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Air Force Institute of Technology

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Full-Text Articles in Computer Engineering

Passive Physical Layer Distinct Native Attribute Cyber Security Monitor, Christopher M. Rondeau, Michael A. Temple, Juan Lopez Jr, J. Addison Betances Dec 2023

Passive Physical Layer Distinct Native Attribute Cyber Security Monitor, Christopher M. Rondeau, Michael A. Temple, Juan Lopez Jr, J. Addison Betances

AFIT Patents

A method for cyber security monitor includes monitoring a network interface that is input-only configured to surreptitiously and covertly receive bit-level, physical layer communication between networked control and sensor field devices. During a training mode, a baseline distinct native attribute (DNA) fingerprint is generated for each networked field device. During a protection mode, a current DNA fingerprint is generated for each networked field device. The current DNA fingerprint is compared to the baseline DNA fingerprint for each networked field device. In response to detect at least one of RAA and PAA based on a change in the current DNA fingerprint …


Ads-B Classification Using Multivariate Long Short-Term Memory–Fully Convolutional Networks And Data Reduction Techniques, Sarah Bolton *, Richard Dill, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas Hodson Feb 2023

Ads-B Classification Using Multivariate Long Short-Term Memory–Fully Convolutional Networks And Data Reduction Techniques, Sarah Bolton *, Richard Dill, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas Hodson

Faculty Publications

Researchers typically increase training data to improve neural net predictive capabilities, but this method is infeasible when data or compute resources are limited. This paper extends previous research that used long short-term memory–fully convolutional networks to identify aircraft engine types from publicly available automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data. This research designs two experiments that vary the amount of training data samples and input features to determine the impact on the predictive power of the ADS-B classification model. The first experiment varies the number of training data observations from a limited feature set and results in 83.9% accuracy (within 10% of …


Quantifying Dds-Cerberus Network Control Overhead, Andrew T. Park, Nathaniel R. Peck, Richard Dill, Douglas D. Hodson, Michael R. Grimaila, Wayne C. Henry Sep 2022

Quantifying Dds-Cerberus Network Control Overhead, Andrew T. Park, Nathaniel R. Peck, Richard Dill, Douglas D. Hodson, Michael R. Grimaila, Wayne C. Henry

Faculty Publications

Securing distributed device communication is critical because the private industry and the military depend on these resources. One area that adversaries target is the middleware, which is the medium that connects different systems. This paper evaluates a novel security layer, DDS-Cerberus (DDS-C), that protects in-transit data and improves communication efficiency on data-first distribution systems. This research contributes a distributed robotics operating system testbed and designs a multifactorial performance-based experiment to evaluate DDS-C efficiency and security by assessing total packet traffic generated in a robotics network. The performance experiment follows a 2:1 publisher to subscriber node ratio, varying the number of …


Early Warning Reentry System Comprising High Efficiency Module For Determining Spacecraft Reentry Time, Robert A. Bettinger Apr 2022

Early Warning Reentry System Comprising High Efficiency Module For Determining Spacecraft Reentry Time, Robert A. Bettinger

AFIT Patents

The present invention relates to an early warning reentry system comprising a high efficiency module for determining spacecraft reentry time and a highly efficient method for determining spacecraft reentry time. The method permits more accurate, earlier spacecraft reentry time determinations using publicly available trajectory information without the need for accounting for the actual design configuration of the spacecraft in question. Thus, a module for making such determinations can easily and inexpensively be added to an early warning reentry system.


Exploiting The Iot Through Network-Based Covert Channels, Kyle S. Harris Mar 2022

Exploiting The Iot Through Network-Based Covert Channels, Kyle S. Harris

Theses and Dissertations

Information leaks are a top concern to industry and government leaders. The IoT is a technology capable of sensing real-world events. A method for exfiltrating data from these devices is by covert channel. This research designs a novel IoT CTC without the need for inter-packet delays to encode data. Instead, it encodes data within preexisting network information, namely ports or addresses. Additionally, the CTC can be implemented in two different modes: Stealth and Bandwidth. Performance is measured using throughput and detectability. The Stealth methods mimic legitimate traffic captures while the Bandwidth methods forgo this approach for maximum throughput. Detection results …


Implementation And Characterization Of Ahr On A Xilinx Fpga, Andrew J. Dittrich Mar 2022

Implementation And Characterization Of Ahr On A Xilinx Fpga, Andrew J. Dittrich

Theses and Dissertations

A new version of the Adaptive-Hybrid Redundancy (AHR) architecture was developed to be implemented and tested in hardware using Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The AHR architecture was developed to mitigate the effects that the Single Event Upset (SEU) and Single Event Transient (SET) radiation effects have on processors and was tested on a Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages (MIPS) architecture. The AHR MIPS architecture was implemented in hardware using two Xilinx FPGAs. A Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) based serial communication network was added to the AHR MIPS design to enable inter-board communication between the two FPGAs. The …


