The one assignment

We have now ended the course, essentially. We have seen a lot of things in the course about the future of smart cities. I have learned a lot of things, and some of them have stayed with me for a long time since the start of this course.

Smart cities are the future of us all, without a doubt, because, every day, the society works for making a bigger connection with the technology, because it clearly makes lives easier, and most of us are accustomed to be like that, every day. But there are many things we have to consider in a big technological city, and many of those things have to do with modern times, or things that are starting to rise in present times: attacks, security, merchandise, loss of identity, many things that should worry us in several ways. I will talk about the topics that I remember the most, which are the one that hit me the most.

First, security is one of the most delicate things. Every day, new attacks and breach come to view of the international scene; not only speaking about the computer science community, but all people, because all people can be in danger. And speaking of that, with smart cities, people become more and more vulnerable with practically every move we make. Let us remember that the purpose of smart cities is to live connected with everyone and everything. It also means that there is to be a lot of more presence of people in the common life. And that also means that information will be more vulnerable, doesn’t it?

Information is going on a trip every day, it goes on millions of transformation processes so that we are able to get what we want of what we need. Nowadays, there are a lot of security breaches that try to catch the information on its way to its destination. In a smart city, the amount of information that travels will be a lot bigger, and the reason is obvious: all people is connected to all things, and every service, every consumption, every single step given is information sent between several platforms. What happens? Well, more information is sent to the cyberspace, and more often. Also, people will have less control on which things they share, and, obviously, what things are shared from them.

What happens with people sharing things they don’t even know they share? Easy, they lose control over their personalities and their identities over the web. With a lot of information at the disposition of many people, those people can take that information and, in the worst case, steal it, study it, find data about the person and try to harm that person in some way. Also, the robbers (we’ll call them like that) can also try to blackmail the person, kidnap, or maybe things that are not so harmful, like selling things, showing merchandise, or offering several things at the right moment. But that can also be a way to force new thoughts in that person.

The robbers now know that person better than him or her. That person is himself or herself, but there the information is dominated by others, and they have an “advanced” version of that person, a version more of that person, created by the analysis of information, predictive algorithms and AI… scary, isn’t it? This is more real than we think, even today. Social networks analyze information to offer things, to show new friends, to recommend places. In a smart city’s context, people can make this in a bigger way, and with a bigger scope, since more information will be “available” to steal. Nobody will be safe if no preventive measures are taken.

Everything will happen behind the walls, as it is today. And in this same vein, another thing I think about a lot is the objective of the information, where will it end, who will keep it, who will be the main responsible of guaranteeing the safety of that information. Those are things that have to be foreseen and is an enormous must for the good living in a smart city. Today (and this will also be present in the smart city context), people cannot be sure of the objective of the data. Yes, we are very sure that the processing of information gives us some results that we may be looking for, but how can we know that this will not have another, a further, ending? Information about yourself in a social network can work for finding things that you like, but it can also be used to study you, to chase you, to make a great profile of you. Is this unethical? It is, but it can also be blamed on the people. Most of the times, this things are said, but they are said in 500 lines of a boring, Calibri-9-sized text called “Terms and Conditions”, which you must agree with to use a certain platform.

I think several measures must be taken to guarantee a very good life quality in the smart city. I think the most important things are: to make a serious consensus about how to take care of the great amount of information provided by the people every day. There should exist a bigger, global organization that takes care of everything. But with this, comes another problem, and you know which one it is: how can we know which people will be involved and will be responsible for all that information? How can we choose trusty people that will not let information fall in the wrong hands and to guarantee the protection of one’s identity through the Internet and the daily life? I have no real proposal for this. It is clear that the giant companies and rich people will try to take advantage (or “make business”) with the development of smart cities, but we should try to overcome that with good people (not a generalization).

The other important thing, and this is easier to make: be way much clearer in the terms and conditions of a platform or a service. People must know what information re they sharing, no more, no less; and they should know for what purpose are they giving that information, through which phases of transformation will it pass, with which other platforms or services will it interact, and what are they going to obtain with all that information and transformation. But, once again, the same problem arises here: how can we be sure this will be true? And who will be responsible of guaranteeing the safety? We have a lot of problems today, and many of them still have no solution, how can we guarantee that that those problems will not get bigger in a bigger environment? Of course they will, if no solution is found soon.

