Information Security Commons^™

A Web-Based Temperature Monitoring System For The College Of Arts And Letters, Rigoberto Solorio

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In general, server rooms have restricted access requiring that staff possess access codes, keys, etc. Normally, only administrators are provided access to protect the physical hardware and the data stored in the servers. Servers also have firewalls to restrict outsiders from accessing them via the Internet. Servers also cost a lot of money. For this reason, server rooms also need to be protected against overheating. This will prolong the lifecycle of the units and can prevent data loss from hardware failure.

The California State University San Bernardino (CSUSB), Specifically the College of Arts and Letters server room has faced power …

Hole Detection And Shape-Free Representation And Double Landmarks Based Geographic Routing In Wireless Sensor Networks, Jianjun Yang, Zongming Fei, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In wireless sensor networks, an important issue of geographic routing is “local minimum” problem, which is caused by a “hole” that blocks the greedy forwarding process. Existing geographic routing algorithms use perimeter routing strategies to find a long detour path when such a situation occurs. To avoid the long detour path, recent research focuses on detecting the hole in advance, then the nodes located on the boundary of the hole advertise the hole information to the nodes near the hole. Hence the long detour path can be avoided in future routing. We propose a heuristic hole detecting algorithm which identifies …

Privacy Preserving Data Mining For Numerical Matrices, Social Networks, And Big Data, Lian Liu

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Motivated by increasing public awareness of possible abuse of confidential information, which is considered as a significant hindrance to the development of e-society, medical and financial markets, a privacy preserving data mining framework is presented so that data owners can carefully process data in order to preserve confidential information and guarantee information functionality within an acceptable boundary.

First, among many privacy-preserving methodologies, as a group of popular techniques for achieving a balance between data utility and information privacy, a class of data perturbation methods add a noise signal, following a statistical distribution, to an original numerical matrix. With the help …

Metalogic Notes, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Working Papers

A collection of notes, formulas, theorems, postulates and terminology in symbolic logic, syntactic notions, semantic notions, linkages between syntax and semantics, soundness and completeness, quantified logic, first-order theories, Goedel's First Incompleteness Theorem and more.

Statistics Notes, Saverio Perugini

Computer Science Working Papers

A collection of terms, definitions, formulas and explanations about statistics.

Virtue Ethics: Examining Influences On The Ethical Commitment Of Information System Workers In Trusted Positions, John Max Gray

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Despite an abundance of research on the problem of insider threats, only limited success has been achieved in preventing trusted insiders from committing security violations. Virtue ethics may be an approach that can be utilized to address this issue. Human factors such as moral considerations impact Information System (IS) design, use, and security; consequently they affect the security posture and culture of an organization. Virtue ethics based concepts have the potential to influence and align the moral values and behavior of information systems workers with those of an organization in order to provide increased protection of IS assets. An individual’s …

Identifying Key Determinants Of Service Provider Effectiveness And The Impact It Has On Outsourced Security Success, James B. Lewis

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify key determinants of service provider effectiveness and how it impacts outsourced security success. As environments have become more robust and dynamic, many organizations have made the decision to leverage external security expertise and have outsourced many of their information technology security functions to Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs).

Information Systems Outsourcing, at its core, is when a customer chooses to outsource certain information technology functions or services to a service provider and engages in a legally binding agreement. While legal contracts govern many aspects of an outsourcing arrangement, it cannot serve as …

Incremental Sparse-Pca Feature Extraction For Data Streams, Jean-Pierre Nziga

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Intruders attempt to penetrate commercial systems daily and cause considerable financial losses for individuals and organizations. Intrusion detection systems monitor network events to detect computer security threats. An extensive amount of network data is devoted to detecting malicious activities.

