Current Mobile Platforms Research Articles

Classification and security assessment of android apps

Current mobile platforms pose many privacy risks for the users. Android applications (apps) request access to device resources and data, such as storage, GPS location, camera, microphone, SMS, phone identity, and network information. Legitimate mobile apps, advertisements (ads), and malware all require access to mobile resources and data to function properly. Therefore, it is difficult for the user to make informed decisions that effectively balance their privacy and app functionality. This study analyzes the Android application permissions, ad networks and the impact on end-user’s privacy. Dangerous combinations of app permissions, and ad networks are used as features in our prediction models to understand the behavior of apps. Our models have a high classification accuracy of 95.9% considering the imbalance in real life between benign and malicious apps. Our assumption that certain app permissions can be a potential threat to the privacy of end users is confirmed to be one of the most impactful features of our prediction models. Since our study considers the impact of ad networks and malware permissions, it will help end-users make more informed decision about the app permissions they grant and understand that the app permissions open doors to more vulnerabilities, and at some point, benign apps can behave maliciously.

Emerging digital technologies and consumer decision-making in retail sector: Towards an integrative conceptual framework

This paper explores the influence of digital technologies on the consumer decision-making in retail sector with two online survey-based studies. Study 1 identifies unique attributes of six digital technologies, including two current (Internet and Mobile Platform) and four emerging (Artificial Intelligence, Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality) technologies. Study two focuses on older consumers to understand their decision-making process when shopping for products or services using new digital technologies. We extend the AISAS (Awareness, Interest, Search, Action, and Sharing) model to show that with digital technologies, consumer decision journey is no longer linear. For example, attention can lead directly to action, without going through the interest or search stages. Similarly, purchase can lead to sharing that may lead to loyalty and psychological engagement, and reinforce attention. We found no significant difference in these effects between older and younger consumers. Besides providing useful insights about consumer decision-making process with emerging digital technologies for future academic researchers, these results also give useful ideas to marketing practitioners interested in introducing these emerging technologies to deliver superior value to their customers.

An Innovative Thinking About the Management Mode in Colleges and Universities in the Context of “Da Zhi Yi Yun”

In recent years, “Da Zhi Yi Yun” (integration of big data, intelligentization, mobile internet, and cloud computing) has taken the wave of global management technology reform, especially in management decision-making and the education mode in colleges and universities. China boasts the world’s largest higher education; additionally, its internet education and information education are also developing at a rapid pace. Therefore, it offers a suitable environment for the application of “Da Zhi Yi Yun.” In this context, this paper aims at the problems in the management and application of current mobile cloud platforms in colleges and universities and proposes strategies for the effective application of “Da Zhi Yi Yun” from two levels: teaching management and student management.

A Magnetic Crawler System for Autonomous Long-Range Inspection and Maintenance on Large Structures.

The inspection and maintenance of large-scale industrial structures are major challenges that require time-efficient and reliable solutions to ensure the healthy condition of structures during operation. Autonomous robots may provide a promising solution for this purpose. In particular, they could lead to faster and more reliable inspection and maintenance without direct intervention from human operators. In this paper, we present a custom magnetic crawler system, and sensor suit and sensing modalities to enable such robotic operation. We first describe a localization framework based on a mesh created from a point cloud coupled with Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) readings. Next, we introduce a mapping framework that relies on a 3D laser, and explicitly state how autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance can be developed. Lastly, we present how ultrasonic guided waves (UGWs) are integrated into the system to provide accurate robot localization and structural feature mapping by relying on acoustic reflections in combination with the other systems. It is envisioned that long-range inspection capabilities that are not yet available in current industrial mobile platforms could emerge from the designed robotic system.

Contract Mechanism and Performance Analysis for Data Transaction in Mobile Social Networks

In this paper, a novel mobile data offloading method is proposed based on an external-infrastructure-free approach. Specifically, through the hotspot function of smartphones, data demands from some mobile users, who have used out the data with their monthly data plans, can be offloaded by some other mobile users who still have redundant unused data. In order to model this data transaction among mobile users, which can be realized with assistance of current mobile social platforms, we introduce an auction-based contract mechanism, and then we further analyze the system performance. To improve the efficiency and performance of the system, a socially-aware mobility model is also designed. In this model, betweenness of the data auctioneers is introduced, according to which the number of data requesters in different auctions can be balanced and the performance of the system can be optimized. The proposed data transaction mechanisms and friendship-aware mobility model are then simulated as operating on Flickr, a real-world online social network database. Results show that the number of data bidders in different auctions can be balanced effectively through the proposed mobility model, and the income per unit time of sellers in the networked data transaction can also be increased.

