Legitimate Communication Research Articles

Securing OFDM-Based NOMA SWIPT Systems

In this paper, we present a physical-layer security scheme that exploits artificial noise (AN) to secure the downlink legitimate communications and transfer energy to nodes operating under non-cooperative non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA) scenario. The nodes employ a joint time-switching and power-switching scheme to maximize the harvested energy. We provide necessary analysis and derivations for the optimization parameters and find the optimized transmission parameters that maximize the minimum secrecy rate among users while meeting constraints on minimum transferred energy and outage probabilities at the nodes through an exhaustive grid-based search. Our analysis and simulations prove the feasibility of securing the communication among NOMA nodes, while transferring energy and meeting outage probability constraints.

Political Authenticity: Conceptualization of a Popular Term

Authenticity is a prominent concept in current political discourse. Its popularity in political communication has also inspired a growing but still fragmented body of research in communication science. Since this field lacks an integrative conceptualization, this article aims to clarify political authenticity for academic discourse and as a research object for communication science. The article provides a narrative review of research on authenticity in political communication and proposes an understanding of political authenticity as a social construction which is created and negotiated in complex communication processes among politicians, the media, and the audience. I propose performed, mediated, and perceived political authenticity as three analytic perspectives to deconstruct these complex processes and to link political authenticity with media and communication literature. Finally, I derive four dimensions of political authenticity (consistency, intimacy, ordinariness, and immediacy) and corresponding indicators that will help to operationalize it as a strategy by politicians, a product from mediation processes, and as an audience perception.

To thine communication partner be true: The effect of presentation consistency on perceived authenticity and liking after making a first impression online

This experiment examines the effects of presentation consistency on perceived authenticity and liking in computer-mediated communication, differentiating between profile views and short online text-based conversations. The experimental design is a 2 (presentation-consistent vs. -inconsistent) × 2 (profile view vs. short conversation) between-subjects experiment using university students (N = 173) in Singapore. Results show higher perceived authenticity (η2p = .29) and liking (η2p = .16) after short conversations than after profile views without conversations. When there is only a profile view, perceived authenticity is lower when the profile photo is inconsistent with the profile text than when it is consistent (η2p = .05). We discuss these findings in terms of schema tuning, where presentation inconsistencies can be accommodated over time as individuals develop unique mental schemas about their communication partners.

Policy on Rapid Network Deployment

The government of South Africa has issued a draft policy to accelerate network deployment. The legal basis is to be the Electronic Communications Act (ECA), but the policy intrudes into areas of property ownership and the powers of municipalities. Consequently, there would be no legal basis for the regulations it is asking the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to draw up. Moreover, the government is proposing to strip property owners of their rights under section 25 of the Constitution by allowing network operators to construct towers, install masts, lay underground cables and string aerial cables. The powers of municipalities are to be taken away, again in violation of the Constitution, by constraining their charges for wayleaves to administrative costs. The likely outcome is not to accelerate network deployment, but to cause delays while this is fought out in the courts.

A Power-Efficient and Secure Communication Scheme in Satellite Communication

Resource is very limited in satellite communications, thus issues on security and power-efficiency in satellite communications have aroused extensive attention in recent years. In this paper, we have proposed a transmission scheme in satellite communication systems, which is secure and power-efficient. The binary bit sequence is encrypted prior to the modulation step, thus achieving security. The security analysis is based upon the Wyner wiretap model. In the wiretap model, the transmitter attempts to send messages to the legitimate receiver, meanwhile the eavesdropper is passively wiretapping. The legitimate receiver is assumed to have a good knowledge of the secret keys, so he can recover the original signal. However, the eavesdropper experiences severe interference and cannot mitigate it. The secrecy performance is measured by the secrecy rate. The secrecy rate is the rate difference between the legitimate communication and the illegal communication. Security of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by the mathematical analysis and Monte-Carlo simulations. In addition, the key space and the time needed to crack the secret keys are also calculated. The analysis results illustrate that the proposed scheme can provide a substantial security enhancement to the satellite communication system, meanwhile achieves power-efficiency.

