Machine learning for Quality of Experience in real-time applications

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Application framework for wireless sensor networks [thesis]

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are based on innovative technologies that had revolutionized the methods in which we interact with the environment; i.e., through sensing the physical (e.g., fire motion, contact) and chemical (e.g., molecular concentration) properties of the natural surroundings. The hardware in which utilized by WSNs is rapidly evolving into sophisticated platforms that seamlessly integrate with different vendors and protocols (plug-n-play). In this thesis, we propose a WSN framework which provides assistance with monitoring environmental conditions; we focus on three main applications which include: a. Air-quality monitoring, b. Gas-leak detection, and c. Fire sensing. The framework involves four specifications: 1. Over the air programming (OTAP), 2. Network interconnections, 3. Sensors manageability, and 4. Alarm signaling. Their aim is to enhance the internetwork relations between the WSNs and the outside-world (i.e., main users, clients, or audience); by creating a medium in which devices efficiently communicate, independent of location or infrastructure (e.g., Internet), in order to exchange data among networked-objects and their users. Therefore, we propose a WSN-over-IP architecture which provides several renowned services of the Internet; the major functionalities include: live-data streaming (real-time), e-mailing, cloud storage (external servers), and network technologies (e.g., LAN or WLAN). WSNs themselves operate independently of the Internet; i.e., their operation involve unique protocols and specific hardware requirements which are incompatible with common network platforms (e.g., within home network infrastructure). Hybrid technologies are those which support multiple data-communication protocols within a single device; their main capabilities involve seamless integration and interoperability of different hardware vendors. We propose an overall architecture based on hybrid communication technology in which data is transmitted using three types of protocols: 802.11 (Wi-Fi), 802.15.4 and Digimesh (WSN)

Introducing Real-Time Collaboration Systems: Development of a Conceptual Scheme and Research Directions

This paper presents Real-Time Collaboration (RTC), a new and emerging type of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system that has its roots in both the telecommunications and groupware market. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it outlines the evolution of RTC systems and offers a conceptualization of RTC consisting of usage scenarios and four main building blocks - integration of communication channels, presence information, context integration, and further collaboration features. Second, in order to understand the organizational implications of this complex and socially embedded information system, the paper intends to offer a starting point for future research on RTC by touching upon and systematizing different directions and typical questions for researching RTC and its organizational implications

Peer-to-Peer Conferencing using Blockchain, WebRTC and SIP

  The owner of the centralized video platform has more control over uploaded content than the content producer does. But the other Blockchain-based decentralized video services are attempting to reduce ad pressure and get rid of middlemen. The article suggests a combination of a safe encryption technique and an access control mechanism created "with technology" to create a successful decentralized video streaming platform built on the Blockchain. Peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are one of the complicated network applications and services that have been migrated to the Web as a result of the increasing support for Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) standard in modern browsers for real-time communications. The expansion of access networks’ bandwidth also makes it possible for end users to start their own content businesses. This paper presents a preliminary proposal of metrics and technologies to move toward a decentralized cooperative architecture for large-scale, real-time live stream content de- livery based on WebRTC, without the requirement of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure. The paper takes into account the light of the aforementioned aspects [6]

Named Data Networking in IoT based sensor devices

In a world running on a “smart” vision, the Internet of Things (IoT) progress is going faster than ever. The term “things” is not just about computer, people and smartphone, but also sensors, refrigerators, vehicles, clothing, food and so on. Internet of Things is the possibility to provide an IP address for every item, so it will have an interface on the Internet network. The household devices will not just being commanded and monitored remotely then, but they will have an active main character role, establishing a communication network between them. The thesis will begin describing a general overview, the state of art, of the IoT world and of sensors networks, checking its potential and any restrictions, if present. Then, every engineering aspect of the realized project, will been described in detail. This thesis will also prove that nowadays we have the right items and components for the realization of reliable low-cost sensors. The ultimate purpose is to verify the introduction of new network protocols like NDN (Named Data Networking) to evaluate their performances and efficiency. Finally I will propose the simulations output obtained by NS3 (Network Simulator): a scenario simulation using NDNSim and ChronoSync application will be present

