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Monthnotes for June & July 2018

By Peter Bihr
In work
4 Min read
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Lots of travel and a brief time off means a combined summer-ish edition of month notes for June & July. A lot has happened over the last 8 or so weeks, so let’s dive right in. In no particular order…

Trustable Technology mark

The ThingsCon trustmark for IoT has a name, finally! Meet the Trustable Technology mark, or #trustabletech for short. The URL (trustabletech.com) still forwards to the trustmark page on ThingsCon.com, but will have its own place soon. The most current version of the explainer presentation is up on Slideshare:

What’s more, I’m not alone in this endeavor—far from it! More and more folks from the ThingsCon network have been giving their input, which is priceless. Also, Pete Thomas (University of Dundee) has been taking the design lead and been a great sparring partner on strategy questions, and Jason Schultz (NYU Law) has been thinking about legal and policy implications. A big thank you to Pete & Jason! I’m super excited this is moving along at such a clip.

Going forward, the next steps are to finalize and then test more extensively the checklist for the assessment that’s open for comments in this gDoc. Jason and I also just presented the trustmark at the most recent ThingsCon Salon Berlin (video below), and I’ll be presenting it again at ThingsCon Salon Cologne on August 3rd. (Thingscon.com/events has all up-to-date details.)

Media, etc.

Brand Eins interviewed me about IoT and how it challenges our notion of ownership and trust. Details in my blog post here.

My somewhat eclectic newsletter Connection Problem has completed Season 3 with just over 30 installments. I’m taking a writing break of a few weeks, and then I’ll kick off Season 4 soon. Sign up now if you want to follow along!

ThingsCon

With ThingsCon, we co-signed not one but two declarations and open letters: The Toronto Declaration about AI and human rights (initiated by AccessNow) and the Open Letter to G20 Leaders.

Travel & Events I Attended

I got to join a whole bunch of things those last few weeks.

I thoroughly enjoyed both a workshop on IoT security and market surveillance by Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, where we discussed all things certification, incentives and assessment frameworks; and the always fascinating Museum of the Future workshop in Berlin. I’d been to one in Amsterdam before, and even though I’m spoiled by greatly curated events, the group that Noah & team convene in this context is humbling and fascinating and the only thing I wished is that I could have been there full time, which this time alas wasn’t possible.

In between the two I got to go to New York City for meetings and a quick swing-by at Data & Society, as well as Toronto for the Mozilla Foundation’s all-hands where I was kindly invited to participate as a fellow. Speaking of committed & warm & driven groups!

After that, some family time in the Pacific Northwest, and a short vacation, which included a little road trip through the Cascades. What a stunning & wonderful region!

What’s next?

On one hand I’m gearing up the planning for fall. If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat.

On the other I’m pretty much heads-down to get the trustmark to the next level. This includes the nitty gritty work of both improving the trustmark assessment tool, and of lining up launch partners. It also means planning a little road show to expose this idea to more eyes and ears, including ThingsCon Salon Cologne, Mozfest, ThingsCon Amsterdam, and a few other events in between. We’re also in the middle of copy-editing the upcoming 2018 issue of the ThingsCon report “The State of Responsible IoT” (#RIoT). More on that soon.

So back to the text mines!

Have a great August.

Yours truly, P.

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Monthnotes for May 2018

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, Trustmark, work
2 Min read
M

Trustmark

What’s been happening in the world of the ThingsCon trustmark for IoT?

  • As the concept evolves, I’ve updated the trustmark deck that explains a current snapshot of my thinking and published a first (prototype/draft stage) checklist for the assessment that’s open for comments in this gDoc.
  • As part of some prep work for Dundee Design Festival with fellow Mozfellow Jon Rogers and the Open IoT Studio, I had the opportunity to spend a couple days working with Pete Thomas on the design aspects of the trustmark (visuals, naming, etc.).
  • Speaking of collaborators, I also had the chance to chat with a whole bunch of organizations in the same space to see if and how we can work together, including Ranking Digital Rights, The Digital Standard, Doteveryone, #iotmark, Consumer Reports, and the University of Dresden. More on that soon.
  • And on a more hands-on note, I got a Google AIY Voice kit and a Snips.ai kit and started playing with them.
  • We’re planning a ThingsCon Salon Berlin with a focus on the trustmark, with legal super star Jason Schultz (NYU) in mid-July. Thingscon.com/events has all up-to-date details once it’s all confirmed.
  • Got interviewed about IoT, ownership & trust, and of course the trustmark, once more—and for one of my favorite mags, no less. Exciting! I’ll share the link once it’s available.

All of this and some more is also available over on the ThingsCon blog (category: trustmark)!

