Small Office Home Office Research Articles

Uncovering Hidden Risks in IoT devices: A Post-Pandemic National Study of SOHO Wi-Fi Router Security

This study thoroughly analyzes the cybersecurity status of Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) Wi-Fi routers. These routers are crucial but frequently overlooked elements in network infrastructure, particularly in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on network security. The pandemic has led to shifts in network usage patterns, blurring traditional security perimeters and extending them into private residences, creating additional points of vulnerability in urban environments. Our nationwide research evaluated an extensive dataset of router brands and models currently used at scale. We measured the prevalence of known vulnerabilities, assessed the currency of userspace and kernel software versions, and compared the security robustness of proprietary firmware against open-source alternatives. Our findings reveal a concerning landscape of widespread vulnerabilities and outdated software components, posing latent risks to end-users. The results indicate a predominance of Linux on MIPS and ARM architectures, with an average delay of 5 to 10 years between the release of the kernel and the implementation of the most recent firmware versions. As a result, we observed an average of 1344 and 72 vulnerabilities in the kernel and applications. One significant discovery from our research is that replacing the manufacturer's original firmware with open-source alternatives, such as DD-WRT, OpenWrt, and Tomato, can substantially enhance the security of the software stack. This enhancement results in improvements of up to 97% in the case of binaries and 98.42% in the kernel. Our research helps increase cybersecurity awareness by pinpointing critical home network environment weaknesses and alerting the need for more rigorous security practices in producing and maintaining SOHO routers. This investigation also allowed the report of a new remote code execution vulnerability (disclosed in CVE-2022-46552).

COST EFFICIENCY COMPARISON ANALYSIS OF USING LINUX CLEAROS AND MICROTIK FOR SOHO NEEDS

Currently, various sectors of life and organizations require the availability of computer networks and the internet to be able to provide faster and optimal services, one of which is the Small Office Home Office (SOHO). Internet access requires management so that the internet network can be allocated according to the needs of each field and requires cost calculations according to the ability of the organization. Linux ClearOS and Mikrotik are two operating system platforms commonly used for network management, including SOHO. The test was conducted in the form of a comparison between ClearOS Linux and Mikrotik in terms of cost, basic network capabilities (bandwidth manager, wifi, proxy, load balancing, user management), availability of security features, and additional device requirements. The test results show that for the same needs on SOHO, Linux ClearOS has advantages in terms of lower costs and complete features, so it is more recommended than Mikrotik

PERANCANGAN SMALL OFFICE HOME OFFICE DENGAN PENDEKATAN ARSITEKTUR HIJAU DI JAKARTA

The need for housing and limited land is a major problem in DKI Jakarta. Besides that,Small Office Home Office (SOHO) is increasingly popular due to the increasing mobility ofmillennials nowadays, but time and distance are increasingly limited to do business.Progressive developments must be balanced with new innovations to make it easier towork and live in one place. The Small Office Home Office (SOHO) building is a solutionwhere the building has dual functions for living and doing business. SOHO aims tofacilitate the completion of work in a professional manner without neglecting the concernfor family. Professions that use soho a lot are professional services and so on. Theresearch was conducted based on literature, rules, surveys based on field facts anddesign criteria so that they can be used as references before planning a small office homeoffice building. The research contains a theoretical basis/library related to the small officehome office building and analysis from the basics to the creation of a concept in planninga small office home office building.Keywords: Small Office Home Office, High-rise Building, Building With GreenArchitecture Concept, Soho Building in Jakarta.

