Um die ständig wachsenden Anforderungen zur Übertragung von Live Video Streams im Internet zu erfüllen werden kosteneffektive und resourceneffiziente Lösungen benötigt. Eine adäquate Lösung bietet die Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Streaming Architektur an, welche bereits heute in unterschiedlichsten Systemen zum Einsatz kommt. Solche Systeme erfordern von der Streaming Quelle nur moderate Bandbreiten, da die Nutzer (bzw. Peers) ihre eigene Bandbreite zur Verbreitung des Streams einbringen. Dazu werden die Peers oberhalb der Internetarchitektur zu einem Overlay verbunden. Das geplante Verlassen, sowie der ungewollte Absturz von Peers (genannt Churn) kann das Overlay schädigen und den Empfang einiger Peers unterbrechen. Weitaus kritischer sind Angriffe auf die Verfügbarkeit des Systems indem relevante Knoten des Overlays von Angreifern attackiert werden, um die Verteilung des Streams gezielt zu stören. Um Overlays zu konstruieren, die robust gegenüber Churn sind, nutzen so genannte pull-basierte P2P Streaming Systeme eine Mesh Topologie um jeden Peer über mehrere Pfade mit der Quelle zu verbinden. Peers fordern regelmäßig Teile des Videos, sog. Chunks, von ihren Partnern im Overlay an. Selbst wenn einige Partner plötzlich nicht mehr im System verfügbar sind kann ein Peer alle Chunks von den verbleibenden Nachbarn beziehen. Um dies zu ermöglichen tauschen Peers regelmäßig sog. Buffer Maps aus. Diese kleinen Pakete enthalten Informationen über die Verfügbarkeit von Chunks im Puffer eines Peers. Um dadurch entstehende Latenzen und den zusätzlichen Mehraufwand zu reduzieren wurden hybride Systeme entwickelt. Ein solches System beginnt pull-basiert und formt mit der Zeit einen Baum aus einer kleinen Untermenge aller Peers um Chunks ohne explizite Anfrage weiterzuleiten. Unglücklicherweise sind sowohl pull-basierte, als auch hybride Systeme anfällig gegenüber Denial-of-Service Angriffen (DoS). Insbesondere fehlen Maßnahmen zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf die Partner der Quelle. Die genannten Angriffe werden weiterhin dadurch erleichtert, dass die Identität der Quelle-nahen Knoten akkurat aus den ausgetauschten Buffer Maps extrahiert werden kann. Hybride Systeme sind außerdem anfällig für Angriffe auf den zugrundeliegenden Baum. Aufgrund der schwerwiegenden Auswirkungen von DoS Angriffen auf pull-basierte, sowie hybride Systeme stellen wir drei Gegenmaßnahmen vor. Zuerst entwickeln wir das Striping Schema zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf die Partner der Quelle. Hierbei werden Peers dazu angeregt ihre Chunk-Anfragen an unterschiedliche Partner zu senden. Als zweites entwickeln wir das SWAP Schema, welches Peers dazu bringt proaktiv ihre Partner zu wechseln um Angreifer daran zu hindern die Quellenahe zu identifizieren. Als drittes entwickeln wir RBCS, einen widerstandsfähigen Baum zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf hybride Systeme. Da bisher kein Simulator für die faire Evaluation von P2P-basierten Live Video Streaming Algorithmen verfügbar war, entwickeln wir OSSim, ein generalisiertes Simulations-Framework für P2P-basiertes Video Streaming. Des weiteren entwickeln wir etliche Angreifermodelle sowie neuartige Resilienzmetriken on OSSim. Ausgiebige Simulationsstudien zeigen, dass die entwickelten Schemata signifikant die Widerstandsfähigkeit von pull-basierten und hybriden Systemen gegenüber Churn und DoS Angriffen erhöhen. / The constantly growing demand to watch live videos over the Internet requires streaming systems to be cost-effective and resource-efficient. The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) streaming architecture has been a viable solution with various deployed systems to date. The system only requires a modest amount of bandwidth from the streaming source, since users (or peers) contribute their bandwidth to disseminate video streams. To enable this, the system interconnects peers into an overlay. However, churn–meaning the leaving and failing of peers–can break the overlay, making peers unable to receive the stream. More severely, an adversary aiming to sabotage the system can attack relevant nodes on the overlay, disrupting the stream delivery. To construct an overlay robust to churn, pull-based P2P streaming systems use a mesh topology to provide each peer with multiple paths to the source. Peers regularly request video