A service designed on the context of a surveillance society in an increasingly connected world

Dorien Koelemeijer

August 2015

Thesis Project – Interaction Design Master’s Programme

K3, Malmö University, Sweden

Date of Examination: 20th of August, 2015

Dorien Koelemeijer

Interaction Design (M. Sc.)

info@dorienkoelemeijer.com

Supervisor:

Linda Hilf ling

Examiner:

Susan Kozel

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The privacy and surveillance issues that are consequences of the Internet of Things are the

motivation and grounding for this thesis project. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a scenario

in which physical objects are able to communicate to each other and the environment, by

transferring data over communication networks. The IoT allows technology to become smaller

and more ubiquitous, and by being integrated in the environment around us, the world is

becoming increasingly connected. Even though these developments will generally make our

lives easier and more enjoyable, the Internet of Things also faces some challenges. One of

these are the aforementioned privacy and surveillance issues that are the results of transferring

sensitive data over communication networks. The aim of this thesis project is therefore to

answer, both in a theoretical, as well as in a practical way, the following research question:

How can the Internet of Things be more accessible and safe for the everyday user?

Accordingly, the Auster online platform, the Auster app and the Data Obfuscation Kit were

developed to provide people with the tools and knowledge to construct home automation

projects themselves, as an alternative for using applications from governments and

corporations alike. The aim is to create a way to endow people with the capability to exploit

their talents, realise their visions and share this with a community joining forces. By enabling

people to create their own home automation projects, personal data is kept in the user’s

possession and the collection of data by governments and companies alike is prevented.

Moreover, by giving the control over technology back to the user, creativity and innovation in

the field of the Internet of Things in domestic environments are expected to increase.

Abstract

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Acknowledgements

Over the course of this thesis project I have received support and encouragement from a number

of people. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Linda Hilfling for her assistance

and guidance throughout the process of writing this thesis. I also wish to express my gratitude

to my dear friend Nadine Kuipers for her loyalty and proofreading of my draft. In addition, I

want to thank Kim Antonissen, Emma Raben and Franziska Tachtler for sharing their vision and

opinions on the design related aspects of this thesis project and for lifting my spirits when I was

in need of it. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents and sister for always supporting me.

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1. Introduction2. Background 2.1 From a network of computers to a connected world 2.2 Architecture of the Internet of Things 2.3 Inf luence of the Internet of Things 2.4 A user’s inf luence on the Internet of Things3. Problem domain and grounding 3.1 Privacy and security issues 3.2 Breadth and scope4. Conceptual discovery 4.1 Sousveillance 4.2 Becoming fog 4.3 Hacktivism and hacking 4.4 Do-It-Yourself5. Related work 5.1 Home automation products and services 5.2 Data sousveillance 5.3 Online (DiY) platforms6. Role of the interaction designer7. Research methods 7.1 Research Through Design 7.2 Design process8. Auster 8.1 The concept 8.2 The Auster platform 8.3 The Data Obfuscation Kit 8.4 The Auster app9. Use cases 9.1 Andreas 9.2 Emma10. Discussion and conclusion 10.1 Discussion 10.2 ConclusionReferencesImage creditsAppendices Structure of the Auster platform Analysis of the hardware base of the Data Obfuscation Kit

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Table of contents

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At the moment I’m writing, there are no technical restraints to keep humans from turning

science fiction into reality. Inventions that once seemed to come from another world -

described and presented in so many sci-fi books, films and series - progressively start to look

like our own. Last year the company Arx Pax has developed a fully functioning prototype,

called the Hendo Hoverboard (Pax, 2014-2015), inspired by the fictional levitating device

used by Marty McFly in the film Back to the Future II (Zemeckis, 1989). Even though new

technologies are used to create a range of products and services, most of these products are

generally becoming smaller and more ubiquitous, making the world around us progressively

connected. The emerging Internet of Things (henceforth IoT) will have a big inf luence on this

development. The IoT is a network of physical objects and systems, embedded with electronics,

software, sensors and connectivity. These connected devices and systems interact with each

other and the environment, by transferring big amounts of data over communication networks

(Wong & Kim, 2014). Mark Weiser already predicted this development of technology in 1991:

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves

into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. My colleagues and I

at PARC think that the idea of a ‘personal’ computer itself is misplaced, and that the vision

of laptop machines, dynabooks and ‘knowledge navigators’ is only a transitional step toward

achieving the real potential of information technology. Such machines cannot truly make

computing an integral, invisible part of the way people live their lives. Therefore we are trying

to conceive a new way of thinking about computers in the world, one that takes into account

the natural human environment and allows the computers themselves to vanish into the

background” (Weiser, 1991, p. 78).

The fact that technology has become ubiquitous is making our lives easier and often more

pleasant. There are, however, consequences of these rapidly evolving technologies, such as the

privacy and surveillance issues, that have also long been envisioned in the past. Ten years ago

Steven Spielberg directed Minority Report (Spielberg, 2002), based on a short story by Philip

K. Dick (Dick, 1998), showing a futuristic world in which the government is all-seeing and all-

knowing. The story is set in Washington D.C. in 2054, where no murder has been committed

for six years. This is due to the fact that the surveillance state uses behaviour prediction

technologies to prevent crimes before they happen. However, this technology predicts that

the Chief of the Department of Pre-Crime will become a future criminal. He f lees and is

forced to take measures in order to prevent a surveillance state that uses biometric data and

1. Introduction

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sophisticated computer networks to track its citizens. Current technology has developed so

fast, that this futuristic setting is no longer in the realm of science fiction, but has become

reality fourty years before it was anticipated. Nowadays, governments and corporations alike

are using technologies such as iris scanners, enormous databases and behaviour prediction

software that are incorporated into a cyber network, to track people’s lives, predict their

thoughts and control their behaviour by collecting personal data.1 The exploitation of this data

can lead to discrimination by insurers, employers and in the future it can even lead to genetic

spying. The Circle by Dave Eggers (Eggers, 2014), which could be described as a modern take

on George Orwell’s 1984 (Orwell, 1949), also hints at the dark side of pervasive surveillance,

and suggests that the pleasures of the consumer society will lead people to walk willingly into

their chains. The Circle, as described in the book, has taken over all the big Silicon Valley

tech companies, linking users’ personal emails, social media, banking and purchasing with

their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility

and transparency. “A couple of quick mergers could make it so. Eggers’ novel reads more like

journalism and critique than like fiction. 1984 presents a disturbing vision of what might

eventually be; The Circle pretty much describes what already is, and where it’s surely headed”

(Cowlishaw, 2014, para. 3).

The fast development of technology, as well as the increasing ease of sourcing technological

parts, has contributed to the emerging popularity of the maker culture, which can be described

as a technology-based extension of the Do-It-Yourself (DiY) culture (Dougherty, 2012). The

increasing importance of the maker culture has prompted me to reconsider the role of the

interaction designer: where it was once the task of an interaction designer to create ideas,

products, and services for the future society, I believe it has transformed to understand the

context of these ideas and to create a fitting environment or platform for these to exist in.

This thesis project aims to propose a solution for the possible scenarios that are able to occur

in the context of the Internet of Things in a surveillance society. The transferring of data is

what IoT technologies rely on; however, it is also the core of the issues. The emerging Internet

of Things will cause an increase in connected devices, mostly sensors, which function by

1 Personal data concerns any information relating to an individual who is or can be identified by data or from the data in

conjunction with other information regarding his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity (Office of

the Data Protection Commissioner, 2015).

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receiving and transmitting data. “No one really understood how the Internet was going to

affect things, and the impact of the IoT will probably be more pervasive, rolling out over

time, but affecting us more immediately and in more profound ways” (Bradbury, 2015, A

Big Brother made of little things section, para. 3). One thing is for sure: data generation will

only increase and the conclusions that can be obtained from it will become more precise and

more intrusive. Edward Snowden has warned that unless we challenge the status quo, future

surveillance will be in the hands of countries, companies and criminals (Ingham, 2015).

The problems regarding surveillance and privacy, alongside the lack of involvement of the

everyday user in the development of new technology, which substantiates Snowden’s warning,

have made me realise that the power over IoT technologies should be with everyday users. I

think the transforming role of the interaction designer can provide possibilities to improve the

engagement of the everyday user with technology, such as the IoT. Therefore, the aim of this

thesis project is to answer and find a solution to the following research question: how can the

Internet of Things be more accessible and safe for the everyday user?

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2.1 From a network of computers to a connected world

The first version of what is known today as the Internet was created in the 1960s by a group of

idealists that saw opportunities in connecting computers to each other. As a result ARPANET,

the first computer network, was developed to connect four major computers (Salus, 1995). The

Internet has evolved greatly after this, by becoming ubiquitous, faster and more accessible to the

general public (Pletikosa Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2011). Instead of only connecting computers to

each other, and allowing humans to interact with them, the newest development of the Internet

has established a network connecting digital information to real world physical items.

The exchange of information between systems or devices, by automatically transferring

data over communication networks (wired or wireless) without any manual input is the main

purpose of this integrated version of the Internet, called the Internet of Things (Wong & Kim,

2014) (Borgohain, Kumar, & Sanyal, 2015). The IoT provides the embedding of physical reality

into the Internet, and information into the physical reality. Physical objects are connected by

using sensors, computer chips, actuators, and other smart technologies to other computing

devices, such as cloud servers, computers, laptops and smartphones (daCosta, 2013). By

seamlessly integrating these physical objects into the information network, the IoT allows not

only person-to-object communication, but also object-to-object communication (Uckelmann,

Harrison, & Michahelles, 2011).

Moreover, the Internet of Things provides possibilities to exchange data not only between

devices but also between systems, enabling them to interact with each other, increasing their

efficiency, reliability and sustainability (Mukhopadhyay & Suryadevara, 2014). However,

multiple challenges still need to be addressed before the vision of IoT becomes a comfortable

reality: “The central issues are how to achieve full interoperability between interconnected

devices, and how to provide them with a high degree of smartness by enabling their adaptation

and autonomous behaviour, while guaranteeing trust, security, and privacy of the users and

their data” (Bandyopadhyay & Sen, 2011, p. 50).

2. Background

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2.2 Architecture of the Internet of Things

The IoT relies on devices or systems that share data with other devices or systems, by being

connected to communication networks. This process is achieved by an architecture consisting

of five layers, separating two different divisions with an Internet layer in between. The first

division contributes to data capturing, while the second division is responsible for data

utilisation and the distribution of applications (fig. 1).

The first division includes an edge technology layer and an access gateway layer. The edge

technology layer is the hardware layer, consisting of sensor networks, embedded systems,

RFID tags and readers, providing identification and information storage, information

collection, information processing, communication, control and actuation. The edge

technology layer is the layer a user would generally hack into in order to, for instance, create

own home automation applications. The access gateway layer handles the first stage of data,

by taking care of message routing, publishing and subscribing.

The second division consists of the middleware layer and the application layer. The

middleware layer can be envisioned as a mediator between the edge layer and the applications

layer. Functions of this layer include managing the device and information, filtering and

collection of data, accessing control and retrieving information. In other words, this layer has

the function to make sense of the data that is sent from the edge layer to the application layer.

Fig. 1: The different layers of the architecture of the Internet of Things

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Personal data protection is most needed in the middleware layer, since this data could be

sensitive and permits user profiling by governments or corporations alike. The application

layer is responsible for distributing various applications to IoT users, in the different

application domains (Bandyopadhyay & Sen, 2011). This is the only layer users get in touch

with or have control over when buying IoT applications from companies.

