Open wireless networks are commonly deployed as a result of easy access, user-friendliness, as well as easy deployment and maintance. These networks do not implement strong security features, and clients are prone to a myriad of possible attacks. Identity attacks are considered one of the most severe, and as a result of this Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can be deployed.With the introduction of 802.11e/Quality-of-Service on a link-to-link basis in 802.11 networks, most IDS will become obsolete as they often rely on a detection technique known as MAC Sequence Counting Analysis. This specific technique will become useless if 802.11e/QoS is enabled on the network. In this thesis I have analyzed the problem further, and suggest new techniques, both implemented and verified as an IDS, as well as analytic theories in order to enhance MAC Sequence Counting Analysis to cope with the new features of 802.11e. There has been related work on the same issue, but this thesis questions their use of unreliable physical parameters in order to detect attacks. As we will see, my new proposed techniques rely on analysis of the 802.11 standard and the 802.11e amendent, and are not dependent on parameters which could be unreliable in urban and mobile environments.Experiments and analysis will demonstrate the validity of the new suggested techniques, and the outcome of the thesis will divided into two parts; Development of an optimized Intrusion Detection System and an enhanced algorithm in order to detect attacks which exploits the new features of 802.11e.

The last decade, electronic voting has evolved from being a mean of counting votes to also offer the possibility of electronically casting votes. From recording votes using punch cards and optical scan systems, electronic voting has evolved into the use of direct-recording-electronic machines. Voting over the Internet has also become a hot research topic, and some implementation and testing have been done. Internet voting systems are significantly more vulnerable to threats from external attackers, than systems to cast ballots in controlled environments. Mechanisms to provide security, accuracy and verification are critical, and issues with coercion and usability also arise.In the first part of this thesis we give a theoretical study about existing electronic voting techniques, as well as requirements and security issues of modern electronic voting systems. We also give a brief background theory of some cryptographic mechanisms and systems. Secondly, we present two modern voting solutions in development. We have included security functionalities provided by the system, the cryptographic techniques used and some threats and attacks to the systems. These systems can be exposed to compromised computers, ballot stuffing, and corrupt infrastructure players, but are using cryptographic proofs to ensure accuracy and counter attacks.In the third part, we create a procedure and perform a usability test on one of these modern voting solutions. Our findings emphasize the fact that there is a tension between verifiable elections and usability. The voters have trust in the privacy and accuracy of such a voting systems if more guidance to utilize the means of verification is included, and a trusted third party verifies the system security. The advantages of electronic voting outweigh the risks. Internet voting is a term of further discussion and testing, but considering coercion and the insecure aspects of the medium, Internet voting will never be 100% safe. It is a question of trade off between the advantages and threats.

Botnets are a serious threat to the security of personal computers, businesses and even countries. They can launch attacks on remote systems and infrastructure, perform espionage and once installed they essentially hand over control of the computer to a botnet administrator. It is very difficult to detect their presence in a network as it is hard to distinguish their footprint from normal traffic. By using Internet Relay Chat (IRC)-based botnets as an example for visualizing spatial and temporal dynamics, I will attempt to detect the presence of a bot and visualize the results. Based on previous works for detecting malware, the choice was made to use process-to-port mapping as the base metric for visualization. Investigation into botnets was an integral part of the thesis. Published sources along with research into botnet administrator communities were used to provide a solid information base. A bot application, which is part of a botnet, can be regarded in the same way as any other piece of software, but with added functionality for communication and remote control. As such, it is bound by the same proprietary technologies. The thesis focuses on a method of detection that relies on IP and port pairs with host computer metrics, which can be expanded to a distributed context with the use of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The software for process-to-port mapping and visualization of a botnet has been developed with focus on geographical location. Use of geography for the Visualization application proved to be a good choice and communicating applications are shown in a distinct and clear way. Experiments conducted, successfully detected and visualized the bot communicating with the command and control server as metrics were collected on a host machine. The developed visualization software also shows general network activity and has potential to be used in a more general context. It is concluded that given some preconditions with regards to a bot’s rootkit capabilities, detection of a botnet is successful. Given the availability of certain SNMP OIDs, it is possible to perform botnet detection and general network visualization in a large scale and distributed context.

