Passwords are a very convenient way to authenticate. In terms of simplicity and portability they are very difficult to match. Nevertheless, current password-based login mechanisms are vulnerable to phishing attacks and typically require users to create and manage a new password for each of their accounts. This research investigates the potential for indirect/decentralized approaches to improve password-based authentication. Adoption of a decentralized authentication mechanism requires the agreement between users and service providers on a trusted third party that vouches for users' identities. Email providers are the de facto trusted third parties on the Internet. Proof of email address ownership is typically required to both create an account and to reset a password when it is forgotten. Despite its shortcomings (e.g., latency, vulnerability to passive attack), this approach is a practical solution to the difficult problem of authenticating strangers on the Internet. This research utilizes this emergent, lightweight relationship with email providers to offload primary user authentication from service providers; thus reducing the need for service provider-specific passwords. Our goal is to provide decentralized authentication that maintains the convenience and portability of passwords, while improving its assurances (especially against phishing). Our first step to leverage this emergent trust, Simple Authentication for the Web (SAW), improves the security and convenience of email-based authentications and moves them from the background into the forefront, replacing need for an account-specific password. Wireless Authenticationg using Remote Passwords (WARP) adapts the principles of SAW to authentication in wireless networks. Lightweight User AUthentication (Luau) improves upon WARP and unifies user authentication across the application and network (especially wireless) layers. Our final protocol, pwdArmor, started as a simple wrapper to facilitate the use of existing databases of password verifiers in Luau, but grew into a generic middleware framework that augments the assurances of conventional password protocols.

OpenAthens is a hosted identity and access management service that provides a streamlined solution for implementing single sign-on authentication. This presentation will outline the steps East Tennessee State University took to configure OpenAthens authentication across the Alma, Primo, and EZproxy platforms. We will give a brief overview of the internal configurations related to LDAP integration, allocating electronic resources, and selectively assigning permissions. Finally, we will share our experiences with OpenAthens including support, vendor adoption, and end user benefits.

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) set Standard Highway Alphabet, or Highway Gothic, as the standard font for all American roadway signs in 1966. Since then, that standard has not changed, with all signs following the norm. In the 1980s, new retro-reflective sheeting introduced on American roadways caused Highway Gothic to be more difficult to read, due to the light "halo" effect caused around the letters, or halation. Recently, more studies have been conducted to improve the overall legibility of Highway Gothic. One study found that its legibility could greatly improve if it's size was increased by 20%. This, however, is extremely unlikely, since increasing the font size would also entail an increase in the physical signs lining roadways. In the 1990s, a new font was created, Clearview, to help combat the negative effects of Standard Highway Alphabet. This font received interim approval in 2004, which was removed in 2016 due to ambiguous results from studies as to whether it was more beneficial than Highway Gothic. It was reinstated two years later, in 2018. Legibility has five different components: retro-reflectivity, irradiation, luminance, contrast, and font design. Understanding these five components, and the benefits of each, can lead to the betterment of the font design on highway signs. This study consisted of two web-based tests. In the first test, the "Letters Test", participants would see a character slowly increasing in size on the screen. Once they could decipher the character, they would click the screen and input the character shown. On the second test, the "Words Test", participants would follow the same instructions, albeit with words in place of characters. There were four fonts tested, on both a positive and negative contrasts. The positive contrast consisted of a green background with a white font, and the negative contrast was a white background with a black font. The four tested fonts were E Modified Base, Alpha Two FHWA E Narrow, Alpha Two FHWA D, and Alpha Two FHWA C, named Base, Narrow, D-Altered, and C-Altered respectively. Forty-two participants participated in both tests. For the "Letters Test", the smallest average font size was the narrow font, followed by the base and D-altered. For the "Words Test", the smallest average font size was the base font, followed by the narrow, D-altered, and C-altered fonts. Overall, the base and narrow fonts took up more space than the D-altered and C-altered fonts. It is recommended that field tests are conducted with these fonts, taking into account the space that they take up, not the font size. This analysis could help to determine whether or not the altered fonts are as legible, or even more legible, than the base and narrow fonts when occupying the same space. / Master of Science / The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) set Standard Highway Alphabet, or Highway Gothic, as the standard font for all American roadway signs in 1966. Since then, that standard has not changed, with all signs following the norm. In the 1980s, new retro-reflective sheeting introduced on American roadways caused Highway Gothic to be more difficult to read, due to the light "halo" effect caused around the letters, or halation. Recently, more studies have been conducted to improve the overall legibility of Highway Gothic. One study found that its legibility could greatly improve if it's size was increased by 20%. This, however, is extremely unlikely, since increasing the font size would also entail an increase in the physical signs lining roadways. In the 1990s, a new font was created, Clearview, to help combat the negative effects of Standard Highway Alphabet. This font received interim approval in 2004, which was removed in 2016 due to ambiguous results from studies as to whether it was more beneficial than Highway Gothic. It was reinstated two years later, in 2018. Legibility has five different components: retro-reflectivity, irradiation, luminance, contrast, and font design. Understanding these five components, and the benefits of each, can lead to the betterment of the font design on highway signs. This study consisted of two web-based tests. In the first test, the "Letters Test", participants would see a character slowly increasing in size on the screen. Once they could decipher the character, they would click the screen and input the character shown. On the second test, the "Words Test", participants would follow the same instructions, albeit with words in place of characters. There were four fonts tested, on both a positive and negative contrasts. The positive contrast consisted of a green background with a white font, and the negative contrast was a white background with a black font. The four tested fonts were E Modified Base, Alpha Two FHWA E Narrow, Alpha Two FHWA D, and Alpha Two FHWA C, named Base, Narrow, D-Altered, and C-Altered respectively. Forty-two participants participated in both tests. For the "Letters Test", the smallest average font size was the narrow font, followed by the base and D-altered. For the "Words Test", the smallest average font size was the base font, followed by the narrow, D-altered, and C-altered fonts. Overall, the base and narrow fonts took up more space than the D-altered and C-altered fonts. It is recommended that field tests are conducted with these fonts, taking into account the space that they take up, not the font size. This analysis could help to determine whether or not the altered fonts are as legible, or even more legible, than the base and narrow fonts when occupying the same space.

