There is a long history of cryptographic hash functions, i.e. functions mapping variable-length strings to fixed-length strings, and such functions are also expected to enjoy certain security properties. Hash functions can be effected via modular arithmetic, permutation-based schemes, chaotic mixing, and so on. Herein we introduce the notion of an artificial-life (ALife) hash function (ALHF), whereby the requisite mixing action of a good hash function is accomplished via ALife rules that give rise to complex evolution of a given (...) system. Various security tests have been run, and the results reported for examples of ALHFs. (shrink)

As the world keeps advancing, the need for automated interconnected devices has started to gain significance; to cater to the condition, a new concept Internet of Things has been introduced that revolves around smart devicesʼ conception. These smart devices using IoT can communicate with each other through a network to attain particular objectives, i.e., automation and intelligent decision making. IoT has enabled the users to divide their household burden with machines as these complex machines look after the environment variables and (...) control their behavior accordingly. As evident, these machines use sensors to collect vital information, which is then the complexity analyzed at a computational node that then smartly controls these devicesʼ operational behaviors. Deep learning-based guessing attack protection algorithms have been enhancing IoT security; however, it still has a critical challenge for the complex industries’ IoT networks. One of the crucial aspects of such systems is the need to have a significant training time for processing a large dataset from the networkʼs previous flow of data. Traditional deep learning approaches include decision trees, logistic regression, and support vector machines. However, it is essential to note that this convenience comes with a price that involves security vulnerabilities as IoT networks are prone to be interfered with by hackers who can access the sensor/communication data and later utilize it for malicious purposes. This paper presents the experimental study of cryptographic algorithms to classify the types of encryption algorithms into the asymmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithm. It presents a deep analysis of AES, DES, 3DES, RSA, and Blowfish based on timing complexity, size, encryption, and decryption performances. It has been assessed in terms of the guessing attack in real-time deep learning complex IoT applications. The assessment has been done using the simulation approach and it has been tested the speed of encryption and decryption of the selected encryption algorithms. For each encryption and decryption, the tests executed the same encryption using the same plaintext for five separate times, and the average time is compared. The key size used for each encryption algorithm is the maximum bytes the cipher can allow. To the comparison, the average time required to compute the algorithm by the three devices is used. For the experimental test, a set of plaintexts is used in the simulation—password-sized text and paragraph-sized text—that achieves target fair results compared to the existing algorithms in real-time deep learning networks for IoT applications. (shrink)

Internet of Things-based environments pose various challenges due to their anytime/anywhere computing, and the efficient cryptographic based key management is one of the major challenges in Internet of Things. The key management life cycle consists of initialization, key generation, key registration, key backup, key update, key recovery, and key revocation. Our contribution in this paper is to summarize the state-of-the-art key management schemes and techniques in different scenarios, such as mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, and the Internet (...) of Things environments. Further different issues related specifically to the Internet of Things environment are discussed and the causes and effects pertaining to the security breach for Internet of Things are identified. Furthermore, in this research work, we develop a novel permutation of threshold and identity-based key management schemes for the Internet of Things environment and have proposed future directions to counteract the attacks on confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and availability of security services in the Internet of Things environment and identified the two key management schemes, that is, identity and threshold schemes for Internet of Things, to resolve Internet of Things key management issues and maximum possible security services effective implementation. We evaluate our scheme with the help of mathematical and statistical techniques. (shrink)

This work presents a system to detect small boats to help tackle the problem of this type of perilous immigration. The proposal makes extensive use of emerging technologies like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles combined with a top-performing algorithm from the field of artificial intelligence known as Deep Learning through Convolutional Neural Networks. The use of this algorithm improves current detection systems based on image processing through the application of filters thanks to the fact that the network learns to distinguish the aforementioned (...) objects through patterns without depending on where they are located. The main result of the proposal has been a classifier that works in real time, allowing the detection of pateras and people, kilometres away from the coast. This could be very useful for Search and Rescue teams in order to plan a rescue before an emergency occurs. Given the high sensitivity of the managed information, the proposed system includes cryptographic protocols to protect the security of communications. (shrink)

We present a technique for automatically verifying cryptographic protocols specified in the mainstream specification language CAPSL. We define a translation from CAPSL models into interpreted systems, a popular semantics for temporal-epistemic logic, and rewrite CAPSL goals as temporal-epistemic specifications. We present a compiler that implements this translation. The compiler links to the symbolic model checker MCMAS. We evaluate the technique on protocols in the Clark-Jacobs library and in the SPORE repository against custom secrecy and authentication requirements.

