The document discusses the challenges of object identification in IoT scenarios, particularly in the context of agricultural equipment needing to communicate. It proposes using a relationship-based identification system that organizes device attributes hierarchically to improve identification precision. Additionally, it outlines open issues for implementing a distributed naming system to enhance ownership control and ensure privacy within these interactions.

1. How to find a Thing?
Discussion of an Object Name Service
within the Identities of Things Discussion Group
September, 2014
Ingo Friese; T-Labs DTAG,
Matteo Signorini; Excalibur

2. Exemplary IoT Scenario:
Fleet management in farming industry.
*by courtesy of Claas

3. Exemplary IoT Scenario:
Support of farming production processes.
Harvesting Transport Processing

4. What’s the problem?
”All participants of the scenario use different ID
from different domains and namespaces”.
serial no. e.g. #234.36635.234
License plate e.g. “B-BA 1254”
CAN-Bus Id ”11011001110”

5. What’s the problem?
”One machine needs to communicate with a
another machine from another company”.
serial no. e.g. #234.36635.234
License plate e.g. “B-BA 1254”
CAN-Bus Id ”11011001110”
Example:
The harvester needs to communicate with the truck in order to tell him when
and where to take over the crop. The truck might ask asks:
„I need a connection with the harvester over there/ on this field/in this
campaign“….but I don‘t know its address and I even don‘t know anything
about its address scheme“.

6. What’s the idea?
Apart from characteristics and features things
have “relationships”.
TThhiningg
manufactured by
owned by
sold by
used as
shipped by
located at
used by

7. How to find a Thing?
With a sufficient knowledge of the relationship a
thing might be identified quite well.
manufactured by Claas
owned by Farmer Tom
sold by „Farm Machines Inc.“
Network connected by
IP 121.23.45.55
used in
campaign xyz
Located at
GPS position
34’23‘‘/45’77‘‘
/Toms field
driven by
Ingo

8. How to find a Thing?
A relationship can be seen as a graph described in
detail with attributes.
EEnntittiyty rerelalatitoionnsshhipip EEnntittiyty
atatrttibriubtuete
manufactured
manufactured CClalaaass
by
by
sesreiarila nl ono

9. How to find a Thing?
A hierarchy structure can be defined among
attributes.
MMaannuufafacctuturreedd b byy
CClalaaass DDeeuutztz F Faahhrr
...... ...... ...... ......
Relationship /
Attribute ID
Attribute classes
Each attribute can be sub-divided into a multiple levels hierarchy.
The more the number of levels the higher the probability to uniquely identify
a device.

10. How to find a Thing?
A hierarchy structure can be represented by a
graph.
Manufactured by
Claas Deutz Fahr
... ... ... ...
Attribute ID
Attribute classes
The hierarchycal attribute structure can be depicted as a graph with each node
representing an attribute class.

11. How to find a Thing?
Circular hierarchical architecture.
MMaannuufafacctuturreedd b byy
... ...
OOwwnneedd b byy
... ...
LLooccaatetedd a att
... ...
UUsseedd a ass
... ...

12. How to find a Thing?
Device identification precision
Higher the number and the precision level of each attribute class and higher
the probability to uniquely identify a device

13. How to find a Thing?
Graph representation of the database
Attributes
Attributes
Devices
Devices

14. How to find a Thing?
Say it in RDF (or other formats) and put it to a
graph data base.
manufactured by Claas
owned by Farmer Tom
sold by „Farm Machines Inc.“
used as
corn harvester
shipped by
MAX-Transport
Located at
GPS position
34’23‘‘/45’77‘‘
/Toms field
driven by
Ingo
harvester --manufactured by-> Claas
harvester --driven by-> Ingo
harvester --owned by-> Farmer Tom
harvester --sold by-> Farm Machines Inc.
harvester --network connected by-> IP 121.23.45.55
harvester --located at-> 34’23‘‘/45’77‘‘
/Toms field
GGrraapphh d daatata b baassee

15. How to find a Thing?
Ask the database.
Now the truck might ask the data base: I’m looking for a “device”
manufactured by Claas
owned by Farmer Tom
sold by „Farm Machines Inc.“
used as
corn harvester
shipped by
MAX-Transport
Located at
GPS position
34’23‘‘/45’77‘‘
/Toms field
driven by
Ingo
manufactured by -> Claas
owned by -> Farmer Tom
driven by -> Ingo
GGrraapphh d daatata b baassee

16. How to find a Thing?
Graph-based name resolve process.
harvester --manufactured by-> Claas
harvester --owned by-> Farmer Tom
harvester --manufactured by-> Claas
harvester --owned by-> Farmer Tom
harvester --driven by-> Ingo

17. The idea of using relationships is not new.
See NIST Spec for Asset Identification.
Source: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistir/ir7693/NISTIR-7693.pdf

18. It's a kind of search engine and DNS.
What’s the difference to a “Web-style
search engine”.
Classic “Google approach”
Fed through web-crawling
Up to many thousand results
Owned / controlled by one company
Information is not controlled by
the owner of a web-site
Our approach
Automatically fed by the devices
themself
Quality of the name-resolve query
process strictly dependent by the
number and precision of attributes used
in the query
The query process can be additionally
refined if necessary
Ownership is distributed
A „thing owner“ is able to control
who is able to find his device

19. How to find a Thing.
Open Issues and next steps:
 How to design the distribution of the system?
 Global but also local communities, companies might offer this service
How can the interact?
 Do we need ontologies to describe attribute hierarchies?
 What is the organizational framework?
 Do we need something like IANA as an steering organization?
 How to ensure privacy?
 We can restrict requests in several ways. (e.g. if you ask for a certain machine you have to
show your identity)
 How to ensure non-repudiation of the relationship data?
 We store e.g. transactions or events belonging to a certain thing(key word blog-chains etc.)
 How to build an business on top of it?
 A special indicator might show how „expensive“ the requested data/or
computing power is (keyword: smart contracts).

20. Identities of Things
Discussion Group
IDoT

21. Identities of Things Discussion Group
Current Members.

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23. Questions?