COZY Cloud – MesInfo

Session Topic: Cozy Cloud Mes Info

Wednesday 2J

Convener: Benjamin, Cozy Cloud

Notes-taker(s): Leon Brown

MES INFO
 * “If we have data about you, you have them too… To do with them whatever makes sense for you”
 * Idea to brainstorm with companies that have lots of personal data, see what we can do with it.
 * Concept: Try to implement concepts discovered in brainstorming year.
 * http://fing.org/mesinfos
 * Companies
 * Independent, all voluntary.
 * Need prezo or go to site for company list
 * Google is also participating, but mainly money, not data at this time.
 * Identify some values for customers
 * Gestion: Management
 * Controle: Control - who access
 * Connaisance De soi - safe knowledge
 * Conscience: Discovering what you are
 * Decision et action - can act
 * Contribute: be able to contribute
 * Lots of opportunities and risks noted - need slides
 * Companies are dot one, non-digital companies. Currently most participants disintermediated from the web/clients. There is mediation between the companies and the individual - this may have driven their participation.
 * We say - don’t try to imitate MINT or others, find your own way.
 * Give back the data to your users. You enter in to trusted relationship with your customer. Then ask customer to host a service on their (the customers) cloud.
 * This ‘app’ will provide a service that MINT cannot provide - all the data from the users, within their privacy sphere. Impossible for MINT to access all your data (like invoices, receipts), but by deploying your app on a customers personal cloud you have something that MINT can’t.
 * Who is financing Mes Info? The companies participating in the experiment + public contribution.
 * What does Mes Info feel like or mean to a French citizen? MY INFORMATION
 * From the start of the project, they wanted all sorts of data: mail, photos, history of vacation. This allows services that not possible in a MINT model
 * One insurance company is providing risk score to individuals

Jumping to COZY CLOUD
 * Why Cozy Cloud was selected?
 * Start: December 2012 to explain project. Project decided Jan 2013. Kick off End of October 2013.
 * Pitch
 * Cloud is great, but….
 * ...data is new oil - it is the true asset.
 * Kept currently in web silos currently
 * Data access is an issue, and frustrating - A Personal Data Disorder as your data is across so many silos you cannot extract value.
 * Philosophy is that customers/users want to
 * Single Sign On, Search across all your data, Integration between walled gardens, Mash-ups of my personal data, and have privacy (post Snowden Era), a fundamental right
 * Answer
 * Have your data on your server. All your data held yourself you can allow sign-on, search across it, etc.
 * Difficulty
 * Data is complicated - much complexity
 * Cozy - Your Personal Cloud
 * Your Data, Your Apps, Your Server
 * Can deploy on your own server, in AWS, in any place
 * Demo
 * You sign-in to your cloud, has human readable name, maybe
 * Reach Your Home which shows the Apps on your server.
 * Can add ‘apps’ from the marketplace - an app marketplace
 * Deploy an app on your server
 * Deploy a photo app - asks permissions for authorization
 * Server then runs the service on your server. Apps do not access the service - it works at home on your server
 * All apps are competing for RAM and CPU on my local server. Cozy provides app management to slowdown/shut down unused apps
 * Note Taking App Demo
 * At install asked for rights to access my contacts
 * Different from other apps, this Note app can add a reference to an actual contact.
 * You can add a reminder
 * Cozy provides a set of inter-app communication protocols so a developer could build a To Do list that calls and/or updates information from the Task list (webOS -like in inter-app communication)
 * Commentary: Overall the magic is in the Mes INFOS project is getting all the companies on-board to give data back to the consumer.
 * Others parrot this concern/interest
 * Why? Banks, insurance, post office are interested in (1) any laws of giving data back to the consumer and (2) seeing what developers might do with this data.
 * Commentary: Interesting is that the framework pushes running the apps on a local server. The architecture requires running an app within the Cozy Cloud server.
 * Workflow
 * Email invitation
 * Kicks off link to start up
 * Opens a Server in OVH - a kind of rackspace, a host company
 * Machine opens up in OVH - not fixed size. Elastic.
 * Includes Disk/storage of 50MB
 * If user Opens Contacts,
 * In customers virtual machine: Linux, Cozy, the Notes app/service on top.
 * Notes data goes into storage area. Storage area is in the VM image.
 * In OVH today, but could go in users home
 * Could mail a Box with service
 * What about static IP? Using ‘Gandi’ a dynamic DNS registrar to provide unique IP
 * Cozy Cloud is a Personal Cloud Provider
 * Data - is in Cloud (OVH storage)
 * What format is all stored in? Is it readable?
 * Question: Why but your IP in to connecting data/usage between apps?
 * Architecture - add picture
 * Each app can have access to data via simple REST requests.
 * ‘data system’ in Architecture diagram reminds me of LunaBus in webOS. Allows app to x-talk and share data.
 * Indexer is Whoosh
 * Privacy is today simple: One user, one server. Not multi-tenant at this time.
 * The 300 people in Mes Infos
 * Is there any administration? If there a user issue or could they blow away their own data.

Some screen captures