Academic literature on the topic 'Protection policy,policy anomalies, policy conflicts, network security'

IoT systems can be leveraged by Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technologies, thereby strengthening their overall flexibility, security and resilience. In this sense, adaptive and policy-based security frameworks for SDN/NFV-aware IoT systems can provide a remarkable added value for self-protection and self-healing, by orchestrating and enforcing dynamically security policies and associated Virtual Network Functions (VNF) or Virtual network Security Functions (VSF) according to the actual context. However, this security orchestration is subject to multiple possible inconsistencies between the policies to enforce, the already enforced management policies and the evolving status of the managed IoT system. In this regard, this paper presents a semantic-aware, zero-touch and policy-driven security orchestration framework for autonomic and conflict-less security orchestration in SDN/NFV-aware IoT scenarios while ensuring optimal allocation and Service Function Chaining (SFC) of VSF. The framework relies on Semantic technologies and considers the security policies and the evolving IoT system model to dynamically and formally detect any semantic conflict during the orchestration. In addition, our optimized SFC algorithm maximizes the QoS, security aspects and resources usage during VSF allocation. The orchestration security framework has been implemented and validated showing its feasibility and performance to detect the conflicts and optimally enforce the VSFs.

In this critically insightful and highly readable book of political ethnogra- phy, Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at University of Toronto, seeks to explain how and why Islamist movements continue to militarily prevail and politically succeed in forming proto-states, over clan, ethnic, and/or tribal based competitions, amidst the chaos and disorder of civil wars across the contemporary Muslim world, from Mali to Mindanao. To this end, Ahmad seeks to go beyond the usual expositions that center the explanatory power of Islamist ideologies and identities, which dominate the scholarly fields of political science, international relations, security studies as well as the global public discourse shaped by journalists, politicians, and the punditry of shouting heads everywhere. Through a deep, immersive study of power in Afghanistan and Soma- lia, Ahmad demonstrates the profoundly symbiotic relationship between Islamists and the local business class. While recognizing the interconnec- tions between violent conflict and illicit trade is nothing new, Ahmad’s explication of the economic logics of Islamist proto-states furnishes a nov- el two-stage dynamic to explain the indispensability and ubiquity of this Islamist-business alliance in conflict zones. The first is the gradual social process of conversion of the business class’ worldview and practice to align them with Islamist identity formations, which is “aimed at mitigating un- certainty and improving access to markets” (xvii). Alongside this long-term socialization is a second, short-term political-economic dynamic of rapid shift in the business class’s collective patronage of a new Islamist faction, based on the assumption that it will lower the cost of business. The for- midable alliance between business class interests and Islamist institutions brings forth the new Islamist proto-state. Chapter one of the book adum- brates this two-stage argument and offers justifications for the two case studies, namely the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. The second chapter unpacks the two-stage dynamic in detail. We learn that in modern civil wars across the Muslim world, business communi- ties intentionally adopt ardent Islamist identities as a practical means to- ward building trust and lowering cost. Islamist factions, aspiring toward hegemony, offer the possibility of economic relationships that transcend the ethnic boundaries which limit rival factions rooted in clan, tribal, or ethno-linguistic social formations. This leads to the second, faster conver- gence of business-Islamist interests, wherein the Islamist groups leverage their broader social identity and economic market to offer stronger secu- rity at a lower cost. This development of an economy of scale leads the local business elites to throw their financial support behind the Islamists at a critical juncture of militant competition. Once this threshold is met, Islamist factions rapidly conquer and consolidate territories from their rel- atively socially constrained rivals to form a new proto-state, like the Taliban regime and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). When we look at the timeline of their development (the Taliban in 1994 and the ICU in 2006), we notice a similar length of gestation, about 15 years of war. This similarity may be coincidental, but the political-military threshold is the same. Both societ- ies, ravaged by civil war, reached a stalemate. At this critical juncture the positional properties of Islamist formations in the field of civil war factions gives the Islamists a decided economic (cost analysis) and social (trust building across clan/tribal identities) advantage. Chapters three to six examine each of the two processes for the se- lected sites of inquiry. Thus chapters three and five, respectively, explore the long-term Islamist identity construction within the smuggling industry in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderland, and the Somali business elites’ gradual convergence with Islamists. In chapter four, Ahmad explores the