Anonymous Manner Research Articles

Anonymous mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for wearable sensors in wireless body area networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are used to collect and exchange vital and sensitive information about the physical conditions of patients. Due to the openness and mobility of such networks, even without knowing the context of the exchanged data or linking traffic to the identities of involved sensors, criminals are able to gain useful information about the severe conditions of patients and carry effective undetectable physical attacks. Therefore, confidentiality and mutual authentication services are essential for WBANs, and the transmission must be anonymous and unlinkable as well. Given the limitations of the resources available for these sensors, a lightweight anonymous mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for centralized two-hop WBANs is proposed in this paper, which allows sensor nodes attached to the patient’s body to authenticate with the local server/hub node and establish a session key in an anonymous and unlinkable manner. The security of our scheme is proved by rigorous formal proof using BAN logic and also through informal analysis. Besides, the security of our scheme is evaluated by using the Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) as well. Finally, we compare our proposed scheme with other related schemes and the comparison results show that our scheme outperforms previously related schemes.

Crypto Coin Overview of Basic Transaction

A digital currency is similar to fiat currency which supports instantaneous transactions, imprecise transfer of ownership which can be used in trading of physical goods and services, online gaming and other trading purpose. Like physical money, it is not generated by third parties; it is primarily generated by network of computers, and it is also controlled by the group of miners. Cryptocurrency is a subset of digital currency which supports transactions in anonymous manner and tightly secured using cryptographic algorithms. In this paper, we made a research on cryptocurrency, their opportunities, excellence and loss of credit that is used in business transaction. We constructed the genesis block and build up the simple and complex raw transaction using command line interface. We try to fix the double spending of same crypto coin more than once.

Self-tallying quantum anonymous voting

Anonymous voting is a voting method of hiding the link between a vote and a voter, the context of which ranges from governmental elections to decision making in small groups like councils or companies. In this paper, we propose a quantum anonymous voting protocol assisted by two kinds of entangled quantum states. Particularly, we provide a mechanism of opening and permuting the ordered votes of all the voters in an anonymous manner; any party, who is interested in the voting results, can acquire a permutation copy, and then obtains the voting result through simple calculation. Unlike all previous quantum works on anonymous voting, our quantum anonymous protocol firstly possesses the properties of privacy, self-tallying, non-reusability, verifiability and fairness at the same time. Besides, we demonstrate that the entanglement of the novel quantum states used in our protocol makes the attack from outside eavesdropper and inside dishonest voters impossible. We also generalize our protocol to execute tasks of anonymous multi-party computation, such as anonymous broadcast and anonymous ranking.

Towards typologies of virtual maltreatment: sport, digital cultures & dark leisure

A changing technological context, specifically that of the growth of social media, is transforming aspects of leisure behaviour, especially in terms of negative interactions between followers of sport and athletes. There is a growing body of research into the maltreatment of adult athletes, exploring issues such as abusive acts or behaviours against the individual, including acts of physical and/or psychological violence to the person. Existing research, however, focuses upon face-to-face behaviours, and to date the nature of abuse in online spaces has been overlooked. It is becoming ever more apparent that virtual environments create optimal climates for abuse to occur due to the ability for individuals to communicate in an instantaneous, uncontrolled and often anonymous manner in virtual worlds. Using a netnographic approach, an analysis of a popular social media platform (Twitter) was conducted to examine the types of abuse present in online environments. This paper presents a conceptual typology, identifying four broad types of abuse in this setting; physical, sexual, emotional and discriminatory; examples of each form are presented. Findings highlight how online environments can pose a significant risk to individual emotional and psychological safety.

On the Privacy and Performance of Mobile Anonymous Microblogging

Microblogging is a popular form of online social networking activity. It allows users to send messages in a one-to-many publish-subscribe manner. Most current service providers are centralized and deploy a client–server model with unencrypted message content. As a consequence, all user behavior can, by default, be monitored, and censoring based on message content can easily be enforced on the server side. A distributed, peer-to-peer microblogging system consisting of mobile smartphone-equipped users that exchange group encrypted messages in an anonymous and censorship-resistant manner can alleviate privacy and censorship issues. We experimentally evaluate message spread of such systems with simulations that run on a range of synthetic and real-world mobility inputs, thus extending the previous work. We show that such systems are feasible for a range of mobility and network settings, both under normal and under adversarial conditions, e.g., under the presence of nodes which jam the network or send spam.

