Research Advisor |
Project Title |
|||
|
|
On the Security of Beacon Vector Routing | ||
| Kit Chan | Dr. David S. Ebert | Analysis of Emergency Planning and Response with 3D Modeling on Mobile Device |
||
| Yu-Hsuan Rex Cheng |
Dr Daisuke Kihara | Benchmark of new amino acid similarity matrices on recognition of distant protein structures |
||
| Tom Scogland | Dr Cristina Nita-Rotaru | Experiments on Multi-tree Overlay Networks | ||
| Ryan Stutsman | Dr Sonia Fahmy | Translation-based Steganography |
With recent proposals of more sophisticated applications for wireless sensornets, new challenges have arisen in applying very limited sensor mote hardware to more difficult tasks. Although Beacon Vector Routing (BVR) is well-suited to these unique challenges, it does not provide any security against routing attacks. First of all, BVR is susceptible to multiple types of well-known sensornet routing attacks. In addition, I have identified a BVR-specific attack, which I call beacon takeover. Beacon takeover could be used by an attacker to gain a dangerous amount of control over routing for the network.
Analysis of Emergency Planning and Response with 3D Modeling on
Mobile Device
Kit Chan, Computer Science
Research Mentor : David S. Ebert, Electrical and Computer Engineering
(back to top)
We are creating software to display 3D models on mobile devices for use in
emergency response. By generating a 3D model of the environment to visualize the
emerging situation inside the building and record the complete process for later
analysis. In addition, different sensors can increase the functionality of the system
to provide more accurate and practical data. With the mobility of the mobile
computing system, it provides better adaptability to different kinds of physical and
computational environments. This research will allow better planning for
emergency situations.
Benchmark of new amino acid similarity matrices on recognition of
distant protein structures
Yu-Hsuan Rex Cheng, Computer and Biological Sciences
Research Mentor : Daisuke Kihara, Computer and Biological Sciences
(back to top)
An important initial step for protein structure prediction is to find a template
structure in a database which fits to a target protein sequence. A template structure
can be easily found by BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) with a
conventional scoring matrix, such as BLOSUM62, if the template has a sufficient
sequence similarity to the target sequence. However, distantly related template
structure is not visible by BLOSUM62, because it is designed for finding
homologous sequences. In our previous study, we have developed novel amino acid
scoring matrices that are proven to be more useful in aligning pairs of distantly
related protein sequences than existing matrices. Here we further test the newly
developed scoring matrices in searching distantly related protein structures with a
database by using BLAST. For this benchmark, we have used the Lindhal and
Elofsson database which classifies alignments in the fold, superfamily and family
levels. This report describes the results and accuracy of the new developed matrix,
and further more, describes the similarities and differences in the results comparing
to the standard alignment scoring matrix.
Overlay broadcast systems provide broadcast and or multicast services at the
application level. These services are needed for networks which don't implement
their own broadcast or multicast services, like IP. Most overlay broadcast systems
use a tree, rooted at the sender, to disseminate the information to all the targets.
More recent designs however use a multi-tree approach to avoid imposing all the
cost of sending the message on the inner nodes, and allowing for a more fair
bandwidth distribution. Security of these systems is a potential problem for several
different reasons. First off, most of the systems in use today do not have security in
mind in the design phase, and thus may well present vulnerabilities. Since they do
not take that into account, it is important to determine the threats possible if a
machine on the overlay network is compromised, or even perhaps owned by an
attacker. Some common problems that might be caused using networks like these
are denial of service attacks, data corruption or replacement on the network, and
corruption of the overlay network itself. During the course of this project the intent
is to study the viability of some forms of attack against the SplitStream overlay
multicast system, as well as testing its resilience and reliability under the influence
of the attacks.
Translation-based Steganography
Ryan Stutsman, Computer Science
Research Mentors: Sonia Fahmy, Computer Sciences
(back to top)
This work investigates the possibilities of steganographically embedding
information in the "noise" created by automatic translation of natural language
documents. Because natural language translation inherently creates plenty of room
for variation, it is ideal for steganographic applications. Also, because there are
frequent errors in legitimate automatic text translations, additional errors inserted
by an information hiding mechanism are plausibly undetectable and would appear
to be part of the normal noise associated with translation. Significantly, it should be
extremely difficult for an adversary to determine if inaccuracies in the translation
are caused by the use of steganography or by deficiencies of the translation
software.