1,737 research outputs found

    Configuration Management of Distributed Systems over Unreliable and Hostile Networks

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    Economic incentives of large criminal profits and the threat of legal consequences have pushed criminals to continuously improve their malware, especially command and control channels. This thesis applied concepts from successful malware command and control to explore the survivability and resilience of benign configuration management systems. This work expands on existing stage models of malware life cycle to contribute a new model for identifying malware concepts applicable to benign configuration management. The Hidden Master architecture is a contribution to master-agent network communication. In the Hidden Master architecture, communication between master and agent is asynchronous and can operate trough intermediate nodes. This protects the master secret key, which gives full control of all computers participating in configuration management. Multiple improvements to idempotent configuration were proposed, including the definition of the minimal base resource dependency model, simplified resource revalidation and the use of imperative general purpose language for defining idempotent configuration. Following the constructive research approach, the improvements to configuration management were designed into two prototypes. This allowed validation in laboratory testing, in two case studies and in expert interviews. In laboratory testing, the Hidden Master prototype was more resilient than leading configuration management tools in high load and low memory conditions, and against packet loss and corruption. Only the research prototype was adaptable to a network without stable topology due to the asynchronous nature of the Hidden Master architecture. The main case study used the research prototype in a complex environment to deploy a multi-room, authenticated audiovisual system for a client of an organization deploying the configuration. The case studies indicated that imperative general purpose language can be used for idempotent configuration in real life, for defining new configurations in unexpected situations using the base resources, and abstracting those using standard language features; and that such a system seems easy to learn. Potential business benefits were identified and evaluated using individual semistructured expert interviews. Respondents agreed that the models and the Hidden Master architecture could reduce costs and risks, improve developer productivity and allow faster time-to-market. Protection of master secret keys and the reduced need for incident response were seen as key drivers for improved security. Low-cost geographic scaling and leveraging file serving capabilities of commodity servers were seen to improve scaling and resiliency. Respondents identified jurisdictional legal limitations to encryption and requirements for cloud operator auditing as factors potentially limiting the full use of some concepts

    Pristup specifikaciji i generisanju proizvodnih procesa zasnovan na inženjerstvu vođenom modelima

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    In this thesis, we present an approach to the production process specification and generation based on the model-driven paradigm, with the goal to increase the flexibility of factories and respond to the challenges that emerged in the era of Industry 4.0 more efficiently. To formally specify production processes and their variations in the Industry 4.0 environment, we created a novel domain-specific modeling language, whose models are machine-readable. The created language can be used to model production processes that can be independent of any production system, enabling process models to be used in different production systems, and process models used for the specific production system. To automatically transform production process models dependent on the specific production system into instructions that are to be executed by production system resources, we created an instruction generator. Also, we created generators for different manufacturing documentation, which automatically transform production process models into manufacturing documents of different types. The proposed approach, domain-specific modeling language, and software solution contribute to introducing factories into the digital transformation process. As factories must rapidly adapt to new products and their variations in the era of Industry 4.0, production must be dynamically led and instructions must be automatically sent to factory resources, depending on products that are to be created on the shop floor. The proposed approach contributes to the creation of such a dynamic environment in contemporary factories, as it allows to automatically generate instructions from process models and send them to resources for execution. Additionally, as there are numerous different products and their variations, keeping the required manufacturing documentation up to date becomes challenging, which can be done automatically by using the proposed approach and thus significantly lower process designers' time.У овој дисертацији представљен је приступ спецификацији и генерисању производних процеса заснован на инжењерству вођеном моделима, у циљу повећања флексибилности постројења у фабрикама и ефикаснијег разрешавања изазова који се појављују у ери Индустрије 4.0. За потребе формалне спецификације производних процеса и њихових варијација у амбијенту Индустрије 4.0, креиран је нови наменски језик, чије моделе рачунар може да обради на аутоматизован начин. Креирани језик има могућност моделовања производних процеса који могу бити независни од производних система и тиме употребљени у различитим постројењима или фабрикама, али и производних процеса који су специфични за одређени систем. Како би моделе производних процеса зависних од конкретног производног система било могуће на аутоматизован начин трансформисати у инструкције које ресурси производног система извршавају, креиран је генератор инструкција. Такође су креирани и генератори техничке документације, који на аутоматизован начин трансформишу моделе производних процеса у документе различитих типова. Употребом предложеног приступа, наменског језика и софтверског решења доприноси се увођењу фабрика у процес дигиталне трансформације. Како фабрике у ери Индустрије 4.0 морају брзо да се прилагоде новим производима и њиховим варијацијама, неопходно је динамички водити производњу и на аутоматизован начин слати инструкције ресурсима у фабрици, у зависности од производа који се креирају у конкретном постројењу. Тиме што је у предложеном приступу могуће из модела процеса аутоматизовано генерисати инструкције и послати их ресурсима, доприноси се креирању једног динамичког окружења у савременим фабрикама. Додатно, услед великог броја различитих производа и њихових варијација, постаје изазовно одржавати неопходну техничку документацију, што је у предложеном приступу могуће урадити на аутоматизован начин и тиме значајно уштедети време пројектаната процеса.U ovoj disertaciji predstavljen je pristup specifikaciji i generisanju proizvodnih procesa zasnovan na inženjerstvu vođenom modelima, u cilju povećanja fleksibilnosti postrojenja u fabrikama i efikasnijeg razrešavanja izazova koji se pojavljuju u eri Industrije 4.0. Za potrebe formalne specifikacije proizvodnih procesa i njihovih varijacija u ambijentu Industrije 4.0, kreiran je novi namenski jezik, čije modele računar može da obradi na automatizovan način. Kreirani jezik ima mogućnost modelovanja proizvodnih procesa koji mogu biti nezavisni od proizvodnih sistema i time upotrebljeni u različitim postrojenjima ili fabrikama, ali i proizvodnih procesa koji su specifični za određeni sistem. Kako bi modele proizvodnih procesa zavisnih od konkretnog proizvodnog sistema bilo moguće na automatizovan način transformisati u instrukcije koje resursi proizvodnog sistema izvršavaju, kreiran je generator instrukcija. Takođe su kreirani i generatori tehničke dokumentacije, koji na automatizovan način transformišu modele proizvodnih procesa u dokumente različitih tipova. Upotrebom predloženog pristupa, namenskog jezika i softverskog rešenja doprinosi se uvođenju fabrika u proces digitalne transformacije. Kako fabrike u eri Industrije 4.0 moraju brzo da se prilagode novim proizvodima i njihovim varijacijama, neophodno je dinamički voditi proizvodnju i na automatizovan način slati instrukcije resursima u fabrici, u zavisnosti od proizvoda koji se kreiraju u konkretnom postrojenju. Time što je u predloženom pristupu moguće iz modela procesa automatizovano generisati instrukcije i poslati ih resursima, doprinosi se kreiranju jednog dinamičkog okruženja u savremenim fabrikama. Dodatno, usled velikog broja različitih proizvoda i njihovih varijacija, postaje izazovno održavati neophodnu tehničku dokumentaciju, što je u predloženom pristupu moguće uraditi na automatizovan način i time značajno uštedeti vreme projektanata procesa

