Mobile agent platforms in ubiquitous computing applications and systems (a literature review)

Technology revolution has been occurred rapidly over the last past thirty years According to the moor’s law power of microprocessors double every eighteen months. And also a parallel increase can be observed in some other technological sectors such as network communication, bandwidth, storage, capacity. These remarkable trends make us to predict that in future computer will become considerably smaller, cheaper and more pervasive. These result a creation of small things that can access the internet in order to optimize their intended purpose. It gives birth to new technology trend called “Ubiquitous computing”. Ubiquitous computing is an emerging technology that brings new dimensions to distributed computing. It uses a wide variety of smart, ubiquitous devices throughout an individual’s working and living environment. When it comes to ubiquitous computing, mobile objects and mobile agents are forerunners. Mobile agents are considered a very interesting and emerging technology to develop applications for mobile and distributed computing. Since they present a combination of unique features, such as their autonomy and capability to move to remote computers to process data there and save remote communications, they can be widely used in ubiquitous computing. Many mobile agent platforms have been developed since the late nineties. In this millennium era they are now influenced in many aspects of technology such as localization of technology, internet connection, voice recognition etc. This literature review focuses on Mobile agent platforms in ubiquitous computing applications and systems

Towards an integrated formal analysis for security and trust

We aim at defining an integrated framework for the (automated) analysis for security and trust in complex and dynamic scenarios. In particular, we show how the same machinery used for the formal verification of security protocols may be used to analyze access control policies based on trust management

Surfing the Next Wave: Design and Implementation Challenges of Ubiquitous Computing

As computing becomes more mobile and pervasive, designing and implementing ubiquitous computing environments emerge as key challenges for information systems research and practice. The four short papers in this article report the highlights of the second Ubiquitous Computing Workshop at Case Western Reserve University in October 2003. The objectives of the papers are to set up a research agenda in this emerging interdisciplinary field, to share current level of understanding of leading edge research topics, and to create cumulative research streams in this field. Note: This paper consists of an overview of the second Ubiquitous Computing Workshop by its organizers, Kalle Lyytinen and Youngjin Yoo, followed by four papers summarizing its four major working groups. The four papers were prepared and can be read independently. They are not integrated

Ubicomp: Using iStuff

Ubiquitous computing, ubicomp, represents a scenario where computer devices are omnipresent usually with a look like not traditional computers. For this, is also known with the term "disappearing computer". There exists also a close relation between ubicomp and human to computer interaction. With the appearing of new computer devices spread along the environment, new interfaces to resolve human to computer interaction. This master thesis presents a ubiquitous computing scenario that uses iStuff toolkit as communication path. Nintendo's WiiRemote, known as wiiMote, is used as new human to computer device to allow user's interaction. WiiMote is communicated with a computer using WiiGee java libraries that incorporates an iStuff proxy that lets communicating with the scenario. The scenario also includes a collaborative application, called Collaborative Tetris, to interact with. The first chapter presents technical concepts and tools: Starting with definitions of terms ubiquitous computing and human to computer interaction concept and then the main tools used to develop this master thesis: iStuff toolkit, WiiMote and WiiGee java libraries The second chapter describes the start up of mentioned tools and the description of test scenarios. Third chapter summarizes the test results of the scenarios: iStuff start up scenario, communication between iStuff and WiiMote using wiiGee and a possible ubiquitous computing environment with a collaborative application: collaborative Tetris. Finally the conclusions of tests, possible effects over environment in a green study and personal conclusions are present

Solution analysis of universal wireless joint point technologies for heterogeneous tactical networks

