191 research outputs found
A Study of Three Approaches to International Identity Federation for the LIGO Project
This document is a product of the Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC).
CTSC is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number OCI-1234408. For more
information about the Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure please visit:
http://trustedci.org/. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation
Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure Engagement Plan: Final Report for LIGO Engagement
The Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC) engages with NSF-funded projects to
address their cybersecurity challenges. This document presents the results of one such engagement
with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a large research project funded
by the National Science Foundation. LIGO seeks to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves,
use them to explore the fundamental physics of gravity, and develop the emerging field of gravitational
wave science as a tool of astronomical discovery.
The primary goal of this engagement was to apply CTSC experience and expertise in leveraging
SAML identify federations to support scientific projects to remove barriers for efficient international
collaboration between LIGO and other astronomy and astrophysics projects by decreasing the effort
required for LIGO to federate with those projects
Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure Engagement Plan: Final Report for LIGO Engagement
The Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC) engages with NSF-funded projects to
address their cybersecurity challenges. This document presents the results of one such engagement
with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a large research project funded
by the National Science Foundation. LIGO seeks to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves,
use them to explore the fundamental physics of gravity, and develop the emerging field of gravitational
wave science as a tool of astronomical discovery.
The primary goal of this engagement was to apply CTSC experience and expertise in leveraging
SAML identify federations to support scientific projects to remove barriers for efficient international
collaboration between LIGO and other astronomy and astrophysics projects by decreasing the effort
required for LIGO to federate with those projects
Upper Limit Set by Causality on the Rotation and Mass of Uniformly Rotating Relativistic Stars
Causality alone suffices to set a lower bound on the period of rotation of
relativistic stars as a function of their maximum observed mass. That is, by
assuming a one-parameter equation of state (EOS) that satisfies v_sound < c and
that allows stars with masses as large as the largest observed neutron-star
mass, M_sph^max, we find P[ms] > 0.282 + 0.196 ( M_sph^max/M_odot-1.442). The
limit does not assume that the EOS agrees with a known low-density form for
ordinary matter, but if one adds that assumption, the minimum period is raised
by a few percent. Thus the current minimum period of uniformly rotating stars,
set by causality, is 0.28ms (0.29ms for stars with normal crust). The
minimizing EOS yields models with a maximally soft exterior supported by a
maximally stiff core. An analogous upper limit set by causality on the maximum
mass of rotating neutron stars requires a low-density match and the limit
depends on the matching density, epsilon_m. We recompute it, obtaining a
slightly revised value, M_rot^max \sim 6.1( 2 * 10^14 g/cm^3 epsilon_m )^1/2
M_odot.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX2e, 8 Postscript figures, submitted to Ap
Authentication and Authorization Considerations for a Multi-tenant Service
Distributed cyberinfrastructure requires users (and machines)
to perform some sort of authentication and authorization
(together simply known as "auth"). In the early days of com-
puting, authentication was performed with just a username
and password combination, and this is still prevalent today.
But during the past several years, we have seen an evolution
of approaches and protocols for auth: Kerberos, SSH keys,
X.509, OpenID, API keys, OAuth, and more. Not surpris-
ingly, there are trade-offs, both technical and social, for each
approach.
The NSF Science Gateway communities have had to deal
with a variety of auth issues. However, most of the early
gateways were rather restrictive in their model of access and
development. The practice of using community credentials
(certificates), a well-intentioned idea to alleviate restrictive
access, still posed a barrier to researchers and challenges for
security and auditing. And while the web portal-based gate-
way clients offered users easy access from a browser, both the
interface and the back-end functionality were constrained in
the flexibility and extensibility they could provide. Design-
ing a well-defined application programming interface (API)
to fine-grained, generic gateway services (on secure, hosted
cyberinfrastructure), together with an auth approach that
has a lower barrier to entry, will hopefully present a more
welcoming environment for both users and developers.
