Net2DG (Leveraging Networked Data for the Digital Electricity Grid) is a joint effort by eight European partners to develop a proof-of-concept solution for leveraging measurement data from smart meters and smart inverters in low-voltage (LV) grids. The Net2DG solution correlates these data with information from existing DSO subsystems, in order to enable and develop novel LV grid observability applications for voltage quality, grid operation efficiency, and LV grid outage diagnosis.

2016 Leaks from the TiSA negotiations held in secrecy (Trade in Services Agreement) indicate that TiSA will foil the EU data protection directive of early 2016. TiSA must come under public monitoring and requires an eventual public vote!

If you are looking for a trusted third party for software testing, stop searching - QSIT IT-Quality Assurance may be the right partner for you

It is no longer a question, but a fact that the Internet is in the car. After discussing a number of useful mobile services in passenger cars, we have to conclude that our digital sovereignty will be lost if we do not take adequate measures. 

We have already shown in Architectures for Secure Internet Services,  how decentralization, anonymity, and resilience can help to assure digital sovereignty (the what and why is discussed in more detail in"Digital Sovereignty - What is it?", "Digital Sovereignty – why we need it", "Giving up Digital Sovereignty?"). In this report we will introduce two more foundational and necessary architecture principles – object orientation and  need-to-know principle.

Real World Role Model Offset in the Digital World

Living together in our society as well as the functioning of a corporation depend on a clear role model and people acting according to a given role at a certain point in time. A number of roles are assigned to each of us, depending upon the environment in which we are acting: mother, pilot, chancellor, software programmer, trucker,…

Today’s data center focused and organized Internet services are just like dinosaurs – they were very successful at their time, but eventually vanished in a continuously changing world. If services shall be successful in the future, they have to take data sovereignty of their users/consumers into account. Being decentrally organized, local operation (in personalized devices such as smart-phones, smart home servers, PC and others we currently do not even dream of), anonymity, and resilience are their immanent characteristics.

"Do Not Put All Your Eggs into One Basket"...

...an ancient proverb, which is fully applicable to Digital Sovereignty. If we want to become sovereign of our data again, we have to replace the currently predominant approach based on centrally managed data and the accumulation of a person’s information items in one place.

It is so easy - everything is for free, just check out the Internet! Click on a free App, download the App, install and run. One can find Apps for nearly everything. And for even the simplest pieces of information you give away whatever is stored about you on your phone. The image shows a quick example what you open up when installing a virus scan tool (I have checked at least 5 of them and only one out of 5 had a reduced set of requirements).

In the course of the ongoing digital transformation data owners will become part of the value chain - our data are valuable - we have to charge for their use!

Data are Entering Blue and White Collar Work

Digital transformation processes, as we know them from the first Internet hype in the year 2000, are entering more and more areas of our society. You find them in the ongoing industrial automation (Industry 4.0), automated driving of cars (autonomous vehicles) and the overall influence of information technology (IT) on mobility (integrated traffic management), or the automation of energy production and its distribution in the optimization of energy use.

The next wave of app(lications) and Internet services will be successful because of data protection!

In Search of the Killer App

The fight for customers and market share in the digital economy is tough. The first mover advantage seems to be most important due to the relatively simple internationalization of Internet services. Well known examples are Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Very often, the market leader offers maximum functionality which is easy to use. Other qualities of the offerings such as security, data protection, Digital Sovereignty are treated only as second in line. In the best case they are perceived as unnecessary, in the worst case, they are seen as detrimental and “killing business”.

At CES 2016 in Las Vegas we could see a number of new offerings around payment systems. They are all based on Internet technologies and mostly use one or more smartphone features and apps. But what about alternatives which are convenient and secure and even anonymous?

Big data and Internet technologies are expected to play an important role for the implementation of a human and affordable health system. However, humans have to be in focus when designing the technology and its use. A decentralized approach and digital sovereignty of users are decisive qualities of the planned technology investments. We are all responsible for requesting and promoting these design criteria for the use of Internet technologies in our health system.

ISAS 2008, the 5^th in the series of ISAS Events (International Service Availability Symposium), was hosted by Prof. Takashi Nanya at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo in May 2008. Close to 80 participants from industry and academia showed the importance of the conference, which celebrated its 5th anniversary.

in4comstands for "Industrial Integration In Information and Communications" - the notion dates back to the turn of the century when 3G was widely introduced, UMTS blinked on the horizon, and a tremendous hype around communications and the integration with information technologies started off. As we know now, this was just the initial hype of many more which followed.  The need for an industrial approach to the use of IT and communications has never been bigger than today - we assume in 10 years from now this will still be true.

Think about it - the Internet has grown from a tool of a bunch of nerds into a world-wide available infrastructure, which is used by billions of people, on a professional as well as on personel level.

For each item in the real world, we all profit from a legal framework which allows us to move (more or less) safely about. But what about the digital world? To me this looks much more like Wild West than anything else. In many ways we depend upon the goodwill of international players who confront us with usage regulations 20 pages long before allowing us to use our smartphone which we have paid for!

Digital sovereignty denotes the authority of individuals over their presence and representations in the digital world.

 The definition of digital sovereinty is relatively flurry due to its varying meanings. So for this brief discussion, we have searched for both: digital sovereignty and data sovereignty. What we found was that the terms' interpretations take mainly a governmental view based on definitions for "sovereignty" (different from the terms' use in Germany as discussed in Digitale Souveränität - Was ist das?).

Our digital alter ego  is abundant - and we better take care of it. The concept  of digital sovereignty should help us to manage it.

Each and every one of us has a digital alter ego. But who of us knows, where this alter ego is stored? Even more relevant: which attributes are associated with our alter ego? Or: who is making money from knowing or using our alter ego? May be only partially or in combination with other data? Digital sovereignty – the management or control of our alter ego in the digital world – should help us answer above questions when managing our digital alter ego.