Evaluating Neural Network Decoder Performance For Quantum Error Correction Using Various Data Generation Models, Brett M. Martin Mar 2022

Evaluating Neural Network Decoder Performance For Quantum Error Correction Using Various Data Generation Models, Brett M. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Neural networks have been shown in the past to perform quantum error correction (QEC) decoding with greater accuracy and efficiency than algorithmic decoders. Because the qubits in a quantum computer are volatile and only usable on the order of milliseconds before they decohere, a means of fast quantum error correction is necessary in order to correct data qubit errors within the time budget of a quantum algorithm. Algorithmic decoders are good at resolving errors on logical qubits with only a few data qubits, but are less efficient in systems containing more data qubits. With neural network decoders, practical quantum computation …


Evaluating The Use Of Boot Image Encryption On Talos Ii Architecture, Calvin M. Muramoto Mar 2022

Evaluating The Use Of Boot Image Encryption On Talos Ii Architecture, Calvin M. Muramoto

Theses and Dissertations

Sensitive devices operating in unprotected environments are vulnerable to hardware attacks like reverse engineering and side channel analysis. This represents a security concern because the root of trust can be invalidated through boot firmware manipulation. For example, boot data is rarely encrypted and typically travels across an accessible bus like the LPC bus, allowing data to be easily intercepted and possibly manipulated during system startup. The ash chip storing the boot data can also be removed from these devices and examined to reveal detailed boot information. This paper details an implementation of encrypting a section of the boot image and …


Uav Payload Identification With Acoustic Emissions And Cell Phone Devices, Hunter G. Doster Mar 2022

Uav Payload Identification With Acoustic Emissions And Cell Phone Devices, Hunter G. Doster

Theses and Dissertations

The growing presence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) brings new threats to the civilian and military front. In response, the Department of Defense (DoD) is developing many drone detection systems. Current systems use Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), and Radio Frequency (RF). Although useful, these technologies are becoming easier to spoof every year, and some are limited to line of sight. Acoustic emissions are a unique quality all drones emit. Acoustics are difficult to spoof and do not require line of sight for detection. This research expands the research field of study by creating HurtzHunter, …


Securing Infiniband Networks With End-Point Encryption, Noah B. Diamond Mar 2022

Securing Infiniband Networks With End-Point Encryption, Noah B. Diamond

Theses and Dissertations

The NVIDIA-Mellanox Bluefield-2 is a 100 Gbps high-performance network interface which offers hardware offload and acceleration features that can operate directly on network traffic without routine involvement from the ARM CPU. This allows the ARM multi-core CPU to orchestrate the hardware to perform operations on both Ethernet and RDMA traffic at high rates rather than processing all the traffic directly. A testbed called TNAP was created for performance testing and a MiTM verification process called MiTMVMP is used to ensure proper network configuration. The hardware accelerators of the Bluefield-2 support a throughput of nearly 86 Gbps when using IPsec to …


Effect Of Connection State & Transport/Application Protocol On The Machine Learning Outlier Detection Of Network Intrusions, George Yuchi [*], Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals Jan 2022

Effect Of Connection State & Transport/Application Protocol On The Machine Learning Outlier Detection Of Network Intrusions, George Yuchi [*], Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

The majority of cyber infiltration & exfiltration intrusions leave a network footprint, and due to the multi-faceted nature of detecting network intrusions, it is often difficult to detect. In this work a Zeek-processed PCAP dataset containing the metadata of 36,667 network packets was modeled with several machine learning algorithms to classify normal vs. anomalous network activity. Principal component analysis with a 10% contamination factor was used to identify anomalous behavior. Models were created using recursive feature elimination on logistic regression and XGBClassifier algorithms, and also using Bayesian and bandit optimization of neural network hyperparameters. These models were trained on a …


Approaches To Improve The Execution Time Of A Quantum Network Simulation, Joseph B. Tippit Dec 2021

Approaches To Improve The Execution Time Of A Quantum Network Simulation, Joseph B. Tippit

Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating quantum networks is an expensive and time-consuming task that benefits from simulation. A potential improvement is to utilize GPUs, namely by leveraging NVIDIA's programming framework, CUDA. To avoid performance pitfalls of higher level languages and programming models such as the so called "two language problem," the Julia Programming Language provides the basis for the development effort. This research develops a two module prototype quantum network simulation framework using GPUs and Julia. Performance of the software is measured and compared against other languages such as MATLAB.


Design, Development, And Testing Of Embedded Computing On Afit's Control & Autonomy Space Proximity Robot (Caspr), Collin A. Gwaltney Dec 2021

Design, Development, And Testing Of Embedded Computing On Afit's Control & Autonomy Space Proximity Robot (Caspr), Collin A. Gwaltney

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviews RPO algorithm testbeds and discusses the development of the Control and Autonomy Space proximity Robot (CASpR) kinematic testbed housed at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). CASpR operates on a rail system to propagate the trajectories of two satellites using the Hill-Clohessy-Wiltshire (HCW) Equations of Motion (EOMs). In this study, the implementation of a Jetson TX2i as an onboard flight computer is discussed and accomplished. Each hardware component used in the process of adding embedded computing as well as the software and paths of communication are all discussed in detail. Tests are conducted to assess the …


Traffic Collision Avoidance System: False Injection Viability, John Hannah, Robert F. Mills, Richard A. Dill, Douglas D. Hodson Nov 2021

Traffic Collision Avoidance System: False Injection Viability, John Hannah, Robert F. Mills, Richard A. Dill, Douglas D. Hodson

Faculty Publications

Safety is a simple concept but an abstract task, specifically with aircraft. One critical safety system, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System II (TCAS), protects against mid-air collisions by predicting the course of other aircraft, determining the possibility of collision, and issuing a resolution advisory for avoidance. Previous research to identify vulnerabilities associated with TCAS’s communication processes discovered that a false injection attack presents the most comprehensive risk to veritable trust in TCAS, allowing for a mid-air collision. This research explores the viability of successfully executing a false injection attack against a target aircraft, triggering a resolution advisory. Monetary constraints precluded …


Shifting Satellite Control Paradigms: Operational Cybersecurity In The Age Of Megaconstellations, Carl A. Poole [*], Robert A. Bettinger, Mark Reith Oct 2021

Shifting Satellite Control Paradigms: Operational Cybersecurity In The Age Of Megaconstellations, Carl A. Poole [*], Robert A. Bettinger, Mark Reith

Faculty Publications

The introduction of automated satellite control systems into a space-mission environment historically dominated by human-in-the-loop operations will require a more focused understanding of cybersecurity measures to ensure space system safety and security. On the ground-segment side of satellite control, the debut of privately owned communication antennas for rent and a move to cloud-based operations or mission centers will bring new requirements for cyber protection for both Department of Defense and commercial satellite operations alike. It is no longer a matter of whether automation will be introduced to satellite operations, but how quickly satellite operators can adapt to the onset of …


Evaluating Testing Procedures For Openflow Controller Network Re-Provisioning Time, Steven J. Jensen Sep 2021

Evaluating Testing Procedures For Openflow Controller Network Re-Provisioning Time, Steven J. Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Software-Defined Networking promises several advantages over traditional networking architectures, but has seen little adoption. Recently codified controller evaluation methodologies have seen little validation without strong statistical analysis of the results. The research developed an environment testing implementing a published Network Re-provisioning Time methodology to evaluate five OpenFlow controllers. The methodology is strong with required parameters but had issues with some edge cases. Further refinement and adding a convergence metric may close the gaps.


Physically Unclonable Characteristics For Verification Of Transmon-Based Quantum Computers, Leleia A. Hsia Sep 2021

Physically Unclonable Characteristics For Verification Of Transmon-Based Quantum Computers, Leleia A. Hsia

Theses and Dissertations

Future national security can be strengthened by verifying and securing the quantum computing supply chain. This dissertation proposes physically unclonable characteristics (PUCs), a method of quantum hardware verification inspired by classical physically unclonable functions, for future application to quantum processors implemented with transmon qubits. Qualitative and quantitative analysis is provided on the development of PUCs, including identifying qubit characteristics and qubit discrimination methods suitable for PUCs. Characteristics tested on IBM Quantum services include T1 and T2 coherence times, single-qubit and multi-qubit gate error rates, readout error rates, quantum process tomography metrics, and random benchmarking metrics. Results show that non-parametric qubit …


Infiniband Network Monitoring: Challenges And Possibilities, Kyle D. Hintze Mar 2021

Infiniband Network Monitoring: Challenges And Possibilities, Kyle D. Hintze

Theses and Dissertations

Within the realm of High Performance Computing, the InfiniBand Architecture is among the leading interconnects used today. Capable of providing high bandwidth and low latency, InfiniBand is finding applications outside the High Performance Computing domain. One of these is critical infrastructure, encompassing almost all essential sectors as the work force becomes more connected. InfiniBand is not immune to security risks, as prior research has shown that common traffic analyzing tools cannot effectively monitor InfiniBand traffic transmitted between hosts, due to the kernel bypass nature of the IBA in conjunction with Remote Direct Memory Access operations. If Remote Direct Memory Access …


