Measuring software security from the design of software

The vast majority of our contemporary society owns a mobile phone, which has resulted in a dramatic rise in the amount of networked computers in recent years. Security issues in the computers have followed the same trend and nearly everyone is now affected by such issues. How could the situation be improved? For software engineers, an obvious answer is to build computer software with security in mind. A problem with building software with security is how to define secure software or how to measure security. This thesis divides the problem into three research questions. First, how can we measure the security of software? Second, what types of tools are available for measuring security? And finally, what do these tools reveal about the security of software? Measuring tools of these kind are commonly called metrics. This thesis is focused on the perspective of software engineers in the software design phase. Focus on the design phase means that code level semantics or programming language specifics are not discussed in this work. Organizational policy, management issues or software development process are also out of the scope. The first two research problems were studied using a literature review while the third was studied using a case study research. The target of the case study was a Java based email server called Apache James, which had details from its changelog and security issues available and the source code was accessible. The research revealed that there is a consensus in the terminology on software security. Security verification activities are commonly divided into evaluation and assurance. The focus of this work was in assurance, which means to verify one’s own work. There are 34 metrics available for security measurements, of which five are evaluation metrics and 29 are assurance metrics. We found, however, that the general quality of these metrics was not good. Only three metrics in the design category passed the inspection criteria and could be used in the case study. The metrics claim to give quantitative information on the security of the software, but in practice they were limited to evaluating different versions of the same software. Apart from being relative, the metrics were unable to detect security issues or point out problems in the design. Furthermore, interpreting the metrics’ results was difficult. In conclusion, the general state of the software security metrics leaves a lot to be desired. The metrics studied had both theoretical and practical issues, and are not suitable for daily engineering workflows. The metrics studied provided a basis for further research, since they pointed out areas where the security metrics were necessary to improve whether verification of security from the design was desired.

Customer Discovery and Customer Validation in Lean Software Startups

The traditional business models and the traditionally successful development methods that have been distinctive to the industrial era, do not satisfy the needs of modern IT companies. Due to the rapid nature of IT markets, the uncertainty of new innovations‟ success and the overwhelming competition with established companies, startups need to make quick decisions and eliminate wasted resources more effectively than ever before. There is a need for an empirical basis on which to build business models, as well as evaluate the presumptions regarding value and profit. Less than ten years ago, the Lean software development principles and practices became widely well-known in the academic circles. Those practices help startup entrepreneurs to validate their learning, test their assumptions and be more and more dynamical and flexible. What is special about today‟s software startups is that they are increasingly individual. There are quantitative research studies available regarding the details of Lean startups. Broad research with hundreds of companies presented in a few charts is informative, but a detailed study of fewer examples gives an insight to the way software entrepreneurs see Lean startup philosophy and how they describe it in their own words. This thesis focuses on Lean software startups‟ early phases, namely Customer Discovery (discovering a valuable solution to a real problem) and Customer Validation (being in a good market with a product which satisfies that market). The thesis first offers a sufficiently compact insight into the Lean software startup concept to a reader who is not previously familiar with the term. The Lean startup philosophy is then put into a real-life test, based on interviews with four Finnish Lean software startup entrepreneurs. The interviews reveal 1) whether the Lean startup philosophy is actually valuable for them, 2) how can the theory be practically implemented in real life and 3) does theoretical Lean startup knowledge compensate a lack of entrepreneurship experience. A reader gets familiar with the key elements and tools of Lean startups, as well as their mutual connections. The thesis explains why Lean startups waste less time and money than many other startups. The thesis, especially its research sections, aims at providing data and analysis simultaneously.

