Personal data is highly vulnerable to security exploits, spurring moves to lock it down through encryption, to cryptographically ‘cloud’ it. But personal data is also highly valuable to corporations and states, triggering moves to unlock its insights by relocating it in the cloud. We characterise this twinned condition as ‘clouded data’. Clouded data constructs a political and technological notion of privacy that operates through the intersection of corporate power, computational resources and the ability to obfuscate, (...) gain insights from and valorise a dependency between public and private. First, we survey prominent clouded data approaches, suggesting their particular affordances produce distinctive versions of privacy. Next, we perform two notional code-based experiments using synthetic datasets. In the field of health, we submit a patient’s blood pressure to a notional cloud-based diagnostics service; in education, we construct a student survey that enables aggregate reporting without individual identification. We argue that these technical affordances legitimate new political claims to capture and commodify personal data. The final section broadens the discussion to consider the political force of clouded data and its reconstitution of traditional notions such as the public and the private. (shrink)

BackgroundIncreasingly, hospitals and research institutes are developing technical solutions for sharing patient data in a privacy preserving manner. Two of these technical solutions are homomorphic encryption and distributed ledger technology. Homomorphic encryption allows computations to be performed on data without this data ever being decrypted. Therefore, homomorphic encryption represents a potential solution for conducting feasibility studies on cohorts of sensitive patient data stored in distributed locations. Distributed ledger technology provides a permanent record on (...) all transfers and processing of patient data, allowing data custodians to audit access. A significant portion of the current literature has examined how these technologies might comply with data protection and research ethics frameworks. In the Swiss context, these instruments include the Federal Act on Data Protection and the Human Research Act. There are also institutional frameworks that govern the processing of health related and genetic data at different universities and hospitals. Given Switzerland’s geographical proximity to European Union (EU) member states, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may impose additional obligations.MethodsTo conduct this assessment, we carried out a series of qualitative interviews with key stakeholders at Swiss hospitals and research institutions. These included legal and clinical data management staff, as well as clinical and research ethics experts. These interviews were carried out with two series of vignettes that focused on data discovery using homomorphic encryption and data erasure from a distributed ledger platform.ResultsFor our first set of vignettes, interviewees were prepared to allow data discovery requests if patients had provided general consent or ethics committee approval, depending on the types of data made available. Our interviewees highlighted the importance of protecting against the risk of reidentification given different types of data. For our second set, there was disagreement amongst interviewees on whether they would delete patient data locally, or delete data linked to a ledger with cryptographic hashes. Our interviewees were also willing to delete data locally or on the ledger, subject to local legislation.ConclusionOur findings can help guide the deployment of these technologies, as well as determine ethics and legal requirements for such technologies. (shrink)

With the development of mobile communication technology, location-based services are booming prosperously. Meanwhile privacy protection has become the main obstacle for the further development of LBS. The k-nearest neighbor search is one of the most common types of LBS. In this paper, we propose an efficient private circular query protocol with high accuracy rate and low computation and communication cost. We adopt the Moore curve to convert two-dimensional spatial data into one-dimensional sequence and encrypt the points of interest information (...) with the Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan homomorphic encryption scheme for privacy-preserving. The proposed scheme performs the secret circular shift of the encrypted POIs information to hide the location of the user without a trusted third party. To reduce the computation and communication cost, we dynamically divide the table of the POIs information according to the value of k. Experiments show that the proposed scheme provides high accuracy query results while maintaining low computation and communication cost. (shrink)

There is a tendency in decision‐making research to treat uncertainty only as a problem to be overcome. But it is also a feature that can be leveraged, particularly in social interaction. Comparing the behavior of profitable and unprofitable poker players, we reveal a strategic use of information processing that keeps decision makers unpredictable. To win at poker, a player must exploit public signals from others. But using public inputs makes it easier for an observer to reconstruct that player's strategy and (...) predict his or her behavior. How should players trade off between exploiting profitable opportunities and remaining unexploitable themselves? Using a recent multivariate approach to information theoretic data analysis and 1.75 million hands of online two‐player No‐Limit Texas Hold'em, we find that the important difference between winning and losing players is not in the amount of information they process, but how they process it. In particular, winning players are better at integrative information processing—creating new information from the interaction between their cards and their opponents’ signals. We argue that integrative information processing does not just produce better decisions, it makes decision‐making harder for others to reverse engineer, as an expert poker player's cards act like the private key in public‐key cryptography. Poker players encrypt their reasoning with the way they process information. The encryption function of integrative information processing makes it possible for players to exploit others while remaining unexploitable. By recognizing the act of information processing as a strategic behavior in its own right, we offer a detailed account of how experts use endemic uncertainty to conceal their intentions in high‐stakes competitive environments, and we highlight new opportunities between cognitive science, information theory, and game theory. (shrink)

