Browsing by Subject "security"

Various Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are common phenomena in the Internet. They can consume resources of servers, congest networks, disrupt services, or even halt systems. There are many machine learning approaches that attempt to detect and prevent attacks on multiple levels of abstraction. This thesis examines and reports different aspects of creating and using a dataset for machine learning purposes to detect attacks in a web server environment. We describe the problem field, origins and reasons behind the attacks, typical characteristics, and various types of attacks. We detail ways to mitigate the attacks and provide a review of current benchmark datasets. For the dataset used in this thesis, network traffic was captured in a real-world setting, and flow records were labeled. Experiments performed include selecting important features, comparing two supervised learning algorithms, and observing how a classifier model trained on network traffic on a specific date performs in detecting new malicious records over time in the same environment. The model was also tested with a recent benchmark dataset.

During recent years, concerns have been expressed about foreign investors, especially state-owned enterprises, acquiring companies in Europe due to strategic motives. In October 2020, Regulation (EU) 2019/452 entered into force, establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union. Despite these developments, foreign direct investment screening is largely left to the Member States discretion. In Finland, the Act on the Screening of Foreign Corporate Acquisitions (172/2012) applies to acquisitions of defence industry enterprises, companies that produce or supply critical products or services related to the statutory duties of Finnish authorities essential to the security of society and organisations or business undertakings that are considered critical in terms of securing functions vital to society on the basis of their field, business or commitments. Essentially, the objective of the Act is to screen, and, should a key national interest so require, restrict the transfer of influence to foreigners in the entities subject to screening. The purpose of this study consists of three elements. First, the purpose of the study is to provide a review of the EU framework for the screening of foreign direct investment and the national foreign direct investment screening mechanism. In essence, the review will thoroughly cover the key elements of the applicable EU regulation and the national act, supported by various illustrations and summaries. Secondly, the purpose of the study is to provide an analysis of the legal grounds for the screening and restriction of foreign direct investment. The analysis will cover the grounds 'security or public order' included in the EU framework, as well as the ground 'key national interest' included in the national act. Thirdly, the study will provide observations on the application of the foreign direct investment screening mechanisms. The observations will provide practical information on how the respective mechanisms have been used during recent years, as well as a time-bound account of the types of investments that have been subject to screening.

In recent years, loneliness has been talked about in the media relatively often. There are multiple studies about harmfulness of loneliness for one's health and safety both nationally and internationally. The aim of this master's thesis is to find out how the loneliness discourse has changed in the Finnish parliamentary discussions and why. The main research questions are: How often has loneliness been brought up between the years 1980 and 2019 in the Finnish governmental documents and which actor groups and themes can be identified in the discussion. In addition, the thesis will look at by whom have the actor groups and themes been brought up. The data of this thesis are governmental documents: governmental proposals, expert opinions and debate initiatives. The used methods are both quantitative and qualitative. In the first part, the data is analyzed using quantitative content analysis, more specifically categorization. By processing the data this way, one gets an answer to the first two research questions: how often has loneliness been brought up and which actor groups and themes can be identified in the discussion. In the second part of the thesis, the findings are analyzed using narrative analysis as a qualitative method. This reveals what kind of narratives are linked to findings and in which context and by whom they have been brought up. In the third part of the thesis, there is a brief review on the wider Finnish (socio)political environment and how it might have affected the results. The most important findings in this thesis are that the loneliness discussion has increased and peaked only in the 2010s. The most often mentioned group is child loneliness. Loneliness as a subjective feeling is relatively new topic in the parliamentary discussions. It started to emerge only in the 2000s and peaked after 2015. In the 2000s, organizations used the prevention of loneliness as an argument to get funding or to justify the importance of their work. This proves that in the 2000s loneliness had become something that is considered harmful. Security is a new viewpoint in the loneliness discussion: in 2010s it has started to emerge in the media as a security problem, partly because of school shootings and radical lone operators. In the 2020, the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) mentions that lone operators are among the biggest security threats in Finland. While the demands towards the state has increased, loneliness in the Parliament has always been talked about through something else, or as a "side effect" of another problem.

