Future Internet最新文献

{"title":"TDLearning: Trusted Distributed Collaborative Learning Based on Blockchain Smart Contracts","authors":"Jing Liu, Xuesong Hai, Keqin Li","doi":"10.3390/fi16010006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010006","url":null,"abstract":"Massive amounts of data drive the performance of deep learning models, but in practice, data resources are often highly dispersed and bound by data privacy and security concerns, making it difficult for multiple data sources to share their local data directly. Data resources are difficult to aggregate effectively, resulting in a lack of support for model training. How to collaborate between data sources in order to aggregate the value of data resources is therefore an important research question. However, existing distributed-collaborative-learning architectures still face serious challenges in collaborating between nodes that lack mutual trust, with security and trust issues seriously affecting the confidence and willingness of data sources to participate in collaboration. Blockchain technology provides trusted distributed storage and computing, and combining it with collaboration between data sources to build trusted distributed-collaborative-learning architectures is an extremely valuable research direction for application. We propose a trusted distributed-collaborative-learning mechanism based on blockchain smart contracts. Firstly, the mechanism uses blockchain smart contracts to define and encapsulate collaborative behaviours, relationships and norms between distributed collaborative nodes. Secondly, we propose a model-fusion method based on feature fusion, which replaces the direct sharing of local data resources with distributed-model collaborative training and organises distributed data resources for distributed collaboration to improve model performance. Finally, in order to verify the trustworthiness and usability of the proposed mechanism, on the one hand, we implement formal modelling and verification of the smart contract by using Coloured Petri Net and prove that the mechanism satisfies the expected trustworthiness properties by verifying the formal model of the smart contract associated with the mechanism. On the other hand, the model-fusion method based on feature fusion is evaluated in different datasets and collaboration scenarios, while a typical collaborative-learning case is implemented for a comprehensive analysis and validation of the mechanism. The experimental results show that the proposed mechanism can provide a trusted and fair collaboration infrastructure for distributed-collaboration nodes that lack mutual trust and organise decentralised data resources for collaborative model training to develop effective global models.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"47 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139159238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Future of Flying Base Stations: Empirical and Numerical Investigations of mmWave-Enabled UAVs","authors":"Ryunosuke Masaoka, G. Tran, Jin Nakazato, Kei Sakaguchi","doi":"10.3390/fi16010005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010005","url":null,"abstract":"Nowadays, wireless communications are ubiquitously available. However, as pervasive as this technology is, there are distinct situations, such as during substantial public events, catastrophic disasters, or unexpected malfunctions of base stations (BSs), where the reliability of these communications might be jeopardized. Such scenarios highlight the vulnerabilities inherent in our current infrastructure. As a result, there is growing interest in establishing temporary networks that offer high-capacity communications and can adaptively shift service locations. To address this gap, this paper investigates the promising avenue of merging two powerful technologies: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and millimeter-wave (mmWave) transmissions. UAVs, with their ability to be operated remotely and to take flight without being constrained by terrestrial limitations, present a compelling case for being the cellular BSs of the future. When integrated with the high-speed data transfer capabilities of mmWave technology, the potential is boundless. We embark on a hands-on approach to provide a tangible foundation for our hypothesis. We carry out comprehensive experiments using an actual UAV equipped with an mmWave device. Our main objective is to meticulously study its radio wave propagation attributes when the UAVs are in flight mode. The insights gleaned from this hands-on experimentation are profound. We contrast our experimental findings with a rigorous numerical analysis to refine our understanding. This comparative study aimed to shed light on the intricacies of wave propagation behaviors within the vast expanse of the atmosphere.