Storing, processing, and analyzing the massive volume of data is costly and indicate the need to find efficient methods to perform network data reduction that does not require the data to be first captured and stored. A better approach allows the extraction of useful variables from data streams in real time and in a single pass. The removal of irrelevant attributes …

Designing An Effective Information Security Policy For Exceptional Situations In An Organization: An Experimental Study, George S. Antoniou

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

An increasing number of researchers are recognizing the importance of the role played by employees in maintaining the effectiveness of an information security policy. Currently, little research exists to validate the relationship between the actions (behaviors) taken by employees in response to exceptional situations (antecedents) regarding an organization’s information security policy, the impact (consequences) those actions have on an organization, and the motives that prompt those actions. When these exceptional situations occur, employees may feel compelled to engage in behaviors that violate the terms of an information security policy because strict compliance with the policy could cause the organization to …

Data Privacy Preservation In Collaborative Filtering Based Recommender Systems, Xiwei Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

This dissertation studies data privacy preservation in collaborative filtering based recommender systems and proposes several collaborative filtering models that aim at preserving user privacy from different perspectives.

The empirical study on multiple classical recommendation algorithms presents the basic idea of the models and explores their performance on real world datasets. The algorithms that are investigated in this study include a popularity based model, an item similarity based model, a singular value decomposition based model, and a bipartite graph model. Top-N recommendations are evaluated to examine the prediction accuracy.

It is apparent that with more customers' preference data, recommender systems …

Framing The Question, "Who Governs The Internet?", Robert J. Domanski

Publications and Research

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and that an argument can be made as to …

Multidimensional Context Awareness In Mobile Devices, Zhuo Wei, Robert H. Deng, Jialie Shen, Jixiang Zhu, Kun Ouyang, Yongdong Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the increase of mobile computation ability and the development of wireless network transmission technology, mobile devices not only are the important tools of personal life (e.g., education and entertainment), but also emerge as indispensable "secretary" of business activities (e.g., email and phone call). However, since mobile devices could work under complex and dynamic local and network conditions, they are vulnerable to local and remote security attacks. In real applications, different kinds of data protection are required by various local contexts. To provide appropriate protection, we propose a multidimensional context (MContext) scheme to comprehensively model and characterize the scene and …

A Comparison Of Cloud Computing Database Security Algorithms, Joseph A. Hoeppner

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The cloud database is a relatively new type of distributed database that allows companies and individuals to purchase computing time and memory from a vendor. This allows a user to only pay for the resources they use, which saves them both time and money. While the cloud in general can solve problems that have previously been too costly or time-intensive, it also opens the door to new security problems because of its distributed nature. Several approaches have been proposed to increase the security of cloud databases, though each seems to fall short in one area or another.

This thesis presents …

Android Or Ios For Better Privacy Protection?, Jin Han, Qiang Yan, Debin Gao, Jianying Zhou, Huijie Robert Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid growth of the mobile market, security of mobile platforms is receiving increasing attention from both research community as well as the public. In this paper, we make the first attempt to establish a baseline for security comparison between the two most popular mobile platforms. We investigate applications that run on both Android and iOS and examine the difference in the usage of their security sensitive APIs (SS-APIs). Our analysis over 2,600 applications shows that iOS applications consistently access more SS-APIs than their counterparts on Android. The additional privileges gained on iOS are often associated with accessing private …

Factors Impacting Information Security Noncompliance When Completing Job Tasks, Martha Nanette Harrell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Work systems are comprised of the technical and social systems that should harmoniously work together to ensure a successful attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Information security controls are often designed to protect the information system and seldom consider the work system design. Using a positivist case study, this research examines the user's perception of having to choose between completing job tasks or remaining compliant with information security controls. An understanding of this phenomenon can help mitigate the risk associated with an information system security user's choice. Most previous research fails to consider the work system perspective on this issue. …

Security Policies That Make Sense For Complex Systems: Comprehensible Formalism For The System Consumer, Rhonda R. Henning

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Systems today rarely are contained within a single user workstation, server, or networked environment. Data can be transparently accessed from any location, and maintained across various network infrastructures. Cloud computing paradigms commoditize the hardware and software environments and allow an enterprise to lease computing resources by the hour, minute, or number of instances required to complete a processing task. An access control policy mediates access requests between authorized users of an information system and the system's resources. Access control policies are defined at any given level of abstraction, such as the file, directory, system, or network, and can be …

Understanding Usability-Related Information Security Failures In A Healthcare Context, Edward D. Boyer

