Dramel Notes: grandparents

Okay folks. I’m calling it. 2016 is going to be the year of the smart home.

It’s going to be the year when everyone – your grandparents and technophobe friends included – embraces the Internet of Things. It’ll be the year when it finally pushes past being the preserve of early-adopters and power users, and enters the mainstream. You can quote me on that.

So, what makes me so confident? In a word: evolution. Smart home technology has undergone its own Cambrian Explosion, and it promises to make your life much more convenient in the years to come. Here’s why.

Easier, Not Better. Convenient, not Augmented.

Amazon has had a busy few years.

In April 2014, they launched the Dash Wand. This allowed people to restock their pantries simply by scanning the bar codes of goods they’ve run out of. Less than one year later, they followed up with the Dash button. Available exclusively for Prime customers, it allowed people to order products from Amazon with merely the press of a button. No passwords, computers, or thought required.

A few months after that, the Amazon Echo exited beta, and was available for anyone to buy. One of the key features of this is that simply by speaking to a cylinder of metal and plastic, you could order items from Amazon. “Alexa, order me some pens”.

So, what do these have in common?

They’re not trying to change the shopping experience. Amazon doesn’t want to add layer-upon-layer of artifice. They will never, for example, release a virtual reality shopping app. That’s not their style.

They’re just doing what they’ve been doing since the mid-90s. They’re making it more convenient to buy things online. They’ve distilled the process of buying things into its purest, simplest form. The Internet of Things provides Amazon an excellent opportunity to do that.

I don’t doubt that this trend for simplification will be reflected across the smart home landscape. Eventually, device manufacturers will realize that people don’t want to replace their existing “dumb-products” with complicated dashboards and features they’ll never use. They just want the appliances they use to be better.

They’ll start to get wise to how things like machine learning algorithms, artificial neural networks, and artificial intelligence (AI) can accomplish this.

We’re already seeing some great strides in this direction. The Nest Learning Thermostat is a great example. It can learn from how it’s used, and set the household temperature according to the owner’s usage patterns. The latest iteration can even control household boiling units, in order to create hot water when it’s most in demand without being prompted. This is a great example of a smart home product that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but simply make it better.

The WeMo Insight Switch has a similarly distilled design philosophy and purpose.

This is a “smart” electrical socket which can be remotely controlled and scheduled, in order to turn on a standard mains appliance. The units themselves are cheap, single-purpose (although they can track and monitor power consumption), and don’t have any complicated interfaces. You just control it through your smartphone. It does one job with a laser-focus, and it does it well.

That’s how it should be.

Smart Home, Meet Smart Phone

Computer-driven smart homes have been around for longer than you think, either as real-world products, or conceptualized in fiction.

In October of this year, long-time MakeUseOf writer Mihir Patkar interviewed someone who’s actually been using and building smart home tech since the 1980s. Before that, TV’s The Jetsons depicted what the homes of the future would be like, with every mundane task automated and computerized with a mesh of mechanical Rube Goldberg machines.

Believe me. Smart homes are nothing new. Despite that, it’s only recently that smart homes have started to take off. Why?

Well, there are a number of reasons. One of the biggest is that the display and UX (User Experience) technology required to make smart homes actually pleasant to use has only recently come to fruition. Nowhere is this more obvious than with Microsoft’s Smart Home concept video, which was released in 1999.

In six minutes, it depicts what Microsoft thought the home of the future would look like, through the prism of the technology that was available at the time. You’ll notice that many of the predictions it made eventually came true; from being able to track family members in real-time (realized by Google Latitude, and later Google Plus with Location Sharing); to being able to control lighting, sound, and security systems from a single control panel.

Despite that, you can obviously see that it’s not a seamless and (dare I say) graceful experience. The mother in the video has to use a static, desktop computer in the kitchen to control the environment. The daughter was using an old Microsoft CE Pocket PC, with a monochrome display and a resistive touchscreen. Household appliances were controlled from a static touchscreen control panel, again with a crummy resistive touchscreen. This was the crème-de-la-crème of smart home technology in the 90s, and it still kinda sucked.

So, what changed? In a word, smartphones.

Virtually every piece of smart home tech can be (and very often can only be) controlled through a smartphone. That’s not hyperbole.

