pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Formal verification of a key establishment protocol for EPC Gen2 RFID systems: work in progress

International audienceThe EPC Class-1 Generation-2 (Gen2 for short) is a standard Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that has gained a prominent place on the retail industry. The Gen2 standard lacks, however, of verifiable security functionalities. Eavesdropping attacks can, for instance, affect the security of monitoring applications based on the Gen2 technology. We are working on a key establishment protocol that aims at addressing this problem. The protocol is applied at both the initial identification phase and those remainder operations that may require security, such as password protected operations. We specify the protocol using the High Level Protocol Specification Language (HLPSL). Then, we verify the secrecy property of the protocol using the AVISPA model checker tool. The results that we report show that the current version of the protocol guarantees sensitive data secrecy under the presence of a passive adversary
Security of web mashups: a survey

Web mashups, a new web application development paradigm, combine content and services from multiple origins into a new service. Web mashups heavily depend on interaction between content from multiple origins and communication with different origins. Contradictory, mashup security relies on separation for protecting code and data. Traditional HTML techniques fail to address both the interaction/communication needs and the separation needs. This paper proposes concrete requirements for building secure mashups, divided in four categories: separation, interaction, communication and advanced behavior control. For the first three categories, all currently available techniques are discussed in light of the proposed requirements. For the last category, we present three relevant academic research results with high potential. We conclude the paper by highlighting the most applicable techniques for building secure mashups, because of functionality and standardization. We also discuss opportunities for future improvements and developments.status: publishe
Effective synthesis of asynchronous systems from GR(1) specifications

We consider automatic synthesis from linear temporal logic\ud
specifications for asynchronous systems. We aim the produced reactive\ud
systems to be used as software in a multi-threaded environment. We extend\ud
previous reduction of asynchronous synthesis to synchronous synthesis\ud
to the setting of multiple input and multiple output variables.\ud
Much like synthesis for synchronous designs, this solution is not practical\ud
as it requires determinization of automata on infinite words and solution\ud
of complicated games. We follow advances in synthesis of synchronous\ud
designs, which restrict the handled specifications but achieve scalability\ud
and efficiency. We propose a heuristic that, in some cases, maintains\ud
scalability for asynchronous synthesis. Our heuristic can prove that specifications\ud
are realizable and extract designs. This is done by a reduction\ud
to synchronous synthesis that is inspired by the theoretical reduction.Peer-reviewedPost-printVerification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation 13th International Conference, VMCAI 2012, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 22-24 January 201
Practical realisation and elimination of an ECC-related software bug attack

We analyse and exploit implementation features in OpenSSL version 0.9.8g which permit an attack against ECDH-based functionality. The attack, although more general, can recover the entire (static) private key from an associated SSL server via $633$ adaptive queries when the NIST curve P-256 is used. One can view it as a software-oriented analogue of the bug attack concept due to Biham et al. and, consequently, as the first bug attack to be successfully applied against a real-world system. In addition to the attack and a posteriori countermeasures, we show that formal verification, while rarely used at present, is a viable means of detecting the features which the attack hinges on. Based on the security implications of the attack and the extra justification posed by the possibility of intentionally incorrect implementations in collaborative software development, we conclude that applying and extending the coverage of formal verification to augment existing test strategies for OpenSSL-like software should be deemed a worthwhile, long-term challenge.This work has been supported in part by EPSRC via grant EP/H001689/1 and by project SMART, funded by ENIAC Joint Undertaking (GA 120224)
Delegatable homomorphic encryption with applications to secure outsourcing of computation

In this work we propose a new cryptographic primitive called Delegatable Homomorphic Encryption (DHE). This allows a Trusted Authority to control/delegate the capability to evaluate circuits over encrypted data to untrusted workers/evaluators by issuing tokens. This primitive can be both seen as a public-key counterpart to Verifiable Computation, where input generation and output verification are performed by different entities, or as a generalisation of Fully Homomorphic Encryption enabling control over computations on encrypted data.

Our primitive comes with a series of extra features as follows: 1) there is a one-time setup procedure for all circuits; 2) senders do not need to be aware of the functions which will be evaluated on the encrypted data, nor do they need to register keys; 3) tokens are independent of senders and receiver; and 4) receivers are able to verify the correctness of computation given short auxiliary information on the input data and the function, independently of the complexity of the computed circuit.

