File-sharing Systems Research Articles

Improving traceability in e-governance file-sharing systems: the Moroccan justice system as a use case

Improving traceability in e-governance file-sharing systems: the Moroccan justice system as a use case

A Single-Variable Method for Solving the Min–Max Programming Problem with Addition–Overlap Function Composition

Min–max programming problems with addition–min constraints have been studied in the literature to model data transfer in BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer file-sharing systems. It is well known that the class of overlap functions contains various operators, including the “min” operator. The aim of this paper is to generalize the above min–max programming problem with addition–overlap function constraints. We demonstrate that this new optimization problem can be transformed into a simplified single-variable optimization problem, which makes it easier to find an optimal solution. The bisection method will be used to find this optimal solution. In addition, when the overlap function is explicitly specified, an iterative method is given to compute the optimal objective value with a polynomial time complexity. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the procedures.

Mount SMB.pcap: Reconstructing file systems and file operations from network traffic

File system and network forensics are fundamental in forensic investigations, but are often treated as distinct disciplines. This work seeks to unify these fields by introducing a novel framework capable of mounting network captures, enabling investigators to seamlessly browse data using conventional tools. Although our implementation supports various protocols such as HTTP, TLS, and FTP, this work will particularly focus on the complexities of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, which is fundamental for shared file system access, especially within local networks.For this, we present a detailed methodology to extract essential file system data from SMB network traffic, aiming to reconstruct the share's file system as accurately as the original. Our approach goes beyond traditional tools like Wireshark, which typically only extract individual files from SMB transmissions. Instead, we reconstruct the entire file system hierarchy, retrieve all associated metadata, and handle multiple versions of files captured within the same network traffic. In addition, we also investigate how file operations impact SMB commands and show how these can be used to accurately recreate user activities on an SMB share based solely on network traffic. Although both methodologies and implementations can be applied independently, their combination provides investigators with a comprehensive view of the reconstructed file system along with the corresponding user activities extracted from network traffic.

Designing File Storage and Sharing System

Background: Files stored on a network are anticipated to be exchanged securely and efficiently. An internet-based file management platform that enables users to securely create, save, organize, collaborate, and share files. Sharing is a recently developed service idea that is frequently sought after by researchers and students. The suggested work offers many forms of data files, including documents and multimedia files. File storage has been a widely used storage method for many years. Materials and Methods: The proposed method used to build the website is Visual Studio 2015 with SQL server Database to provide file storage with different data type storage and it provides a service as an IT repository file storage system to help student and teachers to communicate with each other in academic way for publishing files in easy and in a flexible manner. Results: The proposed system results showed that the website can provide file upload with supported files are ".doc", ".docx", ".pptx", ".pdf", ".zip", ".rar", ".mp4", ".flv", ".avi", ".PDF", ".DOCX" and ".DOC". Results showed that the system uploaded file size 5M, 10 and 25 M smoothly. Conclusion: The work provides a flexible way to store and sharing files for different fields and we use it for education purposes. The results showed that the proposed system is very flexible in the process of uploading various files at a very high speed, due to the ease of uploading files to the server and accessing them by various students in the college.

Remote File Sharing System for Education Institution

Remote File Sharing System for Education Institution

The LINUX Operating System: An Introduction

Linux is a Unix-like operating system for Intel 386/486/ Pentium based IBM-PCs and compatibles. The kernel of this operating system was written from scratch by Linus Torvalds and, although copyright by the author, may be freely distributed. A world-wide group of enthusiastic volunteers has collaborated in developing many aspects of Linux on the Internet. Linux can run the powerful set of compilers and programming tools (the 'GNU' corpus) of the Free Software Foundation, and XFree86, a port of the X Window System from MIT. Most capabilities associated with high performance workstations, such as networking, shared file systems, electronic mail, TEX, I*TE.X, etc. are freely available for Linux. It can thus transform cheap IBM-PC compatible machines into Unix workstations with considerable capabilities. The author explains how Linux may be obtained, installed and networked. He also describes some interesting applications for Linux that are freely available. One useful feature of Linux is its ability to coexist with other operating systems. Thus a user who has made an investment in DOS/ MS Windows software, may continue running these applications on his machine and install Linux on a separate partition on his existing hard disk. If needed, files from DOS/ MS Windows partitions can be accessed by Linux. The enormous consumer market for IBM-PC compatible machines continually drives down prices of CPU chips, memory, hard disks, CDROMs etc. Linux can convert such machines into powerful workstations that can be used for teaching, research and software development. For professionals who use Unix based workstations at work, Linux permits virtually identical working environments on their personal home machines. For cost conscious educational institutions (especially in developing nations), Linux can create world-class computing environments from cheap, easily maintained, PC clones. Finally, for university students, especially in science and engineering, Linux provides an essentially cost-free path away from DOS into the world of Unix and X Windows

Blockchain-based File Sharing System – A Hybrid Approach

File sharing has become a common practice in our daily lives, but there are many concerns regarding security and privacy for various reasons. To address these concerns, researchers are exploring different storage and sharing options. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized and immutable nature, provides an appealing solution. The proposed hybrid file-sharing system offers a unique approach to combining the benefits of centralized user management and decentralized storage. By utilizing Ethereum smart contracts for access control, the system ensures secure and transparent sharing of files. Moreover, using the Inter Planetary File System for decentralized storage ensures high availability and scalability. This concept attempts to solve the accessibility, privacy, and security issues related to centralized and decentralized systems by utilizing the advantages of both models. The centralized system will help manage user authentication and authorization, making it easier for individuals unfamiliar with blockchain technology to interact with the system. On the other hand, IPFS provides decentralized storage with data redundancy and reliability. Access control is implemented through Ethereum smart contracts, which restrict file access to unauthorized users. Overall, this paper demonstrates how blockchain technology, with a hybrid model, can create a user-friendly, secure file-sharing environment immune to common vulnerabilities in centralized systems.

Trauma Center Transition From Paper to Electronic Quality Improvement: Enhancing Trauma Performance Efficiency.

The American College of Surgeons requires continuous process improvement review to maintain trauma center verification. Paper-based systems to monitor and track performance improvement are commonly used but can be inadequate to monitor concurrent ongoing improvement effectively. To describe the implementation of an electronic process to capture and monitor performance improvement in near real time. In 2020, a Midwestern U.S. Level I adult trauma center and a Level II pediatric trauma center's trauma programs transitioned from a paper to an electronic file-sharing system for performance improvement. We converted our primary, secondary, and tertiary review documentation into a single electronic performance improvement file stored on the institution's virtual hard drive, accessible to designated staff, allowing continuous real-time updates. The electronic file-sharing and monitoring process reinvigorated the team and enhanced performance improvement efforts, leading to increased efficiency through documentation and effective loop closure. Real-time monitoring allowed the trauma program to identify opportunities for improvement and enact timely action plans, including targeted performance improvement projects, department education, and ongoing training. We found that implementing an electronic file-sharing system enhanced the trauma team's ability to monitor and trend performance improvement in real time.

Solving minimal-optimal solutions for the generalized min-max programming problem with addition-min composition

Several forms of min-max programming problems with addition-min constraints have been introduced in the literature to model data transfer of BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer file-sharing systems. Solution algorithms are also provided to find the optimal solution which has equal values of all its variables. In this paper, we present a generalized min-max programming problem subject to addition-min constraints. A simple iterative approach is proposed to find the minimal-optimal solution for this generalized min-max programming problem. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate how the optimal solution with equal values for all its variables can be improved to become minimal-optimal.

Hybrid Internet Architecture and Protocol (HIAP): A Self-Evolving and Transformative Framework for Enabling Seamless Real-Time Applications and Secure Peer-to-Peer File Sharing in the Internet of Everything (IoE)

The Internet of Everything (IoE) is rapidly growing and utilized in various applications. However, the growing mobile traffic and services pose significant challenges in flexibility, movement, accessibility, and safety. The existing internet architecture and protocol must be improved to address the challenges. The article examines the attributes and prerequisites of forthcoming networking applications while emphasizing the constraints of conventional network architecture and protocols in fulfilling these needs. The research presents a new Hybrid Internet Architecture and Protocol (HIAP), the Self-Evolving and Transformative (SET) architecture. This architecture is designed to provide diverse control works and smart configuration options for different applications and networking conditions. This HIAP framework's primary emphasis lies in transport protocols and mechanisms for peer-to-peer file sharing. This study proposes implementing a deadline-aware multipath transport protocol within the framework of the Internet architecture with seamless support of real-time applications requiring strict adherence to latency demands. The HIAP framework incorporates evolvability, adaptable routing, and in-network cache mechanisms to enhance contentdelivery. To conduct a more comprehensive examination and conceptualize the peer-to-peer file-sharing system, the research created a pragmatic blueprint for setting the file transfer protocol on the HIAP. The study presented the groundwork for an Internet architecture better suited to the changing demands of the IoE and its various applications. This HIAP architecture aims to be more adaptable, efficient, and transformative. The present study involves a comparative analysis between the proposed research and current architecture. The findings provide evidence of the progress made by the suggested research in addressing the challenges related to multipath and safety in future architectural designs.