Access and Use of Information by Rural Communities in Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) of Kenya: the Case of Maarifa Centres

Telecentres are community knowledge centres that offer shared access to information and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the benefit of community development in alleviation of poverty. This article presents a case study that explored the extent to which rural communities in ASALs region of Kenya access and use information from the Maarifa centres (MC). The objective was to examine access and use pattern of information by ASAL communities benefiting from the MC. Using a multiple case study, 80 respondents drawn from five Maarifa centres were interviewed. The respondents were users of the respective Maarifa centres. The Maarifa centres selected were namely; Nguruman MC in Magadi, Mutomo MC in Kitui, Isinya MC in Kajiado, Ng’arua MC in Laikipia and Sipili MC in Baringo. Further, five focus group discussions were conducted with the respondents. Key informants interviewed included, Director of Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN); Programme Coordinators of Maarifa centres; Officers of the Communication Authority of Kenya and the ICT board of Kenya. Major findings indicate that rural communities appreciate Maarifa centres as a source of information. The respondents valued Maarifa centres as intermediaries for accessing information for socio-economic development. The biggest achievement is the use of Sokopepe, an online knowledge management platform which can be accessed through computers or the mobile phone. The challenges that hinder effective access and use of information are mainly infrastructural which slow down information uptake and internet access. The study revealed that Maarifa centres have addressed most of the community’s information needs of government information through access to e-government services; e-commerce, agricultural development and knowledge creation, resulting in improved livelihoods. Provision of these services was possible through collaboration of the government ministries and agencies, development partners, funding agencies and community participation. Keywords: Telecentres, Information access, Knowledge management, ASALs DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-5-04 Publication date: August 31 st 2020

VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEM BASED ON NAVIGATIONAL UNITS IN CASE OF VEHICLE ACCIDENTS

When we focusing Emergency response system based on navigational units vulnerability to intentional interference and an opportunity incentive to attackers who wants to fool or impair Emergency response system based on navigational units especially smartphones and drones then Spoofing interference is a considerably powerful attack than jamming cause of jammer attacks block GNSS legitimate communication signals immediately on several receivers this arise mitigation strategy and counter measures for efficient jamming detection before damages are done. However, spoofing attack is most dangerous type of interference where produces GNSS like signals and fool receiver without interrupting GNSS operations where receiver navigation system is not able to do any counter measures until the fatal point. Positioning unit for all applications are not immune to this kind of attacks. Form a general perspective, a positioning unit is made of several sensors providing the actual position information, with the GNSS sensor playing a core role, being usually the only one providing an absolute estimation of the position, and others aiding or refining such information.

A Provably Secure and Lightweight Identity-Based Two-Party Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol for IIoT Environments

With the significant development of the Internet, Internet of Things (IoT) has become an emerging technology in many industries. To support security and privacy in the Industrial IoT environment, a user may interact with another user on the Internet to share confidential information, which requires an authenticated communication channel. To meet this demand, in this article the authors developed an identity-based two-party authenticated key agreement (ID-2PAKA) protocol that allows two users to communicate securely and share sensitive data across IoT-enabled regions. Similar protocols found in the literature either proven to be insecure or carry the burden of high communication and computational costs. The proposed ID-2PAKA protocol is analyzed in the random oracle model to achieve provable security based on the hardness assumptions of computational Diffie-Hellman and bilinear Diffie-Hellman problems. The performance analysis of the proposed ID-2PAKA protocol is performed using the pairing-based cryptography library. The comparative results from the perspective of the computation and communication costs against the competing protocols showed that the proposed ID-2PAKA protocol is secure and efficient.