Smart grids are designed to revolutionize the energy sector by creating a smarter, more efficient and reliable power supply network. The rise of smart grids is a response to the need for a more comprehensive and sophisticated energy system that caters to the needs of homes and businesses. Key features of smart grids include the integration of renewable energy sources, decentralized generation and advanced distribution networks. At the heart of smart grids is a sophisticated metering system, consisting of intelligent electronic (...) devices that measure energy consumption and enable two-way communication between the utility company and the consumer. The information exchanged via these devices is critical, as it includes sensitive data such as energy consumption patterns and billing information. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, the security of this information is of utmost importance. This paper delves into the security challenges faced by advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and highlights the crucial role played by cryptography in ensuring the secure exchange of sensitive information. Cryptographic protocols such as encryption, authentication and digital signatures are essential components of a secure smart grid infrastructure. These protocols work together to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the information exchanged between the utility company and the consumer. (shrink)

Chaos distributes with a covert method to condense the dynamic of complexity and satisfies the security requirements of a cryptographic system. This study gives an ability online/offline ID-based short signature scheme using conformable fractional chaotic maps. Furthermore, we establish its security under IBSS existential unforgeability of identity-based short signature under chosen message attack in the random oracle model. Some of the stimulating preparations of obtainable processes are that they give a multiperiod application of the offline storage, which (...) licenses the agent to recycle the offline pre-registered data in time series, rather than one-period usage in all past IBSS processes. (shrink)

Randomization procedures are used in legal and statistical applications, aiming to shield important decisions from spurious influences. This article gives an intuitive introduction to randomization and examines some intended consequences of its use related to truthful statistical inference and fair legal judgment. This article also presents an open-code Java implementation for a cryptographically secure, statistically reliable, transparent, traceable, and fully auditable randomization tool.

Legal information certification and secured storage combined with documents electronic signature are of great interest when digital documents security and conservation are in concern. Therefore, these new and evolving technologies offer powerful abilities, such as identification, authentication and certification. The latter contribute to increase the global security of legal digital archives conservation and access. However, currently used cryptographic and hash coding concepts cannot intrinsically enclose cognitive information about both the signer and the signed content. Indeed, an evolution (...) of these technologies may be necessary to achieve full text researches within hundreds or thousands of electronically signed documents. This article aims at describing a possible model along with associated processes to create and make use of these new electronic signatures called “meaningful electronic signatures” as opposed to traditional electronic signatures based on bit per bit computation. (shrink)

Visual cryptography is a cryptographic technique that allows visual information to be encrypted so that the human optical system can perform the decryption without any cryptographic computation. The halftone visual cryptography scheme (HVCS) is a type of visual cryptography (VC) that encodes the secret image into halftone images to produce secure and meaningful shares. However, the HVC scheme has many unsolved problems, such as pixel expansion, low contrast, cross-interference problem, and difficulty in managing share images. This article aims (...) to enhance the visual quality and avoid the problems of cross-interference and pixel expansion of the share images. It introduces a novel optimization of color halftone visual cryptography (OCHVC) scheme by using two proposed techniques: hash codebook and construction techniques. The new techniques distribute the information pixels of a secret image into a halftone cover image randomly based on a bat optimization algorithm. The results show that these techniques have enhanced security levels and make the proposed OCHVC scheme more robust against different attacks. The OCHVC scheme achieves mean squared error (MSE) of 95.0%, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) of 28.3%, normalized cross correlation (NCC) of 99.4%, and universal quality index (UQI) of 99.3% on average for the six shares. Subsequently, the experiment results based on image quality metrics show improvement in size, visual quality, and security for retrieved secret images and meaningful share images of the OCHVC scheme. Comparing the proposed OCHVC with some related works shows that the OCHVC scheme is more effective and secure. (shrink)