We give a modular construction of such a DHE scheme from three components: Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), Functional Encryption (FE), and a (customised) MAC. As a stepping stone, we first define Verifiable Functional Encryption (VFE), and then show how one can build a secure DHE scheme from a VFE and an FHE scheme. We also show how to build the required VFE from a standard FE together with a MAC scheme. All our results hold in the standard model.Finally, we show how one can build a verifiable computation (VC) scheme generically from a DHE. As a corollary, we get
the first VC scheme which remains verifiable even if the attacker can observe verification result
Plaintext-Checkable Encryption

International audienceWe study the problem of searching on encrypted data, where the search is performed using a plaintext message or a keyword, rather than a message-specific trapdoor as done by state-of-the-art schemes. The use cases include delegation of key-word search e.g. to a cloud data storage provider or to an email server, using a plaintext message. We define a new cryptographic primitive called plaintext-checkable encryption (PCE), which extends public-key encryption by the following functionality: given a plaintext, a ciphertext and a public key, it is universally possible to check whether the ciphertext encrypts the plaintext under the key. We provide efficient generic random-oracle constructions for PCE based on any probabilistic or deterministic encryption scheme; we also give a practical construction in the standard model. As another application we show how PCE can be used to improve the efficiency in group signatures with verifier-local revocation (VLR) and backward unlinkability. These group signatures provide efficient revocation of group members, which is a key issue in practical applications
‘Women in motion’ in a world of nation-states, market forces, and gender power relations

__Abstract__\ud
\ud
This chapter provides concluding reflections from a set of nineteen case studies of transnational and intranational migration and mobility. It contrasts the ‘sedentary bias’ present in policy regimes and associated thought centred on nation-states, where movement is seen as exceptional, including normatively exceptional, with the centrality of movement in the processes of socio-economic change and evolution, particularly those promoted under capitalist systems of economic organization. While market capitalist and nation-state principles of organization differ, they combine in hybrid systems, such as those currently being elaborated in policy regimes for temporary migrant workers, to exploit migrant labour. Many of these arrangements mirror the indentured labour regimes of earlier eras. The chapter presents by contrast a perspective based on principles of human rights and human security that uses a global framework both for understanding and for evaluation and then adds an explicit gender-aware enrichment of that perspective, in order to do justice to the special vulnerabilities and exploitation of women’s migrant labour. A human security perspective, in particular, helps to base concern for human rights in an awareness of bodily and emotional needs, of global interconnections, and of the intersecting circumstances in people’s everyday lives; but it requires, and lends itself to, gender-enrichment through partnership with insights from feminist theory, as illustrated in the book’s various case studies. The systems of the nation-state, market capitalism, and gender power that are discussed in this chapter, that structure the experiences of migrant women workers, are very deeply established. The chapter suggests directions for possible re-cognition, to reduce and counter the invisibility and misframing of migration, and of women and their work; it also suggests priority areas for research and networking following the format employed for the book: linking researchers, policy practitioners and migrant advocates, South-South-North
Gender, Masculinity, and Safety in the Changing Lao-Thai Migration Landscape

__Abstract__\ud
\ud
Recent policy debates on migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion have put increasing emphasis on migrant\ud
safety, which has taken the form of opening legal channels of migration. Whereas the discourse on migrant\ud
safety revolves around gendered emphases in vulnerability, foregrounding female migrants’ vulnerability and\ud
muting male migrants’ vulnerability, policy interventions to make migration safer are too often framed as gender-\ud
neutral. In this chapter I focus on Lao employment agencies as a key technique in the management of Lao-\ud
Thai cross-border migration. I argue that employment agencies are embedded in a masculine policy landscape\ud
and I contest them as gender-neutral techniques by demonstrating how these agencies and the policy architecture\ud
in which they are situated produce significant degrees of male privilege when it comes to accessing supposedly\ud
safe forms of migration. Yet male privilege is limited, as migrating through these supposedly safe channels\ud
of migration may in fact increase male migrants’ vulnerability. However, I argue that young men’s motivations\ud
for migrating through these expensive legal channels can only in part be understood by looking at their material\ud
effects on migrant vulnerability. Instead, this practice should rather be interpreted as a modern version of the\ud
cultural style of hegemonic masculinity through which young men deal with protection from danger in the risky\ud
exercise of migration
Precarious Work: Agenda and Implications for Corporate Social Responsibility

Precarious work, in contrast to regular, permanent wage work, is commonly associated to insecure and unstable, and often poor quality jobs. The concept of precarious work relates either to a socioeconomic group which allows one to refer it to a "class in itself," or as - pursued more recently - to the precarization process which results in a growing fragmentation of societal structures. Common to both conceptions is that they refer to the exposition of workers to employment instability, limited access to legal and union protection, socially irresponsible and discriminating employment practices, and social and economic vulnerability in general. The present contribution provides an overview of some key issues and future directions of research on precarious work relevant to CSR researchers, policy-makers, and social scientists
Interface similarity improves comparison of DNA-binding proteins: the homeobox example

