deal breakers for most people.

Let’s think about some design challenges that must be addressed to ensure continuing user trust in the home Io Ts system: exception handlers for sock drawers; incompatible sock releases; house virus updates; and operating system conflicts for merging households. And then there are the open design questions: How are you going to debug the house if it decides to lock the bathroom door with Auntie Elsie inside? How do you negotiate with your household IT administrator if she is 13 years old and angry at you for grounding her? And how do these systems inter-operate: What is in an effective decision-making hierarchy? Who gets to have the last say? Think of the power struggle if my applications are in conflict—my jeans in conflict with my T-shirts about which require my attention first. Anyone who has been around children who are arguing can understand the power struggles that come about between somewhat independent, sentient, and opinionated agents. And the question of all questions: how many buttons are there on an IoTs household remote control?

Second, there is a stickier problem—the reliability, consistency, credibility, and transparency of the network information transport; that is, the possibility for data/information leakage. Internet connections are often insecure, spewing data out and allowing others to see our activities, intentionally or by accident. The boundaries between walls are permeable. What if my sock resolutely, but incorrectly, pairs with a sock

next door? And what if my fridge starts putting my favorite foodstuffs on my neighbor’s shopping list? Do I really want them to know that my sophisticated palate requires at least two jars of peanut butter a week? The question is: Are my sentient objects going to know whom to share content with and whom not to?

There may not be a malevolent entity using these data or snarfing your bandwidth, but even opportunistic information observers may enjoy this. When I was growing up in the U.K., there was a term for nosey neighbors whose personal joy is to research other people’s personal lives: these curious individuals are called “ curtain flickers”, known as such because most of their observations took place by peering out of their windows. One of the advantages of curtain flicking for the observed is that you can see the movement of the fabric indicating that you are being watched. Nosey people still exist, but these days their options for snooping surreptitiously are so much greater. Curtain flickers not need even approach the window, so there are few cues as to who is monitoring your actions.

Third, there is the thornier problem of malicious attack through deliberate and intentional hacks. The boundary of bricks and mortar is easy to see; unseen entryways are more difficult. Marketers of household cleaning products have for years been warning us of unseen dangers like germs and small creatures that can enter our home; the germs of tomorrow in the IoTs

world are going to be those in service of humans with malicious intent. Frankly, once you get malicious or self-interested humans in the loop, all is likely to go to hell. It is worse than the days of yore, when shills and confidence tricksters used classic motivators—ego, greed, avarice, lust, in fact, all seven deadly sins—to trap us into giving away information that in other circumstances we would not share. Worse than these kinds of social cons are unseen attackers who steal personal information like bank account details and social security numbers, without ever interacting directly with us. In these cases we may not know for some time about a breach.

The second and third aspects of trust here revolve around the permeable boundaries that the Internet creates, and in the home setting, that means a whole new angle to perimeter security. The perimeters of the home have shifted, requiring new forms of vigilance. Of course, this crossing has been happening for some time with TV shows downloaded to TiVos and so on, but with newly developing aggregated services for living environments, more people are crossing the residential gateway. These Internet-enabled agents who are hack-able and live in an integrated world of data flows—where my sensitive information resides— make me feel vulnerable.

If you think I am being overly conservative, picture this. It’s a chilly evening, and as you head to bed and snuggle down, you feel safe in the knowledge that the next morning will bring a nice strong cup of cof-