A traffic analysis attack to compute social network measures

Current research work deals with evaluation, development and historical perspectives of digital media. Aim of the study was to explore the historical background of the evolution and development of digital media. Digital media is foundation of global media. Using the archival methodology, data was collected from various books, research journals online achieve to explore the origin and development of digital media. The study found that since the birth of digital media in 1940s, and rapidly invention of technological devices enforces digital media to improve to make journey parallel. Passing from different phases, digital media gave birth to social media in the dawn of 21st century. Today digital media has captured almost all the lives of humanity. So current research study expresses all dramatic phases that lead digital media from single device media to network connected global media.

Traffic analysis attacks can counteract end-to-end encryption and use leaked communication metadata to reveal information about communicating parties. With an ever-increasing amount of traffic by an ever-increasing number of networked devices, communication privacy is undermined. Therefore, Anonymous Communication Systems (ACSs) are proposed to hide the relationship between transmitted messages and their senders and receivers, providing privacy properties known as anonymity, unlinkability, and unobservability. This article aims to review research in the ACSs field, focusing on Dining Cryptographers Networks (DCNs). The DCN-based methods are information-theoretically secure and thus provide unconditional unobservability guarantees. Their adoption for anonymous communications was initially hindered because their computational and communication overhead was deemed significant at that time, and scalability problems occurred. However, more recent contributions, such as the possibility to transmit messages of arbitrary length, efficient disruption handling and overhead improvements, have made the integration of modern DCN-based methods more realistic. In addition, the literature does not follow a common definition for privacy properties, making it hard to compare the approaches’ gains. Therefore, this survey contributes to introducing a harmonized terminology for ACS privacy properties, then presents an overview of the underlying principles of ACSs, in particular, DCN-based methods, and finally, investigates their alignment with the new harmonized privacy terminologies. Previous surveys did not cover the most recent research advances in the ACS area or focus on DCN-based methods. Our comprehensive investigation closes this gap by providing visual maps to highlight privacy properties and discussing the most promising ideas for making DCNs applicable in resource-constrained environments.

The capability that a server can hide its location while offering various kinds of services to its clients is called hidden services or location-hiding. Almost previous low-latency anonymous communication systems such as Tor, MorphMix, etc. that can be used to implement hidden services are vulnerable against end-to-end traffic analysis attack. In this paper, we introduce a novel architecture for implementing hidden services which is robust against end-to-end traffic analysis attack. Moreover, our scheme is more robust against various traffic analysis attacks than previous low-latency anonymous communication architectures.KeywordsOverlay NetworkMalicious NodeClockwise DirectionResponse PacketRendezvous PointThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet and cloud computing, an enormous amount of information is exchanged on various social networking services. In order to handle and maintain such a mountain of information properly by limited resources in the network, it is very important to comprehend the dynamics for propagation of information or activity on the social network. One of many indices used by social network analysis which investigates the network structure is “Node centrality”. A common characteristic of conventional node centralities is that it depends on the topological structure of network and the value of node centrality does not change unless the topology changes. In our recent research, we have proposed an oscillation model for describing dynamics on networks generated from a certain kind of asymmetric interaction between nodes by using a symmetric matrix. Moreover, we proposed a new extended index of well-known two node centralities based on the oscillation model. In this paper, we discuss generally extension of node centralities based on the oscillation model. In addition, we show that the proposed index can describe various node centralities by properly assigning the weight of each link, and the proposed model is regarded as the fundamental framework for different node centralities.

Link prediction is an important task in social networks and data mining for understanding the mechanisms by which the social networks form and evolve. In most link prediction researches, it is assumed either a snapshot of the social network or a social network with some missing links is available. Most existing researches therefore approach this problem by exploring the topological structure of the social network using only one source of information. However, in many application domains, in addition to the social network of interest, there are a number of auxiliary information available. In this work, we introduce the pseudo cold start link prediction with multiple sources as the problem of predicting the structure of a social network when only a small subgraph of the social network is known and multiple heterogeneous sources are available. We propose a two-phase supervised method: the first phase generates an efficient feature selection scheme to find the best feature from multiple sources that is used for predicting the structure in the social network. In the second phase, we propose a regularization method to control the risk of over-fitting induced by the first phase. We assess our method empirically over a large data collection obtained from Youtube. The extensive experimental evaluations confirm the effectiveness of our approach.

