SQL Injection Detection Using Machine Learning Techniques and Multiple Data Sources

SQL Injection continues to be one of the most damaging security exploits in terms of personal information exposure as well as monetary loss. Injection attacks are the number one vulnerability in the most recent OWASP Top 10 report, and the number of these attacks continues to increase. Traditional defense strategies often involve static, signature-based IDS (Intrusion Detection System) rules which are mostly effective only against previously observed attacks but not unknown, or zero-day, attacks. Much current research involves the use of machine learning techniques, which are able to detect unknown attacks, but depending on the algorithm can be costly in terms of performance. In addition, most current intrusion detection strategies involve collection of traffic coming into the web application either from a network device or from the web application host, while other strategies collect data from the database server logs. In this project, we are collecting traffic from two points: the web application host, and a Datiphy appliance node located between the webapp host and the associated MySQL database server. In our analysis of these two datasets, and another dataset that is correlated between the two, we have been able to demonstrate that accuracy obtained with the correlated dataset using algorithms such as rule-based and decision tree are nearly the same as those with a neural network algorithm, but with greatly improved performance

A Sketch of a Humane Education: A Capability Approach Perspective

Poverty, understood as basic capability deprivation, can only be solved through a process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value. This process can only begin if the capability to imagine and aspire for an altenative lifestyle worthy of human dignity is cultivated by an education program that develops both the capability to reason and to value. These two facets play a major role in the creative exercise of human agency. This program of humane education can only come from an adequate description of the human agent as a persona that seeks to actualize itself based on his/her understanding of the good. Education must therefore seek to cultivate the capability to have an adequate conception of the good (normative) as well as the capability to constantly re-evaluate one’s conception of the good (evaluative) in order to freely and reasonably choose a life that one values and has reason to value. Education must therefore entail not merely the development of skills nor specialization in a particular field but must concentrate on the integration of the human person as a whole which leads to self-creative praxis

Existence of optimal controls for singular control problems with state constraints

We establish the existence of an optimal control for a general class of singular control problems with state constraints. The proof uses weak convergence arguments and a time rescaling technique. The existence of optimal controls for Brownian control problems \citehar, associated with a broad family of stochastic networks, follows as a consequence.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051606000000556 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Exchange Rate Fluctuations in the New Member States of the European Union

This paper assesses the role of exchange rates in moderating the impact of economic disturbances in the new member states of the European Union, and finds some evidence in favour of this proposition. Exchange rates are mostly driven by real (demand) shocks, whilst output by real supply shocks. Nominal shocks, which have no long-run impact on output, are nevertheless important in explaining exchange rate fluctuations implying that less exchange rate flexibility may indeed be warranted in the run- up to the adoption of the euro. We find that while interest rate shocks generally do not explain exchange rate fluctuations, credit shocks matter in certain cases and seem to have considerable impact on exchange rate developments (e.g., for Poland). The analysis also shows that based on the average responses of exchange rates to different shocks, the adoption of narrow bands inside ERM II may be risky.Exchange rate fluctuations, transmission economies, ERM II, EMU, structural VAR

Corrigendum to "The holomorphic flow of the Riemann Zeta function"

Theorem 4.5 of [2], describing the topological type of the zeros of the flow s˙ = ζ(s) at reflected points off the critical line, claiming they were the same, contains an error. We gratefully acknowledge Professor Cevat Gokcek for pointing out the error to us

Linear law for the logarithms of the Riemann periods at simple critical zeta zeros

Each simple zero 1/2 + iγn of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line with γn > 0 is a center for the flow s˙ = ξ(s) of the Riemann xi function with an associated period Tn. It is shown that, as γn →∞, log Tn ≥ π/4 γn + O(log γn). Numerical evaluation leads to the conjecture that this inequality can be replaced by an equality. Assuming the Riemann Hypothesis and a zeta zero separation conjecture γn+1 − γn≥ γn-θ for some exponent θ > 0, we obtain the upper bound log Tn ≤ γn2 + θ Assuming a weakened form of a conjecture of Gonek, giving a bound for the reciprocal of the derivative of zeta at each zero, we obtain the expected upper bound for the periods so, conditionally, log Tn = π/ 4 γn +O(log γn). Indeed, this linear relationship is equivalent to the given weakened conjecture, which implies the zero separation conjecture, provided the exponent is sufficiently large. The frequencies corresponding to the periods relate to natural eigenvalues for the Hilbert–Polya conjecture. They may provide a goal for those seeking a self-adjoint operator related to the Riemann hypothesis

