Network security should be based around security policies. From high-level natural language, non-... more Network security should be based around security policies. From high-level natural language, non-technical, policies created by management, down to device and vendor specific policies, or configurations, written by network system administrators. There exists a multitude of research into policy-based network systems which has been undertaken. This paper provides an overview of the different type of policies relating to security in networks, and a taxonomy of the research into systems which have been proposed to support the network administrators in difficult tasks of creating, managing and deploying these policies.
The use of digital technologies in providing health care services is in general subsumed under th... more The use of digital technologies in providing health care services is in general subsumed under the term e-Health. The Data Capture and Auto Identification Reference (DACAR) project provides an open e-Health service platform that reinforces the integrity, security, confidentiality and auditability of medical data throughout their life-cycle. This paper presents the design and implementation of the core component of this platform, namely the Single Point of Contact (SPoC). A SPoC is essentially a security authority that provides claim-based authentication and authorisation functionalities, and facilitates the development and integration of secure e-Health services hosted within a Cloud Computing environment.
Live clinical trials of e-Health infrastructures require extensive testing and evaluation prior t... more Live clinical trials of e-Health infrastructures require extensive testing and evaluation prior to legal and ethical approval. This paper presents the Patient Simulator, a method for simulating patient data catered towards evaluating e-Health infrastructures and services in regards to efficiency, reliability, security and scalability at an early stage without the need to use real patient data. Using discrete event based simulation in conjunction with random normal distribution techniques, preliminary prototyping of the Patient Simulator shows that it is capable of generating five vital physiological signs including heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen levels and respiration rate. In conducting a comparison of simulated heart rate against real-life heart rate samples, evaluation shows that this technique enables generation of values which resemble real life patients. Future work will be carried out to improve upon the methodology of patient simulation along with conducting comprehensive testing and validation of e-Health infrastructures.
The exchange of information between the police and community partners forms a central aspect of e... more The exchange of information between the police and community partners forms a central aspect of effective community service provision. In the context of policing, a robust and timely communications mechanism is required between police agencies and community partner domains, including: Primary healthcare (such as a Family Physician or a General Practitioner); Secondary healthcare (such as hospitals); Social Services; Education; and Fire and Rescue services. Investigations into high-profile cases such as the Victoria Climbié murder in 2000, the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, and, more recently, the death of baby Peter Connelly through child abuse in 2007, highlight the requirement for a robust information-sharing framework. This paper presents a novel syntax that supports information-sharing requests, within strict data-sharing policy definitions. Such requests may form the basis for any information-sharing agreement that can exist between the police and their community partners. It defines a role-based architecture, with partner domains, with a syntax for the effective and efficient information sharing, using SPoC (Single Point-of-Contact) agents to control information exchange. The application of policy definitions using rules within these SPoCs is inspired by network firewall rules and thus define information exchange permissions. These rules can be implemented by software filtering agents that act as information gateways between partner domains. Roles are exposed from each domain to give the rights to exchange information as defined within the policy definition. This work involves collaboration with the Scottish Police, as part of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR), and aims to improve the safety of individuals by reducing risks to the community using enhanced information-sharing mechanisms.
The paper describes a collaborative project between computer scientists, lawyers, police officers... more The paper describes a collaborative project between computer scientists, lawyers, police officers, medical professionals and social workers to develop a communication infrastructure that allows information sharing while observing Data Protection law "by design", through a formal representation of legal rules in a firewall type system. .
The exchange of information between the police and community partners forms a central aspect of e... more The exchange of information between the police and community partners forms a central aspect of effective community service provision. In the context of policing, a robust and timely communications mechanism is required between police agencies and community partner domains, including: Primary healthcare (such as a Family Physician or a General Practitioner); Secondary healthcare (such as hospitals); Social Services; Education; and Fire and Rescue services. Investigations into high-profile cases such as the Victoria Climbié murder in 2000, the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, and, more recently, the death of baby Peter Connelly through child abuse in 2007, highlight the requirement for a robust information-sharing framework. This paper presents a novel syntax that supports information-sharing requests, within strict data-sharing policy definitions. Such requests may form the basis for any information-sharing agreement that can exist between the police and their community partners. It defines a role-based architecture, with partner domains, with a syntax for the effective and efficient information sharing, using SPoC (Single Point-of-Contact) agents to control information exchange. The application of policy definitions using rules within these SPoCs is inspired by network firewall rules and thus define information exchange permissions. These rules can be implemented by software filtering agents that act as information gateways between partner domains. Roles are exposed from each domain to give the rights to exchange information as defined within the policy definition. This work involves collaboration with the Scottish Police, as part of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR), and aims to improve the safety of individuals by reducing risks to the community using enhanced information-sharing mechanisms.
The use of digital technologies in providing health care services is collectively known as eHealt... more The use of digital technologies in providing health care services is collectively known as eHealth. Considerable progress has been made in the development of eHealth services, but concerns over service integration, large scale deployment, and security, integrity and confidentiality of sensitive medical data still need to be addressed. This paper presents a solution proposed by the Data Capture and Auto Identification Reference (DACAR) project to overcoming these challenges. The key contributions of this paper include a Single Point of Contact (SPoC), a novel rule based information sharing policy syntax, and Data Buckets hosted by a scalable and cost-effective Cloud infrastructure. These key components and other system services constitute DACAR's eHealth platform, which allows the secure capture, storage and consumption of sensitive health care data. Currently, a prototype of the DACAR platform has been implemented. To assess the viability and performance of the platform, a demonstration application, namely the Early Warning Score (EWS), has been developed and deployed within a private Cloud infrastructure at Edinburgh Napier University. Simulated experimental results show that the end-to-end communication latency of 97.8% of application messages were below 100ms. Hence, the DACAR platform is efficient enough to support the development and integration of time critical eHealth services. A more comprehensive evaluation of the DACAR platform in a real life clinical environment is under development at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London.
Live clinical trials of e-Health infrastructures require extensive testing and evaluation prior t... more Live clinical trials of e-Health infrastructures require extensive testing and evaluation prior to legal and ethical approval. This paper presents the Patient Simulator, a method for simulating patient data catered towards evaluating e-Health infrastructures and services in regards to efficiency, reliability, security and scalability at an early stage without the need to use real patient data. Using discrete event based simulation in conjunction with random normal distribution techniques, preliminary prototyping of the Patient Simulator shows that it is capable of generating five vital physiological signs including heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen levels and respiration rate. In conducting a comparison of simulated heart rate against real-life heart rate samples, evaluation shows that this technique enables generation of values which resemble real life patients. Future work will be carried out to improve upon the methodology of patient simulation along with conducting comprehensive testing and validation of e-Health infrastructures.
Network security should be based around security policies. From high-level natural language, non-... more Network security should be based around security policies. From high-level natural language, non-technical, policies created by management, down to device and vendor specific policies, or configurations, written by network system administrators. There exists a multitude of research into policy-based network systems which has been undertaken. This paper provides an overview of the different type of policies relating to security in networks, and a taxonomy of the research into systems which have been proposed to support the network administrators in difficult tasks of creating, managing and deploying these policies.
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Papers by Omair Uthmani