Transforming the 'weakest link' - a human/computer interaction approach to usable and effective security

The security research community has recently recognised that user behaviour plays a part in many security failures, and it has become common to refer to users as the 'weakest link in the security chain'. We argue that simply blaming users will not lead to more effective security systems. Security designers must identify the causes of undesirable user behaviour, and address these to design effective security systems. We present examples of how undesirable user behaviour with passwords can be caused by failure to recognise the characteristics of human memory, unattainable or conflicting task demands, and lack of support, training and motivation. We conclude that existing human/computer interaction knowledge and techniques can be used to prevent or address these problems, and outline a vision of a holistic design approach for usable and effective security

Pretty Good Persuasion: a First Step Towards Effective Password Security in the Real World

In the past,research on password mechanisms has focussed almost entirely on technical issues. Only in recent years has the security research community acknowledged that user behavior plays a part in many security failures, and that policies alone may not be sufficient to ensure correct behavior. We argue that password mechanisms and their users form a socio-technical system, whose effectiveness relies strongly on users' willingness to make the extra effort that security-censcious behavior requires. In most organizations, users cannot be forced to comply; rather, they have to be persuaded to do so. Ultimately, the mechanisms themselves, policies, tutorials, training and the general discourse have to be designed with their persuasive power in mind. We present the results of a first study that can guide such persuasive efforts, and describe methods that can be used to persuade users to employ proper password practice

International visitor attitudes to Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Nepal : a thesis presented to Lincoln University in fulfilment of the thesis required for the degree of Master of Parks and Recreation Management

This study was done in Sagannatha (Mt. Everest) National Park (SNP), Nepal over a period of two months - December, 1991 and January, 1992. Sagarmatha National Park is a prime destination for many of the tourists who visit Nepal. It is a World Heritage Site and thus has great importance for conservation as well as for tourism. The success of the tourism industry depends on visitor satisfactions with their visits to these destinations. The success of SNP as a conservation area is equally dependent on visitor appreciation and sensitivity in terms of their activities while in the Park. This study explores visitor reasons for visiting SNP, visitor satisfaction with their visit to the Park and the local beliefs about the visitors. Data for this research were collected from the SNP visitors and local residents through questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews. Due to field constraints, true random sampling was not possible. Trekking, viewing scenery, Mt. Everest and Sherpa culture were the main visitor reasons (motivations) for visiting SNP. Visitors reported "highly achieved" for each of these and thus were highly satisfied with their visit to SNP. It does not negate the fact that tourism brings with it many problems. In SNP rubbish and firewood were seen to be the major problems. Among the locals, lack of knowledge and awareness were seen as being the major drawbacks in trying to solve these problems. Visitors indicated a number of other issues which they felt needed improvement such as rubbish disposal, hygiene, sanitation and the quality of drinking water. These issues were not perceived as lessening visitor satisfactions as visitors indicated that they expected these conditions. This information points out that anticipated expectations of a destination were the determinant of the actual satisfaction. Visitors rated most of the SNP hotel/lodge facilities as "reasonable" or higher but in their comments and in-depth interviews they commented about needed improvements. Visitors evaluated these facilities in terms of what they anticipated not what they thought the facilities should be

A Reflection on Types

The ability to perform type tests at runtime blurs the line between statically-typed and dynamically-checked languages. Recent developments in Haskell’s type system allow even programs that use reflection to themselves be statically typed, using a type-indexed runtime representation of types called \{}\textit{TypeRep}. As a result we can build dynamic types as an ordinary, statically-typed library, on top of \{}\textit{TypeRep} in an open-world context

Selectivity of saflufenacil applied alone or mixed to glyphosate in maize.

The use of selective herbicides is important for weed management in agricultural crops. Selectivity studies of new molecules are really important to expand the control options of glyphosate-resistant and -tolerant eudicotyledons in corn. The objective of this work was to evaluate the selectivity of the herbicide saflufenacil applied alone in different doses in post-emergence of corn and in a mixture with glyphosate. The design used was randomized blocks, with four replications, with treatments consisting of five doses of saflufenacil, applied alone and in a mixture with a fixed dose of glyphosate, in addition to the weeded control and only glyphosate. At 7, 14, 21 and 28 days after application (DAT), the phytotoxicity of the herbicides to the crop was evaluated. The physiological variables were measured at 35 DAT. At harvest, yield components were determined, in addition to the mass of 1,000 grains and grain yield. The application of the mixture of glyphosate with saflufenacil increases phytotoxicity symptoms and yield losses. Doses of up to 70 g ha-1, applied alone, caused low phytotoxicity to corn and did not interfere in yield. The use of glyphosate + saflufenacil tank mixtures caused decreases in yield of 43.96 and 40.81% when compared, respectively, with the weeded control and the averages of the applications of the herbicides alone. Saflufenacil has the potential to be used in the management of eudicotyledonous weeds, as long as it is not mixed with glyphosate and the dose limit is respected

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV