The term Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the ability to link physical objects to one another through the use of the Internet. Kevin Ashton first coined the concept in 2009 during his participation in a project commissioned at the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earlier, the linking of devices required radio-frequency identification (RFID), products that use radio frequencies to automatically identify and track objects over short distances. This all changed with the evolution of the Internet. Connectivity and identity capabilities have evolved even more with the emerging ubiquity of Wi-Fi and cellular technologies.

[Page 423]In a thingternet (as IoT is often referred to), objects are outfitted with unique identifiers so they can be managed by computing applications. In the physical world, this ...