As decentralized computing scenarios get ever more popular, unstructured topologies are natural candidates to consider running mix networks upon. We consider mix network topologies where mixes are placed on the nodes of an unstructured network, such as social networks and scale-free random networks. We explore the efficiency and traffic analysis resistance properties of mix networks based on unstructured topologies as opposed to theoretically optimal structured topologies, under high latency conditions. We consider a mix of directed and undirected network models, as well as one real world case study – the LiveJournal friendship network topology. Our analysis indicates that mix-networks based on scale-free and small-world topologies have, firstly, mix-route lengths that are roughly comparable to those in expander graphs; second, that compromise of the most central nodes has little effect on anonymization properties, and third, batch sizes required for warding off intersection attacks need to be an order of magnitude higher in unstructured networks in comparison with expander graph topologies.

With the development of digital media, people's perceptions of the image, watch, cognitive and analysis mode has changed. The introduction of digital media technology, make visual language more rich, innovative visual aesthetic form, which has a far-reaching influence on the visual subject. Articles on digital media and visual art in the context of theory analysis, put forward opinions for the development of digital media. This article by the context of digital media by way of information, which is based on analyzing the change of from visual forms, visual thinking, visual media, visual culture and other aspects of the further research of visual art innovation. Of the new media leads to changes in the form of traditional media to make in-depth analysis, explore the augmented reality technology applied in the visual arts innovation, open up a new perspective of theoretical research of visual art innovation.

The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of the consultant’s usage on social-network and the subsequent decisions made To this end, the following four issues will be the focus of this research: the motivation and current state of the consultant’s usage on social networking sites; the consultant’s personal decision-making considerations on social networking sites; the challenges faced by the consultant on social networking sites; the consultant’s perspective on “the usage on social networking Accordingly, the research methods used will be purposive sampling and semi-structured in-depth interviews. First, six consultants would be invited to participate in the research on the usage for social networking sites. Next, the data collected through interviews would be organized, summarized and analyzed with grounded theory. Finally, the results of the study will be discussed comprehensively. Interviewee responses to the research questions: 1.The motivation and current state of the consultant’s usage on social networking The motivation for the respondents to apply for a social networking site is to interact with friends. The current state of the respondents’ usage on social networking can be summarized as follows: respondents who have long term experience in social networking will have more than one personal site; the direction of writing and the presentation of content, will be affected by the features of social networking sites, which also affects the relationship with the audience. Furthermore, the micro-blog type community site has become an integral part of the respondents’ lives. 2.Consultant’s personal decision-making considerations on the usage on social networking There are several considerations that factor into the consultants’ decisions when using the social networking sites: openness of the community site itself, ease of to spreading on the network, convenience for browsing, privacy of their own and others, personal confidentiality and protection of personal rights and interests. Furthermore, the potential ability of social networking to influence others is an important consideration for consultants due to their roles and responsibilities. 3.The challenges faced by the consultants on social networking (A)Respondents experienced negative emotions after prying into certain cases on social networking out of curiosity. (B)Respondents with the aforementioned experience tend to readjust their perspective and actions on social networking sites. 4.The consultant’s perspective on “the usage on social networking sites (A)Consultants should not be denied the right to use social networking due to their profession. However, consultants should use such with professional integrity. (B)The ability of consultants to understand the purpose of using social networking and the information to be conveyed would enable them to have a clear concept of appropriate message content. (C)Consultants would be able to avoid posting inappropriate messages on social networking if they have a good sense of self-awareness, and are able to reflect and assess the issue on hand. (D)Consultants need to pay attention to the content of messages on community websites as they have no control over the audiences’ interpretation of it. (E)Consultants should remain professional on social networking and this includes refraining from criticisms and inferences. Discoveries derived from analysis of the interview data: 1.Psychology consultants deem that social networking have become an interactive tool that is indispensable in both life and work 2.Psychology consultants’ value of individual privacy and are conscious of their input on social networking site. 3.Psychology consultants create an identity and role for themselves through the Internet and social networking 4.Psychology consultants are affected by their professional role and ethics responsibilities when using social networking sites. 5.Psychology consultants tend to be concerned over how individuals perceive the information they posted on social networking sites. 6.Psychology consultants believe that their messages on social networking may subconsciously affect the discussion on these sites. 7.Psychology consultants are influenced by their training in ethics and this makes them extra cautious when using social networking sites. 8.Psychology consultants tend to attempt to separate the “professional” and the “personal” on social networking sites. The following conclusion can be drawn from the above research and analysis of the results: 1.Recommendations for consultants (A)The importance of the effects of personal network-related messages on the consultant’s profession, work and case relationship (B)The intention usage, and function of social networking requires care and consideration. (C)In cases of ethical dilemma, consultants should seek advice and discussion with other professionals. 2.Recommendations for consultants’ training programs (A)Inclusion of Internet knowledge in training programs so consultants are familiar with its potential. (B)There should be a focus on the ethics training of consultants. 3.Recommendations for the future research (A)Public opinion on consultants’ usage of social networking sites. Consultants’ years of service can be included as a factor in the study.

