Computer Engineering Commons^™

Identification And Exploitation Of Inadvertent Spectral Artifacts In Digital Audio, N. C. Donnangelo, W. S. Kuklinski, R. Szabo, R. A. Coury, G. R. Hamshar

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

We show that modulation products from local oscillators in a variety of commercial camcorders are coupled into the recorded audio track, creating narrow band time invariant spectral features. These spectral features, left largely intact by transcoding, compression and other forms of audiovisual post processing, can encode characteristics of specific camcorders used to capture the audio files, including the make and model. Using data sets both downloaded from YouTube and collected under controlled laboratory conditions we demonstrate an average probability of detection (Pd) approaching 0.95 for identification of a specific camcorder in a population of thousands of similar recordings, with a …

Computer Forensic Projects For Accountants, Grover S. Kearns

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital attacks on organizations are becoming more common and more sophisticated. Firms are interested in providing data security and having an effective means to respond to attacks. Accountants possess important investigative and analytical skills that serve to uncover fraud in forensic investigations. Some accounting students take courses in forensic accounting but few colleges offer a course in computer forensics for accountants. Educators wishing to develop such a course may find developing the curriculum daunting. A major element of such a course is the use of forensic software. This paper argues the importance of computer forensics to accounting students and offers …

Data Loss Prevention Management And Control: Inside Activity Incident Monitoring, Identification, And Tracking In Healthcare Enterprise Environments, Manghui Tu, Kimberly Spoa-Harty, Liangliang Xiao

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As healthcare data are pushed online, consumers have raised big concerns on the breach of their personal information. Law and regulations have placed businesses and public organizations under obligations to take actions to prevent data breach. Among various threats, insider threats have been identified to be a major threat on data loss. Thus, effective mechanisms to control insider threats on data loss are urgently needed. The objective of this research is to address data loss prevention challenges in healthcare enterprise environment. First, a novel approach is provided to model internal threat, specifically inside activities. With inside activities modeling, data …

Rules Of Professional Responsibility In Digital Forensics: A Comparative Analysis, Filipo Sharevski

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The consolidation of the rules of professional responsibility as recommended by the Committee on Identifying the Needs of Forensic Sciences Community (2009) accents the establishment of an uniform code of ethics emphasizing the importance of enforceability in strengthening the role the forensic science plays within the criminal justice system. Equally pertinent for the domain of digital forensics, this imperative entails a research commitment in comparing and contrasting the respective codes of ethics to illustrate their “variety, specificity and enforceability” in order to inform the discussion on the regulative aspects of the digital forensic discipline. Accordingly, this paper reviews the professional …

On The Network Performance Of Digital Evidence Acquisition Of Small Scale Devices Over Public Networks, Irvin Homem, Spyridon Dosis

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

While cybercrime proliferates – becoming more complex and surreptitious on the Internet – the tools and techniques used in performing digital investigations are still largely lagging behind, effectively slowing down law enforcement agencies at large. Real-time remote acquisition of digital evidence over the Internet is still an elusive ideal in the combat against cybercrime. In this paper we briefly describe the architecture of a comprehensive proactive digital investigation system that is termed as the Live Evidence Information Aggregator (LEIA). This system aims at collecting digital evidence from potentially any device in real time over the Internet. Particular focus is made …

The "Bring Your Own Device" Conundrum For Organizations And Investigators: An Examination Of The Policy And Legal Concerns In Light Of Investigatory Challenges, Carla J. Utter, Alan Rea

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In recent years, with the expansion of technology and the desire to downsize costs within the corporate culture, the technology trend has steered towards the integration of personally owned mobile devices (i.e. smartphones) within the corporate and enterprise environment. The movement, known as “Bring Your Own Device” (hereinafter referred to as “BYOD”), seeks to minimize or eliminate the need for two separate and distinct mobile devices for one employee. While taken at face value this trend seems favorable, the corporate policy and legal implications of the implementation of BYOD are further complicated by significant investigatory issues that far outweigh the …

Plc Forensics Based On Control Program Logic Change Detection, Ken Yau, Kam-Pui Chow

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is an industrial control automated system. It is built with multiple Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). PLC is a special form of microprocessor-based controller with proprietary operating system. Due to the unique architecture of PLC, traditional digital forensic tools are difficult to be applied. In this paper, we propose a program called Control Program Logic Change Detector (CPLCD), it works with a set of Detection Rules (DRs) to detect and record undesired incidents on interfering normal operations of PLC. In order to prove the feasibility of our solution, we set up two experiments for …

Factors Influencing Digital Forensic Investigations: Empirical Evaluation Of 12 Years Of Dubai Police Cases, Ibtesam Alawadhi, Janet C. Read, Andrew Marrington, Virginia N. L. Franqueira

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In Digital Forensics, the number of person-hours spent on investigation is a key factor which needs to be kept to a minimum whilst also paying close attention to the authenticity of the evidence. The literature describes challenges behind increasing person-hours and identifies several factors which contribute to this phenomenon. This paper reviews these factors and demonstrates that they do not wholly account for increases in investigation time. Using real case records from the Dubai Police, an extensive study explains the contribution of other factors to the increase in person-hours. We conclude this work by emphasizing on several factors affecting the …

Cyber Black Box/Event Data Recorder: Legal And Ethical Perspectives And Challenges With Digital Forensics, Michael Losavio, Pavel Pastukov, Svetlana Polyakova

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

With ubiquitous computing and the growth of the Internet of Things, there is vast expansion in the deployment and use of event data recording systems in a variety of environments. From the ships’ logs of antiquity through the evolution of personal devices for recording personal and environmental activities, these devices offer rich forensic and evidentiary opportunities that smash against rights of privacy and personality. The technical configurations of these devices provide for greater scope of sensing, interconnection options for local, near, and cloud storage of data, and the possibility of powerful analytics. This creates the unique situation of near-total data …

Two Challenges Of Stealthy Hypervisors Detection: Time Cheating And Data Fluctuations, Igor Korkin

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Hardware virtualization technologies play a significant role in cyber security. On the one hand these technologies enhance security levels, by designing a trusted operating system. On the other hand these technologies can be taken up into modern malware which is rather hard to detect. None of the existing methods is able to efficiently detect a hypervisor in the face of countermeasures such as time cheating, temporary self uninstalling, memory hiding etc. New hypervisor detection methods which will be described in this paper can detect a hypervisor under these countermeasures and even count several nested ones. These novel approaches rely on …

Data Extraction On Mtk-Based Android Mobile Phone Forensics, Joe Kong

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In conducting criminal investigations it is quite common that forensic examiners need to recover evidentiary data from smartphones used by offenders. However, examiners encountered difficulties in acquiring complete memory dump from MTK Android phones, a popular brand of smartphones, due to a lack of technical knowledge on the phone architecture and that system manuals are not always available. This research will perform tests to capture data from MTK Android phone by applying selected forensic tools and compare their effectiveness by analyzing the extracted results. It is anticipated that a generic extraction tool, once identified, can be used on different brands …

Exploring The Use Of Plc Debugging Tools For Digital Forensic Investigations On Scada Systems, Tina Wu, Jason R.C. Nurse

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Stuxnet malware attack has provided strong evidence for the development of a forensic capability to aid in thorough post-incident investigations. Current live forensic tools are typically used to acquire and examine memory from computers running either Windows or Unix. This makes them incompatible with embedded devices found on SCADA systems that have their own bespoke operating system. Currently, only a limited number of forensics tools have been developed for SCADA systems, with no development of tools to acquire the program code from PLCs. In this paper, we explore this problem with two main hypotheses in mind. Our first hypothesis …

Forensic Acquisition Of Imvu: A Case Study, Robert Van Voorst, M-Tahar Kechadi, Nhien-An Le-Khac

