Resilience of multi-robot systems to physical masquerade attacks

The advent of autonomous mobile multi-robot systems has driven innovation in both the industrial and defense sectors. The integration of such systems in safety-and security-critical applications has raised concern over their resilience to attack. In this work, we investigate the security problem of a stealthy adversary masquerading as a properly functioning agent. We show that conventional multi-agent pathfinding solutions are vulnerable to these physical masquerade attacks. Furthermore, we provide a constraint-based formulation of multi-agent pathfinding that yields multi-agent plans that are provably resilient to physical masquerade attacks. This formalization leverages inter-agent observations to facilitate introspective monitoring to guarantee resilience.Accepted manuscrip

Allocating Limited Resources to Protect a Massive Number of Targets using a Game Theoretic Model

Resource allocation is the process of optimizing the rare resources. In the area of security, how to allocate limited resources to protect a massive number of targets is especially challenging. This paper addresses this resource allocation issue by constructing a game theoretic model. A defender and an attacker are players and the interaction is formulated as a trade-off between protecting targets and consuming resources. The action cost which is a necessary role of consuming resource, is considered in the proposed model. Additionally, a bounded rational behavior model (Quantal Response, QR), which simulates a human attacker of the adversarial nature, is introduced to improve the proposed model. To validate the proposed model, we compare the different utility functions and resource allocation strategies. The comparison results suggest that the proposed resource allocation strategy performs better than others in the perspective of utility and resource effectiveness.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 41 reference

Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

Challenges of Multi-Factor Authentication for Securing Advanced IoT (A-IoT) Applications

The unprecedented proliferation of smart devices together with novel communication, computing, and control technologies have paved the way for the Advanced Internet of Things~(A-IoT). This development involves new categories of capable devices, such as high-end wearables, smart vehicles, and consumer drones aiming to enable efficient and collaborative utilization within the Smart City paradigm. While massive deployments of these objects may enrich people's lives, unauthorized access to the said equipment is potentially dangerous. Hence, highly-secure human authentication mechanisms have to be designed. At the same time, human beings desire comfortable interaction with their owned devices on a daily basis, thus demanding the authentication procedures to be seamless and user-friendly, mindful of the contemporary urban dynamics. In response to these unique challenges, this work advocates for the adoption of multi-factor authentication for A-IoT, such that multiple heterogeneous methods - both well-established and emerging - are combined intelligently to grant or deny access reliably. We thus discuss the pros and cons of various solutions as well as introduce tools to combine the authentication factors, with an emphasis on challenging Smart City environments. We finally outline the open questions to shape future research efforts in this emerging field.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. The work has been accepted for publication in IEEE Network, 2019. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

Multi-Agent Based Simulation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System

The rapid growth of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for civilian and military applications has promoted the development of research in many areas. Most of the unmanned aerial vehicles in use are manually controlled. Often, UAVs require highly trained pilot operators. Hence, the main challenge faced by researchers has been to make UAVs autonomous or semiautonomous. The goal of this research project is to develop and implement a simulation for a user-defined environment allowing UAVs to maneuver in free environments and obstacle-laden environments using Boid's algorithm of flocking with obstacle avoidance. The users are permitted to analyze the maneuvering area and coverage efficiency of the UAVs and to dynamically change environments. This project makes use of Boid's flocking algorithm to generate different kinds of movements for the flying agents, enabling the user to analyze the effectiveness of patrolling in that particular scenario. The number of UAVs and the type of environment are set by the user. The set number of UAVs moves as a flock or swarm inside the set environment by using Boid's rules of flocking: cohesion, alignment, and separation. The coverage efficiency of the UAVs in that particular environment is reported based on the ratio between the area covered and the time when the search time reaches a threshold. The advantages and feasibilities of the approach are discussed with the simulation results

Community policing and young people: a critical insight into young people's perceptions in Leicester

The repercussions associated with young people's exclusion from policing can be detrimental. The police will lack a basic understanding of young people s problems, needs and expectations. In these situations, young people will be less inclined to report crimes and their own victimisation to the police, provide intelligence, and participate in the criminal justice system. This study is intended to provide a critical appraisal of young people s perceptions of Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and community policing in Leicester, in an effort to delineate the implications of their exclusion from local policing and crime related issues. Community policing is a well-known policing philosophy, particularly for repairing police public relations through engagement and problem solving. The findings demonstrate that despite the fundamental benefits associated with community policing, conventional methods of engagement and problem solving have failed to reach out to young people who are, nevertheless, particularly enthusiastic about collaborating with the police. However, whilst the vast majority of young people are positive about getting involved in policing, there are important variations within young people in their perceptions and attitudes towards the police. Young ethnic minorities in general, blacks in particular, were passive and reluctant to collaborate with the police due to their experiences of stop and search and other repercussion associated with the law enforcement style of policing. A lot of these problems can be subsided by diverting police resources to community policing, but there are going to be strong financial, organisational and cultural challenges

Emergency preparedness: An analysis of Iowa high school emergency preparedness plans

The purpose of this research study was to examine whether high schools across Iowa were effectively prepared in the event of a natural or manmade disaster. Students learn more effectively when they feel safe. An electronic survey was sent to all accredited high school principals across Iowa in an effort to obtain data on their school\u27s emergency preparedness plans and to ascertain their attitudes on the importance of policies to deter violence. In addition to questions regarding development and completeness of plans, frequency of school incidents and perceived importance of policies, principals were asked to identify eight independent variables associated with demographics: (1) participant title; (2) gender; (3) years of experience; (4) Area Education Agency (AEA); (5) type of accredited school (public, charter, nonpublic, or other); (6) grade levels; (7) enrollment size of high school; and (8) urbanicity of school campus (rural, town, urban fringe of a large city, or city). Nearly all of the 72 Iowa high school principals who participated in the survey have an emergency preparedness plan in place, and approximately 75% of these Iowa high schools have two or more copies of their emergency preparedness plan placed throughout their school. Approximately 75% of the Iowa\u27s high school principals participating in the survey have had at least one practice drill at their school during the last five years, and nearly 42% of these principals believe their high school is at risk for an act of terrorism. Overall results showed urban fringe and city high schools participating in the survey had more safety and security measures in place in their high schools. It is recommended that further studies be conducted to analyze high school emergency preparedness include middle school as well as high school principals to broaden the researcher\u27s survey base and strengthen statistical reliability. It is also recommended the Principal Questionnaire School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), a national survey sent out by the U. S. Department of Education, be utilized to compare national statistics on middle and high school principal safety measures and procedures to state and local statistics

Congestion Pricing: A Parking Queue Model

Congestion pricing imposes a usage fee on a public resource during times of high demand. Road pricing involves cordoning off a section of the city and imposing a fee on vehicles that enter it. Parking pricing increases the costs of on-street and perhaps off-street parking. Following an historical review, we develop a new queueing model of the parking pricing problem, recognizing that many urban drivers are simply looking for available on-street parking. Often, reducing the number of such “cruising drivers” would reduce urban road congestion dramatically, perhaps as effectively as cordoning off the center city