arXiv subjects

Mauro Barni

Publications and source records attributed to Mauro Barni.

62 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

A Message Passing Approach for Decision Fusion in Adversarial Multi-Sensor Networks

We consider a simple, yet widely studied, set-up in which a Fusion Center (FC) is asked to make a binary decision about a sequence of system states by relying on the possibly corrupted decisions provided by byzantine nodes, i.e. nodes which deliberately alter the result of the local decision to induce an error at the fusion center. When independent states are considered, the optimum fusion rule over a batch of observations has already been derived, however its complexity prevents its use in conjunction with large observation windows. In this paper, we propose a near-optimal algorithm based on message passing that greatly reduces the computational burden of the optimum fusion rule. In addition, the proposed algorithm retains very good performance also in the case of dependent system states. By first focusing on the case of small observation windows, we use numerical simulations to show that the proposed scheme introduces a negligible increase of the decision error probability compared to the optimum fusion rule. We then analyse the performance of the new scheme when the FC make its decision by relying on long observation windows. We do so by considering both the case of independent and Markovian system states and show that the obtained performance are superior to those obtained with prior suboptimal schemes. As an additional result, we confirm the previous finding that, in some cases, it is preferable for the byzantine nodes to minimise the mutual information between the sequence system states and the reports submitted to the FC, rather than always flipping the local decision.

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arXiv2015

A Game-Theoretic Framework for Optimum Decision Fusion in the Presence of Byzantines

Optimum decision fusion in the presence of malicious nodes - often referred to as Byzantines - is hindered by the necessity of exactly knowing the statistical behavior of Byzantines. By focusing on a simple, yet widely studied, set-up in which a Fusion Center (FC) is asked to make a binary decision about a sequence of system states by relying on the possibly corrupted decisions provided by local nodes, we propose a game-theoretic framework which permits to exploit the superior performance provided by optimum decision fusion, while limiting the amount of a-priori knowledge required. We first derive the optimum decision strategy by assuming that the statistical behavior of the Byzantines is known. Then we relax such an assumption by casting the problem into a game-theoretic framework in which the FC tries to guess the behavior of the Byzantines, which, in turn, must fix their corruption strategy without knowing the guess made by the FC. We use numerical simulations to derive the equilibrium of the game, thus identifying the optimum behavior for both the FC and the Byzantines, and to evaluate the achievable performance at the equilibrium. We analyze several different setups, showing that in all cases the proposed solution permits to improve the accuracy of data fusion. We also show that, in some instances, it is preferable for the Byzantines to minimize the mutual information between the status of the observed system and the reports submitted to the FC, rather than always flipping the decision made by the local nodes as it is customarily assumed in previous works.

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arXiv2015

Optimum Fusion of Possibly Corrupted Reports for Distributed Detection in Multi-Sensor Networks

The most common approach to mitigate the impact that the presence of malicious nodes has on the accuracy of decision fusion schemes consists in observing the behavior of the nodes over a time interval T and then removing the reports of suspect nodes from the fusion process. By assuming that some a-priori information about the presence of malicious nodes and their behavior is available, we show that the information stemming from the suspect nodes can be exploited to further improve the decision fusion accuracy. Specifically, we derive the optimum fusion rule and analyze the achievable performance for two specific cases. In the first case, the states of the nodes (corrupted or honest) are independent of each other and the fusion center knows only the probability that a node is malicious. In the second case, the exact number of corrupted nodes is fixed and known to the fusion center. We also investigate the optimum corruption strategy for the malicious nodes, showing that always reverting the local decision does not necessarily maximize the loss of performance at the fusion center.

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arXiv2015

Piecewise Function Approximation with Private Data

We present two Secure Two Party Computation (STPC) protocols for piecewise function approximation on private data. The protocols rely on a piecewise approximation of the to-be-computed function easing the implementation in a STPC setting. The first protocol relies entirely on Garbled Circuit (GC) theory, while the second one exploits a hybrid construction where GC and Homomorphic Encryption (HE) are used together. In addition to piecewise constant and linear approximation, polynomial interpolation is also considered. From a communication complexity perspective, the full-GC implementation is preferable when the input and output variables can be represented with a small number of bits, while the hybrid solution is preferable otherwise. With regard to computational complexity, the full-GC solution is generally more convenient.

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arXiv2014

Source Distinguishability under Distortion-Limited Attack: an Optimal Transport Perspective

We analyze the distinguishability of two sources in a Neyman-Pearson set-up when an attacker is allowed to modify the output of one of the two sources subject to a distortion constraint. By casting the problem in a game-theoretic framework and by exploiting the parallelism between the attacker's goal and Optimal Transport Theory, we introduce the concept of Security Margin defined as the maximum average per-sample distortion introduced by the attacker for which the two sources can be distinguished ensuring arbitrarily small, yet positive, error exponents for type I and type II error probabilities. Several versions of the problem are considered according to the available knowledge about the sources and the type of distance used to define the distortion constraint. We compute the security margin for some classes of sources and derive a general upper bound assuming that the distortion is measured in terms of the mean square error between the original and the attacked sequence.

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arXiv2014

Compressive Hyperspectral Imaging Using Progressive Total Variation

Compressed Sensing (CS) is suitable for remote acquisition of hyperspectral images for earth observation, since it could exploit the strong spatial and spectral correlations, llowing to simplify the architecture of the onboard sensors. Solutions proposed so far tend to decouple spatial and spectral dimensions to reduce the complexity of the reconstruction, not taking into account that onboard sensors progressively acquire spectral rows rather than acquiring spectral channels. For this reason, we propose a novel progressive CS architecture based on separate sensing of spectral rows and joint reconstruction employing Total Variation. Experimental results run on raw AVIRIS and AIRS images confirm the validity of the proposed system.

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arXiv2013

Progressive Compressed Sensing and Reconstruction of Multidimensional Signals Using Hybrid Transform/Prediction Sparsity Model

Compressed sensing (CS) is an innovative technique allowing to represent signals through a small number of their linear projections. Hence, CS can be thought of as a natural candidate for acquisition of multidimensional signals, as the amount of data acquired and processed by conventional sensors could create problems in terms of computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a framework for the acquisition and reconstruction of multidimensional correlated signals. The approach is general and can be applied to D dimensional signals, even if the algorithms we propose to practically implement such architectures apply to 2-D and 3-D signals. The proposed architectures employ iterative local signal reconstruction based on a hybrid transform/prediction correlation model, coupled with a proper initialization strategy.

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arXiv2013

Binary Hypothesis Testing Game with Training Data

We introduce a game-theoretic framework to study the hypothesis testing problem, in the presence of an adversary aiming at preventing a correct decision. Specifically, the paper considers a scenario in which an analyst has to decide whether a test sequence has been drawn according to a probability mass function (pmf) P_X or not. In turn, the goal of the adversary is to take a sequence generated according to a different pmf and modify it in such a way to induce a decision error. P_X is known only through one or more training sequences. We derive the asymptotic equilibrium of the game under the assumption that the analyst relies only on first order statistics of the test sequence, and compute the asymptotic payoff of the game when the length of the test sequence tends to infinity. We introduce the concept of indistinguishability region, as the set of pmf's that can not be distinguished reliably from P_X in the presence of attacks. Two different scenarios are considered: in the first one the analyst and the adversary share the same training sequence, in the second scenario, they rely on independent sequences. The obtained results are compared to a version of the game in which the pmf P_X is perfectly known to the analyst and the adversary.

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