Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-101). Also available online.

abstract: In this dissertation, two interrelated problems of service-based systems (SBS) are addressed: protecting users' data confidentiality from service providers, and managing performance of multiple workflows in SBS. Current SBSs pose serious limitations to protecting users' data confidentiality. Since users' sensitive data is sent in unencrypted forms to remote machines owned and operated by third-party service providers, there are risks of unauthorized use of the users' sensitive data by service providers. Although there are many techniques for protecting users' data from outside attackers, currently there is no effective way to protect users' sensitive data from service providers. In this dissertation, an approach is presented to protecting the confidentiality of users' data from service providers, and ensuring that service providers cannot collect users' confidential data while the data is processed or stored in cloud computing systems. The approach has four major features: (1) separation of software service providers and infrastructure service providers, (2) hiding the information of the owners of data, (3) data obfuscation, and (4) software module decomposition and distributed execution. Since the approach to protecting users' data confidentiality includes software module decomposition and distributed execution, it is very important to effectively allocate the resource of servers in SBS to each of the software module to manage the overall performance of workflows in SBS. An approach is presented to resource allocation for SBS to adaptively allocating the system resources of servers to their software modules in runtime in order to satisfy the performance requirements of multiple workflows in SBS. Experimental results show that the dynamic resource allocation approach can substantially increase the throughput of a SBS and the optimal resource allocation can be found in polynomial time / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Computer Science 2012

The widespread use of computer technology for information handling resulted in the need for higher data protection.The usage of high profile cryptographic protocols and algorithms do not always necessarily guarantee high security. They are needed to be used according to the needs of the organization depending upon certain characteristics and available resources.The communication system in a cryptographic environment may become vulnerable to attacks if the cryptographic packages don’t meet their intended goals. This master’s thesis is targeted towards the goal of evaluating contemporary cryptographic algorithms and protocols collectively named as cryptographic packages as per security needs of the organization with the available resources. The results have shown that there certainly is a need for careful evaluations of cryptographic packages given with available resources otherwise it could turn into creating more severe problems such as network bottlenecks, information and identity loss, non trustable environment and computational infeasibilities resulting in huge response times. In contrast, choosing the right package with right security parameters can lead to a secure and best performance communication environment.

