SmartLED: Smartphone-based covert channels leveraging the notification LED

The widespread adoption of smartphones make them essential in daily routines. Thus, they can be used to create a covert channel without raising suspicions. To avoid detection, networkless communications are preferred. In this paper, we propose SmartLED, a mechanism to build covert channels leveraging a widely available smartphone feature - its notification LED. The secret is encoded through LED blinks using Manhattan encoding. SmartLED is assessed in real-world indoor and outdoor scenarios, considering different distances up to 5 meters. Our results show that the best performance is achieved in dark settings - 34.8 s. are needed to exfiltrate a 7-byte password to a distance of 1 m. Remarkably, distance does not cause a great impact on effective transmission time and shorter blinks do not lead to substantially greater transmission errorsThis work was supported by MINECO grant TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV), PID2019-111429RB-C21 (ODIO), P2018/TCS4566 (CYNAMON-CM) funded with European FEDER funds and CAVTIONS-CM-UC3M funded by UC3M and the Government of Madrid (CAM)

Tripod of Requirements in Horizontal Heterogeneous Mobile Cloud Computing

Recent trend of mobile computing is emerging toward executing resource-intensive applications in mobile devices regardless of underlying resource restrictions (e.g. limited processor and energy) that necessitate imminent technologies. Prosperity of cloud computing in stationary computers breeds Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) technology that aims to augment computing and storage capabilities of mobile devices besides conserving energy. However, MCC is more heterogeneous and unreliable (due to wireless connectivity) compare to cloud computing. Problems like variations in OS, data fragmentation, and security and privacy discourage and decelerate implementation and pervasiveness of MCC. In this paper, we describe MCC as a horizontal heterogeneous ecosystem and identify thirteen critical metrics and approaches that influence on mobile-cloud solutions and success of MCC. We divide them into three major classes, namely ubiquity, trust, and energy efficiency and devise a tripod of requirements in MCC. Our proposed tripod shows that success of MCC is achievable by reducing mobility challenges (e.g. seamless connectivity, fragmentation), increasing trust, and enhancing energy efficiency

Mobile Cloud Computing: A Review on Smartphone Augmentation Approaches

Smartphones have recently gained significant popularity in heavy mobile processing while users are increasing their expectations toward rich computing experience. However, resource limitations and current mobile computing advancements hinder this vision. Therefore, resource-intensive application execution remains a challenging task in mobile computing that necessitates device augmentation. In this article, smartphone augmentation approaches are reviewed and classified in two main groups, namely hardware and software. Generating high-end hardware is a subset of hardware augmentation approaches, whereas conserving local resource and reducing resource requirements approaches are grouped under software augmentation methods. Our study advocates that consreving smartphones' native resources, which is mainly done via task offloading, is more appropriate for already-developed applications than new ones, due to costly re-development process. Cloud computing has recently obtained momentous ground as one of the major cornerstone technologies in augmenting smartphones. We present sample execution model for intensive mobile applications and devised taxonomy of augmentation approaches. For better comprehension, the results of this study are summarized in a table

Building Next Generation IoT Infrastructure for Enabling M2M Crypto Economy

As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are becoming part of our lives, there is a growing interest to enable using them in our daily lives even for micropayments. This interest stems from many factors including privacy, convenience and overhead/fraud that comes with credit cards. In this regard, Internet of Things (IoT) devices can also benefit from this feature for enabling touchless payments for users. However, there is even a bigger opportunity there considering the nature and diversity of very large-scale unattended IoT devices. The integration of any IoT device with blockchain including cryptocurrencies and smart contracts can trigger a machine-to-machine (M2M) economy revolution by streamlining business among IoT devices. Under such a future business model, IoT devices can autonomously request a service and make a payment in return. Such a large-scale ecosystem should rely on various components thus requiring a paradigm shift on the current design and understanding of the IoT systems. In particular, decentralized architecture of blockchain with cryptocurrency and smart contract capability can be a key enabler. In this vision paper, we advocate the need and necessary elements of a M2M crypto economy infrastructure and investigate the role of blockchain in realizing this vision. We specifically focus on the advantages and challenges of blockchain-based systems along with the existing proposed solutions. We then offer several future directions in creating such a M2M economy

