IoT Hacks Humans: Unexpected Angles Of Human Process Compromise

The talk looks at how AI and internet-connected devices are changing cognitive warfare and public opinion manipulation. The presenter argues that a mature attacker plans around defences, so the goal can be to influence a person who already has legitimate access rather than to hit systems directly. They call this human process compromise.

Drawing on a sociology text, the presenter explains that technology now changes faster than a generation, so inherited experience goes stale, and that a society becomes easy to steer once it turns unstable. Fragmented knowledge, reinforced by information bubbles, also makes people easier to manipulate. AI can help people cross language and cultural barriers to look beyond their bubble, yet it can also tailor messages to a chosen audience. IoT adds a data layer: smart TVs that recognise on-screen content for ad profiling, appliances and cars that reveal habits and locations, and wearables exposing health details. Examples include tracing people through targeted advertising and data sold as predictive insight, which could enable extortion or manipulation of physical events.

The closing section argues that privacy is largely gone, so regulation may need to focus on data use. It proposes a reverse zero trust for information, doubting events at first and tagging them later. The takeaway: choose your information bubbles deliberately and step outside them from time to time.