    Modern computing: Vision and challenges

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    Over the past six decades, the computing systems field has experienced significant transformations, profoundly impacting society with transformational developments, such as the Internet and the commodification of computing. Underpinned by technological advancements, computer systems, far from being static, have been continuously evolving and adapting to cover multifaceted societal niches. This has led to new paradigms such as cloud, fog, edge computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), which offer fresh economic and creative opportunities. Nevertheless, this rapid change poses complex research challenges, especially in maximizing potential and enhancing functionality. As such, to maintain an economical level of performance that meets ever-tighter requirements, one must understand the drivers of new model emergence and expansion, and how contemporary challenges differ from past ones. To that end, this article investigates and assesses the factors influencing the evolution of computing systems, covering established systems and architectures as well as newer developments, such as serverless computing, quantum computing, and on-device AI on edge devices. Trends emerge when one traces technological trajectory, which includes the rapid obsolescence of frameworks due to business and technical constraints, a move towards specialized systems and models, and varying approaches to centralized and decentralized control. This comprehensive review of modern computing systems looks ahead to the future of research in the field, highlighting key challenges and emerging trends, and underscoring their importance in cost-effectively driving technological progress

    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volume

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    LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volum

    La traduzione specializzata all’opera per una piccola impresa in espansione: la mia esperienza di internazionalizzazione in cinese di Bioretics© S.r.l.

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    Global markets are currently immersed in two all-encompassing and unstoppable processes: internationalization and globalization. While the former pushes companies to look beyond the borders of their country of origin to forge relationships with foreign trading partners, the latter fosters the standardization in all countries, by reducing spatiotemporal distances and breaking down geographical, political, economic and socio-cultural barriers. In recent decades, another domain has appeared to propel these unifying drives: Artificial Intelligence, together with its high technologies aiming to implement human cognitive abilities in machinery. The “Language Toolkit – Le lingue straniere al servizio dell’internazionalizzazione dell’impresa” project, promoted by the Department of Interpreting and Translation (Forlì Campus) in collaboration with the Romagna Chamber of Commerce (Forlì-Cesena and Rimini), seeks to help Italian SMEs make their way into the global market. It is precisely within this project that this dissertation has been conceived. Indeed, its purpose is to present the translation and localization project from English into Chinese of a series of texts produced by Bioretics© S.r.l.: an investor deck, the company website and part of the installation and use manual of the Aliquis© framework software, its flagship product. This dissertation is structured as follows: Chapter 1 presents the project and the company in detail; Chapter 2 outlines the internationalization and globalization processes and the Artificial Intelligence market both in Italy and in China; Chapter 3 provides the theoretical foundations for every aspect related to Specialized Translation, including website localization; Chapter 4 describes the resources and tools used to perform the translations; Chapter 5 proposes an analysis of the source texts; Chapter 6 is a commentary on translation strategies and choices

