How can the Semantic Web Improve the Availability of Information?
After reading through research papers on the semantic web, I've written a paper-style piece on how it can improve the availability of information.
Abstract
Abstract
The information and data from large scale databases and repositories
can be shared globally via the World Wide Web. In order to find and retrieve
this data, we need a piece of software that is able search the content of these
databases and return results – this is known generically as a search engine,
and there are many available for different purposes. However retrieving meaningful
information is not easy; to overcome this semantic web search engines are being
developed. In this paper I am going to present how both the semantic web and
semantic search engines can transform the way information is retrieved and
presented to the user.
Introduction
The semantic web is an extension of
the World Wide Web that allows for not just information but meaning of information.
The new standards will ensure that all data is structured in a way in which it
can be dynamically found and accessed. The W3C standard “aims to provide a
common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application,
enterprise, and community boundaries.”[1], this will enable the data on the web
to be processed by both machines and humans.
A semantic web search engine is different from the
semantic web, a semantic search engine is a piece of software that aims to precisely
locate and gather information which is published on the semantic web. It is almost intuitive in the way that it can
respond to user’s queries, not by just searching for occurrences of the words
used in the users query on web pages, but that it almost understands the context in which the user is searching under, it
also learns and is able to apply additional information to the users query. Semantic web search engines are therefore able
to answer user’s queries efficiently and effectively using intelligent algorithms.
Of course they do however rely on data being stored semantically and following
conventional standards.
Related Work
§ Intelligent Semantic Web Search Engines: A
Brief Survey http://airccse.org/journal/ijwest/papers/0111ijwest03.pdf
This
paper gives in introduction to semantic web technologies, and then outlines several
semantic web models and search engines, making it clear that different ones are
used for different working environments. The paper is well written and easy to
read yet also in-depth and informative.
This
paper was published in in January 2011 – over 3 years ago. Due to the rapid
increase in processing power and hence the capabilities of computers, technology papers usually become outdated
quite quickly, however semantic web is not a band new concept, Tim Berners-Lee
wrote a paper on it in 2001. Therefore the content of this paper is still in
date, with the slight exception of a few new semantic search engine players
being missed off from the list such as Kakia.
The
paper was published in the International journal of Web & Semantic
Technology. This is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal. As it is international
there it is a well-respected body, and peer-reviewed so other academics in the
field had accepted it.
It
has had 13 citations, so is a well referred to journal.
Two
of the authors are doctors in their field, so are experts on semantic web.
§ Solving semantic ambiguity to improve
semantic web based ontology matching http://oro.open.ac.uk/23564/1/gracia_om07.pdf
This
paper discusses one of the main problems with the semantic web, which is
ambiguity, it puts forwards several factors that will help reduce this
It
was published in 2007, and some parts of it are outdated, for example Google knowledge
graph developers have come up with methods of reducing ambiguity that work in
practice – yet they were not mentioned in this paper
It
was published by the Open University, and does not appear to have gone through
a formal published review process, which may suggest against reliability.
Also
the authors were not mentioned / kept anonymous, again this does not suggest
reliability as they are probably not well-respected senior academics in the field.
Analysis
The Difference between Current Web and the Semantic Web Search Engines
It is very difficult for machines to
understand the information that the
user enters as a search string if there is a lack of structure to the
information being searched. A current
web search engine has two elements, the string that the user entered, and a
huge mass of unorganised records, therefore all that it can do is find occurrences
of each of the users key words in documents across the web, and return the
results with the most occurrences of the users search string. Many search
engines also rank results by other factors as well, such as the number of other
web pages that link to that page, but the search engine itself has no understanding
of what the user is searching for, or what results it is returning.
However a semantic web search
engine, which relies on its data being organised semantically, interprets the
users input string as an object or an object with a set of conditions. It does
this by looking at occurrences of this object in a semantic database and seeing
what relationships it has to other objects. It can therefore return results
that are relevant not to the string the user entered, but the object they referred
to.
Limitations of the Current Web
There is a lack of formal structure
applied to representing the data, therefore semantic search principles simply cannot
be applied to this information with any level of efficiency. There is also a
massive ambiguity of information which leads to little interconnection of this
information. There is currently no way to manage an enormous number of users or
ensuring trust at all levels, there is also very little automatic transfer
methods in place. Finally due to the lack of universal format there is no way
that machines could understand the provided information or make use of it.
