42 research outputs found
A 2016 Copa America Bump for Major League Soccer? Strengthening the Case for Legal Action Arising from the Corrupted 2022 World Cup Bid
Governmental and private investigations have generated evidence of corruption in the bidding process to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which went to Qatar rather than the United States. One economic study has shown an increase in professional soccer attendance in European countries that host the World Cup and the European Championships. Accordingly, Major League Soccer and its investor-operators could pursue tort and unfair competition claims to argue that denial of a 2022 World Cup USA will result in lowered attendance, and thus lost profits and diminished business value. Key differences in American and European soccer leagues and sports markets might render the assumption that MLS would see a World Cup bump in attendance dubious, however, thus precluding a successful action for damages. The United States recently hosted the 2016 Copa America, a regional soccer tournament similar to the European Championship. An ordinary least squares regression analysis of MLS attendance data immediately before and after the Copa America reveals an increase in attendance correlated with the tournament, thus supporting application of the World Cup bump in a legal action for money damages related to the corrupted 2022 World Cup bid. This Article suggests the need for further research in economics about the impact of nations hosting major soccer tournaments and in evidence law about applying economic studies from one product, business, or market to another product, business, or market
Testing SOAR Tools in Use
Modern security operation centers (SOCs) rely on operators and a tapestry of
logging and alerting tools with large scale collection and query abilities. SOC
investigations are tedious as they rely on manual efforts to query diverse data
sources, overlay related logs, and correlate the data into information and then
document results in a ticketing system. Security orchestration, automation, and
response (SOAR) tools are a new technology that promise to collect, filter, and
display needed data; automate common tasks that require SOC analysts' time;
facilitate SOC collaboration; and, improve both efficiency and consistency of
SOCs. SOAR tools have never been tested in practice to evaluate their effect
and understand them in use. In this paper, we design and administer the first
hands-on user study of SOAR tools, involving 24 participants and 6 commercial
SOAR tools. Our contributions include the experimental design, itemizing six
characteristics of SOAR tools and a methodology for testing them. We describe
configuration of the test environment in a cyber range, including network,
user, and threat emulation; a full SOC tool suite; and creation of artifacts
allowing multiple representative investigation scenarios to permit testing. We
present the first research results on SOAR tools. We found that SOAR
configuration is critical, as it involves creative design for data display and
automation. We found that SOAR tools increased efficiency and reduced context
switching during investigations, although ticket accuracy and completeness
(indicating investigation quality) decreased with SOAR use. Our findings
indicated that user preferences are slightly negatively correlated with their
performance with the tool; overautomation was a concern of senior analysts, and
SOAR tools that balanced automation with assisting a user to make decisions
were preferred
Voting Systems and Election Reform: What Do Election Officials Think?
In the aftermath of voting problems in the 2000 presidential election, Congress passed legislation seeking to reform how elections were run and what voting technologies were used. Some of the new voting systems selected, particularly electronic voting systems, drew criticism for perceived security and transparency problems. Absent from this debate was any systematic representation of the views of the administrators who actually run these elections. This report presented the results of a survey of over 1400 local election officials from across the country. The survey solicited views on specific election systems and technologies; the factors local election officials consider in determining the appropriate election systems for their specific jurisdictions; the influence of vendors and federal, state, and local officials on the decision making process; the impact of federal reform on state and local jurisdictions; and other topics
AI ATAC 1: An Evaluation of Prominent Commercial Malware Detectors
This work presents an evaluation of six prominent commercial endpoint malware
detectors, a network malware detector, and a file-conviction algorithm from a
cyber technology vendor. The evaluation was administered as the first of the
Artificial Intelligence Applications to Autonomous Cybersecurity (AI ATAC)
prize challenges, funded by / completed in service of the US Navy. The
experiment employed 100K files (50/50% benign/malicious) with a stratified
distribution of file types, including ~1K zero-day program executables
(increasing experiment size two orders of magnitude over previous work). We
present an evaluation process of delivering a file to a fresh virtual machine
donning the detection technology, waiting 90s to allow static detection, then
executing the file and waiting another period for dynamic detection; this
allows greater fidelity in the observational data than previous experiments, in
particular, resource and time-to-detection statistics. To execute all 800K
trials (100K files 8 tools), a software framework is designed to
choreographed the experiment into a completely automated, time-synced, and
reproducible workflow with substantial parallelization. A cost-benefit model
was configured to integrate the tools' recall, precision, time to detection,
and resource requirements into a single comparable quantity by simulating costs
of use. This provides a ranking methodology for cyber competitions and a lens
through which to reason about the varied statistical viewpoints of the results.
