WoT Smart Cities: Engineering Digital Twin Things & Ecosystems.
*** FIRST DRAFT (MAY BE INCOMPLETE) ***
The nature of computational infrastructure use throughout our societies is rapidly forming a pervasive cyber-twin of our world.
One of the Ted Talks i find grounding, is the one by Nicholas Negropont co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, who presents “A 30-year history of the future”
An Introduction
Today, expansive economic opportunities are being pursued to produce cyber infrastructure that provides a copy of all things, places, spaces and systems relating to our world; as to manufacture an array of enterprise solutions. As to provide a grounding basis to my views and related purpose orientated pursuits, i’ve discussed at length many of the critical pillars relating to the needs of natural persons specifically. Yet the purpose for so doing, is not to the exclusion of how societies are otherwise made to work through curated works facilitated by ‘groups’ or corpus: the Latin word for body, or a “body of people”. Therein, the activities, and orchestration of activities relating to groups and group governance frameworks is increasingly becoming an interwoven part of how environments are forming interfaces with the web.
The emergent terms used to define these project & solution types includes environmental Infrastructure; such as ‘smart’ cities, houses & things; which in-turn relates to smart services, interfaces and assistants. Augmented reality devices are amongst the easiest to illustrate;
Whilst this particular example of emergent ‘naturalised interfaces’ can in-turn support considerations to be made in association to the broad array of dystopian visions provided by works such as Black Mirror and as a quick example; the short-film called HYPER-REALITY by Keiichi Matsuda.
The future of naturalised interfaces isn’t simple by any stretch of the imagination as the pervasive utility of informatics systems in society for all sorts of reasons, by all sorts of agents enabling all sorts of things, societal functions, interactions and capacities to support societal governance; is in-turn all wound-up in the objective scopes of work being undertaken, as to bring about these smart — externalised (not personally internalised) systems.
The obvious reason why this occurs in this way, is that it is far easier to sell and therefore obtain gainful income & employment to build ‘smart cities’ and to form the socio-economic infrastructure required to make them work.
This article will attempt to canvas some of the high-level factors relating to this industrious field of technological growth; and in-turn, relate that back to how it is a ‘human centric web’ version, can significantly improve those works.
The Digital Twin movement
The recently discovered term ‘Digital Twin’ provides a simple term to illustrate a set of complex and pragmatic production processes. In 2016 Reese Jones spoke about the concept as it relates to natural persons.
Whilst this perspective has been considered in many of my other articles; more broadly, the term ‘digital twin’ is used to describe a means to produce useful interfaces and management platforms for infrastructure projects.
Smart Environments & a shift, away from traditional ‘cloud computing’
The Smart Cities movement and related activity streams; seek to improve and engender support for informatics systems in connection to environments.
Smart Cities in-turn encapsulate a broad-array of environmental considerations; as do in-turn relate to an array of real-world implications, for all people who have some form of direct or indirect relationship to any part of them. In-turn both internal (buildings) and external environments are being updated to support a ‘smart environments’ approach.
Considerations are not simply about environments outside of our homes.
and; As to provide some additional ‘smart home’ visions;
These ‘smart environments’ are made to work through the implementation of software defined informatics environments, built upon computational infrastructure in addition to networking and authentication systems.
Impacts upon ‘Cloud Computing’ infrastructure
Interwoven into this field of industrial activity and technological advancement, the manifest way through which online services are made to work is going to be influenced; with or without support for a ‘human centric web’. Peter Levine, Partner of Andreessen Horowitz speaks about the impact ‘internet of things’ will have on the future of cloud computing.
IMPLICATIONS
As illustrated above, the implementation of infrastructure frameworks that incorporate “Internet of Thing” capabilities and supporting ecosystems; are now very well advanced. However the vast majority of these systems are not able to support informatics systems that support ‘inforg infrastructure’, relating to natural persons; as it doesn’t currently exist, and even if a movement to bring it about led to significant investment in the near term; designs and implementations today, would need to consider how it could be that the underlying business systems in addition to software infrastructure, could support it.
The implications of not doing so; is thought to have a significant causal impact on the future of societies and moreover, humanity.
A series of related issues include;
- Security of IoT Infrastructure
- API designs and Service Infrastructure relating to ‘things’.
- Regulatory frameworks; and related issues.
