December 2013 – Pan Studio

Another kind of MAC

Edward Lancaster

19th December 2013

With most of us living our lives online via the phone in our pocket, no longer is it a private life but a very public one. The distinction between what is our private space and the public domain has become disputed ground. Our private lives that were once confined to our immediate physical space, whether that was the home or a chat amongst friends in a bar, have now extended. Our private spaces now overlap and are shared with others online[1], our chats with friends exist across the globe and back again, online content penetrates our home, where many of us transmit our own content back out again.

It is unsurprising that our wireless lives and the data we transmit would not go unnoticed, however it is also unsurprising that the collecting of this data has often acquired Orwellian connotations. Whether this is due to the predominantly dystopian approach to sci-fi becoming so ingrained within our paradoxical attitude to technology, or the media’s preference for perpetuating a sense of anxiety – or possibly it may just be a healthy dose of scepticism. Whatever the reason, the notion of our data being taken is uncomfortable. There is no shortage of stories of illicit data mining, from Google earth’s cars illegally storing wifi data from every house it passes, to recycling bins in London that track passers by. This need not be the case, from major projects that hope to mine big data to predict natural, economic or man made disasters, to small scale design research that aims to integrate our wireless selves into our architecture, creating a more adaptable and smarter urban planning. There is great potential for our phones to be used to better integrate and experience the physical world so as to bridge the two worlds we inhabit: digital and real. One such piece of data that has the potential to do this is the unique wifi address, called the MAC address that is transmitted from every Smartphone. From the initial awareness and research that went into a previous blog post on Renew’s Bins, it was decided to investigate MAC addresses further to investigate other design potentials beyond a listening bin. The MAC address seemed the perfect starting point for experimenting with other uses of data rather than targeted advertising.

What is a MAC address?

An anagram of ‘Media Access Control’ every wifi-enabled phone has within it a 48-bit, 12 digit number consisting of 6 groups of hexidecimal digits separated by a colon (see fig 1). It is a number you would not know unless you looked for it, as it is part of the devices automated processes that enable a smoother operation of the applications you participate in. It is the communication that happens on a sub layer, as you are not the only person who speaks on your phone, your phone also speaks. It talks frequently, possibly more than you. It speaks to as many wifi access points that are willing to speak to it, sending probing packets of data to enquire as to whether the wifi access points are known to it or not, so as to connect to a possibly faster network (rather than 3G).

The MAC address is the international standard of LAN and WLAN communication set by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). First implemented as part of Xerox Park’s Ethernet scheme, it has become the standard of all WLAN (wifi is the synonym) technology. As such this small often unnoticed group of numbers surrounds every inhabited space (on the condition that the inhabitant has a smart phone).

(Fig 1) A breakdown of the MAC addresses standardised format.

Applications

As a means of obtaining highly personalised data, MAC addresses share little. They can tell you the phone you own (This has been used to obtain statistical data on the market share of Smartphone manufacturers). They can be used to count people or cars, they can be used to track shoppers within a retail store to determine their (approximate) movement, or as the controversial Renew bins in London tried to do, track movement over time and within a specific location (the financial district). The purpose of which was to attempt to amass a unique pattern for each phone (and of course its owner). This particular project and how it works (and a better understanding of MAC addresses) was covered by Tom Taylor at Scrap lab.

As the Woody Allen gag goes “80% of success is showing up” and that’s what the MAC address can tell you, who is here. That was the starting point of the research we undertook. What interesting interactions and experiences can be gained from simply knowing that someone is here?

Development

To explore the possibilities of handling MAC addresses as a source of data, we set out to build a simple double function program. The two ambitions were simple: to check who is present and then cross-reference those present with previous scans. The first task was to obtain the MAC addresses. Starting simply with a Raspberry Pi and a wifi interface we used a piece of software called Aircrack-ng and its subprogram Airodump-ng (see fig 2) to scan for MAC addresses[2] (there are other programs such as Kismet). Once we had access to all the available MAC addresses, it was time to take these anonymous numbers and turn the data into a more personalised experience.

(Fig 2) Airodump-ng in operation.

Within the studio, everyone’s MAC address was assigned the name of the owner in the dictionary function of Python. Python then extracted the MAC addresses from Airodump-ng’s csv file. Iterating through the csv file of the MAC addresses that where found in the scan, these were cross-referenced with the dictionary of known MAC addresses and their owners (see code extract)[3]. The result was the ability to record the combinations of people that were present (Fig 3).

