Covert Ephemeral Communication in Named Data Networking

In the last decade, there has been a growing realization that the current Internet Protocol is reaching the limits of its senescence. This has prompted several research efforts that aim to design potential next-generation Internet architectures. Named Data Networking (NDN), an instantiation of the content-centric approach to networking, is one such effort. In contrast with IP, NDN routers maintain a significant amount of user-driven state. In this paper we investigate how to use this state for covert ephemeral communication (CEC). CEC allows two or more parties to covertly exchange ephemeral messages, i.e., messages that become unavailable after a certain amount of time. Our techniques rely only on network-layer, rather than application-layer, services. This makes our protocols robust, and communication difficult to uncover. We show that users can build high-bandwidth CECs exploiting features unique to NDN: in-network caches, routers' forwarding state and name matching rules. We assess feasibility and performance of proposed cover channels using a local setup and the official NDN testbed

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ERP SYSTEMS WITHIN THE ACTUAL ECONOMICAL-FINANCIAL CRISIS

The aim of the ERP systems is to improve the activities that belong to the stage between acquiring an order from a client and issuing the invoice for that order and also the payment. The actual financial crisis, initially started in the USA as a subprime crisis, tends to be transformed in one of the most powerful economical crisis that was known in the last ten years, and some of the analysts predict that this crisis is even worse than the one that took place in the ’30 years. In these conditions, seems to be very natural for all the companies to look up for surviving solutions during this period, and one of the most popular methods to fight against the negative effects of the crisis applied by all the companies is the cost reduction. We may consider also that such a period could represent in the same time an opportunity for the companies to reconsider the business processes and repositioned in the actual context of the market, and for this a considerable help could be the implementation of an ERP systemERP, subprime crisis, business processes, company reorganization, IT system implementation

Relacja między aspektem czasownikowym a rodzajem czynności (Aktionsart) i jej konsekwencje w metodyce

Zadanie pt. Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę

Influence Factors for the Choice of a Software Development Methodology

The success rate of software development projects can be increased by using a methodology that is adequate for the specific characteristics of those projects. Over time a wide range of software development methodologies has been elaborated, therefore choosing one of them is not an easy task. Our research reviews the main categories of development methodologies and then focuses, for a detailed study, on three of them: Rational Unified Process (RUP), Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Extreme Programming (XP). For each methodology it is presented the structure of software life cycle, there are identified the situations in which the methodology can be used successfully and the situations in which it tends to fail. Based on the literature review of software development methodologies and on a series of surveys, published by different researchers, exploring the state of practices in this field, we have identified a number of factors that influence the decision of choosing the most adequate development methodology for a specific project. The methodologies that are subject of this study are evaluated in relation to these factors to find out which development methodology is the most adequate depending on the level of the factors for a specific project. The results of our research are useful for the developers by helping them to identify what software development methodology can be used with success for a specific project.Software development methodology, Rational Unified Process, Rapid Application Development, Extreme Programming, choosing the adequate methodology

Pyramid: Enhancing Selectivity in Big Data Protection with Count Featurization

Protecting vast quantities of data poses a daunting challenge for the growing number of organizations that collect, stockpile, and monetize it. The ability to distinguish data that is actually needed from data collected "just in case" would help these organizations to limit the latter's exposure to attack. A natural approach might be to monitor data use and retain only the working-set of in-use data in accessible storage; unused data can be evicted to a highly protected store. However, many of today's big data applications rely on machine learning (ML) workloads that are periodically retrained by accessing, and thus exposing to attack, the entire data store. Training set minimization methods, such as count featurization, are often used to limit the data needed to train ML workloads to improve performance or scalability. We present Pyramid, a limited-exposure data management system that builds upon count featurization to enhance data protection. As such, Pyramid uniquely introduces both the idea and proof-of-concept for leveraging training set minimization methods to instill rigor and selectivity into big data management. We integrated Pyramid into Spark Velox, a framework for ML-based targeting and personalization. We evaluate it on three applications and show that Pyramid approaches state-of-the-art models while training on less than 1% of the raw data

UTILISATION OF BENCHMARKING TECHNIQUES FOR FUNDAMENTING DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES IN THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN ROMANIA

