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A Beginner’s Guide
to Internet of Things
Security
A Beginner’s Guide
to Internet of Things
Security
Attacks, Applications,
Authentication, and Fundamentals

B. B. Gupta
Aakanksha Tewari
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2020 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Printed on acid-free paper

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-367-43069-6 (Hardback)

This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources.
Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the
author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the
consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright
holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if
permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not
been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted,
reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and
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For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access
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Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered


trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at


http://www.taylorandfrancis.com

and the CRC Press Web site at


http://www.crcpress.com
Dedicated to my parents and family for their constant support during
the course of this book.

-B. B. Gupta

Dedicated to my mentor, my parents, and my friends for their constant


encouragement and belief during the course of this book.

-Aakanksha Tewari
Contents

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Authors xv

1 Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT): History, Forecasts,


and Security 1
1.1 Evolution of IoT 2
1.2 Statistics and Forecasts 4
1.3 Fundamentals of IoT Security 8
1.3.1 Security at Different Layers 8
1.3.2 System Requirements of the IoT System 8
1.4 Conclusion 9

2 IoT Design, Standards, and Protocols 11


2.1 Layered IoT Architecture 12
2.2 Security and Privacy Issues with IoT Architecture 13
2.2.1 Perception-Layer Security Problems 13
2.2.2 Network-Layer Security Problems 14
2.2.3 Application-Layer Security Problems 14
2.3 IoT Protocol Design 15
2.3.1 Protocol Stack for IoT 15
2.3.2 Security
 Requirements 16
2.4 IETF and IEEE Design Standards 17
2.5 Taxonomy of Threats to IoT Networks 17
2.6 Conclusion 19

3 IoT’s Integration with Other Technologies 21


3.1 IoT Experimentation Setups 21
3.2 Platforms and Software Tools for IoT Simulation 22
3.3 Integration of IoT with Various Domains 23
3.3.1 Data Storage 23
3.3.2 Cloud Computing 25
3.3.3 Big
 Data 26
3.3.4 Fog
 Computing 27
3.4 IoT and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) 28

vii
viii Contents

4 Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) 31


4.1 M2M to IoT 32
4.2 IoT and Secure Automation 34
4.3 IIoT Applications 35
4.4 IIoT and Cybersecurity 38
4.5 Conclusion 39

41
5.1 Privacy in IoT 41
5.2 Threat to Data Privacy in IoT 43
5.3 Enforcing Trust in IoT 44
5.4 Trust Management 46
5.5 Conclusion 47

6 Authentication Mechanisms for IoT Networks 49


6.1 Data Security in IoT 50
6.2 IoT Limitations 51
6.3 Need for Authentication and Access Control in IoT 51
6.4 System Requirements for Authentication Mechanisms 52
6.5 Taxonomy of IoT Authentication Protocols 53
6.5.1 Hash-Based
 Protocols 53
6.5.2 ECC-Based
 Protocols 56
6.5.3 PUF-Based
 Protocols 56
6.5.4 HB
 Protocols 57
6.5.5 Ultra-Lightweight
 Protocols 58
6.6 Conclusion 59

7 Provable Security Models and Existing Protocols 61


7.1 Provable Security Models 62
7.1.1 Vaudeney’s Model 62
7.1.2 Canard et al.’s Model 64
7.1.3 Universal Composability Framework 66
7.1.4 Juels–Weis Challenge–Response Model 67
7.2 Issues with Security Models 70

8 An Internet of Things (IoT)-Based Security Approach


Ensuring Robust Location Privacy for the Healthcare
Environment 73
8.1 Problem Definition 74
8.2 Abstract Overview 74
8.3 Detailed Protocol Description 75
Contents ix

8.3.1 Location Privacy-Based Mutual Authentication


Protocol75
8.3.2 Authentication of IoT Devices 76
8.4 IoT Authentication Scheme Ensuring Location Privacy 76
8.4.1 Concept of a Basic Location Privacy-Based
Authentication Scheme78
8.5 Security Analysis 78
8.5.1 Game-Based Security Model 78
8.5.2 Strong Location Privacy 80
8.6 Performance Analysis 81
8.7 Conclusion 81

References 83
Index 91
Preface

The potential capabilities of Internet of Things (IoT) can reduce a lot of time
and expenditure of various organizations. These devices are excellent data
collectors and sensors; therefore, they can help in efficient decision-making
in a wide range of applications. However, security remains the biggest issue in
the IoT domain. A lot of research is being carried out in this area to provide
strong security and privacy mechanisms in IoT networks. The development
of standards and protocol sets is necessary to build the IoT network properly.
Only time will ultimately tell how far IoT will reach and how it will reshape
the world. However, by the planned integration of existing technologies, we
can make IoT networks secure and more efficient. We address various issues in
securing IoT networks, which enabled us to develop various mutual authentica-
tion protocols that strengthen the security and privacy of IoT devices and pre-
vent confidential data from theft. The present scenario of IoT research is mainly
focused on the development of technologies for its implementation. By exam-
ining the recent statistics and literature, it also uncovers various challenges
that have the potential to prevent IoT from growing to its full potential.
Specifically, the chapters contained in this book are summarized as
follows:

Chapter 1: Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT): History, Forecasts,


and Security. This chapter introduces the origin and concept of IoT along with
its system requirements. It also explores the significance of security in the IoT
domain by providing an in-depth statistical analysis of past events and future
predictions.
Chapter 2: IoT Design, Standards, and Protocols. This chapter provides
an overview of design and system requirements of IoT networks and security
and privacy issues linked to the architecture. It also elaborates the configura-
tion and underlying standards and protocols necessary for the development
of IoT. This chapter also highlights the security requirements for platform
development.
Chapter 3: IoT’s Integration with Other Technologies. This chapter
discusses various domains and the support they need from IoT for their
growth. It also illuminates the security aspects of the integration of IoT with
other domains such as cloud computing and big data.

