If you have ever surrendered your computer to a techie via a program like TeamViewer, you have had the wonderful/disturbing experience of seeing your system taken over, searched, interrogated, and fixed.
Much of what I’ve read about the Internet of Things (IoT) is about individual items reporting their presence or status. We can inventory our stock and know where it is. A failing bridge support or a spoiling liter of milk will send a distress signal back to a central entity.
There’s a world of data out there. A big chunk of it is handcrafted, or, at least, mediated by humans. Cashiers scan bar codes. Field researchers tag endangered species. Traders enter buy and sell decisions.
Can you automate trust? I think about that every time I come up against something that would be good to do in a virtual world, but is hampered or won’t work at all because trust is an issue.
I can test people in online courses, but how do I know the person taking the test isn’t cheating (or even is the same one I credential)?
I can collaborate on an invention or a book or a movie online, but how do I know all our work won’t be stolen? And, again, am I working with the person I think I am?
Is that person providing counseling an online psychiatrist or a charlatan?
Will the person I pay to create a web site take the money and run?
Is that picture in the dating service a picture of the person I’m chatting with?