The means to bring about technological support for human agency and custodianship; whereby a natural person principally ‘owns’ their ‘digital twin’, requires a series of complex considerations that are interlinked; as the Articles produced and made available via the Medium WebCivics publication, seeks to communicate as a series of constituents (of which, this is one).
In-order to remedy and provide flexibility in relation to IoT infrastructure; there are a set of tools, that are intended to be used with the ‘Permissive Commons’ approach previously illustrated.
Whereas today’s IoT infrastructure generally binds a device to a service provider, who in-turn requires an account (and cloud service) to be created and used; as to enable the device to be useful at all; the implications of this approach is considered to have an array of significant limitations.
The ‘Human Centric’ approach; makes use of semantic web standards, in a specified way or moreover; a particular ‘business systems approach’, that is then, in-turn, able to support Internet of Things via Web of Things tools; that are in-turn able to be more flexibly supported through the use of tooling, that relates to the Tim Berners-Lee led project Solid, those similar to it; and namely therein Semantic Web Stack tooling alongside TLS (WebID-TLS).
Introducing, Web of Things.
The ‘Web of Things’ solutions framework decouples the device functionality from any vendor specific application or software interface. It achieves this through the use of Ontologies that can generically describe a thing; such as the functional qualities of a light-switch.
Ben Francis from Mozilla first demonstrates this in 2017 and has continued to post blog articles about Web of Things with Mozilla, since.
Whilst the approach considered by my articles in-effect update aspects to the published specifications for Web of Things; as to incorporate the use of DIDs & ‘permissive commons’ infrastructure alongside authentication tools such as WebID-TLS (and indirectly also WebID-OIDC); the considerations date back to 2013; whereby my early examples of ‘knowledge banking’ related functional considerations illustrated the concept of device management.
Therein; as to illustrate the considerations, amongst the more easily illustrated tools to support ‘human centric’ informatics in relation to systems; I will illustrate how WebID-TLS to describe how this might be made to work.
A WebID-TLS certificate is generated on a device that in-turn burns into the devices TLS certificate; a semantically notated URI about an agent, that is called a WebID. WebID’s are in-turn used with Authentication methods; such as WebID-OIDC, WebID-TLS amongst others; noting therein, https://graph.facebook.com/me provides an example of existing an WebID.
Thereafter; whilst WebID-TLS documentation speaks more specifically about;
- Agent:Person — there is both some disagreement about the semantics of a WebID approach; and, whether/how distinctions are made between ‘things’ and accounts used with them to denote natural persons;
The methodology i have preferentially sought to achieve employs multiple WebIDs as to authenticate the user independent to the device. This methodology is sought to be employed as to support flexibly well-defined semantics, and related use-case & interoperability support requirements.
- FOAF: this is an optional statement that is otherwise poorly declared.
The primary requirement for the WebID-[auth] URI is that it provides an RDF formatted document as to support semantic (machine-readable) functionality.
- HTTP: now DIDs provide improved flexibility
Therein; the consideration is that, ontological frameworks supported by way of permissive commons infrastructure, is then able to support private interactions with ‘smart environments’ through the use of ‘inforg’ apparatus; alongside similarly produced apparatus serving the needs of infrstructure custodians / owners; and their business systems.
IoT devices would be deployed in relation to a Named (Legal) Entity; who would be responsible for the operation of that ‘thing’, which is in-turn rendered interfaces that support the use of it by others, as defined entities or defined ‘groups’; who are in-turn able to interact with ‘things’ via semantics curating authoritative permissions and pre-defined credential requests, that are governed by legal stakeholders who have defined relationships with the environments.
The device interactivity from a functional level, is then rendered means for support by way of ontological frameworks and defined vocabulary. This vocabulary can in-turn be used with naturalised interfaces, such as voice or sensor prompted cues; and can support security requirements by pointing at pseudo-anonymous URIs relating to identifiable persons; that may in-turn be employed to support a law-enforcement request as to legally identify a person.
With respect to semantics and voice; due to semantic inferencing, services are able to do such things as translate requests from one language, to another.
Where systems relate to Network Authentication; WebID-TLS certificates on ‘things’ such as mobile devices (or smart cars) can improve support for transparent authentication, communications security (inc. DNS over TLS) whilst supporting safety and security requirements; by utilising Inforgs.
Implications for Naturalised Interfaces
What are naturalised interfaces?
The term ‘naturalised interfaces’ i found in this long video from 2007 of a talk with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. In-effect, the concept is that there are many new ways to interact with computing devices; ranging from new types of devices, through to new ways to interact with devices, many of which employ biometrics of some form.
