Studies show that the trustworthiness of a web application is affected by how it is designed and in particular which font is used, which colour scheme is used and if the layout is expected or unexpected. To test this claim, a web application was developed according to principles about how design elements affect the trustworthiness of a web application. The web application was developed iteratively and design choices as well as implemented functionality were supported by related research. Eight different prototypes of the web application with different combinations of a blue and red colour scheme, the fonts Arial and Comic Sans as well as an expected and unexpected layout was developed. Two user tests were conducted in order to assess how the specific design elements affected the trustworthiness of the web application. The results show that the choice of colour and font for a web application affects how trustworthiness is perceived by the user. The combination of a blue colour scheme, the Arial font and the expected layout was perceived as the most trustworthy out of the examined combinations. Colour and font have a significant impact on perceived trustworthiness, where a blue colour scheme is to be preferred over a red colour scheme as well as the Arial font over Comic Sans. Regarding layout, no conclusions could be drawn from the results whether an expected layout is preferred over an unexpected layout.

Hidden undesired functionality is an unavoidable reality in any complex hardware or software component. Undesired functionality — deliberately introduced Trojan horses or accidentally introduced bugs — in any component of a system can be exploited by attackers to exert control over the system. This poses a serious security risk to systems — especially in the ever growing number of systems based on networks of computers. The approach adopted in this dissertation to secure systems seeks immunity from hidden functionality. Specifcally, if a minimal trusted computing base (TCB) for any system can be identifed, and if we can eliminate hidden functionality in the TCB, all desired assurances regarding the operation of the system can be guaranteed. More specifcally, the desired assurances are guaranteed even if undesired functionality may exist in every component of the system outside the TCB. A broad goal of this dissertation is to characterize the TCB for various systems as a set of functions executed by a trusted security kernel. Some constraints are deliberately imposed on the security kernel functionality to reduce the risk of hidden functionality inside the security kernel. In the security model adopted in this dissertation, any system is seen as an interconnection of subsystems, where each subsystem is associated with a security kernel. The security kernel for a subsystem performs only the bare minimal tasks required to assure the integrity of the tasks performed by the subsystem. Even while the security kernel functionality may be different for each system/subsystem, it is essential to identify reusable components of the functionality that are suitable for a wide range of systems. The contribution of the research is a versatile data-structure — Ordered Merkle Tree (OMT), which can act as the reusable component of various security kernels. The utility of OMT is illustrated by designing security kernels for subsystems participating in, 1) a remote fle storage system, 2) a generic content distribution system, 3) generic look-up servers, 4) mobile ad-hoc networks and 5) the Internet’s routing infrastructure based on the border gateway protocol (BGP).

In this dissertation we study the problem of making electronic voting trustworthy through the use of cryptographic end-to-end (E2E) audits. In particular, we present a series of novel proposals for cryptographic election verification with a focus on real-world practicality. We begin by outlining fundamental requirements of E2E election verification, important properties for a real-world settings, and provide a review of previous and concurrent related work. Our research results are then presented across three parts. In the first part we examine how E2E election verification can be made more procedurally familiar to real-world voters and election administrators. We propose and implement an E2E add-on for conventional optical-scan based voting systems, and highlight our experiences running an election using this system in a United States municipality. In the second part we examine how E2E election verification can be made more conceptually and procedurally simple for election verifiers/auditors. We present a non-cryptographic E2E system based on physical document security assumptions as an educational tool. We extend this system to a cryptographic setting to show how the procedures of cryptographic election verification can be completed with relatively tiny software code bases, or by using common-place programs such as a desktop spreadsheet. We then present an approach that allows verifiers to conduct cryptographic audits without having to plan for it prior to an election. In the third part we examine how the methods in the first part can be extended to provide a level of privacy/distribution of trust similar to that of classical cryptographic voting protocols, while maintaining the (comparatively) intuitive optical-scan interface. To that end, we propose a novel paradigm for secure distributed document printing that allows optical-scan ballots to be printed in a way that still lets voters check their ballots have been counted, while keeping their voting preferences secret from election officials and everyone else. Finally we outline how the results obtained in each of the three parts can be combined to create a cryptographically end-to-end verifiable voting system that simultaneously offers a conventional optical-scan ballot, ballot secrecy assured by a distribution of trust, and a simple, cryptographically austere set of audit procedures.

