A Brokering Framework for Assessing Legal Risks in Big Data and the Cloud

“Cloud computing” and “Big Data” are amongst the most hyped-up terms and buzzwords of the moment. After decades in which individuals and companies used to host their data and applications using their own IT infrastructure, the world has seen the stunning transformation of the Internet. Major shifts occurred when these infrastructures began to be outsourced to public Cloud providers to match commercial expectations. Storing, sharing and transferring data and databases over the Internet is convenient, yet legal risks cannot be eliminated. Legal risk is a fast-growing area of research and covers various aspects of law. Current studies and research on Cloud computing legal risk assessment have been, however, limited in scope and focused mainly on security and privacy aspects. There is little systematic research on the risks, threats and impact of the legal issues inherent to database rights and “ownership” rights of data. Database rights seem to be outdated and there is a significant gap in the scientific literature when it comes to the understanding of how to apply its provisions in the Big Data era. This means that we need a whole new framework for understanding, protecting and sharing data in the Cloud. The scheme we propose in this chapter is based on a risk assessment-brokering framework that works side by side with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This proposed framework will provide better control for Cloud users and will go a long way to increase confidence and reinforce trust in Cloud computing transactions

Vitale infrastructuren simuleren

Ons doel is het ontstaan van een European Infrastructures Simulation and Analysis Centre (EISAC): een gedistribueerde Europese simulatiefaciliteit voor het analyseren van vitale infrastructuren, hun onderlinge afankelijkheden en hun gedrag bij calamiteiten. Het EU project DIESIS analyseerde de organisatorische, operationele en technische eisen hiervoor. De volgende stap vereist internationale, multidisciplinaire ondersteuning door landen, de EU, vitale infrastructuuroperators en kennisinstellinge

Towards a European CIP Research Facility

The EU funded project DIESIS has investigated the feasibility of a new European facility for joint research in Critical Infrastructures and their protection. This article summarises the project results

DIESIS: An interoperable european federated simulation network for critical infrastructures

Critical Infrastructures (CI) that are vital for a society and an economy, such as telecommunication systems, energy supply systems, transport systems and others, are getting more and more complex. Dependencies emerge in various ways, due to the use of information and communication technologies, legislation, market liberalisation, and other factors. The understanding of the complex system of CI with all their dependencies and interdependen-cies is still immature. Yet these systems need to be protected, for instance, against cascading failures that may affect several sectors. Research in the area of Critical Infrastructures Protection (CIP) therefore has to rely on using simulation systems. For simulating complex scenarios with dependencies between different sectors, typically heterogeneous federated simulations are used, but general modelling interoperability approaches or standards are missing. The EU funded project DIESIS proposes to establish the basis for a European modelling and simulation research facility based upon open standards to foster and support research on all aspects of CI with a specific focus on their protection. DIESIS performs a thorough conceptual design study in order to prepare the establishment of such a research facility. A part of this design study - the technical proof-of-concept - is a federated simulation employing three different CI simulators. The interoperability approach is scenario-based and employs CI ontologies at three different levels: federation, infrastructure domain, and simulator. A quality-of-service-enhanced communication middleware will enable distributed simulation. This article describes the main aspects of the work within the DIESIS project

Emergent risk to workplace safety as a result of the use of robots in the work place

For decades now, robots have been a key part of future visions in films and books. As long ago as 1920, Karel Čapek wrote a play called RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The first real robot, ‘Gargantuan’, was constructed between 1935 and 1937. It was made completely out of Meccano. Today’s industrial robots strongly resemble those introduced on General Motors’ car production lines in 19612. In the past fifty years, robots have become much faster and more accurate, but in many cases they do no more than operate in one particular location or on rails, automatically carrying out perhaps only a single task within a fixed hazardous zone or inside a safety cage. The box on the next page shows several examples of the application of modern-day industrial robots in different sectors. These robots are still a far cry from the intelligent and autonomous robots described in science-fiction films and books. It is because of these depictions that many people imagine robots as being like humans - able to move independently, to interact with people, and to respond to their surroundings

Opkomend risico voor arbeidsveiligheid door inzet van robots op de werkvloer

Al decennia lang spreken robots tot de verbeelding in toekomstvisioenen in films en boeken. Karel Čapek schreef al in 1920 een toneelstuk genaamd RUR (Rossums Universele Robots). De eerste echte robot ‘Gargantuan’ werd in de periode 1935 tot 1937 geconstrueerd. Deze was volledig opgebouwd uit Meccano® 1. De huidige industriële robots lijken nog veel op de versie die in 1961 in de autoproductielijnen van General Motors zijn geïntroduceerd2. Robots zijn in de afgelopen vijftig jaar wel veel sneller en nauwkeuriger geworden, maar het blijven nu nog vaak locatie- of rail gebonden machines die automatisch een (enkele) taak uitvoeren binnen een vastgestelde gevarenzone of binnen een veiligheidskooi. In het kader op de volgende pagina worden enkele voorbeelden gegeven van de toepassing van hedendaagse industriële robots in verschillende sectoren. Deze robots staan nog ver weg van de intelligente en autonome robots zoals in sciencefiction boeken en films worden neergezet. Door deze verhalen is de beeldvorming van robots voor veel personen gericht op machines met een menselijke vorm, die zich zichzelf kunnen voortbewegen, met personen om kunnen gaan en op hun omgeving kunnen reageren. Ondanks bovenstaande beperkingen introduceren de huidige industriële robots nieuwe risico’s op de werkvloer ondanks de definiëring van veiligheidszones of kooien. Dit werd afgelopen jaar opnieuw benadrukt na een dodelijk ongeluk waarbij een werknemer door een robot werd doodgedrukt3. Aangezien industriële robots in toenemende mate in gebruik worden genomen in de land- en tuinbouw, maakindustrie en distributiemagazijnen kunnen dit soort arbeidsincidenten zich in de toekomst vaker gaan voordoen

DIESIS – Designing a Research Facility for CIP

The EU funded project DIESIS investigates the feasibility of a new facility for joint research in Critical Infrastructures and their protection, supporting particularly modelling, federated CI simulation, and analysis

The State and the Threat of Cascading Failure across Critical Infrastructures : The Implications of Empirical Evidence from Media Incident Reports

The threat of cascading failures across critical infrastructures has been identified as a key challenge for governments. Cascading failure is seen as potentially catastrophic, extremely difficult to predict and increasingly likely to happen. Infrastructures are largely privately operated and private actors are thought to under-invest in mitigating this threat. Consequently, experts have demanded a more dominant role for government, including the use of regulation. Empirical evidence on cascading failure is, however, extremely scarce. This paper analyses new data drawn from news reports on incidents. We find that, contrary to current thinking, cascades are not rare. Neither do they indicate a wide array of unknown dependencies across infrastructures. Rather, we find a small number of focused, unidirectional pathways around two infrastructures: energy and telecommunications. We also found that most cascades were stopped quickly, in contrast to the oft-cited ‘domino effect’. These findings undermine the case for more intrusive public oversight of critical infrastructure