Ruinian Li

Bio: Ruinian Li is an academic researcher from Bowling Green State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Computer science & Cloud computing. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 23 publications receiving 627 citations. Previous affiliations of Ruinian Li include George Washington University.

Blockchain for Large-Scale Internet of Things Data Storage and Protection

Abstract: With the dramatically increasing deployment of IoT devices, storing and protecting the large volume of IoT data has become a significant issue. Traditional cloud-based IoT structures impose extremely high computation and storage demands on the cloud servers. Meanwhile, the strong dependencies on the centralized servers bring significant trust issues. To mitigate these problems, we propose a distributed data storage scheme employing blockchain and cetrificateless cryptography. Our scheme eliminates the traditional centralized servers by leveraging the blockchain miners who perform “transaction” verifications and records audit with the help of certificateless cryptography. We present a clear definition of the transactions in a non-cryptocurrency system and illustrate how the transactions are processed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work designing a secure and accountable IoT storage system using blockchain. Additionally, we extend our scheme to enable data trading and elaborate how data trading can be efficiently and effectively achieved.

A Privacy Preserving Communication Protocol for IoT Applications in Smart Homes

Abstract: The development of the Internet of Things has made extraordinary progress in recent years in both academic and industrial fields There are quite a few smart home systems (SHSs) that have been developed by major companies to achieve home automation However, the nature of smart homes inevitably raises security and privacy concerns In this paper, we propose an improved energy-efficient, secure, and privacy-preserving communication protocol for the SHSs In our proposed scheme, data transmissions within the SHS are secured by a symmetric encryption scheme with secret keys being generated by chaotic systems Meanwhile, we incorporate message authentication codes to our scheme to guarantee data integrity and authenticity We also provide detailed security analysis and performance evaluation in comparison with our previous work in terms of computational complexity, memory cost, and communication overhead

IoT Applications on Secure Smart Shopping System

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing human lives by connecting everyday objects together For example, in a grocery store, all items can be connected with each other, forming a smart shopping system In such an IoT system, an inexpensive radio frequency identification (RFID) tag can be attached to each product which, when placed into a smart shopping cart, can be automatically read by a cart equipped with an RFID reader As a result, billing can be conducted from the shopping cart itself, preventing customers from waiting in a long queue at checkout Additionally, smart shelving can be added into this system, equipped with RFID readers, and can monitor stock, perhaps also updating a central server Another benefit of this kind of system is that inventory management becomes much easier, as all items can be automatically read by an RFID reader instead of manually scanned by a laborer To validate the feasibility of such a system, in this paper we identify the design requirements of a smart shopping system, build a prototype system to test functionality, and design a secure communication protocol to make the system practical To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a smart shopping system is proposed with security under consideration

A Privacy Preserving Communication Protocol for IoT Applications in Smart Homes

Abstract: Internet of things is the trending direction when it comes to designing smart living environment. One of the popular applications of Internet of things is the smart home system. A smart home system usually consists of various types of connected sensors, actuators, appliances and a controller. The controller analyzes the data reported by the sensors and sends out messages to electric appliances and other sensors to ask them to behave accordingly. There are a lot of smart home designs proposed in the literature to make the systems smarter and more comfortable. However, little work has considered the security and privacy issues in smart home systems. In this paper, we analyze the differences of security and privacy issues that lie in the smart home systems, smart grid, and wireless sensor networks. Further, we propose our own solutions that achieves privacy preservation during the communications between end sensors and appliances and the controller.

Image and Attribute Based Convolutional Neural Network Inference Attacks in Social Networks

Abstract: In modern society, social networks play an important role for online users. However, one unignorable problem behind the booming of the services is privacy issues. At the same time, neural networks have been swiftly developed in recent years, and are proven to be very effective in inference attacks. This article proposes a new framework for inference attacks in social networks, which smartly integrates and modifies the existing state-of-the-art convolutional neural network (CNN) models. As a result, the framework can fit wider applicable scenarios for inference attacks no matter whether a user has a legit profile image or not. Moreover, the framework is able to boost the existing high-accuracy CNN for sensitive information prediction. In addition to the framework, the article also shows the detailed configuration of fully connected neural networks (FCNNs) for inference attacks. This part is usually missing in the existing studies. Furthermore, traditional machine learning algorithms are implemented to compare the results from the constructed FCNN. Last but not least, this article also discusses that applying differential privacy (DP) can effectively undermine the accuracy of inference attacks in social networks.

