Creating Honeypots to Prevent Online Child Exploitation

Honeypots have been a key tool in controlling and understanding digital crime for several decades. The tool has traditionally been deployed against actors who are attempting to hack into systems or as a discovery mechanism for new forms of malware. This paper presents a novel approach to using a honeypot architecture in conjunction with social networks to respond to non-technical digital crimes. The tool is presented within the context of Child Exploitation Material (CEM), and to support the goal of taking an educative approach to Internet users who are developing an interest in this material. The architecture that is presented in the paper includes multiple layers, including recruitment, obfuscation, and education. The approach does not aim to collect data to support punitive action, but to educate users, increasing their knowledge and awareness of the negative impacts of such material

Patient Controlled, Privacy Preserving IoT Healthcare Data Sharing Framework

Healthcare data personally collected by individuals with wearable devices have become important sources of information for healthcare professionals and medical research worldwide. User-Generated Data (UGD) offers unique and sometimes fine-grained insight into the lived experiences and medical conditions of patients. The sensitive subject-matter of medical data can facilitate the exploitation and/or control of victims. Data collection in medical research therefore restricts access control over participant-data to the researchers. Therefore, cultivating trust with prospective participants concerned about the security of their medical data presents formidable challenges. Anonymization can allay such concerns, but at the cost of information loss. Moreover, such techniques cannot necessarily be applied on real-time streaming health data. In this paper, we aim to analyze the technical requirements to enable individuals to share their real-time wearable healthcare data with researchers without compromising privacy. An extension for delay-free anonymization techniques for real-time streaming health data is also proposed

A Comparative Analysis of Distributed Ledger Technology Platforms

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has emerged as one of the most disruptive technologies in the last decade. It promises to change the way people do their business, track their products, and manage their personal data. Though the concept of DLT was first implemented in 2009 as Bitcoin, it has gained significant attention only in the past few years. During this time, different DLT enthusiasts and commercial companies have proposed and developed several DLT platforms. These platforms are usually categorized as public vs private, general-purpose vs application-specific and so on. As a growing number of people are interested to build DLT applications, it is important to understand their underlying architecture and capabilities in order to determine which DLT platform should be leveraged for a specific DLT application. In addition, the platforms need to be evaluated and critically analyzed to assess their applicability, resiliency and sustainability in the long run. In this paper, we have surveyed several leading DLT platforms and evaluated their capabilities based on a number of quantitative and qualitative criteria. The comparative analysis presented in this paper will help the DLT developers and architects to choose the best platform as per their requirement(s)

Neurodiverse Knowledge, Skills and Ability Assessment for Cyber Security

Cyber attacks have become commonplace and cause harm to IT systems operated by governments, businesses and citizens. As a result, there has been substantial job growth within the cyber security industry to try and meet the need for network defence. However, due to fierce competition for with the relevant skills there is a shortfall in skilled workers able to fill these roles. The goal of this project is to develop, validate and verify a novel solution for the recruitment of highly competent cyber security staff who can defend our nation against capable and well-funded adversaries. The proposed solution involves the development of a training scheme to train neurodiverse individuals for these roles. There is evidence for their interest and aptitude within the sector, but no research has been undertaken to establish how best to train them in the context of their individual differences

Editorial: Special issue “Security threats and countermeasures in cyber-physical systems”

Wireless, sensor and actuator technologies are often central to sensing or communication critical systems [...

Insights into the subsurface structure of the Caloris basin, Mercury, from assessments of mechanical layering and changes in long-wavelength topography

The volcanic plains that fill the Caloris basin, the largest recognized impact basin on Mercury, are deformed by many graben and wrinkle ridges, among which the multitude of radial graben of Pantheon Fossae allow us to resolve variations in the depth extent of associated faulting. Displacement profiles and displacement-to-length scaling both indicate that faults near the basin center are confined to a ~ 4-km-thick mechanical layer, whereas faults far from the center penetrate more deeply. The fault scaling also indicates that the graben formed in mechanically strong material, which we identify with dry basalt-like plains. These plains were also affected by changes in long-wavelength topography, including undulations with wavelengths of up to 1300 km and amplitudes of 2.5 to 3 km. Geographic correlation of the depth extent of faulting with topographic variations allows a first-order interpretation of the subsurface structure and mechanical stratigraphy in the basin. Further, crosscutting and superposition relationships among plains, faults, craters, and topography indicate that development of long-wavelength topographic variations followed plains emplacement, faulting, and much of the cratering within the Caloris basin. As several examples of these topographic undulations are also found outside the basin, our results on the scale, structural style, and relative timing of the topographic changes have regional applicability and may be the surface expression of global-scale interior processes on Mercury