2.3 Influence of the Internet of Things

The aim of the Internet of Things is to enable communication between different systems and

devices, along with streamlining the interaction between humans and the virtual environment

(Borgohain, Kumar, & Sanyal, 2015). The IoT creates the possibility to connect almost

anything to the Internet, from paperclips to airplanes. Therefore, this technology finds its

application in almost any field, which makes the domain enormous. IoT technology will

provide benefits in application domains such as the automotive industry, the connected home,

the telecommunications industry, the medical and healthcare industry, the retail, logistics

and supply chain management, and the transportation industry. Even though IoT technology

is applied differently in all these distinctive domains, devices are generally equipped with

RFID technology, advanced sensors and actuators. The main purpose of implementing IoT

technology is to improve sustainability, efficiency and comfort, and decrease energy use and

overproduction (Bandyopadhyay & Sen, 2011). The aim of the connected city for example, is

to make better use of public resources, aspiring to improve the services offered to citizens,

while reducing costs. By increasing transparency, IoT technology in cities will improve

the management and maintenance of public areas, protection of cultural heritage, garbage

collection and the constitution of hospitals and schools (Zanella, Bui, Castellani, Vengelista,

& Zorzi, 2014). The healthcare application domain requires additional transparency on a

patient’s vital signs and body functions, such as glucose-level readings, blood-pressure

monitoring, abnormal heart activity and body temperature. These measurings are conducted

by body sensors and the derived information is shared with physicians and doctors, to prevent

the patient from, among other things, unnecessary check-ups and provides possibilities for

doctors to detect diseases in an early stadium (Kellmereit & Obodovski, 2013) (Turcu, Turcu &

Tiliute, 2012). The examples above already indicate that IoT applications rely on transparency,

deducible from the data generated by connected devices (Bandyopadhyay & Sen, 2011). In the

cases of connected cities and the healthcare industry, users do not have much inf luence on the

way IoT technology is applied. There is however an application domain in which the private

user has more authority: the domestic setting or the so-called connected home.

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2.4 A user’s influence on the Internet of Things

Connected devices at home enable actions such as the measuring of the productivity of home

tasks, and the tracking of people’s mood and vital signs. These actions rely on the decoding

of data that is generated by the use of unobtrusive body sensors and other connected devices.

The aim of the connected home is to adapt itself to the people living in it. Unobtrusive

body sensors improve the automatic communication with the home system, allowing better

control of temperature, light, smart appliances and security (Kellmereit & Obodovski,

2013). Moreover, users have the exciting opportunity to automate their home and control

different applications with a smartphone, or let things in the house respond and probe action

depending on various inputs and outputs (Miller, 2015). John Elliott makes the following

predictions about home appliances that are improving the standard of living by collecting the

user’s personal data: “All major appliances are going to be connected, and the value of the

information from major appliances will be worth a lot for those appliance manufacturers. Not

only will they discover usage patterns, but also ways to better manage marketing and supply

chain around parts replacement by staying connected with their installed base.” He continues:

“Even though the primary use case in the example I gave is an opportunity to syndicate data

externally to appliance manufacturers, there will be an interest in this data in the long haul by

other parties. Some of the new entrants, like Google, have a very different view on the value

of data, and as they wake up to this opportunity you may see them investing more heavily and

creating a sort of platform for home appliance data” (As cited in Kellmereit & Obodovski,

2013, p. 137). The data that can be obtained from IoT technology in the connected home is not

more sensitive or important than in the other application domains. However, people have the

power and authority in their own home to decide which products and services they want to

have installed, and how these are used. Accordingly, the focus of this thesis project will be on

the protection of personal data and the possibilities of IoT technology in the connected home.

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3. Problem domain and grounding

Along with the potential benefits offered, the adoption of the Internet of Things also raises

some concerns. The explosion of sensors, devices and other technologies connected to the

Internet naturally result in an increase of data generation and data exchange. “With the

development of the IoT, it appears that the physical world is transforming into an information

system itself, where data is being communicated between different devices, thus enabling

them to sense and decipher the continuous f low of data” (Skaržauskienė & Kalinauskas, 2012,

p. 109). IoT applications generally rely on the analysis of personal data in order for them to

function properly, which can provoke privacy and surveillance issues. Moreover, the scope and

consequences of the enormous increase of connected devices should not be underestimated.

3.1 Privacy and security issues

The IoT relies on the automatic exchange of vast amounts of data, communicated between

systems or devices by automatically transferring data over communication networks

(Borgohain, Kumar, & Sanyal, 2015). All this data needs to be processed in order for the

devices to respond correctly to each other, and to the environment they are in. Although

the decoding of the enormous amounts of data is a problem, the bigger issue concerns the

information that can be extracted from this data and who can obtain it. Especially the collection

and analysis of real-time data in IoT applications may challenge the privacy of the user. The

data retrieved at distinct times allows governments, providers or third parties to come into the

possession of extra knowledge by cross-examining the data within a specific timeframe (Wong

& Kim, 2014). In the sections underneath I will introduce the concept and implications of data

surveillance, and express which aspects of data surveillance are of current concern.

3.1.1 Data surveillance

The notion of a ‘surveillance society’ where every aspect of people’s private life is monitored

and recorded, still seems like an abstract and paranoid phenomenon to many people; the

danger and impact of an increase in surveillance by governments and private sectors is often

not acknowledged. One of the reasons that the dangers of surveillance are generally not

recognised is because many people think they are only surveilled by cameras. However, a

new type of surveillance, data surveillance, is becoming more common and powerful. Even

though data surveillance is less visible than video surveillance, it is presumably more intrusive

(Stanley & Steinhardt, 2003).

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Data surveillance encompasses the observing of people’s online behaviours, and makes tracking

and profiling through the exploitation of personal data even more dominant. Edward Snowden

revealed that all online actions, such as researching topics of interest, writing personal emails,

debating political issues, seeking support for intimate problems and many other purposes that

can result in the assembly of private information, are being recorded (Snowden, 2013). Even

leisure activities, such as being on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which are intended to

entertain and relax, simultaneously trick people into generating vast amounts of data. Although

a specific piece of data about a person is harmless, when enough pieces of similar data are

assembled it can result in a detailed and intrusive picture of an individual’s life and habits, and

it can almost give the data collector a look into a person’s mind.

3.1.2 Implications

Data has been collected in databases for over a century, but is no longer only in the possession

of accountants, analysts and scientists: “New technologies have made it possible for a wide

range of people – including humanities and social science academics, marketers, governmental

organisations, educational institutions, and motivated individuals – to produce, share,

interact with and organise data. Massive data sets that were once obscure and distinct are

being aggregated and made easily accessible” (Boyd & Crawford, 2011, p. 2). This means

that not only the government will have access to personal data, but also insurance companies

and future employers (Stanley & Steinhardt, 2003). Issues of financial as well as social

discrimination could arise.2 The conclusions derived from personal data collection are based

on propensities, which may result in the making of decisions on the basis of assumptions

(Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier, 2013). This can lead to bad decision making by organisations,

resulting in service denial. Service denial is known to occur in numerous contexts including

government licensing, financial services, transport, and even health. There is a chance the

individual is not even aware of a decision, or about the basis on which it was made (Mayer-

Schonberger & Cukier, 2013).

2 For instance, bank managers could restrict loans to residents of certain areas in a city. In addition, a future employer might not

hire a person based on information about their sexual or political preferences, retrieved by looking at their online behaviour and

data. Or if an individual’s data indicates that they are not having a healthy lifestyle or, conversely, are participating in extreme

sports, insurance costs might be increased.

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Another issue is the distributing of anonymous information. Even though the information

is anonymous, it is often fairly easy to de-anonymise it. “In October 2006, the movie rental

service Netf lix launched the ‘Netf lix prize.’ The company released 100 million rental records

from nearly half a million users – and offered a bounty of a million dollars to any team that

could improve its film recommendation system by at least ten percent. Personal identifiers had

been carefully removed from the data. And yet, a user was identified: a mother and a closeted

lesbian in America’s conservative Midwest” (Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier, 2013, p. 67).3 This

example illustrates how easy it is to de-anonymise so-called anonymous information. It also

points out how information that seems innocent, like film and TV preferences, can reveal

detailed information about a person.

3.1.3 Control society

The concept of data surveillance can be compared to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, as

described by Michel Foucault: “The major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a

state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So

to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it discontinuous in its

action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that

this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation

independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a

power situation of which they are themselves the bearers” (Foucault, 1977, p. 440).

The functionality of the Panopticon thrives on two aspects. One aspect encompasses the fact

that the surveilled person is visible, while the observer remains invisible. The other aspect

is a consequence of the first and concerns the asymmetrical nature of surveillance, which is

characteristic of an unbalanced power relationship. Both these aspects lead to an embodiment

of surveillance: there is no way of knowing whether someone is being observed or not, so

the observed person feels and acts as if always being surveilled. Foucault describes this

phenomenon as part of the disciplinary societies.

Gilles Deleuze introduces the notion that societies of control are replacing the disciplinary

societies. He writes the following: “‘control’ is the name Burroughs proposes as a term for the

3 Research has pointed out that it is possible to identify a Netflix customer 99 percent of the time, by comparing films watched on

Netflix with ratings on the Internet movie database (IMDb) website in a specific time frame (Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier, 2013).

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new monster, one that Foucault recognises as our immediate future. Virilio also is continually

analysing the ultra rapid forms of free-f loating control that replaced the old disciplines

operating in the time frame of a closed system” (Deleuze, 1992, p. 4). The essential difference

between the two systems is that in the case of control societies, surveillance is no longer bound

to a specific environment, such as factories, schools or prisons, but, as Deleuze describes, “the

corporation has replaced the factory, and the corporation is a spirit, a gas” (Deleuze, 1992, p.

4). The control society therefore increases the invisibility of surveillance and hereby expands

the embodiment of surveillance.

3.1.4 Surveillance in a world of connected things and beings

As Deleuze already implied, surveillance nowadays is everywhere, but rarely observed. The

emerging Internet of Things is tried to be made invisible by integrating it into buildings,

objects and bodies, allowing technology to be more interwoven in our lives than ever (Mann &

Niedzviecki, Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable, 2001).

“The explosion of computers, cameras, sensors, wireless communication, GPS, biometrics, and

other technologies in just the last 10 years is feeding a surveillance monster that is growing

silently in our midst. Scarcely a month goes by in which we don’t read about some new high-tech

way to invade people’s privacy, from face recognition to implantable microchips, data-mining,

DNA chips, and even ‘brain wave fingerprinting.’ It seems as if there are no longer any technical

barriers to the Big Brother regime portrayed by George Orwell” (Stanley & Steinhardt, 2003, p. 1).

The Internet of Things (and technology in general) is developing at such a speed that adaption

of the legal system and the enactment of new laws and regulations have no time to take place.

To this day, it is undecided who will have the rights over the data generated by IoTs. Experts

announce that privacy is a big problem, but finding or developing the perfect concepts for absolute

data protection, privacy and security is probably not feasible (Witchalls & Chambers, 2013). The

impact of the IoT in the future will be huge and I therefore find the lack of solutions to solve the

aforementioned privacy and surveillance issues worrying.

3.1.5 Building on a worst case scenario

One of the reasons that user profiling, based on personal data, is built on propensities and

assumptions, is because it is not always possible to distract useful information from collected

data. As described earlier, one of the challenges of the Internet of Things is the decoding of

the big amounts of data.

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The data people generate is analysed by algorithms, on which a general profile of a person is

built.4 A whistle-blower at the Transmediale festival stated that it is absolutely impossible for

the NSA to handle the shear amount of data (Transmediale, 2015). It needs to be emphasised

that the cases above, introducing the privacy and surveillance issues, consist partly of worst case

scenarios. Boyd & Crawford stated that data sets that were once cryptic are being accumulated

and made easily accessible for governmental organisations, education institutions, and motivated

individuals. The consequences that can become results of the fact that not only governments have

access to personal data, but also insurance companies and future employers, will presumably not

affect most of the general public (Boyd & Crawford, 2011). Stanley and Steinhardt increase this

paranoia by explaining that new technology is invented to invade people’s privacy, in order to

feed a ‘surveillance monster’. There is no doubt that data collection and exploitation are used for

profiling, however, most of the scenarios described above are worst case scenarios that will not

affect a big percentage of people.

Nonetheless, I think the enforcement of paranoia (when for instance talking about a

‘surveillance monster’) is a concern, since it emphasises the embodiment of surveillance. The

people that are aware of what their personal data can provoke, might feel unsafe or spied upon

online, even if they are conscious of the probability of these consequences becoming a reality.