Quantum cryptography makes use of the quantum-mechanical behavior of nature for the design and analysis of cryptographic schemes. Optimally (but not always), quantum cryptography allows for the design of cryptographic schemes whose security is guaranteed solely by the laws of nature. This is in sharp contrast to standard cryptographic schemes, which can be broken in principle, i.e., when given sufficient computing power. From a theory point of view, quantum cryptography offers a beautiful interplay between the mathematics (...) of adversarial behavior and quantum information theory. In this review article, we discuss the traditional application of quantum cryptography, quantum key distribution (QKD), from a modern perspective, and we discuss some recent developments in the context of quantum two-party cooperation (2PC). QKD allows two distant parties to communicate in a provably-secure way in the presence of an outside eavesdropper, whereas 2PC is concerned with protecting information against possibly malicious insiders. We show the basic idea of constructing quantum cryptographic schemes, but we also show some connections to quantum information theory as needed for the rigorous security analyses, and we discuss some of the relevant quantum-information-theoretic results. (shrink)

The distinctive security features of the Spanish electronic national identity card, known as Documento Nacional de Identidad electrónico, allow us to propose the usage of this cryptographic smart card in an authentication framework that can be used during the registration and login phases of internet services where the validation of the user’s age and real identity are key elements, as it is the case for example of the so-called social networks. Using this mechanism with NFC-capable devices, the identity (...) and age of the potential user can be determined, allowing or denying the access to the service based on that information. (shrink)

Personal data is highly vulnerable to security exploits, spurring moves to lock it down through encryption, to cryptographically ‘cloud’ it. But personal data is also highly valuable to corporations and states, triggering moves to unlock its insights by relocating it in the cloud. We characterise this twinned condition as ‘clouded data’. Clouded data constructs a political and technological notion of privacy that operates through the intersection of corporate power, computational resources and the ability to obfuscate, gain insights from and (...) valorise a dependency between public and private. First, we survey prominent clouded data approaches, suggesting their particular affordances produce distinctive versions of privacy. Next, we perform two notional code-based experiments using synthetic datasets. In the field of health, we submit a patient’s blood pressure to a notional cloud-based diagnostics service; in education, we construct a student survey that enables aggregate reporting without individual identification. We argue that these technical affordances legitimate new political claims to capture and commodify personal data. The final section broadens the discussion to consider the political force of clouded data and its reconstitution of traditional notions such as the public and the private. (shrink)

This paper proposes to present a novel method of generating cryptographic dynamic substitution-boxes, which makes use of the combined effect of discrete hyperchaos mapping and algebraic group theory. Firstly, an improved 2D hyperchaotic map is proposed, which consists of better dynamical behaviour in terms of large Lyapunov exponents, excellent bifurcation, phase attractor, high entropy, and unpredictability. Secondly, a hyperchaotic key-dependent substitution-box generation process is designed, which is based on the bijectivity-preserving effect of multiplication with permutation matrix to obtain satisfactory (...) configuration of substitution-box matrix over the enormously large problem space of 256!. Lastly, the security strength of obtained S-box is further elevated through the action of proposed algebraic group structure. The standard set of performance parameters such as nonlinearity, strict avalanche criterion, bits independent criterion, differential uniformity, and linear approximation probability is quantified to assess the security and robustness of proposed S-box. The simulation and comparison results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed method for the construction of cryptographically sound S-boxes. (shrink)

Randomization is an integral part of well-designed statistical trials, and is also a required procedure in legal systems. Implementation of honest, unbiased, understandable, secure, traceable, auditable and collusion resistant randomization procedures is a mater of great legal, social and political importance. Given the juridical and social importance of randomization, it is important to develop procedures in full compliance with the following desiderata: (a) Statistical soundness and computational efficiency; (b) Procedural, cryptographical and computational security; (c) Complete auditability and traceability; (d) (...) Any attempt by participating parties or coalitions to spuriously influence the procedure should be either unsuccessful or be detected; (e) Open-source programming; (f) Multiple hardware platform and operating system implementation; (g) User friendliness and transparency; (h) Flexibility and adaptability for the needs and requirements of multiple application areas (like, for example, clinical trials, selection of jury or judges in legal proceedings, and draft lotteries). This paper presents a simple and easy to implement randomization protocol that assures, in a formal mathematical setting, full compliance to the aforementioned desiderata for randomization procedures. (shrink)