Instant responses to question queries
This is one of the areas Google have
been working on recently, if you type in a query such as “What will the weather
be on Sunday?” It will be able to return a single figure or in this case whether
summary above all the search results. It will likely get your approximate location
from your IP, so the result will be accurate. It will also have more options
below Sundays weather forecast, such as Saturday or Monday’s forecast. The
search results below will of course be related, so there will be an entry for
the MetOffice website. But also the adverts will be relevant not to the search
for weather forecasts – but to the results of the users questions, for example
if it is going to be sunny, there may be a Tesco advert for BBQ’s. [3]
Searching “things” not “strings”
An example of a recent development
into the semantic web is Google’s knowledge graph. This involves attempting to
assign a unique ID to every real-world object mentioned on the internet, and
then link up relationships between objects to determine what is relevant to
each. Therefore when the user searches for something, it won’t be there query
string that is searched for – it is instances of that object and the
relationships it has with other objects. This means that the results returned
will be much more accurate, and intelligent and aim to have what the user was
looking for on the first page of results.
Potential Issues with Semantic Web Search Engines
While the majority of the web is
still not semantic, there is likely to be low precision and high recall from
some search strings, this can be caused by relying on resources that are not
semantic. Also it can sometimes be hard – or impossible to identify the
intentions of the user and hence return results that fit these intentions,
there query could be ambiguous, or the information in the semantic web could
relate to other entry’s that don’t fit with the users query. Also it is
possible that individual user patterns can be extrapolated to global users,
however users in different categories will probably be searching for different
information even if the search string appears the same.
Finally there are always going to be
inaccurate queries, users don’t always structure their queries in the most
effective way, and often are not even sure themselves what they are looking
for.
Work needs to be done to solve the
issue of semantic ambiguity in order to improve semantic web based ontology
matching. This is currently the biggest problem in the new paradigm of ontology matching put forward in 2008 by W3C. These
are caused by ambiguity during the anchoring process of ontologies. [2]
Context
Potential Legal Issues
The current legal framework which
governs how data can be processed was mainly written before the internet became
as big as it is now, this becomes even more important as the development of the
semantic web is increasing, and more data is flowing to and from servers and
terminals.
Another issue is privacy, for a
semantic web search engine to learn
they have to collect information from the user; this may be storing what they
are searching for, recording their behaviour or even storing personal details
in order to return the most relevant search results.
There is also the issue of reliability
of the results, if someone has published an ontology with unreliable or
outdated information, then the results returned to the user may not be
reliable.
Potential Professional Issues
Having information which is much
more accessible and reliable will increase efficiency in many areas, but this
may lead to there being less jobs. For example search engine optimisation will
be a thing of the past, replaced by a much simpler process of just ensuring
that your semantic document follows conventions.
Potential Ethical Issues
It may be hard to monitor and ensure
that no inappropriate results are returned in a search if they have been linked
to the object the user was searching for.
Potential Environmental Issues
Google’s Graph Search, which is an
early stage semantic web search engine already has over 2 billion relationships
between objects, and that is just enough for testing their algorithms. Unless
further advances in processing are made, then if semantic web searching gets
popular it is going to have a serious effect on the environment. As it happens,
Google are currently investing in quantum computing in order to try to cope
with this increased demand for processing power.
Conclusion
The further development of the
semantic web and semantic web search is very exciting, as it is making
information so much more accessible, useful and relevant. Although there is
still a lot of development to do as nearly all of the World Wide Web is
currently unstructured.
References
[1] – The W3C Standard
[2] - Solving semantic ambiguity to
improve semantic web based ontology matching
[3] – Where will the semantic Web
take us with regard to improved access to Web-based information? www.sajim.co.za/index.php/SAJIM/article/download/207/203
[4] – Algorithmic procedure for
finding semantically related journals - http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/pudovkinsemanticallyrelatedjournals2002.html
[5] – International Journals for
Semantic Web Technology - http://www.airccse.org/journal/ijwest/ijwest.html
[6] – A Semantic-Web based Framework
for Developing Applications to Improve Accessibility in the WWW – http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1133238
[7] – How Can the Semantic Web
Improve the Acquisition and Sharing of Knowledge?
[8] –Google Knowledge Graph - http://www.google.co.uk/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html
My Minesweeper Android app on Google Play
I've just launched my first Android app onto the market - it won't be the next FlappyBirds, but it's a working game. It's a remake of the classic Minesweeper game. It's a pretty simple application, and is available for free (see link below), I have also released all the source code, this can be viewed from GitHub (also see below).The aim of creating this app, was mainly just to improve my Android/ Java programming skills, and hopefully provide some light entertainment to people playing the game too.
Really enjoyed making the app, and I hope some of you will enjoy playing it. Got to say, the hardest part was testing the win() function, as I'm not very good at playing minesweeper!
