Survey and Systematization of Secure Device Pairing

Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among smart devices, both personal mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Comparison and assessment of SDP schemes is troublesome, because each scheme makes different assumptions about out-of-band channels and adversary models, and are driven by their particular use-cases. A conceptual model that facilitates meaningful comparison among SDP schemes is missing. We provide such a model. In this article, we survey and analyze a wide range of SDP schemes that are described in the literature, including a number that have been adopted as standards. A system model and consistent terminology for SDP schemes are built on the foundation of this survey, which are then used to classify existing SDP schemes into a taxonomy that, for the first time, enables their meaningful comparison and analysis.The existing SDP schemes are analyzed using this model, revealing common systemic security weaknesses among the surveyed SDP schemes that should become priority areas for future SDP research, such as improving the integration of privacy requirements into the design of SDP schemes. Our results allow SDP scheme designers to create schemes that are more easily comparable with one another, and to assist the prevention of persisting the weaknesses common to the current generation of SDP schemes.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted at IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 2017 (Volume: PP, Issue: 99

Building an IT Taxonomy with Co-occurrence Analysis, Hierarchical Clustering, and Multidimensional Scaling

Different information technologies (ITs) are related in complex ways. How can the relationships among a large number of ITs be described and analyzed in a representative, dynamic, and scalable way? In this study, we employed co-occurrence analysis to explore the relationships among 50 information technologies discussed in six magazines over ten years (1998-2007). Using hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling, we have found that the similarities of the technologies can be depicted in hierarchies and two-dimensional plots, and that similar technologies can be classified into meaningful categories. The results imply reasonable validity of our approach for understanding technology relationships and building an IT taxonomy. The methodology that we offer not only helps IT practitioners and researchers make sense of numerous technologies in the iField but also bridges two related but thus far largely separate research streams in iSchools - information management and IT management

Unpacking People's Understandings of Bluetooth Beacon Systems - A Location-Based IoT Technology

Bluetooth beacon technology is an emerging location-based Internet of Things (IoT) technology, designed to transform proximity-based services in various domains such as retail. Beacons are part of the IoT infrastructure, but people rarely interact with them directly and yet they could still pose privacy risks to users. However, little is known about people's understandings of how beacon-based systems work. This is an important question since it can influence people's perceptions, adoption, and usage of this emerging technology. Drawing from 22 semi-structured interviews, we studied people's understandings of how beacon-based systems work and identified several factors that shaped their understandings or misunderstandings, such as how information flows among the components and who owns the beacons. These understandings and misunderstandings can potentially pose significant privacy risks to beacon users

Unpacking People\u27s Understandings of Bluetooth Beacon Systems - A Location-Based IoT Technology

Bluetooth beacon technology is an emerging location-based Internet of Things (IoT) technology, designed to transform proximity-based services in various domains such as retail. Beacons are part of the IoT infrastructure, but people rarely interact with them directly and yet they could still pose privacy risks to users. However, little is known about people\u27s understandings of how beacon-based systems work. This is an important question since it can influence people\u27s perceptions, adoption, and usage of this emerging technology. Drawing from 22 semi-structured interviews, we studied people\u27s understandings of how beacon-based systems work and identified several factors that shaped their understandings or misunderstandings, such as how information flows among the components and who owns the beacons. These understandings and misunderstandings can potentially pose significant privacy risks to beacon users

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2008

TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month

Ancient Cartographies as a Basis for Geolocation Models in Public Space: The Case of Giambattista Nolli and its Heritage Application

In 1748, the architect and surveyor Giambattista Nolli mapped an abstract reality of the city of Rome. As a challenge to the inherited projections, it represented the city mixing streets, halls, corridors, churches, baths and markets as part of a unique public space network. A new way to design public space and rethink the whole urban system was opened by the possibility of containing in these representations a single layer with all kinds of public space (including the interior of public buildings). Despite this, Nolli's plan remained as a useless instrument since the hegemony of automobile mobility appeared as a pre-eminent system. This research tries to understand how the application of the ancient cartographies' methodology can improve the pedestrian mobility of historic cities by means of enhancing the graphic value of the system of Giambattista Nolli. Nowadays, free public space is represented as empty and built ones, as solid. This proposal would revert this reified conception of the city, understanding this baroque representation as an instrument of identification and assessment of the transitional heritage. The clues unveiled by Nolli seem to be able to integrate the plans of public buildings within the urban tissue, which would result in a step towards the full integration of cartography and mobility. The success of the comprehensive tools offered by large servers such as Alphabet inc. (Google) or Bing Maps confirm the suitability of the combination of new technologies and Big Data with urban planning, reaching the synchronisation of Smart Cities. Nowadays, open public space can be 'walked in' from any electronic device, consequently, the application of the "Nolli methodology" would implement the model of urban geolocation with the assimilation of inner public spaces. In the creation of a great global map of the public space, a chimaera could be intuited. This would be discussed within a tangible reality: every open public space is already housed in the Big Data and it is accessible through geolocation tools. The inclusion of the of the public buildings' interiors would contribute to develop a greater permeability between city and citizens. Furthermore, this representation would optimize pedestrian travel times and would be able to expand the geolocation system network as a documentary repository

