Intelligent Forensics in Next-Generation Mobile Networks: Evidence, Methods, and Applications

This survey examines intelligent forensics in next-generation mobile networks, arguing that future wireless security must move beyond real-time detection toward accountable post-incident reconstruction. Unlike traditional digital forensics, wireless investigations rely on short-lived, distributed, and heterogeneous evidence, including radio waveforms, channel measurements, device-side artifacts, and network telemetry, affected by calibration, timing uncertainty, privacy constraints, and adversarial manipulation. To address this limitation, this paper develops an evidence-centric framework that treats wireless measurements as first-class forensic artifacts and organizes the field through a unified taxonomy spanning physical-layer, device-layer, network-layer, and cross-layer forensics. We further systematize the forensic workflow into readiness and preservation-by-design, acquisition, correlation and analysis, and reporting and reproducibility, while comparing the complementary roles of traditional methods and artificial intelligence-assisted techniques. Subsequently, we review major application areas, including anomaly discovery, attribution, provenance and localization, authenticity verification, and timeline reconstruction. Finally, we identify key open challenges, including domain shift, resource-aware evidence capture, and the benefits and admissibility risks of generative evidence. Overall, this paper positions wireless forensics as a foundational capability for trustworthy, auditable, and reproducible security in next-generation wireless systems. Readers can understand and streamline wireless forensics processes for specific applications, such as low-altitude wireless networks, vehicular communications, and edge general intelligence.

Cost Minimization for Space-Air-Ground Integrated Multi-Access Edge Computing Systems

Space-air-ground integrated multi-access edge computing (SAGIN-MEC) provides a promising solution for the rapidly developing low-altitude economy (LAE) to deliver flexible and wide-area computing services. However, fully realizing the potential of SAGIN-MEC in the LAE presents significant challenges, including coordinating decisions across heterogeneous nodes with different roles, modeling complex factors such as mobility and network variability, and handling real-time decision-making under partially observable environment with hybrid variables. To address these challenges, we first present a hierarchical SAGIN-MEC architecture that enables the coordination between user devices (UDs), uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), and satellites. Then, we formulate a UD cost minimization optimization problem (UCMOP) to minimize the UD cost by jointly optimizing the task offloading ratio, UAV trajectory planning, computing resource allocation, and UD association. We show that the UCMOP is an NP-hard problem. To overcome this challenge, we propose a multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (MADDPG)-convex optimization and coalitional game (MADDPG-COCG) algorithm. Specifically, we employ the MADDPG algorithm to optimize the continuous temporal decisions for heterogeneous nodes in the partially observable SAGIN-MEC system. Moreover, we propose a convex optimization and coalitional game (COCG) method to enhance the conventional MADDPG by deterministically handling the hybrid and varying-dimensional decisions. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed MADDPG-COCG algorithm significantly enhances the user-centric performances in terms of the aggregated UD cost, task completion delay, and UD energy consumption, with a slight increase in UAV energy consumption, compared to the benchmark algorithms. Moreover, the MADDPG-COCG algorithm shows superior convergence stability and scalability.