By leveraging smart-cards as a bearer of user credentials for legacy applications the security of these systems can be greatly increased. In this thesis a solution to the problem of legacy applications only allowing username-password authentication is proposed. Storing user-data encrypted on the card and automatically serving it to the required application allows for automatically generated passwords to be used. The backbone of this system is developed. This solution is then analyzed and found to result in a significantly increased level of security. / Genom att använda smartakort som bärare av användarnamn och lösenord för gamla "legacyapplikationer" så kan man drastiskt öka säkerheten i dessa system. I detta examensarbete så läggs ett förslag på lösning till problemet att äldre applikationer enbart tillåter autentisering genom användarnamn.lösenord. Genom att lagra användardata på ett enkrypterat utrymme i ett smartkort för att sedan automatiskt mata in detta i den berörda applikationen så tillåts starkare, ej användarvänliga, lösenord att användas. Grunden till detta system utvecklas och en säkerhetsanalys utförs. Detta visar på en kraftig förbättring av säkerheten gentemot dessa system.

Deaf sign language users oftentimes claim to be able to recognise straight away whether their interlocutors are native signers. To date it is unclear, however, what exactly such judgement calls might be based on. The aim of the research presented was to explore whether specific articulatory features are being associated with signers that have (allegedly) acquired German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) as their first language. The study is based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data were generated in ten focus group settings. Each group was made up of three participants and one facilitator. Deaf participants’ meta-linguistic claims concerning linguistic features of ‘native signing’ (i.e. what native signing looks like) were qualitatively analysed using grounded theory methods. Quantitative data were generated via a language assessment experiment designed around stimulus material extracted from DGS corpus data. Participants were asked to judge whether or not individual clips extracted from a DGS corpus had been produced by a native signer. Against the backdrop of the findings identified in the focus group data, the stimulus material was subsequently linguistically analysed in order toidentify specificlinguistic features that might account for some clips to be judged as ‘produced by a native signer’ as opposed to others that were claimed to have been ‘articulated by a non-native signer’. Through juxtaposing meta-linguistic perspectives, the results of a language perception experiment and the linguistic analysis of the stimulus material, the study brings to the fore specific crystallisation points of linguistic and social features indexing linguistic authenticity. The findings break new ground in that they suggest that the face as articulator in general, and micro-prosodic features expressed in the movement of eyes, eyebrows and mouth in particular, play a significant role in the perception of others as (non-)native signers.

The focus of this study was to examine the Deaf community and their preferences for both a psychologist and the language utilized in a clinical psychological setting. The study gave each participant a mock profile for a psychologist and then asked participants to answer questions on their perceptions of the psychologist provided. A total of 22 participants who identified as Deaf, deaf, hard-of-hearing, or as an individual with hearing loss were surveyed. Results indicated that participants randomly assigned to the Deaf psychologist had higher rates of satisfaction and trust over participants who were assigned to other psychologists. The study also supported the concept that individuals who prefer using American Sign Language will similarly prefer a psychologist who knows and can communicate in American Sign Language.

In this dissertation, we study the existence and nonexistence of positive solutions to some classes of singular p-Laplacian boundary value problems with a parameter. In the first study, we discuss positive solutions for a class of sublinear Dirichlet p- Laplacian equations and systems with sign-changing coefficients on a bounded domain of Rn via Schauder Fixed Point Theorem and the method of sub- and supersolutions. Under certain conditions, we show the existence of positive solutions when the parameter is large and nonexistence when the parameter is small. In the second study, we discuss positive radial solutions for a class of superlinear p- Laplacian problems with nonlinear boundary conditions on an exterior domain via degree theory and fixed point approach. Under certain conditions, we show the existence of positive solutions when the paprameter is small and nonexistence when the paramter is large. Our results provide extensions of corresponding ones in the literature from the Laplacian to the p-Laplacian, and can be applied to the challenging infinite semipositone case

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