UMR 5205

Towards the Internet of Things?

Lionel Brunie
National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA)
LIRIS Laboratory/DRIM Team UMR CNRS 5205
Lyon, France
http://liris.cnrs.fr/lionel.brunie

13/08/15

Contents of the course

Visions: a Disruptive Technology

Technologies and Issues
Components and Architecture

13/08/15

Contents of the course

Visions: a Disruptive Technology

Technologies and Issues
Components and Architecture

13/08/15

A Disruptive Technology
US National Intelligence Council (NIC) consider Internet of
Things as one of the 6 Disruptive Civil Technologies
(April 2008
IEEE ranks IoT #1 in the list of Top Trends for 2013 (Winter
2012):
The Internet of Things is more than just the newest buzzword.

The IoT promises to be the most disruptive technological

revolution since the advent of the World Wide Web. Projections
indicate that up to 100 billion uniquely identifiable objects will
be connected to the Internet by 2020, but human understanding
of the underlying technologies has not kept pace. This creates a
fundamental challenge to researchers, with enormous technical,
socioeconomic, political, and even spiritual consequences

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Internet of Things: Visions

Term introduced by the Auto-ID Labs (K. Ashton, 1999):
linking RFID-based supply chain and Internet
UN (2005): A new era of ubiquity is coming where humans
may become the minority as generators and receivers of
trafc and changes brought about by the Internet will be
dwarfed by those prompted by the networking of everyday
objects
ITU: From anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone, we
will now have connectivity for anything
EU: Things having identities and virtual personalities
operating in smart spaces using intelligent interfaces to
connect and communicate within social, environmental, and
user contexts
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Internet of Things: Visions

EU: Things having identities and virtual personalities operating
in smart spaces using intelligent interfaces to connect and
communicate within social, environmental, and user contexts
US National Intelligence Council: By 2025 Internet nodes may
reside in everyday things food packages, furniture, paper
documents, and more
Target applications: no limit:

logistics
industry/manufacturing (cf. German Industry 4.0 initiative)
health
domotics
ITS
social networking

Intensive standardization and R&D activity

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Internet of Things: Definition

CERP-IoT: The Internet of Things (IoT) is [] a dynamic global
network infrastructure with self configuring capabilities based on
standard and interoperable communication protocols where
physical and virtual things have identities, physical attributes,
and virtual personalities and use intelligent interfaces, and are
seamlessly integrated into the information network.
In the IoT, things are expected to become active participants in
business, information and social processes where they are
enabled to interact and communicate among themselves and with
the environment by exchanging data and information sensed
about the environment, while reacting autonomously to the
real/physical worlds events

13/08/15

Contents of the course

Visions: a Disruptive Technology

Technologies and Issues
Components and Architecture

13/08/15

Internet of Things: Technologies and Issues

Integration of multiple ICT technologies
identication and tracking technologies
sensor networks
network protocols (cf. Future Internet
autonomic, pervasive and ubiquitous computing
AI, knowledge management, semantics

Key issues:
interoperability
security/trust and privacy
low resources (=> revisit protocols and algorithms

implemented in Internet and Web)

scalability
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Internet of Things: 2 Points of View

Network/Internet Point of View

Things point of View

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Internet of Things: 3 Points of View?

L. Atzori et al. / Computer Networks 54 (2010) 27872805

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Internet of Things: a 4th Point of View

A Digital Ecosystem Point of View?

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The Things Point of View (1/2)

Key issue: object identification and tracing
A prominent killer app: Electronic Product Code
basic goal: product/object traceability
RFID tags attached to products

RFID advantages
low cost
maturity
no need of power (passive tags)
lifetime
strong support from supply chain and consumer goods industries

Other basic things

Mobile equipments (Near Field Communications (NFC), GSM)
Sensors and (Wireless) Sensor Networks ((W)SN)

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The Things Point of View (2/2)

Development of supply chain platforms
Ex: WISP (Wireless Identication and Sensing Platforms)

project

Philosophical vision: spime (B. Sterling)

object tracking through space and time
autonomy and collaboration

(Web) Semantic vision: The Web of Things

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The Network Point of View

Key issue: object2object communication
First approach: develop specific communication protocols
adapted to each type of things and type of applications
need for standardization
which compatibility with Internet?

