This project deals with analysis of brute force attacks focused on breaking authentication of common services (especially ssh) of Linux and xBSD operating systems. It also examines real attacks, actual tools and ways of detection of theese attacks. Finaly there are designed new mechanisms of coordination and evaluation of distributed brute force attacks in distributed environment. These mechanisms are then implemented in distributed system called DBFAP.

I uppsatsen presenterar jag “luck egalitarianism” och specifikt Dworkins teori om jämlika resurser. Målet med Dworkins teori är att sammanväva de två till synes motstridiga principerna om lika hänsyn och lika respekt. Dworkin försöker föra samman principerna genom att nå en fördelning som är ambitions-känslig samtidigt som den är talang-okänslig. Han försöker uppnå detta ideal genom att kombinera en fri marknad som visar lika respekt för medborgarnas valfrihet och ansvar, med en försäkringsmarknad som visar lika hänsyn till medborgarna genom möjligheten att teckna försäkring mot oförutsägbara konsekvenser under lika möjlighet och lika risk. Elizabeth S. Anderson påstår att Dworkins teori misslyckas i att kombinera principerna om lika hänsyn och lika respekt på ett rimligt sätt och presenterar två övergripande invändningar: hårdhetsinvändningen och förnedringsinvändningen. Den första invändningen (hårdhetsinvändingen) påstår att teorins ramverk för att fastslå vilka av de utsatta som har rätt till kompensation inte visar lika hänsyn till alla som är utsatta. Den andra invändningen (förnedringsinvändingen) påstår att grunderna för kompensation är förnedrande och inte visar lika respekt för alla medborgare. Målet med uppsatsen är att analysera Dworkins teori och undersöka om den vederläggs av Andersons invändningar. Den slutsats jag skall försvara är att så inte är fallet. Forskningsfrågan är följande: Påvisar Andersons invändningar att Dworkins teori om jämlika resurser inte visar lika hänsyn och respekt för alla medborgare?

Alors que plus de cinquante pays dans le monde ont entrepris une démarche d’ouverture des données publiques, la thèse enquête sur l’émergence et la mise en oeuvre des politiques d’open data. Elle repose sur l’analyse de sources publiques et sur une enquête ethnographique conduite dans sept collectivités locales et institutions françaises. Revenant sur six moments de définition de grands « principes » de l’open data et leur traduction en politique publique par une institution française, Etalab, ce travail montre comment la catégorisation par l’open data a porté l’attention sur les données, en particulier sous leur forme « brute », considérées comme une ressource inexploitée, le « nouveau pétrole » gisant sous les organisations. L’enquête montre que le processus de l’ouverture débute généralement par une phase d’identification marquée par des explorations progressives et incertaines. Elle permet de comprendre que l’identification constitue un geste d’instauration qui transforme progressivement les fichiers de gestion de l’administration en données. Leur mise en circulation provoque des frictions : pour sortir des réseaux sociotechniques de l’organisation, les données doivent généralement passer à travers des circuits de validation et des chaînes de traitement. Par ailleurs, les données doivent souvent subir d’importantes transformations avant leur ouverture pour devenir intelligibles à la fois par les machines et par les humains. Cette thèse montre enfin que l’instauration concerne aussi les publics dont il est attendu qu’ils visualisent, inspectent et exploitent les données ouvertes. L’instauration des publics par des instruments très divers constitue un autre pan du travail invisible des politiques d’open data. Il ressort enfin de cette thèse que l’obligation à l’ouverture des données publiques, une suite possible des politiques d’open data, pose de manière saillante une question fondamentale « qu’est-ce qu’une donnée ? » Plutôt que de réduire la donnée à une catégorie relative, qui s’appliquerait à toutes sortes de matériaux informationnels, les cas étudiés montrent qu’elle est généralement attribuée dès lors que les données sont le point de départ de réseauxsociotechniques dédiés à leur circulation, leur exploitation et leur mise en visibilité. / As more than fifty countries have launched an open data policy, this doctoral dissertation investigates on the emergence and implementation of such policies. It is based on the analysis of public sources and an ethnographic inquiry conducted in seven French local authorities and institutions. By retracing six moments of definitions of the “open data principles” and their implementation by a French institution, Etalab, this work shows how open data has brought attention to data, particularly in their raw form, considered as an untapped resource, the “new oil” lying under the organisations. The inquiry shows that the process of opening generally begins by a phase of identification marked by progressive and uncertain explorations. It allows to understand that data are progressively instantiated from management files into data. Their circulation provoke frictions: to leave the sociotechnical network of organisations, data generally go through validation circuits and chains of treatment. Besides, data must often undergo important treatments before their opening in order to become intelligible by machines as well as humans. This thesis shows eventually that data publics are also instantiated as they are expected to visualize, inspect and process the data. Data publics are instantiated through various tools, which compose another area of the invisible work of open data projects. Finally, it appears from this work that the possible legal requirement to open data asks a fundamental question, “what is data?” Instead of reducing data to a relational category, which would apply to any informational material, studied cases show that they generally are applied when data are a starting point of sociotechnical networks dedicated to their circulation, their exploitation and their visibility.

