A Secure Email System Based on Identity Based Encryption

Now a days, email has become the most widely communication way in daily life. The main reason for using email is probably because of the convenience and speed in which it can be transmitted irrespective of geographical distances. To improve security and efficiency of email system, most of the email system adopt PKI and IBE encryption schemes. However, both PKI and IBE encryption schemes have their own shortcomings and consequently bring security issues to email systems. This paper proposes a new secure email system based on IBE which combines finger print authentication and proxy service for encryption and decryption

Email system upgrade : project report

Final degree project report. It summarizes the email upgrade project that was held at CELLS by Sergio Vicente.

A pilot study of email in an e-mentoring relationship

E-mentoring is an alternative to conventional face-to-face mentoring, incorporating the use of email, bulletin boards, discussion groups, instant messaging and videoconferencing. In a pilot trial, a New Zealand midwife mentored two new graduate midwives using a secure email system. The main themes of the email messages exchanged were debriefing and reflection, clinical queries, provision of information and discussion of professional issues. The pilot study showed that e-mentoring is a feasible option for midwives and warrants further investigation. Both mentor and mentees found the experience to be a helpful one. One of the advantages for both mentor and mentees was the flexibility of communication, since responses to email messages could be made at times that suited the authors. Nevertheless, issues of Internet access and the technical expertise of midwives will need to be considered in order for large scale e-mentoring to be implemented.

A distributed systems approach to secure Internet mail

One of the obstacles to improved security of the Internet is ad hoc development of technologies with different design goals and different security goals. This paper proposes reconceptualizing the Internet as a secure distributed system, focusing specifically on the application layer. The notion is to redesign specific functionality, based on principles discovered in research on distributed systems in the decades since the initial development of the Internet. Because of the problems in retrofitting new technology across millions of clients and servers, any options with prospects of success must support backward compatibility. This paper outlines a possible new architecture for internet-based mail which would replace existing protocols by a more secure framework. To maintain backward compatibility, initial implementation could offer a web browser-based front end but the longer-term approach would be to implement the system using appropriate models of replication. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Chaotic communication based on the particle-in-a-box electronic circuit

A secure communication system based on the error-feedback synchronization of the electronic model of the particle-in-a-box system is proposed. This circuit allows a robust and simple electronic emulation of the mechanical behavior of the collisions of a particle inside a box, exhibiting rich chaotic behavior. The required nonlinearity to emulate the box walls is implemented in a simple way when compared with other analog electronic chaotic circuits. A master/slave synchronization of two circuits exhibiting a rich chaotic behavior demonstrates the potentiality of this system to secure communication. In this system, binary data stream information modulates the bifurcation parameter of the particle-in-a-box electronic circuit in the transmitter. In the receiver circuit, this parameter is estimated using Pecora-Carroll synchronization and error-feedback synchronization. The performance of the demodulation process is verified through the eye pattern technique applied on the recovered bit stream. During the demodulation process, the error-feedback synchronization presented better performance compared with the Pecora-Carroll synchronization. The application of the particle-in-a-box electronic circuit in a secure communication system is demonstrated.

Justified Fault-Ride-Through Requirements for Wind Turbines in Power Systems

In this paper, a novel adaptive strategy to obtain technically justified fault-ride-through requirements for wind turbines (WTs) is proposed. The main objective is to promote an effective integration of wind turbines into power systems with still low penetration levels of wind power based on technical and economical considerations. The level of requirement imposed by the strategy is increased stepwise over time, depending on system characteristics and on wind power penetration level. The idea behind is to introduce stringent requirements only when they are technically needed for a reliable and secure power system operation. Voltage stability support and fault-ride-through requirements are considered in the strategy. Simulations are based on the Chilean transmission network, a midsize isolated power system with still low penetration levels of wind power. Simulations include fixed speed induction generators and doubly fed induction generators. The effects on power system stability of the wind power injections, integrated into the network by adopting the adaptive strategy, are compared with the effects that have the same installed capacity of wind power but only considering WTs able to fulfill stringent requirements (fault-ride-through capability and support voltage stability). Based on simulations and international experience, technically justified requirements for the Chilean case are proposed.

