Security Management System for 4G Heterogeneous Networks

There is constant demand for the development of mobile networks to meet the service requirements of users, and their development is a significant topic of research. The current fourth generation (4G) of mobile networks are expected to provide high speed connections anywhere at any time. Various existing 4G architectures such as LTE and WiMax support only wireless technologies, while an alternative architecture, Y-Comm, has been proposed to combine both existing wired and wireless networks. Y-Comm seeks to meet the main service requirements of 4G by converging the existing networks, so that the user can get better service anywhere and at any time. One of the major characteristics of Y-Comm is heterogeneity, which means that networks with different topologies work together to provide seamless communication to the end user. However, this heterogeneity leads to technical issues which may compromise quality of service, vertical handover and security. Due to the convergence characteristic of Y-Comm, security is considered more significant than in the existing LTE and WiMax networks. These security concerns have motivated this research study to propose a novel security management system. The research aims to meet the security requirements of 4G mobile networks, e.g. preventing end user devices from being used as attack tools. This requirement has not been met clearly in previous studies of Y-Comm, but this study proposes a security management system which does this. This research follows the ITU-T recommendation M.3400 dealing with security violations within Y-Comm networks. It proposes a policy-based security management system to deal with events that trigger actions in the system and uses Ponder2 to implement it. The proposed system, located in the top layer of the Y-Comm architecture, interacts with components of Y-Comm to enforce the appropriate policies. Its four main components are the Intelligent Agent, the Security Engine, the Security Policies Database and the Security Administrator. These are represented in this research as managed objects to meet design considerations such as extensibility and modifiability. This research demonstrates that the proposed system meets the security requirements of the Y-Comm environment. Its deployment is possible with managed objects built with Ponder2 for all of the components of Y-Comm, which means that the security management system is able to prevent end user devices from being used as attack tools. It can also achieve other security goals of Y-Comm networks

Simulating Road Traffic for Generating Cellular Network Logs in Urban Context

Viimastel aastatel on hakanud mobiilside andmestik paeluma aina rohkem teadlasi erinevatelt teadusdistsipliinidelt. Need andmed aitavad mõista inimeste käitumis- kui ka liikumismustreid. Mitmed mobiilsusandmestikud (nagu näiteks Call Detail Records mobiilside andmed) ning GPS andmed näitavad inimeste liikumissagedust ja -põhjusi.Need andmestikud sisaldavad endas väärtuslikku informatsiooni ühiskonna kohta. Töödeldud informatsiooni saab kasutada mitmel otstarbel. Teadlased saaksid andmestiku põhjal planeerida teedevõrgustikke, paremini suunata inimestele reklaame arvestades nende paiknemist, luua uusi positsioneerimistehnoloogiaid, arendada rahvastikukontrolli tarkvara jne.Vaatamata tehnoloogilistele võimalustele on inimeste mobiilsusandmestikud väga raskesti kättesaadavad, sest need on kaitstud riiklike regulatsioonide poolt, kuna riivavad inimeste privaatsust. Teine tegur on mobiilioperaatorite enda huvi luua inimeste mobiilsusandmetel põhinevaid kommertslahendusi. Selline situatsioon ei innusta operaatoreid jagama äriliselt vajalikku informatsiooni kolmandate osapooltega. Antud magistritöö käigus näidatakse, kuidas sellest raskest probleemist üle saada arendades mobiilsidevõrgukäitumissimulatsiooni prototüüpi. Genereerides andmeid läbi erinevate teaduslike liikumismudelite, mida võimaldab meile liiklussimulatsiooni tarkvara.Uurimistöö tulemusena selgus, et selline lähenemine on resultatiivne ja omab mitmeid laienemisvõimalusi. Täheldati mitmeid võimalusi koostööks teiste uurimisvaldkondadega, et muuta genereeritavaid mobiilsusandmeid reaalelule sarnanevateks. Mobiilsidevõrgu käituvussimulatsioon on näidanud suurt potentsiaali ning arendamise käigus avaldusid võimalused, mida algselt ei osatud oodata. Mainitud mobiilsidevõrgu käituvussimulatsioon on integreeritud eksisteeriva liiklussimulatsiooni tarkvaraga, mis on vabavara ning mida on võimalik laialdaselt konfigureerida. Liiklussimulatsiooni tarkvaraskasutatavad inimkäitumise mudelid põhinevad erinevate teadustööde tulemustel ning seetõttu mobiilsidevõrgu käituvus- ning liiklussimulatsiooni sümbioosi tulemusel genereeritud andmed on märkimisväärse väärtusega.In the last years, the use of mobile phone data logs start to attract a lot of researchers’ attentions from various disciplines. Those logs help the scientist to understand and predict human behaviour. The mobility logs, like Call Detail Records and GPS data, show where to people commute, how often do they commute and, usually, those logs also say why. These logs hold knowledge about our society, from that data the knowledge could be extracted and used for multiple purposes. The scientists could analyse through the movement how to plan the road infrastructure, generate target advertisement based on forecasting peoples displacement, new positioning technology, population control software, etc. But there are limits on the people's mobility data. Those information logs are heavily protected by the government privacy data laws to protect the personal rights. Additionally, the mobile operators are interested in their own commercial solutions and therefore their interest to share vital information is low. Here, in this thesis, we show that this cumbersome problem can be over-stepped by prototyping a cellular network behaviour simulator to generate the logs for us through different scientific commuting models inherited from the traffic simulation program.The result of this thesis reveals that this approach is feasible and shows multiple expansion possibilities how to produce even more real-life like mobility logs. The development of the cellular network behaviour simulation has shown huge potential and even bigger possibilities than predicted in the beginning. Since, our cellular network behaviour simulation is integrated with already existing open-source, highly configurable, road traffic simulator basing on the scientific human behaviour models produce with considerable value data