Towards Airborne Thermography via Low-Cost Thermopile Infrared Sensors

This paper presents a novel tool capable of collecting thermal signatures inside a building by using low-cost IR temperature sensors mounted on-board an aerial platform. The proposed system aims to facilitate the detection of heat loss inside buildings, which is a key aspect for improving energy efficiency in large commercial or industrial buildings. Current detection systems usually require manual labor as well as the use of expensive instrumentation. The proposed system on the other hand, relies on the use of a small unmanned aerial vehicle carrying low-cost thermopile IR sensors. Moreover, the system delivers a fast temperature sensing scheme and it provides coverage to inaccessible areas, thus overcoming the limitations of current mobile platforms which use ground robots. Different experiments were carried out in order to assess the behavior of the sensors as well as to validate the full system. Moreover, the hypothesis that thermopile IR sensors can be used to track temperature signature on-the-fly is validated experimentally with the use of the proposed system over different targets.

Guess who is listening in to the board meeting: on the use of mobile device applications as roving spy bugs

AbstractCovert listening devices—a combination of a miniature radio transmitter and a microphone—have been used as key espionage instruments as early as the mid‐20th century. More recently, hackers have started exploiting inherent weaknesses in current mobile platforms allowing them to remotely convert a victim's smartphone device into a roving spy bug without his knowledge. The goal of this paper is to illustrate with the aid of an Android mobile platform application that permissions gained in a legitimate way can be used to evade the integrity and privacy of the mobile device and install malware that remains completely hidden. When the attacker makes a call to the victim's phone, he is able to listen in to the victim's surroundings transforming the mobile phone into a sophisticated covert listening device. This communication‐level attack goes undetected by current detection mechanisms. An anomaly‐based detection feature set is another contribution of this paper to mitigate the proposed attack. As more and more mobile devices are being rapidly integrated into enterprises with the increase in bring‐your‐own‐device model in many organizations, without a rigorous security screening policy, this weakness tends to facilitate corporate espionage by presumably allowing as many spy bugs in the board meeting as there are attendees with mobiles. This work provides a demonstration of a dangerous espionage attack targeting smartphones whereby an attacker can, with the aid of an Android mobile platform application, make a call to the victim's phone and listen in to the victim's surroundings transforming the mobile phone into a sophisticated covert listening device. It also proposes and evaluates a defense technique to detect and mitigate the attack where existing security mechanisms fall short. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intelligent Software Agent Technology: An Overview

Mobile Agent is an autonomously transportable code migrating itself from one node to another in a heterogeneous network without losing its operability. They have become commercially practicable with recent technologies and have the potential for revolutionizing distributed and network applications more recently in wireless sensor networks and bioinformatics. The main aim of this study is to motivate the researchers into the field of intelligent software agent technology by providing an overview and updated comparison of the current mobile agent platforms. General Terms Distributed Computing, Agent Technology.

Heterogeneous Cooperative Localization for Social Networks

Location-aware techniques has become a hot research topic with great value in commercial and military applications. Cooperative localization, which utilizes multiple sensors in portable devices to estimate locations of the mobile users in the social networks, is one of the most promising solution for the indoor geo-location. Traditional cooperative localization methods are based on ranging techniques, they are highly dependent on the distance interpreted from the received signal strength (RSS) or time of arrival from anchors. However, a precise ranging procedure demands high performance hardware which would increase the cost to the current mobile platform. In this paper, we describes four ranging-free probabilistic cooperative localization algorithms: centroid scheme, nearest neighbor scheme, kernel scheme and AP density scheme to improve the accuracy for the indoor geo-location using current mobile devices. Since the GPS sensor embedded in the smart phone is able to provide accurate location information in the outdoor area, those mobile nodes can be used as calibrated anchors. The position of the indoor mobile node can be estimated by exchanging locations and RSSs from shared wireless access points information between the target node and anchor nodes. An empirical evaluation of the system is given to demonstrate the feasibility of these cooperative localization algorithms by reporting the results in a real-world environments, e.g. suburban area and city downtown. Moreover, we compared our results with the WiFi positioning system made by Skyhook Wireless to validate the accuracy of the proposed algorithms. Meanwhile, a Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to evaluate the performance of the cooperative algorithms under different scenarios. Results show that given the same scenario setting, the AP density scheme and kernel scheme outperform than other schemes.

PWIG - Interactive Paradigm of Direct Touch Interaction

The direct touch interaction is considered as an important part of natural human-computer interaction and has become one of the hotspots in recent years. However, current touch interactive designs still rely on traditional WIMP paradigm seriously. To prompt and develop a dedicated user interface for direct touch interaction, in this paper, we explore the interactive features of the touch user interface through statistical analysis method. We classify and summary on the components of user interface from three current mainstream mobile platforms, further abstract the components for touch operation paradigm and finally propose an interactive paradigm based on the Post-WIMP environment: PWIG (Page/Frame, Widget, Icon/Button and Gesture) paradigm. After the evaluation of PWIG paradigm, we think PWIG paradigm is more suitable for direct touch interaction and should guide the design of the natural user interface for direct touch systems.

The Design and Implementation of Mobile Monitoring System of Transmitting Station Based on Android Platform

In view of the high speed development of current mobile platform related technology and wireless telecommunication technology, this paper designs and realized a radio and television launching pad mobile monitoring system based on Android platform. The system as expansion of the present scene monitoring system to receive real-time data on transmitters and control their states by wireless network at any time and place, thus further improve the operation efficiency of transmitting station.