Smart Dust by Gregor Wolbring December 15, 2006

In a recent blog on ID Trail, Angela Long wrote about privacy issues around a planned town in South Korea called New Songdo that is to be operational in 2014. This will be the world’s first ubiquitous city or "U-City," in which all major information systems (residential, medical, business, etc.) share data; computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings; and the technology and facilities infrastructures are integrated. Reading the article one sees the cultural construction of privacy. In North America, privacy is often a big issue, but the need for privacy is not as strong in other cultures.

New Songdo will have no problem filling up with inhabitants. Having read the webpage, I can see why it is enticing for people to move there. And with new technologies on the horizon, the vision behind New Songdo will become even more attractive to others. These capabilities could be implemented quickly in other places, without having to build cities from scratch.

There are new privacy issues, however, that should raise concern. Kris Pister anticipates many applications of a new technology called “smart dust” by 2010, many of which one might see in New Songdo.

Smart Dust was first conceptualized by Kris Pister and Randy H. Katz as an autonomous sensing and communication system working within the confines of a cubic millimeter. Potential applications envisioned by Kris Pister included defense-related sensor networks such as battlefield surveillance, treaty monitoring, transportation monitoring, and scud hunting.

Pister also envisaged a virtual keyboard -- "a smart-dust mote stuck to each fingernail," he says, "that could allow finger movements in air to be transmitted to a computer. With this technology, computers could get even smaller, and air guitar would no longer be just a fantasy of rock-star wannabes. If the computer knows where your fingers are: sculpt 3D shapes in virtual clay, play the piano, gesture in sign language and have to computer translate. Combined with a MEMS augmented-reality heads-up display, your entire computer I/O would be invisible to the people around you. Couple that with wireless access and you need never be bored in a meeting again! Surf the web while the boss rambles on and on."

Other possible applications include inventory control, product quality monitoring, smart office spaces, smart body suits (temperature, humidity, and environmental comfort sensors sewn into our clothes), and interfaces for the disabled. Some of the ideas by Wolbring and Golledge could become a reality with sensor networks.

Dana Whicker, presenting to IEEE Women In Engineering of Southern New Jersey, identified applications in structure maintenance, area surveys and surveillance, precision farming, pest control, security and safety, people tracking, the military, environmental protection, energy conservation, and medicine. She sees the possibility of nanoscale motes that will transform the computer environment from one to many through miniaturization.

Smart Dust is applied commercially by Dust Networks, Inc., whose webpage reads "The information you need is all around you. The challenge is to collect and manage it at a reasonable cost. If your OEM application is industrial automation, building automation or defense, then Dust Networks delivers the ideal wireless sensor network featuring >99.9% data reliability, low-power consumption and the ability to collect data from almost anywhere in the physical world." They sell it as a solution for border patrol, perimeter security and battlefield awareness. Wireless micro and nanosensors are an area of intense research.

Honeywell International says it is looking at motes for climate control applications. San Jose, California-based Digital Sun says it is receiving orders for wireless sensors that monitor irrigation. Intel, Crossbow Technologies, Dust Networks, Ember, Millennial Net, Moteiv Corporation, MicroStrain and Philips are also working in this field.

IEEE's 802.15.4 wireless personal area network (WPAN) protocol is an existing standard, also known as ZigBee. "By integrating all the hardware and software functions for creating distributed sensor networks onto a single chip -- called its mote-on-chip -- Dust Networks claims five-fold lower power consumption than Zigbee, the elimination of the need for wired routers, and a 10-fold reduction in the overall price of adding new sensors to an existing network."

According to a Freedonia report, the "US demand for sensors will grow 7.8 percent annually through 2008, driven by sales of more advanced types used in motor vehicles, consumer electronics and information technology. Products such as proximity and positioning sensors, complementary metal-oxide silicon (CMOS) imaging sensors, and MEMS-based speed sensors will lead gains."