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research study explores how the nature and type of usability failures impact task performance in a healthcare organization. Healthcare organizations are composed of heterogeneous and disparate information systems intertwined with complex business processes that create many challenges for the users of the system. The manner in which Information Technology systems and products are implemented along with the overlapping intricate tasks the users have pose problems in the area of usability. Usability research primarily focuses on the user interface; therefore, designing a better interface often leaves security in question. When usability failures arise from the incongruence between healthcare task and …

Structure Preserving Large Imagery Reconstruction, Ju Shen, Jianjun Yang, Sami Taha Abu Sneineh, Bryson Payne, Markus Hitz

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the explosive growth of web-based cameras and mobile devices, billions of photographs are uploaded to the internet. We can trivially collect a huge number of photo streams for various goals, such as image clustering, 3D scene reconstruction, and other big data applications. However, such tasks are not easy due to the fact the retrieved photos can have large variations in their view perspectives, resolutions, lighting, noises, and distortions. Furthermore, with the occlusion of unexpected objects like people, vehicles, it is even more challenging to find feature correspondences and reconstruct realistic scenes. In this paper, we propose a structure-based image …

Defy: A Deniable File System For Flash Memory, Timothy M. Peters

Master's Theses

While solutions for file system encryption can prevent an adversary from determining the contents of files, in situations where a user wishes to hide even the existence of data, encryption alone is not enough. Indeed, encryption may draw attention to those files, as they most likely contain information the user wishes to keep secret, and coercion can be a very strong motivator for the owner of an encrypted file system to surrender their secret key.

Herein we present DEFY, a deniable file system designed to work exclusively with solid-state drives, particularly those found in mobile devices. Solid-state drives have unique …

Haptics In Remote Collaborative Exercise Systems For Seniors, Hesam Alizadeh, Richard Tang, Ehud Sharlin, Anthony Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Group exercise provides motivation to follow and maintain a healthy daily exercise schedule while enjoying beneficial encouragement and social support from friends and exercise partners. However, mobility and transportation issues frequently prevent seniors from engaging in group activities. To address this problem, we investigated the exercise needs of seniors and developed a prototype remote exercise system. Our system uses haptic feedback to simulate assistive pushing and pulling of limbs when exercising with a partner. We developed three distinct vibration metaphors -- constant push/pull, corrective feedback, and notification -- to convey engagement and connection between exercise partners. We conducted a preliminary …

Automatic Objects Removal For Scene Completion, Jianjun Yang, Yin Wang, Honggang Wang, Kun Hua, Wei Wang, Ju Shen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the explosive growth of Web-based cameras and mobile devices, billions of photographs are uploaded to the Internet. We can trivially collect a huge number of photo streams for various goals, such as 3D scene reconstruction and other big data applications. However, this is not an easy task due to the fact the retrieved photos are neither aligned nor calibrated. Furthermore, with the occlusion of unexpected foreground objects like people, vehicles, it is even more challenging to find feature correspondences and reconstruct realistic scenes. In this paper, we propose a structure-based image completion algorithm for object removal that produces visually …

Semantic Privacy Policies For Service Description And Discovery In Service-Oriented Architecture, Diego Z. Garcia, Miriam A M Capretz, M. Beatriz F. Toledo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Privacy preservation in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an open problem. This paper focuses on the areas of service description and discovery. The problems in these areas are that currently it is not possible to describe how a service provider deals with information received from a service consumer as well as discover a service that satisfies the privacy preferences of a consumer. There is currently no framework which offers a solution that supports a rich description of privacy policies and their integration in the process of service discovery. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to propose a privacy preservation …

Algorithmic Accountability, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Accountability is fundamentally about checks and balances to power. In theory, both government and corporations are kept accountable through social, economic, and political mechanisms. Journalism and public advocates serve as an additional tool to hold powerful institutions and individuals accountable. But in a world of data and algorithms, accountability is often murky. Beyond questions about whether the market is sufficient or governmental regulation is necessary, how should algorithms be held accountable? For example what is the role of the fourth estate in holding data-oriented practices accountable?

Data Supply Chains, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

As data moves between actors and organizations, what emerges is a data supply chain. Unlike manufacturing supply chains, transferred data is often duplicated in the process, challenging the essence of ownership. What does ethical data labor look like? How are the various stakeholders held accountable for being good data guardians? What does clean data transfer look like? What kinds of best practices can business and government put into place? What upstream rights to data providers have over downstream commercialization of their data?