The Snowden revelations in 2013 redrew the lines of debate surrounding surveillance, exposing the extent of state surveillance across multiple nations and triggering legislative reform in many. In the UK, this was in the form of the Investigatory Powers Act. As a contribution to understanding resistance to expanding state surveillance activities, this article reveals the intertwining of diverse interests and voices which speak in opposition to UK state surveillance. Through a computational topic modelling-based mixed methods analysis of the submissions made (...) to the draft Investigatory Powers Bill consultation, the article demonstrates the diversity and intersection of discourses within different actor groups, including civil society and the technology industry. We demonstrate that encryption is a key issue for these groups, and is additionally conflated with a human rights discourse. This serves to unite seemingly disparate interests by imbuing encryption with a responsibility for the protection of human rights, but also threatens to legitimate corporate interests and distract from their own data-driven activities of surveillance capitalism. (shrink)

With the increasing volume of data transmission through insecure communication channels, big data security has become one of the important concerns in the cybersecurity domain. To address these concerns and keep data safe, a robust privacy-preserving cryptosystem is necessary. Such a solution relies on chaos encryption algorithms over standard cryptographic methods that possess multistage encryption levels, including high speed, high security, low compute overheads, and procedural power, among other characteristics. In this work, a secure image (...) encryption scheme is proposed using linear feedback shift register and chaos-based quantum chaotic map. The focus of the scheme is mainly dependent on the secret keys from the input of the algorithm. The threat landscape, the statistical test analysis, along critical comparisons with other schemes indicate that the presented algorithm is significantly secure and is resistant to a wide range of different attacks such as differential and statistical attacks. The proposed method has sufficiently higher sensitivity and security when compared to existing encryption algorithms. Several security parameters validated the security of proposed work such as correlation coefficient analyses among the neighboring pixels, entropy, the number of pixels change rate, unified average change intensity, mean square error, brute force, key sensitivity, and peak signal to noise ratio analyses. The randomness of the ciphers produced by the proposed technique is also passed through NIST-800-22. The results of NIST indicate that the ciphers are highly random and do not produce any type of periodicity or pattern. (shrink)

Image data play important role in various real-time online and offline applications. Biomedical field has adopted the imaging system to detect, diagnose, and prevent several types of diseases and abnormalities. The biomedical imaging data contain huge information which requires huge storage space. Moreover, currently telemedicine and IoT based remote health monitoring systems are widely developed where data is transmitted from one place to another. Transmission of this type of huge data consumes more bandwidth. Along with this, (...) during this transmission, the attackers can attack the communication channel and obtain the important and secret information. Hence, biomedical image compression and encryption are considered the solution to deal with these issues. Several techniques have been presented but achieving desired performance for combined module is a challenging task. Hence, in this work, a novel combined approach for image compression and encryption is developed. First, image compression scheme using wavelet transform is presented and later a cryptography scheme is presented using confusion and diffusion schemes. The outcome of the proposed approach is compared with various existing techniques. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed approach achieves better performance in terms of autocorrelation, histogram, information entropy, PSNR, MSE, and SSIM. (shrink)

The Snowden leaks, first published in June 2013, provided unprecedented insights into the operations of state-corporate surveillance, highlighting the extent to which everyday communication is integrated into an extensive regime of control that relies on the ‘datafication’ of social life. Whilst such data-driven forms of governance have significant implications for citizenship and society, resistance to surveillance in the wake of the Snowden leaks has predominantly centred on techno-legal responses relating to the development and use of encryption and policy (...) advocacy around privacy and data protection. Based on in-depth interviews with a range of social justice activists, we argue that there is a significant level of ambiguity around this kind of anti-surveillance resistance in relation to broader activist practices, and critical responses to the Snowden leaks have been confined within particular expert communities. Introducing the notion of ‘data justice’, we therefore go on to make the case that resistance to surveillance needs to be conceptualized on terms that can address the implications of this data-driven form of governance in relation to broader social justice agendas. Such an approach is needed, we suggest, in light of a shift to surveillance capitalism in which the collection, use and analysis of our data increasingly comes to shape the opportunities and possibilities available to us and the kind of society we live in. (shrink)

This paper addresses the always online behavior of the data owner in proxy re- encryption schemes for re-encryption keys issuing. We extend and adapt multi-authority ciphertext policy attribute based encryption techniques to type-based proxy re-encryption to build our solution. As a result, user authentication and user authorization are moved to the cloud server which does not require further interaction with the data owner, data owner and data users identities are hidden from the (...) cloud server, and re-encryption keys are only issued to legitimate users. An in depth analysis shows that our scheme is secure, flexible and efficient for mobile cloud computing. (shrink)

