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Kennesaw State University

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Articles 241 - 270 of 300

Full-Text Articles in Information Security

From The Editors, Herbert J. Mattord, Michael E. Whitman, Carole L. Hollingsworth Dec 2017

From The Editors, Herbert J. Mattord, Michael E. Whitman, Carole L. Hollingsworth

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

No abstract provided.

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Social Media Risk Perceptions Of Human Resource Professionals: Issues Undergraduate Students Should Consider, Julio C. Rivera, Jack Howard, Samuel Goh, James L. Worrell, Paul Di Gangi Dec 2017

Social Media Risk Perceptions Of Human Resource Professionals: Issues Undergraduate Students Should Consider, Julio C. Rivera, Jack Howard, Samuel Goh, James L. Worrell, Paul Di Gangi

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This study contrasts the social media risk perceptions of undergraduate students, versus those of certified Human Resource professionals. Social media is widely used by most segments of the population, and particularly among the age group that includes most undergraduate students. Organizations hiring employees are increasingly examining job applicant's social media postings as part of the applicant screening process. In this study we examine how these groups differ in their perceptions of the risks inherent in using social media, and what these differences may mean for students seeking employment. Recommendations are made for raising undergraduate student awareness of these risks.

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Synergistic Security: A Work System Case Study Of The Target Breach, Martha Nanette Harrell Dec 2017

Synergistic Security: A Work System Case Study Of The Target Breach, Martha Nanette Harrell

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Recent publicized security breaches can be used to evaluate information security programs. The processes and procedures that allowed the event to occur can be examined in a case study and then be used to find methods for future mitigation of risk. The Target security breach is used in this study to examine the organization’s information security program using a macro-ergonomic model. This research posits that an information security program should consider the work system design, based in macro-ergonomics, to help mitigate information security risk to the organization and ensure an efficient and effective information security program. Based on a seminal …

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Towards A Development Of A Social Engineering Exposure Index (Sexi) Using Publicly Available Personal Information, W. Shawn Wilkerson, Yair Levy, James Richard Kiper, Martha Snyder Oct 2017

Towards A Development Of A Social Engineering Exposure Index (Sexi) Using Publicly Available Personal Information, W. Shawn Wilkerson, Yair Levy, James Richard Kiper, Martha Snyder

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Millions of people willingly expose their lives via Internet technologies every day, and even those who stay off the Internet find themselves exposed through data breaches. Trillions of private information records flow through the Internet. Marketers gather personal preferences to coerce shopping behavior, while providers gather personal information to provide enhanced services. Few users have considered where their information is going or who has access to it. Even fewer are aware of how decisions made in their own lives expose significant pieces of information, which can be used to harm the very organizations they are affiliated with by cyber attackers. …

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A Comparison Of Personal Social Media Risk Perceptions Between Undergraduate Students And Human Resource Professionals, Julio C. Rivera, Jack Howard, Samuel Goh, James Worrell, Paul Di Gangi Oct 2017

A Comparison Of Personal Social Media Risk Perceptions Between Undergraduate Students And Human Resource Professionals, Julio C. Rivera, Jack Howard, Samuel Goh, James Worrell, Paul Di Gangi

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This study contrasts the social media risk perceptions of undergraduate students, versus those of certified Human Resource professionals. Social media is widely used by most segments of the population, and particularly among the age group that includes most undergraduate students. Organizations hiring employees are increasingly examining job applicant's social media postings as part of the applicant screening process. In this study we examine how these groups differ in their perceptions of the risks inherent in using social media, and what these differences may mean for students seeking employment. Recommendations are made for raising undergraduate student awareness of these risks.

