MOBILE _ UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING

							MOBILE & UBIQUITOUS
COMPUTING


           Lâm Vĩnh Tuyên
           Nguyễn Công Thương




                                1
Outline
   Introduction
   Association
   Interoperation
   Sensing and context-awareness
   Security and privacy
   Adaptation
   Summary

                                    2
Introduction
 Mobile computing: (1980)
   Paradigm in which users could carry their
    personal computers and retain some
    connectivity to other machines
   Laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, …
   Infrared, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPRS, …
   Size, battery capacity >< processing
    power, screen and resource restrictions


                                            3
Introduction (cont)
 Ubiquitous computing: (Mark Weiser
  1988)
   To be found everywhere
 Wearable computing:
   Devices attached to clothes, worn like
    watches, jewellery, …
 Context-aware computing:
   E.g: device will automatically switch
    itself to “vibrate” instead of “ring” when
    it is in the cinema
                                                 4
Introduction (cont)
 Volatile systems: changes are
  common rather than exceptional
 Relevant forms of volatility:
   Failures of devices and communication
    links
   Changes in the characteristics of
    communication such as bandwidth
   The creation and destruction of
    associations between software
    components resident on the devices
                                            5
Introduction (cont)
 Smart space (SS): physical space
  with embedded services (servers,
  printers, sensors, …)
 Types of movement occur in SS:
     Physical mobility
     Logical mobility
     Add or withdraw static devices
     Devices may fail and disappear from a
      space
                                              6
Introduction (cont)
 Device model:
     Limited energy
     Resource constraints
     Sensors and actuators
     Motes
     Camera phones




                              7
Introduction (cont)
 Volatile connectivity:
   Technology: Bluetooth, WiFi, GPRS, …
   Disconnection
   Variable bandwidth and latency:
     Too big => increase error rates
     Too small => increase congestion and
      waste energy




                                             8
Introduction (cont)
 Spontaneous interoperation:
  interactions during association
 Lowered trust and privacy:
   Trust in volatile systems is problematic
    because of spontaneous interoperation
   Privacy: user may distrust systems
    because of their sensing capabilities



                                               9
Association
 Logical relationship formed when at
  least one of a given pair of
  components communicates with the
  other over some well-defined period
  of time
 Network bootstrapping: solutions rely
  on servers accessible within SS (e.g:
  DHCP)

                                      10
Association (cont)
 The association problem and the
  boundary principle:
   How to associate approximately =>
    address 2 main aspects: scale and scope
   Smart space need to have system
    boundaries
 Solution to the association problem is
  using “Discovery services”

                                          11
Association (cont)
 Discovery services (DS): is a
  directory service
   The directory data required by a
    particular client
   There may be no infrastructure in the SS
    to host a directory server
   Services registered in the directory may
    spontaneously disappear
   The protocols need to be sensitive to the
    energy and bandwidth they consume

                                            12
Association (cont)
 Methods for service               Explanation
 de/registration
 Lease:=register(address,attribu   Register the service at the given
 tes)                              address with the given attributes; a
                                   lease is returned
 Refresh(lease)                    Refresh the lease returned at
                                   registration
 Deregister(lease)                 Remove the service record registered
                                   under the given lease

Method invoked to look up a
service
serviceSet:=query(attributeSpec    Return a set of registered services
ification)                         whose attributes match the given
                                   specification


                                                                          13
Association (cont)
 Issues in the design of a DS:
   Low-effort, appropriate association: without any
     human effort
   Service description and query language: match
     services to client’s request for services
   Smart-space-specific discovery: access an
     instance (scope) of DS which is appropriate to
     physical circumstances
   Directory implementation: network bandwidth,
     timeliness of DS and energy consumption
   Service volatility: handle client and service
     disappearance
                                                       14
Association (cont)
 Physical association: the following
  techniques have been developed
   Human input to scope discovery:
   Sensing and physical constrained channels to
    scope discover:
   Direct association: without using a DS
     Address-sensing: use a device to sense the
       network address of the target device directly
     Physical stimulus: use it to cause the target
       device to send its address
     Temporal or physical correlation: use temporary
       or physically correlated stimuli to associate
       devices
                                                   15
Interoperation
 Models for interoperation including various
  forms of inter-process communication,
  method invocation and procedure
  invocation
 Problem: software interface incompatibility
 Approach:
   Allow interfaces to be heterogeneous
   Constrain interfaces to be identical in syntax
    across as wide a class of components as
    possible

