Nervousnet

Privacy-preserving distributed social sensing with real & virtual sensors.

Nervousnet 1.0 Beta

The current application is the first step towards realizing the vision of a planetary nervous system. In this version, users are able to collect real-time data from their mobile phone with a user-controlled frequency. The data are stored in the phone and can also be pushed to a remote location that users self-determine. The sensor data can be visualized in real-time. Moreover, the application provides two levels of privacy control to users in the data collection process: (i) privacy by determining which sensor data are locally stored in the phone and (ii) privacy by determining which sensor data are anonymized and remotely shared.

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Functionality

- Sensor data collection

- Sensor data storage

- Control of data collection frequency

- Control of sensors involved in data collection

- Real-time visualization of sensor data collected

- Configuration of remote proxy for data collection

- Lookup of Nervousnet virtual sensors

The proxy software for a remote data sharing is open source and can be downloaded in the following Github page: https://github.com/nervousnet

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Interfaces:

- A local analytics engine with an API for the further development of virtual sensors.

The source code of Nervousnet is available in Github: https://github.com/nervousnet

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A Vision for a Planetary Nervous System

Nervousnet is a backend client for the planetary nervous system, a large-scale distributed research platform that provides real-time social sensing services as a public good. Existing Big Data systems threaten social cohesion as they are designed to be closed, proprietary, privacy-intrusive and discriminatory. In contrast, the Planetary Nervous System is an open, privacy-preserving and participatory platform designed to be collectively built by citizens and for citizens.

The planetary nervous system is enabled by Internet of Things technologies and aims at seamlessly interconnecting a large number of different pervasive devices, e.g. mobile phones, smart sensors, etc. For this purpose, several universal state-of-the-art protocols and communication means are introduced. A novel social sensing paradigm shift is engineered: Users are provided with freedom and incentives to share, collect and, at the same time, protect data of their digital environment in real-time. In this way, social sensing turns into a knowledge extraction service of public good.

The social sensing services of the planetary nervous system can be publicly used for building novel innovative applications. Whether you would like to detect an earthquake, perform a secure evacuation or discover the hot spots of a visited city, the Planetary Nervous system makes this possible by collectively sensing social activity of participatory citizens.