2,724 research outputs found
Modes of Information Flow
Information flow between components of a system takes many forms and is key
to understanding the organization and functioning of large-scale, complex
systems. We demonstrate three modalities of information flow from time series X
to time series Y. Intrinsic information flow exists when the past of X is
individually predictive of the present of Y, independent of Y's past; this is
most commonly considered information flow. Shared information flow exists when
X's past is predictive of Y's present in the same manner as Y's past; this
occurs due to synchronization or common driving, for example. Finally,
synergistic information flow occurs when neither X's nor Y's pasts are
predictive of Y's present on their own, but taken together they are. The two
most broadly-employed information-theoretic methods of quantifying information
flow---time-delayed mutual information and transfer entropy---are both
sensitive to a pair of these modalities: time-delayed mutual information to
both intrinsic and shared flow, and transfer entropy to both intrinsic and
synergistic flow. To quantify each mode individually we introduce our
cryptographic flow ansatz, positing that intrinsic flow is synonymous with
secret key agreement between X and Y. Based on this, we employ an
easily-computed secret-key-agreement bound---intrinsic mutual
information&mdashto quantify the three flow modalities in a variety of systems
including asymmetric flows and financial markets.Comment: 11 pages; 10 figures;
http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/ite.ht
Modeling Quantum Optical Components, Pulses and Fiber Channels Using OMNeT++
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is an innovative technology which exploits the
laws of quantum mechanics to generate and distribute unconditionally secure
cryptographic keys. While QKD offers the promise of unconditionally secure key
distribution, real world systems are built from non-ideal components which
necessitates the need to model and understand the impact these non-idealities
have on system performance and security. OMNeT++ has been used as a basis to
develop a simulation framework to support this endeavor. This framework,
referred to as "qkdX" extends OMNeT++'s module and message abstractions to
efficiently model optical components, optical pulses, operating protocols and
processes. This paper presents the design of this framework including how
OMNeT++'s abstractions have been utilized to model quantum optical components,
optical pulses, fiber and free space channels. Furthermore, from our toolbox of
created components, we present various notional and real QKD systems, which
have been studied and analyzed.Comment: Published in: A. F\"orster, C. Minkenberg, G. R. Herrera, M. Kirsche
(Eds.), Proc. of the 2nd OMNeT++ Community Summit, IBM Research - Zurich,
Switzerland, September 3-4, 201
Recommended from our members
Memory-Based High-Level Synthesis Optimizations Security Exploration on the Power Side-Channel
High-level synthesis (HLS) allows hardware designers to think algorithmically and not worry about low-level, cycle-by-cycle details. This provides the ability to quickly explore the architectural design space and tradeoffs between resource utilization and performance. Unfortunately, security evaluation is not a standard part of the HLS design flow. In this article, we aim to understand the effects of memory-based HLS optimizations on power side-channel leakage. We use Xilinx Vivado HLS to develop different cryptographic cores, implement them on a Spartan-6 FPGA, and collect power traces. We evaluate the designs with respect to resource utilization, performance, and information leakage through power consumption. We have two important observations and contributions. First, the choice of resource optimization directive results in different levels of side-channel vulnerabilities. Second, the partitioning optimization directive can greatly compromise the hardware cryptographic system through power side-channel leakage due to the deployment of memory control logic. We describe an evaluation procedure for power side-channel leakage and use it to make best-effort recommendations about how to design more secure architectures in the cryptographic domain
Revealing the unseen: how to expose cloud usage while protecting user privacy
Cloud users have little visibility into the performance characteristics and utilization of the physical machines underpinning the virtualized cloud resources they use. This uncertainty forces users and researchers to reverse engineer the inner workings of cloud systems in order to understand and optimize the conditions their applications operate. At Massachusetts Open Cloud (MOC), as a public cloud operator, we'd like to expose the utilization of our physical infrastructure to stop this wasteful effort. Mindful that such exposure can be used maliciously for gaining insight into other user's workloads, in this position paper we argue for the need for an approach that balances openness of the cloud overall with privacy for each tenant inside of it. We believe that this approach can be instantiated via a novel combination of several security and privacy technologies. We discuss the potential benefits, implications of transparency for cloud systems and users, and technical challenges/possibilities.Accepted manuscrip
Privacy-preserving Cross-domain Routing Optimization -- A Cryptographic Approach
Today's large-scale enterprise networks, data center networks, and wide area
networks can be decomposed into multiple administrative or geographical
domains. Domains may be owned by different administrative units or
organizations. Hence protecting domain information is an important concern.
Existing general-purpose Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) methods that
preserves privacy for domains are extremely slow for cross-domain routing
problems. In this paper we present PYCRO, a cryptographic protocol specifically
designed for privacy-preserving cross-domain routing optimization in Software
Defined Networking (SDN) environments. PYCRO provides two fundamental routing
functions, policy-compliant shortest path computing and bandwidth allocation,
while ensuring strong protection for the private information of domains. We
rigorously prove the privacy guarantee of our protocol. We have implemented a
prototype system that runs PYCRO on servers in a campus network. Experimental
results using real ISP network topologies show that PYCRO is very efficient in
computation and communication costs
- …