Digital Communications and Networking Commons^™

Enabling Intelligent Network Management Through Multi-Agent Systems: An Implementation Of Autonomous Network System, Petro Mushidi Tshakwanda

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This Ph.D. dissertation presents a pioneering Multi-Agent System (MAS) approach for intelligent network management, particularly suited for next-generation networks like 5G and 6G. The thesis is segmented into four critical parts. Firstly, it contrasts the benefits of agent-based design over traditional micro-service architectures. Secondly, it elaborates on the implementation of network service agents in Python Agent Development Environment (PADE), employing machine learning and deep learning algorithms for performance evaluation. Thirdly, a new scalable approach, Scalable and Efficient DevOps (SE-DO), is introduced to optimize agent performance in resource-constrained settings. Fourthly, the dissertation delves into Quality of Service (QoS) and Radio Resource …

Design And Analysis Of Content Caching Systems, Anirudh Sabnis

Doctoral Dissertations

Caching is a simple yet powerful technique that has had a significant impact on improving the performance of various computer systems. From internet content delivery to CPUs, domain name systems, and database systems, caching has played a pivotal role in making these systems faster and more efficient. The basic idea behind caching is to store frequently accessed data locally, so that future requests for that data can be served more quickly. For example, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Akamai deploys thousands of edge caches across the globe, so that end-user requests can be served from a nearby cache, rather …

Blockchain Security: Double-Spending Attack And Prevention, William Henry Scott Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis shows that distributed consensus systems based on proof of work are vulnerable to hashrate-based double-spending attacks due to abuse of majority rule. Through building a private fork of Litecoin and executing a double-spending attack this thesis examines the mechanics and principles behind the attack. This thesis also conducts a survey of preventative measures used to deter double-spending attacks, concluding that a decentralized peer-to-peer network using proof of work is best protected by the addition of an observer system whether internal or external.

Protecting The Infrastructure Of Michigan: Analyzing And Understanding Internet Infrastructure, Samuel Blaser, Travis Munyer, Damian Ramirez, Lester Juarez, Jackson Servant

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Michigan Army National Guard DCOE is hoping to increase their understanding of the physical, electrical, protocol, and logical topography of internet service. In order to understand the infrastructure of the internet, information must be collected on its pieces. By studying, describing, and illustrating the infrastructure of the global internet we can develop hardening tactics, improve user training, and develop contingency plans in the case of an attack. The research is focused on where data lives, locating data centers in the region, identifying global infrastructure and who owns it, and potential for hardening. An interactive map has been created in …

Preserving User Data Privacy Through The Development Of An Android Solid Library, Alexandria Lim

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In today’s world where any and all activity on the internet produces data, user data privacy and autonomy are not prioritized. Companies called data brokers are able to gather data elements of personal information numbering in the billions. This data can be anything from purchase history, credit card history, downloaded applications, and service subscriptions. This information can be analyzed and inferences can be drawn from analysis, categorizing people into groups that range in sensitivity — from hobbies to race and income classes. Not only do these data brokers constantly overlook data privacy, this mass amount of data makes them extremely …

Bridging The Gap Between Public Organizaions And Cybersecurity, Christopher Boutros

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Cyberattacks are a major problem for public organizations across the nation, and unfortunately for them, the frequency of these attacks is constantly growing. This project used a case study approach to explore the types of cybersecurity public organization agencies face and how those crimes can be mitigated. The goal of this paper is to understand how public organization agencies have prepared for cyberattacks and discuss additional suggestions to improve their current systems with the current research available This research provides an analysis of current cyber security systems, new technologies that can be implemented, roadblocks public agencies face before and during …

Shelfaware: Accelerating Collaborative Awareness With Shelf Crdt, John C. Waidhofer

Master's Theses

Collaboration has become a key feature of modern software, allowing teams to work together effectively in real-time while in different locations. In order for a user to communicate their intention to several distributed peers, computing devices must exchange high-frequency updates with transient metadata like mouse position, text range highlights, and temporary comments. Current peer-to-peer awareness solutions have high time and space complexity due to the ever-expanding logs that each client must maintain in order to ensure robust collaboration in eventually consistent environments. This paper proposes an awareness Conflict-Free Replicated Data Type (CRDT) library that provides the tooling to support an …

