Securing personal distributed environments

The Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is a new concept being developed by Mobile VCE allowing future mobile users flexible access to their information and services. Unlike traditional mobile communications, the PDE user no longer needs to establish his or her personal communication link solely through one subscribing network but rather a diversity of disparate devices and access technologies whenever and wherever he or she requires. Depending on the services’ availability and coverage in the location, the PDE communication configuration could be, for instance, via a mobile radio system and a wireless ad hoc network or a digital broadcast system and a fixed telephone network. This new form of communication configuration inherently imposes newer and higher security challenges relating to identity and authorising issues especially when the number of involved entities, accessible network nodes and service providers, builds up. These also include the issue of how the subscribed service and the user’s personal information can be securely and seamlessly handed over via multiple networks, all of which can be changing dynamically. Without such security, users and operators will not be prepared to trust their information to other networks

Wireless sensor network for cattle monitoring system

This paper describes a cost effective Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology for monitoring the health of dairy cows. By monitoring and understanding the cow individual and herd behaviour, farmers can potentially identify the onset of illness, lameness or other undesirable health conditions. However, the WSN implementation needs to cope with various technical challenges before it can be suitably and routinely applied in cow management. This paper discusses results concerning data transportation (i.e. mobility) from the cow mounted sensory devices

Implementation of a herd management system with wireless sensor networks

This paper investigates an adaptation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to cattle monitoring applications. The proposed solution facilitates the requirement for continuously assessing the condition of individual animals, aggregating and reporting this data to the farm manager. There are several existing approaches to achieving animal monitoring, ranging from using a store and forward mechanism to employing GSM-based techniques; these approaches only provide sporadic information and introduce a considerable cost in staffing and physical hardware. The core of this study is to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks by using alternative cheap, low power consumption sensor nodes capable of providing real-time communication at a reasonable hardware cost. In this paper, both the hardware and software has been designed to provide a solution which can obtain real-time data from dairy cattle whilst conforming to the limitations associated with WSNs implementations

Personal distributed environment - securing the dynamic service platforms beyond 3G

Future mobile systems are expected to offer users flexible access to information and services using a combination of different end-user devices in a personal distributed environment (PDE). With PDEs able to operate over multiple air interfaces and heterogeneous networks, requiring seamless and rapid service provision, a flexible and fair trading of communication services is required. For. this reason, a digital marketplace (DMP) is proposed. The DMP is based on an agent framework capable of enabling real-time service negotiation over disparate networks according to users' price and QoS requirements. The paper discusses the security threats and challenges to the PDE, and also to a DMP implementation

Location privacy and the personal distributed environment

The Personal Distributed Environment is a new concept being developed within the Mobile VCE Core 3 research programme whereby users have access to their services and data through a distributed set of terminals, wherever their location: ubiquitous access. Devices are co-ordinated by Device Management Entities (DMEs), which are either Local DMEs, controlling devices within a single PDE subnetwork at a user's home or office. For example, or an overall Root DME providing universal co-ordination and a single point of contact. While such a structure allows very flexible service delivery, it has serious security concerns, as the presence of signalling between Root and Local DMEs will allow the location of the user to be determined at all times. In this paper, we analyse the security threats to the DME structure proposed for the PDE, and introduce a system of tunnelling and mix networks to provide security and privacy

Trust architecture for personal distributed environment

With an increasing number of wireless devices and access technologies available, users will be able to access their Personal Distributed Environment of services and data conveniently, in a wide variety of ways. Unfortunately. this flexibility Comes at a cost - higher security risks and vulnerabilities. The traditional association with a network provider may not exist, replaced by a far more nebulous association with a number of unknown entities, network nodes and service providers. These ad hoe relationships require a notion of trust, which presents great difficulties in a dynamic wireless environment. This paper presents a format trust architecture to address these issues, with the focus on aspects of trust policy formation and its evolution

Security challenges in the personal distributed environment

Future communications systems are expected to enable interaction between an increasingly diverse range of devices, both mobile and fixed. This will allow users to construct their own personal distributed environments using a combination of different communications technologies. Depending on the services' availability, the communication configuration could be, for instance, via a cellular system, a wireless ad hoc network, a digital broadcast system, or a fixed telephone network. This new form of communication configuration inherently imposes strict requirements on security, especially when the number of involved entities, accessible network nodes, and service providers increases. The creation of such heterogeneous, dynamic, and distributed networks raises many technical issues. The paper discusses the particular problems involved in securing such an environment and establishes a series of requirements that future security architectures can be based on

Designing and verifying secure protocols of the digital marketplace

The mobile VCE's digital marketplace (DMP) is a system, which allows very short term trading of radio resources. It uses autonomous agents to request and negotiate the provision of communications services in a dynamic and competitive manner. While showing great promise, many security concerns involving the adoption of the DMP infrastructure by the future mobile communications industry remain unresolved. This paper examines the cryptographic protocol that plays an essential influencing role in creating a secure service negotiation platform

Security requirements for mobile service provision via a digital marketplace

Increasing network choice and service diversity makes choosing the best transport network for a particular communication difficult. A freely operating market has the potential to solve this problem, and the Mobile VCE¿s Digital Marketplace (DMP) is an example of such a system. Short term service contracts can be tendered to network operators in a dynamic and competitive manner down to a call level. While showing great promise, many security concerns involving the various DMP entities remain unresolved. This paper reviews the current sate of the art in electronic marketplaces, and examines the particular security issues and security requirements of the DMP, so as to create a secure service negotiation platform for trading communication services

Security requirements for mobile service provision via a digital marketplace

Increasing network choice and service diversity makes choosing the best transport network for a particular communication difficult. A freely operating market has the potential to solve this problem, and the Mobile VCE¿s Digital Marketplace (DMP) is an example of such a system. Short term service contracts can be tendered to network operators in a dynamic and competitive manner down to a call level. While showing great promise, many security concerns involving the various DMP entities remain unresolved. This paper reviews the current sate of the art in electronic marketplaces, and examines the particular security issues and security requirements of the DMP, so as to create a secure service negotiation platform for trading communication services