The Implications of naturalised interfaces therefore hinges upon the capacity for information systems to be made able to make use of them. Where this relates to such things as biometrics, there are an enormous amount of privacy related considerations (moreover therein ‘dignity’) involved. The Principle differences embodied in the ‘human centric’ approach, is that these personal informatics relating to a natural persons ‘digital twin’ and the informatics systems that denote and relate to; how a natural person makes use of identifiers relating to them; to interacts with any other agent, in the human centric web approach; is made possible & available via the persons inforg, rather than necessarily requiring those capabilities for every other system.
As is considered in my article Comms & Security: ‘dignity vs. privacy’ (alongside the others) there are many integrally important constituent considerations that relate to the differences between systems that incorporate support for natural persons; as is distinct and somewhat unobtainable to those that don’t. Additional benefits also include improved functional characteristics, as the ‘deep learning’ (AI training) capabilities brought about for biometric services in relation to the person; becomes a built-in capability enhancement function, by the inforg processes the personally attributable training data; with privacy considerations, built into core business systems.
Thereafter; as is made usefully available for 3rd party systems & services,
The principle differentiation between this informatics model and those currently employed for IoT generally; is that the informatics models seperate the informatics frameworks relating to natural persons from the institutional provider of an IoT related product, service or broader ecosystem of services.
As such, the biometric identifiers relating to a natural person do not need to be provided to IoT manufacturers or related providers; as the inforg environment is designed to service those informatics needs.
Improving Business Systems flexibility
Companies, institutional and social stakeholders do not need to design their systems as to acquire and internally service all of the business systems requirements; via a particular vendor or software platform provider.
Rather, the informatics standards built upon Semantic Web technology based infrastructure, decouples devices from their vendors; as to provide meaningful beneficial ownership and control, with security (inc. privacy) considerations built in.
This in-turn impacts all societal systems that form computational relationships with natural persons; or in other words, all IoT related tools.
A Few illustrative Examples
The Household TV.
Whilst advanced internet and hybrid tv services now require a ‘log-in’ with the provider, this in-turn connects a specified user of that device, with an online account tracking (and making use of) the information collected in relation to the use of that device.
This can lead to many unintended consequences.
Should the TV be supported by way of a WebID-TLS Certificate (as is supported by HbbTV standards, amongst other things); then, the use of the device can be made semantically distinct to the users of it.
Commercial Environments
Where this relates to corporate systems & offices; semantics can be employed to link a calendar event, with the means to authenticate access to the office & building; alongside any infrastructure made available in it for use in connection to the meeting.
Where this relates to public services; such as maintenance, semantics provide the ability to qualify whether the individual service provider is suitable for the job, as to enable consideration of relevant checks; such as trade certifications, of proof of age (over 18) check; alongside safety checks such as; a ‘working with children’ or a police check; or the means to identify which adult is associated to; a child lost in a shopping centre, or provide the means to enable alerts, before the child is even found to by lost, by others in some public place.
In Conclusion
Approaches that make use of the human centric infrastructure; facilitating the means to incorporate semantics that incorporate considerations of human actors; provide a capacity for governance informatics systems to make use of ‘human centric’ ‘trusted data services’, without necessarily requiring all the details of all person, for all stakeholders, as a consequence of design issues.
Semantically permissive frameworks provide a series of accountability supportive, ecosystems tools; that can be made permissively available, as to be put to work through a trusted ecosystems approach that provides an array of new opportunities through the industrial creation of interoperable constituent parts.
Conversely; Without the means for infrastructure services to support the needs of natural persons / civilians, the cost to deploy new infrastructure services increases.
Alternatively provided ‘proprietary APIs’ can lead to additional expense; poor functionality and worsened potential issues for addressing security concerns.
Many of the functional capacities thought to be usefully applied in a human centric web approach; could be applied through the use of commercial alternatives provided by a select few from the largest 100 websites in the world; whilst others from that list, may in-fact be amongst those who first bring to market, a human centric web alternative. Indeed the technical differences between the approach communicated in my articles, vs the capabilities that could easily be provided near-term by many of those sites; is largely, on a technical basis, is of an inconsequential nature to deliver.
To deliver an alternative that makes use of the ‘human centric’ opportunities illustrated; requires far more work, by comparison to its competitors.
*** END ***
