Generic and Parameterizable Service for Remote Configuration of Mobile Phones Using Near Field Communication

Os serviços nos nossos dispositivos móveis têm aumentado em número e complexidade nos últimos anos. Utilizadores menos experientes sentem dificuldade em tirar total partido destes serviços. De forma a atenuar este problema, é necessário encontrar novas e inovadoras formas que permitam assistir o utilizador no processo de configuração. Para além disso, vivemos numa sociedade do imediato. As pessoas querem que o acesso aos recursos seja rápido, simples e seguro. É também sabido que grande parte dos utilizadores são leigos no que diz respeito à utilização de funcionalidades avançadas dos dispositivos móveis, o que resulta em alguma inércia no uso de certas aplicações e funcionalidades.O Near Field Communication oferece uma oportunidade única para introduzir novos paradigmas de negócio no que diz respeito à interação e facilidade de utilização. Esta dissertação especifica um serviço genérico e parametrizável para a configuração remota de dispositivos.Mobile services have increased both in number and complexity in the past few years. This means that in order to get the most out of these services, less experienced users will have a hard time configuring them by hand. To address this issue, we must find new and innovative solutions to assist the user in this process. Furthermore, we live in a society of the immediate. Everyone wants access to resources to be fast, simple and secure. It is also known that most of the users are laymen when referring to advanced configuration of mobile phone, resulting in some inertia in the use of applications and functionalities.Near Field Communication (NFC) provides an unique opportunity to introduce new business paradigms in terms of interaction and ease of use. This dissertation specifies a generic and parameterizable service for remote configuration of mobile devices using Near Field Communication, which requires minimal user intervention

Near Field Communication Applications

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range, low power contactless communication between NFC-enabled devices that are held in the closed proximity to each other. NFC technology has been moving rapidly from its initial application areas of mobile payment services and contactless ticketing to the diversity of new areas. Three specific NFC tags highlighted in the thesis have different structures in terms of memory, security and usage in different applications. NFC information tags exploit the data exchange format NDEF standardized by NFC Forum. NFC applications are rapidly stepping into novel and diverse application areas. Often they are deployed in combination with different devices and systems through their integrability and adaptability features. The diverse application areas where NFC tags and cards are used cover smart posters, contactless ticketing, keys and access control, library services, entertainment services, social network services, education, location based services, work force and retail management and healthcare. In designing different NFC applications, it is necessary to take into consideration different design issues such as to choosing the NFC tools and devices according to the technical requirements of the application, considering especially the memory, security and price factors as well as their relation to the purpose and usage of the final product. The security aspect of the NFC tags is remarkably important in selecting the proper NFC device. The race between hackers attacking and breaking the security systems of programmable high level products and manufacturers to produce reliable secure systems and products seems to never end. This has proven to be case, for example, for trying MIFARE Ultralight and DESFire MF3ICD40 tags. An important consideration of studying the different applications of NFC tags and cards during the thesis work was to understand the ubiquitous character of NFC technology.Lähitunnistus yhteys tekniikka (NFC) on lyhyen tähtäimen, pienitehoinen, kontaktiton yhteydenpito NFC yhteensopivien laitteiden välillä, jossa laitteet pidetään toistensä välittömässä läheisyydessä tiedon siirtämiseksi niiden välillä. NFC-teknologia on siirtynyt nopeasti sen alkuperäisiltä toimialueilta eli mobiili maksupalvelujen ja kontaktittomien lippujen sovellusalueilta moninaisille uusille alueille. Kolmella NFC tagillä, joita on käsitelty tässä tutkielmassa, on muistin, turvallisuuden ja käytön kannalta erilaisiä rakenteita, joita käytetään eri sovelluksissa. NFC-tagit käyttävät tiedonvälityksessä NFC Forumin standardoimaa NDEF-tiedonvaihtoformaattia. NFC sovellukset esiintyvät yhä enenevässä määrin nopeasti kehyttyvillä, uudenlaisilla ja monipuolisilla sovellusalueilla, usein yhdessä eri laitteiden ja järjestelmien kanssa. NFC on käytettävissä erinäisten laitteiden kanssa erilaisissa järjestelmäympäristöissä. Monipuoliset sovellusalueet, joissa muun muassa NFC-tagejä ja -kortteja käytetään sisältävät seuraavanlaisia sovelluksia: älykkäät julisteet, kontaktittomat liput, avaimet ja pääsynvalvonta, kirjastopalvelut, viihdepalvelut, sosiaalisen verkoston palvelut, kasvatukseen ja koulutukseen liittyvät palvelut, sijaintiperustaiset palvelut, työvoiman ja vähittäiskaupan hallinto-palvelut ja terveyspalvelut. Erilaisten NFC-sovelluksien suunnittelussa on väistämätöntä ottaa erilaisia suunnitteluasioita huomioon kuten valita NFC-työkalut ja laitteet sovelluksen teknisten vaatimusten mukaan. Erilaiset tärkeät tekijät kuten muisti, tietoturvallisuusominaisuudet ja hinta ja niiden kaikkien toimivuus lopputuotteen kannalta on otettava huomioon. Tietoturvallisuusnäkökohta on erityisen tärkeä oikean NFC laitteen valitsemisessa, sillä käynnissä on loputon kilpajuoksu hakkerien, jotka yrittävät rikkoa ohjelmoitavien korkeatasoisten laitteiden ja tuotteiden tietoturvajärjestelmiä, ja valmistajien, jotka pyrkivät tuottamaan luotettavia varmoja järjestelmiä, välillä. Tietoturvariskiin liittyviä ongelmia on löydetty esimerkiksi MIFARE Ultralight ja DESFire MF3ICD40 tageista. Tärkeä havainto, joka saatiin erilaisten NFC sovelluksien tutkimisesta, oli oivaltaa NFCteknologian potentiaalinen kaikkialle ulottuva, yleiskäyttöinen luonne

NFC Android application development : uniteNFC

Virtual world is getting richer every day, everything is connected and people demand smarter devices which allow them to control any situation. New technologies are being developed, trying to integrate as many functions as possible, to deliver innovative solutions. One of this brand new technologies is NFC, which can connect devices instantly without any previous configuration, including passive devices which can store and deliver information of many kinds. The work presented here reports an Android application project development with the Near Field Communication technology. The application developed is planned to add value to the NFC environment, increasing its discoverability and consumer awareness by building up a cloud of locations in which NFC interaction can be carried out. Besides, a community of users will be created in which they will be able to share their experiences and interact between them. The application will feed from the users, being the ones both producing and consuming information. All the data of the application will be available every-time and every-where with Internet connection, as any other service does nowadays. Topics discussed in this document include Android programming, NFC, cloud services, software libraries, back-end development, integration with social networks, working methodology and details on the different development stages and tasks. A complete understanding of the system is tried to be transmitted as well. To conclude, an approach to the market will be carried out, publishing the application on Google Play and analyzing the first impressions.El mundo virtual crece cada dí a, todo está conectado y los consumidores demandan cada vez dispositivos más inteligentes que puedan controlar cualquier situación. Se est án desarrollando nuevas tecnolog ías, tratando de integrar tantas funciones como sea posible para ofrecer soluciones innovadoras. Una de estas nuevas tecnologías es NFC, que permite conectar dispositivos instantáneamente sin con guración previa. Incluso dispositivos pasivos que, sin alimentación, puedan almacenar y transmitir información. El trabajo aquí documentado trata del desarrollo de una aplicación Android con la tecnología Near Field Communication. La aplicación desarrollada tratará de añadir valor al entorno de NFC, mejorando su descubribilidad y su reconocimiento, creando una nube de localizaciones en la que se pueda realizar algún tipo de interacción con NFC. Además se creará una comunidad de usuarios en la que se compartirán experiencias y podrán interactuar entre ellos. La aplicación se alimentará de los usuarios, los cuales tanto crearán como consumirán la información. Todos los datos de la aplicación estarán disponibles en cualquier lugar y momento con conexión a Internet, como cualquier otro servicio hoy en día. Los siguientes temas van a ser analizados: programación en Android, NFC, servicios en la nube, librerías de software, desarrollo de back-end, integración con redes sociales y detalles sobre las diferentes etapas del desarrollo y sus tareas. Se intentará trasmitir una visión completa del sistema al mismo tiempo. Por ultimo, se realizará una primera aproximación al mercado, publicando la aplicación en Google Play y analizando las primeras impresiones.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

