All,

While I am not certain that I agree with Owen's particular spin, he does raise a good point that affects privacy -- a point that we failed to address in the FTC response:  ownership of and delegation of authority for the devices that comprise IoT.  

For example, if my electricity provide places a meter in my home, who owns it?  My assumption is that the provider owns the device and I must agree to its installation in my home as a condition of obtaining electricity.  But then, who is responsible for programming it to reduce my power when demand is high?  If it is the electricity distributor, what say do I have in this decision?  If it is me, how does the "owner" delegate authority to me to program my usage?  What if I want to provide my own meter (in the same way that I may provide my own router for my internet service or use one from my ISP), do I have that right?  After all, it is going in my home.  But the electricity distributor may be concerned that I will modify the reporting from the meter in order to mask my real use and pay a lower bill.

From a privacy perspective, I consider ownership and delegation of authority to be the two big issues of IoT -- quite separate form the security concerns about access control.

Thank you.

Jeff


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 8:22 AM, Owen Thomas <owen.paul.thomas@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Joni (and the Kantara commnity).

Ummm... I'm not from the US (I'm Australian), and my thoughts on "the internet of things" have thus far not curried much resonance with people in general. Also, my concepts have still to yield anything demonstrable. Hence, I'm reluctant to contribute directly to conferences and other requests for input. But I will write this message.

I'd like to perhaps suggest that the term "things" be replaced with "individuals". I believe an internet of individuals is the ultimate destination for the internet as it evolves to be a medium through which individual presence is not only projected, but is also manifest. In an internet of individuals, every component (every "thing" or "device") is used by, and indeed, is used to manifest individual presence. In this vision, every router, switch, node and any other well defined contraption of any type that can exchange state (a device) with any other device will be directed by and accountable to the intentions of individual wills that compose them.

This vision requires a system that projects individual presence in such devices. I believe that my Clique Space concept is such a system. As far as I am aware, Clique Space is the only concept that has any chance of turning this internet of things into its ultimate expression as an internet of individuals,

Development continues, and I hope one day soon(ish) to be able to demonstrate that the Clique Space basic infrastructure (Agent Devices which collaborate to exchange information about other devices operating through other media) works. I would love some help in getting my proof-of-concept done quicker, so I post this letter here as an attempt to garner interest.

I'd welcome anyone's comment.

  Owen.



On 12 June 2013 18:24, Joni Brennan <joni@ieee-isto.org> wrote:

Dear Kantara Community,

Recently Kantara Initiative Trustees, Members and Participants provided their international and industry expertise to develop a brief response to a call for input by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [1] regarding privacy and security implications of the Internet of Things (IoT). 

Pervasive implementation the IoT, and access control of associated data, will have significant implications with regard to Identity Management use cases and beyond. Kantara Initiative intends to address these implications through its network of experts and programs. 

The full response can be read on our Kantara blog [2].  We thank our stakeholders for their excellent input and we're looking forward to a workshop focusing on IoT that is being planned by FTC for the fall 2013. 

Please feel free to share the response with interested parties. We are very interested to hear feedback that can be shared on this list or via our contact form [3]. 

Joni Brennan
Executive Director
Kantara Initiative
 
[2] http://kantarainitiative.org/privacy-and-security-iot/

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