The main growth strategies of telecommunication operators in the segment of SOHOs

Digital transformation causes a comprehensive change of the company through the use or renewal of information and communication technologies with the aim of greater productivity, growth and competitiveness of the company. Digitization offers new business opportunities to companies, optimization of work processes and operations, more efficient operations, higher productivity, new ways of designing and operating business models, encouraging innovation and development, and new ways of promoting, communicating and connecting companies. Telecom operators are confronted with a choice between remaining a traditional telecommunications operator providing SOHO (small office/home office) businesses basic infrastructure services or switching to digital transformation. This study confirms that the SOHO market segment in the field of basic infrastructure of telecommunications services is saturated, that there is a potential for operators to offer additional services, and that customer loyalty is not related to the amount of implemented business solutions. Operators can thus build a business partnership in terms of mutual development and creating growth for all stakeholders in the process. The main guidelines of growth present a great opportunity for operators, arising from the challenges of SOHO businesses to switch to the process of digital transformation. Therefore, operators have to be prepared; the main guidelines of growth are conditioned by adjusting their strategic goals, redefining business processes, upgrading technology, raising the level of business relationship and developing a partner ecosystem.

Performance Analysis on Multiple Device Connections of Small Office Home Office Network

Malaysia has been supported by one of the high-speed fiber internet connections called TM UniFi. TM UniFi is very familiar to be used as a medium to apply Small Office Home Office (SOHO) concept due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the communication vendors offer varieties of network services to fulfill customers' needs and satisfaction during the pandemic. Quality of Services is queried by most users by the fact of increased on users from time to time. Therefore, it is crucial to know the network performance contrary to the number of devices connected to the TM UniFi network. The main objective of this research is to analyze TM UniFi performance with the impact of multiple device connections or users' services. The study was conducted to analyze the QoS on its traffic, packets transfer, RTT, latency, and throughput. Wireshark simulation program has been used as a network traffic capture where PCAP files have been analyzed by using PCAP Analyzer for Splunk. Traffic filtering has been enabled to capture selected traffic to measure network performance. The result shows that better network performance can be achieved if a smaller number of devices are connected at the same time. The percentage of packet loss, RTT, latency is increased when more users connected at the same time. The throughput also shows a decrease for multi-device connections. Based on the analysis it can be concluded that TM UniFi still can provide good network services for the SOHO network environment and sufficient bandwidth despite the rapid user growth in Malaysia.

ESRFuzzer: an enhanced fuzzing framework for physical SOHO router devices to discover multi-Type vulnerabilities

SOHO (small office/home office) routers provide services for end devices to connect to the Internet, playing an important role in cyberspace. Unfortunately, security vulnerabilities pervasively exist in these routers, especially in the web server modules, greatly endangering end users. To discover these vulnerabilities, fuzzing web server modules of SOHO routers is the most popular solution. However, its effectiveness is limited due to the lack of input specification, lack of routers’ internal running states, and lack of testing environment recovery mechanisms. Moreover, existing works for device fuzzing are more likely to detect memory corruption vulnerabilities.In this paper, we propose a solution ESRFuzzer to address these issues. It is a fully automated fuzzing framework for testing physical SOHO devices. It continuously and effectively generates test cases by leveraging two input semantic models, i.e., KEY-VALUE data model and CONF-READ communication model, and automatically recovers the testing environment with power management. It also coordinates diversified mutation rules with multiple monitoring mechanisms to trigger multi-type vulnerabilities. With the guidance of the two semantic models, ESRFuzzer can work in two ways: general mode fuzzing and D-CONF mode fuzzing. General mode fuzzing can discover both issues which occur in the CONF and READ operation, while D-CONF mode fuzzing focus on the READ-op issues especially missed by general mode fuzzing.We ran ESRFuzzer on 10 popular routers across five vendors. In total, it discovered 136 unique issues, 120 of which have been confirmed as 0-day vulnerabilities we found. As an improvement of SRFuzzer, ESRFuzzer have discovered 35 previous undiscovered READ-op issues that belong to three vulnerability types, and 23 of them have been confirmed as 0-day vulnerabilities by vendors. The experimental results show that ESRFuzzer outperforms state-of-the-art solutions in terms of types and number of vulnerabilities found.