As we move our social institutions from paper and ink based operations to the electronic medium, we invisibly create a type of surveillance society, a panopticon society. It is not the traditional surveillance society in which government officials follow citizens around because they are concerned about threats to the political order. Instead it is piecemeal surveillance by public and private organizations. Piecemeal though it is, It creates the potential for the old kind of surveillance on an even grander scale. The (...) panopticon is the prison environment described by Foucault in which prison cells are arranged in a large circle with the side facing the inside of the circle open to view. The guard tower is placed in the middle of the circle so that guards can see everything that goes on in every cell. When we contemplate all the electronic data that is now gathered about each of us as we move through our everyday lives --- intelligent highway systems, consumer transactions, traffic patterns on the internet, medical records, financial records, and so on --- there seems little doubt that we are moving into a panopticon. The social issues that arise from this are too numerous to detail here, but data retention is an important part of it. In the paper-and-ink world, documents are filed, files are boxed, boxes are put away or thrown away. The capacity for data retrieval and manipulation is, thereby, limited by the sheer difficulty and cost of storing, finding, searching, and manipulating large numbers of paper files. This inconvenience functions as a mechanism whereby the system forgets past information, not unlike the way we ourselves forget. However, the story is very different in the digital world; digital information is easy to store, easy to search and manipulate, and inexpensive to keep over extensive periods of time. Digitalized information systems tend, therefore, to collect extensive ancillary information and to retain this information indefinitely. Such lack of forgetfulness is likely to hamper the ability of individuals to shed their past, and start over with a clean slate. Concerns about data retention were expressed in the early literature on the social impact of computing, but for the most part the issue has dropped from sight. Rarely, has the social good of discarding accumulated personal data been addressed. In this paper, we want to make the case by examining diverse cases in which retention of information by either business or governmental institutions hinders the ability of individuals to start over or to act autonomously. We hope our argument for the good of forgetfulness will challenge the standard framework in which such issues have traditionally been debated. The privacy debate exemplifies the traditional framework insofar as it has been characterized as involving an inherent tension between, on the one hand, the needs of organizations and institutions for more accurate and efficient information systems so as to further their goals and, on the other hand, the desire of individuals to have information about them kept private. Regan argues against this framing of the privacy issue in favor of one that recognizes the social importance of personal privacy. We will examine the non-forgetfulness of information systems as a problem threatening not just individual interests but social good as well. Cryptography is often cited as the technology that will give us privacy and mediate against surveillance. One of the uses of cryptography, encryption, will allow us, some hope, to create confidentiality and relationships of trust that will facilitate many of the social arrangements we now have and perhaps make them even more secure than they are now. Electronic cash, for example, could be created in such a form that it would have the anonymity associated now with hard cash Others are less optimistic of the potential for cryptography to re-create relationships of trust in the new medium. One important point that already seems clear is that even if encryption technology will protect the confidentiality and integrity of electronic transactions and data, it will NOT stop the observation of traffic patterns on networks. This seems an important distinction to put on the table. Our patterns of communication will continue to be available, no matter what is encrypted, and an amazing amount of information can be gleaned from this data. In a sense, it means content integrity but no anonymity. This will indubitably impact how we interact and with whom we interact. (shrink)

The study of conversational humor has received relatively little empirical attention with almost no examinations of the role of vocal signals in spontaneous humor production. Here we report an analysis of spontaneous humorous speech in a rural Brazilian collective farm. The sample was collected over the course of ethnographic fieldwork in northeastern Brazil, and is drawn specifically from the monthly communal business meetings conducted in Portuguese. Our analyses focused on humorous utterances identified by the subsequent presence of laughter. Acoustic features (...) of these utterances were compared to non-humorous utterances by the same speakers of similar length and immediately preceding them to look for prosodic contrasts. This corpus provided a unique opportunity for examining the way people mark their humorous productions in a non-humorous environment. Contrary to the notion that speakers must mark their production of humor in order to facilitate audience understanding, no significant marking of a joking “frame” was detected across a range of acoustic dimensions. The only consistent difference — that the set-up and punch line segments were louder than baseline speech before it — does not well support a marking hypothesis and more likely reflects speaker adjustments to the acoustic conditions of the meeting hall. We present these data from the perspective of the encryption theory of humor that predicts speakers will not generally mark spontaneous, conversational humor in most contexts. (shrink)

Coordination of a power system with the phasor measurement devices in real time on the load and generation sides is carried out within the context of smart grid studies. Power systems equipped with information systems in a smart grid pace with external security threats. Developing a smart grid which can resist against cyber threats is considered indispensable for the uninterrupted operation. In this study, a two-way secure communication methodology underpinned by a chaos-based encryption algorithm for PMU devices is proposed. (...) The proposed system uses the IEEE-14 busbar system on which the optimum PMU placement has been installed. The proposed hyperchaotic system-based encryption method is applied as a new security methodology among PMU devices. The success of results is evaluated by the completeness of data exchange, durations, the complexity of encryption-decryption processes, and strength of cryptography using a microcomputer-based implementation. The results show that the proposed microcomputer-based encryption algorithms can be directly embedded as encryption hardware units into PMU and PDC devices which have very fast signal processing capabilities taking into considerations the acceptable delay time for power system protection and measuring applications and quality metering applications which is 2 ms and 10 ms, respectively. While proposed algorithms can be used in TCP or UDP over IP-based IEEE C37.118, IEC 61850, and IEC 61850-90-5 communication frameworks, they can also be embedded into electronic cards, smartcards, or smart tokens which are utilized for authentication among smart grid components. (shrink)

