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Protobuf is not bad, but relies on a fixed schema. Blink protocol transmits the schema and seems much better suited. But then there is the question of message

Protobuf is not bad, but relies on a fixed schema. Blink protocol transmits the schema and seems much better suited. But then there is the question of message security and authenticity. Hawk encoding seems to be the best option outside of TLS transport. There are enough existing formats/protocols/standards, let's work with the existing ones and continue to improve them.

fidotron 13y ago
My conclusion was obscuring message contents isn't really too important, but certainly authenticating them is, and preventing replay attacks is where it gets hard. (So a challenge/response system would be needed in some cases). This becomes nasty at the device configuration stage though, since you need to distribute/share keys somewhere. There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, but that is the point it needs to get to. The industry seems to be moving towards "solving" that through embedding cellular modems in everything and getting the stuff to phone home. The actual binary format is beside the point really, but it does need to be as close to self describing as possible.
- hershel 13y ago
  > There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, There are currently a few such protocols in the works(some still in development, some are starting deployment),highly optimized for the IOT: sigfox, semtech's lora, and the weightless standard. In general they are low bandwidth, long range protocols(from 1.5 kilometer in dense urban environment to tens of kilometers with direct line of site), mostly use unlicensed bands, use very little power(end user devices might last 5 years on a single battery), enable good latency, and are pretty cheap(around 1 euro per year, maybe less.). > self describing protocols It's hard to see that happening on the device side, but having the self-description added on the cloud/router would work.

fidotron 13y ago

My conclusion was obscuring message contents isn't really too important, but certainly authenticating them is, and preventing replay attacks is where it gets hard. (So a challenge/response system would be needed in some cases). This becomes nasty at the device configuration stage though, since you need to distribute/share keys somewhere. There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, but that is the point it needs to get to. The industry seems to be moving towards "solving" that through embedding cellular modems in everything and getting the stuff to phone home. The actual binary format is beside the point really, but it does need to be as close to self describing as possible.

hershel 13y ago
> There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, There are currently a few such protocols in the works(some still in development, some are starting deployment),highly optimized for the IOT: sigfox, semtech's lora, and the weightless standard. In general they are low bandwidth, long range protocols(from 1.5 kilometer in dense urban environment to tens of kilometers with direct line of site), mostly use unlicensed bands, use very little power(end user devices might last 5 years on a single battery), enable good latency, and are pretty cheap(around 1 euro per year, maybe less.). > self describing protocols It's hard to see that happening on the device side, but having the self-description added on the cloud/router would work.