xi
xii Preface

Chapter 4: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This chapter discusses


the applications of IoT in industries. It explores various technologies such as
edge computing, mobile technologies, and 3D printing, which have helped in
realizing IIoT. We also discuss cybersecurity and the modular architecture of
IIoT and how security comes into play with each module.
Chapter 5: Trust and Privacy in IoT. This chapter facilitates the
significance of trust and privacy in IoT and how the lack of any one of these
can diminish users’ faith, which may result in the failure of any technology.
It elaborates on the types of attacks and the degree of damage they can do to
the networks. This chapter also gives an overview of methodologies through
which trust can be ensured within a network.
Chapter 6: Authentication Mechanisms for IoT Networks. This
chapter discusses how authentication mechanisms can secure IoT networks.
It illuminates the workflow of authentication schemes customized for IoT and
their feasibility and cost analysis.
Chapter 7: Provable Security Models and Existing Protocols. Further
exploring the authentication-based security schemes, this chapter discusses
some provable security models and existing protocols that have used these
schemes, as they are crucial in ensuring that a protocol is secure.
Chapter 8: An Internet of Things (IoT)-Based Security Approach
Ensuring Robust Location Privacy for the Healthcare Environment. This
chapter discusses a simple low-cost authentication protocol, which ensures
strong location privacy by giving proof of indistinguishability and forward
secrecy. Further, it elaborates on the security strength of the protocol by a
game-based model.
Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a huge task and more rewarding than one could fathom. This
book entitled A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security is the result of
great contributions and encouragement from many people. None of this would
have been possible without their ideas and support, which has helped greatly
in enhancing the quality of this book. The authors would like to acknowledge
the incredible CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group staff, particularly Randi
Cohen and her team, for their continuous assistance and motivation. This book
would not have been possible without their technical support. The authors are
eternally grateful to their families for their love and unconditional support at
all times. In the end, the authors are most thankful towards the Almighty who
is always helping us to overcome every obstacle not only for this work but also
throughout our lives.
September 2019
B. B. Gupta
Aakanksha Tewari

xiii
Authors

B. B. Gupta received a Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology


Roorkee, India, in the area of information and cybersecurity. He has published
more than 200 research papers in international journals and conferences
of high repute, including IEEE, Elsevier, ACM, Springer, Wiley, Taylor &
Francis, Inderscience, etc. He has visited several countries, that is, Canada,
Japan, Malaysia, Australia, China, Hong-Kong, Italy, and Spain, to present his
research work. His biography was selected and published in the 30th edition
of Marquis Who’s Who in the World, 2012. Dr. Gupta also received the Young
Faculty Research Fellowship Award from the Ministry of Electronics and
Information Technology, Government of India, in 2018. He is also working as
a principal investigator of various R&D projects. He is serving as an associate
editor of IEEE Access and IEEE TII, and an executive editor of IJITCA and
Inderscience, respectively. At present, Dr. Gupta is working as an assistant
professor in the Department of Computer Engineering, National Institute of
Technology, Kurukshetra, India. His research interests include information
security, cybersecurity, mobile security, cloud computing, web security, intru-
sion detection, and phishing.

Aakanksha Tewari is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Computer


Engineering at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra, India.
Her research interests include computer networks, information security, cloud
computing, phishing detection, Internet of Things, radio frequency identifi-
cation (RFID) authentication, and number theory and cryptography. She has
done her M. Tech. (Computer Engineering) from the Department of Computer
Engineering at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra,
India. She has participated and won in various national workshops and poster
presentations. Currently, her research work is based on security and privacy in
IoT networks and mutual authentication of RFID tags.

xv
Evolution of
Internet of
Things (IoT)
1
History, Forecasts,
and Security
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new paradigm which is transforming
everything from the consumer market, that is, household devices to industrial
applications at large scales. The Internet was always intended to bring pieces
of software, services, and people together on one platform at a global level [1].
Nowadays with the evolution of IoT, day-to-day objects have also become
a part of the Internet sending and receiving updates continuously from one
place to another. Therefore, we can define IoT as a network of interconnected
devices, which provide services and share data-connecting and performing
tasks in various applications [2].
The highly distributed and dynamic nature of IoT enables it to receive and
store data continuously in huge amounts. For example, in the field of health-
care, it has led to remote health monitoring, emergency notifications, etc. The
consumer electronics markets are also exploding with wearable gadgets [3].
Various domains such as wireless sensor networks (WSN), embedded systems,
and radio frequency identification (RFID) are found to be huge contributors
towards the growth of IoT.
As IoT is an evolving domain, it requires a lot of attention from the
researchers and the industry as well. Various standardization organizations
such as IEEE and IETF are also working towards developing standards and
protocols for IoT architecture. The sensors and actuators that are consumed in

1
2 A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security

the consumer electronics market are very low cost and small sized and have
high computational capabilities, which are the reasons for the growth of IoT as
automation is made so easy. Industries are also deploying IoT at large scales
such as in retail management and transportation [3,4].
The understructure for IoT is the Internet providing connectivity, which
also adds to the vulnerabilities in these networks. IoT networks face the same
security threats as the Internet; in addition, due to their limited capabilities and
simpler architecture, they are easier to compromise. At the physical layer, most
of the IoT devices use RFID, therefore ensuring that RFID tags can secure our
data from any threat to security and privacy [5].
Our aim is to perform an in-depth analysis of the recent advancements in
the field of security and privacy in IoT networks. Research needs to be done
in order to facilitate the integration of IoT with other technologies in a secure
environment. This can be accomplished by designing standard communi-
cation methodologies and standard protocols. It is a primary requirement
to make IoT power efficient and reliable. The use of proper authentication
mechanisms is one way to ensure security against various attacks and main-
tain the availability and integrity of data and services at all times for autho-
rized users.

1.1 EVOLUTION OF IoT


In order to grasp the concept of IoT, it is important that we dig a little deeper
towards the history of IoT and how it became what it is today. During 1982, a
group of programmers at Carnegie Mellon University were successful in con-
necting a soda-dispensing machine to the Internet, which was able to check
whether the machine has any cold soda cans left before going to purchase.
In 1990, John Romkey connected a toaster to the Internet through which he
was able to turn it on and off. These are the few earliest examples of automa-
tion before IoT. The year 1999 brought a big reform to consumer electronics
when the term “IoT” was coined by Kevin Ashton, director of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology s auto-ID center [6,7].
The first Internet-connected refrigerator was introduced in 2000. In
2004, the term “IoT” was used by magazines such as The Guardian. During
the same period, the RFID technology was also being deployed on a large
scale in various industries such as Walmart. During 2005, UN’s (United
Nations) international telecom union (ITU) stated that IoT is a new dimen-
sion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which will
1 • Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) 3

multiply the connections leading to a new dynamic network [8]. In 2007,


the first iPhone was out in the market, which changed the whole scenario of
communication between users. In 2010, the Chinese government declared
IoT to be a key technology and a major part of China’s long-term develop-
ment [9].
In 2011, Nest developed a Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat, which was capa-
ble of modifying the atmosphere by monitoring users’ habits. Platforms like
Arduino were made more advanced so that they simplify IoT-based simulation
for experimentation purposes [10]. In 2014, Amazon released Echo into the
smart home domain. The research firm Gartner added IoT to their hype cycle,
which is their graph that compares popular technologies. In 2016, Apple show-
cased HomeKit, which is a proprietary platform for supporting smart home
appliance software. During the same year, the first IoT-related malware called
Mirai was discovered, which collected default credentials through which it
attacked devices using them. In 2017, governments started taking IoT security
seriously as a result of several violations [11]. Various countries proposed a ban
for hard-coded passwords.
In the past few years, IoT devices and related technologies have gotten
a little cheaper and broadly accepted globally. In the long term, IoT is going
to be the new normal. However, Gartner reports claim that IoT is going to
hit a plateau in the coming years. Figure 1.1 shows a brief timeline for IoT
development.

FIGURE 1.1 Brief history of IoT and RFID technology.


4 A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security

1.2 STATISTICS AND FORECASTS


To secure IoT devices, we need to incorporate security between the network
connections and the software applications that run on those devices. It is
anticipated that in the next ten years, a shift will happen from consumer-based
IoT to industrial IoT. However, it is not sure whether the users and industry
are fully aware of the impact that IoT is going to have in the next few years.
According to Gartner’s report, by 2020, 95% of consumer electronics will
be enabled by IoT. As IoT networks are evolving into huge ecosystems, the
government needs to devise some cybersecurity plans that can recognize
threats and prevent them. Some of the recent trends that show the significance
of IoT are as follows [10]:

• The number of Internet-connected devices surpassed the number


of people on the planet in 2008, and it is estimated that by 2020,
a number of Internet-connected devices will be around 50 billion.
• IoT is having a huge economic impact on the consumer electronics
market; it is estimated that IoT technology will make about 19
trillion dollars of profit in the coming decade.
• It is estimated that by the end of 2019, about 2 billion home appli-
ances will be shipped and will make homes a part of the Internet
as well.
• Healthcare domain has adopted IoT at a large scale, and it is
estimated that by 2025, the total worth of IoT in the markets will be
around $6.2 trillion.
• In the past few years, it was estimated that about 10% of the total
number of cars are connected to the Internet, and by 2020, it will
reach 90%.
• A report by McKinsey & Company estimated that the total revenue
generated by IoT will range from $4 to $11 trillion by 2025.

The aforementioned trends show that the rapid growth IoT has been in the past
few years as well as its potential growth in the coming years. It is estimated that
the economy of IoT security will be around $28.90 billion in 2020. However,
in 2015, it was $6.89 billion. The growth in IoT requires a significant amount
of investment in its security as well. We need security mechanisms that can
protect the IoT network architecture as a whole [12,13].
The current rate of development in IoT technology will help us predict
its future. Currently, the number of connected IoT devices is around
5 billion, most of which are personal devices. Most of the devices are
1 • Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) 5

consumer based, and the largest increase in number is shown by automotive.


IoT has provided various business opportunities, such as smart homes and
automobiles with better decision-making skills. However, we also need to
address and resolve any security issues, which might prove to be a big threat
to IoT networks in the future. Hewlett-Packard (HP) reported that about
70% of connected IoT devices these days are vulnerable to various threats
due to their default settings. In a report by Harvard Business Review, it was
estimated that nearly 45% of IoT networks have to deal with data privacy-
related issues [14]. Figure 1.2 shows the rate of growth of IoT applications
in the next ten years.
Every IoT device needs a unique identification technique so that there is
no ambiguity in communication. The most popular identification technique
these days is RFID, which has several advantages over the barcode. The
RFID system consists of RFID tags, a reader, and a database or distributed
databases, which keep records of the objects or devices within the network.
RFID technology uses radio frequency mechanism for unique identification
of objects. Every RFID tag contains a chip that has some storage, space, and
sensing capability. In the last couple of years, significant growth in the use of
RFID technology with various applications has given rise to various security
threats such as a denial of service, man-in-the-middle, and desynchronization
attacks.
To promote IoT and make larger networks, we must consider their security
issues that affect the development of IoT networks and devices. Nowadays,
attackers are always one step ahead of existing security mechanisms; they can

FIGURE 1.2 Percentage growth of IoT applications in the next ten years.
(Source: DBS Bank.)
6 A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security

carry out attacks, which can disrupt services or transfer control to attackers at
remote locations. IoT devices are vulnerable to various attacks such as replay,
forgery, phishing, and denial of service.
In January 2015, Proofpoint revealed a spamming incident where the traf-
fic was routed through several devices across various countries. This global
attack had more than 750,000 malicious emails transferred from various
locations, which were sent from consumer devices such as home routers,
televisions, media and centers. Later on, it was discovered that at least one
refrigerator was also involved in this attack. It was observed that the incident
started from December 23, 2014, and continued till January 6, 2014, where
the malicious email traffic was sent thrice a day with a burst size of 100,000
emails each. The targets were both enterprises and individuals. The primary
cause of these attacks was a lack of caution and awareness. The attackers
exploited misconfigurations and the continued use of default passwords, which
made the devices vulnerable and easy to control [13–15].
Another wave of IoT attacks occurred in 2016, which mainly involved
devices such as IP cameras and routers. The compromised devices were turned
into botnets. These botnets were used collectively to launch attacks on a large
scale. The cybercriminals are becoming more and more advanced. In an attack
in 2018, a device that controlled around 15 CCTV cameras was attacked.
However, in due time, the security operator detected the malicious activity and
issued a warning that this might infect many more CCTV models. Another
cause of these flaws is a lack of complete patching of IoT devices [16].
The IoT-based companies sometimes ignore security, or they are not expe-
rienced enough to realize the gravity of the situation (Figures 1.3 and 1.4).
Lack of consumer awareness is also a very big cause behind these successful
attacks. Consumers are often excited about the features and functions these
devices provide so that they do not pay attention to security updates and setting
strong passwords.

FIGURE 1.3 Growth in IoT consumer devices. (Source: Gartner, Inc.)


1 • Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) 7

FIGURE 1.4 Top five IoT-based industries from 2017 to 2022.

