Aspects of internet security - identity management and online child protection
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: This thesis examines four main subjects; consumer federated Internet Identity Management\n(IdM), text analysis to detect grooming in Internet chat, a system for using steganographed\nemoticons as ‘digital fingerprints’ in instant messaging and a systems analysis of online child\nprotection.\nThe Internet was never designed to support an identity framework. The current username /\npassword model does not scale well and with an ever increasing number of sites and services\nusers are suffering from password fatigue and using insecure practises such as using the same\npassword across websites. In addition users are supplying personal information to vast\nnumber of sites and services with little, if any control over how that information is used.\nA new identity metasystem promises to bring federated identity, which has found success in\nthe enterprise to the consumer, placing the user in control and limiting the disclosure of\npersonal information. This thesis argues though technical feasible no business model exists to\nsupport consumer IdM and without a major change in Internet culture such as a breakdown in\ntrust and security a new identity metasystem will not be realised.\nIs it possible to detect grooming or potential grooming from a statistical examination of\nInternet chat messages? Using techniques from speaker verification can grooming\nrelationships be detected? Can this approach improve on the leading text analysis technique –\nBayesian trigram analysis? Using a novel feature extraction technique and Gaussian Mixture\nModels (GMM) to detect potential grooming proved to be unreliable. Even with the benefit\nof extensive tuning the author doubts the technique would match or improve upon Bayesian\nanalysis. Around 80% of child grooming is blatant with the groomer disguising neither their\nage nor sexual intent. Experiments conducted with Bayesian trigram analysis suggest this\ncould be reliably detected, detecting the subtle, devious remaining 20% is considerably\nharder and reliable detection is questionable especially in systems using teenagers (the most\nat risk group).\nObservations of the MSN Messenger service and protocol lead the author to discover a\nmethod by which to leave digitally verifiable files on the computer of anyone who chats with\na child by exploiting the custom emoticon feature. By employing techniques from\nsteganography these custom emoticons can be made to appear innocuous. Finding and\nremoving custom emoticons is a non-trivial matter and they cannot be easily spoofed.\nIdentification is performed by examining the emoticon (file) hashes. If an emoticon is\nrecovered e.g. in the course of an investigation it can be hashed and the hashed compared\nagainst a database of registered users and used to support non-repudiation and confirm if an\nindividual has indeed been chatting with a child.\nOnline child protection has been described as a classic systems problem. It covers a broad\nrange of complex, and sometimes difficult to research issues including technology, sociology,\npsychology and law, and affects directly or indirectly the majority of the UK population. Yet\ndespite this the problem and the challenges are poorly understood, thanks in no small part to\nmawkish attitudes and alarmist media coverage. Here the problem is examined holistically;\nhow children use technology, what the risks are, and how they can best be protected – based\nnot on idealism, but on the known behaviours of children. The overall protection message is\noften confused and unrealistic, leaving parents and children ill prepared to protect\nthemselves. Technology does have a place in protecting children, but this is secondary to a\nstrong and understanding parent/child relationship and education, both of the child and\nparent.
Author: Chris Durbin
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W787087271