Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides cryptographic key management guidance for defining and implementing appropriate key management procedures, using algorithms that adequately protect sensitive information, and planning ahead for possible changes in the use of cryptography because of algorithm breaks or the availability of more powerful computing techniques. NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-57 Part 1 includes a general approach for transitioning from one algorithm or key length to another. This Recommendation (SP 800-131A Revision 1) provides more specific guidance for transitions to the use of stronger cryptographic keys and more robust algorithms.

Transitions: Recommendation for Transitioning the Use of Cryptographic Algorithms and Key Lengths

The Raspberry Pi is being increasingly adopted as a suitable platform in both research and applications of the Internet of Things (IoT). This study presents a novel project-based teaching and learning approach devised in an Internet of Things course for undergraduate students in the computer science major, where the Raspberry Pi platform is used as an effective vehicle to greatly enhance students’ learning performance and experience. The devised course begins with learning simple hardware and moves to building a whole prototype system. This paper illustrates the outcome of the proposed approach by demonstrating the prototype IoT systems designed and developed by students at the end of one such IoT course. Furthermore, this study provides insights and lessons regarding how to facilitate the use of the Raspberry Pi platform to successfully achieve the goals of project-based teaching and learning in IoT.

Raspberry Pi: An Effective Vehicle in Teaching the Internet of Things in Computer Science and Engineering

Blockchain technology applications in power distribution systems

Industry 4.0 articulates that modern intelligent machines are better than humans that are enough capable to capture and analyze data in real-time, as well as in communicating information that may be helpful to take business-related decisions faster. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) relies on intelligent assets that communicate and store data, data communication infrastructures, analytics, and people for functioning. With so many constituents of the IIoT network, there is also an increased potential for security risks. Privacy and trust issues need to be addressed. Recently Blockchain Technology has shown tremendous growth due to its reliable nature. In this paper we introduce a blockchain technology-based architecture for IIoT with the aim to address a lot of significant security issues

Blockchain meets IIoT: An architecture for privacy preservation and security in IIoT

Sharing information is an important part of regulating and maintaining efficient and safe power grids. This project’s goal is to develop a way of using blockchain technology to share transaction information among different power grids in a secure, controlled, monitored, and efficient manner. The biggest concern regarding the data is integrity. By leveraging blockchain technology, the data will be reliable and resilient to attacks, such as man-in-the-middle and data spoofing attacks. The Hyperledger Fabric implementation provides a permissioned network in which power grids will act as nodes that maintain ledger information. By using a distributed ledger to validate transactions though the process of consensus, the system can share information in a manner that is more secure and transparent than traditional information sharing systems in which data is less secure and takes longer to validate. The additional layers of security and speed that Hyperledger technology provide help to prevent issues, such as power grid failures, that could stem from the latency or integrity issues involved with traditional methods of validating, processing, and reacting to shared data.

Blockchain for Power Grids

Cyber ranges are an important tool for teaching cyber security techniques. However, setting up a cyber range for classroom use can be costly. Prior work on lowering the cost of cyber ranges focuses on open source solutions and virtual machines. Yet, these solutions do not reduce the cost of physical components - namely, the underlying hardware used to build the range. In this paper, we describe a prototype cyber range built out of Raspberry Pis, a type of inexpensive single board computer. To illustrate the functionality of the range, we use Docker and Docker Swarm to deploy a vulnerable web server across four Raspberry Pi nodes and assess it in an undergraduate classroom. Our cyber range costs under $250.00 to build and consumes less than 25 Watts of power. We open-source our materials and provide pre-built Docker images on Docker Hub to enable others to use our work. Our results suggest that cyber ranges built using Raspberry Pi clusters can lower cost and enhance cyber security education.

Teaching Web-Attacks on a Raspberry Pi Cyber Range

ARM-based single board computers (SBCs) such as the Raspberry Pi capture the imaginations of hobbyists and scientists due to their low cost and versatility. With the deluge of data produced in edge environments, SBCs and SBC clusters have emerged as low-cost platform for data collection and analysis. Simultaneously, security is a growing concern as new regulations require secure communication for data collected from the edge. In this paper, we compare the performance of a Raspberry Pi cluster to a power-efficient next unit of computing (NUC) and a midrange desktop (MRD) on three leading cryptographic algorithms (AES, Twofish, and Serpent) and assess the general-purpose performance of the three systems using the HPL benchmark. Our results suggest that hardware-level instruction sets for all three cryptographic algorithms should be implemented on single board computers to aid with secure data transfer on the edge.

Evaluating Cryptographic Performance of Raspberry Pi Clusters

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A Quantitative Study of Advanced Encryption Standard Performance as it Relates to Cryptographic Attack Feasibility

Maximizing student retention of, and ability to apply, technical material in introductory information technology courses is a complex task, especially with respect to the general student population. This population struggles with the application of programming concepts in the time-constrained testing environment. Our study considers the implementation of daily quizzes in a core-curriculum information technology and programming course as a means to improve student concept retention and application. Between the first and second exams, the instructors implemented a series of high-frequency, no-risk quizzes. Of the four sections of the course that each instructor taught, two sections each were provided with the quizzes as the experimental group and two remained with the standard curriculum as the control. The results demonstrate the benefits of frequent, effortful recall on student performance in a core-curriculum information technology and programming course.

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Daniel Hawthorne

Papers

Blockchain for Power Grids

Teaching Web-Attacks on a Raspberry Pi Cyber Range

Evaluating Cryptographic Performance of Raspberry Pi Clusters

A Quantitative Study of Advanced Encryption Standard Performance as it Relates to Cryptographic Attack Feasibility

Hacking the Non-Technical Brain: Maximizing Retention in a Core Introductory IT Course