PENERAPAN PRINSIP BIOPHILIC DESIGN PADA PERANCANGAN APARTEMEN SOHO DI KOTA PEKANBARU

The mobile lifestyle among entrepreneurs in Pekanbaru City presents the need for a place to stay that can be used as an office for work. To meet these needs, the concept of SOHO (Small Office Home Office) can be applied to the apartment. Architecture as a space for human activity is also instrumental in increasing human productivity, so it needs to be considered aspects of the physical environment of a workspace, both in terms of layout and comfort. The biophilic design is applied in the design object because it is able to provide comfort to human physique, improve health, fitness, and well-being of human. Therefore, design of SOHO apartment with the application of biophilic design to create an apartment that not only fulfill the need for residence and place of work but also able to align the interests of humans and nature

Architecture as a Syntax for Elderly Rejuvenation Design Proposal for Tropical Climate Country

In an urban environment, the growing number of elderly population increases because of the increase in life quality. In order to face the increasing amount of elderly, the elderly needs to be empowered so they can still productive in their aging phase. This design research aims to upgrade the quality of Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) for the elderly through behavior setting of elderly by using Space Syntax. Field measurement and interview were conducted to obtain data for simulation using Depth Map analysis to predict room connection and integrity. The result highlighted that resilience design conducted through respect to the relation between the room that can lead elderly rejuvenation in tropical climate country

Architecture Design Proposal as a Syntax for Elderly Rejuvenation

Every year there are an additional number of elderly. Old age is the phase of human life cycle where the elderly feel it as the life phase with the longest journey. In this phase elderly mostly feel lost part of themselves and cause depression because elderly feeling lost part of themselves.The elderly as an independent person doesn’t want to depend on their child or their family both physically and economically. Architectural object design for productive elderly that still can fulfil their daily needs and they has desire to work again to spent the rest of their life time for aging productively in a community to work and for life.The proposed architectural object is SOHO (Small Office Home Office) for productive elderly and youth can both learning from each other and working together in one community.Biomimetic from beehive ecosystem level to approach behavior setting syntax for elderly rejuvenation. Beehive ecosystem level inspired how to create a sustainable ecosystem that can lead elderly rejuvenation by using space syntax that suitable with elderly behaviour setting.

KAJIAN POLA KONTROL PRIVASI PENGHUNI TERHADAP PENERAPAN KONSEP SOHO (SMALL OFFICE HOME OFFICE) PADA RUMAH TINGGAL DI KOTA BANDUNG

The effect of various urban problems and the increasing of advanced information technology, leading the concept of SOHO (Small Office Home Office) as an alternative solution in operating small- to medium-scale home-based business are set to have significant application in recent years in Indonesia. Yet the context of residential home as a private space for activity of a family live is resulting in chances of privacy conflicts when it is matched to concept of SOHO application inclining to have social and open-ended characteristics for the public. Therefore, the privacy control is necessary for maintaining dweller’s privacy and homeostatic condition in residential home.The aim of this research was to understand how was the pattern of privacy control by means of visual, audio, and olfactory interaction that take place in 10 residential home units chosen for object of study. This research is a qualitative study which delivered descriptively through interpretative analysis using theory of Behavior Setting approach, and such supporting theories as dwelling theory, theory of adaptation and adjustment, theory of privacy, territorial, and personal space. The results of the research shown that the privacy control pattern is more intomanaging visual interaction related to privacy by means of privacy artifact control, differentiation of floor level or using verbal language. Overall results of analysis of privacy control variable are then proposed as tendency of dweller privacy control design to apply concept of SOHO to residential home. Keywords: control; home, office; privacy; SOHO

Multimedia Implementations for SOHO Networks and Their Security Issues: Opening Pandora’s Box with Sonos and SonosNet