Every four years, the U.S. presidential elections and the political campaigns are intensely followed by the media both nationally and globally. The primary elections precede the general election and are to determine who the presidential nominee of each party will be. To aid in the selection of the nominee, multiple debates are held for the candidates. This election cycle was perhaps a bit more intriguing than usual, as one of the Republican primary candidates came from outside established politics. This person was businessman Donald Trump, who challenged the political status quo with his often-provocative comments. It became evident that his unconventional style appealed to many: Trump seized the office in January of 2017. Many of the comments the Republican candidates made about immigration gained plenty of media attention. In this thesis, the focus is on the Republican candidates’ immigration-related rhetoric throughout the primary season. The goal to distinguish the discourses immigration is linked with in the debates and examine the rhetorical methods employed by the candidates as they attempt to convince and persuade their audiences on the topic of immigration. The data used in this thesis consists of twelve Republican debates arranged during the primary season. The rhetoric is examined through various rhetorical devices as well as Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion—ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos attempts to make the speaker appear trustworthy and respectable to the audience: pathos is used to appeal to the audiences’ emotions; and logos is used to appeal to the audience’s senses and intellect. The analysis method applied in this thesis is rhetorical discourse analysis. The immigration-based history of the United States, its social, racial, and ethnic composition as well as its ever-changing demographics lay a very interesting backdrop to the entire topic. The U.S. is a country built by immigrants, yet its relationship with immigration has always been difficult. Many newcomers have traditionally been disliked or even feared, be it because of their exotic appearance, their religion, or their unfamiliar language. American nativists have throughout history attempted to keep America white and Christian and rejected those who do not easily fall into these categories. Originally even Catholics were shunned. Whiteness and Christianity are two features that have long prevailed as the most depictive characteristics of the United States, even if the white population is on the decline and soon no racial group will alone form racial majority. The twelve primary debates are analyzed through rhetorical discourse analysis. The goal is to distinguish the central discourses and the rhetoric that the candidates apply when discussing immigration. A total of five discourses were discovered. These are named the problem discourse, the legality discourse, the security discourse, the economic discourse and Americanness as a discourse. The problem discourse as well as Americanness as a discourse can be found within all of the other discourses. Within the problem discourse, immigration is generally depicted as a problem; immigration is portrayed as an issue pertaining to law within the legality discourse: the security discourse is founded on the idea of immigration as a security matter; within the economic discourse, immigration appears an economic problem; and lastly, Americanness as a discourse builds around the age-old discussion on who is American. The economy discourse appears the most dominant, but the security discourse is found to be intensified by candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The candidates’ rhetoric most often aims to increase their popularity in the race and the audience’s support. This is understandable as the crux of a presidential primary is to select one candidate as the party nominee for the general election. As could be then expected, of Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion—ethos, pathos, and logos—ethos is most commonly used.

The diverse range of threats to contemporary states mean that a high level of commitment to national defence is required effectively implement defensive doctrine. States need an accurate picture of the commitment to national defence among their citizens. However, research on the topic has been sparse. There is also limited knowledge regarding the factors that can be used to predict expressed commitment to national defence. This thesis examines data from the 2020 Advisory Board for Defence Information (ABDI) survey (N = 1169) on Finnish opinions on national defence using binary logistic regression. The survey consisted of in-person interviews (N = 500) and an online questionnaire (N = 669). The response rate for the survey was 21.8% for online participants and not reported for in-person interviews. Commitment to national defence is operationalised through questions on general and personal will to defend the country, which are examined separately and combined to represent the concept of national defence thought. The rate of positive responses to the dependent variables is examined by hierarchically constructing four regression models for each dependent variable followed by a final, simplified model. The chosen predictors are organised thematically and utilise demographic, socioeconomic, personal circumstance and geographic background information on the respondents. The primary predictors are the participants’ gender (53.9% male, 46.1% female) and age (age range 15-79). The thesis finds that the respondents’ gender and age are key predictors of expressed commitment to national defence. Men and older participants express higher levels of commitment compared to women and younger respondents. The respondents’ socioeconomic status, personal circumstance and geographic location are inconsistently associated with their expressed commitment to national defence. The association between commitment to national defence and gender does not change when additional predictors are added to the model. The respondents’ age is found be more strongly associated with their personal will to defend the country when controlling for their retirement status. This effect has not previously been identified in the literature and warrants examination in future research. The key finding of the study is the important role of gender and age as predictors of commitment to national defence.

Leveraging new satellite communication technology, the European Commission published in February 2022 a proposal for a regulation which would facilitate the creation of a European space-based secure communication system serving EU institutions and agencies, Member States as well as EU citizens. In terms of Member States intra-governmental use, several public and private entities in the EU have expressed interest in supplementing national public authority networks with the technology that the proposed system uses. However, public authority networks are strictly regulated due their critical function in terms of safety and national security. An issue of regulatory and policy compatibility thus arises. After demonstrating why Finland is a relevant object to study, this thesis proceeds to analyse and compare relevant national legislation and policy with the proposed regulation and related documents, in order to assess whether, and to what extent, the proposed system is compatible, particularly in the context of control, security and ownership. While the research identified several issues relating to transparency, procurement, financing, ownership, access and control, the thesis ultimately finds that these concerns do not merit a conclusion of incompatibility.

The EU integration has been spreading into the area of security. One of the most recent actions by the EU in this area is Directive (EU) 2022/2557 on the resilience of critical entities (the CER Directive). However, the EU’s competence to act in this area has been called into question as the Treaties do not provide an express competence. Similarly to several other security measures, the CER Directive was adopted using Art 114 TFEU as its legal basis. This thesis focuses on the topic of using Art 114 TFEU as a legal basis for security measures. It will be argued that although framed as a market measure, the background, context, and content of the CER Directive point towards a security aim. However, it seems that problems related to other potential legal bases, such as Art 196 TFEU on civil protection, left Art 114 TFEU effectively being the only available option for a measure such as the CER Directive. It is noted that the case law on Art 114 TFEU indicates that there are very few limits to its use, and therefore, it seems that it provides a valid legal basis also for the CER Directive. This thesis argues that while Art 114 TFEU may provide a lucrative shortcut to avoid competence and legal basis problems, its use for security measures is another example of the phenomenon called competence creep and may lead to some negative implications regarding. It will also be argued that the EU’s actions limit Member States' sovereignty, while also noticing that there are signs that the Member States have silently approved this development. In the end, it will be argued that masking security measures as market measures may negatively affect the effectiveness of protection and may send an unfortunate message that markets are regarded as a priority over the well-being of people.