Conversely, there is a concern, as Smith points out, regarding people that are incautious or

uninformed when it comes to privacy and security issues. Moreover, unlike desktop and

mobile computing platforms where security has been an open concern for many years now,

embedded software is notoriously buggy, unaudited and potentially very dangerous (Smith,

Physical: Home, 2015). The uncertainty regarding the privacy laws of the emerging Internet of

Things is another concern. Until privacy laws have been set, companies have ownership and

control over their users’ personal data. Moreover, since IoT technology can collect information

on one’s physical functions and the use of devices at home, and more importantly the relation

between those, there is a possibility to derive a detailed impression of an individual’s life.

The aim of this thesis project is therefore to design on the context of a worst case scenario in

the unknown future of surveillance in a connected world. A slight notion of paranoia regarding

the surveillance society will be implemented in the execution, not with the aim to enforce the

embodiment of surveillance, but, on the contrary, to raise awareness and stimulate ref lection

on the implications of the IoT.

4 Data mining algorithms consist of a set of queries and calculations that create a data mining model from data. The algorithm

analyses the data, looking for specific patterns or trends. The results of this analysis define the optimal parameters for creating

the mining models. Subsequently, these parameters are applied across the entire data set to extract patterns and detailed statistics

(Microsoft, 2015).

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3.2 Breadth and scope

Comparing the traditional Internet to the emerging Internet of Things, the distinctions

are immediately apparent. The data networks of the traditional Internet have been over

provisioned: they are built with more capacity than is required for the amount of information

that is needed. This architecture of the Internet was developed before people had envisioned

to connect billions of devices to the Internet (daCosta, 2013). Now, a new era of ubiquity

is approaching, which will consist of billions of embedded electronic measuring devices

connected to the Internet, and where humans are becoming a minority as generators and

receivers of the information that is being communicated between these devices (Evans, 2011).

“Extending this thinking, simply scanning for hundreds of billions of IPv6 addresses would

take literally hundreds of years. It is one thing to put addresses on nearly a trillion devices,

but quite another to find and manage one device out of that constellation” (daCosta, 2013, p.

72). As the Internet of Things revolution advances, the challenges that are evident now will

only become more severe. Moreover, the incredible breadth and scope of new technology, and

the uncertainty of the consequences, will leave people feeling overwhelmed and unprepared.5

Accordingly, I find it crucial that people gather insight and control over ubiquitous technology,

in furtherance of stimulating IoT technology to be more accessible and closer to the user,

in contradiction to the current scenario where technology is dominated and controlled by

governments and private corporations.

5 Another concern is that the billions of embedded electronic devices and gadgets, that are a result of the unimaginable scope of the

IoT, are likely to be outdated in a couple of years. Outdated devices will constantly need to be replaced with new devices, resulting

in big amounts of electronic waste.

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4. Conceptual discovery

4.1 Sousveillance

If the surveillance and privacy issues that are consequences of the Internet of Things will

not be solved, a worst case scenario could be that the world will turn into an Orwellian

Panopticon, in which every thought or action is recorded. An act of dissidence against the

spying eyes of the surveilling government is ‘sousveillance’, a term first coined by Steve

Mann in 2002 (Mann, “Sousveillance” Inverse Surveillance in Multimedia Imaging, 2004).

Sousveillance can be described as a counteraction of surveillance and inherits its name from

the French words for sous which means below and veiler to watch. The name suggests that

surveillance is carried out by people in low places, rather than governments and the private

sector in high places (Mann, Nolan, & Wellman, Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable

Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments, 2003). The concept

of sousveillance is to empower people to access and collect data about their observer, and by

doing so, neutralise surveillance. This method of contra surveillance leads to a distortion of

the Panopticon; the invisible is made visible, resulting in a decrease of asymmetry regarding

the power relationship. Sousveillance can also be used as a form of personal space protection,

which resonates with Gary Marx’s proposal to escape surveillance through non-consent and

interference techniques that block, distort, mask and refuse the collection of information

(Marx, 2009). Two examples that employ this method of sousveillance are described in the

chapter with related work (see Chapter 5.2).

4.2 Becoming fog

Sousveillance as a form of personal space and data protection can be achieved through data

obfuscation, by applying techniques such as blocking, distorting, masking or refusing the

collection of information by governments or data-mining companies. The consequence of

this method can be described as creating fog, which can be regarded as a vital response and

interference of the imperative of transparency, that control imposes: “Haze disrupts all the

typical coordinates of perception. It makes indiscernible what is visible and what is invisible,

what is information and what is an event. Fog makes revolt possible” (Tiqqun, 2010, p. 49).

A proposal to become ‘fog’ as an act of sousveillance, by creating opacity zones within the

realm of surveillance in the Internet of Things, is fruitful in the sense that it will not only

increase the feeling of safety, but will additionally stimulate creativity and experimentation.

A suggested method to create ‘fog’ in one’s home is to consider hacktivism or hacking as

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an act of sousveillance. In this case, Do-It-Yourself as a method of hacking and as an act of

sousveillance is an interesting direction, since it authorises people to regain control over the

data they generate, but it also empowers them to exploit their talents, realise their visions and

share this with a community joining forces.

4.3 Hacktivism and hacking

The term ‘hacking’ should not be confused with ‘cracking’. Eric Raymond, the author of

The Cathedral and the Bazaar (Raymond, 1999), explained this difference by making an

appropriate distinction between hackers, who build things, and crackers, who destroy things

(Von Busch & Palmas, 2006). The term ‘hacktivism’ was first coined in 1995 by Jason

Sack, and is a contraction of the words ‘hacking’ and ‘activism.’ Decentralising control

and empowering will are the main purposes of hacktivism, and are generally achieved by

“exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness” (Stallman, 2002,

para. 8), or “the beating of a system through intellectual curiosity” (Von Busch & Palmas,

2006, p. 29). The exploration of these limits is done in different ways, depending on the goal

of the hack, but it mainly builds on the idea of customisation. However, hacking goes beyond

customisation. It instead focuses on the direct interventions in the functional systems and

operations of a machine or device, to make technology work the way one wants. This can be

achieved by using parts in unexpected ways, or making projects by building on those of others.

By this means, the domestic environment can be reclaimed and reshaped in the way the hacker

envisions it. The goal is not necessarily to create something unique, but rather to use parts in

unanticipated ways and to create cross-over techniques, in order not to be forced to adapt a

defined way of using technology. However, the reclaiming of authorship of a technology, by

encouraging transparency and unexpected practices, can also be a purpose of hacking (Von

Busch & Palmas, 2006). Arduino is a piece of hardware that has these particular qualities, and

additionally has the ability to serve as a possibility to hack into the edge technology layer,

described in the infrastructure of the Internet of Things.

The hacker ethos is based on collaboration and the sharing of information. Through hacking,

the purpose of a technology can be transformed and re-appropriated by building on existing

code, or a new commons can be shared for everyone to explore and augment. This ethic is

grounded in the Do-It-Yourself (DiY) culture, and evolved into the academic hacking subculture

with the introduction of computers. The software on the computers then was open source and

was shared amidst users and programmers. Academics discovered the potential of hacking

and reusing code to circumvent unwanted limitations. Hacking, therefore, can be regarded as

a “critical as well as a playful activity circling around a DiY approach to the means for our

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interaction with the world. A hack can be seen as a deeper intervention of customisation” (Von

Busch & Palmas, 2006, p. 30).

4.4 Do-It-Yourself

As the term Do-It-Yourself implies, it can be defined as an activity in which amateurs make

products or services for their own purposes, instead of buying these from professional retailers

that offer finished products. The activity of DiY validates the creative nature of people, and

provides feelings of ‘being their own boss’ (Hoftijzer, 2009).

Ever since the introduction of the first computers DiY has existed, but it was then considered

hacking as it involved the customisation of computers and software. DiY nowadays thrives

on giving people the opportunity to create personalised artefacts or to customise existing

applications to fulfil their visions. Leadbeater and Miller state that the customisation aspect

of DiY establishes “a form of everyday resistance to the alienating effects of contemporary

society, which is characterised by excessive consumerism, globalisation and economic

inequalities between persons and groups, alienating us from our environment and ourselves”

(as cited in Uckelmann et al., 2011, p. 38). Although these aspects are also important for DiY

practices regarding new technology at home, the main advantage is to give people back the

control over their own data and let them decide how to use it for context-awareness at any

time. Hacking as a DiY practice could provide opportunities to give people back their control,

following the five aspects of hacking from Anna Galloway:

- Access to a technology and knowledge about it (‘transparency’)

- Empowering users

- Decentralising control

- Creating beauty and exceeding limitations

- Using the intelligence of many for innovation, since the hacker ethic is based on

collaboration, sharing and the reuse of code (Galloway, 2004).

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5. Related work

In addition to the state of the art of the IoT (see Chapter 2), various examples of related work

are described in this chapter. Different home automation products and services, such as the Nest

Thermostat and Homey, along with an example of a self-made home automation project, are

explored. Additionally, the works AdNauseam and Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. were analysed and

described, in order to provide a better understanding of sousveillance as a method for personal

data protection. Furthermore, several online DiY platforms and websites with the focus on IoT

projects were examined to gain insight into the state of the art in this subfield, alongside the

functionality and design of these platforms.

5.1 Home automation products and services

5.1.1 Nest Thermostat

The Nest Thermostat (fig. 2) is a smart thermostat that is able to recognise patterns regarding

a user’s temperature preferences over time, and by this means aims to save energy in the

domestic environment. The Nest Thermostat is capable to detect when a user has left the home,

and, subsequently, adapts the temperature. Furthermore, the Nest app provides the user with

possibilities to control the thermostat with the use of a smart phone (Nest, 2014). The Nest

Thermostat is an example of a popular smart home product, and substantiates the advantages

of home automation in the fields of heat, light, presence and motion.

Fig. 2: The Nest Thermostat

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However, it is a product that relies heavily on the data generated by its users. As such, it

can be stated that the Nest Thermostat is a related work, as well as an example of a home

automation project linked to a data mining company (considering the fact that Google bought

the Nest Thermostat and Nest in early 2014). Sacha Segan states the following: “The Internet

of Things is at an early stage. A clear trend from CES 2014 was that over the next three years,

we’re going to try to connect everything to everything else. Phones are being reinvented as

“sensor hubs” that collect data, interpret and analyse it. There’s a land grab going on for the

best expertise and infrastructure in this new, growing field, and Google wants to have a strong

position early” (Segan, 2014, The “Internet of Things” is at an early stage section, para. 1).

5.1.2 Homey

Homey is a voice-controlled home automation system, enabling users to control many different

applications in the home; from lights to music, from temperature to TV. The service consists of

multiple wireless technologies enabling connections to wireless devices, and congregates these

on a single platform which connects to the Internet (Øredev, 2015). Homey is an interesting

example of a related work since it includes an interactive f low-editor, empowering the user to

‘program’ different parameters to respond to each other, without the use of code. By this means

it aims to increase the accessibility for the everyday user. However, the accessibility remains

limited considering the fact that the user is restricted to controlling the application layer of the

system. Homey offers another interesting approach to increase the accessibility and influence

of the everyday user by providing its own app store, in which apps of other users can be found.

By this means, it intends to increase collaboration and sharing between users in an original and

innovative way (Athom, 2014). Nevertheless, it remains unclear how safe these (self-made) apps

are, and to what extent personal data is protected.

5.1.3 DiY home automation

The following section describes a project of a home automation enthusiast and is chosen as

a related work, because it gives insight into the opportunities and capabilities of hacking

and constructing self-made home automation projects with the use of an Arduino. Moreover,

it indicates the possibility of replacing products and services that are usually distributed

by governments and data mining corporations with self-made projects, which decreases the

exposure of personal data to these aforementioned companies.

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“I made a quick web interface to turn stuff on and off from the Internet. I put the plug sockets on

loads of things in my house (fig. 3) - various lights, appliances (like my espresso machine), and I even

ripped one of them apart and connected it to my boiler so I can control my heating. It’s been a fun

project replicating the functionality of Internet of Things consumer products like the Belkin WeMO

system (£40 per socket) and the Nest Thermostat (around £200). I hack in new features when I have

time or get an idea - e.g. I’ve set the lights to come on just before sunset (a different time every day),

in the winter I have the heating come on automatically when I leave work so the house is warm and

my coffee machine is ready by the time I get back! I’ve also added in a few sensors, so I can turn off

the lights if there’s nobody in the room etc. It’s also handy when I’m away from home - I can turn off

the heating, and set the lights on random timers for security” (Smith, Physical: Home, 2015).

