Recent Advances in Communications and Networking Technology (Formerly Recent Patents on Telecommunication) (Discontinued) - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2016

Healthcare IT applications (e.g., real-time location systems (RTLS)) are increasingly dependent on positional data. Such systems typically combine unique identifiers, metadata, and optional sensor data with position-derived data. Position can be an absolute or relative location. Real-time and historical change of position over the time leads to data such as speed, velocity, directional acceleration, and dwell time at a particular location. Technology such as global positioning system (GPS), radio frequency identification (RFID), near field communication (NFC), wireless local area network (WLAN) triangulation, mobile phone tower tracking, distributed sensor networks (DSN), and distributed readers (e.g., RFID, bar code) generate this data. IT systems and big data they generate track objects and people, and are beginning to develop behavioral models. These in turn can be used to influence processes and people through layered applications such as real time personalized advertising, security, and autonomous mobility. This paper organizes and analyzes recent patent advances combining sensors, short range wireless, unique identifiers, and IT for position-based healthcare applications along with the future of Smart Wearables and internet of things (IoT), for healthcare applications.

Background: Routing in opportunistic networks is subject to attacks such as blackhole and grayhole attacks. A blackhole attack is a type of attack where the malicious node called blackhole node attracts all the data packets by using a forged route to falsely claim that it has a shortest route to the destination, then drops all the data packets that it receives. On the other hand, a greyhole attack is a kind of denial of service attack where a malicious node in the network acts as a normal node, causing eaves dropping and selective forwarding. Blackhole and greyhole attacks in opportunistic networks have been extensively studied in the literature and several defence mechanisms against those attacks have been proposed. This paper adds a novel contribution to this problem by proposing a novel secured protocol (so-called SHBPR) against such attacks. Objective: The objective of this paper is to propose a novel design of a secure routing protocol to defend against blackhole and greyhole attacks in opportunistic networks. Method: The proposed method relies on our recently proposed History Based Routing scheme for Opportunistic Networks (HBPR), which uses the behavioral information of the nodes to make predictions about their movements in the network. This predicted information is used to find and select the best next hop node that can contribute to route the message to the destination based on an utility metric. The protection against blackhole and grayhole attacks is achieved by means of two phases, namely, the training phase and testing phase. In the training phase, all the nodes show normal behavior, i.e. there is no blackhole or greyhole node present in the network. At the end of this phase, each node calculates its average forwarding time and floods it in the network. In the testing phase, blackhole and greyhole nodes are introduced and their detection depends on the trust factors and deviation from the ideal forwarding time respectively. Results: The performance of SHBPR is evaluated using the Opportunistic Network Environment (ONE) simulator, under varying the number of nodes, varying the number of malicious nodes, and varying the message generation interval, considering the number of messages delivered, the number of messages dropped, the average detection time, and the number of false positives as performance metrics. The results obtained show that our proposed SHBPR outperforms the HBPR protocol (chosen as benchmark) in terms of messages delivered, messages dropped, number of malicious nodes detected, and average detection time. In addition, the proposed protocol is effective even when the number of messages propagated in the network is reduced. Conclusion: In this paper, a secure HBPR protocol (called SHBPR) is introduced, which can be used to mitigate blackhole and greyholes attacks in opportunistic networks. A trust factor and a deviation from the average forwarding time of nodes are used as patterns to detect the blackholes and greyholes respectively.

Background: Embedded systems are small computing devices which are designed to perform a specific task with real-time computing and resource constraints. To meet the demands of industries and real-time applications, embedded systems are networked delivering the real-time results to required entities and make itself available to server entities. Due to the connectivity nature of embedded systems, they are placed in remote environments where embedded systems use third party service tool to connect to the external world. The connectivity and resource constraints make embedded systems susceptible to various attacks like Denial of Service (DOS) attack, Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) attacks, spoofing attack and many more while updating or retrieving data from embedded systems. Objective: To address these problems, we present securing the JTAG port with external security module, and enhancing the security features of Universal Measurement and Calibration Protocol (XCP) using various cryptographic methods. Method: The novelty of this approach is not in the individual solutions but the overall collective solution where it restricts attackers gaining access to embedded system to update false firmware or retrieve the contents of embedded systems using JTAG port or spoof the data exchanging between devices. We present a software, hardware and device level security analysis in order to eliminate vulnerabilities and secure embedded system from different kinds of attacks. Conclusion: The result from this work will give a comprehensive awareness of different cryptographic algorithms and its application and compatibility in embedded systems and also enhancing embedded systems with different existing technologies.

Background: As it is known that the access network is very sensitive to the cost, and the number of remote nodes (RNs) is large in metro-access network. RN cost occupies the main part of the whole network cost. Objective: Therefore, reducing the cost of RN is the key to improve the cost efficiency of the whole network. Method: In this paper, we only use some conventional optical components, such as optical switches, circulators and couplers, to design a simple low-cost structure of remote node (RN) for large-scale metro- access network based on dual-fiber ring. Results: By adopting symmetrical structure of RN in this design, the network cannot only carry out mutual protections between dual fibers, but also further decreases its operation and maintenance costs. In addition, the RN based on the structure has also the function of broadcasting services. Conclusion: Finally, feasibility of the structure has been demonstrated by simulation and analysis.

The aim is to compute the time delay between the set of measurements in each of two or more Spectrum Analyzers using a linear relation between two dimensions (power and time). This method of time measurement implies to input in each Spectrum Analyzer two identical and synchronized Amplitude Shift Keying signals, each one modulated by a square wave of duty cycle of 50%. It is also valid with Direct Current. Instead of an input of an Amplitude Shift Keying signal (Radio Frequency /Microwaves) a square wave is input and the power is measured with a Direct Current power meter with trigger.