Cryptanalysis of Arshad et al.’s ECC-based mutual authentication scheme for session initiation protocol

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has been widely used in the current Internet protocols such as Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). However, the original SIP authentication scheme was insecure and many researchers tried to propose schemes to overcome the flaws. In the year 2011, Arshad et al. proposed a SIP authentication protocol using elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), but their scheme suffered from off-line password guessing attack along with password change pitfalls. To conquer the mentioned weakness, we proposed an ECC-based authentication scheme for SIP. Our scheme only needs to compute four elliptic curve scale multiplications and two hash-to-point operations, and maintains high efficiency. The analysis of security of the ECC-based protocol shows that our scheme is suitable for the applications with higher security requirement.     

Comment on Lee et al.’s group signature and e-auction scheme

Recently, Lee et al. used their new group signature with the function of authenticated encryption to design a sealed-bid auction scheme, and they claimed that their schemes are secure. In this paper, we show that if the group manager has a valid group signature of a member, without the member’s secret key, he can forge a group signature on arbitrary message on behalf of the member; then, if the registration manager (RM) and the auction manager (AM) conspired (with each other) in their auction scheme, they can forge a new bid on any goods on behalf of the bidder who has sent his/her bid to AM. Therefore, their group signature and auction scheme are insecure. Finally, we improve Lee et al.’s group signature scheme to overcome the modification attack and achieve the security requirements.     

Generalizations of Hölder’s and some related inequalities

In this paper we establish some new generalizations and refinements of Hölder’s inequality and some related inequalities. We also show that many existing inequalities related to the Hölder inequality are special cases of the inequalities presented.     

Culture in cycles: considering H.T. Odum’s ‘information cycle’

‘Culture’ remains a conundrum in anthropology. When recast in the mold of ‘information cycles,’ culture is transformed. New fault lines appear. Information is splintered into parallel or nested forms. Dynamics becomes cycling. Energy is essential. And culture has function in a directional universe. The ‘information cycle’ is the crowning component of H.T. Odum’s theory of general systems. What follows is an application of the information cycle to the cultural domains of discourse, social media, ritual, education, journalism, technology, academia, and law, which were never attempted by Odum. In information cycles, cultural information is perpetuated – maintained against Second Law depreciation. Conclusions are that culture is in fact a nested hierarchy of cultural forms. Each scale of information production is semi-autonomous, with its own evolutionary dynamics of production and selection in an information cycle. Simultaneously, each information cycle is channeled or entrained by its larger scale of information and ultimately human-ecosystem structuring.     

Forgery attacks on Kang et al.’s identity-based strong designated verifier signature scheme and its improvement with security proof

Recently, Kang et al. proposed a new identity-based strong designated verifier signature scheme (ID-SDVS) and identity-based designated verifier proxy signature scheme (ID-DVPS). They claimed that their schemes are unforgeable. However, we found out that their schemes are universally forgeable in the sense that anyone can forge valid ID-SDVS and ID-DVPS on an arbitrary message without the knowledge of the secret key of either the signer or the designated verifier. Finally, we propose an improved ID-SDVS which is unforgeable. We give formal security proof of universal unforgeability of our scheme. We also give an improved ID-DVPS.     

Improvement on Meshram et al.ʼs ID-based cryptographic mechanism

Meshram et al. proposed an ID-based cryptosystem based on the generalized discrete logarithm problem (GDLP) and the integer factorization problem (IFP) in 2012, and their contribution lies in that they firstly proposed an idea to construct the ID-based cryptosystem without using the bilinear pair. This scheme can achieve the security goal of protecting data and prevent the adversary from snooping the encrypted data or the user?s private key. However, our analyses show that their scheme is still incorrect and has a deadlock problem, because the user cannot carry out the encryption process as expected because it is required for the user to own the key authentication center?s private information which is designed to be secret to users. A solution to the deadlock problem is given and an improved scheme is proposed.     

.com’s时代

对比是残酷的。一度被看作中 国国民经济象征的首钢，去年９月在上海股票交易所上市，股票价格在５元人民币左右，总市值１１１多个亿人民币，刚刚成立不久的ｃｈｉｎａ．ｃｏｍ，去年７月在美国Ｎａｓｄａｑ上市，股价８５美元左右，总市值超过３６亿美元，是首钢的３倍。首钢拥有１０万员工，ｃｈｉｎａ．ｃｏｍ有员工１００多人；首钢是国家投巨资兴建的特大型企业，ｃｈｉｎａ．ｃｏｍ所拥有资产中价值最高的是Ｃｈｉ－ｎａ． ｃｏｍ、 ｈｏｎｇｋｏｎｇ． ｃｏｍ、 ｔａｉｗａｎ． ｃｏｍ等几个城名。比特的分量重过了钢铁。对比是残酷…     

Complexity-Theoretic Hierarchies Induced by Fragments of Gödel’s T

We introduce two hierarchies of unknown ordinal height. The hierarchies are induced by natural fragments of a calculus based on finite types and Gödel’s T, and all the classes in the hierarchies are uniformly defined without referring to explicit bounds. Deterministic complexity classes like logspace, p, pspace, linspace and exp are captured by the hierarchies. Typical subrecursive classes are also captured, e.g. the small relational Grzegorczyk classes ? _* ⁰ , ? _* ¹ and ? _* ² .     