Smart cities surely will be a great advance for mankind. I think they all have, in the end, or hidden inside, the best intentions for people, more because the people that are behind the development of smart cities will also be part of smart cities and should care about their own life quality as of the others. But there are a lot, a great lot of opportunity areas and things to really worry about. We have more problems then solutions, and the development goes faster than solutions are found, and this is a thing to worry about. We, as a society, must get together, try to be sensitive about all the potential problems, even for people that do not really understand them. For smart cities, smart people are needed, and we must put the world’s safety in front of some men’s ambition. It sounds very hard, but, for that reason, must start quickly.

References

https://www.sostenibilidad.com/construccion-y-urbanismo/que-es-una-smart-city-top-5-ciudades-inteligentes/
https://www.bbva.com/es/las-smart-cities/
¿Qué son las Smart Cities o ciudades inteligentes?

https://securingsmartcities.org/
Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670717310272
https://www.globalsign.com/en/blog/smart-security-for-smart-cities/
The security challenge for smart cities

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877916617302515
https://www.gsma.com/identity/digital-identity-realising-smart-cities

Course evaluation

First of all, I present the evidence of the ECOA answering:

On the other hand, I will write a paragraph or two about Ken’s quality course. I’ve always thought that Ken’s classes are something of a great thing… if you know how to take advantage of it. Ken is a professor that must be sought to recieve his benefits, but I am not talking in a bad sense. Ken knows a LOT of people, and also knows a LOT of sources for learning. Many of these sources are given away by Ken to us, for free, for educational purposes, and there is some really brutal material from the hand of some of the most respected experts of our areas.

Sadly, most of his students just choose to not read or check those sources, they just ignore or not read them enough. So I think Ken gives really a lot of chances for us to learn, but it is each of us’ own decision to see if we want to learn or not. I like this kind of process, because I think it is a way for us to grow and gain maturity to learn in our own rhythm and with our self mind.

No more privacy

This post will talk about some more details about well known cases in violation of privacy. It is not really that. This type of cases bring to discussion a very blurred line between violation of privacy and voluntarily giving information for others. Many sites take advantage of the data people give (or produce) to make profit, but not all of this profit is made by selling the information.

Once a site recieves new data (let’s say: Facebook, that handles a lot of personal data) it is its responsibility to guarantee its safety. But there also exists a kind of freedom for the company to use the information according to their interests. What do we mean with this? Well, these companies can obtain more information from that data that was given by its users. There were some cases where these companies were trying to predict which users were more likely to develop depression in the future.

Fortunately, these information was made with the best intentions: to try to take care about the future publications and try to filter and offer help if necessary. But this also puts us to think very seriously about two things. First of all: is this a violation to people’s privacy? I think that it is sort of that, because we give the information for one objective and many more are developed. I think sites should be clearer (and I mean to put it in a big note, not in section 50 of the terms and conditions) about the uses our data will have.

Second thing: what could happen if this information is gotten by the wrong people? This actually happens many times, remember those annoying phone calls by Movistar when you are a Telcer user? This is a normal case, but information is a very, very powerful weapon nowadays. You could attack people, blackmail or worse. This gives us more reasons to be more careful with the data we give, and to whom to give it, and so a bigger note, as I said earlier, must be generated.

In a Smart Cities future, many more data will be generated, and so, a lot of new risks will appear. I really think that, in a smart city, we must be very well informed about the uses of our data, and if we are not told about it when using a specific device or platform, we should seriously ask for that information, and if still this is negated, we should avoid using those things. I really think we will need to protect us better from those things in the future, and we also should always try to feel safe and happy, because that is what a smart city is all about: increase our life quality.

Smart focus on circular cities

As I was, once again, reading about news for smart cities, I came across many of them using the concept of a circular city. I once read some things about circular cities, but haven’t really thought as them for a smart city development, I don’t know why. The approach of a circular smart city surely can become very interesting and could get very good results, if many things for allowing a circular city are thought from the beginning to make it easier and better.

