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“Theories do not prove anything, but they allow you to gain time and rest if you are completely confused, trying to find something that cannot be found”
Mark Twain
Before our eyes, IoNT is already emerging from the conceptual stage of development and becoming the subject of research in many laboratories in the world. These studies go on a wide front from the creation of self-regulating nanosets and their nanoelements to real-world applications in the most diverse areas of our civilization’s life. Naturally, all this raises and many non-technical issues, the main one of which is as always - but where are we going?
IoNT network architecture
Regardless of the application, networks for IoNT will consist of a set of the following components.
- Nano-nodes are the smallest and simplest nanomachines that perform tasks such as computing and transmitting data over short distances. Have a small memory. For example, biological sensors installed in the human body can be considered as nano-nodes.
- Nano-routers, which have greater computational power compared with nano-nodes and act as aggregators of information coming from nano-nodes. Nano-routers also play a crucial role in managing nano-nodes by passing exchange control commands.
- Nano-micro interface devices perform the task of aggregating information coming from nano-routers, and transmit it to the micro level and in the opposite direction. They act as hybrid devices for communication at the nanoscale with the use of nanocommunication technologies, as well as with traditional communication networks using classical network protocols.
- Gateways, which allows you to remotely control the network through the Internet. For example, using a gateway, all data from sensors of the human body can be accessed by doctors all over the planet in all places where there is Internet.
IoNT Applications
As for possible IoNT applications, scientists have already learned how to compress millimeter or micron-sized sensors down to nano-meters: small enough to wander around a living person’s body (almost like in Spielberg’s Inner Space) and directly mixed in building materials in order to control the strength of the structure. This is an important first step towards IoNT, which can bring medicine, energy efficiency and many other industries to a whole new level.
Much literally lies on the surface. First of all, these are biomedical applications, including bio-hybrid implants, glucose monitoring, heart monitoring, monitoring of brain pathologies, epilepsy or depression, drugs with nano-shells for tumor delivery and its targeted destruction.
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More effective environmental monitoring of temperature, humidity and air pollution in real time using nano-sensors at railway stations, bus stops, airports, hotels, restaurants and other public places, and in the transport itself.
The use of IoNT in agriculture will lead to the development of agricultural applications that monitor, in addition to the environment, crop growth, weed growth, field conditions, fertilization into the soil, the spread of pests, the use of pesticides and insecticides, and animal health.
It is no secret that the defense industry is also one of the priorities in the IoNT. Among other things, IoNT will be used for radiation, biological and chemical protection. Currently, state and intergovernmental organizations are creating information systems for emergency management. In particular, in the European Union, in implementing projects Osiris and Sany, standards and tools have been developed to support the interoperability of sensor networks and sensory web services, which facilitates their use in alert and emergency response systems. Supplementing these programs with IoNT achievements is a matter of time.
In general, the creation and implementation of the IoT / IoNT concept will provide society with new, previously inaccessible communication network services for monitoring and managing any objects, including any biomass, including humans, both in the macrocosm, microcosm, and in the nanoworld. The implementation of this concept requires the creation of self-organizing networks, which, unlike the existing infrastructure networks, have a trillion-dollar client base and are already more similar to the living world than just communication networks. This facilitates the introduction of biosimilar algorithms into the network infrastructure, i.e. algorithms based on the behavior of colonies in the living world, based on the principles of Swarm Intelligence (Swarm Intelligence, SI), which proved to be quite useful for solving routing problems in self-organizing networks. So, humanity will once again try to approach with the help of technology the repetition of what has long been created by nature. Swarm intelligence is a section of the field of artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence, AI) and consists of several groups of algorithms, which include, for example, ant optimization algorithms (Ant Colony Optimization, ACO), bee optimization algorithms (Artificial Bee Colony Algorithms) and firefly algorithms (Firefly Algorithms).
Recently, new types of patterns have appeared, based on the so-called “Lévy flights”, namely: the shark attack algorithm, the algorithms of wandering albatrosses, bumblebees and male deer during the rut, the algorithm for searching for nutrients by bacteria like Escherichia coli ( it is - E. coli). They are already being used or will be used for self-organizing networks of IoT and IoNT applications in the near future.
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Theoretically, IoNT industrial applications have no limits, but for the beginning they will be used to control the quality of products and water, as well as to create modified materials and fabrics. Actually, this is an important part of future digital businesses.
The financial sphere, fascinated by the blockchain technology, will be able to unambiguously differentiate between real and counterfeit bills, all of which will carry information about the place and time of their manufacture, and the information confirming this will be stored in all banks of the world.
