On the feasibility of attribute-based encryption on Internet of Things devices

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) could be an effective cryptographic tool for the secure management of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, but its feasibility in the IoT has been under-investigated thus far. This article explores such feasibility for well-known IoT platforms, namely, Intel Galileo Gen 2, Intel Edison, Raspberry pi 1 model B, and Raspberry pi zero, and concludes that adopting ABE in the IoT is indeed feasible

Mechatronics & the cloud

Conventionally, the engineering design process has assumed that the design team is able to exercise control over all elements of the design, either directly or indirectly in the case of sub-systems through their specifications. The introduction of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) means that a design team’s ability to have control over all elements of a system is no longer the case, particularly as the actual system configuration may well be being dynamically reconfigured in real-time according to user (and vendor) context and need. Additionally, the integration of the Internet of Things with elements of Big Data means that information becomes a commodity to be autonomously traded by and between systems, again according to context and need, all of which has implications for the privacy of system users. The paper therefore considers the relationship between mechatronics and cloud-basedtechnologies in relation to issues such as the distribution of functionality and user privacy

A Storm in an IoT Cup: The Emergence of Cyber-Physical Social Machines

The concept of social machines is increasingly being used to characterise various socio-cognitive spaces on the Web. Social machines are human collectives using networked digital technology which initiate real-world processes and activities including human communication, interactions and knowledge creation. As such, they continuously emerge and fade on the Web. The relationship between humans and machines is made more complex by the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices. The scale, automation, continuous sensing, and actuation capabilities of these devices add an extra dimension to the relationship between humans and machines making it difficult to understand their evolution at either the systemic or the conceptual level. This article describes these new socio-technical systems, which we term Cyber-Physical Social Machines, through different exemplars, and considers the associated challenges of security and privacy.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Keeping an Eye

The internet of things is being used increasingly in the home, so Doctors Emma Dean, Mark Taylor and Denis Reilly set out here the fire safety requirements for remote controlled cookers