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Experiments With Applying Artificial Immune System In Network Attack Detection, Alexis Cooper Oct 2017

Experiments With Applying Artificial Immune System In Network Attack Detection, Alexis Cooper

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The assurance of security within a network is difficult due to the variations of attacks. This research conducts various experiments to implement an Artificial Immune System based Intrusion Detection System to identify intrusions using the Negative Selection Algorithm. This research explores the implementation of an Artificial Immune System opposed to the industry standard of machine learning. Various experiments were conducted to identify a method to separate data to avoid false-positive results. The use of an Artificial Immune System requires a self and nonself classification to determine if an intrusion is present within the network. The results of an Artificial Immune …

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Reducing Human Error In Cyber Security Using The Human Factors Analysis Classification System (Hfacs)., Tommy Pollock Oct 2017

Reducing Human Error In Cyber Security Using The Human Factors Analysis Classification System (Hfacs)., Tommy Pollock

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

For several decades, researchers have stated that human error is a significant cause of information security breaches, yet it still remains to be a major issue today. Quantifying the effects of security incidents is often a difficult task because studies often understate or overstate the costs involved. Human error has always been a cause of failure in many industries and professions that is overlooked or ignored as an inevitability. The problem with human error is further exacerbated by the fact that the systems that are set up to keep networks secure are managed by humans. There are several causes of …

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A Developmental Study On Assessing The Cybersecurity Competency Of Organizational Information System Users, Richard Nilsen, Yair Levy, Steven Terrell, Dawn Beyer Oct 2017

A Developmental Study On Assessing The Cybersecurity Competency Of Organizational Information System Users, Richard Nilsen, Yair Levy, Steven Terrell, Dawn Beyer

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Organizational information system users (OISUs) that are open to cyber threats vectors are contributing to major financial and information losses for individuals, businesses, and governments. Moreover, technical cybersecurity controls may be rendered useless due to a lack of cybersecurity competency of OISUs. The main goal of this research study was to propose and validate, using subject matter experts (SMEs), a reliable hands-on assessment prototype tool for measuring the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that comprise the cybersecurity competency of an OISU. Primarily using the Delphi methodology, this study implemented four phases of data collection using cybersecurity SMEs for proposing and …

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Voice Hacking Proof Of Concept: Using Smartphones To Spread Ransomware To Traditional Pcs, Leonardo I. Mazuran, Bryson R. Payne, Tamirat T. Abegaz Oct 2017

Voice Hacking Proof Of Concept: Using Smartphones To Spread Ransomware To Traditional Pcs, Leonardo I. Mazuran, Bryson R. Payne, Tamirat T. Abegaz

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This paper presents a working proof of concept that demonstrates the ability to deploy a sequence of hacks, triggered by speaking a smartphone command, to launch ransomware and other destructive attacks against vulnerable Windows computers on any wireless network the phone connects to after the voice command is issued. Specifically, a spoken, broadcast, or pre-recorded voice command directs vulnerable Android smartphones or tablets to a malicious download page that compromises the Android device and uses it as a proxy to run software designed to scan the Android device’s local area network for Windows computers vulnerable to the EternalBlue exploit, spreading …

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Security Device Roles, Vabrice Wilder Oct 2017

Security Device Roles, Vabrice Wilder

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

“An abstract of this article was published in the proceedings of the Conference on Cybersecurity Education, Research & Practice, 2017”. Communication has evolved since the beginning of mankind from smoke signals to drones to now the internet. In a world filled with technology the security of one’s device is not to be taken for granted. A series of research was done in order to gather details about network devices that can aid in the protection of one’s information while being transferred through the internet. The findings included but not limited to, switches, the seven layers of OSI, routers, firewalls, load …

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"Think Before You Click. Post. Type." Lessons Learned From Our University Cyber Secuity Awareness Campaign, Rachael Innocenzi, Kaylee Brown, Peggy Liggit, Samir Tout, Andrea Tanner, Theodore Coutilish, Rocky Jenkins Oct 2017

"Think Before You Click. Post. Type." Lessons Learned From Our University Cyber Secuity Awareness Campaign, Rachael Innocenzi, Kaylee Brown, Peggy Liggit, Samir Tout, Andrea Tanner, Theodore Coutilish, Rocky Jenkins

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This article discusses the lessons learned after implementing a successful university-wide cyber security campaign. The Cyber Security Awareness Committee (CyberSAC), a group comprised of diverse units across campus, collaborated together on resources, talent, people, equipment, technology, and assessment practices to meet strategic goals for cyber safety and education. The project involves assessing student learning and behavior changes after participating in a Cyber Security Password Awareness event that was run as a year-long campaign targeting undergraduate students. The results have implications for planning and implementing university-wide initiatives in the field of cyber security, and more broadly, higher education at large.

