Submit a Paper

The Fourth International Conference on Systems

ICONS 2009

March 1-6, 2009 - Cancun, Mexico


Tutorials

T1. Cyber-Security: Current Practice and Future Trends
by
Raimund K. Ege, Northern Illinois University, USA

T2. Mobility and Multi-access in Emerging Internet Architectures
by
Kostas Pentikousis, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland

T3. Protecting Critical Telecommunications and Networking Infrastructure
by
Andrew Snow, Ohio University, USA
Gary Weckman, Ohio University, USA

DETAILS

T1. Cyber-Security: Current Practice and Future Trends
by
Raimund K. Ege, Northern Illinois University, USA

Computer and information security are an essential part of current computer science practice. Almost no task or duty can be performed in today’s Internet society without being touched by aspects of computer security. This tutorial presents an assessment of today’s practice, covers essential tools and practices and provides an outlook to the current threat picture and future trends.

The tutorial has 3 parts:

  1. an overview of the basic concepts of computer and information security: confidentiality, integrity and availability, and the common threats that the most common computer uses pose, such as reading email, browsing the Internet, or sharing portable media storage devices. How malicious attacks can lead to great loss for some and to significant gain for others is illustrated with many examples from current events.
  2. coverage of common tools and practices to ensure security in everyday life: anti-virus software, software patching, simple encryption methods and tools that are based on accepted security practices. How email, web browsing, and other common Internet activities can be made safer will be illustrated. Actual tools such as public key infrastructure and its common implementations, as well as safe practices such as password policies and phishing attack prevention, will be covered in detail.
  3. outlook on the current security landscape: to what degree are malicious attacks hindering our use of the Internet. What are the current trends? What are the best policies to pursuit to prevent future attacks?

Dr. Raimund K. Ege is Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Northern Illinois University. He is an expert on Computer and Information Security. He has published extensively on all aspects of security. He is co-author of a chapter in the Handbook of Research on Information Security and Assurance. He was the director of the Secure Software System Laboratory at Florida International University. He has presented numerous tutorials at international conferences such as ACM OOPSLA, ECOOP, COMPSAC and others. His tutorials are regularly well received and praised by the attendees.

T2. Mobility and Multi-access in Emerging Internet Architectures
by
Kostas Pentikousis, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland

This tutorial thoroughly reviews recent developments in mobility and multiaccess technologies. After motivating the need for novel mechanisms to meet the challenges from the emerging network environment, we introduce the longawaited Media Independent Handover Services standard (IEEE 802.21) and present a blueprint for its implementation in GNU/Linux. Finally, we introduce recent developments in the so-called clean-slate Internet architecture design space, presenting the new paradigms, and elaborating on their impact on mobility and multiaccess

more

Dr. Kostas Pentikousis is a tenured Senior Research Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, in Oulu, Finland. He has been working in research and development positions since 1996 in both industry and academia. Dr. Pentikousis joined VTT in 2005 and has since been involved in several joint and contract research projects. He served as Task Leader for Ambient Networks Phase 2 (Task B.2 Mobile Connectivity) [9, 10], worked on system design, drove dissemination and played the leading role in organizing the First Ambient Networks Workshop on Mobility, Multiaccess, and Network Management (M2NM 2007). More recently. Dr. Pentikousis led VTT’s effort in WEIRD [11, 12, 13] on system architecture, mobility and testbed measurements. Dr. Pentikousis studied computer science at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (BS 1996; summa cum laude) and Stony Brook University (MS 2000, PhD 2004). He has published more than 70 papers in several areas, including mobile computing, transport protocols, applications, network traffic measurements and analysis, and simulation and modeling. He has given several invited talks on networking topics at USC/ISI, NCSR Demokritos, DoCoMo EuroLabs, and University of Aveiro, to list a few. He presented tutorials at the Asia-Pacific Network Operations and Management Symposium (APNOMS 2005) in Okinawa, Japan and at the IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC 2006) in Aveiro, Portugal. He was an ERCIM Fellow in 2005 and is a member of ACM, IEEE, and TEK. Dr. Pentikousis serves on the TPC of various conferences and reviews papers for journals and conferences on a regular basis. Dr. Pentikousis is currently involved in two large projects which define Future Internet architectures. In 4WARD [14] his effort is distributed between WP6 (Network of Information), in which he is leading VTT’s effort, and WP2 (New Architecture Principles and Concepts). He is in particular interested in information-centric networking, especially as it pertains to multiaccess, energy consumption, and publish/subscribe paradigms. In the national Finnish project ICT SHOK “Future Internet” [15] he is working on dissemination networking.