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Federated learning (FL) has been increasingly considered to preserve data training privacy from eavesdropping attacks in mobile edge computing-based Internet of Thing (EdgeIoT). On the one hand, the learning accuracy of FL can be improved by selecting the IoT devices with large datasets for training, which gives rise to a higher energy consumption. On the other hand, the energy consumption can be reduced by selecting the IoT devices with small datasets for FL, resulting in a falling learning accuracy. In this paper, we formulate a new resource allocation problem for privacy-preserving EdgeIoT to balance the learning accuracy of FL and the energy consumption of the IoT device. We propose a new federated learning-enabled twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (FLDLT3) framework to achieve the optimal accuracy and energy balance in a continuous domain. Furthermore, long short term memory (LSTM) is leveraged in FL-DLT3 to predict the time-varying network state while FL-DLT3 is trained to select the IoT devices and allocate the transmit power. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed FL-DLT3 achieves fast convergence (less than 100 iterations) while the FL accuracy-to-energy consumption ratio is improved by 51.8% compared to existing state-of-the-art benchmark.This work was supported in part by the National Funds through FCT/MCTES (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology), within the CISTER Research Unit under Grant UIDP/UIDB/04234/2020, and in part by national funds through FCT, within project PTDC/EEICOM/3362/2021 (ADANET).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gender, Social Networks And Performance

This paper documents gender differences in social ties and develops a theory that links them to disparities in men's and women's labor market performance. Men's networks lead to better access to information, women's to higher peer pressure. Both affect effort in a model of teams, each beneficial in different environments. We find that information is particularly valuable under high uncertainty, whereas peer pressure is more valuable in the opposite case. We therefore expect men to outperform women in jobs that are characterized by high earnings uncertainty, such as the financial sector or film industry – in line with the evidence rationale

Integrated clothing based personal communications system

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47).Recent developments in fabric based conductive embroidered input devices has created the opportunity for the next generation of wearable computing. This thesis presents a preliminary attempt to develop a wearable, multi-purpose, extensible, IP device that uses flexible fabric based circuitry for its user interface. It integrates a suite of advanced communications devices into a standard PolarTecTMjacket using an embedded personal computer for its controller. Users wear the MediaJacket similarly to normal clothing, and can use a diverse set of applications that include IP telephony, two-way pager-like email, an MP3 audio player, and a contactless "interface pocket" for handling input data streams from external devices. By embedding advanced electronics into clothing using an RF connection for tetherless internet connectivity, this research aims to reduce the stigma of using technology by creating a more personalized user experience. It is our hope, that as the size and cost of the MediaJacket's components come down, this research will help people better to better integrate technology into their lives.by Christian Todd Metcalfe.S.M

The design of personal ambient displays

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59).The goal of this thesis is to investigate the design of personal ambient displays. These are small, physical devices worn to display information to a person in a subtle, persistent, and private manner. They can be small enough to be carried in a pocket, worn as a watch, or even adorned like jewelry. In my implementations, information is displayed solely through tactile modalities such as thermal change (heating and cooling), movement (shifting and vibration), and change of shape (expanding, contracting, and deformation). Using a tactile display allows information to be kept private and reduces the chance of overloading primary visual and auditory activities. The display can remain ambient, transmitting information in the background of a person's perception through simple, physical means. The specific focus of this thesis is to create a number of these tactile displays, to identify and implement applications they can serve, and to evaluate aspects of their effectiveness. I have created a group of small, wireless objects that can warm up and cool down or gently move or shift. Users can reconfigure each display so that information sources like stock data or the activity of people on the internet are mapped to these different tactile modalities. Furthermore, in this thesis I consider the implications that human perception have on the design of these displays and examine potential application areas for further implementations.Craig Alexander Wisneski.S.M

Content Dissemination in Mobile Social Networks

Mobile social networking(MSN) has emerged as an effective platform for social network users to pervasively disseminate the contents such as news, tips, book information, music, video and so on. In content dissemination, mobile social network users receive content or information from their friends, acquaintances or neighbors, and selectively forward the content or information to others. The content generators and receivers have different motivation and requirements to disseminate the contents according to the properties of the contents, which makes it a challenging and meaningful problem to effectively disseminate the content to the appropriate users. In this dissertation, the typical content dissemination scenarios in MSNs are investigated. According to the content properties, the corresponding user requirements are analyzed. First, a Bayesian framework is formulated to model the factors that influence users behavior on streaming video dissemination. An effective dissemination path detection algorithm is derived to detect the reliable and efficient video transmission paths. Second, the authorized content is investigated. We analyze the characteristics of the authorized content, and model the dissemination problem as a new graph problem, namely, Maximum Weighted Connected subgraph with node Quota (MWCQ), and propose two effective algorithms to solve it. Third, the authorized content dissemination problem in Opportunistic Social Networks(OSNs) is studied, based on the prediction of social connection pattern. We then analyze the influence of social connections on the content acquirement, and propose a novel approach, User Set Selection(USS) algorithm, to help social users to achieve fast and accurate content acquirement through social connections