10th Spanish Symposium, JBI 2010, Torremolinos, Spain, October 27-29, 2010. Revised Selected PapersThe recently published 3D-footprint database contains an up-to-date repository of protein-DNA complexes of known structure that\ud
belong to different superfamilies and bind to DNA with distinct specificities. This repository can be scanned by means of sequence alignments in order to look for similar DNA-binding proteins, which might in turn recognize similar DNA motifs. Here we take the complete set of Homeobox proteins from Drosophila melanogaster and their preferred DNA motifs, which would fall in the largest 3D-footprint superfamily and were\ud
recently characterized by Noyes and collaborators, and annotate their interface residues. We then analyze the observed amino acid substitutions at equivalent interface positions and their effect on recognition. Finally we estimate to what extent interface similarity, computed over the set of residues which mediate DNA recognition, outperforms BLAST expectation values when deciding whether two aligned Homeobox proteins might bind to the same DNA motif.This work was funded by Programa Euroinvestigación 2008 [EUI2008-03612].Peer reviewe
A New Scheme for IPv6 BD-TTCS Translator

In this work we investigate the effect of simple and efficient implementation of transition of IPv4 to IPv6 for BD-TTCS translator with list ranking algorithm using parallel computing task graph model (Diminution Tree) concept. In this work an unprecedented BD-TTCS IPv4/IPv6 translator is implemented with parallel computing based diminution tree. To corroborate the efficacy of the proposed method an experiment was conducted for various important performances issues namely Throughput, Round trip time, End-to-End delay, CPU utilization and simulated on NS2 simulator etc. In order to plot bar graph and Line Graph we used Matlab 7.11.0(R2010b)
Is Moodle Accessible for Visually Impaired People?

Proceedings of: 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies. Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands, May 6-9, 2011.Most educational centers are currently using e-learning tools to provide the pedagogical resources for the students, especially in higher education. Nevertheless, some students are not able to access to this information because these authoring tools are not as accessible as they should be. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate if one of the most widely e-learning tool used around the world, Moodle, is accessible for visually impaired people. The evaluation shows that the accessibility guidelines provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are not accomplished by the tool. Moreover, it shows that people using screen readers are not able to access to the majority of the functionality of Moodle.The work presented in this paper has been partially founded by MA2VICMR (S2009/TIC-1542), GEMMA (TSI-020302-2010-141) and SAGAS (TSI-020100-2010-184) research projects.Publicad
Accelerating Model Reduction of Large Linear Systems with Graphics Processors

Model order reduction of a dynamical linear time-invariant system appears in many applications from science and engineering. Numerically reliable SVD-based methods for this task require in general O(n3) floating-point arithmetic operations, with n being in the range 103 − 105 for many practical applications. In this paper we investigate the use of graphics processors (GPUs) to accelerate model reduction of large-scale linear systems by off-loading the computationally intensive tasks to this device. Experiments on a hybrid platform consisting of state-of-the-art general-purpose multi-core processors and a GPU illustrate the potential of this approach
Formalisation and Implementation of the XACML Access Control Mechanism

We propose a formal account of XACML, an OASIS standard adhering to the Policy Based Access Control model for the specifica- tion and enforcement of access control policies. To clarify all ambiguous and intricate aspects of XACML, we provide it with a more manageable alternative syntax and with a solid semantic ground. This lays the basis\ud
for developing tools and methodologies which allow software engineers to easily and precisely regulate access to resources using policies. To demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of our approach, we provide a software tool, supporting the specification and evaluation of policies and access requests, whose implementation fully relies on our formal development
On computing the importance of associations in large conceptual schemas

The visualization and the understanding of large conceptual schemas require the use of specific methods. These methods generate clustered, summarized or focused schemas that are easier to visualize and to understand. All of these methods require computing the importance of the elements in the schema but, up to now, only the importance of entity types has been taken into account. In this paper, we present three methods for computing the importance of associations by taking into account the knowledge defined in the structural and behavioral parts of the schema. We experimentally evaluate these methods with large real-world schemas and present the main conclusions we have drawn from the experiments.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
Random databases with correlated data

