Noureddine Boudriga

Intelligent agents on the Web: a review

Intelligent agents are goal-driven and autonomous, and can communicate and interact with each other. Moreover, they can evaluate information obtained online from heterogeneous sources and present information tailored to an individuals needs. This article covers different facets of the intelligent agent paradigm and applications, while also exploring new opportunities and trends for intelligent agents.

Intrusion Tolerant Routing for Mesh Networks

We propose in this paper a protocol called MERQIT which secure the routing service for the wireless mesh networks while guaranteeing the end-to-end QoS requirements in terms of delay, our approach provides an intrusion tolerant environment and uses and enhances the concept of trusted timely computing base (Ferreira and Verrissimo, 2002) to deduce consistent delay information while tolerating DoS and wormhole attacks. MERQIT also detects and isolates malicious managers while rescuing the affected flows.

Lightweight cloud computing for development: A graph based data model

The developing countries can leverage the potential provided by cloud computing to leapfrog from poorly equipped to ICT enabled nations if the widely known issues related to power supply, limited communication infrastructures, security and privacy usually experienced by the ICT field in the developing countries are addressed. Lightweight cloud computing can address these issues but requires i) enhanced service brokerage to efficiently share the limited resources of the lightweight cloud infrastructure by managing and monitoring inflow of requests from customers and mapping these requests to virtual machines and cloud infrastructures and ii) a reliable database management system capable of keeping and updating the track of customers requests and cloud infrastructure status. This paper presents a novel data model for cloud services brokerage that supports the allocation, control and management of virtual system based on brokering function between cloud service providers (CSPs) and cloud users by integrating and managing cloud resources in a heterogeneous cloud environment. The model is implemented for a private lightweight cloud network using a graph model in an OpenStack environment. The experimental results show that a graph model has better performance than a relational model in term of queries execution time.

A Dynamic Distributed Key Tunneling Protocol for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are being used for many applications ranging from mobile target surveillance to intelligent home networking. The data transmitted by those applications are sensitive. Then due to the weakness of the radio links, appropriate protection mechanisms are needed to prevent attackers from exploiting those lacks of security. In this paper we present a solution to authenticate the nodes and protect the sent data. We investigate the use of secure tunnels as a solution to improve the protection of WSNs. We propose a tunneling scheme that conforms to the security requirements of WSNs while having less computational and network overhead. A set of experiments has been conducted to assess the performance of the proposed scheme with regard to traditional tunnels built using the IPSec protocol. We found that our protocol considerably reduces the number of transmitted messages as well as the computational load, which makes it suitable for WSNs.

Location Management in Wireless Fourth Generation Networks

Satisfying quality of service (QoS) is one of the main goals of the wireless fourth generation (4G), which will integrate tightly a multitude of different heterogeneous networks including cellular networks (second generation, third generation, wireless local area networks, bluetooth, etc). In this paper, we develop an information-theoretic framework for optimal location updating and paging for wireless 4G network, which integrate tightly many different access networks. Then, we adopt the LZW compression algorithm as the basis of our location management schemes. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed schemes decrease the signaling cost.

Secured and Seamless Handoff in Wireless Fourth Generation Systems

Satisfying quality of service (QoS) and security requirements is one of the main goals of the wireless fourth generation (4G) systems, which will integrate a multitude of different heterogeneous networks including cellular networks second generation, third generation, wireless local area networks, Bluetooth, etc. In this paper, first we introduce a novel wireless fourth generation architecture which improves cellular network capacity by reducing interference level. Second, we propose a novel approach to secure and provide seamless handoff. The proposed protocol employs mutual authentication between a mobile node and a visited access network (VAN) that is performed first by invoking the mobile node home access network (HAN) then locally without contacting the HAN.

Resource management schemes in optical networks

Advance resource reservation service in packet switched networks is a complex task. The decision points to achieve such tasks include not only the start time of the requested connection, but also the instances when the new connection may overlap with other connections that are already scheduled in the system. The task complexity is more important when the admission resource control is addressed in optical networks, particularly when service durations are uncertain, priorities are provided, and contention is possible. In this paper, we study the issues of admission control, resource reservation, and delay in optical networks. A novel scheme for this purpose is devised. The main goals of our approach are to maximize user satisfaction in terms of quality of service (QoS) guarantees, service continuity, and reservation cost reduction.

Security Engineering Techniques and Solutions for Information Systems: Management and Implementation

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are self-configuring networks of mobile devices connected via wireless links. Every device in MANETs is also a router because it is required to forward traffic unrelated to its own use. These kinds of networks are exposed more than traditional networks to security threats due to their mobility and open architecture aspects. In addition, any attack can severely affect the network as all nodes participate in the routing task. For these mentioned reasons, it is important to check the validity of ad hoc protocols, and verify whether their running implementation is in accordance with their security goals in order to detect potential security flaws in the network. In this chapter, we propose a formal methodology based on passive testing techniques to collect and analyze ad hoc network traffic trace and detect potential attacks (distributed or not). Observers running on a set of nodes collect local traces and send them later to a global observer. An adapted time synchronization mechanism allows the global observer to correlate the received traces obtaining thus a global trace. The latter is then analyzed to study the security aspects of the running routing protocol. This analysis is performed using dedicated algorithms that allow checking the collected trace against a set of functional and security properties specified in a well adapted formal language called Nomad.

Security of e-Systems and Computer Networks: E-commerce security

The Internet is dramatically changing the way that goods (tangible and intangible) and services are produced, delivered, sold, and purchased. Due to this development, trade on the Web becomes an essential requirement for enterprises. From e-commerce to m-commerce, which has become a major service nowadays, every enterprise works hard to find out a way to sell and buy that can satisfy its requirements. Several payment protocols have been developed. The security of servers, transactions, and payment operations has become a major issue for the success of business on the Internet. Introduction E-commerce security has become a serious concern for enterprises and citizens who rely on distributed digital processing in their daily operations. From a customers perspective, the purpose of an e-commerce system is to enable the customer to locate and purchase a desired good (tangible or intangible) or service over the Internet when he/she is interested in getting it. Its function is to provide a virtual store. From a merchants perspective, the key function of an e-commerce system is to generate higher revenues than the merchant would achieve without the system. To this end, the e-commerce system must recreate or utilize existing data and business processes and provide other processes to facilitate electronic purchase and provide product information, inventory systems, customer service, and transaction capabilities including credit authorization, tax computation, financial settlement, as well as delivery. Additional functions of an e-commerce system are to help redefine and enhance an enterprises capability, customer-service capability, and delivery effectiveness.