The proliferation of wireless networks over the past decade has made security a major concern for these networks and the applications that have to use them. Wireless networks have fundamental characteristics that make them significantly different from traditional wired networks, particularly with regard to security and reliability. Moreover there is an increasing trend for access to services residing on fixed (e.g. enterprise) networks via wireless access. Therefore the design of secure and reliable wireless networks presents a major challenge to the designers of next generation networks with general public wireless access. It is also expected that many future networks will have to live under the threat of attacks as a matter of course. Current research attempts to secure networks against all types of attack, at all times and generally irrespective of the cost to the performance of the network. This research proposal aims to investigate a new type of integrated, flexible, and intelligent security architecture for providing tolerance to intrusion attacks against next generation networks with wireless access. Thus our goal is not to prevent intrusions but to enable network architectures to withstand them. Central to the work will be the design of a distributed Intrusion tolerance system that is based on a cross layer detection and mitigation approach. As such, intrusion detection and mitigation will be integrated within the layered architecture of the network so that the network has an intelligent view of the overall level of threat(s) posed at any time throughout the network. This approach brings a number of significant advantages over existing intrusion detection systems (IDS) particularly when applied to wireless access networks that have to withstand some level of attacks over prolonged periods.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

If we are to enjoy the benefits of truly immersive environments, then future communicaitons networks will need to be designed to be able to transport more sensory information than the visual and auditory senses they serve today. The research proposed here seeks to investigate how we can combine communications theory with recent advances in olfactory technologies. The coupling of these two disparate disciplines opens up radically new areas of research, and this project will investigate two key aspects that are essential in order to take this forward. Firstly, we will investigate how we can characterise and then efficiently transmit odour (scent) over conventional communications networks such as the Internet, and accurately recreate it at a receiver, particularly when it is transmitted alongside video streams as envisaged for future immersive services. This is essentially 'scent teleportation', however in order to accomplish this we need to understand how can we design networks that can efficiently transport this type of information and how it is affected by network impairments such as packet loss, delay and jitter, i.e. what is the quality of service required to transmit scent? Secondly, we will investigate how we can employ scent technologies to create a completely new communications medium. To achieve this we need to understand how we can modulate data symbols onto scent carriers (plumes), and consequently what types of modulation are available to do this (leading to devices that can produce odour streams that are digitally encoded), what are the factors governing this type of transmission though the air, and what are the typical entropy rates that can be achieved? We will also investigate how we can employ this as a secure communications channel, e.g. whereby the data (carried over a scent plume) is only coherently received at a specific location and instant (or window) of time. Such channels may be used to securely distribute encryption keys. We will also explore opportunities to commercial exploit the research developed in this project; through IP protection, collaboration with our start-up companies and Industrial partner, and through the development of a follow-on proposal designed to demonstrate the technologies. We anticipate substantial interest from a range of sectors and industries, as identified in the impact strategy.