Generating Correlated Digital Certificates: Framework and Applications

Bolstering public key authentication of networking entities, digital certificates are an entrenched part of Internet security. A digital certificate is an electronic document signed by a certificate authority (CA), vouching that the identified subject owns the declared public key (and the corresponding private key). In general, CAs are also responsible for certificate revocation as well as reissue, and certificates by nature are considered independent of each other. In this paper, we address the problem of certificate management and propose a flexible framework to create correlated certificates. We then apply it to implement the so-called multi-certificate public key infrastructure, which supports user self services, such as certificates’ spontaneous substitution as well as self-reissue after self-revocation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first scheme for certificate users to achieve self-reissue. Another application of the proposed framework is the so-called anonymous digital certificate, which still binds a user’s identity to her public key, but in an anonymous yet user-controllable manner. That is, a user can reveal her identity-key binding only to her specified communication peers, while remaining anonymous to the general public, achieving privacy as these certificates are generally unlinkable.

Secondary use of health data.

With the advent of big data, the application of data analysis in various fields has increasingly gained attention. Data analysis is by no means innovative in healthcare industry, since the statistics has played an important role in public health and clinical medicine for quite a long time. Studies that claim to be big data do not necessarily conform to the three V’s (volume, velocity, and variety) in the definition of big data. They are within the scope of the secondary use of health data. Secondary use of health data provides personal health information for applications outside of direct health care delivery. It consists of analysis, research, quality and safety measurement, and public health services. Recently, a secondary use of health data project that has received the most international attention is the Care.data project of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced the project on December 5, 2013. He declared that this project could maintain the United Kingdom’s leading position in the field of life science. The main aim of this project was to make the patient records database of the NHS available to private research institutes and business organizations in an anonymous manner, in an effort to assist them in conducting research. This proposal immediately

Abstract 2742: Potential burden of germline findings in targeted tumor sequencing using matched normal DNA

Abstract Tumor sequencing (TS) reveals germline variants, unless they are subtracted through a comparison of tumor and normal data. The genes analyzed in TS overlap significantly with genes associated with Mendelian disorders. Identification of pathogenic germline variation may have significant implications for the individual and their family; however, the prevalence of such variation in individuals undergoing TS is unknown. To determine the burden of germline variants in Mendelian disease genes identified in tumor-normal massively parallel sequencing, we analyzed 1570 cases, unselected for cancer type or family history, that had undergone TS with matched normal DNA using the 341-gene targeted capture panel employed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK-IMPACT). The most frequent tumor types were breast carcinoma (n = 269, 17%), non-small cell lung cancer (n = 191, 12%), colorectal cancer (n = 116, 7%), prostate carcinoma (n = 97, 6%), esophago-gastric adenocarcinoma (n = 89, 6%), and soft tissue sarcoma (n = 80, 5%). Subjects had provided consent to IRB-approved protocols allowing sequencing of tumor and germline DNA. Analysis of the matched normal DNA samples was conducted in an anonymized manner under an IRB approved waiver. Curation of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) or indels employed Ingenuity® Variant Analysis (version 3.1.20141014), which uses an automated algorithm to classify genes into 5 classes of pathogenicity based on the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) draft guidelines. Variant classifications were reviewed and confirmed manually. Large deletions and duplications were curated manually. There are 26 genes on the MSK-IMPACT panel that are included in the ACMG 56-gene list recommended for return of results. In these 26 genes, there were 2 presumed pathogenic (likely pathogenic/pathogenic, LP/P) variants in 3 individuals (0.19%), 1 LP/P in 107 individuals (6.81%) and 0 LP/P in 1460 individuals (92.99%). There was 1 variant of uncertain significance (VUS) in 507 individuals (32.29%) and 2 or more VUS in 249 individuals (15.85%). Genes with the greatest number of unique LP/P variants were BRCA2, MUTYH, BRCA1, RET, TP53, MSH6, MSH2, SDHB, and APC. In the setting of tumor profiling, cancer predisposing germline variants may be relevant for guiding therapy and may provide personal and clinical utility with regard to future cancer risk-assessment and implementation of cancer prevention strategies including early-detection and risk-reduction strategies for the patient and at-risk family members. The detection of LP/P variants in genes of accepted clinical utility in the matched normal DNA of 7% of unselected individuals undergoing TS suggests that there may be a significant benefit in conducting secondary analysis for detection of these likely cancer-relevant germline findings. However, the challenges of classification and interpretation of VUS, present in almost half of the individuals, will need to be considered. Citation Format: Kasmintan A. Schrader, Donavan T. Cheng, Joseph Vijai, Meera Prasad, Michael F. Walsh, Ahmet Zehir, Tinu Thomas, Liying Zhang, Marc Ladanyi, Kenneth Offit, Michael F. Berger, Mark E. Robson. Potential burden of germline findings in targeted tumor sequencing using matched normal DNA. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2742. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2742