The never ending growth of digital information and the availability of low-cost storage facilities and networks capacity is leading users towards moving their data to remote storage resources. Since users’ data often holds identity-related information, several privacy issues arise when data can be stored in untrusted domains. In addition digital identity management is becoming extremely complicated due to the identity replicas proliferation necessary to get authentication in different domains. GMail and Amazon Web Services, for instance, are two (...) examples of online services adopted by million of users throughout the world which hold huge amounts of sensitive users data. State-of-the-art encryption tools for large-scale distributed infrastructures allow users to encrypt content locally before storing it on a remote untrusted repository. This approach can experience performance drawbacks, when very large data-sets must be encrypted/decrypted on a single machine. The proposed approach extends the existing solutions by providing two additional features: (1) the encryption can also be delegated to a pool of remote trusted computing resources, and (2) the definition of the encryption context which drives the tool to select the best strategy to process the data. The performance benchmarks are based on the results of tests carried out both on a local workstation and on the Grid INFN Laboratory for Dissemination Activities (GILDA) testbed. (shrink)

Recent large-scale personal data loss incidents highlighted the need for public bodies to more securely handle confidential data. We surveyed trainees from all specialties in the Welsh Deanery for their knowledge and practice. All registered trainees were invited to participate in an online anonymised survey. There were 880 completed and non-duplicated responses (52.9% response rate). Responses were analysed using Microsoft Access. Over 40% (388/880 (44.1%)) did not use formal guidelines on storage or disposal of confidential data. The (...) majority appeared to dispose of confidential paper documents securely, that is, using shredders and white shredder bags. However, there were significant numbers of unmarked responses. Clinical documents, such as theatre lists, were taken home by 281/880 (31.9%) of trainees. The majority secured their computers (569/871 (65.3%)) by either not keeping patient identifiable data on them or using encryption. However, 302/871 (34.7%) did not adequately secure their computers. The surgical and anaesthetic specialties were least aware of formal confidentiality guidelines (95/178 (53.4%)) and 52/102 (51.0%) respectively) and least secured their computers (106/178 (59.6%) and 63/102 (61.8%) respectively). Education is needed to improve knowledge and practice of confidential data handling. This may be delivered through workshops during induction programmes or as part of European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) modules. Training is especially indicated for the surgical and anaesthetic specialties. (shrink)

This paper provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the key issues of quality management, evaluation, and detection contained in big data for automotive application scenarios. A generalized big data quality management model and programming framework are proposed, and a series of data quality detection and repair interfaces are built to express the processing semantics of various data quality issues. Through this data quality management model and detection and repair interfaces, users can quickly build custom (...) data quality detection and repair tasks for different data quality requirements. To improve the operational efficiency of complex data quality management algorithms in large-scale data scenarios, corresponding parallelization algorithms are studied and implemented for detection and repair algorithms with long computation time, including priority-based multiconditional function-dependent detection and repair algorithms, entity detection, and extraction algorithms based on semantic information and chunking techniques, and plain Bayesian-based missing value filling algorithms, and this paper proposes a data validity evaluation algorithm and enhances the validity of the original data in practical applications by adding temporal weights, and finally it passed the experimental validation. Through the comprehensive detection process of data importance, network busyness, duration of transmission process, and failure situation, the efficiency has been increased by 20%, and an adaptive data integrity detection method based on random algorithm and encryption algorithm is designed. After experimental verification, this method can effectively detect the integrity of the data transmission process and improve the application of data value, and the final effect is increased by 30.5%. (shrink)

IntroductionInformation and communication technologies are becoming an integral part of medical practice, research and administration and their use will grow as telemedicine and electronic medical record use become part of routine practice. Security in maintaining patient data is important and there is a statuary obligation to do so, but few health professionals have been trained on how to achieve this. There is no information on the use of computers and email by doctors and nurses in South Africa in the (...) workplace and at home, and whether their current computer practices meets legal and ethical requirements. The aims of this study were to determine the use of computers by healthcare practitioners in the workplace and home; the use and approach to data storage, encryption and security of patient data and patient email; and the use of informed consent to transmit data by email.MethodsA self-administered questionnaire was administered to 400 health care providers from the state and private health care sectors. The questionnaire covered computer use in the workplace and at home, sharing of computers, data encryption and storage, email use, encryption of emails and storage, and the use of informed consent for email communication.Results193 doctors and 207 nurses in the private and public sectors completed the questionnaire. Forty (10%) of participants do not use a computer. A third of health professionals were the only users of computers at work or at home. One hundred and ninety-eight respondents (55%) did not know if the data on the computers were encrypted, 132 (36.7%) knew that the data were not encrypted and 30 (8.3%) individuals knew that the data on the computers they were using were encrypted. Few doctors, 58 (16%), received emails from patients, with doctors more likely to receive emails from patients than nurses (p = 0.0025). Thirty-one percent of individuals did not respond to the emails. Emails were saved by 40 (69%) recipients but only 5 (12.5%) doctors encrypted the messages, 19 (47.5%) individuals knowingly did not encrypt and 16 (40.0%) did not know if they encrypted the data. While 20% of health professionals have emailed patient data, but only 41.7% gained consent to do so.ConclusionsMost health professionals as sampled in South Africa are not compliant with the National Health Act or the Electronic Communications Transactions Act of South Africa or guidelines from regulatory bodies when managing patient data on computers. Many appear ignorant or lack the ability to comply with simple data security procedures. (shrink)

