MOSDEN: An Internet of Things Middleware for Resource Constrained Mobile Devices

The Internet of Things (IoT) is part of Future Internet and will comprise many billions of Internet Connected Objects (ICO) or `things' where things can sense, communicate, compute and potentially actuate as well as have intelligence, multi-modal interfaces, physical/ virtual identities and attributes. Collecting data from these objects is an important task as it allows software systems to understand the environment better. Many different hardware devices may involve in the process of collecting and uploading sensor data to the cloud where complex processing can occur. Further, we cannot expect all these objects to be connected to the computers due to technical and economical reasons. Therefore, we should be able to utilize resource constrained devices to collect data from these ICOs. On the other hand, it is critical to process the collected sensor data before sending them to the cloud to make sure the sustainability of the infrastructure due to energy constraints. This requires to move the sensor data processing tasks towards the resource constrained computational devices (e.g. mobile phones). In this paper, we propose Mobile Sensor Data Processing Engine (MOSDEN), an plug-in-based IoT middleware for mobile devices, that allows to collect and process sensor data without programming efforts. Our architecture also supports sensing as a service model. We present the results of the evaluations that demonstrate its suitability towards real world deployments. Our proposed middleware is built on Android platform

A robust authentication scheme for observing resources in the internet of things environment

© 2014 IEEE. The Internet of Things is a vision that broadens the scope of the internet by incorporating physical objects to identify themselves to the participating entities. This innovative concept enables a physical device to represent itself in the digital world. There are a lot of speculations and future forecasts about the Internet of Things devices. However, most of them are vendor specific and lack a unified standard, which renders their seamless integration and interoperable operations. Another major concern is the lack of security features in these devices and their corresponding products. Most of them are resource-starved and unable to support computationally complex and resource consuming secure algorithms. In this paper, we have proposed a lightweight mutual authentication scheme which validates the identities of the participating devices before engaging them in communication for the resource observation. Our scheme incurs less connection overhead and provides a robust defence solution to combat various types of attacks

A Survey on Congestion Control Protocols for CoAP

The Internet of things (IoT) comprises things interconnected through the internet with unique identities. Congestion management is one of the most challenging tasks in networks. The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a low-footprint protocol designed for IoT networks and has been defined by IETF. In IoT networks, CoAP nodes have limited network and battery resources. The CoAP standard has an exponential backoff congestion control mechanism. This backoff mechanism may not be adequate for all IoT applications. The characteristics of each IoT application would be different. Further, the events such as unnecessary retransmissions and packet collision caused due to links with high losses and packet transmission errors may lead to network congestion. Various congestion handling algorithms for CoAP have been defined to enrich the performance of IoT applications. Our paper presents a comprehensive survey on the evolution of the congestion control mechanism used in IoT networks. We have classified the protocols into RTO-based, queue-monitoring, and rate-based. We review congestion avoidance protocols for CoAP networks and discuss directions for future work

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

Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences

Part of the Volume on Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth.Youth today are often criticized for their lack of civic participation and involvement in political life. Technology has been blamed, amongst many other causes, for fostering social isolation and youth's retreat into a private world disconnected from their communities. However, current research is beginning to indicate that these might be inaccurate perceptions. The Internet has provided new opportunities to create communities that extend beyond geographic boundaries, to engage in civic and volunteering activities across local and national frontiers, to learn about political life, and to experience the challenges of democratic participation. How do we leverage youth's interest in new technologies by developing technology-based educational programs to promote civic engagement? This chapter explores this question by proposing socio-technical design elements to be considered when developing technology-rich experiences. It presents a typology to guide the design of Internet-based interventions, taking into account both the affordances of the technology and the educational approach to the use of the technology. It also presents a pilot experience in a northeastern university that offered a pre-orientation program in which incoming freshman designed a three-dimensional virtual campus of the future and developed new policies and programs to strengthen the relationship between college campus and neighbor communities

Exploring Identities in Online Music Fandoms: How identities Formed in Online Fan Communities Affect Real Life Identities

This thesis set out to explore the identities formed by members of online fandom communities, and to determine the ways in which those identities affect their real life, offline identities. This qualitative study encountered elements related to stereo types of young women who are fans of mainstream pop music, and provided insight on their experiences through interviews with five long time boy band online fandom members. This study asked if fans prefer to keep their fandom identities internal or let them reflect outward, how one\u27s online identity affects or translates to their real life identity, and what experiences in the online fandom were the most impactful to the individual\u27s real life identity or led to new knowledge. It was revealed that online community platform is the place where fans gather to enjoy a similar passion, but it is the relationships and discussions held on the site between fans that truly affect an individual and their identity, rather than the more superficial elements of being in a fandom. Through fandom discourse, members found social support and solidarity with one another