Review on Security of Information Dissemination and Various Protocols in the Internet-of-Vehicles

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is viewed as a developing worldview for associated vehicles to trade their data with different vehicles utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) correspondences by framing a vehicular ad-hoc systems (VANETs), with roadside units utilizing vehicle-to-roadside (V2R) interchanges. Performance of this smart ITS mainly owes to the design of efficient routing protocols in VANETs. Distinct features of VANETs like unsteady connectivity, high mobility and partitioning of the network have made routing of the information in VANETs difficult and challenging, hence dictating the development of efficient routing protocols. The computation of the best route measures the performance of communication whereas routing protocols takes care of communication & routing of the data. Provision of smart communication, necessitates the analysis of routing protocols in VANET. Accordingly in this paper, reviewed various types of existing routing protocols and security approaches in VANET are discussed

Enhancing trustability in MMOGs environments

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs; e.g., World of Warcraft), virtual worlds (VW; e.g., Second Life), social networks (e.g., Facebook) strongly demand for more autonomic, security, and trust mechanisms in a way similar to humans do in the real life world. As known, this is a difficult matter because trusting in humans and organizations depends on the perception and experience of each individual, which is difficult to quantify or measure. In fact, these societal environments lack trust mechanisms similar to those involved in humans-to-human interactions. Besides, interactions mediated by compute devices are constantly evolving, requiring trust mechanisms that keep the pace with the developments and assess risk situations. In VW/MMOGs, it is widely recognized that users develop trust relationships from their in-world interactions with others. However, these trust relationships end up not being represented in the data structures (or databases) of such virtual worlds, though they sometimes appear associated to reputation and recommendation systems. In addition, as far as we know, the user is not provided with a personal trust tool to sustain his/her decision making while he/she interacts with other users in the virtual or game world. In order to solve this problem, as well as those mentioned above, we propose herein a formal representation of these personal trust relationships, which are based on avataravatar interactions. The leading idea is to provide each avatar-impersonated player with a personal trust tool that follows a distributed trust model, i.e., the trust data is distributed over the societal network of a given VW/MMOG. Representing, manipulating, and inferring trust from the user/player point of view certainly is a grand challenge. When someone meets an unknown individual, the question is “Can I trust him/her or not?”. It is clear that this requires the user to have access to a representation of trust about others, but, unless we are using an open source VW/MMOG, it is difficult —not to say unfeasible— to get access to such data. Even, in an open source system, a number of users may refuse to pass information about its friends, acquaintances, or others. Putting together its own data and gathered data obtained from others, the avatar-impersonated player should be able to come across a trust result about its current trustee. For the trust assessment method used in this thesis, we use subjective logic operators and graph search algorithms to undertake such trust inference about the trustee. The proposed trust inference system has been validated using a number of OpenSimulator (opensimulator.org) scenarios, which showed an accuracy increase in evaluating trustability of avatars. Summing up, our proposal aims thus to introduce a trust theory for virtual worlds, its trust assessment metrics (e.g., subjective