Secure One-Way Hash Function Using Cellular Automata for IoT

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The motivation and significance of the proposed solution is not clear. The introduction of the paper could be extended to better reflect the above mentioned aspects (e.g., context, contributions, motivation, applicability, significance). It could also benefit from including a paragraph presenting the structure of the paper.

The related work section could be improved, it only presents 4 related works, moreover there is no critical analysis of the role of the presented works in the overall technological landscape. Also a comparison with the proposed solution should be provided.

The evaluation section could be improved. The presented analysis is relatively simple mainly only one metric is analyzed (i.e., collisions), in a single data set, with respect to a single hash function. More complex analysis should be provided, over more metrics, with several runs, and comparing with different hash functions. Some formal analysis of the performance of the solution should be introduced. It should also reflect the implementation and operation footprint of the solution.

The references of the paper could be updated (0 refs from 2022, 1 from 2021, 1 from 2020).

The paper would benefit from a proofreading process.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

 

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

Shyi-Tsong Wu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper proposes an interesting cellular automata based scheme for hash function in secure IoT. This paper is original and written in a good organization, and I recommend it should be published in Sustainability. Detailed comments are given in the sequel.

 (1)What is the novelty of this study? It should be emphasized in the introduction.

(2)Existing work review requires good improvement.

(3)In my opinion the work is interesting but it's not really clear how proposed work is really innovative respect to the existing applications.

(4)English should be improved and the whole paper should be checked again for typos. 

(5)It can add some recent references.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

 

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Shyi-Tsong Wu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In Table 1, Rule 45 is an image ... Use math editor.

In Introduction part, Gap analysis is missing

There is no consistancy between Section 1 and 2.

The title is noT related to the paper. In the Whole paper only 3 times IoT term has been used. It is really NOT transparent that where in IoT later This algorithm is used?

It seems lacks of synchronization between IoT layers and Security measures.

In page 5, Suddenly Fig 9? How it comes?

There may be comparison between Multilayer and single layer concept.

Fig. 9... This is an Algorithm. It must NOT be a figure.

Result analysis part is NOT up to the mark.

Conclusions needs to be more elaborate. Future works is missing.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

 

Shyi-Tsong Wu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Upon careful review of the document, I identified several areas of concern. 

1-The research question is not clearly defined and needs to be described more clearly in order to be understood.

2- What is your originality? what research gap is your work covered up?

3-The abstract and conclusion sections should include numerical values to support the findings, rather than relying on relative values. 

4- Additionally, the abstract and introduction should provide background on the topic, explain the gap in existing research that the work aims to address, describe the motivations and goals of the study, and outline the methods and techniques used.

5-There are not enough citations in the introduction section. Using the below 5 key references in the introduction section, discuss a few sentences about the paper's topic and new state-of-the-art subjects.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9325911

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23307706.2022.2067253

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/xx/d2ee01590k/unauth

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8910379

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9130693

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9354924

6-If formulas are borrowed from other works, they must be cited.

7-The structure of the introduction section should be revised.

8-The security analysis and experimental results should be expanded upon and explained in greater detail. It is also necessary to describe the rationale behind the selection of evaluation criteria.

9-The implications of the work beyond the scope and future work must be stated in the conclusion section.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

 

Sincerely,

 

Shyi-Tsong Wu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have improved the quality of the paper. Still the addressing of the following comments will be highly recommendable:

- In the introduction include the larger picture. Answering questions such as: Where would this mechanism would be applicable? How it would make the difference?

- The results in sections 4.2 and 4.3 would still require to have several runs to have larger statistical meaningfulness. Also the results from these sections could be expanded to cover more schemes (as in 4.4 and 4.5).

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

 

Shyi-Tsong WU

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Lots of appreaciation for making modifications.

1. Table [4-6] may be explained along with graphs. It will put good impact as MDPI standard.

2. Fig. 10 may be explained more.

3. Please focus more in Fig. 7. to make consistent with the flow.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Firstly, the authors wish to thank the reviewers for the great care to our paper and the very useful comments. We have made several modifications in response to the comments and suggestions. The places with modifications were marked in the revised version printed in red color. The replies to the questions raised by reviewers and the revised manuscript were provided in attached files.

We would like to express our gratitude to the reviewers again. The valuable comments have enriched the submitted paper deeply. Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

 

Shyi-Tsong Wu

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf