Development Of A Methodology For Customizing Insider Threat Auditing On A Linux Operating System,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Development Of A Methodology For Customizing Insider Threat Auditing On A Linux Operating System, William T. Bai
Theses and Dissertations
Insider threats can pose a great risk to organizations and by their very nature are difficult to protect against. Auditing and system logging are capabilities present in most operating systems and can be used for detecting insider activity. However, current auditing methods are typically applied in a haphazard way, if at all, and are not conducive to contributing to an effective insider threat security policy. This research develops a methodology for designing a customized auditing and logging template for a Linux operating system. An intent-based insider threat risk assessment methodology is presented to create use case scenarios tailored to address …
Reputation-Based Trust For A Cooperative, Agent-Based Backup Protection Scheme For Power Networks,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Reputation-Based Trust For A Cooperative, Agent-Based Backup Protection Scheme For Power Networks, John F. Borowski
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis research explores integrating a reputation-based trust mechanism with an agent-based backup protection system to improve the performance of traditional backup relay methods that are currently in use in power transmission systems. Integrating agent technology into relay protection schemes has been previously proposed to clear faults more rapidly and to add precision by enabling the use of adaptive protection methods. A distributed, cooperative trust system such as that used in peer-to-peer file sharing networks has the potential to add an additional layer of defense in a protection system designed to operate with greater autonomy. This trust component enables agents …
Toward A Mobile Agent Relay Network,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Toward A Mobile Agent Relay Network, Hyon H. Kwak
Theses and Dissertations
Although wireless communication provides connectivity where hardwired links are difficult or impractical, it is still hindered by the environmental conditions where the communicators reside. Signal loss over large distances or because of intervening obstacles can be mitigated by increasing the user's transmission power or adding repeater nodes between the users. Unfortunately, increasing the signal strength strains limited power resources and increases the likelihood of eavesdropping. Stationary repeaters are impractical for highly mobile users in dangerous environments. While mobile relay nodes might be a preferred solution, a centralized control scheme saps bandwidth from important traffic and introduces a single point of …
Scalable And Fault Tolerant Group Key Management,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Scalable And Fault Tolerant Group Key Management, Nicholas A. Lupien
Theses and Dissertations
To address the group key management problem for modern networks this research proposes a lightweight group key management protocol with a gossip-based dissemination routine. Experiments show that by slightly increasing workload for the key update mechanism, this protocol is superior to currently available tree-based protocols with respect to reliability and fault tolerance, while remaining scalable to large groups. Java simulations show that the protocol efficiently distributes keys to large groups in the midst of up to 35 percent node failure rates. In addition, it eliminates the need for logical key hierarchy while preserving an overall reduction in rekey messages to …
Effects Of Channel Mismatches On Beamforming And Signal Detection,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Effects Of Channel Mismatches On Beamforming And Signal Detection, Christopher I. Allen
Theses and Dissertations
Tuner gain measurements of a multichannel receiver are reported. A linear regression model is used to characterize the gain, as a function of channel number, tuner set-on frequency, and intermediate frequency. Residual errors of this model are characterized by a t distribution. Very strong autocorrelation of tuner gain at various frequencies is noted. Tuner performance from one channel to the next is diverse; several defects at specific frequencies are noted. The Wilcoxon signed rank test is used to test normality of tuner gain among devices; normality is rejected. Antenna directivity and phase pattern measurements are also reported. An antenna element …
Static And Dynamic Component Obfuscation On Reconfigurable Devices,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Static And Dynamic Component Obfuscation On Reconfigurable Devices, Camdon R. Cady
Theses and Dissertations
Computing systems are used in virtually every aspect of our lives. Technology such as smart phones and electronically controlled subsystems in cars is becoming so commonly used that it is virtually ubiquitous. Sometimes, this technology can be exploited to perform functions that it was never intended to perform, or fail to provide information that it is supposed to protect. X-HIA was shown to be effective at identifying several circuit components in a significantly shorter time than previous identification methods. Instead of requiring a number of input/output pairings that grows factorially or exponentially as the circuit size grows, it requires only …
Improved Multispectral Skin Detection And Its Application To Search Space Reduction For Dismount Detection Based On Histograms Of Oriented Gradients,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Improved Multispectral Skin Detection And Its Application To Search Space Reduction For Dismount Detection Based On Histograms Of Oriented Gradients, Adam L. Brooks
Theses and Dissertations
Due to the general shift from conventional warfare to terrorism and urban warfare by enemies of the United States in the late 20th Century, locating and tracking individuals of interest have become critically important. Dismount detection and tracking are vital to provide security and intelligence in both combat and homeland defense scenarios including base defense, combat search and rescue (CSAR), and border patrol. This thesis focuses on exploiting recent advances in skin detection research to reliably detect dismounts in a scene. To this end, a signal-plus-noise model is developed to map modeled skin spectra to the imaging response of an …
