How many times have you forgotten about your washer finishing and only to remember a day or two later. Now you have to re-wash your laundry because it is getting a bit funky smelling. What about burning your baked goods in the oven, or the refrigerator alarm is going off with no one to hear it because the door was left open.
In today's connected world we expect we can do just about anything on our pocket computers that can also be used as phones. But for some reason most appliances (very few actually) can be online and communicate with you. There needs to be an easy to install solution that will get your appliances to talk to you wherever you are.
Introducing my idea "Signal". A small, battery powered, WiFi device that will listen to your appliances beeps and boops then alert you when it hears them.
All of our appliances have tones they produce for notification and alarms. When you are too far away, too busy with something else, or maybe not even at home you can still get notified by your appliance without having to connect to them in anyway.
The device
Would be a small device not much larger than a box of matches. Would hold say 2 AAA batteries or maybe AA batteries. I don't believe in sealed batteries where the device has to be replaced when the batteries are exhausted. This makes no environmental sense and is a waste. Plus it makes it more expensive to the consumer. The device would have a small computer, microphone, single button, an LED, and would be water resistant. Only activating WiFi when sending a notification the battery life should be very long.
The Setup
To get the device connected to your network you need the Signal app (free) and when you first turn it on or hold down the button for 5 seconds it will broadcast out a WiFi signal that your phone can connect to and configure. The light will blink slowly while you are setting it up. Put in your WiFi info and save it. Now your set. Name the device and put in a location. It is now attached to your account. Very similar to a ChromeCast setup.
Next is the recording the sound. Hold the single button on the device for a few seconds and play the sound you want the device to listen for. A light will blink rapidly telling you it hears the sounds and is recording it. Press the button when the sound is done playing. Now using the phone app name the appliance it just heard. Have that appliance make the same sound again and it should notify your app.
Great that's it! Your all setup. The online account that everything connects to is free for life. You can pay for a premium account that will let you create advanced notifications, batch actions as well as schedules etc. Batch actions would be like notifying multiple people and also allowing a computer program to be notified that would launch actions. Say for example control your home automation and turn on lights when your oven goes off.
Here is how it works. Lets take the example of your washing machine...
Imagine you are in the living room watching your favorite TV show and your laundry finishes. The machine will beep but you don't hear it. Your phone's Signal app gets a notification that the laundry is done. You can snooze the reminder so you can finish your show. If you don't have the app no problem it can send emails and SMS.
Lets say you are really bad about changing laundry. You can configure this particular alert to keep bugging you every hour until you press the button on the Signal box. When you go to change the laundry you can press the button to clear the notification, the light will blink 3 times quickly letting you know it's cleared.
Another example, the oven...
Most ovens are pretty loud when they beep but there are times when at my house with screaming kids, a loud TV (to drown out the screaming kids) makes it impossible to hear. So now your phone gets notified. You can even set it up to keep notifying you until you press the button on the Signal box. This way you don't have burned cookies. There is even the ability to customize the notifications to use different sounds for different appliances.
Other concepts that can integrate
- Alarms for detecting water/floods
- Motion detectors
- Alarms for low/high temperatures
- Contact sensors for an open door, gate, cabinet, etc
- Even reminder buttons say by the trash can. When the trash is full press the button and your husband "me" gets notified to take out the trash.
The list is endless. Just a simple Signal box that attaches to your account and you can have the Internet of Things help your house talk to you.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Protecting Data
Recently it was reported the Federal Office of Personnel Management was hacked by the Chinese in December of 2014. It is possible that around 4 million current and former federal employees data was compromised.(1) So how do we protect this data?
Maybe the better question is why do we store this data? If much of this data was not being stored online in databases, files and on a network, then even if the systems are compromised the data is not there to take. How many of these "former" employees of the Federal government have been gone for decades or longer? How long should their records be kept? More importantly how long should their records be kept "online"?
Two words "retention policies".
