Development and evaluation of a smartphone-based system for inspection of road maintenance work

Abstract. In the road construction industry, doing work inspection is a laborious and resource-consuming job because of the distributed work site. Contractors in Finland require to capture photos of every road fix they have done as proof of their work. It is well-established that with the help of smartphone technology, these kinds of manual work can be reduced. This thesis aims to develop and evaluate a smartphone-based system to capture video evidence of task completion. The system, designed and developed in this thesis, consists of an Android application named ’Road Recorder’ and a web tool for managing the content collected by Road Recorder. While mounted to a vehicle’s dashboard used in construction work, the Road Recorder can record the videos of road surface and geo-location information and some other metadata and send them to a remote server that is inspected using the web tool. Users of different backgrounds were given the system to accomplish some tasks and were observed closely. The users were interviewed at the end, and responses were analyzed to find the usability of the applications. The results indicate the high usability of the Road Recorder application and reveal possible improvements for the Road Recorder management web application. Overall, Road Recorder is a great step towards the automation of such construction work inspection. Though there were some limitations in the evaluation process, it demonstrates that Road Recorder is easy to use and can be a useful tool in the industry

End-to-end security in embedded system for modern mobile communication technologies

Modern mobile electronic devices such as smartphones or cell phones can now be used for distant devices such as technical systems to monitor and control. While surveillance systems do not require high standards navigating about the time of transfer of the displayed data. More real-time data are needed for a remote mobile robot transfer. Therefore, it has investigated and measured not only the possibilities of employing mobile devices. But also, the supported data transmission channels, such as UMTS, GSM, Wireless LAN, and Bluetooth. The remotecontrol system is used in many applications such as smart homes, cities, smart hospitals, etc., but it must be today updated to ensure fast-changing technology. Extensive coverage, remote control, and reliable operation in realtime in the deployment of wireless security knowledge. The home automation control system delivers significant features together with a user-friendly interface. A secure remote-based end-to-end security system NTMobile, a technique that enables NAT to provide transverse and encrypted communication from end to end. This confirmed that evaluating the performance of the system in the ECHONET lite compatible smartphone ecosystem. This gives flexibility in configuring time-sensitive industrial networks and enables them to be secured. A safe and reliable remote-control system is also conceivable under the privacy of the user

Performance analysis and application development of hybrid WiMAX-WiFi IP video surveillance systems

Traditional Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) analogue cameras installed in buildings and other areas of security interest necessitates the use of cable lines. However, analogue systems are limited by distance; and storing analogue data requires huge space or bandwidth. Wired systems are also prone to vandalism, they cannot be installed in a hostile terrain and in heritage sites, where cabling would distort original design. Currently, there is a paradigm shift towards wireless solutions (WiMAX, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G) to complement and in some cases replace the wired system. A wireless solution of the Fourth-Generation Surveillance System (4GSS) has been proposed in this thesis. It is a hybrid WiMAX-WiFi video surveillance system. The performance analysis of the hybrid WiMAX-WiFi is compared with the conventional WiMAX surveillance models. The video surveillance models and the algorithm that exploit the advantages of both WiMAX and Wi-Fi for scenarios of fixed and mobile wireless cameras have been proposed, simulated and compared with the mathematical/analytical models. The hybrid WiMAX-WiFi video surveillance model has been extended to include a Wireless Mesh configuration on the Wi-Fi part, to improve the scalability and reliability. A performance analysis for hybrid WiMAX-WiFi system with an appropriate Mobility model has been considered for the case of mobile cameras. A security software application for mobile smartphones that sends surveillance images to either local or remote servers has been developed. The developed software has been tested, evaluated and deployed in low bandwidth Wi-Fi wireless network environments. WiMAX is a wireless metropolitan access network technology that provides broadband services to the connected customers. Major modules and units of WiMAX include the Customer Provided Equipment (CPE), the Access Service Network (ASN) which consist one or more Base Stations (BS) and the Connectivity Service Network (CSN). Various interfaces exist between each unit and module. WiMAX is based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, is a wireless access network operating in the local area network; and it is based on the IEEE 802.11 standards

Experience Report on the Challenges and Opportunities in Securing Smartphones Against Zero-Click Attacks

Zero-click attacks require no user interaction and typically exploit zero-day (i.e., unpatched) vulnerabilities in instant chat applications (such as WhatsApp and iMessage) to gain root access to the victim's smartphone and exfiltrate sensitive data. In this paper, we report our experiences in attempting to secure smartphones against zero-click attacks. We approached the problem by first enumerating several properties we believed were necessary to prevent zero-click attacks against smartphones. Then, we created a security design that satisfies all the identified properties, and attempted to build it using off-the-shelf components. Our key idea was to shift the attack surface from the user's smartphone to a sandboxed virtual smartphone ecosystem where each chat application runs in isolation. Our performance and usability evaluations of the system we built highlighted several shortcomings and the fundamental challenges in securing modern smartphones against zero-click attacks. In this experience report, we discuss the lessons we learned, and share insights on the missing components necessary to achieve foolproof security against zero-click attacks for modern mobile devices

Smart Dairy Cattle Farming and In-Heat Detection through the Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been being revolutionized in various aspects of agriculture around the world ever since. Its application has already found its success in some countries. On the contrary, this technology has yet to find its substantial breakthrough in the Philippines. This study shows the application of IoT in improving the detection efficiency of standing-heat behaviors of cows through automated detection using Pan-tilt-zoom cameras and a Python-driven Web Application. The dimensions of the barn were measured, and the Cameras' Field of Views (FOVs) were pre-calculated for the strategic positions of the cameras atop of the cowshed. The program detects the cows and any estrus events through the surveillance cameras. The results will be sent to the cloud server to display on the web application for analysis. The web app can allow updates on cow information, inseminations, pregnancy, and calving records, estimate travel time from the user's geolocation to the farm, provide live monitoring and remote camera accessibility and control through the cameras and deliver reliable cross-platform push-notification and call alerts on the user's device(s) whenever an estrus event is detected. Based on the results, the program performed satisfactorily at 50% detection efficiency

Spying on the Spy: Security Analysis of Hidden Cameras

Hidden cameras, also called spy cameras, are surveillance tools commonly used to spy on people without their knowledge. Whilst previous studies largely focused on investigating the detection of such a camera and the privacy implications, the security of the camera itself has received limited attention. Compared with ordinary IP cameras, spy cameras are normally sold in bulk at cheap prices and are ubiquitously deployed in hidden places within homes and workplaces. A security compromise of these cameras can have severe consequences. In this paper, we analyse a generic IP camera module, which has been packaged and re-branded for sale by several spy camera vendors. The module is controlled by mobile phone apps. By analysing the Android app and the traffic data, we reverse-engineered the security design of the whole system, including the module's Linux OS environment, the file structure, the authentication mechanism, the session management, and the communication with a remote server. Serious vulnerabilities have been identified in every component. Combined together, they allow an adversary to take complete control of a spy camera from anywhere over the Internet, enabling arbitrary code execution. This is possible even if the camera is behind a firewall. All that an adversary needs to launch an attack is the camera's serial number, which users sometimes unknowingly share in online reviews. We responsibly disclosed our findings to the manufacturer. Whilst the manufacturer acknowledged our work, they showed no intention to fix the problems. Patching or recalling the affected cameras is infeasible due to complexities in the supply chain. However, it is prudent to assume that bad actors have already been exploiting these flaws. We provide details of the identified vulnerabilities in order to raise public awareness, especially on the grave danger of disclosing a spy camera's serial number.Comment: 19 pages. Conference: NSS 2023: 17th International Conference on Network and System Securit