5.2 Data sousveillance

5.2.1 AdNauseam

Sousveillance can be used as a method to protect personal data, which resonates with Gary

Marx’s proposal to escape surveillance through non-consent and interference techniques that

block, distort, mask and refuse the collection of information (Marx, 2009) (see Chapter 4.1). A

related work and example of sousveillance that employs this method is the browser extension

AdNauseam (which only works when AdBlock is installed), which automatically and blindly

clicks all the ads on the websites users visit. Moreover, it registers a visit on the ad network’s

database. Since every single ad is clicked, user profiling, targeting and surveillance become

unprofitable. The purpose is not only to obfuscate browsing data and protect users from

surveillance, it also “amplifies the users’ discontent with advertising networks that disregard

privacy and facilitate bulk surveillance agendas” (Nissenbaum, Howe, & Mushon, 2014, para. 2).

Fig. 3: Hacked plug sockets (Smith, Andy Smith: Digital Media Portfolio, 2015)

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5.2.2 Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc.

Another example is Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc., which is an act of ‘extreme capitalism’, as she

describes it herself. “Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. has advanced into the inevitable next stage of

Capitalism by becoming an incorporated person. This model allows you to turn your health,

genetics, personality, capabilities, experience, potential, virtues and vices into profit” (Morone,

2014, Life Means Business section). The concept is to track one’s own data at all times by

recording online behaviour, mobile behaviour and offline behaviour with the use of an Arduino

and wearable sensors. “By mining, collecting and indexing as much data about oneself as

possible, you can gain valuable insights and intelligence specific to your operation” (Morone,

2014, Why Are We Building DOME? section). In Morone’s case sousveillance is applied to

protect personal data by collecting and keeping ownership over it. The reason behind the work

is not necessarily based on the implications of surveillance, but rather those of capitalism.

AdNauseam and Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. are interesting examples, considering the fact that

they highlight different tactics of sousveillance in the digital Panopticon, both relying on the

aspect of obfuscating personal data. AdNauseam obfuscates data through multiplication and

distortion, and by this means negates the reliability of the generated data. Conversely, Jennifer

Lyn Morone, Inc. employs sousveillance by containing and shielding the generated data in

furtherance of obfuscating it. The sousveillance tactic AdNauseam applies is suitable when

the purpose is to protect generated data from being used for profiling in order to prosecute

targeted advertisements, because, as described before, it does not only make the generated

data unprofitable, but it also emphasises the users’ discontent. Moreover, AdNauseam employs

a tactic that is well-chosen, as well as obvious: AdNauseam is granted with a straightforward

possibility to multiplicate and distort data, since there is the potentiality to automatically

click every ad on visited websites. The opportunity to practice multiplication and distortion

as a tactic for Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc.’s example is less suitable, since there are no apparent

opportunities to generate big amounts of random data. Furthermore, the generated personal

data in this example is very sensitive, containing information about a user’s lifestyle, habits

and body functions. It is therefore advisable to completely shield the generated data in

furtherance of entirely protecting it. As such, it can be stated that different purposes of

sousveillance call for different tactics of data obfuscation, which the examples of AdNauseam

and Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc., illustrate very well.

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5.3 Online (DiY) platforms

The different online DiY platforms that are elaborated in the following section are chosen

to shed light on various manners to support and motivate hacking and DiY in a range of

fields, along with providing information on the state of the art of (self-made) IoT projects.

Postscapes, for instance, is an online platform that tracks and gathers the most recent

developments of the IoT by displaying projects and devices, sorted in different categories

such as body, home, city and industry (Postscapes, 2015). Along with the clear and structured

manner of presenting the projects, Postscapes gives an excellent overview of the possibilities

and developments in the realm of the IoT. Instructables also offers an overview of IoT projects

and tutorials, supported by Intel, on one of the sections of the platform (Instructables, 2015).

Instructables was chosen as a related work due to the fact that the platform provides step-by-

step tutorials, created by the everyday user, for the everyday user, and by doing so supports

DiY in many different fields. However, the lack of structure in the uploading process, along

with the distracting design of the website, result in tutorials that are often chaotic and difficult

to follow. Kickstarter, just as Instructables, showcases projects in a range of categories.

The purpose of Kickstarter, however, is to provide users with a chance to pitch and get

their projects funded for further development, as opposed to providing tutorials on projects

(Kickstarter, 2015). Kickstarter, as a related work, provides insight into the uploading process

and methods of (crowdfunding) projects. In addition, the platform indicates the high level of

creativity and innovation of projects created by, among others, everyday users in the field of

IoT, alongside many other fields.

In furtherance of making DiY a successful practice, numerous platforms grant a place for

collaboration and community building, in different manners. Instructables, for instance,

supports collaboration by providing tutorials. Other platforms, such as Github and Stack

Overf low, encourage collaboration between users through the exchange of code. Github offers

a place for collaboration, code review and code management for open source and private

projects, by providing users with opportunities to share their projects with the necessary code

included (Github, 2015). Stack Overf low is another platform concentrated on code review and

code management. However, instead of sharing code in the form of projects, Stack Overf low

offers a question and answer based format for professional and amateur programmers to solve

programming problems through the exchange of code (Stack Overf low, 2015). Stack Overf low

and Github are related works that highlight the importance of collaboration, by pointing out

that amateur programmers are able to solve programming issues with the help of other (more

experienced) users, based on a question and answer method, and the sharing of code.

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6. Role of the interaction designer

In the introduction is described how there are no longer any technical restraints to create many

bizarre applications, presented in science fiction films and books. The increasingly popular

maker culture has the potential to enable people to turn these sci-fi inspired applications into a

reality. The chapter about the conceptual discovery pointed out that hacking as a DiY practice

(see Chapter 4.3 and 4.4) is a fruitful method to give control back to users and to help them

reclaim the domestic environment through the use of ‘transparent’ tools and customisation.

This empowers the user to construct numerous applications and prevents them from being

enforced to buy IoT applications from the government or corporations alike. The benefits of

hacking as a DiY practice, as part of the maker culture, emphasise the potentially shifting

role of the interaction designer: where it was once the task of an interaction designer to create

ideas, products, and services for the future society, it has transformed to ref lect and act on the

context of the development of new technology, and to create a fitting environment or platform

for this context. The role of the interaction designer in this case is to understand and design

for the context of the privacy and surveillance issues of the IoT and its implications, along

with the concerns regarding the user’s involvement. The proposed direction is to create a

platform which permits the everyday user to create ‘fog’ in their own home, by performing

an act of sousveillance. A place should be designed where people have “the right to privacy;

the right to be calm when they require it; the right to make autonomous decisions and control

their surrounding electronic environment and the right to be the master of their own identity in

machine systems” (as cited in Uckelmann et al., 2011, p. 30). This can be achieved by applying

hacking as a method: by providing the user with the right tools, inspiration and knowledge,

they are given the opportunity to construct and control their own home automation projects.

Accordingly, it permits the user to make a range of projects, from automatic pet feeders to

secure health trackers, but also projects inspired by their favourite sci-fi book or film, while at

the same time being assured that these are created in a publicly engaged and safe environment.

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7. Research methods

7.1 Research Through Design

Research Through Design (RtD) is “a research approach that employs methods and processes from

design practice as a legitimate method of inquiry”, and was the chosen approach for this project

(Zimmerman, Stolterman, & Forlizzi, 2010, p. 310). This RtD approach has been employed by

applying several different research methods throughout the design process, consisting of both de-

sign-based research, as well as other forms of research. Obrenović stated the following about de-

sign-based research: “While design itself adds discipline and professional attitude to tacit, implicit,

and intuitive knowledge and skills, design-based research may be viewed as an attempt to increase

awareness of such knowledge and to support, capture, generalize, and share this knowledge beyond

the design community” (Obrenović, 2011, p. 59). The different practiced research methods have

occurred in an iterative manner, which can be explained by the fact that “design problems are often

full of uncertainties about both the objectives and their priorities, which are likely to change as the

solution implications begin to emerge. Problem understanding evolves in parallel with the problem

solution, and many components of the design problem cannot be expected to emerge until some

attempt has been made at generating solutions” (Željko Obrenović, p. 57). The following section aims

to chronologically describe my design process in more detail, and introduces the different methods

implemented in each phase in order to give more insight into the decisions made during this process.

7.2 Design process

7.2.1 Field research: first round

Ethnographic research, as David R. Millen states, typically includes field work or field research.

The aim is, as described by Blomberg and her colleagues, “to provide designers with a richer

understanding of the work settings and context of use for the artefacts that they design” (as cited by

Millen, 2000, p. 280). The first round of field research concentrated on exploring and understanding

the context of the subject of this thesis project and was carried out by firstly attending the

Transmediale festival in Berlin, Germany (Transmediale, 2015). The topic of the Transmediale

festival was ‘Capture All’, fostering a critical understanding of how the development of technology

is influencing daily life, now and in the near future. Furthermore, I was present at different talks

concerning the Internet of Things at Media Evolution City in Malmö, Sweden (Media Evolution

City, 2015). Alongside the infrastructure of the Internet of Things, the main topics discussed at

these talks were the security and privacy concerns. The knowledge gained from this first round

of field research permitted me to establish a basic understanding of the state of the art of the

IoT, particularly regarding the concerns that are consequences of this emerging technological

27

development. Both events spelled out that many of these concerns are related to the fact that the

infrastructure of the IoT (and frequently technology in general) is controlled by governments and

corporations alike. The consequences of the IoT were taken as a starting point and grounding for

this thesis, and it was determined that the solution would be focused on the decentralisation of

control, by enabling technology to be more accessible for the general public. At this stage the first

version of the research question was formulated, and the idea of creating an online DiY platform

and a construction kit was formed. However, the manner in which these would be developed and

framed were still undecided.

7.2.2 Literature-based research

Literature-based research as a method consists of reading through, analysing and sorting literatures

“in order to identify the essential attribute of materials. The conduction of literature-based

research consists of grasping sources of relevant researches and scientific developments and

understanding what predecessors in a specific field have achieved, alongside the progress made by

other researchers” (Lin, 2009, p. 179). Literature-based research has been conducted throughout

the design process, but has generally been employed to establish a better understanding of the

background and state of the art of the IoT, along with clarifying the problem domain. The chapters

about the background, and the problem domain and grounding are therefore largely dependent on

my interpretation of scientific articles and specialised literature in the form of digitised books.

After having researched the privacy and surveillance issues regarding the IoT in more depth,

along with the consequences of the lack of the user’s involvement, I was able to refine the research

question. The formulation of the research question was followed by the exploration of literature

focused on escaping surveillance and decentralising control as methods and onsets for possible

solutions, described in the conceptual discovery. Especially the description of Von Busch &

Palmas of hacking and hacking as a DiY practice (see Chapter 4.3), combined with the findings on

sousveillance (see Chapter 4.1), provided a grounding and a suitable framing for the project (Von

Busch & Palmas, 2006). In addition to the scientific and specialised literature, philosophic literature

was consulted to establish an extra layer of understanding and a different perspective on the topics

discussed in the conceptual discovery.

7.2.3 Analysis of related work

Alongside the literature-based research, part of the conceptual discovery consists of an analysis of

related works. Two critical design pieces, AdNauseam and Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc., that focus

on sousveillance through data obfuscation, were analysed. Critical design, as Dunne and Raby

describe is “a form of design that questions the cultural, social and ethical implications of emerging

technologies” (Dunne and Raby, 2015, para. 27). The analysis of these two works have prompted

me to apply sousveillance as a method and a way of framing the concept of Auster, and provided

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inspiration for the overall idea.

