Computer Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating Information Assurance Control Effectiveness On An Air Force Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (Scada) System, Jason R. Nielsen

Theses and Dissertations

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are increasingly being connected to corporate networks which has dramatically expanded their attack surface to remote cyber attack. Adversaries are targeting these systems with increasing frequency and sophistication. This thesis seeks to answer the research question addressing which Information Assurance (IA) controls are most significant for network defenders and SCADA system managers/operators to focus on in order to increase the security of critical infrastructure systems against a Stuxnet-like cyber attack. This research applies the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) IA controls to an attack tree modeled on a remote Stuxnet-like cyber …

Defensive Cyber Battle Damage Assessment Through Attack Methodology Modeling, Ryan T. Ostler

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the growing sophisticated capabilities of advanced persistent cyber threats, it is necessary to understand and accurately assess cyber attack damage to digital assets. This thesis proposes a Defensive Cyber Battle Damage Assessment (DCBDA) process which utilizes the comprehensive understanding of all possible cyber attack methodologies captured in a Cyber Attack Methodology Exhaustive List (CAMEL). This research proposes CAMEL to provide detailed knowledge of cyber attack actions, methods, capabilities, forensic evidence and evidence collection methods. This product is modeled as an attack tree called the Cyber Attack Methodology Attack Tree (CAMAT). The proposed DCBDA process uses CAMAT to analyze …

Spear Phishing Attack Detection, David T. Merritt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addresses the problem of identifying email spear phishing attacks, which are indicative of cyber espionage. Spear phishing consists of targeted emails sent to entice a victim to open a malicious file attachment or click on a malicious link that leads to a compromise of their computer. Current detection methods fail to detect emails of this kind consistently. The SPEar phishing Attack Detection system (SPEAD) is developed to analyze all incoming emails on a network for the presence of spear phishing attacks. SPEAD analyzes the following file types: Windows Portable Executable and Common Object File Format (PE/COFF), Adobe Reader, …

Polarimetric Enhancements To Electro-Optical Aided Navigation Techniques, Jeremiah D. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Navigation in indoor and urban environments by small unmanned systems is a topic of interest for the Air Force. The Advanced Navigation Technology Center at the Air Force Institute of Technology is continually looking for novel approaches to navigation in GPS deprived environments. Inertial sensors have been coupled with image aided concepts, such as feature tracking, with good results. However, feature density in areas with large, flat, smooth surfaces tends to be low. Polarimetric sensors have been used for surface reconstruction, surface characterization and outdoor navigation. This thesis combines aspects of some of these algorithms along with a realistic, micro-facet …

Kernelized Locality-Sensitive Hashing For Fast Image Landmark Association, Mark A. Weems

Theses and Dissertations

As the concept of war has evolved, navigation in urban environments where GPS may be degraded is increasingly becoming more important. Two existing solutions are vision-aided navigation and vision-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The problem, however, is that vision-based navigation techniques can require excessive amounts of memory and increased computational complexity resulting in a decrease in speed. This research focuses on techniques to improve such issues by speeding up and optimizing the data association process in vision-based SLAM. Specifically, this work studies the current methods that algorithms use to associate a current robot pose to that of one previously …

Single-Beam Holographic Tomography Creates Images In Three Dimensions, George Nehmetallah, Partha P. Banerjee, Nickolai Kukhtarev

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In digital holography (DH), the interference between light scattered from an object and a reference wave is recorded using a CCD camera. DH has various advantages over analog holography: no film processing is needed, reconstruction is performed using numerical methods, and no further experimental setup is necessary. However, one of the disadvantages of DH is that current CCDs have a resolution of approximately 1,000 lines/mm, which is less than that of photographic film.

Anisotropic Electrical Properties Of Nanostructured Metallic Thin Films, Mo Ahoujja, Piyush Shah, Andrew Saragan, Said Elhamri, Elena A. Guliants

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

High surface area, porous, metallic (Ti, Cr) nanorod thin ¯lms with columnar microstructure can be deposited using conventional physical vapor deposition technique of E-beam evaporation. The technique relies on the physical vapor deposition onto a static substrate oriented in a position where °ux from the source material (Ti, Cr) arrives at oblique angle. The adatoms provides geometrical shadowing which results in growth of nanorod columns in the direction of vapor source. Deposition conditions such as angle of the incoming vapor °ux, substrate temperature, surface di®usion etc. have strong in°uence on the shape and arrangement of the columnar thin ¯lms. In …

Scalable Correct Memory Ordering Via Relativistic Programming, Josh Triplett, Philip William Howard, Paul E. Mckenney, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose and document a new concurrent programming model, relativistic programming. This model allows readers to run concurrently with writers, without blocking or using expensive synchronization. Relativistic programming builds on existing synchronization primitives that allow writers to wait for current readers to finish with minimal reader overhead. Our methodology models data structures as graphs, and reader algorithms as traversals of these graphs; from this foundation we show how writers can implement arbitrarily strong ordering guarantees for the visibility of their writes, up to and including total ordering.

