International Journal of Computer Networks and Applications

Eric Opoku Osei ¹, James B. Hayfron-Acquah ¹, Michael Asante ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, GH

Abstract

The USAID report on climate change vulnerability and adaptation in Ghana confirmed the impact of recent explosion of illegal gold mining in forest reserves and in river body. Government of Ghana responded to such wake-up call in deploying military combatants against perpetrators operating at day and midnight hours when drones are ineffective to monitor. We aimed at wireless sensor network (WSN) deployment to compliment military efforts for real time remote sensing. A conceptual framework on WSN technology is proposed based on expert view gathered from Delphi technique data analysis. A close textual reading of illegal mining editorial and the primary evidence of climate change impact from water shortage due to river body pollution with cyanide chemical in Ghana are key input factors for this technology-based conceptual exploration. Positive analytical feedback from the ‘Delphi’ suggests that we can apply this conceptual framework to all environmental case studies in which technology-based security protocols are good compliments to abort human intention towards certain behavior. The comparative discussion on the use of Drones, Satellite and WSN showed that the latter is: economical to deploy, energy efficient for continuous operational availability and reliable data sensing at midnight mining compared to drones’ image processing power at night to track manual mining excavations. This study gives a starting point for uptake investigation in WSN deployment for surveillance on illegal mining; hence the findings may have limitations such as subjectivity of expert view. This conceptual framework is a recommendation to urgent national issue and thus it is relevant having real-world implementation for testing the human behavioral assumptions.

Keywords

Wireless Sensor Network, Surveillance, Illegal Gold Mining.

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George Asante ¹, James Ben Hayfron-Acquah ², Michael Asante ², Joshua Caleb Dagadu ³

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Technology Education, Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, IN
2 Department of Computer Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, GH
3 Department of Information Technology Education, Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, GH

Abstract

Traditional encryption allows encrypted data to be decrypted before any computation could be performed on such data. This approach could compromise the security of the data when an untrusted party is involved in the computation. To be able to work on data in its encrypted form, a homomorphic encryption approach is recommended. Homomorphic encryption allows computation to be done on data that has been encrypted and yields the same results that would have been obtained if the computation had been performed on the unencrypted form of the data. Most of the Homomorphic encryption (HE) algorithms are deterministic. These deterministic algorithms produce the same ciphertext for a given data on different occasions. This could allow an adversary to easily predict a plaintext from a ciphertext. Probabilistic algorithms, however, resolve the aforementioned challenge of deterministic algorithms. A probabilistic encryption algorithm ensures different ciphertexts for the same plaintext on different occasions. Another challenge of most homomorphic encryption schemes is the way data is encrypted. Most algorithms encrypt data bit-by-bit (i.e. circuit-based). Circuit-based encryption makes the encryption and decryption complex, thereby increasing the running time. To reduce the running time, Non-Circuit based encryption and decryption are preferred. Here, numeric data need not be converted to binary before any encryption is done. To ensure a very secure, efficient but simpler HE scheme, the authors have offered a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) scheme that is Probabilistic, Non-Circuit based, and uses symmetric keys. Results from the experiment conducted show that the proposed scheme is faster than Fully Homomorphic Encryption over the Integer (DGHV), A simple Fully Homomorphic Encryption Scheme Available in Cloud Computing (SDC), and Fully Homomorphic Encryption by Prime Modular Operation (SAM) schemes. The proposed scheme has a time complexity of O(log(n2)) and consumes less memory space. Even though HE schemes are naturally slow, the less memory space consumed by the proposed scheme and the time complexity of O (log(n2)), makes the proposed scheme suitable for real-life implementation such as auction, electronic voting, and in other applications that make use of private data.

Keywords

Probabilistic Encryption, Homomorphic Encryption, Non-Circuit Based Encryption, Information Security, Data, Symmetric Keys, Cryptography.

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