Secure Distribution of Protected Content in Information-Centric Networking

The benefits of the ubiquitous caching in ICN are profound, such features make ICN promising for content distribution, but it also introduces a challenge to content protection against the unauthorized access. The protection of a content against unauthorized access requires consumer authentication and involves the conventional end-to-end encryption. However, in information-centric networking (ICN), such end-to-end encryption makes the content caching ineffective since encrypted contents stored in a cache are useless for any consumers except those who know the encryption key. For effective caching of encrypted contents in ICN, we propose a secure distribution of protected content (SDPC) scheme, which ensures that only authenticated consumers can access the content. SDPC is lightweight and allows consumers to verify the originality of the published content by using a symmetric key encryption. Moreover, SDPC naming scheme provides protection against privacy leakage. The security of SDPC was proved with the BAN logic and Scyther tool verification, and simulation results show that SDPC can reduce the content download delay.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, This article is an enhancement version of journal article published in IEEE Systems Journal, DOI: 10.1109/JSYST.2019.2931813. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1808.0328

International conference on software engineering and knowledge engineering: Session chair

The Thirtieth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2018) will be held at the Hotel Pullman, San Francisco Bay, USA, from July 1 to July 3, 2018. SEKE2018 will also be dedicated in memory of Professor Lofti Zadeh, a great scholar, pioneer and leader in fuzzy sets theory and soft computing. The conference aims at bringing together experts in software engineering and knowledge engineering to discuss on relevant results in either software engineering or knowledge engineering or both. Special emphasis will be put on the transference of methods between both domains. The theme this year is soft computing in software engineering & knowledge engineering. Submission of papers and demos are both welcome

Access Control Mechanisms in Named Data Networks:A Comprehensive Survey

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) has recently emerged as a prominent candidate for the Future Internet Architecture (FIA) that addresses existing issues with the host-centric communication model of the current TCP/IP-based Internet. Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the most recent and active ICN architectures that provides a clean slate approach for Internet communication. NDN provides intrinsic content security where security is directly provided to the content instead of communication channel. Among other security aspects, Access Control (AC) rules specify the privileges for the entities that can access the content. In TCP/IP-based AC systems, due to the client-server communication model, the servers control which client can access a particular content. In contrast, ICN-based networks use content names to drive communication and decouple the content from its original location. This phenomenon leads to the loss of control over the content causing different challenges for the realization of efficient AC mechanisms. To date, considerable efforts have been made to develop various AC mechanisms in NDN. In this paper, we provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of the AC mechanisms in NDN. We follow a holistic approach towards AC in NDN where we first summarize the ICN paradigm, describe the changes from channel-based security to content-based security and highlight different cryptographic algorithms and security protocols in NDN. We then classify the existing AC mechanisms into two main categories: Encryption-based AC and Encryption-independent AC. Each category has different classes based on the working principle of AC (e.g., Attribute-based AC, Name-based AC, Identity-based AC, etc). Finally, we present the lessons learned from the existing AC mechanisms and identify the challenges of NDN-based AC at large, highlighting future research directions for the community.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication by the ACM Computing Surveys. The final version will be published by the AC

WARP: A ICN architecture for social data

Social network companies maintain complete visibility and ownership of the data they store. However users should be able to maintain full control over their content. For this purpose, we propose WARP, an architecture based upon Information-Centric Networking (ICN) designs, which expands the scope of the ICN architecture beyond media distribution, to provide data control in social networks. The benefit of our solution lies in the lightweight nature of the protocol and in its layered design. With WARP, data distribution and access policies are enforced on the user side. Data can still be replicated in an ICN fashion but we introduce control channels, named \textit{thread updates}, which ensures that the access to the data is always updated to the latest control policy. WARP decentralizes the social network but still offers APIs so that social network providers can build products and business models on top of WARP. Social applications run directly on the user's device and store their data on the user's \textit{butler} that takes care of encryption and distribution. Moreover, users can still rely on third parties to have high-availability without renouncing their privacy

Securing the Internet of Things Communication Using Named Data Networking Approaches

