CHORUS Deliverable 2.2: Second report - identification of multi-disciplinary key issues for gap analysis toward EU multimedia search engines roadmap

After addressing the state-of-the-art during the first year of Chorus and establishing the existing landscape in multimedia search engines, we have identified and analyzed gaps within European research effort during our second year. In this period we focused on three directions, notably technological issues, user-centred issues and use-cases and socio- economic and legal aspects. These were assessed by two central studies: firstly, a concerted vision of functional breakdown of generic multimedia search engine, and secondly, a representative use-cases descriptions with the related discussion on requirement for technological challenges. Both studies have been carried out in cooperation and consultation with the community at large through EC concertation meetings (multimedia search engines cluster), several meetings with our Think-Tank, presentations in international conferences, and surveys addressed to EU projects coordinators as well as National initiatives coordinators. Based on the obtained feedback we identified two types of gaps, namely core technological gaps that involve research challenges, and “enablers”, which are not necessarily technical research challenges, but have impact on innovation progress. New socio-economic trends are presented as well as emerging legal challenges

Privacy trust access control infrastructure using XACML

The use of personal, sensitive information, such as privileges and attributes, to gain access to computer resources in distributed environments raises an interesting paradox. On one hand, in order to make the services and resources accessible to legitimate users, access control infrastructure requires valid and provable service clients' identities or attributes to make decisions. On the other hand, the service clients may not be prepared to disclose their identity information or attributes to a remote party without determining in advance whether the service provider can be trusted with such sensitive information. Moreover, when clients give out personal information, they still are unsure of the extent of propagation and use of the information. This thesis describes an investigation of privacy preserving options in access control infrastructures, and proposes a security model to support the management of those options, based on extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Security Access Markup Language (SAML), both of which are OASIS security standards. Existing access control systems are typically unilateral in that the enterprise service provider assigns the access rights and makes the access control decisions, and there is no negotiation between the client and the service provider. As access control management systems lean towards being user-centric or federated, unilateral approaches can no longer adequately preserve the client's privacy, particularly where communicating parties have no pre-existing trust relationship. As a result, a unified approach that significantly improves privacy and confidentiality protection in distributed environments was considered. This resulted in the development of XACML Trust Management Authorization Infrastructure (XTMAI) designed to handle privacy and confidentiality mutually and simultaneously using the concept of Obligation of Trust (OoT) protocol. The OoT enables two or more transaction parties to exchange Notice of Obligations (NoB) (obligating constraints) as well as Signed Acceptance of Obligation (SAO), a proof of acceptance, as security assurances before exchange of sensitive resources.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The exokernel operating system architecture

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-120).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.On traditional operating systems only trusted software such as privileged servers or the kernel can manage resources. This thesis proposes a new approach, the exokernel architecture, which makes resource management unprivileged but safe by separating management from protection: an exokernel protects resources, while untrusted application-level software manages them. As a result, in an exokernel system, untrusted software (e.g., library operating systems) can implement abstractions such as virtual memory, file systems, and networking. Themain thrusts of this thesis are: (1) how to build an exokernel system; (2) whether it is possible to build a real one; and (3) whether doing so is a good idea. Our results, drawn from two exokernel systems [25, 48], show that the approach yields dramatic benefits. For example, Xok, an exokernel, runs a web server an order of magnitude faster than the closest equivalent on the same hardware, common unaltered Unix applications up to three times faster, and improves global system performance up to a factor of five. The thesis also discusses some of the new techniques we have used to remove the overhead of protection. Themost unusual technique, untrusted deterministic functions, enables an exokernel to verify that applications correctly track the resources they own, eliminating the need for it to do so. Additionally, the thesis reflects on the subtle issues in using downloaded code for extensibility and the sometimes painful lessons learned in building three exokernel-based systems.by Dawson R. Engler.Ph.D

Genres of Inquiry in Design Science Research: Applying Search Conference to Contemporary Information Systems Security Theory

This dissertation investigates the core subject of knowledge in design-science research (DSR). In contrast to natural and social sciences that are more explanatory in nature, design-science research is concerned with solving complex practical problems that are ill-defined or of a “wicked” nature. At the same time, as in any research activity, design-science research is also concerned with the production of knowledge. In the process of design-science research, the researcher must act as both designer and scientist. Design knowledge is distinct from scientific knowledge, however, and must be evaluated against a different set of criteria. Since the DSR process is iterative the scope of DSR knowledge can evolve, abstracting general (nomothetic) knowledge from situated (idiographic) artifacts or, alternately, applying abstract knowledge to situated settings. General knowledge is different from situated knowledge and must be evaluated accordingly. In the current design-science literature, situated (idiographic) knowledge is associated with design, and abstract (nomothetic) knowledge is associated with science. This dissertation proposes that design can be abstract and that science can be situated in scope. The purpose of the dissertation is to identify the problems with the current conceptualization of contributions in DSR, offer an alternative view of the design-science paradigm as one having multiple genres of inquiry, provide the criteria for framing and evaluating design-science contributions, and describe how this will help address some of the current debate and clarify the current discourse. The dissertation is structured in three parts. Part I employs a theoretical argument to develop a framework for these genres of inquiry in design-science research and demonstrates how the evaluation criteria for design-science research studies change as the research moves from one genre to another. Part II is an empirical study that uses a search conference method to apply the bindpoint model (Baskerville and Lee 2013), an explanatory design theory to the problem of information security risk resulting from consumerization and BYOD (bring your own device). Part III reflects on the learning from the theoretical and the practical discourse and provides the contributions and opportunities for future research. This dissertation contributes to the design-science field by providing a more nuanced understanding of the contributions and evaluation criteria of design-science research. It contributes to the Information Systems (IS) security field by providing a design theory for managing BYOD security. Lastly, it contributes to Information Systems research methods by introducing the search conference method as a viable approach for theorizing and for evaluating design-science contributions