The environment is going to use IoNT in the interests of monitoring and intensifying biodegradation, managing livestock and crop production, as well as controlling air pollution. Millions of nano-dust particles can not only determine the degree of pollution, but also localize its source. Over time, they (or rather, their developers) will learn and fight the flying mud, and then, perhaps, they will take on viruses.
All kinds of “cloud” technologies, their advantages and problems in terms of network load, personal data security and cyber security, can undergo major changes due to the advent of nano-DB (databases) or even nano-data centers, which every individual can always have himself just like he always carries his head on his shoulders.
Creating smart bodies is a definite paradigm shift in healthcare. For example, miniature organs with the ability to analyze the human body can revolutionize medical research and allow new medicines to be created. Miniature sensors will explore our body in a completely new format. Or the development of tissue engineering can completely change the approach to the diagnosis and treatment of the skin, blood vessels, bones and various human organs, not to mention prosthetics. With the help of nanomaterials and nanosensors, cell growth can be stimulated, 3D printing of new organs can be controlled, and nanomachines can get into the tissues directly in the 3D printing process. Nanomachines and nanosensors can reside in organs and provide functions unseen before. For example, the real eye can be integrated with a lens, the functionality of which may be wider than that of GoogleGlass glasses. Somewhere it is possible to expand the blood flow in time, somewhere to restore the violation of neural connections.
In general, with the help of IoNT, a parallel control system can be created in the human body, and if its native (ie, inborn) system cannot perform its functions well, its work can be corrected. And you can still diagnose the body in much the same way as today computer diagnostics of modern cars. And to do this, you will not need to invite a doctor - it will be enough to “wirelessly” connect a computer to yourself and use the appropriate programs. It is possible that the interface for such a connection like Wi-Fi will be built into all computers and smartphones of the future.
Developing further these ideas, some futurologists have already come to the idea of creating a so-called. a planetary neuronet by combining human “brains” using the IoT / IoNT ligament on a global scale. The idea itself is quite simple - since the capabilities of the current Internet are very limited and do not allow direct transmission from the brain to the brain of life experiences and experiences (emotions), the quality of communications should be raised to a completely new level, which will dramatically increase the efficiency of teamwork and open up new opportunities field of study. So far, electrodes are used to pick up signals from the brain, but someday their role will be assumed by the IoNT fragment that is “embedded” in a person and has an output in IoT. Communication protocols based on digital models of mental processes will be developed and approaches to the organization of a “collective consciousness” capable of brainstorming and solving tasks that require the concerted efforts of many people will be found. In the modern world, many problems arise because people cannot agree on the sharing of various resources with each other. By organizing a kind of “collective mind”, a neuronet seems to help solve these problems. Actually, a neuronet seems to be the “perfectionists of humanity” as one of the network fragments of the Internet of things. Only its "nodes" are not smartphones, tablets and laptops, but human brains, equipped with inclusive or non-inclusive electronics. And, perhaps, and not even electronics.
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However, it seems, we are carried away and deep into the future. Let's say a few words about him.
Future iont
Let us put aside the forecasts of the market volume and the number of connected devices. It is too early to speak about the first: let them first show their economic benefit at least to the “big brother” - IoT. It is useless to talk about the latter, because even millions of nanodevices can be in a fairly limited space, and this will not prove anything.
As for the future, undoubtedly, tremendous success awaits the development of IoNT. As for the users in the face of humanity, for it there will be not only undoubted convenience, but also unprecedented risks. Take at least the transition from smart nanosensors to IoNT. For example, it is difficult to integrate all the necessary components into an autonomous nanodevice, which will register any change and transmit a signal to the Internet. It is also difficult to resolve all particular and security issues. Any nanodevices included in the body, intentionally or through negligence, can be toxic or induce an immune response.
Unfortunately, the matter is not always in the technique. Of course, this technology can be used for illegal surveillance, but this is only one of many risks. And there is a suspicion that it’s necessary to make a start from the risks before writing down the future successes of IoNT. In order not to go into long philosophical arguments, let us give the difference between IoT and IoNT words from the works of two Russian classics of literature.
Who remembers in Korney Chukovsky's "Moidodyr" "... and the pillow, like a frog, rode away from me." Similarly, in IoT you can deduce certain things from your submission. However, there is still hope that vital, as well as military and especially dangerous objects will not be connected to the Internet, if only because the attack always advances protection, and cybersecurity always works with what has already happened, while hackers coming up with a new cyber danger.
