Elicitação e definição de requisitos baseada em meta-avaliação: o caso do Censo CRAS 2008

The Brazilian Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS) regularly promotes the evaluation of its social programs, such as those developed in the Reference Centers for Social Assistance (CRAS). Such evaluations make use of a web system that supports the collection and processing of information as well as the dissemination of its results to local, regional and central government officials through the so-called CRAS Census. A meta-evaluation of the CRAS 2008 Census was carried out based on criteria specified by the Joint Committee (1994), from which we elicited requirements that enabled improvements of the web system. The article reports new requirements elicited from the meta-evaluation of the CRAS 2008 Census, held in the period 2009-2010. The approach of meta-evaluation as an alternative source of requirements elicitation took into consideration results from evaluations of social programs in order to identify system problems without the usual need of intense interaction with users. This approach revealed opportunities for improvements in the evaluation process that led to the elicitation of requirements for the computerized system. Some of the elicited features were incorporated into the Census 2010 and others may be incorporated in future censuses.O Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome (MDS) promove periodicamente a avaliação dos seus programas sociais, como aqueles desenvolvidos nos Centros de Referência em Assistência Social (CRAS). Essa avaliação utiliza como instrumento um sistema web que suporta o processo de coleta e tratamento de informações e disseminação de resultados aos gestores municipais, estaduais e federais mediante o chamado Censo CRAS. Conduziu-se uma meta-avaliação do CRAS 2008, baseada nos critérios especificados pelo Joint Committee (1994), a partir da qual foram elicitados requisitos que possibilitaram a melhoria do referido sistema web. Neste artigo são relatados os resultados da meta-avaliação do Censo CRAS 2008, realizada no período de 2009 a 2010, na qual novos requisitos foram elicitados. A abordagem da meta-avaliação como fonte alternativa de elicitação de requisitos considerou os resultados de avaliações de programas sociais para identificar os problemas do sistema, sem a necessidade da usual e intensa interação com usuários, e revelou oportunidades de melhorias no processo de avaliação que conduziram à elicitação de requisitos para o sistema informatizado. Algumas funcionalidades elicitadas foram incorporadas ao Censo CRAS 2010 e outras poderão ser incorporadas em censos futuros

Elicitação e definição de requisitos baseada em meta-avaliação: o caso do Censo CRAS 2008

The Brazilian Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS) regularly promotes the evaluation of its social programs, such as those developed in the Reference Centers for Social Assistance (CRAS). Such evaluations make use of a web system that supports the collection and processing of information as well as the dissemination of its results to local, regional and central government officials through the so-called CRAS Census. A meta-evaluation of the CRAS 2008 Census was carried out based on criteria specified by the Joint Committee (1994), from which we elicited requirements that enabled improvements of the web system. The article reports new requirements elicited from the meta-evaluation of the CRAS 2008 Census, held in the period 2009-2010. The approach of meta-evaluation as an alternative source of requirements elicitation took into consideration results from evaluations of social programs in order to identify system problems without the usual need of intense interaction with users. This approach revealed opportunities for improvements in the evaluation process that led to the elicitation of requirements for the computerized system. Some of the elicited features were incorporated into the Census 2010 and others may be incorporated in future censuses.O Ministério do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate à Fome (MDS) promove periodicamente a avaliação dos seus programas sociais, como aqueles desenvolvidos nos Centros de Referência em Assistência Social (CRAS). Essa avaliação utiliza como instrumento um sistema web que suporta o processo de coleta e tratamento de informações e disseminação de resultados aos gestores municipais, estaduais e federais mediante o chamado Censo CRAS. Conduziu-se uma meta-avaliação do CRAS 2008, baseada nos critérios especificados pelo Joint Committee (1994), a partir da qual foram elicitados requisitos que possibilitaram a melhoria do referido sistema web. Neste artigo são relatados os resultados da meta-avaliação do Censo CRAS 2008, realizada no período de 2009 a 2010, na qual novos requisitos foram elicitados. A abordagem da meta-avaliação como fonte alternativa de elicitação de requisitos considerou os resultados de avaliações de programas sociais para identificar os problemas do sistema, sem a necessidade da usual e intensa interação com usuários, e revelou oportunidades de melhorias no processo de avaliação que conduziram à elicitação de requisitos para o sistema informatizado. Algumas funcionalidades elicitadas foram incorporadas ao Censo CRAS 2010 e outras poderão ser incorporadas em censos futuros