Pulse Shape Correlation For Laser Detection And Ranging (Ladar),
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Pulse Shape Correlation For Laser Detection And Ranging (Ladar), Brian T. Deas
Theses and Dissertations
Radar systems provide an important remote sensing capability, and are crucial to the layered sensing vision; a concept of operation that aims to apply the right number of the right types of sensors, in the right places, at the right times for superior battle space situational awareness. The layered sensing vision poses a range of technical challenges, including radar, that are yet to be addressed. To address the radar-specific design challenges, the research community responded with waveform diversity; a relatively new field of study which aims reduce the cost of remote sensing while improving performance. Early work suggests that the …
High Power Microwave (Hpm) And Ionizing Radiation Effects On Cmos Devices,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
High Power Microwave (Hpm) And Ionizing Radiation Effects On Cmos Devices, Nicholas A. Estep
Theses and Dissertations
Integrated circuits (ICs) are inherently complicated and made worse by increasing transistor quantity and density. This trend potentially enhances concomitant effects of high energy radiation and local or impressed electromagnetic interference (EMI). The reduced margin for signal error may counter any gain in radiation hardness from smaller device dimensions. Isolated EMI and ionizing radiation studies on circuits have been conducted extensively over the past 30 years. However, little focus has been placed on the combined effects. To investigate the effect of combined EMI and ionizing radiation, two complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverter technologies (CD4069 and SN74AUC1G04) were analyzed for …
Frequency Diverse Array Radar: Signal Characterization And Measurement Accuracy,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Frequency Diverse Array Radar: Signal Characterization And Measurement Accuracy, Steven H. Brady
Theses and Dissertations
Radar systems provide an important remote sensing capability, and are crucial to the layered sensing vision; a concept of operation that aims to apply the right number of the right types of sensors, in the right places, at the right times for superior battle space situational awareness. The layered sensing vision poses a range of technical challenges, including radar, that are yet to be addressed. To address the radar-specific design challenges, the research community responded with waveform diversity; a relatively new field of study which aims reduce the cost of remote sensing while improving performance. Early work suggests that the …
Application Of The Three Short Calibration Technique In A Low Frequency Focus Beam System,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Application Of The Three Short Calibration Technique In A Low Frequency Focus Beam System, William E. Gunn Jr.
Theses and Dissertations
Electromagnetic material characterization is the process of determining the constitutive parameters of matter. In simple media, these parameters are permittivity and permeability. Characterization of these values is often accomplished through the use of waveguides, transmission lines, coaxial cables, and resonant cavities. Free space measurements systems are employed since they are non destructive (i.e., no sample machining is required) and broadband. Traditionally, time domain gating is utilized to mitigate systematic errors. However, an artifact of this calibration technique is band edge corruption due to data windowing. The goal of this research is to develop and apply a Three Short Calibration Technique …
An Approach To Large Scale Radar-Based Modeling And Simulation,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
An Approach To Large Scale Radar-Based Modeling And Simulation, Lester C. Long Iv
Theses and Dissertations
This research presents a method of aggregating, or reducing the resolution, of a commonly available Department of Defense (DoD) simulation. It addresses the differences between varying levels of resolution and scope used in the DoD’s hierarchy of models pyramid. A data representation that aggregates engagement-level simulation data to use at a lower resolution level, the mission-level, is presented and analyzed. Two formats of implementing this data representation are developed and compared: the rigid cylinder format and the expanding tables format. The rigid cylinder format provides an intuitive way to visualize the data and is used to develop the theory. The …
Characterization And Measurement Of Passive And Active Metamaterial Devices,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Characterization And Measurement Of Passive And Active Metamaterial Devices, Christopher A. Lundell
Theses and Dissertations
This document addresses two major obstacles facing metamaterial development: uncertainty in the characterization of electromagnetic field behavior in metamaterial structures and the relatively small operational bandwidth of metamaterial structures. To address the first obstacle, a new method to characterize electromagnetic field behavior in a metamaterial is presented. This new method is a bistatic radar cross section (RCS) measurement technique. RCS measurements are well-suited to measuring bulk metamaterial samples because they show frequency dependence of scattering angles and offer common postprocessing techniques that can be useful for visualizing results. To address the second obstacle, this document characterizes the effectiveness of an …
The Effect Of Synthetic Aperture Radar Image Resolution On Target Discrimination,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
The Effect Of Synthetic Aperture Radar Image Resolution On Target Discrimination, John E. Mcgowan
Theses and Dissertations
