The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an extremely popular interface standard for computer peripheral connections and is widely used in consumer Mass Storage Devices (MSDs). While current consumer USB ...MSDs provide relatively high transmission speed and are convenient to carry, the use of USB MSDs has been prohibited in many commercial and everyday environments primarily due to security concerns. Security protocols have been previously proposed and a recent approach for the USB MSDs is to utilize multi-factor authentication. This paper proposes significant enhancements to the three-factor control protocol that now makes it secure under many types of attacks including the password guessing attack, the denial-of-service attack, and the replay attack. The proposed solution is presented with a rigorous security analysis and practical computational cost analysis to demonstrate the usefulness of this new security protocol for consumer USB MSDs.
Recycling Awareness
In article 2300339, Janet Kit Yan Chan and co‐workers aims to investigate Hong Kong people's knowledge and awareness on USB cable recycling through setting up collection points, ...social media pages, and holding upcycling workshops for the general public. Over 7700 unwanted USB cables are collected within just 7 months. More promotion and extended collection network are necessary to address USB cable recycling in Hong Kong. Photo shows the USB cables collected in this project.
The portable electrochemical platform can adapt to more usage scenarios, which is essential for drug discovery, toxicology, and cell biology. Here, we constructed the wireless USB-like ...electrochemical platform for simultaneous multi-channel electrochemical sensing in microdroplet array. On such platform, multi-channel mini-pillar arrays can anchor reagent droplet (a few microliters to dozens of microliters), and the wireless USB-like electrochemical platform can achieve simultaneously multi-channel detection. As a concept-of-proof for multi-channel, the 4∗4 channels are chosen as a model to proof the practicality of such portable electrochemical platform, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of such a platform in microdroplets sensing is below 5% level. The quantitative electrochemical analysis of multiple glucose concentrations in miniature workstation was also achieved, and only 0.97% difference between traditional electrochemical workstation. The wireless USB-like electrochemical platform with the characteristics of cloud data management and multi-channel, which enables remote detection and analysis and presents an opportunity for future portable high-throughput biomedical applications.
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•A fully integrated portable electrochemical platform is presented.•The USB-like platform allows electrochemical remote detection.•The microdroplet array allows multi-channel simultaneous detection.
In this work, a family of pH-responsive fluorescent probes has been designed in a rational manner with the aid of quantum chemistry tools, covering the entire pH range from 0–14. Relying on the ...boron–dipyrromethene (BODIPY) core, all the probes as well as selected reference dyes display very similar spectroscopic properties with ON–OFF fluorescence switching responses, facilitating optical readout in simple devices used for detection and analysis. Embedding of the probes and reference dyes into hydrogel spots on a plastic strip yielded a test strip that reversibly indicates pH with a considerably small uncertainty of ∼0.1 pH units. These strips are not only reusable but, combined with a 3D-printed case that can be attached to a smartphone, the USB port of which drives the integrated LED used for excitation, allows for autonomous operation in on-site or in-the-field applications; the developed Android application software (“app”) further simplifies operation for unskilled users.
A printed two-multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)-antenna system incorporating a neutralization line for antenna port decoupling for wireless USB-dongle applications is proposed. The two monopoles ...are located on the two opposite corners of the system PCB and spaced apart by a small ground portion, which serves as a layout area for antenna feeding network and connectors for the use of standalone antennas as an optional scheme. It was found that by removing only 1.5 mm long inwards from the top edge in the small ground portion and connecting the two antennas therein with a thin printed line, the antenna port isolation can be effectively improved. The neutralization line in this study occupies very little board space, and the design requires no conventional modification to the ground plane for mitigating mutual coupling. The behavior of the neutralization line was rigorously analyzed, and the MIMO characteristics of the proposed antennas was also studied and tested in the reverberation chamber. Details of the constructed prototype are described and discussed in this paper.