Furthermore, several Do-It-Yourself platforms, and platforms which focus on the progression of the

IoT provided new insights and inspiration for the project. The platforms I reviewed were Postscapes,

Instructables, Adafruit, Kickstarter, Github and Stack Overflow. The review of these platforms

was conducted in the process of sketching the design and functionality of the online platform,

and resulted in an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the aforementioned

platforms. I realised that my concern with several platforms, such as Instructables, Kickstarter

and Github, is the lack of overview as a result of the many categories they try to cover. The main

inspiration for the design of the Auster platform was obtained by reviewing Kickstarter, whereas

Instructables has aided me in developing the functionality of the Auster platform. The exploration

of Github and Stack Overflow have contributed to developing aspects related to collaboration and

the sharing of code during the sketching and ideation phase of the online platform. In furtherance

of making informed decisions on the inclusion of tools in the Data Obfuscation Kit, inspiration

was obtained from analysing websites that offer construction kits, such as Arduino and Adafruit. In

addition, I studied tutorials on home automation projects to determine what the most used sensors

and actuators in this field are. Moreover, I have described and compared the different specifications

of the Arduino and Raspberry Pi in order to decide which hardware to adopt for the base of the

construction kit (see Appendix).

7.2.4 Field research: second round

The analysis of related work, and the sketching and ideation phase of the Auster platform and the

construction kit were followed up by another round of field research. An IoT conference at Ideon in

Lund, Sweden was attended, which strengthened my knowledge about hacking and the importance

of the user’s involvement regarding IoT at home (Ideon, 2015). When the audience at one of the talks

of this conference was asked if anyone had automated homes or IoT applications in their home, a fair

share of people raised their hands. When they were asked how many of them built and programmed

these themselves, all of them raised their hands. Needless to say, this is a biased audience, but it was

a validation of the chosen subject and confirmed the interest and feasibility of constructing home

automation projects. To validate the subject further, I attended a talk by Peter Sunde, best known for

being a co-founder and ex-spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, at STPLN in Malmö (STPLN, 2015). In his

presentation he sketched and discussed his view on the future, which turned out to be a dystopian one.

He expressed his concerns about a world in which the Internet is becoming more and more centralised,

and underlined the importance of online collaboration. Sunde’s views on online collaboration made

me, once more, realise the importance of the community and collaboration aspects of the Auster

platform. Moreover, during Sunde’s talk I got introduced to a microdonations service called Flattr,

which was later implemented in the feedback system of the Auster platform.

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In addition to attending different events, I carried out an in-depth interview with Andy Smith, who

has been building IoT home automation projects with the Arduino for a period of five years. Smith

has, among other things, studied web development, has a BA in Digital Media and now works as

a software developer. According to Mack, Woodsong, et al. “the in-depth interview is a technique

designed to elicit a vivid picture of the participant’s perspective on the research topic. During in-depth

interviews, the person being interviewed is considered the expert and the interviewer is considered

the student” (Mack, Woodsong, MacQueen, Guest, & Namey, 2005, p.29). The questions asked in the

interview gave insight into the possibilities of constructing home automation projects with the use of

an Arduino, and the benefits of connecting these to the Internet. Smith gave several examples of his

projects, along with describing the methods and technology used for constructing these. Furthermore,

I asked Smith about his opinion on the construction of self-made home automation projects as a

possible solution to the privacy and surveillance issues of the emerging IoT. In his answer he clarified

that the privacy and surveillance issues are a “massive issue” and will only become more prevalent

and dangerous. Moreover, he stated that self-made projects are a possibility to mitigate the risk by

applying methods of security through obscurity. After introducing Smith to the idea of an online DiY

platform consisting of tutorials in furtherance of sharing knowledge to a community, he indicated his

desire to share his projects and knowledge. However, he argued that most of the uploading processes

on platforms such as Instructables take too much time. This argument established an awareness of

the need for a well structured and easy uploading process. The interview with Smith was helpful,

since it did not only confirm the feasibility of the creation of home automation projects with the use

of Arduino, but his perspective on the privacy and surveillance issues of new technology, which he is

occasionally confronted with at his job, also became apparent (Smith, Physical: Home, 2015).

7.2.5 Prototyping: first round

After I had gained insight into the different conceptual approaches, the weaknesses and strengths

of several DiY platforms and the possibilities of self-made home automation projects, a first lo-fi

prototype of the Auster platform was created. Van Buskirk and Moroney explain that “a prototype

can be thought of as a representation or mock-up of a proposed solution to a design problem,

regardless of the medium. The typical use of prototypes is for usability evaluations conducted in

the design phase of a project” (Van Buskirk & Moroney, 2003, p. 613). The main objective of the

first prototyping round was to focus on the functionality of the platform, in order to make it suitable

for user testing. Therefore, the prototype was still ‘unpolished’ in furtherance of encouraging test

participants to provide feedback about the solution or artefact being evaluated (Van Buskirk &

Moroney, 2003). Alongside the prototype of the platform, a first proposition regarding the inclusion

of tools in the construction kit was made. However, no tangible prototype had yet been made at this

stage. Furthermore, a prototype of an automatic pet feeder was developed as an example of a home

30

automation project. This prototype was uploaded as a tutorial on the Auster platform, in furtherance

of making it available for user testing.

7.2.6 User testing: first round

The first round of user testing was carried out to examine the feasibility of constructing home

automation projects. For this round of user testing two types of test participants were asked to

make the automatic pet feeder prototype on basis of the Auster platform prototype and the first

proposition of the Data Obfuscation Kit. One of the participants was a 23 year old girl, who worked

as a graphic designer, and had a bit of experience with using the Arduino. The other participant was

a 61 year old man, whose occupation was being a medical doctor. This participant had no experience

in using Arduino. Both participants were presented with the tutorial of the automatic pet feeder

on the Auster platform and were given an Arduino board and the necessary tools to construct this

particular project. The results extracted from this round of user testing were obtained by carefully

observing the participant, and by afterwards discussing the difficulties that became apparent during

the testing. The main findings of this round of user testing indicated that beginning users require a

basic understanding of the technological components, before constructing projects on basis of the

tutorials on the Auster platform. Additionally, the importance of collaboration and the community

aspect of the online platform became apparent, since with a bit of help, the test participant without

experience was able to successfully construct the project. The participant with a bit of experience

was found to be capable of following the tutorial on the platform without additional help.

7.2.7 Prototyping: second round

The first round of user testing was followed by a second round of prototyping. During this round

of prototyping, the functionality of the platform was improved, alongside enhancing the aspects

regarding community and collaboration, based on the findings of the user testing. However, the

main focus during this phase was to improve the design and aesthetics of the online platform.

Additionally, a tangible prototype of the Data Obfuscation Kit was created along with a guide

containing information and instructions on the functionality and the installation of the technological

components, on basis of the results obtained by the first round of user testing. In addition to the

prototypes of an online platform and a construction kit, a prototype for an app was created in

furtherance of connecting the home automation projects to the Internet. Two online services, Parse

and Temboo were used to connect Arduino projects to the Internet, and control these with the

use of a smart phone (Parse, 2015) (Temboo, 2015). The experiments and prototyping with Parse

and Temboo shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of both services, and enabled the

development of the idea and functionality of the app.

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7.2.8 User testing: second round

The second round of user testing applied attention to the navigation of the online platform, the

comprehensibility of the concept and the overall design. For this round of testing, I asked two

classmates of my bachelor’s studies in Crossmedia Design to participate. Both users were female

and in their mid-twenties, and had experience with developing and analysing design concepts and

aesthetics. The participants were presented with an advanced prototype of the Auster platform,

the Data Obfuscation Kit and the Auster app and IDE. The chosen approach was to let them take

their time to thoroughly read and examine the different aspects and objects, and to observe how the

participants navigated through the content. Afterwards there was a discussion in which the main

concerns of the participants were addressed. It became apparent that the online platform was easy to

navigate through, and the link with the Data Obfuscation Kit and Auster app appeared to be clear.

Moreover, the aesthetics of all the different aspects were found to be fitting to the purposes of each

of them, and formed a coherent unity. One of the main concerns consisted of a confusion regarding

the fact that the projects on the online platform concerned IoT in the realm of the home, as opposed

to IoT in general. Moreover, one of the participants suggested to introduce the Data Obfuscation Kit

on the homepage in furtherance of clarifying the concept. All findings were taken into account in

the final round of improvements, that followed immediately after the second round of user testing.

7.2.9 Use cases

Two use case scenarios have been written in order to concretise the project and guide the reader

through the different aspects of Auster. The term use case was introduced by Jacobson in the late

1980s and can be explained “as a method to describe the dialogue (interaction) between a system

and a (in this case imaginary) user as a sequence of steps” (as cited by Lauesen & Kuhail, 2012, p.

3). The use cases, described later in this thesis, emphasise different possible motivations for using

Auster, and give insight into the manners of using the various elements of Auster on the basis of

these motivations.

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8. Auster

8.1 The concept

The name Auster comes from Roman mythology, where Auster is one of the four Venti (wind

gods) and the embodiment of the Sirocco wind, bringing cloud covers and fog (Encyclopedia

Mythica Online, 2015). Auster is meant to provide users with an opportunity to create

metaphorical fog in their homes by performing an act of sousveillance. The proposed

method of sousveillance is one that protects personal space (Marx, 2009), by obfuscating

and obscuring personal data. The method Auster uses is similar to the example of Jennifer

Lyn Morone, Inc. (Morone, 2014), by implementing the practice of modern sousveillance

in the home through containing and shielding the generated data. This practice of modern

sousveillance is achieved by applying a method of hacking as a DiY practice, enabling users

to build home automation projects themselves. Auster provides people with the tools and

knowledge to construct these projects. Considering the fact that users are able to create their

own home automation projects, they are no longer obligated to use IoT applications from

governments or data-mining companies, and the ownership over personal data is kept with the

user. It empowers the user to build applications they desire or require in a safe environment,

resulting in an increase of creativity and innovation in the domain of IoT in the connected

home.

Accordingly, I have developed the Auster online platform, the Auster app and the Data

Obfuscation kit, all part of the BFI: Becoming Fog Initiative. The Data Obfuscation Kit

provides the user with tools that lower the threshold regarding the technical skills needed

for constructing home automation projects, and the Auster platform, an online DiY platform,

provides the inspiration and knowledge to use these particular tools. Another aspect of the

Auster platform is to provide a place for collaboration and open source IoT design, by enabling

the aspect of a community joining forces. Subsequently, the self-made home automation

projects can be controlled by using the self-maintained Auster app on the user’s phone.

Hacking as a DiY practice, as Galloway described before, relies on five aspects. Auster builds

on all these five aspects, with one of the core focuses on the empowering of the user and the

decentralisation of control. In addition, by creating opacity zones in the home, and by this

means increasing the feeling of safety, creativity and experimentation are stimulated. This

affirms the other core focus of Auster, namely to create beauty and to exceed limitations.

The exceeding of limitations is an interesting aspect, especially for ‘beginners.’ When

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beginning users initiate the construction of home automation projects, the process might be

slow and frustrating. The tools in the Data Obfuscation Kit however allow people to learn and

control the tools quickly, and before they know it, they have built an automatic pet feeder, or

created their own NEST. Thereafter, there is no stopping them from creating progressively

advanced, functional and fun applications. Accordingly, it has been stated that handing over

control to the creator has the ability to stimulate innovation and provoke mass creativity. Paul

Dourish describes that users should not be represented as passive recipients of preordained

technologies, but as actors driven by the circumstances, contexts and consequences of

technology use (Dourish, 2006). Other trends that describe the same phenomenon of this

‘taking control’ view are the open innovation process (Chesbrough, 2003) and the mutual

shaping of technology (Williams & Edge, 1996). Moreover, the Auster platform arranges a

place where the intelligence of many is used for inspiration, creativity and innovation, by

supporting collaboration, sharing and the reuse of code.

Two different aspects are embedded in the concept of Auster. The first aspect regards the

protection and collection of personal data, and the creation of an opacity zone. The production

of self-made applications liberates people from the all-seeing eyes of the government or

data-mining companies, and the ownership over personal data remains with the user. The

second aspect involves the increase of creativity and innovation regarding IoT technology in

the domestic setting. In addition, the element of fun should not be forgotten. I expect a lot of

people will find it surprisingly exciting to make working home automation projects, which can

be controlled and tracked with their phone. Moreover, users have the freedom to decide what

they make, and how they make it in the realm of their home.