First of all, the concept of a circular city. A circular city is, basically, a city that can minimize its own waste through the design of certain strategies for handling properly the generation of its own garbage and what to do with it. It may recall to the general reciclying theory, but this is something more complex. A circular city uses its own waste to produce something that will benefit the city. Waste can be turned into heat, electricity, prime materials, construction tools, and some other things.

Amsterdam is a pioneer in circular cities. Since last year, many of its investment has been used in the investigation and generation of processes to turn waste into goods, and so, change from the “linear city” concept to the circular city concept. Of course, the projection benefits have been calculated and releases. It is estimated that, in the first year of fully implementing the circular city, Amsterdam city will 85 million euros in the construction sector, and 150 million in a more general overview. Also, are developing a system that can generate 900kWh of energy per 1000 kg. of trash, and also, one that turns water into natural gas.

Why should we think of this for a future smart city you may ask? Well, think about it. In a near future, we may want to save resources as a store for unknown things to come. If we are also trying to make the lives of people better, this may be a way to lower costs and pollution in general, so better and happier lives will be gotten. It is a little incoherent for a smart and technological city to generate a lot of pollution, so I reallt think this concept should be checked and included in all the plans for a smart city.

I think time is still good for people to think about this. Not just for people, for all of us, the rewards can be huge at the end, but we need to get together and begin acting, since the strength of a full community can make a real change in today’s cities and societies all around the world.

“Smart” surveillance

This time, we will take a closer look into the delicate theme of the spying and surveillance. We all know that government organiations spy its citizens. And think about it: we all know. We know it amd think it is normal, because it is. I cannot deal with how deep this is. We’ve seen many cases in which the spying evidence is clear and solid, and there is where we know what all the countries’ organizations are capable of. This, in my opinion, is a lack of responsiblity from those organizations, which very often go too far in this matters.

For this week, we have the case of a muslim woman in the US, who was spied over the years by the FBI. They were part of a pre 9/11 program for trying to erradicate terrorism and all that. But every muslim person that was involved in that investigation says that they were just paranoid about that. They knew they were being watched, they knew they could see and hear them, they had to be very careful about what they said and what they did. Instead of erradicating terrorism, they were traumatized and very afraid of themselves and their families.

This woman (Assia Boundaoui) became really aware of this, and made a lawsuit to the FBI. She won, and so the FBI was forced to release more than 33,000 pages of the spying reports. But this wasn’t made for just to look for revenge or spread the information to everyone. She intends to develop an AI tool for analyzing and predicting the patterns, techniques and reasons for a particular case of spying. She wants to help people to live a peaceful life and lower the levels of high spying.

This tool comes to a new vision on this things, in my opinion. This, if made true, can cause also several problems and benefits. Benefits are the power that this may give to the people, but trouble with the more powerful organizations may come close in a short time. I can think in a case where this technology is powerful enough to predict spying cases, but, one way or another, organizations may use their resources to block the use of this kind of AI.

I personally think this was a great topic. I never thought on using AI for detecting spying cases. Surely the approach is very interesting, but also, we got to think about repercussions of this. As I said, there may be many people that want to erradicate it, and this may initiate a world of anger and dispute between those parts. I think this topic will also gain strength as time passes, and will become an official affair for the future of the smart cities concept.

 

Internet freedom

This is a theme that I have touched before, not sure if directly or indirectly. We have cited a lot of times the problems about the data ownership, and what kind of access does “normal” people has. This has more problems in the smart cities background, but this has been a problem since (relatively) long time ago.

Everyday, new information is generated in the variety of Internet’s corners. This information goes somewhere, and it varies depending on its purpose. But the ownership also varies depending on that, but still none of these things are so clear for the people, who think that the information is, or should be, free for all to access it. I want to say that this does not mean anything about my own opinion about this, I just want to expose a harmless opinion that may be useful for this blog.

Many people use their strength and will to try to take the information to everyone, ignoring that some of that information may not be “free” in a legal way. Still, a good amount of this information is not legally free, but some people, nevertheless, take it and distribute it. We took in the case of Aaron Swartz. He was an Internet prodigy and activist. In 2011, Swartz was arrested for connecting and downloading lots of academic articles from the MIT network. Swartz faced charges for wire and computer fraud, condemning him to 35 years in prison and a fine of 1 million dollars, among other things. He was found dead by hanging in his appartment, was 26 years old. To this day, many people claim that this was a truly extreme act concerning “free” knowledge, and its price was the life of one of the brightest minds in modern Internet topics.