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Ssetgami: Secure Software Education Through Gamification, Hector Suarez, Hooper Kincannon, Li Yang Oct 2017

Ssetgami: Secure Software Education Through Gamification, Hector Suarez, Hooper Kincannon, Li Yang

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Since web browsers have become essential to accomplishing everyday tasks, developing secure web applications has become a priority in order to protect user data, corporate databases and critical infrastructure against cyber-crimes . This research presents a game-like (gamification) approach to teach key concepts and skills on how to develop secure web applications. Gamification draws on motivational models, one of psychological theories. Gamification design has great potential over traditional education where we often find students demotivated and lecturers failing to engage them in learning activities. This research created game-like learning modules to teach top vulnerabilities and countermeasures for these top vulnerabilities …

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Pedagogical Resources For Industrial Control Systems Security: Design, Implementation, Conveyance, And Evaluation, Guillermo A. Francia Iii, Greg Randall, Jay Snellen Jun 2017

Pedagogical Resources For Industrial Control Systems Security: Design, Implementation, Conveyance, And Evaluation, Guillermo A. Francia Iii, Greg Randall, Jay Snellen

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which are pervasive in our nation’s critical infrastructures, are becoming increasingly at risk and vulnerable to internal and external threats. It is imperative that the future workforce be educated and trained on the security of such systems. However, it is equally important that careful and deliberate considerations must be exercised in designing and implementing the educational and training activities that pertain to ICS. To that end, we designed and implemented pedagogical materials and tools to facilitate the teaching and learning processes in the area of ICS security. In this paper, we describe those resources, the professional …

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Cyber Security For Everyone: An Introductory Course For Non-Technical Majors, Marc J. Dupuis Jun 2017

Cyber Security For Everyone: An Introductory Course For Non-Technical Majors, Marc J. Dupuis

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

In this paper, we describe the need for and development of an introductory cyber security course. The course was designed for non-technical majors with the goal of increasing cyber security hygiene for an important segment of the population—college undergraduates. While the need for degree programs that focus on educating and training individuals for occupations in the ever-growing cyber security field is critically important, the need for improved cyber security hygiene from the average everyday person is of equal importance. This paper discusses the approach used, curriculum developed, results from two runs of the course, and frames the overall structure of …

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How Much Should We Teach The Enigma Machine?, Jeffrey A. Livermore Jun 2017

How Much Should We Teach The Enigma Machine?, Jeffrey A. Livermore

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Developing courses and programs in Information Assurance can feel like trying to force ten pounds of flour into a five pound sack. We want to pack more into our courses than we have time to teach. As new technologies develop, we often find it necessary to drop old technologies out of the curriculum and our students miss out on the historical impacts the old technologies had. The discipline is so broad and deep that we have to carefully choose what concepts and technologies we study in depth, what we mention in passing, and what we leave out. Leaving out important …

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From The Editors, Carole L. Hollingsworth, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord Jun 2017

From The Editors, Carole L. Hollingsworth, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Welcome to the third issue of the Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice (JCERP).

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Threats To Information Protection - Industry And Academic Perspectives: An Annotated Bibliography, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord Dec 2016

Threats To Information Protection - Industry And Academic Perspectives: An Annotated Bibliography, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Threats to information assets have always been a concern to those responsible for making information useful and defending its value. The concepts of threat, threat agent, threat events and threat sources have evolved in recent years have very precise definitions. A summary of threat classification models used in academic research is provided along with a summary of recent industry threat assessment reports. Finally, the results from a recent study, 2015 SEC/CISE Threats to Information Protection Report Including a Current Snapshot of the State of the Industry, are given.

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From The Editors, Herbert J. Mattord, Michael E. Whitman, Carole L. Hollingsworth Dec 2016

From The Editors, Herbert J. Mattord, Michael E. Whitman, Carole L. Hollingsworth

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Welcome to the second issue of the Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice (JCERP).