Written in a relaxed, readable style, A Concise Introduction to Pure Mathematics leads students gently but firmly into the world of higher mathematics. It provides beginning undergraduates with a rigourous grounding in the basic tools and techniques of the discipline and prepares them for further more advanced studies in analysis, differential equations, and algebra. This edition contains additional material on secret codes, permutations, and prime numbers. It features more than 200 exercises, with many completely new. The text is organized into (...) relatively independent chapters, allowing instructors to tailor the book to meet their individual course needs. · Contains extra material concerning prime numbers, forming the basis for data encryption · Explores "Secret Codes" - one of today's most spectacular applications of pure mathematics Discusses Permutations and their importance in many topics in discrete mathematics. (shrink)

Anonymising technologies are cyber-tools that protect people from online surveillance, hiding who they are, what information they have stored and what websites they are looking at. Whether it is anonymising online activity through ‘TOR’ and its onion routing, 256-bit encryption on communications sent or smart phone auto-deletes, the user’s identity and activity is protected from the watchful eyes of the intelligence community. This represents a clear challenge to intelligence actors as it prevents them access to information that many would (...) argue plays a vital part in locating and preventing threats from being realised. Moreover, such technology offers more than ordinary information protections as it erects ‘warrant-proof’ spaces, technological black boxes that no matter what some authority might deem as being legitimately searchable is protected to the extent that there are very limited or non-existent means of forcing oneself in. However, it will be argued here that not only is using such anonymising technology and its extra layer of protection people’s right, but that it is ethically mandatory. That is, due to the en masse surveillance—from both governments and corporations—coupled with people’s limited awareness and ability to comprehend such data collections, anonymising technology should be built into the fabric of cyberspace to provide a minimal set of protections over people’s information, and in doing so force the intelligence community to develop more targeted forms of data collection. (shrink)

Background: Moral philosophical positions and professional values have been shown to influence nurses’ practice behaviours. Understanding nursing students’ professional values and ethical ideologies, therefore, is important as they may help inform evidence-informed curriculum decisions and education strategies to develop students’ professional reflective competencies. However, there is a dearth in current empirical data on Canadian nursing students’ perceptions of professional values and ethical positions. Objectives: This study’s purpose was to examine undergraduate nursing student’s perceptions of professional values and ethical ideology (...) and explore relationships in data and selected participant demographic variables. Research design, participants and context: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was conducted with a convenience sample of undergraduate nursing students recruited from a university in Canada. An online encrypted survey consisting of two validated instruments was administered to participants who met study eligibility criteria. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyse the data and classify nursing students’ ethical ideologies into four categories based on mean scores for idealism and relativism. Ethical considerations: This study received ethical approval from the institutional Behavioural Research Ethics Board and was executed in-line with ethical principles for research involving humans. Findings: Nursing students scored high on professional values and ethical idealism and differed significantly on a measure of ethical relativism in terms of age and year of study. Professional values were significantly associated with ethical idealism. Based on mean scores for idealism and relativism, most nursing students in the study were classified as situationists. Discussion and conclusion: Findings suggest that faculty pay attention to influences of moral philosophical positions in facilitating nursing students’ professional values development. Implications for future research and curriculum are highlighted to strengthen nursing students’ professional values. (shrink)

The multifunctional zinc‐finger protein CCCTC‐binding factor (CTCF) is a very strong candidate for the role of coordinating the expression level of coding sequences with their three‐dimensional position in the nucleus, apparently responding to a “code” in the DNA itself. Dynamic interactions between chromatin fibers in the context of nuclear architecture have been implicated in various aspects of genome functions. However, the molecular basis of these interactions still remains elusive and is a subject of intense debate. Here we discuss the nature (...) of CTCF‐DNA interactions, the CTCF‐binding specificity to its binding sites and the relationship between CTCF and chromatin, and we examine data linking CTCF with gene regulation in the three‐dimensional nuclear space. We discuss why these features render CTCF a very strong candidate for the role and propose a unifying model, the “CTCF code,” explaining the mechanistic basis of how the information encrypted in DNA may be interpreted by CTCF into diverse nuclear functions. (shrink)

WikiLeaks is among the most controversial institutions of the last decade, and this essay contributes to an understanding of WikiLeaks by revealing the philosophical paradigm at the foundation of Julian Assange’s worldview: cypherpunk ethics. The cypherpunk movement emerged in the early-1990s, advocating the widespread use of strong cryptography as the best means for defending individual privacy and resisting authoritarian governments in the digital age. For the cypherpunks, censorship and surveillance were the twin evils of the computer age, but they viewed (...) encryption as a means to circumvent both. As a cypherpunk, Assange advocates for the use of cryptography in the fight for individual privacy as well as the fight for global justice. His cosmopolitan disposition is informed by his hacker background, antiwar principles, and Enlightenment outlook. This essay places Assange’s philosophical idea in historical context, exploring his views on censorship, surveillance, and the right to communicate. It also connects his cypherpunk principles to WikiLeaks, showing that the strategy of encouraging data leaks from powerful political and economic organizations is classic cypherpunk political praxis. (shrink)