Multimedia devices for Small Office Home Office (SOHO) environments often use proprietary technologies but also a variety of commercially available technologies for their operation. Exploiting vulnerabilities on multimedia devices and implementations that are made for SOHO environments induce new risk trends but also are a pragmatic fact. For many manufacturers usability and user friendliness take precedence over the security on these implementations. Market expansion and propagation that introduces a vast number of such devices to almost any SOHO network are also aggravating factors. This paper aims to identify, explore and analyse vulnerabilities and related attacks on such environments, focusing on specific devices manufactured by Sonos, as a proof-of-concept case study. The applied research has been done in such a way that can also be used for other SOHO devices. Real tests and attacks have been applied, in order to demonstrate and verify the proposed methodologies, as well as to evaluate all related results and findings. Finally, countermeasures and solutions for the identified vulnerabilities are proposed and evaluated.

Development of Physical Intrusion Detection System Using Wi-Fi / ZigBee RF Signals

Wi-Fi is a wireless networking technology that enables computers and other devices to communicate using a RF signal enabling a lot of advanced applications to provide services. Nowadays, Wi-Fi signal coverage is almost a must in any office building or small office home office (SOHO) environment. Home and office networking concept involves the use of wireless sensors/Wi-Fi routers around the house to control and detect signals in the home-setting. In this project, however, RF signals from Wi-Fi NIC and ZigBee motes received signal strength indicators (RSSI) were used as a base feed to our system testbed to detect the human presence inside an indoor home/office environment. Then, a controller is used to switch ON/OFF appliances like air conditioning, lights …etc. The system testbed doubles as a reliable alarm for physical intrusion detection to secure an indoor perimeter as demonstrated in the paper. This simple, yet cheap, approach to home/office networking promises to save energy and cost in large numbers. It can also be used in many industrial settings including control and security applications.

Daylight Adaptive Shading Using Parametric Camshaft Mechanism for SOHO in Jakarta

This research analyzes SOHO (Small Office Home Office) which can adjust to the need of visual comfort for the users through natural daylighting and also can be adapted to standard requirements of 14 creative industry workspace in Jakartas. The method of the research is by simulating the SOHO unit with variation of shading opening angles in order to adapt to each unit. Analysis done to every shading opening angle to get the appropriate daylight intensity level which support the work activities in every unit for the whole day. In order for the shading to be able to adapt to the changing daylight condition, previously developed parametric camshaft mechanism was used. The study found that the visual comfort for SOHO with creative industries workers in Jakarta can be achieve by varying the shading opening angles between 15-75°.

Performance of VoIP in Wired-Cum-Wireless Ethernet Network

The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a rapidly growing technology that enables transport of voice over data networks such as Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs). This growth is due to the integration of voice and data traffic over the existing network infrastructure, low cost, and improved network management offered by the technology. This paper reports on the performance of VoIP traffic characteristics in a wired-cum-wireless Ethernet LAN. The effect of increasing the number of VoIP wireless clients, different voice codec schemes, and packet arrival distributions on system performance is investigated. Through various simulation experiments under realistic network scenarios, such as Small Office Home Office (SOHO) and campus networks, this paper provides an insight into the performance of VoIP over Ethernet LANs. Simulation results show that VoIP clients and voice codec schemes have significant effect on system performance. The authors preformed OPNET-based simulations to validate their experiments.

Hands-on laboratory experiments with SOHO networking technologies

Traditional computer networking courses are primarily based on lectures and include a few TCP/IP network socket programming assignments. Students may not know how to apply what they have learned in the classroom to solve real-world problems. This paper presents several interesting laboratory experiments to provide students with hands-on experiences in low-cost small office/home office (SOHO) networking technologies, including SOHO Router/Firewall, Wi-Fi Wireless LAN, HomePlug Powerline Communication, and HomePNA Phoneline Networking. The feedback from students is encouraging. The result of the assessment tests also shows that the hands-on projects have had a positive impact on student learning and comprehension. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 586–595, 2013

Statistical Analysis of VoDSL Technology for the Efficiency of Listening Quality of 640k/640k

