Ghulam Ali

Towards an automated multiagent system to monitor user activities against insider threat

The major problems faced by the networks are the hurdles generated by the native users. Survey has proved that the professional security measures are mainly focusing outside threats instead of the insiders. The traditional insider threat protection models do not work efficiently. There is need of an autonomous, robust and flexible model against insider threat. This paper presents an Agent-based User- Profiling model that monitors behaviour of the authorized users in an organization to avoid the risk. The profiling agents in the model record all actions of the authorized user and present all recorded behaviour to the manager agent for further processing. The manager agent creates and updates profiles of the enterprise users to monitor the behaviour so that the threat may be avoided, detected or recovered.

Segmentation of Arabic Text into Characters for Recognition

One of the steps of character recognition systems is the segmentation of words/sub-words into characters. The segmentation of text written in any Arabic script is a most difficult task. Due to this difficulty, many systems consider sub-words instead of a character as the basic unit for recognition. We propose a method for the segmentation of printed Arabic words/sub-words into characters. In the proposed method, primary and secondary strokes of the sub-words are separated and then segmentation points are identified in the primary strokes. For this, we compute the vertical projection graph for each line, which is then processed to generate a string indicating relative variations in pixels. The string is scanned further to produce characters from the sub-words. In the proposed method we use Sindhi text for segmentation into characters as its character set is the super set of Arabic. This method can be used for any other Naskh-based Arabic script such as Persian, Pashto and Urdu.

A Comparative Study of Six Software Packages for Complex Network Research

UCINET, Pajek, Networkx, iGraph, JUNG and statnet, are commonly used to perform analysis with complex network model. The scalability, and function coverage of these six software packages are assessed and compared. Some randomly generated datasets are used to evaluate the performance of these software packages with regard to input/output (I/O), basic graph algorithms, statistical metrics computation, graph generation, community detection, and visualization. A metric regarding both numbers of the nodes and the edges of complex networks, which is called Maximum Expected Network Processing Ability (MENPA), is proposed to measure the scalability of software packages. Empirical results show that these six software packages are complementary rather than competitive and the difference on the scalability among these six software packages may be attributed to the varieties in both of the programming languages and the network representations.

Agent-Based User-Profiling Model for Behavior Monitoring

The growing usage of cyber resources like forums, chat groups, browsing, demands the modeling of a framework that may use an individual’s personality profile for Simulating the user’s personality in the cyberspace, Acting as a guard and guide for the respective user by determining Internet resource suitability and Monitoring & controlling the user’s social interactions with other users on the web.In this paper we exploit some notions of psychology and cognitive sciences to present a model of an Agent Framework where agents (we call “Social Agents”) monitor the activities of Internet users to build & update profiles to create socio-culture community of the similar interests in the cyberspace. Framework also guides the users what is good and what is bad for them on the Internet according to their profile.

A framework for development of cost-effective irrigation control system based on Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network (WSAN) for efficient water management

Pakistans economy is mostly based on agriculture. The country faces big problem of water shortage and mismanagement. To cope up with this situation some IT based irrigation control system should be implemented that can deal with proper monitoring, distribution of water etc. We propose a Wireless Sensor and Actuator Network (WSAN) for Irrigation control which is low cost, ensures proper monitoring of the field, less human involvement, instant and accurate decision making. Different kinds of sensors are used and scattered throughout field to collect required data that is then processed and analyzed. It is a fact that a close relationship lies between agriculture and irrigation. The increase in the water-needs of the country has directly proportion to the shortage of the water resources. The efficient management & maintenance of water resources and controlling the water wastage will improve the water resources that are the most beneficial factors in the agriculture. The proposed Sensor-based model monitors many environmental parameters like temperature, humidity, soil moisture, etc.

Towards development of a trust grid to balance between organization's interests and employee's privacy

To avoid financial and other losses that occur because of insider threat an agent based profiling model was developed. When profile of the trusted user becomes mature it is analyzed and verified against organizations policy. The users are marked as suspicious if their activities are against the policies of the organizations. This paper discusses the privacy and ethical issues of the proposed model, ACENET, when it is deployed in the organization to monitor an employees activities. The paper also addresses misconception regarding security and privacy. The conventions regarding privacy policy of some standard bodies have also been referred. The tentative issues and the conflict between employer and employee that rises because of their interests have also been addressed and solution in form of Trust — Grid has been proposed. Finally, it has been concluded that in the light of provided guidelines, policy-making is the foundation to resolve all kind of probable conflicts.