The attacks are proof of the lack of security schemes in IoT networks,
which need to be taken very seriously. In the current scenario, IoT gadgets are
vulnerable to various attacks that may disrupt their services and transfer the
control to some remote attacker. The attacker can impersonate a server and
make the devices decrease their message-sending rates or increase the rate of
their resource consumption and bandwidth. The attacker might also imper-
sonate any tag and send multiple fake requests to engage servers’ resources
eventually leading to DoS.
IoT devices are also needed to be protected from a wide range of threats,
which include malware infections, disruption of services, and information
theft. The attacker could easily gain in controlling the devices that are a
part of smart home, automobiles, or personal fitness and disease-monitoring
gadgets. An attacker can simply hack the software in a person’s smart watch
or an insulin pump to track their location, or they might gain access to
the information systems present in the automobiles and use them to carry
malicious activities.
The most serious threat IoT devices face is malware such as Trojans,
viruses, and worms that can disable IoT systems. Besides, this work also needs
to be done to ensure that updates received by IoT devices are secure along with
secure default settings. There is still a huge room for improvement when it
comes to securing the IoT architecture.
8 A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security

1.3 FUNDAMENTALS OF IoT SECURITY


To implement IoT in real time, we need to integrate it with other existing
technologies. However, due to the lack of standards, IoT does not have a
fixed architecture yet. Various groups are working on developing protocols
and standard modular or layered IoT architecture. The existing idea of IoT
architecture has three layers (which in some cases are further subdivided):
perception layer, network layer, and application layer. Each layer has its own
security issues that need to be resolved to facilitate its growth. We need
security mechanisms at every layer of IoT to prevent any security and privacy
threats. In this section, we briefly discuss the security and system requirements
of IoT networks.

1.3.1 Security at Different Layers


Each layer of IoT architecture has some security- and privacy-related issues,
which we are required to be addressed in order to secure IoT applications. In
fact, all such issues should be taken into account and remedied at the very
initial stage of system design. The existing IoT architecture raises the require-
ment of proper security checks during the beginning and at regular intervals
for an IoT network as a whole. At the network layer, threats to confidentiality,
integrity, and availability should be dealt with. Attacks such as eavesdropping,
man-in-the-middle, DoS/DDoS, and network intrusion are common threats at
this layer. The application layer needs different security standards as per the
application requirements, which makes the task of securing the application
hard and complicated.

1.3.2 System Requirements of the IoT System


In order to ensure the security of an IoT system, we can ensure the basic
security requirements at the RFID level. These are considered to be basic
criteria that must be fulfilled by the protocol to protect security attacks on a
system [17].

• Mutual authentication: It is an essential requirement that the


server should authenticate the tag to be legitimate and tag should
also authenticate the server before they exchange any important
information.
1 • Evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) 9

• Anonymity: It refers to concealing the identity from any adversary


by an encryption technique. It is said to be strong if the attacker is
not able to trace back the tag with the help of its communication
with the tag.
• Forward secrecy: It ensures that some compromised present com-
munication information could not be used to obtain past communi-
cation information.
• Confidentiality: It ensures that all the information is transferred
secretly without getting revealed to anyone except the receiver.
• Availability: It ensures that the authentication protocol works all
the time, thus not causing desynchronization between the tag and
the server.

1.4 CONCLUSION
Our research work has addressed various issues in securing IoT networks,
which enabled us to develop various mutual authentication protocols that
strengthen the security and privacy of IoT devices and prevent confidential
data from theft. We have discussed that the present scenario of IoT research
is mainly focused on the development of technologies for its implementation.
By examining the recent statistics and literature, we have also uncovered vari-
ous challenges that have the potential to prevent IoT from growing to its full
potential.
The potential capabilities of IoT can reduce a lot of time and expenditure
of various organizations. These devices are excellent data collectors and sen-
sors; therefore, they can help in efficient decision-making in a wide range of
applications. However, security remains the biggest issue in the IoT domain.
A lot of research is being carried out in this area to provide strong security
and privacy mechanisms in IoT networks. The development of standards and
protocol set is necessary to build the IoT network properly. Only time will ulti-
mately tell how far IoT will reach and how it will reshape the world. However,
by the planned integration of existing technologies, we can make IoT networks
secure and more efficient.
IoT Design,
Standards,
and Protocols
2
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a highly distributed and dynamic cyber-physical
system. It integrates devices having sensors, identification systems, storage,
communication, processing, and networking capabilities. With the advance-
ment of technology, sensors and actuators have more complex specifications,
which are available in lesser cost and smaller sizes nowadays. These devices
are making the growth of ubiquitous computing easier. Various industries are
deploying IoT for the development of industrial applications to increase auto-
mation and monitoring. The rapid advancement of technology and industrial-
ization will enable the applications of IoT in various fields and industries. For
example, consider the food industry that has integrated radio frequency iden-
tification (RFID) technology with wireless sensor networks (WSN) in order
to automate the process of monitoring, tracking, and measuring the quality of
food of any food supply chain [1,2].
In this chapter, we will survey the current scenario of security and trust
management in IoT by analyzing existing works and taxonomies of security
schemes and checking their compatibility with the existing IoT applications.
We also open issues and challenges and the expected future trends related to
IoT growth and need of security. The ongoing research in the field of IoT is
majorly focused on technology [3]. The full realization of IoT is not done yet;
therefore, there are huge opportunities of technical growth and development in
the field of IoT. However, the rapid growth rate of technology and the research
in IoT will have applications in the fields such as law, economics, management,
and social studies [4]. RFID technology, which is a primary enabler for IoT,
has also seen a rapid growth in the last couple of years. It has applications in
the field of retail management, transportation and logistics, and healthcare [8].
With the increasing use of RFID, the maintenance of security and data privacy
has also become a chief concern.
RFID systems are always deployed in bulk; these systems comprise a set
of tags that have some storage and computational capabilities. These tags are

11
12 A Beginner’s Guide to Internet of Things Security

monitored and identified using readers equipped with transponders to com-


municate with these tags. RFID systems are being used in retail at large scales
replacing barcodes due to their resistance to tampering and ease of reading.
RFID tags do not have to be in the line of sight of the reader for identification
and communication. However, RFID tags have a limited storage and compu-
tational capability [9,10].

2.1 LAYERED IoT ARCHITECTURE


The standardization organizations are working on designing layered architec-
ture for IoT. However, as of now, IoT devices have no standard architecture;
there are few tentative models that are being used by the researchers. The
existing IoT architectures have three, four, or five layers; the most widely used
is the three-layered architecture: application layer, middleware layer, and sen-
sor layer, as shown in Figure 2.1.
Perception/sensor layer: This layer identifies objects uniquely within the
IoT networks. It also uses sensors to collect data from its surroundings and
other objects. This layer deploys WSN or RFID tags depending upon the appli-
cations’ requirements. The data collected by the sensors is transferred to the
middleware layer for further processing.

FIGURE 2.1 IoT architecture.


Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
But all through “Gulliver’s Travels” the folly and wickedness of men is
greatly overdrawn, and in the final voyage to the country of the
Houyhnhnms the colors are quite too dark to be truthful. This part of
the book is not a mere satire, but a malignant invective against
humanity, so bitter that it ceases to be either attractive or convincing.
The lawyers sell out to the highest bidder, the doctors kill their
patients to justify their own prognostications; all mankind is vile—
worse than the beasts,—until we begin to feel an aversion for an
author whose judgment has been so greatly distorted by his own
malevolence. We can not help inferring that he who attributes such
qualities to his fellow-creatures must himself have a large share of
them; and it is not surprising to find great irregularities and scandals
in the life of Swift, nor to learn that at last his mind flickered out in
imbecility.
MANON LESCAUT
THE ABBÉ PRÉVOST

What is the subtle charm of “Manon Lescaut” which has given it the
place of a classic in French fiction, and which causes it to be read at
the present time with the same delight as when it was written? It
does not sparkle with wit, nor is it filled with wisdom. The heroine is
far from being an estimable character, and the poor hero, the
Chevalier des Grieux, is admirable only in one thing—in his constant
and self-sacrificing devotion to the unworthy object of his passion.

He meets her in the courtyard of an inn at Passy. It is a case of love


at first sight. They flee from the inn together, and Manon becomes
his mistress. The youth is ardent but inexperienced, while the girl,
though no older in years, is far maturer, more subtle and self-
asserting. It is not many weeks before she forsakes him for a more
advantageous connection. For a long time he is in despair at her
faithlessness. At last he enters upon a regular life, and becomes a
student in a theological seminary. On the day of his graduation she
comes to him again. In a moment all his good resolutions are flung to
the winds and he falls at once under her influence. They live for a
time upon the money she has acquired from a more opulent lover,
but it is stolen, and he betakes himself to the gambler’s expedients
to restore their shattered fortunes. She leads him into evil courses,
and many are the tricks they play upon her other admirers. Twice
they are thrown into prison, and on the last occasion, to gratify the
revenge of a defrauded and disappointed suitor, Manon is sent with
a chain gang to the French settlement at New Orleans. Her lover
goes with her, and after they are established in their distant abode
they decide to invoke the aid of the church upon their union and to
become man and wife. But the governor of the province has other
views for Manon, and desires to marry her to his nephew. A duel
follows, and the Chevalier des Grieux is forced to flee. Manon
accompanies him to the wilderness, but, unable to endure the
fatigues and perils of such a life, she expires in the arms of her lover.

This sounds like rather poor material for a novel, yet so charmingly
and simply is the story told, so deep and so natural is the Chevalier’s
passion, that he invests his wayward mistress in our eyes with the
same charms that he sees in her himself, until we pardon the
infidelities of the beautiful creature almost as readily as he.
TOM JONES
HENRY FIELDING

There are some who insist that Fielding’s “Tom Jones” has not been
surpassed by the work of any of the later novelists.

I confess that on the second reading of this story I failed to find in


either plot or portraiture that excellence which would entitle the book
to take a preëminent rank among works of fiction. In the succession
of adventures which compose the tale there is a recurrence of
incidents which resemble each other so closely that they cease to be
novel or attractive. Conversations are usually interrupted by the
unexpected appearance of some one not desired, or else by an
“uproar” followed by a fight, until the repetition becomes
monotonous. There is not a character in the book capable of
arousing any strong feeling of admiration or sympathy.

Sophia Western is intended to be amiable and attractive, though she


gives little evidence of any remarkable or alluring qualities in what
she says or does. Her sufferings are hardly great enough to cause
distress to the reader, and the manner in which she finally agrees to
wed her scapegrace of a lover, without waiting for the probationary
year which she had first required, does not betoken any great
constancy or strength of purpose.

Tom Jones himself is not beset by those overpowering temptations


and strong passions which might in a way excuse his scandalous
behavior. He is indeed warm-hearted, courageous, and fond of his
benefactor, Mr. Allworthy, and he is apparently somewhat attached
even to the young woman to whom he is continually unfaithful. If he
has other excellences, they do not appear, while his vices are
conspicuous and repulsive. A thoroughly interesting character can
not be made out of such material.

On the other hand, hypocrisy becomes living flesh and blood in the
person of the discreet, pious, treacherous, cold-blooded Blifil, who
“visited his friend Jones but seldom, and never alone,” and
“cautiously avoided any intimacy lest it might contaminate the
sobriety of his own character.”

The most picturesque person in the book is undoubtedly Squire


Western, with his senseless prejudices and his wild outbreaks of
passion.

But if we leave the characters and incidents out of the question,


there is a good deal of delightful reading in the book. The author is a
consummate master of English. I began “Tom Jones” just after
finishing “David Copperfield,” and the transition from the style of
Dickens to that of Fielding was a refreshing surprise. The chapters
which are introductory to each of the so-called “books” of the novel
are intended, as the author tells us, to set off the rest by reason of
their dulness. Some of them are in fact a little tedious, but many are
pleasant excursions into fields of criticism and satire which mark the
author as an essayist of the first order. The mock-heroic manner in
which he describes the methods of his own work, the burlesque
praises which he bestows upon it, and his contempt for his critics,
are very amusing.

“This work,” he says, “may indeed be considered as a great creation


of our own, and for a little reptile of a critic to presume to find fault
with any of its parts without knowing the manner in which the whole
is connected, and before he comes to the final catastrophe, is a most
presumptuous absurdity.”
In another place he gives a comic justification of plagiarism from
classical authors:

“The ancients,” he says, “may be considered as a rich common


where every person who has the smallest tenement in Parnassus
hath a free right to fatten his muse.” “The writers of antiquity were so
many wealthy squires from whom the poor might claim an
immemorial custom of taking whatever they could come at, so long
as they maintained strict honesty among themselves.”

His use of epic diction in the description of the commonplace is


sometimes irresistibly comic,—for example, the following on the fight
of Mollie Seagrim in the churchyard:

“Recount, O Muse, the names of those who fell on this fatal day.
First, Jemmy Tweedle felt on his hinder head the direful bone.
Him the pleasant banks of sweetly winding Stour had nourished,
where he first learnt the vocal art, with which, wandering up and
down at wakes and fairs, he cheered the rural nymphs and
swains, when upon the green they interweaved the sprightly
dance, while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to his own
music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the verdant floor
with his carcass.”

Contrary to the general opinion, I think that Fielding is entitled to far


more praise for the literary quality which pervades his novel than for
its “realism” and “fidelity to nature” which are the claims of most of its
admirers.
RASSELAS
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

Dr. Johnson is one of the few men whose reputation is due, not so
much to his writings (which are generally the source of all permanent
renown in a literary man) as to his conversation and his peculiarities
as recorded by his wonderful biographer—things which in most men
are the source of a very limited and evanescent fame.