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Towards An In-Depth Understanding Of Deep Packet Inspection Using A Suite Of Industrial Control Systems Protocol Packets, Guillermo A. Francia Iii, Xavier P. Francia, Anthony M. Pruitt Dec 2016

Towards An In-Depth Understanding Of Deep Packet Inspection Using A Suite Of Industrial Control Systems Protocol Packets, Guillermo A. Francia Iii, Xavier P. Francia, Anthony M. Pruitt

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Industrial control systems (ICS) are increasingly at risk and vulnerable to internal and external threats. These systems are integral part of our nation’s critical infrastructures. Consequently, a successful cyberattack on one of these could present disastrous consequences to human life and property as well. It is imperative that cybersecurity professionals gain a good understanding of these systems particularly in the area of communication protocols. Traditional Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) are made to encapsulate some of these ICS protocols which may enable malicious payload to get through the network firewall and thus, gain entry into the …

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Planning And Implementing A Successful Nsa-Nsf Gencyber Summer Cyber Academy, Bryson R. Payne, Tamirat Abegaz, Keith Antonia Dec 2016

Planning And Implementing A Successful Nsa-Nsf Gencyber Summer Cyber Academy, Bryson R. Payne, Tamirat Abegaz, Keith Antonia

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The GenCyber program is jointly sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help faculty and cybersecurity experts provide summer cybersecurity camp experiences for K-12 students and teachers. The main objective of the program is to attract, educate, and motivate a new generation of young men and women to help address the nationwide shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals. The curriculum is flexible and centers on ten cybersecurity first principles. Currently, GenCyber provides cyber camp options for three types of audiences: students, teachers, and a combination of both teachers and students. In 2016, over 120 …

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The Paradox Of Social Media Security: A Study Of It Students’ Perceptions Versus Behavior On Using Facebook, Zahra Y. Alqubaiti Dec 2016

The Paradox Of Social Media Security: A Study Of It Students’ Perceptions Versus Behavior On Using Facebook, Zahra Y. Alqubaiti

Master of Science in Information Technology Theses

Social media plays an essential role in the modern society, enabling people to be better connected to each other and creating new opportunities for businesses. At the same time, social networking sites have become major targets for cyber-security attacks due to their massive user base. Many studies investigated the security vulnerabilities and privacy issues of social networking sites and made recommendations on how to mitigate security risks. Users are an integral part of any security mix. In this thesis, we explore the relationship between users’ security perceptions and their actual behavior on social networking sites. Protection motivation theory (PMT), initially …

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Threats To Information Protection - Industry And Academic Perspectives: An Annotated Bibliography, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord Oct 2016

Threats To Information Protection - Industry And Academic Perspectives: An Annotated Bibliography, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Threats to information assets have always been a concern to those responsible for making information useful and defending its value. The concepts of threat, threat agent, threat events and threat sources have evolved in recent years have very precise definitions. The article includes a summary of threat classification models used in academic research is provided along with a summary of recent industry threat assessment reports. Finally, the article shares results from a recent study, 2015 SEC/CISE Threats to Information Protection Report Including a Current Snapshot of the State of the Industry, are given.

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A Framework For Hybrid Intrusion Detection Systems, Robert N. Bronte Oct 2016

A Framework For Hybrid Intrusion Detection Systems, Robert N. Bronte

Master of Science in Information Technology Theses

Web application security is a definite threat to the world’s information technology infrastructure. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), generally defines web application security violations as unauthorized or unintentional exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information. These breaches occur without the company’s knowledge and it often takes a while before the web application attack is revealed to the public, specifically because the security violations are fixed. Due to the need to protect their reputation, organizations have begun researching solutions to these problems. The most widely accepted solution is the use of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS). Such systems currently …

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Integrate Text Mining Into Computer And Information Security Education, Hongmei Chi, Ezhil Kalaimannan, Dominique Hubbard Oct 2016

Integrate Text Mining Into Computer And Information Security Education, Hongmei Chi, Ezhil Kalaimannan, Dominique Hubbard