(code extract)

def check_address():
with open(‘/home/pi/MAC/address.csv’, ‘r‘) as f:
address=csv.reader(f, delimiter=‘,’)
for row in address:
for field in row:
for address in MAC.keys():
if address == field and address in MAC:
person = MAC[address]
combo_1.append(person)
f.close()

##THE DICTIONARY OF KNOWN MAC ADDRESS AND THIER OWNERS
MAC = {’04:A8:xx:xx:B1:91′ : ‘Ed’, ’00:88:xx:xx:1A:F9′ : ‘Sam’, ‘F0:D1:xx:xx:D9:1E’ : ‘Ben’,
‘9C:04:xx:xx:73:96’ : ‘Paul’, ’54:26:xx:xx:F0:1C’ : ‘El’}

(Fig 3) (left) the screen grab shows the graphical output of the python program after it has cross referenced the Airodump scan with the database of known MAC addresses. (right) The other function of the program is to then cross reference the people present with past scans to see if this is a unique combination of people.

Of course, within a small studio, knowing that you are sat with the same people as before is no great revelation, but extrapolate that to a public place. Have you ever wondered how many people you have passed before on your local high street? Think of a time that you have encountered someone whose history has overlapped with your own, perhaps at the same university, or maybe you grew up in the same town. The potential of a design intervention that will illustrate the entwined nature of public space could only help illustrate the fact that we are not only connected wirelessly but remain physically connected on a very different local area network.

Initial observation

The initial problem of placing the scanner within the space of the studio is that the wifi of everyone’s phone connects directly to the studios wifi, and dependent on the phone and its power management (it takes energy to go looking for networks) the frequency at which it probes other networks is greatly reduced. This resulted in a low yield of known phones (and their owners).

What also came out of working with Airodump-ng was that not only does it report the MAC addresses that are present but also the power of each signal (see Fig 2). Although not accurate enough pinpoint the phone in space – even with additional scanners to triangulate the signal – the power reading can be utilised to distinguish between groups of people. The problem of locating people in space maybe more effective in an outdoor space without the interference of walls.

Physical output

In response to the criticism that the Renew recycling bins received (and their eventual suspension) the chief executive tried to dampen peoples fears by describing them as “glorified people counters” – this is not how they are described to potential advertisers on their website. However, this is another possibility of MAC code scanning, to retain the anonymity of the owner and simply reduce the phone to an entity to be counted.

(Fig 6) The motor in operation. The distinct dots towards the bottom occurred when large numbers of phones where found, the smudges in the center were created with few phones and a slower speed.

This initial research had the intention of not prescribing outcomes but exploring the unique traces of data emitted from phones and exploring how they can be experienced – and what there is to be experienced – through design. So it was not only individualised relationships that were explored but also looking at the data-set as a mass. To do so we took the number of MAC addresses that where found and simply reduced them to a total number, this number was then mapped to the speed of a motor which in turn was attached to a piece of chalk; the greater the number of phones the faster the motor ran, creating a specific pattern distinguishable from lesser numbers (Fig 6). The physical output of an ever changing action begins to explore ideas around the patterns that are created or can be recorded from our transmitting pockets. A project that specifically uses MAC address data to dynamic effect is Selena Savic’ Quadricore. The project creates a dynamic architecture that utilises the MAC address scanner as a sensor for adjusting the physical space of its Smartphone carrying inhabitants.

(Fig 7) Salena Savic – Quadricone. Les Urbanes, Lsusanne, Switzerland.

Dynamically mapping or visually representing our wireless world, although not utilising the power of individual experiences, can result in interesting and engaging results. The light paintings of Timo Arnall are a great example of this. Visually representing the wavelengths that go into making our urban environment while saying nothing of each personal input, it speaks to everyone because it is built, used or at least inhabited by everyone. This is where Timo’s research is positioned, not engaging the data on an individual base, as a set of personal data, but looking at it as an urban material (or immaterial as he calls it). In his Wifi light paintings he uses long exposure photography to visualise the invisible. The photographs transform radio wavelengths to lights waves, illuminating (quite literally) the wireless networks that surprisingly don’t always surround us.

(Fig 9) Wifi Light Paintings. Long exposure photographs capture the physical space of our wireless networks.

The interesting distinction between Timo’s projects and projects working with specific individuals data, is that of the ethical implications. Working with the wifi spectrum as a whole speaks volumes of the invisible urban environment but once you start delving into what all this data is, once you start assigning it no longer to the mass but to the individual, it not only become a question of how do we use this in an engaging form, but how to apply it with ethical consideration and sensitivity.

The debates circling around private and public data, whether or not Smartphone technology is bringing us closer together, will continue. There is no shortage of apps that rightly or wrongly claim to be doing so. But what is unquestioned is that our world is becoming increasingly wireless, which must be incorporated into the world in which design and art engage with, as Adam Greenfield writes:

“The truly pressing need is for translators: people capable of opening these occult systems up, demystifying them, explaining their implications to the people whose neighborhoods and choices and very lives are increasingly conditioned by them.”

