@conference {346, title = {Cyber Handyman and Nursing for Humanitarian Services and Disaster Relief}, booktitle = {2018 IEEE International Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security (HST)}, year = {2018}, month = {Oct}, abstract = {

Calamities cause immense damage to the lives and properties; emergency management and humanitarian support have always been a challenge in the disaster-hit areas due to deficiency of skilled workforce and increase in demand for available experts. Not all the volunteers have the required technical expertise to handle those situations, utilizing the services of the remotely located experts to enhance the skills of the volunteers can help them to handle the situations efficiently. The existing communication mechanisms do not have the capabilities required for collaborating people over physical tasks, which is crucial during the emergency situations. In this paper, we present two novel remote collaboration systems, Cyber-Handyman and Cyber-Nurse using which the less-trained and inexperienced aid workers can enhance their capabilities with the help from remote experts. These units will be deployed in the disaster sites, and the remote experts access and control the sensors on it to guide the aid workers or the victims. The efficiency of the collaboration over physical tasks, which is vital during emergency situations, depends on the complexity of the protocols utilized and the efficiency of the collaboration system. We also propose a methodology to evaluate the protocol complexity and efficiency of the system. Our experiments and results show that with our collaboration system a remote helper can successfully guide the workers in performing a physical task with minimum difficulty.

}, keywords = {Collaboration, collaboration system, common grounding, Complexity theory, Entropy, Grounding, helper-worker collaboration, human-human collaboration, human-machine collaboration, protocol complexity theory, Protocols, remote collaboration, Senior citizens, Task analysis, voice over IP}, doi = {10.1109/THS.2018.8574176}, author = {Jonnada, Srikanth and Ram Dantu and Ranasinghe, Ishan} } @conference {263, title = {Automating ECU Identification for Vehicle Security}, booktitle = {2016 15th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)}, year = {2016}, month = {Dec}, abstract = {

The field of vehicular cybersecurity has received considerable media and research attention in the past few years. Given the increasingly connected aspect of consumer automobiles, along with the inherent danger of these machines, there has been a call for experienced security researchers to contribute towards the vehicle security domain. The proprietary nature of Controller Area Network (CAN) bus messages, however, creates a barrier of entry for those unfamiliar, due to the need to identify what the messages on a given vehicle{\textquoteright}s bus are broadcasting. This work aims to automate the process of correlating CAN bus messages with specific Electronic Control Unit (ECU) functions in a new vehicle, by creating a machine learning classifier that has been trained on a dataset of multiple vehicles from different manufacturers. The results show that accurate classification is possible, and that some ECUs that broadcast similar vehicle dynamics broadcast similar CAN messages.

}, keywords = {Acceleration, automobiles, automotive electronics, automotive security, Brakes, broadcasting, CAN bus, CAN bus messages, classification, consumer automobiles, control engineering computing, controller area network, controller area networks, ECU identification automation, electronic control unit, electronic engineering computing, embedded systems, learning (artificial intelligence), machine learning, machine learning classifier, pattern classification, Protocols, Security, security of data, Training, vehicle bus, vehicular ad hoc networks, vehicular cybersecurity, Wheels}, doi = {10.1109/ICMLA.2016.0111}, author = {Jaynes, Michael and Ram Dantu and Varriale, Roland and Evans, Nathaniel} } @conference {88, title = {A framework for secured collaboration in mHealth}, booktitle = {Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS), 2015 International Conference on}, year = {2015}, month = {06/2015}, abstract = {

We have designed a novel framework of services, protocols and technologies to ensure the secure collaboration in M2M networks, specifically in mobile health. The promise of mobile health to reform preventive self-care opens new doors for remote monitoring to improve health care communication. With cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as an example, we classify our M2M elements into services, roles, human-computer protocols and technologies through which we require trust, anonymity, scalability, and active detachment. We simulate a scenario in which a patient needs CPR and through the use of widely available technologies (such as a smartphone and secure web sockets) we demonstrate a technological collaboration that facilitates secure emergency mobile health services.

}, keywords = {cardiology, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR), Collaboration, Computers, CPR, health care, health care communication, human computer interaction, human-computer protocol, M2M network, machine to machine(M2M), Medical services, mHealth, Mobile communication, mobile computing, mobile health, Protocols, remote monitoring, Scalability, secure collaboration, secure emergency mobile health services, secured collaboration, security of data, servers, smart phones, smartphone}, doi = {10.1109/CTS.2015.7210450}, author = {Widick, Logan and Talkington, Josh and Bajwa, Garima and Ram Dantu} } @conference {107, title = {An opportunistic encryption extension for the DNS protocol}, booktitle = {Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI), 2015 IEEE International Conference on}, year = {2015}, month = {May}, abstract = {

Confidentiality for DNS transactions has been a low-priority concern in DNS security for a long time due to performance requirements for the functionality of DNS and the fact that data in the DNS is considered public. However, the information carried in DNS transactions, if collected and analyzed, can pose real threats to personal privacy. This makes DNS a good target for passive eavesdropping to collect data for many purposes some of which may be malicious. The protocol described in this document is intended to facilitate an opportunistic negotiation of encryption in the DNS to provide confidentiality for the last mile of DNS resolution. It defines procedures to discover encryption-aware servers and how to establish a relationship with them with minimum overhead.

