Computer Sciences Commons^™

Liboblivious: A C++ Library For Oblivious Data Structures And Algorithms, Scott D. Constable, Steve Chapin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is an enormously beneficial model for centralized data computation and storage. Yet, existing network-layer and hardware-layer security protections do not address a broad category of vulnerabilities known as side-channel attacks. Over the past several years, numerous techniques have been proposed at all layers of the software/hardware stack to prevent the inadvertent leakage of sensitive data. This report discusses a new technique which integrates seamlessly with C++ programs. We introduce a library, libOblivious, which provides thin wrappers around existing C++ standard template library classes, endowing them with the property of memory-trace obliviousness.

How We Done It Good: Research Through Design As A Legitimate Methodology For Librarianship, Rachel Ivy Clarke

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

“How we done it good” publications—a genre concerning project-based approaches that describe how (and sometimes why) something was done—are often rebuked in the library research community for lacking traditional scientific validity, reliability, and generalizability. While scientific methodologies may be a common approach to research and inquiry, they are not the only methodological paradigms. This research posits that the “how we done it good” paradigm in librarianship reflects a valid and legitimate approach to research. By drawing on the concept of research through design, this study shows how these “how we done it good” projects reflect design methodologies which draw …

Formal Verification Of A Modern Boot Loader, Scott D. Constable, Rob Sutton, Arash Sahebolamri, Steve Chapin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

We introduce the Syracuse Assured Boot Loader Executive (SABLE), a trustworthy secure loader. A trusted boot loader performs a cryptographic measurement (hash) of program code and executes it unconditionally, allowing later-stage software to verify the integrity of the system through local or remote attestation. A secure loader differs from a trusted loader in that it executes subsequent code only if measurements of that code match known-good values. We have applied a rigorous formal verification technique recently demonstrated in practice by NICTA in their verification of the seL4 microkernel. We summarize our design philosophy from a high level and present our …

Blockchain: The Backbone Of Supply Chains In Omni-Channels, Yejin Lee

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

From the financial industry to the healthcare industry, many use cases for blockchain have been explored and adopted. However, unlike most industries, the retail industry has yet to fully explore blockchain’s capabilities, for the industry’s priority is in improving its practices first. One of its practices in the works is omni-channels, which face struggles of its own, that oftentimes result from supply chain inefficiencies. This paper will utilize already explored blockchain potentials as a guide to explore and introduce new potentials in blockchain for supply chain in omni-channels.

A Formally Verified Heap Allocator, Arash Sahebolamri, Scott D. Constable, Steve J. Chapin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

We present the formal verification of a heap allocator written in C. We use the Isabelle/HOL proof assistant to formally verify the correctness of the heap allocator at the source code level. The C source code of the heap allocator is imported into Isabelle/HOL using CParser and AutoCorres. In addition to providing the guarantee that the heap allocator is free of bugs and therefore is suitable for use in security critical projects, our work facilitates verification of other projects written in C that utilize Isabelle and AutoCorres.

A Conceptual Model For Video Games And Interactive Media, Rachel I. Clarke, Jacob Jett, Simone Sacchi, Jin Ha Lee

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we describe a conceptual model for video games and interactive media. Existing conceptual models such as the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) are not adequate to represent the unique descriptive attributes, levels of variance, and relationships among video games. Previous video game-specific models tend to focus on the development of video games and their technical aspects. Our model instead attempts to reflect how users such as game players, collectors, and scholars understand video games and the relationships among them. We specifically consider use cases of gamers, with future intentions of using this conceptual model as a …

Pinpoint: Efficient And Effective Resource Isolation For Mobile Security And Privacy, Paul Ratazzi, Ashok Bommisetti, Nian Ji, Wenliang Du

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Virtualization is frequently used to isolate untrusted processes and control their access to sensitive resources. However, isolation usually carries a price in terms of less resource sharing and reduced inter-process communication. In an open architecture such as Android, this price and its impact on performance, usability, and transparency must be carefully considered. Although previous efforts in developing general-purpose isolation solutions have shown that some of these negative sideeffects can be mitigated, doing so involves overcoming significant design challenges by incorporating numerous additional platform complexities not directly related to improved security. Thus, the general purpose solutions become inefficient and burdensome if …

