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I have decided to do my Cyber Problems research on securing IoT devices with docker. My idea involves standardizing "TinyCore" as the underlying OS on IoT devices and then deploying docker images to actually run the software we want. I think this would allow for more effective security hardening of IoT devices. However, I don't understand the need for IoT devices. My fridge should not connect to my home network. I don't care about what cool features it would offer. A fridge is a fridge. Open it up, grab your food, and eat it. Same goes for microwaves. Why does a microwave need access to the internet? If I need to know the weather I can pull out my phone. I personally believe that IoT devices have served more harm than good. They are extremely vulnerable to malicious attacks and have been used in botnets over the years (Mirai).
To go another direction, IoT devices are actually promoting laziness. It's laziness disguised as efficiency. People are getting so comfortable with machines doing everything for them, including entertaining them. I'm convinced that if, for whatever circumstance, all of the basic home technology broke, people would literally start having mental health issues because they put so much of their need in these unnecessary devices.
A lot of what I said is highly subjective. It is all my opinion. I truly think IoT devices are useless. They fulfill a need that we never actually had. It's far easier for me to just click buttons on a microwave to start it rather than to fiddle with whatever garbage speech-to-text software the microwave is using. I kind of sound like a heated boomer right now, so I apologize if my approach to this seems like a full on attack. I'll try to restrain my disdain for IoT in my actual research project. However, I am looking forward to learning more about docker, and trying to come up with a practical solution to actually secure these plug-and-play botnet magnets.