second dynamic in the context of rising security costs during the Afghan civil war. Mullah Omar’s Taliban provided the order and security across the borderland that had previously eluded the variety of industries. This allowed the Taliban to expand on the backs of voluntary donations, rather than extortions like their rival tribal warlords, which in turn allowed them to recruit and retain more disciplined fighters (81). The source of these donations was the business class, especially those involved in the highly lucrative transit trade, which, before the rise of Taliban, paid immense op- portunity cost at the hands of rapacious local and tribal warlord fiefdoms and bandits. Instead of the multitude of checkpoints crisscrossing south- ern Afghanistan and the borderlands, the Taliban presented a simplified administration. While the rest of the world took notice of their repressive measures against women’s mobility, education, and cultural expression, the men of the bazaar appreciated the newly acquired public safety to ply their trade and the lowered cost of doing business. Chapter six, “The Price of Protection: The Rise of the Islamic Courts Union,” demonstrates a similar mutually beneficial Islamist-business relationship emerging out of the incessant clan-based militia conflicts that had especially plagued southern Somalia since the fall of the last national government in 1991. Businesspeople, whether they were tycoons or small business owners, had to pay two types of tax. First was what was owed to the local racket or warlord, and the second was to the ever-fragmenting sub-clan militias and their checkpoints on the intercity highways. Unlike their rival, the Transitional Federal Government (TGF), ICU forged their supra-clan institutional identity through a universalist legal discourse and practice rooted in Islamic law and ethics. They united the courts and their associated clan-based militias, including al-Shabaab. Ahmad demonstrates, through a synthesis of secondary literature and original political ethnogra- phy, the economic logics of ICU’s ability to overcome the threshold of ma- terial and social support needed to establish the rule of law and a far-reach- ing functioning government. If the Taliban and the ICU had solved the riddle of creating order and security to create hegemonic proto-states, then what was their downfall? Chapter seven gives us an account of the international interventions that caused the collapse of the two proto-states. In the aftermath of their de- struction, the internationally supported regimes that replaced them, de- spite immense monetary and military aid, have failed to gain the same level of legitimacy across Afghanistan and Somalia. In chapter eight, Ahmad expands the scope of analysis to North/Western Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Is- lamic Maghrib: AQIM), Middle East (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: ISIS), and South Asia (Tahrik-i Taliban-i Pakistan: TTP). At the time of this book’s publication, these movements were not yet, as Ahmad posits, closed cases like the Taliban and the ICU. Thus, the data from this chapter’s comparative survey furnishes suggestive arguments for Ahmad’s larger thesis, namely that Islamist proto-states emerge out of a confluence of economic and security interests rather than mere ideological and identity politics. The epistemic humility of this chapter signals to this reader two lines of constructive criticism of some aspects of Ahmad’s sub- stantiation of this thesis. First, the juxtaposing of Islamist success against their clan-/tribal iden- tity-based rivals may be underestimating the element of ethnic solidarity in those very Islamists’ political success. The most glaring case is the Taliban, which in its original formation and in its post-American invasion frag- mentations, across the Durand Line, was more or less founded on a pan- or-tribal Pashtun social identity and economic compulsions relative to the other Afghan ethno-linguistic communities. How does one disaggregate the force of ethnic solidarity (even if it is only a necessary condition, rather than a cause) from economic calculus in explaining the rise of the Taliban proto-state? The second issue in this juxtaposition is that when we compare a suc- cessful Islamist movement against socially limited ethnocentric rivals, we discount the other Islamist movements that failed. Explanations for those Islamists that failed to create a proto-state along the lines of the ICU or the Taliban, such as al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (Somalia) or Gulbuddin Hekmat- yar’s Hezb-e Islami (Afghanistan), needed to be more robustly taken into account and integrated into the substantiation of Ahmad’s thesis. Even in the section on ISIS, it would have been helpful to integrate the case of Jabhat al-Nusra’s (an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria) inability to create a proto-state to rival ISIS. We must ask, why do some Jihadi Islamist movements prevail against each other and why do others fail? Perhaps some of these Islamist movements appear too early to scale up their operation (i.e., they precede Ahmad’s ‘critical juncture’), or they were too embroiled and too partisan in the illicit trade network to fully leverage their Islamist universalism to create the trust and bonds that are the first part of Ahmad’s two-stage dy- namic. Possible answers would need to complement Ahmad’s excellent po- litical ethnography with deeper quantitative dives to identify the statistical variations of these critical junctures: when does the cost of warlords and mafias’ domination outweigh the cost of Islamist-Jihadi movements’ social- ly repressive but economically liberating regimes? At which point in the social evolution of society during an unending civil war do identities forged by the bonds of blood give way to those imagined through bonds of faith? These two critical suggestions do not diminish Ahmad’s highly teach- able work. This book should be read by all concerned policy makers, schol- ars in the social sciences and humanities, and anyone who wants to go be- yond ‘culture talk’ historical causation by ideas and identity and uncover structuralist explanations for the rise of Jihadi Islamist success in civil wars across the Muslim world. It is especially recommended for adoption in cog- nate courses at the undergraduate level, for its combination of erudition and readability. Maheen ZamanAssistant ProfessorDepartment of HistoryAugsburg University

