EmLog:Tamper-Resistant System Logging for Constrained Devices with TEEs

Remote mobile and embedded devices are used to deliver increasingly impactful services, such as medical rehabilitation and assistive technologies. Secure system logging is beneficial in these scenarios to aid audit and forensic investigations particularly if devices bring harm to end-users. Logs should be tamper-resistant in storage, during execution, and when retrieved by a trusted remote verifier. In recent years, Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) have emerged as the go-to root of trust on constrained devices for isolated execution of sensitive applications. Existing TEE-based logging systems, however, focus largely on protecting server-side logs and offer little protection to constrained source devices. In this paper, we introduce EmLog -- a tamper-resistant logging system for constrained devices using the GlobalPlatform TEE. EmLog provides protection against complex software adversaries and offers several additional security properties over past schemes. The system is evaluated across three log datasets using an off-the-shelf ARM development board running an open-source, GlobalPlatform-compliant TEE. On average, EmLog runs with low run-time memory overhead (1MB heap and stack), 430--625 logs/second throughput, and five-times persistent storage overhead versus unprotected logs.Comment: Accepted at the 11th IFIP International Conference on Information Security Theory and Practice (WISTP '17

Deafening silence? Marxism, international historical sociology and the spectre of Eurocentrism

Approaching the centenary of its establishment as a formal discipline, International Relations today challenges the ahistorical and aspatial frameworks advanced by the theories of earlier luminaries. Yet, despite a burgeoning body of literature built on the transdisciplinary efforts bridging International Relations and its long-separated nomothetic relatives, the new and emerging conceptual frameworks have not been able to effectively overcome the challenge posed by the ‘non-West’. The recent wave of international historical sociology has highlighted possible trajectories to problematise the myopic and unipolar conceptions of the international system; however, the question of Eurocentrism still lingers in the developing research programmes. This article interjects into the ongoing historical materialist debate in international historical sociology by: (1) conceptually and empirically challenging the rigid boundaries of the extant approaches; and (2) critically assessing the postulations of recent theorising on ‘the international’, capitalist states-system/geopolitics and uneven and combined development. While the significance of the present contributions in international historical sociology should not be understated, it is argued that the ‘Eurocentric cage’ still occupies a dominant ontological position which essentially silences ‘connected histories’ and conceals the role of inter-societal relations in the making of the modern states-system and capitalist geopolitics

Salmonella Strains Isolated from Galápagos Iguanas Show Spatial Structuring of Serovar and Genomic Diversity

It is thought that dispersal limitation primarily structures host-associated bacterial populations because host distributions inherently limit transmission opportunities. However, enteric bacteria may disperse great distances during food-borne outbreaks. It is unclear if such rapid long-distance dispersal events happen regularly in natural systems or if these events represent an anthropogenic exception. We characterized Salmonella enterica isolates from the feces of free-living Galápagos land and marine iguanas from five sites on four islands using serotyping and genomic fingerprinting. Each site hosted unique and nearly exclusive serovar assemblages. Genomic fingerprint analysis offered a more complex model of S. enterica biogeography, with evidence of both unique strain pools and of spatial population structuring along a geographic gradient. These findings suggest that even relatively generalist enteric bacteria may be strongly dispersal limited in a natural system with strong barriers, such as oceanic divides. Yet, these differing results seen on two typing methods also suggests that genomic variation is less dispersal limited, allowing for different ecological processes to shape biogeographical patterns of the core and flexible portions of this bacterial species' genome

Condiciones socioeconómicas de los productores de maíz de los municipios de Villaflores y La Trinitaria, Chiapas, México

In Mexico, the agricultural sector has a complex structure in economic and social terms, which is reflected in socioeconomic imbalances in various areas of the country. This has resulted inrural producers considering as a means of subsistence, various systems of production and diversification of non-agricultural activities, in order to increase income, have greater opportunities for development and progress options in improving quality of life. The objective of this research was to determine the socioeconomic conditions in which the corn producers of the municipalities of Villaflores and La Trinitaria, Chiapas are located, in order to establish differentiated public policies that contribute to improving income and satisfying needs basics of the actors under study. Methodologically, stratified proportional affixation sampling and multivariate cluster analysis were applied using hierarchical and Wards clustering methods. The results determined the difference between the groups of the municipalities, which were: age and schooling of the producers, income from sales of production and non-agricultural activities, destination of the income they receive, access to health services, spaces and materials of the housing, and basic services. It is concluded that it is necessary to strengthen socio-economic policy and promote initiatives as a fundamental part of the regional rural development policy, so that it remains balanced in the social and economic spheres and ensures a decent standard of living for the inhabitants of rural communities.En México, el sector agrícola cuenta con una estructura compleja en términos económicos y sociales, que se refleja en desequilibrios socioeconómicos en diversas zonas del país. Esto ha dado como resultado que los productores rurales consideren como forma de subsistencia, varios sistemas de producción y diversificación de actividades no agrícolas, con el fin de incrementar el ingreso, contar con mayores oportunidades de desarrollo y opciones de progreso en el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida. El objetivo de esta investigación fue determinar las condiciones socioeconómicas en las que se encuentran los productores de maíz de los municipios de Villaflores y La Trinitaria, Chiapas, a fin de establecer politicas públicas diferenciadas que contribuyan a mejorar el ingreso y la satisfacción de las necesidades básicas de los actores objeto de estudio. Metodológicamente, se aplicó el muestreo estratificado afijación proporcional y el análisis multivariado por conglomerados, mediante los métodos jerárquicos y de agrupamiento Wards. Los resultados determinaron la diferencia entre los grupos de los municipios, que fueron: edad y escolaridad de los productores, ingreso por ventas de producción y actividades no agrícolas, destino del ingreso que perciben, acceso a los servicios de salud, espacios y materiales de las viviendas, y servicios básicos. Se concluye, que es necesario reforzar la política socioeconómica e impulsar iniciativas como parte fundamental de la política de desarrollo rural regional, para que se mantenga equilibrado en los ámbitos social y económico y asegurar un nivel de vida digno para los habitantes de las comunidades rurales

The Bidirectional Relationship between Sleep and Immunity against Infections

Sleep is considered an important modulator of the immune response. Thus, a lack of sleep can weaken immunity, increasing organism susceptibility to infection. For instance, shorter sleep durations are associated with a rise in suffering from the common cold. The function of sleep in altering immune responses must be determined to understand how sleep deprivation increases the susceptibility to viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections. There are several explanations for greater susceptibility to infections after reduced sleep, such as impaired mitogenic proliferation of lymphocytes, decreased HLA-DR expression, the upregulation of CD14+, and variations in CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, which have been observed during partial sleep deprivation. Also, steroid hormones, in addition to regulating sexual behavior, influence sleep. Thus, we hypothesize that sleep and the immune-endocrine system have a bidirectional relationship in governing various physiological processes, including immunity to infections. This review discusses the evidence on the bidirectional effects of the immune response against viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections on sleep patterns and how the lack of sleep affects the immune response against such agents. Because sleep is essential in the maintenance of homeostasis, these situations must be adapted to elicit changes in sleep patterns and other physiological parameters during the immune response to infections to which the organism is continuously exposed