Rethinking Digital Forensics

© IAER 2019In the modern socially-driven, knowledge-based virtual computing environment in which organisations are operating, the current digital forensics tools and practices can no longer meet the need for scientific rigour. There has been an exponential increase in the complexity of the networks with the rise of the Internet of Things, cloud technologies and fog computing altering business operations and models. Adding to the problem are the increased capacity of storage devices and the increased diversity of devices that are attached to networks, operating autonomously. We argue that the laws and standards that have been written, the processes, procedures and tools that are in common use are increasingly not capable of ensuring the requirement for scientific integrity. This paper looks at a number of issues with current practice and discusses measures that can be taken to improve the potential of achieving scientific rigour for digital forensics in the current and developing landscapePeer reviewe

The Stability of Palmitic Acid Monolayers

Sea spray aerosols, naturally-generated aerosols originating from the sea surface microlayer, affect the climate in a myriad of ways. To study the stability of the organic coatings on sea spray aerosols, palmitic acid monolayers served as a model system and equilibrium surface pressure values were measured on various subphase environments. Palmitic acid monolayers on lower pH subphases experienced the same equilibrium surface pressure, whereas a high pH subphase resulted in a significantly larger equilibrium surface pressure due to a desorption mechanism. The addition of 100 mM NaCl was found to improve the monolayer stability at each subphase pH level. In addition, a separate set of experiments focused on the effect of varying the CaCl2 concentration of the subphase. Low CaCl2 concentrations enhanced monolayer stability, while higher concentrations reduced stability. The results suggest that multiple factors of the marine and atmospheric environment are important to determining the stability of the organic films on sea spray aerosols, and hence the lifetime through which seas spray aerosols can impact the climate. Overall, information on the stability of palmitic acid monolayers can be applied to sea spray aerosols and provide some insight into the broader biological contexts of palmitic acid.Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and Environment (CAICE)National Science Foundation(NSF) Grant CHE1305427A one-year embargo was granted for this item.Academic Major: Biochemistr

Wage growth dispersion across the euro area countries - some stylised facts

This study presents some stylised facts on wage growth differentials across the euro area countries in the years before and in the first eight years after the introduction of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999. The study shows that wage growth dispersion, i.e. the degree of difference in wage growth at a given point in time, has been on a clear downward trend since the early 1980s. However, wage growth dispersion across the euro area countries still appears to be higher than the degree of wage growth dispersion within West Germany, the United States, Italy and Spain. Differences in wage growth rates between individual euro area countries and the euro area in the years before and in the first eight years after the introduction of EMU appear to be positively related to the respective differences between their Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) inflation and average HICP inflation in the euro area. Conversely, relative wage growth differentials across euro area countries have been somewhat unrelated to relative productivity growth differentials. Some countries combine positive wage growth differentials and negative productivity growth differentials vis-à-vis the euro area average over an extended period – and hence positive unit labour cost growth differentials. These countries run the risk of accumulating competitiveness losses and it is therefore a challenge to ensure that the necessary adjustment mechanisms operate fully, in the sense that wage developments are sufficiently flexible and reflect productivity developments. Wage growth persistence within individual euro area countries – largely reflecting inflation persistence and certain institutional factors – might also have contributed somewhat to wage growth differentials across the euro area countries. Moreover, wage level convergence has also played a role in explaining wage growth patterns in the 1980s and the 1990s. However, since 1999, the link between the initial compensation level and the subsequent growth rate of compensation per employee appears barely significant. The study also shows a limited co-movement of wage growth across countries, even in the context of a high degree of business cycle synchronisation seen in the last few years. This suggests that the impact on wage growth of country-specific developments across euro area countries has been larger than the impact of common cyclical developments and external shocks. This could reflect the normal and desirable working of adjustment mechanisms, which – in an optimally functioning currency union with synchronised business cycles – would take place via price and cost and wage developments. On the other hand, structural impediments, for example a relatively low degree of openness in domestically-oriented sectors in some countries, might prevent a stronger link between the degree of synchronisation of wage growth rates and business cycles. JEL Classification: E24, E31, C10.Cross-country wage dispersion, wage and productivity levels across countries and sectors.