In this critically insightful and highly readable book of political ethnogra- phy, Aisha Ahmad, a political scientist at University of Toronto, seeks to explain how and why Islamist movements continue to militarily prevail and politically succeed in forming proto-states, over clan, ethnic, and/or tribal based competitions, amidst the chaos and disorder of civil wars across the contemporary Muslim world, from Mali to Mindanao. To this end, Ahmad seeks to go beyond the usual expositions that center the explanatory power of Islamist ideologies and identities, which dominate the scholarly fields of political science, international relations, security studies as well as the global public discourse shaped by journalists, politicians, and the punditry of shouting heads everywhere. Through a deep, immersive study of power in Afghanistan and Soma- lia, Ahmad demonstrates the profoundly symbiotic relationship between Islamists and the local business class. While recognizing the interconnec- tions between violent conflict and illicit trade is nothing new, Ahmad’s explication of the economic logics of Islamist proto-states furnishes a nov- el two-stage dynamic to explain the indispensability and ubiquity of this Islamist-business alliance in conflict zones. The first is the gradual social process of conversion of the business class’ worldview and practice to align them with Islamist identity formations, which is “aimed at mitigating un- certainty and improving access to markets” (xvii). Alongside this long-term socialization is a second, short-term political-economic dynamic of rapid shift in the business class’s collective patronage of a new Islamist faction, based on the assumption that it will lower the cost of business. The for- midable alliance between business class interests and Islamist institutions brings forth the new Islamist proto-state. Chapter one of the book adum- brates this two-stage argument and offers justifications for the two case studies, namely the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. The second chapter unpacks the two-stage dynamic in detail. We learn that in modern civil wars across the Muslim world, business communi- ties intentionally adopt ardent Islamist identities as a practical means to- ward building trust and lowering cost. Islamist factions, aspiring toward hegemony, offer the possibility of economic relationships that transcend the ethnic boundaries which limit rival factions rooted in clan, tribal, or ethno-linguistic social formations. This leads to the second, faster conver- gence of business-Islamist interests, wherein the Islamist groups leverage their broader social identity and economic market to offer stronger secu- rity at a lower cost. This development of an economy of scale leads the local business elites to throw their financial support behind the Islamists at a critical juncture of militant competition. Once this threshold is met, Islamist factions rapidly conquer and consolidate territories from their rel- atively socially constrained rivals to form a new proto-state, like the Taliban regime and the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). When we look at the timeline of their development (the Taliban in 1994 and the ICU in 2006), we notice a similar length of gestation, about 15 years of war. This similarity may be coincidental, but the political-military threshold is the same. Both societ- ies, ravaged by civil war, reached a stalemate. At this critical juncture the positional properties of Islamist formations in the field of civil war factions gives the Islamists a decided economic (cost analysis) and social (trust building across clan/tribal identities) advantage. Chapters three to six examine each of the two processes for the se- lected sites of inquiry. Thus chapters three and five, respectively, explore the long-term Islamist identity construction within the smuggling industry in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderland, and the Somali business elites’ gradual convergence with Islamists. In chapter four, Ahmad explores the second dynamic in the context of rising security costs during the Afghan civil war. Mullah Omar’s Taliban provided the order and security across the borderland that had previously eluded the variety of industries. This allowed the Taliban to expand on the backs of voluntary donations, rather than extortions like their rival tribal warlords, which in turn allowed them to recruit and retain more disciplined fighters (81). The source of these donations was the business class, especially those involved in the highly lucrative transit trade, which, before the rise of Taliban, paid immense op- portunity cost at the hands of rapacious local and tribal warlord fiefdoms and bandits. Instead of the multitude of checkpoints crisscrossing south- ern Afghanistan and the borderlands, the