Resilient, Secure, and Programmable Next-Generation Internet of Things (IoT)

在我们的家中、办公室和汽车中，我们被嵌入式计算设备所包围。随着世界走向不断扩大的连接，这些设备连接到互联网越来越普遍。这种连通性为改善我们的生活质量提供了巨大的机会。例如，许多家庭已经拥有智能电表和智能恒温器等设备，这些设备可以从互联网上获取有关能源价格和天气预报的实时信息，以确保温度设置自动设置为最佳值。总的来说，这些互连的嵌入式设备被称为物联网（IoT）。 不幸的是，物联网设备的连接性质使它们容易受到意外故障和恶意攻击。因为我们的日常活动依赖于这些设备，它们的故障可能会削弱我们的日常生活，在某些情况下，导致毁灭性的后果。一个例子是Nest恒温器在例行软件升级后出现故障。更重要的是，这些设备是恶意攻击者的目标，他们希望对社会造成伤害，以获得经济利益或个人目的。最近，智能电表、汽车甚至心脏起搏器和胰岛素泵等医疗设备都受到了大量的安全攻击。因此，迫切需要使物联网设备能够抵御意外故障和恶意攻击。此外，由于物联网设备的激增，缺乏经验丰富的软件开发人员以可靠和安全的方式对这些设备进行编程。因此，我们需要提供可编程的抽象来支持这些设备的软件开发，而不需要高水平的开发人员专业知识和工作。 在本提案中，我将开发新技术来增强物联网软件的可靠性、安全性和可编程性。这个问题具有挑战性，原因有三：首先，有各种各样的物联网设备和架构，每种都有不同的约束和要求。设计一个可以跨多个设备工作的统一解决方案是一项挑战。例如，智能电表的约束条件与起搏器的约束条件非常不同。其次，与传统的计算机系统不同，物联网系统部署在没有“人在回路中”的情况下。因此，这些系统不能使用人类决策来解决模糊性或错误警报。例如，当汽车在高速公路上行驶时，错误地警告驾驶员可能发生攻击可能会导致他/她恐慌。最后，由于物联网设备通常是廉价的大规模生产设备，设备制造商不愿意采用大规模部署成本高昂的技术，因此成本非常重要。本提案将采用四步法应对上述三项挑战。它还将在5年内培训总共15名HQP（10名本科生，3名博士，2名硕士）。

We are surrounded by embedded computing devices, in our homes, offices and cars. As the world moves towards expanding connectivity, it is increasingly common for these devices to be connected to the Internet. This connectivity opens up tremendous opportunities to improve our quality of lives. For example, many homes already have devices such as smart meters and smart thermostats, which can obtain real-time information about both energy prices and weather forecasts from the Internet to ensure that the temperature settings are automatically set to their optimal values. Collectively, these interconnected embedded devices are known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Unfortunately, the connected nature of IoT devices renders them vulnerable to both accidental faults and malicious attacks. Because we depend on these devices for our day-to-day activities, their failures can cripple our daily lives and, in some cases, lead to devastating consequences. An example is the failure of the Nest thermostat after a routine software upgrade. Even more importantly, these devices are targets for malicious attackers who want to wreak harm on society for financial gains or for personal ends. Recently, there have been numerous instances of security attacks on smart meters, automotives, and even on medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps. Therefore, there is a compelling need to make IoT devices resilient to both accidental faults and malicious attacks. Further, because of the proliferation of IoT devices, there is a shortage of experienced software developers to program these devices in a reliable and secure fashion. Therefore, we need to provide programmable abstractions to enable software development for these devices, without requiring high-levels of developer expertise and effort. In this proposal, I will develop novel techniques to enhance the reliability, security and programmability of IoT software. This problem is challenging for three reasons: First, there are a wide variety of IoT devices and architectures, each with different constraints and requirements. Designing a unified solution that can work across multiple devices is challenging. For example, the constraints of a smart meter are very different from those of a pacemaker. Second, unlike traditional computer systems, IoT systems are deployed in situations where there is no “human in the loop”. Hence these systems cannot use human decision making to resolve ambiguities or false alarms. For example, when a car is driving down the highway, falsely alerting the driver of a possible attack may cause him/her to panic. Finally, because IoT devices are often inexpensive, mass-produced devices, device manufacturers are reluctant to adopt techniques that are costly to deploy at large scale, and hence cost is very important. This proposal will tackle the above 3 challenges using a four-step approach. It will also train a total of 15 HQPs (10 Undergrads, 3 PhDs, 2 Masters) over 5 years.