A model of random databases is given, with arbitrary correlations among the data of one individual. This is given by a joint distribution function. The individuals are chosen independently, their number m is considered to be (approximately) known. The probability of the event that a given functional dependency A → b holds (A is a set of attributes, b is an attribute) is determined in a limiting sense. This probability is small if m is much larger than and is large if m is much smaller than 2 H 2(A→b)/ 2 where H 2(A→b) is an entropy like functional of the probability distribution of the data. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Static task mapping for tiled chip multiprocessors with multiple voltage islands

The complexity of large Chip Multiprocessors (CMP) makes design reuse a practical approach to reduce the manufacturing and design cost of high-performance systems. This paper proposes techniques for static task mapping onto general-purpose CMPs with multiple pre-defined voltage islands for power management. The CMPs are assumed to contain different classes of processing elements with multiple voltage/frequency execution modes to better cover a large range of applications. Task mapping is performed with awareness of both on-chip and off-chip memory traffic, and communication constraints such as the link and memory bandwidth. A novel mapping approach based on Extremal Optimization is proposed for large-scale CMPs. This new combinatorial optimization method has delivered very good results in quality and computational cost when compared to the classical simulated annealing.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
The Instance Easiness of Supervised Learning for Cluster Validity

"The statistical problem of testing cluster validity is essentially unsolved" [5]. We translate the issue of gaining credibility on the output of un-supervised learning algorithms to the supervised learning case. We introduce a notion of instance easiness to supervised learning and link the validity of a clustering to how its output constitutes an easy instance for supervised learning. Our notion of instance easiness for supervised learning extends the notion of stability to perturbations (used earlier for measuring clusterability in the un-supervised setting). We follow the axiomatic and generic formulations for cluster-quality measures. As a result, we inform the trust we can place in a clustering result using standard validity methods for supervised learning, like cross validation.Griffith Sciences, School of Information and Communication TechnologyFull Tex
The Membership Problem for Regular Expressions with Unordered Concatenation and Numerical Constraints

We study the membership problem for regular expressions extended with operators for unordered concatenation and numerical constraints. The unordered concatenation of a set of regular expressions denotes all sequences consisting of exactly one word denoted by each of the expressions. Numerical constraints are an extension of regular expressions used in many applications, e.g. text search (e.g., UNIX grep), document formats (e.g. XML Schema). Regular expressions with unordered concatenation and numerical constraints denote the same languages as the classical regular expressions, but, in certain important cases, exponentially more succinct. We show that the membership problem for regular expressions with unordered concatenation (without numerical constraints) is already NP-hard. We show a polynomial-time algorithm for the membership problem for regular expressions with numerical constraints and unordered concatenation, when restricted to a subclass called strongly 1-unambiguous.

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.co
Patterns with bounded treewidth

This article was published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science [© Springer-Verlag] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28332-1_40We show that any parameter of patterns that is an upper\ud
bound for the treewidth of appropriate encodings of patterns as relational\ud
structures, if restricted to a constant, allows the membership problem\ud
for pattern languages to be solved in polynomial time. Furthermore, we\ud
identify a new such parameter, called the scope coincidence degree
Automating reconfiguration chain generation for SRL-based run-time reconfiguration

Run-time reconfiguration (RTR) of FPGAs is mainly done using the configuration interface. However, for a certain group of designs, RTR using the shift register functionality of the LUTs is a much faster alternative than conventional RTR using the ICAP. This method requires the creation of reconfiguration chains connecting the run-time reconfigurable LUTs (SRL). In this paper, we develop and evaluate a method to generate these reconfiguration chains in an automated way so that their influence on the RTR design is minimised and the reconfiguration time is optimised. We do this by solving a constrained multiple travelling salesman problem (mTSP) based on the placement information of the run-time reconfigurable LUTs. An algorithm based on simulated annealing was developed to solve this new constrained mTSP. We show that using the proposed method, reconfiguration chains can be added with minimal influence on the clock frequency of the original design
Constructing cluster of simple FPGA boards for cryptologic computations

In this paper, we propose an FPGA cluster infrastructure, which can be utilized in implementing cryptanalytic attacks and accelerating cryptographic operations. The cluster can be formed using simple and inexpensive, off-the-shelf FPGA boards featuring an FPGA device, local storage, CPLD, and network connection. Forming the cluster is simple and no effort for the hardware development is needed except for the hardware design for the actual computation. Using a softcore processor on FPGA, we are able to configure FPGA devices dynamically and change their configuration on the fly from a remote computer. The softcore on FPGA can execute relatively complicated programs for mundane tasks unworthy of FPGA resources. Finally, we propose and implement a fast and efficient dynamic configuration switch technique that is shown to be useful especially in cryptanalytic applications. Our infrastructure provides a cost-effective alternative for formerly proposed cryptanalytic engines based on FPGA devices