Coalition Formation For Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems, Nathaniel Gemelli

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation presents our research on coalition formation for Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOP). In a DCOP, a problem is broken up into many disjoint sub-problems, each controlled by an autonomous agent and together the system of agents have a joint goal of maximizing a global utility function. In particular, we study the use of coalitions for solving distributed k-coloring problems using iterative approximate algorithms, which do not guarantee optimal results, but provide fast and economic solutions in resource constrained environments. The challenge in forming coalitions using iterative approximate algorithms is in identifying constraint dependencies between agents that allow for …

Problems In The Theory Of Convergence Spaces, Daniel R. Patten

Dissertations - ALL

We investigate several problems in the theory of convergence spaces: generalization of Kolmogorov separation from topological spaces to convergence spaces, representation of reflexive digraphs as convergence spaces, construction of differential calculi on convergence spaces, mereology on convergence spaces, and construction of a universal homogeneous pretopological space. First, we generalize Kolmogorov separation from topological spaces to convergence spaces; we then study properties of Kolmogorov spaces. Second, we develop a theory of reflexive digraphs as convergence spaces, which we then specialize to Cayley graphs. Third, we conservatively extend the concept of differential from the spaces of classical analysis to arbitrary convergence spaces; …

A Systematic Security Evaluation Of Android’S Multi-User Framework, Edward Paul Ratazzi, Yousra Aafer, Amit Ahlawat, Hao Hao, Yifei Wang, Wenliang Du

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Like many desktop operating systems in the 1990s, Android is now in the process of including support for multiuser scenarios. Because these scenarios introduce new threats to the system, we should have an understanding of how well the system design addresses them. Since the security implications of multi-user support are truly pervasive, we developed a systematic approach to studying the system and identifying problems. Unlike other approaches that focus on specific attacks or threat models, ours systematically identifies critical places where access controls are not present or do not properly identify the subject and object of a decision. Finding these …

Algorithms For The Implementation Of A Dynamic Energy Pricing Policy, Manek Biswas

Theses - ALL

In the upcoming smart grid era, dynamic pricing using primarily data collected from smart meters installed in homes and businesses is a virtual certainty. The possibilities this feature may offer are many, and we examine in this study how subunits of the electricity grid may implement load scheduling given a model for predicting ever-changing energy prices over a day. We present a realistic linear model that utilities may use for implementing dynamic pricing, and argue how accurate prediction of this model by its customers may be profitable both for the utilities and their customers.

The thesis provides algorithms for achieving …

Verdicts: Visual Exploratory Requirements Discovery And Injection For Comprehension And Testing Of Software, Sefik Kanat Bolazar

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

We introduce a methodology and research tools for visual exploratory software analysis. VERDICTS combines exploratory testing, tracing, visualization, dynamic discovery and injection of requirements specifications into a live quick-feedback cycle, without recompilation or restart of the system under test. This supports discovery and verification of software dynamic behavior, software comprehension, testing, and locating the defect origin. At its core, VERDICTS allows dynamic evolution and testing of hypotheses about requirements and behavior, by using contracts as automated component verifiers.

We introduce Semantic Mutation Testing as an approach to evaluate concordance of automated verifiers and the functional specifications they represent with respect …

Transparent And Precise Malware Analysis Using Virtualization: From Theory To Practice, Lok Kwong Yan

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

Dynamic analysis is an important technique used in malware analysis and is complementary to static analysis. Thus far, virtualization has been widely adopted for building fine-grained dynamic analysis tools and this trend is expected to continue. Unlike User/Kernel space malware analysis platforms that essentially co-exist with malware, virtualization based platforms benefit from isolation and fine-grained instrumentation support. Isolation makes it more difficult for malware samples to disrupt analysis and fine-grained instrumentation provides analysts with low level details, such as those at the machine instruction level. This in turn supports the development of advanced analysis tools such as dynamic taint …

Front Burner

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.

