Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Privacy for smart workplaces'

The master thesis project will analyze the smart parking solution used in Frederiksberg municipality, focusing on privacy aspects in different data use cases. The current use case will be analyzed with the focus on its privacy aspects. Frederiksberg municipality is using a camera mounted on a car that records parked cars to check whether parking fee has been paid or not. The system recognizes the license plate out of the picture and checks in the system whether the parking for that license plate has been paid or not if it has not been paid it notifies the parking guard to go to the parked car and hand out a parking ticket. Since the license plate is considered personal data, this system has to follow the legal and other obligations for the handling of personal data, i.e., the new European General Data Protection Regulation. Frederiksberg municipality is also considering using data for secondary purposes, such as parking statistics, input for future regulation, analysis to improve the parking system or even making the data public. This thesis will analyze possible secondary use cases and their privacy impacts and recomn measures. The goal is to protect citizens privacy while providing with the best possible service.
Examensarbetet kommer att analysera den smarta parkeringslösningen som används i Frederiksbergs kommun med fokus på sekretessaspekter i olika fall för dataanvändning. Det aktuella användningsfallet kommer att analyseras med fokus på dess integritetsaspekter. Frederiksberg kommun använder en kamera monterad på en bil som registrerar parkerade bilar för att kontrollera om parkeringsavgiften har betalats eller inte. Systemet känner igen registreringsskylten ur bilden och kontrollerar i systemet om parkeringen för den typskylten har betalats eller inte om den inte har betalats, meddelar parkeringsvakten att gå till den parkerade bilen och dela ut en parkeringsbiljett. Eftersom licensskylten betraktas som personuppgifter måste detta system följa de lagliga och andra skyldigheterna för hantering av personuppgifter, dvs. den nya förordningen om europeisk allmän dataskydd. Frederiksberg kommun överväger också att använda data för sekundära ändamål, som parkeringsstatistik, input för framtida reglering, analys för att förbättra parkeringssystemet eller till och med offentliggöra uppgifterna. Denna avhandling kommer att analysera eventuella fall av sekundär användning och deras inverkan på sekretess och rekommendera skyddsåtgärder. Målet skydda medborgarnas integritet samtidigt som de ger bästa möjliga service.

In a world of the Internet of Things, smart home has shown a great potency and trend. A smart home is a convenient home setup where appliances and devices can be automatically controlled remotely from any internet-connected place in the world using a mobile or other networked device. Smart home has changed the way the residents interacted with their home and realised more convenience. Although this technology also has positive impact on saving energy and resources, privacy issues in it have shown to one of the biggest obstacles to the adaption of this technology. The purpose of this thesis is to study smart home users’ perceptions of smart homes and their privacy awareness and concerns. The research was conducted through interviews and followed an interpretive research paradigm and a qualitative research approach. In this study, 5 smart home owners were interviewed to investigate their reasons for purchasing IoT devices, their perceptions of smart home privacy risks, and actions to protect their privacy, as well as managing IoT devices and/or its data. The research results show that there are privacy risks existing in smart homes. Consumers’ privacy data is collected secretly, which needs to be controlled, and privacy issues have to be addressed in the near future for the smart home to be fully adopted by the society.

The Smart Metering Systems are state of the art technologies and modern services integratedwith legacy metering systems. These systems are one of the most important parts of smart grids.Smart Grids are electrical power infrastructures that make intelligent decisions about the state ofthe electrical power devices. Smart Grids provide a stable electrical power environment. SmartGrids support all functionalities of traditional power systems in addition a Smart Grid bears newfunctionalities of intelligent power systems e.g. self-healing, resisting to attacks, increasingpower quality, motivating consumers to wisely use the electricity, enabling new business toelectrical markets, optimizing assets and operating efficiently and accommodating all generationand storages options. A smart home is usually a modern home that is equipped with some specialstructured wiring or wireless systems to enable inhabitants to remotely control or program any ofhome electronic devices supporting specific types of control functionalities by entering a singlecommand at their remote computer or smart phones. Privacy in smart spaces/environments is notonly confidentiality of data /connections but is the management of the complication of theseenvironments due to decentralised and dynamic nature of these spaces. General model of smarthome and smart metering systems have their specific considerations e.g. assumptions, threats,countermeasures and privacy preserving model. Both security architectures have their specificsecurity policies, considerations, authorization and authentication authorities, and encryption anddecryption strategies. Running two different security architectures in parallel may raise someissues, threats and considerations that are the main purpose of this thesis project. So, theprinciple goal of this research project is to define the secure model of collaboration between twodifferent security architectures in the smart space in which general smart home networkarchitecture is established in parallel to smart metering system architecture. Federatedauthentication systems e.g. SAML and OAuth, OpenID and federated authorization systems likeXACML are most common distributed standard protocols to manage distributed securitysystems. This thesis investigates issues and problems of two parallel security architectures andproposes a secure communication protocol in addition to a proof-of-concept of the final solution.All of most famous available protocols for authentication and authorization will be discussed andfinally will be implemented as a proof of concept. Encryption and decryption as basic securityfunctions is not considered in this project and will be postponed as a future work around thisresearch project.

Smart grids promise to enhance drastically the efficiency of today's power networks. One of the key components of smart grids is the smart meter, which allows to monitor a user's electricity consumption with much higher resolution compared to conventional energy meters. However, the high resolution of smart meter measurements also entails serious privacy implications for the users, as it makes easier to distinguish the power signature of single appliances from the aggregate household consumption. This would lead an attacker, which may be a thief, a surveillance agency, or the utility provider itself, to gain insights into users' activities and behaviors. In this dissertation we analyze several privacy-preserving techniques that protect users' privacy without diminishing the utility of smart grids. We adopt physical resources that are increasingly available at the users' premises, such as renewable energy sources and rechargeable batteries, and use them to minimize the information leaked about a user's electricity consumption, as well as the cost of energy. We deploy information-theoretic tools to characterize the fundamental limits of smart meter privacy, measuring privacy via mutual information, and characterizing single-letter expressions for the information leaked when considering infinite and zero-capacity rechargeable batteries. These scenarios represent lower and upper bounds on the privacy performance of more realistic settings with finite-capacity rechargeable batteries. When considering a finite-capacity battery, we express the information leakage as an additive quantity, and cast the problem as a stochastic control problem, which can be solved by dynamic programming. We also propose more empirical privacy-preserving strategies, testing their performance against real smart meter measurements and time of use pricing tariffs. In particular, we measure privacy as the squared difference between the smart meter measurements and a target profile, which we consider as a completely private power profile, and characterize the optimal trade-off between privacy and cost of energy.

Smart Grid (SG) is an electrical grid enhanced with information and communication technology capabilities, so it can support two-way electricity and communication flows among various entities in the grid. The aim of SG is to make the electricity industry operate more efficiently and to provide electricity in a more secure, reliable and sustainable manner. Automated Meter Reading (AMR) and Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV) charging are two SG applications tipped to play a major role in achieving this aim. The AMR application allows different SG entities to collect users’ fine-grained metering data measured by users’ Smart Meters (SMs). The SEV charging application allows EVs’ charging parameters to be changed depending on the grid’s state in return for incentives for the EV owners. However, both applications impose risks on users’ privacy. Entities having access to users’ fine-grained metering data may use such data to infer individual users’ personal habits. In addition, users’ private information such as users’/EVs’ identities and charging locations could be exposed when EVs are charged. Entities may use such information to learn users’ whereabouts, thus breach their privacy. This thesis proposes secure and user privacy-preserving protocols to support AMR and SEV charging in an efficient, scalable and cost-effective manner. First, it investigates both applications. For AMR, (1) it specifies an extensive set of functional requirements taking into account the way liberalised electricity markets work and the interests of all SG entities, (2) it performs a comprehensive threat analysis, based on which, (3) it specifies security and privacy requirements, and (4) it proposes to divide users’ data into two types: operational data (used for grid management) and accountable data (used for billing). For SEV charging, (1) it specifies two modes of charging: price-driven mode and price-control-driven mode, and (2) it analyses two use-cases: price-driven roaming SEV charging at home location and price-control-driven roaming SEV charging at home location, by performing threat analysis and specifying sets of functional, security and privacy requirements for each of the two cases. Second, it proposes a novel Decentralized, Efficient, Privacy-preserving and Selective Aggregation (DEP2SA) protocol to allow SG entities to collect users’ fine-grained operational metering data while preserving users’ privacy. DEP2SA uses the homomorphic Paillier cryptosystem to ensure the confidentiality of the metering data during their transit and data aggregation process. To preserve users’ privacy with minimum performance penalty, users’ metering data are classified and aggregated accordingly by their respective local gateways based on the users’ locations and their contracted suppliers. In this way, authorised SG entities can only receive the aggregated data of users they have contracts with. DEP2SA has been analysed in terms of security, computational and communication overheads, and the results show that it is more secure, efficient and scalable as compared with related work. Third, it proposes a novel suite of five protocols to allow (1) suppliers to collect users accountable metering data, and (2) users (i) to access, manage and control their own metering data and (ii) to switch between electricity tariffs and suppliers, in an efficient and scalable manner. The main ideas are: (i) each SM to have a register, named accounting register, dedicated only for storing the user’s accountable data, (ii) this register is updated by design at a low frequency, (iii) the user’s supplier has unlimited access to this register, and (iv) the user cancustomise how often this register is updated with new data. The suite has been analysed in terms of security, computational and communication overheads. Fourth, it proposes a novel protocol, known as Roaming Electric Vehicle Charging and Billing, an Anonymous Multi-User (REVCBAMU) protocol, to support the priced-driven roaming SEV charging at home location. During a charging session, a roaming EV user uses a pseudonym of the EV (known only to the user’s contracted supplier) which is anonymously signed by the user’s private key. This protocol protects the user’s identity privacy from other suppliers as well as the user’s privacy of location from its own supplier. Further, it allows the user’s contracted supplier to authenticate the EV and the user. Using two-factor authentication approach a multi-user EV charging is supported and different legitimate EV users (e.g., family members) can be held accountable for their charging sessions. With each charging session, the EV uses a different pseudonym which prevents adversaries from linking the different charging sessions of the same EV. On an application level, REVCBAMU supports fair user billing, i.e., each user pays only for his/her own energy consumption, and an open EV marketplace in which EV users can safely choose among different remote host suppliers. The protocol has been analysed in terms of security and computational overheads.

