An integral security kernel

As the user base of the Internet has grown tremendously, the need for secure services has increased accordingly. Most secure protocols, in digital business and other fields, use a combination of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, random generators and hash functions in order to achieve confidentiality, integrity, and authentication. Our proposal is an integral security kernel based on a powerful mathematical scheme from which all of these cryptographic facilities can be derived. The kernel requires very little resources and has the flexibility of being able to trade off speed, memory or security; therefore, it can be efficiently implemented in a wide spectrum of platforms and applications, either software, hardware or low cost devices. Additionally, the primitives are comparable in security and speed to well known standards.

A Cloud-based Framework for Security Analysis of Browser Extensions

In today's internet world, web browsers are an integral part of our day-to-day activities. Therefore, web browser security is a serious concern for all of us. Browsers can be breached in different ways. Because of the over privileged access, extensions are responsible for many security issues. Browser vendors try to keep safe extensions in their official extension galleries. However, their security control measures are not always effective and adequate. The distribution of unsafe extensions through different social engineering techniques is also a very common practice. Therefore, before installation, users should thoroughly analyze the security of browser extensions. Extensions are not only available for desktop browsers, but many mobile browsers, for example, Firefox for Android and UC browser for Android, are also furnished with extension features. Mobile devices have various resource constraints in terms of computational capabilities, power, network bandwidth, etc. Hence, conventional extension security analysis techniques cannot be efficiently used by end users to examine mobile browser extension security issues. To overcome the inadequacies of the existing approaches, we propose CLOUBEX, a CLOUd-based security analysis framework for both desktop and mobile Browser EXtensions. This framework uses a client-server architecture model. In this framework, compute-intensive security analysis tasks are generally executed in a high-speed computing server hosted in a cloud environment. CLOUBEX is also enriched with a number of essential features, such as client-side analysis, requirements-driven analysis, high performance, and dynamic decision making. At present, the Firefox extension ecosystem is most susceptible to different security attacks. Hence, the framework is implemented for the security analysis of the Firefox desktop and Firefox for Android mobile browser extensions. A static taint analysis is used to identify malicious information flows in the Firefox extensions. In CLOUBEX, there are three analysis modes. A dynamic decision making algorithm assists us to select the best option based on some important parameters, such as the processing speed of a client device and network connection speed. Using the best analysis mode, performance and power consumption are improved significantly. In the future, this framework can be leveraged for the security analysis of other desktop and mobile browser extensions, too.

Recalibrating CSDP-NATO relations: the real pivot. Security Policy Brief No. 47, June 2013

In an age of major power shifts, which we know from history always to be particularly dangerous, different scenarios are possible; the only promising one is that of more and well-structured international cooperation. Yet, critical voices point at a drifting apart of longstanding allies. Recalibrating CSDPNATO relations has become more important than ever.

The ‘Lisbonisation’ of the European Parliament: Assessing progress, shortcomings and challenges for democratic accountability in the area of freedom, security and justice. CEPS Paper on Liberty and Security in Europe No. 58, September 2013

This paper examines the performance of the European Parliament in EU AFSJ law and policy-making from the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty until the end of the first half of 2013. The paper situates the EP in the new post-Lisbon institutional setting, documenting its transition to ‘AFSJ decision-maker’, and its new powers to shape and make policy covering the EU’s internal and external security agenda. While the paper finds that the EP has become an active co-owner of the EU AFSJ post-Lisbon, with the Parliament demonstrating a dynamic adjustment to its new post-Lisbon role and powers, the authors identify a set of new developments and challenges that have arisen in the conduct of democratic accountability by the EP in the AFSJ since 2009, which call for critical reflection ahead of the new parliamentary term 2014-2019 and the post-2014 phase of the EU’s AFSJ.