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139159191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Development of an Assessment Scale for Measurement of Usability and User Experience Characteristics of Bing Chat Conversational AI","authors":"G. Bubaš, Antonela Čižmešija, Andreja Kovačić","doi":"10.3390/fi16010004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010004","url":null,"abstract":"After the introduction of the ChatGPT conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) tool in November 2022, there has been a rapidly growing interest in the use of such tools in higher education. While the educational uses of some other information technology (IT) tools (including collaboration and communication tools, learning management systems, chatbots, and videoconferencing tools) have been frequently evaluated regarding technology acceptance and usability attributes of those technologies, similar evaluations of CAI tools and services like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Bard have only recently started to appear in the scholarly literature. In our study, we present a newly developed set of assessment scales that are related to the usability and user experiences of CAI tools when used by university students, as well as the results of evaluation of these assessment scales specifically regarding the CAI Bing Chat tool (i.e., Microsoft Copilot). The following scales were developed and evaluated using a convenience sample (N = 126) of higher education students: Perceived Usefulness, General Usability, Learnability, System Reliability, Visual Design and Navigation, Information Quality, Information Display, Cognitive Involvement, Design Appeal, Trust, Personification, Risk Perception, and Intention to Use. For most of the aforementioned scales, internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) was in the range from satisfactory to good, which implies their potential usefulness for further studies of related attributes of CAI tools. A stepwise linear regression revealed that the most influential predictors of Intention to Use Bing Chat (or ChatGPT) in the future were the usability variable Perceived Usefulness and two user experience variables—Trust and Design Appeal. Also, our study revealed that students’ perceptions of various specific usability and user experience characteristics of Bing Chat were predominantly positive. The evaluated assessment scales could be beneficial in further research that would include other CAI tools like ChatGPT/GPT-4 and Bard.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"21 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139162767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Investigating the Key Aspects of a Smart City through Topic Modeling and Thematic Analysis","authors":"Anestis Kousis, Christos Tjortjis","doi":"10.3390/fi16010003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010003","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, the emergence of the smart city concept has garnered attention as a promising innovation aimed at addressing the multifactorial challenges arising from the concurrent trends of urban population growth and the climate crisis. In this study, we delve into the multifaceted dimensions of the smart city paradigm to unveil its underlying structure, employing a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. To achieve this, we collected textual data from three sources: scientific publication abstracts, news blog posts, and social media entries. For the analysis of this textual data, we introduce an innovative semi-automated methodology that integrates topic modeling and thematic analysis. Our findings highlight the intricate nature of the smart city domain, which necessitates examination from three perspectives: applications, technology, and socio-economic perspective. Through our analysis, we identified ten distinct aspects of the smart city paradigm, encompassing mobility, energy, infrastructure, environment, IoT, data, business, planning and administration, security, and people. When comparing the outcomes across the three diverse datasets, we noted a relative lack of attention within the scientific community towards certain aspects, notably in the realm of business, as well as themes relevant to citizens’ everyday lives, such as food, shopping, and green spaces. This work reveals the underlying thematic structure of the smart city concept to help researchers, practitioners, and public administrators participate effectively in smart city transformation initiatives. Furthermore, it introduces a novel data-driven method for conducting thematic analysis on large text datasets.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"28 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139164518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating Knowledge Graphs into Distribution Grid Decision Support Systems","authors":"Yashar Kor, Liang Tan, Petr Musilek, Marek Z. Reformat","doi":"10.3390/fi16010002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010002","url":null,"abstract":"Distribution grids are complex networks containing multiple pieces of equipment. These components are interconnected, and each of them is described by various attributes. A knowledge graph is an interesting data format that represents pieces of information as nodes and relations between the pieces as edges. In this paper, we describe the proposed vocabulary used to build a distribution system knowledge graph. We identify the concepts used in such graphs and a set of relations to represent links between concepts. Both provide a semantically rich representation of a system. Additionally, we offer a few illustrative examples of how a distributed system knowledge graph can be utilized to gain more insight into the operations of the grid. We show a simplified analysis of how outages can influence customers based on their locations and how adding DERs can influence/change it. These demonstrative use cases show that the graph-based representation of a distribution grid allows for integrating information of different types and how such a repository can be efficiently utilized. Based on the experiments with distribution system knowledge graphs presented in this article, we postulate that graph-based representation enables a novel way of storing information about power grids and facilitates interactive methods for their visualization and analysis.