[LINKS] OPSEC/Anonymity: Professor Neil C. Rowe (Naval Postgraduate School)
Professor Neil C. Rowe
Office: Department of Computer Science, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Code CS/Rp, 1411 Cunningham Road, Monterey CA 93943. Phone: (831) 656-2462. Fax: (831) 656-2814. Email: ncrowe at nps dot edu.
History: Ph.D. in Computer Science, Stanford University, 1983; S.M. and E. E. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1978; S.B. in Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1975. Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in 1983; tenured in 1989; promoted to full professor in 2000.
Interests: A broad range of topics in applied artificial intelligence.
Course materials (including downloads) for Prof. Rowe's courses
Sample syllabus for CS3310, Artificial Intelligence
Information about CS4315, Learning Systems
Information about CS4322, Internet Information Systems Technology
Information about CS4675, Intrusion Detection and Response
I am chair of the Autonomous Systems Track of the Computer Science Department.
Go to Autonomous Sytems Track description
If you have questions about official Academic Council policy on degrees, courses, and grades, follow the link below to the official School policy handbook.
Academic Council Policy Manual
I am also affiliated with the Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation (MOVES) curriculum.
MOVES Institute information
Go to NPS Computer Science Department home page
Major research papers of Prof. Rowe and his students
About cyberwarfare:
Paper on cyber perfidy
Paper on real-time experiments with deception on cyberattackers
Introductory article on the ethics of cyberwarfare
Similar article to preceding
Improved paper on the technology for cyberarms agreements
Paper on the technology for cyberarms agreements
Paper on reversible cyberattacks
Paper on the ethics of cyberweapons
Paper on the possibility of war crimes in cyberspace
2nd paper on experiments with a deceptive honeypot
Paper on deception and information theory
Paper on automated negative persuasion using deception
Paper on simple experiments with deception on a honeypot
Paper on decision-theoretic analysis of cyberdeception
Paper on fake honeypots as a defensive tactic
Original conference paper version of preceding
Paper on finding logically consistent deceptions for cyberspace
Second (and better) paper on using generic excuses for deceptive software
Paper on using generic excuses for deceptive software
Paper on automated planning for deceptive software
Paper giving a taxonomy of deception in cyberspace
Paper on analogies for information systems of military deception
Paper on experiments with a deceptive Web portal
2002 Short overview paper on the software decoy project
2002 Paper surveying our software decoy project
Greg Tan M.S. thesis surveying cyberterrorism
Binh Duong M.S. thesis about setting up honeypots
Harry Lim M.S. thesis about deceptive honeypots
James Goh M.S. thesis about deceptive honeypots
Erwin Frederick M.S. thesis about deceptive honeypots
About information security:
Paper on testing the NSRL hash sets for known files
Paper on detecting suspicious behavior with drive metadata forensics
Paper comparing the Suricata and Snort intrusion-detection systems
Paper on detecting anomalous and suspicious file and directory information
Paper on forensics of disk directory time information
Paper on automatic flow analysis of security information on the Web
Paper comparing methods of spam and phishing detection
Paper on retrieving security statistics automatically from the Web
Short paper on evaluation of intrusion-prevention systems
Short paper on automatically building a vulnerability database
Short paper on modeling of social engineering
Second (and better) paper on detecting fake computer file systems
Paper on detecting fake computer file systems
Paper on using decoys for intrusion defense
Paper on distributed intrusion detection using alert levels
Paper on design of distributed intrusion detection
Paper on the computer-system intrusion-detection simulator and tutor
Paper on preventing cheating in distance learning
Paper on inference-security analysis using resolution theorem proving
Paper on Diophantine compromise of a statistical database
Dennis Ingram M.S. thesis on distributed intrusion detection
Steven Kremer M.S. thesis evaluating Windows NT intrusion detection in light of Navy IT-21 policy
Don Julian M.S. thesis about deceptive strategies for Web browsers under attack
Valter Monteiro M.S. thesis about using open-source intrusion detection software for deceptive tactics
Keith Labbe M.S. thesis about testing intrusion prevention systems
Lena Laribee M.S. thesis about social engineering
Dave Barnes M.S. thesis about phishing
Eugene Albin M.S. thesis comparing Snort and Suricata intrusion-detection products
About sensor networks:
Paper on improving localization by sensors assuming consistency
Paper on detecting suspicious motion using an Android phone as a sensor
Paper on detecting suspicious motion in public areas using nonimaging sensors
Paper on energy-efficient use of cable sensors
Paper on minimizing transmission power with cable sensors
Paper on detecting suspicious motion in video sequences of public areas
Paper on visualizing Marine training performance using sensor networks
Paper on finding IED emplacement behavior with sensor networks
Paper on using smartphones as sentry sensors on Marine deployments
Paper on localization of targets with nonimaging sensor networks