INTRODUCTION The market for VoDSL loops to provide broadband services is currently experiencing explosive growth as the preferred last-mile deployment method for integrated communications providers in United States. Due to the explosiveness of the Internet and the massive data traffic through network convergence of voice and data technologies, VoDSL came into existence (Franz, 2000). VoDSL service has the capability to provide the customers with converged voice and data, including local and long distance telephone service, in addition to high speed Internet access on a single DSL copper line. The dial-up modem has in the past represented the means of connectivity for on-line access and Internet access. Enterprise systems have since migrated away from 56K dial-up to a faster methodology of communication. This move was necessitated as a result of the extensive copper networks, owned by exchange carriers. As the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) continues its emergence as the choice of transportation for high speed data over existing telephone lines, enterprise systems are challenged on how to converge and maximize voice calls and high speed data over these same lines (Opara, 2004). As businesses continue to maneuver in the 21st century competitive environments, enterprise systems will thrive for excellence on how their network will remain effective, efficient, and reliable, while maintaining a relatively low overall cost of doing business. This study focuses on the use of the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL) technology, because it provides a life-line capability. This means that if there is power loss at any giving time, one telephone line will still be functional. This is because the technology has a lower bandwidth as the system travels upstream as compared to the downstream movement. Further, the technology transmits a high bit rate data in the downwards direction from the central office (CO) to the subscriber (downstream), with typical bit rates from 1.5 to 8 Mb/s, and lower bit rate data in the reverse (up) direction from the subscriber to the CO (upstream), with bit rates from 64 to 640 Kb/s (ANSI 1995). ADSL is used for asymmetric services to residential and small office home office (SOHO) customers. This paper will show outcomes that can be used in evaluating VoDSL solutions that offers multiple voice connections simultaneously with data onto the high speed digital line offered by an ADSL line. The results are based on the V/LQ of VoDSL. After the literature review, we present the description of the network architecture for V/LQ test setup. Then, we have discussions on the subscriber loop plant noise, concludes with the results of the tests performed. LITERATURE REVIEW Andersen (2007) found evidence that asymmetric DSL (also known as ADSL) has gained substantial interest in residential, small and medium size enterprise markets as a convenient way to gain access to high speed internet services. The reason is the continuous drive of enterprise systems toward voice/data convergence with the goal of reducing overall network usage costs. Finweek (2008) reported that VoDSL is a simplified voice solution effortlessly integrating with the provider's existing connection to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). Earlier studies found that convergence of voice and data in telecommunications is not a new paradigm, however, both ATM and IP or IP over ATM protocols are now used as technologies for convergence networking since both enhances lower network, operational and maintenance cost (Opara, 2004; Galli & Kerpez, 2002). Most recent studies (Andersen, 2007), found evidence that VoDSL technology has a similar architecture to the legendary public switch telephone network (PSTN). The studies summarized by stating that this technology is a promising breakthrough to the so-called next generation networks (NGNs). …

Assessing interoperability of access equipment for broadband networks

The wide diffusion of services on telecommunication broadband networks led to the production of low-cost access equipment, called residential gateways, to interface different networks of the private customers. The users of such equipment are often identified as Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) customers. They need to connect their own network to the Service Provider (SP) network. This paper deals with the problem of ensuring residential gateway interoperability with different SOHO customers and SP networks, also when the manufacturer’s and SP’s test benches are different. In particular, a remote testing system is proposed enabling the manufacturer to test its equipment inside the SP network. The proposed solution consists of a remote testing board to be connected to the gateway under test within the SP laboratory and managed by the manufacturer. The solution has been implemented and validated for the Gateway ADapter/Gateway ADapter Mixed (GAD/GADM), which are produced by Telsey Telecommunications.

