An Unfortunate Event

This week I was supposed to visit the different Rain Gauges strategically situated in the different municipalities of the Sorsogon Province in order to assess their status.   I was supposed to make an ocular inspection in order to make necessary recommendations in order to bring these instruments into operation.  Unfortunately I had an accident while doing some of my chores at home during the weekend.  I was cutting some woods using a powertool called grinder equipped with a circular blade designed to cut woods when it accidentally hit a hard part.  The grinder went to a sudden stop and the rotation of the motor created an impact that made me lose grip of the tool.  The blade accidentally hit my toes and lower leg. I was brought to the hospital and underwent minor surgery. I got several stitches in order to close the would and stop the bleeding.  I could hardly walk for several days.  Because of this I asked my mentor for several days off the office which he granted without second thoughts.  I told him that if it would be possible to allocate this time to work on my research using the data that I gathered from the office while I still cant walk.  Again he said "No Problem".  I stayed home read researches which I downloaded from IEEE.  I also started working with the design of the gadget that Engr. Dimaano (Head, SPDRRMO) asked me to conceptualize.

The gadget that Engr. Dimaano wanted me to develop is a device that is capable of capturing real-time video and could work stand-alone regardless of the weather and availability of power source.  He wanted to deploy these devices in areas that requires close monitoring like flood-prone areas and rivers.  These would allow them to closely monitor these areas and make sudden decisions at the comfort of their offices.  I came with a design that would utilize Arduino (microcontroller) equipped with a high definition camera connected to a battery with a solar panel for charging.  The device will capture realtime video and will throw this data to the central station for monitoring.  What is still missing with the device is the communication channel that will be utilized for the connectivity between the device and the central monitoring terminal.  An assessment is still necessary regarding the available technology in the area and its susceptibility to damage which will be brought by natural calamities. Options are internet connectivity (using webapp), wide area network (using IP cameras), coaxial cables, or radio frequency.  Satellite connection was ruled-out due to financial requirements.

While at home, I read several researches of my interest which I think could help me understand several technologies which could serve as a basis for my dissertation concept.  I came across with some researches focusing on the use of El-Gamal Encryption system.  The El-Gamal Encryption system is a cryptosystem anchored on the concept of Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange Algorithm.  The Diffie-Hellman creates a private key using public keys sent by two parties over the public network.  Anybody could see the public keys but only the two parties could derive the private keys which they could use to unlock information.  Diffie-Hellman however is only an algorithm for exchanging keys but cannot be used for encrypting information.  The El-Gamal Encryption is based on Diffie Hellman Key Exchange but aside from exchanging private keys, the ElGamal Encryption also comes with a process that allows exchange of infomation locked by private keys using Diffie Hellman process.  The gap that I was looking at is the possibility of implementing ElGamal between several entities because it only works at present between two parties.  I was looking for the possibility of allowing a node to send information locked with private and public key using ElGamal Cryptosystem but this time the information is intended to several persons.  The encrypted message can only be opened using all the private keys and public keys of all the recipients.  Unavailability of one key will deny the rest access to the encrypted information. I also looking for a possible extension of this work that would allow several senders to send encrypted information to several recipients.

What I am thinking as of the moment if this method, (enhanced ElGamal) could be utilized in sending encrypted video streams through the public network in order that the monitoring of critical places is accessible to authorized persons (SPDRRMO) only.

-Aris J. Ordonez