Will some smart home device makers ever grow souls??

(Please cut me a little slack on this post, dripping with sarcasm: these latest examples of some smart home device makers’ contempt/obliviousness toward customers’ privacy and security shoved me over the edge!).

Once upon a time two smart boys in their dorm room thought up a new service that really made a new technology hum. When they turned it into a tiny company, they ever adopted a cute motto: “don’t be evil.” Neat!

Then their little service got very, very big and very, very profitable. The motto? It kinda withered away. Last year it was even dropped from the company’s code of conduct.

Which, conveniently, allowed that once tiny company to produce this abomination: the Google Nest Guard (the alarm, keypad, and motion sensor portion of Nest’s Secure home protection system) featuring a mic.

Oh, did I point out that Nest didn’t mention the mic’s presence? No, that fact only emerged when it announced the Guard’s integration with Google’s Assistant voice device (Sample command: “OK, Google, surveil my family.”) and Business Insider ferreted out the mic’s presence:

“The existence of a microphone on the Nest Guard, which is the alarm, keypad, and motion-sensor component in the Nest Secure offering, was never disclosed in any of the product material for the device.”

On Tuesday, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company had made an “error.”

“The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs,” the spokesperson said. “That was an error on our part.”

Oh. All is forgiven. It was just an “error on our part.”

Except, how can I say this politely?, that’s utter baloney. It seems as if the mic just sorta got there. No engineer suggested adding it. No executives reviewing the design conveniently overlooked it.

Nope, that mic was there intentionally, and Google is so morally corrupt and/or amoral that they simply chose to ignore telling the public.

And, while we’re at it, let’s not heap all the opprobrium on Google. Amazon subsidiary Ring actually let its employees view videos shot with its doorbell device:

“These videos were unencrypted, and could be easily downloaded and shared. The team was also given a database that linked each video to the Ring customer it belonged to.”

As I’ve said many times before, my perspective on the issues of privacy and security are informed by my prior work in corporate crisis management, which taught me that far too many engineers (I have many friends in the profession, but if the shoe fits, wear it) are simply oblivious to privacy and security issues, viewing them as something to be handled through bolt-on protections after the fun part of product design is done. In fact, in adding the prior link, I came across something I wrote last year in which I quoted from the Google log — which contained nary a mention of privacy concerns — about an aspect of AI that would allow identification of what shop a batch of ramen came from. Funny, huh? No — scary.

Another lesson I drew from my past was the phenomenon of guilt by association, which is incredibly rampant right now: people conflate issues as diverse as smart home privacy violations, Russian election tampering, some men’s inability to find dates (I kid you not, and the result may be lethal for some women), the so-called “deep state,” etc., etc. The engineers I know tend to dismiss these wacky ideas because they aren’t logical. But the fact that the fears aren’t logical doesn’t mean they aren’t very, very real to those who embrace them.

That means that even those companies whose smart home devices DO contain robust privacy protections risk people rejecting their devices as well. Trust me on this one: I work every day with rational people who reject the cloud and all the services that could enrich their lives due to their fear of privacy and security violations.

That’s why responsible IoT companies must become involved in collaborations such as the Internet of Things Association, and IMC, working on collaborative strategies to deal with these issues.

Let’s not forget that these gaffes come at the same time as there’s a lot more interest among regulators and elected officials in regulating and/or even breaking up the Silicon Alley behemoths. You’d kinda think they’d be on their best behavior, not doing stupid things that just draw more criticism.

I’m fed up, and I won’t shut up. Write me if you have feasible suggestions to deal with the problem.

IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT!

I just discovered a Verge piece from last month to the effect that Google is belatedly getting religion about personal privacy, even — and this wins big points in my book — putting its privacy policies in plain English (yes!) rather than legalese. Here’s a long piece from the article. If they follow up, I’d be the first to praise them and withdraw my criticism, although not of the industry as a whole:

“So today, as Google announced that it’s going to sell a device that’s not all that different from the Facebook Portal, whose most every review wondered whether you should really invite a Facebook camera into your home, Google also decided to publicly take ownership for privacy going forward.
As we discovered in our interview with Google Nest leader Rishi Chandra, Google has created a set of plain-English privacy commitments. And while Google didn’t actually share them during today’s Google I/O keynote, they’re now available for you to read on the web.
Here’s the high-level overview:
We’ll explain our sensors and how they work. The technical specifications for our connected home devices will list all audio, video, and environmental and activity sensors—whether enabled or not. And you can find the types of data these sensors collect and how that data is used in various features in our dedicated help center page.
We’ll explain how your video footage, audio recordings, and home environment sensor readings are used to offer helpful features and services, and our commitment for how we’ll keep this data separate from advertising and ad personalization.
We’ll explain how you can control and manage your data, such as providing you with the ability to access, review, and delete audio and video stored with your Google Account at any time.
But the full document gets way more specific than that. And remarkably, a number of the promises aren’t the typical wishy-washy legalese you might expect. Some are totally unambiguous. Some of them go against the grain, like how Nest won’t let you turn off the recording light on your camera anymore because it wants to assure you!
‘Your home is a special place. It’s where you get to decide who you invite in. It‘s the place for sharing family recipes and watching babies take first steps. You want to trust the things you bring into your home. And we’re committed to earning that trust,’ Google says.”

Maybe somebody’s listening!

Live-Blogging From #LiveWorx!

Posted on 10th June 2019 in Uncategorized

I’m back at PTC’s annual LiveWorx lollapalooza, gathering ideas for my Industry Week column, starting with a presentation by Dell’s Supply Chain Director, Gentry Pate on how the IoT is transforming their global service parts planning:

  • real-time connectivity between their vendors & Dell
  • autonomous planning capabilties incorporating predictive modeling
  • real-time alerts, inventory & delivery time
  • Smart Warehouse using latest robotics
  • Digital Repair

Requires changes in people’s roles, processes & tech. Evaluated their existing process & switched to new roles. Also have to deal with fast-changing tariff and other issues. Worked with PTC to create a simplified execution structure through online collaboration, exception-based engagement, and single source of communication.

Also automated purchase orders, do machine learning for network replenishment, intermittent forecast model improvements.

Most orders now automated using SPM. Now place most POs every 6 weeks, vs. 2 weeks. He outlined their entire complex autonomous planning journey.

Added “Control Center Intelligence” that’s proactive, uses visualization, diagnostic, predictive, simulations.

He concluded by discussing Dell’s future organization skill sets.

More Monday afternoon content….

Pushing the Service Envelope With Predictive Analytics

Digital transformation of service:

  • reduce unscheduled downtime
  • provides signal of impending part failure to user to reduce equipment downtime

Microsoft describes their cloud/edge collaboration with PTC — just the topic of my most recent Industry Week column! OMG: talked about new autonomous cloud capsule that Microsoft is mooring in the ocean — bringing the cloud to where the people are!

Microsoft marine cloud capsule: cloud in the water!

Common IoT Commercialization Errors

Two top errors picked by the audience in a poll were projects that are slow-paced, when speed and agility are needed, and weak use cases (i.e., “they are too ambiguous about the value for the user.”)

For example, Kodak was there early with digital photography, but didn’t move quickly. Need to have quick feedback: that’s where my “circular company” concept and my “Essential Truth” about replacing liner processes with cyclical ones comes in!

Case Study: How Caterpillar Develops Compelling IIoT Apps

Remote Asset Monitoring of remote generators. Promotes peace of mind for customers. Started this in 1991! Based on realization that one-size-doesn’t-fit-all with connected devices. They use a hybrid Waterfall/Sprint project style.

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My Latest Industry Week Column: why the edge is critical for IoT

As is so often the case, technological success can often result in unintended consequences that, left unremedied, could negate the benefits.

As my latest Industry Week column I looked at one of those issues — the explosion of real-time sensor data collected by the IoT — and the solution to the problem that adds many other benefits in the process, shifting at least part of the data processing from the cloud to the “edge” of the system, preferably at the point of collection.

As I pointed out, if the data must be moved to the cloud first for processing (no mean feat, BTW, because it can also overwhelm the transmission networks) and then back to the collection point for action, it negates the IoT’s major benefit, being able to collect and then act on data in near-real time, allowing precise regulation of things.

Of course edge processing adds additional costs for distributed processing hardware and software, and can add risk if the device is easily tampered with, but, overall, it seems to me the edge should not replace, but definitely supplement the cloud in robust IoT systems.

I based the column on a comprehensive, short-of-over-promotion report, Data at the Edge, created by an industry consortium, State of the Edge. It’s a quick read, and I recommend it!

Read it and let me know what you think.

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