Authentication Schemes based on Physically Unclonable Functions

In this project we investigate dierent hardware authentication schemes based on Physically Unclonable Functions. We start by analyzing the concepts of a fuzzy extractor and a secure sketch from an information-theoretic perspective. We then present a hardware implementation of a fuzzy extractor which uses the code oset construction with BCH codes. Finally, we propose a new cryptographic protocol for PUF authentication based upon polynomial interpolation using Sudan\u27s list-decoding algorithm. We provide preliminary results into the feasibility of this protocol, by looking at the practicality of nding a polynomial that can be assigned as a cryptographic key to each device

Authentication Schemes based on Physically Unclonable Functions

In this project we investigate different hardware authentication schemes based on Physically Unclonable Functions. We start by analyzing the concepts of a fuzzy extractor and a secure sketch from an information-theoretic perspective. We then present a hardware implementation of a fuzzy extractor which uses the code offset construction with BCH codes. Finally, we propose a new cryptographic protocol for PUF authentication based upon polynomial interpolation using Sudan\u27s list-decoding algorithm. We provide preliminary results into the feasibility of this protocol, by looking at the practicality of finding a polynomial that can be assigned as a cryptographic key to each device

Afropolitan Space Invading between Neoliberalization and Africanization

Die Dissertation Afropolitan Space Invading between Neoliberalization and Africanization untersucht, wie afropolitische Räume durch Rauminvasoren (sog. „space invaders“) in Romanen erkundet werden. Ausgehend von der Annahme, dass afropolitische Romane den von Taiye Selasi 2005 initiierten Afropolitanismus stets zwischen den Polen der Neoliberalisierung und der Afrikanisierung verorten, wird die These vorgestellt, dass AutorInnen wie Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu, Chika Unigwe und Sefi Atta in ihren nach 2005 erschienenen Romanen durch Rauminvasionen („space invading“) eine produktive Friktion generieren, durch die einem Afropolitan turn innerhalb des kosmopolitischen Diskurses mithilfe von Literatur eine Form gegeben wird. Die Romane handeln diesen Denkansatz durchgehend räumlich aus. Coles Every Day is for the Thief bezieht sich auf die afropolitische Stadt, Mengestus The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears auf das afropolitische Zuhause, Unigwes On Black Sisters' Street auf die durch das Sensorium ausgehandelten afropolitischen Identitäten und Attas A Bit of Difference auf den Körper innerhalb des afropolitischen Arbeitsmarktes. Obgleich die Analyse die Schriftwerke von Cole, Mengestu, Unigwe und Atta als wichtigstes Fundament im „Afropolitan space invading“ einordnet, wird auch auf weitere Werke von Mbue, Farah, Adichie, Brew-Hammond und anderen AutorInnen Bezug genommen

Beggars Can\u27t Be Choosers or the Refugee as a Moral Agent?

This project considers the ways in which the dominant discourse on refugees might reinforce the negative impacts or limit the positive impacts of aid. Care for refugees is a difficult task that takes place in a discourse that begins with numerical calculi, a language that expresses ambivalence about our obligations for this category of persons, fear of their collective identity, and a deep ceded notion of refugees as an object of concern, a worthy cause, a growing problem, and a burden that must be shared. What we choose to do for and about refugees emerge from our present awareness (knowledge) as a process of deliberation predisposed and reinforced by the circulating and authoritative dominant discourse that has defined refugees and their relationship with larger society. Any attempts to affect the discourse on refugees therefore must begin with the re-evaluating what has gone before. The theoretical and analytical tools for the task of problematizing the dominant discourse on refugees were: 1) Analysis of the contemporary discourses on refugees, 2) Foucault\u27s archeology and genealogy of discourse, 3) Mauss\u27 theory of gift-exchange in the third party setting, 4) Goffman\u27s total institution theory on stigma and identity, and 5) moral perceptions created by a discourse based on agency, reciprocity, solidarity, and hope. Discursive analysis affirms that the dominant discourse has historically been absent the refugee voice and lacking the agency to affect contingent changes in his or her life. It was shown that our reservoir of knowledge about refugees has been deposited in multiple layers of meaning, metaphor, media depictions, statistics, institutional dogma, and a political/ organizational superstructure. The dominant discourse on refugees was then challenged with a more inclusive approach that includes the themes of agency, reciprocity, solidarity, and hope giving primacy to the human connection between the refugee and aid rendered as a means of improving the care and outcome for refugees. This project embraces the idea that the words we choose in dialogue about others, distant or near, can bring either hope or complacency, mercy or empty justice, compassion or apathy, life or death. We are called on to choose life

Smart network caches : localized content and application negotiated recovery mechanisms for multicast media distribution