Taliban presented a simplified administration. While the rest of the world took notice of their repressive measures against women’s mobility, education, and cultural expression, the men of the bazaar appreciated the newly acquired public safety to ply their trade and the lowered cost of doing business. Chapter six, “The Price of Protection: The Rise of the Islamic Courts Union,” demonstrates a similar mutually beneficial Islamist-business relationship emerging out of the incessant clan-based militia conflicts that had especially plagued southern Somalia since the fall of the last national government in 1991. Businesspeople, whether they were tycoons or small business owners, had to pay two types of tax. First was what was owed to the local racket or warlord, and the second was to the ever-fragmenting sub-clan militias and their checkpoints on the intercity highways. Unlike their rival, the Transitional Federal Government (TGF), ICU forged their supra-clan institutional identity through a universalist legal discourse and practice rooted in Islamic law and ethics. They united the courts and their associated clan-based militias, including al-Shabaab. Ahmad demonstrates, through a synthesis of secondary literature and original political ethnogra- phy, the economic logics of ICU’s ability to overcome the threshold of ma- terial and social support needed to establish the rule of law and a far-reach- ing functioning government. If the Taliban and the ICU had solved the riddle of creating order and security to create hegemonic proto-states, then what was their downfall? Chapter seven gives us an account of the international interventions that caused the collapse of the two proto-states. In the aftermath of their de- struction, the internationally supported regimes that replaced them, de- spite immense monetary and military aid, have failed to gain the same level of legitimacy across Afghanistan and Somalia. In chapter eight, Ahmad expands the scope of analysis to North/Western Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Is- lamic Maghrib: AQIM), Middle East (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: ISIS), and South Asia (Tahrik-i Taliban-i Pakistan: TTP). At the time of this book’s publication, these movements were not yet, as Ahmad posits, closed cases like the Taliban and the ICU. Thus, the data from this chapter’s comparative survey furnishes suggestive arguments for Ahmad’s larger thesis, namely that Islamist proto-states emerge out of a confluence of economic and security interests rather than mere ideological and identity politics. The epistemic humility of this chapter signals to this reader two lines of constructive criticism of some aspects of Ahmad’s sub- stantiation of this thesis. First, the juxtaposing of Islamist success against their clan-/tribal iden- tity-based rivals may be underestimating the element of ethnic solidarity in those very Islamists’ political success. The most glaring case is the Taliban, which in its original formation and in its post-American invasion frag- mentations, across the Durand Line, was more or less founded on a pan- or-tribal Pashtun social identity and economic compulsions relative to the other Afghan ethno-linguistic communities. How does one disaggregate the force of ethnic solidarity (even if it is only a necessary condition, rather than a cause) from economic calculus in explaining the rise of the Taliban proto-state? The second issue in this juxtaposition is that when we compare a suc- cessful Islamist movement against socially limited ethnocentric rivals, we discount the other Islamist movements that failed. Explanations for those Islamists that failed to create a proto-state along the lines of the ICU or the Taliban, such as al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (Somalia) or Gulbuddin Hekmat- yar’s Hezb-e Islami (Afghanistan), needed to be more robustly taken into account and integrated into the substantiation of Ahmad’s thesis. Even in the section on ISIS, it would have been helpful to integrate the case of Jabhat al-Nusra’s (an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria) inability to create a proto-state to rival ISIS. We must ask, why do some Jihadi Islamist movements prevail against each other and why do others fail? Perhaps some of these Islamist movements appear too early to scale up their operation (i.e., they precede Ahmad’s ‘critical juncture’), or they were too embroiled and too partisan in the illicit trade network to fully leverage their Islamist universalism to create the trust and bonds that are the first part of Ahmad’s two-stage dy- namic. Possible answers would need to complement Ahmad’s excellent po- litical ethnography with deeper quantitative dives to identify the statistical variations of these critical junctures: when does the cost of warlords and mafias’ domination outweigh the cost of Islamist-Jihadi movements’ social- ly repressive but economically liberating regimes? At which point in the social evolution of society during an unending civil war do identities forged by the bonds of blood give way to those imagined through bonds of faith? These two critical suggestions do not diminish Ahmad’s highly teach- able work. This book should be read by all concerned policy makers, schol- ars in the social sciences and humanities, and anyone who wants to go be- yond ‘culture talk’ historical causation by ideas and identity and uncover structuralist explanations for the rise of Jihadi Islamist success in civil wars across the Muslim world. It is especially recommended for adoption in cog- nate courses at the undergraduate level, for its combination of erudition and readability. Maheen ZamanAssistant ProfessorDepartment of HistoryAugsburg University