Prevalence of HIV and syphilis infections among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in Tanzania, 2011.

BackgroundThe occurrence of HIV-1 and syphilis infections during pregnancy poses major health risks to the foetus due to mother-to-child transmission. We conducted surveillance of HIV and syphilis infections among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics (ANCs) in Mainland Tanzania in 2011.MethodsThis surveillance was carried out in 133 ANCs selected from 21 regions in Tanzania. In each region, six ANC sites were selected, with urban, semi-urban, and rural areas contributing two each. All pregnant women who were attending selected sentinel ANC sites for the first time at any pregnancy between September and December 2011 were enrolled. Serial ELISA assays were performed to detect HIV infection in an unlinked anonymous manner using dried blood spot (DBS) after routine syphilis testing. Data analysis was conducted using Stata v.12 software.ResultsA total of 39,698 pregnant women representing 2.4 % of all pregnant women (1.68 million) attending ANCs in the Mainland Tanzania were enrolled. The overall HIV prevalence was found to be 5.6 % (95 % CI: 5.4–5.8 %). The risk for HIV infection was significantly higher among women aged 25–34 (cOR = 1.97, 95 % CI: 1.79–2.16; p < 0.05), older than 35 years (cOR = 1.88, 95 % CI: 1.62–2.17; p < 0.05) and those having 1–2 and 3–4 previous pregnancies. HIV infection was less prevalent among women attending rural ANC clinics (cOR = 0.46, 95 % CI 0.4–0.52; p < 0.05).The overall syphilis prevalence was 2.5 % (95 % CI: 2.3, 3.6). The risk for syphilis infection was significantly higher among women attending semi-urban and rural clinics and those having 3–4, and 5 previous pregnancies (p < 0.05). Marital status and level of education were not statistically significant with either of the two infections. HIV and syphilis co-infections occurred in 109 of 38,928 (0.3 %).ConclusionThe overall prevalence of HIV infection (5.6 %) and syphilis (2.5 %) found among pregnant women attending ANC clinics in Tanzania calls for further strengthening of current intervention measures, which include scaling up the integration of prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) services in Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) clinics.

Developing minimum clinical standards for physiotherapy in South African intensive care units: the nominal group technique in action.

Physiotherapists form an important part of the inter-professional team that cares for critically ill patients in intensive care units (ICU). No formalized clinical practice guidelines or standards exist for the educational profile or scope of practice requirements for physiotherapy within critical care, which poses a threat to physiotherapy practice and professional credibility. The aim of this paper was to describe the nominal group technique (NGT) used to identify the minimum standards of clinical practice needed by physiotherapists to ensure safe and independent practice in South African ICUs. Twenty-five subjects participated in one of three forums. Sixty-six concepts were considered in the three domains (knowledge, skills and attitudes). Not all concepts were discussed by all three focus groups. Just over half (54% n=14) the concepts generated in the knowledge domain; a third of the concepts (35% n=7) generated in the skills domain and only 10% (n=2) of attitudes were consistently raised by all three groups. Almost two-thirds of the concepts generated (62% n=41) were considered in more than one domain. Only six concepts reached the threshold consensus level across all three focus groups, four knowledge parameters and two skills. The NGT allowed for the cross-stimulation of ideas in an engaging yet anonymous and structured manner. The importance of discussion in reaching consensus is highlighted. Going forward, it is intended to use the concepts generated through this process as the foundation for further consensus-building activities among the wider physiotherapy and intensive care communities.

HIV viral load levels and CD4+ cell counts of youth in 14 cities.