Resilient Image Fusion, Tiranee Achalakul, Joohan Lee, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

The paper describes a distributed spectral-screening PCT algorithm for fusing hyper-spectral images in remote sensing applications. The algorithm provides intrusion tolerance from information warfare attacks using the notion of computational resiliency. This concept uses replication to achieve fault tolerance, but goes further to dynamically regenerate replication in response to an attack or failure. The concepts of resiliency are incorporated through library technology that is application independent. This library hides the details of communication protocols required to achieve dynamic replication and reconfiguration in distributed applications. The paper provides a status report on our progress in developing the concept and applying it …

Resilient Image Fusion, Tiranee Achalakul, Joohan Lee, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

The paper describes a distributed spectral-screening PCT algorithm for fusing hyper-spectral images in remote sensing applications. The algorithm provides intrusion tolerance from information warfare attacks using the notion of computational resiliency. This concept uses replication to achieve fault tolerance, but goes further to dynamically regenerate replication in response to an attack or failure. The concepts of resiliency are incorporated through library technology that is application independent. This library hides the details of communication protocols required to achieve dynamic replication and reconfiguration in distributed applications. The paper provides a status report on our progress in developing the concept and applying it …

A Concurrent Spectral-Screening Pct Algorithm For Remote Sensing Applications, Tiranee Achalakul, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

The paper presents a concurrent algorithm for remote sensing applications that provides significant performance and image quality enhancements over conventional uniprocessor PCT techniques. The algorithm combines spectral angle classification, principal component transform, and human centered color mapping. It is evaluated from an image quality perspective using images collected with the Hyper-spectral Digital Imagery Collection Experiment (HYDICE) sensor, an airborne imaging spectrometer. These images correspond to foliated scenes taken from an altitude of 2000 to 7500 meters at wavelengths between 400nm and 2.5 micron. The scenes contain mechanized vehicles sitting in open fields as well as under camouflage. The algorithm operates …

Mathweb: A Concurrent Image Analysis Tool Suite For Multi-Spectral Data Fusion, Tiranee Achalakul, Peter D. Haaland, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

This paper describes a preliminary approach to the fusion of multi-spectral image data for the analysis of cervical cancer. The long-term goal of this research is to define spectral signatures and automatically detect cancer cell structures. The approach combines a multi-spectral microscope with an image analysis tool suite, MathWeb. The tool suite incorporates a concurrent Principal Component Transform (PCT) that is used to fuse the multi-spectral data. This paper describes the general approach and the concurrent PCT algorithm. The algorithm is evaluated from both the perspective of image quality and performance scalability.

Single Eye Or Camera With Depth Perception, Philipp Kornreich, Bart Farell

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

An imager that can measure the distance from each pixel to the point on the object that is in focus at the pixel is described here. This is accomplished by the use of short lightguide sections combined with each pixel light sensor. In the eye the rods and cones are the fiber like lightguide sections. The lens selects the object point who’s range is to be determined at the particular pixel. The lens reproduces the light pattern of the object point at the image point with the addition of a phase proportional to the distance from object point to image …

Identifying And Analyzing Pointer Misuses For Sophisticated Memory-Corruption Exploit Diagnosis, Mingwei Zhang, Aravind Prakash, Xiaolei Li, Zhenkai Liang, Heng Yin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

Software exploits are one of the major threats to internet security. To quickly respond to these attacks, it is critical to automatically diagnose such exploits and find out how they circumvent existing defense mechanisms.

A Distributed Approach For Fault Mitigation In Large Scale Distributed Systems, Mina Jung

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

In a large scale real-time distributed system, a large number of components and the time criticality of tasks can contribute to complex situations. Providing predictable and reliable service is a paramount interest in such a system. For example, a single point failure in an electric grid system may lead to a widespread power outage like the Northeast Blackout of 2003. System design and implementation address fault avoidance and mitigation. However, not all faults and failures can be removed during these phases, and therefore run-time fault avoidance and mitigation are needed during the operation. Timing constraints and predictability of the system …

Outlier Detection Using Modified-Ranks And Other Variants, Huaming Huang, Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri K. Mohan

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

Rank based algorithms provide a promising approach for outlier detection, but currently used rank-based measures of outlier detection suffer from two deficiencies: first they take a large value from an object whose density is high even though the object may not be an outlier and second the distance between the object and its nearest cluster plays a mild role though its rank with respect to its neighbor. To correct for these deficiencies we introduce the concept of modified-rank and propose new algorithms for outlier detection based on this concept.

