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projects [2011/09/06 19:48] dymondprojects [2011/09/14 18:18] dymond
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 +
 +======Web Crawlers Behaving Like Humans: Are We There Yet!? ======
 +
 +**Supervisor**: Natalija Vlajic
 +
 +**Required Background**: General prerequisites
 +
 +
 +__Description__
 +
 +
 +Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are recognized as one
 +of the most serious threats to today's Internet due to the relative
 +simplicity of their execution and their ability to severely degrade
 +the quality at which Web-based services are offered to the end users.
 +An especially challenging form of DDoS attacks are the so-called
 +Application-Layer DDoS attacks. Namely:
 +1) In Application-Layer DDoS attacks, the attackers utilize a flood
 +of legitimate-looking Layer-7 network sessions (i.e., sessions that
 +are generally hard to detect and/or filter out by a firewall or an
 +IDS system);
 +2) Increasingly, these sessions comprise HTML requests generated by a
 +cleverly programmed crawler that executes a semi-random walk over the
 +web site links, thereby attempting to appear as a legitimate human
 +visitor.
 +
 +The goal of this project is to investigate the state of the art in
 +malicious web crawler design. In particular, the project will look
 +into the challenges of designing a smart-DDoS-crawler from the
 +attacker point of view - one of these challenges being the estimation
 +of web-page popularity assuming no a priori access to the web-logs
 +of the victim web-site.
 +----
 +:
 +----
 +====== GFI Sandbox  Analysis of Malware for DDoS ======
 +
 +**Supervisor**: Natalija Vlajic
 +
 +**Required Background**: General prerequisites. 
 +
 +
 +__Description__
 +
 +GFI Sandbox is a sophisticated industry-leading tool for quick and
 +safe analysis of malware behaviour. The goals of this project are:
 +1) familiarize yourself with the operation of GFI Sandbox;
 +2) using readily available GFI Sandbox Feeds (i.e., ThreatTrack Feeds),
 +build a database of malware designed specifically for execution of
 +DDoS-attacks - the so-called botnet malware;
 +3) examine the behaviour of the collected malware 'upon execution';
 +4) propose and build an environment - comprising the standard freeware
 +security tools - for longer term (beyond immediate execution) analysis
 +of the collected malware.
 +
 +
 +----
 +:
 +----
 +
 +Network analysis of EEG data: Understanding connections in the brain
 +
 +====== Network analysis of EEG data: Understanding connections in the brain ======
 +
 +**Supervisor**: Andrew Eckford
 +
 +**Required Background**: CSE 3213 (Computer Networks), CSE 3451 (Signals and Systems), and MATH 2030 (Elementary Probability); or equivalents
 +
 +**Preferred**: At least a B in all of the above courses
 +
 +
 +__Description__
 +Electroencephalogram (EEG) data indicates electrical activity at particular locations in the brain. Using EEG data from multiple sensors, it is possible to find correlations among the measurements, and identify “networks” of activity in the brain. These networks help researchers to determine exactly how the brain processes various stimuli.
 +
 +The tools that are used to analyze communication networks can also be used to analyze brain networks. In this interdisciplinary project, you will work with a collection of EEG data to identify correlated measurements, and determine network-type relationships based on those measurements. To do so, you will apply skills you learned in courses on Signals and Systems, Computer Networks, and Probability. Your work may lead to a research publication.
 +
 +
 +----
 +:
 +----
 +
 +====== An Open Source Structural Equation Modeling Path Diagram to Syntax Application ======
 +
 +**Supervisor**: Jeff Edmonds
 +
 +**Required Background**: JAVA
 +
 +**Recommended Background**: GUI Development
 +
 +__Description__
 +The software required is an application that allows researchers to define their hypothesized models visually and will output the correct syntax for the analytical software of their choosing.
 +
 +To date a promising functional application has been developed in JAVA by a Computer Science student as a 4080 project.  The existing software allows the user to draw a path diagram and outputs code for the R package sem.  There are a number of improvements to be made (refinements and additions to graphical user interface) and then the application needs to be extended to output syntax appropriate for additional software applications (openMX, MPlus and EQS).
 +
 +This a cross-disciplinary project with the Quantitative Methods division of the Department of Psychology. As such, the student will be working with individuals with expertise in the relevant statistics but are not themselves software developers, which is reflective of real-world situations.  The student is not expected to have any familiarity with statistics or the software packages mentioned above, this background will be provided.
 +
 +
 +----
 +:
 +----
 +
 +====== YUsend Thermal Vacuum (TVAC) Test Manager  ======
 +
 +**Supervisor**: Rob Allison (co-supervised with Hugh Chesser)
 +**Required Background**: General CSE408x prerequisites, familiarity with C++ and Windows software tools
 +
 +
 +__Description__
 +The YUsend (York University Space Engineering Nanosatellite Demonstration) Lab has procured a Windows XP-based industrial computer and temperature acquisition card (as well as other hardware) for performing TVAC testing of nanosatellites in the CSIL Lab (PSE 003).  A "TVAC Test Manager" application written using LabView's G programming language will oversee the acquisition of temperatures (thermal test outputs) and control of IR lamps (thermal test inputs) during the rather long periods (4 or more days, 24 hours a day) of a TVAC test. 
 +
 +Specific tasks include: 
 +1.  Writing temperature acquisition card (OMEGA Engineering CIO-DAS-Temp) drivers for LabView - should be written in Visual C++ or similar and compiled into SubVI format. 
 +2.  Write LabView VI's ("Virtual Instrument") to perform (a) Test set-up activities - checkout of sensor and lamps, assigning neumonics to temperature sensors, setting of alarm conditions for sensors and lamps (b) Acquire and monitor temperature data and control lamp voltage during test, raise operator alarms for temperature or IR lamp anomalous conditions as required (c) Store temperature and control data for subsequent analysis and reporting. 
 +3. (Optional) Interface the Test Manager with an orbital simulation tool which would be used to compute IR lamp inputs based on a simulation of the nanosatellite's orbital position and attitude (eg - in the sun, lamps on, in eclipse lamps off).  The simulation tool is a package called Satellite Toolkit (STK) which has an TCP/IP-based API. 
 +
 +
 +
 +----
 +:
 +----
 +
projects.txt · Last modified: 2016/01/13 20:05 by stevenc