This paper provides a review and some thoughts on these
topics, with a focus on the role of auth between a Science
Gateway and a service provider.National Science Foundation, Grant Numbers 1339774 and 1234408
Report of NSF Workshop Series on Scientific Software Security Innovation Institute
Many individuals attended these workshops and contributed to the writing of this report. They are named in the report itself.Over the period of 2010‐2011, a series of two workshops were held in response to NSF Dear Colleague Letter NSF 10‐050 calling for exploratory workshops to consider requirements for Scientific Software Innovation Institutes (S2I2s). The specific topic of the workshop series was the potential benefits of a security-‐focused software institute that would serve the entire NSF research and development community. The first workshop was held on August 6th, 2010 in Arlington, VA and represented an initial exploration of the topic. The second workshop was held on October 26th, 2011 in Chicago, IL and its goals were to 1) Extend our understanding of relevant needs of MREFC and large NSF Projects, 2) refine outcome from first workshop with broader community input, and 3) vet concepts for a trusted cyberinfrastructure institute. This report summarizes the findings of these workshops.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number 1043843. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
CBR Anisotropy from Primordial Gravitational Waves in Two-Component Inflationary Cosmology
We examine stochastic temperature fluctuations of the cosmic background
radiation (CBR) arising via the Sachs-Wolfe effect from gravitational wave
perturbations produced in the early universe. We consider spatially flat,
perturbed FRW models that begin with an inflationary phase, followed by a mixed
phase containing both radiation and dust. The scale factor during the mixed
phase takes the form , where are
constants. During the mixed phase the universe smoothly transforms from being
radiation to dust dominated. We find analytic expressions for the graviton mode
function during the mixed phase in terms of spheroidal wave functions. This
mode function is used to find an analytic expression for the multipole moments
of the two-point angular correlation function
for the CBR anisotropy. The analytic expression for the multipole
moments is written in terms of two integrals, which are evaluated numerically.
The results are compared to multipoles calculated for models that are {\it
completely} dust dominated at last-scattering. We find that the multipoles
of the CBR temperature perturbations for are
significantly larger for a universe that contains both radiation and dust at
last-scattering. We compare our results with recent, similar numerical work and
find good agreement. The spheroidal wave functions may have applications to
other problems of cosmological interest.Comment: 28 pgs + 6 postscript figures, RevTe
CBR Temperature Fluctuations Induced by Gravitational Waves in a Spatially-Closed Inflationary Universe
Primordial gravitational waves are created during the de Sitter phase of an
exponentially-expanding (inflationary) universe, due to quantum zero-point
vacuum fluctuations. These waves produce fluctuations in the temperature of the
Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). We calculate the multipole moments of the
correlation function for these temperature fluctuations in a spatially-closed
Friedman-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological model. The results are compared to
the corresponding multipoles in the spatially-flat case. The differences are
small unless the density parameter today, , is greater than 2.
(Submitted to Physical Review D).Comment: 18 pages of RevTex + 3 uuencoded postscript figure
2011 Report of NSF Workshop Series on Scientific Software Security Innovation Institute
Over the period of 2010-2011, a series of two workshops were held in response to NSF Dear Colleague Letter NSF 10-050 calling for exploratory workshops to consider requirements for Scientific Software Innovation Institutes (S2I2s). The specific topic of the workshop series was the potential benefits of a security-focused software institute that would serve the entire NSF research and development community.
The first workshop was held on August 6th, 2010 in Arlington, VA and represented an initial exploration of the topic. The second workshop was held on October 26th, 2011 in Chicago, IL and its goals were to 1) Extend our understanding of relevant needs of MREFC and large NSF Projects, 2) refine outcome from first workshop with broader community input, and 3) vet concepts for a trusted cyberinfrastructure institute. Towards those goals, the participants other 2011workshop included greater representation from MREFC and large NSF projects, and, for the most part, did not overlap with the participants from the 2010 workshop.
A highlight of the second workshop was, at the invitation of the organizers, a presentation by Scott Koranda of the LIGO project on the history of LIGO’s identity management activities and how those could have benefited from a security institute. A key analysis he presented is that, by his estimation, LIGO could have saved 2 senior FTE-years of effort by following suitable expert guidance had it existed.
The overarching finding from the workshops is that security is a critical crosscutting issue for the NSF software infrastructure and recommended a security focused activity to address this issue broadly, for example a security software institute (S2I2) under the SI2 program. Additionally, the 2010 workshop participants agreed to 15 key additional findings, which the 2011 workshop confirmed, with some refinement as discussed in this report.NSF Grant # 1043843Ope
Federated Identity Management for Research Collaborations
This white-paper expresses common requirements of Research Communities seeking to leverage Identity Federation for
Authentication and Authorisation. Recommendations are made to Stakeholders to guide the future evolution of Federated
Identity Management in a direction that better satisfies research use cases. The authors represent research communities,
Research Services, Infrastructures, Identity Federations and Interfederations, with a joint motivation to ease collaboration
for distributed researchers. The content has been edited collaboratively by the Federated Identity Management for
Research (FIM4R) Community, with input sought at conferences and meetings in Europe, Asia and North America
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