Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Self-Reported Cyber Crime: An Analysis On The Effects Of Anonymity And Pre-Employment Integrity, Ibrahim Baggili, Marcus Rogers

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

A key issue facing today’s society is the increase in cyber crimes. Cyber crimes pose threats to nations, organizations and individuals across the globe. Much of the research in cyber crime has risen from computer science-centric programs, and little experimental research has been performed on the psychology of cyber crime. This has caused a knowledge gap in the study of cyber crime. To this end, this research focuses on understanding psychological concepts related to cyber crime. Through an experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to three groups with varying degrees of anonymity. After each treatment, participants were asked to self-report …

Equational Coalgebraic Logic, Alexander Kurz, Raul Leal

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Coalgebra develops a general theory of transition systems, parametric in a functor T; the functor T specifies the possible one-step behaviours of the system. A fundamental question in this area is how to obtain, for an arbitrary functor T, a logic for T-coalgebras. We compare two existing proposals, Moss’s coalgebraic logic and the logic of all predicate liftings, by providing one-step translations between them, extending the results in [21] by making systematic use of Stone duality. Our main contribution then is a novel coalgebraic logic, which can be seen as an equational axiomatization of Moss’s logic. The three logics are …

Improving Remote Homology Detection Using A Sequence Property Approach, Gina Marie Cooper

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Understanding the structure and function of proteins is a key part of understanding biological systems. Although proteins are complex biological macromolecules, they are made up of only 20 basic building blocks known as amino acids. The makeup of a protein can be described as a sequence of amino acids. One of the most important tools in modern bioinformatics is the ability to search for biological sequences (such as protein sequences) that are similar to a given query sequence. There are many tools for doing this (Altschul et al., 1990, Hobohm and Sander, 1995, Thomson et al., 1994, Karplus and Barrett, …

Design And Performance Analysis Of A Secure Proces-Sor Scan-Sp With Crypto-Biometric Capabilities, Raghudeep Kannavara

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Secure computing is gaining importance in recent times as computing capability is increasingly becoming distributed and information is everywhere. Prevention of piracy and digital rights management has become very important. Information security is mandatory rather than an additional feature. Numerous software techniques have been proposed to provide certain level of copyright and intellectual property protection. Techniques like obfuscation attempt to transform the code into a form that is harder to reverse engineer. Tamper-proofing causes a program to malfunction when it detects that it has been modified. Software watermarking embeds copyright notice in the software code to allow the owners of …

Semantic And Role-Based Access Control For Data Grid Systems, Vineela Muppavarapu

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A Grid is an integration infrastructure for sharing and coordinated use of diverseresources in dynamic, distributed virtual organizations (VOs). A Data Grid is an architecture for the access, exchange, and sharing of data in the Grid environment. Distributed data resources can be diverse in their formats, schema, quality, access mechanisms, ownership, access policies, and capabilities. In recent years, several organizations have started utilizing Grid technologies to deploy data-intensive and/or computation-intensive applications. As more and more organizations are sharing data resources and participating in Data Grids, the complexity and heterogeneity of the systems is increasing constantly, but their management techniques are …

Graduate Accounting Students' Perception Of It Forensics: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis, Grover S. Kearns

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Forensics and information technology (IT) have become increasingly important to accountants and auditors. Undergraduate accounting students are introduced to general IT topics but discussion of forensic knowledge is limited. A few schools have introduced an undergraduate major in forensic accounting. Some graduate schools offer accounting students an emphasis in forensic or fraud accounting that includes instruction in forensics and information technology. When students do not view the IT topics as being equally important to their careers as traditional accounting topics, these attitudes may reduce the quality of the course. In an effort to assess student attitudes, a survey of 46 …

Continuous Fraud Detection In Enterprise Systems Through Audit Trail Analysis, Peter J. Best, Pall Rikhardsson, Mark Toleman

