Computation integrity in mobile cloud: Running probabilistically checkable proof on Android

Abstract

Mobile cloud computing is a viable collaborative computing paradigm for the Internet of Things (IOT) to strengthen the synergy of mobile devices. The security of such collaborative computing needs much attention. This paper explores how to use Probabilistically Checkable Proof (PCP) on Android devices to verify if offloaded computation is correctly executed by remote devices. The paper shows that PCP could be viable for use in a mobile cloud environment. However, PCP may incur a significant overhead due to the low data throughput of the wireless network used by Android devices. The cost of overhead may outweigh any gains from verifying computation on remote Android devices. We conducted various experiments utilizing PCP in a mobile network of several Android devices and showed where PCP is beneficial and where improvements could be made to create an efficient and practical system.