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posted by mrpg on Friday March 17 2017, @12:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the russian-roulette dept.

El Reg reports

The US Federal Trade Commission is holding off regulating the Internet of Things industry until there is an event which "harms consumers right now", according to its acting head.

Maureen Ohlhausen, the American regulator's acting head, told a gathering of cyber security professionals that she was not inclined to impose mandatory regulations on IoT devices.

"We haven't taken a position", she said, according to The Guardian.

"We're saying not 'Let's speculate about harm five years out', but 'Is there something happening that harms consumers right now or is likely to cause harm to consumers'", she added. The British newspaper contrasted her position with the Dyn cyberattack last October, when millions of hacked IoT devices crapflooded Dyn's widely used DNS servers and knocked many big websites offline, including Reddit, Netflix, and Github.

Previous: Consumer Reports Proposes Open Source Security Standard To Keep The Internet Of Things From Sucking


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Friday March 17 2017, @01:59PM (1 child)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 17 2017, @01:59PM (#480390) Homepage Journal

    It could also be that they have no idea what regulations would help. It's clear that the IoT software has to be updatable to keep up with new attacks on hitherto unsuspected flaws. But doing it in a way that untrained consumers are capable of their own updates may be impossible. And making the updates automatic will open the devices to evildoers intercepting the automation and accomplishing just what was to be prevented.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:38PM (#480581)

    Mandate that all the software be Free Software and that users could install whatever software they please, for one. That doesn't mean everything would be perfect, but at least more control would be in the hands of users and they'd have a chance to stave off exploits. I don't trust manufacturers or their army of degree mill programmers with my security, and neither should anyone else.