The use of firewall has been widespread in all the emerging technologies such as Service Oriented Architecture, web services, cloud computing and so on. The term security itself is the most important task that has to be maintained in the real-time applications. Policies are enrolled in the security of the firewall where the quality of policies is to be maintained. The network administrator defines the policy as a rule. Managing the firewall policies, maintaining the risk analysis and also the conflicting nature that arise in the network, lack of systematic analysis mechanisms and tools used are often error prone. The distributed firewall is used to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional firewall. In this paper we represent a set of techniques such as, rule-based segmentation technique to identify the policy anomalies and effectively derive the anomaly resolution. Grid-based visualization technique, provide the policy anomaly information in a grid form, which helps in identifying the policy conflicts and finally the techniques to resolve the conflicts and the redundancy that arise in a single- or multi-firewall environment. We also discuss about the implementation of the visualization-based firewall policy analysis tool called Firewall Anomaly Management Framework (FAME), where all the techniques are used in a single tool and an approach to resolve the anomalies in an effective and efficient way.

This panel is devoted to the issue of trust and children’s data. Trust in the ethical treatment of children’s data relies on a broad balance of trust in a complex network of actors and practices involved in data collection, analytics, sharing and use of children’s data. More specifically, trust in how data is captured, who the data is captured by, what is done to the data and how outcomes generated out of the data are employed needs to be guaranteed. We discuss the predictive practices (algorithmic analysis) used to uncover behaviours, characteristics and relationships in order to anticipate outcomes, and nudge behaviours and attitudes or initiate interventions on behalf of children. The panel also investigates how children’s databases have made their way onto the dark web, positing that trust in the security of databases held by commercial and state actors is at risk. We then consider the ethical tension between the use of micro-celebrity social media influencers to establish market trust in brands and products, and the use of these potentially vulnerable influencers to market to other potentially vulnerable consumers. Paper one ‘Entrusting predictions for children’s futures’ discusses the future implications of large-scale data collection and analytic activities enacted across the everyday that is evident in media, academic publications and government policy discussions. Digging deeper, this concern is centred largely on unease about how the data is captured, who the data is captured by, what is done to the data and how outcomes generated out of the data are employed. Lack of transparency or clarity around internal machinic calculation processes requires ‘trust’ in the veracity of outputs of these systems. Children are increasingly being positioned as data sources, datafied and embedded in algorithmic ecosystems that employ a range of calculations to uncover patterns or anomalies, to highlight risk, and to predict future outcomes. These practices inform strategies, policies and planning and therefore can have material consequences that can be advantageous or disadvantageous for the child, the family and their future pathways. This presentation explores three examples of predictive practices in early childhood in the health, education and commercial sectors through an analysis of relevant academic, policy and commercial literature and discourse to highlight the raft of ways that the placing of trust in algorithmic processes needs to be carefully scaffolded and critiqued. Paper two, ‘When trust goes wrong: Children on the dark web’ investigates what happens when trust goes wrong; when children’s personal data is hacked and circulated on the dark web? Where once child abuse material (CAM) was the only type of children’s data generally available for sale or circulation over the dark web, the growth of big data over the last decade, has seen children’s databases sourced from medical records, school records and app databases now available on the dark web—including those associated with connected toys. The paper first discusses children’s abuse material available on the dark web and then outlines the emerging availability of children’s personally identifiable information. The paper argues that, while parents are often held accountable for their children’s digital profile and data safety, vast amounts of children’s data is being legally collected by tech companies and state actors. Some of this data has found its way onto the dark web. So far, little concern has been voiced about who is responsible for the protection of children’s data along children’s data supply chains—as well as any future ramifications of children’s data being sold and circulated on the dark web. Paper three, ‘Trusted babes of Instagram brand-land: Child as co-opted marketer and profitable brand extension on the internet’, explores how marketers are using/exploiting consumers’ inherent love, trust and interest in children, to generate ‘brand trust’, while at the same time wading into murky ethical territory, commoditising children’s images and appeal to promote adult brands. A related phenomenon is the use of children as ‘brand extension’, where celebrity/microcelebrity