These two different aspects enclosed in the concept of Auster, naturally lead to user groups

with different motivations. I anticipate that one of the user groups includes people that are

concerned about their personal data and are searching for a way to protect this, in a world that

is increasingly relying on the exchange of this data. The tools and knowledge to start building

home automation projects from the Auster platform and the Data Obfuscation Kit are offered

to users without any tinkering experience. Moreover, they are able to request the help of more

skilled users. This leads me to another user group, consisting of people that are interested

in tinkering and customising their home, and are compelled by the idea to connect their

creations to the Internet. Their experience could become profitable by offering their assistance

as a service on the Auster platform. The ambition of Auster is to make the user group that is

interested in protecting their personal data, realise the joy and creativity that the construction

of home automation projects yields. However, the people using the platform out of interest

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for tinkering are to be made aware of the grounding and the reason behind Auster. Therefore,

the naming of the construction kit, the Data Obfuscation Kit, and the fact that it is part of

the BFI: Becoming Fog Initiative, are a way of framing it in such a way that it makes people

question where the line between reality and fiction is, and will ideally make them think about

the privacy and surveillance issues that are consequences of the IoT. Nevertheless, since the

focus is also on creating and sharing knowledge, the aim is to choose a framing that might be

perceived as slightly paranoid, but does not make the content too sombre.

8.2 The Auster platform

The Auster platform is an online Do-It-Yourself platform and serves as an outlet for self-

made home automation projects (fig. 4).6 IoTs in automated homes can be found in a range of

applications such as lightning, heating, security, motorized blinds and curtains, etc. All these

different applications in an automated home generally work together, but the most creative

ideas will arise from the combination of different applications.

6 A complete walk-through of the structure of the Auster platform can be found in the appendix.

The projects on the Auster platform are uploaded in the form of step-by-step tutorials and are

supported with the used code. By providing the code, other people can reuse the same code or

make modifications to it, in order to make the project fit to their own vision. Afterwards, users

can share their customised version of the project by uploading it to the Auster platform.

The projects uploaded on the Auster platform are validated through a feedback system consisting

of various buttons. There is a button to indicate that the user has successfully created a project,

there is a favourite button and a comment button. The amount of views, successful ‘makes’ and

favourites determine the popularity of the project. Moreover, each project on Auster has a Flattr

button7 (Flattr, 2014), in order to support and acknowledge good projects. To validate the quality,

there is an option for users to indicate if a project is malfunctioning, and why this particular

Fig. 4: The Auster homepage and a tutorial page

7 Flattr is a Sweden-based microdonations provider founded by Peter Sunde and Linus Olsson. It helps creators to get paid for their

digital content in manner that is aligned with how people use the Internet (Flattr, 2014).

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project is not working properly. If enough users have pointed out that the quality of the project

is in such a state that it is not useful, the project will be taken down. As a consequence, the

projects on the platform will have a certain validation of quality and functionality.

There is a forum section on the Auster platform where users can ask questions about anything

related to the construction of home automation projects. In addition, more experienced users

have the opportunity to offer their help as a service on this part of the platform. Accordingly, the

Auster platform stimulates collaboration and open source IoT design and arranges a place for a

community to join forces, which builds on the hacker ethic and is grounded in the DiY culture. 8

8.3 The Data Obfuscation Kit

Fig. 5: The Data Obfuscation Kit with guide

The Auster platform works together with the Data Obfuscation Kit (fig. 5). The Data

Obfuscation Kit aims to lower the threshold regarding technical skills by using already existing

hardware. The main purpose of the Data Obfuscation Kit is to empower individuals to build

many different home automation projects, by providing a substitute for the edge hardware

layer (described in the ‘architecture of the Internet of Things’), on which different electronic

8 More information about the different features and aspects of the Auster platform can be found in the chapter about the use

cases and the appendix (see Chapter 9 and the Appendix).

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components can be built. Since IoT projects at home include such a wide range of applications

and is in need of many sensors and actuators, it is a task in itself to scavenge for the tools. To

make the step to building home automation projects as small as possible for users, the most

common hardware and sensors need to be easily accessible. Sensors are necessary to determine

the status of the environment and various other devices, a key element of the Internet of Things.

In the connected home, sensors are generally used to measure temperature, humidity, light,

noise, motion and proximity. More advanced sensors are able to detect smoke and carbon

monoxide levels. Furthermore, sensors can detect the status of devices, such as verifying

whether devices are on or off, and the location of other devices, people and pets (Miller, 2015).

The most common sensors and actuators, suited for the purpose of home automation, are

therefore included in the Data Obfuscation Kit. Moreover, the user requires to be authorised

to master the tools that are needed to build the envisioned project without too much effort.

Therefore, the user needs capabilities as well as tools with particular attributes, openness being

an important attribute of that (Roelands, Claeys, Godon, Feki, & Trappeniers, 2011). Proposed

for the construction kit is a modular piece of hardware, like an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, as a

hardware base, on which people can build their projects by composing or decomposing, and

connecting and disconnecting different building blocks, like sensors and actuators.

8.3.1 The hardware base

The two main tinkering computers, Raspberry Pi and Arduino, are both valid options

for the hardware base of the Data Obfuscation Kit. The difference between Arduino and

the Raspberry Pi is that Arduino is a microcontroller board and the Raspberry Pi a fully

functional mini-computer. However, both devices are relatively cheap and include many inputs

and outputs for sensory expansions to test light, temperature, humidity and more. The potential

of having these sensory expansions, provides opportunities to register and react to signals from

the environment, which makes both tinkering computers very suitable for IoT projects.

The Arduino is not a fully functional computer; the code first needs to be programmed on the

computer and uploaded to the Arduino. However, the Arduino is small and unobtrusive, which

is ideal for creating IoT projects in domestic environments (Orsini, 2014).9 Auster therefore

uses the Arduino Yun as a hardware base on which different components can be built, enabling

the use of sensors and different types of outputs. Furthermore, the Arduino Yun is wirelessly

connected to the Internet, providing users with the opportunity to control their projects over

the Internet by, for instance, using their phone.

9 A complete analysis of both the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi can be found in the appendix.

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The Data Obfuscation Kit includes a hardware base and different sensors and actuators that

are most common in the building of home automation projects. Most of the sensors and

actuators can immediately be used by creating the basic projects included in the guide that is

part of the Data Obfuscation Kit.

The Data Obfuscation Kit is an assembly of the following tools (fig. 6):

Arduino Yun

Breadboard (x2)

Jumper wires (60 m)

Servo motor (x2)

DC motor

Temperature sensor (x2)

Soil moisture sensor (x2)

Photoresistor (x5)

Piezo speaker

Motion sensor

Ultrasound (proximity) sensor

Accelerometer

Weight sensor

Barometric pressure sensor

Microphone

Camera

LCD display

Pulse sensor

Body temperature sensor

Potentiometer (x5)

Different LEDs (x30)

Different resistors (x65)

Transistor (x5)

Capacitor (x3)

Diode (x10)

8.3.2 Tools

Fig. 6: Tools included in the Data Obfuscation Kit

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The Data Obfuscation Kit includes a guide with instructions on how to set up the hardware

base and the Auster phone application that is used to control the applications over the Internet.

Furthermore, some basic projects to get the user started are included in the guide (fig. 7).

The aim is to familiarise the user with the tools in the kit, without requiring many additional

tools or the need to build difficult constructions. There are some general projects included in

the guide, but also some projects that underline the data protection aspect of the construction

kit. All the ‘get-started’ projects provided with the construction kit can be controlled over the

Internet using the Auster app. Furthermore, the guide redirects the user to the Auster platform

for the setting up and the tutorials of the basic projects, to make people acquainted with using

the online platform immediately.

8.3.3 The guide

Fig. 7: The guide, part of the Data Obfuscation Kit

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To make one’s house truly connected, the Auster app has been created to allow users to control

self-made home automation projects with their phone. The aim of the Auster app is to have a

basic framework that wirelessly connects home automation projects to the app on the user’s

phone. It permits the receiving of notifications from devices and sensors in the house, and

it allows the user to control connected applications from their phone, over big distances if

necessary (fig. 8). The Auster app gives the user control over all the projects they have built,

without using anything besides the Auster app.

8.4 The Auster app

Fig. 8: The Auster app

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To enable the user to create and manage the Auster app, an IDE can be downloaded to the

laptop or PC. The Auster IDE installs and updates the Auster app on the phone of the user.

New applications for home automation projects can be created in the Auster IDE, which are

also added in the Auster app after connecting it to the IDE (fig. 9). These new applications can

then be called upon in the Arduino code (fig. 10), and enable for example the sending of push

notifications of the Auster app. The Auster IDE therefore functions as a bridge between the

Arduino and the Auster app.

Fig. 9: The Auster IDE

Fig. 10: An example in which the ‘connected Blink’ application is called upon in the code of the Arduino IDE

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9. Use cases

Different possible motivations and target groups of the Auster platform and Data Obfuscation

Kit can be distinguished. There are people who have an interest in tinkering and making own

home automation projects, or people who are worried about their personal data. There are

people who have just started to get interested, and people who already have the knowledge and

technical skills to build their own constructions. In the use cases below, the way of using the

Auster platform by two different users with different motivations is described, in furtherance

of making the concept less abstract and theoretical. One of the users, Andreas, starts using

Auster on account of his concerns about personal data. He is however new to hacking and

creating technical projects. The other user, Emma, is someone who has a lot of experience

in tinkering and building projects with the Arduino. She uses the website as a way to obtain

inspiration and new ideas, and becomes part of the community in order to help other users.

9.1 Andreas

Andreas (35) is reading some articles on the website of the Guardian, while eating his

breakfast on a regular Sunday morning. He stumbles upon an article called ‘How can privacy

survive in the era of the Internet of Things?’ by Danny Bradbury (Bradbury, 2015). Andreas

is fairly informed on developments in technology and knows what the Internet of Things is.

However, he was not aware of the fact that the generated data can lead to privacy issues. After

reading the following section he feels a mixture of concern and interest in the privacy aspect

of the IoT:

“The capacity to correlate information is going to change all of those interactions,” worries

Webb. “I lose power over a great deal of my life when there’s a massive amount of information

over me that I don’t have control over. What about other breaches, though, that may be more

difficult to avoid, or are simply invisible? Could your utility’s smart meter – or your Google

Nest device – know when you arrive and leave at your home based on energy usage patterns?

When your smart bathroom scale beams data to a cloud-based health service, could that data

be used by a health insurance provider?” (Bradbury, 2015, A Big Brother made of little things

section, para. 7).

Andreas used to be a fitness enthusiast, but since he started his office job, he is expected to

sit down biggest part of the day and it does not leave him much time for exercising afterwards.

He does however still enjoy to eat, and out of habit, still eats the same amount as before he

started his job. It is no wonder that he has gained some weight and his lifestyle in general has

gotten less healthy. Andreas starts to wonder how it would affect him if his house were to be

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connected. He starts to get more and more interested in the subject and searches for several

related articles. Quite a few articles write about giving the power back to individuals, and it

seems to him like an enchanting solution. He digs a bit deeper and finds Auster.org, an online

platform which enables people to build their own IoT applications, starting in the home. The

banner shows different pictures, explaining the concept and functionality of Auster (fig. 11).

He clicks on one of the slides of the banner, which takes him to the Data Obfuscation Kit page

where he finds information about how the kit works, for whom it is most suitable and what

is included (fig. 12). It becomes clear to him that the so-called ‘Data Obfuscation Kit’ can

provide him with the tools to get started with building own home automation applications.

Fig. 11: The Auster homepage

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He orders the construction kit and after receiving it reads quickly through the guide. The

guide redirects Andreas to the platform to set up the Arduino Yun and download the software

for the Auster app (fig. 13).

Fig. 12: The page of the Data Obfuscation Kit

Fig. 13: The ‘getting started’ page

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Even though he enjoyed constructing the pet feeder, Andreas is mainly interested in protecting

personal data regarding his lifestyle and health, and would maybe even want to try to improve

his health. He decides to search for projects by using the tool filtering option in the navigation

menu, and searches for projects that are constructed by using the pulse sensor (fig. 15).

