Abstract
Contemporary research is geared towards integrating multidisciplinary domains and targeted to developing robust solutions. This implies that single-discipline solutions most times do not give the desired results. This study intends to apply this concept statement in mitigating the hydra-headed challenge facing the world today called sharp-practice (corruption) which some believe that it is worse than the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The sharp practice is a major challenge in the world today and a threat to the development of any country. Sharp practices range from higher offices of the state institutions to the small offices located in remote and rural local areas. Non-profit Organizations (NPOs) are also affected by sharp practices as the office-bearers of these institutions are constantly misappropriating donors’ funds meant for these facilities for their selfish interests. State and private donors offer a large portion of their resources to NPOs to improve the standard of living of needy people in remote and rural areas. However, most NPOs sited in rural areas do not have systems that can be used to monitor and capture the management of resources. In this paper, we attempt to solve this challenge by proposing the integrating Smartphone Network Architecture (SMA) and Data Security Techniques (DST) to mitigate sharp practices in NPOs. In our approach, a smartphone-mobile app algorithm was developed using JavaScript. The app uses the Least Significant Bits (LSB) method to secretly embed a Date Stamp on a PNG image whenever an event is captured by a secret camera at the NPO’s center. The results showed that the LSB method is the most suitable technique to embed a small-scale secret data on the pixels of a PNG image file. The LSB technique does not require the original cover image for decoding the secret data hidden in the image over the network. From the study, these techniques have shown to improve accountability and alleviate corrupt practices in NPOs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 755-767 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Journal of Communications |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2020 |
Keywords
- Android
- Data Security
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Least Significant Bits (LSB)
- Red Green Blue (RGB) NPOs
- Sharp practices
- Smartphone
- Steganography
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering