Optimized Blockchain Model for Internet of Things based Healthcare Applications

There continues to be a recent push to taking the cryptocurrency based ledger system known as Blockchain and applying its techniques to non-financial applications. One of the main areas for application remains Internet of Things (IoT) as we see many areas of improvement as we move into an age of smart cities. In this paper, we examine an initial look at applying the key aspects of Blockchain to a health application network where patients health data can be used to create alerts important to authenticated healthcare providers in a secure and private manner. This paper also presents the benefits and also practical obstacles of the blockchain-based security approaches in IoT.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1806.00555 by other author

The Security Testbed for the Purposes of the ITS-G5 Communication Attacks Prevention

Secure communication in the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) plays a crucial role in vehicular safety. Security threats can be an unwanted cause of congestions and attacks. In this paper, first, the security threats in ITS are described and discussed. Second, a concept of the security testbed for ITS-G5 communication was presented. Its purpose is to test or verify the security threats for the machine-to-machine communication in the ITS. The testbed is composed of two parts. The first part represents the vehicle, and the second part is the Road-Side Unit (RSU) or the Road-vehicle unit (RVU). The testbed contains Arduino-type modules, SPI interface to CAN bus converter, and ELM 327 diagnostic tool supporting all communication protocols of the OBD standard. The simulator presented in this article was practically implemented and the functionality verified by experimental testing. Finally, a message for remote speed limiting was implemented on the testbed for further security testing.Peer reviewe

A Secure Publish/Subscribe Protocol for Internet of Things

The basic concept behind the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) is to connect as many objects to the Internet as possible in an attempt to make our lives better in some way. However, connecting everyday objects like your car or house to the Internet can open up major security concerns. In this paper, we present a novel security framework for the Message Queue Transport Telemetry (MQTT) protocol based on publish/subscribe messages in order to enhance secure and privacy-friendly Internet of Things services. MQTT has burst onto the IoT scene in recent years due to its lightweight design and ease of use implementation necessary for IoT. Our proposed solution provides 3 security levels. The first security level suits for lightweight data exchanges of non-tampered messages. The second security level enhances the privacy protection of data sources and data receivers. The third security level offers robust long-term security with mutual authentication for all parties. The security framework is based on light cryptographic schemes in order to be suitable for constrained and small devices that are widely used in various IoT use cases. Moreover, our solution is tailored to MQTT without using additional security overhead

A Privacy-Enhancing Framework for Internet of Things Services

The world has seen an influx of connected devices through both smart devices and smart cities, paving the path forward for the Internet of Things (IoT). These emerging intelligent infrastructures and applications based on IoT can be beneficial to users only if essential private and secure features are assured. However, with constrained devices being the norm in IoT, security and privacy are often minimized. In this paper, we first categorize various existing privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) and assessment of their suitability for privacy-requiring services within IoT. We also categorize potential privacy risks, threats, and leakages related to various IoT use cases. Furthermore, we propose a simple novel privacy-preserving framework based on a set of suitable privacy-enhancing technologies in order to maintain security and privacy within IoT services. Our study can serve as a baseline of privacy-by-design strategies applicable to IoT based services, with a particular focus on smart things, such as safety equipment

Improving the precision of linear optics measurements based on turn-by-turn beam position monitor data after a pulsed excitation in lepton storage rings

Beam optics control is of critical importance for machine performance and protection. Nowadays, turn-by-turn (TbT) beam position monitor (BPM) data are increasingly exploited as they allow for fast and simultaneous measurement of various optics quantities. Nevertheless, so far the best documented uncertainty of measured ß -functions is of about 10‰ rms. In this paper we compare the ß -functions of the ESRF storage ring measured from two different TbT techniques—the N-BPM and the Amplitude methods—with the ones inferred from a measurement of the orbit response matrix (ORM). We show how to improve the precision of TbT techniques by refining the Fourier transform of TbT data with properly chosen excitation amplitude. The precision of the N-BPM method is further improved by refining the phase advance measurement. This represents a step forward compared to standard TbT measurements. First experimental results showing the precision of ß -functions pushed down to 4‰ both in TbT and ORM techniques are reported and commented.Postprint (published version

Implementing CRYSTALS-Dilithium Signature Scheme on FPGAs

In July 2020, the lattice-based CRYSTALS-Dilithium digital signature scheme has been chosen as one of the three third-round finalists in the post-quantum cryptography standardization process by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In this work, we present the first Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) implementation of the CRYSTALS-Dilithium signature scheme for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Due to our parallelization-based design requiring only low numbers of cycles, running at high frequency and using reasonable amount of hardware resources on FPGA, our implementation is able to sign 15832 messages per second and verify 10524 signatures per second. In particular, the signing algorithm requires 68461 Look-Up Tables (LUTs), 86295 Flip-Flops (FFs), and the verification algorithm takes 61738 LUTs and 34963 FFs on Virtex 7 UltraScale+ FPGAs. In this article, experimental results for each Dilithium security level are provided and our VHDL-based implementation is compared with related High-Level Synthesis (HLS)-based implementations. Our solution is ca 114 times faster (in the signing algorithm) and requires less hardware resources

Self-assembly of pericentriolar material in interphase cells lacking centrioles

The major microtubule-organizing center (MTOC) in animal cells, the centrosome, comprises a pair of centrioles surrounded by pericentriolar material (PCM), which nucleates and anchors microtubules. Centrosome assembly depends on PCM binding to centrioles, PCM self-association and dynein-mediated PCM transport, but the self-assembly properties of PCM components in interphase cells are poorly understood. Here, we used experiments and modeling to study centriole18 independent features of interphase PCM assembly. We showed that when centrioles are lost due to PLK4 depletion or inhibition, dynein-based transport and self-clustering of PCM proteins are sufficient to form a single compact MTOC, which generates a dense radial microtubule array. Interphase self-assembly of PCM components depends on γ-tubulin, pericentrin, CDK5RAP2 and ninein, but not NEDD1, CEP152 or CEP192. Formation of a compact acentriolar MTOC is inhibited by AKAP450-dependent PCM recruitment to the Golgi or by randomly organized CAMSAP2-stabilized microtubules, which keep PCM mobile and prevent its coalescence. Linking of CAMSAP2 to a minus25 end-directed motor leads to the formation of an MTOC, but MTOC compaction requires cooperation with pericentrin-containing self-clustering PCM. Our data reveal that interphase PCM contains a set of components that can self-assemble into a compact structure and organize microtubules, but PCM self-organization is sensitive to motor- and microtubule-based rearrangement