Using laboratory to improve understanding of 802.3 physical characteristics

When teaching computer networks as part of a Computer Engineering degree, emphasis is placed on higher-layer protocols while Physical and Data-Link layers usually play a secondary role. Physical aspects of data communication are sometimes taught as an independent, not-related, topic whereas Data-Link concepts are “hard” to our students. We propose a new lab experience in which students can see IEEE 802.3 frames in a new way; by using standard digital oscilloscope we are able to go deeper into lower-level layers. The lab session will be divided into two parts, focusing on topics that are usually considered “hard” by our students. The first part will focus on physical aspects of a frame transmission whereas the second will focus on MAC-layer. For example, topics like physical layer synchronization, signal attenuation, 5-4-3 rule and even Interframe Gap are exercised at the lab session. This experience has been tested with a group of last year students; we have analyzed students "own perception" of previous knowledge of some related topics, the results from a evaluation questionnaire (a small exam given out to students) and students evaluation of this exercise.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843

A Proposal for a Robust Validated Weighted General Data Protection Regulation-based Scale to Assess the Quality of Privacy Policies of Mobile Health Applications: an eDelphi Study

Healthcare services are undergoing a digital transformation in which the Participatory Health Informatics field has a key role. Within this field, studies aimed to assess the quality of digital tools, including mHealth apps, are conducted. Privacy is one dimension of the quality of a mHealth app. Privacy consists of several components, including organizational, technical and legal safeguards. Within legal safeguards, giving transparent information to the users on how their data is handled is crucial. This information is usually disclosed to users through the privacy policy document. Assessing the quality of a privacy policy is a complex task and several scales supporting this process have been proposed in the literature. However, these scales are heterogeneous and even not very objective. In our previous study, we proposed a checklist of items guiding the assessment of the quality of a mHealth app privacy policy, based on the General Data Protection Regulation. Objective: To refine the robustness of our General Data Protection Regulation-based privacy scale to assess the quality of a mHealth app privacy policy, to identify new items, and to assign weights for every item in the scale. Methods: A two-round modified eDelphi study was conducted involving a privacy expert panel. Results: After the Delphi process, all the items in the scale were considered „important“ or „very important“ (4 and 5 in a 5-point Likert scale, respectively) by most of the experts. One of the original items was suggested to be reworded, while 8 tentative items were suggested. Only 2 of them were finally added after Round 2. 11 of the 16 items in the scale were considered „very important“ (weight of 1), while the other 5 were considered „important“ (weight of 0.5). Conclusions: The Benjumea privacy scale is a new robust tool to assess the quality of a mHealth app privacy policy, providing a deeper and complementary analysis to other scales that assesses the general quality. Also, this robust scale provides a guideline for the development of high-quality privacy policies of mHealth apps.Universidad de Sevilla and the Ministerio de Universidades of the Spanish Government under the Requalification of Spanish University System Program funded by European Union –NextGenerationEUCátedra de Telefónica “Inteligencia en la red“ of the Universidad de SevillaCátedra Indra “Sociedad Digital” of the Universidad de Sevill

Using Internet Protocols to Implement IEC 60870-5 Telecontrol Functions

The telecommunication networks of telecontrol systems in electric utilities have undergone an innovation process. This has removed many of their technical restrictions and made it possible to consider carrying out telecontrol tasks with general standard protocols instead of the specific ones that are used currently. These are defined in the standards 60870-5, 60870-6, and 61850 from the International Electrotechnical Commission, among others. This paper is about the implementation, using the services of general standard protocols, of the telecontrol application functions defined by the standard IEC 60870-5-104. The general protocols used to carry out telecontrol tasks are those used in the Internet: the telecommunication network-management protocol SNMPv3 (simple network management protocol version 3), the clock synchronization protocol network time protocol and Secure SHell. With this new implementation, we have achieved, among others, two important aims: 1) to improve performance and, above all, 2) to solve the serious security problems present in the telecontrol protocols currently being used. These problems were presented by IEEE in an article published in the website of the IEEE Standards Association. In this paper, the use of general standard protocols to perform the telecontrol of electrical networks is justified. The development of this paper—its achievements and conclusions and the tools used—is detailed.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843

Choosing the Right Protocol Stack for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit

This paper presents some works made in the development of communications software for an embedded open core system. By using a Linux-based processor implemented on a FPGA, we are developing the appropriate software in order to implement a remote unit to be used in a telecontrol network. We present an analysis of the physical devices needed and a performance report of them. After that, we analyze the requirements of the telecontrol network and the possibility of reusing already implemented protocols in Linux instead of using standard telecontrol protocols.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843

IEC-60870-5 application layer for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit

This paper presents the development and test of the standard IEC-60870-5 application layer protocol for a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) based on open hardware and software. The RTU hardware is an embedded system, a SoC-type design using FPGA that has been programmed with the open core LEO. with Linux operating system running over it, so both the hardware and IOS are open source. For prototyping the GR-XC3S-1500 board has been used. There is no open source code available for the IEC standard protocols, so application layer protocol has to be implemented. All the software design has been made in a PC platform using standard development tools. The source code generated for the protocol has been compiled with the standard Linux gcc compiler in LEO.. Several tests have been made to prove the right behavior of the protocol as well as its performance over different transmission mediums.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843

Implementing IEC 60870-5 data link layer for an Open and Flexible Remote Unit

This paper presents an open source implementation for a data-link layer protocol specified in IEC 60870, protocol specification for telecontrol networks. It has been tested over LEON an embedded system with a Linux based operating system. Protocol engineering methods have been used in order to implement the protocol. The standard is in natural language so a formal language is needed to describe its behavior. A prototype has also been created to simulate the protocol behavior. The protocol has been tested on a real environment, using PCs and LEON as primary and secondary stations, and different physical layers, serial cable, radio frequency and GSM.Junta de Andalucía EXC-2005-TIC-1023Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2006-0843

Ávila: acceso vía Internet a los laboratorios

ÁVILA es una herramienta desarrollada dentro del Departamento de Tecnología Electrónica para acceder a los laboratorios de Redes y Comunicaciones vía Internet. El objetivo más importante que se ha perseguido con esta herramienta es permitir a los alumnos realizar prácticas de laboratorio de manera remota, ya que se tiene un acceso completo a los equipos de comunicaciones como si se estuviera in sit

Análisis de distintas metodologías de evaluación en prácticas de laboratorio en asignaturas de Redes de Computadores

En este artículo se presenta una comparativa entre distintos esquemas de evaluación del alumnado en las prácticas de laboratorio de Redes de Computadores utilizados en los últimos años. Se analizan tres esquemas distintos: 1) Evaluación basada en memorias teóricas y cuestionarios experimentales, 2) Evaluación práctica a práctica basada en WebCT, 3) Evaluación final basada en WebCT. Estos distintos sistemas persiguen como objetivos aplicar técnicas de evaluación continua, lograr un sistema de calificación individualizado y, finalmente, homogeneizar las calificaciones prácticas y teóricas. Se presenta un análisis de cada uno de estos sistemas, en base al cumplimiento o no de estos objetivos usándose, para ello, los datos estadísticos de los seis últimos cursos

Privacy Assessment in Mobile Health Apps: Scoping Review

Proyecto financiado y apoyado por V Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de SevillaBackground: Privacy has always been a concern, especially in the health domain. The proliferation of mobile health (mHealth) apps has led to a large amount of sensitive data being generated. Some authors have performed privacy assessments of mHealth apps. They have evaluated diverse privacy components; however, different authors have used different criteria for their assessments. Objective: This scoping review aims to understand how privacy is assessed for mHealth apps, focusing on the components, scales, criteria, and scoring methods used. A simple taxonomy to categorize the privacy assessments of mHealth apps based on component evaluation is also proposed. Methods: We followed the methodology defined by Arksey and O’Malley to conduct a scoping review. Included studies were categorized based on the privacy component, which was assessed using the proposed taxonomy. Results: The database searches retrieved a total of 710 citations—24 of them met the defined selection criteria, and data were extracted from them. Even though the inclusion criteria considered articles published since 2009, all the studies that were ultimately included were published from 2014 onward. Although 12 papers out of 24 (50%) analyzed only privacy, 8 (33%) analyzed both privacy and security. Moreover, 4 papers (17%) analyzed full apps, with privacy being just part of the assessment. The evaluation criteria used by authors were heterogeneous and were based on their experience, the literature, and/or existing legal frameworks. Regarding the set of items used for the assessments, each article defined a different one. Items included app permissions, analysis of the destination, analysis of the content of communications, study of the privacy policy, use of remote storage, and existence of a password to access the app, among many others. Most of the included studies provided a scoring method that enables the comparison of privacy among apps. Conclusions: The privacy assessment of mHealth apps is a complex task, as the criteria used by different authors for their evaluations are very heterogeneous. Although some studies about privacy assessment have been conducted, a very large set of items to evaluate privacy has been used up until now. In-app information and privacy policies are primarily utilized by the scientific community to extract privacy information from mHealth apps. The creation of a scale based on more objective criteria is a desirable step forward for privacy assessment in the future

Privacy in Mobile Health Applications for Breast Cancer Patients

Privacy is a major concern for breast cancer patients. When patients use mobile health applications (mHealth apps), many sensitive data are handled by the application developers. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) arises as a solution to privacy issues. In this paper, we analyze the privacy policy of a sample of mHealth apps for breast cancer patients, developing a scale to check if GDPR is complied. Despite privacy is a key factor in the adoption of the use of mHealth apps, the low level of compliance with the GDPR of the analyzed applications was quite surprising. Thus, application developers must be concerned about this matter