Recently, I came across an interesting article on IoT, http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21594955-when-internet-things-misbehaves-spam-fridge. In this article, there is a sentence which states the following, "That may sound paranoid, but in computer security today’s paranoia is often tomorrow’s reality."

To further this discussion on IoT, I would also like to share an interesting video for everyone to see -

http://video.mit.edu/watch/the-world-is-flat-30-9321/ -

If time permits, watch the entire video; if not, go to around 30th minute into the presentation, and you would hear Mr. Friedman mentioning about operational initiatives transforming customers/consumers to unpaid employees.

I also shared about degrees of separations (getting reduced from 6 to almost 4 in this social media world), and how it is potentially dwindling over time making the world smaller (in articles connected to Social Networking sites).

What would happen when IoT mixes with short-sighted compensation structure based on buddy system, widening wealth gap, consumers being made unpaid employees along with dwindling degree of separations connecting people at unprecedented levels never seen before?

For example (this example does not even completely capture the expanding features of IoT), your website could be used by those with power and resources to improve their product features, and for implementing new policies and strategies. Is this a big deal? It may not appear that way, but these small incremental improvements over time adds up to give disruptive next generation products giving those with accessibility to resources keep on gaining at the expense of those talented, but may not have right connections or opt out of exploiting those connections to avoid issues later on. Moreover, with such unprecedented power, powerful entities will be even more better placed to expand their prosperity at the expense of the majority.

It could be a mere coincidence, but here is one example -

I have a "Who Am I" article in the "The World of Connections" section, and have also had my website address listed in my emails for a while now.

Similarly, there were many other suggestions that I had put forth over time, and by many other smart individuals on such massive open platforms, which gets implemented without the knowledge of the idea provider. These implementations could potentially result in increased compensation for senior executives and managers at the expense of idea providers.

Shortlist of personal real world examples:

1. Recommended to segment courses to attract newcomers to take courses away from their comfort zone (since then, certification courses were offered with so many smaller sub-sections - this suggestion was put forth for a R course - Could be a mere coincidence).

2. Advised to incorporate project management certification courses in MOOC platforms, and since then, several of them are being offered.

3. Identified unusual activities in discussion forums utilizing Benford's law that appeared to "inspire" a study revolving around this law to identify fraudulent activities in social media platforms that got published within 5 months after I had put forth this suggestion. (Records available)

4. An idea such as utilization of IP addresses, Browser, and Computer information part of the login verification process in a social media platform can be easily extracted and implemented by organizations without the knowledge of the idea provider.

5. Interesting New Course Offering: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/executive-data-science (Data Science JHU Team, Zillow (A real estate website) & Bootcamp collaboration): Please check out Resources section - May be, my work that was presented part of "Developing Data Products" JHU course could have inspired to develop this course offering. Further, with capstone project part of this offering, it provides opportunity for those with resources to crowdsource ideas free of cost on a global scale, and to influence the marketplace through such massive networking platforms beyond the scope of financial and economic principles.

and, many more.

Unlike the above examples that are aligned more towards common good, if it were to be implemented, think what would happen when a social media network captures every communication, or financial institutions with deep pockets expanding their capabilities further to capture investors' every move at an individual level. Would such a situation tilt the power even more so towards market makers? - Hopefully, right policies and rule of law will be implemented prior to power completely tilting towards market makers & political bigwigs, thus enabling a market which will be primarily determined by the fundamentals of financial and economic principles combined with a fair, competitive market environment.

To be cont'd -

Quick note: As stated in another article, this article is not about moving away from technologies, but about implementing right policies, and optimizing rule of law to safeguard the interests of the majority (independent of various categories out there in the society - for that matter, most of us can claim to be part of a majority or minority group depending on which group we are in), and where talent and contributions will be given due credit.