The holomorphic flow of the Riemann zeta function

The flow of the Riemann zeta function, ś = ς(s), is considered, and phase portraits are presented. Attention is given to the characterization of the flow lines in the neighborhood of the first 500 zeros on the critical line. All of these zeros are foci. The majority are sources, but in a small proportion of exceptional cases the zero is a sink. To produce these portraits, the zeta function was evaluated numerically to 12 decimal places, in the region of interest, using the Chebyshev method and using Mathematica. The phase diagrams suggest new analytic properties of zeta, of which some are proved and others are given in the form of conjectures

A modern day panopticon: using power and control theory to manage volunteer tourists in Bolivia

Volunteer tourism literature is yet to examine the impact of power and control practices on volunteer tourist compliancy. This paper contributes to closing this research gap by proposing and testing a new theoretical model of power and control practices. Drawing upon the previously un-synthesized theoretical contributions of Foucault (1979) and French & Raven (1959), the model presents power and control practices identified in the extant organizational literature. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, data was collected within a Bolivian volunteer-host community. Examination of results suggested mutually beneficial volunteer-host working relationships occur under ‘softer’ management practices. Our findings also offer insight into the salience of using reward-based management strategies as a control mechanism, as well as identifying two new control practices that emerged empirically. The research suggests several implications for the management of host communities towards creating more harmonious, efficient, and effective working relationships between volunteer tourists and hosts

James Hutton's Metaphysics, Theory of Language, and Science, in the Scottish Enlightenment

James Hutton (1726-1797) is most famous for his Theory of the Earth in which he demonstrated the vast time scale of the geological process and has become known as "the founder of modern geology." Much therefore has been written about Hutton's work on geology, but he was in fact a polymath who published on a variety of subjects in natural philosophy and philosophy which have been largely neglected. Indeed, his longest publication the three-volume metaphysical work An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of the Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy (1794) has been virtually ignored. Yet without an examination of his metaphysical inquiry it is difficult to comprehend his approach to science. Embedded within his metaphysics was Hutton's theory of language which is the main subject of this thesis.Beginning with an introduction which biographically and historiographically contextualizes Hutton, this thesis is then divided into three parts: Metaphysics, Language, and Science. The first part contains an analysis of Hutton's metaphysics and an explanation of why it has been neglected. It also considers the influence of Hutton's university professors—specifically Colin MacLaurin and John Stevenson— on his metaphysics and theory of language. Additionally this part includes an examination of what has been written about Hutton's metaphysics most notably in the contemporary periodicals The Analytical Review, The Critical Review, and The English Review. The second part begins by illustrating the importance that Hutton attached to his work on language as he presented it to an intellectually elite audience as part of a linguistic debate at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Using manuscript evidence from the Society's records this part also illustrates the extent of Hutton's activities in both the Physical Class and the Literary Class of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Additionally this part shows that Hutton's published theory of language, which contained dissertations on speech and orthography, was a social, cultural and pedagogical response to the period's preoccupation with standardization. But Hutton's theory differed completely from the preoccupation with an elitist standard that was prevalent at the time, as he thought that the fashionable pronunciation of the Court and the polite metropolitan society of London were just as erroneous as any regional dialect since they all failed to adhere to proper principles. In the third part it is argued that Hutton's principles of orthography had implications for his and other's science since if natural philosophy continued to be written on an erroneous etymological standard it would eventually fall into scientific ruin. The thesis concludes that since Hutton's theory of language was ultimately part of his metaphysics which he applied to his science, then in order to fully comprehend Hutton's science his metaphysics and theory of language should be taken into consideration