Total Sky Imager Project, Ryan D. Maier, Benjamin Jack Forest, Kyle X. Mcgrath

Mechanical Engineering

Solar farms like the Gold Tree Solar Farm at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have difficulty delivering a consistent level of power output. Cloudy days can trigger a significant drop in the utility of a farm’s solar panels, and an unexpected loss of power from the farm could potentially unbalance the electrical grid. Being able to predict these power output drops in advance could provide valuable time to prepare a grid and keep it stable. Furthermore, with modern data analysis methods such as machine learning, these predictions are becoming more and more accurate – given a sufficient data set. The …

How Blockchain Solutions Enable Better Decision Making Through Blockchain Analytics, Sammy Ter Haar

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since the founding of computers, data scientists have been able to engineer devices that increase individuals’ opportunities to communicate with each other. In the 1990s, the internet took over with many people not understanding its utility. Flash forward 30 years, and we cannot live without our connection to the internet. The internet of information is what we called early adopters with individuals posting blogs for others to read, this was known as Web 1.0. As we progress, platforms became social allowing individuals in different areas to communicate and engage with each other, this was known as Web 2.0. As Dr. …

Modeling Damage Spread, Assessment, And Recovery Of Critical Systems, Justin Burns

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Critical infrastructure systems have recently become more vulnerable to attacks on their data systems through internet connectivity. If an attacker is successful in breaching a system’s defenses, it is imperative that operations are restored to the system as quickly as possible. This thesis focuses on damage assessment and recovery following an attack. A literature review is first conducted on work done in both database protection and critical infrastructure protection, then the thesis defines how damage affects the relationships between data and software. Then, the thesis proposes a model using a graph construction to show the cascading affects within a system …

Analysis Of Gpu Memory Vulnerabilities, Jarrett Hoover

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Graphics processing units (GPUs) have become a widely used technology for various purposes. While their intended use is accelerating graphics rendering, their parallel computing capabilities have expanded their use into other areas. They are used in computer gaming, deep learning for artificial intelligence and mining cryptocurrencies. Their rise in popularity led to research involving several security aspects, including this paper’s focus, memory vulnerabilities. Research documented many vulnerabilities, including GPUs not implementing address space layout randomization, not zeroing out memory after deallocation, and not initializing newly allocated memory. These vulnerabilities can lead to a victim’s sensitive data being leaked to an …

Lapnitor: A Web Service That Protects Your Laptop From Theft., Michael Ameteku

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Laptop theft is an issue worldwide. According to an article from 2018, Security Boulevard stated that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. Using a laptop's camera, we can monitor the surroundings of the laptop and reduce a laptop's probability of being stolen. According to the University of Pittsburgh, a laptop has a 1-in- 10 chance of being stolen and nearly half of these thefts occur in offices or classrooms. These thefts mostly occur when a laptop owner leaves their device unattended for a certain period of time to maybe go visit the restroom or attend to a call when …

Towards Cloud-Based Cost-Effective Serverless Information System, Isaac C. Angle

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

E-commerce information systems are becoming increasingly popular for businesses to adopt. In this work, we propose a serverless information system that will reduce costs for small businesses trying to create an e-commerce website. The proposed serverless system is built entirely in Amazon Web Services (AWS). The proposed serverless system allows businesses to pay for the use of cloud resources on a per-order granularity. This model reduces the cost of the information system when compared to a traditional cloud-based system. As e-commerce websites become more vital for small businesses, a cost effective serverless approach is promising.

Privacy-Preserving Cloud-Assisted Data Analytics, Wei Bao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays industries are collecting a massive and exponentially growing amount of data that can be utilized to extract useful insights for improving various aspects of our life. Data analytics (e.g., via the use of machine learning) has been extensively applied to make important decisions in various real world applications. However, it is challenging for resource-limited clients to analyze their data in an efficient way when its scale is large. Additionally, the data resources are increasingly distributed among different owners. Nonetheless, users' data may contain private information that needs to be protected.

Cloud computing has become more and more popular in …

Securing Fog Federation From Behavior Of Rogue Nodes, Mohammed Saleh H. Alshehri

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the technological revolution advanced information security evolved with an increased need for confidential data protection on the internet. Individuals and organizations typically prefer outsourcing their confidential data to the cloud for processing and storage. As promising as the cloud computing paradigm is, it creates challenges; everything from data security to time latency issues with data computation and delivery to end-users. In response to these challenges CISCO introduced the fog computing paradigm in 2012. The intent was to overcome issues such as time latency and communication overhead and to bring computing and storage resources close to the ground and the …

Sistema De Información Para El Monitoreo De Variables Ambientales En El Museo De La Salle, Bogotá, Jhoan Steven González Sánchez, Leonardo Fabio Fernández Díaz