But Ivan Efremov in the Hour of the Bull, a man from the distant and in many ways perfect future, Fay Rodis, on which there is nothing but thin armor of a fitting space suit, answers the mocking question of the supreme ruler of the planet Tormans Choyo Chagas - a sort of "impression from a man of the modern" - about whether she can kill him. “I can,” Fai Rodis says, ingeniously. “I can just order you to die, and the heart will stop, but why?” The “modern” comrade immediately shies away with poorly concealed fear, and the man of the future genuinely wonders what actually happened — we do not kill.
It’s no secret that if, with the help of IoNT, it will be possible, for example, to kill easily - they will definitely kill. The first murder via the Internet, by the way, occurred back in the mid-90s by remotely shutting down the life support system in the intensive care unit. And they will kill, as usual, for money, for property, for power, out of envy and just like that. Someone to stop the heart, someone to change the sugar in the blood, someone to break something inside or clog ... And somewhere with the help of nanopoly to clean an entire continent.
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IoT, for example, will be the next and logical goal of cybercriminals. Well, how many billions of "things" will be something to infect? For intelligence, economic, criminal and other purposes, as well as just out of interest. According to cybersecurity experts, the number of threats in their part only increases over the years.
But how, for example, taking up the solution of a planetary problem with the help of collective consciousness, suddenly feel an idiot, a maniac, or just a greedy person? There are millions of them, and how to get rid of them? Will we put idiots and dishonest people on intellectual reservations by restricting access? Or, rather, just turn into them? For example, the Chinese are already planning to segregate the population according to the degree of loyalty to the state, accepted ethical standards, credit history, behavior in public places, etc., so that all benefits are available only to worthy members of society. And where to put the unworthy? As is known from physics, broadband noise "clogs" a narrowband useful signal, and it is time to study this physics for sociologists.
There are many more aspects related to nanotechnology that make you think. For example, it is possible that in the near future, athletes will use a variety of implant chips with different sensors, and even muscle stimulants (instead of doping), which, of course, is in itself a violation of sports ethics. But does everyone stop bans doping today? It will simply be the next step in the struggle to become faster, higher and stronger. And it is not difficult to imagine how vulnerable they can be in front of hackers hired by competitors. In particular, it will be possible to make the object delayed with the movements of the limbs or slightly missed from the most necessary moment.
Considering that even without plunging into the depths of IoNT, invasion of privacy can be carried out using fake information anywhere in the personal space of a social network and using fake content about the object of attack, when the latter can appear in any generated unpleasant story. Medical and other secrets of citizens can be made public not in the purely information key, but directly in the physical with all the attendant risks. In turn, directly or indirectly, IoNT is primarily a threat to the human body. In general, fantasies here can be very diverse, but all of them will contain potential threats, the causes of which in a single information environment, which humanity has not learned to use. As a result, nothing in the digital world can be believed - absolutely everything can turn out to be unreal, fake, stolen, stealing, or life threatening. And the fact that, it would seem, should accelerate the progress of society, meets with such sophisticated use from this society that it is sometimes forced to seriously curtail its progressive capabilities. Each such innovation requires careful maintenance, so as not to turn, for example, from a training resource into another informational drug.
So it is not enough to create technology, it is necessary to manage to use it correctly. There is a strong feeling that, on the one hand, a person is simply not ready to use new opportunities, including those with planetary or personal coverage. On the other hand, a person has no choice but to overcome something in himself in order to increase the efficiency from the use of new technologies. Ironically, the new technologies themselves do not leave a person any other choice but to change. And it will not be easy, because in human nature nothing changes from the incredibly remote times described in the Bible. And if in the hands of Cain or Judas there was, for example, an iPhone, would their behavior change dramatically? Rather, the scale would be different ...
And once again about the past IoNT
Yes, by the way, recently in our garden there was no berries at all in the mountain ash, and there was practically no winter. How did rowan know that? Perhaps, because in nature their own IoT, IoNT, and even a peculiar neuronet have been active for a long time, but, truth, based on other technological principles? But most importantly, on the other ethics, which, unfortunately, so far lacks so-called. "The crown of creation." In general, there is something to work on, because, in the words of the Strugatsky brothers, "exactly what is most natural, least befits a person."
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Publication author: Alexander Golyshko, Ph.D., systems analyst at Technoserv
Based on materials: electronics.ru, vestnik-sviazy.ru, pcweek.ru, rucont.ru, news.bitcoin.com, sut.ru, NanoNewsNet.ru, startup.today, club.esetnod32.ru, internetofthings.ru