Concepts for an intuitive user interface for DLNA using NFC technology

Consumption of digital media is dramatically increased by the development of conventional connectivity technologies and the advent of home entertainment appliances. The evolution of networking technology, hardware development and advanced services leads to an increased sophistication of device manipulation and long learning curves for average users. DLNA standardizes the interoperablity between media devices over a framework. With the help of personal handheld devices and smart phones, a ubiquitous media network is formed at home or on the road. NFC is a radio technology bridging physical and digital world, which is now widely deployed in a varied number of application scenarios to ease Human-Computer Interaction. This master thesis proposes a system architecture based on the confluence of DLNA architecture and NFC technology to facilitate simple, intuitive and impromptu interaction with media devices. This NFC-enabled DLNA Communication system architecture defines a communication model which delivers the vision of NFC as the enabler of DLNA control and communication, a network model, a set of diverse device functional components, a set of dedicated devices and baseline principles of system architecture. Based on the generic system architecture, a research is explored on A/V and image media sharing, UI retrieval, media uploading/downloading and print document application fields. Six use cases are proposed, they share the properties and principles defined in the system architecture and additionally they maintain their own use case specific features and their proprietary NFC data formats. Among them two use cases are explained in more detail. One use case, A/V Handover, delivers a consistent "tap and exchange" scenario. The other use case, Control Handover, grants users an instantaneous access to the control UI. A prototype implementation between smart devices or home appliances are presented showcasing an instantaneous, rapid and spontaneous media sharing and management application. Following the design paradigm presented in this thesis, more use cases in specific application fields are easily to be implemented

N2Z – A NFC to ZigBee® transceiver

textZigBee home automation systems have been around for years. They include smart energy efficient wireless systems that connect devices via mesh networking. It has always been a problem to connect to these ZigBee nodes with existing technologies we use daily. The premise of this project is to provide easy access to these nodes via near field communication, which is a technology that is available on a majority of smart phones today. The report details the design and implementation of N2Z, a device that translates data provided by an Android app through a NFC interface to a ZigBee device and vice- versa. We first discuss the requirements and use cases for the device and application. Then the report goes on to discuss the base technologies behind N2Z, which include the Android platform, Near Field Communication (NFC) & the ZigBee platform. The report then goes on to discuss the design and implementation of the system. Consequently, we discuss the final results of the system with certain use cases and provide some empirical data that gives us insight into system operation. Next we discuss other existing technologies that exist in the market. Finally we conclude the report with a discussion on future work and thoughts on the future of ZigBee.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

NFC based remote control of services for interactive spaces

Ubiquitous computing (one person, many computers) is the third era in the history of computing. It follows the mainframe era (many people, one computer) and the PC era (one person, one computer). Ubiquitous computing empowers people to communicate with services by interacting with their surroundings. Most of these so called smart environments contain sensors sensing users’ actions and try to predict the users’ intentions and necessities based on sensor data. The main drawback of this approach is that the system might perform unexpected or unwanted actions, making the user feel out of control. In this master thesis we propose a different procedure based on Interactive Spaces: instead of predicting users’ intentions based on sensor data, the system reacts to users’ explicit predefined actions. To that end, we present REACHeS, a server platform which enables communication among services, resources and users located in the same environment. With REACHeS, a user controls services and resources by interacting with everyday life objects and using a mobile phone as a mediator between himself/herself, the system and the environment. REACHeS’ interfaces with a user are built upon NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. NFC tags are attached to objects in the environment. A tag stores commands that are sent to services when a user touches the tag with his/her NFC enabled device. The prototypes and usability tests presented in this thesis show the great potential of NFC to build such user interfaces

Co-located Collaborative Information-based Ideation through Embodied Cross-Surface Curation

