Traditional “idle” mode designations lack the granularity required to fully describe the behaviors of non-active IoT devices. For example, there is a notable difference between a smart speaker having its microphone muted and it idly listening for a voice command. This is demonstrated by manufacturers' inclusions of “privacy modes” in smart devices such as cameras. The ambiguity surrounding the expected behavior of device idle states implies the existence of a logical “passive” state which describes the expected behavior of the devices themselves. Despite this, no accepted standards exist to define such a state. This hinders researchers' abilities to compare devices' non-active behaviors, requires manufacturers spend resources to define their own passive states, reduces transparency in data privacy practices by encouraging the creation of proprietary mode definitions, and places a significant burden on users to understand the individual privacy implications of each device.
This project seeks to provide a formal definition for these passive modes which can enable straightforward construction of device-specific definitions. We further study the passive mode behavior of these devices to determine the gap between the observed behaviors and a truely “passive” state.
Christian Badolato
PhD Student
PhD Student with research interests in Data Privacy, Operating Systems, and the Internet of Things.
Roberto Yus
Assistant Professor
My research interests include Data Management, Knowledge Representation, the Internet of Things, and Privacy.
Georgios Bouloukakis
Associate Professor
My research interests include middleware, internet of things, distributed systems.
