Biblio

Over the past decade, distributed CSMA, which forms the basis for WiFi, has been deployed ubiquitously to provide seamless and high-speed mobile internet access. However, distributed CSMA might not be ideal for future IoT/M2M applications, where the density of connected devices/sensors/controllers is expected to be orders of magnitude higher than that in present wireless networks. In such high-density networks, the overhead associated with completely distributed MAC protocols will become a bottleneck. Moreover, IoT communications are likely to have strict QoS requirements, for which the `best-effort' scheduling by present WiFi networks may be unsuitable. This calls for a clean-slate redesign of the wireless MAC taking into account the requirements for future IoT/M2M networks. In this paper, we propose a reservation-based (for minimal overhead) wireless MAC designed specifically with IoT/M2M applications in mind.

The dynamic state of networks presents a challenge for the deployment of distributed applications and protocols. Ad-hoc schedules in the updating phase might lead to a lot of ambiguity and issues. By separating the control and data planes and centralizing control, Software Defined Networking (SDN) offers novel opportunities and remedies for these issues. However, software-based centralized architecture for distributed environments introduces significant challenges. Security is a main and crucial issue in SDN. This paper presents a deep study of the state-of-the-art of security challenges and solutions for the SDN paradigm. The conducted study helped us to propose a dynamic approach to efficiently detect different security violations and incidents caused by network updates including forwarding loop, forwarding black hole, link congestion, network policy violation, etc. Our solution relies on an intelligent approach based on the use of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Algorithms.

In the world of information technology and the Internet, which has become a part of human life today and is constantly expanding, Attention to the users' requirements such as information security, fast processing, dynamic and instant access, and costs savings has become essential. The solution that is proposed for such problems today is a technology that is called cloud computing. Today, cloud computing is considered one of the most essential distributed tools for processing and storing data on the Internet. With the increasing using this tool, the need to schedule tasks to make the best use of resources and respond appropriately to requests has received much attention, and in this regard, many efforts have been made and are being made. To this purpose, various algorithms have been proposed to calculate resource allocation, each of which has tried to solve equitable distribution challenges while using maximum resources. One of these calculation methods is the DRF algorithm. Although it offers a better approach than previous algorithms, it faces challenges, especially with time-consuming resource allocation computing. These challenges make the use of DRF more complex than ever in the low number of requests with high resource capacity as well as the high number of simultaneous requests. This study tried to reduce the computations costs associated with the DRF algorithm for resource allocation by introducing a new approach to using this DRF algorithm to automate calculations by machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms (Autonomic Dominant Resource Fairness or A-DRF).

In contrast to traditional physical servers, a custom-built system utilizing a bare-metal hypervisor virtual server environment provides advantages of both cost savings and flexibility in terms of systems configuration. This system is designed to facilitate hands-on experience for Computer Science students, particularly those specializing in systems administration and computer networking. This multi-purpose and functional system uses an automatic advanced virtual server reservation system (AAVSRsv), written in C++, to schedule and manage virtual servers. The use of such a system could be extended to additional courses focusing on such topics as cloud computing, database systems, information assurance, as well as ethical hacking and system defense. The design can also be replicated to offer training sessions to other information technology professionals.

We build upon the clean-slate, holistic approach to the design of secure protocols for wireless ad-hoc networks proposed in part one. We consider the case when the nodes are not synchronized, but instead have local clocks that are relatively affine. In addition, the network is open in that nodes can enter at arbitrary times. To account for this new behavior, we make substantial revisions to the protocol in part one. We define a game between protocols for open, unsynchronized nodes and the strategies of adversarial nodes. We show that the same guarantees in part one also apply in this game: the protocol not only achieves the max-min utility, but the min-max utility as well. That is, there is a saddle point in the game, and furthermore, the adversarial nodes are effectively limited to either jamming or conforming with the protocol.

With the popularization of cloud computing and the deepening of its application, more and more cloud block storage systems have been put into use. The performance optimization of cloud block storage systems has become an important challenge facing today, which is manifested in the reduction of system performance caused by the unbalanced resource load of cloud block storage systems. Accurately predicting the I/O load status of the cloud block storage system can effectively avoid the load imbalance problem. However, the cloud block storage system has the characteristics of frequent random reads and writes, and a large amount of I/O requests, which makes prediction difficult. Therefore, we propose a novel I/O load prediction method for XB-IOPS feature engineering. The feature engineering is designed according to the I/O request pattern, I/O size and I/O interference, and realizes the prediction of the actual load value at a certain moment in the future and the average load value in the continuous time interval in the future. Validated on a real dataset of Alibaba Cloud block storage system, the results show that the XB-IOPS feature engineering prediction model in this paper has better performance in Alibaba Cloud block storage devices where random I/O and small I/O dominate. The prediction performance is better, and the prediction time is shorter than other prediction models.

