Computer Engineering Commons^™

Backtrack In The Outback - A Preliminary Report On Cyber Security Evaluation Of Organisations In Western Australia, Craig Valli, Andrew Woodward, Peter Hannay

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The authors were involved in extensive vulnerability assessment and penetration testing of over 15 large organisations across various industry sectors in the Perth CBD. The actual live testing involved a team of five people for approximately a four week period, and was black box testing. The scanning consisted of running network and web vulnerability tools, and in a few cases, exploiting vulnerability to establish validity of the tools. The tools were run in aggressive mode with no attempt made to deceive or avoid detection by IDS/IPS or firewalls. The aim of the testing was to determine firstly whether these organisations …

Creating Realistic Corpora For Security And Forensic Education, Kam Woods, Christopher A. Lee, Simson Garfinkel, David Dittrich, Adam Russell, Kris Kearton

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

We present work on the design, implementation, distribution, and use of realistic forensic datasets to support digital forensics and security education. We describe in particular the “M57-Patents” scenario, a multi-modal corpus consisting of hard drive images, RAM images, network captures, and images from other devices typically found in forensics investigations such as USB drives and cellphones. Corpus creation has been performed as part of a scripted scenario; subsequently it is less “noisy” than real-world data but retains the complexity necessary to support a wide variety of forensic education activities. Realistic forensic corpora allow direct comparison of approaches and tools across …

Developing A Forensic Continuous Audit Model, Grover S. Kearns, Katherine J. Barker

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Despite increased attention to internal controls and risk assessment, traditional audit approaches do not seem to be highly effective in uncovering the majority of frauds. Less than 20 percent of all occupational frauds are uncovered by auditors. Forensic accounting has recognized the need for automated approaches to fraud analysis yet research has not examined the benefits of forensic continuous auditing as a method to detect and deter corporate fraud. The purpose of this paper is to show how such an approach is possible. A model is presented that supports the acceptance of forensic continuous auditing by auditors and management as …

Development Of A Distributed Print‐Out Monitoring System For Efficient Forensic Investigation, Satoshi Kai, Tetsutaro Uehara

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

If information leakage occurs, an investigator is instructed to specify what documents were leaked and who leaked them. In the present work, a distributed print-out monitoring system—which consists of a virtual printer driver and print-out policy/log management servers—was developed. For easily matching the discovered (i.e., leaked) paper document with the print-out log, the virtual printer driver acquires full-text of printed-out documents by DDI hooking technique to check the content, transforms a spool file to a picture file and creates both a thumbnail and text log for forensic investigation afterwards. The log size is as only about 0.04 times bigger than …

Mac Os X Forensics: Password Discovery, David Primeaux, Robert Dahlberg, Kamnab Keo, Stephen Larson, B. Pennell, K. Sherman

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

OS X provides a password-rich environment in which passwords protect OS X resources and perhaps many other resources accessed through OS X. Every password an investigator discovers in an OS X environment has the potential for use in discovering other such passwords, and any discovered passwords may also be useful in other aspects of an investigation, not directly related to the OS X environment. This research advises the use of multiple attack vectors in approaching the password problem in an OS X system, including the more generally applicable non-OS X-specific techniques such as social engineering or well-known password cracking techniques …

Software Piracy Forensics: Impact And Implications Of Post‐Piracy Modifications, Vinod Bhattathiripad, S. Santhosh Baboo

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Piracy is potentially possible at any stage of the lifetime of the software. In a post-piracy situation, however, the growth of the respective versions of the software (both the original and pirated) is expected to be in different directions as a result of expectedly different implementation strategies. This paper shows how such post-piracy modifications are of special interest to a cyber crime expert investigating software piracy and suggests that the present software piracy forensic (or software copyright infringement investigation) approaches require amendments to take in such modifications. For this purpose, the paper also presents a format that is jargon-free, so …

Understanding Issues In Cloud Forensics: Two Hypothetical Case Studies, Josiah Dykstra, Alan T. Sherman

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The inevitable vulnerabilities and criminal targeting of cloud environments demand an understanding of how digital forensic investigations of the cloud can be accomplished. We present two hypothetical case studies of cloud crimes; child pornography being hosted in the cloud, and a compromised cloudbased website. Our cases highlight shortcomings of current forensic practices and laws. We describe significant challenges with cloud forensics, including forensic acquisition, evidence preservation and chain of custody, and open problems for continued research.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cloud forensics, digital forensics, case studies

