Trust and reputation are important terms whether the communication is Humans-to-Human (H2H), Human-Machine-Interaction (HMI) or Machine-to-Machine (M2M). As Cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT) bring new innovations, they also cause various security and privacy issues. As numerous devices are continuously integrating as a core part of IoT, it is necessarily important to consider various security issues such as the trustworthiness of a user or detection of a malicious user. Moreover, fog computing also known as edge computing is revolutionizing the Cloud-based IoT by providing the Cloud services at the edge of the network, which can provide aid in overcoming security, privacy and trust issues. In this work, we propose a context-aware trust evaluation model to evaluate the trustworthiness of a user in a Fog based IoT (FIoT). The proposed approach uses a context-aware multi-source trust and reputation based evaluation system which helps in evaluating the trustworthiness of a user effectively. Further, we use context-aware feedback and feedback crawler system which helps in making trust evaluation unbiased, effective and reliable. Furthermore, we introduce monitor mode for malicious/untrustworthy users, which helps in monitoring the behavior and trustworthiness of a user. The proposed approach uses several tunable factors, which can be tuned based on the system’s requirements. The simulations and results indicate that our approach is effective and reliable to evaluate the trustworthiness of a user.

Ontology and its role in both software engineering and knowledge management fields have been widely reported in the literature. Numerous studies have proven the effectiveness of using ontologies to support the process of requirements engineering. One of the main problems facing requirements engineering is that the requirements are exposed to change. In fact, this problem swells even more in global software development (GSD) environment. Given that this problem is unavoidable, we need to improve the requirements change management (RCM) process. In this paper, a systematic domain ontology for RCM especially in GSD environment is proposed. A hybrid method combining Methontology and the 101 method is used for its development; Web Ontology Language (OWL) for its representation; and Protégé for its implementation. It was validated using ontology content evaluation and competency question evaluation methods. Also, it was verified using both ontology taxonomy evaluation and FOCA evaluation methods. Validation and verification results showed that the proposed ontology was successfully built. Building this ontology can be considered as a base contribution in supporting the RCM process in GSD.

The software organizations rapidly adopting global software development (GSD) to gain the economic and strategic benefits. Besides, GSD faces many challenges that mainly concerned with the requirements change management (RCM). This study aims to identify and empirically validate the factors that can negatively influence the RCM process in GSD. To this end, literature review and questionnaire survey were conducted for the investigation and validation of RCM challenges. A total of 31 RCM challenges were identified. We have further classified the identified challenges in organization types, organization size and based on experts’ opinions with the aim to provide a clear understanding of the RCM process and its challenges to the practitioners. Based on these identified challenges, we believe that this study can provide a framework for tackling problems associated with RCM activities in GSD environment, which is significant to success and progression of GSD organizations.

DevOps (development and operations) is a set of collaborative practices that automate delivery of new software updates with the aim to reduce the development life cycle and produce quality software products. Software organizations face several barriers while adopting DevOps practices as the integration of development and operation teams requires merger of different processes, tools, and skill sets. This study aims to develop a prioritization-based framework of the DevOps best practices based on evidence collected from industry experts. To attain the study aims, firstly, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify DevOps best practices reported in the literature. Next, a questionnaire survey study was conducted to receive insight from industry practitioners for the identified best practice. Finally, the fuzzy-AHP technique was applied to prioritize the best practices concerning to the significance for DevOps process. We believe that the identified best practices, their categorization and fuzzy-AHP based framework will help industry experts to revise and improve their strategies to make the DevOps process sustainable.

The Internet of Vehicles (IoVs) is a wireless network of intelligent and autonomous vehicles and Roadside Units (RSUs), which work together to improve transportation services. On the one hand, this revolutionary mode of transportation optimizes traffic efficiency and reduces congestion and accidents; on the other hand, it raises security and privacy concerns. As a result, keeping the security and privacy aspects of such vital systems should be a top concern, as security and privacy flaws can have devastating implications. In addition, each vehicle's on-board unit (OBU) has a certain amount of processing and storage power. As a result, in areas with high traffic density, vehicles that need to verify messages have a very high computational overhead. In this article, we propose a conditional privacy-preserving heterogeneous signcryption scheme for IoV utilizing Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography (HECC) operation. The security robustness of the proposed scheme has been evaluated with the Random Oracle Model (ROM), a formal security evaluation method. In addition, relevant existing schemes are compared to the proposed scheme in terms of computation and communication costs. The findings demonstrate that the proposed scheme is both efficient and secure, validating its viability.

The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical border due to huge business gains. However, the adoption of the global software development (GSD) paradigm is not straightforward; various challenges are associated with it, particularly related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objective of this study is to identify the barriers to the RE process faced during GSD. To achieve this, we have conducted a systematic mapping study and questionnaire survey to identify and validate the barriers of the RE process with industry practitioners. A total of 20 barriers were identified and validated with the experts. Moreover, we have performed organization types (client and vendor), organization size (small, medium, and large) and experts’ levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) based analysis to provide a clear understanding of the RE barriers in the three different context. Besides, we have also developed a theoretical framework by mapping the investigated barriers into six core knowledge areas of software process improvement. The mapping results indicated that project administration is the most significant knowledge area of investigated barriers. We believe that the findings of this study will provide a framework that assists the GSD practitioners in developing an effective plan and strategies to improve the RE process in the GSD context.