With the rapid technological growth in the present context, Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted the worldwide attention and has become pivotal technology in the smart computing environment of 21st century. IoT provides a virtual view of real-life things in resource-constrained environment where security and privacy are of prime concern. Lightweight cryptography provides security solutions in resource-constrained environment of IoT. Several software and hardware implementation of lightweight ciphers have been presented by different researchers in this area. This paper presents a comparative analysis of several lightweight cryptographic solutions along with their pros and cons, and their future scope. The comparative analysis may further help in proposing a 32-bit ultra-lightweight block cipher security model for IoT enabled applications in the smart environment.

Despite the strict measures taken by authorities for children safety, crime against children is increasing. To curb this crime, it is important to improve the safety of children. School authorities can be severely penalized for these incidents, hence monitoring the school bus is significantly important in limiting these incidents. The developing worry of families for the security and insurance of their kids has started incredible interest in creating strong frameworks that give successful following and oversight of kids driving among home and school. Coordinated transport following permits youngsters to partake more in their normal schoolwork longer than trusting that a transport will be late with the assistance of notice and guarantees the security of every understudy. These days, reacting to the necessities existing apart from everything else, numerous instructive foundations have begun to push more towards a compelling global positioning framework of their vehicles that ensures the wellbeing of their understudies. Effective transport following is accomplished by procuring the geographic directions utilizing the GPS module and communicating the informationto a distant server. The framework depends on prepared to-utilize inactive RFID peruses. Make a message pop-up from the server script subsequent to checking the understudy's RFID tag be. The RFID examine exhibiting that the understudy boarded the vehicle to the specific trained professionals and the parent. Successful transport following permits school specialists, guardians, and drivers to precisely design their schedules while protecting kids from the second they get on until they get off the transport. The framework overall makes it conceivable to educate the administration regarding crises or protests. A variety of reports can be generated for different school-wide real-time bus and vehicle activities. This paper reviews the various smart security transport systems proposed for providing security features.

Agile methods frequently have difficulties with qualities, often specifying quality requirements as stories, e.g., "As a user, I need a safe and secure system." Such projects will generally schedule some capability releases followed by safety and security releases, only to discover user-developer misunderstandings and unsecurable agile code, leading to project failure. Very large agile projects also have further difficulties with project velocity and scalability. Examples are trying to use daily standup meetings, 2-week sprints, shared tacit knowledge vs. documents, and dealing with user-developer misunderstandings. At USC, our Parallel Agile, Executable Architecture research project shows some success at mid-scale (50 developers). We also examined several large (hundreds of developers) TRW projects that had succeeded with rapid, high-quality development. The paper elaborates on their common Critical Quality Factors: a concurrent 3-team approach, an empowered Keeper of the Project Vision, and a management approach emphasizing qualities.

Modern day grid operation requires multiple interlinked applications and many automated processes at control center for monitoring and operation of grid. Information technology integrated with operational technology plays a critical role in grid operation. Computing resource requirements of these software applications varies widely and includes high processing applications, high Input/Output (I/O) sensitive applications and applications with low resource requirements. Present day grid operation control center uses various applications for load despatch schedule management, various real-time analytics & optimization applications, post despatch analysis and reporting applications etc. These applications are integrated with Operational Technology (OT) like Data acquisition system / Energy management system (SCADA/EMS), Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) etc. This paper discusses various design considerations and implementation of converged infrastructure through virtualization technology by consolidation of servers and storages using multi-cluster approach to meet high availability requirement of the applications and achieve desired objectives of grid control center of north eastern region in India. The process involves weighing benefits of different architecture solution, grouping of application hosts, making multiple clusters with reliability and security considerations, and designing suitable infrastructure to meet all end objectives. Reliability, enhanced resource utilization, economic factors, storage and physical node selection, integration issues with OT systems and optimization of cost are the prime design considerations. Modalities adopted to minimize downtime of critical systems for grid operation during migration from the existing infrastructure and integration with OT systems of North Eastern Regional Load Despatch Center are also elaborated in this paper.

pubcrawl, Network on Chip Security, Scalability, resiliency, resilience, metrics, Tasks on NoC (Network-on-Chip) are less efficient because of long-distance data synchronization. An inefficient task schedule strategy can lead to a large number of remote data accessing that ruins the speedup of parallel execution of multiple tasks. Thus, we propose an energy efficient task schedule to reduce task traffic with a diffusional pattern. The task mapping algorithm can optimize traffic distribution by limit tasks into a small area to reduce NoC activities. Comparing to application-layer optimization, our task mapping can obtain 20% energy saving and 15% latency reduction on average.