A aids é uma doença infecciosa que aparece na década de 1980. Desde sua descoberta até os dias atuais houve mudanças nas características das pessoas infectadas. Uma dessas mudanças foi a feminização. As mulheres devido às questões de gênero possuem singularidades na forma do enfrentamento da doença. O acompanhamento das mulheres infectadas pelo HIV é realizado principalmente, por serviços especializados de saúde. Depois da criação do Programa Saúde da Família, em 1994, e o incentivo às ações de promoção à saúde e prevenção do HIV na atenção básica, torna-se de suma importância a discussão de temas sobre bioética no caso da aids no PSF. O PSF adentra as residências das famílias e tem uma relação de maior proximidade com a comunidade, e incorpora um novo trabalhador que é o Agente Comunitário de Saúde. É a mulher infectada pelo HIV que tem o direito de decidir a quem, como, onde e quando a informação sobre sua soropositividade deve ser revelada. Este estudo teve como objetivos descrever em que condições as mulheres infectadas pelo HIV abrem sua privacidade em relação a informação sobre o diagnóstico de soropositividade a familiares, amigos e vizinhos; e identificar quais as motivações para abrir a privacidade de informações para a equipe de PSF das mulheres infectadas pelo HIV/AIDS. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo de natureza qualitativa, com enfoque bioético, realizado no Município de São Paulo, com mulheres em acompanhamento em um serviço especializado em DST/AIDS e cadastradas por uma equipe de PSF. Verificou-se neste estudo que as mulheres infectadas pelo HIV/AIDS revelam a sua condição de soropositividade a família, amigos e vizinhos quando há identificação com outro soropositivo, pressão de outros, confiança depositada em uma relação, vontade de busca de apoio, preocupação com possível transmissão do vírus ao parceiro, quando houve experiências positivas de apoio, e quando não consegue mentir quando questionada sobre sua soropositividade. E não revelam quando há medo do preconceito, medo de ex-parceiros, medo de se expor, houve experiências negativas como falta de apoio, rejeição e disseminação da informação, foi estabelecido uma pacto de silêncio, não querem que sintam pena, há medo de que a relação mude, envolve filhos menores de idade, preferem guardar para si e quando utilizam estratégias para manter o segredo. As mulheres abrem a privacidade do diagnóstico para a equipe de PSF quando o diagnóstico de soropositividade foi feito na própria unidade, quando ela sente que é melhor atendida no PSF por ser portadora do HIV, tem vínculo com os profissionais do PSF como se fossem familiares, confiam nos profissionais do PSF, sentem que os profissionais não sentem pena. E, não revelam quando a atitude inadequada do profissional gerou medo e insegurança quando comunicou à usuária o diagnóstico, acham que o PSF está ligado ao cuidado de pessoas com doenças graves e acamados, não confiam nesses profissionais por medo de quebra do sigilo,e já possuem todo suporte assistencial no SAE / The AIDS is an infectious illness that appears in the decade of 1980. Since its discovery until the current days, it has been had changes in the characteristics of the infected people, one of these changes was the femininity. The women, due to the sort questions, possess peculiarities in the form of the confrontation of the illness. The accompaniment of the infected women by the HIV is carried through, mainly, for specialized services. After the creation of the Family´s Health Program, in 1994, and the incentive to the actions of health promotion and prevention of the HIV in the basic attention, becomes of utmost importance to discuss subjects on bioethics in the case of the AIDS in the PSF. The PSF goes to inside the families´ residences and has a relation of bigger proximity with the community and it incorporates a new worker who is the Communitarian Agent of Health. That´s the woman who is infected by the HIV who has the right to decide to who, as, where and when the information on its positive HIV´s result must be disclosed. This study had as objective to describe where conditions the infected women by the HIV open its privacy in relation the information on the diagnosis of positive HIV´s result to their family, friends and neighbors; and to identify which are the motivations to open the privacy of information for the team of PSF of the infected women for the HIV/AIDS. One is about a descriptive study of qualitative nature, with bioethics approach, carried through in the City of São Paulo, with women in accompaniment in a specialized service in DST/AIDS and registered in cadastre by a PSF team. It was verified in this study that the infected women by the HIV/AIDS disclose to its condition of positive HIV’s result to the family, friends and neighbors when she has identification with another who has positive HIV diagnosis, pressure of others, confidence deposited in the relationship, wish of support search, concern with possible transmission of the virus to the partner, when it had positive experiences of support, e when it does not obtain to lie when questioned on its positive HIV´s result. And she does not disclose when it has fear of the preconception, fear of former-partners, fear of if displaying, had negative experiences as lack of support, rejection and dissemination of the information, was established a silence pact, does not want that they feel penalty, has fear of that the relation moves, involves minor children, prefers to keep for itself and when they use strategies to keep the secret. Women open privacy of diagnosis for team of PSF when diagnosis of positive HIV´s result was made in proper unit, when it feels that more good she is taken care of it in the PSF for being carrying of the HIV, she has bond with the professionals of the PSF as if they were familiar, they trust the professionals of the PSF, feel that the professionals do not feel penalty. And, she does not disclose when the inadequate attitude of the professional generated fear and unreliability when it communicated to the user the diagnosis, they find that the PSF is on to the care of people with serious illnesses and bedridden, do not trust these professionals of in addition the secrecy from fear, and already they all possess has a support in SAE

With the introduction of cloud computing the computation got distributed, virtualized and scalable. This also meant that customers of cloud computing gave away some of their control of their system. That led to a heighten importance of how to handle security in the cloud, for both provider and customer. Since security is such a big subject the focus of this thesis is on confidentiality and privacy, both closely related to how to handle personal data. With the help of a systematic literature review in this thesis, current challenges and possible mitigations are presented in some different areas and concerning both the cloud provider and the cloud customer. The conclusion of the thesis is that cloud computing in itself have matured a lot since the early 2000’s and all of the challenges provided have possible mitigations. However, the exact implementation of said mitigation will differ depending on cloud customer and the exact application developed as well as the exact service provided by the cloud provider. In the end it will all boil down to a process that involves technology, employees and policies and with that can any user secure its cloud application.

The aim of this thesis is to specify certain legal relationship arising between attorney and his client. This legal relationship characterises, to certain extent, role of attorney in the legal system of the Czech Republic and that is why it deserves attention. The main legal source for this thesis is Act No. 85/1996 Coll., on the Legal Profession, as subsequently amended. This act is interpreted in following chapters in coherence with other acts, subordinate legislation and professional rules. After brief introduction into the issue I focus on particular causes of the formation of attorney-client legal relationship. The origin itself is determining for specification of mutual rights of both subjects. Besides talking about the formation, I will also mention the rejection and termination of the legal relationship. The next chapter deals with the ethics in advocacy, which we should keep in mind while interpreting particular rights and obligations. Ethics is characteristic sign of attorney's profession. Chapters 5 and 6 are the actual core of this thesis, when interpreting individual rights, that constitute the actual attorney-client legal relationship. I systematically divided those rights and obligations according to the subject, which has the duty to ensure those obligations. In Chapter 5 I focus on...