chunks from their partners in the overlay. Therefore, even if some partners are suddenly absent, due to churn, a peer still can request chunks from its remaining partners. To enable this, peers periodically exchange buffer maps, small packets containing the availability information of peers’ video buffers. To reduce latency and overhead caused by the periodic buffer map exchange and chunk requests, hybrid systems have been proposed. A hybrid system bootstraps from a pull-based one and gradually forms a tree backbone consisting of a small subset of peers to deliver chunks without requests. Unfortunately, both pull-based and hybrid systems lack measures to mitigate Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks on head nodes (or the source’s partners). More critically, they can be identified accurately by inferring exchanged buffer maps. Furthermore, hybrid systems are vulnerable to DoS attacks on their backbones. Since DoS attacks can badly affect both pull-based and hybrid systems, we introduce three countermeasures. First, we develop the striping scheme to mitigate DoS attacks targeting head nodes. The scheme enforces peers to diversify their chunk requests. Second, to prevent attackers from identifying head nodes, we develop the SWAP scheme, which enforces peers to proactively change their partners. Third, we develop RBCS, a resilient backbone, to mitigate DoS attacks on hybrid systems. Since a simulator for a fair evaluation is unavailable so far, we develop OSSim, a general-purpose simulation framework for P2P video streaming. Furthermore, we develop several attacker models and novel resilience metrics in OSSim. Extensive simulation studies show that the developed schemes significantly improve the resilient of pull-based and hybrid systems to both churn and DoS attacks.

Over the last couple of years the rise of application layer Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks has significantly increased. Because of this, many issues have been raised on how organizations and companies can protect themselves from intrusions and damages against their systems and services. The consequences from these attacks are many, ranging from revenue losses for companies to stolen personal data. As the technologies are evolving, application layer DDoS attacks are becoming more effective and there is not a concrete solution that entirely protects against them. This thesis focuses on the available defense mechanisms and presents a general overview of different types of application layer DDoS attacks and how they are constructed. Moreover this report provides a simulation based on one of the defense mechanisms mentioned, named CALD. The simulation tested two different application layer DDoS attacks and showed that CALD can detect and differentiate between the two attacks. This report can be used as a general information source for application layer DDoS attacks, how to detect them and how to defend against them. Furthermore the simulation can be used as a basis on how well a relatively small-scaled implementation of CALD can detect DDoS attacks on the application layer. / Under de senaste åren har ökningen av Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacker på applikationslagret ökat markant. På grund av detta har många frågor uppkommit om hur organisationer och företag kan skydda sig mot intrång och skador mot sina system och tjänster. Konsekvenserna av dessa attacker är många, allt från intäktsförluster för företag till stulen personlig data. Eftersom tekniken utvecklas, har DDoS attacker på applikationslagret blivit mer effektiva och det finns inte en konkret lösning för att hindra dem. Denna rapport fokuserar på de tillgängliga försvarsmekanismer och presenterar en allmän översikt över olika typer av DDoS-attacker på applikationslagret och hur de är uppbyggda. Dessutom bidrar den här rapporten med en redovisning av en simulering baserad på en av de försvarsmekanismer som nämns i rapporten, CALD. Simuleringen testade två olika attacker på applikationslagret och visar att CALD kan upptäcka och skilja mellan de två attackerna. Denna rapport kan användas som en allmän informationskälla för DDoSattacker på applikationslagret och hur man försvarar sig mot och upptäcker dessa. Vidare kan simuleringen användas som utgångspunkt på hur väl en relativt småskalig implementering av CALD kan upptäcka DDoS-attacker på applikationslagret.