Using mathematical tools from number theory and finite fields, Applied Algebra: Codes, Ciphers, and Discrete Algorithms, Second Edition presents practical methods for solving problems in data security and data integrity. It is designed for an applied algebra course for students who have had prior classes in abstract or linear algebra. While the content has been reworked and improved, this edition continues to cover many algorithms that arise in cryptography and error-control codes. New to the Second Edition A CD-ROM (...) containing an interactive version of the book that is powered by Scientific Notebook®, a mathematical word processor and easy-to-use computer algebra system New appendix that reviews prerequisite topics in algebra and number theory Double the number of exercises Instead of a general study on finite groups, the book considers finite groups of permutations and develops just enough of the theory of finite fields to facilitate construction of the fields used for error-control codes and the Advanced Encryption Standard. It also deals with integers and polynomials. Explaining the mathematics as needed, this text thoroughly explores how mathematical techniques can be used to solve practical problems. About the Authors Darel W. Hardy is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at Colorado State University. His research interests include applied algebra and semigroups. Fred Richman is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Atlantic University. His research interests include Abelian group theory and constructive mathematics. Carol L. Walker is Associate Dean Emeritus in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at New Mexico State University. Her research interests include Abelian group theory, applications of homological algebra and category theory, and the mathematics of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. (shrink)

The impact of Online Social Networks on human lives is foreseen to be very large with unprecedented amount of data and users. OSN users share their ideas, photos, daily life events, feelings and news. Since OSNs’ security and privacy challenges are more potential than ever before, it is necessary to enhance the protection and filtering approaches of OSNs contents. This paper explores OSNs’ threats and challenges, and categorize them into: account-based, URL-based and content-based threats. In addition, we analyze the (...) existing protection methods and highlight their limitations and weaknesses. Based on that, we propose a comprehensive, user-level, proactive and real-time OSNs’ protection system, called Hybrid Real-time Social Networks Protector. HRSP has three components; a user-level security protocol and two classification models. The protocol defines a structure for OSN’s cryptographic services, including encryption, access control and users’ authentication. The classification models employ machine learning, black lists, white lists and users’ feedback, in order to classify URLs into: Benign, Risk and Inappropriate classes, and contents into: Benign, Hate speech and Inappropriate classes. We constructed two data sets of 150,000 URLs and 22,000 tweets to build and test the two classification models. Results show an overall accuracy of 93.2% for the URL model and 84.4% for the content model, while the protocol implementation produces compatible size and time overhead. The components of HRSP are integrated and have compatible design with OSN platforms. (shrink)

The Mexico-U.S. border is a space considered `smart´ due to the amount of surveillance technology used for national security purposes. The technological ecology consists of integrated fixed towers, remote video surveillance systems, mobile video surveillance systems, Predator B surveillance drones, mobile X-ray units, automated license plate readers, cell phone tracking towers, implanted motion sensors, biometric data collection, and DNA sampling (Aizeki et al. Citation2021). Whilst these instruments are usually linked to irregular border crossers, transborder commuters, who physically cross the (...) border every day, also experience the same surveillance regime. This paper discusses the technological ‘self-defense’ protocol I developed in 2019 when conducting transborder research for my doctoral thesis, which required intense border crossings across Mexico and the U.S. During the ten months of fieldwork, U.S. CBP had the capacity to search my personal device and belongings without a warrant, raising ethical concerns about data protection. As a result, the protocol developed to protect data and participants considered the ‘smart’ border as part of the methods designed that included encrypting information. In hyper-surveilled spaces, data protection represents a challenge for border researchers and the people involved in such a project. (shrink)

Smart grids are designed to revolutionize the energy sector by creating a smarter, more efficient and reliable power supply network. The rise of smart grids is a response to the need for a more comprehensive and sophisticated energy system that caters to the needs of homes and businesses. Key features of smart grids include the integration of renewable energy sources, decentralized generation and advanced distribution networks. At the heart of smart grids is a sophisticated metering system, consisting of intelligent electronic (...) devices that measure energy consumption and enable two-way communication between the utility company and the consumer. The information exchanged via these devices is critical, as it includes sensitive data such as energy consumption patterns and billing information. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, the security of this information is of utmost importance. This paper delves into the security challenges faced by advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and highlights the crucial role played by cryptography in ensuring the secure exchange of sensitive information. Cryptographic protocols such as encryption, authentication and digital signatures are essential components of a secure smart grid infrastructure. These protocols work together to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the information exchanged between the utility company and the consumer. (shrink)