Magister Legum - LLM

MapReduce, a parallel computing paradigm, has been gaining popularity in recent years as cloud vendors offer MapReduce computation services on their public clouds. However, companies are still reluctant to move their computations to the public cloud due to the following reason: In the current business model, the entire MapReduce cluster is deployed on the public cloud. If the public cloud is not properly protected, the integrity and the confidentiality of MapReduce applications can be compromised by attacks inside or outside of the public cloud. From the result integrity’s perspective, if any computation nodes on the public cloud are compromised,thosenodes can return incorrect task results and therefore render the final job result inaccurate. From the algorithmic confidentiality’s perspective, when more and more companies devise innovative algorithms and deploy them to the public cloud, malicious attackers can reverse engineer those programs to detect the algorithmic details and, therefore, compromise the intellectual property of those companies. In this dissertation, we propose to use the hybrid cloud architecture to defeat the above two threats. Based on the hybrid cloud architecture, we propose separate solutions to address the result integrity and the algorithmic confidentiality problems. To address the result integrity problem, we propose the Integrity Assurance MapReduce (IAMR) framework. IAMR performs the result checking technique to guarantee high result accuracy of MapReduce jobs, even if the computation is executed on an untrusted public cloud. We implemented a prototype system for a real hybrid cloud environment and performed a series of experiments. Our theoretical simulations and experimental results show that IAMR can guarantee a very low job error rate, while maintaining a moderate performance overhead. To address the algorithmic confidentiality problem, we focus on the program control flow and propose the Confidentiality Assurance MapReduce (CAMR) framework. CAMR performs the Runtime Control Flow Obfuscation (RCFO) technique to protect the predicates of MapReduce jobs. We implemented a prototype system for a real hybrid cloud environment. The security analysis and experimental results show that CAMR defeats static analysis-based reverse engineering attacks, raises the bar for the dynamic analysis-based reverse engineering attacks, and incurs a modest performance overhead.

Organisations that seek a competitive advantage cannot afford to compromise their brand reputation or expose it to disrepute. When employees leek information, it is not only the breach of confidentiality that is a problem, but it also causes a major brand reputation problem for the organisation. Any possible breach of confidentiality should be minimised by implementing adequate security within the organisation and among its employees. An important issue to address is the development of suitable access control models that are able to restrict access not only to unauthorised data sets, but also to unauthorised combinations of data sets. Within organisations such as banks, clients may exist that are in conflict with one another. This conflict results from the fact that clients are functioning in the same business domain and that their information should be shielded from one another because they are in competition for various reasons. When information on any of these conflicting clients is extracted from their data sets via a data-mining process and used to their detriment or to the benefit of the guilty party, this is considered a breach of confidentiality. In data-mining environments, access control usually strips the data of any identity so as to concentrate on tendencies and ensure that data cannot be traced back to a respondent. There is an active research field in data mining that focuses specifically on ‘preserving’ the privacy of the data during the data-mining process. However, this approach does not account for those situations when data mining needs to be performed to give answers to specific clients. In such cases, when the clients’ identity cannot be stripped, it is essential to minimise the chances of a possible breach of confidentiality. For this reason, this thesis investigated an environment where conflicting clients’ information can easily be gathered and used or sold, as to justify the inclusion of conflict management in the proposed access control model. This thesis presents the Conflict-based Access Control (CBAC) model. The model makes it possible to manage conflict on different levels of severity among the clients of an organisation – not only as specified by the clients, but also as calculated by the organisation. Both types of conflict have their own cut-off points when the conflict is considered to be of no value any longer. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype illustrates that the incorporation of conflict management is a viable solution to the problem of access control as it minimises the chances of a breach of confidentiality / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Internet of Things (IoT) is a natural evolution of the Internet and is becoming more and more ubiquitous in our everyday home, enterprise, healthcare, education, and many other aspects. The data gathered and processed by IoT networks might be sensitive and that calls for feasible and adequate security measures. The work in this thesis describes the use of the Wi-Fi technology in the IoT connectivity, then proposes a new approach, the Proactive Wireless Protected Access (PWPA), to protect the access networks. Then a new end to end (e2e) IoT security model is suggested to include the PWPA scheme. To evaluate the solutions security and performance, rstly, the cybersecurity triad: con dentiality, integrity, and availability aspects were discussed, secondly, the solutions performance was compared to a counterpart e2e security solution, the Secure Socket Layer security. A small e2e IoT network was set up to simulate a real environment that uses HTTP protocol. Packets were then collected and analyzed. Data analysis showed a bandwidth e ciency increase by 2% (Internet links) and 12% (access network), and by 344% (Internet links) and 373% (access network) when using persistent and non-persistent HTTP respectively. On the other hand, the analysis showed a reduction in the average request-response delay of 25% and 53% when using persistent and non-persistent HTTP respectively. This scheme is possibly a simple and feasible solution that improves the IoT network security performance by reducing the redundancy in the TCP/IP layers security implementation.