The topological (graph) structure of complex networks often provides valuable information about the performance and vulnerability of the network. However, there are multiple ways to represent a given network as a graph. Electric power transmission and distribution networks have a topological structure that is straightforward to represent and analyze as a graph. However, simple graph models neglect the comprehensive connections between components that result from Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws. This paper describes the structure of the three North American electric power interconnections, from the perspective of both topological and electrical connectivity. We compare the simple topology of these networks with that of random (Erdos and Renyi, 1959), preferential-attachment (Barabasi and Albert, 1999) and small-world (Watts and Strogatz, 1998) networks of equivalent sizes and find that power grids differ substantially from these abstract models in degree distribution, clustering, diameter and assortativity, and thus conclude that these topological forms may be misleading as models of power systems. To study the electrical connectivity of power systems, we propose a new method for representing electrical structure using electrical distances rather than geographic connections. Comparisons of these two representations of the North American power networks reveal notable differences between the electrical and topological structure of electric power networks.

Link prediction is a fundamental problem in social network analysis and modern-day commercial applications such as Face book and My space. Most existing research approaches this problem by exploring the topological structure of a social network using only one source of information. However, in many application domains, in addition to the social network of interest, there are a number of auxiliary social networks and/or derived proximity networks available. The contribution of the paper is twofold: (1) a supervised learning framework that can effectively and efficiently learn the dynamics of social networks in the presence of auxiliary networks, (2) a feature design scheme for constructing a rich variety of path-based features using multiple sources, and an effective feature selection strategy based on structured sparsity. Extensive experiments on three real-world collaboration networks show that our model can effectively learn to predict new links using multiple sources, yielding higher prediction accuracy than unsupervised and single-source supervised models.

We investigate the feasibility of mounting a de-anonymization attack against Tor and similar low-latency anonymous communication systems by using NetFlow records. Previous research has shown that adversaries with the ability to eavesdrop in real time at a few internet exchange points can effectively monitor a significant part of the network paths from Tor nodes to destination servers. However, the capacity of current networks makes packet-level monitoring at such a scale quite challenging. We hypothesize that adversaries could use less accurate but readily available monitoring facilities, such as Cisco’s NetFlow, to mount large-scale traffic analysis attacks. In this paper, we assess the feasibility and effectiveness of traffic analysis attacks against Tor using NetFlow data. We present an active traffic analysis technique based on perturbing the characteristics of user traffic at the server side, and observing a similar perturbation at the client side through statistical correlation. We evaluate the accuracy of our method using both in-lab testing and data gathered from a public Tor relay serving hundreds of users. Our method revealed the actual sources of anonymous traffic with 100% accuracy for the in-lab tests, and achieved an overall accuracy of 81.6% for the real-world experiments with a false positive rate of 5.5%.