It is not intended here to dispute the conclusions of Macaulay that he


was both a great and a good man, but merely to point out how little
good work he has put forth to justify his prodigious reputation. For
instance, he compiled a dictionary; and although it was never a very
good dictionary, and is now quite obsolete, yet the memory of the
tremendous stir it made has lasted down to the present time. He
wrote some annotations of Shakespeare’s plays, which show that he
had a very limited understanding of their meaning, yet his
observations have been more generally quoted than those of
commentators far more accurate and discerning. He entered the field
of fiction and wrote “Rasselas,” and there are very few novels (if
“Rasselas” can be called a novel at all) which upon their intrinsic
merits less deserve an extravagant reputation as one of the classics
of our literature.

The plot is the slenderest possible. Rasselas, the fourth son of the
emperor of Abyssinia, is confined within the “Happy Valley,” from
which exit is impossible, and, wanting nothing, naturally suffers from
ennui. He spends twenty months in fruitless imaginings, and then
four months more in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves,
when he is awakened to more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid
who had broken a porcelain cup remark, “What cannot be repaired is
not to be regretted.” Then for a few hours he “regretted his regret,”
and from that time bent his whole mind to the means of escape. He
spent ten months trying to find a way out (a job which would be
laughed at by an able-bodied member of the Alpine Club) then he
betook himself to an inventor of a flying machine, who of course
came to grief. Finally a poet, named Imlac, told Rasselas of his
extensive travels, and they received from the conies, who had “dug
holes tending upwards in an oblique line,” a hint as to the means of
escape, of which Dr. Johnson gives the following rather foggy
description: “By piercing the mountain in the same direction, we will
begin where the summit hangs over the middle part and labor
upwards till we issue up behind the prominence.” The two now
proceed to tunnel the mountain, and Nekayah, the prince’s sister,
with her favorite maid, Pekuah, accompany them to the outside
world. They journey to Cairo, where they engage in the search for
happiness,—philosophy, the pastoral life, material prosperity,
solitude, the life led “according to nature,” the splendor of courts, the
modesty of humble life, marriage, and celibacy, all being
successively examined and found wanting. They visit the pyramids,
and here Pekuah is carried away by a band of Arabs, but she is
afterwards ransomed and relates her adventures (which are not
interesting) at considerable length. They admire the learning and
happiness of a certain astronomer, but Imlac finds out that he is
crazy; they consult an old man whose wisdom has deeply impressed
them, but who can give them little comfort; they discuss the merits of
conventual life; finally they visit the catacombs, where Imlac
discourses on the nature of the soul; and at “the conclusion in which
nothing is concluded” (for this is the title of the last chapter), Pekuah
thinks she would like to be the prioress of a convent, Nekayah wants
to learn all the sciences and found a college, Rasselas desires a little
kingdom where he can administer justice, while Imlac and the
astronomer (who has now recovered his right mind) “were contented
to be driven along the stream of life without directing their course to
any particular port.” They all know that none of their wishes can be
gratified, so they resolve to go home. This conclusion might have
been inserted almost anywhere else in the book with equal propriety.

The story is a mere thread upon which is hung a succession of


reflections and homilies, some of which are shallow, many
commonplace and trite, and only a few are at the same time striking,
original, and worthy of remembrance.

The author maintains the existence of ghosts because belief in them


is supported by the “concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages
and of all nations,” and such an opinion “could become universal
only by its truth!”

There is very little humor to be found in the ponderous moralizing of


this book. There is, however, a touch of quaint satire upon the
theories of contemporary French philosophy, that deserves to be
remembered. Rasselas is listening to a philosopher who advises his
hearers to “throw away the incumbrance of precepts” and carry with
them “this simple and intelligible maxim that ‘deviation from nature is
deviation from happiness.’” He asks what it is to live according to
nature, and the philosopher answers:

“‘To live according to nature is to act always with due regard to the
fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and
effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of
universal felicity; to cooperate with the general disposition and
tendency of the present system of things.’

“The prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he
should understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore
bowed and was silent; and the philosopher, supposing him
satisfied, and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the
air of a man that had coöperated with the present system.”

The style of “Rasselas” (like that of everything Dr. Johnson wrote) is


stilted and affected. In the Happy Valley “every blast shook spices
from the rocks and every month dropped fruits.” Its inhabitants
“wandered in the gardens of fragrance and slept in the fortresses of
security.” When Rasselas reaches Cairo he tells us of the gilded
youth of that metropolis, that “their mirth was without images, their
laughter without motive.... The frown of power dejected and the eye
of wisdom abashed them.”

Of a professor who there lectured on philosophy, Rasselas declares:


“He speaks, and attention watches his lips. He reasons, and
conviction closes his periods.” This might do in an oration, but it is
pretty poor for a novel. But worst of all, Dr. Johnson puts into the
mouth of the young and innocent Nekayah the following words upon
the subject of marriage:

“When I see and reckon the various forms of connubial infelicity,


the unexpected causes of lasting discord, the diversities of
temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude collisions of contrary
desire where both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate
contests of disagreeable virtues where both are supported by
consciousness of good intention, I am sometimes disposed to
think with the severer casuists of most nations, that marriage is
rather permitted than approved, and that none, but by the
instigation of a passion too much indulged, entangle themselves
with indissoluble compacts.”

Readers who think that this sort of conversation is natural and


beautiful ought to be fond of “Rasselas,” but those who do not will
inevitably feel that it was too bad that the author of the great
Dictionary had so intimate an acquaintance with so many words.
CANDIDE
FRANÇOIS VOLTAIRE

In the same year that “Rasselas” appeared (1759), Voltaire


published his “Candide.” While the coarseness and irreverent
merriment of the French philosopher are quite unlike the ponderous
Sunday-school didacticism of Dr. Johnson, still there are points of
remarkable resemblance in these two works, written as they were by
the two literary autocrats of that generation. The Happy Valley of
Abyssinia finds its counterpart in El Dorado, and the object of each
book was to illustrate the same truths—the uncertainties and
vicissitudes of life and the vanity of human wishes, although the
moral drawn from these truths is very different in the two cases.

Saintsbury considers “Candide”, from a literary point of view,


“unsurpassable,” while some of Voltaire’s critics and commentators
seem to regard it as scarcely worthy of notice. The truth lies
somewhere between these estimates. “Candide” can hardly be
classed as a novel, for it is in no sense a just portraiture of life or of
human nature. It is essentially a burlesque written in ridicule of
philosophic optimism, and of the orthodox contention that all which
happens is the result of a wise and beneficent design. It is a work
thoroughly characteristic of Voltaire, and sparkles everywhere with
his wit and laughing mockery.