A New Cohesion Metric And Restructuring Technique For Object Oriented Paradigm, Mehmet Kaya, Jim Fawcett

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

When software systems grow large during maintenance, they may lose their quality and become complex to read, understood and maintained. Developing a software system usually requires teams of developers working in concert to provide a finished product in a reasonable amount of time. What that means is many people may read each component of the software system such as a class in object oriented programming environment.

Exploring Non-Typical Memcache Architectures For Decreased Latency And Distributed Network Usage., Paul G. Talaga, Steve J. Chapin

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

Memcache is a distributed in-memory data store designed to reduce database load for web applications by caching frequently used data across multiple machines. While memcache already offers excellent performance, we explore how data-locality can increase performance under certain environments and workloads.

Scuta: A Server-Side Access Control System For Web Applications, Xi Tan, Wenliang Du, Tongbo Luo, Karthick Jayaraman

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

The Web is playing a very important role in our lives, and is becoming an essential element of the computing infrastructure. Unfortunately, its importance makes it the preferred target of attacks. Web-based vulnerabilities now outnumber traditional computer security concerns. A recent study shows that over 80 percent of web sites have had at least one serious vulnerability. We believe that the Web’s problems, to a large degree, are caused by the inadequacy of its underlying access control systems. To reduce the number of vulnerabilities, it is essential to provide web applications with better access control models that can adequately address …

Electromagnetic-Thermal Analysis Study Based On Hfss-Ansys Link, Mahmoud El Sabbagh

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

In this work, rigorous thermal analysis is done for the first time based on the link between Ansoft HFSS and ANSYS. High-frequency results obtained from HFSS including surface loss density and volume loss density are imported into ANSYS. The thermal analysis run into ANSYS incorporates accurately the non-uniform power distribution in the microwave structure and hence predicts very well the thermal map for high-power applications. Experimental results confirm the developed approach.

The Common Information For N Dependent Random Variables, Wei Liu, Ge Xu

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

This paper generalizes Wyner’s definition of common information of a pair or random variables to that of N random variables. We prove coding theorems that show the same operational meanings for the common information of two random variables generalize to that of N random variables. As a byproduct of our proof, we show that the Gray-Wyner source coding network can be generalized to N source sequences with N decoders. We also establish a monotone property of Wyner’s common information which is in contrast to other notions of the common information, specifically Shannon’s mutual information and Gács and Körner’s common randomness. …

Wyner’S Common Information For Continuous Random Variables - A Lossy Source Coding Interpretation, Ge Xu, Wei Liu, Biao Chen

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

Wyner’s common information can be easily generalized for continuous random variables. We provide an operational meaning for such generalization using the Gray-Wyner network with lossy source coding. Specifically, a Gray-Wyner network consists of one encoder and two decoders. A sequence of independent copies of a pair of random variables (X, Y ) ~ p(x, y) is encoded into three messages, one of them is a common input to both decoders. The two decoders attempt to reconstruct the two sequences respectively subject to individual distortion constraints. We show that Wyner’s common information equals the smallest common message rate when the total …

A Human Visual System-Driven Image Segmentation Algorithm, Renbin Peng, Pramod Varshney

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

This paper presents a novel image segmentation algorithm driven by human visual system (HVS) properties. Quality metrics for evaluating the segmentation result, from both region-based and boundary-based perspectives, are integrated into an objective function. The objective function encodes the HVS properties into a Markov random fields (MRF) framework, where the just-noticeable difference (JND) model is employed when calculating the difference between the image contents. Experiments are carried out to compare the performances of three variations of the presented algorithm and several representative segmentation algorithms available in the literature. Results are very encouraging and show that the presented algorithms outperform the …

Rank-Based Outlier Detection, H. Huang, Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri K. Mohan

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports

We propose a new approach for outlier detection, based on a new ranking measure that focuses on the question of whether a point is “important” for its nearest neighbors; using our notations low cumulative rank implies the point is central. For instance, a point centrally located in a cluster has relatively low cumulative sum of ranks because it is among the nearest neighbors of its own nearest neighbors. But a point at the periphery of a cluster has high cumulative sum of ranks because its nearest neighbors are closer to the points. Use of ranks eliminates the problem of density …