An Android application for crowdsourcing 3G user experience

This report is composed by a project splited in two parts, a practical part and a research one. The first part of the project was done in Valencia (Spain) under the supervision of the company NUBESIS. We developed an Android application that is the mobile application for a website developed by the same company. We describe the problems we had while developing the application and the way we solved them. We will explain the diferent processes that take place in the application and how these processes are integrated in the application's functionality, we also talk about the user's interaction with the diferent screens and their behavior. The second part of the project is planned as a research project to improve the connectivity problem that can appear in the firrst application. This part was done in Sydney (Australia) in cooperation with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and under the supervision of professor Mahbub Hassan. In this part we discuss the design and implementation of Android based 3G/HSDPA network bandwidth measurement mobile application. This application acts as a mobile sensor in a crowd sourcing system. We use a network link bandwidth estimation technique called packet pair probing, which can easily be implemented on a mobile platform and we also justify why we have chose the specific methodology after reviewing the related literature. We also propose a measurement initiation process with theMeasurement Server which allows the packet pair probing technique to reect an accurate download bandwidth on the measurement. We have calibrated and netune the measurement tool so it can contribute optimally to the crowd sourcing system by addressing issues such as usability, data consumption and power consumption. We include geo tags in each measurement we take and discuss the implementation issues addressed in the project. Finally, we introduce an algorithm which measures the download bandwidth in a timely fashion. We study the behaviour of the measurements by changing parameters such as packet size and packet train length. The results obtained were evaluated by comparing them to a reliable commercial bandwidth estimation tool under the same environment. Given these results we conducted a number of hypothesis tests where we used the T-statistic as the test statistic under the null hypothesis.Martínez Raga, M. (2011). An Android application for crowdsourcing 3G user experience. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/11987.Archivo delegad

Could Kill Switches Kill Phone Theft? Surveying Potential Solution for Smartphone Theft

This paper analyzes the potential efficacy of current proposals to deter smartphone theft and the broader implications they may have

Getting smarter about smart cities: Improving data privacy and data security

Abstract included in text

Multiuser detection employing recurrent neural networks for DS-CDMA systems.

Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.Over the last decade, access to personal wireless communication networks has evolved to a point of necessity. Attached to the phenomenal growth of the telecommunications industry in recent times is an escalating demand for higher data rates and efficient spectrum utilization. This demand is fuelling the advancement of third generation (3G), as well as future, wireless networks. Current 3G technologies are adding a dimension of mobility to services that have become an integral part of modem everyday life. Wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) is the standardized multiple access scheme for 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). As an air interface solution, CDMA has received considerable interest over the past two decades and a great deal of current research is concerned with improving the application of CDMA in 3G systems. A factoring component of CDMA is multiuser detection (MUD), which is aimed at enhancing system capacity and performance, by optimally demodulating multiple interfering signals that overlap in time and frequency. This is a major research problem in multipoint-to-point communications. Due to the complexity associated with optimal maximum likelihood detection, many different sub-optimal solutions have been proposed. This focus of this dissertation is the application of neural networks for MUD, in a direct sequence CDMA (DS-CDMA) system. Specifically, it explores how the Hopfield recurrent neural network (RNN) can be employed to give yet another suboptimal solution to the optimization problem of MUD. There is great scope for neural networks in fields encompassing communications. This is primarily attributed to their non-linearity, adaptivity and key function as data classifiers. In the context of optimum multiuser detection, neural networks have been successfully employed to solve similar combinatorial optimization problems. The concepts of CDMA and MUD are discussed. The use of a vector-valued transmission model for DS-CDMA is illustrated, and common linear sub-optimal MUD schemes, as well as the maximum likelihood criterion, are reviewed. The performance of these sub-optimal MUD schemes is demonstrated. The Hopfield neural network (HNN) for combinatorial optimization is discussed. Basic concepts and techniques related to the field of statistical mechanics are introduced and it is shown how they may be employed to analyze neural classification. Stochastic techniques are considered in the context of improving the performance of the HNN. A neural-based receiver, which employs a stochastic HNN and a simulated annealing technique, is proposed. Its performance is analyzed in a communication channel that is affected by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) by way of simulation. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared to that of the single-user matched filter, linear decorrelating and minimum mean-square error detectors, as well as the classical HNN and the stochastic Hopfield network (SHN) detectors. Concluding, the feasibility of neural networks (in this case the HNN) for MUD in a DS-CDMA system is explored by quantifying the relative performance of the proposed model using simulation results and in view of implementation issues