A countermeasure approach for brute-force timing attacks on cache privacy in named data networking architectures

One key feature of named data networks (NDN) is supporting in-network caching to increase the content distribution for today’s Internet needs. However, previously cached contents may be threatened by side-channel timing measurements/attacks. For example, one adversary can identify previously cached contents by distinguishing between uncached and cached contents from the in-network caching node, namely the edge NDN router. The attacks can be mitigated by the previously proposed methods effectively. However, these countermeasures may be against the NDN paradigm, affecting the content distribution performance. This work studied the side-channel timing attack on streaming over NDN applications and proposed a capable approach to mitigate it. Firstly, a recent side-channel timing attack, designated by brute-force, was implemented on ndnSIM using the AT&T network topology. Then, a multi-level countermeasure method, designated by detection and defense (DaD), is proposed to mitigate this attack. Simulation results showed that DaD distinguishes between legitimate and adversary nodes. During the attack, the proposed DaD multi-level approach achieved the minimum cache hit ratio (≈0.7%) compared to traditional countermeasures (≈4.1% in probabilistic and ≈3.7% in freshness) without compromising legitimate requests.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020

Large-Scale Measurement of Real-Time Communication on the Web

Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is getting wide adoptions across the browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc.) and platforms (PC, Android, iOS). It enables application developers to add real-time communications features (text chat, audio/video calls) to web applications using W3C standard JavaScript APIs, and the end users can enjoy real-time multimedia communication experience from the browser without the complication of installing special applications or browser plug-ins. As WebRTC based applications are getting deployed on the Internet by thousands of companies across the globe, it is very important to understand the quality of the real-time communication services provided by these applications. Important performance metrics to be considered include: whether the communication session was properly setup, what are the network delays, packet loss rate, throughput, etc. At Callstats.io, we provide a solution to address the above concerns. By integrating an JavaScript API into WebRTC applications, Callstats.io helps application providers to measure the Quality of Experience (QoE) related metrics on the end user side. This thesis illustrates how this WebRTC performance measurement system is designed and built and we show some statistics derived from the collected data to give some insight into the performance of today’s WebRTC based real-time communication services. According to our measurement, real-time communication over the Internet are generally performing well in terms of latency and loss. The throughput are good for about 30% of the communication sessions

What's my App?: ML-based classification of RTC applications

With the spread of broadband Internet, Real-Time Communication (RTC) platforms have become increasingly popular and have transformed the way people communicate. Thus, it is fundamental that the network adopts traffic management policies that ensure appropriate Quality of Experience to users of RTC applications. A key step for this is the identification of the applications behind RTC traffic, which in turn allows to allocate adequate resources and make decisions based on the specific application's requirements. In this paper, we introduce a machine learning-based system for identifying the traffic of RTC applications. It builds on the domains contacted before starting a call and leverages techniques from Natural Language Processing (NLP) to build meaningful features. Our system works in real-time and is robust to the peculiarities of the RTP implementations of different applications, since it uses only control traffic. Experimental results show that our approach classifies 5 well-known meeting applications with an F1 score of 0.89

Exploring the Role of \u27Price Value\u27 for Understanding Consumer Adoption of Technology: A Review and Meta-analysis of UTAUT2 based Empirical Studies

Price value is important theoretical addition to the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) as individuals bear monetary cost in using technology in consumer setting. A preliminary review of 650 UTAUT2 citations revealed majority of the studies utilized UTAUT2 in combination with external theories omitting some of original UTAUT2 constructs and rarely included moderators. Only 147 studies utilized at least one UTAUT2 construct in their research model. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify usage of price value construct in UTAUT2 based studies and their reason for inclusion or omission. The findings from 79 UTAUT2 empirical studies revealed only 32 studies (41%) utilized price value while the remaining 47 studies (59%) excluded the construct from their research model. The major reason for exclusion was studies examined technologies such as mobile applications and social networking sites that are available to individuals at free of cost