The DES is a symmetric cryptosystem which encrypts data in blocks of 64 bits using 48 bit keys in 16 rounds. It comprises a key schedule, encryption and decryption components. The key schedule, in particular, uses three static component units, the PC-1, PC-2 and rotation tables. However, can these three static components of the key schedule be altered? The DES development team never explained most of these component units. Understanding the DES key schedule is, thus, hard. In addition, reproducing the DES model with unknown component units is challenging, making it hard to adapt and bring implementation of the DES model closer to novice developers' context. We propose an alternative approach for re-implementing the DES key schedule using, rather, dynamic instead of static tables. We investigate the design features of the DES key schedule and implement the same. We then propose a re-engineering view towards a more white-box design. Precisely, generation of the PC-1, rotation and PC-2 tables is revisited to random dynamic tables created at run time. In our views, randomly generated component units eliminate the feared concerns regarding perpetrators' possible knowledge of the internal structures of the static component units. Comparison of the performances of the hybrid DES key schedule to that of the original DES key schedule shows closely related outcomes, connoting the hybrid version as a good alternative to the original model. Memory usage and CPU time were measured. The hybrid insignificantly out-performs the original DES key schedule. This outcome may inspire further researches on possible alterations to other DES component units as well, bringing about completely white-box designs to the DES model.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) are becoming a part of our everyday life with a wide range of applications such as labeling products and supply chain management and etc. These smart and tiny devices have extremely constrained resources in terms of area, computational abilities, memory, and power. At the same time, security and privacy issues remain as an important problem, thus with the large deployment of low resource devices, increasing need to provide security and privacy among such devices, has arisen. Resource-efficient cryptographic incipient become basic for realizing both security and efficiency in constrained environments and embedded systems like RFID tags and sensor nodes. Among those primitives, lightweight block cipher plays a significant role as a building block for security systems. In 2014 Manoj Kumar et al proposed a new Lightweight block cipher named as FeW, which are suitable for extremely constrained environments and embedded systems. In this paper, we simulate and synthesize the FeW block cipher. Implementation results of the FeW cryptography algorithm on a FPGA are presented. The design target is efficiency of area and cost.

Considering the evidence that conditions accept a considerable place in each of the structures, owing to limited assets available at each sensor center, it is a difficult problem. Vitality safety is the primary concern in many of the implementations in remote sensor hubs. This is critical as the improvement in the lifetime of the device depends primarily on restricting the usage of vitality in sensor hubs. The rationing and modification of the usage of vitality are of the most serious value in this context. In a remote sensor arrangement, the fundamental test is to schedule measurements for the least use of vitality. These classification frameworks are used to frame the classes in the structure and help efficiently use the strength that burdens out the lifespan of the network. Besides, the degree of the center was taken into account in this work considering the measurement of cluster span as an improvement to the existing methods. The crucial piece of leeway of this suggested approach on affair clustering using fuzzy logic is which can increase the lifespan of the system by reducing the problem area problem word.

Concurrency programs often induce buggy results due to the unexpected interaction among threads. The detection of these concurrency bugs costs a lot because they usually appear under a specific execution trace. How to virtually explore different thread schedules to detect concurrency bugs efficiently is an important research topic. Many techniques have been proposed, including lightweight techniques like adaptive randomized scheduling (ARS) and heavyweight techniques like maximal causality reduction (MCR). Compared to heavyweight techniques, ARS is efficient in exploring different schedulings and achieves state-of-the-art performance. However, it will lead to explore large numbers of redundant thread schedulings, which will reduce the efficiency. Moreover, it suffers from the “cold start” issue, when little information is available to guide the distance calculation at the beginning of the exploration. In this work, we propose a Heuristic-Enhanced Adaptive Randomized Scheduling (HARS) algorithm, which improves ARS to detect concurrency bugs guided with novel distance metrics and heuristics obtained from existing research findings. Compared with the adaptive randomized scheduling method, it can more effectively distinguish the traces that may contain concurrency bugs and avoid redundant schedules, thus exploring diverse thread schedules effectively. We conduct an evaluation on 45 concurrency Java programs. The evaluation results show that our algorithm performs more stably in terms of effectiveness and efficiency in detecting concurrency bugs. Notably, HARS detects hard-to-expose bugs more effectively, where the buggy traces are rare or the bug triggering conditions are tricky.