Enhanced Multi-factor Out-of-Band Authentication En Route to Securing SMS-based OTP Ariel

Validation of user’s authenticity through authentication played a crucial role to address risks and security issues in today's connected world. Among different authentication methods, OTP sent via SMS was identified as the most commonly used multi-factor authentication mechanism. However, studies have shown that it has not remained attack-proof. It has been branded to be vulnerable to SMiShing, a technique comparable to Internet phishing, and Eavesdropping accomplished through keylogging, screens capturing, shoulder surfing and other social engineering practices. This study introduced an innovative approach to secure SMS-based OTP against its threats through OTP encryption using modified Blowfish algorithm. A mobile application was also employed for capturing and processing encrypted SMS-based OTP to produce new OTP for verification, thus performing end-to-end OTP. Experimentation results and analysis revealed that the proposed architecture was free against the said vulnerabilities and promote tighter security, making it a good alternative for SMS-based OTP multi-factor authentication

Empirical results of an experimental study on the role of password strength and cognitive load on employee productivity

The demand or information system authentication has significantly increased over the last decade. Research has shown that the majority of user authentications remain to be password - based,however,itiswelldocumentedthatpasswordshavesignificantlimitations.Toaddress this issue,companieshavebeenplacingincreasedrequirementsontheusertoensuretheir passwords are more complex and consequently stronger with little consideration on the impact on employee productivity .Thus, this study was set to determine the effects of changing the password strength (cognitive load) overtime and its impact on employee productivity .A n experimentwithtwoexperimentalgroupsandonecontrolgroupwasconducted.Datawas collected on the number of failed operating system logon attempts, users’ logon times, task completion times, and number of reset requests.Thedatacollectedfrom72participantswas analyzed for group differences and when controlling for computer experience, age, and gender. Our results showed significant differences on all measures between the three groups. However, no significant differences were observed when controlling for computer experience, age, and gender. Furthermore, the results indicated a significant difference between the user’s perceptions about passwords before and after the experiment. Our results may help organizations to realize the point at which increasing authentication places a higher cognitive load on the users, which in turn affects their productivity

Design of a secure architecture for the exchange of biomedical information in m-Health scenarios

