UniquID: A Quest to Reconcile Identity Access Management and the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has caused a revolutionary paradigm shift in computer networking. After decades of human-centered routines, where devices were merely tools that enabled human beings to authenticate themselves and perform activities, we are now dealing with a device-centered paradigm: the devices themselves are actors, not just tools for people. Conventional identity access management (IAM) frameworks were not designed to handle the challenges of IoT. Trying to use traditional IAM systems to reconcile heterogeneous devices and complex federations of online services (e.g., IoT sensors and cloud computing solutions) adds a cumbersome architectural layer that can become hard to maintain and act as a single point of failure. In this paper, we propose UniquID, a blockchain-based solution that overcomes the need for centralized IAM architectures while providing scalability and robustness. We also present the experimental results of a proof-of-concept UniquID enrolment network, and we discuss two different use-cases that show the considerable value of a blockchain-based IAM.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

A patient agent controlled customized blockchain based framework for internet of things

Although Blockchain implementations have emerged as revolutionary technologies for various industrial applications including cryptocurrencies, they have not been widely deployed to store data streaming from sensors to remote servers in architectures known as Internet of Things. New Blockchain for the Internet of Things models promise secure solutions for eHealth, smart cities, and other applications. These models pave the way for continuous monitoring of patient’s physiological signs with wearable sensors to augment traditional medical practice without recourse to storing data with a trusted authority. However, existing Blockchain algorithms cannot accommodate the huge volumes, security, and privacy requirements of health data. In this thesis, our first contribution is an End-to-End secure eHealth architecture that introduces an intelligent Patient Centric Agent. The Patient Centric Agent executing on dedicated hardware manages the storage and access of streams of sensors generated health data, into a customized Blockchain and other less secure repositories. As IoT devices cannot host Blockchain technology due to their limited memory, power, and computational resources, the Patient Centric Agent coordinates and communicates with a private customized Blockchain on behalf of the wearable devices. While the adoption of a Patient Centric Agent offers solutions for addressing continuous monitoring of patients’ health, dealing with storage, data privacy and network security issues, the architecture is vulnerable to Denial of Services(DoS) and single point of failure attacks. To address this issue, we advance a second contribution; a decentralised eHealth system in which the Patient Centric Agent is replicated at three levels: Sensing Layer, NEAR Processing Layer and FAR Processing Layer. The functionalities of the Patient Centric Agent are customized to manage the tasks of the three levels. Simulations confirm protection of the architecture against DoS attacks. Few patients require all their health data to be stored in Blockchain repositories but instead need to select an appropriate storage medium for each chunk of data by matching their personal needs and preferences with features of candidate storage mediums. Motivated by this context, we advance third contribution; a recommendation model for health data storage that can accommodate patient preferences and make storage decisions rapidly, in real-time, even with streamed data. The mapping between health data features and characteristics of each repository is learned using machine learning. The Blockchain’s capacity to make transactions and store records without central oversight enables its application for IoT networks outside health such as underwater IoT networks where the unattended nature of the nodes threatens their security and privacy. However, underwater IoT differs from ground IoT as acoustics signals are the communication media leading to high propagation delays, high error rates exacerbated by turbulent water currents. Our fourth contribution is a customized Blockchain leveraged framework with the model of Patient-Centric Agent renamed as Smart Agent for securely monitoring underwater IoT. Finally, the smart Agent has been investigated in developing an IoT smart home or cities monitoring framework. The key algorithms underpinning to each contribution have been implemented and analysed using simulators.Doctor of Philosoph

Mobility Support 5G Architecture with Real-Time Routing for Sustainable Smart Cities

[EN] The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology and provides connectivity among physical objects with the support of 5G communication. In recent decades, there have been a lot of applications based on IoT technology for the sustainability of smart cities, such as farming, e-healthcare, education, smart homes, weather monitoring, etc. These applications communicate in a collaborative manner between embedded IoT devices and systematize daily routine tasks. In the literature, many solutions facilitate remote users to gather the observed data by accessing the stored information on the cloud network and lead to smart systems. However, most of the solutions raise significant research challenges regarding information sharing in mobile IoT networks and must be able to stabilize the performance of smart operations in terms of security and intelligence. Many solutions are based on 5G communication to support high user mobility and increase the connectivity among a huge number of IoT devices. However, such approaches lack user and data privacy against anonymous threats and incur resource costs. In this paper, we present a mobility support 5G architecture with real-time routing for sustainable smart cities that aims to decrease the loss of data against network disconnectivity and increase the reliability for 5G-based public healthcare networks. The proposed architecture firstly establishes a mutual relationship among the nodes and mobile sink with shared secret information and lightweight processing. Secondly, multi-secured levels are proposed to protect the interaction with smart transmission systems by increasing the trust threshold over the insecure channels. The conducted experiments are analyzed, and it is concluded that their performance significantly increases the information sustainability for mobile networks in terms of security and routing.Rehman, A.; Haseeb, K.; Saba, T.; Lloret, J.; Ahmed, Z. (2021). Mobility Support 5G Architecture with Real-Time Routing for Sustainable Smart Cities. Sustainability. 13(16):1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169092S116131