Integrating IoT-Sensing and Crowdsensing with Privacy: Privacy-Preserving Hybrid Sensing for Smart Cities

Data sensing and gathering is an essential task for various information-driven services in smart cities. On the one hand, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors can be deployed at certain fixed locations to capture data reliably but suffer from limited sensing coverage. On the other hand, data can also be gathered dynamically through crowdsensing contributed by voluntary users but suffer from its unreliability and the lack of incentives for users' contributions. In this paper, we explore an integrated paradigm called "hybrid sensing" that harnesses both IoT-sensing and crowdsensing in a complementary manner. In hybrid sensing, users are incentivized to provide sensing data not covered by IoT sensors and provide crowdsourced feedback to assist in calibrating IoT-sensing. Their contributions will be rewarded with credits that can be redeemed to retrieve synthesized information from the hybrid system. In this paper, we develop a hybrid sensing system that supports explicit user privacy -- IoT sensors are obscured physically to prevent capturing private user data, and users interact with a crowdsensing server via a privacy-preserving protocol to preserve their anonymity. A key application of our system is smart parking, by which users can inquire and find the available parking spaces in outdoor parking lots. We implemented our hybrid sensing system for smart parking and conducted extensive empirical evaluations. Finally, our hybrid sensing system can be potentially applied to other information-driven services in smart cities.Comment: To appear in ACM Transactions on Internet of Thing

The Machine-to-Everything (M2X) Economy: Business Enactments, Collaborations and e-Governance

Nowadays, business enactments almost exclusively focus on human-to-human business transactions. However, the ubiquitousness of smart devices enables business enactments among autonomously acting machines, thereby providing the foundation for the machine-driven Machine-to-Everything (M2X) Economy. Human-to-human business is governed by enforceable contracts either in the form of oral, or written agreements. Still, a machine-driven ecosystem requires a digital equivalent that is accessible to all stakeholders. Additionally, an electronic contract platform enables fact-tracking, non-repudiation, auditability and tamper-resistant storage of information in a distributed multi-stakeholder setting. A suitable approach for M2X enactments are electronic smart contracts that allow to govern business transactions using a computerized transaction protocol such as a blockchain. In this position paper, we argue in favor of an open, decentralized and distributed smart contract-based M2X Economy that supports the corresponding multi-stakeholder ecosystem and facilitates M2X value exchange, collaborations, and business enactments. Finally, it allows for a distributed e-governance model that fosters open platforms and interoperability. Thus, serving as a foundation for the ubiquitous M2X Economy and its ecosystem

Empirical Analysis of Privacy Preservation Models for Cyber Physical Deployments from a Pragmatic Perspective

The difficulty of privacy protection in cyber-physical installations encompasses several sectors and calls for methods like encryption, hashing, secure routing, obfuscation, and data exchange, among others. To create a privacy preservation model for cyber physical deployments, it is advised that data privacy, location privacy, temporal privacy, node privacy, route privacy, and other types of privacy be taken into account. Consideration must also be given to other types of privacy, such as temporal privacy. The computationally challenging process of incorporating these models into any wireless network also affects quality of service (QoS) variables including end-to-end latency, throughput, energy use, and packet delivery ratio. The best privacy models must be used by network designers and should have the least negative influence on these quality-of-service characteristics. The designers used common privacy models for the goal of protecting cyber-physical infrastructure in order to achieve this. The limitations of these installations' interconnection and interface-ability are not taken into account in this. As a result, even while network security has increased, the network's overall quality of service has dropped. The many state-of-the-art methods for preserving privacy in cyber-physical deployments without compromising their performance in terms of quality of service are examined and analyzed in this research. Lowering the likelihood that such circumstances might arise is the aim of this investigation and review. These models are rated according to how much privacy they provide, how long it takes from start to finish to transfer data, how much energy they use, and how fast their networks are. In order to maximize privacy while maintaining a high degree of service performance, the comparison will assist network designers and researchers in selecting the optimal models for their particular deployments. Additionally, the author of this book offers a variety of tactics that, when used together, might improve each reader's performance. This study also provides a range of tried-and-true machine learning approaches that networks may take into account and examine in order to enhance their privacy performance

Proof of witness presence: Blockchain consensus for augmented democracy in smart cities

Smart Cities evolve into complex and pervasive urban environments with a citizens’ mandate to meet sustainable development goals. Repositioning democratic values of citizens’ choices in these complex ecosystems has turned out to be imperative in an era of social media filter bubbles, fake news and opportunities for manipulating electoral results with such means. This paper introduces a new paradigm of augmented democracy that promises actively engaging citizens in a more informed decision-making augmented into public urban space. The proposed concept is inspired by a digital revive of the Ancient Agora of Athens, an arena of public discourse, a Polis where citizens assemble to actively deliberate and collectively decide about public matters. The core contribution of the proposed paradigm is the concept of proving witness presence: making decision-making subject of providing secure evidence and testifying for choices made in the physical space. This paper shows how the challenge of proving witness presence can be tackled with blockchain consensus to empower citizens’ trust and overcome security vulnerabilities of GPS localization. Moreover, a novel platform for collective decision-making and crowd-sensing in urban space is introduced: Smart Agora. It is shown how real-time collective measurements over citizens’ choices can be made in a fully decentralized and privacy-preserving way. Witness presence is tested by deploying a decentralized system for crowd-sensing the sustainable use of transport means. Furthermore, witness presence of cycling risk is validated using official accident data from public authorities, which are compared against wisdom of the crowd. The paramount role of dynamic consensus, self-governance and ethically aligned artificial intelligence in the augmented democracy paradigm is outlined

