Tomasz Surmacz

SeReCon: a secure reconfiguration controller for self-reconfigurable systems

A risk of covert insertion of circuitry into reconfigurable computing (RC) systems exists. This paper reviews risks of hardware attack on field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based RC systems and proposes a method for secure system credentials generation (unique, random and partially anonymous) and trusted self-reconfiguration, using a secure reconfiguration controller (SeReCon) and partial reconfiguration (PR). SeReCon provides a root of trust (RoT) for RC systems, incorporating novel algorithms for security credentials generation and trusted design verification. Credentials are generated internally, during system certification. The private credential element never leaves the SeReCon security perimeter. To provide integrity-maintaining self-reconfiguration, SeReCon performs analysis of each new IP core structure prior to reconfiguration. An unverified IP core can be used provided that its spatial isolation is retained. SeReCon provides encrypted storage for installed IP cores. Resource usage for a prototype SeReCon system is presented. The protection provided by SeReCon is illustrated in a number of security attack scenarios.

SeReCon: A Secure Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration Controller

As reconfigurable computing systems become more popular, concerns arise about their security and integrity. Runtime access to the configuration memory of dynamic partially reconfigurable FPGA devices offers new design possibilities, but also introduces security threats. This paper discusses various security threats present in such systems. The paper proposes a secure reconfiguration controller (SeReCon) which provides secure runtime management of designs downloaded to the DPR FPGA system and protects the design IP. SeReCon requires minor modification to the FPGA fabric. A prototype implementation of SeReCon is evaluated.

Reliability of e-mail delivery in the era of spam

E-mail system has been designed once to be one of the most reliable internet services. All possible steps were taken in the protocol to assure either a positive delivery of e-mail or the return of an error message. This is now circumvented in many ways by various antispam techniques and the SMTP protocol cannot be considered reliable anymore. The paper discusses some of the current SMTP protocol modifications that are considered harmful and proposes a way for maintaining the reliability of the protocol while increasing the immunity to spam.

Realistic Model of Radio Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

Many theoretical works analysing Wireless Sensor Networks make ad hoc assumptions regarding their physical properties. In our work we measure physical properties of WSNs, such as node power consumption and effective error rates in many realistic scenarios, e.g. in open field, forest and urban environments. We use popular MicaZ and IRIS motes compliant to ZigBee standard to provide a good framework for further research on organization, routing and management algorithms for energy efficient and robust environment monitoring. Using our measurements we find realistic parameters for abstract models to be used in WSN simulations and provide radio transmission model for near-ground node placement.

Lessons Learned from the Deployment of Wireless Sensor Networks

Many theoretical works focus on maximizing the lifetime of a measurement-gathering sensor networks by researching different aspects of energy conservation or details of self-organizing network algorithms. In our practical deployment of such a network we learned that software and hardware reliability, as well as anticipation of worst-case scenarios, are the equally important factors for successful experiments. We describe our experiences with implementing a WSN for long-time unattended operation in a greenhouse data-collecting application.

SeReCon: A Trusted Environment for SoPC Design

Problems of fraud, theft, impersonation and counterfeiting have migrated into computing and digital communication technology. Reconfigurable computing (RC) (e.g., FPGA) systems blur the boundary between hardware and software. As reconfigurable computing systems become more popular, concerns arise about their security and privacy. Run-time partial reconfiguration provides the flexibility of hardware, but at the same time may compromise security and integrity of the embedded system design. This paper discusses potential threats to such systems and describes SeReCon, a secure reconfiguration controller, as a countermeasure. SeReCon supports intellectual property protection within the FPGA and provides secure run-time management of designs within FPGA. The fundamentals of the SeReCon trusted computing base are described. Various IP Block processing scenarios are proposed. Early implementation results are reported.

DASH7 Alliance Protocol in Monitoring Applications

In this paper we introduce important aspects of the recently published DASH7 Alliance Protocol v1.0 specification for wireless sensor and actuator networks. The main contribution of this paper is the discussion of the different communication schemes and the accompanying trade-offs which can be used when designing a DASH7 network. Finally, we describe two practical use cases as examples of how DASH7 can be used to efficiently solve specific problems as well as the hardware developed that uses energy harvesting.

Transmission power control based on packet reception rate

This paper proposes and analyses properties of transmission power control mechanism for Wireless Sensor Networks based on estimated packet reception rate. The algorithm is dedicated for low power wireless networks and its aim is to minimise average cost of radio transmission, reduce retransmissions and interferences between network nodes.

Rapid Protocol Development in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Wireshark Plugins

When developing new protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) the ability to observe generated wireless traffic and inspect packets sent between sensor nodes is a crucial part of the process. In this work a new methodology is presented, in which a single protocol description in XML files can be a source of various data needed for protocol development and testing. A set of tools is presented that allows automated generation of headers in nesC language as well as protocol dissectors for Wireshark – a popular network analysing tool. Although the described technique has been mainly used for the development of WSN applications, the principles and details can also be applied to the development of any protocol-oriented applications on mobile computing platforms.

Clustering and data aggregation as factors of wireless sensor network lifetime

Wireless Sensor Networks are of great interest to the scientific community. Having many potential applications, they also present many research problems, concerning radio channel and collision avoidance, network management and self-organization, routing or node energy preservation. This work is focused on determining WSN lifetime dependence on network clusterization and aggregation algorithms. We show that the high inherent variability of WSN lifetime is caused by randomness of deployment of its nodes.