Gestão de correio eletrónico em ambiente organizacional : uma perspetiva arquivística

O presente estudo tem como objetivo compreender a valoração de uma mensagem de correio eletrónico em ambiente corporativo, e respetiva integração no arquivo empresarial. Objetivamos, nos primeiros capítulos, descrever o modelo metodológico aplicado. Seguidamente, apresentamos uma revisão bibliográfica assente em literatura inerente à temática dos circuitos informacionais na empresa, e documentação eletrónica resultante dos mesmos, com ênfase nas mensagens de correio eletrónico. A investigação empírica teve por base a aplicação de um inquérito por questionário, tendo por amostra um grupo profissional pré-selecionado, com acesso regular a um sistema de correio eletrónico. Os resultados obtidos através da análise do material empírico permitem-nos observar uma utilização preferencial do correio eletrónico face a outros suportes comunicacionais, constituindo-se as mensagens eletrónicas no documento produzido em maior escala, em ambiente profissional. Foram igualmente verificados casos de ausência de regulamentação para criação, gestão ou arquivo de mensagens, ou mesmo de um sistema de gestão documental que permita integração das mesmas. Com base na análise empírica, e em associação com a revisão bibliográfica explanada, concluímos que estas, e outras questões enunciadas ao longo do estudo, poderão constituir-se num sério obstáculo à gestão, preservação, recuperação e integridade da informação registada por meio de mensagens de correio eletrónico, caso não sejam criados e aplicados procedimentos e sistemas de gestão orientados para a documentação eletrónica, de forma a garantir o acesso a informação de fulcral importância para empresa, enquanto evidência e memória dos processos e atividades organizacionais.

Enhancing Security of Linux OS against Administrators

Inside cyber security threats by system administrators are some of the main concerns of organizations about the security of systems. Since operating systems are controlled and managed by fully trusted administrators, they can negligently or intentionally break the information security and privacy of users and threaten the system integrity. In this thesis, we propose some solutions for enhancing the security of Linux OS by restricting administrators’ access to superuser’s privileges while they can still manage the system. We designed and implemented an interface for administrators in Linux OS called Linux Admins’ User Interface (LAUI) for managing the system in secure ways. LAUI along with other security programs in Linux like sudo protect confidentiality and integrity of users’ data and provide a more secure system against administrators’ mismanagement. In our model, we limit administrators to perform managing tasks in secure manners and also make administrators accountable for their acts. In this thesis we present some scenarios for compromising users’ data and breaking system integrity by system administrators in Linux OS. Then we evaluate how our solutions and methods can secure the system against these administrators’ mismanagement.

Gestão de riscos: análise de impacto no negócio

O objetivo deste estudo é identificar dentro de um instituto público, um cenário tecnológico para recuperação de negócio através de soluções de recuperação de baixo investimento e que permita simultaneamente a redução das despesas operacionais. Para a elaboração do presente estudo foi utilizada a metodologia de investigação científica de estudo de caso com propósito exploratório de forma a obtenção de respostas às questões propostas. Relativamente ao estado da arte adotou-se uma metodologia baseada na investigação da literatura referente ao plano de continuidade de negócio, gestão de risco, análise de risco e avaliação ou análise de impacto de negócio. Da pesquisa efetuada, através de consultadoria externa, concluiu-se que, por aplicação da metodologia Análise do impacto nos negócios, os sistemas considerados extremamente críticos e estratégicos para a organização são o sistema de correio eletrónico, sistema central de diretório, repositório de ficheiros e o principal sistema de informação de suporte ao negócio. Foi ainda possível identificar, através do estudo de caso os cenários de recuperação de desastres que melhor se ajustam à situação atual da organização em estudo, por responderem às questões da pesquisa.

Middleware de comunicação entre objetos distribuídos para gerenciamento de computadores baseado em redes sem fio (WSE-OS)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

p-medicine: a medical informatics platform for integrated large scale heterogeneous patient data

Secure access to patient data is becoming of increasing importance, as medical informatics grows in significance, to both assist with population health studies, and patient specific medicine in support of treatment. However, assembling the many different types of data emanating from the clinic is in itself a difficulty, and doing so across national borders compounds the problem. In this paper we present our solution: an easy to use distributed informatics platform embedding a state of the art data warehouse incorporating a secure pseudonymisation system protecting access to personal healthcare data. Using this system, a whole range of patient derived data, from genomics to imaging to clinical records, can be assembled and linked, and then connected with analytics tools that help us to understand the data. Research performed in this environment will have immediate clinical impact for personalised patient healthcare.

