IoT fun with Raspberry Pi and .NET

Editor's Notes

• #11: IoT has been around for a few years, but it's only in the last couple that we've seen a huge growth both in adoption and interest. From enterprises trying to get as competitive as possible by reducing their operational costs and squeezing every little bit of performance from their internal processes to individuals using IoT to keep track of their fitness and calories, contactless payments, smart clothes, drones etc.   At this point, you may be asking yourselves: why should I care about IoT? Let's have a look at this graph
• #12: There are some big, or better let me rephrase that, huge numbers here. The numbers present an excellent opportunity for developers to be part of, if not lead, this moving that is going to shape humanity all over again. This is our industrial revolution and we are the biggest part of it. Every single device will need to interact with its surrounding environment through an API, a protocol and this requires programming. I find it particularly exciting. If you don't believe me, just look at this
• #13: In 2013, the connected devices were around 0.6%. Today, 2 years one, we've only just reached 1% of the existing devices. This is not taking into consideration the new devices that will be introduced over the next few years. IoT is expected to be big, exciting and fun.
• #14: IoT is still in it's infancy. As exciting as IoT may be for businesses and individuals alike dreaming about fully connected houses and clever production systems there's one very issue that hasn't seen much attention. That's security. In fact, there have been numerous IoT related hacks due to lack of discipline and awareness both by manufacturers and individual users.
• #16: The ZigBee protocol, which is widely adopted by many IoT manufacturers, has been hacked many times. In 2013, security researchers were able to hack into the Philips Hue "Smart" light bulb was hacked. An interesting thing as the researchers were looking through the code, was that the private key used for data encryption and communication was also embedded in the firmware. As a result, any lightbulb manufactured in the last 8 years was susceptible to the same attack.   In Gizmodo this week there was an article about Hackers being able to infect FitBit (the fitness sensors) with malware in under 10 seconds. Connecting an infected FitBit to a computer would subsequently infect it too.   Another inconspicuous device, almost in every house with a baby and "overly protective" parents - count me and my wife in - is the baby monitor. The ones that were developed in the last 4-5 years have internet access or can be accessed by a smart phone locally. Researchers revealed that it would extremely simple for hackers to use the devices as spy cameras or to launch attacks on other Internet-connected devices in the home because these devices are not secured and the communications are all in the open   If you are going to do any work with IoT devices, ensure that you secure all communications (both internal and external) and use the appropriate encryption to protect your data.  
• #17: Do you remember that feeling when we were (some of us) in our early teens spending endless hours over our ZX Spectrums, Commodores and BBC Micros? Copying code from magazines just to see it run on your screen? Pressing the Turbo button to make this go faster? The countless times I would be told off for being shouted to join the rest of the family for dinner when all I wanted to do was work on my computer? I haven't been fortunate enough to live the early days of computing when a computer would arrive as a kit and you had to assemble it. But now I've been given the chance to relive this but in a more fun and safe way. I get to be a teenager again tinkering with sensors and small computers on a board that can be extended to your heart's content. You can be as brave or reserved as you want. You don't even need to own a soldering kit! How about that? With the massive shift in the way kids interact with computers today, there's been a massive decline in both applicants and applicant skills when it comes to Computer Science. Those of us that grew up in the relatively early days of computing, we got the chance to experiment and play around with our hardware. Today kids are driven away by the closed ecosystem that hardware providers have created. For example, in this Mac Book you cannot change anything yourself. The RAM is soldered on. I did manage to replace the SSD but this has most likely voided my warranty. Newer Mac Books don't even let you do this. The Raspberry Pi, the brainchild of a few Cambridge professors, was introduced in 2008 as a cheap, yet powerful educational tool. Broadcom ARM 7 Quad Core CPU at 900MHz 1GB RAM 40pin extended GPIO 4 x USB 2 ports 4 pole Stereo output and Composite video port Full size HDMI CSI camera port for connecting the Raspberry Pi camera DSI display port for connecting the Raspberry Pi touch screen display Micro SD port for loading your operating system and storing data Micro USB power source
• #18: ATmega328 microcontroller Input voltage - 7-12V 14 Digital I/O Pins (6 PWM outputs) 6 Analog Inputs 32k Flash Memory 16Mhz Clock Speed
• #19: Intel Atom CPU dual core 1.33GHz Integrated Intel HD Graphics 2GB DDR3 RAM 8 MB SPI Flash 1 x Micro SD 1 x SATA2 3Gb/sec 1 x USB 3.0 (host) 1 x USB 2.0 (host) 1 x Serial debug - via FTDI cable available separately RJ-45 Connector for Ethernet Micro HDMI