Homes with integrated state of the art technology are considered Smart Homes. A smart home has special systems which enable remote control via remote computer or smart phones. These modern integrated services are supported by electrical power infrastructures called Smart Grids, which provides a stable electrical power environment to support all functionalities, with intelligent power systems that provide increased power quality. Inside a Smart home, a legacy metering system called Smart Meters are installed offering new functionalities such as remote readings of power consumption, and different time usage of tariffs.Preliminary research has already indicated vulnerability attacks on smart meters which affect the security and privacy in smart meters. Security issues in this system include vulnerabilities and privacy issues includes information leakage in real-time consumption data that is recorded by the smart meters.Enhancing both security and privacy in the smart meters are the main purpose of this thesis. The principle goal of this research is to provide more understanding about the smart meters from a security and privacy perspective. This thesis investigates issues and problems in smart meters and proposes a secure communication protocol in the application layer, in addition to a proof-of-concept of the final solution. In this research we introduce the solution by means of two scenarios, we highlight the effects of an attack on the smart meters on levels of simulation and theory. The first scenario is to "take control over the smart meter to access the data consumptions in the smart meters". The proposed solution of using the Smart Phone as a third part to protect the smart meters has been evaluated using a network simulation tool. The result shows that the data captured by attacking node is encrypted and can't be used for any useful operation. In the second scenario, "monitoring the data consumptions to harm the user's privacy", in other words, stealing the user's devices. The proposed solution is using the home electrical power routing to moderate the home's load signature in order to hide appliance usage information. Data clusters are implemented as a proof of concept to evaluate the data. The results show that there is only 99.5 % correct clustered data with good quality.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to explore blockchain technology and smart contracts as a way of building privacy-sensitive applications. The main focus is on a medication plan containing prescriptions, built on a blockchain system of smart contracts. This is an example use case, but the results can be transferred to other ones where sensitive data is being shared and a proof of validity or authentication is needed. First the problem is presented, why medication plans are in need of digitalisation and why blockchain technology is a fitting technology for implementing such an application. Then blockchain technology is explained, since it is a very new and relatively unfamiliar IT construct. Thereafter, a design is proposed for solving the problem. A system of smart contracts was built to prove how such an application can be built, and suggested guidelines for how a blockchain system should be designed to fulfil the requirements that were defined. Finally, a discussion is held regarding the applicability of different blockchain designs to the problem of privacy-handling applications.
Syftet med detta examensarbete är att utforska blockkedje teknologi och s.k. smarta kontrakt för att bygga applikationer där känslig information hanteras. Huvudsakligen ligger fokus på att utveckla en struktur baserad på blockkedje teknologi och smarta kontrakt för en medikationsplan. Detta är ett typ-exempel för att visa hur en sådan applikation kan byggas, men resultaten kan överföras till andra områden där känslig data delas mellan parter, eller där ett bevis för korrekthet krävs. Först presenteras problemet, varför medikationsplaner behöver digitaliseras och varför blockkedje teknologi är väl anpassat för att implementera en sådan applikation. Sedan förklaras blockkedje teknologi något djupare i detalj, eftersom det är ett relativt nytt koncept. Därefter föreslås en design för att lösa problemet.  Ett system av smarta kontrakt är byggt för att visa hur en medikationsplan kan byggas, och riktlinjer ges för hur ett blockkedje system bör se ut för att stödja systemet av smarta kontrakt. Till slut hålls en kortare diskussion om hur olika blockkedje-designer kan användas för att appliceras på problemet med känslig information.

Presentation held externally at Technical University Munich on the 29-5-2017 10.50.

In a world where technological progress is constant, understanding the views and experiences of users is essential. With the use of technology, there are many dangers. Issues with privacy and security are among them. This thesis deals with understanding the perception of privacy and security of smart home IoT devices. The literature review consists of understanding concepts of trust, possible ways of intrusion, and prevention and elaborating more about the Internet of Things technology and smart homes. The review also contains notes on previous findings of the user's perception. The review of the literature also connects possible ways of intrusion with the underlying IoT architecture as well as explains notions of privacy by design, compliance, and GDPR. To understand the phenomenon of privacy and security in the context of a smart home, a simple qualitative study was conducted. Sixteen participants who are part of the general public were interviewed. The collected information was analyzed using a general inductive approach, and answers were grouped into categories as suggested by Thematic Analysis. Interviews were done online and a transcript summary can be found in the last Appendix. The findings from the interviews suggest that privacy and convenience matter most to the users. Participants demonstrated a willingness to purchase if they perceived a device as something that will increase their quality of life and were willing to share data such as location but they were not willing to lose anonymity. What type of data and for what purpose was mentioned as most important. When it comes to security attacks, participants were less worried about how it might happen and more worried about what might happen to them and what are the consequences for them. In the conclusion of the study, I present advice for students and academia, device manufacturers, and service providers as well as the general public as the last main stakeholder. Since technology is not static, it would be of importance to revisit topics of privacy and security of IoT.

Smart devices are experiencing rapid development and great popularity. Various smart products available nowadays have largely enriched people’s lives. While users are enjoying their smart devices, there are two major user concerns: energy efficiency and privacy protection. In this dissertation, we propose solutions to enhance energy efficiency and privacy protection on smart devices. First, we study different ways to handle WiFi broadcast frames during smartphone suspend mode. We reveal the dilemma of existing methods: either receive all of them suffering high power consumption, or receive none of them sacrificing functionalities. to address the dilemma, we propose Software Broadcast Filter (SBF). SBF is smarter than the “receive-none” method as it only blocks useless broadcast frames and does not impair application functionalities. SBF is also more energy efficient than the “receive-all” method. Our trace driven evaluation shows that SBF saves up to 49.9% energy consumption compared to the “receive-all” method. Second, we design a system, namely HIDE, to further reduce smartphone energy wasted on useless WiFi broadcast frames. With the HIDE system, smartphones in suspend mode do not receive useless broadcast frames or wake up to process use- less broadcast frames. Our trace-driven simulation shows that the HIDE system saves 34%-75% energy for the Nexus One phone when 10% of the broadcast frames are useful to the smartphone. Our overhead analysis demonstrates that the HIDE system has negligible impact on network capacity and packet round-trip time. Third, to better protect user privacy, we propose a continuous and non-invasive authentication system for wearable glasses, namely GlassGuard. GlassGuard discriminates the owner and an imposter with biometric features from touch gestures and voice commands, which are all available during normal user interactions. With data collected from 32 users on Google Glass, we show that GlassGuard achieves a 99% detection rate and a 0.5% false alarm rate after 3.5 user events on average when all types of user events are available with equal probability. Under five typical usage scenarios, the system has a detection rate above 93% and a false alarm rate below 3% after less than 5 user events.

In order to improve the power grid and provision the Smart Grid concept, one well-defined approach would be to utilize new information and communication technology. Live power consumption data in addition to the time base power consumption rate are essential requirements in this context. These communications are supposed to be bi-directional between consumers, providers and smart grid administrations (market, operators, etc.). However, one of the most essential requirements that should be preserved is to address communication security and privacy. There are many opportunities for adversaries to attack the smart grid system, even remotely anywhere in the world, that could result in costly issues and damages in the system, even jeopardize user privacy. In the first part of this thesis, we concentrate on improving the efficiency of security mechanism and present our tailored authentication and key management mechanisms. We propose two solutions, one for communications between home appliances and a home gateway (smart meter), while the second solution aims at communications between the home smart meter and an appropriate server located in the smart grid utility network.We then propose enhancements on key management by developing two key construction mechanisms based on the Password Authentication Key Exchange (PAKE) protocol. The first is a cluster-based group key mechanism between smart grid entities, e.g. consumers in a neighbourhood area network. The second enhancement is a multi-layer key mechanism motivated by controlling the home smart appliances using different smart grid controllers located in different layers of the controlling hierarchy network. The second part of the thesis concentrates on Privacy. In this part, we present a privacy mechanism based on enhanced network coding for communications between smart meters and utility servers via a mesh topology. Finally, we propose a privacy-aware security solution for mobile devices. For example, to support electric vehicles in buying and selling the power from and to the grid, or in case of the smart phones in the heterogeneous network (4G and/or 5G), to support handover between the access points.
Applied Science, Faculty of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of
Graduate

