Journal of Network and Computer Applications最新文献

{"title":"DNCCQ-PPO: A dynamic network congestion control algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning for XQUIC","authors":"Wenhui Yu ,&nbsp;Jinyao Liu ,&nbsp;Xiaoqiang Di ,&nbsp;Pei Xiao ,&nbsp;Hui Qi","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The diversity of network forms and services poses challenges to the TCP protocol in achieving good performance. The current XQUIC implementation of the QUIC protocol still adopts TCP’s heuristic congestion control mechanisms, resulting in limited performance gains. In recent years, reinforcement learning-based congestion control has emerged as an effective alternative to traditional strategies, but existing algorithms are not optimized for dynamic network characteristics. In this paper, we propose a deep reinforcement learning-based congestion control algorithm, Dynamic Network Congestion Control for QUIC Based on PPO (DNCCQ-PPO). To address the heterogeneity of dynamic network training environments, we introduce a novel sampling interaction mechanism, action space, and reward function, and propose an asynchronous distributed training scheme. Additionally, we develop a generalized reinforcement learning framework for congestion control algorithm development that supports XQUIC, and verify the performance of DNCCQ-PPO within this framework. Experimental results demonstrate the algorithm’s fast convergence and excellent training performance. In performance tests, DNCCQ-PPO achieves throughput comparable to that of CUBIC while reducing latency by 54.78%. In multi-stream fairness tests, it outperforms several mainstream algorithms. In satellite network simulations, DNCCQ-PPO maintains high throughput while reducing latency by 69.58% and 72.77% compared to CUBIC and PCC, respectively.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104371"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145404579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Verkle-Accumulator-Based Multiple State Verifiable and Updatable (VA-MSVU) scheme for blockchain","authors":"Shangping Wang,&nbsp;Juanjuan Ma,&nbsp;Qi Huang,&nbsp;Xiaoling Xie","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the application scope of blockchain technology continues to expand, challenges arise in the state verification of blockchain systems based on account models. Traditionally, Merkle Patricia Tries are used to maintain the state of the world, and the verification of a specific data block needs to be verified step by step up to the root node, which guarantees the data integrity, but in large-scale systems, problems such as low efficiency of verification and updating, insufficient security, and increased storage demand still occur, which affects the performance of blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose a Verkle-Accumulator-Based Multiple State Verifiable and Updatable (VA-MSVU) scheme for blockchain. The scheme integrates Verkle tree (VT), Verkle accumulator (VA), KZG polynomial commitment, and aggregated proofs to verify the integrity of multiple account states in batches. By mapping account states to the VT, our approach enhances security, reduces the size of state data, and improves both verification speed and update efficiency. Simulation results show that the VA-MSVU scheme has smaller proof size and faster verification speed than the existing stored data structure, demonstrating the advantages of the VA-MSVU scheme in terms of simplicity and efficiency. For verifying multiple account states, the aggregated proofs of the scheme have significant advantages over KZG polynomial commitment and single-point proof, excelling in proof size, verification and update rate. In addition, by adjusting the branching factor in Verkle tree, a trade-off between computational overhead and communication is achieved to improve the adaptability of the system to different network scenarios.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104392"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Community detection via core node identification and local label diffusion with GraphSAGE boundary refinement in complex networks","authors":"Asgarali Bouyer ,&nbsp;Pouya Shahgholi ,&nbsp;Bahman Arasteh ,&nbsp;Amin Golzari Oskouei ,&nbsp;Xiaoyang Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104399","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104399","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Community detection is a vital task in social network analysis, enabling the extraction of hidden structures and relationships. However, existing diffusion-based local community detection algorithms often depend on similarity-based scoring, which frequently failing to identify influential core nodes for expanding label. To address these shortcomings, we propose the local detecting and structuring communities (LDSC) method that integrates structural and relational insights with graph-based metrics and deep learning for refined community detection. LDSC uniquely stands out by combining Local Influence (LI) and Adaptive Absorbing Strength (AAS) metrics with GraphSAGE-based boundary refinement and adaptive community merging, tackling persistent challenges like scalability, boundary ambiguity, and structural cohesion unmet by prior methods. The method unfolds in four key phases: (1) Core Node Detection, employing