Using different quantum states (e.g., two mode squeezed-state, multipartite GHZ-like-states) as quantum resources, two protocols for "continuous variable (CV) controlled quantum conference" are proposed. These CV protocols for controlled quantum conferences (CQCs) are the first of their kind and can be reduced to CV protocols for various other cryptographic tasks. In the proposed protocols, Charlie is considered the controller, having the power to terminate the protocol at any time and to control the flow of information among the other users (...) by using a parameterised control switch. Based on the information shared by Charlie with the participants of the conference, the control power of Charlie is evaluated and compared to the proposed protocols. The comparison of the efficiency of the proposed protocols has revealed that, under certain constraints, the 4-mode GHZ state-based protocol is more efficient than the two-mode squeezed state-based protocol. The control power Charlie is evaluated for the proposed protocols under certain constraints. A security analysis is also performed, and it is observed that the proposed protocols are secure against a variety of attacks, including but not limited to disturbance attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, Trojan horse attacks, laser seeding attacks, cloning attacks, beam splitter attacks, and malicious user(s) attacks. (shrink)

With the increasing volume of data transmission through insecure communication channels, big data security has become one of the important concerns in the cybersecurity domain. To address these concerns and keep data safe, a robust privacy-preserving cryptosystem is necessary. Such a solution relies on chaos encryption algorithms over standard cryptographic methods that possess multistage encryption levels, including high speed, high security, low compute overheads, and procedural power, among other characteristics. In this work, a secure image encryption scheme (...) is proposed using linear feedback shift register and chaos-based quantum chaotic map. The focus of the scheme is mainly dependent on the secret keys from the input of the algorithm. The threat landscape, the statistical test analysis, along critical comparisons with other schemes indicate that the presented algorithm is significantly secure and is resistant to a wide range of different attacks such as differential and statistical attacks. The proposed method has sufficiently higher sensitivity and security when compared to existing encryption algorithms. Several security parameters validated the security of proposed work such as correlation coefficient analyses among the neighboring pixels, entropy, the number of pixels change rate, unified average change intensity, mean square error, brute force, key sensitivity, and peak signal to noise ratio analyses. The randomness of the ciphers produced by the proposed technique is also passed through NIST-800-22. The results of NIST indicate that the ciphers are highly random and do not produce any type of periodicity or pattern. (shrink)

The latest advances in quantum computing forced the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to launch an initiative for selecting quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms. One of the best-known proposals is NewHope, an algorithm that was initially designed as a key exchange algorithm. In its original design, NewHope presented a reconciliation mechanism that is complex and represents an entry barrier for potential implementers. This contribution presents equivalent schemes in one, two and three dimensions, which allow anyone to make the transition (...) to the 4D NewHope algorithm easier to undertake. In addition to that, the effect of modifying some of the parameters associated to NewHope’s reconciliation mechanism is studied, which has allowed us to propose different sets of parameters that could increase the security of NewHope implementations. (shrink)

Quantum bit commitment is insecure in the standard non-relativistic quantum cryptographic framework, essentially because Alice can exploit quantum steering to defer making her commitment. Two assumptions in this framework are that: Alice knows the ensembles of evidence E corresponding to either commitment; and system E is quantum rather than classical. Here, we show how relaxing assumption or can render her malicious steering operation indeterminable or inexistent, respectively. Finally, we present a secure protocol that relaxes both assumptions in a quantum (...) teleportation setting. Without appeal to an ontological framework, we argue that the protocol’s security entails the reality of the quantum state, provided retrocausality is excluded. (shrink)

Low-dimensional chaotic mappings are simple functions that have low computation cost and are easy to realize, but applying them in a cryptographic algorithm will lead to security vulnerabilities. To overcome this shortcoming, this paper proposes the coupled chaotic system, which coupled the piecewise and Henon mapping. Simulation results indicate that the novel mapping has better complexity and initial sensitivity and larger key space compared with the original mapping. Then, a new color image encryption algorithm is proposed based on (...) the new chaotic mapping. The algorithm has two processes: diffusion and confusion. In this scheme, the key is more than 2 216, and SSIM and PSNR are 0.009675 and 8.6767, respectively. The secret key is applied in the shuffling and diffusion. Security analysis indicates that the proposed scheme can resist cryptanalytic attacks. It has superior performance and has high security. (shrink)

