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Wireless TechnologiesWireless technologies continue to play an increasingly important role in business, research, and home applications. Sensor nets, mobile ad hoc networks, and RFID are already changing the way businesses, universities, healthcare facilities, and end users operate, and they have the potential to radically redefine how we interact with the world. Here, for a limited time, you can access recent articles written by leaders in the wireless field from four of our peer-reviewed magazines. Sign up for the Computing Now newsletter to be notified when new free content is available from the Computer Society's 14 magazines. |
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AN INTRODUCTION TO RFID TECHNOLOGY January–March 2006, pp. 25–33 This introduction to radio frequency identification systems discusses their strengths and weaknesses and reviews current deployment challenges. It also presents various RFID extensions that offer read/write memory and environmental sensing and discusses topical social issues surrounding the deployment of electronic tags. A FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESSING RFID SYSTEM SECURITY AND PRIVACY RISKS April–June 2008, pp. 70–77 RFID technology uses radio waves to automatically identify physical objects. RFID systems have proven benefits in many application domains, but they also raise serious privacy and security concerns. This article briefly describes the main threats to RFID systems and proposes a methodology for evaluating risk levels for various application domains based on the system's deployment range, the type of link between the RFID tag and identity-related data, and the domain's security demands. PRIVACY IN LOCATION-AWARE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS October–December 2007, pp. 64–72 Using the experience sampling method, the authors explored the privacy preferences of 25 users during a one-week period. Variations in users' willingness to share location information depending on where they were, who they were with, and who was requesting the information could be useful for designing future privacy policies and user interfaces for pervasive computing. This article is part of a special issue on security anuuid=da02b805-fc36-4629-bc9a-ade5268e020f&groupId=53319ef="/portal/c/uuid=da02b805-fc36-4629-bc9a-ade5268e020f&groupId=53319734&name=DLFE-4206.pdf" target="_blank" class="focus">PERVASIVE RFID AND NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY July–September 2007, pp. 94–96, c3 RFID is the first widely deployed pervasive technology, and near-field communication is poised to be the first widely deployed technology to let humans communicate with physical objects. This article reports on the Pervasive RFID/Near Field Communication Technology and Applications (Pertec) workshop, which discussed the future evolution of RFID beyond goods identification, including sensor integration, localization, NFC apuuid=1a8517a1-0cfb-48e8-876a-fd5eac148d2c&groupId=53319p> DENIAL-OF-SERVICE IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS: ATTACKS AND DEFENSES January–March 2008, pp. 74–81 Increased interest in wireless sensor networks reinforces the importance of developing robust security mechanisms to protect them from malicious attack. If sensor networks are to meet current expectations, they must be robusuuid=4c7ae99c-7b21-4bbf-b30e-955c4e2ae066&groupId=53319uding denial uuid=4c7ae99c-7b21-4bbf-b30e-955c4e2ae066&groupId=53319ef="/portal/c/uuid=4c7ae99c-7b21-4bbf-b30e-955c4e2ae066&groupId=53319734&name=DLFE-4209.pdf" target="_blank" class="focus">TRANSFORMING AGRICULTURE THROUGH PERVASIVE WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS April–June 2007, pp. 50–57 A large-scale, outdoor, pervasive computing system based on the Fleck hardware platform applies sensor network technology to farming. Using static and animal-borne mobile nodes, the system measures the state of a complex, dynamic system comprising climate, soil, pasture, and animals. This data supports predictions of the land's future state and could help improve management efforts. This article is part of a special issue on Building a Sensor-Rich World.
July/August 2008, pp. 22–29 Technologies such as wireless mesh networking provide an excellent framework for delivering broadband services to deeply rural locations that lack adequate Internet service infrastructure. Lancaster University deployed a wireless mesh network in the rural English village of Wray. This article outlines the original system design, describes the active technical implementation and real-world performance, and examines some social and cultural implications of deploying this technology in the heart of a local community. July/August 2008, pp. 14–20 Open wireless networks are attractive because they enhance usability and thus expand access to nonsensitive system resources. Yet, they also raise privacy issues and increase the risk of malicious attacks and illegal downloading activities. This article describes the challenges of removing individual user authentication requirements for mobile device users at the perimeter of a university network.
March/April 2008, pp. 19–25 Geriatric Ambient Intelligence is an agent-based intelligent environment that facilitates healthcare in geriatric residences. GerAmi integrates multiagent systems with RFID, Wi-Fi technologies, and handheld devices. At its core, the case-based geriatric agent (Guuid=276178b6-1f02-42b3-8789-56fe2e0a7ec8&groupId=53319chedules, maiuuid=276178b6-1f02-42b3-8789-56fe2e0a7ec8&groupId=53319nurse activitiuuid=276178b6-1f02-42b3-8789-56fe2e0a7ec8&groupId=53319receive appropuuid=276178b6-1f02-42b3-8789-56fe2e0a7ec8&groupId=53319ef="/portal/c/uuid=276178b6-1f02-42b3-8789-56fe2e0a7ec8&groupId=53319734&name=DLFE-4208.pdf" target="_blank" class="focus">ACTIVITY RECOGNITION FOR THE SMART HOSPITAL March/April 2008, pp. 50–57 In developing ambient-intelligence environments, systems can easily recognize some contextual variables, such as location, but activity recognition is much more complex. Using data representing 196 hours of detailed observation of hospital workers to train and test a hidden Markov model, the authors found that the HMM correctly estimated user activity 92.6 percent of the time, outperforming neuronal networks and even human observers familiar with the work practices. This article is part of a special issue on ambient intelligence. |
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DEPLOYING RURAL COMMUNITY WIRELESS MESH NETWORKS