If you enjoyed the game, a positive rating for the app on Google play would be very very much appreciated :)
Links
Evaluation of Research Paper: Watson, more than a semantic web search engine
This post is a recent piece of work we did - a report and evaluation on a semantic web search research paper.
Abstract
In this report we present our evaluation of the paper, ‘Watson, more than a Semantic Web search engine’. We firstly introduce the semantic web and then discuss our criteria for evaluating the paper, these range from how original the paper is in it’s particular field to the amount of background research the author did before publishing the paper. These are each scored during our evaluation of the paper. For each criteria we offer an explanation for the reasons for our choice.Introduction
The Semantic Web was designed by W3C as a new ‘Web of Data’, this would allow computers to perform more useful tasks that supports trusted interactions over a network. Technologies introduced as part of the ‘Web of Data’ include enabling people to create data-stores on the web, adding rules for handling data and building vocabularies. Many technologies help to empower the data such as RDF, SPARQL and OWL. (W3C, 2013)Semantic web engines are seen as the future of web search, while many current search engines match search strings for keywords within a website, semantic web search engines match search strings for the semantics of websites. This means more accurate responses to search terms, more accurate targeted ads and less spam search results.
Semantic web engines work by using a crawler to search for semantic documents and ontologies on the web, semantic documents can be identified by the document’s metadata, specifically their basic, document and RDF metadata.
After a document has been identified, the document is indexed with an identification number so the semantic search engine can return to it quickly in order to speed up search times. In the paper, the authors make their arguments that Watson is the best semantic web search engine.
Explanation
While no objectives or research questions are explicitly mentioned anywhere in the paper, the overarching theme of the paper appears to be to inform the reader on the Watson semantic search engine and the benefits of Watson compared to other semantic search engines.The paper begins firstly by introducing the Watson system; it explains that Watson is a semantic web search engine and claims it to be better than other semantic web search engines by utilising more advanced technologies. It states that Watson performs three main activities, these being 1. Watson collects available semantic content on the web, 2. Watson analyses it to extract useful metadata and indexes and 3. Watson implements efficient query facilities to access the data. While these tasks are generally used by any web search engine, their implementation is quite different when dealing with semantic content rather than ordinary web pages.
The next part of the paper goes on to highlight how even though the first goal of Watson is to support semantic applications, it’s also highly important that it provides access to ontologies for humans with different levels of expertise, therefore Watson provides different methods of use, from the simple keyword search to complex structured queries. The keyword search is similar to other web search engines and the paper explains this in more detail, it also gives detailed explanations on searching ontologies and semantic documents, searching in these documents, retrieving metadata about an ontology, SPARQL querying, retrieving metrics on ontologies and entities and exploring the content of ontologies.
Another big claim made by the Author is how Watson is not only a service that supports the development of semantic web applications but how it can also be used as a research platform. One example he gives is to show how formalised knowledge and data are produced, shared and consumed online. The paper also gives examples of more recent research work that has been conducted using Watson for example to detect and study various implicit relationships between ontologies and semantic documents on the web and it goes on to give a more detailed explanation of this research. The paper also claims that many other aspects of online ontologies can also be considered for study such as how ontologies evolve online or testing new techniques and approaches applicable to ontologies and it goes on to say how Watson is used to give ontologies where anti patterns can be found.
The paper explains how there are many systems that are similar to Watson but claims that Watson differs from them in many ways, the main being that Watson is the only one to provide the necessary level of services for applications to exploit semantic web data. The paper then gives a brief summary of eight different semantic search engines and explains how Watson differs from them and its advantages. One example it gives is how one of the most popular semantic search engines (Sindice) indexes a large amount of semantic data but only provides a simple lookup services which means you still need to download these documents locally to exploit them which it claims in many cases is not feasible. The next example is that Swoogle, while closer to the Watson system, still does not give some of the advanced search functions such as SPARQL querying. The paper also explains how Falcons Semantic search engine has focused more on user interface and the other systems focus on a restricted set of functionalities. The paper concludes this section by highlighting how open semantic search engines are and claims that Watson is the only one to provide unlimited access to its functionalities because others such as Sindice, Swoogle and Falcons restrict the number of queries executable in a day or the number of results for a given query.
The final part of the paper covers the future plans for Watson and states that while Watson is now a mature system, it’s still being developed including an ever growing index of semantic documents, new specialised indexes, and users will soon be able to contribute ontologies to the Watson collection in real time. The paper also mentions that new functionalities are being considered for example many refinements from integrations with social media e.g. a Facebook like button for ontologies.