A Practitioners Guide To The Forensic Investigation Of Xbox 360 Gaming Consoles, Ashley L. Podhradsky, Rob D’Ovidio, Cindy Casey

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Given the ubiquitous nature of computing, individuals now have nearly 24-7 access to the internet. People are not just going online through traditional means with a PC anymore, they are now frequently using nontraditional devices such as cell phones, smart phones, and gaming consoles. Given the increased use of gaming consoles for online access, there is also an increased use of gaming consoles to commit criminal activity. The digital forensic community has been tasked with creating new approaches for forensically analyzing gaming consoles. In this research paper the authors demonstrate different tools, both commercial and open source, available to forensically …

Sampling: Making Electronic Discovery More Cost Effective, Milton Luoma, Vicki Luoma

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

With the huge volumes of electronic data subject to discovery in virtually every instance of litigation, time and costs of conducting discovery have become exceedingly important when litigants plan their discovery strategies. Rather than incurring the costs of having lawyers review every document produced in response to a discovery request in search of relevant evidence, a cost effective strategy for document review planning is to use statistical sampling of the database of documents to determine the likelihood of finding relevant evidence by reviewing additional documents. This paper reviews and discusses how sampling can be used to make document review more …

Digital Forensics And The Law, Karon N. Murff, Hugh E. Gardenier, Martha L. Gardenier

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As computers and digital devices become more entrenched in our way of life, they become tools for both good and nefarious purposes. When the digital world collides with the legal world, a vast chasm is created. This paper will reflect how the legal community is failing to meet its obligation to provide adequate representation due to a lack of education about digital (computer) forensics. Whether in a civil litigation setting or a criminal setting, attorneys, prosecutors and judges have inadequate knowledge when it comes to the important questions they need to ask regarding digital evidence. Reliance on expert witnesses is …

Generation Of High-Temperature And Low-Density Plasmas For Improved Spectral Resolutions In Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, X. N. He, W. Hu, C. M. Li, L. B. Guo, Yongfeng Lu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Improved spectral resolutions were achieved in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) through generation of high-temperature and low-density plasmas. A first pulse from a KrF excimer laser was used to produce particles by perpendicularly irradiating targets in air. A second pulse from a 532 nm Nd:YAG laser was introduced parallel to the sample surface to reablate the particles. Optical scattering from the first-pulse plasmas was imaged to elucidate particle formation in the plasmas. Narrower line widths (full width at half maximums: FWHMs) and weaker self-absorption were observed from time-integrated LIBS spectra. Estimation of plasma temperatures and densities indicates that high temperature and …

Determination Of Selected Course Management Systems Advantages And Challenges: A Case Study, Dolruedee Suppacheewa

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Dolruedee Suppacheewa on May 12, 2011

Public Transit Accessibility And Need Indices: Approaches For Measuring Service Gap, Sha Mamun

Master's Theses

The integration of transit needs into transit accessibility indexing is important for the evaluation of existing transportation systems and, service gaps, and for the identification of priority areas for future investments in transportation infrastructure. This thesis details an accessibility-based transit need indexing model that focuses on the necessity of evaluating transit needs and transit accessibility simultaneously. A need index is developed to identify areas in high need of public transit services using economic and socio-demographic information and a composite accessibility index is developed to identify levels of access to transit services and shortcomings in service provision. The need for transit …

Campus Grids: A Framework To Facilitate Resource Sharing, Derek J. Weitzel

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

It is common at research institutions to maintain multiple clusters. These might fulfill different needs and policies, or represent different owners or generations of hard- ware. Many of these clusters are under utilized while researchers at other departments may require these resources. This may be solved by linking clusters with grid mid- dleware. This thesis describes a distributed high throughput computing framework to link clusters without changing security or execution environments. The framework initially keeps jobs local to the submitter, overflowing if necessary to the campus, and regional grid. The framework is implemented spanning two campuses at the Holland Computing …

Examination Of Chaotic Signal Encryption And Recovery For Secure Communication Using Hybrid Acousto-Optic Feedback, Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, Mohammed A. Al-Saedi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Generation of chaos from acousto-optic (A-O)Bragg cell modulators with an electronic feedback has been studied for over 3 decades. Since an acousto-optic Bragg cell with zeroth- and first-order feedback exhibits chaotic behavior past the threshold for bistability, such a system was recently examined for possible chaotic encryption of simple messages (such as a low-amplitude sinusoidal signal) applied via the bias input of the sound cell driver. Subsequent recovery of the message signal was carried out via a heterodyne-type strategy employing a locally generated chaotic carrier, with threshold parameters matched to the transmitting Bragg cell.