An open-source microscopy framework for simultaneous control of image acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis

We present a computational framework to simultaneously perform image acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis in the context of open-source microscopy automation. The setup features multiple computer units intersecting software with hardware devices and achieves automation using python scripts. In practice, script files are executed in the acquisition computer and can perform any experiment by modifying the state of the hardware devices and accessing experimental data. The presented framework achieves concurrency by using multiple instances of ImSwitch and napari working simultaneously. ImSwitch is a flexible and modular open-source software package for microscope control, and napari is a multidimensional image viewer for scientific image analysis.The presented framework implements a system based on file watching, where multiple units monitor a filesystem that acts as the synchronization primitive. The proposed solution is valid for any microscope setup, supporting various biological applications. The only necessary element is a shared filesystem, common in any standard laboratory, even in resource-constrained settings. The file watcher functionality in Python can be easily integrated into other python-based software.We demonstrate the proposed solution by performing tiling experiments using the molecular nanoscale live imaging with sectioning ability (MoNaLISA) microscope, a high-throughput super-resolution microscope based on reversible saturable optical fluorescence transitions (RESOLFT).

GDPR-Aware Revocable P2P File-Sharing System Over Consortium Blockchain

With the rise of blockchain technology, the peer-to-peer (P2P) network system has once again caught people's attention to equipping a blockchain with a big storage capacity. In the traditional P2P file-sharing network systems, such as InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), data stored in the other nodes cannot be revoked by the owner and can only be removed by other nodes themselves. To comply with the criteria of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, it is important to ensure that personal data can be completely removed by their owners. To improve the privacy and security of the P2P file-sharing system, we propose a revocable and monitorable P2P file-sharing system over a consortium blockchain to achieve revocation of files in the decentralized environment. By using a trusted execution environment, such as Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX), the proposed scheme can verify the integrity of the executables of the P2P file-sharing system and generate a file authentication code for each IPFS node to make sure that the system is synchronized correctly. This scheme elaborately integrates the autonomous smart contracts and Intel SGX hardware to obtain the monitorable merit. The experimental results suggest that enhancing the security and privacy take modest computing costs into consideration. To the best of our knowledge, this scheme is the first attempt to achieve the P2P file-sharing system with securely revocable functions.

Enhancing Security of Cloud based File Sharing Systems using AES and Proxy-Transformation

Enhancing Security of Cloud based File Sharing Systems using AES and Proxy-Transformation

Blockchain-Based Privacy-Preserving and Sustainable Data Query Service Over 5G-VANETs

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs) play an important role in future smart city design to improve traffic safety and traffic congestion by sharing data collected by vehicles. For sharing the traffic data with other vehicles, the vehicular sensory data are usually uploaded to the cloud server. However, existing data sharing systems for VANETs cannot provide selective data with sufficient privacy protection. Moreover, some schemes also cannot ensure stable data accessibility and the integrity of retrieved data. On the other hand, with the improvements such as lower latency, higher capacity, and increased bandwidth, 5G technology brings more possibilities to future applications. The join of the software-defined networks (SDNs) also offers efficient and effective network management. This paper proposes a primitive vehicular communication system named blockchain-based privacy-preserving and sustainable data query service. The proposed scheme is designed to realize stable data accessibility by leveraging smart contracts and blockchain oracle. With the help of 5G technology and P2P file-sharing system, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), the proposed scheme aims to support video downloading files with searchable capability and fairness. An incentive token mechanism is also equipped. The merit of auditability is ensured by Ethereum blockchain platform to support the accountability. Besides, we also evaluate its networking performance via SUMO and NS-3 simulators. Our simulation results show that the request-response delay of BPSDQS is less than existing blockchain-based proxy re-encryption (PRE) scheme. Our simulation results also showed that the average request-response delay in our scheme can saving up to 98%.

Generalized min-max programming problems subject to addition-min fuzzy relational inequalities

In this paper, we explore a new generalized min-max programming problem with constraints of addition-min fuzzy relational inequalities. This new generalized min-max programming model provides unified settings that enable the system manager to understand the system congestion level or the worst individual cost in the BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer file-sharing system. Theoretical results are presented to illustrate how the optimal value of generalized min-max programming problem can be obtained by solving a single-variable optimization model. Two approaches (an analytic method and an iterative approach) are provided to solve this single-variable optimization model. The complexity analyses of these two approaches are provided. Numerical examples demonstrate our proposed approaches.