This research details the effect of spatial resolution on target discrimination in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. Multiple SAR image chips containing targets and non-targets are used to test a baseline Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) system with reduced spatial resolution. Spatial resolution is reduced by lowering the pixel count or synthesizing a degraded image by filtering and reducing the pixel count. A two-parameter Constant False Alarm Rate (CFAR) detector is tested, and three feature sets, size, contrast, and texture, are used to train a linear classifier and to estimate probability density functions for the two classes. The results are scored …
Global Navigation Satellite System Software Defined Radio,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Global Navigation Satellite System Software Defined Radio, Jason M. Mcginthy
Theses and Dissertations
The GNSS world is quickly growing. The United States’ GPS, the European Union’s Galileo, China’s Compass, and Russia’s GLONASS systems are all developing or modernizing their signals, and there will soon be more navigation satellites in space than ever before. The goal of this research was to develop an initial capability for an AFIT GNSS software receiver. This software receiver is intended to be used for research purposes at the Advanced Navigation Technology (ANT) Center. First a GPS-only software receiver was built. It successfully acquired, tracked, and provided reasonable position estimates. Next, the receiver was successfully modified to acquire and …
Artificial Inhomogeneous Tapered Impedance Sheet Characterization And Applications,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Artificial Inhomogeneous Tapered Impedance Sheet Characterization And Applications, Jeffrey P. Massman
Theses and Dissertations
The ability to manipulate a complex impedance sheet about a PEC or general dielectric cylinder of arbitrary diameter to control the overall scattering characteristics at particular angles for shielding or scattering applications is presented. It is shown that with the capability to readily control both the real and imaginary components of a percolated lossy film's effective impedance, specific impedance distributions can be obtained to effectively direct the overall nulls in the bistatic scattering pattern. The exact approach only requires negligible truncation error of the matrix solution and can be applied to cylinders of arbitrary size. This approach relies on general …
Spectral Domain Rf Fingerprinting For 802.11 Wireless Devices,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Spectral Domain Rf Fingerprinting For 802.11 Wireless Devices, Sheldon A. Munns
Theses and Dissertations
The increase in availability and reduction in cost of commercial communication devices (e.g. IEEE compliant such as 802.11, WiFi, 802.16, Bluetooth etc.) has increased wireless user exposure and the need for techniques to properly identify/classify signals for increased security measures. Communication device emissions include intentional modulation that enables correct device operation. Hardware and environmental factors alter the ideal response and induce unintentional modulation effects. If these effects (features) are sufficiently unique, it becomes possible to identify a device using its fingerprint, with potential discrimination of not only the manufacturer but possibly the serial number for a given manufacturer. Many techniques …
Development And Evaluation Of A Multistatic Ultrawideband Random Noise Radar,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Development And Evaluation Of A Multistatic Ultrawideband Random Noise Radar, Matthew E. Nelms
Theses and Dissertations
This research studies the AFIT noise network (NoNET) radar node design and the feasibility in processing the bistatic channel information of a cluster of widely distributed noise radar nodes. A system characterization is used to predict theoretical localization performance metrics. Design and integration of a distributed and central signal and data processing architecture enables the Matlab®-driven signal data acquisition, digital processing and multi-sensor image fusion. Experimental evaluation of the monostatic localization performance reveals its range measurement error standard deviation is 4.8 cm with a range resolution of 87.2(±5.9) cm. The 16-channel multistatic solution results in a 2-dimensional localization error of …
Design Of A Monocular Multi-Spectral Skin Detection, Melanin Estimation, And False-Alarm Suppression System,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Design Of A Monocular Multi-Spectral Skin Detection, Melanin Estimation, And False-Alarm Suppression System, Keith R. Peskosky
Theses and Dissertations
A real-time skin detection, false-alarm reduction, and melanin estimation system is designed targeting search and rescue (SAR) with application to special operations for manhunting and human measurement and signatures intelligence. A mathematical model of the system is developed and used to determine how the physical system performs under illumination, target-to-sensor distance, and target-type scenarios. This aspect is important to the SAR community to gain an understanding of the deployability in different operating environments. A multi-spectral approach is developed and consists of two short-wave infrared cameras and two visible cameras. Through an optical chain of lenses, custom designed and fabricated dichroic …
Investigating The Use Of Frequency Selective Surfaces In High Power Microwave Applications,
2010
Air Force Institute of Technology
Investigating The Use Of Frequency Selective Surfaces In High Power Microwave Applications, Steven M. Pugh
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis explores new territory with the theoretical investigation of the use of Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) in High Power Microwave (HPM) applications. Work was performed in a simulation environment where rectangular and ring-shaped FSS elements were evaluated. Incident electric field levels of 0.5MV/m were propagated toward the FSS in a plane wave that was perpendicular to the surface. Results show that the total electric field in the apertures of the FSS can reach more than 6MV/m. This necessitates the use of high strength dielectric materials surrounding the FSS to reduce the risk of electrical breakdown. It is shown that …