Automated Network Exploitation Utilizing Bayesian Decision Networks, Graeme M. Roberts Mar 2021

Automated Network Exploitation Utilizing Bayesian Decision Networks, Graeme M. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) is the process of using tactics and techniques to penetrate computer systems and networks in order to achieve desired effects. It is currently a manual process requiring significant experience and time that are in limited supply. This thesis presents the Automated Network Discovery and Exploitation System (ANDES) which demonstrates that it is feasible to automate the CNE process. The uniqueness of ANDES is the use of Bayesian decision networks to represent the CNE domain and subject matter expert knowledge. ANDES conducts multiple execution cycles, which build upon previous action results. Cycles begin by modeling the current …


Exploring Fog Of War Concepts In Wargame Scenarios, Dillon N. Tryhorn Mar 2021

Exploring Fog Of War Concepts In Wargame Scenarios, Dillon N. Tryhorn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores fog of war concepts through three submitted journal articles. The Department of Defense and U.S. Air Force are attempting to analyze war scenarios to aid the decision-making process; fog modeling improves realism in these wargame scenarios. The first article "Navigating an Enemy Contested Area with a Parallel Search Algorithm" [1] investigates a parallel algorithm's speedup, compared to the sequential implementation, with varying map configurations in a tile-based wargame. The parallel speedup tends to exceed 50 but in certain situations. The sequential algorithm outperforms it depending on the configuration of enemy location and amount on the map. The …


Commuting Compositions For Quantum Circuit Reduction, Brenna R. Cole Mar 2021

Commuting Compositions For Quantum Circuit Reduction, Brenna R. Cole

Theses and Dissertations

The US Air Force has been increasing the use of automation in its weapon systems to include the remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) platforms. The RPA career field has had issues with poor pilot retention due to job stressors. For example, RPA operators spend a lot of time and attention surveilling a suspect on the ground for many hours, so adding automation to this activity could help improve pilot retention. The research problem in this thesis attempted to automate the process of observing a ground target. This thesis presents a method termed conic ray tracing for determining visibility and occlusion of …


Characterizing Security Monitor And Embedded System Performance Across Distinct Risc-V Ip-Cores, Justin C. Tullos Mar 2021

Characterizing Security Monitor And Embedded System Performance Across Distinct Risc-V Ip-Cores, Justin C. Tullos

Theses and Dissertations

Embedded systems have seen a rapid integration into all forms of industry as they continue to shrink in size and cost. The increased demand has highlighted a need for secure systems that are robust to attacks and demonstrate reliable performance, especially if the system operation is time-critical. E orts to characterize the performance of secure systems have been obstructed either by proprietary restrictions or ineffective analysis. Proprietary technology limits a comprehensive validation of a system's security and the implications it might have on performance. Performance analysis that is disclosed often lacks sufficient statistical rigor needed for a complex system. A …


Enumerating And Locating Bluetooth Devices For Casualty Recovery In A First-Responder Environment, Justin M. Durham Mar 2021

Enumerating And Locating Bluetooth Devices For Casualty Recovery In A First-Responder Environment, Justin M. Durham

Theses and Dissertations

It is difficult for first-responders to quickly locate casualties in an emergency environment such as an explosion or natural disaster. In order to provide another tool to locate individuals, this research attempts to identify and estimate the location of devices that would likely be located on or with a person. A variety of devices, such as phones, smartwatches, and Bluetooth-enabled locks, are tested in multiple environments and at various heights to determine the impact that placement and interference played in locating the devices. The hypothesis is that most Bluetooth devices can be successfully enumerated quickly, but cannot be accurately located …


Simulating A Mobile Wireless Sensor Network Monitoring The Air Force Marathon, Matthew D. Eilertson Mar 2021

Simulating A Mobile Wireless Sensor Network Monitoring The Air Force Marathon, Matthew D. Eilertson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the feasibility of deploying a mobile Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to the Air Force (AF) Marathon in support of Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) research of sensor and networking infrastructure in denied or degraded environments. A simulation called MarathonSim is developed in the Objective Modular Network Testbed in C++ (OMNeT++) Discrete Event Simulator to test the performance of a mobile WSN. A full factorial design using numbers of runners, transmission powers, and routing protocols is executed to measure Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) to a central database, average end-to-end delay of application packets, and average power consumed per …


