Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The use of specialized single-level networks in current military operations is inadequate to meet the need to share information envisioned by the Global Information Grid (GIG). Multilevel security (MLS) is a key Information Assurance enabler for the GIG vision. The Monterey Security Architecture (MYSEA), a distributed MLS network, eliminates the need to use separate equipment to connect to many networks at different classification levels. It allows users to view data at different sensitivities simultaneously. MYSEA also allows commercial software and hardware to be used at clients. To address the threat of residual data on the client after a user session change in security state, the MYSEA clients are required to be "stateless", i.e., there is no non-volatile writable memory. Hence the MYSEA server must provide the clients with the ability to execute server-resident client-side applications to access data at different security levels over the MLS Local Area Network (LAN). The MYSEA server currently does not support such capability. This thesis addresses this limitation. A new trusted process family is introduced to provide a pseudo-socket interface for the single level remote application to access the MLS LAN interface. Detailed design specifications were created to facilitate implementation of the remote application support. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technology: Information Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / This thesis focuses on the development of an enhanced innovative secure mobile Internet voting system architecture that offers desirable security requirements to theoretically mitigate some of the intrinsic administrative and logistical challenges of voting, inter alia lack of mobility support for voters, voter inconvenience, election misconduct, and possible voter coercion often associated with the conventional poll-site voting system. Systems in existence have tended to revolve around the need to provide ubiquitous voting, but lack adequate control mechanism to address, in particular, the important security requirement of controlling possible coercion in ubiquitous voting. The research work reported in this thesis improves upon a well-developed Sensus reference architecture. It does so by leveraging the auto-coupling capability of near field communication, as well as the intrinsic merits of global positioning system, voice biometric authentication, and computational intelligence techniques. The leveraging of the combination of these features provides a theoretical mitigation of some of the security challenges inherent in electoral systems previously alluded to. This leveraging also offers a more pragmatic approach to ensuring high level, secure, mobile Internet voting such as voter authentication. Experiments were performed using spectral features for realising the voice biometric based authentication of the system architecture developed. The spectral features investigated include Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC), Mel-frequency Discrete Wavelet Coefficients (MFDWC), Linear Predictive Cepstral Coefficients (LPCC), and Spectral Histogram of Oriented Gradients (SHOG). The MFCC, MFDWC and LPCC usually have higher dimensions that oftentimes lead to high computational complexity of the pattern matching algorithms in automatic speaker authentication systems. In this study, higher dimensions of each of the features were reduced per speaker using Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) algorithm, while neural network ensemble was utilised as the pattern-matching algorithm. Out of the four spectral features investigated, the LPCC-HOG gave the best statistical results with an R statistic of 0.9257 and Mean Square Error of 0.0361. These compact LPCC-HOG features are highly promising for implementing the authentication module of the secure mobile Internet voting system architecture reported in this thesis. / D

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis addresses the need to create a flexible laboratory environment for teaching network security. For educators to fully realize the benefit of such a facility, proto-type exercise scenarios are also needed. The paper is based on a model laboratory created at the Naval Postgraduate School. The initial configuration of the NPS lab is described. The work then develops a list of learning objectives achievable in the RCEL. Six proto-type cyber-exercise scenarios are presented to supplement the RCEL description. The activities within each potential scenario are described. The learning objectives met during each scenario are shown. This work demonstrates how a variety of potential RCEL exercises can supplement traditional information assurance education delivery techniques. / Civilian, Federal Cyber Services Corps, Naval Postgraduate School

M. Tech. Business Administration / The main objective of this study was to identify and quantify the issues in implementing cloud computing by small and medium business in Pretoria. The empirical data were collected using an online self-administrated questionnaire. The respondents were taken using a mere random sampling of 120 SMEs in Pretoria. A total of 102 usable responses was obtained. A quantitative approach was applied.