The rapid advancement in sensors and their use in devices has led to the drastic increase of Internet-of-Things (IoT) device applications and usage. A fundamental requirement of an IoT-enabled ecosystem is the device’s ability to communicate with other devices, humans etc. IoT devices are usually highly resource constrained and come with varying capabilities and features. Hence, a host-based communication approach defined by the TCP/IP architecture relying on securing the communication channel between the hosts displays drawbacks especially when working in a highly chaotic environment (common with IoT applications). The discrepancies between requirements of the application and the network supporting the communication demands for a fundamental change in securing the communication in IoT applications. This research along with identifying the fundamental security problems in IoT device lifecycle in the context of secure communication also explores the use of a data-centric approach advocated by a modern architecture called Named Data Networking (NDN). The use of NDN modifies the basis of communication and security by defining data-centric security where the data chunks are secured directly and retrieved using specialized requests in a pull-based approach. This work also identifies the advantages of using semantically-rich names as the basis for IoT communication in the current client-driven environment and reinforces it with best-practices from the existing host-based approaches for such networks. We present in this thesis a number of solutions built to automate and securely onboard IoT devices; encryption, decryption and access control solutions based on semantically rich names and attribute-based schemes. We also provide the design details of solutions to sup- port trustworthy and conditionally private communication among highly resource constrained devices through specialized signing techniques and automated certificate generation and distribution with minimal use of the network resources. We also explore the design solutions for rapid trust establishment and vertically securing communication in applications including smart-grid operations and vehicular communication along with automated and lightweight certificate generation and management techniques. Through all these design details and exploration, we identify the applicability of the data-centric security techniques presented by NDN in securing IoT communication and address the shortcoming of the existing approaches in this area

An efficient pending interest table control management in named data network

Named Data Networking (NDN) is an emerging Internet architecture that employs a new network communication model based on the identity of Internet content. Its core component, the Pending Interest Table (PIT) serves a significant role of recording Interest packet information which is ready to be sent but in waiting for matching Data packet. In managing PIT, the issue of flow PIT sizing has been very challenging due to massive use of long Interest lifetime particularly when there is no flexible replacement policy, hence affecting PIT performance. The aim of this study is to propose an efficient PIT Control Management (PITCM) approach to be used in handling incoming Interest packets in order to mitigate PIT overflow thus enhancing PIT utilization and performance. PITCM consists of Adaptive Virtual PIT (AVPIT) mechanism, Smart Threshold Interest Lifetime (STIL) mechanism and Highest Lifetime Least Request (HLLR) policy. The AVPIT is responsible for obtaining early PIT overflow prediction and reaction. STIL is meant for adjusting lifetime value for incoming Interest packet while HLLR is utilized for managing PIT entries in efficient manner. A specific research methodology is followed to ensure that the work is rigorous in achieving the aim of the study. The network simulation tool is used to design and evaluate PITCM. The results of study show that PITCM outperforms the performance of standard NDN PIT with 45% higher Interest satisfaction rate, 78% less Interest retransmission rate and 65% less Interest drop rate. In addition, Interest satisfaction delay and PIT length is reduced significantly to 33% and 46%, respectively. The contribution of this study is important for Interest packet management in NDN routing and forwarding systems. The AVPIT and STIL mechanisms as well as the HLLR policy can be used in monitoring, controlling and managing the PIT contents for Internet architecture of the future

A network in transition: actors, interests, and alliances in the Afghanistan conflict as of early 2014

This paper maps out the negotiation environment of the Afghanistan conflict. So far, all attempts to end the violence between the Afghan government, insurgency, and US and NATO through negotiations have failed. Key obstacles to negotiations are the complexity of the conflict and the variety of state and non-state actors that are directly or indirectly involved. This paper explores the interests and relationships of these actors and highlights the most important alliances and connections. Finally, these connections are visualized in a network diagram

Service Provisioning in Edge-Cloud Continuum Emerging Applications for Mobile Devices

Disruptive applications for mobile devices can be enhanced by Edge computing facilities. In this context, Edge Computing (EC) is a proposed architecture to meet the mobility requirements imposed by these applications in a wide range of domains, such as the Internet of Things, Immersive Media, and Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. EC architecture aims to introduce computing capabilities in the path between the user and the Cloud to execute tasks closer to where they are consumed, thus mitigating issues related to latency, context awareness, and mobility support. In this survey, we describe which are the leading technologies to support the deployment of EC infrastructure. Thereafter, we discuss the applications that can take advantage of EC and how they were proposed in the literature. Finally, after examining enabling technologies and related applications, we identify some open challenges to fully achieve the potential of EC, and also research opportunities on upcoming paradigms for service provisioning. This survey is a guide to comprehend the recent advances on the provisioning of mobile applications, as well as foresee the expected next stages of evolution for these applications