Wireless communication, identification and sensing technologies enabling integrated logistics: a study in the harbor environment

In the last decade, integrated logistics has become an important challenge in the development of wireless communication, identification and sensing technology, due to the growing complexity of logistics processes and the increasing demand for adapting systems to new requirements. The advancement of wireless technology provides a wide range of options for the maritime container terminals. Electronic devices employed in container terminals reduce the manual effort, facilitating timely information flow and enhancing control and quality of service and decision made. In this paper, we examine the technology that can be used to support integration in harbor's logistics. In the literature, most systems have been developed to address specific needs of particular harbors, but a systematic study is missing. The purpose is to provide an overview to the reader about which technology of integrated logistics can be implemented and what remains to be addressed in the future

Post-Westgate SWAT : C4ISTAR Architectural Framework for Autonomous Network Integrated Multifaceted Warfighting Solutions Version 1.0 : A Peer-Reviewed Monograph

Police SWAT teams and Military Special Forces face mounting pressure and challenges from adversaries that can only be resolved by way of ever more sophisticated inputs into tactical operations. Lethal Autonomy provides constrained military/security forces with a viable option, but only if implementation has got proper empirically supported foundations. Autonomous weapon systems can be designed and developed to conduct ground, air and naval operations. This monograph offers some insights into the challenges of developing legal, reliable and ethical forms of autonomous weapons, that address the gap between Police or Law Enforcement and Military operations that is growing exponentially small. National adversaries are today in many instances hybrid threats, that manifest criminal and military traits, these often require deployment of hybrid-capability autonomous weapons imbued with the capability to taken on both Military and/or Security objectives. The Westgate Terrorist Attack of 21st September 2013 in the Westlands suburb of Nairobi, Kenya is a very clear manifestation of the hybrid combat scenario that required military response and police investigations against a fighting cell of the Somalia based globally networked Al Shabaab terrorist group.Comment: 52 pages, 6 Figures, over 40 references, reviewed by a reade

Blockchain System for Secure and Efficient UAV-to-Vehicle Communication in Smart Cities

In a smart city environment, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) enables the vehicle to generate and communicate messages for safety applications. There exists a challenge where the integrity of the message needs to be verified before passing it on to other vehicles. There should be a provision to motivate the honest vehicles who are reporting the true event messages. To achieve this, traffic regulations and event detections can be linked with blockchain technology. Any vehicle violating traffic rules will be issued with a penalty by executing the smart contract. In case any accident occurs, the vehicle nearby to the spot can immediately send the event message to Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). It will check for its credibility and proceed with rewards. The authenticity of the vehicle inside the smart city area is verified by registering itself with UAVs deployed near the city entrance. This is enabled to reduce the participation of unauthorized vehicles inside the city zone. The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA256) and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA-192) are used for communication. The result of computation time for certificate generation and vehicles involvement rate is presented

The Next Frontier in Drone Law: Liability for Cybersecurity Negligence and Data Breaches for UAS Operators

While questions related to UAS operations and use in government surveillance have been discussed at length, the legal ramifications of cybersecurity negligence and data breaches for UAS operators have yet to be addressed. In Part I, this article seeks to explore those areas by discussing the UAS data chain. Vulnerabilities in this data chain specific to UAS and in general are explored, followed by an examination of the state of the law related to the collection, use, retention, and dissemination of data. Part I concludes with an overview of current voluntary “Best Practice” documents offering guidance for collecting and managing data. Part II of this article applies Article III standing requirements and third-party liability limitations to the cybersecurity negligence and data breach issues. Existing federal law does not address liability for cybersecurity negligence or data breaches in UAS operations. This, combined with current interpretations of Article III standing requirements and a lack of a required standard of care for UAS operators to protect against cyber attack by third parties, results in the lack of a legal remedy for people whose private data is captured by drone and later compromised in a cybersecurity breach. Thus, it appears UAS operators are effectively shielded from liability for data breaches beyond the UAS operation and in flight data collection

DroneSig: Lightweight Digital Signature Protocol for Micro Aerial Vehicles

Micro aerial vehicles a.k.a. drones, have become an integral part of a variety of civilian and military application domains, including but not limited to aerial surveying and mapping, aerial surveillance and security, aerial inspection of infrastructure, and aerial delivery. Meanwhile, the cybersecurity of drones is gaining significant attention due to both financial and strategic information and value involved in aerial applications. As a result of the lack of security features in the communication protocol, an adversary can easily interfere with on-going communications or even seize control of the drone. In this thesis, we propose a lightweight digital signature protocol, also referred to as DroneSig, to protect drones from a man-in-the-middle attack, where an adversary eavesdrops the communication between Ground Control Station (GCS) and drone, and impersonates the GCS and sends fake commands to terminate the on-going mission or even take control over the drone. The basic idea of the DroneSig is that the drone will only execute the new command after validating the received digital signature from the GCS, proving that the new command message is coming from the authenticated GCS. If the validation of the digital signature fails, the new command is rejected immediately, and the Return-to-Launch (RTL) mode is initiated and forces the drone to return to the take-off position. We conduct extensive simulation experiments for performance evaluation and comparison using OMNeT++, and simulation results show that the proposed lightweight digital signature protocol achieves better performance in terms of energy consumption and computation time compared to the standard Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptographic technique

Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier

As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel developments in academic data collection are converging: (1) open access requirements, whereby researchers must provide access to their data as a condition of obtaining grant funding or publishing results in journals; and (2) the vast accumulation of 'grey data' about individuals in their daily activities of research, teaching, learning, services, and administration. The boundaries between research and grey data are blurring, making it more difficult to assess the risks and responsibilities associated with any data collection. Many sets of data, both research and grey, fall outside privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, and PII. Universities are exploiting these data for research, learning analytics, faculty evaluation, strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities are besieging universities with requests for access to data or for partnerships to mine them. The privacy frontier facing research universities spans open access practices, uses and misuses of data, public records requests, cyber risk, and curating data for privacy protection. This paper explores the competing values inherent in data stewardship and makes recommendations for practice, drawing on the pioneering work of the University of California in privacy and information security, data governance, and cyber risk.Comment: Final published version, Sept 30, 201