A " Kinder " Surprise: Big Brother Is Watching You(r Humidity Values)

Abstract

In 1984 the Ministry of Truth controls the populace with cameras and microphones to maintain its totalitarian dictatorship. The boundaries between work, home and third places have vanished. Now, 32 years from that fictional vision, we have arrived at the Internet of Things (IoT). Though Orwell has prepared us for the dangers of visual and audio data in our homes, are we fully prepared for the Smart Wireless Things deceptively promising convenience and luxury while monitoring our very behavior? Is it possible for a thermometer or a luxmeter to be as dangerous for our privacy as a camera or microphone? We present a selfmade, inconspicuous surveillance kit for teaching people about privacy and agency in their new IoT home environment. Further, we present our (basic) findings from a first fieldwork.

Full text

A “Kinder” Surprise: Big Brother Is
Watching You(r Humidity Values)
Abstract
In 1984 the Ministry of Truth controls the populace with
cameras and microphones to maintain its totalitarian
dictatorship. The boundaries between work, home and
third places have vanished. Now, 32 years from that
fictional vision, we have arrived at the Internet of
Things (IoT). Though Orwell has prepared us for the
dangers of visual and audio data in our homes, are we
fully prepared for the Smart Wireless Things
deceptively promising convenience and luxury while
monitoring our very behavior? Is it possible for a
thermometer or a luxmeter to be as dangerous for our
privacy as a camera or microphone? We present a
selfmade, inconspicuous surveillance kit for teaching
people about privacy and agency in their new IoT home
environment. Further, we present our (basic) findings
from a first fieldwork.
Author Keywords
Smart Wireless Things; Internet of Things; Making.
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.2. [Information Interfaces and Presentation]:
Prototyping, Input devices and strategies.
Introduction
The Internet of Things is arriving in the (smart) home.
More and more everyday objects in the home are
Albrecht Kurze
Faculty of Computer Science
Chair Media Informatics
Chemnitz University of Technology
09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Arne Berger
Faculty of Computer Science
Chair Media Informatics
Chemnitz University of Technology
09107 Chemnitz, Germany
Sören Totzauer
Faculty of Computer Science
Chair Media Informatics
Chemnitz University of Technology
09107 Chemnitz, Germany
firstname.lastname@
informatik.tu-chemnitz.de

sensor equipped and connected. This includes devices
dedicated to environmental monitoring but also devices
including this functionality as a side effect.
These connected devices offer new chances and new
possibilities, e.g. more comfort, more security, more
safety, and more efficiency. They might also introduce
some new risks and threats that the users are not
aware, e.g. surveillance that violates the privacy of the
users, e.g. monitoring of sleep times. It might not even
need a camera or a microphone to break the intimacy
of a home. Even simple and at first sight totally
harmless sensors, e.g. for light, temperature or
humidity, may reveal a lot about the people, their
presence or absence, the daily routines, maybe even
about their behavior and their preferences.
Understanding both sides, chances and risks, requires
awareness and agency in the usage of these devices. It
might be necessary to teach the users. We developed
and field-tested a probe pack of seemingly harmless
sensors in order to understand how people in the home
use these sensors, what scenarios they develop, what
agency they get, and what can be seen in the collected
data - by them and by us. We involved participants to
understand what they thought is in the data and what
we know is in the data. This shows the people directly
the power and potential harm/ramifications of this data.
Additionally, we indirectly learn how to design critical
smart devices that teach about the power of seemingly
harmless sensors.
(Un-) Personal data (?): I know how long
you slept/showered/worked yesterday
In contrast to cameras and microphones sensors like a
thermometer, a luxmeter, or a hygrometer might not
be seen as risks. Nevertheless, all the data of these
sensors may have stories to tell: the light level in the
living room, the temperature and humidity in the
sleeping room, kitchen or bathroom, an accelerometer
on the door of the flat or the fridge. Every single
measurement might be small data with only a few
bytes. However, they might gain power from big data,
from time series, from the comparison, between days,
weeks, other users, the correlation with other data and
their meaningful interpretation. These data might
reveal when somebody is at home, when they cook,
shower, sleep, and watch TV etc. (figure 1).
We see the sensor equipped devices in different forms.
First, integrated in already existing devices, making
them smart, e.g. smart fridge. Second, in small, cheap,
and ubiquitous sensor devices, even in small scale, like
Smart Dust [3]. Third, in the form of augmented
mundane objects. The sensors might be hidden, maybe
not visible or recognizable to be there, sitting in the
dark. This potential of (covert) ubiquitous surveillance
and all the implications associated raise show the
critical aspects in the approach. Some of these devices
and their data might be owned by the inhabitants,
some by the landlord, some might controlled by
somebody completely different, e.g. the vendors or
some data collectors. AAL-upgrade homes, already
equipped with sensors, and access to the data not
limited to the users of the flat but available for their
owners is such a scenario. It might give the landlord
the ability to check whether the tenants treat their flat
well, e.g. keep the humidity in a desired range. It
might be fair for a rented flat - on base of an
agreement. Maybe even a low-level surveillance, some
kind of supervision or even the suspicion to be
monitored will result in behavior changes.
Figure 1: llustrative example of
simple sensor data interpreted.
We collected with some
prototypes of the Surveillance
Egg some of this data at work
and at home and and see even
from very simple sensors some
interesting information in there.