Second approach: (re-)use IP

integrate IP and IEEE 802.15.4 (6LoWPAN) (IP for Smart Objects

(IPSO) Alliance)
make IP lighter (Internet )

Third approach: (re-use) 802.15.4

enrich 802.15.4 (Zigbee)

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A Universal Network of Things ?

From readwrite.com

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16

An Infinity of Networks of Things

From readwrite.com

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17

Contents of the course

Visions: a Disruptive Technology

Technologies and Issues
Components and Architecture

13/08/15

Technological Components
(some kind of layered architecture)
Identification (sensing)
(passive, active) RFID tags
sensor networks

Communication
see discussion above
interface object/network
embed the TCP/IP stack into the devices (TinyTCP, mIP, IwIP)?

Integration
object and service discovery
object and service cataloging
service composition/orchestration

Intelligence and Collaboration

Security and Privacy
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Identification (sensing)
Ultimate goal: unique/universal Id for naming and addressing
individual objects i.e., to attach an ego to each object,
condition to develop ego-centric applications (cf. Jacob and
the Angel (Genesis))
Naming is difficult!
ONS: Object Name Service
basically, RFID tag/EPC code URI of a description file (Object
Code Mapping Service-Direct Search (OCMS-DS)
more complex Object Code Mapping Service-Reverse Search
(OCMS-DS): description EPC code(s)

Addressing is difficult!
stupid but tricky issue: RFID addresses are different from IPv6

addresses (64-96 bits vs 128 bits)

addressing moving objects is even more difficult

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Communication
From host2host to object2object
TCP is not adapted
designed for long-lasting connections while objects (like tags or

sensors) exchange small pieces of data => handshake +

congestion control/retransmit/recovery + flow control + buffering
procedures too complex

Very heterogeneous networks and traffic

Scalability?
Quality of service?
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Security and Privacy (1/3)

A definitive threat for privacy!
A security nightmare!
Security
IoT = a kind of unsupervised mobile/pervasive grids whose

end-components are resource limited tiny objects = a security

nightmare
memory segments of tags are protected by (short) password
physical attacks
Man in the Middle attacks
cryptographic techniques too CPU-intensive for low energy
objects
multiple administrative domains (cf. grids)

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Security and Privacy (2/3)

Privacy
all your life can will be traced => possible monitoring,

mining, analysis
connection possible with Linked Open Data => worsen
the threats
open air connections => possibility of eavesdropping
not only your digital life but also your analogical life
you cannot even know what is sensed about you, when it
is sensed, etc. Sensors do not ask for permission (cf.
video surveillance)
no forget option

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Security and Privacy (3/3)

Privacy (contd)
Basic approach (e.g. EEXCESS EU project, W3C P3P

(Platform for Privacy Preference)

user defined policy
privacy proxy
negotiation protocol
anonymization/pseudomization
integration of reputation and trust mechanisms (cf. course
on security and privacy)

Issues
cryptographic techniques are too complex
scalability
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An Intensive Activity of Standardization

RFID
EPCGlobal
ISO, IEC (Int. Electrotechnical Commission), CEN, NAFTA
industrial consortia

M2M
ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute )
7 standard bodies joined in 2012

Communication

6LoWPAN
ZigBee
NFC
all communications standard bodies (ISO, IEEE)

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Conclusion
Yet another buzzword or a revolution?
Strong support from the industry
IoT platforms yet exist: xively (ex cosm, ex pachube), sen.se, etc.
Close to reality in closed ecosystems
Far from reality in open ecosystem
Need for an holistic vision multi-scale digital ecosystem?

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