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-138).by Roger George Kermode.Ph.D

Mapping utopian art: alternative political imaginaries in new media art (2008-2015)

This thesis investigates the proliferation of alternative political imaginaries in the Web-based art produced during the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath (2008- 2015), with a particular focus on the influence of communist utopianism. The thesis begins by exploring the continuous relevance of utopianism to Western political thought, including the historical context within which the financial crisis of 2008 occurred. This context has been defined by the new political, social and cultural milieu produced by the development of Data Capitalism – the dominant economic paradigm of the last two decades. In parallel, the thesis identifies the “organic” connections between leftist utopian thought and networked technologies, in order to claim that the events of 2008 functioned as a catalyst for their reactivation and expansion. Following this analysis, the thesis focuses on how politically engaged artists have reacted to the global financial crisis through the use of the World Wide Web. More specifically, the thesis categorises a wide range of artworks, institutional and non-institutional initiatives, as well as theoretical texts that have either been written by artists, or have inspired them. The result of this exercise is a mapping of the post-crisis Web-based art, which is grounded on the technocultural tools employed by artists as well as on the main concepts and ideals that they have aimed at materialising through the use of such tools. Furthermore, the thesis examines the interests of Data Capitalists in art and the Internet, and the kinds of restrictions and obstacles that they have imposed on the political use of the Web in order to safeguard them. Finally, the thesis produces an overall evaluation of the previously analysed cultural products by taking into account both the objectives of their creators and the external and internal limitations that ultimately shape their character. Accordingly, the thesis locates the examined works within the ideological spectrum of Marxist and post-Marxist thought in order to formulate a series of proposals about the future of politically engaged Web-based art and the ideological potentialities of networked communication at large

United States Africa command and human security in Africa.

Ph. D. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.Since 2005, the United States (US) has shifted its justification for the militarization of the African continent to the more humanitarian security-development discourse. This apparent paradigmatic shift presents the United States African Command as more benign than it may be. However, the response to the emergence of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has ranged from wholesale condemnation to selective criticism of US policy. Skeptics of AFRICOM cite previous US military forays in Africa which led to a disproportionate development of military institutions relative to instruments of civilian rule. Others see AFRICOM as a naked attempt to exert American control over Africa’s valuable natural resources (Taguem, 2010, Esterhuyse, 2008, Isike, Uzodike and Gilbert, 2008, 2009). On 11th July 2009, while addressing Ghana’s Parliament, President Barack Obama remarked that Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war but nonetheless, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. He reiterated that America has responsibility to ameliorate the deplorable human security condition of Africans not just in words, but with support that strengthens Africans’ capacity (President Obama’s address to Ghana’s Parliament July 11, 2009). In his 2010 National Security Strategy (NNS), President Obama called for partnership with African nations as they grow their economies, and strengthen their democratic institutions and governance. In June 2012, he approved Presidential policy directives that outline his vision for sub- Saharan Africa. The stated pillars of US strategy towards Africa are to strengthen democratic institutions, to spur economic growth, trade and investment, advancement of peace and security, and the promotion of opportunities and development by promoting food security and transforming Africa’s public health system (US.Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, 2012). The achievement of these stated goals is incumbent on the third goal which AFRICOM is expected to spearhead. Africans predominantly see Washington’s profession of concern for development and security as transparent cover for hegemonic assertions of “Imperialist power” (Stevenson, 2011:28). However, these debates have been based on conjectures informed by a historical review of major power involvement with Africa. There is a need to move from these conjectural debates to provide empirical details of AFRICOM activities and their consequences for human security in Africa. This study therefore contributes to this debate by investigating AFRICOM’s activities since its formation in 2007. The series of activities by AFRICOM on the continent and its intervention in security situations in Libya, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia makes this study very promising in light of the study’s engagement with the strategic possibilities of AFRICOM through a critical review of the objective security conditions in Africa within a changing global security context. The research identifies the nexus between AFRICOM and human security in Africa. By doing so, it articulates the security concerns of African States and contributes to discussions on, and practices of, alternative ways of providing human security to African people(s). This study argues that the lopsided power relationship between the United States of America and Africa engendered the imposition of AFRICOM on Africans without due consultation with the African Union (AU), while the multi-faceted challenges of poverty, inter-ethnic conflicts, religious intolerance, trans-border crimes and terrorist attacks in Africa induced the US government to categorize the continent as zone of conflicts from whence threats to US stability emanate. The thesis also argues that the successful securitization of these threats by United States government engendered the creation of USAFRICOM. The study constructs the above arguments on historical, exploratory, descriptive and critical foundations. The research contains a substantial amount of fieldwork data on which it bases an empirical evaluation and analysis