Current literature while not explicitly discussed is frequently referenced throughout the paper and it’s clear that the work is built from past research and extensive knowledge in the field.
In conclusion the paper presents a complete, up-to-date overview of the Watson system as well as applications made possible by its functionalities although some of the paper feels quite biased in the way that it’s written which takes away from the objective view papers should have.
Evaluation
On a whole this paper didn’t seem to be particularly well written due to the lack of internal validity, a lack of variety in research methods and relatively poor analysis of the research that was present. Although the paper redeems itself by scoring well in other areas of our mark scheme it proves a poorly written article with oddly fitting vocabulary making it a slow read. The paper begins by explaining the subject topic and what it’s about, notably mentioning how good the web search engine is, however providing no evidence to back this up, just small biased information about how the engine functions. After looking into the authors of this paper, it’s clear why the paper appears to be so biased; the authors are both heavily involved in the production of the semantic web search engine: Watson. The search engine may be undeniably better than other web search engines but we’re unable to make this conclusion due to the lack of research, this could be because of “selective research” in order for Watson to appear superior. In this evaluation we’ll discuss how effective the paper is by analysing the different aspects in detail.The title is something that cannot be ignored “Watson, more than a Semantic Web search engine” the use of the word Watson for the search engine doesn’t seem to have come from any of the authors name, however the name could come from IBM’s Watson computer; an artificially intelligent computer that’s able to answer questions posed in natural language. This might suggest that the creators believe the web search engine is comparable to this computer in terms of its significance and suggests an arrogance. In the introduction to the paper, the authors technological knowledge is evident by the use of jargon which most readers would be unfamiliar with, with words like “crawler” and “ontologies”, making it difficult to read without having to look into what these words mean. The authors mention that other semantic web searches exist, however give the impression that they’re not as advanced or significant as Watson. Some practical applications of the search engine are given, implicating that the systems using Watson rely on the search engine for success. Its examples like this on only the first page that really highlight why we have only been able to give the paper 3/10 for internal validity. Claims are made throughout the paper without any evidence given, and it really doesn’t allow the reader to determine their own superior web search engine based on research or facts, data may have been taken out of context or selectively to falsify an opinion.
Where the paper lacks in internal validity, we believe it scores perfectly in relatedness. The subject area of semantic web searching is certainly relevant with Google being one of the world’s most valuable companies and the world’s most visited website. Watson is amongst this popular group of search engines and the paper describes the components of ontologies that are crucial to semantic web search engines. The subject matter of semantic web search engines is relevant throughout the paper as other search engines are compared and briefly analysed and doesn’t at all stray from the subject of the paper itself.
In terms of originality the paper doesn’t do particularly well, as the search engine fails to distinguish itself amongst other semantic web search engines due to a lack of innovation and a saturated market. Watson succeeds in combining existing concepts from other semantic web search engines and we failed to see how Watson was much different from the others available despite constant comparisons throughout the paper, there is really no way in making a conclusion that indicates Watson is in any way original.
Despite some bias in the paper, it’s still a good candidate for researching the subject area of semantic web searches and Watson, it could perhaps be used by academics. The authors go into some detail about the anatomy of a semantic web search engine which is thoroughly explained and provides a diagram to visually aid. Further jargon is used in this section which makes it particularly applicable to academics, demonstrating a clear knowledge of semantic web search engines and certainly making this knowledge digestible.
Another aspect of the paper we believed it did well on was ‘Thorough background investigation’, the paper does give a variety of different sources, including conferences, journals and workshop publications. Having different reference mediums helps to reinforce the legitimacy of references and also the opinions/facts drawn from them as there are multiple different sources as evidence.
The researcher has clearly conducted some thorough background research and used a large number of sources, not just readily available sources. As there is such a large variety of sources it feels as though there is certainly evidence to support some points made, particularly when mentioning the other semantic web search engines. The only drawback is the internal validity again, when reviewing the different search engines that rival Watson, there are little to no references that support some of the statements made, and there is even less evidence to support the writer’s opinion that Watson is somewhat better than the other semantic search engines. We also looked into the extent of research methods, in which we found the only research used were workshop articles, journals and conferences. We believe that in order to make such claims about Watson, surveys and questionnaires could have been used to reinforce this statement, this lack of research methods just doesn’t give enough support to the claims made in the paper so it doesn’t do very well here in our mark scheme, we decided to give this element of the paper a 2/10.
Although there was thorough background research which is made evident throughout the paper due to the extensive knowledge of the Watson system, and other systems that compare to it. However the paper fails in drawing any logical conclusions from the facts that were collected throughout, and a lack of support to any statements made gives this paper a weak feeling.