We’re now at a point where you can set your home’s temperature, watch your security camera, and check for carbon monoxide from anywhere in the world, simply by using a smartphone. It’s something that’s both convenient and deeply personal.

Phones themselves make for great devices for controlling smart home products, simply because they’ve evolved over the past ten years to be inherently easy to use. Google and Apple both have “style guides” which tell developers how to write applications that are accessible, and consistent.

Even the cheapest smartphone in 2015 has a screen that is relatively crisp and clear, and readable. Moreover, touchscreen technology has gone from sluggish, resistive touchscreens, to responsive, multi-point capacitive touchscreens being the norm.

Smartphones have essentially liberated smart home tech, and turned them from experiences that were frustrating and tethered, into something that’s personal, portable and delightful to use.

Plunging Prices

When a consumer technology product is first introduced, they’re expensive and appeal only to a small niche of users. Then, after a bit of time, they drop in price, reach a critical mass, and become ubiquitous. The only variable is how long.

It took twenty years for the laptop market to go from $2600 Powerbooks to $200 Chromebooks. That’s not adjusting for inflation. It took five years to go from $500 iPads (the first successful mass-market tablet computer), to $50 Kindle Fires. You can now get a half-decent smartphone for about $30. It’s remarkable.

Smart home technology is no exception to that, with prices having dropped precipitously over the past few years. Our Christmas home automation buyers guide was a great example of that. Virtually everything listed was comfortably under $200. Some, like the Belkin WeMo Light Switch and WiMo Insight Plug, could be had for under $50.

As prices continue to drop, we can expect to see more and more homes augmented with smart home technology. They’re now entering the price range where they could be an impulse buy. Especially when you consider that some of the more popular products on the market have the marketing clout and finesse of Google, Philips and Honeywell behind them.

The Year of the Smart Home Awaits

So, let’s recap. The latest smart home gear is all about improving existing devices and processes, not augmenting them with additional features. The devices are increasingly beautiful and easy to use, and are getting cheaper by the day. All of this is a recipe for success.

But what do you think? Let me know in the comments

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If you’re part of my generation, you might have had to convince your parents or grandparents at some point that using their credit card online is safe. “It doesn’t feel safe,” they say, but you tell them that’s the way everyone shops all the time, and their credit card information is totally safe.

But you’re wrong. Credit card numbers do get stolen, and credit card fraud does happen, both online and offline. But how does it happen? How does a thief get your card number? Why don’t verification systems prevent these problems? And what can you do to keep your own cards safe? Let’s take a look at credit card fraud and find out how you can protect yourself.

Getting Your Card Number

Obviously, the first thing that needs to happen for credit card fraud to take place is someone else getting your credit card number. There are a number of ways to accomplish this, and they range from the very basic, to the more technologically complex.

Phishing, for example, is an old strategy that only requires a thief to be a smooth talker. They’ll get in touch with you via phone, email, post, or some other way, usually posing as someone from your credit card issuer, and talk to you into giving them your credit card information. It sounds like something you’d be able to spot right away, but some phishers are really good at what they do—this is very similar to the tactic that was used in the British phone hacking scandal a couple years ago.

Another way in which thieves could come to have your 16-digit credit card number is through online data breaches like those suffered by Target, Home Depot, the Playstation Network, and a whole list of others in recent years. The numbers stolen from those sites often end up on “carding” shops, where people go to buy stolen credit card numbers for use online. According to Brian Krebs, the card numbers sold on Rescator, one of the biggest card-buying sites, go for a median price of about $27 per card. This makes it easy for thieves to buy hundreds of cards at a time, potentially including yours.

It’s not always a merchant or a bank that’s compromised, though; sometimes it’s your own computer. If a hacker manages to get a keylogger or another type of malware installed on your computer, they could easily nab your credit card information when you use it for online shopping. Because most people don’t do enough to protect their computers from malware, this is a serious threat.

Your card itself can also be the target for card thieves. With the increase in contactless payment credit cards, radio frequency identification (RFID) scanners have become a more popular method to steal credit card information; all a thief needs to do is get a scanning device in close range to your card, and they’ll have all the information they need.