Generalized Construction Of Scalable Concurrent Data Structures Via Relativistic Programming, Josh Triplett, Paul E. Mckenney, Philip W. Howard, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present relativistic programming, a concurrent programming model based on shared addressing, which supports efficient, scalable operation on either uniform shared-memory or distributed shared- memory systems. Relativistic programming provides a strong causal ordering property, allowing a series of read operations to appear as an atomic transaction that occurs entirely between two ordered write operations. This preserves the simple immutable-memory programming model available via mutual exclusion or transactional memory. Furthermore, relativistic programming provides joint-access parallelism, allowing readers to run concurrently with a writer on the same data. We demonstrate a generalized construction technique for concurrent data structures based on relativistic programming, …

Reactive Routing In Hidra Networks, Scott Michael Marshall

Computer Engineering

In recent years, the Internet has grown so large that the future scalability of the Internet has become a major concern. The two primary scalability concerns are the size of the forwarding table and the ability for BGP to converge while distributing hundreds of thousands of routes.

HIDRA is a new Internet routing architecture that is backwards-compatible with existing routing technologies and protocols that focuses on feasibility-of-implementation. HIDRA remedies the first Internet scalability concern by proposing a means to reduce the number of entries in the default-free zone (DFZ) forwarding table.

This project extends HIDRA by designing a complete reactive …

Identifying Horizontal Gene Transfer Using Anomalies In Protein Structures And Sequences, Venkat Ram B. Santosh

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Genetics has traditionally focused on vertical gene transfer, which is the passing of the genetic material of an organism to its offspring. However, recent studies in genetics increased the awareness that horizontal gene transfer, which is the passing of the genetic material of an organism to another organism that is not its offspring, is also a significant phenomenon. Horizontal gene transfer is thought to play a major role in the natural evolution of bacteria, such as, when several different types of bacteria all suddenly develop the same drug resistance genes. Artificial horizontal gene transfer occurs in genetic engineering.

This thesis …

Pgtp: Power Aware Game Transport Protocol For Multi-Player Mobile Games, Bhojan Anand, Jeena Sebastian, Soh Yu Ming, Akhihebbal L. Ananda, Mun Choon Chan, Rajesh Krishna Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Applications on the smartphones are able to capitalize on the increasingly advanced hardware to provide a user experience reasonably impressive. However, the advancement of these applications are hindered battery lifetime of the smartphones. The battery technologies have a relatively low growth rate. Applications like mobile multiplayer games are especially power hungry as they maximize the use of the network, display and CPU resources. The PGTP, presented in this paper is aware of both the transport requirement of these multiplayer mobile games and the limitation posed by battery resource. PGTP dynamically controls the transport based on the criticality of game state …

Executable Architecture Research At Old Dominion University, Andreas Tolk, Johnny J. Garcia, Edwin A. Shuman

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Executable Architectures allow the evaluation of system architectures not only regarding their static, but also their dynamic behavior. However, the systems engineering community do not agree on a common formal specification of executable architectures. To close this gap and identify necessary elements of an executable architecture, a modeling language, and a modeling formalism is topic of ongoing PhD research. In addition, systems are generally defined and applied in an operational context to provide capabilities and enable missions. To maximize the benefits of executable architectures, a second PhD effort introduces the idea of creating an executable context in addition to the …

Data Mining Based Learning Algorithms For Semi-Supervised Object Identification And Tracking, Michael P. Dessauer

Doctoral Dissertations

Sensor exploitation (SE) is the crucial step in surveillance applications such as airport security and search and rescue operations. It allows localization and identification of movement in urban settings and can significantly boost knowledge gathering, interpretation and action. Data mining techniques offer the promise of precise and accurate knowledge acquisition techniques in high-dimensional data domains (and diminishing the “curse of dimensionality” prevalent in such datasets), coupled by algorithmic design in feature extraction, discriminative ranking, feature fusion and supervised learning (classification). Consequently, data mining techniques and algorithms can be used to refine and process captured data and to detect, recognize, classify, …

Simulation, Application, And Resilience Of An Organic Neuromorphic Architecture, Made With Organic Bistable Devices And Organic Field Effect Transistors, Robert A. Nawrocki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents work done simulating a type of organic neuromorphic architecture, modeled after Artificial Neural Network, and termed Synthetic Neural Network, or SNN. The first major contribution of this thesis is development of a single-transistor-single-organic-bistable-device-per-input circuit that approximates behavior of an artificial neuron. The efficacy of this design is validated by comparing the behavior of a single synthetic neuron to that of an artificial neuron as well as two examples involving a network of synthetic neurons. The analysis utilizes electrical characteristics of polymer electronic elements, namely Organic Bistable Device and Organic Field Effect Transistor, created in the laboratory at …

Reference Set Metrics For Multi-Objective Algorithms, Chilukuri K. Mohan, Kishan Mehrotra

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Several metrics and indicators have been suggested in the past to evaluate multi-objective evolutionary and non-evolutionary algo- rithms. However, these metrics are known to have many problems that make their application sometimes unsound, and sometimes infeasible. This paper proposes a new approach, in which metrics are parameter- ized with respect to a reference set, on which depend the properties of any metric.

Ua3/9/2 I.T. Division Annual Report + Tactical Plan, Wku Information Technology

WKU Administration Documents

Annual report of WKU Information Technology Division submitted to WKU President Gary Ransdell. Report is housed in UA3/9/2 Subject Files.

An Empirical Study Of Open Source Software Usability: The Industrial Perspective, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the use of open source projects by common novice users; Open Source Software (OSS) is thus no longer a reserved arena for software developers and computer gurus. Although user-centered designs are gaining popularity in OSS, usability is still not considered as one of the prime objectives in many design scenarios. In this paper, we analyze industry users’ perception of usability factors, including understandability, learnability, operability and attractiveness, on OSS usability. The research model of this empirical study establishes the relationship between the key usability factors and OSS usability from industrial perspective. In …

Relativistic Red-Black Trees, Philip William Howard, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Operating system performance and scalability on sharedmemory many-core systems depends critically on efficient access to shared data structures. Scalability has proven difficult to achieve for many data structures. In this paper we present a novel and highly scalable concurrent red-black tree. Red-black trees are widely used in operating systems, but typically exhibit poor scalability. Our red-black tree has linear read scalability, uncontended read performance that is at least 25% faster than other known approaches, and deterministic lookup times for a given tree size, making it suitable for realtime applications.

The Ordering Requirements Of Relativistic And Reader-Writer Locking Approaches To Shared Data Access, Philip William Howard, Josh Triplett, Jonathan Walpole, Paul E. Mckenney

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The semantics of reader-writer locks allow read-side concurrency. Unfortunately, the locking primitives serialize access to the lock variable to an extent that little or no concurrency is realized in practice for small critical sections. Relativistic programming is a methodology that also allows read- side concurrency. Relativistic programming uses dfferent ordering constraints than reader-writer locking. The different ordering constraints allow relativistic readers to proceed without synchronization so relativistic readers scale even for very short critical sections. In this paper we explore the diferences between the ordering constraints for reader-writer locking and relativistic programs. We show how and why the dfferent ordering …

On The Applications Of Deterministic Chaos For Encrypting Data On The Cloud, Jonathan Blackledge, Nikolai Ptitsyn

Conference papers

Cloud computing is expected to grow considerably in the future because it has so many advantages with regard to sale and cost, change management, next generation architectures, choice and agility. However, one of the principal concerns for users of the Cloud is lack of control and above all, data security. This paper considers an approach to encrypting information before it is ‘placed’ on the Cloud where each user has access to their own encryption algorithm, an algorithm that is based on a set of iterated function systems that outputs a chaotic number stream, designed to produce a cryptographically secure cipher. …

Kindle Forensics: Acquisition & Analysis, Peter Hannay

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Amazon Kindle eBook reader supports a wide range of capabilities beyond reading books. This functionality includes an inbuilt cellular data connection known as Whispernet. The Kindle provides web browsing, an application framework, eBook delivery and other services over this connection. The historic data left by user interaction with this device may be of forensic interest. Analysis of the Amazon Kindle device has resulted in a method to reliably extract and interpret data from these devices in a forensically complete manner.

Column: The Consortium Of Digital Forensics Specialists (Cdfs), Christopher Kelly

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensic practitioners are faced with an extraordinary opportunity. In fact, we may never again be faced with such an opportunity, and this opportunity will challenge us in ways we may never again be challenged. At this point in the history of the Digital Forensics profession, digital forensic specialists have the unique opportunity to help this profession emerge from its infancy. But for this profession to mature -- and to flourish -- individuals and organizations integral to the practice must assemble and shape its future. This is our opportunity. In fact, this is our mandate.

Judges’ Awareness, Understanding, And Application Of Digital Evidence, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As digital evidence grows in both volume and importance in criminal and civil courts, judges need to fairly and justly evaluate the merits of the offered evidence. To do so, judges need a general understanding of the underlying technologies and applications from which digital evidence is derived. Due to the relative newness of the computer forensics field, there have been few studies on the use of digital forensic evidence and none about judges’ relationship with digital evidence. This paper describes a recent study, using grounded theory methods, into judges’ awareness, knowledge, and perceptions of digital evidence. This study is the …

Technology Corner: Analysing E-Mail Headers For Forensic Investigation, M. T. Banday

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Electronic Mail (E-Mail), which is one of the most widely used applications of Internet, has become a global communication infrastructure service. However, security loopholes in it enable cybercriminals to misuse it by forging its headers or by sending it anonymously for illegitimate purposes, leading to e-mail forgeries. E-mail messages include transit handling envelope and trace information in the form of structured fields which are not stripped after messages are delivered, leaving a detailed record of e-mail transactions. A detailed header analysis can be used to map the networks traversed by messages, including information on the messaging software and patching policies …

A Dynamic Hierarchical Web-Based Portal, Matthew James Spaulding

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A dynamic hierarchical web-based portal was created to house a suite of web-based supply chain management applications. The portal was designed in a hierarchical manner to match the structure of large companies. Administrators of the the portal have the ability to form the portal in such a way to mimic the existing structure of their company. Access rights to the applications in the portal may be granted or denied per division and the users of the portal are placed in these divisions based on their duty in the company. In addition, users are granted roles which dictate their ability to …

Semi-Automatic Management Of Knowledge Bases Using Formal Ontologies, Andreas Textor

Theses

This thesis presents an approach that deals with the ever-growing amount of data in knowledge bases, especially concerning knowledge interoperability and formal representation of domain knowledge. There arc multiple issues that must be addressed with current systems. A multitude of different formats, sources and tools exist in a domain, and it is desirable to develop their use further towards a standardised environment. Such an environment should support both the representation and processing of data from this domain, and the connection to other domains, where necessary. In order to manage large amounts of data, it should be possible to perform whatever …

Survey On Cloud Forensics And Critical Criteria For Cloud Forensic Capability: A Preliminary Analysis, Keyun Ruan, Ibrahim Baggili, Joe Carthy, Tahar Kechadi

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this paper we present the current results and analysis of the survey “Cloud forensics and critical criteria for cloud forensic capability” carried out towards digital forensic experts and practitioners. This survey was created in order to gain a better understanding on some of the key questions of the new field - cloud forensics - before further research and development. We aim to understand concepts such as its definition, the most challenging issues, most valuable research directions, and the critical criteria for cloud forensic capability.

Cat Detect (Computer Activity Timeline Detection): A Tool For Detecting Inconsistency In Computer Activity Timelines, Andrew Marrington, Ibrahim Baggili, George Mohay, Andrew Clark

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The construction of timelines of computer activity is a part of many digital investigations. These timelines of events are composed of traces of historical activity drawn from system logs and potentially from evidence of events found in the computer file system. A potential problem with the use of such information is that some of it may be inconsistent and contradictory thus compromising its value. This work introduces a software tool (CAT Detect) for the detection of inconsistency within timelines of computer activity. We examine the impact of deliberate tampering through experiments conducted with our prototype software tool. Based on the …

Multi-Pose Face Recognition And Tracking System, Binu Muraleedharan Nair, Jacob Foytik, Richard Tompkins, Yakov Diskin, Theus Aspiras, Vijayan K. Asari

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a real time system for person detection, recognition and tracking using frontal and profile faces. The system integrates face detection, face recognition and tracking techniques. The face detection algorithm uses both frontal face and profile face detectors by extracting the 'Haar' features and uses them in a cascade of boosted classifiers. The pose is determined from the face detection algorithm which uses a combination of profile and frontal face cascades and, depending on the pose, the face is compared with a particular set of faces having the same range for classification. The detected faces are recognized by projecting …