Oh and here is another important word "liability".
In today's world of storage getting cheaper everyday, everyone seems complacent to just store information forever. Who cares if it is 20 years old. We "may" need it someday.
It is fair to say there is some data that needs to be kept for long periods of time. There is even some data that should never be removed. For example medical records should be kept for the lifetime of that individual and then some. I doubt you want to delete pictures of your kids to save space. What about your family tree, videos of your wedding, music collection. This data needs to be online and easy to access at anytime as well as backed up. (PLEASE everyone backup your data!)
Retention policies need to be setup on all classes of data. From documents, to pictures, video, databases, logs, etc. When it comes to data, content is the key to how long it should be kept. There are laws on how long some data is to be kept. Beyond legal requirements policies should be set based on usefulness of the data. 7 years is a fairly typical number used to hold financial data for most individuals and businesses as an example.
Keeping data too long is a liability to the holder of that data. If that data is breached or improperly used, the company, government agency, or individual holding onto that data can be liable. Not to mention it is never fun to have to tell millions of customers that their private information is in the hands of hackers soon to be on the black market for thieves all around the world.
Here are some solutions to managing data without deleting it:
Setup a tiered system for storage
This means have multiple levels of storage like
- Online
- Near-line
- Archived
Let me explain these in broad technical terms.
Online storage is just what it says, the data is online and easily/quickly accessible. Excellent security should be in place to protect this data. Online storage has many tiers of it's own based on how fast that data is needed (performance). I will not get into the technicalities of tiered storage systems, just look up "tiered storage models". This is the most expensive tier as the data changes a lot, requires fast storage systems/connections, and must be backed up on a regular basis.
Near-line storage is not accessible online directly by users but is easily put online if needed. Typically this would be onsite but on systems that may not be directly connected to the servers or network. Data administrators would need to bring this data online when needed. The advantage to this is that data is significantly less susceptible to hacking or rouge employees. Automated processes as well as manual processes would follow retention policies to move data from online to near-line storage.
Archived storage is the lowest tier and would typically be stored offsite. This would be kept for legal reasons and would be the slowest to bring online as well as the most work. This data would likely be stored on media like tapes or optical that is not easily modified. This protects the integrity of the data. Archived data would be nearly impossible for hackers or rouge employees to compromise as physical access would be needed to get to this data. Archived storage is also the cheapest to maintain.
Every organization should have policies in place already to deal with data retention as well as tiers of storage to comply with these polices. Organizations that do have policies in place and follow them are much less likely to have data compromised and if they do the amount of damage is minimized. As well if data is compromised your organization can show reasonable efforts were made to secure the data. Hopefully this will play out in the organizations defense in their favor - verses negligence.
Another benefit is deniability. If there is data then there is evidence. If there is no data there is no evidence. Plausible deniability. Not saying that there "is" wrong doing but keeping all your data around is just asking for trouble. Organizations must remember to follow the laws on keeping data for the minimal amount of time. Beyond that get rid of that data if you have no justifiable reason to keep it.
Cost is the main reason to get rid of data. Keeping data is expensive. Users don't think of this nor do most executives or bureaucrats. Data has to be stored on storage systems. In large network environments these storage systems are much more expensive than a desktop hard drive. Large storage systems can easily cost more than a luxury car and go up from there. Next you need to back that data up. So now you need an entirely separate storage system (normally cheaper than the primary) to keep a copy of all that data. But wait there's more... When you backup data there is more than one copy. There are hundreds of copies with version history and deleted data too.
Finally there is the space, power, cooling, and the management of all the data systems and backups. There are countless hours of IT employees' time to keep everything up and running so users can keep making yet more data.
References
(1) http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chinese-hackers-breach-federal-government%E2%80%99s-personnel-office/ar-BBkHFqx
Maybe the better question is why do we store this data? If much of this data was not being stored online in databases, files and on a network, then even if the systems are compromised the data is not there to take. How many of these "former" employees of the Federal government have been gone for decades or longer? How long should their records be kept? More importantly how long should their records be kept "online"?