Brian Gladman est un ancien directeur des communications électroniques stratégiques du ministère de la Défense britannique et de l'Otan; Ian Brown, est un cryptographe anglais, membre de l'ONG Privacy International. En l'an 2000, ils rendaient public un texte expliquant comment contourner, en toute légalité, les diverses mesures de « cybersurveillance » adoptées par les législateurs. Ces techniques s'avéreraient en effet « techniquement ineptes et inefficaces à l'encontre des criminels » et risqueraient, a contrario, de « saper le droit à la (...) vie privée et à la sécurité des citoyens et du marché ». Leur démarche est d'autant plus salutaire que les gouvernements se contentent généralement, au mieux, d'expliquer que toute action informatique laisse des traces, et que l'on est de toute façon surveillé , au pire, de passer des lois sécuritaires renforçant cette cybersurveillance, contribuant d'autant à créer un climat de peur, loin du climat de confiance nécessaire à toute démocratie.Brian Gladman is a former Director for strategic electronic communications for the British Ministry of Defence and NATO; Ian Brown is a British cryptographer and a member of the NGO Privacy International In 2000, they published a paper detailing various countermeasures that can be used, perfectly legally, to evade the technical systems that governments adopt in order to monitor what users are doing on the Internet. These systems are criticised as not only "technically inept and ineffective against criminals" but also liable to "undermine the privacy, safety and security of law-abiding citizens and businesses". Their work is all the more valuable as governments either, at best, merely explain that any IT activity leaves traces and that people are monitored in any case or, at worst, pass laws on "security" that reinforce cybersurveillance systems, thus helping to create a climate of fear that can only undermine the trust on which a democratic society relies. (shrink)

The impact of Online Social Networks on human lives is foreseen to be very large with unprecedented amount of data and users. OSN users share their ideas, photos, daily life events, feelings and news. Since OSNs’ security and privacy challenges are more potential than ever before, it is necessary to enhance the protection and filtering approaches of OSNs contents. This paper explores OSNs’ threats and challenges, and categorize them into: account-based, URL-based and content-based threats. In addition, we analyze the (...) existing protection methods and highlight their limitations and weaknesses. Based on that, we propose a comprehensive, user-level, proactive and real-time OSNs’ protection system, called Hybrid Real-time Social Networks Protector. HRSP has three components; a user-level security protocol and two classification models. The protocol defines a structure for OSN’s cryptographic services, including encryption, access control and users’ authentication. The classification models employ machine learning, black lists, white lists and users’ feedback, in order to classify URLs into: Benign, Risk and Inappropriate classes, and contents into: Benign, Hate speech and Inappropriate classes. We constructed two data sets of 150,000 URLs and 22,000 tweets to build and test the two classification models. Results show an overall accuracy of 93.2% for the URL model and 84.4% for the content model, while the protocol implementation produces compatible size and time overhead. The components of HRSP are integrated and have compatible design with OSN platforms. (shrink)

Video surveillance is an omnipresent phenomenon in today’s metropolitan life. Mainly intended to solve crimes, to prevent them by realtime-monitoring or simply as a deterrent, video surveillance has also become interesting in economical contexts; e.g. to create customer profiles and analyse patterns of their shopping behaviour. The extensive use of video surveillance is challenged by legal claims and societal norms like not putting everybody under generalised suspicion or not recording people without their consent. In this work we propose a technological (...) solution to balance the positive and negative effects of video surveillance. With automatic image recognition algorithms on the rise, we suggest to use that technology to not just automatically identify people but blacken their images. This blackening is done with a cryptographic procedure allowing to revoke it with an appropriate key. Many of the legal and ethical objections to video surveillance could thereby be accommodated. In commercial scenarios, the operator of a customer profiling program could offer enticements for voluntarily renouncing one’s anonymity. Customers could e.g. wear a small infrared LED to signal their agreement to being tracked. After explaining the implementation details, this work outlines a multidisciplinary discussion incorporating an economic, ethical and legal viewpoint. (shrink)

In 1995 the United States National Security Agency , the Central Intelligence Agency , and the Federal Bureau of Investigation made public the story of a forty-year American intelligence operation code-named Venona. Shortly after the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, American military intelligence had ordered companies that were sending and receiving coded cables overseas, such as Western Union, to turn over copies to the U.S. government. Hundreds of thousands of cables were sent or received by Soviet government bodies. Beginning in (...) 1943, spurred by rumors and concerns that Stalin might conclude a separate peace with Hitler, the U.S. Army's cryptographic section began work trying to read these Russian cables. It had very limited success until 1946, by which time the Cold War was already underway. Some twenty-nine hundred cables dealing with Russian intelligence activities from 1942 to 1946 eventually were decrypted successfully in whole or in part as a result of Soviet technical errors in constructing and using “one-time pads” that American code-breakers were able to exploit. These cables implicated more than three hundred Americans as having been involved with Soviet intelligence services during World War II, a time when the United States and the USSR were allies. (shrink)

