PILOT : Practical Privacy-Preserving Indoor Localization Using OuTsourcing

In the last decade, we observed a constantly growing number of Location-Based Services (LBSs) used in indoor environments, such as for targeted advertising in shopping malls or finding nearby friends. Although privacy-preserving LBSs were addressed in the literature, there was a lack of attention to the problem of enhancing privacy of indoor localization, i.e., the process of obtaining the users' locations indoors and, thus, a prerequisite for any indoor LBS. In this work we present PILOT, the first practically efficient solution for Privacy-Preserving Indoor Localization (PPIL) that was obtained by a synergy of the research areas indoor localization and applied cryptography. We design, implement, and evaluate protocols for Wi-Fi fingerprint-based PPIL that rely on 4 different distance metrics. To save energy and network bandwidth for the mobile end devices in PPIL, we securely outsource the computations to two non-colluding semi-honest parties. Our solution mixes different secure two-party computation protocols and we design size-and depth-optimized circuits for PPIL. We construct efficient circuit building blocks that are of independent interest: Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) capable oblivious access to an array with low circuit depth and selection of the k-Nearest Neighbors with small circuit size. Additionally, we reduce Received Signal Strength (RSS) values from 8 bits to 4 bits without any significant accuracy reduction. Our most efficient PPIL protocol is 553x faster than that of Li et al. (INFOCOM'14) and 500× faster than that of Ziegeldorf et al. (WiSec'14). Our implementation on commodity hardware has practical run-times of less than 1 second even for the most accurate distance metrics that we consider, and it can process more than half a million PPIL queries per day.Peer reviewe

Merialueemme vieraslajien seurannan, varhaisvaroitus-järjestelmän (VVJ) ja riskin-arvioinnin kehittäminen

Liitteessä 1 Suomessa (Itämeressä) ns. vakiintuneet vieraslajit (useammin kuin kerran havaitut). VISEVARIS-projektin yhteydessä toimineen työryhmän ehdottamat uudet/muutetut suomenkieliset lajinimet lihavoitu. (Työryhmän vetäjänä toimi Erkki Leppäkoski).VISEVARIS-hankkeen tavoitteena oli kehittää rannikkovesiemme vieraslajien seuranta- ja varhaisvaroitusjärjestelmä (VVJ), mihin kuuluu mm. tietoisuuden lisääminen, vieraslajien aikainen havainnointi, tiedonkulun nopea välittäminen haitallisten lajien havaitsemisen jälkeen sekä kansalaisten valistaminen lajien levittämisen estämiseksi. Hankkeessa tutkittiin miltä osin ja miksi nykyseuranta ei pysty havaitsemaan uusia vieraslajeja, etsittiin tehokkaampia menetelmiä vieraslajien havaitsemiseksi ja niiden elinympäristöjen ja alueiden kartoittamiseksi, selvitettiin ja kuvattiin merialueemme keskeiset biologiset seurannat sekä niiden tuottama tieto tavattujen vieraslajien levinneisyydestä ja runsaudesta. Työssä todettiin, etteivät seurannat tavoita suurinta osaa nykyisistäkään vieraslajeista. Havaituista lajeista vain parista saadaan riittävä kuva runsauden ja levinneisyyden suhteen. Matalat rannikkovedet ovat heikoimmin seuratut elinympäristöt. Niiden seurantaa pitäisi lisätä. Hankkeessa tuotettiin ehdotus tehostetun seurannan toteuttamisesta, sen keskittämisestä eri elinympäristöihin sekä velvoiteseurannan toteuttamisesta satamissa. Hanke tuotti nettipohjaisen tunnistus-oppaan suurimmasta osasta Suomen merialueella esiintyvistä ja mahdollisesti tänne saapuvista vieraslajeista helpottamaan niiden havaitsemista ja tunnistamista. Hankkeessa selvitettiin myös vieraslajien riskinarviointiin tarjolla olevia kansainvälisiä työkaluja, joista testattaviksi valittiin makeanveden selkärangattomille kehitetty Fi-ISK ja kaloille käytetty FISK riskinarviointi-työkalu. Niiden avulla saadaan numeerisia arvoja eri lajien haitallisuudelle, mikä auttaa ryhmittelemään vieraslajeja niiden torjunnan kannalta. Kehittämällä työkaluja paremmin murtovesiolosuhteet huomioiviksi riskinarviointeja voidaan toteuttaa Itämeren alueella. Varhais-varoitus- ja informaatiojärjestelmän kehittämiseen tuotetuista osista voidaan rakentaa raamiversio, jonka kehysten sisälle tarvittava lisätieto voidaan helposti koota. Hanke auttaa kehittämään ja monipuolistamaan nykyisiä seurantoja ottamaan huomioon myös vieraslajit. Suomen kansallinen VVJ voi toimia esimerkkinä muille Itämeren maille ja se voi toimia yhteydenpitoväylänä Itämeren valtioiden kesken. Hankkeessa kehitetyllä nettilomakkeella parannetaan vieraslajihavaintojen ilmoittamismahdollisuuksia. Lomakkeen avulla niin tutkijat, konsultit, hallintoviranomaiset kuin kansalaisetkin voivat helposti ilmoittaa havaitsemansa vieraslajit sekä tarkistaa jo tehdyt vieraslajiilmoitukset. Hankkeessa saatuja tuloksia hyödynnetään EU:n meristrategia-direktiivin hyvän tilan indikaattoreita kehitettäessä sekä direktiivin toimeenpanoa tukevien seurantojen kehityksessä. Hankkeen aktiviteettien ansiosta monen vieraslajin havainnot moninkertaistuivat ja levinneisyys osoittautui oletettua laajemmaksi.Maa- ja metsätalousministeri

