Join Now

As an Assistant Professor, I'm teaching Symbian OS at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria. My company "Mopius" is developing mobile software with a special focus on Symbian OS.

Abandon your Privacy

mopius | 05 July, 2008 12:22

CrystalMe explores offering all your private data to the public any time.
CrystalMe explores offering all your private data to the public any time.
When Nokia released the Mobile Web Server, we were always thinking, “There is more to this technology than is initially visible”. Just think about it – you carry a whole, dynamic web server around with you all the time. It offers full access to the device and all the data contained on it. You can essentially turn the mobile user from an information consumer to the source of new information, not only in the sense of sending out SMS and making calls, but providing data to everyone on the world, without any restrictions.

The only issue was: it was difficult to come up with an idea. What is the unique advantage of hosting a web site on a mobile device? What can you do with it that would not be possible otherwise? What’s the real advantage compared to using a standard server PC or to simply providing the data from the phone through a small Java ME / Python / C++ / etc. application?

Sharing your data

Take a look at the current status of the web, or maybe even the whole world. Everyone tries to guard his private data and is concerned about losing control over it, with governments and other companies constantly trying to accumulate as much information about you as possible.

On the other hand, especially younger people love to share their lives with social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or many others. Who has not heard the stories about bosses finding out stuff about possible job candidates beforehand – stuff that those people would rather not like their boss to know?

The mobile web server is about sharing with the world, about offering information to the global internet. Today, the mobile device is your personal assistant that knows about many parts of your life. Your calendar, your contacts, your pictures, your position, ...

This led to the project we called “Crystal Me”. Think about Facebook and take the whole idea one step further. Total surveillance. Always available through the mobile web server.

Accumulating data

The user data presentation on the web of a very early development version.
The user data presentation on the web of a very early development version.
Through the intelligent use of sensor data, you can find out a lot more about the user than you might think. An example?

-    The phone doesn’t get a GPS lock -> the user is probably indoors.
-    The phone is moving in a regular pattern -> the user is probably walking.
-    According to the phone calendar, there is a meeting in a few minutes -> the user is going to the meeting.
-    The contact person that’s added to the meeting is from the other gender and it’s evening -> well, could be a date.

As you can see, there is a lot that you can reveal without any further knowledge just by combining the various bits of information that are available to you.

Crystal Me

The research project from Manuel Riegler attempts to investigate the total loss of privacy. How far can you go about revealing your life? How can you combine the available data to generate useful predictions about the current state of the user?

Right now, the project is still in its early stages. A very early prototype that was mainly built to get to know the technology is available through Nokia Mosh and was now chosen as the winner of the Forum Nokia Mobile Web Server Challenge.

But that’s not the end of the project – in total, it will continue for one year, and Manuel will also write his Master’s thesis about the research that went into Crystal Me.

Keep an eye on the project page at Symbianresources.com!

Browsing, Connectivity, General, Location Based Services | Next | Previous | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Comments

Re: Abandon your Privacy

ltomuta | 05/07/2008, 14:35

ltomuta

Collecting information about the user applying a context aware algorithm is one interesting thing.

Opening *all* that info to the public, without a very strong yet flexible and easy to use privacy filter is one idea that I don't really see flying.

Filtering

mopius | 05/07/2008, 18:52

mopius

That's true, for an application that you'd actually use, you'd need to have a good privacy filter.

However, the aim of this more research-focused project is to explore what you can actually do to abandon your privacy. It's important to know about this before thinking about how to filter the information.

Otherwise, you'd maybe be giving out filtered information and you'd feel safe about it, but you don't know what the "listener" can build and deduct out of the snippets that are available.

You must login to post comments. Login
 
 
Powered by LifeType