Network Security through Wireless Location Systems

The advantage of wireless local area networks, giving the mobile stations the possibility of moving freely inside the network access range comes with a security drawback. The fact that microwave signals can transpose walls and suffers with attenuation, reflections, refraction, diffraction and dispersion, depending of the obstacles, makes very difficult to define the network access range. Without the knowledge of the network boundaries, the network administrator cannot define a physical delimiter to network access. Without the user-location, it is impossible to restrict the network access based on the physical access boundaries defined by the administrator. When the wireless network operates indoor, the many obstacles and the dynamic behavior of these obstacles (some people moving around, for instance) make the microwave signal behavior change the range and aspect of the network. This work proposes a new approach to indoor user-location mechanism, based on the dynamic behavior of the obstacles and consequent changes on network range in IEEE 802.11 networks. Finally a new authentication system WlanAuth, based on the user location is proposed.

Information Technology Outsourcing Cost and Policy in Developing Countries

Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) practices in developing countries have come with numerous problems ranging from organisational setup, absence of mutual trust between IT suppliers and clients, inconsistent policies and lack of deployable ITO model and several others. These and other problems are well pronounced among the developing countries who are tapping from the global outsourcing resource market. Malaysia being one of the leading ITO destinations is not an exception in these problems. Therefore, in this chapter, we took an in-depth look into various challenges facing Malaysia’s ITO industry especially from suppliers’ perspectives. We looked at problems facing ITO practices in the light of government policy and ITO model in this chapter. We also used qualitative research method with special reference to interpretive and exploratory approach for the analysis of relevant issues in the chapter.

M-Government

In developing countries like the Saudi Arabia, due to high mobile phone penetration rates, any electronic government initiatives that don’t take mobile technology into account will eventually fail. While the number of landline phones and internet subscribers are growing steadily over the past few years, the number of mobile phone users and its penetration rates are skyrocketing. In the near future and with the many mobile phone features, mobile phones will remain the main media of communication and a main source for providing information to citizens and customers.

A User-Friendly Application-based Design Aid Tool for Power Electronics Converters

Power electronics and its related subjects are well-known difficult to understand especially for students taking them for first time. This is due to nature of the subjects which involve many areas and disciplines. The introduction of general-purpose simulation package has helped the student a step further in understanding this subject. However, because of the generality of these tools and their drag-and-drop and ad-hoc features, the students still face problems in designing a converter circuit. In this section, the problem above is addressed by introducing a design aid tool that guides the student over prescribed steps to design a power electronics circuit. The tool is interfaced with Pspice and its knowledge base encompasses two types of knowledge; topologies’ knowledge and switching devices’ knowledge. The first step in the design procedure is the selection of an application of the desired circuit. Then few steps are to be followed to come out with the appropriate topology with the optimum switching devices and parameters. System structure, its different modules and the detailed design procedure are explained in the following paragraphs. At the end a design example is demonstrated and its results are displayed and discussed. It is aimed that this tool will enhance the understanding of the subject by introducing an interactive user friendly graphical interface that guides the user to the right topology. The complex design steps are hidden for the sake of saving the design time. However, an explanation module is included for the users who want to know how the results are drawn.

Key Health Information Systems Outsourcing Issues from Six Hospital Cases

Traditionally, little attention has been paid by hospitals to the key issues in the health information systems (HIS) outsourcing decision-making process. This is important given that the HIS outsourcing can play a key role in assisting hospitals in achieving its business objectives. However, the decision-making process of HIS outsourcing in hospitals is under-studied, especially in the management of their HIS outsourcing contracts. Therefore, the main objectives of this book chapter are to: (1) examine key issues surrounding the management and implementation of HIS outsourcing in Taiwanese hospitals; and (2) identify issues that are crucial in managing and implementing HIS outsourcing in hospitals. Four key issues and problems were identified in the HIS outsourcing process: lack of implementation in IS investment evaluation process, problems in managing HIS outsourcing contracts, lack of user involvement and participation in HIS outsourcing process, and failure to retain critical HIS contract management skills and project management capabilities in-house. Solutions and recommendations are provided to deal with key issues that are critical in the management and implementation of HIS outsourcing in hospitals.

ICT and Web 2.0 Technologies as a Determinant of Business Performance

This chapter aims at presenting the results of an empirical study, linking the fields of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), Web 2.0 technologies and organizational learning, and their impact on the financial and non-financial business performance. The chapter focuses on the presentation of the conceptualization of a structural model that was developed to test the impact of technology-enhanced learning and Web 2.0 technologies on the organizational learning and business performance of companies with more than 50 employees. The paper provides detailed definitions of technology-enhanced learning, Web 2.0 technologies and technical terms related to it, its scope and the process of organisational learning, as well as a method for business performance assessment. Special attention is given to the findings related to the observed correlations between the aforementioned constructs. The results of the study indicate a strong impact of ICT and technology-enhanced learning on organizational learning and the non-financial business performance.