An intelligent system for interactive visits in smart places

In this work, we designed and developed a prototype as an integrated system to provide visitors or users of complex buildings, such as museums, hospitals, shopping malls, amongst others, relevant information in an interactive and comfortable way while keeping it simple and affordable for the building managers. To achieve this, a mobile application was developed that allows its users to access information from several Smart Places, in a single mobile application. This application has a generic and common interface to be used by different types of Smart Places and provides multi-language information, to the end-users, that can be defined and translated by each Smart Place. To make this possible, the prototype architecture was designed providing the Smart Places independence since they have their own database and can manage their information. Furthermore, the system uses an Indoor Location and Tracking System taking advantage of BLE devices and Bluetooth capabilities of mobile devices to provide the relevant and interactive information based on the end-user location within the Smart Place. This prototype is also composed of an open-source Content Management System (based on Drupal 8), that allows the system operators to upload and manage the information provided to the end-users. Since the design and construction of most modern buildings go through a BIM process, our Content Management System provides a way to upload information extracted from BIM tools through CSV files. The resulting system is affordable for Smart Places while being comfortable and interactive for the users.Neste trabalho, foi desenhado e desenvolvido um protótipo sendo um sistema integrado de forma a proporcionar aos visitantes ou utilizadores de edifícios complexos, tais como museus, hospitais, centros comerciais, entre outros, informação relevante de forma interactive e confortável, mantendo-o simples e acessível para os gestores de edifícios. Para tal, foi desenvolvida uma aplicação móvel que permite aos seus utilizadores aceder à informação de vários Smart Places, numa única aplicação. Esta tem uma interface genérica e comum para ser utilizada por diferentes tipos de Smart Places e disponibiliza informação multilingue, aos utilizadores, podendo ser definida e traduzida por cada Smart Place. Para que isto seja possível, a arquitetura do protótipo foi desenhada de forma a garantir a independência dos Smart Places, uma vez que estes têm a sua própria base de dados e podem gerir a sua informação. Além disso, o sistema utiliza um Indoor Location and Tracking System, aproveitando os dispositivos BLE e os recursos Bluetooth dos dispositivos móveis, para fornecer as informações relevantes e interativas baseadas na localização do utilizador dentro do Smart Place. Este protótipo também é composto por um Content Management System de código aberto (baseado no Drupal 8), que permite aos operadores do sistema carregar e gerir as informações fornecidas aos utilizadores finais. Como o planeamento e construção dos edifícios mais modernos passam por um processo de BIM, o Content Management System permite carregar informações extraídas de ferramentas BIM através de ficheiros CSV. O sistema resultante é acessível para Smart Places mantendo-se confortável e interativo para os utilizadores

A coordinated approach for supply-chain tracking in the liquefied natural gas industry

With the increased size and complexity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, supplychain management has become a challenging process due to involvements of the remote location of the project site and the multiple stakeholders. The transparency and traceability of the supply-chain are critical as any surpluses or shortages of materials will put the project at risk. Currently, limited research has been conducted on LNG projects considering the total supply-chain perspective, which refers to all stages of materials tracking in off-site manufacturing, transportation, and site logistics. The purpose of this research is to propose a framework of a coordinated approach for supply-chain tracking in the LNG industry. Two focus group studies were organized to develop the proposed framework: One for LNG construction supply chain process development, and another for alternative tracking technologies selection. In addition, two experiments, namely off-site fabrication tracking and site logistics tracking, were conducted in a field to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed framework. Technology limitations were also discussed in terms of field implementation