Harnessing the x86 Intermediate Rings for Intra-Process Isolation

Presents a paradigm that combines the speed of single address spaces with the traditional protection mechanisms found in multiple address space systems such as UNIX. Multiple address spaces are common today for providing safety and security in operating systems. A process in one address space cannot corrupt or compromise memory locations an another process's address space. However, inter-process communication is slow because it is expensive to context switch between address spaces. Single address space systems provide a solution to the problem of slow context switches. In a single address space system, which is typically implemented in a 64-bit address space, all processes shape a common address space. Hence, the need to move between address spaces during inter-process communication is avoided. It is our position that it is not strictly necessary to use a single address space in order to achieve fast inter-process communication. >

Some aspects of research into distributed shared memory (DSM) systems which concern reliability are presented. The research is concerned with applications that use shared memory in single-site systems, and their extension to operation in a distributed environment. A DSM system consists of a shared address space that is accessed by logical operations. In the author's model processes create shared memory by using a segment; the segment's size, name, and access protection are defined when the memory is created. Processes locate and attach the segment into their virtual memory address space by name. When a process is finished with the segment, it may be detached. The last detach of a segment destroys the data. The shared portion of a process's address space is partitioned into data pages, which are replicated. System implementation, distributed architecture, and issues affecting DSM reliability are discussed. >

The major cause of IT security incidents are software issues, hence this article presents an automated approach for source code partitioning and privilege separation. Based on static call graph analysis, functions and program parts of a monolithic software are separated in several processes and grouped by the privilege they need. For the partitioning we introduce a metric that estimates the potential security gain by considering the complexity and privilege distribution of the separated software. Furthermore, we present a partitioning heuristic that uses this metric to create a secure software partitioning.

Investigation of direct surface charge transfer of glutamic acids on 2D monolayer molybdenum disulfide and its sensing properties

Automatic processing of mathematical information on the web imposes some difficulties. This paper presents a novel technique for automatic generation of mathematical equations semantic and Arabic translation on the web. The proposed system facilitates unambiguous representation of mathematical equations by correlating equations to their known names. The ability to extract the equation meaning from its structure is vital when searching for mathematical equations. The general structure of the equation is recognized to identify the equation meaning. On the other hand, people who cannot understand Latin script notation of mathematical expressions have difficulty when they try to read them on the web as it is available mostly in Latin. Arabic mathematical expressions flow from right to left and they use specific symbols. The proposed system automatically translates the mathematical equations from Latin to Arabic. This translation can be combined with the text translation of mathematical web contents (generated by online tools) to be recognized by the people who understand only Arabic text. The proposed system is implemented using Java and it is evaluated using a set of web pages with MathML contents which is rendered in Mozilla web browser.

Over the last three decades, studies on conflict sensitivity largely focused on organizational, institutional, technical, and capacity barriers by ignoring the political barriers. Likewise, existing conflict sensitivity approaches, such as ‘Do No Harm’, ‘Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment’ have failed to dig beneath the post-conflict contexts and see the underlying fragilities that can potentially lead to reoccurrence of conflict. These fragilities are diverse, dynamic, and constantly emerging. Bad governance, Climate change impact, stalled transitional justice or food insecurity provide some examples, which continue to fuel nonviolent conflicts and disrupt the path to sustainable peace. As a result, the successful application of conflict sensitivity by development donors in post-conflict development has brought mixed results. In this context, this study proposes Integrated Conflict Sensitivity Framework-ICSF, which is informed by the political settlement framework to critique, interrogate, and reconceptualize conflict sensitivity in post-conflict development. Such politically informed conflict sensitive approach understands as well as analyses how donors should understand the formal political system as well as informal unarticulated political processes that determine the political and economic behaviors of a post-conflict state. Finally, ICSF advocates for inclusive structures, resources distribution and decision-making, which are crucial to peacebuilding, legitimacy, and development in post-conflict.KeywordsConflict sensitivityPost-conflictFragilitiesDevelopmentSustainable peacePolitical settlement

Cache timing attacks are a serious threat to the security of computing systems. It permits sensitive information, such as cryptographic keys, to leak across virtual machines and even to remote servers. Encrypted Address Cache, proposed by CEASER - a best paper candidate at MICRO 2018 - is a promising countermeasure that stymies the timing channel by employing cryptography to randomize the cache address space. The author claims strong security guarantees by providing randomization both spatially (randomizing every address) and temporally (changing the encryption key periodically). In this letter, we point out a serious flaw in their encryption approach that undermines the proposed security guarantees. Specifically, we show that the proposed Low-Latency Block Cipher, used for encryption in CEASER, is composed of only linear functions which neutralizes the spatial and temporal randomization. Thus, we show that the complexity of a cache timing attack remains unaltered even with the presence of CEASER. Further, we compare the encryption overheads if CEASER is implemented with a stronger encryption algorithm.

Federal Information Processing Standard 201-3 (FIPS 201-3) defines the requirements for Personal Identity Verification (PIV) life cycle activities, including identity proofing, registration, PIV Card issuance, and PIV Card usage. FIPS 201-3 also defines the structure of an identity credential that includes cryptographic keys. This document contains the technical specifications needed for the mandatory and optional cryptographic keys specified in FIPS 201-3, as well as the supporting infrastructure specified in FIPS 201-3 and the related NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-73, Interfaces for Personal Identity Verification, and NIST SP 800-76, Biometric Specifications for Personal Identity Verification, which rely on cryptographic functions.

Human supervisory control and monitoring of automated systems, as well as, passive system(s) information processing can all be classified as forms of out‐of‐the‐loop (OOTL) performance. Whether the operator's task is to decide if process control intervention is necessary, detect a critical system event, or accept or reject the actions of a computer controller, he or she is removed from direct, real‐time control of the system. OOTL performance is a critical issue in overall automated systems functioning because it is associated with numerous negative consequences including: (a) operator failure to observe system parameter changes and intervene when necessary (vigilance decrements); (b) human over‐trust in computer controllers (complacency); (c) operator loss of system or situation awareness; and (d) operator direct/manual control skill decay. These consequences have been found to impact human performance under both normal operating conditions and system failure modes, with a greater effect on the latter [15] leading to serious problems in operator ability to perform their assigned tasks when working with automated systems.Level of automation (LOA) has been put forth as an approach to ameliorating OOTL performance problems. It is intended to determine the optimal assignment of control between a human operator and computer in order to keep both involved in system operations. LOA considers the capabilities and capacities of both the human and computer controller in determining their optimal coupling. It constitutes a systems approach to resolving OOTL performance problems by minimizing the negative consequences associated with the removal of the operator from active system control, and allows for the strengths of both human decision making and computer processing to be realized. When compared to a technological approach that assesses only the capabilities of the computer in allocating as much responsibility to the machine as possible, and assigning the remaining tasks to the human operator, the advantages can be considerable.A LOA taxonomy will be presented along with research examining its utility in a dynamic control task. Using LOA to identify optimal combinations of human and computer control was found to produce improvements in system performance under intermediate levels. These levels involve joint human and computer control of various system functions, such as monitoring, planning, and option selection and implementation. Results indicated decreases in the number of system processes/tasks overlooked by operators. These improvements may translate into cost reductions due to improved operational safety and are anticipated to be applicable to process control operations.

This chapter gives an introductory to intermediate level text on the science of image processing. It employs the Matlab programming language to illustrate some of the elementary key concepts in modern image processing and pattern recognition. The approach taken is essentially practical and the chapter offers a framework within which the concepts can be understood by a series of well-chosen examples, exercises and computer experiments, drawing on specific examples from within science, medicine and engineering. Particularly, the modern applications such as agriculture, aquaculture, food industrial analysis and Hyperspectral images analysis are discussed in this chapter with illustrations using Matlab.

This paper describes the C-17A mission computer (MC) internal built-in test (BIT) and intermediate level (I-Level) fault logging strategies. The MC is the primary component of the C-17A mission computer/electronic display subsystem (MC/EDS). The MC/EDS is intended to provide flight management functions for the C-17A aircraft in addition to display processing and display of mission, flight, engine, aircraft status and other related information to the flight crew. The MC is designed to be a highly reliable and fail-safe computer to prevent inadvertent display of hazardously misleading information on the head-up and head-down displays. The MC subsystem uses triple modular redundancy and voting schemes to detect the failures and isolate them to a line replaceable unit (LRU). The fault detection circuits in the MC detect the faults concurrently with the normal operation and report them to the MC CPU. The self-test programs are comprised of separately executing software/firmware modules. These modules when combined with the BIT hardware achieve a high degree of fault detection coverage. In this paper we present the MC internal BIT modes such as power-up, periodic, and initiated BIT. The software BIT mechanisms are discussed and the MC I-level fault logging approach is reviewed. >

The configuration interaction (CI) approach to solving the nuclear many-body problem, also known as the interacting shell model, has proven to be powerful tool in understanding the structure of nuclei. The principal criticism of past applications of the shell model is the reliance on empirical tuning to interaction matrix elements. If an accurate description of nuclei far from the valley of stability, where little or no data is available, a more fundamental approach is needed. This starts with recent ab initio approaches with effective interactions in the no-core shell model (NCSM). Using effective-field theory for guidance, fully ab initio descriptions of nuclei up to 16O with QCD based NN, NNN, and NNNN interactions will be possible within the next five years. An important task is then to determine how to use these NCSM results to develop effective interactions to describe heavier nuclei without the need to resort to an empirical retuning with every model space. Thus, it is likely that more traditional CI applications utilizing direct diagonalization and more fundamental interactions will be applicable to nuclei with perhaps up to one hundred constituents. But, these direct diagonalization CI applications will always be computationally limited due to the rapid increase in the number of configurations with particle number. Very recently, the shifted-contour method has been applied to the Auxiliary-field Monte Carlo approach to the Shell Model (AFMCSM), and preliminary applications exhibit a remarkable taming of the notorious sign problem. If the mitigation of the sign problem holds true, the AFMCSM will offer a method to compute quantum correlations to mean-field applications for just about all nuclei; giving exact results for CI model spaces that can approach 1020-25. In these lectures, I will discuss modern applications of CI to the nuclear many-body problem that have the potential to guide nuclear structure theory into the next decade.

Innovative solutions to the problems of information processing and management in transport, obtained on the basis of a fundamental approach called the unified maximum principle, are considered. It is shown that the application of the obtained original solutions in information management systems for solving problems of control, evaluation and identification makes it possible to increase their efficiency. The use of the combined maximum principle provides the synthesis of controls for nonlinear dynamic systems, including those with a given terminal state, in a closed form of a function of the observed state. Its application expands the class of controls with fundamentally new controls and makes it possible to solve problems that are difficult to solve on the basis of traditional approaches. By using the presented methodology in the synthesis of radar information processing systems, the tracking and navigation algorithms are adapted to the observed dynamics of a moving object. When solving the problem of synthesizing information processing systems for space control means, it manifests in a significant increase in the stability of the processing algorithms. The use of the methodology of the joint maximum principle in the problems of parameter identification makes it possible to obtain new computationally efficient algorithms that provide a high rate of convergence and estimation accuracy. The methodology of the combined maximum principle is highly constructive, which in air and land transport can provide solutions to a set of applied problems united by extreme problems of identification – evaluation – control.KeywordsHamilton–Ostrogradsky principleCombined maximum principleTarget trackingNavigation problemOptimal controlStructural-parametric identification