Flow based monitoring of ICS communication in the smart grid

A smart grid network is a part of critical infrastructure, and its interruption or blackout may cause fatal consequences on energy production, distribution, and eventually lives of people. Smart grid networks can be a target of cyber attacks coming from the outside or the inside of the network. Traditional smart grid protection includes firewalls and IDS/IPS devices that are usually deployed on edges of the network where they inspect incoming and outgoing traffic. This approach is adequate to cope with external threats. In case of internal threats caused by, for instance, the malware infecting the control station, it is not easy to detect malicious activity commonly masked as legitimate communication at the network edge. For the successful identification of cyber security attacks, two essential elements are necessary.The first is the visibility of the Industrial Control System (ICS) communication, which enables a smart grid operator to see real-time transmissions in the network. The second important part is an anomaly detection system that analyzes monitoring data and identifies possible cyber security attacks. This paper presents a novel system for monitoring ICS/SCADA protocols based on IP flows extended with application layer data obtained from ICS packet headers. The monitoring system provides an in-depth insight into ICS communication. By applying statistical-based methods or creating communication profiles using probabilistic automata, common security attacks, as well as unknown threats, can be identified. The proposed approach is demonstrated on IEC 60870-5-104 communication.

IRS-Based Wireless Jamming Attacks: When Jammers Can Attack Without Power

This paper proposes to use Intelligent Reflecting Surface (IRS) as a green jammer to attack a legitimate communication without using any internal energy to generate jamming signals. In particular, the IRS is used to intelligently reflect the signals from the legitimate transmitter to the legitimate receiver (LR) to guarantee that the received signals from direct and reflecting links can be added destructively, which thus diminishes the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) at the LR. To minimize the received signal power at the LR, we consider the joint optimization of magnitudes of reflection coefficients and discrete phase shifts at the IRS. Based on the block coordinate descent, semidefinite relaxation, and Gaussian randomization techniques, the solution can be obtained efficiently. Through simulation results, we show that by using the IRS-based jammer, we can reduce the signal power received at the LR by up to 99\%. Interestingly, the performance of the proposed IRS-based jammer is even better than that of the conventional active jamming attacks in some scenarios.

Lightweight Batch AKA Scheme for User-Centric Ultra-Dense Networks

Ultra-dense networks (UDN) are considered as one of the key technologies for advancing the widespread deployment of 5G networks. To provide continuous and reliable connectivity to user devices and to achieve the integrity and authenticity of communication, UDN needs to address the challenges related to authentication and authorization of information. Existing authentication and key agreement (AKA) schemes are not appropriate for the ultra-dense deployment of access points due to excessive authentication and/or computation overhead. This paper proposes a novel lightweight batch authentication and key agreement (LBAKA) scheme for user-centric UDN scenarios by adopting lightweight batch authentication solution and one-to-one key agreement, and by using mutual authentication to verify the credibility of both sides of the communication. The proposed LBAKA can maintain privacy of identity information under replay, impersonation and man-in-the-middle attacks in user-centric UDNs. In terms of computation and communication overhead, our simulation results show that LBAKA outperforms other similar schemes in user-centric UDNs.

Mitigating NDN-Based Fake Content Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks

In this work, we address the problem of Named Data Networking (NDN)-based fake content dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks (OMNs), where nodes have intermittent connectivity and typically lack in end-to-end communication paths. It is important to mitigate the dissemination of such fake contents not only because they waste bandwidth for legitimate communication, but also because such files can be harmful for devices. However, the inherent characteristics of OMNs make such mitigation a challenging task. In this context, we consider a group of nodes, Fake Content Providers (FCPs), who, on receiving content requests, respond with fake contents, rather than the real version. In particular, we consider four different behaviors of the FCPs—referred to as threat scenarios—depending on whether or not they always respond to all requests with fake contents. We analyze these distinct threat scenarios, and characterize the relative performance degradation arising because of them. To mitigate the adverse effects of FCPs, we propose two schemes, wherein the identified FCPs are blacklisted permanently or temporarily, and communication with them is restricted. Results of simulation-based experiments using real-life connection traces show that, compared to the normal scenario with no FCP, the percentage of content requests satisfied decreases by 20–40 percent in the presence of 40 percent FCPs in the OMN. Moreover, in the same scenario, the average latency of content satisfaction relatively increases by up to 176 percent with respect to the normal scenario. However, on using the proposed mitigation schemes, the latency can be reduced by about 13–36 percent together with up to 9 percent improvement in the number of interests satisfied.