On The Design of Secure ATM System

Over the past three decades, consumers have been largely depending on and trust the Automatic Teller Machine, better known as ATM machine to conveniently meet their banking needs. ATM is a data terminal, it has to be connected to, and communicate through, a host processor. The host processor may be owned by a bank or any financial institution, or it may be owned by an independent service provider. Moreover, an ATM can support multiple ATM cards owned by different financial institutions or banks. Most host processors can support leased-line or dial-up machines. However, despite the numerous advantages of ATM system, ATM fraud has recently become more widespread. Recent occurrences of ATM fraud range from techniques such as shoulder surfing and card skimming to highly advanced techniques involving fraudulent mobile alerts, and account takeover via stolen information and call centers, software tampering and/or hardware modifications to divert, or trap the dispensed currency. In this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview of the possible fraudulent activities that may be perpetrated against ATMs and investigates recommended approaches to prevent or deter these types of frauds. In particular we develop a model for the utilization of biometrics equipped ATM to provide security solution against must of the well-known breaches associated with the current ATM system practice.

Spam Detection Approaches with Case Study Implementation on Spam Corpora

Email has been considered as one of the most efficient and convenient ways of communication since the users of the Internet has increased rapidly. E-mail spam, known as junk e-mail, UBE (unsolicited bulk e-mail) or UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail), is the act of sending unwanted e-mail messages to e-mail users. Spam is becoming a huge problem to most users since it clutter their mailboxes and waste their time to delete all the spam before reading the legitimate ones. They also cost the user money with dial up connections, waste network bandwidth and disk space and make available harmful and offensive materials. In this chapter, initially we would like to discuss on existing spam technologies and later focus on a case study. Though many anti-spam solutions have been implemented, the Bayesian spam detection approach looks quite promising. A case study for spam detection algorithm is presented and its implementation using Java is discussed, along with its performance test results on two independent spam corpuses – Ling-spam and Enron-spam. We use the Bayesian calculation for single keyword sets and multiple keywords sets, along with its keyword contexts to improve the spam detection and thus to get good accuracy. The use of porter stemmer algorithm is also discussed to stem keywords which can improve spam detection efficiency by reducing keyword searches.

Graphs in Biometrics

Biometric systems are considered as human pattern recognition systems that can be used for individual identification and verification. The decision on the authenticity is done with the help of some specific measurable physiological or behavioral characteristics possessed by the individuals. Robust architecture of any biometric system provides very good performance of the system against rotation, translation, scaling effect and deformation of the image on the image plane. Further, there is a need of development of real-time biometric system. There exist many graph matching techniques used to design robust and real-time biometrics systems. This chapter discusses different types of graph matching techniques that have been successfully used in different biometric traits.

EDFA and EDFL Review

In this chapter, I propose a comprehensive study of erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and erbium doped fiber laser (EDFL). The chapter is based on three principal levels: the first is at the atomic level, where it is evident and meaningful to give general and deep studies on erbium spectra at theoretical background angle. The important part that needs to be understood in the erbium is its energy level splitting and lasing. The second level is based on the EDFA and EDFL critical, where many research papers have been reviewed to show and clarify their strong and weak side at different views. To specify the weakness of the classical EDFA and EDFL, and to describe the future generations and its characteristics, it is very important to review the recent published papers and books. At the experimental level a full investigation is given. Vast and new designs were invented showing high-gain and low-noise-figure (NF) utilizing a new technique called double pass with filter. An efficient amplification occurs at the signal wavelength of 1550 nm when it travels along the design quadruple pass double stages with filter amplifier (QPDSF). The highest gain of 62.56 dB with a low NF of 3.98 dB was achieved for an input signal power of -50 dBm and pump powers of 10 and 165 mW in the second and first stage amplifiers respectively. This important result shows also, a large difference of 40 dB gain between the QPDSF and the single stage single pass (SPSS) EDFA configuration. This design is used to show high gain of 62.56 dB compared to SPSS which records only 20 dB. A higher power and wider spectrum of ASE is observed for the double pass compared with single pass. A comparative investigation is presented and analyzed for various configurations. At the end, a high output power EDFL configuration is reported. It incorporates a double stages linear cavity with fiber loopback and a tunable bandpass filter TBF. The configuration increases the output power by suppressing the amplified spontaneous emission and achieves a highly stable output power of more than 18 dBm at 1560 nm. A standard spectrum is attained with TBF adjustment.