Um die ständig wachsenden Anforderungen zur Übertragung von Live Video Streams im Internet zu erfüllen werden kosteneffektive und resourceneffiziente Lösungen benötigt. Eine adäquate Lösung bietet die Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Streaming Architektur an, welche bereits heute in unterschiedlichsten Systemen zum Einsatz kommt. Solche Systeme erfordern von der Streaming Quelle nur moderate Bandbreiten, da die Nutzer (bzw. Peers) ihre eigene Bandbreite zur Verbreitung des Streams einbringen. Dazu werden die Peers oberhalb der Internetarchitektur zu einem Overlay verbunden. Das geplante Verlassen, sowie der ungewollte Absturz von Peers (genannt Churn) kann das Overlay schädigen und den Empfang einiger Peers unterbrechen. Weitaus kritischer sind Angriffe auf die Verfügbarkeit des Systems indem relevante Knoten des Overlays von Angreifern attackiert werden, um die Verteilung des Streams gezielt zu stören. Um Overlays zu konstruieren, die robust gegenüber Churn sind, nutzen so genannte pull-basierte P2P Streaming Systeme eine Mesh Topologie um jeden Peer über mehrere Pfade mit der Quelle zu verbinden. Peers fordern regelmäßig Teile des Videos, sog. Chunks, von ihren Partnern im Overlay an. Selbst wenn einige Partner plötzlich nicht mehr im System verfügbar sind kann ein Peer alle Chunks von den verbleibenden Nachbarn beziehen. Um dies zu ermöglichen tauschen Peers regelmäßig sog. Buffer Maps aus. Diese kleinen Pakete enthalten Informationen über die Verfügbarkeit von Chunks im Puffer eines Peers. Um dadurch entstehende Latenzen und den zusätzlichen Mehraufwand zu reduzieren wurden hybride Systeme entwickelt. Ein solches System beginnt pull-basiert und formt mit der Zeit einen Baum aus einer kleinen Untermenge aller Peers um Chunks ohne explizite Anfrage weiterzuleiten. Unglücklicherweise sind sowohl pull-basierte, als auch hybride Systeme anfällig gegenüber Denial-of-Service Angriffen (DoS). Insbesondere fehlen Maßnahmen zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf die Partner der Quelle. Die genannten Angriffe werden weiterhin dadurch erleichtert, dass die Identität der Quelle-nahen Knoten akkurat aus den ausgetauschten Buffer Maps extrahiert werden kann. Hybride Systeme sind außerdem anfällig für Angriffe auf den zugrundeliegenden Baum. Aufgrund der schwerwiegenden Auswirkungen von DoS Angriffen auf pull-basierte, sowie hybride Systeme stellen wir drei Gegenmaßnahmen vor. Zuerst entwickeln wir das Striping Schema zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf die Partner der Quelle. Hierbei werden Peers dazu angeregt ihre Chunk-Anfragen an unterschiedliche Partner zu senden. Als zweites entwickeln wir das SWAP Schema, welches Peers dazu bringt proaktiv ihre Partner zu wechseln um Angreifer daran zu hindern die Quellenahe zu identifizieren. Als drittes entwickeln wir RBCS, einen widerstandsfähigen Baum zur Abschwächung von DoS Angriffen auf hybride Systeme. Da bisher kein Simulator für die faire Evaluation von P2P-basierten Live Video Streaming Algorithmen verfügbar war, entwickeln wir OSSim, ein generalisiertes Simulations-Framework für P2P-basiertes Video Streaming. Des weiteren entwickeln wir etliche Angreifermodelle sowie neuartige Resilienzmetriken on OSSim. Ausgiebige Simulationsstudien zeigen, dass die entwickelten Schemata signifikant die Widerstandsfähigkeit von pull-basierten und hybriden Systemen gegenüber Churn und DoS Angriffen erhöhen. / The constantly growing demand to watch live videos over the Internet requires streaming systems to be cost-effective and resource-efficient. The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) streaming architecture has been a viable solution with various deployed systems to date. The system only requires a modest amount of bandwidth from the streaming source, since users (or peers) contribute their bandwidth to disseminate video streams. To enable this, the system interconnects peers into an overlay. However, churn–meaning the leaving and failing of peers–can break the overlay, making peers unable to receive the stream. More severely, an adversary aiming to sabotage the system can attack relevant nodes on the overlay, disrupting the stream delivery. To construct an overlay robust to churn, pull-based P2P streaming systems use a mesh topology to provide each peer with multiple