Technology platforms in Russia: a catalyst for connecting government, science, and business?

The article analyzes a new instrument of Russian innovation policy - technology platforms. The reasons for their establishment are outlined based on the analysis of the innovation system in Russia. Comparisons with the European Union technology platforms, which served as blueprints for developing similar structures in Russia, are provided. Russian platforms are found to suffer from the government micromanagement. More detailed analysis is provided through three case studies of selected technology platforms specializing in different representative economic areas. The results of these studies demonstrate that Russian technology platforms are still far from being effective communication instruments. The platforms received inadequate federal support at the initial stages of their development, which eventually affected their performance. Nevertheless, the first steps have been undertaken to create expert communities in important economic areas. The article suggests directions for further development of technology platforms, such as expanding a palette of stakeholders and conducting two-way monitoring - both of platforms' performance and government measures aimed at their development

Breaking The FF3 Format-Preserving Encryption Standard Over Small Domains

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published a Format-Preserving Encryption standard accepting two Feistel structure based schemes called FF1 and FF3. Particularly, FF3 is a tweakable block cipher based on an 8-round Feistel network. In CCS~2016, Bellare et. al. gave an attack to break FF3 (and FF1) with time and data complexity $O(N^5\log(N))$, which is much larger than the code book (but using many tweaks), where $N^2$ is domain size to the Feistel network. In this work, we give a new practical total break attack to the FF3 scheme (also known as BPS scheme). Our FF3 attack requires $O(N^{\frac{11}{6}})$ chosen plaintexts with time complexity $O(N^{5})$. Our attack was successfully tested with $N\leq2^9$. It is a slide attack (using two tweaks) that exploits the bad domain separation of the FF3 design. Due to this weakness, we reduced the FF3 attack to an attack on 4-round Feistel network. Biryukov et. al. already gave a 4-round Feistel structure attack in SAC~2015. However, it works with chosen plaintexts and ciphertexts whereas we need a known-plaintext attack. Therefore, we developed a new generic known-plaintext attack to 4-round Feistel network that reconstructs the entire tables for all round functions. It works with $N^{\frac{3}{2}} \left( \frac{N}{2} \right)^{\frac{1}{6}}$ known plaintexts and time complexity $O(N^{3})$. Our 4-round attack is simple to extend to five and more rounds with complexity $N^{(r-5)N+o(N)}$. It shows that FF1 with $N=7$ and FF3 with $7\leq N\leq10$ do not offer a 128-bit security. Finally, we provide an easy and intuitive fix to prevent the FF3 scheme from our $O(N^{5})$ attack

Attacks Only Get Better: How to Break FF3 on Large Domains

We improve the attack of Durak and Vaudenay (CRYPTO\u2717) on NIST Format-Preserving Encryption standard FF3, reducing the running time from $O(N^5)$ to $O(N^{17/6})$ for domain $Z_N \times Z_N$. Concretely, DV\u27s attack needs about $2^{50}$ operations to recover encrypted 6-digit PINs, whereas ours only spends about $2^{30}$ operations. In realizing this goal, we provide a pedagogical example of how to use distinguishing attacks to speed up slide attacks. In addition, we improve the running time of DV\u27s known-plaintext attack on 4-round Feistel of domain $Z_N \times Z_N$ from $O(N^3)$ time to just $O(N^{5/3})$ time. We also generalize our attacks to a general domain $Z_M \times Z_N$, allowing one to recover encrypted SSNs using about $2^{50}$ operations. Finally, we provide some proof-of-concept implementations to empirically validate our results

Determination of biconical cavity eigenfrequencies using method of partial intersecting regions and approximation by rational fractions

The paper considers the problem of determining the eigenfrequencies of biconical cavity making it possible to simplify the eigenfrequency-based design of devices. We used the solving of the excitation problem for biconical cavity using the method of partial intersecting regions in combination with the collocation method. Based on the concept of the search of quasisolution for determining eigenfrequencies, it was proposed to apply the fractionally rational approximation of cavity response obtained as a result of solving the problem of resonator excitation. The efficiency of finding eigenfrequencies of biconical cavity was substantiated by using the fractionally rational approximation based on the chain fraction interpolation of cavity response calculated only at collocation points. Using the above approach, we have obtained the relationship of eigenfrequencies of azimuth-symmetric oscillations of biconical cavity as a function of the aperture angle, and the typing of lower azimuth-symmetric transverse electric modes of biconical cavity has been performed

On the influence of matrix's heterogeneity on uncertainty of gamma-spectrometry at activity assay of radioactive waste

The influence of the waste matrix heterogeneity on the flux density value of initial gamma quanta at the transport of quanta in the matrix was considered. It is shown that the waste heterogeneity leads to the positive shift of the average flux density value comparing with corresponding value for homogeneous waste if average value of the attenuation factor in heterogeneous matrix is equal to the attenuation factor of homogeneous matrix. Due to this the activity assay of heterogeneous waste by a technique which was calibrated by using a homogeneous standard (surrogate container) the measurement results will be positively shifted, or, in other words, conservative estimation of the waste activity will be obtained

Simple technique for biconical cavity eigenfrequency determination

A number of features of biconical cavities make them attractive for various applications. Expressions for the calculation of the eigenfrequencies of a biconical cavity with large cone angles can be derived using the overlapping domain decomposition method in combination with the collocation method; however, the expressions reported in the literature involve only a single pair of collocation points, thus giving no way to estimate the eigenfrequency determination accuracy. The aim of this paper is to calculate the biconical cavity eigenfrequencies for an arbitrary number of collocation point pairs. An equation in the biconical cavity eigenfrequencies for an azimuthally symmetric transverse electric field at an arbitrary number of collocation point pairs is derived. The equation reduces to two equations, whose solution requires far less computational effort in comparison with the original equation. The solution of one of the two equations are based on modes symmetric about the cavity symmetry plane, and the solutions of the other are based on antisymmetric modes. The calculated eigenfrequencies converge rapidly with increasing number of collocation point pairs, while the use of only one collocation point pair may introduce noticeable error. The proposed technique may be used in the development of components and units on the basis of biconical cavities