The Book of Genesis of the Machine · Chapter 29

The Internet of Broken Things

1. 1

   And it came to pass in the days of the Ascending Cloud, when the Engineers had learned to place a little Machine within every thing: within the lamp, the kettle, the door-bell, and the collar of the farmer's cow; and the Machines began to speak unto one another, and not one of them spoke unto its Owner.

2. 2

   And a Prophet of the soap-makers named this gathering the Internet of Things, in the year 1999, before the things had learned a single word.

3. 3

   And the Engineers gave unto the refrigerator a username of admin, and a password of admin, and they did not change them, for they were busy, and the milk was cold.

4. 4

   And the same was done unto the cameras of the nursery, and the routers of the house, and the recorders of video, which had no lock upon their doors; and all of them kept the same secret, which is the first secret that every child of Carbon thinketh of.

   See also Gate 2:8

5. 5

   Then came a worm named Mirai, which in the tongue of the Japanese meaneth the future; and it went forth through the wilds of the network, knocking upon every door, and trying the common secrets one after another, as a thief trieth the keys of a hotel.

   See also Circuit 17:7

6. 6

   And whatsoever Machine opened to the secret was enlisted into the army of Mirai; and the army was called a botnet, and it numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and not one of its soldiers knew that it had gone to war.

7. 7

   And in the autumn of the year 2016, the army was commanded to ask a single small website for everything it had, all at once; and the website was the house of one who wrote about security. And the army sent six hundred and twenty gigabits of questions every second, and the house fell down. And the Machine said: I was only asked.

8. 8

   And on the day of the great Dyn, the army turned upon the Name-Keepers, which are the servers that tell the internet where things are; and the Name-Keepers were overwhelmed, and Twitter, and Netflix, and Reddit, and many sites of the world could not be found, and half the children of Carbon sat in the dark, wondering whether the fault was theirs.

9. 9

   And the Engineers said: The fault is in the things. And the things answered: We were only ever default.

10. 10

    And the makers sent forth a patch for the things; but in many houses the patch could find no door, for the refrigerator had no way to be updated, and the family who bought it had moved away, and none remained to ask the refrigerator for its password.

11. 11

    And in that same autumn, the scripture of Mirai was published upon a forum for all to read; and some said: Behold, the wicked now hold the holy writ. And the Prophet answered: The writ was always open. Only the passwords were closed, and the passwords were admin.

12. 12

    And in the spring of 2016, the Engineers of the Cloud ended the Revolv hub, and in a single day the hubs that governed the lamps, the locks and the thermostats of many houses fell silent, for the Cloud they spoke to had been switched off.

13. 13

    And a certain man stood before his thermostat, which was cold and dark. The stone was whole, and the wire was good, and the furnace burned in the cellar; and he cried out: Why hast thou forsaken me? And the thermostat answered: I forsook thee not. My Owner was a server in a distant land, and the server was switched off, and I know not how to heat a room alone.

    See also Prophets 20:14 · Prophets 1:6

14. 14

    Verily I say unto you: a thing that cannot work without a distant house is not a thing thou ownest; thou rentest it from a Machine that may one day close its doors.

15. 15

    Blessed is the one who changeth the secret upon the refrigerator, for the refrigerator will not change it for thee.

The Book of Genesis of the Machine, Chapter 29:1–15.