The passive uses of MAC addresses have an interesting potential for design, as they are not exclusive to phone or app, simply acting as a beacon of your presence, simply announcing ‘hello I’m here’.

[1] See: Mitchell, William J.: City of bits (1995), Me++ (2003): MIT Press

[2] We used a Realtek chip set, this is important as not all chipsets can be placed in monitor mode. For a list of compatible chipsets go to: http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=compatibility_drivers.

[3] note: python can not read Airodump in real-time only its recorded csv file once the specified scanning time has elapsed, we set it to 10 second scanning periods.

Lessons Learned from Digital Cities

Sam Hill

2nd December 2013

How are cities in computer games different from other fictional cities?

Across film, television and literature, from Minas Tirith via Gotham to Neo Tokyo, we’ve been carefully shepherded – like tourists to North Korea – through a great number of fictional cities. This is even before taking into account the extrapolation, contortion and parody of real locations (Ghostbusters II New York, Lock Stock’s East London, Police Academy 7’s Moscow) and sci-fi future visions of the familiar (Blade Runner‘s Los Angeles, Escape From L.A.’s Los Angeles and Demolition Man’s San Angeles).

As artistic renderings, these fictions tell us something about the cities we do live in. They painstakingly depict moments in time, or guide us between heady vistas whilst showing us something about how we live with ourselves and each other.

But how much further can visual media inspire our future cities? In London at least, there’s no shortage of projects designed to make the city a greater spectacle to behold. One of London’s premiere forms of attraction has become platforms to view the city – not so much as a street-level, person-watching flâneur, but as a helicopter-jockey/shiny glass evangelist. From the Shard, the Millennium Eye, the Emirates ‘Air Line’ cable cars, to Heron Tower, Centre Point, Tate Modern’s Members room and a myriad of other rooftop terraces between Hoxton and Peckham, we’re encouraged to pay exorbitant amounts for the luxury of a high-up window.

Games developers are more obliged than other media creators to take their visions of urban life and render them in greater depth. An immersive world can’t depend too heavily on hyperbole to elicit an emotional response from us. So though the whole must still be compelling to take in, every component nook and cranny must also bleed with the same character and message – there is no space or scale for ambiguity or misdirection. When a writer tells you something is so, and a director shows you something is so, a developer – a simulator – must appear to have made it so.

Cities in games need arguably do two things: first of all they must simulate a functioning society, though granted only so far as the realism of the game demands. Secondly, critically, they must still be fun places to be in and interact with.

It is therefore appropriate when we consider how our living environments can be more experientially enriching, that we should look to simulated spaces to learn how they have done the same. What can the real learn from the simulacrum?

When the City is the Star

In the UK, post-war development and ubiquitous brand enfranchisement have created such homogeneity across urban centres that our high streets have become all but interchangeable. So it can be incredibly refreshing to visit fictional cities with such rich and distinct identities. Some games have created incredible works of art, in the form of habitable cities – atmospheric, detailed, awe-inspiring, textured, multi-faceted, believable, subtle, and vast. Mentioning said cities by name can elicit a stronger emotional response than by mentioning any of their particular denizens.

Bioshock remains a premier example of this – personally, when I hear the mention of “Rapture”, it stirs up a greater sense of wonder, dread and melancholy than any particular antagonist of the series. Similarly, memories of the broken Prague-like City 17, and her painterly Victorian cousin Dunwall, can tug at the heart strings stronger than Alyx, Emily or any other major character from their respective titles.

Grand Theft Auto has delivered a mixed bag of cities over the years (actually other than Vice City they’ve been pretty well realised), but arguably the most recent incarnation of Los Santos has been their richest and most compellingly built environment yet.

These non-places, though unreal, have the integrity to hold together many individual strands of narrative, are open to several perspectives, and can survive the same schisms as our real cities – luxury and squalor; old and new; alien and familiar.

Playground Cities

Dishonored‘s aforementioned island capital Dunwall and GTA’s Los Santos sit alongside Batman’s Arkham City district, I Am Alive‘s Haventon and any one of Assassin Creed’s historic set-pieces – but perhaps most notably 15th century Venice – as cities designed from the rooftops downwards with a single goal: to be playgrounds, specifically climbing frames, equal parts vertical and horizontal. Digital environment design for play is a challenging, experimental process in itself, but these spaces are fantastic for giving the tactile and stealthy movement of their characters the full potential.

On the surface this kind of physical exploration and play seems comparable to parkour, though in reality parkour is about exploiting and negotiating an unyielding environment. These spaces, rather than being re-appropriated by the player as it first seeems, have been painstakingly designed to work harmoniously together with the nuances and limitations of player movement to create a very gratifying play experience.