<p>Several of the widely used cryptographic hash functions in use today are under attack. With the need to maintain a certain level of security, NIST is in the process of selecting new cryptographic hash function(s). Through a public competition the candidates will be evaluated and analyzed by the public and the winner(s) become the new standard cryptographic hash algorithm(s). Cryptographic hash algorithms have a wide range of applications, and the winner(s) will have to perform well in various platforms and application areas. The number of constrained devices surrounding us at a daily basis is rapidly increasing. As these devices are used for a great variety of applications, security issues arise. The winning algorithm(s) will not only have to prove a strong security, but also show good performance and capability to run on constrained devices. In this thesis, we show the results of our implementation of the second round SHA-3 candidates in Java, and perform a cost and performance analysis of them on a low-cost 32-bit ARM9 CPU by measuring cycles/byte and ROM requirements. The analysis is conducted on the Sun SPOT platform, by Sun Microsystems, with a Squawk Virtual Machine.</p>

Several of the widely used cryptographic hash functions in use today are under attack. With the need to maintain a certain level of security, NIST is in the process of selecting new cryptographic hash function(s). Through a public competition the candidates will be evaluated and analyzed by the public and the winner(s) become the new standard cryptographic hash algorithm(s). Cryptographic hash algorithms have a wide range of applications, and the winner(s) will have to perform well in various platforms and application areas. The number of constrained devices surrounding us at a daily basis is rapidly increasing. As these devices are used for a great variety of applications, security issues arise. The winning algorithm(s) will not only have to prove a strong security, but also show good performance and capability to run on constrained devices. In this thesis, we show the results of our implementation of the second round SHA-3 candidates in Java, and perform a cost and performance analysis of them on a low-cost 32-bit ARM9 CPU by measuring cycles/byte and ROM requirements. The analysis is conducted on the Sun SPOT platform, by Sun Microsystems, with a Squawk Virtual Machine.

Open wireless networks are commonly deployed as a result of easy access, user-friendliness, as well as easy deployment and maintance. These networks do not implement strong security features, and clients are prone to a myriad of possible attacks. Identity attacks are considered one of the most severe, and as a result of this Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can be deployed.With the introduction of 802.11e/Quality-of-Service on a link-to-link basis in 802.11 networks, most IDS will become obsolete as they often rely on a detection technique known as MAC Sequence Counting Analysis. This specific technique will become useless if 802.11e/QoS is enabled on the network. In this thesis I have analyzed the problem further, and suggest new techniques, both implemented and verified as an IDS, as well as analytic theories in order to enhance MAC Sequence Counting Analysis to cope with the new features of 802.11e. There has been related work on the same issue, but this thesis questions their use of unreliable physical parameters in order to detect attacks. As we will see, my new proposed techniques rely on analysis of the 802.11 standard and the 802.11e amendent, and are not dependent on parameters which could be unreliable in urban and mobile environments.Experiments and analysis will demonstrate the validity of the new suggested techniques, and the outcome of the thesis will divided into two parts; Development of an optimized Intrusion Detection System and an enhanced algorithm in order to detect attacks which exploits the new features of 802.11e.

The last decade, electronic voting has evolved from being a mean of counting votes to also offer the possibility of electronically casting votes. From recording votes using punch cards and optical scan systems, electronic voting has evolved into the use of direct-recording-electronic machines. Voting over the Internet has also become a hot research topic, and some implementation and testing have been done. Internet voting systems are significantly more vulnerable to threats from external attackers, than systems to cast ballots in controlled environments. Mechanisms to provide security, accuracy and verification are critical, and issues with coercion and usability also arise.In the first part of this thesis we give a theoretical study about existing electronic voting techniques, as well as requirements and security issues of modern electronic voting systems. We also give a brief background theory of some cryptographic mechanisms and systems. Secondly, we present two modern voting solutions in development. We have included security functionalities provided by the system, the cryptographic techniques used and some threats and attacks to the systems. These systems can be exposed to compromised computers, ballot stuffing, and corrupt infrastructure players, but are using cryptographic proofs to ensure accuracy and counter attacks.In the third part, we create a procedure and perform a usability test on one of these modern voting solutions. Our findings emphasize the fact that there is a tension between verifiable elections and usability. The voters have trust in the privacy and accuracy of such a voting systems if more guidance to utilize the means of verification is included, and a trusted third party verifies the system security. The advantages of electronic voting outweigh the risks. Internet voting is a term of further discussion and testing, but considering coercion and the insecure aspects of the medium, Internet voting will never be 100% safe. It is a question of trade off between the advantages and threats.