influencer parents push their children as personal brand extensions, leveraging the cuteness and newsworthy impact of their own children to earn money and/or achieve fame (Archer, 2018). Far from being the ‘everyday, ordinary Internet users’ initially described in Abidin’s early definition (2015b), some child social media stars are now being presented as beyond ‘ordinary’, with lavish lifestyles or unattainable attributes presented as aspirational for the consuming public. The paper uses case studies three extreme case studies, to examine the extent to which mainstream commercial organizations/brands and parents are colluding to use still and video social media images of children (as brands in their own right) in attempt to gain consumer ‘trust’. The impact of marketers and parents co-opting children to engender this consumer ‘trust’, and the ensuing issues relevant to the digital rights of the child and the larger issue of ‘trust’ in society is also discussed.

Dear readers,We offer you a new English issue of Envigogika which thematically focuses on case studies of regional sustainable development where social actors play specific roles in communication processes – it documents both the promotion of positive changes at regional level and/or also provide evidence to illuminate seemingly unresolvable conflicts. The concept of social learning from an educational point of view frames this thematic edition – as with any other learning process, stakeholder dialogue has a transformative aspect, the opportunity to confront and possibly change opinions and act on the basis of agreed emergent standpoints. In particular, this collection of case studies specifically tries to illuminate role of science and education in regional development, and attempts to introduce methods of analysis of diverse social relationships as well as practical ways of facilitation of communication processes.In this issue of Envigogika two types of case studies are presented – regional development and regional conflicts. Progress in both is highly dependent on the involvement of actors who shape discussions and consequently frame the issue. Analysis of social aspects is hence highly desirable and first steps undertaken here show some interesting results.The first area of interest (development issues) is a traditional focus of Actor Analysis (AA) and this method is widely used abroad in the envisioning stage and helps to facilitate negotiation processes. In the Czech context however, deliberation processes take place rather spontaneously and without a proper analytical stage, and reflections on negotiations in specific cases illustrates exactly this. A hypothesis about the need for continuous cultivation of democratic conditions in the Czech Republic, (with help of sound scientific analytical methods) specifically concerning deliberation processes, was posed as a result of a collaborative research process. This hypothesis was explored in different ways by our invited authors.To provide a brief overview of the issue:Simon Burandt, Fabienne Gralla and Beatrice John in their article Actor Analysis in Case Studies for (regional) Sustainable Development introduce the Actor Analysis analytical tool used to reflect regional (sustainable) development challenges throughout several articles in this issue. This method can be used with the aim not only of studying social capital, but also to have an impact on decision making and community choices. Its role in describing social players and their interactions, to assist in understanding regional development processes and potential conflicts, and to provide information for strategy development is demonstrated through a specific case (the Ore Mountains). The steps of an actor analysis described in the article can be read as guideline for implementing this analysis and an analytical perspective on this process is provided by this article.An outstanding Czech sustainability oriented local economy project is presented in an article by Jan Labohý, Yvonna Gaillyová and Radim Machů: A sustainability assessment of the Hostětín cider house project. The authors assess the sustainability of the project in relation to different kinds of capital using complex indicators that uncover different aspects of the production process and its local cultural characteristics; moreover, effects to the local economy are measured using the local multiplier effect indicator. From this assessment it is clear that the cider house project meets the primary goals of regional sustainable development in a long term perspective.Another – opposite, negative – case is described by Jan Skalík in the analyses the Debate about the Šumava National Park in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. The article demonstrates persisting conflict and its roots with help of the text analysis method applied to the transcripts of parliamentary debates about National Park Šumava (ŠNP) in the Chamber of Deputies between 1990 and 2013. The relationship between politicians and local people within decision-making process, which is depicted as a consequence of this conflict, is then discussed. Interesting conclusions concern the plurality of dialogue and roles of the actors within it; the influence of scientists on the solutions; and the inflammatory and emotional characteristics of recent debate.As a contrast, which serves as a counterargument to show the power of civic society, Vendula Zahumenská refers to a case in Hradec Králové where environmentalists and local developers have been in conflict concerning the development and commercial use of the Na Plachtě natural monument. This case study shows the role of public participation in environmental