In this work, we examine the following question: How can we improve the best data complexity among the impossible differential (ID) attacks on AES? One of the most efficient attacks on AES are ID attacks. We have seen that the Biham-Keller ID characteristics are frequently used in these ID attacks. We observe the following fact: The probability that a given pair with a wrong key produce an ID characteristic is closely correlated to the data usage negatively. So, we maximize this probability by exploiting a Biham-Keller ID characteristic in a different manner than the other attacks. As a result, we mount an ID attack on 7-round AES-192 and obtain the best data requirement among all the ID attacks on 7-round AES. We make use of only 2$^\textrm58$ chosen plaintexts.

Block ciphers are one of the most fundamental building blocks for information and network security. In recent years, the need for lightweight ciphers has dramatically been increased due to their wide use in low-cost cryptosystems, wireless networks and resource-constrained embedded devices including RFIDs, sensor nodes, smart cards etc. In this paper, an efficient lightweight architecture for RECTANGLE block cipher has been proposed. The architecture is suitable for extremely hardware-constrained environments and multiple platforms due to its support of bit-slice technique. The proposed architecture has been synthesized and implemented on Xilinx Virtex-5 xc5vlx110t-1ff1136 field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. Implementation results have been presented and compared with the existing architectures and have shown commensurable performance. Also, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) implementation of the architecture is done on SCL 180 nm CMOS technology where it consumes 2362 gate equivalent (GE).

Local flexibility markets are a concept to integrate distributed flexibilities such as power-to-gas, power-to-heat systems, electric vehicles, and battery storage systems into congestion management of distribution and transmission grids. However, the activation of the flexibility of storage systems changes their state-of-charge and thus reduces their available flexibility. Counter-trading or compensation of activated flexibility in later points of time lets storage operators regain flexibility. However, this compensation might create or amplify congestions when not supervised by system operators. Therefore, we propose the inclusion of compensation within the flexibility market clearing process by system operators. We further develop a linear formulation of flexibility market bids by storage systems that takes the need for compensation into account. For this, first, the operational planning formulation of a storage system is expanded by flexibility market participation. Subsequently, the linear formulation of bids is derived and demonstrated.

The exponential growth in the number of mobile devices, combined with the rapid demand for wireless services, has steadily stressed the wireless spectrum, calling for new techniques to improve spectrum utilization. A geo-location database has been proposed as a viable solution for wireless users to determine spectrum availability in cognitive radio networks. The protocol used by secondary users (SU) to request spectral availability for a specific location, time and duration, may reveal confidential information about these users. In this paper, we focus on SUs' location privacy in database-enabled wireless networks and propose a framework to address this threat. The basic tenet of the framework is obfuscation, whereby channel requests for valid locations are interwoven with requests for fake locations. Traffic redirection is also used to deliberately confuse potential query monitors from inferring users' location information. Within this framework, we propose two privacy-preserving schemes. The Master Device Enabled Location Privacy Preserving scheme utilizes trusted master devices to prevent leaking information of SUs' locations to attackers. The Crowd Sourced Location Privacy Preserving scheme builds a guided tour of randomly selected volunteers to deliver users channel availability queries and ensure location privacy. Security analysis and computational and communication overhead of these schemes are discussed.

Objective measures are ubiquitous in the formulation, design and implementation of deep space missions. Tour durations, flyby altitudes, propellant budgets, power consumption, and other metrics are essential to developing and managing NASA missions. But beyond the simple metrics of cost and workforce, it has been difficult to identify objective, quantitative measures that assist in evaluating choices made during formulation or implementation phases in terms of their impact on flight operations. As part of the development of the Europa Clipper Mission system, a set of operations metrics have been defined along with the necessary design information and software tooling to calculate them. We have applied these methods and metrics to help assess the impact to the flight team on the six options for the Clipper Tour that are currently being vetted for selection in the fall of 2021. To generate these metrics, the Clipper MOS team first designed the set of essential processes by which flight operations will be conducted, using a standard approach and template to identify (among other aspects) timelines for each process, along with their time constraints (e.g., uplinks for sequence execution). Each of the resulting 50 processes is documented in a common format and concurred by stakeholders. Process timelines were converted into generic schedules and workforce-loaded using COTS scheduling software, based on the inputs of the process authors and domain experts. Custom code was generated to create an operations schedule for a specific portion of Clipper's prime mission, with instances of a given process scheduled based on specific timing rules (e.g., process X starts once per week on Thursdays) or relative to mission events (e.g., sequence generation process begins on a Monday, at least three weeks before each Europa closest approach). Over a 5-month period, and for each of six Clipper candidate tours, the result was a 20,000+ line, workforce-loaded schedule that documents all of the process-driven work effort at the level of individual roles, along with a significant portion of the level-of-effort work. Post-processing code calculated the absolute and relative number of work hours during a nominal 5 day / 40 hour work week, the work effort during 2nd and 3rd shift, as well as 1st shift on weekends. The resultant schedules and shift tables were used to generate objective measures that can be related to both human factors and to operational risk and showed that Clipper tours which utilize 6:1 resonant (21.25 day) orbits instead of 4:1 resonant (14.17 day) orbits during the first dozen or so Europa flybys are advantageous to flight operations. A similar approach can be extended to assist missions in more objective assessments of a number of mission issues and trades, including tour selection and spacecraft design for operability.