Designing IoT

We had a super interesting workshop in Antwerp around IoT and ideation tool kits with designer and PhD researcher Dries de Roeck, who also hosted a ThingsCon Salon in Antwerp the evening before. So that was awesome. Thanks Dries!

What’s next?

NYC then Toronto in June for conferences and meetings. Then a family vacation break after that.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but happy to have a chat.

Have a great June!

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Monthnotes for April 2018

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, media, media coverage, Trustmark, work
2 Min read
M

Media & Trustmark

Some nice media action in April around the ThingsCon trustmark for IoT.

Offscreen Magazine kindly invited me to contribute a piece about IoT and how we can create IoT in a more responsible way. (Also, trustmark shout-out!)

The Wall Street Journal‘s cybersecurity newsletter (paywalled) did an indepth interview with me about the trustmark. Some more info about that interview over on thingscon.com.

Mozilla’s Internet Health Report featured our trustmark report from last fall.

And if you read German, I started a column over on Netzpiloten.de with a piece on risks and chances of IoT, and the role a trustmark has to play: Das IoT—Gefahren und Chancen im Internet of Things. (Full disclosure: I was project lead at Netzpiloten from 2007 to 2010, and Dearsouvenir GmbH is a joint venture between The Waving Cat GmbH and Netzpiloten AG.)

In an effort to make it easier to follow the trustmark project’s progress I also started a regular trustmark update over on ThingsCon.com (ThingsCon Trustmark Update 04/2018).

And last but not least, my co-fellows Julia Kloiber, Jon Rogers and I are also listed in the Mozilla Fellowship directory—Mozilla supports the development of the trustmark through my fellowship. (Full disclosure: My partner works for Mozilla.)

Miscellaneous ThingsCon

Also, ThingsCon is part of an EU grant proposal consortium which required a lot of paperwork. (That’s a good sign, right?)

We also had two ThingsCon Salons in Germany and some more action over in the Netherlands, both of which are easier to follow over on ThingsCon.com.

What’s next?

Between these things and lots and lots of research and conversations that will be shaping the development of the trustmark for the next few months, April was pretty packed.

I’ll be heading to Antwerp for a ThingsCon Salon and a workshop with Dries de Roeck tomorrow, and to first NYC then Toronto in June for conferences and meetings.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but happy to have a chat.

And on that note, I’m off for a last round of calls and off to the airport in the morning.

Have a great May!

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A Trustmark for IoT: Some updates

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, media, Trustmark, work
2 Min read
A

Just for the record, a few quick updates regarding my work on a trustmark for IoT.

Last year I did some research with the ThingsCon network and Mozilla about the potential of a trustmark for IoT. (Learn more about my report “A Trustmark for IoT”.) This year, we want to turn this research into action.

This is work that I’ll be doing under the ThingsCon umbrella with support from Mozilla Foundation—as of March 2018 I’m a Mozilla Fellow. (Read the ThingsCon announcement about the fellowship.) It’s an inherent part of this project to work as much in the open as possible. With this constellation in mind, the project documentation won’t happen primarily here at this blog and instead in the following places:

Also, I’m happy to report that the initiative is already getting quite a bit of attention, including an interview with the Wall Street Journal for their cybersecurity newsletter (paywall), and a mention in Mozilla’s Internet Health Report 2018. (See the media mentions round-up on the ThingsCon blog.)

Full disclosure: My partner works for Mozilla.

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Zephyr Berlin: Featured in The Craftsman

By Peter Bihr
In media, media coverage, work
1 Min read
Z

The Craftsman header

The brilliant and kind Gianfranco Chicco writes a super lovely monthly newsletter called The Craftsman. For it, he meets and interviews craftsmen (and women, obviously) around the world about their projects, products, and passions.

I’m super happy, and very much humbled, that Gianfranco approached us to feature Zephyr Berlin in the March edition (read issue #006 on Medium).

Zephyr Berlin is very much a passion project of Michelle’s and mine, and we dug deep into the craft aspect when working with our designer Cecilia. Also, I loved that he gave a shout-out to our iterated designs that feature extra deep pockets, the model we internally nick-named The Deep-Pocketed One.

Here’s the blog post over on zephyrberlin.com.

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Monthnotes for February 2018

By Peter Bihr
In work
2 Min read
M

What happened in February? I’m a little short on time today so let’s keep it short and sweet:

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The National IoT Plan in Brazil has been published by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES)—and it’s so good to see our ThingsCon & Mozilla Trustmark for IoT report picked up there.

I’m very, very happy (and to be honest, a little bit proud, too) that this report just got referenced fairly extensively. To learn more context, here’s Brazil’s National IoT Plan, concretely in Action Plan / Document 8B (PDF). (Here’s the post on Thingscon.com.)

This is exactly the kind of outsized impact I always strive and hope for.

