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An IoT dashboard

dashboard.sidlee.com

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Re: An IoT dashboard

#31

Post by StavrosK »

EvilDavid75 wrote: post #27
StavrosK wrote: post #22

I love things like these, but I'm worried about the security implications (even though they're hosted on my own server). I've been thinking about encrypting the values (I only do TLS now), but you can probably get a lot of information from traffic analysis alone. A bigger question is how to send the control signals (e.g. lights/AC on/off) in a secure manner, so I've devised a protocol that uses ECC keys to sign each…

Hi StavrosK, you're right to be worried. We had someone playing with the API this week and sending wrong events. Security wasn't a primary concern for us, we started this as an internal joke (first version didn't even have a token system). Just to be clear, the light switch doesn't trigger a real light, but the way we handle sending sending the events from the browser is pretty dirty :)

Yep, you need at least a shared secret that isn't published anywhere for sending the events (reading them is fine if you're public).

Re: An IoT dashboard

#32

Post by TeMPOraL »

nl wrote: post #21
q3k wrote: post #13

A prime example of why dashboards are useless. Information that nobody needs (toilet flushes? ctrl, excuse me, apple-z's?) shown in a shiny way.

Information that nobody needs Wow. Toilet flushes: a significant change in the frequency of toilet flushes may indicate the spread of communicable diseases such as gastroenteritis, or community health problems like food poisoning. Apple-z: Clearly someone is having a lot of problems with whatever software they are using. There is a UX optimisation opportunity there.

> Toilet flushes: a significant change in the frequency of toilet flushes may indicate the spread of communicable diseases such as gastroenteritis, or community health problems like food poisoning.

Well, you can't learn anything from just a number of today's flushes. With a proper chart graphing frequency over time and emphasizing changes, sure. But that's not what you get on the dashboard, at least without clicking. The lone number is useless.

> Apple-z: Clearly someone is having a lot of problems with whatever software they are using. There is a UX optimisation opportunity there.

Well, maybe. You can't tell from a lone number. Again, the graphs you can find when you click around could be useful, but not what you get by default.

Information is useless if it doesn't help you make decisions.

Re: An IoT dashboard

#33

Post by TeMPOraL »

StavrosK wrote: post #22

I love things like these, but I'm worried about the security implications (even though they're hosted on my own server). I've been thinking about encrypting the values (I only do TLS now), but you can probably get a lot of information from traffic analysis alone. A bigger question is how to send the control signals (e.g. lights/AC on/off) in a secure manner, so I've devised a protocol that uses ECC keys to sign each…

Killjoy :(. I thought the whole point of IoT was to be able to flicker your neighbour's lights, turn on music on your crush's radio and flush random toilets remotely.

(I'm only partially joking. Security and fun seem to be mutually exclusive.)

Re: An IoT dashboard

#34

Post by StavrosK »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #33
StavrosK wrote: post #22

I love things like these, but I'm worried about the security implications (even though they're hosted on my own server). I've been thinking about encrypting the values (I only do TLS now), but you can probably get a lot of information from traffic analysis alone. A bigger question is how to send the control signals (e.g. lights/AC on/off) in a secure manner, so I've devised a protocol that uses ECC keys to sign each…

Killjoy :(. I thought the whole point of IoT was to be able to flicker your neighbour's lights, turn on music on your crush's radio and flush random toilets remotely. (I'm only partially joking. Security and fun seem to be mutually exclusive.)

Unfortunately, some people have a different concept of fun from ours :P

Re: An IoT dashboard

#35

Post by bigx »

StavrosK wrote: post #22

I love things like these, but I'm worried about the security implications (even though they're hosted on my own server). I've been thinking about encrypting the values (I only do TLS now), but you can probably get a lot of information from traffic analysis alone. A bigger question is how to send the control signals (e.g. lights/AC on/off) in a secure manner, so I've devised a protocol that uses ECC keys to sign each…

That's a good point, since i'm no expert in security things, I'm struggling finding an adequate solution.

We have a private token, that the arduinos post along with the measure. It seems enough for our use case, but not at all for sensitive data.

Security in IoT is a big concern, an I need to know more about it.

Re: An IoT dashboard

#36

Post by NicoJuicy »

This is a clean looking dashboard! Nicely done. Is it a live demonstration? If so, what hardware do you use or do you have any blogposts about it?

I'm curious about a lot of things, like how did you integrate this with common hardware? (eg. the widget with footballs used)

Re: An IoT dashboard

#37

Post by StavrosK »

bigx wrote: post #35
StavrosK wrote: post #22

I love things like these, but I'm worried about the security implications (even though they're hosted on my own server). I've been thinking about encrypting the values (I only do TLS now), but you can probably get a lot of information from traffic analysis alone. A bigger question is how to send the control signals (e.g. lights/AC on/off) in a secure manner, so I've devised a protocol that uses ECC keys to sign each…

That's a good point, since i'm no expert in security things, I'm struggling finding an adequate solution. We have a private token, that the arduinos post along with the measure. It seems enough for our use case, but not at all for sensitive data. Security in IoT is a big concern, an I need to know more about it.

There are things you can do, the problem is that the Arduino isn't powerful enough to do any sort of crypto on the chip. I use it as a peripheral to a computer, which just reads the Arduino and posts the data to the server. Signing/encryption happens there, but a Raspberry Pi would also be a good solution for that.

Re: An IoT dashboard

#38

Post by scrapcode »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #36

This is a clean looking dashboard! Nicely done. Is it a live demonstration? If so, what hardware do you use or do you have any blogposts about it? I'm curious about a lot of things, like how did you integrate this with common hardware? (eg. the widget with footballs used)

Seems like a lot of nifty Arduino implementations. At the bottom they give credit to the work of "Arduino and Server." Edit: ...and at the top it states "Real time data with Arduino."

Re: An IoT dashboard

#39

Post by bigx »

scrapcode wrote: post #38
NicoJuicy wrote: post #36

This is a clean looking dashboard! Nicely done. Is it a live demonstration? If so, what hardware do you use or do you have any blogposts about it? I'm curious about a lot of things, like how did you integrate this with common hardware? (eg. the widget with footballs used)

Seems like a lot of nifty Arduino implementations. At the bottom they give credit to the work of "Arduino and Server." Edit: ...and at the top it states "Real time data with Arduino."

Yep, 7 arduino ethernet (thanks to all the rj45+poe sockets on the walls in the agency), 2 spark cores (wifi), around 50 electronical parts (sensors and stuff), and some programs running on the internal network (cmd+z and printed sheets measures)
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