Conclusion
This paper has explained and evaluated the paper “Watson, more than a Semantic Web search engine”. It has covered our criteria for evaluating the paper and the scores we have given it for each criteria, it has also given a brief insight into what the semantic web is and how it can be used.The aim of this paper was to show our findings when evaluating the paper on Watson. We have found that the paper has some strengths but also many weaknesses. These strengths include being very related to it’s subject area and being a good paper for researchers wanting to perform research in this area. On the other hand, the paper really suffers because of it’s lack of internal validity, it makes many claims but has no evidence to back them up. This is only one of the many pitfalls in this paper.
Notwithstanding these limitations, the Watson paper does offer an insight into semantic web engines and we have taken this into consideration when performing our evaluation.
References
W3C. (2013). Semantic Web. Available: http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/. Last accessed 12th March 2014.
Swoogle. (2004-2007). How to Search Semantic Web Documents/Ontologies. Available: http://swoogle.umbc.edu/index.php?option=com_swoogle_manual&manual=search_swd. Last accessed 12th March 2014.
G Madhu, A Govardhan, T. V. Rajinikanth. (2011). Intelligent Semantic Web Search Engines: A Brief Survey. International journal of Web & Semantic Technology. 2.
Mathieu d'Aquin. (2014). Semantic Web . Available: http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/mathieu/. Last accessed 19th March 2014.
Our Assessment
Part 1 - The Content of the Paper
Originality (6 marks)
How much of a new concept this is
0-2 marks - not an original concept
3-4 marks - Fairly original
5-6 marks - New concept, very original
We have decided to give it 2/6 for originality because it’s very similar to existing semantic web search engines with it’s unique selling point being that it combines many of the features of existing semantic web search engines. We were unimpressed with the lack of new concepts that were presented.
Relatedness (6 marks)
Is the topic relevant to the subject area it’s published under
0-2 marks - not relevant to anything
3-4 marks - partially relevant but not to the category
5-6 marks - very relevant
We have decided to give the paper 6/6 for this criteria as the content of this paper is all relevant to semantic web search engines. The paper also describes the components of ontologies that are a key part of semantic web search engines.
Applicability (6 marks)
Will this research be of use to academics in this subject area?
0-2 marks - Of no use
3-4 marks - Of some use
5-6 marks - Very useful
We have decided to go with 4/6 because there is a strong emphasis on how Watson can be used as a research tool. The paper shows how formalised data can be produced, consumed and shared online. More recent research can be used to study and detect various implicit relationships between ontologies and semantic documents.
Sources and Research
Thorough background investigation (10 marks)
Did the researcher use all sources of information, or just sources that were readily available?
0-3 marks - used little of no sources of information
4-7 marks - used only sources that were easy to access/ readily available
8-10 marks - used many sources of information including exclusive resources.
We have decided to give the paper 8/10 for background research, the reasons for this are that the paper uses a variety of different sources, including conferences, journals and workshop publications. This shows that the researcher has clearly conducted thorough background research and used a wide range of sources, not just ones that were readily available.
Internal Validity (10 marks)
Are the information sources the the methods of research used correctly? Including facts being correctly presented and quotes used in context.
0-3 marks - no information sources are correctly used or they have been manipulated
4-7 marks - some information sources have been used and are partially well presented
8-10 marks - good, reliable and relevant information sources were used and correctly referenced to.
We have decided to give the paper 3/10 for internal validity, the reasons for this are because the author never used solid proven facts to back up what was being said in the paper. He did however use his own knowledge to verify the validity of what he was saying.
External Validity (10 marks)
Has the author checked the references to ensure they are accurate?
0-3 marks - not at all, and they’re not accurate
4-7 marks - relevant but not accurate
8-10 marks - fully checked and accurate
We give the paper 8/10 for external validity, we have read some of the papers that have been used as sources and can confirm that they are accurate and have been used correctly.
Extent of research Methods (10 marks)
How much has the author made use of research methods, such as experiments or surveys etc
0-3 marks - has not used any research methods
4-7 marks - has used some research methods, but mainly just other peoples work
8-10 marks - has used a range of research methods to backup findings, including going beyond what other people have done
We give the paper 2/10, the reason for this is because the author has not used any research methods other than workshop articles, journals and conferences. To improve this mark, the author should have made greater use of other research methods such as questionnaires and surveys which could have been used to back up the claims that Watson makes.