Mr. Twinn’s bombes

This article discusses the history and design of the special versions of the bombe key-finding machines used by Britain’s Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) during World War II to attack the Enigma traffic of the Abwehr (the German military intelligence service). These special bombes were based on the design of their more numerous counterparts used against the traffic of the German armed services, but differed from them in important ways that highlight the adaptability of the British bombe design, and the power and flexibility of the diagonal board. Also discussed are the changes in the Abwehr indicating system that drove the development of these machines, the ingenious ways in which they were used, and some related developments involving the bombes used by the U.S. Navy’s cryptanalytic unit (OP-20-G).     

Centenary of Einstein’s general relativity. Its present extensions

This paper is a brief review of integrable models of gravitation and cosmology in four and more dimensions which make up one of the proper approaches to studying the basic issues and strong field objects, the early and present Universe, and black hole (BH) physics in particular. The main results within this approach, obtained in the recent years by the research group founded by K.P. Staniukovich, are presented. Absolute G measurements and problems of its possible time and range variations, which are reflections of the unification problem, are discussed within these models. The choice, nature, classification and precision of determination of fundamental physical constants and their role in the expected transition to new definitions of basic SI units, supposed to be based on fundamental physical constants and stable quantum phenomena, are described. A need for further absolute measurements of G, its possible range and time variations is stressed. Themultipurpose space project SEE is shortly described, aimed at measuring G and its stability in space and time with a progress of 2–3 orders of magnitude against the present accuracy. It may answer many important questions posed by gravitation, cosmology and unified theories. A project of a laboratory experiment to test possible deviations from Newton’s law of gravity is also presented.     

An improved low-cost yoking proof protocol based on Kazahaya’s flaws

Peris-Lopez et al. (J Netw Comput Appl 34:833–845, 2011) recently provided some guidelines that should be followed to design a secure yoking proof protocol. In addition, conforming to those guidelines and EPC C1-G2, they presented a yoking proof for medical systems based on low-cost RFID tags, named Kazahaya. In this paper, we compromise its security and show how a passive adversary can retrieve secret parameters of a patient’s tag in cost of \(O(2^{16})\) off-line PRNG evaluations. Nevertheless, to show other weaknesses of the protocol and rule out any possible improvement by increasing the length of the used PRNG, we present a forgery attack that proves that a generated proof at time \(t_n\) can be used to forge a valid proof for any desired time \(t_j\). The success probability of this attack is ‘1’ and the complexity is negligible. In addition, we present a new lightweight protocol based on 128-bit PRNG function to solve the problems of Kazahaya protocol. In terms of security, we evaluate the new protocol based on formal and informal methods and prove that the improved protocol is not vulnerable to RFID attacks.     

Impact of Users’ Security Awareness on Desktop Security Behavior: A Protection Motivation Theory Perspective

This article uses the protection motivation theory to study the impact of information security awareness on desktop security behavior. It contributes to the literature by examining the roles played by awareness, an important antecedent to the cognitive processes in the protection motivation theory. The findings indicate that security awareness significantly affects perceived severity, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and response cost. Constructs in the coping appraisal process (except response cost), in turn, significantly impact recommended security behavior.     

N.N. Krasovskii’s extremal shift method and problems of boundary control

For the boundary-controlled dynamic system obeying a parabolic differential equation with the Neumann boundary condition, the problems of following the reference motion, following the reference control, and guaranteed control (at domination of the controller resource) were solved on the basis of the N.N. Krasovskii method of extremal shift from the theory of positional differential games.     

Work capacity and anticipation in A.A. Ukhtomsky’s concept of dominance

This paper presents the results of theoretical and experimental investigations of human activity and anticipation based on A.A. Ukhtomsky’s concept of brain dominance – a non-equilibrium system-forming factor in living systems. Facts on the stages of dominance formation are presented in relation to the creative abilities of the human brain and the role of fatigue as a “lever” for increasing systems’ work capacity on the basis of “trace exaltation”. Individually, specific features of dominantogenesis are compared with variations in behavioural types. On the basis of chronotopic EEG analysis, we delineate cortical dominants that underlie individual specifics of cognitive processes. The relation is shown between anticipation and the “expansion of dominants” – the broadening of “distal perception” in time and space, as framed by A.A. Ukhtomsky.     

Rudolf E. Kalman’s quest for algebraic characterizations of positivity

The present paper is a tribute to Professor Rudolf Emil Kalman, father of Mathematical System Theory and a towering figure in the field of Control and Dynamical Systems. Amongst his seminal contributions was a series of results and insights into the role of positivity in System Theory and in Control Engineering. The paper contains a collection of reminiscences by the author together with brief technical references that touch upon the unparalleled influence of Professor Kalman on this topic.