Blockchain enabled industrial Internet of Things technology

The emerging blockchain technology shows promising potential to enhance industrial systems and the Internet of things (IoT) by providing applications with redundancy, immutable storage, and encryption. In the past a few years, many more applications in industrial IoT (IIoT) have emerged and the blockchain technologies have attracted huge amounts of attention from both industrial and academic researchers. In this paper we address the integration of blockchain and IIoT from the industrial prospective. A blockchain enabled IIoT framework is introduced and involved fundamental techniques are presented. Moreover, main applications and key challenges are addressed. A comprehensive analysis for the most recent research trends and open issues is provided associated with the blockchain enabled IIoT

IoT-liiketoiminnan mallintaminen

Our world is becoming increasingly digitized. Digitalization has changed and is changing business models at accelerating pace and creating new revenue and value-producing opportunities. We are now witnessing the age where the digital technologies are harnessed for our advantage - as the physical technologies were harnessed in the first industrial revolution. Still, the digital world and the physical world are separated from each other. This is the one significant issue, that the Internet of Things (IoT) is about to change. The vision of the IoT is to connect people and devices and produce a vast variety of new goods and services. As the IoT is a novel phenomenon, it can be a difficult concept to define. It can be difficult to create a comprehensive understanding on what the IoT is and what kind opportunities it has to offer. In addition, The IoT is a complex phenomenon in terms of monetization. It can be difficult to create a comprehensive understanding on where the real value of the IoT comes from. The goal of this study is to to create a framework of possible IoT business opportunities for the target company. This is done by creating a conceptualization that unfolds the different roles there are in IoT business for the target company to take or aim for. In addition to the conceptualization, there is also a need to create better understanding of the customership and value proposition related to the IoT business, and recognize the most important barriers of adoption and capabilities required for managing the barriers of adoption.Digitalisaatio on muuttanut ja muuttaa liiketoimintamalleja kiihtyvällä vauhdilla luoden uusia mahdollisuuksia arvontuotolle. Todistamme nyt aikakautta, jossa digitaaliset teknologiat valjastetaan käyttöön, kuten fyysiset teknologiat valjastettiin ensimmäisessä teollisessa vallankumouksessa. Siltikin digitaalinen ja fyysinen maailma ovat olleet tähän asti erossa toisistaan. Tämä on merkittävin asia, jonka esineiden internet tulee muuttamaan. Esineiden internetin visiona on yhdistää ihmiset ja laitteet ja luoda laaja valikoima uusia tavaroita ja palveluita. Koska esineiden internet on uusi ilmiö, sen määritteleminen voi olla vaikeaa. On haastavaa luoda kattavaa käsitystä siitä, mitä esineiden internet on ja millaisia mahdollisuuksia se tarjoaa. Lisäksi esineiden internet on minimutkainen ilmiö kaupallistamisen kannalta. On haastavaa luoda kattavaa käsitystä mistä esineiden internetin todellinen arvo tulee. Tämän opinnäytteen tavoitteena on luoda viitekehys, jonka avulla kohdeyritys voi paremmin hahmottaa esineiden internetin tarjoamia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia. Tämä mahdollistetaan hahmottamalla erilaiset roolit, joihin kohdeyritys voi asettua. Viitekehyksen lisäksi opinnäytteen tavoitteena on luoda parempi ymmärrys IoT-liiketoimintaan liittyvistä asiakkuuksista ja arvolupauksista, sekä tunnistaa tärkeimmät käyttöönoton esteet sekä tarvittavat kyvykkyydet niiden hallitsemiseksi

Exploring the role of ICT on household behavioural energy efficiency to mitigate global warming

With the advent of ICT in the energy system, new possibilities to inform and influence residential electricity consumption become available. We explore the potential of ICT-based interventions in households to decrease electricity usage, improve energy efficiency and thus contribute to reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions from this sector. Based on a literature review on the subject, we suggest that ICT can affect some of the main behaviour-influencing factors, and discuss the causal avenues by which these effects can take hold. Our review finds that ICT-based effects on consumer behaviour can reduce household final electricity consumption by 0–5%. These and other findings from the literature are used to define parameter values, which reflect the efficacy of ICT at changing household energy usage patterns, and ultimately decreasing GHG emissions from the electricity sector. A quantitative analysis of the potential for ICT to contribute to reaching the 1.5 °C target in the context of the European Union (EU) energy sector is performed. It is found that ICT-based interventions in household energy use could contribute between 0.23% and 3.3% of the EU CO2e reduction target from the energy sector that would keep warming under 1.5 °C, corresponding to 4.5–64.7 mio. tCO2e abated per year.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the PEAKapp project, grant agreement No. 695945 (http://www.peakapp.eu/)