På grund av Covid 19 har de flesta människor valt att jobba hemifrån och de flesta hushåll har en accesspunkt som möjliggör kommunikation mellan flera enheter. Attacker mot Wi-Fi accesspunkter har ökat under de senaste åren på grund av sårbarheter som kan finnas i accesspunkten. När en sårbar väg hittas i accesspunkt kan detta ledda till att angriparen använder den sårbara vägen för att göra ett intrång och skada en eller flera enheter i hemnätverket och även företagens enheter. Teknikens framsteg har hjälpt oss att implementera flera säkerhetsåtgärder som kan skydda accesspunkten vid intrångsförsök. Syftet med detta arbete är att lägga fokus på att ge rätt kunskap för nya nätverkstekniker för att öka medvetenhet inom säkerheten i hemnätverk. Målet med detta examensarbete är att ge en djupare kunskap för nya nätverkstekniker för att kunna förhindra eller minimera attacker som orsakas av sårbarheter i ett hemnätverk med Wi-Fi accesspunkt och ta fram en rutin för hur det ska skyddas. Efter vi har identifierat en mängd attacker och själva utfört dem, visade resultatet att det var lätt att manipulera en sårbar accesspunkt med de valda attacksverktygen i detta arbete och experimenten har påvisat oss vikten av att implementera rätt säkerhetsåtgärder och hur väl de skyddar accesspunkten mot ett intrångsförsök. / Due to Covid 19, most people have chosen to work from home and most households have an access point that enables communication between several devices. Attacks against Wi-Fi access points have increased in recent years due to vulnerabilities that may exist in the access point. When a vulnerable path is found in the access point, this can lead to the attacker using the vulnerable path to breach and damage one or more devices in the home network and even corporate devices. Advances in technology have helped us implement several security measures that can protect the access point in case of intrusion attempts. The purpose of this work is to focus on providing the right knowledge for new network technicians to increase awareness in home network security. The goal of this thesis is to provide a deeper knowledge for new network technicians to be able to prevent or minimize attacks caused by vulnerabilities in a home network with a Wi-Fi access point and develop a routine for how to protect it. After we have identified several attacks and performed it ourselves, the result showed that it was easy to manipulate a vulnerable access point with the selected attack tools in this work and the experiments have shown us the importance of implementing the right security measures and how well they protect the access point against an intrusion attempt.

Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are inhomogeneous materials in which the material properties vary with respect to space. Research has been done by scientific community in developing techniques like photothermal radiometry (PTR) to measure the thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity of FGMs. One of the problems involved in the technique is to solve the inverse problem, i.e., estimating the thermal properties after the frequency scan has been obtained. The present work involves finding the unknown thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity of the FGMs by using finite volume method. By taking the flux entering the sample as periodic and solving the discretized 1-D thermal wave field equation at a frequency domain, one can obtain the complex temperatures at the surface of the sample for each frequency. These complex temperatures when solved for a range of frequencies gives the phase vs frequency scan which can then be compared to original frequency scan obtained from the PTR experiment by using a residual function. Brute force and gradient descent optimization methods have been implemented to estimate the unknown thermal conductivity and volumetric specific heat of the FGMs through minimization of the residual function. In general, the spatial composition profile of the FGMs can be approximated by using a smooth curve. Three functional forms namely Arctangent curve, Hermite curve, and Bezier curve are used in approximating the thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity distributions in the FGMs. The use of Hermite and Bezier curves gives the flexibility to control the slope of the curve i.e. the thermal property distribution along the thickness of the sample. Two-layered samples with constant thermal properties and three layered samples in which one of the layer has varying thermal properties with respect to thickness are considered. The program is written in Fortran and several test runs are performed. Results obtained are close to the original thermal property values with some deviation based on the stopping criteria used in the gradient descent algorithm. Calculating the gradients at each iteration takes considerable amount of time and if these gradient values are already available, the problem can be solved at a faster rate. One of the methods is extending automatic differentiation to complex numbers and calculating the gradient values ahead; this is left for future work.