Orthogonally polarized bright–dark pulse pair generation in mode-locked fiber laser with a large-angle tilted fiber grating

We report on the generation of orthogonally polarized bright–dark pulse pair in a passively mode-locked fiber laser with a large-angle tilted fiber grating (LA-TFG). The unique polarization properties of the LA-TFG, i.e., polarization-dependent loss and polarization-mode splitting, enable dual-wavelength mode-locking operation. Besides dual-wavelength bright pulses with uniform polarization at two different wavelengths, the bright–dark pulse pair has also been achieved. It is found that the bright–dark pulse pair is formed due to the nonlinear couplings between lights with two orthogonal polarizations and two different wavelengths. Furthermore, harmonic mode-locking of bright–dark pulse pair has been observed. The obtained bright–dark pulse pair could find potential use in secure communication system. It also paves the way to manipulate the generation of dark pulse in terms of wavelength and polarization, using specially designed fiber grating for mode-locking.

Trace Oblivious Program Execution

The big data era has dramatically transformed our lives; however, security incidents such as data breaches can put sensitive data (e.g. photos, identities, genomes) at risk. To protect users' data privacy, there is a growing interest in building secure cloud computing systems, which keep sensitive data inputs hidden, even from computation providers. Conceptually, secure cloud computing systems leverage cryptographic techniques (e.g., secure multiparty computation) and trusted hardware (e.g. secure processors) to instantiate a “secure” abstract machine consisting of a CPU and encrypted memory, so that an adversary cannot learn information through either the computation within the CPU or the data in the memory. Unfortunately, evidence has shown that side channels (e.g. memory accesses, timing, and termination) in such a “secure” abstract machine may potentially leak highly sensitive information, including cryptographic keys that form the root of trust for the secure systems. This thesis broadly expands the investigation of a research direction called trace oblivious computation, where programming language techniques are employed to prevent side channel information leakage. We demonstrate the feasibility of trace oblivious computation, by formalizing and building several systems, including GhostRider, which is a hardware-software co-design to provide a hardware-based trace oblivious computing solution, SCVM, which is an automatic RAM-model secure computation system, and ObliVM, which is a programming framework to facilitate programmers to develop applications. All of these systems enjoy formal security guarantees while demonstrating a better performance than prior systems, by one to several orders of magnitude.

A synchronous multimedia annotation system for secure collaboratories

In this paper, we describe the Vannotea system - an application designed to enable collaborating groups to discuss and annotate collections of high quality images, video, audio or 3D objects. The system has been designed specifically to capture and share scholarly discourse and annotations about multimedia research data by teams of trusted colleagues within a research or academic environment. As such, it provides: authenticated access to a web browser search interface for discovering and retrieving media objects; a media replay window that can incorporate a variety of embedded plug-ins to render different scientific media formats; an annotation authoring, editing, searching and browsing tool; and session logging and replay capabilities. Annotations are personal remarks, interpretations, questions or references that can be attached to whole files, segments or regions. Vannotea enables annotations to be attached either synchronously (using jabber message passing and audio/video conferencing) or asynchronously and stand-alone. The annotations are stored on an Annotea server, extended for multimedia content. Their access, retrieval and re-use is controlled via Shibboleth identity management and XACML access policies.

A Secure Mobile-based Authentication System

Financial information is extremely sensitive. Hence, electronic banking must provide a robust system to authenticate its customers and let them access their data remotely. On the other hand, such system must be usable, affordable, and portable.We propose a challengeresponse based one-time password (OTP) scheme that uses symmetriccryptography in combination with a hardware security module. The proposed protocol safeguards passwords from keyloggers and phishing attacks.Besides, this solution provides convenient mobility for users who want to bank online anytime and anywhere, not just from their owntrusted computers.