Au cours de la dernière décennie, la technologie Internet des objets (IoT) a révolutionné presque tous les domaines de la vie quotidienne et a dynamisé les villes intelligentes. Les villes intelligentes utilisent la technologie IoT pour collecter divers types de données de capteurs, puis les utilisent pour offrir diverses applications. Comme les applications des villes intelligentes sont utilisées par les citoyens, donc leur fournir des services de recommandation personnalisés en fonction de leurs préférences, de leurs localisations et de leurs profils ainsi que l'exploitation des données IoT (par exemple, la congestion du trafic et l'occupation du parking) est d'une grande importance qui pourrait être fournie par un recommandateur IoT. Cependant, comme le recommandateur IoT utilise les données privées des citoyens (profils, préférences et habitudes, par exemple), il viole la vie privée des utilisateurs car il pourrait suivre les routines et les habitudes des utilisateurs en analysant la base de données historique ou en analysant les services de recommandation réguliers qu'il offre. Par conséquent, il est important de préserver la confidentialité des utilisateurs du programme de recommandation IoT. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un nouveau système de recommandation IoT préservant la confidentialité pour les villes intelligentes, qui fournit des recommandations en exploitant les données IoT des capteurs et en tenant compte de diverses métriques. Notre approche est organisée en trois parties. Tout d'abord, nous développons un système de recommandation IoT conforme au règlement européen sur la protection des données (GDPR) pour les systèmes de stationnement intelligent. Ces systèmes fournissent des recommandations sur les emplacements et les itinéraires de stationnement en exploitant les données des capteurs de stationnement et de circulation. Par conséquence, nous proposons d’abord une approche pour la cartographie des capteurs de trafic avec les coordonnées d’itinéraires afin d’analyser les conditions de trafic (par exemple le niveau de congestion) sur les routes. Ensuite, nous avons mis en place un dispositif de recommandation IoT. Le recommandateur IoT a été intégré au scénario d'utilisation du stationnement intelligent d'un projet H2020 EU-KR WISE-IoT et a été évalué par les citoyens de Santander, en Espagne, à l'aide d'un prototype. De plus, nous développons un recommendateur IoT pour le ski intelligent qui fournit des itinéraires de ski comprenant des types de pistes spécifiques, ainsi que la piste la plus proche. Pour les itinéraires de ski, il n’existe aucun moteur de calcul stable. Par conséquent, un nouveau moteur de routage pour les itinéraires de ski a été développé. Ce travail a également été intégré dans le cas d'utilisation du ski intelligent du projet WISE-IoT. Deuxièmement, bien que le recommandateur IoT développé pour le stationnement intelligent soit conforme au GDPR, il ne protège toutefois pas totalement la vie privée des utilisateurs. En effet, le partage sans discernement des données des utilisateurs avec un système tiers de recommandation de stationnement IoT non approuvé ou semi-fiable provoque une violation de la vie privée. En effet, le comportement et les schémas de mobilité des utilisateurs pouvant être déduits en analysant l'historique de leurs déplacements. Par conséquent, nous préservons la confidentialité des utilisateurs contre le système de recommandation de stationnement tout en analysant leur historique de stationnement en utilisant des techniques de k-anonymat et de confidentialité différentielle. Enfin, étant donné que les applications de villes intelligentes sont développées de manière verticale et ne se parlent pas. Par conséquent, nous avons proposé deux cadres pour les services de recommandation parmi les applications de villes intelligentes utilisant l'IdO social
During the past decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology has revolutionized almost all the fields of daily life and has boosted smart cities. Smart cities use IoT technology to collect various types of sensors’ data and then use such data to offer a variety of applications. Since the smart cities’ applications are used by the citizens, therefore providing the customized recommendation services to the citizens based on their preferences, locations and profiles, as well as by exploiting the IoT data (e.g., traffic congestion and parking occupancy) is of great importance which could be provided by an IoT recommender. However, since the IoT recommender utilizes the private data of citizens (e.g., profiles, preferences and habits), it breaches the privacy of the users because the IoT recommender could track the routines and habits of the users by analyzing the historical database or by analyzing the regular recommendation services it offers. Therefore, it is important to preserve the privacy of the users from the IoT recommender. In this thesis, we propose a novel privacy preserving IoT recommender system for smart cities that provides recommendations by exploiting the IoT data of sensors and by considering various metrics. Our approach is organized in three parts. Firstly, we develop an EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-compliant IoT recommender system for smart parking system that provides recommendations of parking spots and routes by exploiting the data of parking and traffic sensors. For this, we first propose an approach for the mapping of traffic sensors with route coordinates in order to analyze the traffic conditions (e.g., the level of congestion) on the roadways and then developed an IoT recommender. The IoT recommender has been integrated into the smart parking use case of an H2020 EU-KR WISE-IoT project and has been evaluated by the citizens of Santander, Spain through a prototype. Additionally, we develop an IoT recommender for smart skiing that provides skiing routes comprised of specific types of slopes, as well as the nearest slope. For skiing routes, there does not exist any stable routing engine. Therefore, a novel routing engine for skiing routes was developed. This work has also been integrated into the smart skiing use case of WISE-IoT project. Secondly, although the developed IoT recommender for smart parking is GDPR-compliant, however, it does not fully protect the privacy of users. Because, an indiscriminately sharing of users’ data with untrusted third-party IoT parking recommender system causes a breach of privacy, as user’s behavior and mobility patterns can be inferred by analyzing the past travelling history of users. Therefore, we preserve privacy of users against parking recommender system while analyzing their past parking history using k-anonymity and differential privacy techniques. Lastly, since the smart cities applications are developed in a vertical manner and do not talk/communicate with each other, i.e., each application is developed for a certain scenario which generally does not share data with other smart cities applications. Therefore, we proposed two frameworks for the recommendation services across smart cities applications using social IoT. Firstly, on how social IoT can be used for the recommendation services across smart cities applications, and secondly, we propose another type of communication of social IoT at a global level, i.e., social cross-domain application-to-application communications, that enables smart cities applications to communicate with each other and establish social relationships between them

As the concept of the Smart Home is being embraced globally, IoT devices such as the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Nest Thermostat are becoming a part of more and more households. In the data-driven world we live in today, internet service providers (ISPs) and companies are collecting large amounts of data and using it to learn about their customers. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important to understand what information ISPs are capable of collecting. IoT devices in particular exhibit distinct behavior patterns and specific functionality which make them especially likely to reveal sensitive information. Collection of this data provides valuable information and can have some serious privacy implications. In this work I present an approach to fingerprinting IoT devices behind private networks while only examining last-mile internet traffic . Not only does this attack only rely on traffic that would be available to an ISP, it does not require changes to existing infrastructure. Further, it does not rely on packet contents, and therefore works despite encryption. Using a database of 64 million packets logged over 15 weeks I was able to train machine learning models to classify the Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Echo Show, Eufy Genie, and Google Home consistently. This approach combines unsupervised and supervised learning and achieves a precision of 99.95\%, equating to one false positive per 2,000 predictions. Finally, I discuss the implication of identifying devices within a home.

Recent changes to the power grid are expected to influence the way energy is provided and consumed by customers. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is a tool to incorporate these changes for modernizing the electricity grid. However, this information-based power grid can reveal sensitive private information from the user's perspective as it can gather highly-granular power consumption data. This has led to limited consumer acceptance and proliferation of the smart grid. Hence, it is crucial to design a mechanism to prevent the leakage of such sensitive consumer usage information. Among different solutions for preserving consumer privacy in Smart Grid Networks (SGN), private data aggregation techniques have received a tremendous focus from security researches. In this work, a novel and efficient CDMA-based approach to privacy-preserving aggregation in SGNs, utilizing random perturbation of power consumption data, with limited use of traditional cryptography has been presented. The efficiency and performance of the proposed privacy-preserving data aggregation scheme is evaluated and validated through extensive statistical analyses and simulations. In the past few years, only limited work has been done on quantifying the privacy leakage of the smart grid due to the deployment of the smart meters. The goal of such quantification is to provide a formal framework to show how much privacy is lost in smart metering systems and to what extent the proposed solutions reduce this loss of privacy. As a second research direction, we study the existing metrics for quantifying privacy in various domains. Then, we present four information theoretic metrics to represent the privacy gained by utilizing different Smart grid Privacy Preserving Mechanisms (SPPMs). We investigate the applicability of the theory of information entropy as a potential privacy metric and suggest using conditional entropy, joint entropy, and relative entropy to further analyze the privacy-leakage in smart metering systems.
Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Bibliography: pages 135-139.
This thesis focuses on privacy concerns, specifically those relating to the storage and use of biometrics. These concerns result from the fact that biometric information is unique. This uniqueness makes the biometric a very strong identifier increasing the possibility that it could be used to monitor an individual's activities. An expert can extract considerable information from a biometric scan, ranging from the age or gender to whether the individual has certain diseases.

While the newly envisioned smart grid will result in a more efficient and reliable power grid, its use of fine-grained meter data has widely raised concerns of consumer privacy. This thesis implements a data obfuscation approach to preserve consumer privacy and assesses its feasibility on a large-scale advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) network built upon the new IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh standard. This obfuscation approach preserves consumer privacy from eavesdroppers and the utility companies while preserving the utility companies' ability to use the fine-grained meter data for state estimation. The impact of this privacy approach is assessed based on its impact on data throughput and delay performance. Simulation results have shown that the approach is feasible to be used even when the network size grows. Additional adaptations to the approach are analyzed for their feasibility in further research.

An architecture was developed which concentrates on the addition of Privacy Enhancing Technologies to a security analytics architecture. In order to validate the efficacy of such an architecture an implementation involving a smart city (a city which makes extensive use of technology to improve aspects such as efficiency) was developed based on the architecture, which is capable of detecting attacks in a privacy preserving manner. It is important to protect the privacy of people whose data is being captured, therefore Privacy Enhancing Technologies were used to accomplish this. A subset of a smart city was chosen for the implementation and evaluation, namely a smart grid, which represents an important area of a smart city. The architecture was evaluated through this implementation in terms of performance and accuracy metrics as well as via a qualitative evaluation.

Autonomous systems have progressed from theory to application especially in the last decade, thanks to the recent technological evolution. The number of autonomous systems in our surroundings is increasing rapidly. Since these systems in most cases handle privacy-sensitive data, the privacy concerns are also increasing at a similar rate. However, privacy research has not been in sync with these developments. Moreover, the systems are heterogeneous in nature and continuously evolving which makes the privacy problem even more challenging. The domain poses some unique privacy challenges which are not always possible to solve using existing solutions from other related fields. In this thesis, we identify open privacy challenges of autonomous systems and later propose solutions to some of the most prominent challenges. We investigate the privacy challenges in the context of smart home-based systems including Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems as well as autonomous vehicles. In the case of smart home, we propose a framework to enhance the privacy of owners during ownership change of IoT devices and conduct a systematic literature review to identify the privacy challenges of home-based health monitoring systems. For autonomous vehicles, we quantify, improve, and tune the privacy utility trade-off of the image de-identification process. Our investigation reveals that there is a lack of consideration when it comes to the privacy of autonomous systems and there are several open research questions in the domain regarding, for instance, privacy-preserving data management, quantification of privacy utility trade-off, and compliance with privacy laws. Since the field is evolving, this work can be seen as a step towards privacy preserving autonomous systems. The identified privacy concerns and their corresponding solutions presented in this thesis will help the research community to identify and address existing privacy concerns of autonomous systems. Solving the concerns will encourage the end-users to adopt the systems and enjoy the benefits without bothering about privacy.

