Critical Management Issues for Implementing RFID in Supply Chain Management

The benefits of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the supply chain are fairly compelling. It has the potential to revolutionise the efficiency, accuracy and security of the supply chain with significant impact on overall profitability. A number of companies are actively involved in testing and adopting this technology. It is estimated that the market for RFID products and services will increase significantly in the next few years. Despite this trend, there are major impediments to RFID adoption in supply chain. While RFID systems have been around for several decades, the technology for supply chain management is still emerging. We describe many of the challenges, setbacks and barriers facing RFID implementations in supply chains, discuss the critical issues for management and offer some suggestions. In the process, we take an in-depth look at cost, technology, standards, privacy and security and business process reengineering related issues surrounding RFID technology in supply chains

6G secure quantum communication: a success probability prediction model

© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/The emergence of 6G networks initiates significant transformations in the communication technology landscape. Yet, the melding of quantum computing (QC) with 6G networks although promising an array of benefits, particularly in secure communication. Adapting QC into 6G requires a rigorous focus on numerous critical variables. This study aims to identify key variables in secure quantum communication (SQC) in 6G and develop a model for predicting the success probability of 6G-SQC projects. We identified key 6G-SQC variables from existing literature to achieve these objectives and collected training data by conducting a questionnaire survey. We then analyzed these variables using an optimization model, i.e., Genetic Algorithm (GA), with two different prediction methods the Naïve Bayes Classifier (NBC) and Logistic Regression (LR). The results of success probability prediction models indicate that as the 6G-SQC matures, project success probability significantly increases, and costs are notably reduced. Furthermore, the best fitness rankings for each 6G-SQC project variable determined using NBC and LR indicated a strong positive correlation (rs = 0.895). The t-test results (t = 0.752, p = 0.502 > 0.05) show no significant differences between the rankings calculated using both prediction models (NBC and LR). The results reveal that the developed success probability prediction model, based on 15 identified 6G-SQC project variables, highlights the areas where practitioners need to focus more to facilitate the cost-effective and successful implementation of 6G-SQC projects.Peer reviewe

Will SDN be part of 5G?

For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already, the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul, backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment, business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities, softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure

Quantum-resistant Transport Layer Security

The reliance on asymmetric public key cryptography (PKC) and symmetric encryption for cyber-security in current telecommunication networks is threatened by the emergence of powerful quantum computing technology. This is due to the ability of quantum computers to efficiently solve problems such as factorization or discrete logarithms, which are the basis for classical PKC schemes. Thus, the assumption that communications networks are secure no longer holds true. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and post-quantum cryptography (PQC) are the first cyber-security technologies that allow communications to resist the attacks of a quantum computer. To achieve quantum-resistant communications, the aforementioned technologies need to be incorporated into a network security protocol such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). In this paper, we describe and implement two novel, hybrid solutions in which QKD and PQC are combined inside TLS for achieving quantum-resistant authenticated key exchange: Concatenation and Exclusively-OR (XOR). We present the results, in terms of complexity and security enhancement, of integrating state-of-the-art QKD and PQC technologies into a practical, industry-ready TLS implementation. Our findings demonstrate that the adoption of a PQC-only approach enhances the TLS handshake performance by approximately 9 % compared to classical methods. Furthermore, our hybrid PQC-QKD quantum-resistant TLS comes at a performance cost of approximately 117 % during the key establishment process. In return, we substantially augment the security of the handshake, paving the road for the development of future-proof quantum-resistant communication systems based on QKD and PQC.</p