk with the way the forum handles signatures. Not saying it's definitively the first, but I was checking him specifically because of his long activity. Now I know what range to check more.

[gormadoc]

Never mind about those, I'm pretty sure both are forum quirks. I really dislike forums that update post signatures to the most recent signatures.

[[e-mail]]

It is attributed to Tim Kadlec (@tkadlec) in https://bit.ly/2PzOkXw