                                                     16
Interoperation (cont)
 Data-oriented programming for volatile
  systems:
   Models for interoperation between indirectly
    associated components:
     Event systems
     Tuple spaces
   Designs for interoperation between directly
    associated components:
     JetSend: for interactions between appliances
       such as cameras, printers, scanners and TVs
     Speakeasy

                                                     17
Interoperation (cont)

                            Event Service
                event                       event
        (structured data)


    Publisher                                  Subscriber




                   Event System

                                                            18
Sensing & context-awareness
 Sensors: some examples
   Location, velocity and orientation:
    satellite navigation units,
    accelerometers, magnetometer
   Ambient conditions: thermometers,
    sensors measure light intensity, sound
    intensity
   Presence: sensors measure physical load


                                          19
Sensing & context-awareness
(cont)
 4 challenges in designing context-
  aware systems:
   Integration of idiosyncratic sensors
   Abstracting from sensor data
   Sensor outputs may need to be
    combined
   Context is dynamic



                                           20
Sensing & context-awareness
(cont)
 Architectures support context-aware
  applications:
   Sensing in the infrastructure: set of
    sensors is relatively stable
   Wireless sensor networks:
     Set of sensors forms a volatile system
     Consist of a number of small, low-cost
      devices or nodes each with facilities for
      sensing, computing and wireless
      communication
                                                  21
   Sensing & context-awareness
   (cont)
    Location-sensing: the most attention
Type       Mechanism        Limitations    Accuracy   Type of location   Privacy
                                                      data
GPS        Multilateration Outdoors        1-10m      Absolute           Yes
           from satellite only                        geographic
           radio sources (satellite                   coordinates
                           visibility)                (latitude,
                                                      longitude,
                                                      altitude)
Active Bat Infrared         Sunlight or Room          Proximity to       Tag
           sensing          fluorescent size          known entity       identity
                            light                                        disclose
                                                                         d
Easy       Vision,          Camera         Variable   Relative (room)    No
Living     triangulation    installation              coordinates
                            s
                                                                           22
Sensing & context-awareness
(cont)
 Architecture for location-sensing:
   The location stack: it divides location-
    sensing systems for individual SS into
    layers
     The sensor layer: contains drivers for
      extracting raw data from a variety of
      location sensors
     The measurements layer: turns raw data
      into common measurement types including
      distance, angle and velocity
     The fusion layer: combines the
      measurements from different sensors to
      infer the location of an object        23
Security and Privacy
 User and admin require security for
  their data and resources
  (confidentiality, integrity, availability)
  – Trust is lowered in volatile systems.
 Privacy – ability to control the
  accessibility of information.



                                           24
Hardware related issues
 Portable devices are more easily
  stolen and tampered. A security
  design should not rely on the integrity
  of any subset of devices.
 Devices in volatile systems don’t have
  sufficient computing resources for
  assymetric (public-key) cryptography
   symmetric cryptography  sharing
  key.
                                       25
Hardware related issues
 Energy – security protocol must be
  design to minimize communication
  overheads and new type of denial of
  service attack.
 Disconnected operation – avoid
  security protocols that rely on
  continuous online access to a server.


                                          26
New type of resource sharing
 The admin of a smart space expose a
  service accessible to visitors over
  wireless network.
 Two employees of the same company
  exchange a document between their
  mobile phone at a conference.
 A nurse take a wireless heart-rate
  monitor from a box, attaches it to
  patient.
                                    27
New type of resource sharing
 Secure spontaneous device association
  – secure transient association problem.
 Goal is to create a secure channel
  between two devices by securely
  exchanging a session key.
 Assumptions: any device or user
   Not share a secret with the other.
   Not posess the other’s public key.
   Don’t have access to a trusted third party.

                                            28
Potential threats
 Attacker can eavesdrop, replay and
  synthesize messages.
 Attacker may attempt to launch a
  man-in-the-middle attack.




                                       29
Solutions
 Users can exchange their own key,
  but short string can be learned by
  exhaustive search.
 Using side channel with certain
  physical properties: one of devices
  generates a fresh session key and
  sends it to the other over a receive-
  constrained channel: physical
  contact, infrared, audio, laser,
  barcode and camera.
                                          30
Solutions (cont.)
 Use a constrained channel to physically
  authenticate one device’s public key,
  then use it to exchange a session key
   devices are powerful enough.
 Exchange a session key insecurely and
  then validate it - use a physical
  constrained channel to verify that the
  key is possesed solely by the required
  physical source.
                                       31
 Association methods
 The methods are vary in the degree of
  security but are suitable for spontaneous
  association:
   None requires online access.
   None requires users to authenticate
    themselves.