Agency of sensors in smart things
At the same time the technology is ready for a wide
spread deployment in the homes, are the inhabitants
also ready? We expect that naive users do not think in
sensors or actuators, that they not understand what
possibilities exist, how sensors work or how they might
be integrated in products. Therefore, we developed
tools to support our participatory design process [1].
These tools offer abstract representations of different
sensors in one device and different actuators in another
device, communicating wirelessly.
Based on the Kinder Surprise candy/toy we developed
the concept of the Surveillance Egg. In its original form
the Kinder Surprise is a chocolate candy for kids
containing a surprise like a toy or a collectible.
However, our surprise is not necessarily kinder than
other seemingly harmless sensor devices. The inner
plastic capsule is hiding Maker components instead of
toys: a battery, an MCU with WiFi (ESP8266) and some
simple sensors - ready to monitor its environment
(figure 2). Choosing the inconspicuous hull of a children
candy therefore resembles the principle of the new IoT
paradigms at its core. For further usage in scale, we
wanted even smaller devices with even more of these
harmless sensors. In the TI SensorTag we found a
suitable base for our further development with a
compact size, energy efficient BLE, openness in
hardware and software to adapt it for our purposes,
and different sensors (thermometer, luxmeter,
hygrometer, barometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, and
magnetometer). We plan to redesign the devices, back
to the initial idea, to make them more like normal
household objects (figure 3).
Probe packs: sensors in the wild
We created probe packs (in the concept of cultural
probe) containing all necessary components for the
participants to use these simple sensors in their own
flats and to document their usage (figure 4). A
Raspberry Pi 3 connects to the wireless sensor devices
and preprocesses the incoming data before forwarding
it to our servers for data storage. Each participants gets
a ready to use configured iPad to see live and historic
data of the sensors in customized graphs. We planned
different field phases with actual usage of the sensors.
We started with students and colleagues, followed by
ordinary elderly users. Do the participants have valid
concepts of what to measure to gain a desired insight?
What usage scenarios will they develop? What data
from their private life are the participants willing to
reveal? Do the participants will use the sensors, once
they understood, what they might reveal? Will the
participants develop some ideas how to hack sensors,
e.g. with lids, hermetic enclosures or artificial light
sources etc.? We will look at the data with the
participants in workshops to interpret the collected data
together with them, to see patterns and anomalies, and
to gain insights. We expect that this looking at the data
of even these simple sensors will lead to a big surprise
for the participants in the end.
Point of debate / workshop contribution
What implications might harmless simple connected
sensors have in the smart home – and how can we, as
researchers, critically reflect on them along with the
users?
We will come with some of our artifacts and are
interested to demonstrate them in the AirBnB flat.
Currently we field-test the devices without the final
Figure 2: Surveillance Egg first
iteration. A Kinder Surprise
capsule with an IoT surprise.
Figure 3: Surveillance Egg next
iteration. The final enclosure is
still in development. (CGI)
Figure 4: A probe pack with
several sensors (SensorTags), a
Raspberry Pi, an iPad, and a
documentation booklet.

enclosure, but we will try to bring the final form to the
workshop. We are interested in feedback to our
realization, the appearance, the size, the material,
functionality, and want to discuss the critical maybe
even subversive ramifications. We predefined some
scenarios: where to install the sensors, what to
measure and what to find out. Maybe the workshop
participants will come up with new and maybe even
crazy ideas in the flat if we let them place the sensors.
We can show live data but also some previously
collected data for usages where longer data collection is
necessary for meaningful insights. Internet connectivity
within the venue would be helpful, either wireless or
wired.
About us
The contributors work in an interdisciplinary team
called Miteinander (German for together) at Chemnitz
University of Technology, bringing together competence
in design, computer science, social sciences and
engineering. We investigate participation and co-
creation for smart connected technology within the
realm of demographic change and community work.
About Albrecht Kurze: I am a computer scientist. My
research interests are networking aspects in all flavors.
In my interdisciplinary PhD thesis I quantified the
relationship between QoS and QoE for mobile services
with about 300 participants. At Miteinander I am in
charge for the engineering and IoT. The
interdisciplinary approach in our team shifted my focus
and view once again - away from only looking on the
technology - much more to the users and the
implications we create with the technology. I am a
tinkerer since my elementary school days and
nowadays I am back at tinkering in the office.
About Arne Berger: Officially a computer scientist
with a doctorate in engineering, my research takes an
inter- and transdisciplinary research through design
approach at the intersection of design ethnography and
interaction design. I am the principal investigator of the
Interaction Design Research Lab team Miteinander. My
research focuses on early stages of design processes. I
am mainly interested in how meaningful participation
can be initiated, how people can be empowered and
engaged to collaboratively create possible futures
together. These days I am also turning towards more
ethnographical design research work. I am somewhat
well travelled and take local food a bit too serious.
About Sören Totzauer: I am a computer scientist
with a degree in bioinformatics. My major and foremost
research interest is how people can be motivated to
take up agency for themselves, especially regarding the
oncoming socio-technological paradigm shift.
Acknowledgement: This research is funded by the
German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
under grant number FKZ 16SV7116.
References
1. Kevin Lefeuvre, Sören Totzauer, Andreas Bischof,
Albrecht Kurze, Michael Storz, Lisa Ullmann, and
Arne Berger. 2016. Loaded Dice: Exploring the
Design Space of Connected Devices with Blind and
Visually Impaired People. In Proc. of NordiCHI '16.
ACM, New York, NY, USA.
http://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2971524
2. Joseph M. Kahn, Randy H. Katz, and Kristofer SJ
Pister. 1999. Next century challenges: mobile
networking for “Smart Dust.” In Proceedings of the
5th annual ACM/IEEE international conference on
Mobile computing and networking, 271–278.
Figure 5: Sensors oft he probe
pack in action - in the bathroom,
in the kitchen, and in the living
room
(c) Photographs by Miteinander.