Benchmarking is a method used to measure the products, services and processes in comparison to an entity recognized as a leader in terms of performance of its operations. Used in the years 1970-1980 in the strategic management of the company currently has proven to be increasingly useful in many areas, including in international analysis models. In the European Union benchmarking indicators are used especially in the digital economy and as perspective indicators for 2011-2015 (Eurostat, Database). In the introduction we present and define forms of benchmarking, as well as a number of specific terms, which contribute to a better understanding of the content of this scientific work. Time series are used to highlight advances in labor productivity in EU countries, and the analysis is particularized for two countries: Romania and Germany. Quantitative data were collected from the source Eurostat website. A comprehensive indicator at macroeconomic level is resource productivity, representing GDP in relation with domestic consumption of material (DCM). DCM measures the amount of materials used directly by an economy. It is presented in tabular form for all European Union countries and Switzerland, as evolving over a period of eight years. Benchmarking method is used to highlight some differences (gaps) between EU countries regarding productivity and particularly the one between Germany and Romania is highlighted, concerning the performance of manufacturing industries. It is expected that this gap will diminish. The gap was highlighted by relevant graphics and interpretations. The second part of the paper focuses on comparative analysis of factors productivity using the production function. We analyze labor and capital productivity and other factors that determine the level of production. For highlighting the contribution of the labour factor we used the number of hours worked, considering that it reflects the analyzed phenomenon more realistically. For highlighting the contribution of capital factor we used as an indicator the capital stock in euros, available for Germany in the Eurostat database, and for Romania in the Statistical Yearbook 2009, expressed in RON, as comparable prices and then converted into euros at the average rate calculated by the NBR . The results for the entire manufacturing industry represent the basis for further expansion of benchmarking to the main components of this industry, especially automobile building, transportation vechicules, furniture, clothing, leather chemical, etc.., providing a scientific basis to fundament the economic policies including commercial ones.benchmarking, labour productivity, resource productivity, capital productivity, sustainable development strategy

Considerations regarding the implementation of ERP systems within the actual economical-financial crisis

The aim of the ERP systems is to improve the activities that belong to the stage between acquiring an order from a client and issuing the invoice for that order and also the payment. The actual financial crisis, initially started in the USA as a subprime crisis, tends to be transformed in one of the most powerful economical crisis that was known in the last ten years, and some of the analysts predict that this crisis is even worse than the one that took place in the ’30 years. In these conditions, seems to be very natural for all the companies to look up for surviving solutions during this period, and one of the most popular methods to fight against the negative effects of the crisis applied by all the companies is the cost reduction. We may consider also that such a period could represent in the same time an opportunity for the companies to reconsider the business processes and repositioned in the actual context of the market, and for this a considerable help could be the implementation of an ERP system

Storage and Search in Dynamic Peer-to-Peer Networks

We study robust and efficient distributed algorithms for searching, storing, and maintaining data in dynamic Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks. P2P networks are highly dynamic networks that experience heavy node churn (i.e., nodes join and leave the network continuously over time). Our goal is to guarantee, despite high node churn rate, that a large number of nodes in the network can store, retrieve, and maintain a large number of data items. Our main contributions are fast randomized distributed algorithms that guarantee the above with high probability (whp) even under high adversarial churn: 1. A randomized distributed search algorithm that (whp) guarantees that searches from as many as $n - o(n)$ nodes ($n$ is the stable network size) succeed in ${O}(\log n)$-rounds despite ${O}(n/\log^{1+\delta} n)$ churn, for any small constant $\delta > 0$, per round. We assume that the churn is controlled by an oblivious adversary (that has complete knowledge and control of what nodes join and leave and at what time, but is oblivious to the random choices made by the algorithm). 2. A storage and maintenance algorithm that guarantees (whp) data items can be efficiently stored (with only $\Theta(\log{n})$ copies of each data item) and maintained in a dynamic P2P network with churn rate up to ${O}(n/\log^{1+\delta} n)$ per round. Our search algorithm together with our storage and maintenance algorithm guarantees that as many as $n - o(n)$ nodes can efficiently store, maintain, and search even under ${O}(n/\log^{1+\delta} n)$ churn per round. Our algorithms require only polylogarithmic in $n$ bits to be processed and sent (per round) by each node. To the best of our knowledge, our algorithms are the first-known, fully-distributed storage and search algorithms that provably work under highly dynamic settings (i.e., high churn rates per step).Comment: to appear at SPAA 201