We develop an embodied cross-surface curation environment to support co-located, collaborative information-based ideation. Information-based ideation (IBI) refers to tasks and activities in which people generate and develop significant new ideas while working with information. Curation is the process of gathering and assembling objects in order to express ideas. The linear media and separated screens of prior curation environments constrain expression. This research utilizes information composition of rich bookmarks as the medium of curation. Visual representation of elements and ability to combine them in a freeform, spatial manner mimics how objects appear and can be manipulated in the physical world. Metadata of rich bookmarks leverages capabilities of the WWW. We equip participants with personal IBI environments, each on a mobile device, as a base for contributing to curation on a larger, collaborative surface. We hypothesize that physical representations for the elements and assemblage of curation, layered with physical techniques of interaction, will facilitate co-located IBI. We hypothesize that consistent physical and spatial representations of information and means for manipulating rich bookmarks on and across personal and collaborative surfaces will support IBI. We hypothesize that the small size and weight of personal devices will facilitate participants shifting their attention from their own work to each other and collaboration. We evaluated the curation environment by inviting couples to participate in a home makeover design task in a living-room lab. We demonstrated that our embodied cross-surface curation environment supports creative thinking, facilitates communication, and stimulates engagement and creativity in collaborative IBI

Android at risk: current threats stemming from unprotected local and external resources

Android is an open source platform derived from Linux OS. It utilizes a plethora of resources both local and external. Most of its local resources (e.g procfs nodes) were inherited from Linux with some of them being even- tually removed, while new ones were added to meet the requirements of a mobile multi-purpose platform. Moreover, such a platform compels the in- troduction of external resources which can be used in tandem with a variety of sensors (e.g Bluetooth and NFC) that the device is equipped with. This thesis demonstrates the subtlety involved in this adaptation which, if not performed correctly, can lead to severe information leaks stemming from un- protected local and external resources. It also presents new defense solutions and mitigation strategies that successfully tackle the found vulnerabilities. In particular, this thesis unearths three new side channels on Android OS. Prior to this work, these side channels were considered to be innocuous but here we illustrate that they can be used maliciously by an adversary to infer a user’s identity, geo-location, disease condition she is interested in, invest- ment information and her driving route. These information leaks, stem from local resources shared among all installed apps on Android: per-app data- usage statistics; ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) information; and speaker status (on or off). While harmless on a different setting, these public local resources can evidently disclose private information on a mobile platform and thus we maintain that they should not be freely available to all third-party apps installed on the system. To this end, we present mitigation strategies which strike a balance between the utility of apps that legitimately need to access such information and the privacy leakage risk involved. Unfortunately the design assumptions made while adapting Linux to cre- ate Android is not the only flaw of the latter. Specifically this work is also concerned with the security and privacy implications of using external to the OS resources. Such resources generate dynamic, hard to mediate channels of communication between the OS and an external source through usually a wireless protocol. We explore such implications in connecting smartphones with external Bluetooth devices. This thesis posits that Android falls short in providing secure Bluetooth connections with external devices; ergo its appli- cation in privacy critical domains is at the very least premature. We present a new threat, defined as external-device mis-bonding or DMB for short. To demonstrate the severity of the threat, we perform realistic attacks on popular medical Bluetooth devices. These attacks delineate how an unau- thorized app can capture private data from Bluetooth external devices and how it can help an adversary spoof those devices and feed erroneous data to legitimate applications. Furthermore, we designed an OS-level defense mechanism dubbed Dabinder, that addresses the system’s shortcomings, by guaranteeing that a Bluetooth connection is established only between a legitimate app and its respective accessory. Nevertheless, Bluetooth is not the only inadequately protected external resource with grave privacy ramifications. We have also studied NFC, Au- dio and SMS as potential channels of communication with alarmingly low confidentiality guarantees. We show with real world attacks, that Android’s permission model is too coarse-grained to safeguard such channels while pre- serving the utility of the apps. To better understand the prevalence of the problem we perform a measurement study on the Android ecosystem and discuss our findings. Finally this work presents SEACAT, a novel defense strategy, enhancing Android with flexible security capabilities. SEACAT is a scalable, effective and efficient solution, built on top of SELinux on Android, that enables the protection of channels used to communicate with external to Android re- sources. It achieves both MAC and DAC protection through straightforward and SELinux-compatible policies as the policy language and structure used, is in accordance with the current policy specifications. The system’s design encompasses mirror caching on both the kernel and the middleware layer which facilitates rapid policy enforcement through appropriate and carefully positioned hooks in the system