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

There are many applications available for personal computers and mobile devices that facilitate users in meeting potential partners. There is, however, a risk associated with the level of anonymity on using instant message applications, because there exists the potential for predators to attract and lure vulnerable users. Today Instant Messaging within a Virtual Universe (IMVU) combines custom avatars, chat or instant message (IM), community, content creation, commerce, and anonymity. IMVU is also being exploited by criminals to commit a wide variety of offenses. However, there are very few researches on digital forensic acquisition of IMVU applications. In this paper, we …

Tracking And Taxonomy Of Cyberlocker Link Sharers Based On Behavior Analysis, Xiao-Xi Fan, Kam-Pui Chow

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The growing popularity of cyberlocker service has led to significant impact on the Internet that it is considered as one of the biggest contributors to the global Internet traffic estimated to be illegally traded content. Due to the anonymity property of cyberlocker, it is difficult for investigators to track user identity directly on cyberlocker site. In order to find the potential relationships between cyberlocker users, we propose a framework to collect cyberlocker related data from public forums where cyberlocker users usually distribute cyberlocker links for others to download and identity information can be gathered easily. Different kinds of sharing behaviors …

A Survey Of Botnet Detection Techniques By Command And Control Infrastructure, Thomas S. Hyslip, Jason M. Pittman

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Botnets have evolved to become one of the most serious threats to the Internet and there is substantial research on both botnets and botnet detection techniques. This survey reviewed the history of botnets and botnet detection techniques. The survey showed traditional botnet detection techniques rely on passive techniques, primarily honeypots, and that honeypots are not effective at detecting peer-to-peer and other decentralized botnets. Furthermore, the detection techniques aimed at decentralized and peer-to-peer botnets focus on detecting communications between the infected bots. Recent research has shown hierarchical clustering of flow data and machine learning are effective techniques for detecting botnet peer-to-peer …

Privacy Protection On Cloud Computing, Min Li

Theses and Dissertations

Cloud is becoming the most popular computing infrastructure because it can attract more and more traditional companies due to flexibility and cost-effectiveness. However, privacy concern is the major issue that prevents users from deploying on public clouds. My research focuses on protecting user's privacy in cloud computing. I will present a hardware-based and a migration-based approach to protect user's privacy. The root cause of the privacy problem is current cloud privilege design gives too much power to cloud providers. Once the control virtual machine (installed by cloud providers) is compromised, external adversaries will breach users’ privacy. Malicious cloud administrators are …

Rogue Signal Threat On Trust-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing In Cognitive Radio Networks, David S. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) are a next generation network that is expected to solve the wireless spectrum shortage problem, which is the shrinking of available wireless spectrum resources needed to facilitate future wireless applications. The first CRN standard, the IEEE 802.22, addresses this particular problem by allowing CRNs to share geographically unused TV spectrum to mitigate the spectrum shortage. Equipped with reasoning and learning engines, cognitive radios operate autonomously to locate unused channels to maximize its own bandwidth and Quality-of-Service (QoS). However, their increased capabilities over traditional radios introduce a new dimension of security threats.

In an NSF 2009 workshop, …

Optimization Of Grid Connected Micro-Grid Consisting Of Pv/Fc/Uc With Considered Frequency Control, Hamid Hasanzadehfard, Masoud Moghaddas-Tafreshi, Sayed Mehdi Hakimi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, ultracapacitors are used as short-term storages for the frequency control of grid-connected microgrid that consists of photovoltaic panels, fuel cells, and the battery packs as long-term storages. Fuel cells and battery packs have delays in load tracking; therefore, ultracapacitors are used to compensate for the sudden power fluctuations in the microgrid that occur due to the output power uncertainty of the PV arrays and the loads required in the microgrid, as well as the sudden interruption of the main grid. The microgrid consists of interruptible and uninterruptible loads. When the total produced power in the microgrid, in …