This thesis tackles the topic of serving IoT applications in the computing continuum. It proposes an approach to place applications in the tiers of the continuum, considering latency and energy as predefined metrics. It presents a system model to represent the computing continuum environment, and then, defines an optimization function that is tailored to meet the specific requirements of the IoT applications. The optimization function addresses the relationship between latency and energy consumption in the framework of IoT service provision, and it is implemented in two different directions: (1) the first direction uses a modified Genetic algorithm, and (2) the second direction utilizes the Machine learning concept. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, we incorporate different testbed setups and network configurations. All the setups and configurations are designed to represent the diverse demands of IoT applications. Then, different algorithms (such as Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA), Brute Force, and Machine Learning) are implemented to provide different application placement scenarios. The results highlight the efficiency of the proposed approach in comparison with the Brute Force optimal solution while meeting the application requirements. This thesis proposes an optimized solution for serving IoT applications in the computing continuum environment. It considers two essential metrics (latency and energy consumption) in the applications placement processes while meeting the diverse functional and non-functional requirements of these applications. The study provides insights and ideas for future research to refine strategies that will minimize latency and energy consumption. It also urges researchers to consider more metrics while developing and implementing IoT applications. The requirements related to computing resources and performance levels make the development and implementation of these applications complex and challenging. This study serves as a foundational stepping stone towards addressing those challenges.