QC 20201116

Cette thèse porte sur quelques problèmes de codage de source dans lesquels on souhaite préserver la confidentialité vis à vis d’une écoute du canal. Dans la première partie, nous fournissons des nouveaux résultats fondamentaux sur le codage de source pour la détection (utilisateur légitime) et la confidentialité (vis à vis d’une écoute du canal) en présence d'informations secondaires aux terminaux de réception. Nous proposons plusieurs nouveaux résultats d'optimisation de la région de débit-erreur-équivocation réalisable, et proposons des algorithmes pratiques pour obtenir des solutions aussi proches que possible de l'optimal, ce qui nécessite la conception de quantificateurs en présence d'un eavesdropper. Dans la deuxième partie, nous étudions le problème de l'estimation sécurisée dans un cadre d'utilité-confidentialité où l'utilisateur recherche soit à extraire les aspects pertinents de données complexes ou bien à les cacher vis à vis d'un eavesdropper potentiel. L'objectif est principalement axé sur l'élaboration d'un cadre général qui combine la théorie de l'information et la théorie de la communication, visant à fournir un nouvel outil pour la confidentialité dans les Smart Grids. D'un point de vue théorique, cette recherche a permis de quantifier les limites fondamentales et donc le compromis entre sécurité et performance (estimation / détection)
This thesis investigates source coding problems in which some secrecy should be ensured with respect to eavesdroppers. In the first part, we provide some new fundamental results on both detection and secrecy oriented source coding in the presence of side information at the receiving terminals. We provide several new results of optimality and single-letter characterization of the achievable rate-error-equivocation region, and propose practical algorithms to obtain solutions that are as close as possible to the optimal, which requires the design of optimal quantization in the presence of an eavesdropper In the second part, we study the problem of secure estimation in a utility-privacy framework where the user is either looking to extract relevant aspects of complex data or hide them from a potential eavesdropper. The objective is mainly centered on the development of a general framework that combines information theory with communication theory, aiming to provide a novel and powerful tool for security in Smart Grids. From a theoretical perspective, this research was able to quantify fundamental limits and thus the tradeoff between security and performance (estimation/detection)

The smart grid (SG) is the enhancement of the traditional electricity grid that allows bidirectional flow of electricity and information through the integration of advanced monitoring, communication and control technologies. In this thesis, we focus on important design problems affecting particularly two critical enabling components of the SG infrastructure : smart meters (SMs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs). SMs measure the energy consumption of the users and transmit their readings to the utility provider in almost real-time. SM readings enable real-time optimization of load management. However, possible misuse of SM readings raises serious privacy concerns for the users. The challenge is thus to design techniques that can increase the privacy of the users while maintaining the monitoring capabilities SMs provide. Demand-side energy management (EM), achieved thanks to the utilization of storage units and alternative energy sources, has emerged as a potential technique to tackle this challenge. WSNs consist of a large number of low power sensors, which monitor physical parameters and transmit their measurements to control centers (CCs) over wireless links. CCs utilize these measurements to reconstruct the system state. For the reliable management of the SG, near real-time and accurate reconstruction of the system state at the CC is crucial. Thus, low complexity delay-constrained transmission strategies, which enable sensors to accurately transmit their measurements to CCs, should be investigated rigorously. To address these challenges, this dissertation investigates and designs privacy-preserving EM techniques for SMs and delay-constrained transmission strategies for WSNs. The proposed EM techniques provide privacy to SM users while maintaining the operational benefits SMs provide. On the other hand, the proposed transmission strategies enable WSNs to meet low latency transmission requirements, which in turn, facilitate real-time and accurate state reconstruction; and hence, the efficient and robust management of the SG. First, we consider an SM system with energy harvesting and storage units. Representing the system with a discrete-time finite state model, we study stochastic EM policies from a privacy-energy efficiency trade-off perspective, where privacy is measured by information leakage rate and energy efficiency is measured by wasted energy rate. We propose EM policies that take stochastic output load decisions based on the harvested energy, the input load and the state of the battery. For the proposed policies, we characterize the fundamental trade-off between user's privacy and energy efficiency. Second, we consider an SM system with a storage unit. Considering a discrete-time power consumption and pricing model, we study EM policies from a privacy-cost trade-off perspective, where privacy is measured by the load variance as well as mutual information. Assuming non-causal knowledge of the power demand profile and prices, we characterize the optimal EM policy based on the solution of an optimization problem. Then, assuming that the power demand profile is known only causally, we obtain the optimal EM policy based on dynamic programming, and also propose a low complexity heuristic policy. For the proposed policies, we characterize the trade-off between user's privacy and energy cost. Finally, we study the delay-constrained linear transmission (LT) of composite Gaussian measurements from a sensor to a CC over a point-to-point fading channel. Assuming that the channel state information (CSI) is known by both the encoder and decoder, we propose the optimal LT strategy in terms of the average mean-square error (MSE) distortion under a strict delay constraint, and two LT strategies under general delay constraints. Assuming that the CSI is known only by the decoder, we propose the optimal LT strategy in terms of the average MSE distortion under a strict delay constraint.
La red de energía inteligente (SG) es la mejora de la red eléctrica tradicional. En esta tesis, nos enfocamos en las problemáticas asociadas al diseño de dos de los componentes más críticos de la infraestructura de la SG : los medidores inteligentes (SMs) y las redes de sensores inalámbricos (WSNs). Los SMs miden el consumo de energía de los usuarios y transmiten sus medidas al proveedor de servicio casi en tiempo real. Las medidas de SM permiten la optimización en tiempo real de la gestión de carga en la red. Sin embargo, el posible mal uso de estas medidas plantea preocupaciones graves en cuanto a la privacidad de los usuarios. El desafío es, por lo tanto, diseñar técnicas que puedan aumentar la privacidad de los usuarios manteniendo las capacidades de supervisión que proveen los SMs. Una solución tecnológica es el diseño de sistemas de gestión de energía (EM) inteligentes compuestos por dispositivos de almacenamiento y generación alternativa de energía. Las WSNs se componen de un gran número de sensores, que miden parámetros físicos y transmiten sus mediciones a los centros de control (CCs) mediante enlaces inalámbricos. Los CCs utilizan estas mediciones para estimar el estado del sistema. Para una gestión fiable de la SG, una buena reconstrucción del estado del sistema en tiempo real es crucial. Por ello, es preciso investigar estrategias de transmisión con estrictos requisitos de complejidad y limitaciones de latencia. Para afrontar estos desafíos, esta tesis investiga y diseña técnicas de EM para preservar la privacidad de los usuarios de SM y estrategias de transmisión para WSNs con limitaciones de latencia. Las técnicas de EM propuestas proporcionan privacidad a los consumidores de energía manteniendo los beneficios operacionales para la SG. Las estrategias de transmisión propuestas permiten a las WSNs satisfacer los requisitos de baja latencia necesarios para la reconstrucción precisa del estado en tiempo real; y por lo tanto, la gestión eficiente y robusta de la SG. En primer lugar, consideramos el diseño de un sistema de SM con una unidad de almacenamiento y generación de energía renovable. Representando el sistema con un modelo de estados finitos y de tiempo discreto, proponemos políticas estocásticas de EM. Para las políticas propuestas, caracterizamos la relación fundamental existente entre la privacidad y la eficiencia de energía del usuario, donde la privacidad se mide mediante la tasa de fuga de información y la eficiencia de energía se mide mediante la tasa de energía perdida. En segundo lugar, consideramos el diseño de un sistema de SM con una unidad de almacenamiento. Considerando un modelo de tiempo discreto, estudiamos la relación existente entre la privacidad y el coste de la energía, donde la privacidad se mide por la variación de la carga, así como la información mutua. Suponiendo que el perfil de la demanda de energía y los precios son conocidos de antemano, caracterizamos la política de EM óptima. Suponiendo que la demanda de energía es conocida sólo para el tiempo actual, obtenemos la política de EM óptima mediante programación dinámica, y proponemos una política heurística de baja complejidad. Para las políticas propuestas, caracterizamos la relación existente entre la privacidad y el coste de energía del usuario. Finalmente, consideramos el diseño de estrategias de transmisión lineal (LT) de mediciones Gaussianas compuestas desde un sensor a un CC sobre un canal punto a punto con desvanecimientos. Suponiendo que la información del estado del canal (CSI) es conocida tanto por el trasmisor como por el receptor, proponemos la estrategia de LT óptima en términos de la distorsión de error cuadrático medio (MSE) bajo una restricción de latencia estricta y dos estrategias de LT para restricciones de latencia arbitrarias. Suponiendo que la CSI es conocida sólo en el receptor, proponemos la estrategia de LT óptima en términos de la distorsión de MSE bajo una restricción de latencia estricta.
La xarxa d'energia intel·ligent (SG) és la millora de la xarxa elèctrica tradicional. En aquesta tesi, ens enfoquem en les problemàtiques associades al disseny de dos dels components més crítics de la infraestructura de la SG : els mesuradors de consum intel·ligents(SMs) i les xarxes de sensors sense fils (WSNs).Els SMs mesuren el consum d'energia dels usuaris i transmeten les seves mesures al proveïdor de servei gairebé en temps real. Les mesures de SM permeten l'optimització en temps real de la gestió de càrrega a la xarxa. No obstant això, el possible mal ús d'aquestes mesures planteja preocupacions greus en quant a la privacitat dels usuaris. El desafiament és, per tant, dissenyar tècniques que puguin augmentar la privadesa dels usuaris mantenint les capacitats de supervisió que proveeixen els SMs. Una solució tecnològica és el disseny de sistemes de gestió d'energia (EM) intel·ligents compostos per dispositius d'emmagatzematge i generació alternativa d'energia.Les WSNs es componen d'un gran nombre de sensors, que mesuren paràmetres físics i transmeten les seves mesures als centres de control (CCs) mitjançant enllaços sense fils. Els CCs utilitzen aquestes mesures per estimar l'estat del sistema. Per a una gestió fiable de la SG, una bona reconstrucció de l'estat del sistema en temps real és crucial. Per això, cal investigar estratègies de transmissió amb estrictes requisits de complexitat i limitacions de latència. Per d'afrontar aquests desafiaments, aquesta tesi investiga i dissenya tècniques d'EM per preservar la privacitat dels usuaris de SM i estratègies de transmissió per WSNs amb limitacions de latència. Les tècniques d'EM propostes proporcionen privacitats als consumidors d'energia mantenint els beneficis operacionals per la SG. Les estratègies de transmissió proposades permeten a les WSNs satisfer els requisits de baixa latència necessaris per a la reconstrucció precisa de l'estat en temps real; i per tant, la gestió eficient i robusta de la SG.En primer lloc, considerem el disseny d'un sistema de SM amb una unitat d'emmagatzematge i generació d'energia renovable. Representant el sistema amb un model d'estats finits i de temps discret, proposem polítiques estocàstiques d'EM. Per a les polítiques propostes, caracteritzem la relació fonamental existent entre la privadesa i l'eficiència d'energia de l'usuari, on la privacitat es mesura mitjançant la taxa de fugida d'informació i l'eficiència d'energia es mesura mitjançant la taxa d'energia perduda.En segon lloc, considerem el disseny d'un sistema de SM amb una unitat d'emmagatzematge. Considerant un model de temps discret, estudiem la relació existent entre la privacitat el cost de l'energia, on la privacitat es mesura per la variació de la càrrega, així com mitjançant la informació mútua. Suposant que la corba de la demanda d'energia i els preus són coneguts per endavant, caracteritzem la política d'EM òptima. Suposant que la demanda d'energia és coneguda només per al temps actual, obtenim la política d'EM òptima mitjançant programació dinàmica, i proposem una política heurística de baixa complexitat. Per a les polítiques propostes, caracteritzem la relació existent entre la privacitat i el cost d'energia de l'usuari.Finalment, considerem el disseny d'estratègies de transmissió lineal (LT) de mesures Gaussianes compostes des d'un sensor a un CC sobre un canal punt a punt amb esvaïments. Suposant que la informació de l'estat del canal (CSI) és coneguda tant pel transmissor com pel receptor, proposem l'estratègia de LT òptima en termes de la distorsió d'error quadràtic mitjà (MSE) sota una restricció de latència estricta. A més, proposem dues estratègies de LT per a restriccions de latència arbitràries. Finalment, suposant que la CSI és coneguda només en el receptor, proposem l'estratègia de LT òptima en termes de la distorsió de MSE sota una restricció de latència estricta.