After he has successfully set up his Arduino, he plays around with some of the starter projects

included in the guide and finds more basic projects on the Auster platform. Andreas explores

the projects page, and decides to follow an easy tutorial of an automatic pet feeder (fig. 14). It

is a tutorial that does not require many extra tools, but mainly uses those included in the Data

Obfuscation Kit. He finds the tutorial fun and easy to follow, and it makes him realise that

even with a few tools, useful projects can be built. Moreover, he no longer has to worry about

feeding his cat in the morning, when he is in a hurry to go to work.

Fig. 14: Tutorial of an automatic pet feeder

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Andreas finds a project that enables users to securely monitor their body functions, and

simultaneously keeps track of what they eat and the provision of particular food in the home.

He thinks the combination of collecting and analysing data about his body functions, with

the information of what he has eaten during the day is an interesting way to track his health.

Another advantage is that the app can notify him when he starts to run out of a certain

product. After successfully finishing the tutorial, Andreas realises the importance of the

Auster app, where he has quick access to an overview of all the different statistics about his

body functions and nutrition (fig. 16).

Fig. 15: Searching for projects that make use of the pulse sensor tool

Fig. 16: Auster app showing the ‘Health & food tracker’ application

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The project Andreas has built, on the basis of the tutorial, focuses mainly on the amount of

sugar consumed on a day. However, since he is generally not fond of sweet food, he decides

he wants to change this feature to the amount of fat consumed per day. When he encounters

a coding problem during the customising of his project, he decides to ask for help on the

forum (fig. 17). Another user quickly found the mistake and replies to Andreas’ post with an

improved version of the code.

After creating a few health and fitness related projects, Andreas starts exploring the rest of the

Auster platform and finds a lot of creative projects that he would like to build in the future.

Fig. 17: The forum page of the Auster platform

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9.2 Emma

Emma (21) is studying for a bachelor’s degree in Digital Media. She has owned an Arduino for

a couple of years and quite frequently builds small applications in her home, mainly for her

own entertainment. The holidays have just started and it has been raining a lot. She is thinking

of something she can do and remembers her Arduino. However, instead of making the usual

projects, she feels like it would be interesting to make projects that can also be controlled over

the Internet. Why not make several parts of the home automated? It would for example be so

nice to wake up because your curtains have opened in the morning, instead of being woken

up by the sound of an alarm clock. And after waking, she could turn on the coffee machine

while still lying in her bed. She orders an Arduino Yun and decides to search the Internet for

inspiration for projects that she will be able to make with it. She finds the Auster platform and

starts doubting whether the people that are part of the community are slightly paranoid (fig.

18), and if the whole data aspect is really that serious.

She will read more about that after exploring the rest of the website. Emma clicks on the

project page and is pleasantly surprised by the unexpected ideas other people have come

up with; the ‘Adaptive Manipulator’ project, for instance, enables connected devices to

malfunction when operated by certain people, recognised by their fingerprint, whom the

owner of the house apparently dislikes (fig. 19). Other projects such as the ‘musical mashups

cupboards’ project and the ‘GPP (Genuine People Personality) doors’, inspired by the

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Adams, 1979), show that there is a range of creative

projects that have been made, as opposed to the ‘standard’ home automation projects she

expected to find.

Fig. 18: Footer of the Auster platform

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She notices that she can also upload projects, and can even upload a project with

crowdfunding. Emma lives in a student house and has her room next to the balcony. A few

of her housemates like to sit outside at night and frequently get loud after having a few

drinks. She decides to build an application that recognises if she’s still awake (by tracking

her movement) and measures her mood. Furthermore, she hacks the LED light chain that is

used as outside lightning on the balcony. If the system recognises she is still awake and there

are people making a lot of noise on the balcony, the LED lights start blinking to signal that

Emma is having trouble falling asleep. This subtle and quite pretty way of sending a signal is

hopefully enough, but if the level of noise continues, an automatic (Whatsapp or text) message

will be sent. Emma realises that the project can also be customised for other purposes: parents

can for example use it to analyse if their children inside are already sleeping, while they enjoy

their evening outside. She thinks even more people can benefit from her idea, by applying it to

different circumstances, and chooses to upload it as a crowdfunding project (fig. 20).

Fig. 19: Projects page showing, among others, the Adaptive Manipulator and Musical mashups cupboards

49

After having successfully uploaded her first project, she sees that someone else has indeed

made a tutorial built on the same concept, but applied differently to make it suitable for other

purposes. She decides to try to construct some of the projects that other people have uploaded

and becomes part of the community. Emma notices that Auster has an option to leave feedback

to projects in different ways, enabling users to validate, but also support, other users’ creations

(fig. 21). By clicking the Flattr button the uploader of a project is supported by receiving

microdonations from other users. She thinks this way of giving recognition to good projects is

much in line with the concept of Auster, since it emphasises the decentralisation of control.

Fig. 20: The uploading process

Fig. 21: Feedback buttons, including the Flattr button

After spending more time on the Auster platform, Emma becomes increasingly aware of the

reason behind the platform, and thinks it’s a positive thing to be more conscious and cautious

of the consequences of data generation. She therefore thinks it’s good that the platform

dedicates some attention to it, without making it too overwhelming. However, for Emma the

main reason for using Auster is still to make her home automated in a creative and fun way.

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Emma has also noticed that there is a part on the forum which enables ‘expert’ users to offer

their help as a service to people in the same area who are less technically skilled, by installing

applications in their home (fig. 22). She might just give this a try to help people and earn some

money by doing something she enjoys.

Fig. 22: Page where people can request and offer assistance in the Malmö area

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10. Discussion and conclusion

The privacy and surveillance issues that are consequences of the Internet of Things were the

motivation and grounding for this thesis project. The Internet of Things allows technology to

become smaller and more ubiquitous, and by being integrated in the environment around us,

the world is becoming increasingly connected. Even though these developments will generally

make our lives easier and more enjoyable, the Internet of Things also faces some challenges.

These challenges include the privacy and surveillance issues that are results of the increase of

the transferring of sensitive data over communication networks, which presumably won’t be

solved in the near future (Witchalls & Chambers, 2013).

The aim of this thesis project is therefore to answer both in a theoretical, as well as in a

practical way, the following research question: ‘How can the Internet of Things be more

accessible and safe for the everyday user?’ In the process of solving this problem it became

clear that the role of the interaction designer in this project has shifted. The traditional task

of an interaction designer is to develop ideas and products for the future, now the role has

transformed to understanding the context of these ideas and to create a suitable environment or

platform for these ideas to exist in.

This approach has been realised by designing an environment for the possible scenarios that

are able to occur in the context of the Internet of Things in a surveillance society. As a result

the Auster platform, the Auster app and the Data Obfuscation Kit were developed, to make the

step for individuals to build own home automation projects, using IoT technology, as small

as possible. The aim is to create a way to endow people with the capability to exploit their

talents, realise their visions and share this with a community joining forces. By enabling

people to create their own projects at home, personal data is kept in the user’s possession

and the collection of data by governments and companies alike is prevented. Moreover, it is

expected to increase creativity and innovation in the field of the IoT in the realm of the home.

10.1 Discussion

Considering the short time span of the project, not everything has received the desirable amount

of attention and a few aspects can therefore be improved. Moreover, I have tried to cover a

broad and ambitious topic, resulting in a difficulty to thoroughly investigate certain elements.

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For one, to solve the problem regarding the accessibility and safety of the Internet of Things

I have proposed to apply a method of sousveillance in the home. Sousveillance is usually

done by surveilling back, through performing acts such as video sousveillance (Mann,

“Sousveillance” Inverse Surveillance in Multimedia Imaging , 2004). However, in the case

of digital surveillance the method of sousveillance has been applied in a different way,

namely by obfuscating or obscuring (security by obscurity) personal data. Two related works,

AdNauseam and Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. have been analysed to examine different tactics of

data obfuscation: AdNauseam obfuscates data through multiplication and distortion, whereas

Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. contains and shields data. The applied method of sousveillance for

Auster enables the user to avoid surveillance by concealing and sheltering data, rather than

to surveil back, comparable to the related work of Jennifer Lyn Morone, Inc. As a result, an

opacity zone in the home is created, which can be described as the metaphorical creation

of fog. Moreover, it provides people with alternatives for using services and products from

governments and data mining companies, such as the Nest Thermostat (Nest, 2014). However,

the applied method of sousveillance is only applicable in places where the user has the

authority to intervene in the space. Therefore, the research question has only tried to be solved

in the realm of the domestic setting. Even though this might be a step in the right direction, the

protection in other fields where IoT technology will influence the privacy of personal data, such

as cities and healthcare, remains a problem.

By obfuscating and obscuring surveillance, the home automation projects remain connected

to the Internet. The persisting risk is that a house could be hacked by people with malevolent

intentions, even though the chance of this happening is exceptionally small. As the interview

with Smith pointed out, even if people wanted to break into the self-made applications in the

house, they would generally not know how do it, since they are not aware how the applications

are constructed (Smith, Physical: Home, 2015). I could, however, have done more research on

applying an extra encryption to the Auster app and the hardware base of the Data Obfuscation

Kit. Moreover, a possible solution could have been to propose the use of a home server to

make the projects more secure. Given the amount of time, there has unfortunately been no

opportunity to examine or test this possibility.

The other aspect of the research question focuses on the accessibility of the Internet of

Things. It is envisioned that Auster would be used by user groups with different motivations

and levels of experience. Similar to the related work Homey (Athom, 2014), I have developed

an opportunity for people to program their own home automation projects. However, whereas

Homey only provides users with possibilities to create an interactive f low-editor and allows

53

them to intervene in the application layer, Auster additionally aims to give the user control

over the edge hardware layer and construct home automation projects from scratch. To test the

feasibility of this aspiration, I have carried out user testing on test participants with different

skill levels. It became clear that users who have worked with the Arduino or similar hardware

before, generally will not have difficulties constructing the projects on Auster. Even though

the Data Obfuscation Kit offers tools with attributes as ‘transparency’ and openness, user

testing indicated that there is a possibility that some beginners might have trouble building

their own home automation projects. Accordingly, it can be deduced that Auster has the

potential to increase the accessibility of the Internet of Things, but the question remains if this

applies to the everyday user. Therefore, I proposed a solution which builds on the community

aspect of Auster and creates opportunities for experienced users to help beginning users. This

solution might help many beginners and less experienced people, but should be developed and

researched further, before it can be concluded that it is a valid solution.

Another aspect regarding the accessibility that should be highlighted is the framing of the

project. The aim of Auster is to enable the everyday user to make their own home automation

projects, by proposing hacking as a DiY method. The characteristics and advantages of hacking

as a DiY practice have been described in the chapter about the conceptual discovery. The

aspects of collaboration and open source design are characteristic of the hacker ethic and are

grounded in the DiY culture. The hacker ethic is based on the sharing of information, and the

transformation and re-appropriation of technology by building on existing code (Von Busch &

Palmas, 2006). Moreover, community based development is becoming increasingly important.

It supports the development process with techniques such as open-source development, end-

user programming and crowd sourcing (Pletikosa Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2011). Open-source

development has the advantage of empowering people to not only control the application layer,

but also the middleware layer and the edge technology layer. Even though it is emphasised that

hacking should be seen as a positive act (considering there is a difference between hackers, who

build things, and crackers, who destroy things), some people might have bad connotations with

the word hacking. Nevertheless, I have decided to keep using the term hacking as a framing for

this project, since it underlines the grounding and reasons behind the establishment of Auster.

Auster consists of an online platform, an app and a construction kit. All of these different

aspects work together as a whole, but have their individual strengths and weaknesses. The

functionality and design of the Auster platform has been developed by examining and analysing

several online DiY platforms. The feasibility of constructing home automation projects has

been validated by the findings of the interview with, and projects constructed by Andy Smith

(Smith, Physical: Home, 2015), and by additionally carrying out two rounds of user testing.

54

The first round of user testing applied attention to the construction of a project on the basis of

the Auster platform and the Data Obfuscation Kit, and has been tested on people with different

levels of experience. This round of user testing was very insightful, and has helped me to

make important decisions on the design and structure of the platform. Moreover, it has enabled

the development of the guide, which is included in the Data Obfuscation Kit. The feedback

of the second round has resulted in improving the explanation of the Auster concept, and the

introduction of the Data Obfuscation Kit on the homepage of the Auster platform. Even though

the user testing has given me several valuable insights, I could have prototyped and user tested

more projects, including the ‘get started’ projects. It would also have been compelling to do a

user test on the uploading process of Auster, by letting someone build a project and upload it to

the platform. Given the amount of time, I have as yet not been able to do either of these.

