Social Area Networks and the Comm.unity Platform Nadav Aharony MIT Media Laboratory: Viral Communications 01/23/2008

functionality  Networking technology has expanded greatly, nevertheless most advances have been in terms of functionality. usability  There is still a lot that can be done to improve usability of our networks, as they remain very complicated. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

By modeling communication networks after our innate social skills and relationships, we could improve their performance as well as their usability. If the network is an augmentation of our social interface to other people, shouldn’t it also represent our social affinities? ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social Interactions Network Technologies

 People act differently according to situation, context, identity of counterpart(s), or who else is around.  Communication devices mostly use hard coded protocols and behavior towards other devices, regardless of the relationship between their owners. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 LANs, WANs, MANs  Physical, geographical hierarchy.  Personal Area Network (PAN): Not just any device, but devices used by one user.  Storage Area Network (SAN): Not just connectivity, but also storage related features. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. Use context and relationship to determine file sharing permissions ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony Cognitive / Software Radio: Family devices coordinate a frequency hopping sequence

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony Use encryption for communicating with co-workers

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. Change Wireless LAN’s “Medium access politeness” according to company hierarchy ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. Use social network knowledge to route data (“Friendship Routing”) ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. Use different authentication protocols depending on relationships ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Social context pervades the network stack. Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical e.g. HTTP, FTP, DNS, Telnet Data Representation & Encryption e.g. Sockets, SIP End-to-End Link; e.g. TCP, UDP Path Determination & IP, ICMP, ARP E.g. MAC, Ethernet, a/b/g/n, ATM E.g PHY, SONET, ADSL, T1 “Social Awareness Layer” End-User App , IM, File Share, etc. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony “Social Firewall”

©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Remote terminals of the big “network cloud” Natural extensions of our body and senses

Comm.unity Platform Reality Mining Networking Social Interaction Design ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Allow devices to talk directly to each other (“Anything with a radio and can do sockets”)  Ad-hoc, wireless, peer-to-peer, one-hop (F2F)  NO: Centralized servers, coordination, or administration  Scalable. Easily deployed by end users.  Implement SocAN ideas ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

BroadcastUnicast UDPTCP Ad-Hoc Ethernet Already Implemented Partially Implemented ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony File System Interface Groups/Tags Mechanism Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Data Collection Engine

BroadcastUnicast UDPTCP Ad-Hoc Ethernet Already Implemented Partially Implemented ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony File System Interface Groups/Tags Mechanism Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Data Collection Engine

Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Groups/Tags Mechanism Data Collection Engine BroadcastUnicast UDPTCP Ad-Hoc Ethernet File System Interface Already Implemented Partially Implemented ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Physical Interface API Transmission Modes Transport Protocols Security Tools Identity Tools Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Groups/Tags Mechanism Data Collection Engine BroadcastUnicast UDPTCP Ad-Hoc Ethernet File System Interface Already Implemented Partially Implemented ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Relationship Engine Groups/Tags Mechanism Data Collection Engine BroadcastUnicast UDPTCP Ad-Hoc Context/State Manager Ethernet Physical Interface API Transmission Modes Transport Protocols Security Tools Identity Tools “Multiple Identity” Engine File System Interface Encrypted Control Already Implemented Partially Implemented Will Implement ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Relationship Engine Groups/Tags Mechanism Data Collection Engine BroadcastUnicast UDP Multicast TCP Ad-Hoc Context/State Manager Ethernet Bluetooth IR Physical Interface API Transmission Modes Transport Protocols Security Tools Encrypted Data Identity Tools “Multiple Identity” Engine File System Interface Encrypted Control Already Implemented Partially Implemented Want to Implement Will Implement ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony Gossip Engine

Socially Aware, Context Aware, Cross-Layer Networking Engine Relationship Engine Groups/Tags Mechanism Data Collection Engine BroadcastUnicast UDP Multicast TCP Network-Coded Transport … … Ad-Hoc Context/State Manager Ethernet Bluetooth IR … Physical Interface API Transmission Modes Transport Protocols Security Tools Encrypted Data Identity Tools “Anonimizer” Mode “Multiple Identity” Engine File System Interface GPS Interface Pseudo Broadcast Encrypted Control Already Implemented Partially Implemented Want to Implement Considering Will Implement ZigBee ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony Gossip Engine

©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Reality Mining [Eagle & Pentland] Sociometric Badge [Olguin] Privacy, Sharing, Interest (PSI) Social Firewal [Miklas] ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony Comm.unity Platform Reality Mining Networking Social Interaction Design

 Need: Populate device with user relationship / social data.  Use devices as sensors for learning the user. (We already carry them with us) Network layer data (e.g. wireless radio scan) Application usage (we own the app!) Additional sensors (e.g. accelerometer)  Reality Mining - Learn social relationships.  Not totally automatic: Keep user in the loop. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Mix of online and physical presence  Privacy concerns Controlling Identity Impression management Not exposing private relationship information  Interaction with one/many peers  Understanding and controlling the AI  Notifications/Interruptions from the device ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

Online presence and social networks applications are going to merge with our real-world presence and relationships.  Location, Location, Location Manual entry (Facebook, Jaiku, Twitter) Base station / Accesspoint calculations (Google “My Location”) GPS (Loopt) Device-to-device sensing (Reality Mining, I’m also dabbling in this area)  Many initiatives are already underway: Dating applications Connecting to online content sharing sites (e.g. Flikr) Connecting to online social network sites (Facebook, MySpace) New social networks (Dodgeball) Many more coming… ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Risk of exposing identity and other information to undesired parties. Sgt. Slaugter ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Risk of exposing identity and other information to undesired parties. Army Buddies Sgt. Slaugter ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Risk of exposing identity and other information to undesired parties. Army Buddies Sgt. Slaugter Gay Dating ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Physicality aspect increases risk.  Careless design may lead to exposure of undesired relationship and trust information. “On my client you are marked as offline but I see you here chatting with other people!” Things one can get away with in the online world or direct physical interactions. ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 These technologies have potential to be very useful: Meeting new people with shared interests Knowing that our acquaintances are around Access to desired information and content Local context is very powerful in many domains  However, hasty design and implementation could damage trust and privacy, and even expose users to physical dangers. (Or greatly limit the usage scenarios, like what happened to video-conferncing) ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony

 Allow users to create multiple identities and choose how to expose them.  Defined levels of trust – Granular exposure of profile details.  Different types of user groups: Public: all can see group content and members Private: Invite only. Even group name is not exposed. Open Sign-up: Group name is visible, but sign-up for details.  Correlate between trust levels and presence information E.g. “invisible” to strangers, “busy” for distant acquaintances, etc  Default: Symmetry in information exchange Users can opt-out (expose information to the public, or expose more than their peers) ©Copyright 2008 Nadav Aharony