Gateways for the Internet of Things: An Old Problem Revisited

An early paper in network interconnection outlined the choices between adoption and adaption of protocol structures at different levels of the early Internet. This paper revisits that theme in the light of the many advances of the last three decades, and the emergence of the Internet of Things. We maintain that there are close parallels between the variety of incompatible networks which were in vogue in the early days of the Internet and the current situation with domain-specific sensor and actuator systems in the Internet of Things. We point out that there is now much more agreement on the approach to basic services, and a more universal approach to adaption. While universal adoption of common technologies is still far distant, there has been a broad consensus on the use of the Internet and web services for the access to such systems. Because of the standardization in some of the levels of web services, particularly in the context of IPv6, a consistent architecture is defined and examples of possible implementations given

Towards a just and fair Internet: applying Rawls’ principles of justice to Internet regulation

I suggest that the social justice issues raised by Internet regulation be exposed and examined by using a methodology adapted from that described by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. Rawls’ theory uses the hypothetical scenario of people deliberating about the justice of social institutions from the ‘original position’ as a method of removing bias in decision-making about justice. The original position imposes a ‘veil of ignorance’ that hides the particular circumstances of individuals from them so that they will not be influenced by self-interest. I adapt Rawls’ methodology by introducing an abstract description of information technology to those deliberating about justice from within the original position. This abstract description focuses on information devices that users can use to access information (and which may record information about them as well) and information networks that information devices use to communicate. The abstractness of this description prevents the particular characteristics of the Internet and the computing devices in use from influencing the decisions about the just use and regulation of information technology and networks. From this abstract position, the principles of justice that the participants accept for the rest of society will also apply to the computing devices people use to communicate, and to Internet regulatio

Cargo Cults in Information Systems Development: a Definition and an Analytical Framework

Organizations today adopt agile information systems development methods (ISDM), but many do not succeed with the adoption process and in achieving desired results. Systems developers sometimes fail in efficient use of ISDM, often due to a lack of understanding the fundamental intentions of the chosen method. In many cases organizations simply imitate the behavior of others without really understanding why. This conceptual paper defines this phenomenon as an ISDM cargo cult behavior and proposes an analytical framework to identify such situations. The concept of cargo cults originally comes from the field of social anthropology and has been used to explain irrational, ritualistic imitation of certain behavior. By defining and introducing the concept in the field of information systems development we provide a diagnostic tool to better understand one of the reasons why ISDM adoption sometimes fail