protection and describes the specific opportunities for influencing environmental decision-making.But there are cases in CR where declared economic interests are so strong that they eliminate dialogue with civic society – for example, as a result of brown coal mining and its associated industrial development, 106 towns and villages were obliterated in North Bohemia and its population was resettled to newly built prefabricated housing estates. A Case study analysing biographic interviews with the displaced people of Tuchomyšl is presented by Ivana Hermová. The author shows that the former Tuchomyšlers continue to identify strongly with the social space of the obliterated village, and discovers how they reflect on their forced eviction 35 years after the physical destruction of the village.That these conclusions concerning the involvement of social actors might be reflected (and used) in the practice of school education, is described by Alois Hynek, Břetislav Svozil, Jakub Trojan and Jan Trávníček. In a reflection on the Deblínsko landscape project these authors refer to the roles of stakeholders including a university, primary school and kindergarten, and also owners, users, decision-makers, shareholders and stakeholders within public administration. The project is driven by Masaryk University which applies sustainability/security concepts in practice while closely relating these activities with research and teaching. This experience shows that social learning processes can start early among children/pupils/students.A brief analytical overview of cases in this special issue, as well as an overview of information and experiences from a database of case studies from different regions of the Czech Republic and from abroad (compiled by authors beyond the scope of this issue), is provided in an article Potential for social learning in sustainable regional development: analysis of stakeholder interaction … by Jana Dlouhá and Martin Zahradník. The conditions for the success or failure of environmental or sustainable development strategies from a social point of view have been analysed here with a focus on the roles of actors in a dialogue about regional sustainability issues within cooperative or conflict situations and concern for the communication processes among actors, scientists included. As a result of this analysis, interesting hypotheses were formulated, related to the role of future visioning as a ground for discussion, communication frameworks which involve all concerned actors, and the (non)existence of facilitation practices. These findings highlight the importance of reflecting on development issues’ social aspects to help understand and promote democratic decision making processes at regional level.The case studies which follow the research section of the issue take the opportunity to provide a colourful depiction of local sustainable development conditions. The Description of old industrial regions in Europe and potential for their transformation is described by Joern Harfst and David Osebik who stress social learning as an important transformative factor. In particular the involvement of research partners may support joint learning effects and knowledge transfer between all actors. Establishment of trusting working relationships may be crucial to overcome certain reservations on all sides before innovative approaches can be pursued successfully.The Vulkanland case study case written by Michael Ober traces the first glimpses of a sustainable development vision for a border region with little hope for economic prosperity to the successful development of a new identity which has reinforced local peoples’ self-confidence. The initiators of the project first imagined a future built on different standards than the past and consequently managed to substantially transform this region within a period of 15 years. The ‘Steirisches Vulkanland’ region now includes 79 municipalities which together promote local, green, self-sustaining businesses and continue to be ambitious about their future visions including achieving energy independence.As part of the theme illustrated in this Special issue and mentioned also within the analysis of the cases is a text Discovery of a supposed extinct settlement species made at Königsmühle in the Ore Mountains (published previously in Envigogika 9/1 last year but worth republishing in English in the context of this thematic issue). Author Petr Mikšíček pays attention to footprints left in the landscape by bygone generations of inhabitants (and also to present-day footprints left by our generation) and struggles to retain this memory for future generations. Clashes with the interests of some of the actors (land owners in this case) are necessary to preserve the footprints that are on the brink of being wiped out.A brief introduction to the new publication Analysis and support for participatory decision-making processes aimed at regional sustainable development strategies through the use of actor analysis methodology which is available fully online here is presented in the Information section of the Issue.From this overview, some general conclusions can be derived:Conflict situations described in this issue emerged when traditional concepts were enforced by strong actors (without joint envisioning and planning with the others); these circumstances usually do not allow for balanced discussions about the future. However the important role of minor actors such as scientists was also revealed. Experiences with their involvement provided a chance to highlight the role of scientists in policy-making.Based on the findings of this and other related research, the role of scientists can