Multi-stakeholder partnerships in affordable rental housing: An investigation using soft systems framework

Queensland Department of Housing has proposed the use of partnerships as one possible option to deliver affordable housing outcomes. Although this initiative is supported by other stakeholders, many constraints have impeded its implementation for the delivery of real projects. Whilst it might find application for mixed housing projects with some relaxation on tax and/ or planning requirements, in general, affordable housing has not been seen as a valuable investment. Moreover, the partnerships require stakeholders to work across boundaries and outside their comfort zones.\ud \ud This initial study examines the use of soft systems framework to explore stakeholders’ views of multi-stakeholder partnerships in affordable rental housing. A series of in-depth interviews with major stakeholders representing housing providers, regulators and users in Queensland has been conducted. \ud \ud Soft systems methodology has been used to express the unstructured problem by using systematic thinking to develop a conceptual model to solve the problem. A complex problem is broken down into role, social system and political system analyses. This study provides an example of using systematic thinking in solving conflicting problems. The gap between the conceptual model and implementation in the real world situation was also investigated. Major changes in the socio-cultural aspects of the broader community as well as between stakeholders were required to implement the further development of multi-stakeholder partnerships for affordable rental housing

A “Soft” Approach to Analysing Mobile Financial Services Sociotechnical Systems

Advances in mobile computing have presented a huge opportunity to provide Mobile Financial Services (MFS) to half of the world’s population who currently do not have access to financial services. However, cybersecurity concerns in the mobile computing ecosystem have slowed down the adoption of MFS. The adoption of MFS is further hampered by the lack of a clear understanding of the interaction between the complex infrastructures and human factors that exist in the ecosystem for Mobile Financial Services Socio-Technical Systems (MFSSTS). This paper presents the work in progress of investigating the problem of MFSSTS. It discusses the preliminary results and understanding obtained from using Human Factor approaches to build and analyse the model for MFSSTS

A user-oriented network forensic analyser: the design of a high-level protocol analyser

Network forensics is becoming an increasingly important tool in the investigation of cyber and computer-assisted crimes. Unfortunately, whilst much effort has been undertaken in developing computer forensic file system analysers (e.g. Encase and FTK), such focus has not been given to Network Forensic Analysis Tools (NFATs). The single biggest barrier to effective NFATs is the handling of large volumes of low-level traffic and being able to exact and interpret forensic artefacts and their context – for example, being able extract and render application-level objects (such as emails, web pages and documents) from the low-level TCP/IP traffic but also understand how these applications/artefacts are being used. Whilst some studies and tools are beginning to achieve object extraction, results to date are limited to basic objects. No research has focused upon analysing network traffic to understand the nature of its use – not simply looking at the fact a person requested a webpage, but how long they spend on the application and what interactions did they have with whilst using the service (e.g. posting an image, or engaging in an instant message chat). This additional layer of information can provide an investigator with a far more rich and complete understanding of a suspect’s activities. To this end, this paper presents an investigation into the ability to derive high-level application usage characteristics from low-level network traffic meta-data. The paper presents a three application scenarios – web surfing, communications and social networking and demonstrates it is possible to derive the user interactions (e.g. page loading, chatting and file sharing ) within these systems. The paper continues to present a framework that builds upon this capability to provide a robust, flexible and user-friendly NFAT that provides access to a greater range of forensic information in a far easier format

Analysing usability and security issues in design and development of information systems

Recent technological advancements and the global economic challenges have meant that, individuals and businesses are constantly seeking new ways to exploit Information Systems (IS) and in manners that not only enhance user experiences and/or improve business processes and productivity, but also protect the individual‟s privacy and business assets for competitive advantage. Therefore, Information Systems need to be designed and developed to meet these challenges and/or other objectives. This thesis will delve primarily into the history of IS as a basis for establishing where the problem(s) lie or emanate from. It will focus on critically analysing existing Information Systems, and investigating the conflicting issues of usability and security, from an Information Systems Design and Development perspective by analysing various approaches. An in-depth review of literature and critical analysis of requirements necessary for the design and development of a usable and secure Information System will be carried out and will form the intellectual framework for this research. The premise therefore, is to look for a balanced approach or appropriate trade-off framework for designing usable-secure systems. The research will conclude with a discussion on how an envisaged conceptual framework or model can be developed based on certain influential factors, and how the framework can be experimentally evaluated, and to suggest areas for further improvement or future research

The other War on Terror revealed: global governmentality and the Financial Action Task Force's campaign against terrorist financing

Abstract. Despite initial fanfare surrounding its launch in the White House Rose Garden, the War on Terrorist Finances (WOTF) has thus far languished as a sideshow, in the shadows of military campaigns against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. This neglect is unfortunate, for the WOTF reflects the other multilateral cooperative dimension of the US-led ‘war on terror’, quite contrary to conventional sweeping accusations of American unilateralism. Yet the existing academic literature has been confined mostly to niche specialist journals dedicated to technical, legalistic and financial regulatory aspects of the WOTF. Using the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as a case study, this article seeks to steer discussions on the WOTF onto a broader theoretical IR perspective. Building upon emerging academic works that extend Foucauldian ideas of governmentality to the global level, we examine the interwoven overlapping national, regional and global regulatory practices emerging against terrorist financing, and the implications for notions of government, regulation and sovereignty