Insights into the subsurface structure of the Caloris basin, Mercury, from assessments of mechanical layering and changes in long-wavelength topography

The volcanic plains that fill the Caloris basin, the largest recognized impact basin on Mercury, are deformed by many graben and wrinkle ridges, among which the multitude of radial graben of Pantheon Fossae allow us to resolve variations in the depth extent of associated faulting. Displacement profiles and displacement-to-length scaling both indicate that faults near the basin center are confined to a ~ 4-km-thick mechanical layer, whereas faults far from the center penetrate more deeply. The fault scaling also indicates that the graben formed in mechanically strong material, which we identify with dry basalt-like plains. These plains were also affected by changes in long-wavelength topography, including undulations with wavelengths of up to 1300 km and amplitudes of 2.5 to 3 km. Geographic correlation of the depth extent of faulting with topographic variations allows a first-order interpretation of the subsurface structure and mechanical stratigraphy in the basin. Further, crosscutting and superposition relationships among plains, faults, craters, and topography indicate that development of long-wavelength topographic variations followed plains emplacement, faulting, and much of the cratering within the Caloris basin. As several examples of these topographic undulations are also found outside the basin, our results on the scale, structural style, and relative timing of the topographic changes have regional applicability and may be the surface expression of global-scale interior processes on Mercury

Galactic Globular and Open Clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I. Crowded Field Photometry and Cluster Fiducial Sequences in ugriz

We present photometry for globular and open cluster stars observed with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In order to exploit over 100 million stellar objects with r < 22.5 mag observed by SDSS, we need to understand the characteristics of stars in the SDSS ugriz filters. While star clusters provide important calibration samples for stellar colors, the regions close to globular clusters, where the fraction of field stars is smallest, are too crowded for the standard SDSS photometric pipeline to process. To complement the SDSS imaging survey, we reduce the SDSS imaging data for crowded cluster fields using the DAOPHOT/ALLFRAME suite of programs and present photometry for 17 globular clusters and 3 open clusters in a SDSS value-added catalog. Our photometry and cluster fiducial sequences are on the native SDSS 2.5-meter ugriz photometric system, and the fiducial sequences can be directly applied to the SDSS photometry without relying upon any transformations. Model photometry for red giant branch and main-sequence stars obtained by Girardi et al. cannot be matched simultaneously to fiducial sequences; their colors differ by ~0.02-0.05 mag. Good agreement (< ~0.02 mag in colors) is found with Clem et al. empirical fiducial sequences in u'g'r'i'z' when using the transformation equations in Tucker et al.Comment: 30 pages, 25 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJS. Version with high resolution figures available at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~deokkeun/AnJohnson.pd

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

This paper describes the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), marking the completion of the original goals of the SDSS and the end of the phase known as SDSS-II. It includes 11663 deg^2 of imaging data, with most of the roughly 2000 deg^2 increment over the previous data release lying in regions of low Galactic latitude. The catalog contains five-band photometry for 357 million distinct objects. The survey also includes repeat photometry over 250 deg^2 along the Celestial Equator in the Southern Galactic Cap. A coaddition of these data goes roughly two magnitudes fainter than the main survey. The spectroscopy is now complete over a contiguous area of 7500 deg^2 in the Northern Galactic Cap, closing the gap that was present in previous data releases. There are over 1.6 million spectra in total, including 930,000 galaxies, 120,000 quasars, and 460,000 stars. The data release includes improved stellar photometry at low Galactic latitude. The astrometry has all been recalibrated with the second version of the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC-2), reducing the rms statistical errors at the bright end to 45 milli-arcseconds per coordinate. A systematic error in bright galaxy photometr is less severe than previously reported for the majority of galaxies. Finally, we describe a series of improvements to the spectroscopic reductions, including better flat-fielding and improved wavelength calibration at the blue end, better processing of objects with extremely strong narrow emission lines, and an improved determination of stellar metallicities. (Abridged)Comment: 20 pages, 10 embedded figures. Accepted to ApJS after minor correction