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"55 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139168869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Vulnerability Assessment of Open-Source Implementations of Fifth-Generation Core Network Functions","authors":"Filippo Dolente, R. Garroppo, Michele Pagano","doi":"10.3390/fi16010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi16010001","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents an experimental security assessment within two widely used open-source 5G projects, namely Open5GS and OAI (Open-Air Interface). The examination concentrates on two network functions (NFs) that are externally exposed within the core network architecture, i.e., the Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) and the Network Repository Function/Network Exposure Function (NRF/NEF) of the Service-Based Architecture (SBA). Focusing on the Service-Based Interface (SBI) of these exposed NFs, the analysis not only identifies potential security gaps but also underscores the crucial role of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in implementing robust security measures. Furthermore, given the shift towards Network Function Virtualization (NFV), this paper emphasizes the importance of secure development practices to enhance the integrity of 5G network functions. In essence, this paper underscores the significance of scrutinizing security vulnerabilities in open-source 5G projects, particularly within the core network’s SBI and externally exposed NFs. The research outcomes provide valuable insights for MNOs, enabling them to establish effective security measures and promote secure development practices to safeguard the integrity of 5G network functions. Additionally, the empirical investigation aids in identifying potential vulnerabilities in open-source 5G projects, paving the way for future enhancements and standard releases.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":" 34","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138961327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"HeFUN: Homomorphic Encryption for Unconstrained Secure Neural Network Inference","authors":"Duy Tung Khanh Nguyen, D. Duong, Willy Susilo, Yang-Wai Chow, The Anh Ta","doi":"10.3390/fi15120407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi15120407","url":null,"abstract":"Homomorphic encryption (HE) has emerged as a pivotal technology for secure neural network inference (SNNI), offering privacy-preserving computations on encrypted data. Despite active developments in this field, HE-based SNNI frameworks are impeded by three inherent limitations. Firstly, they cannot evaluate non-linear functions such as ReLU, the most widely adopted activation function in neural networks. Secondly, the permitted number of homomorphic operations on ciphertexts is bounded, consequently limiting the depth of neural networks that can be evaluated. Thirdly, the computational overhead associated with HE is prohibitively high, particularly for deep neural networks. In this paper, we introduce a novel paradigm designed to address the three limitations of HE-based SNNI. Our approach is an interactive approach that is solely based on HE, called iLHE. Utilizing the idea of iLHE, we present two protocols: ReLU, which facilitates the direct evaluation of the ReLU function on encrypted data, tackling the first limitation, and HeRefresh, which extends the feasible depth of neural network computations and mitigates the computational overhead, thereby addressing the second and third limitations. Based on HeReLU and HeRefresh protocols, we build a new framework for SNNI, named HeFUN. We prove that our protocols and the HeFUN framework are secure in the semi-honest security model. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that HeFUN surpasses current HE-based SNNI frameworks in multiple aspects, including security, accuracy, the number of communication rounds, and inference latency. Specifically, for a convolutional neural network with four layers on the MNIST dataset, HeFUN achieves 99.16% accuracy with an inference latency of 1.501 s, surpassing the popular HE-based framework CryptoNets proposed by Gilad-Bachrach, which achieves 98.52% accuracy with an inference latency of 3.479 s.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138995228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Decentralized Storage with Access Control and Data Persistence for e-Book Stores","authors":"Keigo Ogata, Satoshi Fujita","doi":"10.3390/fi15120406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi15120406","url":null,"abstract":"The e-book services we use today have a serious drawback in that we will no longer be able to read the books we have purchased when the service is terminated. One way to solve this problem is to build a decentralized system that does not depend on a specific company or organization by combining smart contracts running on the Ethereum blockchain and distributed storage such as an IPFS. However, a simple combination of existing technologies does not make the stored e-book data persistent, so the risk of purchased e-books becoming unreadable remains. In this paper, we propose a decentralized distributed storage called d-book-repository, which has both access management function and data durability for purchased e-books. This system uses NFTs as access rights to realize strict access control by preventing clients who do not have NFTs from downloading e-book data. In addition, e-book data stored on