El paradigma de m-Salud (salud móvil) aboga por la integración masiva de las más avanzadas tecnologías de comunicación, red móvil y sensores en aplicaciones y sistemas de salud, para fomentar el despliegue de un nuevo modelo de atención clínica centrada en el usuario/paciente. Este modelo tiene por objetivos el empoderamiento de los usuarios en la gestión de su propia salud (p.ej. aumentando sus conocimientos, promocionando estilos de vida saludable y previniendo enfermedades), la prestación de una mejor tele-asistencia sanitaria en el hogar para ancianos y pacientes crónicos y una notable disminución del gasto de los Sistemas de Salud gracias a la reducción del número y la duración de las hospitalizaciones. No obstante, estas ventajas, atribuidas a las aplicaciones de m-Salud, suelen venir acompañadas del requisito de un alto grado de disponibilidad de la información biomédica de sus usuarios para garantizar una alta calidad de servicio, p.ej. fusionar varias señales de un usuario para obtener un diagnóstico más preciso. La consecuencia negativa de cumplir esta demanda es el aumento directo de las superficies potencialmente vulnerables a ataques, lo que sitúa a la seguridad (y a la privacidad) del modelo de m-Salud como factor crítico para su éxito. Como requisito no funcional de las aplicaciones de m-Salud, la seguridad ha recibido menos atención que otros requisitos técnicos que eran más urgentes en etapas de desarrollo previas, tales como la robustez, la eficiencia, la interoperabilidad o la usabilidad. Otro factor importante que ha contribuido a retrasar la implementación de políticas de seguridad sólidas es que garantizar un determinado nivel de seguridad implica unos costes que pueden ser muy relevantes en varias dimensiones, en especial en la económica (p.ej. sobrecostes por la inclusión de hardware extra para la autenticación de usuarios), en el rendimiento (p.ej. reducción de la eficiencia y de la interoperabilidad debido a la integración de elementos de seguridad) y en la usabilidad (p.ej. configuración más complicada de dispositivos y aplicaciones de salud debido a las nuevas opciones de seguridad). Por tanto, las soluciones de seguridad que persigan satisfacer a todos los actores del contexto de m-Salud (usuarios, pacientes, personal médico, personal técnico, legisladores, fabricantes de dispositivos y equipos, etc.) deben ser robustas y al mismo tiempo minimizar sus costes asociados. Esta Tesis detalla una propuesta de seguridad, compuesta por cuatro grandes bloques interconectados, para dotar de seguridad a las arquitecturas de m-Salud con unos costes reducidos. El primer bloque define un esquema global que proporciona unos niveles de seguridad e interoperabilidad acordes con las características de las distintas aplicaciones de m-Salud. Este esquema está compuesto por tres capas diferenciadas, diseñadas a la medidas de los dominios de m-Salud y de sus restricciones, incluyendo medidas de seguridad adecuadas para la defensa contra las amenazas asociadas a sus aplicaciones de m-Salud. El segundo bloque establece la extensión de seguridad de aquellos protocolos estándar que permiten la adquisición, el intercambio y/o la administración de información biomédica -- por tanto, usados por muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud -- pero no reúnen los niveles de seguridad detallados en el esquema previo. Estas extensiones se concretan para los estándares biomédicos ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD y SCP-ECG. El tercer bloque propone nuevas formas de fortalecer la seguridad de los tests biomédicos, que constituyen el elemento esencial de muchas aplicaciones de m-Salud de carácter clínico, mediante codificaciones novedosas. Finalmente el cuarto bloque, que se sitúa en paralelo a los anteriores, selecciona herramientas genéricas de seguridad (elementos de autenticación y criptográficos) cuya integración en los otros bloques resulta idónea, y desarrolla nuevas herramientas de seguridad, basadas en señal -- embedding y keytagging --, para reforzar la protección de los test biomédicos.The paradigm of m-Health (mobile health) advocates for the massive integration of advanced mobile communications, network and sensor technologies in healthcare applications and systems to foster the deployment of a new, user/patient-centered healthcare model enabling the empowerment of users in the management of their health (e.g. by increasing their health literacy, promoting healthy lifestyles and the prevention of diseases), a better home-based healthcare delivery for elderly and chronic patients and important savings for healthcare systems due to the reduction of hospitalizations in number and duration. It is a fact that many m-Health applications demand high availability of biomedical information from their users (for further accurate analysis, e.g. by fusion of various signals) to guarantee high quality of service, which on the other hand entails increasing the potential surfaces for attacks. Therefore, it is not surprising that security (and privacy) is commonly included among the most important barriers for the success of m-Health. As a non-functional requirement for m-Health applications, security has received less attention than other technical issues that were more pressing at earlier development stages, such as reliability, eficiency, interoperability or usability. Another fact that has contributed to delaying the enforcement of robust security policies is that guaranteeing a certain security level implies costs that can be very relevant and that span along diferent dimensions. These include