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Insider threats has become a significant challenge to organization, due to the employees varying levels of access to the internal network. This will intern bypass the external security measures that have been put in place to protect the organization’s resources. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a form of communication over virtual spaces where users cannot see each other. CMC includes email and communication over social networks, amongst others. This paper focuses on the design and implementation of exercise modules, which can be integrated into cybersecurity courses. The main objectives of the paper include how to teach and integrate the CMC learning …

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Cover Text Steganography: N-Gram And Entropy-Based Approach, Sara M. Rico-Larmer Oct 2016

Cover Text Steganography: N-Gram And Entropy-Based Approach, Sara M. Rico-Larmer

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Steganography is an ancient technique for hiding a secret message within ordinary looking messages or objects (e.g., images), also known as cover messages. Among various techniques, hiding text data in plain text file is a challenging task due to lack of redundant information. This paper proposes two new approaches to embed a secret message in a cover text document. The two approaches are n-gram and entropy metric-based generation of stego text. We provide examples of encoding secret messages in a cover text document followed by an initial evaluation of how well stego texts look close to the plain …

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Hands-On Labs Demonstrating Html5 Security Concerns, Mounika Vanamala Oct 2016

Hands-On Labs Demonstrating Html5 Security Concerns, Mounika Vanamala

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The research is focused on the new features added in HTML5 standard that have strong implications towards the overall information security of a system that uses this implementation.A Hands-on Lab is developed to demonstrate how Web Storage and the Geo-location API of HTML5 can affect the privacy of the user.

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“Not All Friends Are Equal”: Friendship Classification For Defending Against Social Engineering Attacks, Munene W. Kanampiu, Mohd Anwar Oct 2016

“Not All Friends Are Equal”: Friendship Classification For Defending Against Social Engineering Attacks, Munene W. Kanampiu, Mohd Anwar

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Social engineering is a serious security threat to Online Social Networks (OSNs). Identity theft, impersonation, phishing, and deception are some of the social engineering-based attacks that exploit vulnerabilities of interpersonal relationships of online users. As a result, relationships in OSNs need to be thoroughly examined. In this vein, we propose a relationship categorization model to evaluate relationship strength based on graph-theoretic properties and social network analysis (SNA) methods. For example, in Facebook, users may be categorized into close-neighbors, distant-neighbors, celebrities (influential by admiration), authority (influential by power), and loners. Close-neighbors category will help identify a set of trustworthy actors while …

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Smart City Security, Shawn Ralko, Sathish Kumar Oct 2016

Smart City Security, Shawn Ralko, Sathish Kumar

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

With rapid growth of technology involved and the implementation of the smart city concept, it is becoming vital to identify and implement security controls for their secure operation. Smart city security is essential for a city to incorporate the technologies into smart city cyber infrastructure and to improve the conditions of life for its citizens. In this paper, we have discussed the growth of smart city concept, their security issues. We also discuss the security solutions that needs to be implemented to keep the smart city cyber infrastructure secure. We have also pointed out the recommendations on the open issues …

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The Role Of State Privacy Regulations In Mitigating Internet Users’ Privacy Concerns: A Multilevel Perspective, Tawfiq Alashoor Oct 2016

The Role Of State Privacy Regulations In Mitigating Internet Users’ Privacy Concerns: A Multilevel Perspective, Tawfiq Alashoor

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

In the U.S., there is no comprehensive national law regulating the collection and use of personal information. As a response to the high level of privacy concerns among U.S. citizens and the currently limited regulations, states have enacted their own privacy laws over and above the principles of Fair Information Practices (FIP). In this exploratory study, we draw upon the privacy literature and the Restricted Access/Limited Control (RALC) theory of privacy to study the privacy concerns phenomenon with a multilevel theoretical lens. We introduce and test three novel propositions pertaining to the impact of state level privacy regulations on privacy …

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Improvement And Maturity Of The Information Security Risk Management Process, Angela Jackson-Summers Oct 2016

Improvement And Maturity Of The Information Security Risk Management Process, Angela Jackson-Summers

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

No abstract provided.

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