7815359
Trust Transfer: Encouraging Self-recommendations Without Sybil Attack
Trading privacy for trust thanks to the linkage of pseudonyms has been proposed to mitigate the inherent conflict between trust and privacy. This necessitates fusionym, that is, the calculation of a unique trust value supposed to reflect the overall trustworthiness brought by the set of linked pseudonyms. In fact, some pieces of evidence may overlap and be overcounted, leading to an incorrect trust value. In this approach, self-recommendations are possible during the privacy/trust trade. However, this means that Sybil attacks, where thousands of virtual identities belonging to the same real-world entity recommend each other, are potentially easier to carry out, as self-recommendations are an integral part of the attack. In this paper, trust transfer is used to achieve safe fusionym and protect against Sybil attacks when pieces of evidence are limited to direct observations and recommendations based on the count of event outcomes. Trust transfer implies that recommendations move some of the trustworthiness of the recommending entity to the trustworthiness of the trustee. It is demonstrated and tailored to email anti-spam settings.
16785661
Partial outsourcing: a new paradigm for access control
Various security models have been proposed in recent years for different purposes. Each of these aims to ease administration by introducing new types of security policies and models. This increases the complexity a system administrator is faced with. Ultimately, the resources expended in choosing amongst all of these models leads to less efficient administration.In this paper, we propose a new access control paradigm, which is already well established in virus and SPAM protection as partial delegation of administration to external expertise centres. Well-known vulnerabilities can be filtered out and known sources of attacks can be automatically blocked. We describe how partial outsourcing can be achieved in a secure way. A framework, which enables this process has already been developed.
14855051
Mutual Suspicion in a Generic Object-Support System
We are currently facing the security paradox that applications must allow integration of information from various sources (like the web) and support global co-operation between users, i.e. there is a drive towards a stronger integration of information and services from weakly authenticated sources. In large networks like the Internet or enterprise wide intranets, without a common trusted computing base and no single source of authority in the system, a policy of mutual suspicion seems a prudent approach to co-operation.
34386518
Privacy Recovery with Disposable Email Addresses
Disposable e-mail address (DEA) services are a privacy recovery mechanism for the growing spam problem. However, this problem is clearly more complex than simply closing DEA; as the rolling e-mail address protocols (REAP) system demonstrates, recovery approaches must accommodate different normal states.
14098973
CryptoCache: a secure sharable file cache for roaming users
Small mobile computers are now sufficiently powerful to run many applications, but storage capacity remains limited so working files cannot be cached or stored locally. Even if files can be stored locally, the mobile device is not powerful enough to act as server in collaborations with other users. Conventional distributed file systems cache everything locally or not at all; there is no possibility to cache files on nearby nodes.In this paper we present the design of a secure cache system called CryptoCache that allows roaming users to cache files on untrusted file hosting servers. The system allows flexible sharing of cached files among unauthenticated users, i.e. unlike most distributed file systems CryptoCache does not require a global authentication framework.Files are encrypted when they are transferred over the network and while stored on untrusted servers. The system uses public key cryptography, which allows roaming users to selectively grant read and write access to others by entrusting them with respectively the public key or the private key.
8891155
The Claim Tool Kit for ad hoc recognition of peer entities
In ubiquitous/pervasive computing environments, it is envisaged that computing elements--entities--will start interacting in an ad hoc fashion. The peer-to-peer (p2p) paradigm is appealing for such types of interaction especially with JXTA, which supports the development of reusable p2p building blocks, which facilitate implementation on any smart device. However, the inability to rely on a centralised authentication infrastructure, the openness of the environment and the absence of an administrator (it is assumed to be too expensive to have a skilled administrator at hand due to the large number of peers) challenge the use of legacy authentication mechanisms.Supporting spontaneous interactions among previously unknown entities requires dynamic enrolment of strangers and unknown entities. Entity recognition (ER) is a process that is carried out each time an interaction happens between entities in order to dynamically recognise previously met entities.In this paper, we present the Claim Tool Kit (CTK), a Java-based implementation of ER: entities exchange messages, called Claims, and rely on their associated clues to evaluate the level of confidence in recognition.The CTK employs advanced features available with Java, such as JXTA and Java Cryptography and Security Architectures. We show that the CTK needs performance results on these features in order to increase the level of auto-configuration of the CTK. We describe how to obtain performance assessment for some of these new features. Finally, we explain how the CTK can be instrumented to take into account performance assessment. By analysing the evaluation results, the applicability of these advanced Java-based technologies for peer entity recognition is assessed.
