Papers by Paul Gardner-Stephen
Communication, access and equality
This program looks at number of projects aiming to improve access to communication - be it the us... more This program looks at number of projects aiming to improve access to communication - be it the use of telephones in East Timor or Internet access in the remote interior of Australia. Guests David Rowe Electronic engineer and one of the founders of the Dili Village Telco Project. Dr Paul Gardner Stephen Co-founder of the Serval Project & Research Fellow in Rural, Remote & Humanitarian Telecommunications at Flinders University. Blair McFarland Central Australian Youth Link Up Service. Associate Professor Ellie Rennie Deputy Director, Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology. Tess Crellin Part of the Indigenous Community Volunteers Program. Jason Butcher Member of the Tjupi Band and Papunya resident.
An Overview and Experiment on Wi-Fi Direct Connection Behaviour with Network Analysing Tools
In the context of Wireless Collaboration Network (WCN), mobile devices with the wireless connecti... more In the context of Wireless Collaboration Network (WCN), mobile devices with the wireless connection capability connect and communicate with each another for data exchange or resource sharing. The wireless technology used in forming the wireless network has been upgraded and improved throughout the years. Wi-Fi Direct is one of the well-established Wi-Fi P2P standards which can be found in almost all Android OS based mobile devices. In this work, the performance and operations of the Wi-Fi Direct standard when forming a P2P connection was reviewed by utilizing the network analysing tools. A systematic review was conducted by comparing the Wi-Fi Direct operations theoretically and practically. An overview of Wi-Fi Direct was presented, followed by experimental testing on the real-time P2P connection using physical mobile phones. The laptops and smartphones with the network traffic analyzer software (Wireshark and Wi-Fi Analyzer) installed were used to record and analyse the performanc...
Australasian Physical & Engineering Sciences in Medicine, 2011
Fully Open, Fully Sovereign mobile devices
Removing the barriers to making network independent mobile communications. In this talk I will di... more Removing the barriers to making network independent mobile communications. In this talk I will discuss our thinking and progress towards making personal mobile communications devices, i.e., things that you use like a smart-phone, but that are fully under the control of the owner. While this has been done before, we have been focusing on how to make this much easier to do, so that individuals or small teams can create their own custom devices, with whatever features, inclusions and physical form they like, without huge time or cost requirements. This makes it possible to solve security and privacy problems, and also problems like creating custom devices for people living with disability, so that they can have a device that works for them and with their abilities and needs. I will discuss our work-in-progress in this area, the MEGAphone, which is not only a mobile phone, but also includes UHF packet radio and a modular expansion scheme, that can allow allow the incorporation of satell...
Piloting the serval mesh and serval mesh extender 2.0 in Vanuatu: Preliminary results
2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2017
The Servai Mesh and new Serval Mesh Extender 2.0 low-cost, weather-proof, open-source, infrastruc... more The Servai Mesh and new Serval Mesh Extender 2.0 low-cost, weather-proof, open-source, infrastructure-communications device is being piloted in Vanuatu during 2017 with the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades Pacific Humanitarian Challenge. This pilot will test the applicability and utility of the Serval Mesh software and hardware in one of the world's most disaster-prone countries. Specifically, several communities and non-governmental organizations will be provided with Serval Mesh technologies and support, and their experiences with those technologies documented and analyzed. It is expected that this pilot will reveal both strengths and opportunities for improvement of these technologies. In this paper we will describe the preliminary findings of the pilot, with a focus on matters of relevance to other practitioners seeking to create humanitarian and communications technologies of relevance to the Pacific region.
Acoustic Coupled Disaster & Remote Communications Systems
Summary: Following disasters, and in other infrastructure-deprived settings, such as remote areas... more Summary: Following disasters, and in other infrastructure-deprived settings, such as remote areas, the need for communications is profound. However, the ability to provide communications solutions in such situations is extremely difficult because of the lack of functional infrastructure, and the logistical difficulty or impossibility of bringing in additional hardware. Therefore it is important to create communications solutions that can operate using existing locally available hardware. In this paper we describe one possible solution based on acoustic coupling of mobile telephones with existing two-way radios, such as are often carried in remote areas of Australia, and are fitted to many vehicles that are used in such areas. We describe a number of related software systems and some simple experiments that demonstrate the feasibility of the general concept, before describing a possible integration of such technologies with the secure digital communications capabilities offered by th...
A practical and secure social media facility for internet-deprived populations
2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2017
Social Media plays an increasingly important role in humanitarian and disaster response scenarios... more Social Media plays an increasingly important role in humanitarian and disaster response scenarios. However, typical social media applications rely on internet connectivity, and as a result are often not available during the acute phase of disasters. The MeshMS service of the Serval Mesh established the practicality of implementing a secure and private SMS-like textmessaging facility that can be used in internet-disconnected and infrastructure-deprived environments. In this paper, we describe a generalization of the MeshMS protocol and enhancements to the Serval Mesh Software, that provide an authenticated social media platform, that can be used in the complete absence of internet access or supporting infrastructure, both for use by private citizens to communicate with their peers, as well as for governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations and other relevant organizations to easily distribute important information to, and receive feedback from, affected populations. A particular advantage of this system is that one-way transports, such as low-cost satellite broadcast receivers, can be used to cheaply and efficiently provide affected populations with near real-time access to critical information, including during the acute phase of a disaster. The necessary changes to the Serval Mesh software and protocols are described, followed by a demonstration of the resulting platform.
BMC Bioinformatics, Dec 17, 2020
International Conference "Bioinformatics: from Algorithms to Applications" (BiATA) is one of the ... more International Conference "Bioinformatics: from Algorithms to Applications" (BiATA) is one of the few international conferences that bring together both the programmers and algorithm developers creating tools for a wide spectrum of modern bioinformatics studies and the researchers conducting those experiments interested in finding reliable and easy to use tools for data analysis. COVID-19 this year forced conferences online. Virtual conferences offer new experience that on a positive side allowed more participants to attend meetings that would be too hard or too expensive to attend in person. That's exactly what happened to BiATA-2020 that we had had to run remotely this year: we had a pleasure to welcome 475 scientists from all over the world versus 100 participants in previous years! Follow our traditions, BiATA2020 promotes active application of bioinformatics in numerous fields of research, identifies new trends in the fields of bioinformatics, computational genomics and transcriptomics, as well as in discovery of biologically active molecules. Topics covered within the framework of the conference include but are not limited to:
Creating Resilient and Sustainable Mobile Phones
Civil society depends on the continuing ability of citizens to communicate with one another, with... more Civil society depends on the continuing ability of citizens to communicate with one another, without fear of interference, deprivation or eavesdropping. As the international political climate changes alongside that of our physical climatic environment, we must find ways to create mobile communications systems that are truly resilient and sustainable in the face of such shocks. We have therefore identified a number of freedoms that are required for resilient mobile phones: Energy, Communications, Security, Innovation, Maintenance and Scale-Dependency. These can be summarised as making it possible for people to create, maintain and develop mobile communications solutions, without requiring the capital and resources of a large company to do so. In this lecture I will explain why each of these is necessary, as well as describing how we are incorporating these principles into the MEGAphone open, resilient and secure smart-phone project. In the humanitiarian sector we talk about how witho...
2020 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2020
Information technology has become embedded in almost every area of modern life. The many complex ... more Information technology has become embedded in almost every area of modern life. The many complex digital systems that support modern societies are now highly dependent on the correct function of complex and highly interdependent technological systems. Digital tools are increasingly becoming part of traditional crisis response efforts by government and nongovernment organisations. While digital tools have substantial capabilities to enhance crisis response efforts, they also pose significant risks to user communities when deployed in timesensitive, vulnerable and fragile crisis contexts-as part of an already complex system. These risks and inefficiencies have been demonstrated in the contact-tracing application debate in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Technology must be intentionally designed and implemented, both to help solve the problem at hand and support end user communities. The principles of simple, secure and survivable systems (S4) offer a framework for technology that serves the interests of end-users and maintains human dignity, especially in crisis situations. The S4 principles are already evident in a number of technology projects, across research, design, build and deployment phases. Instead of high-risk, ad hoc, reactive digital solutions, crisis responders can pre-emptively share information, invest and work with existing technology design and development experts that reflect the S4 principles for efficient, effective solutions that enhance response capabilities both now and in future scenarios.