This same strategy can be used if your phone uses near-field communication (NFC) to communicate with points of sale to share your credit card information—Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Visa PayWave, and similar apps use this technology when you pay with them. If an NFC reader is compromised or tampered with, it could be giving your credit card information to a criminal.

A similar method called “skimming” requires a thief to have a physical scanner that reads the information from your credit card. These devices are surprisingly easy to get (you can get a basic reader for $13 on Amazon), and thieves can be rather creative in using them to tamper with ATMs, card readers at businesses, and other places where your card is swiped on a regular basis. ATM fraud is surprisingly common; check out Dan Price’s awesome article on ATM fraud to see just how much of it happens every day.

And, of course, there’s the most time-tested, old-fashioned way: just stealing the card. A forgotten wallet or purse, a dropped card, an unlocked car door, or any number of things, can make your card easy for a thief to grab. Sometimes they’ll just write down your information—the number of waiters caught writing down card numbers while running customers’ cards is larger than you might expect.

Using Your Credit Card

Of course, once a thief has your credit card, the hardest part is done. Now all they need to do is use it (or sell it). Banks want you to think that your credit card transactions are very secure, but a quick trip to the store makes it clear that anyone with your card could use it wherever they want. I live in the US, where not all cards have EMV chips yet, and I haven’t had my signature checked against my card or driver’s license in a long time.

Contactless payments with cards don’t require PINs or signatures, so they’re perfect for credit card thieves (even though the limits for contactless payments are rather small, they add up quickly). Online payments don’t require PINs or signatures ether, so going on an Amazon shopping spree with a stolen card is remarkably easy.

And, as I mentioned, these card numbers can be sold online. Rescator is one of many sites that sell this information—most of these sites are on the dark web, where all sorts of identifying information can be bought, but some are easy to get to from any browser. By staying hidden, using servers based in other countries, and making it difficult for law enforcement to look for patterns in stolen cards, these sites stay untouchable.

How to Protect Yourself from Credit Card Fraud

As you can see from the list above, there are a lot of different ways that fraudsters can obtain and use your credit card information—it might seem like it’s impossible to protect yourself. But by following a few simple guidelines, you can significantly decrease the chances that you’ll fall victim to credit card fraud.

First, don’t share your card information over the phone or in an email. Most credit card companies, banks, and stores won’t ask for your credit card information via email, so an email asking for this information should be a clear sign that you’re being scammed. If you need to share your information over the phone, be sure that no one is around to overhear you.

Second, pay attention to online security news; if a retailer or a bank that might have your credit card information gets hacked, call your bank, tell them what happened, and ask for a new card. You could wait to see if you get any suspicious charges on your account before alerting your bank, but it’s up to you whether or not you want to take that chance before starting the process.

Third, if your card is RFID-equipped, consider getting an RFID-blocking wallet so your card is protected while it’s in your pocket. By blocking RFID signals, the wallet prevents any device from reading the information on your card until you take it out to use it.

Fourth, be on the lookout for any card-scanning device that looks like it’s been tampered with. ATMs, pay-at-the-pump gas stations, small stores and restaurants, and many other places can be targeted by skimmers. If something looks suspicious, use another method to pay. Make cash withdrawals from within your bank, pay at the counter when you buy gas, and don’t let your card out of your sight.

Finally, make sure to monitor your credit card statements, bank statements, and credit reports on a regular basis. The earlier you catch a potentially fraudulent transaction, the better the chances that you’ll be able to prevent further trouble. You can get a credit report free every year from annualcreditreport.com, but you should make sure to check your online accounts much more frequently than that to see if anything suspicious is going on.

Your Credit Card Fraud Stories

Now that you know how credit card fraud happens and what you can do to protect yourself, we want to hear your stories of credit card fraud. Have you ever had a card stolen? Do you know how the thief got the information? What tipped you off to the fact that your card had been compromised? And what did you do about it? Share your stories below so we can all learn from them!

Image credits: steal a credit card by Andrea Danti via Shutterstock, wk1003mike via Shutterstock.com, LDprod via Shutterstock.com, A. and I. Kruk via Shutterstock.com, India Picture via Shutterstock.com, Khakimullin Aleksandr via Shutterstock.com.