An active-set approach to finding a minimal-optimal solution to the min-max programming problem with addition-min fuzzy relational inequalities

In the literature, a BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer (BT-P2P) file-sharing system has been modeled as a system of fuzzy relational inequalities (FRI) with addition-min composition. And a min-max programming problem has been proposed to study its system congestion. From a cost-saving viewpoint, optimal solutions to the min-max programming problem may not be the minimal-optimal solution. The “minimal” solution gives better cost performance while the “optimal” solution gives the least system congestion. Such a drawback has been studied in the literature. In this paper, we propose a simple active-set approach to finding a cost-saving optimal solution, i.e. a minimal-optimal solution to the min-max programming problem. The complexity of our approach is O(m2n), where m is the number of decision variables and n is the number of constraints. Numerical examples are given to illustrate our procedures. Since our active-set approach depends on the given order of decision variables, by using a different sequence of decision variables, it may be able to find other minimal-optimal solutions. Therefore, our method may be able to provide more choices for the manager to use in decision-making.

Data modelling approaches to astronomical data: Mapping large spectral line data cubes to dimensional data models

As a new generation of large-scale telescopes are expected to produce single data products in the range of hundreds of GBs to multiple TBs, different approaches to I/O efficient data interaction and extraction need to be investigated and made available to researchers. This will become increasingly important as the downloading and distribution of TB scale data products will become unsustainable, and researchers will have to take their processing analysis to the data. We present a methodology to extract 3 dimensional spatial–spectral data from dimensionally modelled tables in Parquet format on a Hadoop system. The data is loaded into the Parquet tables from FITS cube files using a dedicated process. We compare the performance of extracting data using the Apache Spark parallel compute framework on top of the Parquet-Hadoop ecosystem with data extraction from the original source files on a shared file system. We have found that the Spark-Parquet-Hadoop solution provides significant performance benefits, particularly in a multi user environment. We present a detailed analysis of the single and multi-user experiments conducted and also discuss the benefits and limitations of the platform used for this study.

Exploitation of network-segregated CPU resources in CMS

CMS is tackling the exploitation of CPU resources at HPC centers where compute nodes do not have network connectivity to the Internet. Pilot agents and payload jobs need to interact with external services from the compute nodes: access to the application software (CernVM-FS) and conditions data (Frontier), management of input and output data files (data management services), and job management (HTCondor). Finding an alternative route to these services is challenging. Seamless integration in the CMS production system without causing any operational overhead is a key goal. The case of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), in Spain, is particularly challenging, due to its especially restrictive network setup. We describe in this paper the solutions developed within CMS to overcome these restrictions, and integrate this resource in production. Singularity containers with application software releases are built and pre-placed in the HPC facility shared file system, together with conditions data files. HTCondor has been extended to relay communications between running pilot jobs and HTCondor daemons through the HPC shared file system. This operation mode also allows piping input and output data files through the HPC file system. Results, issues encountered during the integration process, and remaining concerns are discussed.

Updates on usage of the Czech national HPC center

The distributed computing of the ATLAS experiment at LHC has used computing resources of the Czech national HPC center IT4Innovations for several years. The submission system is based on ARC-CEs installed at the Czech Tier2 site (praguelcg2). Recent improvements of this system will be discussed here. First, there was a migration of the ARC-CE from version 5 to 6 which improves the reliability and scalability. A shared filesystem built on top of sshfs 3.7 no longer represents performance bottleneck. It provided an order of magnitude better transfer performance. New Singularity containers with full software stack can easily fit default resource limits on the IT4I cluster filesystem. A new submission system, allowing sequential running of payloads in one job, was set and adapted to HPC’s environment, improving usage on worker nodes with very high number of cores. Overall, the whole infrastructure provides significant contribution to resources provided by praguelcg2.

IOTA-BT: A P2P File-Sharing System Based on IOTA

BitTorrent (BT) is the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing system. According to official BT information, more than 100 million active users use BT for file transfers every month. However, BT mainly relies on either a central tracker (tracker) or distributed hash table (DHT) for locating file seeders while it runs a risk of a single point of failure or cyber-attacks such as Sybil and Eclipses. To attack this problem, we proposed a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing system called IOTA-BT by integrating BitTorrent with IOTA in this paper. The advantages of IOTA over blockchain include scalability for high throughput, compatibility with Internet of Things (IoT) footprints, zero transaction fees, partition-tolerant, and quantum-resistant cryptography. The autopeering and neighbor selection of the Coordicide of IOTA is aimed at defending a Sybil or Eclipse attack. IOTA-BT inherits these advantages from IOTA. Moreover, our experimental results have shown that the cost of executing BT functions, such as releasing torrent files and retrieving seeder information on IOTA-BT, is acceptable for improving the security of BT. IOTA-BT can indeed efficiently provide users with a P2P file-sharing environment of higher security.