Eliminating the high stand-by energy consumption of ad-hoc Wi-Fi
2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2017
Ad-hoc Wi-Fi is well known in disaster communications systems, because of its ability to form inf... more Ad-hoc Wi-Fi is well known in disaster communications systems, because of its ability to form infrastructure-free peer-to-peer networks. However, ad-hoc Wi-Fi has a major disadvantage due to the lack of coordinating infrastructure: Its energy consumption is very high, reducing battery life to as little as 1.5 hours. Thus, while it would be highly desirable for mobile phones to use ad-hoc Wi-Fi communications in disasters and remote areas, this is not practical in most instances. In this paper, we draw on innovations in passive radio sensing, and combine these with a simple Contiki-inspired protocol that can be used with existing Wi-Fi hardware to allow use of ad-hoc Wi-Fi with zero energy consumption when idle, and yet allow communications to be established in milliseconds. Feasibility is demonstrated through proof-of-concept hardware, demonstrating that it is possible to provide devices with ad-hoc Wi-Fi communications capabilities with zero impact on stand-by energy consumption. This simple innovation reactivates the possibility of true peer-to-peer high-bandwidth, low-latency direct phone-to-phone communications, without any supporting equipment, such as a Serval Mesh Extender, increasing the opportunities for resilient and decentralized mobile communications during a disaster.
Fixing Mobile Emergency Call Geo- Location Once and For All
2021 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2021
Accurate geolocation fix for an emergency call can make the difference between life and death, by... more Accurate geolocation fix for an emergency call can make the difference between life and death, by reducing the time required to bring assistance to the caller. The problem is that only selected phones and selected networks support the efficient and effective conveying of location information during an emergency call. In this paper we describe a simple and achievable intervention to enable smartphones to convey accurate and time-stamped location information to emergency call operators. This consists of providing a button on the emergency call screen that causes the phone to provide its location to the call operator. This works by using text-to-speech to read out a GPS-obtained location for the phone over the open telephone call. In this way, the location can be provided to the emergency call operator, even if the call centre is not equipped with Advanced Mobile Location (AML) or an equivalent technology. A DTMF-based mechanism is also proposed to allow an emergency call centre operator to request a caller's location, supplemented by a dead-man's pedal mechanism, so that location can be obtained even when a caller becomes unresponsive. Further, the intervention requires only modest changes to smart-phone operating software, and is thus highly feasible to implement.
2020 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2020
COVID19 has made the global humanitarian context more vulnerable and complex than ever. In partic... more COVID19 has made the global humanitarian context more vulnerable and complex than ever. In particular, it has already resulted in the situation where response to significant disasters, such as Cyclone Harold in Vanuatu, has been greatly impaired by the reduced ability to safely and responsibly deploy humanitarian responders when and where they are needed. These are, however, not new problems: COVID19 has only served to amplify the existing problems. In this paper, we explore how careful and strategic use of existing and emerging technologies can be used to mitigate this problem, by analyzing the humanitarian roles and functions that need to be provided, and then creating technology packages that can both meet those needs, and be boot-strapped in country, without the need for any personnel to deploy into the disaster zone. Or perhaps more realistically, how the need for deploying personnel can be simultaneously minimized, and be primarily met from personnel already in-situ. Among other contributions, we identify that technologies designed for remote support injection into disaster zones should embody self-evident function and value, self-sufficiency, selfconfiguration and self-regulation, to ensure rapid, effective and maintainable delivery of humanitarian assistance from afar.
Digital responses around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the acceleration in Interne... more Digital responses around the world to the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the acceleration in Internet governance trend towards authoritarianism in the digital-political responses to crisis and false trade-off decisions made by governments between privacy and public health. This paper investigates the digital-political responses to COVID-19 in the global contexts of ‘four internets’; the authoritarian Internet, the bourgeois European Internet, the commercial American Internet, and the propaganda Internet of state and non-state actors. We then explore the possible responses to the post-COVID-19 Internet, as well as the implications of geo-political Internet trends for crisis response groups and organizations.