Why come here if I can go there? Assessing the ‘Attractiveness’ of the EU’s Blue Card Directive for ‘Highly Qualified’ Immigrants. Paper on Liberty and Security in Europe No. 60, 14 October 2013

This paper analyses the attractiveness of the EU’s Blue Card Directive – the flagship of the EU’s labour immigration policy – for so-called ‘highly qualified’ immigrant workers from outside the EU. For this purpose, the paper deconstructs the understanding of ‘attractiveness’ in the Blue Card Directive as shaped by the various EU decision-making actors during the legislative process. It is argued that the Blue Card Directive sets forth minimum standards providing for a common floor – not a common ceiling: the Directive did not, as originally envisaged by the European Commission, create one European highly skilled admission scheme. This raises questions regarding its concrete use. A critical focus is placed on the personal scope of the Blue Card Directive and the level of rights offered, and a first comparative perspective on the implementation of the Directive in five member states is provided.

Toward international peace and security: Addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation in a globalized world. ACES Working Papers, August 2010

With a growing number of threats to governance in the international system that result from globalization and technological innovation, it is no surprise that states have come to rely more heavily on each other and the global community for support. While the EU is partially constrained by the ultimate outcome of its own integration process, limited knowledge on this issue, and the national interests of its Member States, other governments are also experiencing difficulty in domestic implementation of international resolutions. To better understand the impact of the most recent sanctioning efforts, this paper will explore the development of the non-proliferation regime, examine implementation mechanisms of non-proliferation agreements, and analyze the impact of increased cooperation among states to thwart the spread of WMD technology and material. Case studies of unilateral measures undertaken by the US and EU against Iran will provide insight into the political and economic implications of economic sanctions from individual governments. New and emerging methods for limiting rogue states and non-state actors from acquiring the means to develop WMD will also be discussed in an effort to further discussion for future policy debates on this critical topic.

Governing Global Food Security. IES Policy Brief Issue 2014/07/September 2014

Summary. Food security remains a critical issue for the international community. Although significant and positive steps have been taken towards worldwide food governance in recent years, this Policy Brief argues that more can and should be done in the coming years. Additional actions that policy-makers could consider range from enhancing understanding between different actors and improving the engagement of civil society to the extension of capacity-building efforts, regulatory stability and sufficient access to credit. When taken together in a search for strategic policy coordination, these actions offer the possibility to dramatically improve global food security.

Citizenship Deprivation: A Normative Analysis. Liberty and Security in Europe No. 82, 19 March 2015

Most critical analyses assess citizenship-deprivation policies against international human rights and domestic rule of law standards, such as prevention of statelessness, non-arbitrariness with regard to justifications and judicial remedies, or non-discrimination between different categories of citizens. This report considers instead from a political theory perspective how deprivation policies reflect specific conceptions of political community. We distinguish four normative conceptions of the grounds of membership in a political community that apply to decisions on acquisition and loss of citizenship status: i) a ‘State discretion’ view, according to which governments should be as free as possible in pursuing State interests when determining citizenship status; ii) an ‘individual choice’ view, according to which individuals should be as free as possible in choosing their citizenship status; iii) an ‘ascriptive community’ view, according to which both State and individual choices should be minimised through automatic determination of membership based on objective criteria such as the circumstances of birth; and iv) a ‘genuine link’ view, according to which the ties of individuals to particular States determine their claims to inclusion and against deprivation while providing at the same time objections against including individuals without genuine links. We argue that most citizenship laws combine these four normative views in different ways, but that from a democratic perspective the ‘genuine link’ view is normatively preferable to the others. The report subsequently examines five general grounds for citizenship withdrawal – threats to public security, non-compliance with citizenship duties, flawed acquisition, derivative loss and loss of genuine links – and considers how the four normative views apply to withdrawal provision motivated by these concerns. The final section of the report examines whether EU citizenship provides additional reasons for protection against Member States’ powers of citizenship deprivation. We suggest that, in addition to fundamental rights protection through EU law and protection of free movement rights, three further arguments could be invoked: toleration of dual citizenship in a political union, prevention of unequal conditions for loss among EU citizens, and the salience of genuine links to the EU itself rather than merely to one of its Member States.

The European Power Hierarchy, Member State Trust, and Public Support for the Common Security and Defense Policy. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 15 No. 2, August 2015

Existing studies focus on overall support for European integration while less work has been done on explaining public opinion on specific policy areas, such as the development of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). We hypothesize that the probability of supporting a CSDP increases with greater levels of trust in the European Union member states, most notably the more powerful members. This variable is critical since integration’s development is influenced strongly by, and dependent on, the resources of the relatively more powerful European member states. Binary logistic regression analyses using pooled repeated cross-sectional data from the Eurobarometer surveys conducted from 1992 to 1997 among individuals of 11 member states largely support these claims.

Why Belgium Needs a Special Operations Command. Security Policy Brief No. 70, April 2016

The setting up of a Special Operations Command (SOCOM) constitutes a key element of the ongoing Belgian defence reforms. This Policy Brief aims to put the present demand for special operations forces in its historical context and engage in the discussion on how to structure and employ this special instrument of policy. Building on the legacy of the paracommando regiment, the future Belgian SOCOM constitutes a critical capability within an adaptive force structure. This new entity must be able to deliver results in a variety of unconventional missions that require high readiness, intellectual flexibility and maximum discretion or surprise. At the same time, special operations forces do not constitute a substitute for having a comprehensive security policy. They function best when used as force multipliers alongside other instruments of power towards joint effect. As the proverbial tip of the spear, they must lead the way for Belgian defence regeneration in general.

Soluções globais para sistemas industriais-teste de software

Relatório de estágio apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Sistemas de Informação Organizacionais

Airport Security: Passenger's Perception and Design Issues

The main goal of this thesis is to report patterns of perceived safety in the context of airport infrastructure, taking the airport of Bologna as reference. Many personal and environmental attributes are investigated to paint the profile of the sensitive passenger and to understand why precise factors of the transit environment are so impactful on the individual. The main analyses are based on a 2014-2015 passengers’ survey, involving almost six thousand of incoming and outgoing passengers. Other reports are used to implement and support the resource. The analysis is carried out by using a combination of Chi-square tests and binary logistic regressions. Findings shows that passengers result to be particularly affected by the perception of airport’s environment (e.g., state and maintenance of facilities, clarity and efficacy of information system, functionality of elevators and escalators), but also by the way how the passenger reaches the airport and the quality of security checks. In relation to such results, several suggestions are provided for the improvement of passenger satisfaction with safety. The attention is then focused on security checkpoints and related operations, described on a theoretical and technical ground. We present an example of how to realize a proper model of the security checks area of Bologna’s airport, with the aim to assess present performances of the system and consequences of potential variations. After a brief introduction to Arena, a widespread simulation software, the existing model is described, pointing out flaws and limitations. Such model is finally updated and changed in order to make it more reliable and more representative of the reality. Different scenarios are tested and results are compared using graphs and tables.

The SRI hierarchical development methodology (HDM) and its application to the development of secure software /

Item 247.

Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge Act : report of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on S. 687.

"June 12, 2006."

Travel behaviour change in old age : the role of critical incidents in public transport

Older people’s travel behaviour is affected by negative or positive critical incidents in the public transport environment. With the objective of identifying such inci- dents during whole trips and examining how travel beha- viour had changed, we have conducted in-depth interviews with 30 participants aged 65–91 years in the County of Stockholm, Sweden. Out of 469 incidents identified, 77 were reported to have resulted in travel behaviour change, 67 of them in a negative way. Most critical incidents were encountered in the physical environment on-board vehicles and at stations/stops as well as in pricing/ticketing. The findings show that more personal assistance, better driving behaviour, and swift maintenance of elevators and escala- tors are key facilitators that would improve predictability in travelling and enhance vulnerable older travellers’ feeling of security. The results demonstrate the benefit of involving different groups of end users in future planning and design, such that transport systems would meet the various needs of its end users.