Although the user testing has indicated that the Auster platform is generally functioning

properly, there are some elements that require some additional attention. At present, the Auster

platform allows users to upload a crowdfunded project, in order to make it more attractive for

experienced users to contribute their knowledge to the platform. However, more strategies on

how to make it more appealing for tech savvy users to upload their project, and by this means

help other users, could have been explored. Moreover, a plan to get the Auster platform off

the ground has to be developed. A way of doing this could be to launch a Kickstarter project.

To initiate the use of Auster and to motivate the uploading of the first content on the Auster

platform, an IoT home automation contest could be created.

For the hardware base of the Data Obfuscation Kit, I have chosen to use an Arduino Yun,

which has some great advantages: it is a tool with openness, it is easy to set up for beginners,

it enables the construction of projects in a short time range and the Arduino software is open

source. After analysing and comparing the Raspberry Pi to the Arduino it became clear that

the Arduino is in general more suitable for creating home automation projects in a simple and

quick way. Not only is it easier to set up and program, it takes less effort to connect a lot of

inputs and outputs to it (Schwartz, 2013). However, there are some disadvantages of using an

Arduino, regarding the high quantity of electrical wires and the limited amount of pins that

connect the devices and sensors to the Arduino board. Especially when users have the wish

to create many complex projects, they might quickly run out of pins. Moreover, it is generally

not perceived as pleasant to have many wires throughout the house. In the future, a strategy to

reduce the amount of wires should be thought of, or possibilities for a wireless solution should

be explored. Furthermore, the estimated price of the Data Obfuscation Kit, when everything is

bought individually, is €173. Needless to say, this is a high price for a starter kit. However, it

55

is expected that the price will drop as soon as the components are bought in bigger numbers.

Moreover, this price is calculated on the use of original hardware. Nowadays a lot of cheaper

versions are available for the hardware base, as well as the sensors and actuators, which could

make the price drop by fifty percent.

The process of the Auster app has been based on the prototyping of connecting Arduino

projects to the Internet with Temboo and Parse. Based on the analysis of the specifications

of Parse and Temboo derived from the prototyping, I have been able to develop the idea

and functionality of the app. However, since only the general idea and functionality have

been designed, more research should be done on the technical implications and the overall

performance.

As described before, the short time span of the project has prevented me from examining and

exploring all distinctive aspects thoroughly. It would have been advantageous to explore and

test more methods and tactics without time pressure, since I feel that this project has even more

to offer than I have been able to prove.

10.2 Conclusion

A method and design to solve the concerns regarding the accessibility and safety of the

Internet of Things in the domestic environment has been developed through the creation of

Auster. The Auster platform, the Data Obfuscation Kit and the Auster app were created as

a ref lection and reaction to the context of a possible surveillance society in an increasingly

connected world, in which the user’s involvement is becoming progressively important. The

emerging Internet of Things plays a big role in this increase of ubiquity, resulting in privacy

and surveillance issues. To a certain extent, Auster provides a solution to make the Internet

of Things more accessible and safe (regarding the aforementioned privacy and surveillance

issues). It gives users a creative and fun alternative for home automation, instead of being

enforced to use applications from the government or corporations alike. Subsequently, Auster

allows users to obfuscate and keep ownership over their personal data. However, there are

still some security concerns that need to be further examined before Auster can be presented

as a completely safe solution. Moreover, the accessibility for the everyday user relies on the

community and collaboration aspects of the Auster platform. It can therefore be concluded

that with the help of an online community joining forces against a surveillance society in

an increasingly connected world, Auster is a new wind blowing in a field which is currently

marked by pessimism and fear.

56

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Image credits

Fig. 3: Hacked plug sockets. Photo: Andy Smith. By permission of the copyright owner (Smith, Andy

Smith: Digital Media Portfolio, 2015).

Fig. 19: Projects page showing, among others, the Adaptive Manipulator and Musical mashups cupboards.

Includes an image by Andy Smith. By permission of the copyright owner (Smith, Andy Smith: Digital

Media Portfolio, 2015).

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Appendices

Structure of the Auster platform

Fig. 23: The Auster homepage

The Auster homepage introduces the overall concept of Auster, as shown in fig. 23. A banner is

used to visually explain the concept and the distinctive slides of the banner link to particular

pages. The written information on the homepage describes in more detail how Auster works,

the motivation behind it and the functionality of the Data Obfuscation Kit.

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The projects page showcases the home automation projects created by the users of Auster

(fig. 24). The projects are sorted by the amount of views, with the most viewed projects

displayed at the top. The way the projects are structured visually is straightforward, and can

be compared to websites such as Kickstarter, Instructables and Postscapes (Kickstarter, 2015),

(Instructables, 2015), (Postscapes, 2015). The projects can be filtered by tools (particular

sensors for instance), or they can be categorised by tags that were given to the projects.

Moreover, Auster does not only support Arduino based projects, but also projects built with

the Raspberry Pi and the Intel Edison.

Fig. 24: The projects page

65

Fig. 25: The first step of a tutorial, showing the necessary tools

The tutorials are based on a step-by-step system, which can be compared to the way

Instructables works (Instructables, 2015). However, the tutorials on Instructables are

occasionally chaotic and disorganised, which is demotivating if a project is difficult to

construct. Therefore the tutorials are built up out of different steps, consisting of small sub

steps, resulting in a better overview and making it easier for the user to follow. The first step

of each tutorial lists which tools from the Data Obfuscation Kit have been used, and which

additional tools will be necessary (fig. 25). If the additional tools contain specific pieces of

hardware, a link to where it can be bought is provided. This is to prevent users from having

to scavenge the Internet for all the different tools, which is a common case when following

tutorials on websites such as Instructables. Moreover, if the project includes the building

of certain constructions, these could be pre-made and sold by the uploader. All steps of a

project’s tutorial are shown with the support of text, images, schematic pictures and code files.

The code files can be downloaded and customised by the user, in order for it to function in the

way they have envisioned it, which is comparable to the way GitHub works (Github, 2015).

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Fig. 26: Feedback buttons, including the Flattr button

Moreover, the user can leave feedback on a project in a few distinctive ways through the use of

several buttons, as shown in fig. 26. There is an option to show that the user has successfully

created a project, there is a favourite button and a comment button. The amount of views,

successful ‘makes’ and favourites determine the popularity of the project. Moreover, each

project on Auster has a Flattr button (Flattr, 2014), in order to support and acknowledge

good projects. To validate the quality, there is an option for users to indicate if a project

is malfunctioning, and the reason behind this. If enough users have pointed out that the

quality of a project is in such a state that it is not useful, the project will be taken down. As a

consequence, the displayed projects will have a certain validation of quality and functionality.

Fig. 27: The uploading process with the option to upload a free or crowdfunded project

The uploading system of Auster permits the user to upload a free project, or to upload a

crowdfunded project (fig. 27). If the user decides to upload a free project, it means that it

is available for anyone for free, based on the open source license the user has chosen. For

users who don’t want to put their projects on the Auster platform for free, there is an option

to start a crowdfunding campaign for the project. The concept of crowdfunding has become

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popular through platforms such as Kickstarter and Voordekunst (Kickstarter, 2015) (Stichting

voordekunst, 2015). Whenever a project is funded in the selected time, the user will receive

the specified amount of money and the project will afterwards be on the platform for free.

However, if the project is not funded, the project will only be accessible for other users by

donating a small amount or by supporting it with the use of Flattr (Flattr, 2014).

Fig. 28 and 29: Different steps of the uploading process

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The remaining steps of the uploading process are the same for free or crowdfunded projects.

First the user fills in the fields concerning the title, description and tags, and uploads a

finished picture of the project and a thumbnail (fig. 28). The rest of the uploading system

is very structured, in furtherance of making the tutorial easy to follow for other users. The

first step always consists of listing the tools used, from the Data Obfuscation Kit, and from

elsewhere (provided with a link to where it can be bought). Every step consists of sub steps,

to stimulate the uploader to make the steps small and easy to follow for other users. Each sub

step supports the adding of text, uploading of pictures and schematic images, and the sharing

of code (fig. 29).

Fig. 30: The page of the Data Obfuscation Kit

The Data Obfuscation Kit page provides information about the concept, whom it is suitable

for and what features are included. Moreover, the link to where the construction kit can

be acquired can be found on this page. There is also a link to the ‘get started’ page, where

tutorials can be found for the set-up of the Arduino, the software for the Auster app and some

basic projects to familiarise the user with the Data Obfuscation Kit (fig. 30).

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Fig. 31: Pages to help the user to get started with Auster

Several pages of the Auster platform are dedicated to assist users to get started with Auster

(fig. 31). There is a page that gives information about the setting up of the Arduino Yun,

another page about installing the Auster app and yet another page provides tutorials for

beginner projects. The guide in the Data Obfuscation Kit redirects the user to these pages, to

immediately familiarise people with how the platform works.

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Fig. 32: The forum section of Auster

The Auster platform has a forum section where users can ask for help with anything related

to building applications for the automated home. Other users can help by answering these

question, by uploading small tutorials or by sharing code. This part of the forum could be

compared with the way Stack Overf low works (Stack Overf low, 2015). Furthermore, some

users might have the wish to automate the home by themselves, but do not have the skills or

time to build the applications. The forum therefore has a department where more technically

skilled users can offer their help as a service to people in their area who need help setting up

home automation projects (fig. 32).

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Analysis of the hardware base of the Data Obfuscation Kit

The Arduino and the Raspberry Pi are compared below by analysing specifications such as

setup, connectivity, computing power, inputs/outputs and the programming possibilities, which

are important aspects for enabling the construction of home automation projects.

Setup

The Arduino can immediately be connected to the computer by using a USB cable, usually

provided with it, which makes it easy to set it up. The software needed for Arduino is open

source and only needs to be downloaded. On the contrary, setting up a Raspberry Pi is

challenging: a USB cable for power, an SD card for the OS, a mouse, a keyboard, an HDMI

screen and cable and an Ethernet cable or WiFi dongle to connect to the Internet are needed.

Furthermore, the right operating system needs to be installed on de SD card in order for the

Raspberry Pi to be functional.

Connectivity

In order to create IoT projects, it is necessary that the hardware platform is easily connected

to the Internet. Most Raspberry Pi boards have a built-in Ethernet connection. Moreover, WiFi

connectivity is easily added by connecting a WiFi dongle. The Arduino Yun has the feature

of connecting to the WiFi easily. Standard boards can be easily connected to the web by using

shields, such as the Ethernet shield or the WiFi shield.

Computing power

The Raspberry Pi is a lot better than the Arduino when it comes to computing power. Most Arduino

boards are equipped with an 8-bit microcontroller from ATMEL, generally the Atmega328 which

runs at 16 MHz. The Raspberry Pi however works on a 700 MHz BCM2835 chip.

Inputs/Outputs

The Raspberry Pi has some inputs and outputs, all of them being digital connectors.

Most Arduino boards however, are equipped with digital inputs/outputs, PWM outputs, analog

inputs, I2C and SPI interfaces.

Programming

Programming the Arduino is fairly easy; the processing language is easy to use, the code

can be written directly on your computer in the Arduino IDE, and everything is open-source,

meaning that there are a lot of tutorials and libraries available online. Programming the

Raspberry Pi is more difficult; logging on to the device is required, either with the board

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itself or via SSH from the computer. Afterwards the code can be written and run. However, the

advantage of Raspberry Pi is that it supports many programming languages, such as Python

(which enables the use of the many Python libraries available on the web).

Price

The price depends a lot on which Raspberry Pi or Arduino boards are being used. The price

for a Raspberry Pi board is generally $43, whereas the Arduino Uno board is $15. Moreover,

in order for the Raspberry Pi to function, a lot of accessories need to be purchased. On the

contrary, the only thing needed to for the Arduino to be functional is a USB cable. (Schwartz,

2013)

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