In this paper, we present numerical …

Joggler: Data Harvest And Analysis Tool, Ondrej Nebesky

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Linear-Time Resource Allocation In Security Games With Identical Fully Protective Resources, Octavio Lerma, Vladik Kreinovich, Chris Kiekintveld

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Game theory has become an important tools for making resource allocations decision in security domains, including critical infrastructure protection. Many of these games are formulated as Stackelberg security games. We present new analysis and algorithms for a class of Stackelberg security games with identical, fully protective defender resources. The first algorithm has worst-case complexity linear in the number of possible targets, but works only for a restricted case. The second algorithm can find and optimal resource allocation for the general case in time O(n log(n)).

When Is Busemann Product A Lattice? A Relation Between Metric Spaces And Corresponding Space-Time Models, Hans-Peter Künzi, Francisco Zapata, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The causality relation of special relativity is based on the assumption that the speed of all physical processes is limited by the speed of light. As a result, an event (t,x) occurring at moment t at location x can influence an event (y,s) if and only if s >= t+d(x,y)/c. We can simplify this formula if we use units of time and distance in which c=1 (e.g., by using a light second as a unit of distance). In this case, the above causality relation takes the form s >= t+d(x,y). Since the actual space can be non-Euclidean, H. Busemann generalized …

An Expressive Vocal Midi Controller, Brady Hurlburt

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The choice of controller often characterizes the performance obtained from an electronic instrument. Controllers exist that allow electronic musicians to mimic the expressive qualities of keyboard, wind, string, and percussion instruments, but vocalists have been largely neglected. To fill this need, a realtime software vocal MIDI controller named Grove is developed and demonstrated. Grove's pitch and time analyses are shown to be accurate, and it has mappable control signals that go beyond the capabilities of previous audio-to-MIDI converters to facilitate an expressive performance. Grove's source code is available under the GNU GPL v3 license.

Integration Of Communication Constraints Into Physiocomimetic Swarms Via Placement Of Location Based Virtual Particles, Joshua J. Haley

HIM 1990-2015

This thesis describes a change to the Physiocomimetics Robotic Swarm Control framework that implements communication constraints into swarm behavior. These constraints are necessary to successfully implement theoretical applications in the real world. We describe the basic background of swarm robotics, the Physiocomimetics framework and methods that have attempted to implement communications constraints into robotic swarms. The Framework is changed by the inclusion of different virtual particles at a global and local scale that only cause a force on swarm elements if those elements are disconnected from a swarm network. The global particles introduced are a point of known connectivity and …

Computations Under Time Constraints: Algorithms Developed For Fuzzy Computations Can Help, Karen Villaverde, Olga Kosheleva, Martine Ceberio

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In usual computers -- that use binary representation of real numbers -- an irrational real number (and even a rational number like 1.3 or 1.2) can only be computed with a finite accuracy. The more accuracy we need, the larger the computation time. It is therefore reasonable to characterize the complexity of computing a real number a by the accuracy D(t) that we can achieve in time t. Once we know this characteristic for two numbers a and b, how can we compute a similar characteristic for, e.g., c = a + b$? In this paper, we show that the …

Uniqueness Of Reconstruction For Yager's T-Norm Combination Of Probabilistic And Possibilistic Knowledge, Nitaya Buntao, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Often, about the same real-life system, we have both measurement-related probabilistic information expressed by a probability measure P(S) and expert-related possibilistic information expressed by a possibility measure M(S). To get the most adequate idea about the system, we must combine these two pieces of information. For this combination, R. Yager -- borrowing an idea from fuzzy logic -- proposed to use a t-norm f(a,b)$ such as the product f(a,b)=a*b, i.e., to consider a set function f(S)=f(P(S),M(S)). A natural question is: can we uniquely reconstruct the two parts of knowledge from this function f(S)? In our previous paper, we showed that …

Towards Optimal Knowledge Processing: From Centralization Through Cyberinsfrastructure To Cloud Computing, Octavio Lerma, Eric Gutierrez, Chris Kiekintveld, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the most efficient way to store and process data is cloud computing, when we store the data so as to minimize the expenses and increase the efficiency. In this paper, we provide an analytical solution to the corresponding optimization problem.

