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Theses and Dissertations

2009

Information Security

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Large-Scale Distributed Coalition Formation, Daniel R. Karrels Dec 2009

Large-Scale Distributed Coalition Formation, Daniel R. Karrels

Theses and Dissertations

The CyberCraft project is an effort to construct a large scale Distributed Multi-Agent System (DMAS) to provide autonomous Cyberspace defense and mission assurance for the DoD. It employs a small but flexible agent structure that is dynamically reconfigurable to accommodate new tasks and policies. This document describes research into developing protocols and algorithms to ensure continued mission execution in a system of one million or more agents, focusing on protocols for coalition formation and Command and Control. It begins by building large-scale routing algorithms for a Hierarchical Peer to Peer structured overlay network, called Resource-Clustered Chord (RC-Chord). RC-Chord introduces the …

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Application Of Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transforms To Burst Detection And Rf Fingerprint Classification, Randall W. Klein Aug 2009

Application Of Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transforms To Burst Detection And Rf Fingerprint Classification, Randall W. Klein

Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses various Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Physical (PHY) layer mechanisms to extract and exploit RF waveform features (”fingerprints”) that are inherently unique to specific devices and that may be used to provide hardware specific identification (manufacturer, model, and/or serial number). This is addressed by applying a Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DT-CWT) to improve burst detection and RF fingerprint classification. A ”Denoised VT” technique is introduced to improve performance at lower SNRs, with denoising implemented using a DT-CWT decomposition prior to Traditional VT processing. A newly developed Wavelet Domain (WD) fingerprinting technique is presented using statistical WD fingerprints with …

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Social Networking Website Users And Privacy Concerns: A Mixed Methods Investigation, Stephanie J. Mills Mar 2009

Social Networking Website Users And Privacy Concerns: A Mixed Methods Investigation, Stephanie J. Mills

Theses and Dissertations

Social networking websites are the fastest growing entity on the Internet. Users of social networking websites post personal information and pictures on these websites. Privacy and social networking websites has been previously studied, however, since those studies were conducted the rules for those websites have changed dramatically. A mixed methods approach was used in this study to examine what privacy concerns users of social networking websites have, whether it’s regarding information on their accounts or the pictures they have posted. This study also considered if there were common personality traits present in people with those concerns. A comparison of user …

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A Framework For Analyzing Biometric Template Aging And Renewal Prediction, John W. Carls Mar 2009

A Framework For Analyzing Biometric Template Aging And Renewal Prediction, John W. Carls

Theses and Dissertations

Biometric technology and systems are modernizing identity capabilities. With maturing biometrics in full, rapid development, a higher accuracy of identity verification is required. An improvement to the security of biometric-based verification systems is provided through higher accuracy; ultimately reducing fraud, theft, and loss of resources from unauthorized personnel. With trivial biometric systems, a higher acceptance threshold to obtain higher accuracy rates increase false rejection rates and user unacceptability. However, maintaining the higher accuracy rate enhances the security of the system. An area of biometrics with a paucity of research is template aging and renewal prediction, specifically in regards to facial …

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A Taxonomy For And Analysis Of Anonymous Communications Networks, Douglas J. Kelly Mar 2009

A Taxonomy For And Analysis Of Anonymous Communications Networks, Douglas J. Kelly

Theses and Dissertations

Any entity operating in cyberspace is susceptible to debilitating attacks. With cyber attacks intended to gather intelligence and disrupt communications rapidly replacing the threat of conventional and nuclear attacks, a new age of warfare is at hand. In 2003, the United States acknowledged that the speed and anonymity of cyber attacks makes distinguishing among the actions of terrorists, criminals, and nation states difficult. Even President Obama’s Cybersecurity Chief-elect recognizes the challenge of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Now through April 2009, the White House is reviewing federal cyber initiatives to protect US citizen privacy rights. Indeed, the rising quantity and ubiquity …

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Mitigating Insider Sabotage And Espionage: A Review Of The United States Air Force's Current Posture, Erika C. Leach Mar 2009

Mitigating Insider Sabotage And Espionage: A Review Of The United States Air Force's Current Posture, Erika C. Leach

Theses and Dissertations

The security threat from malicious insiders affects all organizations. Mitigating this problem is quite difficult due to the fact that (1) there is no definitive profile for malicious insiders, (2) organizations have placed trust in these individuals, and (3) insiders have a vast knowledge of their organization’s personnel, security policies, and information systems. The purpose of this research is to analyze to what extent the United States Air Force (USAF) security policies address the insider threat problem. The policies are reviewed in terms of how well they align with best practices published by the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Emergency Readiness …

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Using Covert Means To Establish Cybercraft Command And Control, Bradley D. Sevy Mar 2009

Using Covert Means To Establish Cybercraft Command And Control, Bradley D. Sevy

Theses and Dissertations

With the increase in speed and availability of computers, our nation's computer and information systems are being attacked with increased sophistication. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate (RI) is researching a next generation network defense architecture, called Cybercraft, that provides automated and trusted cyber defense capabilities for AF network assets. This research we consider the issues to protect or obfuscate command and control aspects of Cybercraft. In particular, we present a methodology to hide aspects of Cybercraft platform initialization in context to formation of hierarchical, peer-to-peer groups that collectively form the Cybercraft network. Because malicious code networks (known …

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An Exploratory Social Network Analysis Of Military And Civilian Emergency Operation Centers Focusing On Organization Structure, Joseph D. Legradi Mar 2009

An Exploratory Social Network Analysis Of Military And Civilian Emergency Operation Centers Focusing On Organization Structure, Joseph D. Legradi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to explore how United States Air Force Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) compare to civilian EOCs with respect to their task-based social networks and decision making social networks. Multiple measures were explored to understand the networks, which included analyzing key metrics of the network such as closeness centrality and betweenness centrality, centralization of the network, and comparison of structural holes within the networks. These measures were then used to suggest improvements for the organizations to improve performance and more importantly, interoperability. The results of the study showed that in this data set there were several …

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Host-Based Multivariate Statistical Computer Operating Process Anomaly Intrusion Detection System (Paids), Glen R. Shilland Mar 2009

Host-Based Multivariate Statistical Computer Operating Process Anomaly Intrusion Detection System (Paids), Glen R. Shilland

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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Low Probability Of Intercept Waveforms Via Intersymbol Dither Performance Under Multipath Conditions, Jonathan K. Keen Mar 2009

Low Probability Of Intercept Waveforms Via Intersymbol Dither Performance Under Multipath Conditions, Jonathan K. Keen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the effects of multipath interference on Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) waveforms generated using intersymbol dither. LPI waveforms are designed to be difficult for non-cooperative receivers to detect and manipulate, and have many uses in secure communications applications. In prior research, such a waveform was designed using a dither algorithm to vary the time between the transmission of data symbols in a communication system. This work showed that such a method can be used to frustrate attempts to use non-cooperative receiver algorithms to recover the data. This thesis expands on prior work by examining the effects of …

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The Development Of It Suspicion As A Construct And Subsequent Measure, Matthew T. Olson Mar 2009

The Development Of It Suspicion As A Construct And Subsequent Measure, Matthew T. Olson

Theses and Dissertations

Suspicion has not been studied in great depth; however, a conceptual understanding of suspicion is no less important than many of the other highly studied constructs related to healthy working relationships. Information technology (IT) is one area where suspicion study is lacking, and this research effort was a study into the specific domain of IT suspicion. An extensive study of the suspicion literature and the suspicion nomological net as well as informal surveys of the general populous and subject matter experts were used to create an IT suspicion conceptual definition and measure. In order to test IT suspicion’s relationships with …

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Numerical Analysis For Relevant Features In Intrusion Detection (Narfid), Jose Andres Gonzalez Mar 2009

Numerical Analysis For Relevant Features In Intrusion Detection (Narfid), Jose Andres Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

Identification of cyber attacks and network services is a robust field of study in the machine learning community. Less effort has been focused on understanding the domain space of real network data in identifying important features for cyber attack and network service classification. Motivations for such work allow for anomaly detection systems with less requirements on data “sniffed” off the network, extraction of features from the traffic, reduced learning time of algorithms, and ideally increased classification performance of anomalous behavior. This thesis evaluates the usefulness of a good feature subset for the general classification task of identifying cyber attacks and …

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Automated Virtual Machine Introspection For Host-Based Intrusion Detection, Brett A. Pagel Feb 2009

Automated Virtual Machine Introspection For Host-Based Intrusion Detection, Brett A. Pagel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines techniques to automate configuration of an intrusion detection system utilizing hardware-assisted virtualization. These techniques are used to detect the version of a running guest operating system, automatically configure version-specific operating system information needed by the introspection library, and to locate and monitor important operating system data structures. This research simplifies introspection library configuration and is a step toward operating system independent introspection. An operating system detection algorithm and Windows virtual machine system service dispatch table monitor are implemented using the Xen hypervisor and a modified version of the XenAccess library. All detection and monitoring is implemented from …

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An Fpga-Based System For Tracking Digital Information Transmitted Via Peer-To-Peer Protocols, Karl R. Schrader Feb 2009

An Fpga-Based System For Tracking Digital Information Transmitted Via Peer-To-Peer Protocols, Karl R. Schrader

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the problem of identifying and tracking digital information that is shared using peer-to-peer file transfer and Voice over IP (VoIP) protocols. The goal of the research is to develop a system for detecting and tracking the illicit dissemination of sensitive government information using file sharing applications within a target network, and tracking terrorist cells or criminal organizations that are covertly communicating using VoIP applications. A digital forensic tool is developed using an FPGA-based embedded software application. The tool is designed to process file transfers using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol and VoIP phone calls made using the Session …

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