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Enterprise systems, real time recording and real time reporting pose new and significant challenges to the accounting and auditing professions. This includes developing methods and tools for continuous assurance and fraud detection. In this paper we propose a methodology for continuous fraud detection that exploits security audit logs, changes in master records and accounting audit trails in enterprise systems. The steps in this process are: (1) threat monitoringsurveillance of security audit logs for ‘red flags’, (2) automated extraction and analysis of data from audit trails, and (3) using forensic investigation techniques to determine whether a fraud has actually occurred. We …

Defining A Forensic Audit, G. S. Smith, D. L. Crumbley

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Disclosures about new financial frauds and scandals are continually appearing in the press. As a consequence, the accounting profession's traditional methods of monitoring corporate financial activities are under intense scrutiny. At the same time, there is recognition that principles-based GAAP from the International Accounting Standards Board will become the recognized standard in the U.S. The authors argue that these two factors will change the practices used to fight corporate malfeasance as investigators adapt the techniques of accounting into a forensic audit engagement model.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Visualisation Of Honeypot Data Using Graphviz And Afterglow, Craig Valli

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research in progress paper explores the use of Graphviz and Afterglow for the analysis of data emanating from a honeypot system. Honeypot systems gather a wide range of data that is often difficult to readily search for patterns and trends using conventional log file analysis techniques. The data from the honeypots has been statically extracted and processed through Afterglow scripts to produce inputs suitable for use by the DOT graph based tools contained within Graphviz. This paper explores some of the benefits and drawbacks of currently using this type of approach.

Correlating Orphaned Windows Registry Data Structures, Damir Kahvedžić, Tahar Kechadi

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Recently, it has been shown that deleted entries of the Microsoft Windows registry (keys) may still reside in the system files once the entries have been deleted from the active database. Investigating the complete keys in context may be extremely important from both a Forensic Investigation point of view and a legal point of view where a lack of context can bring doubt to an argument. In this paper we formalise the registry behaviour and show how a retrieved value may not maintain a relation to the part of the registry it belonged to and hence lose that context. We …

The Impact Of Hard Disk Firmware Steganography On Computer Forensics, Iain Sutherland, Gareth Davies, Nick Pringle, Andrew Blyth

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The hard disk drive is probably the predominant form of storage media and is a primary data source in a forensic investigation. The majority of available software tools and literature relating to the investigation of the structure and content contained within a hard disk drive concerns the extraction and analysis of evidence from the various file systems which can reside in the user accessible area of the disk. It is known that there are other areas of the hard disk drive which could be used to conceal information, such as the Host Protected Area and the Device Configuration Overlay. There …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Insecurity By Obscurity: A Review Of Soho Router Literature From A Network Security Perspective, Patryk Szewczyk, Craig Valli

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Because of prevalent threats to SoHo based ADSL Routers, many more devices are compromised. Whilst an end-user may be at fault for not applying the appropriate security mechanisms to counter these threats, vendors should equally share the blame. This paper reveals that the lack of security related content and poor overall design could impact on end-users’ interpretation and willingness to implement security controls on their ADSL router. It argues that whilst the number of threats circulating the Internet is increasing, vendors are not improving their product literature.

Electronic Forms-Based Computing For Evidentiary Analysis, Andy Luse, Brian Mennecke, Anthony M. Townsend

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The paperwork associated with evidentiary collection and analysis is a highly repetitive and time-consuming process which often involves duplication of work and can frequently result in documentary errors. Electronic entry of evidencerelated information can facilitate greater accuracy and less time spent on data entry. This manuscript describes a general framework for the implementation of an electronic tablet-based system for evidentiary processing. This framework is then utilized in the design and implementation of an electronic tablet-based evidentiary input prototype system developed for use by forensic laboratories which serves as a verification of the proposed framework. The manuscript concludes with a discussion …

To License Or Not To License Revisited: An Examination Of State Statutes Regarding Private Investigators And Digital Examiners, Thomas Lonardo, Doug White, Alan Rea

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this update to the previous year's study, the authors examine statutes that regulate, license, and enforce investigative functions in each US state. After identification and review of Private Investigator licensing requirements, the authors find that very few state statutes explicitly differentiate between Private Investigators and Digital Examiners. After contacting all state agencies the authors present a distinct grouping organizing state approaches to professional Digital Examiner licensing. The authors conclude that states must differentiate between Private Investigator and Digital Examiner licensing requirements and oversight.

Online Child Sexual Abuse: The French Response, Mohamed Chawki

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Online child sexual abuse is an increasingly visible problem in society today. The introduction, growth and utilization of information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs) have been accompanied by an increase in illegal activities. With respect to cyberspace the Internet is an attractive environment to sex offenders. In addition to giving them greater access to minors, extending their reach from a limited geographical area to victims all around the world, it allows criminals to alter or conceal their identities. Sexual predators, stalkers, child pornographers and child traffickers can use various concealment techniques to make it more difficult for investigators to identify them …

A Synopsis Of Proposed Data Protection Legislation In Sa, Francis S. Cronjé

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Privacy International1 made the following statement regarding South Africa’s financial sector in its 2005 world survey: “South Africa has a well-developed financial system and banking infrastructure. Despite the sophistication of the financial sector, the privacy of financial information is weakly regulated by a code of conduct for banks issued by the Banking Council.” This extract highlights some of the problems South Africa are experiencing with its current status on privacy as viewed from an International perspective. In recent years the International society has stepped up its efforts in creating a global village wherein the individual could be assured of having …

Telecommunications Liberalisation In Africa: Proposed Regulatory Model For The Sadc Region, Z. N. Jobodwana

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The liberalisation of the telecommunication industry in Africa, and the further development of the region’s physical infrastructure was accompanied by the further development of Africa’s information, communication and technology infrastructure. Competition within the industry stimulated heavy economic investment in other sectors of the economy. The outcome of liberalisation also included the establishment of community-based structures that continue to enable communities to manage their own development and gain access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in an unprecedented manner. The telecommunication infrastructure further stimulated the fast development of other related services, for example, ecommerce and mobile commerce (m-commerce), e-government, internet banking, …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

A Subspace Projection Methodology For Nonlinear Manifold Based Face Recognition, Praveen Sankaran

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A novel feature extraction method that utilizes nonlinear mapping from the original data space to the feature space is presented in this dissertation. Feature extraction methods aim to find compact representations of data that are easy to classify. Measurements with similar values are grouped to same category, while those with differing values are deemed to be of separate categories. For most practical systems, the meaningful features of a pattern class lie in a low dimensional nonlinear constraint region (manifold) within the high dimensional data space. A learning algorithm to model this nonlinear region and to project patterns to this feature …

High-Performance Broadcast And Multicast Protocols For Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks, Jun Wang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio …

Tyflos: A Wearable Navigation Prototype For Blind & Visually Impaired; Design, Modelling And Experimental Results, Dimitrios Dakopoulos

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The need for assistive devices has, had and will have a large merit in many engineering research arenas. This dissertation deals with the design, modeling, implementation and experimentation of the navigation component of a wearable assistive system for blind and visually impaired people, called TYFLOS (ΤΥΦΛΟΣ) which is the Greek word for "Blind".

The current prototype consists of two mini cameras attached to a pair of conventional eye-glasses, a 2D tactile display vibration array) which consists of 16 vibrating elements arranged in a 4x4 manner, attached to an elastic vest worn on the user's abdomen, a portable computer, an ear-speaker …

Semantics Enriched Service Environments, Karthik Rajagopal Gomadam

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During the past seven years services centric computing has emerged as the preferred approach to architect complex software. Software is increasingly developed by integrating remotely existing components, popularly called services. This architectural paradigm, also called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), brings with it the benefits of interoperability, agility and flexibility to software design and development. One can easily add or change new features to existing systems, either by the addition of new services or by replacing existing ones. Two popular approaches have emerged for realizing SOA. The first approach is based on the SOAP protocol for communication and the Web Service …

Burst Scheduling, Grooming And Qos Provisioning In Optical Burst-Switched Networks, Yuqi Fan

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The demand of network capacity has been increasing steadily with more users than ever connected to the Internet through broadband access and the popularity of video based applications, such as YouTube. Optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks are expected to form the next-generation backbone network and to fulfill the insatiable appetite for bandwidth.

Wavelength routed WDM optical networks offer the granularity of switching at a fiber, waveband, or a wavelength level. The finest granularity offered is at a wavelength level by provisioning lightpaths for different clients/services. All-optical packet switching is still deemed technically infeasible and its competitiveness as a backbone …

A Cryptanalysis Methodology For The Reverse Engineering Of Encrypted Information In Images, Allan Anthony Rwabutaza

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Security is an important issue related to the storage and communication of data and information. In data and information security, cryptography and steganography are two of the most common security techniques. On one hand, there is cryptography, which is the secret communication between two parties by message scrambling on the sender's side and message unscrambling on the receiver's side so that only the intended receiver gets the secret message. On the other hand, there is steganography, which is the hiding of information in a medium in such a way that no one other than the sender or the intended receiver …

Precise Measurement Of The Neutron Magnetic Form Factor Gnm In The Few-Gev² Region, Clas Collaboration, J. Lachniet, H. Bagdasaryan, S. Bültmann, N. Kalantarians, G. E. Dodge, T. A. Forest, G. Gavalian, C. E. Hyde-Wright, A. Klien, S. E. Kuhn, M. R. Niroula, R. A. Niyazov, L. M. Qin, L. B. Weinstein, J. Zhang

Physics Faculty Publications

The neutron elastic magnetic form factor was extracted from quasielastic electron scattering on deuterium over the range Q² = 1.0–4.8  GeV² with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. High precision was achieved with a ratio technique and a simultaneous in situ calibration of the neutron detection efficiency. Neutrons were detected with electromagnetic calorimeters and time-of-flight scintillators at two beam energies. The dipole parametrization gives a good description of the data

Insulation Condition Assessment Of Power Transformers Using Accelerated Ageing Tests, Mohammad Mirzaie, Ahmad Gholami, Hamid Reza Tayebi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Thermal stress due to losses and environment temperature causes degradation to paper/oil insulation systems in transformers, even at operating temperature. Experience indicates that thermal ageing of oil and paper in power transformers leads to the change of some insulation characteristics. In this paper, insulating papers immersed in oil have been acceleratory aged at 140, 150, and 160 °C under laboratory conditions. Some of the oil properties, such as water content, breakdown voltage, acidity, together with the aged insulating paper properties such as electric strength, dielectric dissipation factor and tensile strength were measured and analyzed. Also, insulation system conditions under thermal …

Voltage Control Of Self-Excited Induction Generator Using Genetic Algorithm, Dheeraj Joshi, Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu, Mahender Kumar Soni

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Self-excited induction generators (SEIG) are found to be most suitable candidate for wind energy conversion application required at remote windy locations. Such generators are not able to maintain the terminal voltage with load as, a literature survey reveals, the voltage profile falls sharply with load. In this paper an attempt has been made to improve the voltage profile of a self-excited induction generator. A new methodology based upon Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed to compute the steady state performance of the model including core loss branch. Further efforts are made to control the terminal voltage under loaded conditions. Simulated results …

Variance And Kurtosis-Based Characterization Of Resonances In Stochastic Transmission Lines: Local Versus Global Random Geometries, Ousmane Sy, Martijn Van Beurden, Bastiaan Michielsen, Antonius Tijhuis

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

A stochastic method is proposed to characterize electromagnetic couplings involving geometrically perturbed transmission lines. A combined exploitation of suitably defined statistical tools is presented to appreciate the intensity of the dispersion of response variables both physically via the variance, and statistically through the kurtosis or fourth-order moment. The usefulness of this method to analyze resonances is illustrated by the study of a transmission line affected by two different types of random geometrical perturbations, viz. a local deformation modeled by a wavelet and global sinusoidal undulations.