Customer Discovery and Customer Validation in Lean Software Startups

The traditional business models and the traditionally successful development methods that have been distinctive to the industrial era, do not satisfy the needs of modern IT companies. Due to the rapid nature of IT markets, the uncertainty of new innovations‟ success and the overwhelming competition with established companies, startups need to make quick decisions and eliminate wasted resources more effectively than ever before. There is a need for an empirical basis on which to build business models, as well as evaluate the presumptions regarding value and profit. Less than ten years ago, the Lean software development principles and practices became widely well-known in the academic circles. Those practices help startup entrepreneurs to validate their learning, test their assumptions and be more and more dynamical and flexible. What is special about today‟s software startups is that they are increasingly individual. There are quantitative research studies available regarding the details of Lean startups. Broad research with hundreds of companies presented in a few charts is informative, but a detailed study of fewer examples gives an insight to the way software entrepreneurs see Lean startup philosophy and how they describe it in their own words. This thesis focuses on Lean software startups‟ early phases, namely Customer Discovery (discovering a valuable solution to a real problem) and Customer Validation (being in a good market with a product which satisfies that market). The thesis first offers a sufficiently compact insight into the Lean software startup concept to a reader who is not previously familiar with the term. The Lean startup philosophy is then put into a real-life test, based on interviews with four Finnish Lean software startup entrepreneurs. The interviews reveal 1) whether the Lean startup philosophy is actually valuable for them, 2) how can the theory be practically implemented in real life and 3) does theoretical Lean startup knowledge compensate a lack of entrepreneurship experience. A reader gets familiar with the key elements and tools of Lean startups, as well as their mutual connections. The thesis explains why Lean startups waste less time and money than many other startups. The thesis, especially its research sections, aims at providing data and analysis simultaneously.

Export Competitiveness of Software Industry In India

The study was motivated by the need to understand factors that guide the software exports and competitiveness, both positively and negatively. The influence of one factor or another upon the export competitiveness is to be understood in great depth, which is necessary to find out the industry’s sustainability. India is being emulated as an example for the success strategy in software development and exports. India’s software industry is hailed as one of the globally competitive software industry in the world. The major objectives are to model the growth pattern of exports and domestic sales of software and services of India and to find out the factors influencing the growth pattern of software industry in India. The thesis compare the growth pattern of software industry of India with respect to that of Ireland and Israel and to critically of various problems faced by software industry and export in India and to model the variables of competitiveness of emerging software producing nations

Genetic Programming meets Model-Driven Development

Genetic programming is known to provide good solutions for many problems like the evolution of network protocols and distributed algorithms. In such cases it is most likely a hardwired module of a design framework that assists the engineer to optimize specific aspects of the system to be developed. It provides its results in a fixed format through an internal interface. In this paper we show how the utility of genetic programming can be increased remarkably by isolating it as a component and integrating it into the model-driven software development process. Our genetic programming framework produces XMI-encoded UML models that can easily be loaded into widely available modeling tools which in turn posses code generation as well as additional analysis and test capabilities. We use the evolution of a distributed election algorithm as an example to illustrate how genetic programming can be combined with model-driven development. This example clearly illustrates the advantages of our approach – the generation of source code in different programming languages.

Design, implementation and application of a generic framework for integrated regional land-use modeling

Land use is a crucial link between human activities and the natural environment and one of the main driving forces of global environmental change. Large parts of the terrestrial land surface are used for agriculture, forestry, settlements and infrastructure. Given the importance of land use, it is essential to understand the multitude of influential factors and resulting land use patterns. An essential methodology to study and quantify such interactions is provided by the adoption of land-use models. By the application of land-use models, it is possible to analyze the complex structure of linkages and feedbacks and to also determine the relevance of driving forces. Modeling land use and land use changes has a long-term tradition. In particular on the regional scale, a variety of models for different regions and research questions has been created. Modeling capabilities grow with steady advances in computer technology, which on the one hand are driven by increasing computing power on the other hand by new methods in software development, e.g. object- and component-oriented architectures. In this thesis, SITE (Simulation of Terrestrial Environments), a novel framework for integrated regional sland-use modeling, will be introduced and discussed. Particular features of SITE are the notably extended capability to integrate models and the strict separation of application and implementation. These features enable efficient development, test and usage of integrated land-use models. On its system side, SITE provides generic data structures (grid, grid cells, attributes etc.) and takes over the responsibility for their administration. By means of a scripting language (Python) that has been extended by language features specific for land-use modeling, these data structures can be utilized and manipulated by modeling applications. The scripting language interpreter is embedded in SITE. The integration of sub models can be achieved via the scripting language or by usage of a generic interface provided by SITE. Furthermore, functionalities important for land-use modeling like model calibration, model tests and analysis support of simulation results have been integrated into the generic framework. During the implementation of SITE, specific emphasis was laid on expandability, maintainability and usability. Along with the modeling framework a land use model for the analysis of the stability of tropical rainforest margins was developed in the context of the collaborative research project STORMA (SFB 552). In a research area in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, socio-environmental impacts of land-use changes were examined. SITE was used to simulate land-use dynamics in the historical period of 1981 to 2002. Analogous to that, a scenario that did not consider migration in the population dynamics, was analyzed. For the calculation of crop yields and trace gas emissions, the DAYCENT agro-ecosystem model was integrated. In this case study, it could be shown that land-use changes in the Indonesian research area could mainly be characterized by the expansion of agricultural areas at the expense of natural forest. For this reason, the situation had to be interpreted as unsustainable even though increased agricultural use implied economic improvements and higher farmers' incomes. Due to the importance of model calibration, it was explicitly addressed in the SITE architecture through the introduction of a specific component. The calibration functionality can be used by all SITE applications and enables largely automated model calibration. Calibration in SITE is understood as a process that finds an optimal or at least adequate solution for a set of arbitrarily selectable model parameters with respect to an objective function. In SITE, an objective function typically is a map comparison algorithm capable of comparing a simulation result to a reference map. Several map optimization and map comparison methodologies are available and can be combined. The STORMA land-use model was calibrated using a genetic algorithm for optimization and the figure of merit map comparison measure as objective function. The time period for the calibration ranged from 1981 to 2002. For this period, respective reference land-use maps were compiled. It could be shown, that an efficient automated model calibration with SITE is possible. Nevertheless, the selection of the calibration parameters required detailed knowledge about the underlying land-use model and cannot be automated. In another case study decreases in crop yields and resulting losses in income from coffee cultivation were analyzed and quantified under the assumption of four different deforestation scenarios. For this task, an empirical model, describing the dependence of bee pollination and resulting coffee fruit set from the distance to the closest natural forest, was integrated. Land-use simulations showed, that depending on the magnitude and location of ongoing forest conversion, pollination services are expected to decline continuously. This results in a reduction of coffee yields of up to 18% and a loss of net revenues per hectare of up to 14%. However, the study also showed that ecological and economic values can be preserved if patches of natural vegetation are conservated in the agricultural landscape. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Programming & Software