In this dissertation we study the problem of making electronic voting trustworthy through the use of cryptographic end-to-end (E2E) audits. In particular, we present a series of novel proposals for cryptographic election verification with a focus on real-world practicality. We begin by outlining fundamental requirements of E2E election verification, important properties for a real-world settings, and provide a review of previous and concurrent related work. Our research results are then presented across three parts. In the first part we examine how E2E election verification can be made more procedurally familiar to real-world voters and election administrators. We propose and implement an E2E add-on for conventional optical-scan based voting systems, and highlight our experiences running an election using this system in a United States municipality. In the second part we examine how E2E election verification can be made more conceptually and procedurally simple for election verifiers/auditors. We present a non-cryptographic E2E system based on physical document security assumptions as an educational tool. We extend this system to a cryptographic setting to show how the procedures of cryptographic election verification can be completed with relatively tiny software code bases, or by using common-place programs such as a desktop spreadsheet. We then present an approach that allows verifiers to conduct cryptographic audits without having to plan for it prior to an election. In the third part we examine how the methods in the first part can be extended to provide a level of privacy/distribution of trust similar to that of classical cryptographic voting protocols, while maintaining the (comparatively) intuitive optical-scan interface. To that end, we propose a novel paradigm for secure distributed document printing that allows optical-scan ballots to be printed in a way that still lets voters check their ballots have been counted, while keeping their voting preferences secret from election officials and everyone else. Finally we outline how the results obtained in each of the three parts can be combined to create a cryptographically end-to-end verifiable voting system that simultaneously offers a conventional optical-scan ballot, ballot secrecy assured by a distribution of trust, and a simple, cryptographically austere set of audit procedures.

Nodes taking part in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) are expected to adhere to the rules dictated by the routing protocol employed in the subnet. Secure routing protocols attempt to reduce the ill-effect of nodes under the control of malicious entities who deliberately violate the protocol. Most secure routing protocols are reactive strategies which include elements like redundancies and cryptographic authentication to detect inconsistencies in routing data advertised by nodes, and perhaps explicit measures to react to detected inconsistencies. The approach presented in this dissertation is a proactive approach motivated by the question “what is a minimal trusted computing base for a MANET node?” Specifically, the goal of the research was to identify a small set of well-defined low-complexity functions, simple enough to be executed inside highly resource limited trusted boundaries, which can ensure that nodes will not be able to violate the protocol. In the proposed approach every node is assumed to possess a low complexity trusted MANET module (TMM). Only the TMM in a node is trusted - all other hardware and software are assumed to be untrusted or even hostile. TMMs offer a set of interfaces to the untrusted node housing the TMM, using which the node can submit data to the TMM for cryptographic verification and authentication. As other nodes will not accept packets that are not authenticated by TMMs, the untrusted node is forced to submit any data that it desires to advertise, to its TMM. TMMs will authenticate data only if the untrusted node can convince the TMM of the validity of the data. The operations performed by TMMs are to accept, verify, validate data submitted by the untrusted node, and authenticate such data to TMMs housed in other nodes. We enumerate various TMM interfaces and provide a concrete description of the functionality behind the interfaces for popular ad hoc routing protocols.

No description available.

Remote attestation is a promising mechanism for assurance of distributed systems. It allows users to identify the software running on a remote system before trusting it with an important task. This functionality is arriving at exactly the right time as security-critical systems, such as healthcare and financial services, are increasingly being hosted online. However, attestation has limitations and has been criticized for being impractical. Too much effort is required for too little reward: a large, rapidly-changing list of software must be maintained by users, who then have insufficient information to make a trust decision. As a result attestation is rarely used today. This thesis evaluates attestation in a service-oriented context to determine whether it can be made practical for assurance of servers rather than client machines. There are reasons to expect that it can: servers run fewer programs and the overhead of integrity reporting is more appropriate on a server which may be protecting important assets. However, a literature review and new experiments show that problems remain, many stemming from the large trusted computing base as well as the lack of information linking software identity to expected behaviour. Three novel solutions are proposed. Web service middleware is restructured to minimize the software running at the endpoint, thus lowering the effort for the relying party. A key advantage of the proposed two-tier structure is that strong integrity guarantees can be made without loss of conformance with service standards. Secondly, a program modelling approach is investigated to further automate the attestation and verification process and add more information about system behaviour. Several sets of programs are modelled, including the bootloader, a web service and a menu-based shell. Finally, service behaviour is attested through source code properties established during compilation. This provides a trustworthy and verifiable connection between the identity of the software on a service platform and its expected runtime behaviour. This approach is applicable to any programming language and verification method, and has the advantage of not requiring a runtime monitor. These contributions are evaluated using an example e-voting service to show the level of assurance attestation can provide. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that attestation can be made significantly more practical through the described new techniques. Although some problem remain, with further improvements to operating systems and better software engineering methods, attestation may become a trustworthy and reliable assurance mechanism for web services.