Nidan Technologies Private Limited (NTPL): The Entrepreneur's Conundrum

The case describes the situation faced by the CEO of Nidan Technologies Private Ltd (NTPL), a first generation entrepreneurial firm struggling to ensure the growth and survival of the new venture viz., SMS based railway enquiry system. Spectrum, Nidan's predecessor which was set up as a small office home office (SOHO) in 1996 had survived for over 8 years by doing small time software development for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Jabalpur. Given that everyone involved with Spectrum were first generation entrepreneurs, survival of the venture had given them enough confidence to keep going. In its search for bigger, better margin projects that would give steady income, NTPL had set its eyes on government and public utility projects. SMS based railway enquiry system was the first idea which NTPL believed would take it to the next level. NTPL was successful in convincing the Indian railway's Central West Railway zonal officials about the need for such a system. Though NTPL wanted to tie-up with all the cellular service providers in the circle to offer this service, it could convince only Idea, the largest cellular service provider in the circle in partnering with NTPL for this service. Everything seemed to go well during the nine months trial period. Following an open bid tender, in which NTPL was the sole bidder, commercial operations were started in January 2006. However a year later, it appeared that NTPL was back to square one with around 1.7% of the total rail enquiries in the zone being routed through NTPL's system, Rail Nidan. Breakeven was nowhere in sight. After deliberations, Vishal Karendikar had to decide on one of the following options that had emerged in the January 2007 meeting with his four other partners; a) Bid adieu to the project. b) Make the venture profiable. c) Sell it off to a prospective buyer right now or once the project is on the path to profiability?

Universal Black Inks Based on New Polymeric Carbon Black Dispersions

Carbon black is well established as the primary pigment in text black inks utilized in small office/home office (SOHO) desktop ink jet printers. Through innovations over the past 10–15 years, inks containing self-stabilized dispersions of surface-functionalized carbon black pigments have evolved as the main technology for such applications. Factors influencing this choice include text density and acuity, paper-to-paper (plain) image quality consistency, and versatility in ink formulation. Although these technologies set the industry standard, important limitations still exist; these include: (1) image smear on plain papers typically used in desktop printing, and (2) the lack of image gloss and durability on coated, glossy papers used for photo printing. These limitations have precluded the broadest use of inks based on self-stabilized pigments. This has been especially true for drop-on-demand thermal ink jet.This paper focuses on the question of whether it is possible to develop a universal or single black ink based on alternative carbon black dispersion technology that is able to meet the critical requirements of both plain (for text and graphics) and glossy (for photos) papers used in SOHO desktop ink jet printers.New polymeric dispersions comprising specific carbon black pigments and new polymeric dispersants (terpolymers) have been developed that can provide some of the important performance characteristics of self-stabilized carbon black dispersions used in the ink jet industry. Random terpolymers of benzyl methacrylate (BzMA), an additional hydrophobic monomer containing twelve or more carbon atoms, and methacrylic acid (MAA) have been used as effective dispersants with Black Pearls®700 carbon (Cabot Corporation). Certain inks formulated with these new dispersions were found to be suitable for a variety of ink jet applications and appear to overcome many of the deficiencies currently limiting the more general use of black inks that rely upon self-stabilized carbon black dispersions such as Cab-O-Jet®300 (Cabot Corporation). Several of these new black, pigment-based inks have provided excellent performance when applied to both text and graphics printing (on plain paper) and photo printing (on glossy photo papers).

New Forms of Mobility and Social Practices: The Starbucks Cafés in Beijing

The multinational coffee shop chain Starbucks has proved to be a pioneer in the United States, with the deployment of Wi-Fi access. Declaring itself to be an ethical company, it provides a non-smoking environment and non-alcoholic beverages and charges a fee for secure internet access, in the fashionable areas of big cities. Having first placed the company's economic model in the global context of new forms of mobility and of the development of the commercial opportunities they provide, the authors present the initial findings of research, carried out in April 2006, on the users of the Starbucks cafes in Beijing. The social practices observed reveal the need for access to distant services and a strong desire for local social interaction. These new areas of mobility, which are semi-public/semi-private spaces, have elements of both the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) and the meeting place.