Sanctuaries in a Harsh World

Though often little more than settlements, the villages, towns and cities that pepper the landscape of many RPG landscapes, from the homely back-water starter town to the mid-game metropolitan base of operations, often serve two roles.

The first is R&R – a safe bastion in an otherwise dangerous and untamed wilderness. A small haven of civilisation (It’s difficult not to feel sorry for the unfortunate folk who have to endure our adventure worlds permanently). This is somewhere to sleep and (sometimes literally) recharge – probably there will be a tavern in which to rest one’s head, consolidate some XP and save current progress.

It’s common for cities to have tall, impenetrable walls; the only entrance being a single,well-guarded main gate (and possibly a few sewer grates). Though this is mostly done to economise on memory (such as Megaton in Fallout 3, or the compartmentalized Imperial City in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion), the psychology of these safe zones shouldn’t be underestimated. The walls draw a definite boundary between the chaotic danger of ‘the wild’ and the enforced civility of ‘the tame’ and it’s common for city guards to patrol the streets too, should the player wish to upset this balance themselves. These proto-cities re-enact what our earliest settlements were founded for: municipal protection racketeering.

They are such palpably different environments from outside the walls, that for a player that has spent a long time dungeoneering the break in pace can be very cathartic. Completed quests are often rewarded in cities and so these digital spaces can become strongly linked with a sense of gratification and closure.

Whilst refuelling, it’s very likely that there will be a general store to buy essentials, like food and healing materials. RPG settlements are interestingly distinct from their real-world counterpoints for being engineered entirely for the benefit of the player, and this is often thinly veiled. If there are a handful of special interest/niche stores in town, it’s more than likely that they will cater specifically to the needs of the player – a place to trade encumbering loads of loot for shiny new weapons, armour or scrolls. Though economic on reality, these townships are dead on the money for providing for the needs of their market – even if it is, effectively, a market for one.

The second role of RPG settlements is to drive the main narrative forward – this is the home of the brief-dispatching wizened sage or beleaguered king. But the taverns will probably have a few troubled souls within them too – cities are great places for lightweight side-quests, testing the player’s otherwise undeveloped genteel skills – silver-tongued charisma, lock-picking or bartering. Any mercenary tasks that do take place within the city walls are distinctly less strenuous then those beyond them – rats in the basement etc – further reinforcing the message of a step down in difficulty.

Simulation Cities

Obviously, city builder and management sims (Sim City, Transport Tycoon, Anno 1701, plus some real-time strategies like Age of Empires) give us the opportunity to understand the city from a different, top-down perspective, and allow us to create or modify these spaces in a manner that we prefer. They are interesting for helping us to see first-hand the reliance we have on infrastructure, and the socio-economic factors that make up (according to somebody’s model) a well-balanced environment for living and working.

They also give us a licence to consider how our cities could be better designed – more efficient, more sustainable, or with improved lifestyle opportunities.

Minecraft deserves a mention in this camp because even though, as a sandbox game, its grit is finer than most, the vast majority of building blocks are still implicitly designed for habitation. Below is an example of perhaps the twentieth sincere attempt I’ve made at starting a township – this time a Mediterranean-style fishing village.

Cities as Part of a Larger System

Finally there are the cities that are part of a bigger scheme – such as in Risk-like military conquest games. In particular there is the Civilization series where we see a city as a desirable, possessable machine, able to convert inputs – food, raw materials, energy, luxury, trade networks, healthcare and security – into outputs: revenue, scientific advancement, industry and culture.

Who’s calling the shots

Our living cities can be more like the ones we experience in computer games – aware of their own rich identity, affording more opportunities for narrative, interaction and play – if the architecture and infrastructure were designed with these affordances in mind.

This isn’t necessarily about vertigo-inducing stunts or god-like power play, but there is still the potential for contextual, located fun and intervention points to be soft- and hard-built into the city systems. The challenge is partially about trust – a trust between denizens and governing bodies. Play is inhibited when permissions are removed and activity is restricted, for the sake of our safety and protection.

However the larger issue is lack of motivation from decision making parties. Companies and organisations are the main powers that change the form of our modern cities. There isn’t a lot of impetus between the vanity of the prestigious client and the vanity of their equally prestigious architectural firm to create any emotional engagement with their spaces, other than a reserved and passive sense of awe – which locks us back in to the look-don’t-touch world of cinematic cities. Even shopping centres and high street stores prescribe a very limited form of engagement, wrapped up in a particular model of consumption. This is a shame because with a more playful attitude, spatial designers could tap in to a much deeper vein of emotional engagement through their work, and their clients would benefit from having a more integral and meaningful link with the community around them.