paths to the source. Peers regularly request video chunks from their partners in the overlay. Therefore, even if some partners are suddenly absent, due to churn, a peer still can request chunks from its remaining partners. To enable this, peers periodically exchange buffer maps, small packets containing the availability information of peers’ video buffers. To reduce latency and overhead caused by the periodic buffer map exchange and chunk requests, hybrid systems have been proposed. A hybrid system bootstraps from a pull-based one and gradually forms a tree backbone consisting of a small subset of peers to deliver chunks without requests. Unfortunately, both pull-based and hybrid systems lack measures to mitigate Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks on head nodes (or the source’s partners). More critically, they can be identified accurately by inferring exchanged buffer maps. Furthermore, hybrid systems are vulnerable to DoS attacks on their backbones. Since DoS attacks can badly affect both pull-based and hybrid systems, we introduce three countermeasures. First, we develop the striping scheme to mitigate DoS attacks targeting head nodes. The scheme enforces peers to diversify their chunk requests. Second, to prevent attackers from identifying head nodes, we develop the SWAP scheme, which enforces peers to proactively change their partners. Third, we develop RBCS, a resilient backbone, to mitigate DoS attacks on hybrid systems. Since a simulator for a fair evaluation is unavailable so far, we develop OSSim, a general-purpose simulation framework for P2P video streaming. Furthermore, we develop several attacker models and novel resilience metrics in OSSim. Extensive simulation studies show that the developed schemes significantly improve the resilient of pull-based and hybrid systems to both churn and DoS attacks.

A large amount of today's communication occurs within data centers where a large number of virtual servers (running one or more virtual machines) provide service providers with the infrastructure needed for their applications and services. In this thesis, we will look at the next step in the virtualization revolution, the virtualized network. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a relatively new concept that is moving the field towards a more software-based solution to networking. Today when a packet is forwarded through a network of routers, decisions are made at each router as to which router is the next hop destination for the packet. With SDN these decisions are made by a centralized SDN controller that decides upon the best path and instructs the devices along this path as to what action each should perform. Taking SDN to its extreme minimizes the physical network components and increases the number of virtualized components. The reasons behind this trend are several, although the most prominent are simplified processing and network administration, a greater degree of automation, increased flexibility, and shorter provisioning times. This in turn leads to a reduction in operating expenditures and capital expenditures for data center owners, which both drive the further development of this technology. Virtualization has been gaining ground in the last decade. However, the initial introduction of virtualization began in the 1970s with server virtualization offering the ability to create several virtual server instances on one physical server. Today we already have taken small steps towards a virtualized network by virtualization of network equipment such as switches, routers, and firewalls. Common to virtualization is that it is in early stages all of the technologies have encountered trust issues and general concerns related to whether software-based solutions are as rugged and reliable as hardwarebased solutions. SDN has also encountered these issues, and discussion of these issues continues among both believers and skeptics. Concerns about trust remain a problem for the growing number of cloud-based services where multitenant deployments may lead to loss of personal integrity and other security risks. As a relatively new technology, SDN is still immature and has a number of vulnerabilities. As with most software-based solutions, the potential for security risks increases. This thesis investigates how denial-of-service (DoS) attacks affect an SDN environment and a singlethreaded controller, described by text and via simulations. The results of our investigations concerning trust in a multi-tenancy environment in SDN suggest that standardization and clear service level agreements are necessary to consolidate customers’ confidence. Attracting small groups of customers to participate in user cases in the initial stages of implementation can generate valuable support for a broader implementation of SDN in the underlying infrastructure. With regard to denial-of-service attacks, our conclusion is that hackers can by target the centralized SDN controller, thus negatively affect most of the network infrastructure (because the entire infrastructure directly depends upon a functioning SDN controller). SDN introduces new vulnerabilities, which is natural as SDN is a relatively new technology. Therefore, SDN needs to be thoroughly tested and examined before making a widespread deployment. / Dagens kommunikation sker till stor del via serverhallar där till stor grad virtualiserade servermiljöer förser serviceleverantörer med infrastukturen som krävs för att driva dess applikationer och tjänster. I vårt arbete kommer vi titta på nästa steg i denna virtualiseringsrevolution, den om virtualiserade nätverk. mjukvarudefinierat nätverk (eng. Software-defined network, eller SDN) kallas detta förhållandevis nya begrepp som syftar till mjukvarubaserade nätverk. När ett paket idag transporteras genom ett nätverk tas beslut lokalt vid varje router vilken router som är nästa destination för paketet, skillnaden i ett SDN nätverk är att besluten istället tas utifrån ett fågelperspektiv där den bästa vägen beslutas i en centraliserad mjukvaruprocess med överblick över hela nätverket och inte bara tom nästa router, denna process är även kallad SDN kontroll. Drar man uttrycket SDN till sin spets handlar det om att ersätta befintlig nätverksutrustning med virtualiserade dito. Anledningen till stegen mot denna utveckling är flera, de mest framträdande torde vara; förenklade processer samt nätverksadministration, större grad av automation, ökad flexibilitet och kortare provisionstider. Detta i sin tur leder till en sänkning av löpande kostnader samt anläggningskostnader för serverhallsinnehavare, något som driver på utvecklingen. Virtualisering har sedan början på 2000-talet varit på stark frammarsch, det började med servervirtualisering och förmågan att skapa flertalet virtualiserade servrar på en fysisk server. Idag har vi virtualisering av nätverksutrustning, såsom switchar, routrar och brandväggar. Gemensamt för all denna utveckling är att den har i tidigt stadie stött på förtroendefrågor och överlag problem kopplade till huruvida mjukvarubaserade lösningar är likvärdigt robusta och pålitliga som traditionella hårdvarubaserade lösningar. Detta problem är även något som SDN stött på och det diskuteras idag flitigt bland förespråkare och skeptiker. Dessa förtroendefrågor går på tvären mot det ökande antalet molnbaserade tjänster, typiska tjänster där säkerheten och den personliga integriten är vital. Vidare räknar man med att SDN, liksom annan ny teknik medför vissa barnsjukdomar såsom kryphål i säkerheten. Vi kommer i detta arbete att undersöka hur överbelastningsattacker (eng. Denial-of-Service, eller DoS-attacker) påverkar en SDN miljö och en singel-trådig kontroller, i text och genom simulering. Resultatet av våra undersökningar i ämnet SDN i en multitenans miljö är att standardisering och tydliga servicenivåavtal behövs för att befästa förtroendet bland kunder. Att attrahera kunder för att delta i mindre användningsfall (eng. user cases) i ett inledningsskede är också värdefullt i argumenteringen för en bredare implementering av SDN i underliggande infrastruktur. Vad gäller DoS-attacker kom vi fram till att det som hackare går att manipulera en SDN infrastruktur på ett sätt som inte är möjligt med dagens lösningar. Till exempel riktade attacker mot den centraliserade SDN kontrollen, slår man denna kontroll ur funktion påverkas stora delar av infrastrukturen eftersom de är i ett direkt beroende av en fungerande SDN kontroll. I och med att SDN är en ny teknik så öppnas också upp nya möjligheter för angrepp, med det i åtanke är det viktigt att SDN genomgår rigorösa tester innan större implementation.

