The United Nations currently adopts media policies for peacekeeping missions on an ad-hoc basis, often relying on US or NATO rules. Some have suggested that a standardized media policy for all peacekeeping missions should be the norm. This project examines that proposition with an eye to the tension between the right to know and operational security. Looking at UN intervention in the Gulf War, Somalia, and Rwanda, the problems with such a rigid media policy appear significant. Instead, a dual-level approach is advocated, allowing broad principles of independent coverage as well as in-country negotiations to take place. / Master of Arts

Security Operation Centers (SOCs) have become an integral component of business organizations all over the world. The concept of a SOC has existed for a few years now yet there is no systematic study documenting the occurrences of their operations. A lack of documented operational knowledge makes it a challenge for security researchers interested in improving operational efficiency through algorithms, tools, and processes. SOC environments operate under a secrecy culture as a result of which researchers are not trusted by analysts and their managers. This lack of trust leads to only superficial information through methods such as interviews. Moreover, security analysts perform their tasks using hunches that are difficult to articulate and express to an interviewing researcher. This knowledge is called tacit knowledge. Capturing rich tacit knowledge is crucial for researchers to build useful and usable operational tools. This thesis proposes use of long-term participant observation from cultural anthropology as a research methodology for security researchers to study SOC analysts and their managers. Over a period of four and a half years seven students in Computer Science, graduate and undergraduate, were trained by an anthropologist in using fieldwork techniques to study humans. They then took jobs as security analysts at five different SOCs belonging to academia and corporations. We made unexpected discoveries in pursuit of tacit operational knowledge. The first discovery was identification of human capital mismanagement of analysts as the root cause of analyst burnout. Specifically, a vicious cycle among analyst skills, empowerment, creativity, and growth causes analysts to lose morale and eventually leave the job. In fact burnout is a manifestation of number of tensions that are inherent in a security operations setting. This leads to our second discovery of recognizing and managing contradictions as a prerequisite for SOC innovation. Failure to acknowledge them can lead to dysfunctions in a SOC such as analyst burnout. Informed by the findings regarding the social aspects of SOC operations we attained the intended goal of capturing tacit operational knowledge. The thesis documents our experience in tacit knowledge capture through design of a framework for detecting phishing emails in near real-time. Studying human aspects of security operations and cyber-security in general must be done within a social and organizational context. This thesis proposes long-term participant observation of practitioners and end-users as a viable methodology to conduct cyber-security research in general.

We are in the midst of a major paradigm shift in how we manage the radio spectrum. This paradigm shift in spectrum management from exclusive access to shared access is necessitated by the growth of wireless services and the demand pressure imposed on limited spectrum resources under legacy management regimes. The primary constraint in any spectrum sharing regime is that the incumbent users (IUs) of the spectrum need to be protected from harmful interference caused due to transmissions from secondary users (SUs). Unfortunately, legacy techniques rely on inadequately flexible and overly conservative methods for prescribing interference protection that result in inefficient utilization of the shared spectrum. In this dissertation, we first propose an analytical approach for characterizing the aggregate interference experienced by the IU when it shares the spectrum with multiple SUs. Proper characterization of aggregate interference helps in defining incumbent protection boundaries, a.k.a. Exclusion Zones (EZs), that are neither overly aggressive to endanger the IU protection requirement, nor overly conservative to limit spectrum utilization efficiency. In particular, our proposed approach addresses the two main limitations of existing methods that use terrain based propagation models for estimating the aggregate interference. First, terrain-based propagation models are computationally intensive and data-hungry making them unsuitable for large real-time spectrum sharing applications such as the spectrum access system (SAS). Second, terrain based propagation models require accurate geo-locations of SUs which might not always be available, such as when SUs are mobile, or when their locations are obfuscated for location privacy concerns. Our second contribution in this dissertation is the novel concept of Multi-tiered Incumbent Protection Zones (MIPZ) that can be used to prescribe interference protection to the IUs. Based on the aforementioned analytical tool for characterizing the aggregate interference, we facilitate a framework that can be used to replace the legacy notion of static and overly conservative EZs with multi-tiered dynamic EZs. MIPZ is fundamentally different from legacy EZs in that it dynamically adjusts the IU's protection boundary based on the radio environment, network dynamics, and the IU interference protection requirement. Our extensive simulation results show that MIPZ can be used to improve the overall spectrum utilization while ensuring sufficient protection to the IUs. As our third contribution, we investigate the operational security (OPSEC) issue raised by the emergence of new spectrum access technologies and spectrum utilization paradigms. For instance, although the use of geolocation databases (GDB) is a practical approach for enabling efficient spectrum sharing, it raises a potentially serious OPSEC problem, especially when some of the IUs are federal government entities, including military users. We show that malicious queriers can readily infer the locations of the IUs even if the database's responses to the queries do not directly reveal such information. To address this issue, we propose a perturbation-based optimal obfuscation strategy that can be implemented by the GDB to preserve the location privacy of IUs. The proposed obfuscation strategy is optimal in the sense that it maximizes IUs' location privacy while ensuring that the expected degradation in the SUs' performance due to obfuscated responses does not exceed a threshold. In summary, this dissertation focuses on investigating techniques that improve the utilization efficiency of the shared spectrum while ensuring adequate protection to the IUs from SU induced interference as well as from potential OPSEC threats. We believe that this study facilitates the regulators and other stakeholders a better understanding of mechanisms that enable improved spectrum utilization efficiency and minimize the associated OPSEC threats, and hence, helps in wider adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing. / Ph. D. / Radio spectrum is a precious resource that enables wireless communications. On the one hand, the demand for wireless spectrum is skyrocketing due to the ever-increasing number of smartphones and other wireless devices. On the other hand, the total usable wireless spectrum is limited. As a result, we are at a stage where spectrum demand far exceeds the supply. Since spectrum is a finite resource, the only way to fulfill this demand is by sharing the spectrum dynamically among multiple users—i.e., by enabling “dynamic spectrum sharing” among different class of users and uses. In this dissertation, we seek to investigate methods and tools for improving the utilization efficiency of the shared spectrum as well as for ensuring the operational privacy and security of spectrum users in dynamic spectrum sharing. In doing so, we propose several novel approaches and demonstrate their efficacy in improving spectrum utilization efficiency and operational privacy by providing results from extensive simulations and relevant real-world case studies. We believe that studies of this kind facilitate the regulators and other stakeholders a better understanding of mechanisms that enable improved spectrum utilization efficiency and minimize the associated operational privacy and security threats—and hence, help in wider adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing.