The scope of this thesis is to analyze the feasibility of having different wireless mesh network architectures transfer data to a wired network via a joint (universal) access point (UAP). Additionally this thesis analyzes the feasibility of using similar joint (universal) access point technology to allow heterogeneous wireless mesh network devices in close proximally to the UAP transmit data to/from each other via the UAP. This research also includes evaluating COTS tools for possible implementation of a joint access point as well as seeking partnership with private industry to assist in research efforts and/or the development or joint (universal) access point solution(s). The thesis concludes with a recommendation on application of universal joint point technology, to include recommendations for implementation of such technology in the Tactical Network Topology (TNT) environment.http://archive.org/details/solutionnalysiso109452951Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Ubicomp: Using iStuff

Ubiquitous computing, ubicomp, represents a scenario where computer devices are omnipresent usually with a look like not traditional computers. For this, is also known with the term "disappearing computer". There exists also a close relation between ubicomp and human to computer interaction. With the appearing of new computer devices spread along the environment, new interfaces to resolve human to computer interaction. This master thesis presents a ubiquitous computing scenario that uses iStuff toolkit as communication path. Nintendo's WiiRemote, known as wiiMote, is used as new human to computer device to allow user's interaction. WiiMote is communicated with a computer using WiiGee java libraries that incorporates an iStuff proxy that lets communicating with the scenario. The scenario also includes a collaborative application, called Collaborative Tetris, to interact with. The first chapter presents technical concepts and tools: Starting with definitions of terms ubiquitous computing and human to computer interaction concept and then the main tools used to develop this master thesis: iStuff toolkit, WiiMote and WiiGee java libraries The second chapter describes the start up of mentioned tools and the description of test scenarios. Third chapter summarizes the test results of the scenarios: iStuff start up scenario, communication between iStuff and WiiMote using wiiGee and a possible ubiquitous computing environment with a collaborative application: collaborative Tetris. Finally the conclusions of tests, possible effects over environment in a green study and personal conclusions are present

Desarrollo de un esquema de autenticación basado en la identidad para clientes Android

Con el gran crecimiento de las Tecnologías de la Información y de la Comunicación (TIC), la criptografía ocupa una posición de vital importancia para asegurar la seguridad en las comunicaciones. Uno de los desafíos de la criptografía actual se encuentra en la gestión de identidades digitales, problema cuya solución más empleada suele ser la Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) o Infraestructura de Clave Pública, en la que una Entidad certificadora emite certificados para las claves públicas de los usuarios registrados. Sin embargo, esta solución presenta unos inconvenientes que se podrían solucionar con la llamada Identity-Based Cryptography (IBC) o Criptografía Basada en la Identidad. En este TFG se presenta un breve repaso sobre las distintas soluciones al problema de la gestión de identidades centrándose en la Criptografía Basada en la Identidad, además de discutir sus beneficios y exponer la descripción formal del proyecto software realizado para este trabajo. Dicho proyecto lleva a cabo un Cliente de mensajería instantánea para dispositivos móviles Android que se conecta con un Servidor desarrollado en Flask para Python y que hace las veces de Servidor de aplicaciones y de Private Key Generator (PKG), implementando un esquema de autenticación basado en la identidad. Para la implementación de la Seguridad Basada en la Identidad se ha utilizado la biblioteca Charm de Python. La descripción detallada del proyecto incluye el análisis, diseño, implementación y plan de pruebas llevados a cabo para su desarrollo. Dicha descripción, además, viene acompañada de una serie de anexos con Información complementaria, como la planificación temporal del proyecto o la creación de certificados SSL.As a consequence of the leading role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in today's econcomic activity, cryptography has become of the utmost importance to ensure the security of online communication. One of the biggest challenges of current cryptography lies in digital identity management. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is the most commonly used to handle this problem. In PKI, the Certi cation Authority (CA) issues certi cates for the public keys of registered users. However, this solution has a few problems which could be solved by using Identity- Based Cryptography (IBC). This document gives a brief review over the di erent ways of solving the digital identity management problem, focusing on Identity-Based Cryptography and its advantages. It also presents the formal description of the developed software project. This project implements an instant messaging app for an Android Client which connects with a Server developed in the Flask microframework for Python. The Server is made by di erent components, and it works as Private Key Generator (PKG) and as an Application Server. All in all, it implements an authentication schema based in Identity-Based Cryptography using Charm library for Python for the IBE functionality. The detailed description of the project includes its analysis, design, implementation and test plan. It also includes some complementary information in the form of annexes like the plani cation of the project and the guide for the creation of SSL certi cates