be framed not only as providers of the (rather technical) expertise to reach the goals that were set within the environment or SD oriented decision-making, but also as entering policy negotiations providing an insight into the processes they undergo. If invited at an early stage of decision-making, they can have a considerable impact on its results (then their involvement can be described as an action research). This finding might be used in planning of similar practical and scientific projects.As we can see, several interesting ideas resulted from a comparative meta-analysis of the case studies and were outlined in this issue of Envigogika. In general, it is a social point of view that provides an insight into the nature of the examples presented from the Czech Republic and the good practices from abroad. A scientific method of description is used here to reflect policy mechanisms as well as to indicate a way forward for integrating decision making practice into very sensitive, local or regional sustainability contexts. We sincerely hope that this will precipitate a broad process of public dialogue among experts as well as other actors – beyond the realm of academic discussions only, but nevertheless with substantial academic input.We wish you an enjoyable read and a pleasant and relaxing summer!On behalf of the Envigogika editorial teamJana and Jiří DlouhýAcknowledgementResearch in several articles of this issue was supported by the following projects: Interdisciplinary network of cooperation for policy development in the field of sustainable development (Mezioborová síť spolupráce pro policy development v oblasti udržitelného rozvoje – MOSUR, 2011‑2014) CZ.1.07_2.4.00_17.0130 from the OPVK program of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports; and TD020120 (TAČR), and 14/36005S (GAČR).

Nowadays, computers and network communications have a pervasive presence in all our daily activities. Their correct configuration in terms of security is becoming more and more complex due to the growing number and variety of services present in a network. Generally, the security configuration of a computer network is dictated by specifying the policies of the security controls (e.g. firewall, VPN gateway) in the network. This implies that the specification of the network security policies is a crucial step to avoid errors in network configuration (e.g., blocking legitimate traffic, permitting unwanted traffic or sending insecure data). In the literature, an anomaly is an incorrect policy specification that an administrator may introduce in the network. In this thesis, we indicate as policy anomaly any conflict (e.g. two triggered policy rules enforcing contradictory actions), error (e.g. a policy cannot be enforced because it requires a cryptographic algorithm not supported by the security controls) or sub-optimization (e.g. redundant policies) that may arise in the policy specification phase. Security administrators, thus, have to face the hard job of correctly specifying the policies, which requires a high level of competence. Several studies have confirmed, in fact, that many security breaches and breakdowns are attributable to administrators’ responsibilities. Several approaches have been proposed to analyze the presence of anomalies among policy rules, in order to enforce a correct security configuration. However, we have identified two limitations of such approaches. On one hand, current literature identifies only the anomalies among policies of a single security technology (i.e., IPsec, TLS), while a network is generally configured with many technologies. On the other hand, existing approaches work on a single policy type, also named domain (i.e., filtering, communication protection). Unfortunately, the complexity of real systems is not self-contained and each network security control may affect the behavior of other controls in the same network. The objective of this PhD work was to investigate novel approaches for modelling security policies and their anomalies, and formal techniques of anomaly analysis. We present in this dissertation our contributions to the current policy analysis state of the art and the achieved results. A first contribution was the definition of a new class of policy anomalies, i.e. the inter-technology anomalies, which arises in a set of policies of multiple security technologies. We provided also a formal model able to detect these new types of anomalies. One of the results achieved by applying the inter-technology analysis to the communication protection policies was to categorize twelve new types of anomalies. The second result of this activity was derived from an empirical assessment that proved the practical significance of detecting such new anomalies. The second contribution of this thesis was the definition of a newly-defined type of policy analysis, named inter-domain analysis, which identifies any anomaly that may arise among different policy domains. We improved the state of the art by proposing a possible model to detect the inter-domain anomalies, which is a generalization of the aforementioned inter-technology model. In particular, we defined the Unified Model for Policy Analysis (UMPA) to perform the inter-domain analysis by extending the analysis model applied for a single policy domain to comprehensive analysis of anomalies among many policy domains. The result of this last part of our dissertation was to improve the effectiveness of the analysis process. Thanks to the inter-domain analysis, indeed, administrators can detect in a simple and customizable way a greater set of anomalies than the sets they could detect by running individually any other model.