Ingeniería en Automatización

Este proyecto está enfocado al diseño e implementación de un sistema de información que permite el monitoreo de las condiciones ambientales dentro del museo Lasalle Bogotá, específicamente la temperatura y humedad relativa interna de las habitaciones usadas para almacenar las colecciones que no se encuentran expuestas al público. La arquitectura del sistema consta de 3 niveles: Uno inferior compuesto por los sensores DHT11 / DHT22 los cuales toman y envían las mediciones, un nivel intermedio de adquisición conformado por las Tarjetas Arduino y un nivel superior de gestión del cual se encargan las tarjetas Raspberry pi 3 B +, siendo …

Blockchain Based Communication Architectures With Applications To Private Security Networks, Ashley N. Mayle

Computer Science ETDs

Existing communication protocols in security networks are highly centralized. While this naively makes the controls easier to physically secure, external actors require fewer resources to disrupt the system because there are fewer points in the system can be interrupted without the entire system failing. We present a solution to this problem using a proof-of-work-based blockchain implementation built on MultiChain. We construct a test-bed network containing visual imagers and microwave sensor information. These data types are ubiquitous in perimeter security systems and allow a realistic representation of a real-world network architecture. The cameras in this system use an object detection algorithm …

Edge-Cloud Iot Data Analytics: Intelligence At The Edge With Deep Learning, Ananda Mohon M. Ghosh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rapid growth in numbers of connected devices, including sensors, mobile, wearable, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is creating an explosion of data that are moving across the network. To carry out machine learning (ML), IoT data are typically transferred to the cloud or another centralized system for storage and processing; however, this causes latencies and increases network traffic. Edge computing has the potential to remedy those issues by moving computation closer to the network edge and data sources. On the other hand, edge computing is limited in terms of computational power and thus is not well suited for …

Desarrollo De Un Esquema De Gestión Hídrica En El Sistema Acuífero Sap 3.1 Apoyado De La Tipificación De Suelos Y El Modelo Conceptual De Thöt, Maria Camila Soriano Espinosa, Camilo José Rodríguez Carvajal

Ingeniería Ambiental y Sanitaria

El presente proyecto tiene como objetivo principal desarrollar un esquema de gestión hídrica (EGH) en el sistema acuífero SAP 3.1, provincia llanos orientales, con base en la tipificación de suelos y el modelo conceptual de Tӧth, partiendo de que las aguas subterráneas se consideran una fuente alternativa de abastecimiento por su mejor calidad y el bajo costo de manejo en comparación al agua superficial, y teniendo en cuenta que el Departamento del Meta conoce la riqueza hídrica que está en su jurisdicción, no cuenta con una regulación adecuada en pro de una gestión hídrica a nivel subterráneo. La metodología empleada …

Algorithms For Achieving Fault-Tolerance And Ensuring Security In Cloud Computing Systems, Md. Tariqul Islam

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Security and fault tolerance are the two major areas in cloud computing systems that need careful attention for its widespread deployment. Unlike supercomputers, cloud clusters are mostly built on low cost, unreliable, commodity hardware. Therefore, large-scale cloud systems often suffer from performance degradation, service outages, and sometimes node and application failures. On the other hand, the multi-tenant shared architecture, dynamism, heterogeneity, and openness of cloud computing make it susceptible to various security threats and vulnerabilities. In this dissertation, we analyze these problems and propose algorithms for achieving fault tolerance and ensuring security in cloud computing systems.

First, we perform a …

Vehicle Operator Attention Monitor, Matthew Krispinsky, Matt Marsek, Matthew Mayfield, Brian Call

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Motor vehicle operators’ attention levels can be monitored to improve driver safety. By recording and analyzing the drivers eye gaze, hand position, vehicle speed and engine rpm the driver’s attention can be determined. A Raspberry Pi will be the main processing unit. Data will be pulled and analyzed from the OBD-II port on vehicle speed and engine rpm. The system will be powered from a 12V, 4A pin on the OBD-II port connected to the car battery. A webcam will be used to track the pupil location and determine when the driver is looking at the road. A battery powered …

Leveraging Cloud-Based Nfv And Sdn Platform Towards Quality-Driven Next-Generation Mobile Networks, Hassan Hawilo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Network virtualization has become a key approach for Network Service Providers (NSPs) to mitigate the challenge of the continually increasing demands for network services. Tightly coupled with their software components, legacy network devices are difficult to upgrade or modify to meet the dynamically changing end-user needs. To virtualize their infrastructure and mitigate those challenges, NSPs have started to adopt Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). To this end, this thesis addresses the challenges faced on the road of transforming the legacy networking infrastructure to a more dynamic and agile virtualized environment to meet the rapidly increasing demand …