Preserving Privacy in Mobile Environments

Technology is improving day-by-day and so is the usage of mobile devices. Every activity that would involve manual and paper transactions can now be completed in seconds using your ngertips. On one hand, life has become fairly convenient with the help of mobile devices, whereas on the other hand privacy of the data and the transactions occurring in the process have been under continuous threat. Mobile devices connect to a number of service providers for various reasons. These could include downloading data, online purchasing or could be just used to browse information which may be irrelevant at a later point. Access to critical and sensitive information may be available at a number of places. In case of a mobile device, the information may be available with the service provider. Service Provider could be in the form of any web portal. In all such scenarios, passing the information or data from the service provider into the mobile device is a major challenge, as the data/information cannot be sent in plain text format. The con dentiality and integrity of the data needs to be protected and hence, the service provider must convert the data into an encrypted format before passing it onto the mobile device, to prevent risks from sniffing and unauthorized disclosure of data. Preserving the location of the individual user of any mobile device has also been the concern for a number of researchers. Mobile devices have become an important tool in modern communication. Mobile and other handheld devices such as ipads and tablets have over taken laptops and desktops and hence there has been an increasing research interest in this area in recent years. This includes improving the quality of communication and the overall end-to-end data security in day-to-day transactions. Mobile devices continuously connect to di erent service providers for day-to-day needs such as online purchases, online banking and endless sur ng for information. In addition to this devices could be connecting to the service providers to receive or send sensitive information. At the Service Provider end, the data would be stored with the provider and Service Provider would only hand over the data if it con rms that the person requested it is authorized to receive the information. The exchange of data from one end of the network to the other is a major challenge due to malicious intruder mishandling of the data. Hence the con dentiality and integrity of the data needs to be protected either by transforming the sensitive information into a non-readable format or by converting into a cipher text. Privacy has been an open problem for research as more and more information is getting leaked on a day-to-day basis. Through this thesis, I have tried to address a number of areas within the privacy realm where information and data access and sharing is a key concern along side the key aspect of location privacy. I have also tried to address the problems in the space of access control wherein I have proposed policy based languages and extensions for ensuring appropriate access control methodologies. The main goal and focus in this work has been to enforce the importance of location privacy in mobile environments and to propose solutions that resolve the problems of where and when to enforce location security. Another key goal of this work has been to create new access control and trust based solutions to ensure the right level of access to the right receiver of information. Through my research, I have explored the various privacy related attacks and suggested appropriate countermeasures for the same. In addition to proposing and showcasing solutions using policy languages for access control, I have also introduced geospatial access control solutions to ensure that the right user is accessing or requesting for the right information from the right location. This helps the appropriate and the right use of the information by the right resource. Through my thesis I have also given equal importance to the trust aspects of sharing information. I have created new trust assessment models to show how fused information can be handled and how can trust be imposed on the information provider and the information itself. The main contribution of this thesis is to address the problems around protecting the data and individual's privacy and to propose solutions to mitigate these issues using new and novel techniques. They can be detailed as the following: In privacy, there is always a privacy versus utility tradeo and in order to make use of utility, trust in the location is essential. Through this research I have developed i) novel attestation models and access control methodologies including Privacy Preferences Platform (P3P) extensions, ii) Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) extensions and iii) Geospatial access control through GeoXACML. iv)I have created new methodologies to enforce location privacy and shown where best to enforce privacy. v)I have also shown that global attestation is very crucial for privacy and needs accurate methods in place to attest user's location information for access. vi) Fusing of location information is very crucial as there could be a number of similar or con icting information produced about a common source and it is very important to assess and evaluate the trust level in the information. I have proposed, developed and implemented a new trust assessment framework. This framework looks at the incoming information and passes it on to the rule engine in the framework to make some inferences and then the trust assessment module computes the trust score based on forward chaining or background chaining scheme. The framework is used to evaluate the trust on the fused information in a streaming setup. vii) I have created new solutions to look at the similarity pro les and create identity enforcement through pro ling. I have shown methods of anonymisation for location privacy and identity privacy

A privacy-aware and secure system for human memory augmentation

The ubiquity of digital sensors embedded in today's mobile and wearable devices (e.g., smartphones, wearable cameras, wristbands) has made technology more intertwined with our life. Among many other things, this allows us to seamlessly log our daily experiences in increasing numbers and quality, a process known as ``lifelogging''. This practice produces a great amount of pictures and videos that can potentially improve human memory. Consider how a single photograph can bring back distant childhood memories, or how a song can help us reminisce about our last vacation. Such a vision of a ``memory augmentation system'' can offer considerable benefits, but it also raises new security and privacy challenges. Maybe obviously, a system that captures everywhere we go, and everything we say, see, and do, is greatly increasing the danger to our privacy. Any data breach of such a memory repository, whether accidental or malicious, could negatively impact both our professional and private reputation. In addition, the threat of memory manipulation might be the most worrisome aspect of a memory augmentation system: if an attacker is able to remove, add, or change our captured information, the resulting data may implant memories in our heads that never took place, or, in turn, accelerate the loss of other memories. Starting from such key challenges, this thesis investigates how to design secure memory augmentation systems. In the course of this research, we develop tools and prototypes that can be applied by researchers and system engineers to develop pervasive applications that help users capture and later recall episodic memories in a secure fashion. We build trusted sensors and protocols to securely capture and store experience data, and secure software for the secure and privacy-aware exchange of experience data with others. We explore the suitability of various access control models to put users in control of the plethora of data that the system captures on their behalf. We also explore the possibility of using in situ physical gestures to control different aspects regarding the capturing and sharing of experience data. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to the design and development of secure systems for memory augmentation

Secure, Efficient and Privacy-aware Framework for Unstructured Peer-to-Peer Networks

Recently, the advances in Ubiquitous Computing networks and the increased computational power of network devices have led designers to create more flexible distributed network models using decentralised network management systems. Security, resilience and privacy issues within such distributed systems become more complicated while important tasks such as routing, service access and state management become increasingly challenging. Low-level protocols over ubiquitous decentralised systems, which provide autonomy to network nodes, have replaced the traditional client-server arrangements in centralised systems. Small World networks represent a model that addresses many existing challenges within Ubiquitous Computing networks. Therefore, it is imperative to study the properties of Small World networks to help understanding, modelling and improving the performance, usability and resiliency of Ubiquitous Computing networks. Using the network infrastructure and trusted relationships in the Small World networks, this work proposes a framework to enhance security, resilience and trust within scalable Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks. The proposed framework consists of three major components namely network-aware topology construction, anonymous global communication using community trust, and efficient search and broadcasting based on granularity and pro-active membership management. We utilise the clustering co-efficient and conditional preferential attachment to propose a novel topology construction scheme that organises nodes into groups of trusted users to improve scalability. Network nodes communicate locally without advertising node identity at a global scale, which ensures user anonymity. The global communication is organised and facilitated by Service Centres to maintain security, privacy and integrity of member nodes. Service Centres are allocated using a novel leader election mechanism within unstructured scalable P2P networks. This allows providing fair and equitable access for existing and new nodes without having to make complex changes to the network topology. Moreover, the scale-free and clustering co-efficient characteristics of Small World networks help organising the network layout to maintain its balance in terms of the nodes distribution. Simulation results show that the proposed framework ensures better scalability and membership management in unstructured P2P networks, and improves the performance of the search and broadcasting in terms of the average shortest path and control overhead while maintaining user anonymity and system resiliency