As the world keeps advancing, the need for automated interconnected devices has started to gain significance; to cater to the condition, a new concept Internet of Things has been introduced that revolves around smart devicesʼ conception. These smart devices using IoT can communicate with each other through a network to attain particular objectives, i.e., automation and intelligent decision making. IoT has enabled the users to divide their household burden with machines as these complex machines look after the environment variables and (...) control their behavior accordingly. As evident, these machines use sensors to collect vital information, which is then the complexity analyzed at a computational node that then smartly controls these devicesʼ operational behaviors. Deep learning-based guessing attack protection algorithms have been enhancing IoT security; however, it still has a critical challenge for the complex industries’ IoT networks. One of the crucial aspects of such systems is the need to have a significant training time for processing a large dataset from the networkʼs previous flow of data. Traditional deep learning approaches include decision trees, logistic regression, and support vector machines. However, it is essential to note that this convenience comes with a price that involves security vulnerabilities as IoT networks are prone to be interfered with by hackers who can access the sensor/communication data and later utilize it for malicious purposes. This paper presents the experimental study of cryptographic algorithms to classify the types of encryption algorithms into the asymmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithm. It presents a deep analysis of AES, DES, 3DES, RSA, and Blowfish based on timing complexity, size, encryption, and decryption performances. It has been assessed in terms of the guessing attack in real-time deep learning complex IoT applications. The assessment has been done using the simulation approach and it has been tested the speed of encryption and decryption of the selected encryption algorithms. For each encryption and decryption, the tests executed the same encryption using the same plaintext for five separate times, and the average time is compared. The key size used for each encryption algorithm is the maximum bytes the cipher can allow. To the comparison, the average time required to compute the algorithm by the three devices is used. For the experimental test, a set of plaintexts is used in the simulation—password-sized text and paragraph-sized text—that achieves target fair results compared to the existing algorithms in real-time deep learning networks for IoT applications. (shrink)

Watermarking is one of the most common techniques used to protect data’s authenticity, integrity, and security. The obfuscation in the frequency domain used in the watermarking method makes the watermarking stronger than the obfuscation in the spatial domain. It occupies an important place in watermarking works in imperceptibility, capacity, and robustness. Finding the optimal location to hide the watermarking is one of the most challenging tasks in these methods and affects the method’s performance. In this article, sample identification information (...) is processed with the method of watermaking on the hiding environment created by using a chaos-based random number generator on biomedical data to provide solutions to problems such as visual attack, identity theft, and information confusion. In order to obtain biomedical data, a lensless digital in-line holographic microscopy setup was designed, and holographic data of human blood and cancer cell lines, which are widely used in the laboratory environment, were obtained. The standard USAF 1951 target was used to evaluate the resolution of our imaging setup. Various QR codes were generated for medical sample identification, and the captured medical data were processed by watermarking it with chaos-based random number generators. A new method using chaos-based discrete wavelet transform and singular value decomposition has been developed and applied to high-resolution data to eliminate the problem of encrypted data being directly targeted by third-party attacks. The performance of the proposed new watermarking method has been demonstrated by various robustness and invisibility tests. Experimental results showed that the proposed scheme reached an average PSNR value of 564588 dB and SSIM value of 0.9972 against several geometric and destructive attacks, which means that the proposed method does not affect the image quality and also ensures the security of the watermarking information. The results of the proposed method have shown that it can be used efficiently in various fields. (shrink)

This paper examines one particular problem of values in cloud computing: how individuals can take advantage of the cloud to store data without compromising their privacy and autonomy. Through the creation of Lockbox, an encrypted cloud storage application, we explore how designers can use reflection in designing for human values to maintain both privacy and usability in the cloud.

Advancements in digital technology have made it easy to alter faces using editing software, posing challenges for industries in verifying photograph authenticity. Digital image forensics, a scientific method, is employed to gather data and determine the veracity of faces. This study assesses the effectiveness of digital image forensics in detecting fake digital faces using tools such as Foto Forensics, Forensically Beta, and Opanda IExif. Foto Forensics analyzes JPEG picture compression levels to detect image edits, revealing metadata differences compared to (...) the original photo. Forensically Beta examines digital characteristics like color and noise levels to identify alterations. Opanda IExif scrutinizes image metadata, disclosing information about the camera used and subsequent changes. All three forensic methods effectively identify fake digital faces. Analyzing metadata differences and contrast variations between the original and altered faces proves to be an effective method for spotting alterations. Digital image forensics enhances legal and investigative processes, serving as a valuable tool for identifying digital face manipulation. Stronger digital security measures, including improved encryption, authentication, and legal regulations, are needed to protect against facial photograph manipulation. Updating legal and regulatory frameworks for digital security is vital to address increasingly sophisticated techniques used in facial photograph editing. As digital technology advances, continuous development and improvement of forensic techniques are crucial to detect digital face fabrication. Given the growing complexity of digital editing tools and the ease with which facial images can be altered, reliable methods are essential. Digital image forensics provides a systematic approach to gather data and verify the authenticity of digital photographs. (shrink)

Knowledge-making practices in biology are being strongly affected by the availability of data on an unprecedented scale, the insistence on systemic approaches and growing reliance on bioinformatics and digital infrastructures. What role does theory play within data-intensive science, and what does that tell us about scientific theories in general? To answer these questions, I focus on Open Biomedical Ontologies, digital classification tools that have become crucial to sharing results across research contexts in the biological and biomedical sciences, and (...) argue that they constitute an example of classificatory theory. This form of theorizing emerges from classification practices in conjunction with experimental know-how and expresses the knowledge underpinning the analysis and interpretation of data disseminated online. (shrink)

