Using social network APIs to share web-enabled devices.

1. Sharing Using Social Networks
in a Composable Web of Things
Dominique Guinard, Mathias Fischer, Vlad Trifa
ETH Zurich and SAP Research Switzerland

2. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/docman]
BACKGROUND
What is (our) Web of Things?
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 2

3. Things? Smart Things!
and tagged objects!
to sensor networks…
From appliances …
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 3

4. (our) Web of Thing in a Nutshell
 Creating a Web of Things by:
 Connecting embedded devices to the Internet (IP) [IPv6].
 Having them embedding a Web-Server.
 Modelling their services in a Resource Oriented manner (RESTful
API)  Universal API
 Benefits:
 Ease the building of applications on top of embedded devices:
 Physical Mashups
 Get a lot of the features/services of the Web almost for free:
 bookmarking, caching, linking, searching, securing etc.
 Twitter, Atom, blogs, social networks, visualization APIs, maps, etc.
[IPv6] Hui, Jonathan W., and David E. Culler. “IP is dead, long live IP for wireless
sensor networks.” In Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Embedded network
sensor systems, 15-28. Raleigh, NC, USA: ACM, 2008.
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 4

5. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/moragcasey/]
MOTIVATION
Do we really need social network based sharing of smart things?
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 5

6. Sharing? Use-cases please!
 Sharing your location with friends
trough your phone.
 RESTful-droid
 Sharing your energy
consumption with your family in a
Facebook widget.
 Energie Visible
 Sharing the trace of tagged
products with an important client.
 RESTful EPCIS
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 6

7. Sharing is Key!
 Web 2.0 mashups depend on open APIs to Web services:
 e.g. Google, Twitter, Wordpress, Doodle, etc.
 We need more finer access control for physical APIs:
 http://.../EnergieVisible/DomsComputer/status
 PUT/POST status=off
 http://.../DomsMobilePhone/location
 GET
 There is a need for sharing mechanisms in a WoT.
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 7

8. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/julianbleecker]
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
A System for Sharing Smart Things on the Web
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 8

9. Our Contribution: Social Sharing for Smart Things
 Basic concept:
 Protect things using SSL (HTTPS)
 Create an authentication proxy in the cloud, i.e. a scalable Web
application.
 Sync with social networks (APIs) to get friends, colleagues, relatives
you might share with.
 Advantages:
 Policies already exist thanks to the structure of social networks.
 Sharing with real people rather than abstract logins.
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 9

10. SAC: Social Access Controller
 SAC as a proxy between smart
things and clients on the Web.
 Allows owners to share things
with social networks users.
 Offers a RESTful API as well:
 FAT (Friends and Things)
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 10

11. 1) Sharing with the Social Access Controller
1. Owner provides:
 URL to smart thing (or gateway)
 Credentials
2. SAC crawls the smart thing:
 Thanks to its RESTful API
 Using links, caption and OPTION
3. Owner selects Friends to share
with:
 Using the Social Network API
 Select Access Rights (Read, Write)
4. Shared smart thing advertised
on Social Network.
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 11

12. 2) Accessing Shared Things
 Friend connects to social
network using delegated
authentication:
 OAuth, FacebookConnect
 SAC check whether the Friend
was granted access rights:
 Resource (i.e. URL)
 Method (e.g. GET, PUT, etc.)
 SAC invokes the service and
redirect the results to the user.
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 12

13. DEMONSTRATION
Let’s get concrete: http://tinyurl.com/friendsandthings
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 13

14. Lessons Learned
 Social APIs
 Eternal beta?
 Open Social:
 hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Netlog, Ning,
orkut, Yahoo!, Google, XING, Friendst
er
 Not: Facebook, Twitter.
 Delegated Authentication:
 oAuth, openID
 Except for: Facebook, … [shamzu.files.wordpress.com/]
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 14

15. Thanks for your attention!
 Related links:
www.webofthings.com http://delicious.com/misterdom/
socialapi
 Contact:
 Dominique Guinard
 www.guinard.org
WoT 2010, 29.03.10 D. Guinard, Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich & SAP Research 15