The high prevalence of email worms indicates that current in-network defence mechanisms are incapable of mitigating this Internet threat. Moreover, commonly applied approaches against this class of propagating malicious program do not target reducing unwanted email traffic traversing the Internet. In this paper, we take a step toward better understanding of email worms, and explore their effect on the flow-level characteristics of domain name system (DNS) query streams that user machines generate. We propose a novel method, which uses time series analysis and unsupervised learning, to detect email worms as they appear on local name servers. To evaluate our detection method, we have constructed a DNS query dataset that consists of 71 email worms. We demonstrate that our method is very effective.

Research in ubiquitous computing showed the possibilities and advantages of deploying personalized and adaptive services in distributed environments. However traditional service creation burdens the users with proprietary device descriptions and service programming skills. New design paradigms, such as general frameworks based on an open cooperating objects standard enable seamless environments for creation, deployment, and execution of services. This open, distributed, and scalable platform supports the realization of evolvable services based on arbitrary combinations of cooperative objects. This paper introduces a system, which allows the adaptable creation, deployment, and execution of rule-based service descriptions. Thereby, services are customizable by the user and automatically adapted to changing environments.

This paper evaluates a self-organizing routing protocol for ad hoc network, called the neuron routing algorithm (NEURAL). NEURAL has been designed taking into account the learning and self-organizing abilities of the brain. More precisely, it was inspired by the synapses process between neurons, when a signal is propagated. Basically, the most significant characteristic of NEURAL is the uniform distribution of the information around the node's location based on the current changes in its neighborhood. Using a 2-hop acknowledgment mechanism, local information is monitored in order to be used for route selection method, classification procedures and learning algorithms.

The convergence of embedded systems and wireless communication enables interconnection of electronic devices to render control and provide information to the user. Offices, apartments, and public spaces are or in the near future will be able to deliver information and services to their occupants ranging from instant Internet access to configuration and control in a context dependent, personalized way. Despite progressing internetworking and sophistication, we are still dealing with islands of functionality rather than the invisible computer envisioned by Mark Weiser. We believe that the spread and acceptance of smart environments will depend on common standards as well as a simple and flexible way to access data and devices and compose services from existing ones. A good example of such a system is the World Wide Web, whose success is mainly due to the simplicity with which all kinds of content can be published and referenced. We present an access protocol to bring the Web's simplicity and holistic view on data and services to pervasive systems. Our approach is based on the representational state transfer architectural style and emphasizes abstraction of data and services as resources, interoperation via self describing data and service orchestration with loosely typed components. A particular concern is to provide for functionality in the absence of proxy nodes or infrastructure services like directory servers.

The vision of pervasive computing and communication will shape individual lives in the future. Following this vision, the goal of 'I-centric services based on super distributed objects' is to provide a seamless computing environment on the basis of users' individual communication spaces. It controls and manages large numbers of autonomous and decentralized objects (super distributed objects), in individual living or working spaces providing services that can adapt to users' individual requirements (I-centric services). This paper introduces the I-centric communications approach and identifies the requirements and design of super distributed objects as the paradigm for future pervasive and autonomous systems. Results of this project have been adopted by the World Wireless Research Forum (WWRF) and Object Management Group (OMG).

The last two years literature witnesses an explosion of contributions on agent systems and technologies. It seems that research and development in this field is hype, papers describe systems which are intelligent, mobile, autonomous and/or any other combination of these attributes. Research in this area is already rather old, but the effort in this field grew only in the last years, the years of INTERNET growth and of the telecommunication services.

Location-aware applications for supporting the mobile user as well as logistics of movable objects have proven to be of significant relevance for future telecommunication and computing. Based on a state-of-the-art analysis, the paper evaluates the outcome of laboratories and the requirements of commercial usage. A system architecture is proposed from the technical perspective for localisation, information, communication, and management. The required support of heterogeneous resources leads to the necessity of an adequate middleware platform. The location-aware service and application platform provides modular unified access to various services, which are commonly and overlappingly used by multiple applications. Service request trading assigns the appropriate in-house services or third-party providers to the requirements of the applications. Merging data from different sources and constraints in the transmission and presentation capabilities of the mobile side require sophisticated media scaling and conversion capabilities. The envisaged service architecture leads finally to the discussion of a number of prototype applications developed and being developed on our test-bed.

This paper has two parts: Firstly, we investigate today's ATM network, especially the most load NFS applications. Secondly, we propose a fast simulation based on fractional ARIMA processes and an importance sampling scheme. In our collected data, we have found the traffic characteristics of today's ATM network present both long range dependence (LRD) and short range dependence (SRD) structures. Because of the strong SRD and LRD of the empirical traces, models which can present both LRD and SRD are necessary to simulate the traffic of today's networks. However, traditional Monte Carlo simulations with long range dependent structure make the cost of the computation very large and for CLP (cell loss probability)<10/sup -9/ traditional Monte Carlo simulations are almost impossible to achieve it. The proposed fast ARIMA simulation based on importance sampling efficient to simulate the queuing performance with self-similar inputs which exhibit both SRD and LRD properties.

