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1. Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the cyber-physical systems through which any object can be connected anytime and anywhere (Atzori et al., 2010; Xu et al., 2014; Dijkman et al. 2015; Li et al., 2015).
Nowadays, the IoT gains more attention from academia, industry and government due to its potential impact on society, environment and economy. According to McKinsey & Company (2015): “The Internet of Things has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion per year in 2025, the value of this impact would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy in 2025.” The IoT devices worldwide will up to 26bn, IoT market will up to $1.9 trillion, total investment for smart cities worldwide will up to $120bn by 2020 (CAICT, 2016). Many countries focus on IoT strategies. In the USA, IoT is considered as one of the six “disruptive civil technologies” for its potential impacts on the nation. In China, IoT is in the list of the China’s 12th Five Year Plan (2011–2015) (Atzori et al., 2010). “Sensing China” project was launched in 2010 (Li et al., 2015). The IoT center was established in Shanghai (Gubbi et al., 2013). In the UK, the government has launched projects to develop IoT; in Europe, the IoT European Research Cluster FP7 has proposed a number of IoT projects and created an international IoT forum to develop a joint strategic and technical vision for the use of IoT; in Japan, u-Japan and i-Japan projects are used for daily lives; and in Korea, radio frequency identification (RFID) and “New IT Strategy” program are used to enhance the IoT infrastructure development (Li et al., 2015).
The IoT as the Future Internet will bring profound changes to everyone and everything; meanwhile, the arising opportunities and challenges are enormous. It is stressed that “to the extent everyday objects will become information security risks, the IoT could distribute those risks far more widely than the Internet has to date” (Atzori et al., 2010). As Peter indicates, “With a trillion sensors embedded in the environment – all connected by computing systems, software, and services – it will be possible to hear the heart beat of the...