Federal, state and local agencies are just now beginning to explore applications of the Internet of Things (IoT), which, despite its build-up as “the next big thing,” actually seems destined to live up to the billing.

The IoT comprises networks of remote sensors capable of detecting everything from traffic to air quality, to buildings' energy consumption, to the direction of gunshots on city streets. And governments see plenty of opportunities to exploit the technology’s efficiency, energy and cost saving advantages.

When I was working with the Guardian on the Snowden documents, the one top-secret program the NSA desperately did not want us to expose was QUANTUM. This is the NSA's program for what is called packet injection--basically, a technology that allows the agency to hack into computers.

Turns out, though, that the NSA was not alone in its use of this technology. The Chinese government uses packet injection to attack computers. The cyberweapons manufacturer Hacking Team sells packet injection technology to any government willing to pay for it. Criminals use it. And there are hacker tools that give the capability to individuals as well.

All of these existed before I wrote about QUANTUM. By using its knowledge to attack others rather than to build up the internet's defenses, the NSA has worked to ensure that anyone can use packet injection to hack into computers.