Secrecy capacity against adaptive eavesdroppers in a random wireless network using friendly jammers and protected zone

In this paper, we consider deceptive friendly jammers in a half-duplex random wireless network against a group of adaptive eavesdroppers. The destinations, eavesdroppers and friendly jammers are distributed according to homogeneous Poisson point process (HPPP). To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study such a system model. As we may combine hostile jamming and passive eavesdropping, the secrecy of legitimate communication might be compromised. To combat this and improve secrecy of transmission, a group of friendly jammers thus transmit a source-like signal to deceive the eavesdroppers and try to force them to be passive listeners as much as possible. We derive the secrecy capacity for this scenario. The secrecy performance is evaluated for different parameters and with a secrecy protected zone surrounding the source. Performance evaluation through illustrative numerical results demonstrates that the friendly jammers can enhance the secrecy of a random wireless network. The advantages of friendly jammers are particularly prominent if the secrecy protected zone is very small and/or the node intensity of the destinations is low. The results show that the friendly jammers can restore the secrecy in a hostile environment if sufficient friendly jammers (e.g., 0.01 km−2 for the provided system model) are hired.

New Analytical Channel Allocation Methodology for Multichannel Multi-Radio Wireless Networks

In wireless technologies, jamming attack is a main Research problem in multichannel multi-radio as they block communication in wireless networks. Malicious nodes block legitimate communication through jamming attacks that causes intentional interference. This paper presents the problem of jamming attack in multichannel multi-radio wireless network. First, Allocated the channel in Randomized manner and measure the Entropy rate. Second, defined the channel capacity. Third determined noiseless channel. Furthermore, Find the responses from channel and compare Response channel (H(S/R)) with Noise less channel (T). If H(S/R) ∈ T, Then to select the channel otherwise to reject the channel and assign (H(S/R)) = Attack. Finally, Based on the jammer detection algorithm, the result is compared with cyclic spectral analysis. But the proposed algorithm computation process is very simple than cyclic spectral analysis algorithm and Cyclostationary.Based jammer Detection Algorithm.

Joint relay and jammer selection for secure cooperative networks with a full‐duplex active eavesdropper

In this study, the authors investigate the secure transmission of a cooperative network, in which a source communicates with a destination via multiple cooperative nodes in the presence of a full-duplex active eavesdropper, which can intercept the confidential signals and transmit jamming signals simultaneously. To safeguard the security of legitimate communication, two joint relay and jammer selection schemes are proposed according to the availability of the eavesdropper's channel state information, namely, optimal relay and random jammer selection scheme and optimal relay and optimal jammer selection scheme. The authors first derive the exact closed-form expressions of the secrecy outage probability (SOP) for different selection schemes. Aiming at minimising SOP, they then adopt the deep feedforward neural network to determine the optimal power allocation between the selected relay and jammer. Further, the asymptotic expressions for SOP in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime are derived. Numerical results verify the analysis and demonstrate the performance advantage of the proposed scheme over conventional relay selection scheme with optimal power allocation.