Two words "retention policies".
Oh and here is another important word "liability".
In today's world of storage getting cheaper everyday, everyone seems complacent to just store information forever. Who cares if it is 20 years old. We "may" need it someday.
It is fair to say there is some data that needs to be kept for long periods of time. There is even some data that should never be removed. For example medical records should be kept for the lifetime of that individual and then some. I doubt you want to delete pictures of your kids to save space. What about your family tree, videos of your wedding, music collection. This data needs to be online and easy to access at anytime as well as backed up. (PLEASE everyone backup your data!)
Retention policies need to be setup on all classes of data. From documents, to pictures, video, databases, logs, etc. When it comes to data, content is the key to how long it should be kept. There are laws on how long some data is to be kept. Beyond legal requirements policies should be set based on usefulness of the data. 7 years is a fairly typical number used to hold financial data for most individuals and businesses as an example.
Keeping data too long is a liability to the holder of that data. If that data is breached or improperly used, the company, government agency, or individual holding onto that data can be liable. Not to mention it is never fun to have to tell millions of customers that their private information is in the hands of hackers soon to be on the black market for thieves all around the world.
Here are some solutions to managing data without deleting it:
Setup a tiered system for storage
This means have multiple levels of storage like
- Online
- Near-line
- Archived
Let me explain these in broad technical terms.
Online storage is just what it says, the data is online and easily/quickly accessible. Excellent security should be in place to protect this data. Online storage has many tiers of it's own based on how fast that data is needed (performance). I will not get into the technicalities of tiered storage systems, just look up "tiered storage models". This is the most expensive tier as the data changes a lot, requires fast storage systems/connections, and must be backed up on a regular basis.
Near-line storage is not accessible online directly by users but is easily put online if needed. Typically this would be onsite but on systems that may not be directly connected to the servers or network. Data administrators would need to bring this data online when needed. The advantage to this is that data is significantly less susceptible to hacking or rouge employees. Automated processes as well as manual processes would follow retention policies to move data from online to near-line storage.
Archived storage is the lowest tier and would typically be stored offsite. This would be kept for legal reasons and would be the slowest to bring online as well as the most work. This data would likely be stored on media like tapes or optical that is not easily modified. This protects the integrity of the data. Archived data would be nearly impossible for hackers or rouge employees to compromise as physical access would be needed to get to this data. Archived storage is also the cheapest to maintain.
Every organization should have policies in place already to deal with data retention as well as tiers of storage to comply with these polices. Organizations that do have policies in place and follow them are much less likely to have data compromised and if they do the amount of damage is minimized. As well if data is compromised your organization can show reasonable efforts were made to secure the data. Hopefully this will play out in the organizations defense in their favor - verses negligence.
Another benefit is deniability. If there is data then there is evidence. If there is no data there is no evidence. Plausible deniability. Not saying that there "is" wrong doing but keeping all your data around is just asking for trouble. Organizations must remember to follow the laws on keeping data for the minimal amount of time. Beyond that get rid of that data if you have no justifiable reason to keep it.
Cost is the main reason to get rid of data. Keeping data is expensive. Users don't think of this nor do most executives or bureaucrats. Data has to be stored on storage systems. In large network environments these storage systems are much more expensive than a desktop hard drive. Large storage systems can easily cost more than a luxury car and go up from there. Next you need to back that data up. So now you need an entirely separate storage system (normally cheaper than the primary) to keep a copy of all that data. But wait there's more... When you backup data there is more than one copy. There are hundreds of copies with version history and deleted data too.
Finally there is the space, power, cooling, and the management of all the data systems and backups. There are countless hours of IT employees' time to keep everything up and running so users can keep making yet more data.
References
(1) http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chinese-hackers-breach-federal-government%E2%80%99s-personnel-office/ar-BBkHFqx
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