Part 2: Complexity
Extent of Analysis of Research (25 marks)
0-2 marks - The researcher just recites facts from one sources, and nothing more
3-10 marks - The researcher collects facts from a number of sources, and organises them, but does not go any further into analysis than this
11-18 marks - Researcher attempts to draw logical conclusion from the facts collected from numerous sources and ordered
19-25 marks - Researcher uses the relevant data collected to back up the conclusion they have come to from their question, and data from many sources correctly ordered and analysed
We are giving the paper 10/25 for extent of analysis of research because although the author of this paper has clearly done some extensive reading around this topic and is very knowledgeable of the Watson system, they have not attempted to draw any logical conclusions from facts collected.
Easter Camp, OBUA followed by MOD-2 exam
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| Imber Village, Salisbury Plain |
On Thursday night our company was dropped 5km from Imber village on Salisbury Plain at 23:45hrs. We split into our sections and each patrolled to Imber Village where we reccied one of the other company's of our unit, which was a good laugh because their skills and drills were terrible when they thought there was no one watching, the guys on stag were using white light and talking, so it wasn't hard to find them!Wish we could have contacted them!!
The next day (which was about 2 1/2 hours later), we did a good full day of OBUA (operations in built up areas), it was mainly lessons and practising in the morning, followed by a 2 hour attack in the afternoon.
We then headed back to camp to get our warning order for the Saturdays MOD-2 mock, we also did a lecturette that evening also for MOD 2.
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| Preparing our models for MOD-2 Exam |
The rest of the weekend was filled with battle estimates, giving orders, tests and more, and I am very glad to say that I passed MOD-2 (and 16% pay rise - yay!!)
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| AB Coy - After MOD-2 |
Finished Working at a Raspberry Pi after-school club
For the last few terms I have been helping out at an extra-curricular raspberry pi programming club for 13-15 year old's at the Oxford Academy in Blackbird Leys. It had been great to have seen and helped the kids progress from knowing virtually nothing about programming to being able to write fully functional programs.In the end everyone worked together to program raspberry pi's to play the xylophone. The xylophone itself was built by kinds in the schools DT department, and the music that is played was composed by the music department. I wrote the program to convert the music written by an electronic keyboard into a multidimensional Python array in a text file, and the members of the club wrote everything else.
It was on display at the Ashmoleans Live Friday event on the 14th of March (which unfortunately I couldn't attend due to another commitment)
Here's the link to the Raspbery Pi clubs page
My #BakeNominate Entry
Some of my friends bake-nominated me on Facebook, so I've made some cupcakes on this sunny Sunday afternoon :)
My first Android app - a calculator
I've been meaning to get started with Android for a while, and this weekend I finally did. I set myself the target of making a simple but fully functional calculator.The two hardest parts of this turned out to be firstly getting the Android AVD to work with a Hello World, and then trying to find and understand the Android error messages. After that was sorted the rest was simple.
As you can see by the image to the right, I made it pink. And now I know why every other calculator on the App Market it a boring shade of grey, the pink just doesn't look as good as I was hoping!!
I don't think this app is quite good enough to put on the app store, (but you can download the APK here), but hopefully this will be the first of many apps to come, and the apps to come will be a bit more useful (and less pink!).
You can view the source code here
Or download the APK here
Robothespian made it onto BBC news
I want to see him a few weeks ago when he was brand new, here's a video of him sinning in the rain!
It did come as a surprise while I was eating my breakfast in front of BBC news at about 7:15 to see the head of the computing department, Nigel Crook and robothespian on the telly. Here's the playback:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26512171
This weekend were on a training exercise at the same place they are filming the new Macbeth
This weekend we were on an exercise practising platoon attacks and planning and leading platoon attacks, it was at Hankley Common, which is near Tilford in Frensham.
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| Mock Village in the Distance |
All this made patrolling and tabbing around the training area very exciting!
New homepage for my website
You can view it by clicking here
First version of the Revision Quizzes Revamp Complete!
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| The Brand New Revision Quizzes |
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| The old version of Revision Quizzes |
You can view the original version of Revision Quizzes here - see why I'm remaking it now?!
Okay now for the new version.
The new version will have 6 main pages:
- Homepage - with built in browse and search functions using AJAX
- Start quiz page - displays after you've clicked a quiz but before you've seen the first question
- Quiz page - the actual questions - they mark themselves instantly using AJAX and you can see how many people chose the same answer as you strait away. If there is additional details, images, media or an answer explanation, these will be displayed accordingly.
- The results page - displayed when the quiz is complete. Shows you your score, time and all the important stuff. But it also lets you compare how you did against the averages for this quiz, there's a high score leader board and a rating system as well as social sharing options.
- Create a quiz page - I haven't got this far yet, but yeah I know, it's kind of crucial
- Users page- again haven't done this, but it will have some user management stuff and leader boards. Note: users won't have to sign in or anything just to do quizzes.