a distinctive metric fusing LI and AAS to identify structurally significant nodes; (2) Label Diffusion, dynamically propagating labels from core nodes to neighbors for precise community formation; (3) Boundary Node Reassignment, using GraphSAGE to resolve ambiguities; and (4) Adaptive Community Merging, using an innovative local merging strategy to enhance cohesion. Evaluations on synthetic LFR benchmarks and real-world networks (e.g., Karate, Dolphins, DBLP, Amazon, LiveJournal, Orkut) demonstrate LDSC's superiority over baseline methods (e.g., LPA, CNM, WalkTrap, Louvain) and state-of-the-art approaches (e.g., Leiden, Infomap, LSMD, CLD_GE, FluidC, LCDR, LS), achieving perfect NMI/ARI (1.0) in Karate and Dolphins, top NMI in LiveJournal (0.92) and Orkut (0.65), average scores of 0.85 NMI and 0.75 ARI, and &gt;15 % NMI improvement in large-scale networks like DBLP, showcasing unmatched accuracy, stability, and efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104399"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145593083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding the Wi-Fi and VR streaming interplay: A comprehensible simulation and experimental study","authors":"Boris Bellalta,&nbsp;Miguel Casasnovas,&nbsp;Ferran Maura,&nbsp;Alejandro Rodríguez,&nbsp;Juan S. Marquerie,&nbsp;Pablo L. García,&nbsp;Francesc Wilhelmi,&nbsp;Josep Blat","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104391","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104391","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper evaluates the performance of Wi-Fi networks for interactive Virtual Reality (VR) streaming with adaptive bitrate control. It focuses on the interaction between VR traffic characteristics and Wi-Fi link-layer mechanisms, studying how this relationship impacts key performance indicators such as throughput, latency, and user scalability. We begin by outlining the architecture, operation, traffic patterns, and performance demands of cloud/edge split-rendering VR systems. Then, using simulations, we investigate both single-user scenarios — examining the effects of modulation and coding schemes (MCSs) and user-to-access point (AP) distance on bitrate sustainability and latency — and multi-user scenarios, assessing how many concurrent VR users a single AP can support. Results show that the use of adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming, as exemplified by our NeSt-VR algorithm, significantly outperforms constant bitrate (CBR) approaches, enhancing user capacity and resilience to changing channel propagation conditions. To validate the simulation findings, we conduct an experimental evaluation using Rooms, an open-source eXtended Reality (XR) content creation platform. The experimental results closely match the simulations, reinforcing the conclusion that adaptive bitrate control substantially improves Wi-Fi’s ability to support reliable, multiuser interactive VR streaming.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104391"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Privacy-preserving trajectory data publication: A distributed approach without trusted servers","authors":"Jong Wook Kim ,&nbsp;Beakcheol Jang","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The widespread adoption of mobile devices, coupled with the rapid advancement of GPS and positioning technologies, has led to a significant increase in the collection of trajectory data. This trajectory data serves as a critical resource for numerous applications, leading to an increasing demand for its sharing and publication. However, the sensitive nature of trajectory data poses significant privacy risks, necessitating the development of privacy-preserving publication schemes. Differential privacy (DP) has emerged as a leading approach for protecting individual trajectories during data publication, but many existing approaches rely on a trusted central server, an assumption that is unrealistic in practical settings. In this paper, we present DistTraj, a novel distributed framework for privacy-preserving trajectory data publishing that eliminates the need for a trusted central server. The proposed framework leverages a distributed clustering scheme to generalize trajectories without relying on a centralized trusted server. To improve the effectiveness of DP in this decentralized setting, we propose a method to establish a tighter bound on the global sensitivity of the DP mechanism within the clustering process. Through extensive experiments on real-world datasets, we demonstrate that the proposed DistTraj framework, even without relying on a trusted central server, achieves performance comparable to state-of-the-art central server-based methods. These results show that DistTraj successfully balances privacy preservation and data utility in decentralized environments, where trusting a central server is impractical or infeasible.