As global governance institutions proliferate and become more powerful, their legitimacy is subject to ever sharper scrutiny. Yet what legitimacy means in this context and how it is to be ascertained are often unclear. In a previous paper in this journal, we offered a general account of the legitimacy of such institutions and a set of standards for determining when they are legitimate. In this paper we focus on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council as an institution for (...) making decisions concerning the use of military force across state borders. The context for this topic has changed over the last decade as a result of the ongoing development of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) doctrine and extensive discussions about it in the United Nations. Yet the mostly widely accepted proposals for RtoP still require Security Council authorization for forceful intervention, and strictly limit the conditions under which such intervention may take place. (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 264-276.

This introduction to the special issue of the same title sets out the context for a critical examination of contemporary developments in sociotechnical systems deployed in the name of security. Our focus is on technologies of tracking, with their claims to enable the identification of those who comprise legitimate targets for the use of violent force. Taking these claims as deeply problematic, we join a growing body of scholarship on the technopolitical logics that underpin an increasingly violent landscape of (...) institutions, infrastructures, and actions, promising protection to some but arguably contributing to our collective insecurity. We examine the asymmetric distributions of sociotechnologies of security; their deadly and injurious effects; and the legal, ethical, and moral questions that haunt their operations. (shrink)

I argue for an account of the vulnerability of trust, as a product of our need for secure social attachments to individuals and to a group. This account seeks to explain why it is true that, when we trust or distrust someone, we are susceptible to being betrayed by them, rather than merely disappointed or frustrated in our goals. What we are concerned about in matters of trust is, at the basic level, whether we matter, in a non-instrumental way, to (...) that individual, or to the group of which they are a member. We have this concern as a result of a drive to form secure social attachments. This makes us vulnerable in the characteristic way of being susceptible to betrayal, because how the other acts in such matters can demonstrate our lack of worth to them, or to the group, thereby threatening the security of our attachment, and eliciting the reactive attitudes characteristic of betrayal. (shrink)

The presented paper focuses on the analysis of strategic documents at the level of the European Union concerning the regulation of artificial intelligence as one of the so-called disruptive technologies. In the first part of the article, we outline the basic terminology. Subsequently, we focus on the summarizing and systemizing of the key documents adopted at the EU level in terms of artificial intelligence regulation. The focus of the paper is devoted to issues of personal data protection and cyber (...) class='Hi'>security included in these strategic documents. The final part contains recommendations for future research and evaluation of its key features. (shrink)

Whereas “professional vision” has been mostly analyzed in apprenticeship and other settings where knowledge is made explicit or reflected upon, I focus on how expertise tacitly plays out in task-oriented interaction among practitioners. The paper considers orientation both to the coworker’s and one’s own expertise in the collaborative accomplishment of airport security work. I show how screeners recruit action from colleagues in largely underspecified ways, based on shared access to the visibility field and expected professional vision. Requesting is tacitly (...) accomplished via “highlighting,” which also accounts for one’s request. Accepting is silently achieved via locomotion, which also serves as a display of understanding. Embodied action is systematically preferred to verbal one. Talk is employed in larger proportions when the domain of scrutiny is not equally accessible to interactants, and when “face-work” is required. (shrink)

Science is driven by technical innovations, and perhaps nowhere as visibly as in neuroscience. In the past decade, advances in methods have led to an explosion of studies in cognitive (Gazzaniga et...

The provision of police services and the suppression of crime is one of the first functions of civil government. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of a right to “security of person.” “The term ‘police’ traditionally connoted social organization, civil authority, or formation of a political community—the control and regulation of affairs affecting the general order and welfare of society,” including the protection of public health. Civil dispute resolution is also an important part of a (...) system that moves people away from self-help and toward reliance on collectively constituted, peaceful channels for working out problems.A safe and secure environment is tied to health. Research in social epidemiology suggests that a shared sense of security from physical violence and interference with property can contribute to better community health. (shrink)

These texts were created as part of a federally funded project (R305A200364) funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), targeted towards the use of low-tech immersive learning for social studies instruction in Ohio's fourth and fifth grade classrooms. Texts and materials created as part of the Digital Civic Learning curriculum are free for use for educational purposes.