An efficient approach for secured communication in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor network (WSN) have limited bandwidth, low computational functions, energy constraints. Inspite of these constraints, WSN is useful where communication happens without infrastructure support. The main concern of WSN is the security as the sensor nodes may be attacked and information may be hacked. Security of WSN should have the capability to ensure that the message received was sent by the particular sent node and not modified during transmission. WSN applications require lightweight and strong authentication mechanisms for obtaining data from unprivileged users. In wireless sensor networks, authentication is the effective method to stop unauthorized and undisrupted communication service. In order to strengthen the authenticated communication, several researchers have developed mechanisms. Some of the techniques work with identifying the attacked node or detecting injected bogus message in the network. Encryption and decryption are the popular methods of providing the security. These are based on either public-key or symmetric-key cryptosystems Many of the existing solutions have limitations in communication and computational expertise. Also, the existing mechanisms lack in providing strength and scalability of the network. In order address these issues; a polynomial based method was introduced in recent days. Key distribution is a significant aspect in key management in WSNs. The simplest method of distribution of key is by hand which was used in the days of couriers. Now a days, most distribution of keys is done automatically. The automatic distribution of keys is essential and convenient in networks that require two parties to transmit their security keys in the same communication medium. In this work, a new type of key exchange mechanism is proposed. The proposed method for authentication among sensor nodes proves to be promising as per the simulation results. The nodes which are unknown to each other setup a private however arbitrary key for the symmetric key cryptosystem.

Information specificity, social topic awareness and message authenticity in CSR communication

PurposeThis paper explores how companies can improve consumer attitudes towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages and companies by designing the content of the message, which should provide specific information and improve social topic awareness among consumers. The paper also explores the mediating role of message authenticity between the CSR message content and consumer attitudes towards the information and the company.Design/methodology/approach302 participants evaluated the website of a fictitious company that included information about its CSR activities. The authors collected data through a questionnaire of Likert-type and dichotomous scales and contrasted the hypotheses with a causal model, analysing the relationships among variables through structural equation modelling (SEM) with the software EQS 6.1.FindingsThe findings suggest that information specificity and social topic awareness improve consumer perceptions of message authenticity. The findings also show that message authenticity improves consumer trust and attitudes towards the information and the company. Attitude towards the information, message authenticity and social topic awareness show the largest impacts on trust and attitude towards the company, while information specificity also has a positive although smaller effect.Originality/valueIntegrating information specificity and social topic awareness within the conceptual model presented in this paper, based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) and attribution theory, allows researchers and practitioners to close the gap between companies' CSR activities and consumers' perceptions, attitudes and behaviours.

Blockchain technology impact HR hiring and off-boarding practices in the Telco sector in Hong Kong

A Deloitte (2016) survey report states that blockchain technology can have an impact on the telecommunications industry in preventing fraud, identifying as-a-service and data management, 5G enabling, and IoT connectivity. For example, fraud costs more than USD 38 billion a year. In a panel of industry experts, Carrier Industry is looking for ways to cut costs, boost revenues, and market segments through blockchain technology (Total Telecom, 2018). Blockchain is treated as a breakthrough technology for managing the operation of telecommunications such as identity management, smart contracts, payments and transactions, reporting and analysis, network management, billing / OSS, etc. A statistical analysis shows that blockchain in telecommunications and postal services in 2017 amounted to more than USD 39 million and is expected to achieve an estimate of more than USD 641 million by 2023-end, suggesting powerful market growth over the next few years (Market Research Future Report, 2018). Since carriers apply telecom standards to run its business and operations, and thus blockchain technology, a high secure of distributed ledger and trust processes to solve the high traffics. According to a survey by IBM Institute for Business Value (2018), it states that 36 percent of Communication Service Providers (CSP) are already considering or actively engaged with blockchain, 41 percent of CSP may support their strategy by assuring data management, and 46 percent of CSP are already exploring or engaging with blockchain and already invested in it to develop new business models. Carriers in telecommunications Industry Hong Kong are mainly private-owned, and thus they must follow the Telecommunication Ordinance (Cap. 106) governed by Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) of HKSAR. Telecommunications services such as fixed-line, internet broadband and mobile service support business and residential customers. Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings Ltd (HTHK) and Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (HKBN) are selected by this study as a number of operators (fixed-line and broadband, mobile, or a mix of both fixed-line, broadband and mobile). HKT (Stock Code: SEHK: 6823), is the major operator to meet the needs of public, local and international businesses with a wide range of services such as local telephony, local data and broadband, international communications, mobile service and enterprise solutions. HKT employs approximately 17,400 staff, the headquarters are located in Hong Kong, and telecommunications network covers more than 3,000 cities and 140 countries (HKT, 2019) Hutchison Telecommunications Holdings Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: SEHK215), conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings, is the leading operator provides mobile service in Hong Kong and Macau. HTHK employs 1,180 staff and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HTHK, 2019). Hong Kong Broadband Network, Stock Code: SEHK: 1310), is the foremost operator provides broadband service to commerce and residential customers. HKBN is an aggressive operator with merger and acquisition with New World Telecommunications in February 2016 and WTT Holding Ltd in February 2019. HKBN employs approximately 3,000 staff, and the headquarters are located in Hong Kong (HKBN, 2019). An example of two dominating carrier representatives, Marc Halbfinger, Chief Executive Officer of PCCW Global (subsidiary of HKT) and the Chairman of the GLF, and Andrew Kwok, CEO of Hutchison Global Telecommunications (ex-mega conglomerate of CK Hutchison Holdings sold to Asia Cube Global in Jul 2017) partnering with Colt Technologies Service to conduct trial blockchain technology to re-shape business practices (Colt Technology News, 2018). Other example of blockchain, HKT and PCCW obtained a virtual banking license in early 2019 to expand finance business (South China Morning Post, 2019). Given examples of operators actively study on blockchain technology to its core business and the role of blockchain plays a tremendous role in telecommunications landscape. The research paper is focussed on blockchain/blockchain technology impact to Human Resources hiring and off-boarding practices in telecommunications sector in Hong Kong.

