Anonymous Deniable Identification in Ephemeral Setup & Leakage Scenarios

In this paper we concern anonymous identification, where the verifier can check that the user belongs to a given group of users (just like in case of ring signatures), however a transcript of a session executed between a user and a verifier is deniable. That is, neither the verifier nor the prover can convice a third party that a given user has been involved in a session but also he cannot prove that any user has been interacting with the verifier. Thereby one can achieve high standards for protecting personal data according to the General Data Protection Regulation – the fact that an interaction took place might be a sensitive data from information security perspective. We show a simple realization of this idea based on Schnorr identification scheme arranged like for ring signatures. We show that with minor modifications one can create a version immune to leakage of ephemeral keys. We extend the above scenario to the case of k out of n, where the prover must use at least k private keys corresponding to the set of n public keys. With the most probable setting of k = 2 or 3, we are talking about the practical case of multifactor authentication that might be necessary for applications with higher security level

National Guard in Lesko in 1848

Wybuch rewolucji w Wiedniu w marcu 1848 r. odnowił nadzieje Polaków w Galicji na uzyskanie niepodległości lub przynajmniej autonomii w ramach Cesarstwa Austriackiego. Podstawą dążeń patriotycznych było utworzenie oddziałów Gwardii Narodowej, początkowo w Krakowie i Lwowie, a później w mniejszych miejscowościach, m.in. w Lesku. Miasto to, liczące kilka tysięcy mieszkańców, stanowiło bazę rekrutacyjną dla nowo powstałych formacji. Składały się one w większości z rzemieślników i drobnomieszczaństwa. Dopiero pod koniec ich istnienia dopuszczono do nich chłopów. Gwardia Narodowa w Lesku posiadała liczne, wyszkolone zapewne w wojsku austriackim, grono oficerskie umożliwiające szkolenie wojskowe. Stanowiło to dopiero początek formowania jednostek polskich na terenach Galicji. Zarówno dowódcy, jak i patriotycznie nastawieni członkowie Gwardii Narodowej dawali nadzieję na stworzenie kadry, która w odpowiednim momencie będzie zdolna wywalczyć upragnioną przez Polaków niepodległość. Upadek nastrojów rewolucyjnych w Austrii spowodował stłumienie ruchów niepodległościowych na terenie Galicji. Wraz z powrotem reżimu wojskowego pod koniec 1848 r. zlikwidowano wszelkie zdobycze demokratyczne, powstałe w trakcie kilku zaledwie miesięcy, w tym również Gwardię Narodową. Formacja ta zlikwidowana została również w Lesku w styczniu 1849 r.The outbreak of the March 1848 revolution in Vienna renewed the hope of Poles living in Galicia, who wished to regain independence or at least gain autonomy within the Austrian Empire. The beginning of patriotic endeavors was founding the National Guard in Cracow and Lviv, and later in smaller towns, such as Lesko. The city, with a population of several thousand, became the recruiting ground for the newly-formed formations. These formations were comprised mostly of artisans and the petite bourgeoisie. Only at the end of its existence were peasants allowed to join the Guard. The National Guard in Lesko had numerous officers, likely trained in the Austrian army, who provided military training. This was only the beginning of the formation of Polish units in Galicia. Both the commanders and the patriotic members of the National Guard brought hope of establishing a cadre that, in the right moment, would be able to fight for the longed for Polish independence. The Polish independence movements were suppressed as soon as the revolutionary sentiment in Austria abated. With the introduction of the military regime at the end of 1848, every single democratic concession made during these several short months was revoked, including the formation of the National Guard. The formation in Lesko was abolished in 1849

Textural and Thermal Properties of the Novel Fucoidan/Nano-Oxides Hybrid Materials with Cosmetic, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Potential

The main purpose of the research was to obtain and study hybrid materials based on three different nano-oxides commonly used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries: Al2O3, TiO2, and ZnO, with the natural bioactive polysaccharide fucoidan. Since the mentioned oxides are largely utilized by industry, there is no doubt that the presented studies are important from an environmental point of view. On the basis of the textural studies (dynamic light scattering DLS, low temperature nitrogen adsorption, X-ray diffraction analysis XRD, scanning electron microscopy SEM) it was proved that the properties of the hybrid materials differ from the pure components of the system. Moreover, the advanced thermal analysis (TG-DTG-DSC) combined with the evolved gas analysis using Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and mass spectrometry were applied to describe the thermal decomposition of fucoidan, oxides and hybrid materials. It was found that the interactions between the polymer and the oxides results in the formation of the hybrid materials due to the functionalization of the nanoparticles surface, and that their thermal stability increased when compared to the pure substrates. Such findings definitely fill the literature void regarding the fucoidan based hybrid materials and help the industrial formulators in the preparation of new products