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104388"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145531184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"LiteWTAKA: Authenticating UAV-GCS and UAV–UAV communication using secure and lightweight mechanism based on PUF","authors":"Naveen Kumar,&nbsp;Ankit Chaudhary","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104372","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104372","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or Drone technology is increasing from miliary to civilian domains because of its effectiveness in performing difficult operations. UAV communicates with Ground Control Station (GCS) in presence of open wireless channel which is insecure. The communication is susceptible to various security attacks because of open nature of wireless channel. A number of traditional cryptographic solutions are provided to mitigate these attacks, but there is need of large amount of computational resources. The UAVs are equipped with limited resources, so a lightweight mechanism is required. So, in this paper, a lightweight authentication and key agreement protocol is proposed that makes use of Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) technology along with the hash function and XOR operations to secure the communication. The proposed scheme ensures the robust authentication along with session key update mechanism. The security of proposed mechanism is validated and verified by formal security analysis using Scyther simulation tool, Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic and Real-or-Random (ROR) model. The comprehensive analysis demonstrates that the scheme effectively mitigates known security attacks. The efficiency of proposed protocol is demonstrated by performing the experiments and by comparing it with the state-of-the-art schemes in terms of computation cost, communication cost, energy consumption and security requirements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"245 ","pages":"Article 104372"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145382976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Securing edge based smart city networks with software defined Networking and zero trust architecture","authors":"Abeer Iftikhar ,&nbsp;Faisal Bashir Hussain ,&nbsp;Kashif Naseer Qureshi ,&nbsp;Muhammad Shiraz ,&nbsp;Mehdi Sookhak","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104341","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104341","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Smart cities are rapidly evolving by adopting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, edge and cloud computing, and mobile connectivity. While these advancements enhance urban efficiency and connectivity, they also significantly increase the risk of cyber threats targeting critical infrastructure. Modern interdependent systems require flexible resilience, allowing them to adapt to changing conditions while maintaining core functions. Smart city networks, however, face unique security vulnerabilities due to their scale and heterogeneity. Altered to industry expectations and requirements, traditional security models are generally restrictive. With its \"never trust, always verify' motto, the Zero Trust (ZT) security model starkly differs from traditional models. ZT builds on network design by mandating real time identity verification, giving minimum access permission and mandating respect for the principle of least privilege. Software Defined Networking (SDN) extends one step further by offering central control over the network, policy based autonomous application and immediate response to anomalies. To address these challenges, our proposed Trust-based Resilient Edge Networks (TREN) framework integrates ZT principles to enhance smart city security. Under the umbrella of SDN controllers, SPP, the underpinning component of TREN, performs real time trust analysis and autonomous policy enforcement, for instance, applying high level threat defense mechanisms. TREN dynamically defends against advanced threats like DDoS and Sybil attacks by isolating malicious nodes and adapting defense tactics based on real-time trust and traffic analysis. Trust analysis and policy control modules provide dynamic adaptive coverage, permitting effective proactive defense. Mininet-based simulations demonstrate TREN's efficacy, achieving 95 % detection accuracy, a 20 % latency reduction, and a 25 % increase in data throughput when compared to baseline models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"244 ","pages":"Article 104341"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Elastic RAN slicing technology with multi-timescale SLA assurances for heterogeneous services provision in 6G","authors":"Yamin Shen ,&nbsp;Ping Wang ,&nbsp;Chiou-Jye Huang ,&nbsp;Shenxu Kuang ,&nbsp;Song Li ,&nbsp;Zihan Li","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104330","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104330","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Digital transformation brings diverse applications along with varying Quality of Service (QoS) and isolation requirements. Network slicing, a key 5G technology anticipated to persist in 6G, aims to meet these heterogeneous requirements. However, due to conflicting usage of scarce resources among services, especially with multi-timescale Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements including QoS and isolation, implementing slicing in the Radio Access Network (RAN) domain is a significant challenge. Therefore, this paper formulates the radio resource allocation problem posed by the coexistence of multiple URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications) with varying delay requirements and eMBB (Enhanced Mobile Broadband) as a multi-timescale optimization problem. Consequently, a novel MPC (Model Predictive Control)-based RAN slicing resource allocation model called MPC-RSS is proposed. Specifically, MPC-RSS ensures elastic QoS through delay-tracking mechanism and far-sighted schemes. Meanwhile, it maintains elastic isolation by introducing logical and physical isolation constraint terms. Compared with the existing state-of-the-art approaches, simulation results show that MPC-RSS can achieve better and more elastic SLA performance. Our proposal provides a choice for 6G RAN to empower vertical industries achieving digital upgrades.