Functional Verification Of Class Invariants In Cleanjava, Carmen Avila, Yoonsik Cheon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In a Cleanroom-style functional program verification, a program is viewed as a mathematical function from one program state to another, and a verification is done by comparing two functions, the implemented and the expected behaviors of a program. The technique requires a minimal mathematical background and supports forward reasoning, but it doesn't support assertions such as class invariants. However, assertions such as class invariants are not only a practical programming tool but also play a key role in the correctness proof of a program by specifying conditions and constraints that an object has to satisfy and thus defining valid states …

Estimating Probability Of Failure Of A Complex System Based On Partial Information About Subsystems And Components, With Potential Applications To Aircraft Maintenance, Christelle Jacob, Didier Dubois, Janette Cardoso, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Exploration Of Spatial Diversity In Multi-Antenna Wireless Communication Systems, Shichuan Ma

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

With increasing demand on wireless internet and personal multimedia, the data rate of wireless communications is expected to increase dramatically. Future wireless networks face challenges of supporting data rates higher than one gigabits per second. Among various technologies, multi-antennas, also known as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), are undoubtedly the most promising to enable higher data rates. By employing the extra degrees of freedom in the spatial domain, multi-antenna techniques enhance the wireless communication systems through array gain, spatial diversity, and spatial multiplexing. Although multi-antenna systems have been utilized for more than ten years, a thorough analysis of various aspects of multi-antenna …

A Relativistic Enhancement To Software Transactional Memory, Philip William Howard, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Relativistic Programming is a technique that allows low overhead, linearly-scalable concurrent reads. It also allows joint access parallelism between readers and a writer. Unfortunately, it has so far been limited to a single writer so it does not scale on the write side. Software Transactional Memory (STM) is a technique that allows programs to take advantage of disjoint access parallelism on both the read-side and write-side. Unfortunately, STM systems have a higher overhead than many other synchronization mechanisms so although STM scales, STM starts from a lower baseline. We propose combining relativistic programming and software transactional memory in a way …

Energy Efficient Compressed Sensing In Wireless Sensor Networks Via Random Walk, Robert Brian Fletcher

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In this paper, we explore the problem of data acquisition using compressive sensing (CS) in wireless sensor networks. Unique properties of wireless sensor networks require we minimize communication cost for efficient power usage. At first, a compressive distributed sensing (CDS) algorithm is proposed but is then modified to decrease communication costs. The final algorithm presented is compressive distributed sensing with random walk CDS(RW); an algorithm that combines the data gathering and projection generation process of CDS.CDS(RW) uses rateless encoding, graph algorithms, and belief propagation decoding to improve upon the communication cost associated with CDS. In the end, we show that …

Protein Structure-Based Method For Identification Of Horizontal Gene Transfer In Bacteria, Swetha Billa

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Horizontal Gene Transfer is defined as the movement of genetic material from one strain of species to another. Bacteria, being an asexual organism were always believed to transfer genes vertically. But recent studies provide evidence that shows bacteria can also transfer genes horizontally.

HGT plays a major role in evolution and medicine. It is the major contributor in bacterial evolution, enabling species to acquire genes to adapt to the new environments. Bacteria are also believed to develop drug resistance to antibiotics through the phenomenon of HGT. Therefore further study of HGT and its implications is necessary to understand the effects …

Towards Securing Virtualization Using A Reconfigurable Platform, Tushar Janefalkar

All Theses

Virtualization is no longer limited to main stream processors and servers. Virtualization software for General Purpose Processors (GPP) that allow one Operating System (OS) to run as an application in another OS have become commonplace. To exploit the full potential of the available hardware, virtualization is now prevalent across all systems big and small. Besides GPPs, state-of-the-art embedded processors are now capable of running rich operating systems and their virtualization is now a hot topic of research. However, this technological progress also opens doors for attackers to snoop on data that is not only confined to storage servers but also …