Botnets are a serious threat to the security of personal computers, businesses and even countries. They can launch attacks on remote systems and infrastructure, perform espionage and once installed they essentially hand over control of the computer to a botnet administrator. It is very difficult to detect their presence in a network as it is hard to distinguish their footprint from normal traffic. By using Internet Relay Chat (IRC)-based botnets as an example for visualizing spatial and temporal dynamics, I will attempt to detect the presence of a bot and visualize the results. Based on previous works for detecting malware, the choice was made to use process-to-port mapping as the base metric for visualization. Investigation into botnets was an integral part of the thesis. Published sources along with research into botnet administrator communities were used to provide a solid information base. A bot application, which is part of a botnet, can be regarded in the same way as any other piece of software, but with added functionality for communication and remote control. As such, it is bound by the same proprietary technologies. The thesis focuses on a method of detection that relies on IP and port pairs with host computer metrics, which can be expanded to a distributed context with the use of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The software for process-to-port mapping and visualization of a botnet has been developed with focus on geographical location. Use of geography for the Visualization application proved to be a good choice and communicating applications are shown in a distinct and clear way. Experiments conducted, successfully detected and visualized the bot communicating with the command and control server as metrics were collected on a host machine. The developed visualization software also shows general network activity and has potential to be used in a more general context. It is concluded that given some preconditions with regards to a bot’s rootkit capabilities, detection of a botnet is successful. Given the availability of certain SNMP OIDs, it is possible to perform botnet detection and general network visualization in a large scale and distributed context.

This thesis explores Wave, a brand new communication and collaboration platform, from the perspective of end user service composition. A description of the different frameworks that are available and a study of how these can be used to create components that can be easily integrated with the platform are provided. Several examples of how the platform can be used to simplify different use cases involving multiple users collaborating on a common goal are provided. A complete solution to collaboratively organize meetings is also developed using these tools, and a detailed explanation of how one creates the necessary Wave Gadgets using web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and the necessary back-end Wave Robots using Java are provided.

Wireless Trondheim is today mainly a service for nomadic and mobile broadband in other words, for use outside the home. The major goal of this study was to examine the market potential and the ability to use wireless broadband offered by Wireless Trondheim, as the primary internet access in the home. The study started with an introduction to the Wireless Trondheim, before introducing the different types of broadband technologies available in the Norwegian market. This study further looked into some successful city-wide Wi-Fi based network initiatives in the Europe, specifically City of Luxembourg and City of Westminster in London. Their objectives, business models, pricing strategies and broadband networks were examined. It provided us with a good insight about the market strategies these wireless cities are using and the achievement they have made. However, it was difficult to inspect how much these networks were used for internet connection at home.To justify the goal of this study, a quantitative random sampling method through structured web-based questionnaire was carried out. The respondents or targeted population was those residents in Trondheim who do not have free access to Wireless Trondheim’s network. A number of hypotheses were observed in order to understand the market of wireless broadband. Questionnaire emphasized on the inhabitant’s awareness and willingness towards the wireless broadband subscription. The satisfaction level regarding the coverage provided by Wireless Trondheim and the amount of people using their network as the primary access at home was examined. Results indicated that more than half of the respondents did not have access to the Wireless Trondheim at home. One-fourth of the respondents had access to both wireless broadband and other types of connection interfaces, such as fixed or mobile broadband. Majority of the respondents reported that they did not use Wireless Trondheim to connect internet at home. More than half of the respondents were not satisfied with the coverage provided to them. Also very few people knew about the wireless broadband offer, leading to the fact that minority was willing to buy a wireless broadband subscription. However, it is important to remember that majority of the respondents were living outside of Midtbyen. Hence, only few of these had coverage provided by Wireless Trondheim. However, results were divided into two categories according to the respondent’s residential status. It was clear in the end that in addition to increase the coverage, marketing on the wireless broadband service is highly needed to increase the demand