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"244 ","pages":"Article 104330"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145223446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"FlowTracker: A refined and versatile data plane measurement approach","authors":"Xinyue Jiang ,&nbsp;Chunming Wu ,&nbsp;Zhengyan Zhou ,&nbsp;Di Wang ,&nbsp;Dezhang Kong ,&nbsp;Muhammad Khurram Khan ,&nbsp;Xuan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104334","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104334","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To acquire per-hop flow level information, existing works have made significant contributions to offloading network measurement onto data center switches. Despite this, they still pose challenges due to increasingly complex measurement tasks and massive network traffic. In this paper, we introduce FlowTracker, a flow measurement primitive in the data plane. Our key innovation is a hash-based data structure with constant size and collision resolution, which allows fine-grained and real-time monitoring of various flow statistics. We have fully implemented a FlowTracker prototype on a testbed and used real-world packet traces to evaluate its performance. The results demonstrate FlowTracker’s efficiency under different measurement tasks. For example, with <span><math><mo>∼</mo></math></span>0.5 MB of memory, FlowTracker can accurately estimate 98% heavy hitter out of 25K flows, with an average relative error of 1.28%. It also achieves 92.27% higher accuracy in packet delay estimation and 121.83% higher flow set coverage compared to competitors with only 64 KB of memory. Furthermore, FlowTracker imposes minimal overhead, requiring just <span><math><mo>∼</mo></math></span>0.04% extra bandwidth for large-scale network processing. With these capabilities, FlowTracker can provide network operators with deep insights and efficient flow control of their networks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"244 ","pages":"Article 104334"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145134833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A resilient fog-enabled IoV architecture: Adaptive post-quantum security framework with generalized signcryption and blockchain-enhanced trust management","authors":"Junhao Li,&nbsp;Qiang Nong,&nbsp;Ziyu Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jnca.2025.104367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Vehicular Fog Computing (VFC) extends the fog computing paradigms to empower the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) by delivering ubiquitous computing and ultra-low latency-features critical to applications such as autonomous driving and collision avoidance. However, the dynamic and open nature of this architecture presents significant challenges in implementing robust security measures, ensuring the integrity of data, and safeguarding user privacy. Furthermore, most existing solutions fail to adequately prioritize the distinct requirements of safety-critical and non-safety-critical IoV services, thereby limiting their adaptability across heterogeneous application scenarios. Consequently, there is a growing need to develop flexible and resilient dynamic security mechanisms that optimize resource utilization in latency-sensitive and computationally intensive IoV systems. Additionally, IoVs systems must be equipped with defenses against evolving threats, including the emerging risk of quantum computing attacks. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Quantum-resistant Blockchain-Assisted Generalized Signcryption (QBGS) protocol for vehicular fog computing. It synergizes post-quantum cryptography with adaptive trust orchestration, tailored specifically for next-generation IoV systems that require decentralized trust management and service-differentiated security. Unlike conventional static security methods, QBGS dynamically adjusts cryptographic operations such as encryption, signature, and signcryption to evolving environmental factors such as traffic density and threat severity. This enables context-aware security adjustments that enhance both efficiency and resilience. Moreover, QBGS incorporates a blockchain-integrated fog layer that supports lightweight protocols designed to curb the dissemination of false information. Through extensive theoretical analysis and systematic simulations based on an urban traffic case study, we demonstrate the practicality of QBGS for post-quantum secure IoV.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54784,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Network and Computer Applications","volume":"244 ","pages":"Article 104367"},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}