Candide, the hero, is brought up in the castle of the Baron of


Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, where Master Pangloss, the instructor who
teaches meta-physico-theologo-cosmolo-ingology, is the oracle of
the family. “It is demonstrable,” says this great philosopher, “that
things cannot be otherwise than they are; for as all things have been
created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best
end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles;
therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for
stockings; accordingly we wear stockings,” etc. The book is a
commentary on this text. Candide is kicked out of the castle for
falling in love with the baron’s daughter. After sad wanderings, he is
impressed by the Bulgarians, flogged nearly to death, takes part in
the war with the Abares, in which some thirty thousand souls are
massacred, escapes to Holland, meets the sage Pangloss, who is
dying of a loathsome disease and who tells him that the castle has
been destroyed and its inmates put to death. But Pangloss recovers
and they start for Portugal, encountering a tempest, a shipwreck, the
earthquake of Lisbon, (where 30,000 people were destroyed,) and
finally the Inquisition and an auto-da-fé, where Candide receives a
hundred lashes and Pangloss is hanged. Here Candide finds that his
inamorata Cunegund is alive, having escaped the slaughter at
Thunder-Ten-Tronckh, though she has encountered calamities equal
to his own, and though at that time the Grand Inquisitor and one
Issachar, a Jew, are holding her as their prisoner and slave. Candide
slays them one after the other, and escapes with his Cunegund to
Cadiz, whence they set sail for Buenos Aires. But here things are as
bad as in Europe. Cunegund is again torn from her lover, who, with
his servant, Cacambo, wanders through Paraguay; fights with her
brother the baron, who has turned Jesuit and become one of the
rulers of that country; escapes again, and discovers the hitherto
inaccessible and unknown country of El Dorado in the heart of the
mountains, where the clay is yellow gold, the pebbles are precious
stones, where there are no priests, nor monks, nor courts, nor
prisons, and where the people lead lives of innocence and ideal
happiness. Upon his departure he takes with him a flock of sheep
laden with treasure, but as soon as he reaches the haunts of men
the wickedness of the world begins again. His treasure is stolen and
he returns to Europe, meeting with marvellous adventures in France,
in England, in Venice, and finally in Turkey, where he again
encounters his Cunegund, ransoms her from slavery, and weds her,
after she has become a hideous and ill-favored scold. The sage
Pangloss, although he has been hanged, dissected, enslaved and
flogged, turns up again, still maintaining that everything goes on as
well as possible, because as a philosopher it would be unbecoming
in him to retract!

At every turn of the kaleidoscope some new scene of fraud, lust,


rapine, slaughter, sacrilege, or inevitable calamity, comes into view,
generally linked with some ridiculous accessory such as only the
mind of Voltaire could conceive, and yet with each grotesque
apparition there comes also a sort of conviction that the author has
not greatly overdrawn the picture, but has merely grouped together
in startling juxtaposition the things which actually happen in the
world.

At last Candide settles in a small farm in the Propontis, and from a


neighbor, an old man, quite ignorant of philosophy and public affairs,
he learns the real secret of happiness,—to cultivate his little patch of
land, and by labor to keep off the three great evils, idleness, vice,
and want. The moral is thus expressed in the concluding sentences:

“‘There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible


worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle
for the love of Miss Cunegund, had you not been put into the
Inquisition, had you not traveled over America on foot, had you
not run the baron through the body, and had you not lost all your
sheep which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you
would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio
nuts.’ ‘Excellently observed,’ answered Candide, ‘but let us take
care of our garden.’”

While the story as a whole is a wild phantasmagoria, calling to mind


the works of Rabelais by its grossness and inextricable confusion, it
contains also, like “Gargantua,” passages of exquisite irony and
masterly satire. For instance, the Venetian senator Pococurante,
who by despising and condemning the great works of art and
literature proved his superiority to all and passed for a prodigious
genius, is vividly drawn, and it makes us wonder whether Voltaire’s
own great reputation had not a source which was essentially the
same as that of his Pococurante.
TRISTRAM SHANDY
LAURENCE STERNE

I was for some time in doubt whether “Tristram Shandy” ought to be


in my list of masterpieces. In one sense it is hardly a work of fiction
at all, for a few rather trifling incidents are made the basis of such
endless digressions and ruminations that it is in fact not so much a
story as a medley of satire, philosophy, and humor. But the ear-
marks of Cervantes and Rabelais appear in it very plainly, and
perhaps it is as much entitled to a place here as the burlesques of
the celebrated Frenchman.

I began “Tristram Shandy” several times, and read the greater part of
it on disconnected occasions; yet the poor hero had such a hard
time, through so many hundreds of pages, in getting into the world at
all, that I always gave up without reading the book to the end. And,
to say the truth, nobody ought to read it consecutively. A part of the
humor consists in the endless prolixity with which trifling events are
narrated, and a joke thus lengthened out into the enormous
dimensions of several volumes becomes too huge to handle all at
once. Another part of the humor is displayed in the jumble with which
the events and observations upon them are thrown together. The
preface, for instance (and a very amusing preface it is), is pitched
into the middle of the book. Whole chapters are omitted and their
places supplied by stars, and the subsequent chapters (which tell the
whole story) are given to explaining why these omissions were
made, namely, that the parts left out were too fine for the rest of the
story. The author appropriately asks us, after several volumes of this
confusion, how our heads feel!

The style, which is generally conversational and highly idiomatic, is


sometimes purposely involved, and gives us a picturesque, vague
impression, which is often vivid, though upon analysis it represents
nothing in particular. Evidently Carlyle, who was a great admirer of
Sterne, imitated his manner in places, though he lacked much of the
wit and lightness of fancy of the author of “Tristram Shandy.” There
are indeed passages in which the style of the two authors is almost
indistinguishable.

Naturally, in such a book a good part of the fun has to be dug out
with considerable labor; and this is not always the way in which
humor is most attractive. To the reader who is anxious for a
denouement, “Tristram Shandy” is a most exasperating work, for
there is no denouement at all. You never get anywhere, and the
book ends, like the Sentimental Journey, right at the midst of
perhaps the most interesting part of it.