Capacity Maintenance During Global Disruptions: Security, resilience and incentives matter
2020 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2020
In an interconnected world, the challenge of maintaining interdependent systems during disasters ... more In an interconnected world, the challenge of maintaining interdependent systems during disasters and disruptive events, such as pandemics, bushfires, cyber-attacks and trade wars is imperative. The critical infrastructure capabilities to be sustained during disasters are many. COVID-19 has demonstrated how a public health threat can fracture the supply chains, including those that underpin digital systems, and degrade the capacity of software and hardware companies. Society must plan for such digital disruptions if it is to survive such shocks.We explore some of the reasons why this is necessary, including the issue of cascading failures, and examines how and in what form more resilient systems might take. This includes consideration of issues such as the need for incentives in order to drive and maintain adoption of resilient technologies, and how such incentives can be created as a natural property of well- conceived systems.We also briefly examine two initiatives that seek to solve some of the harder problems, including security, trustability, independence from energy and communications infrastructure, and the ability to sustain digital capabilities when digital supply chains fail. This remains an open area requiring attention, if society is to improve its resilience to significant shocks.
Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among... more Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among smart devices, both personal mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Comparison and assessment of SDP schemes is troublesome, because each scheme makes different assumptions about out-of-band channels and adversary models, and are driven by their particular use-cases. A conceptual model that facilitates meaningful comparison among SDP schemes is missing. We provide such a model. In this article, we survey and analyze a wide range of SDP schemes that are described in the literature, including a number that have been adopted as standards. A system model and consistent terminology for SDP schemes are built on the foundation of this survey, which are then used to classify existing SDP schemes into a taxonomy that, for the first time, enables their meaningful comparison and analysis.The existing SDP schemes are analyzed using this model, revealing common systemic security weakne...
RESEARCH Open Access The Village Telco project: a reliable and practical
mesh telephony infrastructure
Productizing humanitarian telecommunications research: A case study of the Serval Mesh Extender
2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2017
The Servai Mesh Extender is a low-cost open-source infrastructure-independent telecommunications ... more The Servai Mesh Extender is a low-cost open-source infrastructure-independent telecommunications relay device developed to support telecommunications during and following disasters, as well as in remote and isolated locations. The Mesh Extender has been under development for five years, and is just now transitioning from a primarily University research system, into a mass-producible and deployable humanitarian telecommunications product. This has forced the research team to consider numerous challenges and trade-offs that are substantially common to this type of activity, including industrial design, supply-chain formation, inventory management, electronics design and manufacture, tooling for injection-molding and planning around the variability of research funding. In this paper, we describe these challenges, together with insights and mistakes made and lessons learned during the process, in a format intended to benefit other researchers seeking to productize their research for the...
Reducing cost while increasing the resilience & effectiveness of tsunami early warning systems
2019 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2019
Tsunamis continue to present a major hazard in the Indo-Pacific / Ring of Fire region, as well as... more Tsunamis continue to present a major hazard in the Indo-Pacific / Ring of Fire region, as well as many nations with large populations living in coastal and low-lying areas. The continued hazard that tsunamis and related phenomena present was emphasised in the second half of 2018 when three separate tsunamis struck Indonesia (twice) and New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Each of these events highlighted different difficulties in providing effective early warning of tsunamis, in particular each featured a failure of either: (1) tsunami/wave detection; (2) warning dissemination; or (3) accurate and rapid appraisal of a detected event, so that a warning could be issued for dissemination. In this paper we describe our work to date on solving these three problems, building on our past work in this space. For warning dissemination we describe the proposed low-cost Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) Lali warning dissemination system. For event detection we describe a concept for low-cost (i...
Optimising the question box for cost and local-manufacturability
2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2017
The Question Box is a ruggedized cellular phone-booth designed to allow low-income communities th... more The Question Box is a ruggedized cellular phone-booth designed to allow low-income communities the ability to access expert advice on a variety of topics, free of charge. This simple concept enables such consultation irrespective of income or literacy level, and has proven its value in deployments in rural India and in Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis. The system consists primarily of the Question Box hardware. The complexity of the existing Question Box design, however, means that the principle barrier to wider deployment is cost (several hundred dollars per unit), and the infeasibility of being manufactured locally. In this paper we present a redesign of the Question Box, reducing the internal components to a low-cost Android smart phone and headphones, four switches, three resistors and a weather-proof box, combined with a simple custom Android application. This design is validated through the construction of a prototype Question Box in approximately two hours, and using appr...
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Papers by Paul Gardner-Stephen