Paper on deployment of fiber-optic cables as seismic sensors
Paper on use of smart phones as seismic sensors
Paper on detecting suspicious behavior with nonimaging sensors
Second paper on automated performance assessment of Marines in urban training
Paper on automated performance assessment of Marines in urban training from images
Paper on the problems of using sensor networks for detecting emplacement of improvised explosive devices
Paper on detecting suspicious and coordinated behavior in a sensor field
Paper on detecting magnetic and infrared activity in a sensor field
Paper on detecting suspicious behavior with image processing
Paper on recognizing suspicious movement behavior (2)
Paper on recognizing suspicous movement behavior (1)
About modeling and simulation:
Paper analyzing pilot performance in aicraft-carrier landings
Paper on three approaches to simulating naval air defense
Paper on simulation of battlefield sensor networks
Paper on simulation of naval air defense teams
Paper on study of firefighting team efficiency using simulation
Paper on automatic analysis of counterplanning
Patricio Salgado M.S. thesis modeling naval ship replenishment
Sylvio Andrade M.S. thesis modeling Navy firefighting with a multiagent simulation
Arthur Aragon M.S. thesis on modeling urban combat for a tutor
Ahmet Guven M.S. thesis on improving a Prolog program to find conflicts in policy for networks
Sharif Calfee M.S. thesis on modeling an air-defense command center on a ship (George Phillips Award winner)
Sean Hynes M.S. thesis on best sensor deployment for battlefield settings (Grace Hopper award winner)
Baris Ozkan M.S. thesis on modeling naval air defense using conceptual blending (Grace Hopper Award winner)
About data mining and information retrieval:
More about the MARIE project on data mining of captioned multimedia
Paper on mining of intelligence information
2005 book chapter, surveying caption extraction on the Web
Paper assessing the importance of context in finding Web captions
1999 overview paper on MARIE
Paper on MARIE-4 at its World Wide Web image-caption extraction
Short paper on the extension of the previous to audio and video
Short paper on automatically finding advertisements on Web pages
Paper on automatically finding and labeling the subject on a captioned imageIn PDF format
Paper on MARIE-3's World Wide Web caption extraction
Earlier overview paper on MARIE
Paper on image-region classification of MARIE
Paper on natural-language processing of MARIE-2
Paper by Eugene Guglielmo on natural-language processing of MARIE-1
Earlier paper on natural-language processing of MARIE
Paper on MARIE software handling abbreviations and misspellings
1997 paper on finding captions for Web images
1998 paper on mapping between image regions and caption concepts
Paper on reference resolution in image captions
Paper on use of caption understanding for decision support in command-and-control
1995 paper on processing challenges in MARIE
Paper on optimization of information filtering in MARIE
Paper on load balancing in parallel implementations of MARIEIn PDF format
Paper on inferring degrees of item interest from database queries
Paper on parsing of query sequences to a database
Charles Carroll M.S. thesis on automatic data mining for intelligence gathering (slightly modified to be unclassified)
Mike Niedert M.S. thesis on automatic scheduling algorithms for heterogeneous networks
Scott Hall M.S. thesis on automatically classifying email from textual clues
Peter Wu M.S. thesis on methodology for building Internet portals
Seksit Siripala M.S. thesis on open-source Web site design
Ann Lee and Ed Powers M.S. thesis on ontology-based assistance to Web searches
Fred Krenson M.S. thesis on automatically mining reports of arms sales
About image processing :
2000 paper on inferring changes to linear features in aerial photographs
Paper on automatically classifying ship types from infrared images
1999 Paper on system design for updating terrain databases from aerial photos
Paper on intelligent customized terrain databases
Luiz Cardoso M.S. thesis on finding buildings automatically in aerial photographs
Jessica Herman M.S. thesis on identifying ships from infrared side views (Grace Hopper Award winner)
Jorge Alves M.S. thesis on automatically classifying ship types from infrared images
Victor Ross M.S. thesis on software support for meteorological dispersion models
Vassilios Papaliakos M.S. thesis on automatic content repurposing of electrical diagrams for small devices
Michael Rost M.S. thesis about an agent-based system for providing tactical meteorological information
About intelligent tutoring systems:
Paper on visualizing Marine training performance using sensor networks
Paper on automated performance assessment of Marines in urban training
Paper on the ship navigation tutor
Overview paper on METUTOR
Paper on the intrusion-detection tutor
Manual for METUTOR, tools for building procedural-skills tutors
Paper on the A* search tutoring shell
Paper on the logic semantics tutor
Paper on inductive common-ground tutoring and the grammar tutor
About software engineering:
2001 paper on natural-language processing for a policy workbench
Paper on a case study of requirements reuse helped by automated requirements matching
Paper on software for fault-tolerant satellites
Eric Stierna M.S. thesis on software requirements reuse helped by automated requirements matching
Matt Lisowski M.S. thesis on software design for a FLIR infrared image-video ship-identification system
Vanessa Ong M.S. thesis on steps toward a natural-language front end to a policy workbench
