Impact of Protection Level on Vertically Differentiated Two-Sided Software Platforms

This paper studies the impact of software protection level on software platforms and customers’ responses to different levels of protection. This study models the interplay between users, developers and platforms, and the impact of quality degradation in the presence and absence of competitive platforms. All price structures are affected by protection level and quality degradation level for pirated copies of software. Customers, developers, and platform reaction to the protection and quality degradation levels can be contradictory, because an increase in those parameters may benefit one side, while hindering another. The results confirm that full protection against piracy is not always the best strategy in multisided platforms, but the impact of piracy changes under different scenarios.The results show that decisions regarding optimal security strategies should be taken in a systematic manner by incorporating the perspectives of all involved parties and the important factors extracted from the market within which the platform performs, such as monopoly or competition.

Copyright Regulation of Relations with regard to Software: Current State and Perspectives

— The legal regulation of relations about software (computer programs) is conducted mainly in two directions: copyright and patent law. But despite lengthy discussions in scientific circles in almost all countries, there is no final and single solution to this issue. Historically, the model of copyright protection of the object under study offers a cheaper and faster procedure than the model of protection of software by patent law. Patent protection requires a rather expensive and lengthy examination of software for world (absolute) novelty, during which the object itself may become obsolete and become unpopular with potential users. Therefore, the copyright regime for the protection of software has received preferential recognition. Accordingly, the article attempts to investigate the problems of the existing in the world copyright model of software protection and the possibility of patenting them. Keywords— software, copyright, patent law, object of protection

Software Protection of Smart Household Appliances Against Over-Exploitation

This work presents the author’s original research on engineering of algorithms to modify smart household appliance operation with a particular emphasis on ensuring the achievement of a controlled lifetime. The presented solutions are based on the programmable process of device interaction with the user, simulated damage, and simulated wear of the device. These solutions are particularly important in business processes aimed at increasing profit as a result of the quiet pressure for end users to replace household appliances more frequently.

Design of an Uninterrupted Power Supply with Li-Ion Battery Pack: A Proposal for a Cost-Efficient Design with High Protection Features

While decreasing their cost, lithium-ion batteries began to enter a vast domain for energy storage field, including solar systems and electric vehicles, due to their high energy density compared to other types. Besides, li-ion batteries require a safe and secure ground to reach the best performance and decrease the explosion risk. The safe operation of the battery is based on the main protection features and balancing the cells. This study offers a battery BMS design that protects li-ion batteries from overcharging, over-discharging and overheating. It is also offering passive cell balancing, an uninterrupted power source to load, and monitoring data. The used controller is Arduino mega 2560, which manages all the hardware and software protection features. Software features that include 1) variable charging speed according to the batteries charging status, 2) measuring the batteries state of health and state of charge, 3) controlling the uninterrupted driver, 4) regulating the charge and discharge voltage, and 5) measure and display all readings.

Distributed Watchdogs Based on Blockchain for Securing Industrial Internet of Things

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) could enhance automation and analytics in industrial environments. Despite the promising benefits of IIoT, securely managing software updates is a challenging problem for those critical applications. This is due to at least the intrinsic lack of software protection mechanisms in legacy industrial systems. In this paper, to address the challenges in building a secure software supply chain for industrial environments, we propose a new approach that leverages distributed watchdogs with blockchain systems in protecting software supply chains. For this purpose, we bind every entity with a unique identity in the blockchain and employ the blockchain as a delegated authenticator by mapping every reporting action to a non-fungible token transfer. Moreover, we present a detailed specification to clearly define the behavior of systems and to apply model checking.

Probabilistic one-time programs using quantum entanglement

Quantum technology allows for unparalleled levels of data and software protection. Probabilistic one-time programs harness these capabilities for quantum-assisted classical computations by encoding classical software in small quantum states resulting in computer programs that can be used only once. Such self-destructing one-time programs facilitate a variety of applications reaching from software distribution to one-time delegation of signature authority. Whereas previous experiments demonstrated the feasibility of such schemes, the practical applications were limited. Here we present an improved protocol for one-time programs that resolves major drawbacks of previous schemes, by employing entangled qubit pairs. This results in four orders of magnitude higher count rates and the ability to execute a program long after the quantum information exchange has taken place. We implement a one-time delegation of signature authority over an underground fiber link between university buildings in downtown Vienna, emphasizing the compatibility of our scheme with prepare-and-measure quantum internet networks.

Rethinking Software Protection

The core of artificial intelligence (AI) applications is software of one sort or another. But while available data and computing power are important for the recent quantum leap in AI, there would not be any AI without computer programs or software. Therefore, the rise in importance of AI forces us to take—once again—a closer look at software protection through intellectual property (IP) rights, but it also offers us a chance to rethink this protection, and while perhaps not undoing the mistakes of the past, at least to adapt the protection so as not to increase the dysfunctionality that we have come to see in this area of law in recent decades. To be able to establish the best possible way to protect—or not to protect—the software in AI applications, this chapter starts with a short technical description of what AI is, with readers referred to other chapters in this book for a deeper analysis. It continues by identifying those parts of AI applications that constitute software to which legal software protection regimes may be applicable, before outlining those protection regimes, namely copyright and patents. The core part of the chapter analyses potential issues regarding software protection with respect to AI using specific examples from the fields of evolutionary algorithms and of machine learning. Finally, the chapter draws some conclusions regarding the future development of IP regimes with respect to AI.

Paternalism and Self-Reliance on Personal Security in the Information and Communication Environment

The research is devoted to the study of the personal security level in the information and communication environment. The purpose of this work is to determine the citizens’ subjective opinion about the information security level in the information and communication environment and the role of the state in these processes. The study is based on data of sociological survey conducted in 2019 among the population of the Kursk region as a subject of the Russian Federation. The sample included 1000 respondents aged 16 and over living in urban and rural settlements in the region. Based on the understanding of the information and communication environment as an anthropo- sociotechnical phenomenon, the author concludes that personality is one of the key elements of information security in the triad (man — communications — technology). The study has fixed that users assess their life in the information and communication environment as dangerous. But at the same time, despite the fact that citizens face with the attackers’ actions, a significant part of them are in no hurry to recognize the Internet as criminal. The study has determined that issues of personal cybersecurity and self-reliance prevail over paternalism. Network users should not only be aware of possible types and schemes of fraud, but also of software protection methods and anti-virus products. Keywords: information and communication environment, cybercrime, personal cybersecurity, information and telecommunication technologies, state