logic) and trust discovery methods (e.g., graph search methods), on an individual basis, rather than based on usual centralized reputation systems. In particular, and unlike other trust discovery methods, our methods run at interactive rates.MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games, como por exemplo, World of Warcraft), mundos virtuais (VW, como por exemplo, o Second Life) e redes sociais (como por exemplo, Facebook) necessitam de mecanismos de confiança mais autónomos, capazes de assegurar a segurança e a confiança de uma forma semelhante à que os seres humanos utilizam na vida real. Como se sabe, esta não é uma questão fácil. Porque confiar em seres humanos e ou organizações depende da percepção e da experiência de cada indivíduo, o que é difícil de quantificar ou medir à partida. Na verdade, esses ambientes sociais carecem dos mecanismos de confiança presentes em interacções humanas presenciais. Além disso, as interacções mediadas por dispositivos computacionais estão em constante evolução, necessitando de mecanismos de confiança adequados ao ritmo da evolução para avaliar situações de risco. Em VW/MMOGs, é amplamente reconhecido que os utilizadores desenvolvem relações de confiança a partir das suas interacções no mundo com outros. No entanto, essas relações de confiança acabam por não ser representadas nas estruturas de dados (ou bases de dados) do VW/MMOG específico, embora às vezes apareçam associados à reputação e a sistemas de reputação. Além disso, tanto quanto sabemos, ao utilizador não lhe é facultado nenhum mecanismo que suporte uma ferramenta de confiança individual para sustentar o seu processo de tomada de decisão, enquanto ele interage com outros utilizadores no mundo virtual ou jogo. A fim de resolver este problema, bem como os mencionados acima, propomos nesta tese uma representação formal para essas relações de confiança pessoal, baseada em interacções avatar-avatar. A ideia principal é fornecer a cada jogador representado por um avatar uma ferramenta de confiança pessoal que segue um modelo de confiança distribuída, ou seja, os dados de confiança são distribuídos através da rede social de um determinado VW/MMOG. Representar, manipular e inferir a confiança do ponto de utilizador/jogador, é certamente um grande desafio. Quando alguém encontra um indivíduo desconhecido, a pergunta é “Posso confiar ou não nele?”. É claro que isto requer que o utilizador tenha acesso a uma representação de confiança sobre os outros, mas, a menos que possamos usar uma plataforma VW/MMOG de código aberto, é difícil — para não dizer impossível — obter acesso aos dados gerados pelos utilizadores. Mesmo em sistemas de código aberto, um número de utilizadores pode recusar partilhar informações sobre seus amigos, conhecidos, ou sobre outros. Ao juntar seus próprios dados com os dados obtidos de outros, o utilizador/jogador representado por um avatar deve ser capaz de produzir uma avaliação de confiança sobre o utilizador/jogador com o qual se encontra a interagir. Relativamente ao método de avaliação de confiança empregue nesta tese, utilizamos lógica subjectiva para a representação da confiança, e também operadores lógicos da lógica subjectiva juntamente com algoritmos de procura em grafos para empreender o processo de inferência da confiança relativamente a outro utilizador. O sistema de inferência de confiança proposto foi validado através de um número de cenários Open-Simulator (opensimulator.org), que mostrou um aumento na precisão na avaliação da confiança de avatares. Resumindo, a nossa proposta visa, assim, introduzir uma teoria de confiança para mundos virtuais, conjuntamente com métricas de avaliação de confiança (por exemplo, a lógica subjectiva) e em métodos de procura de caminhos de confiança (com por exemplo, através de métodos de pesquisa em grafos), partindo de uma base individual, em vez de se basear em sistemas habituais de reputação centralizados. Em particular, e ao contrário de outros métodos de determinação do grau de confiança, os nossos métodos são executados em tempo real

