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Publications

Publications by Pedro Miguel Silva

2016

Mistrustful P2P: Privacy-preserving File Sharing Over Untrustworthy Peer-to-Peer Networks

Authors
da Silva, PM; Dias, J; Ricardo, M;

Publication
2016 IFIP NETWORKING CONFERENCE (IFIP NETWORKING) AND WORKSHOPS

Abstract
Peer-to-Peer networks are extensively used for largescale file sharing. As more information flows through these networks, people are becoming increasingly concerned about their privacy. Traditional P2P file sharing systems provide performance and scalability at the cost of requiring peers to publicly advertise what they download. Several P2P privacyenhancing systems have been proposed but they still require peers to advertise, either fully or partially, what they download. Lacking alternatives, users have adopted anonymity systems for P2P file sharing, misunderstanding the privacy guarantees provided by such systems, in particular when relaying traffic of insecure applications such as BitTorrent. Our goal is to prevent any malicious peer(s) from ascertaining users' content interests so that plausible deniability always applies. We propose a novel P2P file sharing model, Mistrustful P2P, that (1) supports file sharing over open and untrustworthy P2P networks, (2) requires no trust between users by avoiding the advertisement of what peers download or miss, and (3) still ensures deterministic protection of user's interests against attacks of size up to a configured privacy protection level. We hope that our model can pave the ground for a new generation of privacyenhancing systems that take advantage of the new possibilities it introduces. We validate Mistrustful P2P through simulation, and demonstrate its feasibility.

2017

Mistrustful P2P: Deterministic privacy-preserving P2P file sharing model to hide user content interests in untrusted peer-to-peer networks

Authors
da Silva, PM; Dias, J; Ricardo, M;

Publication
COMPUTER NETWORKS

Abstract
P2P networks endowed individuals with the means to easily and efficiently distribute digital media over the Internet, but user legal liability issues may be raised as they also facilitate the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of copyrighted material. Traditional P2P file sharing systems focus on performance and scalability, disregarding any privacy or legal issues that may arise from their use. Lacking alternatives, and unaware of the privacy issues that arise from relaying traffic of insecure applications, users have adopted anonymity systems for P2P file sharing. This work aims at hiding user content interests from malicious peers through plausible deniability. The Mistrustful P2P model is built on the concept of mistrusting all the entities participating in the P2P network, hence its name. It provides a deterministic and configurable privacy protection that relies on cover content downloads to hide user content interests, has no trust requirements, and introduces several mechanisms to prevent user legal liability and reduce network overhead while enabling timely content downloads. We extend previous work on the Mistrustful P2P model by discussing its legal and ethical framework, assessing its feasibility for more use cases, providing a security analysis, comparing it against a traditional P2P file sharing model, and further defining and improving its main mechanisms.

2015

Storm: Rateless MDS Erasure Codes

Authors
da Silva, PM; Dias, J; Ricardo, M;

Publication
WIRELESS INTERNET (WICON 2014)

Abstract
Erasure codes have been employed in a wide range of applications to increase content availability, improve channel reliability, or to reduce downloading time. For several applications, such as P2P file sharing, MDS erasure codes are more suitable as the network is typically the most constrained resource, not the CPU. Rateless MDS erasure codes also enable to adjust encoding and decoding algorithms as function of dynamic variables to maximize erasure coding gains. State-of-the-art MDS erasure codes are either fixed-rate or have practical limitations. We propose Storm erasure codes, a rateless MDS construction of Reed-Solomon codes over the finite field F-p2, where p is a Mersenne prime. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose a rateless construction (n can be increased in steps of k) with Theta (n log k) encoding time complexity and min {Theta(n log n), Theta(k log(2) k)} upper bound for decoding time complexity. We provide the complexity analysis of encoding and decoding algorithms and evaluate Storm's performance.

2015

CIDRarchy: CIDR-based ns-3 routing protocol for large scale network simulation

Authors
da Silva, PM; Dias, J; Ricardo, M;

Publication
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, Athens, Greece, August 24-26, 2015

Abstract
ns-3 is the successor of ns-2, the most popular network simulator. Network simulators such as ns-3 play an important role on understanding, designing, and building Internet systems. But simulations are only as good as their models, and the simulation of large scale Internet systems using accurate and complex models is a challenging task. ns-3 simulates realistically the network stack but the scale and complexity of the Internet topology is, from our point of view, limited by the IP forwarding operations. This work proposes CIDRarchy, an IPv4 routing protocol for ns-3 that uses CIDR as the base to create an hierarchical Internet-like network topology that enables (1) IP forwarding with constant time complexity and automatic IPv4 address assignment, and (2) the implementation of an ns-3 helper to ease network topology creation. We implemented CIDRarchy, evaluated its performance, and obtained simulation time reduction over existing ns-3 routing protocols implementations that can reach over one order of magnitude. Copyright © 2015 ICST.

2018

RedeFINE: Centralized Routing for High-capacity Multi-hop Flying Networks

Authors
Coelho, A; Almeida, EN; Silva, P; Ruela, J; Campos, R; Ricardo, M;

Publication
2018 14TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WIRELESS AND MOBILE COMPUTING, NETWORKING AND COMMUNICATIONS (WIMOB 2018)

Abstract
The advent of small and low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is paving the way to use swarms of UAVs to perform missions such as aerial video monitoring and infrastructure inspection. Within a swarm, UAVs communicate by means of a Flying Multi-hop Network (FMN), which due to its dynamics induces frequent changes of network topology and quality of the links. Recently, UAVs have also been used to provide Internet access and enhance the capacity of existing networks in Temporary Events. This brings up additional routing challenges not yet addressed, in order to provide always-on and high capacity paths able to meet the Quality of Service expected by the users. This paper presents RedeFINE, a centralized routing solution for FMNs that selects high-capacity paths between UAVs and avoids communications disruptions, by defining in advance the forwarding tables and the instants they shall be updated in the UAVs; this represents a major step forward with respect to traditional routing protocols. The performance evaluation of RedeFINE shows promising results, especially regarding Throughput and Packet Delivery Ratio, when compared with state of the art routing solutions.

2010

Sensing the schoolyard: Using senses and sensors to assess georeferenced environmental dimensions

Authors
Silva, MJ; Lopes, JC; Da Silva, PM; Marcelino, MJ;

Publication
ACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Abstract
This paper presents the Usense2learn platform, a platform designed and implemented to enable children and teachers to use georeferenced multisensory information together with information acquired by sensors. Usense2learn places the creation of content in the hands of children. While using Usense2learn, mobile sensors can be held across the exploration area and provide georeferenced environmental information such as air temperature and humidity. Using multimedia (video, image, sound and text) teachers and children can bring the outside world into their classroom and share it with other classrooms across the globe. Having the limited schools' budgets in mind, content creation can be made anywhere without communication costs. Internet connection is only required, together with Google Earth, for visualization. The Usense2learn platform was successfully used in a curricular context, engaging children and teachers in meaningful environmental education activities. © 2010 ACM.