Cognitive states as well as cognitive commodities play central though distinct roles in our epistemological theories. By being attentive to how a difference in their roles affects our way of referring to them, we can undoubtedly accrue our understanding of the structure and functioning of our main epistemological theories. In this paper we propose an analysis of the dichotomy between states and commodities in terms of the method of abstraction, and more specifically by means of infomorphisms between different ways to (...) classify states of information, information-bases, and evidential situations. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide a brief overview of the ethical challenges facing researchers engaging with web archival materials and demonstrates a framework and method for conducting research with historical web data created by young people.,This paper’s methodology is informed by the conceptual framing of data materials in research on the “right to be forgotten” (Crossen-White, 2015; GDPR, 2018; Tsesis, 2014), data afterlives (Agostinho, 2019; Stevenson and Gehl, 2019; Sutherland, 2017), indigenous data sovereignty and governance (Wemigwans, (...) 2018) and feminist ethics of care (Cifor et al., 2019; Cowan, 2020; Franzke et al., 2020; Luka and Millette, 2018). It demonstrates a new method called an archive promenade, which builds on the walkthrough and scroll-back methods (Light et al., 2018; Robards and Lincoln, 2017).,The archive promenades demonstrate how individual attachments to digital traces vary and are often unpredictable, which necessitates further steps to ensure that privacy and data sovereignty are maintained through research with web archives.,This paper demonstrates how the archive promenade methodological intervention can lead to better practices of care with sensitive web materials and brings together previous work on ethical fabrications (Markham, 2012), speculation (Luka and Millette, 2018) and thick context (Marzullo et al., 2018), to yield new insights for research on the experiences of growing up online. (shrink)

A key ethical issue arising in data linkage research relates to consent requirements. Patients’ consent preferences in the context of health research have been explored but their consent preferences regarding data linkage specifically have been under-explored. In addition, the views on data linkage are often those of patient groups. As a result, little is known about lay people’s views and their preferences about consent requirements in the context of data linkage. This study explores lay people’s views (...) and justifications regarding the acceptability of conducting data linkage research without obtaining consent. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is an urgent need for more empirical research into everyday experiences of living with datafication, something that has not been prioritised in the emerging field of data studies to date. As a result of this absence, the knowledge produced within data studies is not as aligned to the aims of data activism as it might be. Data activism seeks to challenge existing, unequal data power relations and to mobilise (...) data in order to enhance social justice, yet data studies has focused primarily on identifying the former and not on imagining the latter. To build a picture of what more just conditions of datafication might look like, I argue that it is important to take account of everyday experiences of datafication, of what people themselves say would enable them to live better with data and would constitute more just data arrangements, based on their experiences. I explore two possible approaches to this endeavour, both of which suggest the need for a vocabulary of emotions in researching everyday living with data. (shrink)

This essay details the resurgence of wellness program as employed by large corporations with the aim of reducing healthcare costs. The essay narrows in on a discussion of how Big Data collection practices are being utilized in wellness programs and the potential negative impact on the worker in regards to privacy and employment discrimination. The essay offers an ethical framework to be adopted by wellness program vendors in order to conduct wellness programs that would achieve cost-saving goals without undue (...) burdens on the worker. The essay also offers some innovative approaches to wellness that may well better serve the goals of healthcare cost reduction. (shrink)

Using a data set of 30 authentic institutional emails written by Chinese college students to their native English teacher, this article investigates the frequency and combinations of apology strategies used by English as a Foreign Language learners in natural contexts. Drawing on the coding framework adapted from previous studies, this article carries out a fine-grained analysis of apology behaviors of Chinese EFL learners when they offended their teacher for various reasons. Results revealed that the most frequently used strategy was (...) illustrative force indicating devices, and “IFIDs + taking on responsibility” ranked the most frequent combination. Among IFID sub-strategies, an expression of regret had the highest frequency. In addition, a new strategy—request for a chance to repair—was identified, which was used by Chinese learners to show their respectful and pious attitude when a more serious offense was made to their teacher. Findings from the study indicate that Chinese EFL learners tend to use culture-specific apology strategies in academic contexts. This study has pedagogical implications for EFL pragmatics instruction in Chinese contexts and also second language pragmatics instruction tailored for native Chinese learners in English-speaking countries. (shrink)

Recent anthropological analyses of Chinese attitudes towards privacy fail to pay adequate attention to more ordinary, but more widely shared ideas of privacy – ideas that, moreover, have changed dramatically since the 1980s as China has become more and more open to Western countries, cultures, and their network and computing technologies. I begin by reviewing these changes, in part to show how contemporary notions of privacy in China constitute a dialectical synthesis of both traditional Chinese emphases on the importance of (...) the family and the state and more Western emphases on individual rights, including the right to privacy. This same synthesis can be seen in contemporary Chinese law and scholarship regarding privacy. A review of recent work in philosophical ethics demonstrates that information ethics in China is in its very early stages. In this work, privacy is justified as an instrumental good, rather than an intrinsic good. I argue by way of conclusion that privacy protections will continue to expand in China, in part under the pressures of globalization, increasing trade with and exposure to Western societies, and the increasing demands for Western-style individual privacy by young people. Even so, I argue that these emerging conceptions of privacy will remain distinctively Chinese – i.e., they will retain a basic consistency with traditional Chinese values and approaches. (shrink)