Mikhail Nesterenko

ExScal: elements of an extreme scale wireless sensor network

Project ExScal (for extreme scale) fielded a 1000+ node wireless sensor network and a 200+ node peer-to-peer ad hoc network of 802.11 devices in a 13km by 300m remote area in Florida, USA during December 2004. In comparison with previous deployments, the ExScal application is relatively complex and its networks are the largest ones of either type fielded to date. In this paper, we overview the key requirements of ExScal, the corresponding design of the hardware/software platform and application, and some results of our experiments.

RFID security without extensive cryptography

A Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) allows effective identification of a large number of tagged objects without physical or visual contact. RFID systems are a promising technology for supply chain management and inventory control. As individual item tagging becomes a reality, privacy concerns over RFID use come to the fore. The shared radio medium allow eavesdropping and unauthorized tag reading which poses threats to individuals privacy. Moreover, due to the mode of use of RFIDs, new threats emerge. For example, an intruder may be able to track the movement of an individual by repeatedly querying an RFID attached to the item that this individual carries. The limited size and cost considerations do not allow to implement conventional cryptographic systems on RFIDs. In this paper we propose an efficient RFID tag identification algorithm that incorporates reader-authentication. Our algorithm is secure against the anticipated threats to RFID systems. Our algorithm does not require computationally expensive cryptographic mechanisms, it relies on rather simple matrix multiplication. To further enhance the utility of our algorithm we propose a scheme that allows for the algorithm to carry out secure identification of multiple tags simultaneously.

Kansei: a testbed for sensing at scale

The Kansei testbed at the Ohio State University is designed to facilitate research on networked sensing applications at scale. Kansei embodies a unique combination of characteristics as a result of its design focus on sensing and scaling: (i) Heterogeneous hardware infrastructure with dedicated node resources for local computation, storage, data exfiltration and back-channel communication, to support complex experimentation, (ii) Time accurate hybrid simulation engine for simulating substantially larger arrays using testbed hardware resources, (iii) High fidelity sensor data generation and real-time data and event injection, (iv) Software components and associated job control language to support complex multi-tier experiments utilizing real hardware resources and data generation and simulation engines. In this paper, we present the elements of Kansei testbed architecture, including its hardware and software platforms as well as its hybrid simulation and sensor data generation engines

Kansei: a high-fidelity sensing testbed

Hardware and software testbeds are becoming the preferred basis for experimenting with embedded wireless sensor network applications. The Kansei testbed at the Ohio State University features a heterogeneous hardware infrastructure, with dedicated node resources for local computation, storage, data retrieval, and back-channel communication. Kansei includes a time-accurate hybrid simulation engine that uses testbed hardware resources to simulate large arrays. It supports high-fidelity sensor data generation as well as real-time data and event injection. The testbed also includes software components and an associated job-control language for complex multi-tier experiments.

Secure Location Verification Using Radio Broadcast

Secure location verification is a recently stated problem that has a number of practical applications. The problem requires a wireless sensor network to confirm that a potentially malicious prover is located in a designated area. The original solution to the problem, as well as solutions to related problems, exploits the difference between propagation speeds of radio and sound waves to estimate the position of the prover. In this paper, we propose a solution that leverages the broadcast nature of the radio signal emitted by the prover and the distributed topology of the network. The idea is to separate the functions of the sensors. Some sensors are placed such that they receive the signal from the prover if it is inside the protected area. The others are positioned so that they can only receive the signal from the prover outside the area. Hence, the latter sensors reject the prover if they hear its signal. Our solution is versatile and it deals with provers using either omni-directional or directional propagation of radio signals without requiring any special hardware besides a radio transceiver. We estimate the bounds on the number of sensors required to protect the areas of various shapes and extend our solution to handle complex radio signal propagation, optimize sensor placement, and operate without precise topology information

Tolerance to unbounded Byzantine faults

An ideal approach to deal with faults in large-scale distributed systems is to contain the effects of faults as locally as possible and, additionally, to ensure some type of tolerance within each fault-affected locality. Existing results using this approach accommodate only limited faults (such as crashes) or assume that fault occurrence is bounded in space and/or time. In this paper, we define and explore possibility/impossibility of local tolerance with respect to arbitrary faults (such as Byzantine faults) whose occurrence may be unbounded in space and in time. Our positive results include programs for graph coloring and dining philosophers, with proofs that the size of their tolerance locality is optimal. The type of tolerance achieved within fault-affected localities is self-stabilization. That is, starting from an arbitrary state of the distributed system, each non-faulty process eventually reaches a state from where it behaves correctly as long as the only faults that occur henceforth (regardless of their number) are outside the locality of this process.

Discovering Network Topology in the Presence of Byzantine Faults

We pose and study the problem of Byzantine-robust topology discovery in an arbitrary asynchronous network. The problem is an abstraction of fault-tolerant routing. We formally state the weak and strong versions of the problem. The weak version requires that either each node discovers the topology of the network or at least one node detects the presence of a faulty node. The strong version requires that each node discovers the topology regardless of faults. We focus on non-cryptographic solutions to these problems. We explore their bounds. We prove that the weak topology discovery problem is solvable only if the connectivity of the network exceeds the number of faults in the system. Similarly, we show that the strong version of the problem is solvable only if the network connectivity is more than twice the number of faults. We present solutions to both versions of the problem. The presented algorithms match the established graph connectivity bounds. The algorithms do not require the individual nodes to know either the diameter or the size of the network. The message complexity of both programs is low polynomial with respect to the network size. We describe how our solutions can be extended to add the property of termination, handle topology changes, and perform neighborhood discovery.

A transformation of self-stabilizing serial model programs for asynchronous parallel computing environments

A transformation of self-stabilizing serial model programs for asynchronous parallel computing environments

Corona: A stabilizing deterministic message-passing skip list

We present Corona, a deterministic self-stabilizing algorithm for skip list construction in structured overlay networks. Corona operates in the low-atomicity message-passing asynchronous system model. Corona requires constant process memory space for its operation and, therefore, scales well. We prove the general necessary conditions limiting the initial states from which a self-stabilizing structured overlay network in a message-passing system can be constructed. The conditions require that initial state information has to form a weakly connected graph and it should only contain identifiers that are present in the system. We formally describe Corona and rigorously prove that it stabilizes from an arbitrary initial state subject to the necessary conditions. We extend Corona to construct a skip graph.

Tiara: A Self-stabilizing Deterministic Skip List

We present Tiara -- a self-stabilizing peer-to-peer network maintenance algorithm. Tiara is truly deterministic which allows it to achieve exact performance bounds. Tiara allows logarithmic searches and topology updates. It is based on a novel sparse 0-1 skip list . We rigorously prove the algorithm correct in the shared register model. We then describe its extension to a ring and incorporation of crash tolerance.