Organizational Learning and Strategic Positioning in Telecommunication Industry in Kenya

The telecommunication industry is continuing to change and mounting a lot of pressure towards efficiency in the business world enabling exploration of new opportunities in the rapidly widening digital environment. The fast changing environment has led the industry to focus on developing organization learning which guarantees future success in meeting the fast changing telecommunication market. The study focused on organizational learning on strategic positioning in telecommunication industry. This study adopted a descriptive design. The target population for this study comprised of 188 strategic planning managers at customer care centers and Chief Executive Officers at the head offices of the four mobile and fixed network operators in Kenya namely; Safaricom Limited, Airtel Kenya, Telkom Kenya and Equitel Kenya. The study used Census to collect the data from the four mobile operators. Primary and Secondary data was used in this study. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire administered to respondents through drop and pick method. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was used in this study. The study established that continuous learning had influence on strategic positioning of telecommunications industries in Kenya. The results confirmed that telecommunications industries that practiced continuous learning based on innovation had strategic positioning advantage than those organizations that do not. This means that improvement on continuous learning led to strategic positioning in telecommunication industry in Kenya. This study concludes that organizational learning was statistically significant. The study recommends that the communication authority should lobby for application of the most recent technology by its members for use by the research and development department in conjunction with the ICT ministry.

SFEEC: Provably Secure Signcryption-Based Big Data Security Framework for Energy-Efficient Computing Environment

Digital networks connect an increasing number of users, sensors, and devices, which communicate, access, share, and analyze data. This phenomenon of diverse data generation is recognized as Big data. While people are benefiting from the convenience added by Big data, they also meet direct threats to privacy and data security. As Big data is massive, it needs an effective security framework with energy-efficient computing environment. Signcryption technique combines both encryption and signature to present an efficient solution. To address threats to data security, chosen cipher security and chosen message security are two important attributes. This means that it is very important to design an efficient framework where we can address these issues. This article introduces an identity-based signcryption technique by combining encryption as well as signature, which provides a solution for secure and authenticated communication in the Big data environment, called SFEEC (security framework for energy-efficient computing). SFEEC fulfills the requirements of less computation and communication overheads by offering pairing-free computation at the user end. SFEEC is also proven under the “indistinguishable against chosen ciphertext” and “secure against chosen message” attacks in the standard model.