Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 217, March 1981

Approximately 130 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981 are included in this bibliography. Topics include aerospace medicine and biology

PROVIDE: hiding from automated network scans with proofs of identity

Network scanners are a valuable tool for researchers and administrators, however they are also used by malicious actors to identify vulnerable hosts on a network. Upon the disclosure of a security vulnerability, scans are launched within hours. These opportunistic attackers enumerate blocks of IP addresses in hope of discovering an exploitable host. Fortunately, defensive measures such as port knocking protocols (PKPs) allow a service to remain stealth to unauthorized IP addresses. The service is revealed only when a client includes a special authentication token (AT) in the IP/TCP header. However this AT is generated from a secret shared between the clients/servers and distributed manually to each endpoint. As a result, these defense measures have failed to be widely adopted by other protocols such as HTTP/S due to challenges in distributing the shared secrets. In this paper we propose a scalable solution to this problem for services accessed by domain name. We make the following observation: automated network scanners access servers by IP address, while legitimate clients access the server by name. Therefore a service should only reveal itself to clients who know its name. Based on this principal, we have created a proof of the verifier’s identity (a.k.a. PROVIDE) protocol that allows a prover (legitimate user) to convince a verifier (service) that it is knowledgeable of the verifier’s identity. We present a PROVIDE implementation using a PKP and DNS (PKP+DNS) that uses DNS TXT records to distribute identification tokens (IDT) while DNS PTR records for the service’s domain name are prohibited to prevent reverse DNS lookups. Clients are modified to make an additional DNS TXT query to obtain the IDT which is used by the PKP to generate an AT. The inclusion of an AT in the packet header, generated from the DNS TXT query, is proof the client knows the service’s identity. We analyze the effectiveness of this mechanism with respect to brute force attempts for various strength ATs and discuss practical considerations.This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards #1430145, #1414119, and #1012798

Meggondolások egy infrastruktúra-orientált gazdaságfejlesztési stratégia előnyeiről és hátrányairól | Considerations on advantages and drawbacks of an infrastructure-oriented development strategy

Az infrastruktúra-orientált gazdaságfejlesztési stratégia előnyeivel és hátrányaival foglalkozó dolgozat kiindulásnak tekinti, hogy nem elegendő egyetlen, legjobbnak remélt politikai stratégia biztos bekövetkezésének a bázisára építeni a gazdaságpolitikát. A figyelembe vett öt lehetséges forgatókönyv közül a három pozitív kimenetelű szcenárióhoz igen hasonló, az ország belső, térségi fejlődését elősegítő, a centralizált infrastrukturális szerkezeteket oldani igyekvő átstrukturálódással jellemezhető hálózatok tartoznak. Ezzel szemben az elkerülni kívánt forgatókönyveket éppen a meglévő, hierarchikus, centralizált infrastruktúrahálózati szerkezetek megerősítése segítené elő. Ebben a helyzetben nagyon határozottan foglal állást a dolgozat amellett, hogy nem elegendő az infrastruktúra-orientáció általában való hangoztatása, mert míg az átstrukturálódást elősegítő hálózatok kiépülésére sürgető szükség van, addig más, ezzel tartalmilag ellentétes, struktúramerevítő hálózatok kiépülése kifejezetten kártékony lenne. A politikai forgatókönyvek segítségével levezetett megkülönböztetéssel összhangban van az a tapasztalat, ami a jelenleg működő nagy európai szerkezetek - közlekedési, gáz és elektromos hálózatok - elemzése és fejlesztési tendenciáinak vizsgálata nyomán nyerhető. A megfelelő lokális ellátottságot biztosítani képes disztributív hálózatok kellő alapot nyújtanak, bázisul szolgálnak ahhoz, hogy a nagyobb, magisztrális hálózatok csomóponti hatásainak is a pozitívumai érintsék az adott térséget. Ezzel szemben a fejletlen, ellátatlan térségekben a magisztrális hálózatok könnyen szigetszerű, harmadik világ típusú, a fejlődést inkább torzító, mint segítő hatást váltanak ki, a lemaradás felszámolása helyett annak tartósítását segítik elő. Csak az ezt figyelembe vevő, árnyalt, szelektív módon bevezetett infrastruktúra-orientált gazdaságpolitika szolgálhat kedvező fejlesztési alternatívaként az ország számára. | According to the author, different international political scenarios may be realized, so it is unfounded to plan the future only accepting the possibility seeming most favourable to us. It is worthwhile to think about, which political scenario is comparible with which infrastructure-development version. It is not indifferent at all, what projects we support under the slogan „more infrastructure". There are infrastructures whose establishment would be expressly harmful for the country. This can be proved by arguments both in- and outside the economy

The protection of the consumers’ interests in the car distribution

The present study gives an overview primary of the private law rules of the miscellaneous regulations of the consumer protection on the example of car distribution, presenting its civil law and competition law regulations.

Smartening the Environment using Wireless Sensor Networks in a Developing Country

The miniaturization process of various sensing devices has become a reality by enormous research and advancements accomplished in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) lithography. Regardless of such extensive efforts in optimizing the hardware, algorithm, and protocols for networking, there still remains a lot of scope to explore how these innovations can all be tied together to design Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for smartening the surrounding environment for some practical purposes. In this paper we explore the prospects of wireless sensor networks and propose a design level framework for developing a smart environment using WSNs, which could be beneficial for a developing country like Bangladesh. In connection to this, we also discuss the major aspects of wireless sensor networks.Comment: 5 page

National Library initiatives : the UK Higher Education experience

Creation of internetworking infrastructure has long since taken on an international character and Derek Law's essay serves to inform us of just how variable the effort may be from one nation to the next, given differences in political traditions and institutional structures, not to mention the character of educational traditions. The Follet program in the United Kingdom has placed a premium on broad access by end users different from the somewhat market driven approach in the United States. It has also taken advantage of the opportunities provided by central authority which may seem unthinkable in the United States. At the same time common values and strategies are also evident, particularly the commitment to strengthening the information (read "knowledge ") creating role of higher education and promoting training of students in advanced information skills as a direct benefit to healthy economic growth. Similarly, the goals of access without charge to institutional users and subscription based funding will be familiar to American librarians who continue to pursue these goals

Traveller Behaviour: Decision making in an unpredictable world

This paper discusses the nature and consequences of uncertainty in transport systems. Drawing on work from a number of fields, it addresses travellers’ abilities to predict variable phenomena, their perception of uncertainty, their attitude to risk and the various strategies they might adopt in response to uncertainty. It is argued that despite the increased interest in the representation of uncertainty in transport systems, most models treat uncertainty as a purely statistical issue and ignore the psychological aspects of response to uncertainty. The principle theories and models currently used to predict travellers’ response to uncertainty are presented and number of alternative modelling approaches are outlined. It is argued that the current generation of predictive models do not provide an adequate basis for forecasting response to changes in the degree of uncertainty or for predicting the likely effect of providing additional information. A number of alternative modelling approaches are identified to deal with travellers’ acquisition of information, the definition of their choice set and their choice between the available options. The use of heuristic approaches is recommended as an alternative to more conventional probabilistic methods