Economic Analysis and Statistical Disclosure Limitation

This paper explores the consequences for economic research of methods used by data publishers to protect the privacy of their respondents. We review the concept of statistical disclosure limitation for an audience of economists who may be unfamiliar with these methods. We characterize what it means for statistical disclosure limitation to be ignorable. When it is not ignorable, we consider the effects of statistical disclosure limitation for a variety of research designs common in applied economic research. Because statistical agencies do not always report the methods they use to protect confidentiality, we also characterize settings in which statistical disclosure limitation methods are discoverable; that is, they can be learned from the released data. We conclude with advice for researchers, journal editors, and statistical agencies

Evaluation Of An Architectural-Level Approach For Finding Security Vulnerabilities

The cost of security vulnerabilities of a software system is high. As a result, many techniques have been developed to find the vulnerabilities at development time. Of particular interest are static analysis techniques that can consider all possible executions of a system. But, static analysis can suffer from a large number of false positives. A recently developed approach, Scoria, is a semi-automated static analysis that requires security architects to annotate the code, typecheck the annotations, extract a hierarchical object graph and write constraints in order to find security vulnerabilities in a system. This thesis evaluates Scoria on three systems (sizes 6 KLOC, 6 KLOC and 25 KLOC) from different application domains (Android and Web) and confirms that Scoria can find security vulnerabilities in those systems without an excessive number of false positives

KeyForge: Mitigating Email Breaches with Forward-Forgeable Signatures

Email breaches are commonplace, and they expose a wealth of personal, business, and political data that may have devastating consequences. The current email system allows any attacker who gains access to your email to prove the authenticity of the stolen messages to third parties -- a property arising from a necessary anti-spam / anti-spoofing protocol called DKIM. This exacerbates the problem of email breaches by greatly increasing the potential for attackers to damage the users' reputation, blackmail them, or sell the stolen information to third parties. In this paper, we introduce "non-attributable email", which guarantees that a wide class of adversaries are unable to convince any third party of the authenticity of stolen emails. We formally define non-attributability, and present two practical system proposals -- KeyForge and TimeForge -- that provably achieve non-attributability while maintaining the important protection against spam and spoofing that is currently provided by DKIM. Moreover, we implement KeyForge and demonstrate that that scheme is practical, achieving competitive verification and signing speed while also requiring 42% less bandwidth per email than RSA2048

Multiple imputation for sharing precise geographies in public use data

When releasing data to the public, data stewards are ethically and often legally obligated to protect the confidentiality of data subjects' identities and sensitive attributes. They also strive to release data that are informative for a wide range of secondary analyses. Achieving both objectives is particularly challenging when data stewards seek to release highly resolved geographical information. We present an approach for protecting the confidentiality of data with geographic identifiers based on multiple imputation. The basic idea is to convert geography to latitude and longitude, estimate a bivariate response model conditional on attributes, and simulate new latitude and longitude values from these models. We illustrate the proposed methods using data describing causes of death in Durham, North Carolina. In the context of the application, we present a straightforward tool for generating simulated geographies and attributes based on regression trees, and we present methods for assessing disclosure risks with such simulated data.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS506 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Team Cognitive Ability as a Predictor of Team Performance

This manuscript presents two studies of the relationship between team cognitive ability (average Scholastic Aptitude Test score of team members) and team performance (a subjective coach\u27s evaluation and an objective measure using Sagarin\u27s Power Rankings) among NCAA Division 1 Men\u27s Basketball teams. Study 1 was conducted following the 1991-92 season whereas Study 2 was conducted during the 1993-94 season. Both studies indicated that team cognitive ability was significantly related to the coach\u27s evaluation but not to the power ranking measure, and that team strategy moderated the relationship between cognitive ability and the coach\u27s evaluation of performance. Cognitive ability moderated the relationship between team strategy and power ranking, but the nature of the interaction was different across the two studies

Instant messaging clients - Relaxed, free & enjoyable English learning and training tools

In a demanding world of using English as a second language, computer technology and the internet are being dominantly used as they provide an incredible boost to language learning environment. At present, we can experience a more exciting way of learning a language by taking the advantages of the Instant Messaging Networks widely available online. This latest incarnation of the online chat is one of the communication methods that has proven to be a very good complement to the ways in which we communicate, both privately and professionally. These brilliantly invented instruments such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger and et cetera are a godsend to those who like to seek knowledge and to improve their English. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of these so called ‘eclectic communicators’ in second language learning; focusing more on their functions as relaxing, and enjoyable language learning tools in a higher educational setting. This qualitative paper begins by highlighting current literature in the area of computer mediated communication (CMC) learning environments in second language use and development. It also discusses some of the issues and challenges related to this matter. In conclusion, this paper provides an overview of the benefits and drawbacks of instant messaging in educational settings especially in second language learning environment