New Media Soc

Video game content has evolved over the last six decades, from a basic focus on challenge and competition to include more serious and introspective narratives capable of encouraging critical contemplation within gamers. The "No Russian" mission from | casts players as terrorists responsible for the murder of innocent bystanders, sparking debate around how players engage and react to wanton violence in modern video games. Through thematic analysis of 649 Reddit posts discussing the mission, 10 themes emerged representing complexity in player experiences. Those themes were grouped into categories representing (descending order), (1) rote gameplay experiences, (2) dark humor, (3) comparing the mission to other games and real-world events, and (4) self-reflective eudaimonic reactions to the mission. Although less common, the presence of eudaimonic media effects (in at least 15% of posts) holds promise for the use of video games as reflective spaces for violence prevention.CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States

Sugu mängudes – metodoloogia ja analüüs

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneIsegi tänapäeval peetakse mängimist sageli laste ja noormeeste nišitegevuseks. Samas on videomängudest saanud üks kasumlikemaid meelelahutusvorme: 2019. aastal mängis videomänge üle 2,5 miljardi inimese üle maailma. Kuigi videomänge käsitatakse peamiselt meeste hobina, on mängimine tegelikult pea sama atraktiivne nii mees- kui naismängurite jaoks. Kuna enamik inimesi on praeguseks osa mängukultuurist, isegi kui nad ei liigita end mängijateks, tõmbavad mängud üha rohkem teadlaste tähelepanu. Vaatamata suurenevale uurimistöö mahule on videomängude mängimine endiselt sageli häbimärgistatud. Mängukultuuri kritiseeritakse sageli sellele omistatud soolise kallutatuse, rassismi ja homofoobia pärast. Ka mänge endid ja nende kaudu edastatavaid soolisi suhteid peetakse sageli liialt pealispinnaliseks. Videomängud ei ole aga poliitiliselt neutraalsed artefaktid. Nad esitavad kultuurilisi väärtusi, norme ja tavasid, kuid ka panustavad nendesse. Teadlastel puuduvad aga endiselt metodoloogilised vahendid videomängude kui eraldiseisva meediumi analüüsimiseks ning viisid süstematiseerida, kuidas mängudes sugu esindatakse. Doktoritöö eesmärk ongi luua süsteemne metodoloogia soo uurimiseks mängudes, mis arvestaks videomängude kui mitmemõõtmelise meediumi eripärasid, kuid samas laenaks sisendit teiste meediumite uurimiseks loodud meetoditest. Selleks kombineerin humanitaarteaduste meetodeid (nt lähilugemine), sotsiaalteaduste, draamauuringute, soouuringute ning isegi majanduse ja õigusteaduse meetoditega. Viimased on aga kohandatud mängude tehniliste iseärasustega (reeglid, eesmärgid ja mehaanika). Selline mängude terviklik lugemine püüab ületada paljude varasemate mänguanalüüsi lähenemisviiside määramatust ja subjektiivsust. Doktoritöös võtan kasutusele termini „eelistatud mängimine“, mis on tugevalt mõjutatud Stuart Halli eelistatud lugemise ideest. Eelistatud mängimine tugineb vaikevalikutele ja muudele objektiivselt tuvastatavatele tunnustele, et tuvastada kõige tõenäolisem läbimängimisest tulenev tekst, mida saab sooliselt analüüsida. Kuigi kõnealune raamistik on mõeldud akadeemiliseks kasutamiseks, püüab see siiski mõjutada ka avalikku diskursust, pakkudes kolmemõõtmelist ülevaadet videomängudes esindatud soostEven today, gaming is often seen as a niche activity of children and young men. Video games, however, have become one of the most profitable entertainment media, with over 2.5 billion people worldwide playing video games in 2019. While deemed a predominantly male hobby, gaming is nearly equally attractive to female and male gamers. Most people are, by now, part of gaming culture, even if they would not classify themselves as gamers. This means that games are also attracting increasing scholarly attention. Despite the increasing research, video games still suffer from the stigma of being deemed “subcultural” and ultimately “not art”. Gaming culture is often criticized for its gender bias, racism and homophobia. Games themselves and the gender relations they communicate are also often perceived as lacking in depth. Video games, however, are not politically neutral artefacts. They present and contribute to the values, norms, and practices fostered by the culture they belong to. Researchers, however, still lack methodological approaches to analyze video games as a distinct medium and to systemize the ways in which games represent gender. This PhD thesis aims to create a holistic methodology to analyze gender in games that focuses on games as a uniquely multidimensional medium while building on the experience of other disciplines. I will combine humanities methods like close reading with methodologies from the social sciences, drama studies, gender studies and even economics and law. These are adapted to the technicalities and particularities of games, namely the fact that they have to be played and consist of game-specific rules, objectives and mechanics. This holistic reading of games tries to overcome the indeterminacy and subjectivity in many previous approaches to game analysis. I develop the term “preferred playing”, heavily influenced by Stuart Hall’s notion of preferred reading, that relies on default choices and other objectively identifiable features to identify the most likely text resulting from a playthrough, which in turn can then be analyzed in terms of gender. While this framework is intended for academic use, it also strives to influence public discourse by providing three-dimensional insights into gender in video games and betterhttps://www.ester.ee/record=b552405

Fighting \u27Stance\u27: The Role of Conversational Positioning in League of Legends (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) Discourse