Yilmaz Degirmenci M.S. thesis on an algorithm for text-based reasoning by analogy
John Custy M.S. thesis on natural-language input issues for a policy workbench
Brenda Powers M.S. thesis on evaluating collaborative software
About path planning:
Paper about simulated annnealing for finding optimal paths on weighted regions
Paper about finding emergency routes on ships
Paper about optimal path maps on weighted regions
Paper #3 (the best) on anisotropic path planning
Paper #2 on anisotropic path planning, on cones
Paper #1 on anisotropic path planning, on polyhedra
Paper about path planning on weighted regions
Paper about path planning with roads, rivers, and rocks
Paper on the three-dimensional weighted-region problem
Earlier paper about optimal path maps on weighted regions
Paper about optimal-plan maps
About statistical analysis methods:
Paper on management of regression models
Paper on antisampling, statistics derived from others
Paper on bounds on set intersection sizes
Paper on bounds on statistics of nonlinearily-transformed data
Paper on inheritance of statistical properties
Miscellaneous research papers:
Paper on analyzing underwater sounds via shape correlations between hydrophones
Paper on grammar as a programming language
John Mades M.S. thesis surveying quantum computers
Ken Macklin M.S. thesis examining reconfigurable software for signal processing
Encyclopedia articles:
Survey of the ethics of deception in cyberspace
Survey on deception in cyber-attacks
Survey on deception in defense from cyber-attacks
Survey on the ethics of cyber-attacks
Survey on cyber-attacks on digital government
Survey on content management systems
Survey on trust in digital government
Survey on use of multimedia in digital government
Survey on deception in electronic goods and services
Survey on deception methods in virtual communities
Survey on the ethics of deception in virtual communities
Survey on detection and response to deception in virtual communities
Survey on emanations security
Survey on exploiting captions for multimedia
Survey on content repurposing for small handheld devices
Survey on digital libraries
Survey on multimedia systems
Survey on image processing
Text of Neil C. Rowe, Artificial Intelligence through Prolog, Prentice-Hall, 1988
Pedagogical papers (mostly for high-school students):
Paper on the importance of naming in programming
Paper relating turtle geometry and analytic geometry
Paper on a way to teach trigonometry through 3D graphics
Paper on more neat geometrical designs using turtle geometry
Paper on neat things to do with property lists
Paper on melody transformations
Curriculum vitae for Prof. Rowe
Some thesis and project topics
Presentation on suggested thesis and dissertation topics
Cyberwarfare and information security
Develop methods of detecting insider threats to organizations from analysis of network traffic.
Automatically correlate malicious packets sent to a honeypot with text descriptions of known attacks, to provide early warning on new attacks.
Find clues to deception in analysis of the file directory on a captured disk drive.
Implement software decoys for attacks involving denial-of-service, overwriting of the operating system, or stack manipulations.
Systematically modify incoming attack packets to a honeypot to see what manipulations are most effective at confusing and foiling attacks.
Develop effective "fake honeypots" and fake Web sites for counter-intelligence.
Develop honeypot wireless devices that attract using deception and analyze wireless attacks.
Develop anti-phishing tactics using deception.
Develop technology for detecting cyberarms development in other countries.
Develop methods to exploit intrusion activity for defensive purposes other than as honeypots. For example, ways of deciding priorities on intrusion tolerance, ways of determining when another organization should be informed, and ways of inciting revelation of key intelligence from an attacker adversary.
Data mining
Build a browser that automatically crawls the Web to find paragraphs with information about security threats or vulnerabilities of a specified type, regardless of the wording, using clues like vulnerabilty numbers and clustering of terms.
Build an autonomous agent that gathers information from the Web about the organization (like people with job titles) of foreign governments.
Build a neural network or Bayesian network that learns to categorize email or Web pages.
Image processing
Find suspicious behavior in video of public areas.
Track Marines during training, figure out what they are doing, and measure their peformance automatically.
Software engineering
Parse and interpret the comments on a program to index it.
Devise systematic naming conventions for programs and their components.
Multi-agent simulation
Implement a multiagent planning package as embeddable Java or Python module.
Develop a training aid for urban warfare using multi-agent simulation.
Develop a "red teaming" tool for counter-IED training, that plans out realistic insurgent actions.
Model emotions like "anger" and "fear" in simulated agents in a two-dimensional world.
Intelligent tutoring
Apply the means-ends tutor to the teaching of repair using graphics.
Infer planning criteria from lists of possible sequences of actions in operations, then use this to automate planning.
Prof. Rowe's recommended thesis outline and guidelines
Prof. Rowe's recommended Ph.D. Final Exam outline and guidelines
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