1464254
Extending Practical Pre-Aggregation in On-Line Analytical Processing
On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) based on a dimensional view of data is being used increasingly for the purpose of analyzing very large amounts of data. To improve query performance, modern OLAP systems use a technique known as practical pre-aggregation, where select combinations of aggregate queries are materialized and re-used to compute other aggregates; full preaggregation, where all combinations of aggregates are materialized, is infeasible. However, this reuse of aggregates is contingent on the dimension hierarchies and the relationships between facts and dimensions satisfying stringent constraints, which severely limits the scope of practical preaggregation. This paper significantly extends the scope of practical pre-aggregation to cover a much wider range of realistic situations. Specifically, algorithms are given that transform “irregular” dimension hierarchies and fact-dimension relationships, which often occur in real-world OLAP applications, into well-behaved structures that, when used by existing OLAP systems, enable practical pre-aggregation. The algorithms have low computational complexity and may be applied incrementally to reduce the cost of updating OLAP structures.
34647773
Conceptual Data Modeling for Spatiotemporal Applications
Many exciting potential application areas for database technology manage time-varying, spatial information. In contrast, existing database techniques, languages, and associated tools provide little built-in support for the management of such information. The focus of this paper is on enhancing existing conceptual data models with new constructs, improving their ability to conveniently model spatiotemporal aspects of information. The goal is to speed up the data modeling process and to make diagrams easier to comprehend and maintain. Based on explicitly formulated ontological foundations, the paper presents a small set of new, generic modeling constructs that may be introduced into different conceptual data models. The ER model is used as the concrete context for presenting the constructs. The semantics of the resulting spatiotemporal ER model, STER, is given in terms of the underlying ER model. STER is accompanied by a textual counterpart, and a CASE tool based on STER is currently being implemented, using the textual counterpart as its internal representation.
18405463
Using abstractions for spatio-temporal conceptual modeling
Conceptual data modeling for complex applications, such as multimedia and spatiotemporal applications, often results in large, complicated and difficult-to-comprehend diagrams. These diagrams frequently involve repetition of autonomous, semantically meaningful parts that capture similar situations and characteristics. By recognizing such parts and treating them as modeling units, it is possible to simplify the diagrams, as well as the conceptual modeling process. In this paper, based on requirements drawn from real applications, we present a set of modeling units that capture spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal aspects. To facilitate the conceptual design process, these units are abbreviated in the conceptual diagrams by corresponding spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal modeling abstractions. The result is more elegant and less-detailed diagrams that are easier to comprehend (for the user) and to construct (for the designer), hut yet semantically rich. An extension of the Entity-Relationship model serves as the context for this study. An example from a real cadastral application illustrates the benefits of using an abstraction-based conceptual model.
6906174
Light-weight indexing of general bitemporal data
Most data managed by existing, real-world database applications is time referenced. Often, two temporal aspects of data are of interest, namely valid time, when data is true in the mini-world, and transaction time, when data is current in the database, resulting in so-called bitemporal data. Like spatial data, bitemporal data thus has associated two-dimensional regions. Such data is in part naturally now-relative: some data is true until the current time, and some data is part of the current database state. So, unlike for spatial data, bitemporal data regions may grow continuously. Existing indices, e.g., B/sup +/and R-trees, typically do not contend well with even small amounts of now-relative data. In contrast, the 4-R index presented in the paper is capable of indexing general bitemporal data efficiently. The different kinds of growing data regions are transformed into stationary regions, which are then indexed by R*-trees. Queries are also transformed to counter the data transformations, yielding a technique with perfect precision and recall. Performance studies indicate that the technique is competitive with the best existing index; and unlike this existing index, the new technique does not require extension of the DBMS kernel.
14141298
A consensus glossary of temporal database concepts
This document contains definitions of a wide range of concepts specific to and widely used within temporal databases. In addition to providing definitions, the document also includes separate explanations of many of the defined concepts. Two sets of criteria are included. First, all included concepts were required to satisfy four relevance criteria, and, second, the naming of the concepts was resolved using a set of evaluation criteria. The concepts are grouped into three categories: concepts of general database interest, of temporal database interest, and of specialized interest. This document is a digest of a full version of the glossary1. In addition to the material included here, the full version includes substantial discussions of the naming of the concepts.The consensus effort that lead to this glossary was initiated in Early 1992. Earlier status documents appeared in March 1993 and December 1992 and included terms proposed after an initial glossary appeared in SIGMOD Record in September 1992. The present glossary subsumes all the previous documents. It was most recently discussed at the "ARPA/NSF International Workshop on an Infrastructure for Temporal Databases," in Arlington, TX, June 1993, and is recommended by a significant part of the temporal database community. The glossary meets a need for creating a higher degree of consensus on the definition and naming of temporal database concepts.