Computer Engineering Commons^™

C2 Domain Ontology Within Our Lifetime, Leslie Winters, Andreas Tolk

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Agile Command and Control (C2) requires agile information sharing with an increasingly wide variety of military and non-military partners. While current net-centric approaches may improve information sharing within a particular niche of C2, they do not support information sharing across the larger C2 domain. Although not a silver bullet, the development and application of a C2 domain ontology to improve C2 data and service integration appears to be increasingly realistic. In fact, there are several examples of successful ontology applications in domains such as medicine, biology, and engineering, and the new discipline of Applied Ontology is emerging. C2 data, architecture, …

Harmonizing Bml Approaches: Grammars And Data Models For A Bml Standard, Dietmar Kunde, Thomas Orichel, Andreas Tolk, Ulrich Schade, Michael R. Hieb

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Battle Management Language (BML) is being developed as an open standard that unambiguously formalizes and specifies Command and Control information, including orders and reports built upon precise representations of tasks. BML is a language specification, based on doctrine and consistent with Coalition standards. The goal of BML is to enable and improve the interoperability in the C2 area, especially by enabling also the military communication with simulation systems and future robotic forces.

Although the need for BML is well documented, a SISO standard has still not been achieved. At present, there are two recommended approaches focusing on different aspects. In …

Exploring Primitives Of Meaning In Support Of Interoperability, Charles D. Turnitsa, Andreas Tolk, Robert Kewley

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Semantic mismatch between systems is due, in part, to the grouping together of terms who have defined meaning in different levels of granularity, and which are composed together into different groupings by distinct systems. It has been proposed that making use of elemental concepts (referred to here as primitives of meaning) can assist in interoperability, but seeking to define all terms at a level of granularity equal to or greater than that of all involved systems.

By decomposing a system’s groups of composed terms into primitives of meaning, the building blocks that can be reassembled into the compositions required by …

Applying Model-Based Data Engineering To Evaluate The Alignment Of Information Modeled Within Jc3iedm, Msdl, And Matrex-Fom, Anil Ustun, Andreas Tolk, Saikou Diallo

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

The need for a common representation of entities and their relations to support the easier composition and federation of independently developed solutions in support of the user has been identified and addressed in several papers presented during recent simulation interoperability workshop. One of the underlying assumptions is that standards derived from the same conceptual domain can easily be converted into each others, as they deal with the same concepts. In a project conducted for the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier, three of such solutions for military operations (with focus on the land forces) were utilized to capture the …

Utilizing Strategic Project Management Processes And The Nato Code Of Best Practice To Improve Management Of Experimentation Events, Andreas Tolk, Rafael E. Landaeta, Robert H. Kewley, Thomas T. Litwin

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Systems engineering and project management are two core engineering management processes supported by core quantitative disciplines within engineering management problems. Traditional approaches to systems engineering focus on a single system being engineered and managed (i.e., project managed), while challenges addressing composition of systems of systems and the reuse of systems for new solutions require a strategic management approach that promote a process flow in which the outputs of one project (e.g., deliverables, knowledge, work documents) are captured for the benefit of other projects within and outside the project-based organization. Two other core processes of engineering management are therefore critical to …

Defining A Forensic Audit, G. S. Smith, D. L. Crumbley

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Disclosures about new financial frauds and scandals are continually appearing in the press. As a consequence, the accounting profession's traditional methods of monitoring corporate financial activities are under intense scrutiny. At the same time, there is recognition that principles-based GAAP from the International Accounting Standards Board will become the recognized standard in the U.S. The authors argue that these two factors will change the practices used to fight corporate malfeasance as investigators adapt the techniques of accounting into a forensic audit engagement model.

Visualisation Of Honeypot Data Using Graphviz And Afterglow, Craig Valli

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research in progress paper explores the use of Graphviz and Afterglow for the analysis of data emanating from a honeypot system. Honeypot systems gather a wide range of data that is often difficult to readily search for patterns and trends using conventional log file analysis techniques. The data from the honeypots has been statically extracted and processed through Afterglow scripts to produce inputs suitable for use by the DOT graph based tools contained within Graphviz. This paper explores some of the benefits and drawbacks of currently using this type of approach.

Insecurity By Obscurity: A Review Of Soho Router Literature From A Network Security Perspective, Patryk Szewczyk, Craig Valli

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Because of prevalent threats to SoHo based ADSL Routers, many more devices are compromised. Whilst an end-user may be at fault for not applying the appropriate security mechanisms to counter these threats, vendors should equally share the blame. This paper reveals that the lack of security related content and poor overall design could impact on end-users’ interpretation and willingness to implement security controls on their ADSL router. It argues that whilst the number of threats circulating the Internet is increasing, vendors are not improving their product literature.

Telecommunications Liberalisation In Africa: Proposed Regulatory Model For The Sadc Region, Z. N. Jobodwana

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The liberalisation of the telecommunication industry in Africa, and the further development of the region’s physical infrastructure was accompanied by the further development of Africa’s information, communication and technology infrastructure. Competition within the industry stimulated heavy economic investment in other sectors of the economy. The outcome of liberalisation also included the establishment of community-based structures that continue to enable communities to manage their own development and gain access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in an unprecedented manner. The telecommunication infrastructure further stimulated the fast development of other related services, for example, ecommerce and mobile commerce (m-commerce), e-government, internet banking, …

Self-Reported Cyber Crime: An Analysis On The Effects Of Anonymity And Pre-Employment Integrity, Ibrahim Baggili, Marcus Rogers

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

A key issue facing today’s society is the increase in cyber crimes. Cyber crimes pose threats to nations, organizations and individuals across the globe. Much of the research in cyber crime has risen from computer science-centric programs, and little experimental research has been performed on the psychology of cyber crime. This has caused a knowledge gap in the study of cyber crime. To this end, this research focuses on understanding psychological concepts related to cyber crime. Through an experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to three groups with varying degrees of anonymity. After each treatment, participants were asked to self-report …

On-Board Three-Dimensional Object Tracking: Software And Hardware Solutions, Ajay Kumar Mandava

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

We describe a real time system for recognition and tracking 3D objects such as UAVs, airplanes, fighters with the optical sensor. Given a 2D image, the system has to perform background subtraction, recognize relative rotation, scale and translation of the object to sustain a prescribed topology of the fleet. In the thesis a comparative study of different algorithms and performance evaluation is carried out based on time and accuracy constraints. For background subtraction task we evaluate frame differencing, approximate median filter, mixture of Gaussians and propose classification based on neural network methods. For object detection we analyze the performance of …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Online Child Sexual Abuse: The French Response, Mohamed Chawki

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Online child sexual abuse is an increasingly visible problem in society today. The introduction, growth and utilization of information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs) have been accompanied by an increase in illegal activities. With respect to cyberspace the Internet is an attractive environment to sex offenders. In addition to giving them greater access to minors, extending their reach from a limited geographical area to victims all around the world, it allows criminals to alter or conceal their identities. Sexual predators, stalkers, child pornographers and child traffickers can use various concealment techniques to make it more difficult for investigators to identify them …

Correlating Orphaned Windows Registry Data Structures, Damir Kahvedžić, Tahar Kechadi

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Recently, it has been shown that deleted entries of the Microsoft Windows registry (keys) may still reside in the system files once the entries have been deleted from the active database. Investigating the complete keys in context may be extremely important from both a Forensic Investigation point of view and a legal point of view where a lack of context can bring doubt to an argument. In this paper we formalise the registry behaviour and show how a retrieved value may not maintain a relation to the part of the registry it belonged to and hence lose that context. We …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Continuous Fraud Detection In Enterprise Systems Through Audit Trail Analysis, Peter J. Best, Pall Rikhardsson, Mark Toleman

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Enterprise systems, real time recording and real time reporting pose new and significant challenges to the accounting and auditing professions. This includes developing methods and tools for continuous assurance and fraud detection. In this paper we propose a methodology for continuous fraud detection that exploits security audit logs, changes in master records and accounting audit trails in enterprise systems. The steps in this process are: (1) threat monitoringsurveillance of security audit logs for ‘red flags’, (2) automated extraction and analysis of data from audit trails, and (3) using forensic investigation techniques to determine whether a fraud has actually occurred. We …

A Synopsis Of Proposed Data Protection Legislation In Sa, Francis S. Cronjé

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Privacy International1 made the following statement regarding South Africa’s financial sector in its 2005 world survey: “South Africa has a well-developed financial system and banking infrastructure. Despite the sophistication of the financial sector, the privacy of financial information is weakly regulated by a code of conduct for banks issued by the Banking Council.” This extract highlights some of the problems South Africa are experiencing with its current status on privacy as viewed from an International perspective. In recent years the International society has stepped up its efforts in creating a global village wherein the individual could be assured of having …

Bluetooth Hacking: A Case Study, Dennis Browning, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper describes a student project examining mechanisms with which to attack Bluetooth-enabled devices. The paper briefly describes the protocol architecture of Bluetooth and the Java interface that programmers can use to connect to Bluetooth communication services. Several types of attacks are described, along with a detailed example of two attack tools, Bloover II and BT Info.

Detection Of Steganography-Producing Software Artifacts On Crime-Related Seized Computers, Asawaree Kulkarni, James Goldman, Brad Nabholz, William Eyre

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Steganography is the art and science of hiding information within information so that an observer does not know that communication is taking place. Bad actors passing information using steganography are of concern to the national security establishment and law enforcement. An attempt was made to determine if steganography was being used by criminals to communicate information. Web crawling technology was used and images were downloaded from Web sites that were considered as likely candidates for containing information hidden using steganographic techniques. A detection tool was used to analyze these images. The research failed to demonstrate that steganography was prevalent on …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Prevention Is Better Than Prosecution: Deepening The Defence Against Cyber Crime, Jacqueline Fick

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In the paper the author proposes that effectively and efficiently addressing cyber crime requires a shift in paradigm. For businesses and government departments alike the focus should be on prevention, rather than the prosecution of cyber criminals. The Defence in Depth strategy poses a practical solution for achieving Information Assurance in today’s highly networked environments. In a world where “absolute security” is an unachievable goal, the concept of Information Assurance poses significant benefits to securing one of an organization’s most valuable assets: Information. It will be argued that the approach of achieving Information Assurance within an organisation, coupled with the …

To License Or Not To License Revisited: An Examination Of State Statutes Regarding Private Investigators And Digital Examiners, Thomas Lonardo, Doug White, Alan Rea

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this update to the previous year's study, the authors examine statutes that regulate, license, and enforce investigative functions in each US state. After identification and review of Private Investigator licensing requirements, the authors find that very few state statutes explicitly differentiate between Private Investigators and Digital Examiners. After contacting all state agencies the authors present a distinct grouping organizing state approaches to professional Digital Examiner licensing. The authors conclude that states must differentiate between Private Investigator and Digital Examiner licensing requirements and oversight.

The Impact Of Hard Disk Firmware Steganography On Computer Forensics, Iain Sutherland, Gareth Davies, Nick Pringle, Andrew Blyth

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The hard disk drive is probably the predominant form of storage media and is a primary data source in a forensic investigation. The majority of available software tools and literature relating to the investigation of the structure and content contained within a hard disk drive concerns the extraction and analysis of evidence from the various file systems which can reside in the user accessible area of the disk. It is known that there are other areas of the hard disk drive which could be used to conceal information, such as the Host Protected Area and the Device Configuration Overlay. There …

Electronic Forms-Based Computing For Evidentiary Analysis, Andy Luse, Brian Mennecke, Anthony M. Townsend

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The paperwork associated with evidentiary collection and analysis is a highly repetitive and time-consuming process which often involves duplication of work and can frequently result in documentary errors. Electronic entry of evidencerelated information can facilitate greater accuracy and less time spent on data entry. This manuscript describes a general framework for the implementation of an electronic tablet-based system for evidentiary processing. This framework is then utilized in the design and implementation of an electronic tablet-based evidentiary input prototype system developed for use by forensic laboratories which serves as a verification of the proposed framework. The manuscript concludes with a discussion …

Graduate Accounting Students' Perception Of It Forensics: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis, Grover S. Kearns

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Forensics and information technology (IT) have become increasingly important to accountants and auditors. Undergraduate accounting students are introduced to general IT topics but discussion of forensic knowledge is limited. A few schools have introduced an undergraduate major in forensic accounting. Some graduate schools offer accounting students an emphasis in forensic or fraud accounting that includes instruction in forensics and information technology. When students do not view the IT topics as being equally important to their careers as traditional accounting topics, these attitudes may reduce the quality of the course. In an effort to assess student attitudes, a survey of 46 …

Book Review: Cyber Security And Global Information Assurance: Threat Analysis And Response Solutions, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

I freely admit that this book was sent to me by the publisher for the expressed purpose of my writing a review and that I know several of the chapter authors. With that disclosure out of the way, let me say that the book is well worth the review (and I get to keep my review copy).
The preface to the book cites the 2003 publication of The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace by the White House, and the acknowledgement by the U.S. government that our economy and national security were fully dependent upon computers, networks, and the telecommunications infrastructure. …

An Agent-Based Combat Simulation Framework In Support Of Effect-Based And Net-Centric Evaluation, Robert Joseph Bowen

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The use of information technologies (IT) and information networks has proliferated in industry as a method to achieve competitive advantage. The U.S. Military and its allies, in recent years, have employed IT to improve the way they conduct operations, speed decision making, and increase the span of control of commanders. This has resulted in a fundamental shift in the way military commanders employ combat units today. These (Information Age) forces no longer have to be able to see each other or even communicate directly in order to synchronize maneuvers. Dispersion is now favored over mass, relying on the IT network …

The Interactive Research Guide: Will Function Bring Users Content? A Project Model Illustrated By A Proposed Paper-Writing Guide, Barry J. Bailey

Library Papers and Presentations

After reviewing the history of subject guides and their movement into an electronic format, their is an opportunity to change the format of information providing. Whereas a user goes to guides for lists of content, perhaps a user can go to guides to execute a function. By walking through the creation of a paper-writing guide, this idea of a functioning guide is illustrated.

Building A Blog From Scratch, Jonathan Bacon

SIDLIT Conference Proceedings

The presenter takes the audience step-by-step through the creation of a Weblog, a tool which can be used for distance education.