Back to the Future
A couple of weeks ago I took a look at some old photos from my graduation in 2008: Computer Engineering from UNICAMP (University of Campinas, Brazil). It feels like yesterday, but I miss those years. The satisfaction of finishing the immensely desired university course, but also leaving behind some seriously hard courses. There was so much to study, so much to do, that it flew by me so quickly.
When I graduated I was already in Samsung, and I never thought I would spend the next nine years there. In fact, my path within Samsung was better than I ever expected. I feel that I gradually got into the best projects, the most challenging ones.
In 2011 I had the great privilege of working on some of the first features of what would eventually become Samsung Knox. Through the years I saw it maturing into an industry-leading security framework for B2B and BYOD. I’m glad to have contributed to Keystore, Test Automation, Samsung Pay, TIMA, Trusted Boot, Remote Attestation, among other features. So many colleagues took time to help and guide me, that I just can’t enumerate them. It was certainly a ride to remember.
So many colleagues took time to help and guide me…
When leaving Samsung, I left behind some good friends; but some skills and experience will stay with me, like Software Security. What I learned will certainly help me to deal with future attacks, which will always bring scary implications and beautifully crafted logos.
A security feature that I have been studying and using for the past 3 years is the Trusted Execution Environment (terribly long name for such a great idea). It is a separate area of modern processors that can be used for sensitive data and processing. You can learn more about it from GlobalPlatform and others.
During these years I developed a lot of code, and I also developed a love for tennis. Since the first time I watched a match, I fell in love with tennis. The gallantry, the style, every single point looked like magic. Now that I’ve just moved to Berlin I hope to soon find places to play and watch it.
This leads me onto, why I moved to Berlin (and also the reason to this post) is to embark on my next challenge. Just out of curiosity, what device are you using to read this? Have you thought about all the data it is generating right now? Your device (notebook, phone, fridge, etc. It doesn’t matter) is probably gathering temperature, location, visited sites, apps used, and other information. Where is all this data going to? Nowadays, it is mostly going to hardware and software vendors and to tech giants. How they use that data? Research, marketing and profit for their own benefit. The Internet of Things is activating billions of devices around the globe. The big question is, who should own the data generated by them? There are major challenges ahead. And there are enormous opportunities as well: to make it better, to decentralize it, to move ownership back to the users.
Who should own the data generated by your devices?
Welcome Weeve to the stage… it was founded with the goal of providing a means to process and trade digital assets. Data producers and consumers will meet at marketplaces to trade geo-location data, electricity, delivery status, and others. It looks like a futuristic vision, but we see it just around the corner. I invite you to read more about it on our website: weeve.network.
Here at weeve, I can put my knowledge to work, trying to answer the question that is facing our development team: how can we use Trusted Execution Environment and Blockchain to protect and attest the data generated by IoT devices before it goes to market? (hint)
Weeve brings together IoT, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity to create an Economy of Things. These are not just buzzwords, they are here to stay and to change the world.
Please feel free to send your thoughts on all this, and to connect to weeve on our Telegram.