While the newly envisioned Smart(er) Grid (SG) will result in a more efficient and reliable power grid, its collection and use of fine-grained meter data has widely raised concerns on consumer privacy. While a number of approaches are available for preserving consumer privacy, these approaches are mostly not very practical to be used due to two reasons: First, since the data is hidden, this reduces the ability of the utility company to use the data for distribution state estimation. Secondly and more importantly, the approaches were not tested under realistic wireless infrastructures that are currently in use. In this thesis, a meter data obfuscation approach to preserve consumer privacy is proposed to implement that has the ability to perform distribution state estimation. Then, its performance on LTE and a large-scale Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) network built upon the new IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh standard are assessed. LTE/EPC(Evolved Packet Core) model is used between the gateway and the utility. EPC's goal is to improve network performance by the separation of control and data planes and through a flattened IP architecture, which reduces the hierarchy between mobile data elements. Using obfuscation values provided via this approach, the meter readings are obfuscated to protect consumer privacy from eavesdroppers and the utility companies while preserving the utility companies' ability to use the data for state estimation.The impact of this approach on data throughput, delay and packet delivery ratio under a variety of conditions are assessed.

The ongoing Smart Grid (SG) initiative proposes several modifications to the existing power grid in order to better manage power demands, reduce CO2 emissions and ensure reliability through several new applications. One part of the SG initiative that is currently being implemented is the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) which provides two-way communication between the utility company and the consumers' smart meters (SMs). The AMI can be built by using a wireless mesh network which enables multi-hop communication of SMs. The AMI network enables collection of fine-grained power consumption data at frequent intervals. Such a fine-grained level poses several privacy concerns for the consumers. Eavesdroppers can capture data packets and analyze them by means of load monitoring techniques to make inferences about household activities. To prevent this, in this dissertation, we proposed several privacy-preserving protocols for the IEEE 802.11s-based AMI network, which are based on data obfuscation, fully homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation. Simulation results have shown that the performance of the protocols degrades as the network grows. To overcome this problem, we presented a scalable simulation framework for the evaluation of IEEE 802.11s-based AMI applications. We proposed several modifications and parameter adjustments for the network protocols being used. In addition, we integrated the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) into the protocol stack and proposed five novel retransmission timeout calculation functions for the CoAP in order to increase its reliability. Upon work showing that there are inconsistencies between the simulator and a testbed, we built an IEEE 802.11s- and ZigBee-based AMI testbed and measured the performance of the proposed protocols under various conditions. The testbed is accessible to the educator and researchers for the experimentation. Finally, we addressed the problem of updating SMs remotely to keep the AMI network up-to-date. To this end, we developed two secure and reliable multicast-over-broadcast protocols by making use of ciphertext-policy attribute based signcryption and random linear network coding.

Smart environments, particularly smart homes have become an increasingly popular topic for research and real world implementations. Despite the popularity of this topic, there is a lack of tools to enable inhabitants of smart environments to perceive which kind of data smart devices generate and to make inhabitants aware of who is accessing their personal information and the purpose for accessing this information. These issues have caused privacy concerns among inhabitants of smart environments – who would like to ensure their personal information is only utilized for their benefits, rather than being used for malicious purposes. Therefore, smart home environments motivate the need for privacy awareness tools to help inhabitants to better understand the privacy implications when their personal information is misused. To address this problem, this thesis suggests guidelines for the design of privacy awareness tools. A literature review evaluated instruments to conduct research about privacy concerns. The Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) framework from Malhotra, Kim, and Agarwal was selected for the empirical part of this thesis project because it is one of the most reliable models developed to measure privacy concerns at the individual level. Quantitative data was gathered through a survey based on this framework. Data collected from 30 experts in the field of study was analyzed using linear regression analysis techniques and principal component analysis. These survey results lead to a set of guidelines that could guide designers and service providers as to what aspects of privacy concerns they should consider and what they should concentrate on when designing privacy awareness tools for ubiquitous computing systems, such as a smart home.
Intelligenta omgivningar och framförallt smarta hem har kommit att bli ett popular forskning samt impementationsområde. Trots ämnets popularitet är det en brist på verktyg som låter personer i dessa intelligenta omgivningar att förstå vilken typ av data som genereras av de smarta apparaterna, att de förstår vem som får tillgång till deras privatinformation och syftet till att informationen används. Dessa problem leder till påverkar användarintegriteten för personerna i de intelligenta omgivningarna. Personerna vill försäkra sig om att deras privatinformation används till deras fördel och inte missbrukas. Det finns ett behov av integretetsverktyg som kan hjälpa personerna att få en bättre förståelse över hur deras integritet påverkas när deras privatinformation missbrukas. Den här rapporten syftar till att behandla detta problem genom att ta fram riktlinjer baserade på användarnas oro kring deras integritet. En litteraturstudie genomfördes för att utvärderade metoder för att genomföra forskning på användarintegritet. Ramverket Internet Users’ Information Privacy Concerns (IUIPC) från Malhotra, Kim, och Agarwal valdes eftersom det var den en av de mest pålitliga modellen för att mäta den individuella oron kring integriteten hos användarna. Kvantitativ data samlades in genom ett formulär baserat på IUIPC ramverket. Datan samlades in under den empiriska fasen utav 30 experter inom forskningsområdet. Linjär regression och principalkomponentanalys användes för att analysera datan från undersökningen. Resultatet från undersökningen diskuterades med målet att tillhandahålla riktlinjer till utvecklare och tjänsteleverantörer, om vilka integritets aspecter vilket bör övervägas samt focusera på vid utveckling av integretetsverktyg för ubika datasystem.

As a promising field, the development of smart grid has drawn more and more attention from many countries. A smart meter plays a significant role in a smart grid. It replaces the traditional electricity meter with the ability to frequently transmit instantaneous energy consumptions of the consumer to theenergy provider of the smart grid. From the view of electricity suppliers, it isbeneficial for planning, controlling and billing. However, from consumers’ perspective, the high-resolution energy record may lead to privacy problem, which means the consumers’ behaviour can be revealed by analysing the smart meter readings. In this thesis project, we will focus on the privacy leakage problem of the smart meter. We study the problem of optimal privacy-cost trade-off in a smart grid equipped with an energy provider, an alternative energy source, a smart meter,and an energy control unit. The privacy leakage is modelled as unauthorized detections of the consumer’s behaviours based on the smart meter readings of energy supplies from the energy provider. The control strategy is designed to manage the energy inflows to satisfy the instantaneous energy demands of the consumer and also to optimally trade off the privacy risk and energy cost. To evaluate the privacy risk, we use a Bayesian detection-operational privacy metric. Different scenarios are considered for which we show that their optimization problems can be reduced to linear programmings. Therefore, based on this observation, we propose optimal control strategy design algorithms to solve the optimization problems efficiently.
Inom ett potentiellt område, har utvecklingen av smarta elnät dragit mer och mer uppmärksamhet från många länder. En smart elmätare spelar en signifikant roll i ett smart elnät. Den ersätter den traditionella elmätaren med förmågan att ofta överföra den momentana energiförbrukning som konsumenten mottar av energileverantören av smarta elnät. Från elleverantörens sida, är det fördelaktigt för planering, styrning och fakturering. Men från konsumenternas perspektiv kan den högupplösta energiförbrukningen leda till integritetsproblem, vilket innebär att konsumenternas beteende kan avslöjas genom att analysera de smarta mätaravläsningarna. I detta projekt kommer vi fokusera på integritetsproblemen som dessa mätare ger upphov till. Vi studerar problemet med att balansera integritetsproblemeti ett smart elnät bestående av en energileverantör, en alternativ energikälla, ensmart mätare, och en energistyrenhet. Den personliga integriteten äventyras dåen obehörig kan få tillgång till konsumentens beteende baserat på de smartamätvärdena av energiförbrukningen från energileverantören. Kontrollstrateginär utformad för att hantera energiinflödet för att tillfredsställa de momentanaenergibehov konsumenten har, och även för att optimalt avväga privatlivs riskoch energikostnader. För att utvärdera den personliga integriteten risk, an-vänder vi en Bayesiansk upptäckt dvs. operativ integritets uträkning. Olikascenarier beaktas och deras optimeringsproblem kan reduceras till linjära pro-grammeringar. Baserat på observationen är motsvarande kontrollstrategi meddesignade algoritmer att föredra.

Konceptet "smarta hem" blir mer och mer en del av vår vardag. På grund av den hastigautvecklingen och med tanke på att trådlös kommunikation har blivit normen, har säkerhetoch integritet blivit mer av ett bekymmer. Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka vilkentyp av information som kan utvinnas ur ett underhållning-baserat smart hem med inriktning på en off -the-shelf spel-konsol, Playstation 4, ansluten till Internet. Detta scenario har undersökts med ett experiment som fokuserar på avlyssning av nätverkstrafik som inträffar vid användning av en sådan enhet i det dagliga livet. Resultatet av studien visar att känslig data såsom bilder är i själva verket möjligt att utvinna från nätverkskommunikationen.
The concept of smart home technology becomes more and more a part of our everydaylife. Because of the hasty evolution and considering that wireless communication has become the norm, the security and privacy problems have become more of a concern. The purpose of this work is to examine what kind of information can be extracted from anentertainment-based smart home involving an o -the-shelf game-console, Playstation 4,connected to the Internet. This scenario has been investigated with experiments focusingon the interception of networking tra c occurring when using such a device under everyday operations. The results of the study shows that sensitive data such as images is in fact possible to extract contrary to popular belief.

Smart speakers are a category of smart devices with a built-in voice assistant and a variety of specialized sensors. Introducing these devices into our homes has proven to be a potential privacy threat to the unaware user because of its “microphone always on” nature. The smart speaker provides convenience at the cost of personal information being shared with the company who built the product. In this paper we introduce our readers to smart speaking devices, their management of personal information and its privacy implications. Firstly, with our literature review, we dig deeper into the current understanding of smart speakers, data management, general opinions and awareness. Secondly, we conclude a survey by means of a questionnaire where we discover the opinions of residents in Blekinge county, southern Sweden, towards smart speakers management of personal data in order to evaluate the general position of said residents towards these devices with the hopes to bring added value and understanding to the current research and to give additional information that can be useful by smart speakers manufacturers in terms of the user experience. We find that there is low demand for the product in Blekinge, that sensitive information is unlikely to be shared knowingly by the user and that an IT background doesn’t have a large impact on the opinion or interest of the user.

Smart antenna technique has emerged as one of the leading technologies for enhancing the quality of service in wireless networks. Because of its ability to concentrate transmit power in desired directions, it has been widely adopted by academia and industry to achieve better coverage, improved capacity and spectrum efficiency of wireless communication systems. In spite of its popularity in applications of performance enhancement, the smart antenna\'s capability of improving wireless network security is relatively less explored. This dissertation focuses on exploiting the smart antenna technology to develop physical layer solutions to anti-eavesdropping and location security problems.

We first investigate the problem of enhancing wireless communication privacy. A novel scheme named "artificial fading" is proposed, which leverages the beam switching capability of smart antennas to prevent eavesdropping attacks. We introduce the optimization strategy to design a pair of switched beam patterns that both have high directional gain to the intended receiver. Meanwhile, in all the other directions, the overlap between these two patterns is minimized. The transmitter switches between the two patterns at a high frequency. In this way, the signal to unintended directions experiences severe fading and the eavesdropper cannot decode it. We use simulation experiments to show that the artificial fading outperforms single pattern beamforming in reducing the unnecessary coverage area of the wireless transmitter.

We then study the impact of beamforming technique on wireless localization systems from the perspectives of both location privacy protection and location spoofing attack.

For the location privacy preservation scheme, we assume that the adversary uses received signal strength (RSS) based localization systems to localize network users in Wireless LAN (WLAN). The purpose of the scheme is to make the adversary unable to uniquely localize the user when possible, and otherwise, maximize error of the adversary\'s localization results. To this end, we design a two-step scheme to optimize the beamforming pattern of the wireless user\'s smart antenna. First, the user moves around to estimate the locations of surrounding access points (APs). Then based on the locations of the APs, pattern synthesis is optimized to minimize the number of APs in the coverage area and degenerate the localization precision. Simulation results show that our scheme can significantly lower the chance of being localized by adversaries and also degrade the location estimation precision to as low as the coverage range of the AP that the wireless user is connected to.

As personal privacy preservation and security assurance at the system level are always conflictive to some extent, the capability of smart antenna to intentionally bias the RSS measurements of the localization system also potentially enables location spoofing attacks. From this aspect, we present theoretical analysis on the feasibility of beamforming-based perfect location spoofing (PLS) attacks, where the attacker spoofs to a target fake location by carefully choosing the beamforming pattern to fool the location system. The PLS problem is formulated as a nonlinear feasibility problem, and due to its intractable nature, we solve it using semidefinite relaxation (SDR) in conjunction with a heuristic local search algorithm. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our analytical approach and indicate the correlation between the geometry of anchor deployment and the feasibility of PLS attacks. Based on the simulation results, guidelines for guard against PLS attacks are provided.
Ph. D.

This thesis discusses the general use of smart cards in MULTOS in cryptographic applications. At first is described two types of authentication - the authentication by the subject with focusing on authenticators and the authentication by the knowledge. Furthermore there is the description of the anonymous authentication and attribute authentization. This is followed by a description of smart cards with a focus on MULTOS cards. There is also performed analysis of programmable smart cards .NET, JavaCard and MULTOS. Practical part is focused on the implementation of an authentication scheme, which is being developed at FEEC. The communication of authentication protocol is between the MULTOS card and reader connected to a PC. The protocol is composed of cryptographic functions such as random number generation, hash function, modular exponentiation, modular multiplication and difference of large numbers. It was also implemented the measurement of specific applications.

Context. The potential to track individuals become greater and greater in the society today. We want to develop a method that is easy to understand so more people can participate in the discussion about the collection, and storing, of seemingly non-invasive device data and personal integrity. Objectives. In this work we investigate the potential to connect a WiFi enabled device to a known individual by analysing log files. Since we want to keep the method as simple as possible we choose to not use machine learning because this might add unnecessary layers of complexity. Methods. The conducted experiments were performed against a test group consisting of six persons. The dataset used consisted of authentication logs from a university WiFi-network collected during a month and data acquired by capturing WiFi-traffic. Results. We were able to connect 67% of the targeted test persons to their smart phones and 60% to their laptops. Conclusions. In this work we conclude that a device identifier in combination with data that can tie it to a location at a given time is to be seen as sensitive information with regard to personal integrity. We also conclude that it is possible to create and use an easy method to connect a device to a given person.

En l’actualitat, els sistemes de recomanació han esdevingut un mecanisme fonamental per proporcionar als usuaris informació útil i filtrada, amb l’objectiu d’optimitzar la presa de decisions, com per exemple, en el camp del comerç electrònic. La quantitat de dades existent a Internet és tan extensa que els usuaris necessiten sistemes automàtics per ajudar-los a distingir entre informació valuosa i soroll. No obstant, sistemes de recomanació com el Filtratge Col·laboratiu tenen diverses limitacions, com ara la manca de resposta i la privadesa. Una part important d'aquesta tesi es dedica al desenvolupament de metodologies per fer front a aquestes limitacions. A més de les aportacions anteriors, en aquesta tesi també ens centrem en el procés d'urbanització que s'està produint a tot el món i en la necessitat de crear ciutats més sostenibles i habitables. En aquest context, ens proposem solucions de salut intel·ligent (s-health) i metodologies eficients de caracterització de canals sense fils, per tal de proporcionar assistència sanitària sostenible en el context de les ciutats intel·ligents.
En la actualidad, los sistemas de recomendación se han convertido en una herramienta indispensable para proporcionar a los usuarios información útil y filtrada, con el objetivo de optimizar la toma de decisiones en una gran variedad de contextos. La cantidad de datos existente en Internet es tan extensa que los usuarios necesitan sistemas automáticos para ayudarles a distinguir entre información valiosa y ruido. Sin embargo, sistemas de recomendación como el Filtrado Colaborativo tienen varias limitaciones, tales como la falta de respuesta y la privacidad. Una parte importante de esta tesis se dedica al desarrollo de metodologías para hacer frente a esas limitaciones. Además de las aportaciones anteriores, en esta tesis también nos centramos en el proceso de urbanización que está teniendo lugar en todo el mundo y en la necesidad de crear ciudades más sostenibles y habitables. En este contexto, proponemos soluciones de salud inteligente (s-health) y metodologías eficientes de caracterización de canales inalámbricos, con el fin de proporcionar asistencia sanitaria sostenible en el contexto de las ciudades inteligentes.
Our society lives an age where the eagerness for information has resulted in problems such as infobesity, especially after the arrival of Web 2.0. In this context, automatic systems such as recommenders are increasing their relevance, since they help to distinguish noise from useful information. However, recommender systems such as Collaborative Filtering have several limitations such as non-response and privacy. An important part of this thesis is devoted to the development of methodologies to cope with these limitations. In addition to the previously stated research topics, in this dissertation we also focus in the worldwide process of urbanisation that is taking place and the need for more sustainable and liveable cities. In this context, we focus on smart health solutions and efficient wireless channel characterisation methodologies, in order to provide sustainable healthcare in the context of smart cities.

The ideas and techniques of cryptography and decentralized storage have seen tremendous growth in many industries, as they have been adopted to improve activities in the organization. That called Blockchain technology, it provides an effective transparency solution. Generally, Blockchain has been used for digital currency or cryptocurrency since its inception. One of the best-known Blockchain protocols is Ethereum, which has invented the smart contract to enable Blockchain’s ability to execute a condition, rather than simply acting as storage. Applications that adopt this technology are called ‘Dapps’ or ‘decentralized applications’. However, there are ongoing arguments about synchronization associated with the system. System synchronization is currently extremely important for applications, because the waiting time for a transaction to be verified can cause dissatisfaction in the user experience. Several studies have revealed that privacy leakage occurs, even though the Blockchain provides a degree of security, as a result of the traditional transaction, which requires approval through an intermediate institution. For instance, a bank needs to process transactions via many constitution parties before receiving the final confirmation, which requires the user to wait for a considerable amount of time. This thesis describes the challenge of transaction synchronization between the user and smart contract, as well as the matter of a privacy strategy for the system and compliance. To approach these two challenges, the first task separates different events and evaluates the results compared to an alternative solution. This is done by testing the smart contract to find the best gas price result, which varies over time. In the Ethereum protocol, gas price is one of the best ways to decrease the transaction time to meet user expectations. The gas price is affected by the code structure and the network. In the smart contract, testing is run based on two cases, and solves platform issues such as runners and user experience and reduces costs. It has also been found that collecting the fee before participating in an auction can prevent the problem of runners. The second case aims to prove that freezing the amount of a bid is the best way to increase the user’s experience, and to achieve the better experience of an online auction. The second challenge mainly focuses on the privacy strategy and risk management for the platform, which involves identifying possible solutions for all risk situations, as well as detecting, forecasting and preventing them. Providing strategies, such as securing the smart contract structure, increasing the encryption method in the database, designing a term sheet and agreement, and authorization, help to prevent system vulnerabilities. Therefore, this research aims to improve and investigate an online auction platform by using a Blockchain smart contract to provide evocative user experiences.
Idéer och tekniker för kryptografi och decentraliserad lagring har haft en enorm tillväxt i många branscher, eftersom de har antagits för att förbättra verksamheten i organisationen. Den som kallas Blockchain-tekniken ger den en effektiv transparenslösning. Generellt har Blockchain använts för digital valuta eller cryptocurrency sedan starten. Ett av de mest kända Blockchainprotokollen är Ethereum, som har uppfunnit det smarta kontraktet för att möjliggöra Blockchains förmåga att utföra ett villkor, snarare än att bara fungera som lagring. Applikationer som använder denna teknik kallas 'Dapps' eller 'decentraliserade applikationer'. Det finns emellertid pågående argument om synkronisering associerad med systemet. Systemsynkronisering är för närvarande oerhört viktigt för applikationer, eftersom väntetiden för att en transaktion ska verifieras kan orsaka missnöje i användarupplevelsen. Flera studier har visat att sekretessläckage inträffar, även om Blockchain ger en viss säkerhet, till följd av den traditionella transaktionen, som kräver godkännande genom en mellaninstitution. Till exempel måste en bank bearbeta transaktioner via många konstitutionspartier innan den får den slutliga bekräftelsen, vilket kräver att användaren väntar en betydande tid. Den här avhandlingen beskriver utmaningen med transaktionssynkronisering mellan användaren och smart kontrakt, samt frågan om en sekretessstrategi för systemet och efterlevnad. För att närma sig dessa två utmaningar separerar den första uppgiften olika händelser och utvärderar resultaten jämfört med en alternativ lösning. Detta görs genom att testa det smarta kontraktet för att hitta det bästa gasprisresultatet, som varierar över tiden. I Ethereum-protokollet är gaspriset ett av de bästa sätten att minska transaktionstiden för att möta användarens förväntningar. Gaspriset påverkas av kodstrukturen och nätverket. I det smarta kontraktet körs test baserat på två fall och löser plattformsproblem som löpare och användarupplevelse och minskar kostnaderna. Det har också visat sig att insamlingen av avgiften innan du deltar i en auktion kan förhindra löparproblemet. Det andra fallet syftar till att bevisa att frysning av budbeloppet är det bästa sättet att öka användarens upplevelse och att uppnå en bättre upplevelse av en online auktion. Den andra utmaningen fokuserar huvudsakligen på sekretessstrategin och riskhanteringen för plattformen, som innebär att identifiera möjliga lösningar för alla risksituationer, samt att upptäcka, förutse och förhindra dem. Tillhandahållande av strategier, som att säkra den smarta kontraktsstrukturen, öka krypteringsmetoden i databasen, utforma ett termblad och avtal och godkännande, hjälper till att förhindra systemets sårbarheter. Därför syftar denna forskning till att förbättra och undersöka en online-auktionsplattform genom att använda ett smart avtal med Blockchain för att ge upplevande användarupplevelser.

In questo lavoro verrà presentato lo sviluppo di un'applicazione nell'ambito della "Smart Mobility". In particolare verrà fornita l'implementazione di un modulo che sarà parte integrante di un'infrastruttura molto complessa, SMAll. Verranno quindi presentate alcune tecnologie utilizzate per la raccolta dei dati e l'utilizzo delle mappe, con particolare attenzione riguardo a OpenStreetMap. Seguirà quindi una presentazione del progetto divisa nelle fasi di analisi e progettazione, dettagliando tramite opportuni diagrammi il lavoro svolto. Infine ci sarà una discussione riguardo i risultati ottenuti e sugli sviluppi futuri che potranno essere intrapresi.

Smart technology has become very extensive and popular in many areas of our lives in the last few years. Their role is to make life and activities performed by the user easier, faster, better and more interesting. Smart technology has been used for years in areas such as education, industry and transport. The response of the hospitality industry is to implement technology in hotels, usually the more luxurious ones, that improves the operation of employees and is a convenience for hotel guests. The name of this concept is a smart hotel, which is similar to the already existing smart house and smart city concepts. The purpose of the study was to examine the concept of smart hotel and investigate the impact that smart technology has on guests’ satisfaction, privacy and service quality. The study was conducted using mixed methods research whereby both qualitative and quantitative data were collected in parallel, analyzed individually and then linked with each other. Qualitative data collection constituted of in-dept interviews with hotel employees and hotel guests, and the quantitative part of the study was based on the online survey with hotel guests. The main findings are a proposal definition of a smart hotel, and the belief that smart technology contributes to a better quality of provided services by employees and increases the grade of satisfaction among guests. However, the result also shows that a greater role of hotels is needed in order to reduce the disproportion of equal access to smart technology for all hotel guests.

A smart grid is an energy network which manages the energy generation anddistribution more efficiently following the real-time energy demands of end-usersthrough control and communication technologies. Deploying smart grids canimprove the energy efficiency, enhance the network reliability, and reduce costsof both the energy provider and end-users. However, these benefits come withprivacy challenges. One of such challenges is the smart meter privacy problem.In a smart grid, the smart meter is used to record the real-time energy supplyand to feedback the records to the energy provider. Since the energy is suppliedon the demand, these smart meter records contain the information of energydemand profile of the end-user and therefore it brings the risk of compromisingconsumers’ privacy. Regarding this issue, a rechargeable energy storage canbe used to mitigate this risk by manipulating consumers’ energy consumptionprofile. However, privacy enhancement will lead to increasing the consumers’cost for purchasing energy, which violates the original cost-saving motivation forconsumers. In this work, we investigate the design of a privacy-enhancing andcost-efficient energy management strategy. In detail, dynamic pricing of energyis assumed so that the consumer has the opportunity to utilize the energy storageto reduce the energy cost. Furthermore, the Kullback-Leibler divergence rate isused as privacy measure, and the expected cost-saving rate is also evaluated. Tostudy the trade-off between privacy and cost, the proposed objective functionis a weighted sum of Kullback-Leibler divergence rate and expected cost-savingrate. We first decompose both Kullback-Leibler divergence rate and expectedcost-saving rate in additive forms over a finite horizon. Based on the predefinedbelief states, we express the overall objective function by state-actionpairs and reformulate the energy management design into an Markov decisionprocess (MDP), and the finite horizon optimal solution can be obtained by usingBellman dynamic programming. Finally, in the special case of independent andidentically distributed (i.i.d) demand, we explicitly characterize a stationarypolicy for the infinite horizon average cost by showing this policy can preserve acertain invariance property of the belief state. And we also show this stationarypolicy can achieve an optimal privacy leakage rate.
Ett smart nät är ett energinätverk som hanterar energigenerering och distributionmer effektivt efter slutanvändarnas energikrav i realtid genom kontrolloch kommunikationsteknik. Genom att distribuera smarta nät kan du förbättraenergieffektiviteten, förbättra nätverk säkerheten och minska kostnadernaför både energileverantören och slutanvändarna. Men dessa fördelar kommermed privata utmaningar. En av dessa utmaningar är problemet med smartamätare. I ett smart nät används den smarta mätaren för att registrera energitillförselni realtid och att återkoppla mätningarna till energileverantören.Eftersom energinlevereras efter begäran, innehåller dessa smarta mätarregisterinformationen om slutanvändarens energibehovs profil och därmed riskerardet att äventyra konsumenternas privatliv. När det gäller denna fråga kanen uppladdningsbar energilagring användas för att minska denna risk genomatt förändra konsumenternas energiförbruknings profil. Förbättringen av privatkommerdock att leda till att konsumenternas kostnad för inköp av energiökar, vilket strider mot den ursprungliga kostnads besparande motivationen förkonsumenterna. I detta arbete undersöker vi utformningen av en privatliv höjandeoch kostnads effektiv energihanterings strategi. I detalj antas dynamiskprissättning av energi så att konsumenten har möjlighet att utnyttja energilagringför att minska sin energikostnad. Vidare används Kullback-Leiblerdivergensvärde som privatliv metrisk, och den förväntade kostnads besparingsvärde utvärderas också. För att studera avvägningen mellan privatliv och kostnadär den föreslagna objektiv funktionen en viktad summa av Kullback-Leiblerdivergensvärde och förvÃďntad kostnads besparings värde. Vi bryter först itubåde Kullback-Leibler-divergens värde och den förväntade kostnads besparingeni additativa former över en finit horisont. Baserat på de fördefinierade antagandenauttrycker vi den övergripande objektiva funktionen med state-action-paroch omformulerar energistyrnings designen i en Markov-beslutsprocess (MDP),och den finita optimala lösningen kan erhållas genom att använda dynamiskBellman-programmering. Slutligen, i det speciella fallet med oberoende ochidentiskt distribuerad (i.i.d) efterfrågan karakteriserar vi uttryckligen en stationärpolitik för den oändliga horisontens genomsnittliga kostnad genom attvisa att denna policy kan bevara en viss invariant egenskap hos trosuppfattningen.Vi visar också att man med den här stationära principen kan uppnå ettoptimalt privatliv läckagevärde.

