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Description
The purpose of this project was to create a modular embedded systems platform that would provide a hands-on lab experience for students learning about embedded systems protocols. The system would be designed to be modular, expandable, and productizable. Its modularity would eliminate errors in the design and make the entire

The purpose of this project was to create a modular embedded systems platform that would provide a hands-on lab experience for students learning about embedded systems protocols. The system would be designed to be modular, expandable, and productizable. Its modularity would eliminate errors in the design and make the entire system more robust. It would also be expandable, which means additional project boards could be created in the future without requiring a complete redesign of the system. And finally, productizing the entire system would allow it to be sold to other universities who may have a similar program that would benefit from a system such as the OCTOPUS.
ContributorsDavis, Mareike (Author) / Burger, Kevin (Thesis director) / Vannoni, Greg (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2013-12
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Description
The Internet of Things has spread Wi-Fi connectivity to household and business devices everywhere. It is important that we understand IoT's risks and capabilities as its popularity continues to grow, and that we recognize new and exciting uses for it. In this project, the ESP8266 Wi-Fi controller, powered by a

The Internet of Things has spread Wi-Fi connectivity to household and business devices everywhere. It is important that we understand IoT's risks and capabilities as its popularity continues to grow, and that we recognize new and exciting uses for it. In this project, the ESP8266 Wi-Fi controller, powered by a lithium battery, is used to transmit messages from a user's browser or mobile phone to an OLED display. The ESP8266 is a system on a chip (SOC) which boasts impressive features such as full TCP/IP stack, 1 MB of flash memory, and a 32-bit CPU. A web server is started on the ESP8266 which listens at a specific port and relays any strings from the client back to the display, acting as a simple notification system for a busy individual such as a professor. The difficulties with this project stemmed from the security protocol of Arizona State University's Wi-Fi network and from the limitations of the Wi-Fi chip itself. Several solutions are suggested, such as utilizing a personal cellular broadband router and polling a database for stored strings through a service such as Data.Sparkfun.com.
ContributorsKovatcheva, Simona Kamenova (Author) / Burger, Kevin (Thesis director) / Meuth, Ryan (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
The purpose of this project was to implement and analyze a new proposed rootkit that claims a greater level of stealth by hiding in cache. Today, the vast majority of embedded devices are powered by ARM processors. To protect their processors from attacks, ARM introduced a hardware security extension known

The purpose of this project was to implement and analyze a new proposed rootkit that claims a greater level of stealth by hiding in cache. Today, the vast majority of embedded devices are powered by ARM processors. To protect their processors from attacks, ARM introduced a hardware security extension known as TrustZone. It provides an isolated execution environment within the embedded device that enables us to run various memory integrity and malware detection tools to identify possible breaches in security to the normal world. Although TrustZone provides this additional layer of security, it also adds another layer of complexity, and thus comes with its own set of vulnerabilities. This new rootkit identifies and exploits a cache incoherence in the ARM device as a result of TrustZone. The newly proposed rootkit, called CacheKit, takes advantage of this cache incoherence to avoid memory introspection from tools in secure world. We implement CacheKit on the i.MX53 development board, which features a single ARM Cortex A8 processor, to analyze the limitations and vulnerabilities described in the original paper. We set up the Linux environment on the computer to be able to cross-compile for the development board which will be running the FreeScale android 2.3.4 platform with a 2.6.33 Linux kernel. The project is implemented as a kernel module that once installed on the board can manipulate cache as desired to conceal the rootkit. The module exploits the fact that in TrustZone, the secure world does not have access to the normal world cache. First, a technique known as Cache-asRAM is used to ensure that the rootkit is loaded only into cache of the normal world where it can avoid detection from the secure world. Then, we employ the cache maintenance instructions and resisters provided in the cp15 coprocessor to keep the code persistent in cache. Furthermore, the cache lines are mapped to unused I/O address space so that if cache content is flushed to RAM for inspection, the data is simply lost. This ensures that even if the rootkit were to be flushed into memory, any trace of the malicious code would be lost. CacheKit prevents defenders from analyzing the code and destroys any forensic evidence. This provides attackers with a new and powerful tool that is excellent for certain scenarios that were previously thought to be secure. Finally, we determine the limitations of the prototype to determine possible areas for future growth and research into the security of networked embedded devices.
ContributorsGutierrez Barnett, Mauricio Antonio (Author) / Zhao, Ziming (Thesis director) / Doupe, Adam (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Pollution is an increasing problem around the world, and one of the main forms it takes is air pollution. Air pollution, from oxides and dioxides to particulate matter, continues to contribute to millions of deaths each year, which is more than the next three leading causes of environment-related death combined.

Pollution is an increasing problem around the world, and one of the main forms it takes is air pollution. Air pollution, from oxides and dioxides to particulate matter, continues to contribute to millions of deaths each year, which is more than the next three leading causes of environment-related death combined. Plus, the problem is only growing as industrial plants, factories, and transportation continues to rapidly increase across the globe. Those most affected include less developed countries and individuals with pre-existing respiratory conditions. Although many citizens know about this issue, it is often unclear what times and locations are worst in terms of pollutant concentration as it can vary on the time of day, local activity, and other variable factors. As a result, citizens lack the knowledge and resources to properly combat or avoid air pollution, as well as the data and evidence to support any sort of regulatory change. Many companies and organizations have tried to address this through Air Quality Indexes (AQIs) but are not focused enough to help the everyday citizen, and often fail to include many significant pollutants. Thus, we sought to address this issue in a cost-effective way through creating a network of IoT (Internet of Things) devices and deploying them in a select area of Tempe, Arizona. We utilized Arduino Microprocessors and Wireless Radio Frequency Transceivers to send and receive air pollution data in real time. Then, displayed this data in such a way that it could be released to the public via web or mobile app. Furthermore, the product is cheap enough to be reproduced and sold in bulk as well as scaled and customized to be compatible with dozens of different air quality sensors.
ContributorsCoury, Abrahm Philip (Co-author) / Gillespie, Cody (Co-author) / Ren, Fengbo (Thesis director) / Shrivastava, Aviral (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05