Vendor entitlement run amok

My main issue with vendors turning us into instrumented data sources isn’t the data so much as the lack of consent. My Fitbit knows a lot about me but it’s an add-on that I self-selected and it provides value to me. The tracking in my browser is not something I can easily avoid since the browser is now an integral part of my life. Between those extremes there are lots of IoT devices that you can currently choose a private version but where that choice is rapidly disappearing. You can still buy a dumb light switch but not a dumb car, for example. Your shiny new GT phones home.

Among the vendors who seem to feel an entitlement to our data is Microsoft, whose Windows 10 is basically a box of spyware disguised as a user-productivity-gaming-and-cat-video-watching platform. I’ve already written about the issues there, how to mitigate them, and the disheartening number of those “features” that can’t be disabled. Yet as bad as all that is, this latest revelation still managed to surprise me across several metrics: the lack of consent, the extent of the invasion, the degree of exposure, the fact that it’s already been exploited to infect user devices, the fact that the entity who exploited it is a “legitimate” vendor, and the fact that said “legitimate” vendor egregiously exposed the exploit to the Internet. [Read more…]

My RBAC Manifesto

No one component taken out of context makes the Personal Cloud.

No one component taken out of context makes the Personal Cloud.

I’ve been following the Role Based Access Control thread on the Personal Clouds List and just sort of biting my tongue so as not to sidetrack any productive discussion there.  However, I cringe every time a new email comes out comparing Clique Space to RBAC.  One is a model, one is an implementation.  To compare them is like saying “China is not capitalism.”

I have issues on several levels with the whole discussion.  First, I believe that Role Based Access Control will be essential to the Personal Cloud architecture.  With all of the different functions proposed for Personal Cloud, it doesn’t seem scalable with the other types of access control.  Furthermore, there is no “personal cloud” if all the parts of it are developed in a vacuum.  Even though your component of the Personal Cloud may be simple enough to not require RBAC, how will it fit into the greater architecture?  For example, a smart light switch may have one role – either you can access it or not.  That’s a use case that screams out for simple Access Control Lists right up until you try to integrate it into a larger home automation system.  It isn’t so much that the switch now needs roles, but rather that the ability to manipulate or inquire on the switch from within the home automation system is itself a role of that larger system.  So as a designer the question becomes: In a larger cloud context where the owner manages using RBAC, do you want your device or component to be the only thing that requires the homeowner to program specific Access Control Lists?  How user friendly is that?

My answer to this is that as designers we need to recognize up front that the complexity of the Personal Cloud requires something more manageable than individual access control lists and then design our components to live in that greater context.

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