This study proposes a three-factor control protocol for universal serial bus (USB) on an elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC). USB is a universal interface used in an enormous number of devices. It has ...become the most popular interface standard for computer connections. However, since USB provides high transmission speed and is very convenient to carry, many workplace and commercial establishments have prohibited their employees from using USB devices. This precaution is an important way to prevent confidential data leaks via USB devices, as USB connections lack security management. Therefore the authors use a three-factor control protocol to ensure the security of USB connections. The proposed authentication protocol combines biometric, password and smart card to provide high security on the USB mutual authentication. To provide secure and efficient transmission between the user and the USB server, the proposed protocol adopts ECC to encrypt data. Compared to other encryption methods, the proposed protocol uses much smaller key sizes. As a further benefit, this protocol reduces the smart card computational cost and provides an efficient transmission for USB devices. This new scheme improves the security, efficiency and usability of the authentication process. More studies on USB are needed.
This paper continues the discussion of the risks posed by Hardware Trojan Horse devices by detailing research efforts to build such a Hardware Trojan Horse based on unintended USB channels. Because ...of the ubiquitousness of the USB protocol in contemporary computer systems, the research focused on identifying, characterizing and modeling unintended USB channels. The research demonstrated that such unintended USB channels can allow the creation of two way communications with a targeted network endpoint, thus violating the integrity and confidentiality of the data residing on the network endpoint. The work was validated through the design and implementation of a Proof of Concept Hardware Trojan that uses two such unintended USB channels to successfully interact with a target network endpoint to compromise and exfiltrate data from it.
Nitrite production in a partial denitrifying (NO3−-N→NO2--N) upflow sludge bed (USB) reactor equipped with gas automatic circulation (GAC) was investigated at ambient temperature (28.8–14.1 °C). The ...nitrite production rate (NPR) increased with the nitrate loading rate (NLR). Average NPR of 6.63 kgN m−3 d−1 was obtained at 28.0 °C with the organic loading rate (OLR) and NLR of 25.38 KgCOD∙m−3∙d−1 and 10.82 kgN m−3 d−1, respectively. However, serious sludge floatation was observed when the NLR increased to 13.18 kgN m−3 d−1, which might be attributed to sludge bulking at high NLR. The USB reactor recovered rapidly when seeded with the sludge discharged before the deteriorated period, and a stable NPR of ∼4.35 kgN m−3 d−1 was achieved at 14.1–15.7 °C in the following 100-day operation, during which the maximum nitrate-to-nitrite transformation ratio (NTR) of 81.4% was achieved at the GAC rate of 1.08 L h−1. The application of GAC in the partial denitrifying USB reactor enhanced mass transfer, which effectively avoided the channel and dead space, and improved the nitrate transform to nitrite. Moreover, it was found that the GAC system played an important role in promoting the stability of the USB reactor by preventing the sludge floatation. The Illumina high-throughput sequencing analysis revealed that the genus of Thauera was dominate in the USB reactor (67.2–50.2%), which may be responsible for the high nitrite accumulation. Results in this study have an important application in treating nitrate wastewater with an economic and efficient way by combining with ANAMMOX process.
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•A partial denitrifying USB reactor equipped with GAC was developed.•The NPR was 4.35 kgN.•m−3•d−1 at 14.1–15.7 °C with the peak NTR of 81.4%;•The GAC promoted the mass transfer in the partial denitrifying USB reactor.•The GAC effectively prevented sludge floatation.•The partial denitrifying holds a great potential in treating nitrate wastewater with ANAMMOX.
USB flash drives are widely employed for data storage including sensitive personal or business data. Current defense strategies to protect those data mainly focus on preventing data theft when a USB ...drive plugs into a host computer that is infected with malware. This paper reveals a threat - attackers can produce spy USB flash drives that are able to leak the stored data via covert wireless communication without triggering security defenses on host computers. In this paper, we present SpyUSB , a USB flash drive implanted with a backscatter-based data theft hardware to demonstrate the threat of covert data theft. SpyUSB collects data from the physical layer of the communication between the host computer and SpyUSB device, which is transparent to the security mechanisms on the host computer. SpyUSB leverages backscatter communication to create a covert wireless channel. Furthermore, we explore the opportunity of covert data theft when the SpyUSB device is disconnected from the host computer using a tiny energy reservoir. Our experiment shows that SpyUSB can achieve a transmission bandwidth of up to 1,600 kbps. After unplugged from a computer, it can maintain standby for over 6 hours or continuously transmit data for 1.9 hours.
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