Category Archives: Wireless Connectivity

EnOcean … impressive combination of technologies …

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A friend of mine Dave Cline just sent me a link to EnOcean. 
This is a very impressive company that is leading the wave of the
future when it come to distributed sensor networks.  They have
addressed some of the key elements of a successful solution:

  • No Batteries – the sensors create energy from their environment
  • Wireless Communications – they sense and send their data
  • Mesh Networking – they use a hierarchical mesh networking system

This is some very impressive work, and ought to get people thinking about what is going to be possible soon.

Mesh Network Experimentation Grows

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This announcement is yet another team of people who are capitalizing on
the continuing evolution of wireless hardware and software
capabilities. This team has created an almost “turn-key” solution
for creating wireless mesh networking nodes from inexpensive, and
possibly even older used, computer equipment. They claim to have
completely automated the configuration of the mesh … that is a big
deal. Expect to see more and more of this …

CUWiN Goes Public with Open-Source Mesh System.
The Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN) released the
fruit of their efforts at the end of the week: The project is an
open-source effort to provide mesh networking with no center. The
system is self configuring among nodes which need no non-volatile or
permanent storage. To set up a CUWiN network, you burn a CD with the
0.5.5 software later this week and use it to boot a computer with a
support wireless card. The system finds nearby nodes, creates tables,
and establishes itself as part of the network. The software is free and
open source. The full press release is after the jump…. [Wi-Fi Networking News]

SkypeCasting

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While reading Ken Novak‘s weblog, I found his post about SkypeCasting. 
I love it!  This is a cool idea … and continues to make me think
about the future that we are quickly approaching.

I once heard a good quote that was something like “Privacy in the
future will be the equivalent of living in a nudist colony. 
People who are uncomfortable being naked will be very uncomfortable in
the future.”  The gist of this statement is that we are quickly
approaching the “Transparent Society”
that David Brin explored in his book.  In this possible future,
there will be little that we can do about having our every move
observed, recorded, and/or reported on.  So what does this have to
do with SkypeCasting?

With wireless Internet everywhere, smaller and smaller laptops and
computers, and software like Skype providing VoIP capabilites, the
ability to “bug” almost any event or conversation increases.  Add
video to this, and our ability to remotely observe and listen to almost
anything is extended.  What got me thinking about this was this
comment:

“I’d happily pay $5 to hear the music from my favorite jazz club when I can’t
make it; and I’d like to listen in on community or political meetings when I
can’t be there”

Paying for such a live feed is a reasonable thing to think about. 
The real issue will be that anyone in the audience of any event can
become a *free* live feed of that event.  In addition, anyone
walking around that is near you can become a live feed of you and your
activities.  This will create an interesting form of verifying
your identity and reputation … in near real time.

Hanging in Hawai’i!

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I haven’t actually been doing much reading, or posting, since last week
… being that I am on vacation in Hawai’i.  Yeah … every now
and then it’s nice to get away.  My parents have a time share for
two weeks every year, and this year they invited my family and I to
come and spend a week with them.  It’s always an amazing
experience … I truly appreciate their generosity.

We actually left last Friday and headed to their house in California,
and then flew over to the ‘Big Island” on Saturday.  It was fun
travelling with our two boys, and the younger one Sam (who is now over
two and a half years old) really enjoyed the flight.  We arrived
in Kona in the late afternoon, did some grocery shopping, and then got
to The Bay Club at
Waikoloa.  For anyone coming over to stay on this island, this is
a spectacular place.  The Bay Club is just behind the Hilton and Marriott … and the Hilton Waikoloa Village is an astounding resort to see.

We’ve had a blast driving a few minutes up the coast to play in the surf at Hapuna Beach State Park, we played a round of golf at the Kings Course here at Waikoloa, took a submarine ride down in Kona (down to 107 feet!), and hiked around Akaka Falls and the Waipi’o Valley.  Overall … we’ve been doing a lot!

Oh, and of course when I sat down in the The Bay Club condo that we are
staying in and opened my laptop … there was an open access point with
high-speed Internet.  Nice.