So far I've done 80% of the homepage just got to make the search better, and pretty much finished the quiz pages, but haven't yet started the create quiz page or user page.
Click here to check it out,
Let me know what you think below, I'm open to suggestions.
The Internet of Thins - Risk Analysis - Smart Thermostats
Introduction
This article talks about the internet room thermostat. This is a home-automation device
that regulates the temperature of a room, or building. They usually work by
switching the heating either on or off depending on the current temperature of
the room detected by a sensor and comparing it with a target temperature set by
the user.
The internet controlled thermostat can be
operated remotely by the user. This included turning the heating on or off,
adjusting the temperature and modifying the thermostats settings. This is
achieved by connecting the thermostat to the user’s home network, either with
Ethernet or wirelessly, most thermostats are hardwired into the network to
increase security as wireless networks can be more susceptible to threats. It can then be accessed from the internet
with a public IP just the same other devices on the network can. It can be remotely
controlled by any user who has access to the security credentials, usually a
username and password.
Two main functions are accessible remotely
to the user. Firstly the user can view the thermostats current status; this
includes the current room temperature and the heating status (on or off). Some
systems may provide the user with further information, such as estimated
heating costs or details of when the heating was last turned on or next due to
turn on etc. Secondly the system should allow the user to send information to
remotely control the heating via the internet. This may include turning it
on/off, up/down or modifying the scheduling or automation settings which
control when the heating turns on or off.
Similar devices to this include the manual
thermostat that most homes have, or did have a few years ago. This usually
allows the user to manually set an ideal temperature and a sensor monitors this
and turns the heating on or off accordingly. This however has no connectivity
functions. A similar device that does have connectivity functions would be the
internet home media system, where speakers are connected to the router, and
accessible over the internet allowing the user to remotely control their music
on internet enabled device such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop. The
connectivity aspect of this works in a similar way to that of the internet
thermostat in the way that it is connected to a LAN usually with an Ethernet
cable, or possibly wirelessly, it then has access the internet using a public
IP the user can log in remotely with a username and password.
In the future these internet thermostats
could be even more sophisticated, possible adjusting the temperature according
the weather outside combining the heating system with the window opening
system, so if it is warm outside the windows will open for a period of
time. However this will open the doors
to even more potential threats. A hacker would possibly be able to gain access
to your house by remotely opening the windows. Furthermore to this there would
be a greater risk of external factors allowing access to the building.
Potential
Security Risks
Hackers could potential bypass or crack the
authentication stage allowing them to log in and gain access to not just the
thermostat but potentially your whole home network, if it’s all connected and
not properly secured. The more smart appliances linked in your home network and
connected to the internet, the higher your attack surface, meaning that there
are more ways and a higher chance that a Black Hat can get into your system.
Even if the network has a good firewall, this is no good if the hacker can get
access through cracking the login credentials in some way such as bruit force,
spying bypassing etc.
One
big problem with the portal for controlling many smart-homes is that so many of
them have been made crawlable by search engines. This allows anyone to find
them online with a simple Google search, and from there it is usually a simple
hack to get access to their portal, which allows not just the thermostat to be
controlled, but often the lighting, door locks, security cameras and other devices.
Further to this, some companies such as Insteon, by default don’ require a
username and password! Even further to this, sensitive data can also be
accessed through having an online home-automation system, such as the users IP
address.
In late 2013 there were several reports of
people saying their Nest thermostats had been hacked, and people had been
changing the temperature of their house. Nest says that this is all fixed now,
and claims to be secure. Nest is one of the most popular smart thermostat systems,
recently bought by Google.
In the future these risks have the
potential to increase, as even more of our homes go online, not just our
heating system. A hacker or criminal could have the power to do some quite
serious damage, more than just increasing the temperature a bit. They could
gain control of your own house, allowing access to anyone, declining your
access, modifying anything and gleaning personal information that could lead to
further fraud.
STRIDE
Analysis
Spoofing Identity, as seen above, hackers can pretend to be the home owner if secure
login credentials are not implemented. The hacker can quite easily find the
login page on the internet and can then either bypass the authentication phase
with some clever processes, or alternatively crack the login using techniques
such as bruit force or installing malware or keylogers on the user’s
computer to learn about their passwords.
Once the hacker has gained access pretending to be the homeowner or user, they
will have access to everything that the homeowner would have been able to
modify.