Konzorcium, fő p.: The Timing of Life: Understanding the Consequences of Individualization for The Organisation of the Life Course in Europe = Consortional main: The Timing of Life: Understanding the Consequences of Individualization for The Organisation of the Life Course in Europe

A kutatásunkban, amely egy nemzetközi kutatási együttműködés keretében folyt, tisztázni kívántuk, hogy beszélhetünk-e az életpálya mentális szakaszolódásáról, és ha igen, annak fennmaradásában milyen egyéni-, csoport- és társadalmi (makro) szintű tényezők játszanak szerepet. Elemzéseinket az ESS 2006-os hullámára alapoztuk, és kihasználtuk a többszintű elemzési módszertan adta lehetőségeket. Megállapíthattuk, hogy a felnőtté válásnak, a középkorúságnak és az idős kornak Európában egyértelmű mentális standardjai vannak. Míg a felnőtté válás korhatárának megítélésében alig van különbség az európai országok között, addig a középkorúságot, illetve az időssé válást tekintve lényegesek az eltérések. A felnőtté válás életkoráról alkotott kép Európában univerzális, a kulcseseményeket tekintve a skandináv és kelet-európai országok mutatnak sajátos mintázatot. A középkorúvá válás meghatározódásában mentális tényezőknek (korhatár-elképzelések, a gyermekvállalás becsült utolsó életkora), az időskor korhatárának meghúzásában pedig a várható élettartamnak van meghatározó szerepe. Demográfiai tulajdonságok (életkor, nem, családi állapot, és családi állás, iskolai végzettség), életpálya-tapasztalatok (volt-e munkanélküli, volt-e válása) és tudattartalmak (elégedettség, magányosság érzete) is befolyásolják, hogy ki hol húzza meg az életkori határokat. Hogy a nők minden korhatárt két-három évvel korábban lépnek át, az döntően a férfiak véleményén alapul. | The research project, carried out in an international collaboration, concentrated on the organization of the life course, and addressed the question “to what extent is the life course perceived as a structured sequence of life stages, where the age lines between the stages are, and which events mark the transition from one stage to another?” The project utilized the 3rd wave of the European Social Survey and employed advanced multi-level analyses. We found signs of existing “mental life-course maps” in Europe. There are little country-variation in the age becoming adult, however middle-ages and old-ages are set differently in Europe. As long in defining middle ages subjective country-specific features (eg. defining ideal age of retirement) play a crucial role, old age is closely related to county-specific life-expectancy. Group specific demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education), life-course experiences (divorce, unemployment) and subjective evaluations (satisfaction, loneliness) significantly modify perceptions of age boundaries. Mainly male respondents are responsible for the perception, that male pass age dead-lines 2 years later than woman

XRay: Enhancing the Web's Transparency with Differential Correlation

Today's Web services - such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook - leverage user data for varied purposes, including personalizing recommendations, targeting advertisements, and adjusting prices. At present, users have little insight into how their data is being used. Hence, they cannot make informed choices about the services they choose. To increase transparency, we developed XRay, the first fine-grained, robust, and scalable personal data tracking system for the Web. XRay predicts which data in an arbitrary Web account (such as emails, searches, or viewed products) is being used to target which outputs (such as ads, recommended products, or prices). XRay's core functions are service agnostic and easy to instantiate for new services, and they can track data within and across services. To make predictions independent of the audited service, XRay relies on the following insight: by comparing outputs from different accounts with similar, but not identical, subsets of data, one can pinpoint targeting through correlation. We show both theoretically, and through experiments on Gmail, Amazon, and YouTube, that XRay achieves high precision and recall by correlating data from a surprisingly small number of extra accounts.Comment: Extended version of a paper presented at the 23rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 14