This study investigated the social networks of students from Pará, Brazil, through their functional aspect, which in a systemic perspective corresponds to the person-context-time interactions that may influence the various biopsychosocial aspects. Therefore, the social network is associated with the close and significant relationships established between the individual and the environment and should be perceived as a protective factor, satisfying their needs and desires, as they will allow them, in adverse situations, to request this assistance, balancing the relationships between risk and protective factors. 643 students from public schools participated in the research, aged 13 to 24 years old (m=16.56; sd=2.37), of both sexes. The Brazilian Youth Questionnaire was applied and, for this study, the questions regarding the perceptions of family, school and community support were used, as well as the question of personal protection factors. The results indicated that social networks act as a social support network, highlighting the emotional support perceived in all social networks. Significant correlations (p> 0.005) were observed between the perception of support in school, family, self-esteem and self-efficacy variables. The results highlighted the importance of social networks for the construction and maintenance of personal protection factors that can assist in the process of engagement, mobilization and social transformation. Keywords: Youth. Social Network. Social Support.

Social media network analysis has become very popular in recent years. How do real networks evolve over time? What are the normal evolving behaviors in a social media network? In order to extract behaviors occurring regularly to reveal the microscopic evolving properties in social networks, the evolving process of networks is modeled as stochastic states transition, and the evolving behaviors are described as topological structure changes of a series of sub graphs. Then, based on Maximal Frequent Sub graph mining technology, RB Miner (Regular Behaviors Miner) algorithm is proposed to identify such regular behaviors in network dataset. The empirical evaluation using both synthetic and real dataset verifies that the proposed algorithm is valid, and the regular behavior patterns show more dynamic information hidden in evolving social networks than normal frequent sub graph patterns.

In the digital age it has become almost impossible to view children’s texts outside the context of the new media. This study will focus on three works of children’s fiction, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander/J.K. Rowling; and their respective adaptations, Peter Rabbit, Where the Wild Things Are, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The article draws on contemporary theories of adaptation and the media, particularly the theory of ‘convergence’ and its impact on meaning-making in the production and reception of literary texts. It will take into account the cross-media and transmedia approach to analysing children’s texts, as well as the crossover effect of adapting children’s books into films. Particular attention is paid to the adaptation of still into moving imagery and its shifts in focalisation, providing evidence that the new media have made children’s books accessible to a variety of audiences. Such examples display the contemporary complexity of children’s storytelling and culture within and beyond the canon. Owing to the developments in digital media and technologies, which enable the realistic depiction of complex visual and fantastic elements that are characteristic of children’s texts, in the new millennium children’s literature has indeed become ‘everyone’s business’.

The development of digital media has created significant opportunities for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to expand their product marketing reach. However, traditional food MSMEs in Sumenep Regency continue to face challenges in effectively utilizing digital media, particularly due to low media literacy, limited visual design skills, and insufficient understanding of digital promotional content strategies. This Community Service Program (Pengabdian kepada Masyarakat/PKM) aims to enhance the capacity of traditional food MSME actors in Sumenep through media literacy education and digital promotional content design workshops. The program employed a participatory-educative approach, including socialization, training sessions, hands-on practice in creating visual promotional content, discussions, and mentoring. The results indicate an improvement in participants’ understanding of the strategic role of digital media as a marketing tool, enhanced skills in producing more attractive and communicative visual content aligned with product characteristics, and a positive shift in attitudes toward viewing social media as a strategic business asset. Furthermore, the program strengthened participants’ confidence and creativity in promoting traditional food products based on local wisdom. Therefore, the integration of media literacy education and digital content design workshops proves to be an effective and sustainable assistance model in supporting the digital transformation of traditional food MSMEs in regional contexts.