Les exploitations mixtes d'agriculture-élevage sont le pilier des systèmes agricoles des pays en développement. Dans les hauts plateaux de Madagascar, les exploitations familiales d'agriculture-élevage sont basées sur l'association riz et élevage bovin. Les bovins ont un rôle central dans l'économie et la reconnaissance sociale de ces exploitations malgaches. Cependant ces exploitations sont souvent confrontées à des problèmes de faibles productivités liés à la dégradation de la fertilité des sols et à un accès limité aux intrants. Dans ce contexte, les exploitants doivent gérer les ressources végétales pour trouver un compromis entre alimentation humaine, alimentation animale et retours aux sols. Certaines pratiques de gestion des biomasses peuvent aggraver les phénomènes de dégradation de la fertilité des sols et remettre alors en cause la durabilité des exploitations. L'objectif de cette thèse est de montrer que la diversité des pratiques de gestion des biomasses au sein des exploitations familiales d'agriculture-élevage des hauts plateaux de Madagascar conditionne la durabilité des systèmes en termes de fertilité des sols, de recyclage des éléments nutritifs, de revenus et de sécurité alimentaire. Pour cela, il a été nécessaire de : i) caractériser au préalable la diversité des exploitations familiales d'agriculture-élevage du Vakinankaratra et de comprendre le fonctionnement de ces exploitations mixtes ; ii) étudier les effets des pratiques de gestion des parcelles sur la variabilité de la fertilité des sols des exploitations ; iii) évaluer la durabilité des exploitations d'agriculture-élevage et tester l'impact d'améliorations des pratiques d'alimentation animale, de gestion des effluents et de fertilisation sur la durabilité des exploitation. Quatre exploitations d'agriculture-élevage du Vakinankaratra, sélectionnées à dires d'experts, ont été enquêtées par immersion. Une étude typologique des exploitations d'agriculture-élevage du Vakinankaratra a été effectuée. Des prélèvements de sol ont été effectués pour l'ensemble des parcelles des quatre exploitations d'agriculture-élevage étudiées. Un outil de calcul des flux d'azote au sein des exploitations a été élaboré, puis a été associé aux matrices du Network Analysis afin de générer des indicateurs environnementaux, sociaux et économiques. Cet outil a été utilisé pour simuler les options d'améliorations des pratiques d'alimentation animale, de gestion des effluents et de fertilisation.L'étude typologique a identifié six types d'exploitations d'agriculture-élevage au Vakinankaratra. L'étude du fonctionnement des exploitations sélectionnées a mis en évidence d'une grande diversité des pratiques d'alimentation des animaux, de gestion des effluents d'élevage et de fertilisation. Une hétérogénéité de la fertilité des sols induite par les pratiques de gestion des parcelles a été révélée. Pour les quatre exploitations étudiées, l'amélioration des pratiques d'alimentation du troupeau bovin laitier associée à l'amélioration des pratiques de gestion des effluents d'élevage a permis d'améliorer la durabilité environnementale (efficience azotée globale, recyclage de l'azote, bilan azoté du sol), économique (marge brute agricole) et sociale (autosuffisance alimentaire).Ce travail a permis de caractériser la diversité des exploitations d'agriculture-élevage du Vakinankaratra, la diversité des pratiques et leurs effets sur la fertilité du/des sol. Cette étude s'est avérée être une approche intéressante pour évaluer des options d'amélioration de la durabilité des exploitations d'agriculture-élevage dans un contexte peu documenté. / Mixed crop-livestock systems constitute the backbone of agriculture in developing countries. In highlands of Madagascar, crop–livestock systems are based on rice and cattle. Cattle play a major role in the economy and the social recognition of these smallholder farms. Smallholder farms used to face with low crop productivity related to soil fertility degradation and to low access to inputs. In this context, smallholders have to manage plant resources in order to find a trade-off between food, feed and soil returns. Some biomass management may increase soil fertility degradation and then compromise farms sustainability.The objective of this thesis is to show that the diversity of biomass management on smallholder crop–livestock systems of highlands of Madagascar determines the sustainability of farming systems in terms of soil fertility, nutrients recycling, incomes and food security. For this, it was necessary to: i) characterize the diversity of crop-livestock systems in the region of Vakinankaratra and understand how smallholder farms are managed; ii) study the effects of soil management on the soil variability; iii) assess the farms sustainability and explore improvements of feeding, manure management and fertilization.Four crop-livestock farms of the Vakinankaratra (selected with local experts) were surveyed using participant observation methodology. A typology of crop-livestock farms was performed. Topsoil samples were collected in all plots of the four cases studies. A nitrogen flows calculating tool was developed and has been associated with Network Analysis matrices to generate environmental, social and economic indicators. This tool was used to simulate improvements in feeding, manure management and fertilization.The typology identified six farm types of crop-livestock systems in the Vakinankaratra. The farms study revealed a great diversity of animal feeding practices, manure management and fertilization. Heterogeneity of soil fertility induced by farmer management was shown. For the four case studies, improved feeding practices on dairy combined with improved manure management have increased environmental (farm nitrogen efficiency, nitrogen recycling, soil nitrogen balance), economic (agricultural gross margin) and social (food self-sufficiency) sustainability.This study characterized the diversity of crop-livestock farms of the Vakinankaratra, the diversity of practices and their effects on soil fertility. It proved to be an interesting approach to explore options for improving sustainability of crop-livestock farms in context of data scarcity.

The focus of this report is to discuss graphical password systems and how they can contribute to handle security problems that threaten authentication processes. One such threat is shoulder-surfing attacks, which are also reviewed in this report. Three already existing systems that are claimed to be shoulder-surfing resilient are described and a new proposed system is presented and evaluated through a user study. Moreover, the system is compared to the mentioned existing systems to further evaluate the usability, memorability and the time it takes to authenticate. The user study shows that test subjects are able to remember their chosen password one week after having registered and signed in once. It is also shown that the average time to sign in to the system after five minutes of practice is within a range of 3.30 to 5.70 seconds. The participants in the experiments gave the system an average score above 68 on the System Usability Scale, which is the score of an average system.

This Thesis deals with analysis of the possiblity of password breakthrough for common compression formats and password extraction from self-extraction archives used for malicious software. Structure of compression programs, ciphers and connection between cipher and archives is described. Common and specialized attacks on archives and ciphers are described. Structure of self-extracting archives and password location is used to create extractor of passwords in self-extracting archives.

This study examines African American stereotypes in film. I studied six directors, Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Lee, the Russo Brothers, Ryan Coogler, Tate Taylor, and Dee Rees; and six films Detroit, BlacKkKlansman, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Help, and Mudbound. Using the framework of critical race theory and auteur theory, I compared the common themes between the films and directors. The main purpose of my study is to see if White or Black directors predominantly used African American stereotypes. I found that both races of directors rely on stereotypes for different purposes. With Black directors, the stereotype was explained further through character development, while the White directors used the stereotype at face value with no further explanation.