Search Results (6)

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent literature on passkeys, a more secure and phishing-resistant authentication method compared to traditional passwords. Despite their clear advantages, passkeys have not yet replaced the de facto standard of password authentication. This literature survey aims to outline a holistic picture of the related research, focusing on technical aspects as well as user-centric perspectives on usability and perception. The main challenges hindering passkey adoption are misaligned user perception and technical issues regarding account recovery, sharing, and delegation. Research suggests that improved user education and awareness could address these challenges. Existing studies have also analyzed and contributed to enhancing the usability of passkeys. However, the current literature highlights a clear gap for more academic research focusing on effective strategies to improve the user perception of passkeys, as the existing work primarily concentrates on technical and usability aspects. Addressing this research gap may lead to increased passkey adoption among end users, ultimately improving the overall security of authentication systems. Full article

FIDO2 authentication is starting to be applied in numerous web authentication services, aiming to replace passwords and their known vulnerabilities. However, this new authentication method has not been integrated yet with network authentication systems. In this paper, we introduce FIDO2CAP: FIDO2 Captive-portal Authentication Protocol. Our proposal describes a novel protocol for captive-portal network authentication using FIDO2 Authenticators as security keys and passkeys. For validating our proposal, we have developed a prototype of FIDO2CAP authentication in a mock scenario. Using this prototype, we performed a usability experiment with 15 real users. This work makes the first systematic approach for adapting network authentication to the new authentication paradigm relying on FIDO2 authentication. Full article

In the realm of large language models (LLMs), extending the context window for long text processing is crucial for enhancing performance. This paper introduces SBA-RoPE (Segmented Base Adjustment for Rotary Position Embeddings), a novel approach designed to efficiently extend the context window by segmentally adjusting the base of rotary position embeddings (RoPE). Unlike existing methods, such as Position Interpolation (PI), NTK, and YaRN, SBA-RoPE modifies the base of RoPE across different dimensions, optimizing the encoding of positional information for extended sequences. Through experiments on the Pythia model, we demonstrate the effectiveness of SBA-RoPE in extending context windows, particularly for texts exceeding the original training lengths. We fine-tuned the Pythia-2.8B model on the PG-19 dataset and conducted passkey retrieval and perplexity (PPL) experiments on the Proof-pile dataset to evaluate model performance. Results show that SBA-RoPE maintains or improves model performance when extending the context window, especially on longer text sequences. Compared to other methods, SBA-RoPE exhibits superior or comparable performance across various lengths and tasks, highlighting its potential as an effective technique for context window extension in LLMs. Full article

In legume crops, formation of developmentally mature nodules is a prerequisite for efficient nitrogen fixation by populations of rhizobial bacteroids established inside nodule cells. Development of root nodules, and concomitant microbial colonization of plant cells, are constrained by sets of recognition signals exchanged by infecting rhizobia and their legume hosts, with much of the specificity of symbiotic interactions being determined by the flavonoid cocktails released by legume roots and the strain-specific nodulation factors (NFs) secreted by rhizobia. Hence, much of Sinorhizobium fredii strain NGR234 symbiotic promiscuity was thought to stem from a family of >80 structurally diverse NFs and associated nodulation keys in the form of secreted effector proteins and rhamnose-rich surface polysaccharides. Here, we show instead that a mini-symbiotic plasmid (pMiniSym2) carrying only the nodABCIJ, nodS and nodD1 genes of NGR234 conferred promiscuous nodulation to ANU265, a derivative strain cured of the large symbiotic plasmid pNGR234a. The ANU265::pMiniSym2 transconjugant triggered nodulation responses on 12 of the 22 legumes we tested. On roots of Macroptilium atropurpureum, Leucaena leucocephala and Vigna unguiculata, ANU265::pMiniSym2 formed mature-like nodule and successfully infected nodule cells. While cowpea and siratro responded to nodule colonization with defense responses that eventually eliminated bacteria, L. leucocephala formed leghemoglobin-containing mature-like nodules inside which the pMiniSym2 transconjugant established persistent intracellular colonies. These data show seven nodulation genes of NGR234 suffice to trigger nodule formation on roots of many hosts and to establish chronic infections in Leucaena cells. Full article

Various wireless technologies, such as RF, Bluetooth, and Zigbee, have been applied to sensor communications. However, the applications of Bluetooth-based wireless sensor networks (WSN) have a security issue. In one pairing process during Bluetooth communication, which is known as simple secure pairing (SSP), the devices are required to specify I/O capability or user interference to prevent man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. This study proposes an enhanced SSP in which a nonce to be transferred is converted to a corresponding signal interval. The quantization level, which is used to interpret physical signal intervals, is renewed at every connection by the transferred nonce and applied to the next nonce exchange so that the same signal intervals can represent different numbers. Even if attackers eavesdrop on the signals, they cannot understand what is being transferred because they cannot determine the quantization level. Furthermore, the proposed model does not require exchanging passkeys as data, and the devices are secure in the case of using a fixed PIN. Subsequently, the new quantization level is calculated automatically whenever the same devices attempt to connect with each other. Therefore, the pairing process can be protected from MITM attacks and be convenient for users. Full article

The emergence of new influenza strains causing pandemics represents a serious threat to human health. From 1918, four influenza pandemics occurred, caused by H1N1, H2N2 and H3N2 subtypes. Moreover, in 1997 a novel influenza avian strain belonging to the H5N1 subtype infected humans. Nowadays, even if its transmission is still circumscribed to avian species, the capability of the virus to infect humans directly from avian reservoirs can result in fatalities. Moreover, the risk that this or novel avian strains could adapt to inter-human transmission, the development of resistance to anti-viral drugs and the lack of an effective prevention are all incumbent problems for the world population. In this scenario, the identification of broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) directed against conserved regions shared among influenza isolates has raised hopes for the development of monoclonal antibody-based immunotherapy and “universal” anti-influenza vaccines. Full article