                                          32
Location-based authentication
 Users require privacy  don’t want to
  provide personal information.
 Admins require security  require
  access control.
 Base on location of the services’
  clients.



                                      33
Privacy protection
 Even though users withhold their
  identity, there may be some type of
  potentially identifying information.




                                         34
Solutions
 Provide name and addresses in
  service accesses.
 Using MAC-level address – visible to
  other devices such as access point.
 Using RFID tags.
  link to the user’s personal
  information.
  using “soft” address.
                                         35
Solutions (cont.)
 Using privacy proxy: each device has
  a secure, private channel to the
  proxy.
 Problems:
   Central point of vulnerability.
   Proxies don’t hide which services the
    users access.



                                            36
Solutions (cont.)
 Mixing:
   Construct an overlay network of proxies
    that encrypt, aggregate, re-order, and
    forward messages. Each proxy trusts and
    shares keys only with its neighbors.
   Obscure users’ locations by exploiting
    the presence of many users in each
    location.



                                         37
Adaptation
 Devices in volatile systems are much
  more heterogeneous than PCs in
  processing power, I/O capabilities
  and energy capacity.
 The presence of runtime change
  itself: runtime conditions such as the
  available bandwidth and energy are
  prone to chage dramatically.

                                           38
Context-aware adaptation of
content
 Multimedia application.
 Send the same content  bandwidth
  limitations and device heterogeneity.
 Content is a function of context:
  media producer should take account
  not only of the consuming device’s
  capability, but also such factors as
  the preferences of the device’s user,
  and the nature of his or her task.

                                          39
Solutions
 HTTP protocol:
   A client specifies preferences for the
    MIME types of the content it cac accept
    in its request header.
   The server try to match those
    preferences in the content it returns.




                                              40
Solutions (cont.)
 Type-specific compression: proxies perform
  compression:
   Compression should be lossy but specific to the
    media type  semantic information can be used
    to decide which media features it is important to
    retain.
   Transcoding should be performed on the fly
    because statically pre-prepared content forms
    will not provide sufficient flexibility to cope with
    dynamic data.
   Transcoding should be performed in proxy
    servers so that both clients and services are
    transparently separated from transcoding            41

    concerns.
Problems
 Volatile systems require adaption between
  any pair of dynamically associated devices.
 Adaption is not restricted to clients of
  particular services.
 There are potentially many more providers
  whose content needs to be adapted.
 The providers may also be too resource-
  poor to perform certain types of adaption
  themselves.

                                            42
Adapting to changing
system resources
 OS support for adaptation to volatile
  resources: Satyanarayanan:
   Application request and obtain resource
    reservation.
   Notify the user of changed levels of
    resource availability  they can act
    according to application.
   OS notify the application of changing
    resource conditions and the application
    adapt according to its particular needs.

                                               43
Solutions
 OS support for adaptation to volatile
  resources: Odyssey architecture:
   Applications manage data types (video,
    images)
   When resource conditions change, they
    adjust the fidelity – the type-specific
    quality
   Viceroy divides the device’s total
    resources between each of several
    applications running on it.
                                              44
Solutions (cont.)
 Odyssey architecture
   Each application runs with a window of
    tolerance to changes in resource
    conditions.
   When the viceroy has to change resource
    levels to a value outside the window of
    tolerance, it makes an upcall into the
    application, which then reacting
    accordingly.

                                         45
Solutions (cont.)
 Taking advantage of smart space
  resources: Cyber foraging:
   A processing-limited device discovers a
    compute server in a smart space and
    overloads some of its processing load to
    it.
   Energy-aware adaptation: save the
    portable device’s batteries by allocating
    work to the mains-powerd compute
    server.
                                            46
Solutions (cont.)
 Challenging requirements:
   The application needs to be decomposed.
   The compute server should run a part of
    the application that involves relatively
    little communication with portable
    device.
   The overall energy consumption for the
    portable device must be satisfactory.
   Communication is energy-intensive 
    energy cost of communication is high.

                                          47
Solutions (cont.)
 Goyal and Carter: decompose the
  application in to separate
  communicating programs. Example the
  speech recognition
   The application runs entirely on the mobile
    device.
   The mobile device runs only the user
    interface, which ships the digital audio to a
    program running on the compute server

                                              48
Summary
 Volatile systems:
   The set of users, hardware and software
    components are unpredictable changed.
   Connection bandwidth can vary widely.
   Components are heterogeneous.
   Energy is limited.
 Association.
 Interoperation.

                                          49
Summary
 Sensing and context awareness.
 Security and privacy.
 Adaptation.




                                   50
Question
 Thank you very much




                        51