We show how more general knowledge can be built in information security, by the building of knowledge of mechanism clusters, some of which are multifield. By doing this, we address in a novel way the longstanding philosophical problem of how, if at all, we come to have knowledge that is in any way general, when we seem to be confined to particular experiences. We also address the issue of building knowledge of mechanisms by studying an area that is new (...) to the mechanisms literature: the methods of what we shall call mechanism discovery in information security. This domain offers a fascinating novel constellation of challenges for building more general knowledge. Specifically, the building of stable communicable mechanistic knowledge is impeded by the inherent changeability of software, which is deployed by malicious actors constantly changing how their software attacks, and also by an ineliminable secrecy concerning the details of attacks not just by attackers, but also by information security defenders as they protect their methods from both attackers and commercial competitors. We draw out ideas from the work of the mechanists Darden, Craver, and Glennan to yield an approach to how general knowledge of mechanisms can be painstakingly built. We then use three related examples of active research problems from information security to develop philosophical thinking about building general knowledge using mechanisms, and also apply this to develop insights for information security. We show that further study would be instructive both for practitioners and for philosophers. (shrink)

This article explores how the segments of the state police and security organs were transformed into a large private security industry in Russia after 1992. As market reforms were launched, the numbers of private property owners grew dramatically, but the state institutions for the protection of property and dispute settlement were either absent or defunct. This gap was consequently filled with various private institutions, private protection companies and private security services being the major ones. The article studies (...) the context of their emergence, their functions and practices as well as their relations with the state and the criminal sector. (shrink)

Soccer, paintball, camping, hiking, rafting, body building, martial arts training and other forms of physically stimulating and intimate group action create a bunch of buddies, which becomes a “band of brothers” in a simple heroic cause. It's usually enough that a few of these action buddies identify with a cause, and its heroic path to glory and esteem in the eyes of peers, for the rest to follow even unto death. Humans need to socially organize, to lead and be led; (...) however, notions of “charismatic leaders” and Svengali-like “recruiters” that “brainwash” unwitting minds into joining well-structured organizations with command and control is exaggerated. Viewed from the field, notions of “cells” and “recruitment” - and to a degree even “leadership” – may reflect more the psychology and organization of those analyzing terrorist groups than terrorist groups themselves. (shrink)

The United Nations is the world's most extensive international organization whose primary task is to create a new international security framework, the maintenance of international peace and security. United Nations not only to retain the World Health Organization, International Labour Organization, International Court of Justice and other international cooperation organizations, to promote throughout the world from Euro-centric changes to the global system, but also provides a world political center stage, but it has not succeeded in expectations of its (...) founders to establish the international security framework and the security of each country to obtain a new world order. The end of the Cold War can finally restore the UN's ability to successfully perform the duties assigned to it by the Charter, or whether the disappearance of confrontation between the superpowers but exposed the establishment of a global structure of international security barrier deep, although it seems after the were more likely, but will wait and see. The United Nations is the most general international organization in the world at present, the primary mission of which is to establish a new international security framework in order to maintain international peace and security. The UN not only preserved international cooperation organs like the World Health Organization , the International Labour Organization, and the International Court of Justice, and facilitated the transformation of the world from a Eurocentric to a global system; but also provided a focus for world politics. But it has not succeeded in creating an international security framework conceived by its fathers and a new world order from which every state gains a security shield. It remains to be seen whether the end of the Cold War will eventually restore the capacity of the UN to fulfil the role set in its Charter; or whether, as scents more likely, the disappearance of superpower confrontation will only reveal deeper systematic obstacles of the creation of an effective global structure of international security. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that the constitutive principles of Just War Theory and the jus ad bellum/jus in bello duality do not transfer all that well to national security intelligence activity...

The opponents of Epicureanism in antiquity, including Cicero, Plutarch and Lactantius, succeeded in establishing a famous cliché: the theoretical and practical disinterest of Epicurus and the Epicureans in political communities. However, this anti-Epicurean literature did not provide considerations of Epicurean political theory or the testimonies about Epicurean lifestyle. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to shed light on the contribution of Epicurean thought to political life in the ancient world. Incorporating the most up-to-date archaeological material, including papyri which have (...) been recovered from Herculaneum and the Greek epigraphy of the Roman Epicureans, this volume will bring to the foreground new testimonies surrounding the public activities of the Epicureans. In this way, the reader will learn that Epicurean political theory is, in fact, a crucial ingredient of its philosophy. As a result, this connection creates an ongoing dialogue with the Greek philosophical tradition, revealing the presence of Plato in the Epicurean political model. (shrink)