Sensitivity Analysis And Optimum Design For The Stator Of Synchronous Reluctance Machines Using The Coupled Finite Element And Taguchi Methods, Hossein Azizi, Abolfazl Vahedi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This paper presents an investigation of the effect and optimization of stator geometry design parameters on the performance of synchronous reluctance machines (SynRMs). The level of importance of the stator design variable on the characteristic of the SynRM is determined using both the Taguchi method and a parametric analysis. An optimum design parameter combination is obtained using sensitivity analysis along with signal-to-noise ratio results. The 2-dimensional finite element model (FEM) of a SynRM is used to perform a sensitivity analysis and construct a Taguchi design of the experiment. The FEM simulation results confirm that the performance of the SynRM can …

Investigation Of Respiratory And Heart Rate Variability In Hypertensive Patients, Ramazan Aldemi̇r, Mahmut Tokmakçi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, in order to examine the effect of respiration on heart rate variability (HRV), signal processing analyses were performed between the signal received from the periodic movement of the chest of respiration and the pulse plethysmograph (PPS) signal, providing the calculation of both the time and frequency behavior of HRV and also including pulse rate information at the same time. Respiration is used as the comparison parameter in both healthy subjects and in hypertensive patients, not only with the time and frequency components of the HRV, but also with the galvanic skin resistance simultaneously taken with body temperature …

Design Of A Novel Usb Crypto Bridge Device, Orhan Şengül

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Information technologies have emerging use of portable drives. Hence, the readability and security of the content is at great risk in the event that it is lost or stolen. An effective solution to this issue is the use of removable disks in encrypted form. In this paper, a novel USB device that has cryptobridge capability is proposed.

A Novel Efficient Model For The Power Flow Analysis Of Power Systems, Amir Safdarian, Mahmud Fotuhi Firuzabad, Farrokh Aminifar

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The overall system status calculated by power flow analysis is the most basic information used for all decisions taken by power system operators and planners. While conventional AC power flow solutions are computationally tractable, approximate DC models are employed in many applications, such as optimal power flow studies and unit commitment problems, mainly due to the linear nature of DC models. These models do not provide any information on the reactive power and voltage magnitude quantities and occasionally inaccurate results of the active power values. This paper presents an efficient power flow approach compromising both the conflicting aspects of speed …

Adaptive Network-Based Inference System Models On Multiband Patch Antenna Design, Erdem Demi̇rci̇oğlu, Murat Hüsnü Sazli, Orhan Şengül, Şehabeddi̇n Taha İmeci̇, Hakki Alparslan Ilgin

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, an adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) for multiband microstrip patch antenna (MMPA) modeling is proposed. The MMPA includes a single patch with inverted L-shaped stubs on the edges. The antenna production process needs iterative runs of the electromagnetic (EM) simulator, fabricating and testing the simulated antenna to find the optimum geometry. Production processes (design, simulation, fabrication, and testing) and the cost computation time add to the overall manufacturing expenses. A computer-aided modeling approach using the ANFIS is developed and trained with data acquired from the EM simulators, Sonnet Suites and AWR AXIEM, and measurement data. The …

Mras-Based Sensorless Speed Backstepping Control For Induction Machine, Using A Flux Sliding Mode Observer, Mohamed Moutchou, Ahmed Abbou, Hassan Mahmoudi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, an induction machine rotor speed and rotor flux control using a sensorless backstepping control scheme is discussed. The most interesting point of this technique is that it deals with the nonlinearity of a high-order system by using the virtual control variable to make this system simple, and thus the control outputs can be derived step by step through appropriate Lyapunov functions. To avoid the use of a mechanical sensor, the rotor speed estimation is made by an observer using the model reference adaptive system (MRAS) technique; in order to estimate rotor flux, a sliding mode observer is …