Quorum Blockchain Stress Evaluation In Different Environments, Daniel P. Mera

Student Theses

In today’s world, the Blockchain technology is used for different purposes has brought an increment in the development of different Blockchain platforms, services, and utilities for storing data securely and efficiently. Quorum Blockchain, an Ethereum fork created by JPMorgan Chase, has placed itself in one of the widely used, efficient and trustful Blockchain platforms available today. Because of the importance which Quorum is contributing to the world, it is important to test and measure different aspects of the platform, not only to prove how efficient the software can be but as well as to have a clear view on what …

Examining Effectiveness Of Web-Based Internet Of Things Honeypots, Lukas A. Stafira

Theses and Dissertations

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that there will be over 25 billion IoT devices by 2020. The simplicity of their function usually means that IoT devices have low processing power, which prevent them from having intricate security features, leading to vulnerabilities. This makes IoT devices the prime target of attackers in the coming years. Honeypots are intentionally vulnerable machines that run programs which appear as a vulnerable device to a would-be attacker. They are placed on a network to entice and trap an attacker and then gather information on them, including …

Machine Learning Models Of C-17 Specific Range Using Flight Recorder Data, Marcus Catchpole

Theses and Dissertations

Fuel is a significant expense for the Air Force. The C-17 Globemaster eet accounts for a significant portion. Estimating the range of an aircraft based on its fuel consumption is nearly as old as flight itself. Consideration of operational energy and the related consideration of fuel efficiency is increasing. Meanwhile machine learning and data-mining techniques are on the rise. The old question, "How far can my aircraft y with a given load cargo and fuel?" has given way to "How little fuel can I load into an aircraft and safely arrive at the destination?" Specific range is a measure of …

Delegation Application, Erik Matthew Phillips

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Delegation is a cross-platform application to provide smart task distribution to users. In a team environment, the assignment of tasks can be tedious and difficult for management or for users needing to discover a starting place for where to begin with accomplishing tasks. Within a specific team, members possess individual skills within different areas of the team’s responsibilities and specialties, and certain members will be better suited to tackle specific tasks. This project provides a solution, consisting of a smart cross-platform application that allows for teams and individuals to quickly coordinate and delegate tasks assigned to them.

Strategic Implications Of Blockchain, William R. Adams

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis introduces blockchain, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and discusses how best to conceptualize it relative to other technologies. Following an explanation of the fundamentals of blockchain, also known as the distributed ledger, I identify the characteristics of the technology. Building upon blockchain’s inherent strengths and limitations, I explore potential business applications of blockchain. Finally, I recommend that leaders continue to track the development and adoption of blockchain technology, even if they decide that implementing it does not align with their organization’s strategy at present.

Skylux Smartphone Controlled Skylight, James A. Green Vi

Computer Engineering

There are numerous electric skylight openers available for purchase for home-use, but the majority of them are remote based, or operated by a wall-unit. Furthermore, these devices are in hard to reach places, so if one were to lose the remote on a remote operated system, the only option is to contact the manufacturer for a new device. As such, my senior project, in collaboration with Colton Sundstrom’s senior project, build upon our existing capstone project in order to allow operation of the Internet of Things (IoT) device over the internet. Our client, Richard Murray, was unsatisfied with the current …

Blockchain For Trustful Collaborations Between Immigrants, Citizens And Governments, Chun-Wei Chiang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

mmigrants usually are pro-social towards their hometowns and try to improve them. However, the lack of trust in their government can drive immigrants to work individually. As a result, their pro-social activities are usually limited in impact and scope. Although blockchain technology have the potential to solve the trust issue, people are not familiar with the technology and they have no idea why it is trustworthy. Previous research showed that the adopting user interface properly can increase people's trust in technology. This paper studies the interface factors that ease collaborations between immigrants and their home governments. We specifically focus on …

A Study Of Application-Awareness In Software-Defined Data Center Networks, Chui-Hui Chiu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A data center (DC) has been a fundamental infrastructure for academia and industry for many years. Applications in DC have diverse requirements on communication. There are huge demands on data center network (DCN) control frameworks (CFs) for coordinating communication traffic. Simultaneously satisfying all demands is difficult and inefficient using existing traditional network devices and protocols. Recently, the agile software-defined Networking (SDN) is introduced to DCN for speeding up the development of the DCNCF. Application-awareness preserves the application semantics including the collective goals of communications. Previous works have illustrated that application-aware DCNCFs can much more efficiently allocate network resources by explicitly …