Tampering with Data, once the hacker has gained access to the system, they have the
ability to tamper with data, potentially causing significant loss of assets for
the property owner. They could raise the energy bill out of the roof, they
could allow access to the building for unwanted intruders, they could damage or
break hardware as well as have the ability to steal further personal details
which would increase the amount of damage they could cause.
Repudiation,
it is possible for the hacker to remain anonymous. If there log ins are stored
along with the IP address, then so long as the hacker uses some form of IP
shield to clone their IP to another location, they should remain anonymous and
untraceable.
Information Disclosure, once the hacker has gained access to the control panel for the
smart house, depending on which appliances are online the hacker may be able to
gain personal information about the victim. If it is just the thermostat which
is internet connected, then this is less likely, but if the victim also has
CCTV system accessible from the internet and a system to lock/unlock doors then
the hacker could potentially do a lot of damage.
Denial of Service, depending on how the system is set up the hacker may be able to
change the log in credentials, which would allow them anytime access to the
system, but deny the home owner access to their own control panel.
Elevation of Privileges, there is only one level of privileges in this system, therefore it
is not possible for the hacker to gain any further privileges once they have
broken in to the system.
Threat
Tree Analysis for Logging in to the System
 |
| Threat Tree Analysis for Logging in to the System |
Threat
Tree Analysis for Damage once Logged in to the System
 |
| Threat Tree Analysis for Damage once Logged in to the System |
DREAD
Risk Analysis
Damage Potential, the hacker could potentially gain control of all the users
smart-house features, allowing them to increase energy consumption and bills,
gain access to their property and even steal further personal details.
Therefore the damage potential is 7/10.
Reproducibility, once the hacker has gained access to the system once, they should
be able to get in every time. There are no variable conditions which need to be
true in order for this to be reproduced, therefore the reproducibility is 9/10.
Exploitability, the hacker will require just knowledge of generic password
cracking, therefore there is an exploitability factor of 5/10.
Affected Users, everyone living in the affected house hold would be affected,
although this is likely to be a relatively small number of people. If the
system was in an office, the only people who will seriously care will be the
ones picking up the pieces. Therefore there is a rating of 3/10.
Discoverability, as the vulnerability is likely only to be cause by the hacker
using password cracking or bypassing techniques it has a discoverability factor
of 6/10.
Risk
From the above information it is possible
for us to calculate the risk factor.
Therefore the risk factor for this system
is 60%, which is reasonably low compared to the potential of other systems.
Methods
of Reducing Risk of Smart Thermostat through Secure Coding
Firstly the programmer must ensure that all
code is correct, as this will prevent insecurities, the programmer therefore
must understand everything that they have written or included. Testing is
vital, it should be done as part of the software development phase by the
developer and not all at the end. A number of different methods and techniques
should be combined to ensure that all aspects of the program work seamlessly
with no loop holes. Programmers with more experience tend to write more secure
code, and research is vital, even experienced programmers never stop learning.
A common method that hackers use to
maliciously modify the running of a program, is to write a script that runs
concurrently with the program to get, modify or remove what is currently
on the stack. It is possible also to get
the program to skip a sub routine by modifying the pointer position, for
example the hacker could skip the authentication part and gain access to a
system.
A very common floor in programs is when not
all the input has a thorough validation process. It should be noted that you
should never trust a user’s input until it has been proves as safe, it should
be revalidated every time it crosses the boundary between unsafe and safe.
Presume all sources are untrustworthy until otherwise proven. Reject everything
that is not a valid output once you’ve determined a valid patter, regular
expressions are good for doing this, and of course have a length limit. Be
especially virulent for special characters and punctuation.
It is essential that you put in place
methods to ensure stop buffer overflows as this is an easy way for hackers to
break or gain access to your system. They can occur in any memory segment.
Mitigation strategies can be used to prevent a buffer overflow.
There is of course the technique of code
injection used by many hackers, where they craft a string to create a malicious
argument for a method
Secure
Design Specification
The biggest danger of the system that
showed up during the risk analysis phase was the fact that once someone had
bypassed the log in page, which could be reasonably strait forward, they had
access to the whole system. Therefore fixing this is the top priority in the
new security requirements.
1.
A secure username and password
must be used as identification to log in
2.
There is to be no ‘forgotten
password’ feature that uses email to verify the user – it will use something
more secure such as phone number.
3.
The log in page must not be
crawlable by search engines, i.e. it must not show up in Google if the hacker
knows what to search for. It should only be able to be accessed if the user
knows the direct URL.
4.
There should be restrictions
placed on the thermostat both for temperature and time. These may be set up as custom
settings by the home owner while installing the system
5.
There should be an admin user with overriding privileges
who is notified when another user makes a significant change to the systems
settings.
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