These statistical and cost-model results provide insights on state of
commercial malware detection
Beyond the Hype: A Real-World Evaluation of the Impact and Cost of Machine Learning-Based Malware Detection
There is a lack of scientific testing of commercially available malware
detectors, especially those that boast accurate classification of
never-before-seen (i.e., zero-day) files using machine learning (ML). The
result is that the efficacy and gaps among the available approaches are opaque,
inhibiting end users from making informed network security decisions and
researchers from targeting gaps in current detectors. In this paper, we present
a scientific evaluation of four market-leading malware detection tools to
assist an organization with two primary questions: (Q1) To what extent do
ML-based tools accurately classify never-before-seen files without sacrificing
detection ability on known files? (Q2) Is it worth purchasing a network-level
malware detector to complement host-based detection? We tested each tool
against 3,536 total files (2,554 or 72% malicious, 982 or 28% benign) including
over 400 zero-day malware, and tested with a variety of file types and
protocols for delivery. We present statistical results on detection time and
accuracy, consider complementary analysis (using multiple tools together), and
provide two novel applications of a recent cost-benefit evaluation procedure by
Iannaconne & Bridges that incorporates all the above metrics into a single
quantifiable cost. While the ML-based tools are more effective at detecting
zero-day files and executables, the signature-based tool may still be an
overall better option. Both network-based tools provide substantial (simulated)
savings when paired with either host tool, yet both show poor detection rates
on protocols other than HTTP or SMTP. Our results show that all four tools have
near-perfect precision but alarmingly low recall, especially on file types
other than executables and office files -- 37% of malware tested, including all
polyglot files, were undetected.Comment: Includes Actionable Takeaways for SOC
Wavefront sensing and control in space-based coronagraph instruments using Zernike’s phase-contrast method
Future space telescopes with coronagraph instruments will use a wavefront sensor (WFS) to measure and correct for phase errors and stabilize the stellar intensity in high-contrast images. The HabEx and LUVOIR mission concepts baseline a Zernike wavefront sensor (ZWFS), which uses Zernike’s phase contrast method to convert phase in the pupil into intensity at the WFS detector. In preparation for these potential future missions, we experimentally demonstrate a ZWFS in a coronagraph instrument on the Decadal Survey Testbed in the High Contrast Imaging Testbed facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We validate that the ZWFS can measure low- and mid-spatial frequency aberrations up to the control limit of the deformable mirror (DM), with surface height sensitivity as small as 1 pm, using a configuration similar to the HabEx and LUVOIR concepts. Furthermore, we demonstrate closed-loop control, resolving an individual DM actuator, with residuals consistent with theoretical models. In addition, we predict the expected performance of a ZWFS on future space telescopes using natural starlight from a variety of spectral types. The most challenging scenarios require ∼1  h of integration time to achieve picometer sensitivity. This timescale may be drastically reduced by using internal or external laser sources for sensing purposes. The experimental results and theoretical predictions presented here advance the WFS technology in the context of the next generation of space telescopes with coronagraph instruments
Meeting Report: Consensus Statement—Parkinson’s Disease and the Environment: Collaborative on Health and the Environment and Parkinson’s Action Network (CHE PAN) Conference 26–28 June 2007
BackgroundParkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. People with PD, their families, scientists, health care providers, and the general public are increasingly interested in identifying environmental contributors to PD risk.MethodsIn June 2007, a multidisciplinary group of experts gathered in Sunnyvale, California, USA, to assess what is known about the contribution of environmental factors to PD.ResultsWe describe the conclusions around which they came to consensus with respect to environmental contributors to PD risk. We conclude with a brief summary of research needs.ConclusionsPD is a complex disorder, and multiple different pathogenic pathways and mechanisms can ultimately lead to PD. Within the individual there are many determinants of PD risk, and within populations, the causes of PD are heterogeneous. Although rare recognized genetic mutations are sufficient to cause PD, these account for < 10% of PD in the U.S. population, and incomplete penetrance suggests that environmental factors may be involved. Indeed, interplay among environmental factors and genetic makeup likely influences the risk of developing PD. There is a need for further understanding of how risk factors interact, and studying PD is likely to increase understanding of other neurodegenerative disorders
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Florbetapir F 18 amyloid PET and 36-month cognitive decline:a prospective multicenter study
This study was designed to evaluate whether subjects with amyloid beta (Aβ) pathology, detected using florbetapir positron emission tomorgraphy (PET), demonstrated greater cognitive decline than subjects without Aβ pathology. Sixty-nine cognitively normal (CN) controls, 52 with recently diagnosed mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 31 with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia were included in the study. PET images obtained in these subjects were visually rated as positive (Aβ+) or negative (Aβ−), blind to diagnosis. Fourteen percent (10/69) of CN, 37% (19/52) of MCI and 68% (21/31) of AD were Aβ+. The primary outcome was change in ADAS-Cog score in MCI subjects after 36 months; however, additional outcomes included change on measures of cognition, function and diagnostic status. Aβ+ MCI subjects demonstrated greater worsening compared with Aβ− subjects on the ADAS-Cog over 36 months (5.66±1.47 vs −0.71±1.09, P=0.0014) as well as on the mini-mental state exam (MMSE), digit symbol substitution (DSS) test, and a verbal fluency test (P<0.05). Similar to MCI subjects, Aβ+ CN subjects showed greater decline on the ADAS-Cog, digit-symbol-substitution test and verbal fluency (P<0.05), whereas Aβ+ AD patients showed greater declines in verbal fluency and the MMSE (P<0.05). Aβ+ subjects in all diagnostic groups also showed greater decline on the CDR-SB (P<0.04), a global clinical assessment. Aβ+ subjects did not show significantly greater declines on the ADCS-ADL or Wechsler Memory Scale. Overall, these findings suggest that in CN, MCI and AD subjects, florbetapir PET Aβ+ subjects show greater cognitive and global deterioration over a 3-year follow-up than Aβ− subjects do