Remote Monitoring Of Memory Data Structures For Malware Detection In A Talos Ii Architecture, Robert A. Willburn Mar 2021

Remote Monitoring Of Memory Data Structures For Malware Detection In A Talos Ii Architecture, Robert A. Willburn

Theses and Dissertations

New forms of malware, namely xC;leless malware and rootkits, pose a threat to traditional anti-malware. In particular, Rootkits have the capacity to obscure the present state of memory from the user space of a target machine. If thishappens, anti-malware running in the user space of an axB;ected machine cannot be trusted to operate properly. To combat this threat, this research proposes the remote monitoring of memory from a second, secure processor runningOpenBMC, serving as a baseboard management controller for a POWER9 processor, which is assumed vulnerable to exploitation. The baseboard management controller includes an application called pdbg, used for debugging …


Accelerating Point Set Registration For Automated Aerial Refueling, Ryan M. Raettig Mar 2021

Accelerating Point Set Registration For Automated Aerial Refueling, Ryan M. Raettig

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of AAR is to control the tanker boom to safely refuel a receiving aircraft with no input or aid from the boom operator. To achieve this, the pose of the receiver relative to the tanker must be known. Point set registration is a fundamental issue used to estimate the relative pose of an object in an environment. However, it's likely a computational bottleneck of a vision processing pipeline. In addition, the matching of each sensed point with a closest truth point, nearest neighbor matching, is the most costly portion of the point set registration process. For this reason, …


Long Distance Bluetooth Low Energy Exploitation On A Wireless Attack Platform, Stephanie L. Long Mar 2021

Long Distance Bluetooth Low Energy Exploitation On A Wireless Attack Platform, Stephanie L. Long

Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, embedded technology, known as the Internet of Things, has expanded for many uses. The smart home infrastructure has drastically grown to include networked refrigerators, lighting systems, speakers, watches, and more. This increase in the use of wireless protocols provides a larger attack surface for cyber actors than ever before. Wireless loT traffic is susceptible for sniffing by an attacker. The attack platform skypie is upgraded to incorporate Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon collection for pattern-of-life data, as well as device characteristic enumeration and potential characteristic modification. This platform allows an attacker to mount the skypie to …


Sparc: Statistical Performance Analysis With Relevance Conclusions, Justin C. Tullos, Scott R. Graham, Jeremy D. Jordan, Pranav R. Patel Feb 2021

Sparc: Statistical Performance Analysis With Relevance Conclusions, Justin C. Tullos, Scott R. Graham, Jeremy D. Jordan, Pranav R. Patel

Faculty Publications

The performance of one computer relative to another is traditionally characterized through benchmarking, a practice occasionally deficient in statistical rigor. The performance is often trivialized through simplified measures, such as the approach of central tendency, but doing so risks a loss of perspective of the variability and non-determinism of modern computer systems. Authentic performance evaluations are derived from statistical methods that accurately interpret and assess data. Methods that currently exist within performance comparison frameworks are limited in efficacy, statistical inference is either overtly simplified or altogether avoided. A prevalent criticism from computer performance literature suggests that the results from difference …


Direct Digital Synthesis: A Flexible Architecture For Advanced Signals Research For Future Satellite Navigation Payloads, Pranav R. Patel Sep 2020

Direct Digital Synthesis: A Flexible Architecture For Advanced Signals Research For Future Satellite Navigation Payloads, Pranav R. Patel

Theses and Dissertations

In legacy Global Positioning System (GPS) Satellite Navigation (SatNav) payloads, the architecture does not provide the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances and environments. GPS SatNav payloads have largely remained unchanged since the system became fully operational in April 1995. Since then, the use of GPS has become ubiquitous in our day-to-day lives. GPS availability is now a basic assumption for distributed infrastructure; it has become inextricably tied to our national power grids, cellular networks, and global financial systems. Emerging advancements of easy to use radio technologies, such as software-defined radios (SDRs), have greatly lowered the difficulty of discovery and …


Joint 1d And 2d Neural Networks For Automatic Modulation Recognition, Luis M. Rosario Morel Sep 2020

Joint 1d And 2d Neural Networks For Automatic Modulation Recognition, Luis M. Rosario Morel

Theses and Dissertations

The digital communication and radar community has recently manifested more interest in using data-driven approaches for tasks such as modulation recognition, channel estimation and distortion correction. In this research we seek to apply an object detector for parameter estimation to perform waveform separation in the time and frequency domain prior to classification. This enables the full automation of detecting and classifying simultaneously occurring waveforms. We leverage a lD ResNet implemented by O'Shea et al. in [1] and the YOLO v3 object detector designed by Redmon et al. in [2]. We conducted an in depth study of the performance of these …