Brinquedos infantis tornaram-se sofisticados ao longo dos anos, evoluindo de produtos físicos simples a brinquedos que acoplam o mundo digital por meio de software e hardware. Com essa sofisticação, veio à tona potenciais problemas de segurança e privacidade infantil em relação ao uso de brinquedos inteligentes. Um brinquedo inteligente consiste de um componente de brinquedo físico conectado a um sistema computacional com serviços on-line para melhorar a funcionalidade de um brinquedo tradicional. Esse tipo de brinquedo ainda não é amplamente conhecido em países com economia em desenvolvimento, como o Brasil. Dessa forma, não se sabe a opinião de consumidores desse tipo de país em relação à aceitação dessa tecnologia quando ela estiver disponível. Esta dissertação de mestrado realizou um estudo comparativo entre países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento, avaliando a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil em relação a brinquedos inteligentes. Aspectos como intenção de compra e percepção de inovação foram levados em consideração, pois essas duas percepções podem influenciar a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil. Essas comparações de percepções ainda foram consideradas para variações de gênero e níveis de escolaridade, considerando pessoas de diferentes países de desenvolvimento. Com uma revisão sistemática, constatou-se que não há trabalhos que abordem a percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil relacionada a brinquedos inteligentes, comparando países de economia avançada e em desenvolvimento. Para a realização desta dissertação de mestrado, um survey com a aplicação de um questionário foi considerado. Antecedendo a aplicação do questionário, uma entrevista com 14 participantes foi realizada para refinar o questionário que estava em construção. Para analisar os resultados, os testes de estatística não paramétrica Mann Whitney e teste de Independência de Qui-quadrado foram usados para três hipóteses, considerando percepção sobre segurança e privacidade infantil, intenção de compra e percepção de inovação referente a brinquedos inteligentes em relação ao nível de desenvolvimento do país, tratando também de gênero e nível de escolaridade dos participantes. O primeiro resultado obtido, é que há diferença significativa entre os países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento em relação a segurança e privacidade infantil no uso a brinquedos inteligentes, sendo que, os países com economia avançada mostram maior preocupação. Em relação à intenção de compra e percepção de inovação, não foi detectada diferença significativa entre os países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento. Para co-variáveis como gênero e nível de escolaridade, há diferenças significativas de percepção em relação às três hipóteses se tratando de grupos específicos em relação ao nível de desenvolvimento de países. Por exemplo, testes realizados apenas com o gênero feminino, retornaram diferença significativa. Com os resultados deste mestrado, pesquisas maiores relacionadas podem ser consideradas. Além de que, estratégias de marketing podem ser melhoradas de acordo com as diferenças de percepções encontradas de pessoas que vivem em países de diferentes níveis de desenvolvimento
Children\'s toys have become sophisticated over the years, evolving from simple physical products to toys that engage the digital world through software and hardware. With such sophistication, potential child safety and privacy issues have surfaced concerning the use of smart toys. A smart toy consists of a physical toy component connected to a computer system with online services to enhance the functionality of a traditional toy. This type of toy is not yet widely known in economically developing countries such as Brazil. In this way, the opinion of consumers of this type of country is not known with respect to the acceptance of this technology when it is available. This master\'s research carried out a comparative study among countries with different levels of development, assessing the perception of child safety and privacy about intelligent toys. Aspects such as purchase intent and perception of innovation were taken into account, since these two perceptions may influence perceptions about child safety and privacy. These comparisons of perceptions were still considered for variations in gender and educational levels, considering people from different developing countries. With a systematic review, it was found that there are no studies that address the perception of children\'s safety and privacy related to intelligent toys, comparing countries of advanced and developing economies. For the accomplishment of this masters dissertation, a survey with the application of a structured questionnaire was considered. Before the application of the questionnaire, a interview with 14 participants was performed to refine the questionnaire that was under construction. In order to analyze the results, the non-parametric Mann Whitney test and the Chi-square Independence test were used for three hypotheses considering perceptions about child safety and privacy, purchase intention and perception of innovation regarding smart toys in relation to the level of the country\'s development, also dealing with the gender and level of schooling of the participants. The first result obtained is that there is a significant difference between countries of different levels of development regarding children\'s safety and privacy in the use of smart toys, and countries with advanced economies show greater concern. In relation to the purchase intention and perception of innovation, no significant difference was detected between the countries with different levels of development. For covariables such as gender and educational level, there are significant perceptual differences about the three hypotheses when dealing with specific groups about the level of development of countries. For example, tests performed only with the female gender, returned significant difference. With the results of this masters degree, major related research can be considered. In addition to that, marketing strategies can be improved according to the differences of perceptions found in people living in countries with different levels of development

The growth and presence of heterogeneous connected devices inside the home have the potential to provide increased efficiency and quality of life to the residents. Simultaneously, these devices tend to be Internet-connected and continuously monitor, collect, and transmit data about the residents and their daily lifestyle activities. Such data can be of a sensitive nature, such as camera feeds, voice commands, physiological data, and more. This data allows for the implementation of services, personalization support, and benefits offered by smart home technologies. Alas, there has been a rift of security and privacy attacks on connected home devices that compromise the security, safety, and privacy of the occupants. In this thesis, we provide a comprehensive description of the smart connected home ecosystem in terms of its assets, architecture, functionality, and capabilities. Especially, we focus on the data being collected by smart home devices. Such description and organization are necessary as a precursor to perform a rigorous security and privacy analysis of the smart home. Additionally, we seek to identify threat agents, risks, challenges, and propose some mitigation approaches suitable for home environments. Identifying these is core to characterize what is at stake, and to gain insights into what is required to build more robust, resilient, secure, and privacy-preserving smart home systems. Overall, we propose new concepts, models, and methods serving as a foundation for conducting deeper research work in particular linked to smart connected homes. In particular, we propose a taxonomy of devices; classification of data collected by smart connected homes; threat agent model for the smart connected home; and identify challenges, risks, and propose some mitigation approaches.

This dissertation addresses research questions related to defining a smart city and the associated activities. The general research question is explored in the dissertation via the conduct of three related studies. The finding from these three investigations are presented in the results section as 3 essays that collectively examine the smart city phenomena as it has emerged within the City. Essay 1 assesses building municipal open data capability. The study proposed an Opendata Roadmap Framework to enhance the organization's dynamic capability. The results provide a valuable practical framework to help cities develop open data capability. The results also provide a comparative study or benchmark for similar initiatives with other regional cities and within the nation. Essay 2 measures the residents' understanding and beliefs about smart cities. This portion of the research used a qualitative method that included interviewing residents and city officials to understand their definition of a smart city and what they believe makes a city smart. The interviews focused on understanding resident engagement because it is an important characteristic of a smart city. The gap between the city officials and residents understanding was examined. In addition, the interviews help identify essential factors associated with smart cities like trust in government, perceived security, perceived privacy, trust in technology, and perceived monetary value. Essay 3 examines the acceptance of smart city technologies and factors that affect the adoption of such technologies. This essay uses the insights from the other two essays to propose a smart city Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) extension labelled Smart City UTAUT (SC-UTAUT). The new proposed model was tested using a survey method. The 1,786 valid responses were used to test the proposed structural equation model using Smart PLS. Results show a significant relationship between trust in technology, trust in government, perceived monetary value, effort expectancy, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention. The dissertation concludes with a summary of how the three essays make a cumulative contribution to the literature as well as providing practical guidance for becoming a smart city.

The growth of Internet of Things is steadily increasing, both in Sweden and globally. This relative new technology improves the lives of many; but at the price of their security, privacy and safety. This thesis consists of a literature study and an online survey. It investigates what security, privacy and safety risks Internet of Things devices may bring, how aware people are about these risks, how the user can minimize the risk of being hacked or attacked and what manufacturers can do to make safer Internet of Thing devices. The survey was created based on the risks related to Internet of Things devices which was found during the literature study. It was possible to identify security, privacy and safety risks related to Internet of Things. It was also possible to find answers of how both users and manufacturers can protect their devices from being hacked. The survey showed that there was a correlation between how interested people are in technology and how aware they are of the risks with Internet of Things. Internet of Things can be used to do DDoS attacks, espionage and eavesdropping. People who are interested in technology tends to protect themselves more actively (by changing default password and updating the software) compared to those who are not interested.