Are Amphipod invaders a threat to the regional biodiversity? Conservation prospects for the Loire River

The impact of invasions on local biodiversity is well established, but their impact on regional biodiversity has so far been only sketchily documented. To address this question, we studied the impact at various observation scales (ranging from the microhabitat to the whole catchment) of successive arrivals of non-native amphipods on the amphipod assemblage of the Loire River basin in France. Amphipod assemblages were studied at 225 sites covering the whole Loire catchment. Non-native species were dominant at all sites in the main channel of the Loire River, but native species were still present at most of the sites. We found that the invaders have failed to colonize most of tributaries of the Loire River. At the regional scale, we found that since the invaders first arrived 25 years ago, the global amphipod diversity has increased by 33% (from 8 to 12 species) due to the arrival of non-native species. We discuss the possibility that the lack of any loss of biodiversity may be directly linked to the presence of refuges at the microhabitat scale in the Loire channel and in the tributaries, which invasive species have been unable to colonize. The restoration of river quality could increase the number of refuges for native species, thus reducing the impact of invader

Status of Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea

The brackish Baltic Sea hosts species of various origins and environmental tolerances. These immigrated to the sea 10,000 to 15,000 years ago or have been introduced to the area over the relatively recent history of the system. The Baltic Sea has only one known endemic species. While information on some abiotic parameters extends back as long as five centuries and first quantitative snapshot data on biota (on exploited fish populations) originate generally from the same time, international coordination of research began in the early twentieth century. Continuous, annual Baltic Sea-wide long-term datasets on several organism groups (plankton, benthos, fish) are generally available since the mid-1950s. Based on a variety of available data sources (published papers, reports, grey literature, unpublished data), the Baltic Sea, incl. Kattegat, hosts altogether at least 6,065 species, including at least 1,700 phytoplankton, 442 phytobenthos, at least 1,199 zooplankton, at least 569 meiozoobenthos, 1,476 macrozoobenthos, at least 380 vertebrate parasites, about 200 fish, 3 seal, and 83 bird species. In general, but not in all organism groups, high sub-regional total species richness is associated with elevated salinity. Although in comparison with fully marine areas the Baltic Sea supports fewer species, several facets of the system's diversity remain underexplored to this day, such as micro-organisms, foraminiferans, meiobenthos and parasites. In the future, climate change and its interactions with multiple anthropogenic forcings are likely to have major impacts on the Baltic biodiversity

How Do They Do It? – Understanding the Success of Marine Invasive Species

From the depths of the oceans to the shallow estuaries and wetlands of our coasts, organisms of the marine environment are teeming with unique adaptations to cope with a multitude of varying environmental conditions. With millions of years and a vast volume of water to call their home, they have become quite adept at developing specialized and unique techniques for survival and – given increasing human mediated transport – biological invasions. A growing world human population and a global economy drives the transportation of goods across the oceans and with them invasive species via ballast water and attached to ship hulls. In any given 24-hour period, there are about 10,000 species being transported across different biogeographic regions. If any of them manage to take hold and establish a range in an exotic habitat, the implications for local ecosystems can be costly. This review on marine invasions highlights trends among successful non-indigenous species (NIS), from vectors of transport to ecological and physiological plasticity. Apart from summarizing patterns of successful invasions, it discusses the implications of how successfully established NIS impact the local environment, economy and human health. Finally, it looks to the future and discusses what questions need to be addressed and what models can tell us about what the outlook on future marine invasions is