}, keywords = {computer network security, cryptographic protocols, DNS protocol, DNS security, DNS transactions, encryption, Internet, opportunistic encryption extension, passive eavesdropping, performance requirements, personal privacy, pose real threats, Privacy, Protocols, Public key, servers}, doi = {10.1109/ISI.2015.7165976}, author = {Bucuti, Theogene and Ram Dantu} } @conference {237, title = {Socio-technical aspects of video phones}, booktitle = {2010 Second International Conference on COMmunication Systems and NETworks (COMSNETS 2010)}, year = {2010}, month = {Jan}, abstract = {

The widespread use of voice over Internet protocol has paved the way for video over Internet protocol. In the past, certain technical shortcomings have prevented the popularity of videophones in the market. With present-day technology, videophones have just about everything required for day-to-day functions. Under such circumstances, certain socio-technical aspects require attention so that videophones can become as widespread and as technically streamlined as a plain old telephone system (POTS) with its additional benefits. A frequently brushed-upon topic is optimum features in the video phone for day-to-day social interactions. We carried out several experiments on different kinds of codecs and video formats to address two issues: i) the size of a video screen and ii) perception of motion and distance. From the measurements, we observed that a small frame rate with low bandwidth is adequate and can result in satisfactory video quality. We also observed that H263 performs well for all the day-to-day social networking activities. Standing 4 feet from the camera can still give reasonably good video quality in the currently available codecs. We believe that socio-technical issues will emerge more clearly over the next several years and they are germane to deployment of PC-based soft phones as well as hard phones.

}, keywords = {Bandwidth, Cameras, Codecs, Computer science, Internet telephony, plain old telephone system, Protocols, social aspects of automation, Social factors, social interactions, social issues, Social network services, social networking activities, sociotechnical aspects, Streaming media, technical issues, video codecs, video coding, video phones, video quality, Videoconference, videophone quality, videophones, videotelephony, voice over Internet protocol}, doi = {10.1109/COMSNETS.2010.5431971}, author = {Chandrasekaran, Vikram and Dantu, Siva and Kadiyala, Priyanka and Ram Dantu and Phithakkitnukoon, Santi} } @conference {58, title = {Automatic Calibration Using Receiver Operating Characteristics Curves}, booktitle = {2007 2nd International Conference on Communication Systems Software and Middleware}, year = {2007}, month = {Jan}, abstract = {

Application-level filters, such as e-mail and VoIP spam filters, that analyze dynamic behavior changes are replacing static signature-recognition filters. These application-level filters learn behavior and use that knowledge to filter unwanted requests. Because behavior of a service request{\textquoteright}s participating entities changes rapidly, filters must adapt quickly by using end user{\textquoteright}s preferences about receiving that service request message. Many adaptive filters learn from the participating entities{\textquoteright} behavior; however, none configure themselves automatically to an end user{\textquoteright}s changing tolerance levels. Also, filter administrators cannot manually change the threshold for each service request in real time. Traditional adaptive filters fail when administrators must optimize multiple filter thresholds manually and often. Thus, to improve a filter{\textquoteright}s learning, we must automate its threshold-update process. We propose an automatic threshold-calibration mechanism using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves that updates the threshold based on an end user{\textquoteright}s feedback. To demonstrate the mechanism{\textquoteright}s real-time applicability, we integrated it in a Voice over IP (VoIP) spam filter that analyzes incoming Spam over IP Telephony (SPIT) calls. Using this mechanism, we observed good improvement in the VoIP spam filter{\textquoteright}s accuracy. Further, computing and updating the optimum threshold in realtime does not impede the filter{\textquoteright}s temporal performance because we update thresholds after each call{\textquoteright}s completion. Because we reach an optimum threshold for any initial setting, this mechanism works efficiently when we cannot predict end-user behavior. Furthermore, automatic calibration proves efficient when using multiple threshold values.