The global telecommunications environment is rapidly changing to a highly dynamic open environment, where a multitude of competing and/or cooperating service providers offer a steadily growing number of increasingly powerful communication and information services. The need for integration, ubiquitous service access and rapid service provisioning requires an open, universal service platform which supports both telecommunications and management applications. The development of such a platform based on the concept of distributed processing environments (DPEs) has been a major research area. However, DPEs are relatively inflexible. An entirely different platform approach is based on the application of agent technology. Of particular interest are mobile agents, autonomous and thus intelligent software entities, which may roam the network in the course of performing their designated tasks. They offer new opportunities for the provisioning of services in the emerging electronic service markets. Mobile intelligent agents need a distributed agent environment platform. Since both, distributed processing-based and agent-based service provisioning have their specific advantages, such a platform should support both paradigms. This paper provides an overview of the mobile agent architecture MAGNA, and the accompanying agent platform. The distributed agent environment provided by the MAGNA platform is based on current DPE concepts and therefore enables coexistence and integration of distributed and agent-based implementations of telecommunications and management applications.

The vision for future telecommunications is often described by the slogan "information at any time, at any place, in any form", driven by both society's increasing demand for "universal connectivity" and the technological progress in the area of mobile computing and personal communications. In order to realize this vision, the emerging concept of personal communications support (PCS), which includes support for personal mobility, service personalization, and advanced service interoperability, is becoming increasingly important since it allows users to configure their communications environment in accordance with their individual needs, thereby providing them with controlled access to telecommunication services, regardless of their current location, terminal and network capabilities. This paper provides an overview of a personal communications support system (PCSS). The PCSS represents a platform providing advanced PCS capabilities in a uniform way to numerous communication applications in distributed multimedia environments. From a functional perspective, the PCSS provides enhanced intelligent network (IN) and universal personal telecommunication (UPT) capabilities with respect to user addressing (based on logical names instead of numbers) and advanced user control capabilities. From a design perspective, the centralistic IN/UPT approach to the realization of service logic has been replaced by a highly distributable, object-oriented approach based on X.500/X.700/telecommunications management network (TMN) concepts. This paper addresses the basic aspects of the PCSS, including design criteria, system architecture, supported applications, and evolution issues.

The evolution of the telecommunications environment toward an open distributed processing system, influenced by the recent developments in the framework of open distributed processing (ODP) and intelligent networks (INs), is addressed. The trader is a component for solving autonomy issues, since entities/objects which register for cooperation with other entities at the trader are limiting their autonomy to a specific degree. In contrast to manual negotiations between importers and exporters the trader represents a trusted third party automating these negotiations. The possible mapping of IN and ODP concepts and the application of the ODP trader in INs to support different autonomy issues in the provision of IN services are discussed.>

The Y architecture, which provides a platform for the support of cooperative applications in a heterogeneous, open distributed computing environment, is presented. Y design concepts include domains for the structuring of the environment and the grouping of components, a service concept for the description of component functions and interfaces, and an extended client/server paradigm, which defines the roles of application and infrastructure entities. The Y architecture identifies four planes comprising distributed applications, the support environment, interprocess communication, and the interconnected networks. Y is designed for large distributed systems and intelligent networks.>

Data communication is a key issue in the planned European space mission. A description is given of the interconnection approach for end-to-end communication, concentrating on the models and protocols to be adopted for integrating networks with heterogeneous technologies and applications with diverse characteristics. A review is presented of the mission environment, and approaches for providing end-to-end communication between application processes residing in systems located in the sky and on the ground that are based on the OSI RM (open systems interconnection reference model) protocols and telemetry/telecommand protocols are described. A number of possible approaches dealing with end-to-end communication when the physical connectivity between the sky and the ground is missing as a result of system topology are outlined.>

The ISO-OSI reference model was the design framework for the implementation of a heterogeneous network in a local environment. The HMINET-2 is a network based on standards in data communication. The paper focus on the OSI model feasability and outlines the encountered problems and the adopted solutions in the network design and implementation.

The following paper presents a local heterogeneous network, the HMINET. The adopted software architecture identifies a data access and transfer level. The higher level applications afford a mechanism for data access and transfer to alleviate the effects of the incompatibilities and the differences between the data management systems. The paper describes the major problems and design decisions we adopted for the Data Access and Transfer System (DATS).