This post is Part 2, please see: Industrial Internet of Things for Part 1.

The infusion of Internet protocol professionals into Industrial Machine communications has presented a new alphabet soup of acronyms and terms. Even some seasoned IT professionals are left scratching their heads when presented with the closed systems that have existed for years in industrial machine to machine communications.

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Part 1: OT versus IT

At a Peplink Summit, Josh Varghese of Traceroute gave a presentation on IIoT, the Industrial Internet of Things. His talk included a basic description of Industrial IoT, a simple but essential clarification of Operational Technology—the core of IIoT, and an important glossary of terms. For the sake of this blog, I will split Mr. Varghese’s detailed talk into two parts. This first part will focus on the difference between IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology.)

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Shortly after September 11, 2001, our culture coined the words “first responders” to describe Police, Fire, EMS and other agencies who rush toward a problem while everyone else runs away. During 911 first responders were unable to communicate with each other as channels overloaded with civilian traffic. Within a few years, there was talk of giving first responders priority on the communications networks. Lawmakers, being the people that they are, didn’t do much about it until 2012 when a legislator managed to attach an amendment to the “Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012” that established and funded the First Responder Network Authority,” now commonly referred to as FirstNet.

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If you find yourself at a party with a person who will not stop talking, try asking, “What do you know about this ‘Internet of Things?’” Most people will just stare back, confused. For all the buzz, there is not much clarity. The Internet of Things, or IoT for us insiders, is really more of a concept than a technology. It isn’t something you can buy, invest in, or hold in your hand. The term itself was coined in 1985, six years before there was a World Wide Web and back when the word Internet just meant a network between computers, the same way Interstate means a highway connecting two states. It seems impossible that when Peter T. Lewis used the phrase at an FCC conference he had any idea that it would take on its current meaning.

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Last week the world learned that Cloudflare servers have been leaking data for as long as five months. Before this, Cloudflare already had its share of controversy. In 2013, they were accused in a roundabout way of giving aid and comfort to the enemy because nefarious websites were found to use their service. Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince responded in a blog post, “Cloudflare and Free Speech.” He argues that it is not Cloudflare’s role, or place to evaluate and police content on the websites that pass through their servers. Cloudflare has a good case. Again, in 2015, the hacking group Anonymous made the claim that Cloudflare was “helping” ISIS because they found ISIS related sites also using Cloudflare. The Cloudflare CEO called the claims “Absurd,” and in a way, he’s right. When we find out that ISIS terrorists use iPhones, we don’t think Apple is helping them. While the claim that Cloudflare “supports” ISIS is absurd, in light of the data breech, it may matter that Cloudflare is so widely used by an unvetted range customers.

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There are some serious things looming on the security front for 2017.

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