Improving the resistance to progressive collapse of steel and composite frames

Several well publicised examples of progressive collapse have heightened concerns about the need to address robustness as a design requirement. Although research around the subject has been aimed at understanding the mechanics of progressive collapse, little work has been done on translating findings into better guidance on how to ensure adequate resistance without relying on the current prescriptive rules. Based on the Imperial College London method, which provides a soundly based analysis framework for calculating and comparing the performance of different designs, the work presented herein introduces a methodology for making realistic and effective design interventions, in order to allow designers to effectively enhance the robustness of their structure. This strategy is illustrated for both steel and composite frames and covers structures designed for both seismic and non seismic locations. Using the proposed step-by-step methodology, it is possible to redesign a simply designed composite frame in a way that it will be sufficiently robust to cope with any sudden column removal scenario. Comparison with simply increasing tying capacity reveals that the latter does not have a direct and proportional effect on the frame’s resistance and should be used within a more informed context. With the aim of performing a complementary study for moment resisting steel frames, three types of popular welded connections are modelled under progressive collapse loading conditions using the Component Method. Also, an analytical solution for the prediction of the response of irregular beam systems under sudden column loss is presented. Despite the excellent performance of most floor systems, moment frames are found vulnerable to certain column loss scenarios. Thus, these scenarios are further examined with the express purpose of identifying how the frame might best be configured so as to provide the necessary resistance. The findings show how design for seismic resistance and design to resist progressive collapse do not necessarily align and highlight which structural properties are the most important to consider in each frame type, therefore encouraging the use of the proposed redesigning methodology, which is capable of effectively remediating robustness by efficiently addressing localised weaknesses.Open Acces

Assessing Identity Theft in the Internet of Things

Published by Innovative Information Science & Technology Research Group (ISYOU)In the Internet of Things everything is interconnected. In the same context that “man-made fire” got the party started for human civilisation, “man-made TCP” enabled computing devices to participate in our lives. Today we live in a socially-driven knowledge centred computing era and we are happy in living our lives based on what an Internet alias have said or done. We are prepared to accept any reality as long as it is presented to us in a digitised manner. The Internet of Things is an emerging technology introduced in Smart Devices that will need to be intergrated with the current Information Technology infrastructure in terms of its application and security considerations. In this paper we explore the identity cyberattacks that can be related to Internet of Things and we raise our concerns. We also present a vulnerability assessment model that attempts to predict how an environment can be influenced by this type of attacks.Peer reviewe

Towards the Resolution of Safety and Security Conflicts

© 2021, IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. This is the accepted manuscript version of a conference paper which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCST49569.2021.9717390Safety engineering and cyber security have complementary aims, but typically realise these using different techniques, risk assessment methods and cultural approaches. As a result, the integration of safety and cyber security concerns is a complex process, with potential for conflict. We present a generalized taxonomy of common conflict areas between safety and cyber security, oriented around the development and deployment lifecycle, and supplement this with a discussion of concepts and methodologies for resolution based on the shared principle of defence-in-depth

An Academic Approach to Digital Forensics

This is the accepted manuscript version of the following article: O. Angelopoulou, and S. Vidalis, “An academic approach to digital forensics”, Journal of Information Warfare, Vol. 13(4), 2015. The final published version is available at: https://www.jinfowar.com/journal/volume-13-issue-4/academic-approach-digital-forensics © Copyright 2017 Journal of Information Warfare. All Rights Reserved.Digital forensics as a field of study creates a number of challenges when it comes to the academic environment. The aim of this paper is to explore these challenges in relation to the learning and teaching theories. We discuss our approach and methods of educating digital forensic investigators based on the learning axioms and models, and we also present the learning environments we develop for our scholarsPeer reviewe