An overview of programming and software development.

INFO2009 resource: Infographic on the evolution of Open Source Software

Infographic providing a timeline of important events in the history of open source software since the fifties. Also includes stats for OSS licenses, usage in Business and reasons for participating in an OSS community.

Oportunidades para la internacionalización del clúster de tecnologías de la información y desarrollo de software en Colombia

El presente trabajo pretende encontrar y explicar las ventajas o desventajas que traen para la internacionalización la creación de Clústers en Colombia; en particular el del sector de tecnologías de la información, telecomunicaciones y desarrollo de software, el cual presenta características diferenciadoras en la elaboración de los productos y servicios, debido a que al ser en su mayoría intangibles requieren de diferentes fuentes de recursos y altos niveles innovación; así como de diferentes agentes coadyuvantes dentro de la industria. Se describen aquellos factores logísticos, legales y estratégicos a tener en cuenta en la conformación de Clústers así como algunas experiencias internacionales del sector que ayudarán a construir las bases y buenas prácticas tanto para agentes públicos como privados en la conformación de Clústers.

A data collection case study supporting requirements oriented prediction and management in software developments

Consider the statement "this project should cost X and has risk of Y". Such statements are used daily in industry as the basis for making decisions. The work reported here is part of a study aimed at providing a rational and pragmatic basis for such statements. Of particular interest are predictions made in the requirements and early phases of projects. A preliminary model has been constructed using Bayesian Belief Networks and in support of this, a programme to collect and study data during the execution of various software development projects commenced in May 2002. The data collection programme is undertaken under the constraints of a commercial industrial regime of multiple concurrent small to medium scale software development projects. Guided by pragmatism, the work is predicated on the use of data that can be collected readily by project managers; including expert judgements, effort, elapsed times and metrics collected within each project.

A platform for supporting micro-collaborations in a diverse device environment

Collaborative software is usually thought of as providing audio-video conferencing services, application/desktop sharing, and access to large content repositories. However mobile device usage is characterized by users carrying out short and intermittent tasks sometimes referred to as 'micro-tasking'. Micro-collaborations are not well supported by traditional groupware systems and the work in this paper seeks out to address this. Mico is a system that provides a set of application level peer-to-peer services for the ad-hoc formation and facilitation of collaborative groups across a diverse mobile device domain. The system builds on the Java ME bindings of the JXTA P2P protocols, and is designed with an approach to use the lowest common denominators that are required for collaboration between varying degrees of mobile device capability. To demonstrate how our platform facilitates application development, we built an exemplary set of demonstration applications and include code examples here to illustrate the ease and speed afforded when developing collaborative software with Mico.

Integrating science into humanitarian and development planning and practice to enhance community resilience

There has been an increased emphasis upon the application of science for humanitarian and development planning, decision-making and practice; particularly in the context of understanding, assessing and anticipating risk (e.g. HERR, 2011). However, there remains very little guidance for practitioners on how to integrate sciences they may have had little contact with in the past (e.g. climate). This has led to confusion as to which ‘science’ might be of use and how it would be best utilised. Furthermore, since this integration has stemmed from a need to be more predictive, agencies are struggling with the problems associated with uncertainty and probability. Whilst a range of expertise is required to build resilience, these guidelines focus solely upon the relevant data, information, knowledge, methods, principles and perspective which scientists can provide, that typically lie outside of current humanitarian and development approaches. Using checklists, real-life case studies and scenarios the full guidelines take practitioners through a five step approach to finding, understanding and applying science. This document provides a short summary of the five steps and some key lessons for integrating science.

EXPLOITING A GENERIC APPROACH TO CONSTRUCT COMPONENT-BASED SYSTEMS SOFTWARE IN LINUX ENVIRONMENTS

Component-based software engineering has recently emerged as a promising solution to the development of system-level software. Unfortunately, current approaches are limited to specific platforms and domains. This lack of generality is particularly problematic as it prevents knowledge sharing and generally drives development costs up. In the past, we have developed a generic approach to component-based software engineering for system-level software called OpenCom. In this paper, we present OpenComL an instantiation of OpenCom to Linux environments and show how it can be profiled to meet a range of system-level software in Linux environments. For this, we demonstrate its application to constructing a programmable router platform and a middleware for parallel environments.

Trust-By-Contract: Modelling, Analysing and Predicting Behaviour in Software Architectures

Architecture description languages (ADLs) are used to specify high-level, compositional views of a software application. ADL research focuses on software composed of prefabricated parts, so-called software components. ADLs usually come equipped with rigorous state-transition style semantics, facilitating verification and analysis of specifications. Consequently, ADLs are well suited to configuring distributed and event-based systems. However, additional expressive power is required for the description of enterprise software architectures – in particular, those built upon newer middleware, such as implementations of Java’s EJB specification, or Microsoft’s COM+/.NET. The enterprise requires distributed software solutions that are scalable, business-oriented and mission-critical. We can make progress toward attaining these qualities at various stages of the software development process. In particular, progress at the architectural level can be leveraged through use of an ADL that incorporates trust and dependability analysis. Also, current industry approaches to enterprise development do not address several important architectural design issues. The TrustME ADL is designed to meet these requirements, through combining approaches to software architecture specification with rigorous design-by-contract ideas. In this paper, we focus on several aspects of TrustME that facilitate specification and analysis of middleware-based architectures for trusted enterprise computing systems.

Construção de um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software baseado em um sistema de gerência de workflow e outros produtos comerciais

Este trabalho apresenta uma arquitetura para Ambientes de Desenvolvimento de Software (ADS). Esta arquitetura é baseada em produtos comerciais de prateleira (COTS), principalmente em um Sistema de Gerência de Workflow – SGW (Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server – E2K) - e tem como plataforma de funcionamento a Internet, integrando também algumas ferramentas que fazem parte do grande conjunto de aplicativos que é utilizado no processo de desenvolvimento de software. O desenvolvimento de um protótipo (WOSDIE – WOrkflow-based Software Development Integrated Environment) baseado na arquitetura apresentada é descrito em detalhes, mostrando as etapas de construção, funções implementadas e dispositivos necessários para a integração de um SGW, ferramentas de desenvolvimento, banco de dados (WSS – Web Storage System) e outros, para a construção de um ADS. O processo de software aplicado no WOSDIE foi extraído do RUP (Rational Unified Process – Processo Unificado Rational). Este processo foi modelado na ferramenta Workflow Designer, que permite a modelagem dos processos de workflow dentro do E2K. A ativação de ferramentas a partir de um navegador Web e o armazenamento dos artefatos produzidos em um projeto de software também são abordados. O E2K faz o monitoramento dos eventos que ocorrem dentro do ambiente WOSDIE, definindo, a partir das condições modeladas no Workflow Designer, quais atividades devem ser iniciadas após o término de alguma atividade anterior e quem é o responsável pela execução destas novas atividades (assinalamento de atividades). A arquitetura proposta e o protótipo WOSDIE são avaliados segundo alguns critérios retirados de vários trabalhos. Estas avaliações mostram em mais detalhes as características da arquitetura proposta e proporcionam uma descrição das vantagens e problemas associados ao WOSDIE.