[LINK] Smart Cities

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Tue Mar 6 08:46:03 AEDT 2012


On 05/03/12 04:17, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
> IBM wants to develop an Operating System for cities
>   http://www.ibm.com/smartercities
> ... What might a future smart-city control-room be able to know, and to do?

IBM is offering a cloud based Intelligent Operations Centre for Smarter 
Cities. This is suggested as a way to centralise city operations and 
deal with a crisis. However, this is the same flawed approach as 
Microsoft's house of future: 
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/Features/2011/aug11/08-08MicrosoftHome.mspx

These visions assume centralised control is required, which makes the 
systems very fragile. We need resilient systems, with distributed local 
intelligence which will continue to operate when communications links 
are lost and retention of reliable mechanical systems for when the 
automation fails.

Similarly, you would be nuts to build a city which relied on a cloud 
based operations centre. If the operations centre was disabled, due to 
accident or attack, or the links to the cloud facilities were lost, the 
city would cease to function. The result would be a disaster, as you 
would not even be able to warn the citizens or organise an evacuation, 
as the communications to do so would also be down.

Apart from accident, deliberate attack needs to be considered. The 
Stuxnet computer worm is rumoured to have damaged nuclear processing 
facilities in Iran. An attack on the centralised operations centre and 
computer controlled equipment of a city could paralyse the provision of 
services and result in the deaths of thousands of citizens, directly and 
indirectly.

We need to build our city systems the way the army trains its troops: 
they are not trained to be mindless automatons following orders. In 
battle communications are often poor and those at the top have little 
idea as to what is happening on the battlefield. They rely on the 
judgement of those on the front line. Similarly the city needs its 
automated systems and its staff to know what to do in a crisis, without 
detailed orders from a centre which may not be contactable, be there, or 
be giving sensible advice.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/



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