Reading the article, got some questions.
How could this work? Imagine someone has a blockchain in his security cam, which reports the data to central server and signs it so that it is unfalsifiable (if I correctly understood the use case). Now, this small device should have it's private key in it, stored somehow locally, correct?. What is the security measure if it?
Just to clear a potential misunderstanding. The security cam would run only a wallet and not the full or light blockchain node. This is something what was explained in the blog post as a common misconception in the industry when it comes to combing blockchain and IoT. Given that the security cam has the wallet locally, it will own its private key as well, correct. In the example from the blog post, the micro-controller unit (MCU) being used on Particle Photon is belonging to similar family of MCUs like Trezor (STM32F205) which actually has a large hardware-based attack surface. Check out this great article on that topic:
https://blog.gridplus.io/hardware-wallet-vulnerabilities-f20688361b88. The idea behind the blog post was to explore the possibilities and potential use cases of running a wallet on a embedded device. Now, making the device itself more secure requires much more effort of course. This is exactly what is our startup (called AnyLedger,
http://anyledger.io) working on atm. We are building a highly secure, embedded wallet solution which will expose IoT devices to the blockchain ecosystem. We will be using a new type of MCUs with high security standards (ARM TrustZone) and enclose the MCU in a unibody with special welding procedure to provide temper-proof capabilities. There are more security measure we plan to add to it. You can check our whitepaper for more details.
Why a toaster needs a wallet? No, seriously, I can understand that blockchain, probably, has application to IoT. But why things should be built around "wallets" and "balances" there?
We're definitely not implying that the every single IoT device out there should be a wallet as well. What we're trying to convey is that having connected capability for the IoT device will become commodity in the near future. Once that happens, whole new set of use cases will open up. These connected devices don't necessary have to exchange value between each other. More interesting scenarios involve their interaction with smart contracts. Think about having an audit trail for you home appliances which prove the usage time of a specific device. This can be used to determine a more fair second-hand price for example, or suggest for the potential repairs in order to extend the lifetime of of the device. We might be able to fight against planned obsolescence by requiring manufactures to enable these kind of scenarios. Not all IoT devices are home appliances btw. IoT refers to a much broader spectrum of industrial machinery, electronic appliances, wireless sensors, cars, transport systems, wearables, smart meters or any other everyday object with enhanced digital capabilities.
Why would it be necessary, funds in a wallet of my door bell? Wouldn't distributed, blockchain based consensus work here, but not involving currency-ish idioms?
Sorry for some critics, but you asked for comments. I do think blockchain can be used in IoT and such a projects have great potential, but I can't get why it's still being built around "wallets", "funds" and "balances". Is this because there is no technical basis for something different and Ethereum dominates the area?
I think your comment is spot on this one. Currency based vocabulary might be causing a certain level of confusion. Our product is quite technical and we're still trying to find the correct way of telling its story to our community and potential customers. Given that this is relatively new application area for blockchain, we thought that "embedded wallet" term would push the right buttons in people's head. The concept of wallet is wide-spread technical term in blockchain world and it's not specific to Ethereum. Also, our startup is trying to abstraction layer for the wallet itself, so it would easy for a IoT device and its owner to move between different chains.