T3. Protecting Critical Telecommunications and Networking Infrastructure
by
Andrew Snow, Ohio University, USA
Gary Weckman, Ohio University, USA

I. Overview

The goal of this tutorial is to provide attendees a working knowledge of the threats and vulnerabilities to telecom and networking infrastructure, and how to assess and improve the level of protection afforded these infrastructures. Wireline, wireless, cable and satellite architectures, and their unique vulnerabilities, will be presented and discussed. The role of RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability, and survivability) in infrastructure protection is covered, and the empirical techniques of assessing and forecasting protection levels are provided. Ample examples of vulnerabilities and real outage data will be used in the presentation examples.

II. List of Tutorial Modules and Content

A. Telecom & Network Infrastructure Risk
Threats (natural and manmade)
Vulnerabilities
Faults Taxonomy
Service Outages
Single Points of Failure
Over-Concentration
Risk as a f(Severity, Likelihood)
Protection through fault prevention, tolerance, removal, and forecasting
Best Practices

B. Telecommunications Infrastructure
Wireline architecture and vulnerabilities
Wireless architecture and vulnerabilities
Cable architecture and vulnerabilities
Satellite architecture and vulnerabilities
Triple Play Services and their relationship to infrastructure

C. RAMS: Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Survivability
Reliability - f(MTTF)
Maintainability - f(MTTR)
Availability - f( MTTF, MTTR)
Survivability -- f( MTT, MTTR, Severity)
Survivability Metrics and Thresholds
User Perspective - High End-to-End Reliability and Availability
Carrier Perspective - High System Availability and Survivability

D. Protection Level Assessment & Forecasting
Data Collection Requirements
Outage Cause Categorization & Analysis (trigger, direct, and root causes)
Outages as a Point Process
Trend Techniques (Poisson regression, Simulation and Artificial Neural Networks)
Case Studies (PSTN SS7 outages, Telecom loss due to power outages, Wireless infrastructure outages)

more

Dr. Andrew P. Snow is a Professor in the McClure School of Information and Telecommunication Systems (ITS) at Ohio University. As part of ITS, he is an active researcher and teacher. He received his PhD in information science from the University of Pittsburgh (1997) in Information Science, from the Telecommunications Program and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Old Dominion University. His publications appear in journals such as IEEE Transactions on Reliability, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Networks and Systems Management, Telecommunications Policy, Journal on Mobile Networks and Applications, International Journal of Industrial Engineering, IEEE Computer, and Information & Management. Andy’s has two research streams: (1) critical information system and telecommunications infrastructure dependability, and (2) telecommunications & information system project management. Prior to returning to university for an academic career, he held positions as electronics engineer, member of the technical staff, manager, director, vice president, and general manager in telecommunications carrier, systems integration and consulting firms.

Dr. Gary Weckman’s primary research focus has been multidisciplinary applications utilizing knowledge extraction techniques with artificial neural networks (ANN). He has used ANNs to model complex systems such as large scale telecommunication network reliability, ecological relationships, stock market behavior and industrial process scheduling. His research has appeared in numerous journals and conferences. Before joining the Ohio University faculty in 2002 as an associate professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Dr. Weckman was a faculty member at Texas A&M University-Kingsville for six years. He has also practiced industrial engineering for over 12 years at such firms as General Electric Aircraft Engines, Kenner Products and The Trane Company. During his varied career, he has had a number of different technical responsibilities which involved developing and implementing various decision support and forecasting systems and techniques.

 
 

Copyright (c) 2006-2010, IARIA