Fernando Augusto Teixeira

Vehicular networks using the IEEE 802.11p standard

The IEEE 802.11 working group proposed a standard for the physical and medium access control layers of vehicular networks called 802.11p. In this paper we report experimental results obtained from communication between vehicles using 802.11p in a real scenario. The main motivation is the lack of studies in the literature with performance data obtained from off-the-shelf 801.11p devices. Our study characterizes the typical conditions of an 802.11p point-to-point communication. Such a study serves as a reference for more refined simulation models or to motivate enhancements in the PHY/MAC layers. Field tests were carried out varying the vehicles speed between 20 and 60 km/h and the packet length between 150 and 1460 bytes, in order to characterize the range, throughput, latency, jitter and packet delivery rates of 802.11p links. It was observed that communication with vehicles in motion is unstable sometimes. However, it was possible to transfer data at distances over 300 m, with data rates sometimes exceeding 8 Mbit/s.

SIoT: securing the internet of things through distributed system analysis

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly more relevant. This growing importance calls for tools able to provide users with correct, reliable and secure systems. In this paper, we claim that traditional approaches to analyze distributed systems are not expressive enough to address this challenge. As a solution to this problem, we present SIoT, a framework to analyze networked systems. SIoTs key insight is to look at a distributed system as a single body, and not as separate programs that exchange messages. By doing so, we can crosscheck information inferred from different nodes. This crosschecking increases the precision of traditional static analyses. To construct this global view of a distributed system we introduce a novel algorithm that discovers inter-program links efficiently. Such links lets us build a holistic view of the entire network, a knowledge that we can thus forward to a traditional tool. We prove that our algorithm always terminates and that it correctly models the semantics of a distributed system. To validate our solution, we have implemented SIoT on top of the LLVM compiler, and have used one instance of it to secure 6 ContikiOS applications against buffer overflow attacks. This instance of SIoT produces code that is as safe as code secured by more traditional analyses; however, our binaries are on average 18% more energy-efficient.

Using a distributed snapshot algorithm in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have particular characteristics that do not allow to apply traditional distributed algorithms directly to them. In this work we adapt the algorithms Distributed Snapshot, Broadcast and Propagation of Information with Feedback (PIF) to WSNs and apply them to generate the Energy Map of a WSN. This map shows the behavior of such a network and can be used to predict its behavior. We simulate the algorithms proposed and show their number of messages, energy spent and execution time.

(CIA) 2 -ITS: Interconnecting mobile and ubiquitous devices for Intelligent Transportation Systems

This work-in-progress article presents the research objectives of the (CIA)2-ITS workgroup of the Brazilian project consortium called (CIA)2. The workgroup is developing an architecture and protocols to integrate the heterogeneous networks and devices that compose a city-wide (or even nation-wide) Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). The ITS architecture will support networks of wireless sensors and actuators, smart vehicle communication as well as PCs and PDAs generating and requesting ITS-related information. This network will be open, thus gaining more functionality and data as users and the government “log into” the system.

SIoT: Securing Internet of Things through distributed systems analysis

Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly more relevant. This growing importance calls for tools able to provide users with correct, reliable and secure systems. In this paper, we claim that traditional approaches to analyze distributed systems are not expressive enough to address this challenge. As a solution to this problem, we present SIoT, a tool to analyze security aspects of distributed IoT programs and thus protect them against buffer overflow attacks. Our key insight is to look at a distributed system as a single body, and not as separate programs that exchange messages. We then can crosscheck information inferred from different nodes. To construct this global view of a distributed system, we introduce a novel algorithm that discovers inter-program links efficiently. Such links let us build an inter-program view, a knowledge that we can thus forward to a traditional buffer overflow static analysis tool. We prove that our algorithm always terminates and it correctly models the semantics of a distributed system. We have implemented our solution on top of the LLVM compiler, and have used it to secure five ContikiOS applications against buffer overflow attacks. Our solution produces code as safe as the code secured by more traditional analyses; however, applications instrumented by our solution have less than 6% of runtime and program size overhead on average.

Defending Internet of Things against Exploits

The Internet of Things (IoT) demands tailor-made security solutions. Today, there are a number of proposals able to meet IoTs demands in the context of attacks from outsiders. In the context of insiders, however, this does not hold true. Existing solutions to deal with this class of attacks not always take into consideration the IoTs idiosyncrasies and, therefore, they do not produce the best results. This work aims at coming up with tailor-made security schemes for thwarting attacks from insiders in the context of IoT systems. Our solution makes use of a pioneering solution to pinpoint vulnerabilities: we crosscheck data from communicating nodes. It provides the same guarantees as traditional security mechanisms, but it is about 83% more efficient, according to the experiments that this article describes.

Temporal Evolution of Vehicular Network Simulators: Challenges and Perspectives.

New proposals of applications and protocols for vehicular networks appear every day. Its crucial to evaluate, test and validate these proposals on a large scale before deploying them in the real world. Simulation is by far the preferred method by the community when conducting the evaluation. In this paper we survey the main simulators for vehicular networks and show how they evolved over time. Thus, we provide information that leads to an understanding of how, and how long does it take for the scientific community to absorb a new simulator proposal. Additionally, valuable insights are presented to help researchers make better choices when selecting the appropriate simulator to evaluate new proposals.

Federated authentication of things: demo abstract

In this demo, we will showcase FLAT, a federated identity model tailored to IoT. FLATs authentication is lightweight because it uses only symmetric cryptosystems on the IoT client side and implicit certificates between the Identity and Service Providers. We show how FLAT can be used to increase security and privacy in automatic toll gate payment applications.

Securing networked embedded systems code through distributed systems analysis

The growing importance of Internet of Things (IoT) calls for tools able to provide users with secure systems. Traditional approaches to analyze distributed systems are not expressive enough to address this challenge. As a solution, we present a framework to analyze networked embedded systems. Our key insight is to look at a distributed system as a single body, and not as separate programs that exchange messages. We then can crosscheck information inferred from different nodes. To construct this global view of a distributed system, we introduce a novel algorithm that discovers inter-program links efficiently. Such links lets us build an inter-program view, a knowledge that we can thus forward to a traditional static analysis tool. We prove that our algorithm always terminates and that it correctly models the semantics of a distributed system. We have implemented our solution on top of the LLVM compiler, and have used it to secure six ContikiOS applications against buffer overflow attacks. Our solution produces code that is as safe as code secured by more traditional analyses; however, our binaries are on average 18% more energy-efficient.

Combining the Spray Technique with Routes to Improve the Routing Process in VANETS

Vehicular networks represent a special type of wireless network that has gained the attention of researchers over the past few years. Routing protocols for this type of network must face several challenges, such as high mobility, high speeds and frequent network disconnections. This paper proposes a vehicular routing algorithm called RouteSpray that in addition to using vehicular routes to help make routing decisions, uses controlled spraying to forward multiple copies of messages, thus ensuring better delivery rates without overloading the network. The results of experiments performed in this study indicate that the RouteSpray algorithm delivered 13.12% more messages than other algorithms reported in the literature. In addition, the RouteSpray algorithm kept the buffer occupation 73.11% lower.