storage nodes in the distributed storage is divided into shards using Reed–Solomon codes, and each storage node stores only a single shard, thereby preventing the creation of nodes that can restore the entire content from locally stored data. The storage of each shard is not handled by a single node but by a group of nodes, and the shard is propagated to all nodes in the group using the gossip protocol, where erasure codes are utilized to increase the resilience against node departure. Furthermore, an incentive mechanism to encourage participation as a storage node is implemented using smart contracts. We built a prototype of the proposed system on AWS and evaluated its performance. The results showed that both downloading and uploading 100 MB of e-book data (equivalent to one comic book) were completed within 10 s using an instance type of m5.xlarge. This value is only 1.3 s longer for downloading and 2.2 s longer for uploading than the time required for a simple download/upload without access control, confirming that the overhead associated with the proposed method is sufficiently small.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":" 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138964453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Securing Network Traffic Classification Models against Adversarial Examples Using Derived Variables","authors":"J. M. Adeke, Guangjie Liu, Junjie Zhao, Nannan Wu, Hafsat Muhammad Bashir","doi":"10.3390/fi15120405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi15120405","url":null,"abstract":"Machine learning (ML) models are essential to securing communication networks. However, these models are vulnerable to adversarial examples (AEs), in which malicious inputs are modified by adversaries to produce the desired output. Adversarial training is an effective defense method against such attacks but relies on access to a substantial number of AEs, a prerequisite that entails significant computational resources and the inherent limitation of poor performance on clean data. To address these problems, this study proposes a novel approach to improve the robustness of ML-based network traffic classification models by integrating derived variables (DVars) into training. Unlike adversarial training, our approach focuses on enhancing training using DVars, introducing randomness into the input data. DVars are generated from the baseline dataset and significantly improve the resilience of the model to AEs. To evaluate the effectiveness of DVars, experiments were conducted using the CSE-CIC-IDS2018 dataset and three state-of-the-art ML-based models: decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), and k-neighbors (KNN). The results show that DVars can improve the accuracy of KNN under attack from 0.45% to 0.84% for low-intensity attacks and from 0.32% to 0.66% for high-intensity attacks. Furthermore, both DT and RF achieve a significant increase in accuracy when subjected to attack of different intensity. Moreover, DVars are computationally efficient, scalable, and do not require access to AEs.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"21 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138967719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Blockchain in Agriculture to Ensure Trust, Effectiveness, and Traceability from Farm Fields to Groceries","authors":"Arvind Panwar, Manju Khari, Sanjay Misra, Urvashi Sugandh","doi":"10.3390/fi15120404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/fi15120404","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its status as one of the most ancient sectors worldwide, agriculture continues to be a fundamental cornerstone of the global economy. Nevertheless, it faces obstacles such as a lack of trust, difficulties in tracking, and inefficiencies in managing the supply chain. This article examines the potential of blockchain technology (BCT) to alter the agricultural industry by providing a decentralized, transparent, and unchangeable solution to meet the difficulties it faces. The initial discussion provides an overview of the challenges encountered by the agricultural industry, followed by a thorough analysis of BCT, highlighting its potential advantages. Following that, the article explores other agricultural uses for blockchain technology, such as managing supply chains, verifying products, and processing payments. In addition, this paper examines the constraints and challenges related to the use of blockchain technology in agriculture, including issues such as scalability, legal frameworks, and interoperability. This paper highlights the potential of BCT to transform the agricultural industry by offering a transparent and secure platform for managing the supply chain. Nevertheless, it emphasizes the need for involving stakeholders, having clear legislation, and possessing technical skills in order to achieve effective implementation. This work utilizes a systematic literature review using the PRISMA technique and applies meta-analysis as the research methodology, enabling a thorough investigation of the present information available. The results emphasize the significant and positive effect of BCT on agriculture, emphasizing the need for cooperative endeavors among governments, industry pioneers, and technology specialists to encourage its extensive implementation and contribute to the advancement of a sustainable and resilient food system.","PeriodicalId":37982,"journal":{"name":"Future Internet","volume":"47 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138967378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}