As quantum computers continue to develop, they pose a threat to cryptography since many popular cryptosystems will be rendered vulnerable. This is because the security of most currently used asymmetric systems requires the computational hardness of the integer factorization problem, the discrete logarithm or the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. However, there are still some cryptosystems that resist quantum computing. We will look at code-based cryptography in general and the McEliece cryptosystem specifically. Our goal is to understand the structure behind the McEliece scheme, including the encryption and decryption processes, and what some advantages and disadvantages are that the system has to offer. In addition, using the results from Courtois, Finiasz, and Sendrier's paper in 2001, we will discuss a digital signature scheme based on the McEliece cryptosystem. We analyze one classical algebraic attack against the security analysis of the system based on the distinguishing problem whether the public key of the McEliece scheme is generated from a generating matrix of a binary Goppa code or a random binary matrix. The idea of the attack involves solving an algebraic system of equations and we examine the dimension of the solution space of the linearized system of equations. With the assistance from a paper in 2010 by Faugere, Gauthier-Umana, Otmani, Perret, Tillich, we will see the parameters needed for the intractability of the distinguishing problem. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This research addresses the need for increased interoperability between the varied access control systems in use today, and for a secure means of providing access to remote physical devices over untrusted networks. The Universal Physical Access Control System (UPACS) is an encryption-enabled security protocol that provides a standard customizable device control mechanism that can be used to control the behavior of a wide variety of physical devices, and provide users the ability to securely access those physical devices over untrusted networks. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The quest to generate, preserve and utilise knowledge is driving firms and organisations towards a knowledge-based approach to managing organisational knowledge assets. Therefore, knowledge management (KM) is becoming increasingly important for organisations such as academic libraries to enhance their competitive edge in performance, to become more effective and to keep the organisation’s knowledge for future use. The importance of KM cannot be overemphasised in terms of how academic libraries can find meaningful and effective ways to manage knowledge resources to improve the services rendered to information users. Pressure is mounting for academic libraries to attain, retain and share knowledge for strategic planning, decision-making and remaining competitive. The adoption of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies is one of the preferred approaches to managing organisational knowledge assets; therefore, this was the motivation for undertaking this study in order to understand how these new technologies can change the knowledge management landscape in academic libraries. A qualitative research methodology, informed by the interpretivist research philosophy, was adopted in this study. Data were collected from a sample of 12 participants using non-probability purposive and convenience sampling techniques. The use of purposive and convenience techniques was ideal for this study because the participants were readily available and possessed the relevant data required to address the research questions and research problem of the study. Open-ended questions were designed to form an interview guide, which was the main data collection instrument. Annual reports, system manuals and user manuals were consulted to augment the primary data collected to address the problem at hand. The findings from the study showed that RFID technologies improved efficiency, tracking and tracing, inventory management and assisted with planning. It was revealed that users of RFID technologies required further training and development to fully utilise these systems for the benefit of the organisation. The study was conducted using a small sample of 12 participants; therefore, it was recommended that further studies could be conducted with large sample sizes using different research strategies. It was suggested that further research should be conducted to establish how change programmes have been managed before in other departments or sections and how the staff exodus was managed. An organisation-wide research would be recommended to ascertain the views and opinions of a larger population so that findings can be generalisable. / Information Science / M. Inf. (Information Science)

"Traditional security models are out of place in peer networks, where no hierarchy ex- ists, and where no outside channel can be relied upon. In this nontraditional environment we must provide traditional security properties and assure fairness in order to enable the secure, collaborative success of the network. One solution is to form a Trusted Domain, and exclude perceived dishonest and unfair members. Previous solutions have been intolerant of masquerading, and have suffered from a lack of precise control over the allocation and exercise of privileges within the Trusted Domain. Our contribution is the introduction of a model that allows for controlled access to the group, granular control over privileges, and guards against masquerading. Contin- ued good behavior is rewarded by an escalation of privileges, while requiring an increased commitment of resources. Bad behavior results in expulsion from the Trusted Domain. In colluding with malicious nodes, well behaved nodes risk losing privileges gained over time; collusion is thereby discouraged. We implement our solution on top of the Bouncer Toolkit, produced by Narasimha et al. [7], as a prototype peer to peer network. We make use of social models for trust from [], and rely on new cryptographic primitives from the field of Threshold Cryptography. We present the results of an experimental analysis of its performance for a number of thresholds, and present observations on a number of important performance and security improvements that can be made to the underlying toolkit."

This thesis traces the historical evolution of one of the early responses to youth crime and violence -- public school police. In addition, this thesis addresses the lack of information about the creation and implementation of a public school police force, specifically the Portland Public School Police and School District No. 1, during its formative years, 1937 to 1953. Finally, the thesis intends to address two principal questions: A) Why did the Portland Board of Education find it necessary to create their own police agency? While one opinion suggests that there was a real need for school police due to the escalating crime raking place within the school district, the other opinion suggests that the school police were created mostly for underlying political reasons rather than general public safety. B) What were the principal functions of the School Police? The initial function of the Portland Public School Police was to protect school property and reduce the monetary loss incurred by the school district. However, after 1941, when large number; of immigrants came to Portland with their school-age children, the Portland Public School Police expanded their function from property protection and reduction of monetary loss to include crime repression and protection.

The growth of eCommerce is being hampered by a lack of trust between providers and consumers of Web-based services. While Web trust issues have been addressed by researchers in many disciplines, a comprehensive approach has yet to be established. This thesis proposes a conceptual trust-profiling framework???W3TF???which addresses issues of trust and user confidence through a range of new user-centred trust measures???trust categories, trust domains, transitivity of trust, fading factor analysis, standalone assessment, hyperlinked assessment and relevance assessment. While others now use the concept of transitivity of trust, it was first introduced by this research in 1998. The thesis also illustrates how W3TF can narrow the gap/disconnection between the hierarchical PKI trust environment and the horizontal Web referral environment. The framework incorporates existing measures of trust (such as Public Key Infrastructure), takes account of consumer perceptions by identifying trust attributes, and utilises Web technology (in the form of metadata), to create a practical, flexible and comprehensive approach to trust assessment. The versatility of the W3TF is demonstrated by applying it to a variety of cases from trust literature and to the hypothetical case study that provided the initial stimulus for this research. It is shown that the framework can be expanded to accommodate new trust attributes, categories and domains, and that trust can be ???weighed??? (and therefore evaluated) by using various mathematical formulae based on different theories and policies. The W3TF addresses identified needs, narrows the gaps in existing approaches and provides a mechanism to embrace current and future efforts in trust management. The framework is a generic form of trust assessment that can help build user confidence in an eCommerce environment. For service providers, it offers an incentive to create websites with a high number of desired trust attributes. For consumers, it enables more reliable judgments to be made. Hence, Web trust can be enhanced.