Demand response has emerged as one of the most promising methods for the deployment of sustainable energy systems. Attempts to democratize demand response and establish programs for residential consumers have run into scalability issues and risks of leaking sensitive consumer data. In this work, we propose a privacy-friendly, incentive-based demand response market, where consumers offer their flexibility to utilities in exchange for a financial compensation. Consumers submit encrypted offer which are aggregated using Computation Over Encrypted Data to ensure consumer privacy and the scalability of the approach. The optimal allocation of flexibility is then determined via double-auctions, along with the optimal consumption schedule for the users with respect to the day-ahead electricity prices, thus also shielding participants from high electricity prices. A case study is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Protection of information achieves keeping confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data. These features are essential for the proper operation of modern industrial technologies, like Smart Grid. The complex grid system integrates many electronic devices that provide an efficient way of exploiting the power systems but cause many problems due to their vulnerabilities to attacks. The aim of the work is to propose a solution to the privacy problem in Smart Grid communication network between the customers and Control center. It consists in using the relatively new cryptographic task - quantum key distribution (QKD). The solution is based on choosing an appropriate quantum key distribution method out of all the conventional ones by performing an assessment in terms of several parameters. The parameters are: key rate, operating distances, resources, and trustworthiness of the devices involved. Accordingly, we discuss an answer to the privacy problem of the SG network with regard to both security and resource economy.

The following topics are dealt with: formal verification; formal specification; cyber-physical systems; program verification; mobile robots; control engineering computing; temporal logic; security of data; Internet of Things; traffic engineering computing.

KYC or Know Your Customer is the procedure to verify the individuality of its consumers & evaluating the possible dangers of illegitimate trade relations. A few problems with the existing KYC manual process are that it is less secure, time-consuming and expensive. With the advent of Blockchain technology, its structures such as consistency, security, and geographical diversity make them an ideal solution to such problems. Although marketing solutions such as KYC-chain.co, K-Y-C. The legal right to enable blockchain-based KYC authentication provides a way for documents to be verified by a trusted network participant. This project uses an ETHereum based Optimised KYC Block-chain system with uniform A-E-S encryption and compression built on the LZ method. The system publicly verifies a distributed encryption, is protected by cryptography, operates by pressing the algorithm and is all well-designed blockchain features. The suggested scheme is a novel explanation based on Distributed Ledger Technology or Blockchain technology that would cut KYC authentication process expenses of organisations & decrease the regular schedule for completion of the procedure whilst becoming easier for clients. The largest difference in the system in traditional methods is the full authentication procedure is performed in just no time for every client, regardless of the number of institutions you desire to be linked to. Furthermore, since DLT is employed, validation findings may be securely distributed to consumers, enhancing transparency. Based on this method, a Proof of Concept (POC) is produced with Ethereum's API, websites as endpoints and the android app as the front office, recognising the viability and efficacy of this technique. Ultimately, this strategy enhances consumer satisfaction, lowers budget overrun & promotes transparency in the customer transport network.

Demand-side management (DSM) plays a significant function in the smart distribution system to make informed decisions from both the consumer and supplier side with regards to energy consumption to redesign the load profile and to decrease the peak load demand. This study extensively reviews the demand-side management (DSM) strategies along with both demand response and energy efficiency policies. The major objective of this paper is to enumerate the relevant features responsible to strengthen the DSM effectively, particularly for residential energy demand and the limits to energy indicators. Secondly, the large untapped and hidden potential and the associated barriers to energy efficiency enhancement are focused and surveyed for formulating a better number of potential policy responses. This further explores the portfolio approach with bundled strategies to reflect on the power market through enhancing the strength of individual residential measures through complementary policies to reduce the weaknesses. This concludes at last with the findings of possible holistic measures related to various approaches and attributes findings that reinforce the DSM strategies to enhance energy management and cost-effectiveness. Apart from that the architecture, formulation of optimization problems, and various approaches are presented to help the readers to develop research in this direction to maximize the total system peak demand, overall load factor, and utility revenue with the minimized customer electric bill.