We leave tomorrow to head home … back to work.  I actually can’t wait.  I’m really enjoying my new job at Agilix, and can’t wait to dig in more!

Homeland security technologies to watch

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I have to agree with Phil Windley … he posted this on his blog, and I
really like the train of thought on these technologies to watch. 
I too have been watching several of these, but David has added some new
ones to my watch list!

Cost Effective Business Continuity.

David Stephenson writes a blog on Homeland Security. I met him when I was CIO for Utah. H recently published a story on the ten homeland security technologies to watch in 2005. But what caught my eye was his criteria for judging homeland security technologies.

  1. Also having day-in-day-out applications so that they will
    both be familiar in an emergency (i.e., not requiring users to have to
    learn something new when they’re already stressed) and will have
    economic and/or social benefits so their purchase and deployment are
    more easily justified.
  2. Decentralized, so they are less likely to be rendered inoperative by attacks on a centralized switching facility, etc.
  3. In the hands of the general public, so they leverage technology
    that is already in use (and, given the inevitable cost and procurement
    limits of government technology, more current) and that people are
    likely to have with them when disaster strikes, so they can get
    up-to-the minute information.
  4. Location-based, so that we can get away from lowest-common
    denominator evacuation and response plans that are likely to cause
    their own problems such as traffic jams.
  5. Empower the public, because authorities may themselves be
    incapacitated and our fate will be in our own hands, and because we may
    be more likely to listen to trusted friends and/or neighbors than
    distant authorities.
  6. Two-way, so that the general public and/or responders who may be
    the first to come upon an emerging problem can feed information back to
    authorities.
  7. Redundant, because various technologies have distinctive
    strengths and liabilities that may render them unusable, or, make them
    crucial fall-back options.
  8. Allow dissemination of information in advance so they can be
    quickly activated and/or customized in an emergency (instead of
    requiring massive data-dumps in the midst of a crisis).
  9. IP based, because packet-based information will require less bandwidth in a situation where conserving it is crucial.
  10. Foster collaboration, because multiple agencies and
    jurisdictions may be involved and will need to share information from a
    wide range of sources on a real-time basis.

With only a few word changes, this is also a great set of criteria
for judging any technology you put in place for business continuity.

The point about having day-to-day uses is crucial. If you can’t do
that, then you probably ought to outsource that function to a
specialist who makes it there business to test it. A good example is
back-up diesel generators. Just putting one in might make you feel
better, but you probably ought to have a regular maintenance contract
with someone who’ll come test it regularly.

[Phil Windley’s Technometria]

Amazing paper on Identity … bodynets …

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Funny what you find on the net!  While reading through some links related to wearable computer research I cam across this great page with some thoughts by Ana Viseu
about “bodynets” and Identity.  Besides that fact that I really
like the look of the web site, I like this train of thought:


Identity, loosely defined as the way we see and present ourselves, is
not static. On the contrary, identity is primarily established in social
interaction. This interaction consists, in its most basic form, of an
exchange of information. In this information exchange individuals define
the images of themselves and of others. This interaction can be mediated-through
a technology, for example-and it can involve entities of all sorts,
e.g., an institution or a technology. I am investigating this interaction
through the study of bodynets.



Bodynets can be thought of as new bridges or interfaces between the
individual and the environment. My working definition of a bodynets
is: A body networked for (potentially) continuous communication with
the environment (humans or computers) through at least one wearable
device-a computer worn on the body that is always on, ready and accessible.
This working definition excludes implants, genetic alterations, dedicated
devices and all other devices that are portable but not wearable, such
as cell phones, smart cards or PDAs.



Besides the matters related to identity, bodynets also raise serious
issues concerning privacy, which in turn feedback on identity changes.
Bodynets are composed of digital technologies, which inherently possess
tracking capabilities, this has major privacy implications.

If you like this, continue reading … there is a lot of additional material.  Whenever I see the University of Toronto, I have to guess that Steve Mann is involved.  These are all important directions to look at.