}, keywords = {adaptive filters, application-level filter learning, automatic threshold-calibration mechanism, behavior, calibration, Computer science, Computer worms, Electronic mail, end user feedback, Filtering, information filtering, information filters, Internet telephony, learning (artificial intelligence), Protocols, receiver operating characteristics curves, sensitivity analysis, service request message, telecommunication traffic, Threshold, tolerance, Viruses (medical)}, doi = {10.1109/COMSWA.2007.382484}, author = {Kolan, Prakash and Vaithilingam, Ram and Ram Dantu} } @conference {62, title = {Goliath: A Configurable Approach for Network Testing}, booktitle = {Testbeds and Research Infrastructure for the Development of Networks and Communities, 2007. TridentCom 2007. 3rd International Conference on}, year = {2007}, month = {May}, abstract = {

When testing a network environment and/or application many aspects need to be taken into consideration. For example, different software needs to be deployed at different nodes and different topologies may also need to be tested. The manual execution of these tasks are very time consuming and a configurable environment to facilitate these tasks and consequently improve testing performance is desired. In this paper a virtual network environment that can be easily reconfigured is presented to address this problem. Also presented is a case study with the results of deployment and containing a worm propagation attack.

}, keywords = {automated network testing, Computational modeling, computer networks, Computer science, Computer worms, Distributed computing, Goliath, Intrusion detection, network topologies, Network topology, Protocols, security of data, Software testing, System testing, telecommunication computing, telecommunication network topology, telecommunication security, virtual network environment, virtual private networks, worm propagation attack}, doi = {10.1109/TRIDENTCOM.2007.4444667}, author = {Fagen, Wade and Cangussu, Jo{\~a}o and Ram Dantu} } @article {180, title = {Securing voice over IP}, journal = {IEEE Network}, volume = {20}, year = {2006}, month = {Sept}, pages = {4-5}, keywords = {Authentication, Fingerprint recognition, information filtering, information filters, Information security, Internet telephony, Markup languages, Protection, Protocols, Standardization}, issn = {0890-8044}, doi = {10.1109/MNET.2006.1705876}, author = {Ram Dantu and Ghosal, Dipak and Schulzrinne, Henning} } @conference {33, title = {Securing VoIP and PSTN from integrated signaling network vulnerabilities}, booktitle = {1st IEEE Workshop on VoIP Management and Security, 2006.}, year = {2006}, abstract = {

The liberalization of public switched telephone network (PSTN) and growing acceptance of SIGTRAN protocol suite have introduced new and yet to be trusted signaling entities. Thus security threats emerging from one network not only affects itself but other network also. We show how this integrated signaling environment can become a security threat to emerging VoIP and PSTN networks. We propose a security solution as a fix. Our proposal goes beyond "Gateway Screening" and "SS7 Gatekeeper" proposed by Telcordia and Verizon respectively to defend vulnerable SS7 network.

}, keywords = {Information security, Information systems, Internet telephony, IP networks, ISDN, National security, Protocols, Routing, Signal processing, Switching circuits}, doi = {10.1109/VOIPMS.2006.1638116}, author = {Sengar, Hemant and Ram Dantu and Wijesekera, Duminda} } @article {39, title = {SS7 over IP: signaling interworking vulnerabilities}, journal = {IEEE Network}, volume = {20}, year = {2006}, month = {Nov}, pages = {32-41}, abstract = {

Public telephony - the preferred choice for two-way voice communication over a long time - has enjoyed remarkable popularity for providing acceptable voice quality with negligible connection delays, perhaps due to its circuit-switched heritage. Recently, IP telephony, a packet-based telephone service that runs as an application over the IP protocol, has been gaining popularity. To provide seamless interconnectivity between these two competing services, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has designed a signaling interface commonly referred to as SIGTRAN. This seamless intersignaling provided by SIGTRAN facilitates any subscriber in one network to reach any other subscriber in the other network, passing through any heterogeneous maze of networks consisting of either of these. Unfortunately, the same intersignaling potentially can be exploited from either side to disrupt the services provided on the other side. We show how this can be done and propose a solution based on access control, signal screening, and detecting anomalous signaling. We argue that to be effective, the latter two should consider syntactic correctness, semantic validity of the signal content, and the appropriateness of a particular signal in the context of earlier exchanged messages

}, keywords = {anomalous signaling detection, circuit-switched heritage, Delay effects, Design engineering, IETF, Integrated circuit interconnections, Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet telephony, intersignaling, IP protocol, ISDN, packet-based telephone service, Protocols, public telephony, Routing, Signal detection, signal screening, signaling interworking, SIGTRAN, SS7 over IP, Switches, telecommunication signalling, two-way voice communication, Web and internet services}, issn = {0890-8044}, doi = {10.1109/MNET.2006.273119}, author = {Sengar, Hemant and Ram Dantu and Wijesekera, Duminda and Jajodia, Sushil} }