FLAIM: A Multi-level Anonymization Framework for Computer and Network Logs

FLAIM (Framework for Log Anonymization and Information Management) addresses two important needs not well addressed by current log anonymizers. First, it is extremely modular and not tied to the specific log being anonymized. Second, it supports multi-level anonymization, allowing system administrators to make fine-grained trade-offs between information loss and privacy/security concerns. In this paper, we examine anonymization solutions to date and note the above limitations in each. We further describe how FLAIM addresses these problems, and we describe FLAIM's architecture and features in detail.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, in submission to USENIX Lis

Assessing Data Usefulness for Failure Analysis in Anonymized System Logs

System logs are a valuable source of information for the analysis and understanding of systems behavior for the purpose of improving their performance. Such logs contain various types of information, including sensitive information. Information deemed sensitive can either directly be extracted from system log entries by correlation of several log entries, or can be inferred from the combination of the (non-sensitive) information contained within system logs with other logs and/or additional datasets. The analysis of system logs containing sensitive information compromises data privacy. Therefore, various anonymization techniques, such as generalization and suppression have been employed, over the years, by data and computing centers to protect the privacy of their users, their data, and the system as a whole. Privacy-preserving data resulting from anonymization via generalization and suppression may lead to significantly decreased data usefulness, thus, hindering the intended analysis for understanding the system behavior. Maintaining a balance between data usefulness and privacy preservation, therefore, remains an open and important challenge. Irreversible encoding of system logs using collision-resistant hashing algorithms, such as SHAKE-128, is a novel approach previously introduced by the authors to mitigate data privacy concerns. The present work describes a study of the applicability of the encoding approach from earlier work on the system logs of a production high performance computing system. Moreover, a metric is introduced to assess the data usefulness of the anonymized system logs to detect and identify the failures encountered in the system.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, submitted to 17th IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computin

Exploratory study to explore the role of ICT in the process of knowledge management in an Indian business environment

In the 21st century and the emergence of a digital economy, knowledge and the knowledge base economy are rapidly growing. To effectively be able to understand the processes involved in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge management in the business environment is critical to the success of an organization. This study builds on the previous research of the authors on the enablers of knowledge management by identifying the relationship between the enablers of knowledge management and the role played by information communication technologies (ICT) and ICT infrastructure in a business setting. This paper provides the findings of a survey collected from the four major Indian cities (Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Villupuram) regarding their views and opinions about the enablers of knowledge management in business setting. A total of 80 organizations participated in the study with 100 participants in each city. The results show that ICT and ICT infrastructure can play a critical role in the creating, managing and sharing of knowledge in an Indian business environment