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We’re headed for a social media winter. I think we’re arriving in the post-social media era. It’s going to be interesting to see what’s next. My money is on small, private groups (think Whatsapp chats).

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Less formal media: For somewhat more off-the-cuff, more personal takes and pointers come join my semi-personal newsletter, Connection Problem.

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More formal media: For the first time in a long time, I have some things to advocate for (responsible IoT, trustmarks, etc.) and a story to tell. So I’m looking to improve my media presence beyond the occasional, fairly random interview or article. Still figuring out how to best go about it. Any pointers are welcome!

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If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, please get in touch.

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That’s it for today. Have a great March!

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Monthnotes for January 2018

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, policy, work
5 Min read
M

January isn’t quite over, but since I’ll be traveling starting this weekend, I wanted to drop these #monthnotes now. A lot of time this month went into prepping an upcoming project which is likely to take up the majority of my time in 2018. More on that soon.

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Capacity planning: This year my work capacity is slightly reduced since I want to make sure to give our new family member the face time he deserves. That said, this year’s capacity is largely accounted for, which is extra nice given it’s just January, and it’s for a thing I’m genuinely excited about. That said, I think it’s important to work on a few things in parallel because there’s always potential that unfolds from cross-pollination; so I’m up for a small number of not-huge projects in addition to what’s already going on, particularly in the first half of the year. Get in touch.

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On Sunday, I’m off to San Francisco for a work week with the good folks at Mozilla because reasons and a number of meetings in the Bay Area. (Full disclosure: my partner works at Mozilla). Last year I’ve done some work with Mozilla and ThingsCon exploring the idea of a trustmark for IoT (our findings).

Image: commons (SDASM Archives)

Should you be in SF next week, ping me and we can see if we can manage a coffee.

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IoT, trust & voice: More and more, I’m coming around to the idea that voice is the most important—or at least most imminent—manifestation of IoT regarding user data. Voice, and how it relates to trust, is what I’ll be focusing on a lot of my work in 2018.

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User profiling in smart homes: Given my focus on voice & trust in IoT this year, I was very happy that Berlin tech & policy think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung invited me to a workshop on user profiling in smart homes. It was all Chatham House rules and I don’t want to dive into specifics at this point, but smart homes and voice assistants are worth a deep dive when it comes to trust—and trustworthiness—in IoT.

Connected homes and smart cities

Not least because (as I’ve been hammering home for a long time) the connected home and the smart city are two areas that most clearly manifest a lot of the underlying tensions and issues around IoT at scale: Connected homes, because traditionally the home was considered a private space (that is, if you look at the last 100 years in the West), and embedded microphones in smart homes means it’s not anymore. And smart cities, because in public space there is no opt-out: Whatever data is collected, processed, and acted on in public space impacts all citizens, if they want it or not. These are fundamental changes with far reaching consequences for policy, governance, and democracy.

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Worth your time: A few pointers to articles and presentations I found worthwhile:

  • Kate Crawford’s talk on bias in AI training data is ace: The Trouble with Bias [Youtube].
  • TechCrunch has a bit of a top-level explainer of GDPR, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation that goes into effect in May this year. It’s being widely lauded in Europe (except by the usual suspects, like ad-land), and been unsurprisingly criticized in Silicon Valley as disruptive regulation. (See what I did there?) So it came as a pleasant surprise to me that TechCrunch of all places finds GDPR to be a net positive. Worth 10 minutes of your time! [TechCrunch: WTF is GDPR?]
  • noyb.eu—My Privacy is none of your Business: Max Schrems, who became well-known in European privacy circles after winning privacy-related legal battles including one against Facebook and one that brought down the US/EU Safe Harbor Agreement, is launching a non-profit: They aim to enforce European privacy protection through collective enforcement, which is now an option because of GDPR. They’re fundraising for the org. The website looks crappy as hell very basic, but I’d say it’s a legit endeavor and certainly an interesting one.

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Writing & thinking:

  • In How to build a responsible Internet of Things I lay out a few basic, top-level principles distilled from years of analyzing the IoT space—again with an eye on consumer trust.
  • On Business Models & Incentives: Some thoughts on how picking the wrong business model—and hence creating harmful incentives for an organization to potentially act against its own customers—is dangerous and can be avoided.
  • I’ve been really enjoying putting together my weekly newsletter together. It’s a little more personal and interest-driven than this blog, but tackles similar issues of the interplay between tech & society. It’s called Connection Problem. You can sign up here.

I was also very happy that Kai Brach, founder of the excellent Offscreen magazine kindly invited me to contribute to the next issue (out in April). The current one is also highly recommended!

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Again, if you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, please get in touch quickly so we can figure out how best to work together.

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That’s it for January. See you in Feb!

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The Waving Cat