budgeting (e.g. the demand of extra hardware for user authentication), performance (e.g. lower eficiency and interoperability due to the addition of security elements) and usability (e.g. cumbersome configuration of devices and applications due to security options). Therefore, security solutions that aim to satisfy all the stakeholders in the m-Health context (users/patients, medical staff, technical staff, systems and devices manufacturers, regulators, etc.) shall be robust and, at the same time, minimize their associated costs. This Thesis details a proposal, composed of four interrelated blocks, to integrate appropriate levels of security in m-Health architectures in a cost-efcient manner. The first block designes a global scheme that provides different security and interoperability levels accordingto how critical are the m-Health applications to be implemented. This consists ofthree layers tailored to the m-Health domains and their constraints, whose security countermeasures defend against the threats of their associated m-Health applications. Next, the second block addresses the security extension of those standard protocols that enable the acquisition, exchange and/or management of biomedical information | thus, used by many m-Health applications | but do not meet the security levels described in the former scheme. These extensions are materialized for the biomedical standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG. Then, the third block proposes new ways of enhancing the security of biomedical standards, which are the centerpiece of many clinical m-Health applications, by means of novel codings. Finally the fourth block, with is parallel to the others, selects generic security methods (for user authentication and cryptographic protection) whose integration in the other blocks results optimal, and also develops novel signal-based methods (embedding and keytagging) for strengthening the security of biomedical tests. The layer-based extensions of the standards ISO/IEEE 11073 PHD and SCP-ECG can be considered as robust, cost-eficient and respectful with their original features and contents. The former adds no attributes to its data information model, four new frames to the service model |and extends four with new sub-frames|, and only one new sub-state to the communication model. Furthermore, a lightweight architecture consisting of a personal health device mounting a 9 MHz processor and an aggregator mounting a 1 GHz processor is enough to transmit a 3-lead electrocardiogram in real-time implementing the top security layer. The extra requirements associated to this extension are an initial configuration of the health device and the aggregator, tokens for identification/authentication of users if these devices are to be shared and the implementation of certain IHE profiles in the aggregator to enable the integration of measurements in healthcare systems. As regards to the extension of SCP-ECG, it only adds a new section with selected security elements and syntax in order to protect the rest of file contents and provide proper role-based access control. The overhead introduced in the protected SCP-ECG is typically 2{13 % of the regular file size, and the extra delays to protect a newly generated SCP-ECG file and to access it for interpretation are respectively a 2{10 % and a 5 % of the regular delays. As regards to the signal-based security techniques developed, the embedding method is the basis for the proposal of a generic coding for tests composed of biomedical signals, periodic measurements and contextual information. This has been adjusted and evaluated with electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram-based tests, proving the objective clinical quality of the coded tests, the capacity of the coding-access system to operate in real-time (overall delays of 2 s for electrocardiograms and 3.3 s for electroencephalograms) and its high usability. Despite of the embedding of security and metadata to enable m-Health services, the compression ratios obtained by this coding range from ' 3 in real-time transmission to ' 5 in offline operation. Complementarily, keytagging permits associating information to images (and other signals) by means of keys in a secure and non-distorting fashion, which has been availed to implement security measures such as image authentication, integrity control and location of tampered areas, private captioning with role-based access control, traceability and copyright protection. The tests conducted indicate a remarkable robustness-capacity tradeoff that permits implementing all this measures simultaneously, and the compatibility of keytagging with JPEG2000 compression, maintaining this tradeoff while setting the overall keytagging delay in only ' 120 ms for any image size | evidencing the scalability of this technique. As a general conclusion, it has been demonstrated and illustrated with examples that there are various, complementary and structured manners to contribute in the implementation of suitable security levels for m-Health architectures with a moderate cost in budget, performance, interoperability and usability. The m-Health landscape is evolving permanently along all their dimensions, and this Thesis aims to do so with its security. Furthermore, the lessons learned herein may offer further guidance for the elaboration of more comprehensive and updated security schemes, for the extension of other biomedical standards featuring low emphasis on security or privacy, and for the improvement of the state of the art regarding signal-based protection methods and applications