This paper presents a rapid approach for the dynamic separation of radial polarization (R-pol) and azimuthal polarization (A-pol) components in circular Airy vortex beams (CAVBs) by utilizing the linear electro-optic (EO) effect in uniaxial crystals. By applying an external electric field along the z-axis of a strontium barium niobate (SBN) crystal, tunable spatial separation of the R-pol and A-pol components is achieved. Under positive electric fields, the crystal maintains negative uniaxial properties with increased birefringence, extending the focal separation distance. Conversely, negative electric fields initially reduce the birefringence of the crystal; further increases in negative field strength will transition the crystal to a positive uniaxial state, subsequently enhancing birefringence and restoring focal separation. Experimental simulations demonstrate a focal separation of 1.4 mm at ±15 kV/mm, with R-pol focusing first at +15 kV/mm and A-pol preceding at −15 kV/mm. The polarization distributions at the foci confirm the successful separation of the two components. This approach overcomes the static limitation of conventional polarization splitters in separating R-pol and A-pol components, showing significant potential for optical manipulation, high-resolution imaging, and quantum information processing.

Fourier methods are widely used in optical information processing for time domain waveform synthesis and detection. In such approaches an input pulse is spectrally decomposed and modulated by an appropriately designed spectral filter. In general, various ultrafast applications may need either generation or characterization of waveforms depending whether their frequency response is or is not known a priori. Ultrafast pulses prove useful in driving or probing such systems because their broad, deterministic complex spectral amplitude “sees” a large continuous portion of the system transfer function. Traditionally, space domain spectral decomposition is used to perform optical Fourier processing, where pairs of gratings and lenses are used to decompose the spectral content of the pulsed, optical waveforms. Liquid crystal and acousto-optic (AO) modulators provide a means for introduction of somewhat arbitrary system transfer functions. More recently, compact waveguide-based approaches have used arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) to perform an analogous spectral decomposition to those achieved with traditional, free-space coupled gratings. Information processing arrangements using the space domain for transverse spectral decomposition benefit from the maturity of such techniques, with respect to basic understanding, component quality, and the excellent phase control that free-space manipulations provide. Component insensitivity to optical power permits the shaping and detecting of high peak power pulses used to drive nonlinear optical systems. Furthermore, nonlinear optical elements can be introduced directly into these processors to provide unique ultrafast waveform synthesis capabilities with response times in the range of femtoseconds. Drawbacks to free-space approaches include scaling in volume to achieve large time bandwidth products (TBWPs) and limiting the temporal extent of waveforms coupled back into a single-mode fiber (SMF). The origin of this last restraint is the time∕space interrelation inherent in traditional pulse shaping devices. AWG approaches rely on complex waveguide elements to circumvent large processor volumes and time∕space coupling issues, but they too are practically limited by fabrication requirements. The number of resolvable spots in the output waveform for both Fourier synthesis and direct space-to-time AWG approaches is equal to the number of waveguide channels. An alternative approach to Fourier processing relying on a single transverse spatial mode can better integrate with fiber systems and photonic lightwave circuits and will scale in length only for the achievement of large TBWPs. Fiber-based and fiber-integrated processors can manipulate optical waveforms in the time domain exploiting chromatic dispersion for longitudinal spectral decomposition and applying to it Fourier synthesis techniques. Drawing on the identical mathematical treatments of diffraction in space and dispersion in time, an approximate Fourier transform (FT) of an incident optical signal is achieved via chromatic dispersion after reaching the so-called “far-field approximation.” With such an amount of dispersion, the temporal waveform closely resembles the spectrum. Such a waveform is called a longitudinal spectral decomposition wave (SDW). A time-variant element (e.g., modulator) filters this SDW. And it is possible to recompose the pulse waveform through propagation in a conjugate dispersion source matched (i.e., of opposite sign but equal magnitude) to the first dispersive element. The number of resolvable spots that such a processor offers relies on a suitable modulation scheme and the experimental ability to disperse a sub-picosecond pulse using second-order dispersion.