Software Engineering Challenges for Investigating Cyber-Physical Incidents

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are characterized by the interplay between digital and physical spaces. This characteristic has extended the attack surface that could be exploited by an offender to cause harm. An increasing number of cyber-physical incidents may occur depending on the configuration of the physical and digital spaces and their interplay. Traditional investigation processes are not adequate to investigate these incidents, as they may overlook the extended attack surface resulting from such interplay, leading to relevant evidence being missed and testing flawed hypotheses explaining the incidents. The software engineering research community can contribute to addressing this problem, by deploying existing formalisms to model digital and physical spaces, and using analysis techniques to reason about their interplay and evolution. In this paper, supported by a motivating example, we describe some emerging software engineering challenges to support investigations of cyber-physical incidents. We review and critique existing research proposed to address these challenges, and sketch an initial solution based on a meta-model to represent cyber-physical incidents and a representation of the topology of digital and physical spaces that supports reasoning about their interplay

Second Set of Spaces

This document describes the Gloss infrastructure supporting implementation of location-aware services. The document is in two parts. The first part describes software architecture for the smart space. As described in D8, a local architecture provides a framework for constructing Gloss applications, termed assemblies, that run on individual physical nodes, whereas a global architecture defines an overlay network for linking individual assemblies. The second part outlines the hardware installation for local sensing. This describes the first phase of the installation in Strathclyde University

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

RAFDA: A Policy-Aware Middleware Supporting the Flexible Separation of Application Logic from Distribution

Middleware technologies often limit the way in which object classes may be used in distributed applications due to the fixed distribution policies that they impose. These policies permeate applications developed using existing middleware systems and force an unnatural encoding of application level semantics. For example, the application programmer has no direct control over inter-address-space parameter passing semantics. Semantics are fixed by the distribution topology of the application, which is dictated early in the design cycle. This creates applications that are brittle with respect to changes in distribution. This paper explores technology that provides control over the extent to which inter-address-space communication is exposed to programmers, in order to aid the creation, maintenance and evolution of distributed applications. The described system permits arbitrary objects in an application to be dynamically exposed for remote access, allowing applications to be written without concern for distribution. Programmers can conceal or expose the distributed nature of applications as required, permitting object placement and distribution boundaries to be decided late in the design cycle and even dynamically. Inter-address-space parameter passing semantics may also be decided independently of object implementation and at varying times in the design cycle, again possibly as late as run-time. Furthermore, transmission policy may be defined on a per-class, per-method or per-parameter basis, maximizing plasticity. This flexibility is of utility in the development of new distributed applications, and the creation of management and monitoring infrastructures for existing applications.Comment: Submitted to EuroSys 200

Social issues of power harvesting as key enables of WSN in pervasive computing

Pervasive systems have gained popularity and open the door to new applications that will improve the quality of life of the users. Additionally, the implementation of such systems over an infrastructure of Wireless Sensor Networks has been proven to be very powerful. To deal with the WSN problems related to the battery of the elements or nodes that constitute the WSN, Power Harvesting techniques arise as good candidates. With PH each node can extract the energy from the surrounding environment. However, this energy source could not be constant, affecting the continuity and quality of the services provided. This behavior can have a negative impact on the user's perception about the system, which could be perceived as unreliable or faulty. In the current paper, some related works regarding pervasive systems within the home environment are referenced to extrapolate the conclusions and problems to the paradigm of Power Harvesting Pervasive Systems from the user perspective. Besides, the paper speculates about the approach and methods to overcome these potential problems and presents the design trends that could be followed.<br/

Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected. Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services. Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs. Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications, conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage, and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and atmosphere conditions, are also discussed

Security in Pervasive Computing: Current Status and Open Issues

Million of wireless device users are ever on the move, becoming more dependent on their PDAs, smart phones, and other handheld devices. With the advancement of pervasive computing, new and unique capabilities are available to aid mobile societies. The wireless nature of these devices has fostered a new era of mobility. Thousands of pervasive devices are able to arbitrarily join and leave a network, creating a nomadic environment known as a pervasive ad hoc network. However, mobile devices have vulnerabilities, and some are proving to be challenging. Security in pervasive computing is the most critical challenge. Security is needed to ensure exact and accurate confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and access control, to name a few. Security for mobile devices, though still in its infancy, has drawn the attention of various researchers. As pervasive devices become incorporated in our day-to-day lives, security will increasingly becoming a common concern for all users - - though for most it will be an afterthought, like many other computing functions. The usability and expansion of pervasive computing applications depends greatly on the security and reliability provided by the applications. At this critical juncture, security research is growing. This paper examines the recent trends and forward thinking investigation in several fields of security, along with a brief history of previous accomplishments in the corresponding areas. Some open issues have been discussed for further investigation