Multi-aspect, robust, and memory exclusive guest os fingerprinting

Precise fingerprinting of an operating system (OS) is critical to many security and forensics applications in the cloud, such as virtual machine (VM) introspection, penetration testing, guest OS administration, kernel dump analysis, and memory forensics. The existing OS fingerprinting techniques primarily inspect network packets or CPU states, and they all fall short in precision and usability. As the physical memory of a VM always exists in all these applications, in this article, we present OS-Sommelier+, a multi-aspect, memory exclusive approach for precise and robust guest OS fingerprinting in the cloud. It works as follows: given a physical memory dump of a guest OS, OS-Sommelier+ first uses a code hash based approach from kernel code aspect to determine the guest OS version. If code hash approach fails, OS-Sommelier+ then uses a kernel data signature based approach from kernel data aspect to determine the version. We have implemented a prototype system, and tested it with a number of Linux kernels. Our evaluation results show that the code hash approach is faster but can only fingerprint the known kernels, and data signature approach complements the code signature approach and can fingerprint even unknown kernels

Neutrino masses, leptogenesis and dark matter in hybrid seesaw

We suggest a hybrid seesaw model where relatively ``light''right-handed neutrinos give no contribution to the neutrino mass matrix due to a special symmetry. This allows their Yukawa couplings to the standard model particles to be relatively strong, so that the standard model Higgs boson can decay dominantly to a left and a right-handed neutrino, leaving another stable right-handed neutrino as cold dark matter. In our model neutrino masses arise via the type-II seesaw mechanism, the Higgs triplet scalars being also responsible for the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry via the leptogenesis mechanism.Comment: 4 page

Effective generation of Ising interaction and cluster states in coupled microcavities

We propose a scheme for realizing the Ising spin-spin interaction and atomic cluster states utilizing trapped atoms in coupled microcavities. It is shown that the atoms can interact with each other via the exchange of virtual photons of the cavities. Through suitably tuning the parameters, an effective Ising spin-spin interaction can be generated in this optical system, which is used to produce the cluster states. This scheme does not need the preparation of initial states of atoms and cavity modes, and is insensitive to cavity decay.Comment: 11pages, 2 figures, Revtex

“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.” A functional description of time expressions through fingers based on Chinese Sign Language naturalistic data

This paper investigates the relationship between fingers and time representations in naturalistic Chinese Sign Language (CSL). Based on a CSL Corpus (Shanghai Variant, 2016–), we offer a thorough description of finger configurations for time expressions from 63 deaf signers, including three main types: digital, numeral incorporation, and points-to-fingers. The former two were further divided into vertical and horizontal fingers according to the orientation of fingertips. The results showed that there were interconnections between finger representations, numbers, ordering, and time in CSL. Vertical fingers were mainly used to quantify time units, whereas horizontal fingers were mostly used for sequencing or ordering events, and their forms could be influenced by Chinese number characters and the vertical writing direction. Furthermore, the use of points-to-fingers (e.g., pointing to the thumb, index, or little finger) formed temporal connectives in CSL and could be patterned to put a conversation in order. Additionally, CSL adopted similar linguistic forms in sequential time and adverbs of reason (e.g., cause and effect: events that happened earlier and events that happen later). Such a cause-and-effect relationship was a special type of temporal sequence. In conclusion, fingers are essential for time representation in CSL and their forms are biologically and culturally shaped

Multiband effects on the conductivity for a multiband Hubbard model

The newly discovered iron-based superconductors have attracted lots of interests, and the corresponding theoretical studies suggest that the system should have six bands. In this paper, we study the multiband effects on the conductivity based on the exact solutions of one-dimensional two-band Hubbard model. We find that the orbital degree of freedom might enhance the critical value $U_c$ of on-site interaction of the transition from a metal to an insulator. This observation is helpful to understand why undoped High-$T_c$ superconductors are usually insulators, while recently discovered iron-based superconductors are metal. Our results imply that the orbital degree of freedom in the latter cases might play an essential role.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure