Trade-offs in Private Search

Encrypted search -- performing queries on protected data -- is a well researched problem. However, existing solutions have inherent inefficiency that raises questions of practicality. Here, we step back from the goal of achieving maximal privacy guarantees in an encrypted search scenario to consider efficiency as a priority. We propose a privacy framework for search that allows tuning and optimization of the trade-offs between privacy and efficiency. As an instantiation of the privacy framework we introduce a tunable search system based on the SADS scheme and provide detailed measurements demonstrating the trade-offs of the constructed system. We also analyze other existing encrypted search schemes with respect to this framework. We further propose a protocol that addresses the challenge of document content retrieval in a search setting with relaxed privacy requirements

OpenTor: Anonymity as a Commodity Service

Despite the growth of the Internet and the increasing concern for privacy of online communications, current deployments of anonymization networks depends on a very small set of nodes that volunteer their bandwidth. We believe that the main reason is not disbelief in their ability to protect anonymity, but rather the practical limitations in bandwidth and latency that stem from limited participation. This limited participation, in turn, is due to a lack of incentives. We propose providing economic incentives, which historically have worked very well. In this technical report, we demonstrate a payment scheme that can be used to compensate nodes which provide anonymity in Tor, an existing onion routing, anonymizing network. We show that current anonymous payment schemes are not suitable and introduce a hybrid payment system based on a combination of the Peppercoin Micropayment system and a new type of "one use" electronic cash. Our system claims to maintain users' anonymity, although payment techniques mentioned previously --- when adopted individually --- provably fail

The Zodiac Policy Subsystem: A Policy-Based Management System for a High-Security MANET

Zodiac (Zero Outage Dynamic Intrinsically Assurable Communities) is an implementation of a high-security MANET, resistant to multiple types of attacks, including Byzantine faults. The Zodiac architecture poses a set of unique system security, performance, and usability requirements to its policy-based management system (PBMS). In this paper, we identify theses requirements, and present the design and implementation of the Zodiac Policy Subsystem (ZPS), which allows administrators to securely specify, distribute and evaluate network control and system security policies to customize ZODIAC behaviors. ZPS uses the Keynote language for specifying all authorization policies. We also present a simple extension of the Keynote language to support obligation policies

Secure Anonymous Database Search

There exist many large collections of private data that must be protected on behalf of the entities that hold them or the clients they serve. However, there are also often many legitimate reasons for sharing that data in a controlled manner. How can two parties decide to share data without prior knowledge of what data they have? For example, two intelligence agencies might be willing to cooperate by sharing documents about a specific case, and need a way of determining which documents might be of interest to each other. We introduce and address the problem of allowing such entities to search each other's data securely and anonymously. We aim to protect the content of the queries, as well as the content of documents unrelated to those queries, while concealing the identity of the participants. Although there exist systems for solving similar problems, to our knowledge we are the first to address this specific need and also the first to present a secure anonymous search system that is practical for real-time querying. In order to achieve this in an efficient manner, we make use of Bloom filters [5], definitions of security for deterministic encryption [22] that we adapt and instantiate in the private key setting and of a novel encryption primitive, reroutable encryption

E-JUSTICE SYSTEM IN BULGARIA: ELECTRONIC TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF E-JUSTICE

E-pārvalde ir Bulgārijas valdības politikas prioritāte. Tā ir minēta kā izeja no ekonomiskās krīzes, lai mazinātu korupciju un administratīvās izmaksas, kā arī palielinātu varas caurskatāmību. Tiesu sistēmas reforma ir neapšaubāmi saistīta ar vienu no galvenajiem e-pārvaldes jēdzieniem – e-tiesiskuma ieviešanu. Ļaujot pilsoņiem aizstāvēt savas procesuālās tiesības elektroniski, tiek sperts solis uz priekšu moderna valsts pārvaldes aparāta un pilsoniskās sabiedrības attīstībā. Citu ES dalībvalstu prakse e-tiesiskuma jomā ietver informācijas un komunikācijas tehnoloģiju ieviešanu tiesvedībā un tiesu administrācijā, kā arī tiesiskās informācijas un tiesisko dokumentu elektronisku pieejamību

RUST: A Retargetable Usability Testbed for Website Authentication Technologies

Website authentication technologies attempt to make the identity of a website clear to the user, by supplying information about the identity of the website. In practice however, usability issues can prevent users from correctly identifying the websites they are interacting with. To help identify usability issues we present RUST, a Retargetable USability Testbed for website authentication technologies. RUST is a testbed that consists of a test harness, which provides the ability to easily configure the environment for running usability study sessions, and a usability study design that evaluates usability based on spoofability, learnability, and acceptability. We present data collected by RUST and discuss preliminary results for two authentication technologies, Microsoft CardSpace and Verisign Secure Letterhead. Based on the data collected, we conclude that the testbed is useful for gathering data on a variety of technologies

Bestact – Software for Visualization of Digitalized Family Registers and Civil Status Acts

The introduction of new IT in public administration is a prerequisite for improving its efficiency and improving the administrative services. According to the legal requirements registers of civil status acts are formed for each municipality, stored in the territorial units Directorate "General Civil Registration and Administrative Services" for 130 years, then transferred to the State Archives. The oldest family registers are from the 1893 and their physical state in most municipalities is very bad. The logical outcome of the situation is the digitalization of these records. The software BestAct, developed by the author is planned, designed and developed to automate the handling of old family registers and civil status acts. Visualization of digitalized family registers and civil status has the ability to search by criteria. Keywords: IT, digitalization, registers and civil status acts, softwar

Usable Secure Private Search

Real-world applications commonly require untrusting parties to share sensitive information securely. This article describes a secure anonymous database search (SADS) system that provides exact keyword match capability. Using a new reroutable encryption and the ideas of Bloom filters and deterministic encryption, SADS lets multiple parties efficiently execute exact-match queries over distributed encrypted databases in a controlled manner. This article further considers a more general search setting allowing similarity searches, going beyond existing work that considers similarity in terms of error tolerance and Hamming distance. This article presents a general framework, built on the cryptographic and privacy-preserving guarantees of the SADS primitive, for engineering usable private secure search systems

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN POTENTIAL IN KAZAKHSTAN’S INNOVATION ECONOMY

In this paper, statistical analysis of indicators of innovative growth in the Republic of Kazakhstan was conducted. The indicators were compared to those of technologically advanced countries, in particular to such indices as: the share of innovation-active enterprises, domestic spending on research and development (Percentage to GDP), total researchers equivalent per thousand total employments, and amount of research conducted. As the results of the academic research, key factors that have a major influence on innovative activity of the SME were determined. Purpose – disclose the nature and content of the human factor of the economy in terms of becoming an innovative society, to examine the role of the human factor in the innovative development of the state. Methodology - Research was composed to measure variation in the economic development and innovation in Kazakhstan required in times of increasing global competition. Conclusions - Today, the State is significantly lagging behind other developed countries according to innovation driven indices. The Republic of Kazakhstan can be competitive by shifting to a new model of economic growth and by rapidly reducing lag. The State requires an effective strategy of innovative development, which consists primarily in the development of human potential and employment of citizens. Integration of education, science and industry, the development of education on the basis of modern science and technology have become today one of the priority directions of economic development

PROACTIVE PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION ABOUT JUDICIAL CASES AND ACTS OF THE COURT OF JUSTICE

The integration of IT and Internet technologies in the work of the judiciary institutions has become a major factor in the changes in the administration of justice. On the one hand, technology has become accessible to law enforcement agencies and has become an effective means of carrying out their work and managing document flow. On the other hand, ICTs have been made accessible to citizens and users of the justice system and to electronic reporting provided by the judicial authorities and other online services. The potential of technology is to provide more and more new or improved services in the field of justice, as well as the ability of citizens to actively use them.The publication of court documents and the provision of data on court cases electronically via the Internet affects a wide range of public relations and rights enshrined in national and international regulations.One of the main elements of the legislation on the access to information is the principle that public institutions must follow a policy aimed at publishing information of general interest without filing an application, i.e. Proactive publishing policy