We evaluate Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes in the context of a novel routing protocol HDARP+ for airborne networks. HDARP+ uses directional antennas and dynamic FEC coding to avoid detection by adversaries. The use of FEC coding is dynamic in the sense that different FEC codes, or no FEC code, will be used depending on the relative position of friendly and adversary aircraft. Due to the real-time restrictions in airborne networks, encoding and decoding must be fast and done through table lookup. Since we use table lookup, the FEC codes must be short. We evaluate two types of short FEC codes: Reed-Solomon (RS) codes, and FEC codes found using greedy search (called GS codes). The results show that the RS codes are better than the GS codes at handling error bursts. However, the GS codes are more flexible when it comes to finding attractive trade-offs between the code's ability to increase the number of the cases when hostile detection can be avoided (related to the coding gain), the code rate and the amount of memory required for implementing lookup tables.

Here we present a novel routing protocol HDARP+ for airborne tactical networks that use directional antennas. HDARP+ extends the existing protocol HDARP (Hostile-Direction Aware Routing Protocol) by reducing the risk for detection by adversary aircraft even further. Compared to HDARP, the extension in HDARP+ introduces dynamic Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding. The FEC code is dynamic in the sense that different FEC codes, or no FEC code, will be used depending on the relative position of the receiver and adversary aircraft. We evaluate three different Reed-Solomon FEC codes based on three criteria: the ability to transmit in the presence of adversaries without being detected, the reduction of the effective communication bandwidth, and the implementation cost in terms of the sizes of lookup tables for encoding and decoding. We argue that (variations of) HDARP+ will be implemented in future airborne tactical networks. This paper was originally presented at the NATO Science and Technology Organization Symposium (ICMCIS) organized by the Information Systems Technology (IST) Panel, IST-205-RSY - the ICMCIS, held in Koblenz, Germany, 23-24 April 2024. 

Renewable energy sources were introduced as an alternative to fossil fuel sources to make electricity generation cleaner. However, today's renewable energy markets face a number of limitations, such as inflexible pricing models and inaccurate consumption information. These limitations can be addressed with a decentralized marketplace architecture. Such architecture requires a mechanism to guarantee that all marketplace operations are executed according to predefined rules and regulations. One of the ways to establish such a mechanism is blockchain technology. This work defines a decentralized blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) energy marketplace which addresses actors' privacy and the performance of consensus mechanisms. The defined marketplace utilizes private permissioned Ethereum-based blockchain client Hyperledger Besu (HB) and its smart contracts to automate the P2P trade settlement process. Also, to make the marketplace compliant with energy trade regulations, it includes the regulator actor, which manages the issue and consumption of guarantees of origin and certifies the renewable energy sources used to generate traded electricity. Finally, the proposed marketplace incorporates privacy-preserving features, allowing it to generate private transactions and store them within a designated group of actors. Performance evaluation results of HB-based marketplace with three main consensus mechanisms for private networks, i.e., Clique, IBFT 2.0, and QBFT, demonstrate a lower throughput than another popular private permissioned blockchain platform Hyperledger Fabric (HF). However, the lower throughput is a side effect of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant characteristics of HB's consensus mechanisms, i.e., IBFT 2.0 and QBFT, which provide increased security compared to HF's Crash Fault Tolerant consensus RAFT.

Contemporary airborne radio networks are usually implemented using omnidirectional antennas. Unfortunately, such networks suffer from disadvantages such as easy detection by hostile aircraft and potential information leakage. In this paper, we present a novel mobile ad hoc network (MANET) routing protocol based on directional antennas and situation awareness data that utilizes adaptive multihop routing to avoid sending information in directions where hostile nodes are present. Our protocol is implemented in the OMNEST simulator and evaluated using two realistic flight scenarios involving 8 and 24 aircraft, respectively. The results show that our protocol has significantly fewer leaked packets than comparative protocols, but at a slightly higher cost in terms of longer packet lifetime.

This work defines a decentralized blockchain-based peer-to-peer (P2P) energy marketplace which addresses actors' privacy and the performance of consensus mechanisms. The defined marketplace utilizes private permissioned Ethereum-based blockchain client Hyperledger Besu (HB) and its smart contracts to automate the P2P trade settlement process. Also, to make the marketplace compliant with energy trade regulations, it includes the regulator actor, which manages the issue and generation of guarantees of origin and certifies the renewable energy sources used to generate traded electricity. Finally, the proposed marketplace incorporates privacy-preserving features, allowing it to generate private transactions and store them within a designated group of actors. Performance evaluation results of HB-based marketplace with three main consensus mechanisms for private networks, i. e., Clique, IBFT 2.0, and QBFT, demonstrate a lower throughput than another popular private permissioned blockchain platform Hyperledger Fabric (HF). However, the lower throughput is a side effect of the Byzantine Fault Tolerant characteristics of HB's consensus mechanisms, i. e., IBFT 2.0 and QBFT, which provide increased security compared to HF's Crash Fault Tolerant consensus RAFT. © 2023 IEEE.

Contemporary airborne radio networks are usually implemented using omnidirectional antennas. Unfortunately, such networks suffer from disadvantages such as easy detection by hostile aircraft and potential information leakage. In addition, tactical links used for military communication rely on NATO-specific standards such as Link 16, which are becoming outdated. 

To this end we are investigating the feasibility of replacing omnidirectional communication with directed communication, which will address the disadvantages mentioned above. In addition, we definine a communication architecture based on the conventional Ethernet and TCP/IP protocol stack, which will ease management and interoperability with existing Internet-based system 

In this report, we briefly review the TCP/IP stack and the services offerd at each layer of the stack. Furthermore, we review existing litterature involving mobile ad hoc network (MANET) protocols used for airborne networks along with various performance studies in the same area. Finally, we propose a novel MANET routing protocol based on directional antennas and situation awareness data that utilizes adaptive multihop routing to avoid sending information in directions where hostile nodes are present. 

Our protocol is implemented in the OMNEST simulator and evaluated using two realistic flight scenarios involving 8 and 24 aircraft, respectively. The results show that our protocol has significantly fewer leaked packets than comparative protocols, but at a slightly higher cost in terms of longer packet lifetime. 

Renewable energy sources are becoming increasingly important as a substitute for fossil energy production. However, distributed renewable energy production faces several challenges regarding trading and management, such as inflexible pricing models and inaccurate green consumption information. A decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity marketplace may address these challenges. It enables prosumers to market their self-produced electricity. However, such a marketplace needs to guarantee that the transactions follow market rules and government regulations, cannot be manipulated, and are consistent with the generated electricity. One of the ways to provide these guarantees is to leverage blockchain technology.

This work describes a decentralized blockchain-based P2P energy marketplace addressing privacy, trust, and governance issues. It uses a private permissioned blockchain Hyperledger Fabric (HF) and its smart contracts to perform energy trading settlements. The suggested P2P marketplace includes a particular regulator actor acting as a governmental representative overseeing marketplace operations. In this way, the suggested P2P marketplace can address the governance issues needed in electricity marketplaces. Further, the proposed marketplace ensures actors’ data privacy by employing HF’s private data collections while preserving the integrity and auditability of all operations. We present an in-depth performance evaluation and provide insights into the security and privacy challenges emerging from such a marketplace. The results demonstrate that partial centralization by the applied regulator does not limit the P2P energy trade settlement execution. Blockchain technology allows for automated marketplace operations enabling better incentives for prosumer electricity production. Finally, the suggested marketplace preserves the user’s privacy when P2P energy trade settlements are conducted.

Digital marketplaces were created recently to accelerate the delivery of applications and services to customers. Their appealing feature is to activate and dynamize the demand, supply, and development of digital goods, applications, or services. By being an intermediary between producer and consumer, the primary business model for a marketplace is to charge the producer with a commission on the amount paid by the consumer. However, most of the time, the commission is dictated by the marketplace facilitator itself and creates an imbalance in value distribution, where producer and consumer sides suffer monetarily. In order to eliminate the need for a centralized entity between the producer and consumer, a blockchain-based decentralized digital marketplace concept was introduced. It provides marketplace actors with the tools to perform business transactions in a trusted manner and without the need for an intermediary. In this work, we provide a survey on Telecommunication Services Marketplaces (TSMs) which employ blockchain technology as the main trust enabling entity in order to avoid any intermediaries. We provide an overview of scientific and industrial proposals on the blockchain-based online digital marketplaces at large, and TSMs in particular. We consider in this study the notion of telecommunication services as any service enabling the capability for information transfer and, increasingly, information processing provided to a group of users by a telecommunications system. We discuss the main standardization activities around the concepts of TSMs and provide particular use-cases for the TSM business transactions such as SLA settlement. Also, we provide insights into the main foundational services provided by the TSM, as well as a survey of the scientific and industrial proposals for such services. Finally, a prospect for future developments is given. Author

When exposed to the network, applications and devices are exposed to constant security risks. This puts pressure on hardware and software vendors to test even more than before how secure applications and devices are before being released to customers.

We have worked towards defining and developing a frame- work for automated security testbeds. Testbeds comprise both the ability to build on-demand virtual isolated networks that emulate corporate networks, as well as the ability to automate security breach scenarios, which accelerates the testing process. In order to accomplish both features of the testbed, we have based the framework on well-established cloud and orchestration technologies e. g. , OpenStack and Ansible. Although many of these technologies are powerful, they are also complex, leading to a steep learning curve for new users. Thus, one of the main goals of the developed framework is to hide the underlying complexities through a template approach and a simplified user interface that shortens the initial training time.

In this paper, we present the full stack of technologies that were used for constructing the testbed framework. The framework allows us to create entire virtual networks and to manipulate network devices started in it, via comprehensive yet simple interfaces. Also, we describe a specific testbed solution, developed as a part of the Test Arena Blekinge project.