SECURITY FOR INTERNET AND WEB BASED APPLICATIONS

Richard N. Zobel

Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
U.K.

Abstract
The very nature of the Internet and the World Wide Web provides an opportunity for easy access and communication. However, experience has shown that, to be successful, such freedom requires responsibility. or the majority, the responsibility is a natural attribute. However, for a minority, it is an opportunity for mischief and criminal activities. This paper considers the opportunities and problems of providing security for interaction and transaction on the global networks so important and useful in the everyday activities of an ever growing proportion of the population of the world. In particular it addresses the inevitable compromise between privacy and national (and international) interests, between private security and national security. These are inevitably in conflict, and raise the issues of need to know, of policing and of prevention, investigation and punishment of crime. The development of e-business at all levels is dependant on secure transactions, whilst allowing governments and agencies such as Interpol and the United Nations to have access for detection of illegal activities. Naturally, human rights issues bring a further important dimension to the discussion.
The paper addresses, amongst others, some or all of the following topics and issues.
1. The provision of secure access to services.
2. The encryption and decryption of messages.
3. The technical problems associated with the various current and future systems for providing such services.
4. The balance between the level of security and the cost of providing it.
5. The issue of privacy and the security services.
6. Digital signatures
7. Authentication, certification authority, digital certificates
8. Digital watermarks, map errors and copyright
9. Security and secrecy
10. Network attacks, forensics and profiling
11. National and cultural differences.
12. Some case studies - Mobile phones, Distributed interactive simulation, Distance learning

Biography
Richard Zobel (rzobel@cs.man.ac.uk ) graduated in Electrical Engineering from London University in 1963. His first experience of simulation was obtained during 1962-66 at Sperry Gyroscope whilst working on naval surface to air missiles, using mainly valve analog computers. His Ph.D., obtained in 1970 at Manchester University, concerned hybrid analog-digital computing. As Lecturer and Senior Lecturer he became involved in digital signal processing,
instrumentation and design environments with special emphasis on the simulation aspects of real-time embedded systems. He is a former Chairman of the United Kingdom Simulation Society (UKSim), Former Secretary of the European Federation of Simulation Societies (EUROSIM), and is a European Director of SCSI, the Society for Computer Simulation International. His current research work concerns distributed simulation for non-military applications, model re-use, distributed simulation model databases, issues of verification and validation of re-useable simulation models and security for distributed simulation under commercial network protocols.