The Anatomy and Facets of Dynamic Policies

Information flow policies are often dynamic; the security concerns of a program will typically change during execution to reflect security-relevant events. A key challenge is how to best specify, and give proper meaning to, such dynamic policies. A large number of approaches exist that tackle that challenge, each yielding some important, but unconnected, insight. In this work we synthesise existing knowledge on dynamic policies, with an aim to establish a common terminology, best practices, and frameworks for reasoning about them. We introduce the concept of facets to illuminate subtleties in the semantics of policies, and closely examine the anatomy of policies and the expressiveness of policy specification mechanisms. We further explore the relation between dynamic policies and the concept of declassification.Comment: Technical Report of publication under the same name in Computer Security Foundations (CSF) 201

Towards an integrated discovery system

Previous research on machine discovery has focused on limited parts of the empirical discovery task. In this paper we describe IDS, an integrated system that addresses both qualitative and quantitative discovery. The program represents its knowledge in terms of qualitative schemas, which it discovers by interacting with a simulated physical environment. Once IDS has formulated a qualitative schema, it uses that schema to design experiments and to constrain the search for quantitative laws. We have carried out preliminary tests in the domain of heat phenomena. In this context the system has discovered both intrinsic properties, such as the melting point of substances, and numeric laws, such as the conservation of mass for objects going through a phase change

Measuring management insulation from shareholder pressure

We propose a management insulation measure based on charter, bylaw, and corporate law provisions that make it difficult for shareholders to oust a firm’s management. Unlike the existing alternatives, our measure considers the interactions between different provisions. We illustrate the usefulness of our measure with an application to the banking industry. We find that banks in which managers were more insulated from shareholders in 2003 were significantly less likely to be bailed out in 2008/09. These banks were also less likely to be targeted by activist shareholders, as proxied by 13D SEC filings. By contrast, popular alternative measures of insulation -- such as staggered boards and the Entrenchment Index -- fail to predict both bailouts and shareholder activism

Reducing Government Secrecy: Finding What Works

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, Justice Brandeis famously declared, praising publicity as a remedy for corruption. But sunlight is more than that; it is an indispensable precondition of life. And to extend the Brandeis metaphor, sunlight in the form of robust public access to government information is essential to the vitality of democratic governance, even in the absence of corruption. Our political institutions cannot function properly without it

Quantitative Information-Flow Tracking for C and Related Languages

We present a new approach for tracking programs' use of data througharbitrary calculations, to determine how much information about secretinputs is revealed by public outputs. Using a fine-grained dynamicbit-tracking analysis, the technique measures the information revealedduring a particular execution. The technique accounts for indirectflows, e.g. via branches and pointer operations. Two kinds ofuntrusted annotation improve the precision of the analysis. Animplementation of the technique based on dynamic binary translation isdemonstrated on real C, C++, and Objective C programs of up to half amillion lines of code. In case studies, the tool checked multiplesecurity policies, including one that was violated by a previouslyunknown bug

IS SPECIAL EDUCATION A LIFE SENTENCE? EXAMINING DISPROPORTIONALITY IN THE DECLASSIFICATION RATES OF STUDENTS OF COLOR IN AN URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT

Federal law states that any student suspected of having a disability must meet initial eligibility requirements to qualify for special education services. Furthermore, an individual education program (IEP) team is required by federal law to re-evaluate each student with a qualified disability tri-annually to assess his or her ongoing need for such services. The pathway toward initial eligibility is explicitly outlined within federal legislation; however, the law does not explicate an avenue for declassification or exiting from special education. As a result, many students may remain in special education and are labeled as students with a disability when they may no longer require the specialized instruction or related services provided through special education. The reality is that special education has evolved into a trapdoor, not a doorway to opportunity - as it was intended to be (Maydosz, 2014). The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the extent to which, if at all, the perceptions/attitudes of members of the committee on special education (CSE) and the subcommittee of special education (SCSE) about race and ability influence decision making and declassification during the special education process. The study examined whether a relationship existed between perceptions of race and ability and the disproportionate declassification rates in an urban school district. The study explored this phenomenon through a conceptual framework that synthesizes Ladson-Billings’ (2007) four forms of educational debt (economic, historical, sociopolitical, and moral) that have accumulated over time and negatively impact students of color. The conceptual framework s¬¬erved as a foundation for and framed the theoretical framework\u27s discussion, which is Connor, Ferri, and Annamma’s (2016) Dis/ability Critical Race Studies in Education (DisCrit). The researcher conducted one-on-one, in-depth, and semi-structured virtual interviews with five administrators (principals and assistant principals), seven general education teachers, three special education department chairs, four general education teachers, and one school counselor. The research questions helped reveal their lived experiences. Findings suggest that among CSE members, there are (a) mixed perceptions and attitudes toward declassification, (b) variances in the understanding of the declassification and special education process, and (c) a myriad of experiences, biases, and perceptions about race and ability exist that may influence declassification, as well as (d) an understanding that multiple factors influence declassification, (e) the belief that declassification is rare, (f) an understanding that multiple factors influence declassification, (g) an emphasis on mainstreaming within the urban school district, and (h) an acceptance that barriers exist that prevent educational stakeholders from accurately assessing students’ abilities