Evolving an efficient and effective off-the-shelf computing infrastructure for schools in rural areas of South Africa

Upliftment of rural areas and poverty alleviation are priorities for development in South Africa. Information and knowledge are key strategic resources for social and economic development and ICTs act as tools to support them, enabling innovative and more cost effective approaches. In order for ICT interventions to be possible, infrastructure has to be deployed. For the deployment to be effective and sustainable, the local community needs to be involved in shaping and supporting it. This study describes the technical work done in the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), a long-term ICT4D experiment in the Mbashe Municipality, with a focus on the deployment of ICT infrastructure in schools, for teaching and learning but also for use by the communities surrounding the schools. As a result of this work, computing infrastructure was deployed, in various phases, in 17 schools in the area and a “broadband island” connecting them was created. The dissertation reports on the initial deployment phases, discussing theoretical underpinnings and policies for using technology in education as well various computing and networking technologies and associated policies available and appropriate for use in rural South African schools. This information forms the backdrop of a survey conducted with teachers from six schools in the SLL, together with experimental work towards the provision of an evolved, efficient and effective off-the-shelf computing infrastructure in selected schools, in order to attempt to address the shortcomings of the computing infrastructure deployed initially in the SLL. The result of the study is the proposal of an evolved computing infrastructure model for use in rural South African schools

LMU Law Review Volume 4 Issue 1

Fall 2016\u27s Volume 4, Issue

Models of internet connectivity for secondary schools in the Grahamstown circuit

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming more pervasive in South African schools and are increasingly considered valuable tools in education, promoting the development of higher cognitive processes and allowing teachers and learners access to a plethora of information. This study investigates models of Internet connectivity for secondary schools in the Grahamstown Circuit. The various networking technologies currently available to South African schools, or likely to become available to South African schools in the future, are described along with the telecommunications legislation which governs their use in South Africa. Furthermore, current ICT in education projects taking place in South Africa are described together with current ICT in education policy in South Africa. This information forms the backdrop of a detailed schools survey that was conducted at all the 13 secondary schools in the Grahamstown Circuit and enriched with experimental work in the provision of metropolitan network links to selected schools, mostly via Wi-Fi. The result of the investigation is the proposal of a Grahamstown Circuit Metropolitan Education Network

Privacy by (re)design: a comparative study of the protection of personal information in the mobile applications ecosystem under United States, European Union and South African law.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The dissertation presents a comparative desktop study of the application of a Privacy by Design (PbD) approach to the protection of personal information in the mobile applications ecosystem under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) in the United States, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, and the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) in South Africa. The main problem considered in the thesis is whether there is an ‘accountability gap’ within the legislation selected for comparative study. This is analysed by examining whether the legislation can be enforced against parties other than the app developer in the mobile app ecosystem, as it is theorised that only on this basis will the underlying technologies and architecture of mobile apps be changed to support a privacy by (re)design approach. The key research question is what legal approach is to be adopted to enforce such an approach within the mobile apps ecosystem. It describes the complexity of the mobile apps ecosystem, identifying the key role players and the processing operations that take place. It sets out what is encompassed by the conceptual framework of PbD, and why the concept of privacy by (re)design may be more appropriate in the context of mobile apps integrating third party services and products. It identifies the core data protection principles of data minimisation and accountability, and the nature of informed consent, as being essential to an effective PbD approach. It concludes that without strengthening the legal obligations pertaining to the sharing of personal information with third parties, neither regulatory guidance, as is preferred in the United States, nor a direct legal obligation, as created by article 25 of the GDPR, is adequate to enforce a PbD approach within the mobile apps ecosystem. It concludes that although a PbD approach is implied for compliance by a responsible party with POPIA, legislative reforms are necessary. It proposes amendments to POPIA to address inadequacies in the requirements for notice, and to impose obligations on a responsible party in relation to the sharing of personal information with third parties who will process the personal information for further, separate purposes