Literature review of Industry 4.0 and related technologies

Abstract: Manufacturing industry profoundly impact economic and societal progress. As being a commonly accepted term for research centers and universities, the Industry 4.0 initiative has received a splendid attention of the business and research community. Although the idea is not new and was on the agenda of academic research in many years with different perceptions, the term “Industry 4.0” is just launched and well accepted to some extend not only in academic life but also in the industrial society as well. While academic research focuses on understanding and defining the concept and trying to develop related systems, business models and respective methodologies, industry, on the other hand, focuses its attention on the change of industrial machine suits and intelligent products as well as potential customers on this progress. It is therefore important for the companies to primarily understand the features and content of the Industry 4.0 for potential transformation from machine dominant manufacturing to digital manufacturing. In order to achieve a successful transformation, they should clearly review their positions and respective potentials against basic requirements set forward for Industry 4.0 standard. This will allow them to generate a well-defined road map. There has been several approaches and discussions going on along this line, a several road maps are already proposed. Some of those are reviewed in this paper. However, the literature clearly indicates the lack of respective assessment methodologies. Since the implementation and applications of related theorems and definitions outlined for the 4th industrial revolution is not mature enough for most of the reel life implementations, a systematic approach for making respective assessments and evaluations seems to be urgently required for those who are intending to speed this transformation up. It is now main responsibility of the research community to developed technological infrastructure with physical systems, management models, business models as well as some well-defined Industry 4.0 scenarios in order to make the life for the practitioners easy. It is estimated by the experts that the Industry 4.0 and related progress along this line will have an enormous effect on social life. As outlined in the introduction, some social transformation is also expected. It is assumed that the robots will be more dominant in manufacturing, implanted technologies, cooperating and coordinating machines, self-decision-making systems, autonom problem solvers, learning machines, 3D printing etc. will dominate the production process. Wearable internet, big data analysis, sensor based life, smart city implementations or similar applications will be the main concern of the community. This social transformation will naturally trigger the manufacturing society to improve their manufacturing suits to cope with the customer requirements and sustain competitive advantage. A summary of the potential progress along this line is reviewed in introduction of the paper. It is so obvious that the future manufacturing systems will have a different vision composed of products, intelligence, communications and information network. This will bring about new business models to be dominant in industrial life. Another important issue to take into account is that the time span of this so-called revolution will be so short triggering a continues transformation process to yield some new industrial areas to emerge. This clearly puts a big pressure on manufacturers to learn, understand, design and implement the transformation process. Since the main motivation for finding the best way to follow this transformation, a comprehensive literature review will generate a remarkable support. This paper presents such a review for highlighting the progress and aims to help improve the awareness on the best experiences. It is intended to provide a clear idea for those wishing to generate a road map for digitizing the respective manufacturing suits. By presenting this review it is also intended to provide a hands-on library of Industry 4.0 to both academics as well as industrial practitioners. The top 100 headings, abstracts and key words (i.e. a total of 619 publications of any kind) for each search term were independently analyzed in order to ensure the reliability of the review process. Note that, this exhaustive literature review provides a concrete definition of Industry 4.0 and defines its six design principles such as interoperability, virtualization, local, real-time talent, service orientation and modularity. It seems that these principles have taken the attention of the scientists to carry out more variety of research on the subject and to develop implementable and appropriate scenarios. A comprehensive taxonomy of Industry 4.0 can also be developed through analyzing the results of this review.

An Overview of Internet of Things (IoT) and Data Analytics in Agriculture: Benefits and Challenges

Abstract: The surge in global population is compelling a shift toward smart agriculture practices. This coupled with the diminishing natural resources, limited availability of arable land, increase in unpredictable weather conditions makes food security a major concern for most countries. As a result, the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics (DA) are employed to enhance the operational efficiency and productivity in the agriculture sector. There is a paradigm shift from use of wireless sensor network (WSN) as a major driver of smart agriculture to the use of IoT and DA. The IoT integrates several existing technologies, such as WSN, radio frequency identification, cloud computing, middleware systems, and end-user applications. In this paper, several benefits and challenges of IoT have been identified. We present the IoT ecosystem and how the combination of IoT and DA is enabling smart agriculture. Furthermore, we provide future trends and opportunities which are categorized into technological innovations, application scenarios, business, and marketability.

A Survey on Consensus Mechanisms and Mining Strategy Management in Blockchain Networks

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed the rapid evolution in blockchain technologies, which has attracted tremendous interests from both the research communities and industries. The blockchain network was originated from the Internet financial sector as a decentralized, immutable ledger system for transactional data ordering. Nowadays, it is envisioned as a powerful backbone/framework for decentralized data processing and data-driven self-organization in flat, open-access networks. In particular, the plausible characteristics of decentralization, immutability, and self-organization are primarily owing to the unique decentralized consensus mechanisms introduced by blockchain networks. This survey is motivated by the lack of a comprehensive literature review on the development of decentralized consensus mechanisms in blockchain networks. In this paper, we provide a systematic vision of the organization of blockchain networks. By emphasizing the unique characteristics of decentralized consensus in blockchain networks, our in-depth review of the state-of-the-art consensus protocols is focused on both the perspective of distributed consensus system design and the perspective of incentive mechanism design. From a game-theoretic point of view, we also provide a thorough review of the strategy adopted for self-organization by the individual nodes in the blockchain backbone networks. Consequently, we provide a comprehensive survey of the emerging applications of blockchain networks in a broad area of telecommunication. We highlight our special interest in how the consensus mechanisms impact these applications. Finally, we discuss several open issues in the protocol design for blockchain consensus and the related potential research directions.