How could we administrate information freedom in the Internet? It is very difficult, because many people can feel that their “freedom” is being altered. When someone tries to put a halt to the information access, many people feel disturbed, and many other just understand that there is a limit for the information. Still, many times this can lead to a big distaster: protests, angry people, lawsuits, even worse. There is a very thin line between freedom and privacy, and, as Internet gives power to the people, sometimes that thin line is crossed. I believe there should be some limits in this, but these limits should be implemented in a smarter way.

This thin line will be thinner in the smart cities concepts. The main problem I see here is that people will feel more of the information protagonists. In a smart city context, people will always be aware that they are informaton producers, and will also want more freedom in the information gathering and revision, naturally. As I have stated before, this will be a very complex theme in the future, for sure.

Week 11 review

The team is formed by:

• Sara Ruíz.
• Guillermo García
• Daniel Contreras
• Ramón García
• Dom Márquez

This week we got together some little time to plan the presentation and make some of the things that are pending. We had some trouble when making the screens, and also we had some communication problems as usual. Today we shall present everything for the Sprint review prsentation, including our advances. We think we have been working in a proper rythm, considering the several occupations everyone has as well, but we think that this work is a proper advance.

Week 11 plan

The team is formed by:

• Sara Ruíz.
• Guillermo García
• Daniel Contreras
• Ramón García
• Dom Márquez

We know that next week we have another sprint presentation with Ken and the rest of the group, so we need to organize ourselves for getting that presentation ready. We will take advantage of today’s class to meet and talk about the presentation objectives, and hopefully Ken will also talk about it in the class. We will surely have to distribute some work and/or get together this weekend for getting ready the last details and know what things are each of us going to explain next monday. We also have thought of starting some documentation about the project, maybe just some short things to make sure we remember how the project was made and can be used by anybody, but this may be a topic to talk about later.

 

On blogging

This week, a blog post (about blogging) was assigned for us to read, this due to some comments about the blog posting in both the Quality course and the Smart Citizens course. This post showed Ana Rodrigues telling her experience on blogging, and I had a clear idea on how important blogging is to her. I can clearly see two strong points, that I will describe in the next lines.

When blogging, one can learn a lot on several things. The intention of having a blog is to spread some knowledge with others, and this tends to be a nice objective even if the blog is just a personal experiences blog, each of them bring knowledge to the people who reads it. Also, this means that the person who writes it learns as well, in any way. One can learn while investigating something to blog about, or just to think abour themselves and write about it. It is, in any way, a place for knowledge, a really nice community for people to learn in an easy way.

I can relate myself to that, also. I have learned a lot of things when blogging, and also clarified many of them. Since I blog for some school courses, I use that as a kind of “study time” for reading and understanding some things. I some times still don’t understand the topics completely, but I do not feel that I didn’t do anything to try. It is also something of a personal satisfaction in this way.

The other point Ana has is that, when she stopped blogging, she began to be depressed. She was very busy in her work and her learning, but I could notice that her own learning without spreading it was senseless. She clearly needed a space for herself, and for spreading her personal and professional things. A blog is, also, a place for expression. She says that many people is scared of doing this, for fear of being judged, but, as it is afree space for anyone, one should not worry about that.

I’ve never been against blogging, I think it is a good personal space, a learning opportunity and a way to help others know things, to reinforce the things that you may want to reread, and also to spread, which is a very important aspect in today’s life, that information must be free and available for everybody, and blogging makes that possible, as it is people working for other people, without any interest, just for learning (well, many of them).

 

References

Oh Hello Ana. (2018, December 14). Retrieved from https://www.ohhelloana.blog/blogging-and-me

Week 10 review

The team is formed by:

• Sara Ruíz.
• Guillermo García
• Daniel Contreras
• Ramón García
• Dom Márquez

This week we got together a while to see how much progress we had (most of it individual). Exams are around the corner, so we decided to get a little meeting before going to exams. We found out that some Vue skills are a little better (and way better for Daniel, since he started working in a front end posotion). We thought once again on having a good back end implementation, but still we have to finish the last pages to be able to guarantee an MVP for the next deliverable.