A haystack full of needles: scalable detection of IoT devices in the wild

Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices are extremely popular, providing users with rich and diverse functionalities, from voice assistants to home appliances. These functionalities often come with significant privacy and security risks, with notable recent large scale coordinated global attacks disrupting large service providers. Thus, an important first step to address these risks is to know what IoT devices are where in a network. While some limited solutions exist, a key question is whether device discovery can be done by Internet service providers that only see sampled flow statistics. In particular, it is challenging for an ISP to efficiently and effectively track and trace activity from IoT devices deployed by its millions of subscribers --all with sampled network data. In this paper, we develop and evaluate a scalable methodology to accurately detect and monitor IoT devices at subscriber lines with limited, highly sampled data in-the-wild. Our findings indicate that millions of IoT devices are detectable and identifiable within hours, both at a major ISP as well as an IXP, using passive, sparsely sampled network flow headers. Our methodology is able to detect devices from more than 77% of the studied IoT manufacturers, including popular devices such as smart speakers. While our methodology is effective for providing network analytics, it also highlights significant privacy consequences

Is R2* a new MRI biomarker for the progression of parkinson's disease? A longitudinal follow-up

International audienceTo study changes of iron content in basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease (PD) through a three-year longitudinal follow-up of the effective transverse relaxation rate R-2*, a validated MRI marker of brain iron content which can be rapidly measured under clinical conditions.Twenty-seven PD patients and 26 controls were investigated by a first MRI (t(0)). Longitudinal analysis was conducted among the 18 controls and 14 PD patients who underwent a second MRI (t(1)) 3 years after. The imaging protocol consisted in 6 gradient echo images obtained at different echo-times for mapping R-2*. Quantitative exploration of basal ganglia was performed by measuring the variation of R-2* [R-2*(t(1)) - R-2*(t(0))] in several regions of interest. Results: During the three-year evolution of PD, R-2* increased in Substantia nigra (SN) (by 10.2% in pars compacta, p = 0.001, and 8.1% in pars reticulata, p = 0.013) and in the caudal putamen (11.4%, p = 0.011), without significant change in controls. Furthermore, we showed a positive correlation between the variation of R-2* and the worsening of motor symptoms of PD (p = 0.028). Significant variation of R-2* was longitudinally observed in the SN and caudal putamen of patients with PD evolving over a three-year period, emphasizing its interest as a biomarker of disease progression. Our results suggest that R-2* MRI follow-up could be an interesting tool for individual assessment of neurodegeneration due to PD, and also be useful for testing the efficiency of disease-modifying treatment

How is salt taste intensity encoded within the human brain? The responses of BOLD fMRI using food models

Functional MRI (fMRI) allows understanding the mechanisms by which sensations induced by food cues are perceived and processed within the brain, under the influence of various external (e.g. visual stimuli) and internal factors (e.g. body state). In particular, it allows analyzing at neurophysiological level how food formulations influence their sensory qualities and the pleasure experienced. Here, we used fMRI to infer several neural correlates of the perceived salty intensity produced by rewarding food models. Subjects received different savory solutions on their tongue using an MR-compatible gustatometer. The activations were mapped from smoothed high-resolution data, an imaging protocol providing good functional sensitivity in the gustatory cortex [1]. Two primary areas for taste processing were presumed in the human brain, intercepting the operculo-insular cortex and the lesser-known postcentral gyrus. We found highly significant neural correlates of salt taste intensity at the base of the postcentral gyrus bilaterally and to a lesser extent in the insula and the overlying operculi. This finding suggests that both primary areas were involved in salt taste intensity coding in human brain, which contrasts with previous results obtained with unpleasant salty solutions. We speculate that it may result from the use of rewarding food models, making it necessary to take specific account of the stimulation context for mimicking the brain’s integration of sensory rewards during normal feeding.[1] Iranpour J, Morrot G, Claise B, Jean B, Bonny J-M. Using high resolution to improve BOLD fMRI detection in gustatory cortices. Human Brain Mapping. Submitted

Revealing Utilization at Internet Interconnection Points

Recent Internet interconnection disputes have sparked an in- creased interest in developing methods for gathering and collecting data about utilization at interconnection points. One mechanism, developed by DeepField Networks, allows Internet service providers (ISPs) to gather and aggregate utilization information using network flow statistics, standardized in the Internet Engineering Task Force as IPFIX. This report (1) provides an overview of the method that DeepField Networks is using to measure the utilization of various interconnection links between content providers and ISPs or links over which traffic between content and ISPs flow; and (2) surveys the findings from five months of Internet utilization data provided by seven participating ISPs---Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox, Mediacom, Midco, Suddenlink, and Time Warner Cable---whose access networks represent about 50% of all U.S. broadband subscribers. The dataset includes about 97% of the paid peering, settlement-free peering, and ISP-paid transit links of each of the participating ISPs. Initial analysis of the data---which comprises more than 1,000 link groups, representing the diverse and substitutable available routes---suggests that many interconnects have significant spare capacity, that this spare capacity exists both across ISPs in each region and in aggregate for any individual ISP, and that the aggregate utilization across interconnects interconnects is roughly 50% during peak periods

Differences in BOLD responses in brain reward network reflect the tendency to assimilate a surprising flavor stimulus to an expected stimulus

International audienceExternal information can modify the subjective value of a tasted stimulus, but little is known about neural mechanisms underlying these behavioral modifications. This study used flavored drinks to produce variable degrees of discrepancy between expected and received flavor. During a learning session, 43 healthy young men learned 4 symbol-flavor associations. In a separate session, associations were presented again during an fMRI scan, but half of the trials introduced discrepancy with previously learned associations. Liking ratings of drinks were collected and were analyzed using a linear model to define the degree to which discrepant symbols affected liking ratings of the subjects during the fMRI session. Based on these results, a GLM analysis of fMRI data was conducted to determine neural correlates of observed behavior. Groups of subjects were composed based on their behavior in response to discrepant symbols, and comparison of brain activity between groups showed that activation in the PCC and the caudate nucleus was more potent in those subjects in which liking was not affected by discrepant symbols. These activations were not found in subjects who assimilated unexpected flavors to flavors preceeded by discrepant symbols. Instead, these subjects showed differences in the activity in the parietal operculum. The activity of reward network appears to be related to assimilation of received flavor to expected flavor in response to symbol-flavor discrepancy

Striatal and cingulate fMRI responses to unexpected taste reflect behavioral effects of expectations

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