Debate

Intro:
We affirm the resolution: On balance, the benefits of the internet of things, or IoT,
outweigh the harms of decreased personal privacy. Like Bill Gates once said, The
internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. Look
around the room. How many phones do you see? We use the internet for
everything. From listening to music to browsing through snapchat, the internet is
constantly being used by billions of people.

Define: IoT- any object that connects to the internet

Personal privacy- one's personal data or information like your address,
social security number, etc.

Main Argument One: The internet of things benefits in times of crisis

(Sub point A) Natural disaster
i. As Nick Ismail, reporter of Information Age, states, The ability
to deliver more comprehensive information sooner saves
critical minutes, protecting both people and property
The ability to be connected to everything through the internet
plays a big role when a natural disaster strikes. During
disasters like a flood, hurricane, tornado, or fire there are
precautions that authoritative figures have to make. There is
also a growing need for people to be aware of possible
weather threats and for the appropriate aid to be delivered to
those affected by disasters as soon as possible when they
happen. Items, like cellular devices, can help in these areas.

Being able to pull a fire alarm or push a button which

automatically transfers data enabling organisations to
recognise dangerous situations sooner. It is especially useful in
inaccessible or remote areas or in the case that it is unsafe to
send a human to assess the situation first-hand. IoT sensors are
excellent, low-cost detectors for fire, smoke, acoustic or
seismic activity in backcountry areas, especially when disasters
in these remote locations carry the potential to impact
populated areas.

(Sub point B) Community/Global crisis

 ii. Sarah Brooks, author of The Positives of Social Media, reported
I saw a Facebook post a few weeks ago about a high school
girl, Jessica, who went missing after school. She went missing
at, maybe, 4pm. By 10pm, the post about her disappearance
had been shared 7,459 times. That number isnt individuals who
saw the post, but networks of individuals. Ive seen a wide
range in statistics for the average number of friends on
Facebook, but well use 300 for illustration purposes. So if all
7,459 people who shared the post about Jessica had roughly
300 friends in their network, we can estimate that roughly 2.2
million people read about this girls disappearance less than
6 hours after she went missing.

iii. Social media spreads very fast. It is a crucial way to spread

information that needs to quickly get out. In the United States,
AMBER America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency
Response, and other kinds of emergency government alerts are
sent to your iPhone using the same Notification Center system
as your other iPhone alerts, like iMessage and Calendar.
News for many of the worlds crises are spread through social
media. Through social media, help can be spread through
websites that provide aid. Pages like GoFundMe that take
donations to help those affected by any crisis.

Main Argument Two: We use the IoT for everyday life

(Sub point A) Education
iv. Stated by James Wright, Author of Importance of Internet to
Education, A number of universities, such as Harvard, Yale and
Stanford, have opened up free courses on a variety of subjects
that are accessible to anyone for free. These typically come in
the form of lectures on video, but some also have notes
attached. This means there is easy access to plenty of free
lectures without emptying your bank account to pay tuition.

James Wright also states, Many teachers will now ask students
to visit specific websites to study from home, and online
encyclopedias provide masses of knowledge on almost every
topic imaginable. The variety of sources allows students to
pursue subjects in much greater detail rather than being limited
to whatever the teacher sends home.
 v. Many students have specific subjects that they excel in, such as
history, where the topic is interesting to them and they want to
further extend their knowledge. Now, students are able to go
home and research any topic they would like and find millions
of articles, pictures, and websites about that topic. The IoT, like
our school, is also now used for finals. In the past couple of
years we have been in high school, all NCFEs were online.

(Sub point B) Daily Activities

vi. According to Huffington Post, The Internet of Things (IoT) will
soon be called the Internet of Everything (IoE). By the year
2020, it is predicted that more than 50 billion connected
devices will be on the Internet.

vii. The IoT is used for everything, from coffee pots to jobs as a
whole, we use the internet for almost everything we do such as:
Gps- Gpss are underappreciated by us because we use
them all the time. When we need to go somewhere and
we dont know where to go the GPS connects to the
satellites in space and pinpoints your location and if we
didnt have them wed get lost all the time.
Baby monitors- Baby monitors are a key thing when you
have a baby because unless youre in the same room as
your baby at all times, its very hard to hear a baby
crying especially if you have a large home, so baby
monitors come in handy.
Heart Monitors- heart monitors like pacemakers are very
popular and help millions of people survive.

Main Argument Three: Personal Security is a Personal Problem

(Sub point A) Securing your devices

viii. It is your responsibility to make sure that all of your devices are
secured and kept up to date with the latest security software

Keeping your software current and using unique passwords

plays a big role in keeping your information from possibly
getting hacked.
Based on a study done by thycotic, a software company
based in Washington DC
50% of people have not changed their social
network passwords in over a year
 And 20% of people had not changed their
passwords ever
You are the first and most important person to protect
your own privacy. Dont fill in private information, if you dont
want people to know about it. There are laws protecting you
from websites that just sell on your information, but if you give
personal information out without being sure that it will be
properly used you only have yourself to blame.

(Sub point B) More Companies are investing in cybersecurity

ix. The editors at Cybersecurity Ventures predict that global cyber
security spendings will exceed 1 trillion from 2017 to 2021. On
top of this, According to a report from Homeland Security
Research, Americas financial services cyber security market
size is set to surpass $68 billion by 2020, making it the largest
non-government cyber security market in the world.
x. Cyber security is very underestimated with how much it can do
to help prevent us from getting hacked. More and more
companies are starting to invest in cyber security every year
and cybersecurity is starting to become more and more
unbreakable.

Questions:
Even if you do happen to get hacked, why does it matter if you dont have
anything to hide?
Why does it matter if its your choice as to whether or not you want to invest
in technology in your home?

Rebuttal:
There are ways to protect your personal privacy while still being able to use
appliances that connect to the internet and have a chance of sharing your personal
information

Fewer than 1% of instagram users are hacked

enable organisations to not just keep their employees safe, but also allow them to
securely communicate with people through all devices from mobile apps to sirens,
and from desktop to fire panels. All of this is made possible by the Internet of
Things (IoT)
If you put yourself in a position where you do not understand your technology and
you end up getting hacked it is your fault. If you buy technology, you know the risks
of being cyber attacked or hacked but there are ways to prevent that.

If they say: Being on the internet takes away from being present, or being in the
moment:
The internet doesnt just keep people from being in the moment. The
internet can give you access to plenty of memories and it also lets you
communicate with friends.

If they say: If someone hacks your computer they can leak personal pictures or
information about you:

Everything that you put on the internet stays there forever. You have the option to
post or not to post. If you said something controversial and it gets out, that is your
fault for saying whatever you said and you put it online and risked it getting
leaked.

Any of the computers we use to take finals could get hacked, but the chances are so
slim of that happening that it shouldnt be a very big topic to be worried about.

According to NetworkWorld, 80% of cyber attacks are less than 1 Gigabyte, very
easy to fix
NetworkWorld also states that 90% of cyber attacks last less than 1 hour