To describe the HIV viral load and CD4 cell counts of youth (12-24 years) in 14 cities from March 2010 through November 2011. Baseline HIV viral load and CD4 cell count data were electronically abstracted in a central location and in an anonymous manner through a random computer-generated coding system without any ability to link codes to individual cases. Among 1409 HIV reported cases, 852 participants had data on both viral load and CD4 cell counts. Of these youth, 34% had CD4 cell counts of 350 or less, 27% had cell counts from 351 to 500, and 39% had CD4 cell counts greater than 500. Youth whose transmission risk was male-to-male sexual contact had higher viral loads compared with youth whose transmission risk was perinatal or heterosexual contact. Greater than 30% of those who reported male-to-male sexual contact had viral loads greater than 50 000 copies, whereas less than 20% of heterosexual contact youth had viral loads greater than 50 000 copies. There were no differences noted in viral load by type of testing site. Most HIV-infected youth have CD4 cell counts and viral load levels associated with high rates of sexual transmission. Untreated, these youth may directly contribute to high rates of ongoing transmission. It is essential that any public health test and treat strategy place a strong emphasis on youth, particularly young MSM.

Security Analysis and Improvement of an Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Roaming Services

An anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services in global mobility networks allows a mobile user visiting a foreign network to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the foreign-network operator in an anonymous manner. In this work, we revisit He et al.'s anonymous authentication scheme for roaming services and present previously unpublished security weaknesses in the scheme: (1) it fails to provide user anonymity against any third party as well as the foreign agent, (2) it cannot protect the passwords of mobile users due to its vulnerability to an offline dictionary attack, and (3) it does not achieve session-key security against a man-in-the-middle attack. We also show how the security weaknesses of He et al.'s scheme can be addressed without degrading the efficiency of the scheme.

Security Enhanced Anonymous Multiserver Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Using Smart Cards and Biometrics

An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user's biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen's scheme.

Borneo. Ancestors in Borneo societies: Death, transformation, and social immortality. Edited by Pascal Couderc and Kenneth Sillander. Copenhagen, NIAS Press2012. Pp. 390 pp. Maps, Figures, Index.

Ancestors in Borneo societies: Death, transformation, and social immortality Edited by PASCAL COUDERC and KENNETH SILLANDER Copenhagen, NIAS Press 2012. Pp. 390 pp. Maps, Figures, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000441 This book explores the religious and social significance of ancestors in the western and southern regions of Borneo, where ancestorship is important. 'Ancestors are people who live on in the memory of individuals, groups, or entire societies through what they have transmitted to them' (p. 12). In this conceptualisation, ancestors need not be genealogical forebears, in contrast with the traditional view of ancestorship in unilineal societies. All the contributions are excellent; furthermore, the authors approach the topic in a coherent manner in providing detailed ethnographic information. Most of the chapters are illustrated with photographs. The excellent introduction by the editors places the issue in the broader context of Borneo and Southeast Asia, as well as the theoretical literature on ancestorship. Ancestors manifest themselves in different ways: as spirits in the spirit world or this world, as bodily remains and objects mediating contacts with ancestor spirits, and the idea of a heritage gained from forebears. There are two types of ancestors: spirits of the dead who emerge through mortuary rituals and ancestors who originate from outside the local social domain. Ancestor worship exists in the form of mortuary rituals with bone repositories, village shrines that mediate relations with community ancestors in a more indirect and anonymous manner, and the worship of ancestors who have become deities. Sillander shows how the Bentian of East Kalimantan perceive ancestors as sources of power and authority in rituals and discourse. They are considered capable of influencing events and they are regularly contacted. In the category of ancestors, Sillander includes 'dead people who have no, or an insufficiently known, genealogical connection to ego' (p. 63). Secondary burial is usually reserved for influential people. People need to have been important in life before they can become ancestors, but a secondary burial adds to their potency. Indeed, a domestic unit may covertly assert its importance by undertaking a secondary burial for someone who was unremarkable in life. In any case, ancestors represent 'society', thus it is appropriate that they be referred to in an anonymous fashion, except for ancestors who had achieved renown. Couderc shows how the Uut Danum of West Kalimantan contrast two forms of ancestorship, one that is generated through secondary burials, the other through the transformation of living people into spirit-animals. I learnt a lot from this important chapter, which operates at several registers. It is an ethnography and a contribution to grounded theory. Like Sillander's chapter, it makes extensive references with the literature on other Borneo societies and beyond. Clifford Sather and Veronique Beguet contribute two chapters on the Iban. Sather analyses how Saribas Iban mortuary rituals generate ancestors. The Gawai Antu is an exercise in remembering the dead so that they continue to have efficacy in the living world. …

CPC-125 Satisfaction Survey with Pharmaceutical Care in Ambulatory Cancer Patients on Treatment with Oral Antineoplastic Agents

BackgroundIn recent years, many oral antineoplastic agents (OAAs) have appeared providing patient convenience. According to law, in the Autonomous Community of Región de Murcia (Spain), these drugs are dispensed at...