abstract: Constraint relaxation by definition means that certain security, operational, or financial constraints are allowed to be violated in the energy market model for a predetermined penalty price. System operators utilize this mechanism in an effort to impose a price-cap on shadow prices throughout the market. In addition, constraint relaxations can serve as corrective approximations that help in reducing the occurrence of infeasible or extreme solutions in the day-ahead markets. This work aims to capture the impact constraint relaxations have on system operational security. Moreover, this analysis also provides a better understanding of the correlation between DC market models and AC real-time systems and analyzes how relaxations in market models propagate to real-time systems. This information can be used not only to assess the criticality of constraint relaxations, but also as a basis for determining penalty prices more accurately. Constraint relaxations practice was replicated in this work using a test case and a real-life large-scale system, while capturing both energy market aspects and AC real-time system performance. System performance investigation included static and dynamic security analysis for base-case and post-contingency operating conditions. PJM peak hour loads were dynamically modeled in order to capture delayed voltage recovery and sustained depressed voltage profiles as a result of reactive power deficiency caused by constraint relaxations. Moreover, impacts of constraint relaxations on operational system security were investigated when risk based penalty prices are used. Transmission lines in the PJM system were categorized according to their risk index and each category was as-signed a different penalty price accordingly in order to avoid real-time overloads on high risk lines. This work also extends the investigation of constraint relaxations to post-contingency relaxations, where emergency limits are allowed to be relaxed in energy market models. Various scenarios were investigated to capture and compare between the impacts of base-case and post-contingency relaxations on real-time system performance, including the presence of both relaxations simultaneously. The effect of penalty prices on the number and magnitude of relaxations was investigated as well. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Engineering 2016

Les bandes des fréquences, telles qu'elles sont aménagées aujourd'hui, sont statiquement allouées. Afin d'améliorer la productivité et l'efficacité de l'utilisation du spectre, une nouvelle approche a été proposée : le "partage dynamique du spectre". Les régulateurs, les industriels et les scientifiques ont examiné le partage des bandes fédérales entre les détenteurs de licences (utilisateurs primaires) et les nouveaux entrants (utilisateurs secondaires). La nature d'un tel partage peut faciliter les attaques d'inférence et mettre en péril les paramètres opérationnels des utilisateurs primaires. Par conséquent, le but de cette thèse est d'améliorer la confidentialité des utilisateurs primaires tout en permettant un accès secondaire au spectre. Premièrement, nous présentons une brève description des règles de partage et des exigences en termes de confidentialité dans les bandes fédérales. Nous étudions également les techniques de conservation de confidentialité (obscurcissement) proposées dans les domaines d'exploration et d'édition de données pour contrecarrer les attaques d'inférence. Ensuite, nous proposons et mettons en œuvre notre approche pour protéger la fréquence et la localisation opérationnelles contre les attaques d'inférence. La première partie étudie la protection de la fréquence opérationnelle en utilisant un obscurcissement inhérent et explicite pour préserver la confidentialité. La deuxième partie traite la protection de la localisation opérationnelle en utilisant la confiance comme principale contre-mesure pour identifier et atténuer un risque d'inférence. Enfin, nous présentons un cadre axé sur les risques qui résume notre travail et s'adapte à d'autres approches de protection de la confidentialité. Ce travail est soutenu par des modèles, des simulations et des résultats qui focalisent sur l'importance de quantifier les techniques de préservation de la confidentialité et d'analyser le compromis entre la protection de la confidentialité et l'efficacité du partage du spectre / Radio frequencies, as currently allocated, are statically managed. Spectrum sharing between commercial users and incumbent users in the Federal bands has been considered by regulators, industry, and academia as a great way to enhance productivity and effectiveness in spectrum use. However, allowing secondary users to share frequency bands with sensitive government incumbent users creates new privacy threats in the form of inference attacks. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to enhance the privacy of the incumbent while allowing secondary access to the spectrum. First, we present a brief description of different sharing regulations and privacy requirements in Federal bands. We also survey the privacy-preserving techniques (i.e., obfuscation) proposed in data mining and publishing to thwart inference attacks. Next, we propose and implement our approach to protect the operational frequency and location of the incumbent operations from inferences. We follow with research on frequency protection using inherent and explicit obfuscation to preserve the incumbent's privacy. Then, we address location protection using trust as the main countermeasure to identify and mitigate an inference risk. Finally, we present a risk-based framework that integrates our work and accommodates other privacy-preserving approaches. This work is supported with models, simulations and results that showcase our work and quantify the importance of evaluating privacy-preserving techniques and analyzing the trade-off between privacy protection and spectrum efficiency