For researchers, the study of video game players - how they behave, interact, and cooperate in a virtual world – presents a challenge: what methodologies are best suited to approaching these interactions? From a sociolinguistic approach, how do gamers converse, and what do these conversations reveal about epistemic, affective, and political relationships? This study uses John DuBois’ Stance Theory (2007) and recent modifications of it (Kiesling 2022), to analyze data gathered from the popular multiplayer online battle-arena (MOBA) game League of Legends. It focuses on in-game interlocutors’ conversation samples to show their positioning, intersubjective alignment, and evaluation of a constantly changing speech environment. DuBois’ Stance Triangle permits visualization of the stances taken within such chat-room interactions that focus on player comments concerning the game, game-playing, and other gamers (as well as themselves). In the search for stance identity, DuBois’ model specifically seeks to understand the alignment between interlocutors, the evaluation each interlocutor makes of the stance object, and the position each interlocutor takes with regard to that object. This study builds on the work of researchers in stance-based analysis of gaming discourse (Sierra 2016), multimodality (Collister 2012), and language acquisition (Bakos 2018). This triangulation model will be supplemented with other discourse and pragmatic analyses when necessary, to interpret the stance-taking in a rapidly changing online environment filled with stances often likely to be related to ethical positions and displays of commentary on a range of topics, including the meta-game skills and abilities of the players, and extra-game references, and the intersection of these concepts in the construction of attitudinal positioning, stancetaking, and inter-personal dynamics in a common goal-motivated speech environment

Social, Casual and Mobile Games

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Social, casual and mobile games, played on devices such as smartphones, tablets, or PCs and accessed through online social networks, have become extremely popular, and are changing the ways in which games are designed, understood, and played. These games have sparked a revolution as more people from a broader demographic than ever play games, shifting the stereotype of gaming away from that of hardcore, dedicated play to that of activities that fit into everyday life. Social, Casual and Mobile Games explores the rapidly changing gaming landscape and discusses the ludic, methodological, theoretical, economic, social and cultural challenges that these changes invoke. With chapters discussing locative games, the new freemium economic model, and gamer demographics, as well as close studies of specific games (including Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds, and Ingress), this collection offers an insight into the changing nature of games and the impact that mobile media is having upon individuals and societies around the world

Playful mapping in the digital age:The Playful Mapping Collective

From Mah-Jong, to the introduction of Prussian war-games, through to the emergence of location-based play: maps and play share a long and diverse history. This monograph shows how mapping and playing unfold in the digital age, when the relations between these apparently separate tropes are increasingly woven together. Fluid networks of interaction have encouraged a proliferation of hybrid forms of mapping and playing and a rich plethora of contemporary case-studies, ranging from fieldwork, golf, activism and automotive navigation, to pervasive and desktop-based games evidences this trend. Examining these cases shows how mapping and playing can form productive synergies, but also encourages new ways of being, knowing and shaping our everyday lives. The chapters in this book explore how play can be more than just an object or practice, and instead focus on its potential as a method for understanding maps and spatiality. They show how playing and mapping can be liberating, dangerous, subversive and performative

Design of secure mobile payment protocols for restricted connectivity scenarios

The emergence of mobile and wireless networks made posible the extensión of electronic commerce to a new area of research: mobile commerce called m-commerce, which includes mobile payment), that refers to any e-commerce transaction made from a mobile device using wireless networks. Most of the mobile payment systems found in the literatura are based on the full connectivity scenario where all the entities are directly connected one to another but do not support business models with direct communication restrictions between the entities of the system is not a impediment to perform comercial transactions. It is for this reason that mobile payment systems that consider those situations where direct communications between entities of the system is not posible (temporarily or permanently) basically due to the impossibility of one of the entities connected to the Internet are required. In order to solve the current shortage in the scientific world of previous research works that address the problema of on-line payment from mobile devices in connectivity restricted scenarios, in this thesis we propose a set of secure payment protocols (that use both symmetric and non-traditional asymmetric cryptography), which have low computational power requirements, are fit for scenarios with communications restrictions (where at least two of the entities of the system cannot exchange information in a direct way and must do it through another entity) and offer the same security capabilities as those protocols designed for full connectivity scenarios. The proposed protocols are applicable to other types of networks, such as vehicular ad hoc network (VANETs), where services exist which require on-line payment and scenarios with communication restrictions.On the other hand, the implementation (in a multiplatform programming language) of the designed protocols shows that their performance is suitable for devices with limited computational power.Postprint (published version