Couple Linux with Zigbee

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Very nice … Open Source drivers for ZigBee? 
This is going to even further propel the standard forward.  I
believe that the recent adoption of ZigBee by even the local companies
here in Utah – Control4 and MaxStream – coupled with projects like this
are going to generate a lot of momentum.

The Linux Wireless Sensor LAN Project 0.1. 802.15.4 Linux drivers and utilities. [freshmeat.net]

It’s not just Bluetooth …

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I have been reviewing Kim’s posts about the issues with Bluetooth and privacy/private identity. I have been meaning to comment about the fact “It’s not just Bluetooth!”

My deep networking experience from my time at Novell taught me a lot
about the inner workings of networking hardware and protocols.
Anyone familiar with how networks work knows that the first ‘key’ to
communications on Ethernet (actually any of the IEEE 802 standard
networks) is the MAC address. MAC addresses are assigned to every
networking adapter … and they are globally unique by default.
Each vendor who is manufacturing networking hardware is assigned a 3-octet IEEE assigned Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI).
This OUI is then used by that vendor as the first 6 hex digits of every
networking adapter that they create. During manufacturing, most
vendors then simply tack on 3 more octets (6 more hex digits) and
increment the value for each board or device they manufacture.
What you end up with is a 12 hex digit number that is globally unique –
the first 6 identify the manufacturer, and the second 6 identify the
unique adapter.

You can actually go and search the OUI database here. A sample of this would be to search for ‘00022d’
– the first 6 digits from my Orinoco wireless card. The point is
… these MAC addresses are globally unique and can identify your
specific machine.

Now, one of my other occupations is being the founder of a wireless
Internet company. We operate a series of Internet Cafes, and also
offer some residential wireless. Using MAC addresses, we are able
to determine how many repeat customers we have. This MAC address
is what is used at the lowest levels of networking to obtain an IP
address. When you use DHCP, you are assigned an IP address that
is then associated with your MAC address. All DHCP servers
remember your MAC address to renew your DHCP lease.

Wireless is really where this becomes an issue with identity.
When you turn on your 802.11a/b/g wireless, you are now exposing
yourself to be tracked via the MAC address of your wireless card.
Now for those of you paying attention, you would realize that this goes
for wired Ethernet as well … when you plug into any Ethernet network,
you are leaving traces of your visit. In our wireless network, we
could easily have a script that would notify us of any particular MAC
address when it was detected at any of our Internet access
locations. In the case of 802.11 wireless, you don’t even have to
be assigned an IP address or use DHCP … if your card simply
‘associates’ to our access point we know you are there. This is
equivalent to the ‘Bluetooth bomb‘ that was talked about.

Now there are some ways around this. With more modern Ethernet
and wireless adapters, you are able to ‘override’ the default MAC
address that is provided by the vendor, but I have found very few
software packages or operating systems that take advantage of
this. I saw a “security tool” for Windows a few weeks ago that
picks a random MAC address each time you boot, and assigns it to your
networking card … but this is not a standard feature.

There are several identity issues that arise with wireless devices and
identity. This first one is a big issue since it is a globally
unique ID that the average person is not aware of. There are
others that can also be trouble … I’ll write more in another post …

Mesh Networking continues to emerge

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More than five years ago, I was introduced to the concepts of “mesh
networking” at George Gilders TeleCosm conference.  A speaker from
MIT talked through the basic concept of turning every radio in a
network into a “packet repeater” that was able to send and receive
packets of data … and also forward them on for other users of the
network.

Mesh has slowly been evolving in the various research circles … and
is now emerging in various projects and commerical companies.  One
of the places to look for more information is the IETF Manet working group.  There are several experimental standards that have been developed.

In the commercial space, there are now several companies coming up – LocustWorld is an interesting system being used in the UK, PacketHop is a company using research out of SRI, and now Strix Systems mentioned in the article below.

I am currently working on two different embedded Linux systems … both
of which I want to embed mesh/manet software.  I’m working to have
demonstrable units this winter …

DON’T LAUNCH — The Structured Wireless Revolution.
Mesh technology allows networks to be redefined around business needs,
work operations, data and employees, says Strix Systems’ Bob Jordan. [Computerworld Mobile/Wireless News]