Designing And Implementing A Reliable Thermal Monitoring System Based On The 1-Wire Protocol On Fpga For A Leo Satellite, Reza Omidi Gosheblagh, Karim Mohammadi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Thermal control and monitoring is one of the most important factors in the design of satellite systems. An appropriate thermal design should make sure that the satellite's sensitive components remain in their nominated range, even under the vacuum condition of outer space. To achieve this purpose, a reliable and stable monitoring system is required. This paper proposes a monitoring system based on the 1-wire protocol, which provides the reliability requirements in the sensor networking and bus controller sections. In the networking section, we outline some practical topologies and discuss on their complexity and reliability. Despite the fact that the point-to-point …

Short-Term Load Forecasting Using Mixed Lazy Learning Method, Seyed-Masoud Barakati, Ali Akbar Gharaveisi, Seyed-Mohammad Reza Rafiei

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

A novel short-term load forecasting method based on the lazy learning (LL) algorithm is proposed. The LL algorithm's input data are electrical load information, daily electricity consumption patterns, and temperatures in a specified region. In order to verify the ability of the proposed method, a load forecasting problem, using the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection electrical load data, is carried out. Three LL models are proposed: constant, linear, and mixed models. First, the performances of the 3 developed models are compared using the root mean square error technique. The best technique is then selected to compete with the state-of-the-art neural network (NN) …

Temporal Logic Extension For Self-Referring, Nonexistence, Multiple Recurrence, And Anterior Past Events, Şadi̇ Evren Şeker

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This study focuses on the possible extensions of current temporal logics. In this study, 4 extensions are proposed: self-referring events, nonexisting events, multiple recurrence of events, and an improvement on anterior past events. Each of these extensions is on a different level of temporal logics. The main motivation behind the extensions is the temporal analysis of Turkish. Similar to temporal logic studies built on other natural languages, like French, Ukrainian, Italian, Korean, English, or Romanian, this is the first time that the Turkish language has been deeply questioned in the sense of computable temporal logic using the view of a …

Discrete-Time Modeling Of Hamiltonian Systems, Yaprak Yalçin, Leyla Gören Sümer, Salman Kurtulan

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The problem of discrete-time modeling of the lumped-parameter Hamiltonian systems is considered for engineering applications. Hence, a novel gradient-based method is presented, exploiting the discrete gradient concept and the forward Euler discretization under the assumption of the continuous Hamiltonian model is known. It is proven that the proposed discrete-time model structure defines a symplectic difference system and has the energy-conserving property under some conditions. In order to provide alternate discrete-time models, 3 different discrete-gradient definitions are given. The proposed models are convenient for the design of sampled-data controllers. All of the models are considered for several well-known Hamiltonian systems and …

Control Of Oxygen Excess Ratio In A Pem Fuel Cell System Using High-Order Sliding-Mode Controller And Observer, Seyed Mehdi Rakhtala, Abolfazl Ranjbar Noei, Reza Ghaderi, Elio Usai

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The main objective of this manuscript is to design a high-order sliding-mode observer to provide finite time estimation of unmeasurable states (x_4: oxygen mass, x_5: nitrogen mass) together with the oxygen excess ratio (ratio of the input oxygen flow to the reacted oxygen flow in the cathode). This is done by applying second-order sliding modes through either super twisting or suboptimal controllers to control the proton exchange membrane fuel cell's breathing. The estimated oxygen excess ratio is controlled in a closed-loop system using 2 distinct sliding-mode approaches: a cascaded super twisting controller and a single-loop suboptimal structure. Simulation results are …

A Robust Algorithm Based On A Failure-Sensitive Matrix For Fault Diagnosis Of Power Systems: An Application On Power Transformers, Yunus Bi̇çen, Faruk Aras

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, a robust algorithm for fault diagnosis of power system equipment based on a failure-sensitive matrix (FSM) is presented. The FSM is a dynamic matrix structure updated by multiple measurements (online) and test results (offline) on the systems. The algorithm uses many different artificial intelligence and expert system methods for adaptively detecting the location of faults, emerging failures, and causes of failures. In this algorithm, all data obtained from the power transformer, which have various nonlinear input and output parameters, are processed using the parallel matrix structure of the FSM to reach a global solution quickly. The parameters …