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Time to talk about 'Things' …

The Internet of Things will bring a deluge of Big Data; will it be 'TMI' for payments processors looking to use defined behaviors as a means of validating identity?

April 14, 2015 by Richard Buckle — Founder and CEO, Pyalla Technologies, LLC

Fellow founding director of Pyalla Technologies, Margo Holen, has been active in social media of late and it's all been about the Internet of Things. In a March 12 post to the NonStop community blog, Real Time View, Margo wrote, "All I can think about is who is going to process, store and act upon the information all the things are providing?"

In a March 23 post, she wrote about what Ikea stores have been doing in consumer research and asked, "To what extent would you go to help with research? The presence of the cameras, the ability of things I use to 'spy' on me and report ... But now things are getting out of control."

However, before we head to department stores and auto dealerships to burn them all down, we might consider a couple of positive outcomes from this increased communication between "things."

As a society, we are rapidly approaching the point where our behavior identifies us more than any questions we answer or biometric scan we submit to. No longer is it a case of black or white, yes or no, but rather, did we stick to our routines?

In a world where we might be recognized by items in a mall window we pass by, we will all succumb to predictability and in so doing, sow the seeds of our own personal security. Stray from normal routines and it might take a while before we can pull cash from an ATM — or so it might seem.

And what about big data? With IoT there will be even more of it and this will present numerous challenges, particularly for payments processors looking to exploit behavior as a less intrusive means of validating our identity.

In its white paper, "WebAction ensures IoT is never too late," big data proponent WebAction highlights the ultimate risk to IoT companies of being unable to process, visualize and act upon such high-volume, high-velocity data, so the data may simply be "too late." Too late to make a marketing offer at an emotional inflexion point! Too late to correlate multiple events and realize there's been a security breach on a wearable device; too late to pick up on identity compromise as an ATM transaction commences.

"Of course there is a big play for WebAction in the IoT world," said WebAction cofounder and EVP, Sami Akbay. "Transactional systems capture only events of interest. IoT systems capture everything and you need to filter out the unwanted noise in order to capture any event of interest. WebAction allows you to make real-time and complex decisions to identify those events of interest from IoT sources."

Timeliness will be an attribute of data that will become highly valued by payments processors as they wrestle with reducing risks while pushing harder to enrich the customer experience, particularly when the customer is interacting with an ATM.

Some time ago I enjoyed a lively conversation with T.C. Janes, a managing consultant for enterprise solutions and architecture at Hewlett-Packard. What came out of this exchange ended up in a blog post last August to Real Time View:

From our perspective, we should be talking about 'time value' of information. Time is the enemy of data. ... Certain types of data have enormous value at its moment of creation but may have less value an hour from now and perhaps no value tomorrow.

We often emphasize two of the "V"s associated with big data — volume and velocity — but timing is of the utmost importance when integrating the world of big data with transaction processing.

Our behavior evolves and changes and, with that, challenges any models we may have that authenticate us by our behavior: If we are leaving a sports arena and our team has won, we might behave quite differently than we would if they had lost. Our subsequent purchase decisions could be vastly different and even our mode of transportation (to name just one item) could be influenced.

All of which is to say, those contemplating doing something more to authenticate us as individuals need to do more than simply identify us by our behavior. Time is the enemy of data. If at some time we move away from what our data trail establishes as "normal behavior," do we become locked out of systems we depend upon?

The payment processing systems that support ATMs have a responsibility to ensure that individuals requesting cash are really who they say they are. There are lots of ways we can go about the authentication process, and today the old-fashioned PIN number seems to be on its way out.

We can text a challenge to a registered mobile device, but if it's been stolen (and more, if its protective wrapper also housed the ATM card), it may add very little in terms of security.

In a world of the Internet of Things, sensors and big data, there's a level of recognition emerging that I feel a lot more comfortable with. Indeed, coupled with more intelligent challenges (last week, where did you change your oil?) behavioral authentication seems a logical utilization of all the data we can tap into these days.

Nothing is foolproof and there's no lessening of the requirement for a depth of defense — the "onion layers" we so often describe. Also, we can't make it too onerous and scare away potential legitimate users.

But a system that knows it is us, in this instance of time, without requiring us to punch in a string of numbers or subject ourselves to a retina scan, has obvious upsides. And that's not even to mention the possibility of having a meaningful dialogue with an ATM using a synthesized voice modulated to exactly the tone we enjoy. It might be only a matter of a few years away. Time will tell whether we will be able to nonchalantly approach an ATM and pursue whatever transaction we choose. Yes, in time, this might very well become commonplace.

About Richard Buckle

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Richard Buckle is the founder and CEO of Pyalla Technologies, LLC. He has enjoyed a long association with the Information Technology (IT) industry as a user, vendor, and more recently, as an industry commentator, thought leader, columnist and blogger. Richard participates in the HPE VIP Community where he is part of their influencer team.

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