A Novel Architectural Framework on IoT Ecosystem, Security Aspects and Mechanisms: A Comprehensive Survey

For the past few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology continues to not only gain popularity and importance, but also witnesses the true realization of everything being smart. With the advent of the concept of smart everything, IoT has emerged as an area of great potential and incredible growth. An IoT ecosystem centers around innovation perspective which is considered as its fundamental core. Accordingly, IoT enabling technologies such as hardware and software platforms as well as standards become the core of the IoT ecosystem. However, any large-scale technological integration such as the IoT development poses the challenge to ensure secure data transmission. Perhaps, the ubiquitous and the resource-constrained nature of IoT devices and the sensitive and private data being generated by IoT systems make them highly vulnerable to physical and cyber threats. In this paper, we re-define an IoT ecosystem from the core technologies view point. We propose a modified three layer IoT architecture by dividing the perception layer into elementary blocks based on their attributed functions. Enabling technologies, attacks and security countermeasures are classified under each layer of the proposed architecture. Additionally, to give the readers a broader perspective of the research area, we discuss the role of various state-of-the-art emerging technologies in the IoT security. We present the security aspects of the most prominent standards and other recently developed technologies for IoT which might have the potential to form the yet undefined IoT architecture. Among the technologies presented in this article, we give a special interest to one recent technology in IoT domain. This technology is named IQRF that stands for Intelligent Connectivity using Radio Frequency. It is an emerging technology for wireless packet-oriented communication that operates in sub-GHz ISM band (868 MHz) and which is intended for general use where wireless connectivity is needed, either in a mesh network or point-to-point (P2P) configuration. We also highlighted the security aspects implemented in this technology and we compare it with the other already known technologies. Moreover, a detailed discussion on the possible attacks is presented. These attacks are projected on the IoT technologies presented in this article including IQRF. In addition, lightweight security solutions, implemented in these technologies, to counter these threats in the proposed IoT ecosystem architecture are also presented. Lastly, we summarize the survey by listing out some common challenges and the future research directions in this field.publishedVersio

E-Education with Facebook - A Social Network Service

In this paper, we study the social networking website, Facebook, for conducting courses as a replacement of high-cost classical electronic learning platforms. At the early stage of the Internet community, users of the Interned used email as the main communication mean. Although email is still the essential approach of communication in a suitable but offline mode, other services were introduced, such as many Instant Messaging (IM) software applications like ICQ, Skype, Viber, WhatsApp and MSN, which enable people to connect in a real-time mode. However, the communication between people was further improved to the next phase, when Facebook came to reality as a social networking homepage that wires many features. People do not only link with others, but also establish all kinds of connections between them. Facebook offers rich functions for forming associations. The framework of Facebook actually delivers without charge software that were provided by traditional electronic learning. This paper looks at how people apply Facebook for teaching and learning, together with recommendations provided

Smartphones and Biometrics: Gait and Activity Recognition

User authentication is a means of identifying the user and verifying that the user is allowed access to services or objects and is a very central step in many applications. People pass through various types of authentication services in their day-to-day activities. For example, to log on to a computer the user is required to know a secret password. Similarly, when turning on a mobile phone the user has to know a PIN code or a touch pattern. Some person authentication methods are based on human physiological or behavioural characteristics, such as fingerprints, face, or voice. Authentication methods differ in their strengths and weaknesses. PIN codes and passwords have to be remembered and gloves have to be removed before fingerprint authentication. Security and usability are essential factors in person authentication. Usability relates to the unobtrusiveness, user-convenience, and human-friendliness of the authentication method. Security is related to the robustness of the authentication method and vulnerability against attacks. Recent advances in microelectronic chip development allow user authentication based on gait (the way a person walks), using small, light, and low-cost sensors. One of the benefits of this is that unobtrusive person authentication through gait recognition is now possible by using mobile smart phones. Optimization of performance and a strong focus on security, while not ignoring usability, will lead to an increased protection of information on smart mobile devices through the use of gait recognition. The general aim of the research described in this thesis was to protect smart mobile devices against unauthorized access by using gait recognition based on the data collected from the sensors embedded in these devices. The effort was not only to develop new innovative algorithms to improve performance in gait recognition, but also to develop awareness on the usability of this method by focusing on activity recognition and continuous authentication, as well as assuring security against deliberate attackers

Fusion of Gait and ECG forBiometric User Authentication

Abstract: Anew multi-modal biometric authentication approach using gait and electrocardiogram (ECG) signals as biometric traits is proposed. The individual comparison scores derivedf rom the gait and ECG are normalized using several methods (min-max, z-score, median absolute deviation, tangent hyperbolic) and then four fusion approaches (simple sum, user-weighting, maximum score and minimum core) are applied. Gait samples are obtained by using ainbuilt accelerometer sensor from amobile device attached to the hip. ECG signals are collected by awireless ECG sensor, which is based on a2l ed ECG signals attached on the breast. The fusion results of these twob iometrics showa ni mprovedp erformance and al arge step closer for user authentication for biometric user authentication

Gait Recognition using Time-of-Flight Sensor

This is the copy of the book chapter originally published in: Brömme, A., Busch, Ch. (ed.)(2011). Lecture Notes in Informatics, BIOSIG 2011, Proceedings - International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group; 8.-9. September 2011 in Darmstadt. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik. Reprinted with permission from Gesellschaft für Informatik

A Simple Propagation Model to Characterize the Effects of Multiple Human Bodies Blocking Indoor Short-Range Links at 28 GHz

This study aims to provide a simple approach to characterize the effects of scattering by human bodies in the vicinity of a short-range indoor link at 28 GHz while the link is fully blocked by another body. In the study, a street canyon propagation characterized by a four-ray model is incorporated to consider the human bodies. For this model, the received signal is assumed to be composed of a direct component that is exposed to shadowing due to a human body blocking the link and a multipath component due to reflections from human bodies around the link. In order to predict the attenuation due to shadowing, the double knife-edge diffraction (DKED) model is employed. Moreover, to predict the attenuation due to multipath, the reflected fields from the human bodies around the link are used. The measurements are compared with the simulations in order to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the model. The acceptable results achieved in this study suggest that this simple model might work correctly for short-range indoor links at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies

Scenario Test for Accelerometer-Based Biometric Gait Recognition

Abstract—The goal of our research is to develop methods for accelerometer-based gait recognition, which are robust, stable and fast enough to be used for authentication on mobile devices. To show how far we are in reaching this goal we developed a new cycle extraction method, implemented an application for android phones and conducted a scenario test. We evaluated two different methods, which apply the same cycle extraction technique but use different comparison methods. 48 subjects took part in the scenario test. After enrolment they were walking for about 15 minutes on a predefined route. To get a realistic scenario this route included climbing of stairs, opening doors, walking around corners etc. About every 30 seconds the subject stopped and the authentication was started. This paper introduces the new cycle extraction method and shows the Detection Error Trade-Off-curves, error rates separated by route-section and subject as well as the computation times for enrolment and authentication on a Motorola milestone phone. Keywords-biometrics; gait recognition; scenario test; mobile device; accelerometer I