Significance of Patient Registries for Dermatological Disorders

Patient registries for dermatological disorders are important sources of data for researchers, clinicians, and patients. The majority of registries are maintained by academic investigators with funding from federal agencies. However, these registries are fragmented and are maintained only as long as federal funding exists. Patient organizations and companies can serve as alternative sources of funding for registries.

The use of instruments by Iranian endodontics and general practioners.

Aim: The current clinical practice of endodontics involves utilization of a variety of new technological advances and materials. Technologies available for use in endodontic offices today include battery or electric motors using NiTi rotary file systems, new generation of electronic apex locators (EALs), improved digital radiographic sensors, surgical microscopes, and ultrasonic units. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and use of newer technologies among Iranian dental practitioners.Materials and methods: The population under study included the dental practitioners participating in the 49th and 50th Congress of Dentistry, who were selected with a simple sampling method. Data was collected by questionnaires which were completed by the participants in an anonymous manner. The contingency table and chi-squared test were used for data analysis by SPSS 13.5 software.Results: A total of 700 dental practitioners participated in the study; NiTi rotary systems were used by 50.1%; electronic apex locators were often employed by 46.3%; 21.7% reported that ultrasonic units were often used. Only 1.1% frequently used surgical microscopes. Males and females differed with respect to the use of newer technologies (P<0.05).Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, it seems necessary for dentists to take part in continuing dental education programs related to the newer technologies to improve their knowledge and practice.

056 Leucocyte telomere/telomerase dynamics in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillator; potential biomarker for ventricular arrhythmias

IntroductionImplantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) have been shown to reduce mortality in patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy at a high risk of ventricular arrhythmias (VA), which are the commonest cause of sudden...

Evaluation by policy makers of a procedure to describe perceived landscape openness

In the last decade policy makers have increasingly recognized the need to include people's perceptions in methods for describing landscape quality. At the same time, a third wave of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become available that make it technically possible to model landscape quality in a realistic manner. However, as there is often a mismatch between science and policy, it remains unclear to what extent perception-based models developed by scientists can be useful to policy makers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness to policy making of a GIS-based procedure for describing perceived landscape openness. To this end, a workshop was organized which was attended by eight Dutch policy makers who acted as representatives of their province (region). The Group Decision Room (GDR) technique was used to elicit the policy makers' evaluations of the procedure in an anonymous and reliable manner. The procedure was presented to the policy makers using cases from their own province, which they assessed using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that policy makers rated the procedure as being highly relevant to policy making, scientifically credible, usable by policy makers and feasible to implement in the policy making process. They especially appreciated the flexibility and transparency of the procedure. The policy makers concluded that the procedure would be of most value for monitoring landscape changes and for analysing impacts on landscape openness in land use scenario studies. However, they requested guidelines for proper implementation of the various options in the procedure. In general, the current study shows that explicit and transparent evaluation of the usefulness of GIS-based tools can aid integration at the science-policy interface and help to ensure that both scientists and policy makers are informed of interrelated options and requirements.

Group-oriented fair exchange of signatures

Optimistic Fair Exchange (OFE) of digital signatures allows two parties to exchange their signatures in a fair manner so that a third party, called the arbitrator, gets involved only when there is a dispute. Previous work on OFE considers the two parties as individuals and there is no formal study on the scenario where the two parties are two groups of users. In this paper, we formalize this new variant and call it a Group-oriented Optimistic Fair Exchange (GOFE). GOFE allows two users from two different groups to exchange signatures on behalf of their groups in a fair and anonymous manner. We formalize the notion by providing the first set of security models for GOFE, and show that it is closely related to Ambiguous OFE (AOFE) proposed by Huang et al. in Asiacrypt 2008. In particular, we propose a generic transformation which converts a GOFE to an AOFE. We also give an efficient and concrete GOFE construction and prove its security under the security models we defined. The security of the scheme relies on the decision linear assumption and strong Diffie–Hellman assumption in the random oracle model.