As the financial sector has become increasingly digitized, its vulnerability to cyberattacks has increased. Distributed Denial of Service attacks are one of the biggest threats on the internet today and has been growing steadily for the last few years. The increase applies to both the size and frequency of the attacks. DDoS-attacks have been a threat especially towards banks and therefore it is important to have a well functional cyber security strategy to withstand the attacks. This thesis investigates Swedish banks perception regarding the threat picture of DDoS-attacks against banks. As a result of a qualitative case study, Swedish banks opinion has been investigated through interviews with IT security managers at Swedish banks. The banks are considered to have effective strategies to prevent and manage DDoS-attacks but the threat of cyber attacks continues to increase. The participants mention various factors that show an increase in DDoS-attacks and the media can be an influence. The empirical material is analyzed using the National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCSS) framework developed by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

Home automation systems (HASs)seek to improve the quality of life for individuals through the automation of household devices. Recently, there has been a trend, in academia and industry, to research and develop low-cost Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based HASs (Varchola et al. 2007). WSNs are designed to achieve a low-cost wireless networking solution, through the incorporation of limited processing, memory, and power resources. Consequently, providing secure and reliable remote access for resource limited WSNs, such as WSN based HASs, poses a significant challenge (Perrig et al. 2004). This thesis introduces the development of a hybrid communications approach to increase the resistance of WSN based HASs to remote DoS flooding attacks targeted against a third party. The approach is benchmarked against the dominant GHS remote access approach for WSN based HASs (Bergstrom et al. 2001), on a WSN based HAS test-bed, and shown to provide a minimum of a 58.28%, on average 59.85%, and a maximum of 61.45% increase in remote service availability during a DoS attack. Additionally, a virtual home incorporating a cryptographic based DoS detection algorithm, is developed to increase resistance to remote DoS flooding attacks targeted directly at WSN based HASs. The approach is benchmarked against D-WARD (Mirkovic 2003), the most effective DoS defence identified from the research, and shown to provide a minimum 84.70%, an average 91.13% and a maximum 95.6% reduction in packets loss on a WSN based HAS during a DoS flooding attack. Moreover, the approach is extended with the integration of a virtual home, hybrid communication approach, and a distributed denial of defence server to increase resistance to remote DoS attacks targeting the home gateway. The approach is again benchmarked against the D-WARD defence and shown to decrease the connection latency experienced by remote users by a minimum of 90.14%, an average 90.90%, and a maximum 91.88%.

The novel Animal Farm was primarily written as a satire on the Russian revolution, with the underlying intention to actively warn readers what happens when a totalitarian regime takes power. Manipulation and propaganda play a central role in the novella, but the ways in which the regime abuses its people psychologically appears to be of even greater importance. This essay examines and analyzes, from a psychoanalytical perspective, how Orwell portrays the characters that take part in the revolution and the psychology behind their behavior and the choices they make. The aim of the essay is to examine what the underlying factors are that enable a totalitarian leader to take hold of a community as this can be analyzed in Animal Farm. The character of Boxer the horse is central in the novel and of immediate interest, and is therefore analyzed in greater depth. The defense mechanisms denial and sublimation are examined closely in order to see what role they play in a totalitarian regime. Orwell delivers a serious message in Animal Farm, even though it is written as a satire with comic elements. By choosing to write it that way the novel is accessible to a wider audience than it would have been otherwise.

The purpose of this study, is to explore whether or not prison sentences of less than a year, are appropriate, when judged from an individual preventive angle. This will be discovered through processing the interviews of a criminologist, a district prosecutor and a prison governor. Their expertise covers the areas of criminals, institution and crime prevention. Our data is drawn from parts of the theory about denial of freedom by Michel Foucault, who explores prison as an institution; the theory about prisonization by Donald Clemmer, who explored the process of socialization, that occurs when an individual goes to prison, and becomes a part of the prison sub culture; also the theory of moral sociology by Èmile Durkheim, who defines what we call a society, the basis of moral action and how these two interact. The result showed that prison sentences of less than a year are not appropriate, when judged from an individual preventive angel. Though judged from a general preventive angle, it can be seen as appropriate. / Studien syftar till att undersöka om fängelse som påföljd, gällande straff kortare än ett år, är ändamålsenligt utifrån ett individualpreventivt perspektiv. Detta uppnås genom tre kvalitativa intervjuer med en kriminolog, en kammaråklagare och en anstaltschef som utifrån deras olika yrkesroller bidrar med expertis inom det valda området. Empirin tolkas sedan utifrån delar av teorin om den frihetsberövande sanktionen av Michel Foucault som tittar närmare på fängelset som institution; teorin om prisonisering av Donald Clemmer, som tar fakta på den socialiseringsprocess som sker med individen när denne hamnat i fängelse och anammat en del av fängelsets subkultur, samt utifrån moralsociologin av Émile Durkheim som beskriver vad som utmärker ett samhälle, vad som är grunderna för ett moraliskt handlande och hur dessa två samspelar med varandra. Resultatet visade att fängelsestraff kortare än ett år ur ett individualpreventivt perspektiv inte är ändamålsenligt. Däremot kan det ur ett allmänpreventivt syfte verka avskräckande för samhällets övriga medborgare.

Climate change denial has been found to correlate with sociopolitical ideology. The general aim of the present thesis was to investigate this relation, and more specifically to 1) test the unique effects of intercorrelated ideological variables on denial, and 2) investigate the psychological underpinnings of the ideology-denial relation. This approach helps estimating what component of right-wing ideology better explains climate change denial; resistance to change (indexed by left-right/liberal-conservative political orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and system justification), or acceptance of inequality (indexed by social dominance orientation [SDO]). In Paper I, SDO outperformed the effects of right-wing authoritarianism and political left-right orientation on denial (Study 1 and 2). Further, the SDO-denial relation was stable when denial scores were experimentally lowered by a newscast that communicated supportive evidence for climate change (Study 2). Thus, the following studies focused specifically on the SDO-denial relation by testing path models that also included other ideological variables (political conservatism, system justification, and endorsement of nature dominance), as well as personality variables (dominance, empathy, openness to experience, and anxiety avoidance) and/or gender. In Paper II, SDO and endorsement of nature dominance explained unique parts of climate change denial, and both of these variables mediated the effects of system justification and (low) empathy on denial. SDO mediated also the effect of dominance. In Paper III, focusing specifically on denial of human-induced climate change, SDO either partially or fully mediated the effects of political conservatism and gender across two cultural contexts (Brazil and Sweden). Additional analyses extended these results, by building on the model presented in Paper II. These analyses showed that SDO (and in some cases also political conservatism and endorsement of nature dominance) fully mediated the effects of gender and personality variables on denial, with one exception: Predisposition to avoid experiencing anxiety predicted denial directly, as well as through a link via general conservative ideology (system justification or political conservatism). In sum, the results indicate that denial is more strongly and consistently predicted by SDO than by the other included variables. Thus, endorsement of group-based inequality/hierarchies offers an important explanation for climate change denial.

The work follows the current legislation dealing with matters of parenthood. It is designed in accordance with the breakdown of motherhood and fatherhood. After an introduction, defining the purpose and need for legal regulation of family issues, follow the main chapters dealing with different issues. First, attention is paid to the determination of motherhood. This section is divided into three chapters, the first of which is further divided for clarity even in the following sections. The first chapter is devoted to the issue of child identity undetected. This chapter is further divided into parts and special sections devoted to the identity of unidentified child, called the found child, another sub-chapter describes the legislation and the possibility of using the birth mother's identity and privacy of anonymous births, and the last sub-sections deal with the problem of their baby boxes, and legal issues. In other chapters of the work deals with the erroneous entry in the matrix and the state where the child is born outside the medical facility. Then follow chapters on the determination and denial of paternity. The work follows a system of three statutory presumptions of paternity and the subsequent denial of the possibility of paternity. So the first presumption of paternity mother indicating...