The evolution of cloud computing allows the provisioning of IT resources over the Internet and promises many benefits for both - the service users and providers. Despite various benefits offered by cloud based services, many users hesitate in moving their IT systems to the cloud mainly due to many new security problems introduced by cloud environments. In fact, the characteristics of cloud computing become basis of new problems, for example, support of third party hosting introduces loss of user control on the hardware; similarly, on-demand availability requires reliance on complex and possibly insecure API interfaces; seamless scalability relies on the use of sub-providers; global access over public Internet exposes to broader attack surface; and use of shared resources for better resource utilization introduces isolation problems in a multi-tenant environment. These new security issues in addition to existing security challenges (that exist in today's classic IT environments) become major reasons for the lack of user trust in cloud based services categorized in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). The focus of this thesis is on IaaS model which allows users to lease IT resources (e.g. computing power, memory, storage, etc.) from a public cloud to create Virtual Machine (VM) instances. The public cloud deployment model considered in this thesis exhibits most elasticity (i.e. degree of freedom to lease/release IT resources according to user demand) but is least secure as compared to private or hybrid models. As a result, public clouds are not trusted for many use cases which involve processing of security critical data such as health records, financial data, government data, etc. However, public IaaS clouds can also be made trustworthy and viable for these use cases by providing better transparency and security assurance services for the user. In this thesis, we consider such assurance services and identify security aspects which are important for making public clouds trustworthy. Based upon our findings, we propose solutions which promise to improve cloud transparency thereby realizing trustworthy clouds. The solutions presented in this thesis mainly deal with the secure life cycle management of the user VM which include protocols and their implementation for secure VM launch and migration. The VM launch and migration solutions ensure that the user VM is always hosted on correct cloud platforms which are setup according to a profile that fulfills the use case relevant security requirements. This is done by using an automated platform security audit and certification mechanism which uses trusted computing and security automation techniques in an integrated solution. In addition to provide the assurance about the cloud platforms, we also propose a solution which provides assurance about the placement of user data in correct and approved geographical locations which is critical from many legal aspects and usually an important requirement of the user. Finally, the assurance solutions provided in this thesis increase cloud transparency which is important for user trust and to realize trustworthy clouds.

abstract: Many researchers have seen the value blockchain can add to the field of voting and many protocols have been proposed to allow voting to be conducted in a way that takes advantage of blockchains distributed and immutable structure. While blockchains immutable structure can take the place of paper records in preventing tampering it by itself is insufficient to construct a trustworthy voting system with eligibility, privacy, verifiability, and fairness requirements. Many of the protocols which strive to keep voters votes confidential, but also allow for verifiability and eligibility requirements rely on either a blind signature provided by a central authority to provide compliance with these requirements or ring signatures to prove membership in the set of voters. A blind signature issued by a central authority introduces a potential vulnerability as it allows a corrupt central authority to pass a large number of forged ballots into the mix without any detection. Ring signatures on the other hand tend to be overly resource intensive to allow for practical usage in large voting sets. The research in this thesis focuses on improving the trustworthiness of electronic voting systems by providing possible ways of avoiding or detecting corrupt central authorities while still relying upon the benefits of efficiency the blind signature provides. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2020

Det har skett en kraftig ökning kring intresset för hållbarhet de senaste två decennierna hos konsumenter. Företag har även insett att nyttjande av marknadsföring där de hållbara aspekterna lyfts fram lett till en ökad lönsamhet. I takt med att fler företag marknadsför grönt har det lett till att konsumenter översköljs av information kring hållbara tjänster, produkter och företag. Konsumenter vet inte längre vilket alternativ som är mest hållbart eller vilket företag de kan lita på. Uppmärksammade fall av felaktig grön marknadsföring har också bidragit till det sänkta förtroende hos konsumenter. Syftet med uppsatsen är därför att öka förståelsen kring utformandet av förtroendeingivande grön marknadsföring. För att uppfylla uppsatsens syfte har litteratur, artiklar och rapporter kring ämnet förtroende i grön marknadsföring samlats in. Teorin kompletterades med semistrukturerade intervjuer där personer på marknadsföringsbyråer med bred kompetens och erfarenhet inom grön marknadsföring valdes ut. Inom marknadsföring definieras förtroende som konsumenters tillförlitlighet och välvilja till ett varumärke. När konsumenters förtroende för ett varumärke ökar så minskar även deras oro samt osäkerhet och därför stärks varumärket som helhet. För att genomföra grön marknadsföring som inger förtroende är strategierna cause marketing, influencer marketing samt grön demarketing frekvent återkommande.  Uppsatsen visar att faktorerna transparens, trovärdighet samt faktabaserade påståenden var grundläggande för förtroendeingivande grön marknadsföring. Den visar också att användandet av cause marketing kräver ett högt förtroende hos konsumenter samt en image som är i linje med problemet som ska bistås. I användandet av influencer marketing krävs även här ett befintligt högt förtroende, men också en analys av influencerns sociala medier och värderingar. Inom grön demarketing behövs också ett högt befintligt förtroende hos konsumenter, men också en tydlighet i budskapet samt en image som tillåter en skämtsam jargong. Sammanfattningsvis tyder uppsatsen på att företag med lågt förtroende hos konsumenter inom hållbarhet initialt bör fokusera på de grundläggande faktorerna för att bygga en förtroendegrund att stå på innan marknadsföringskampanjer utformas.