It improves a good deal, however, upon a second reading, when you


no longer care how anything is going to turn out, and when the
choice morsels are more easily extracted. It contains a great many
observations which go well in a commonplace book, containing as
they do a humorous epitome of matters of universal knowledge.
Sterne has the Shakespearean quality of filching from others and
then transforming his plunder into gold by a striking originality of his
own. The actual facts described are very few. Tristram’s birth, with all
its accessories, his broken nose, his christening, his father’s odd
philosophy and scheme of education, so elaborate that the boy’s
actual training had to be abandoned while the father was writing his
great Tristrapaedia,—these things, together with the history of Uncle
Toby, wounded in the groin at the siege of Namur, and of his faithful
servant Corporal Trim, and finally the episode of the Widow
Wadman, who laid siege to Uncle Toby’s heart, an episode broken
off in the middle at the end of the book, are pretty much all. But the
descriptions of character are admirable. The dear, simple-minded,
modest Uncle Toby, with his hobby, to wit: his fortifications and his
military science,—Uncle Toby, who continually interrupts the
emanations of Shandean philosophy by inapposite remarks, will
always be a type in literature.

The coarseness of “Tristram Shandy” excludes the book from


indiscriminate reading at the present time, but its coarseness,
although in places very great, is, on the whole, of a rather innocent
character, and the work will keep its place as a classic among the
lovers of genuine humor.

It contains occasional passages of singular beauty. Witness the


following.

“Time wastes too fast; every letter I trace tells me with what
rapidity life follows my pen; the days and hours of it more
precious, my dear Jenny, than the rubies about thy neck, are
flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to
return more; everything presses on,—whilst thou art twisting that
lock, see! it grows gray; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid
adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that
eternal separation which we are shortly to make.”
THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
OLIVER GOLDSMITH

I was forcibly reminded of the fact that our estimate of a work of


literature depends largely upon our mood and upon surrounding
circumstances after my last reading of “The Vicar of Wakefield.”
Upon a former reading I had been filled with great admiration for
Goldsmith’s novel. The plot seemed admirably constructed, the
characters well drawn, and the literary charm of the book
inexpressibly attractive. On the subsequent perusal the work did not
come up to the standard I had imagined. Both the style and the plot
appeared somewhat artificial, and the combination of incidents
improbable. The literary charm was there, but even that was not so
great as I had supposed. I can not altogether account for this change
of view. Perhaps it is due to the fact that my earlier reading was just
after my perusal of “Tom Jones,” and followed a certain
disappointment and disgust at Fielding’s work, whereas the final
reading followed the perusal of Manzoni’s masterpiece, “The
Betrothed,” by the side of which even “The Vicar of Wakefield”
shines with a lustre that is somewhat dim. It is perhaps also due to
the fact that the sudden alternations of fortune described in
Goldsmith’s novel are more startling, and therefore more attractive
on a fresh impression than they are when they are anticipated.

“The Vicar of Wakefield” begins with a delightful description of the


family of the good man who tells the story,—of his wife, “chosen for
the qualities that would wear well,” but whose conduct, I thought, did
not altogether justify such a selection; of his two daughters, Olivia
and Sophia, with romantic names in which the father had no choice;
and of his younger sons. Among these, he says, a family likeness
prevailed, and “properly speaking, they had but one character, that of
being all equally generous, credulous, simple, and inoffensive.” He
describes the part he took in the Whistonian controversy, maintaining
that it was unlawful for a priest of the church of England, after the
death of his first wife, to take another,—a controversy which led to a
difference with a neighboring clergyman, Mr. Wilmot, the father of
Arabella, to whom the vicar’s son George was betrothed, and ended
in the breaking off of the engagement, after it was also found that the
vicar’s fortune had been lost. Then follows a description of the
removal of the family to a new parish; of the departure of George to
seek his fortune; of the straightened circumstances and simple life of
the others; of the love of finery displayed by the wife and daughters;
of their efforts at gentility and their attempts to attract Squire
Thornhill, their dissolute landlord, and to secure him as a husband
for Olivia. The squire brings from London two women of abandoned
character, whom he introduces as ladies of high rank, and who seek
to induce the daughters of the honest clergyman to return with them
to the town.

Two attractive episodes are here introduced. In order to defray the


expenses necessary to keep up appearances and to send the girls to
London, the boy Moses is sent to a fair to sell the colt, and an
amusing account is given of his return with a gross of worthless
green spectacles, which a sharper had palmed off upon him. Then
the vicar himself goes to sell the other horse, and the same man,
one Ephraim Jenkinson, who appeared to be a pious and venerable
gentleman, and displayed great learning about Sanchoniathon,
Manetho, Berosus, Ocellus Lucanus, and the cosmogony of the
world, gives him a worthless draft upon one of his neighbors in
payment. These two episodes call to mind some of the adventures of
Gil Blas.

Upon his return home the vicar finds that the two great ladies from
London have departed, without his daughters, being dissuaded from
taking them by a letter of one Mr. Burchell, a friend of the family, a
gentleman in reduced circumstances, as was supposed, whose
attentions to Sophia have caused her father much anxiety. A letter of
Burchell is discovered, containing some dark insinuations, which are
erroneously thought to apply, not to the two women, but to the vicar’s
own family, and great is the indignation at Burchell for his
scandalous interference. Squire Thornhill continues his attentions to
the vicar’s eldest daughter, and is included with the family in a huge
picture, which is inadvertently made so large that it will not go into
any of the rooms of the vicar’s cottage, but has to stand against the
kitchen wall. Instead of pressing his suit openly, however, the squire
elopes with Olivia, upon whom he imposes a fictitious marriage, and
then, after a time, abandons her. The poor clergyman starts upon a
vain pursuit of his daughter, believing that Burchell is responsible for
her abduction. In his wanderings he comes upon his son George,
who is attached to a company of strolling players, and the young
man gives him an account of his adventures; of his travels in
Holland, whither he has gone to teach the Dutch English, without
reflecting that for this purpose it was necessary that he should first
learn Dutch; of his induction into the art of a connoisseur of pictures
at Paris, where he learns that the whole secret of it consists in a
strict adherence to two rules,—“the one, always to observe the
picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains;
and the other, to praise the works of Pietro Perugino.” The squire
arrives during the vicar’s interview with his son, and agrees to
purchase for George a commission in a West India regiment, taking
from the father a bond for a hundred pounds, the purchase money.

But shortly afterwards the vicar comes upon his daughter Olivia, who
is in great distress, and he learns from her that it is the squire, and
not Burchell, who has betrayed her. When the good man returns
home he finds his dwelling in flames, and rescues his two little boys,
but is seriously burned in the conflagration, and shortly afterwards he
has an altercation with the squire, who thereupon arrests him for
non-payment of the hundred pounds, and throws him into jail. One of
his fellow-prisoners begins to talk about cosmogony, Sanchoniathon,
etc., and he recognizes the rogue Jenkinson, who now, however,
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