The Freedonia study "analyzes the $9.5 billion US sensors industry and forecasts to 2008 and 2013 by sensor type (e.g., pressure, temperature, flow and level, speed, motion, proximity and positioning, electrical properties, chemicals properties, imaging); and by market (e.g., motor vehicles, industrial, military/aerospace, consumer/household, electronic security, medical, information technology). The study also examines the market environment, details industry structure and market share, and profiles 39 industry competitors including Honeywell, Delphi, Emerson Electric, Motorola, Rockwell Automation, Eaton, Robert Bosch, and Siemens."

On World expects that 126 million sensors could be deployed worldwide by 2010. Industry revenue could total $8 billion in 2010, up from $300 million this year. On World has a variety of reports on the issue. Smart dust and wireless networks are of course linked to RFID chips research in which many countries such as Canada and South Korea are investing heavily. Research from analyst house Frost and Sullivan found that revenue from RFID in healthcare and pharmaceuticals will rise almost sixfold, from 2004's total of $370 million to $2.3 billion in 2011. Besides RFID chips and smart dust and wireless sensor networks, there is the utility fog aka: polymorphic smart materials, which is smart dust plus movable parts.

There are social concerns with the whole area. Michael Mehta, a sociologist at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), explored in his paper how the development of nano-scale devices for surveillance, tracking and monitoring may create a society that functions as a 'panopticon' with an institutionalized and physical form of surveillance.

According to Mehta, "Nanotechnology is stimulating significant advances in surveillance and monitoring technology. By facilitating the miniaturization of remote camera technology, the panoptic effects from surveillance become magnified. It will soon become possible to place undetectable video cameras, microphones and transmitters anywhere one wishes. For example, researchers from Hiroshima University and Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) have discovered that silicon nano-crystal film is photoconductive. Once greater control over the size of crystal grains is achieved, it should be possible to use such films in charge-coupled devices for making highly sensitive, compact video cameras."

Mehta makes the interesting point that "as a precondition of trust, privacy is an essential ingredient in a society where 'social capital' is required for stimulating innovation" and that "the wide-scale use of surveillance equipment may create a society with lower levels of trust, less social capital and depressed civic engagement. In short, these uses of nanotechnology could depress innovation."

Mehta is not alone in his concerns. ETC Group quotes the UK Royal Society report on Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties, which also highlighted privacy concerns raised by nanosensors: " …[Sensor] devices might be used in ways that limit individual or group privacy by covert surveillance, by collecting and distributing personal information (such as health or genetic profiles) without adequate consent, and by concentrating information in the hands of those with the resources to develop and control such networks."

In the RFID journal online one finds the following news item: "May 2, 2006 -- Wisconsin's legislative branch cleared a bill late last week that would ban anyone from implanting RFID microchips into people without their consent. The legislation prohibits anyone, including employers or government agencies, from requiring people to have microchips implanted in them. Violators would face fines of up to $10,000."

There are many who see privacy issues with RFID chips. There are others who do not see problems with the chips, but see smart dust as alarming. On the technoprobe blog one reads, "Will smart dust pose privacy problems? The sensors it can carry mean that it is not capable only of reporting, like an RFID, what product you bought or own. It can take pictures, record sound, sniff for drugs, and more. It can be scattered in a student's dorm room or clothing. It can be embedded in paint. It is actually much more alarming than RFID tags!"

The Choice is Yours

There are growing challenges to privacy. It will be interesting to see how trends in cultures that place less value on privacy will impact North America -- and vice versa. Or how the 'threat of terrorism' will move North America to greater acceptance of surveillance. How much privacy is needed? What kind of privacy is needed? The choice is yours.

Gregor Wolbring is a biochemist, bioethicist, science and technology ethicist, disability/vari-ability studies scholar, and health policy and science and technology studies researcher at the University of Calgary. He is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University; Member CAC/ISO - Canadian Advisory Committees for the International Organization for Standardization section TC229 Nanotechnologies; Member of the editorial team for the Nanotechnology for Development portal of the Development Gateway Foundation; Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People's International; and Member of the Executive of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He publishes the Bioethics, Culture and Disability website, moderates a weblog for the International Network for Social Research on Diasbility, and authors a weblog on NBICS and its social implications.