Predicting Human Behavior, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Countless highly accurate predictions can be made from trace data, with varying degrees of personal or societal consequence (e.g., search engines predict hospital admission, gaming companies can predict compulsive gambling problems, government agencies predict criminal activity). Predicting human behavior can be both hugely beneficial and deeply problematic depending on the context. What kinds of predictive privacy harms are emerging? And what are the implications for systems of oversight and due process protections? For example, what are the implications for employment, health care and policing when predictive models are involved? How should varied organizations address what they can predict?

Virtualization-Based System Hardening Against Untrusted Kernels, Yueqiang Cheng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Applications are integral to our daily lives to help us processing sensitive I/O data, such as individual passwords and camera streams, and private application data, such as financial information and medical reports. However, applications and sensitive data all surfer from the attacks from kernel rootkits in the traditional architecture, where the commodity OS that is supposed to be the secure foothold of the system is routinely compromised due to the large code base and the broad attack surface. Fortunately, the virtualization technology has significantly reshaped the landscape of the modern computer system, and provides a variety of new opportunities for …

[Introduction To] Identity And Leadership In Virtual Communities: Establishing Credibility And Influence, Dona J. Hickey, Joe Essid

Bookshelf

The presence and ubiquity of the internet continues to transform the way in which we identify ourselves and others both online and offline. The development of virtual communities permits users to create an online identity to interact with and influence one another in ways that vary greatly from face-to-face interaction.

Identity and Leadership in Virtual Communities: Establishing Credibility and Influence explores the notion of establishing an identity online, managing it like a brand, and using it with particular members of a community. Bringing together a range of voices exemplifying how participants in online communities influence one another, this book serves …

Detecting Click Fraud In Online Advertising: A Data Mining Approach, Richard Oentaryo, Ee Peng Lim, Michael Finegold, David Lo, Feida Zhu, Clifton Phua, Eng-Yeow Cheu, Ghim-Eng Yap, Kelvin Sim, Kasun Perera, Bijay Neupane, Mustafa Faisal, Zeyar Aung, Wei Lee Woon, Wei Chen, Dhaval Patel, Daniel Berrar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Click fraud - the deliberate clicking on advertisements with no real interest on the product or service offered - is one of the most daunting problems in online advertising. Building an elective fraud detection method is thus pivotal for online advertising businesses. We organized a Fraud Detection in Mobile Advertising (FDMA) 2012 Competition, opening the opportunity for participants to work on real-world fraud data from BuzzCity Pte. Ltd., a global mobile advertising company based in Singapore. In particular, the task is to identify fraudulent publishers who generate illegitimate clicks, and distinguish them from normal publishers. The competition was held from …

A Robust Rgbd Slam System For 3d Environment With Planar Surfaces, Po-Chang Su, Ju Shen, Sen-Ching S. Cheung

Computer Science Faculty Publications

With the increasing popularity of RGB-depth (RGB-D) sensors such as the Microsoft Kinect, there have been much research on capturing and reconstructing 3D environments using a movable RGB-D sensor. The key process behind these kinds of simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM) systems is the iterative closest point or ICP algorithm, which is an iterative algorithm that can estimate the rigid movement of the camera based on the captured 3D point clouds. While ICP is a well-studied algorithm, it is problematic when it is used in scanning large planar regions such as wall surfaces in a room. The lack of depth …

Cost-Sensitive Online Active Learning With Application To Malicious Url Detection, Peilin Zhao, Steven C. H. Hoi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Malicious Uniform Resource Locator (URL) detection is an important problem in web search and mining, which plays a critical role in internet security. In literature, many existing studies have attempted to formulate the problem as a regular supervised binary classification task, which typically aims to optimize the prediction accuracy. However, in a real-world malicious URL detection task, the ratio between the number of malicious URLs and legitimate URLs is highly imbalanced, making it very inappropriate for simply optimizing the prediction accuracy. Besides, another key limitation of the existing work is to assume a large amount of training data is available, …