The use of personalized medicine combined with artificial intelligence to monitor people with Covid-19

Since the emergence of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (coronavirus disease or COVID-19), the generalities since its emergence, from the clinical picture, as well as the findings observed in AI (Artificial Intelligence) diagnostic methods applied to medicine personalized. This article is a literature review regarding the use of personalized medicine combined with artificial intelligence to monitor people with covid-19. The continuous evolution of intelligent systems aims to provide better reasoning and more efficient use of collected data. This use is not restricted to retrospective interpretation, that is, to provide diagnostic conclusions. It can also be extended to prospective interpretation, providing an early prognosis. That said, physicians who could be assisted by these systems find themselves in the gap between the clinical case and in-depth technical analyses. What is missing is a clear starting point for approaching the world of machine learning in medicine

Making tomorrow's mistakes today: Evolutionary prototyping for risk reduction and shorter development time

In the early days of JPL's solar system exploration, each spacecraft mission required its own dedicated data system with all software applications written in the mainframe's native assembly language. Although these early telemetry processing systems were a triumph of engineering in their day, since that time the computer industry has advanced to the point where it is now advantageous to replace these systems with more modern technology. The Space Flight Operations Center (SFOC) Prototype group was established in 1985 as a workstation and software laboratory. The charter of the lab was to determine if it was possible to construct a multimission telemetry processing system using commercial, off-the-shelf computers that communicated via networks. The staff of the lab mirrored that of a typical skunk works operation -- a small, multi-disciplinary team with a great deal of autonomy that could get complex tasks done quickly. In an effort to determine which approaches would be useful, the prototype group experimented with all types of operating systems, inter-process communication mechanisms, network protocols, packet size parameters. Out of that pioneering work came the confidence that a multi-mission telemetry processing system could be built using high-level languages running in a heterogeneous, networked workstation environment. Experience revealed that the operating systems on all nodes should be similar (i.e., all VMS or all PC-DOS or all UNIX), and that a unique Data Transport Subsystem tool needed to be built to address the incompatibilities of network standards, byte ordering, and socket buffering. The advantages of building a telemetry processing system based on emerging industry standards were numerous: by employing these standards, we would no longer be locked into a single vendor. When new technology came to market which offered ten times the performance at one eighth the cost, it would be possible to attach the new machine to the network, re-compile the application code, and run. In addition, we would no longer be plagued with lack of manufacturer support when we encountered obscure bugs. And maybe, hopefully, the eternal elusive goal of software portability across different vendors' platforms would finally be available. Some highlights of our prototyping efforts are described

Can e-Authentication Raise the Confidence of Both Students and Teachers in Qualifications Granted through the e-Assessment Process?

The EU-funded TeSLA project — Adaptive Trust-based e-Assessment System for Learning (http://tesla-project.eu) — has developed a suite of instruments for e-Authentication. These include face recognition, voice recognition, keystroke dynamics, forensic analysis and plagiarism detection, which were designed for integration within a university's virtual learning environment. These tools were trialed across the seven partner institutions: 4,058 participating students, including 330 students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND); and 54 teaching staff. This paper describes the findings of this large-scale study where over 50% of the students gave a positive response to the use of these tools. In addition, over 70% agreed that these tools were 'to ensure that my examination results are trusted' and 'to prove that my essay is my own original work'. Teaching staff also reported positive experiences with TeSLA: the figure reaching 100% in one institution. We show there is evidence that a suite of e-authentication tools such as TeSLA can potentially be acceptable to students and staff and be used to increase trust in online assessment. Also, that while not yet perfected for SEND students it can still enrich their experience of assessment. We find that care is needed when introducing such technologies to ensure building the layers of trust required for their successful adoption

Quantum Portal

Este relatório enquadra-se no curso de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática - Computação Móvel da Escola de Tecnologia e Gestão do Instituto Politécnico de Leiria. O objetivo deste relatório é descrever todo o processo em relação ao estágio de 9 meses que foi realizado na empresa Domatica, bem como o trabalho que foi desenvolvido durante o estágio. Este relatório apresenta informações sobre o local do estágio, o trabalho desenvolvido durante o período de estágio e as conclusões extraídas após a conclusão do estágio. Todo o trabalho realizado foi dedicado ao portal Quantum node. Quantum Node Portal funciona como um Portal de Gestão de Informação e Dispositivos. Ele fornece aos clientes instalações como monitorar nós que estão localizados em diferentes locais. O nosso portal de projetos lida com informação sobre os Quantum Nodes dos vários clientes. A informação inclui o status (on-line / off-line), a localização, a visão dos detalhes dos nós, para reivindicar os nós pelo processo de autenticação e também o gerenciamento dos nós e contas de usuários, armazenando a informação atual do nó atualizada pelos clientes, focando principalmente na apresentação de dados visuais sob a forma de tabelas e gráficos e fornece segurança para o Portal Quantum