Towards NFC payments using a lightweight architecture for the Web of Things

The Web (and Internet) of Things has seen the rapid emergence of new protocols and standards, which provide for innovative models of interaction for applications. One such model fostered by the Web of Things (WoT) ecosystem is that of contactless interaction between devices. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is one such enabler of contactless interactions. Contactless technology for the WoT requires all parties to agree one common definition and implementation and, in this paper, we propose a new lightweight architecture for the WoT, based on RESTful approaches. We show how the proposed architecture supports the concept of a mobile wallet, enabling users to make secure payments employing NFC technology with their mobile devices. In so doing, we argue that the vision of the WoT is brought a step closer to fruition

Managing near field communication (NFC) payment applications through cloud computing

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is a short-range radio communication channel which enables users to exchange data between devices. NFC provides a contactless technology for data transmission between smart phones, Personal Computers (PCs), Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and such devices. It enables the mobile phone to act as identification and a credit card for customers. However, the NFC chip can act as a reader as well as a card, and also be used to design symmetric protocols. Having several parties involved in NFC ecosystem and not having a common standard affects the security of this technology where all the parties are claiming to have access to client’s information (e.g. bank account details). The dynamic relationships of the parties in an NFC transaction process make them partners in a way that sometimes they share their access permissions on the applications that are running in the service environment. These parties can only access their part of involvement as they are not fully aware of each other’s rights and access permissions. The lack of knowledge between involved parties makes the management and ownership of the NFC ecosystem very puzzling. To solve this issue, a security module that is called Secure Element (SE) is designed to be the base of the security for NFC. However, there are still some security issues with SE personalization, management, ownership and architecture that can be exploitable by attackers and delay the adaption of NFC payment technology. Reorganizing and describing what is required for the success of this technology have motivated us to extend the current NFC ecosystem models to accelerate the development of this business area. One of the technologies that can be used to ensure secure NFC transactions is cloud computing which offers wide range advantages compared to the use of SE as a single entity in an NFC enabled mobile phone. We believe cloud computing can solve many issues in regards to NFC application management. Therefore, in the first contribution of part of this thesis we propose a new payment model called “NFC Cloud Wallet". This model demonstrates a reliable structure of an NFC ecosystem which satisfies the requirements of an NFC payment during the development process in a systematic, manageable, and effective way

Security in Internet of Things: networked smart objects.

Internet of Things (IoT) is an innovative paradigm approaching both industries and humans every-day life. It refers to the networked interconnection of every-day objects, which are equipped with ubiquitous intelligence. It not only aims at increasing the ubiquity of the Internet, but also at leading towards a highly distributed network of devices communicating with human beings as well as with other devices. Thanks to rapid advances in underlying technologies, IoT is opening valuable opportunities for a large number of novel applications, that promise to improve the quality of humans lives, facilitating the exchange of services. In this scenario, security represents a crucial aspect to be addressed, due to the high level of heterogeneity of the involved devices and to the sensibility of the managed information. Moreover, a system architecture should be established, before the IoT is fully operable in an efficient, scalable and interoperable manner. The main goal of this PhD thesis concerns the design and the implementation of a secure and distributed middleware platform tailored to IoT application domains. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is evaluated by means of a prototype and real case studies

Model Driven Development of Sensor Web Networks Architecture

Primjena Internet protokola u uređajima sa ograničenim resursima, dovodi do radikalne promjene Interneta i pojave potpuno novog koncepta pod nazivom Internet stvâri – Internet of Things (IoT), čiji je jedan od osnovnih gradivnih elemenata Senzor Web (SW) čvor. SW čvor predstavlja elementarni “resurs” u SW mreži koja se po svojoj prirodi može posmatrati kao nestrukturirana kolekcija gradivnih elemenata koji se mogu dinamički orkestrirati u virtuelne klastere, odnosno u arhi-tekturu. Cilj disertacije predstavlja unapređenje procesa razvoja arhitekture sistema baziranih na SW mrežama uz oslonac na dinamičko generisanje servisnog sloja u svrhu povećanja produktivnosti, održivosti i smanjenja troškova razvoja. Pod unapređenjem procesa razvoja arhitekture smatra se analiza, integracija i prilagođavanje postojećih sistema i pristupa projektovanja arhitekture senzorskih mreža, kao i sistema baziranih na IoT konceptima. U tu svrhu definisana je arhitektura SW mreža, kreiran domenski specifičan jezik, interaktivni grafički editor i alat za automatsku transforma-ciju modela u implementacione klase. U sklopu teze izvršena je i eksperimentalna verifikacija predloženog modela i razvojnog okruženja, čime je dokazana njhova praktična primjena.The use of Internet protocols in limited resources devices contributes to radical changes in the Internet and the emergence of an entirely new concept called the Internet of Things (IoT), consisted of the Sensor Web (SW) nodes as one of the basic building blocks. SW node is the elementary "resource" in the SW Network, which by their nature can be seen as an unstructured collection of blocks that can be dynamically orchestrated into the virtual cluster, or in the architecture. The aim of this thesis is to improve the process of developing a system archite-cture based on SW networks, relying on the dynamic generation of the service layer in order to increase productivity, sustainability and cost of development. The improvement of the architecture development process includes analysis, integration and adaptation of existing systems and sensor network architecture design approaches, as well as systems based on the IoT concepts. For this purpose, the archite-cture of the SW Network is defined, a domain-specific language has been created as well as interactive graphics editor and a tool for automatic transformation of models into the implementation class. As part of the dissertation, the experimental verification of the proposed model and the development environment were carried out demonstra-ting their practical application