    An Extensible User Interface for Lean 4

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    Contemporary proof assistants rely on complex automation and process libraries with millions of lines of code. At these scales, understanding the emergent interactions between components can be a serious challenge. One way of managing complexity, long established in informal practice, is through varying external representations. For instance, algebraic notation facilitates term-based reasoning whereas geometric diagrams invoke spatial intuition. Objects viewed one way become much simpler than when viewed differently. In contrast, modern general-purpose ITP systems usually only support limited, textual representations. Treating this as a problem of human-computer interaction, we aim to demonstrate that presentations - UI elements that store references to the objects they are displaying - are a fruitful way of thinking about ITP interface design. They allow us to make headway on two fronts - introspection of prover internals and support for diagrammatic reasoning. To this end we have built an extensible user interface for the Lean 4 prover with an associated ProofWidgets 4 library of presentation-based UI components. We demonstrate the system with several examples including type information popups, structured traces, contextual suggestions, a display for algebraic reasoning, and visualizations of red-black trees. Our interface is already part of the core Lean distribution

    Evaluating Architectural Safeguards for Uncertain AI Black-Box Components

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    Although tremendous progress has been made in Artificial Intelligence (AI), it entails new challenges. The growing complexity of learning tasks requires more complex AI components, which increasingly exhibit unreliable behaviour. In this book, we present a model-driven approach to model architectural safeguards for AI components and analyse their effect on the overall system reliability

    Automated and foundational verification of low-level programs

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    Formal verification is a promising technique to ensure the reliability of low-level programs like operating systems and hypervisors, since it can show the absence of whole classes of bugs and prevent critical vulnerabilities. However, to realize the full potential of formal verification for real-world low-level programs one has to overcome several challenges, including: (1) dealing with the complexities of realistic models of real-world programming languages; (2) ensuring the trustworthiness of the verification, ideally by providing foundational proofs (i.e., proofs that can be checked by a general-purpose proof assistant); and (3) minimizing the manual effort required for verification by providing a high degree of automation. This dissertation presents multiple projects that advance formal verification along these three axes: RefinedC provides the first approach for verifying C code that combines foundational proofs with a high degree of automation via a novel refinement and ownership type system. Islaris shows how to scale verification of assembly code to realistic models of modern instruction set architectures-in particular, Armv8-A and RISC-V. DimSum develops a decentralized approach for reasoning about programs that consist of components written in multiple different languages (e.g., assembly and C), as is common for low-level programs. RefinedC and Islaris rest on Lithium, a novel proof engine for separation logic that combines automation with foundational proofs.Formale Verifikation ist eine vielversprechende Technik, um die Verlässlichkeit von grundlegenden Programmen wie Betriebssystemen sicherzustellen. Um das volle Potenzial formaler Verifikation zu realisieren, müssen jedoch mehrere Herausforderungen gemeistert werden: Erstens muss die Komplexität von realistischen Modellen von Programmiersprachen wie C oder Assembler gehandhabt werden. Zweitens muss die Vertrauenswürdigkeit der Verifikation sichergestellt werden, idealerweise durch maschinenüberprüfbare Beweise. Drittens muss die Verifikation automatisiert werden, um den manuellen Aufwand zu minimieren. Diese Dissertation präsentiert mehrere Projekte, die formale Verifikation entlang dieser Achsen weiterentwickeln: RefinedC ist der erste Ansatz für die Verifikation von C Code, der maschinenüberprüfbare Beweise mit einem hohen Grad an Automatisierung vereint. Islaris zeigt, wie die Verifikation von Assembler zu realistischen Modellen von modernen Befehlssatzarchitekturen wie Armv8-A oder RISC-V skaliert werden kann. DimSum entwickelt einen neuen Ansatz für die Verifizierung von Programmen, die aus Komponenten in mehreren Programmiersprachen bestehen (z.B., C und Assembler), wie es oft bei grundlegenden Programmen wie Betriebssystemen der Fall ist. RefinedC und Islaris basieren auf Lithium, eine neue Automatisierungstechnik für Separationslogik, die maschinenüberprüfbare Beweise und Automatisierung verbindet.This research was supported in part by a Google PhD Fellowship, in part by awards from Android Security's ASPIRE program and from Google Research, and in part by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant for the project "RustBelt", funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (grant agreement no. 683289)
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