Ivar Rummelhoff

When a database system is decommissioned, retaining its data, structure, and query capabilities is often crucial for future restoration and access. The Immortal Database Access (iDA) solution focuses on preserving decommissioned databases along with their stored information and retrieval functionalities. Building upon the Immortal Virtual Machine (iVM) technology, iDA provides tools that ensure long-term preservation of databases on physical storage media. This includes not only safeguarding the stored content but also enabling its regeneration with functional search capabilities. For this purpose, two innovative elements are introduced: DbSpec, a new language for managing the decommissioning process, and a Read-Only Access Engine (ROAE) which serves as an interface to future users who wish to retrieve the decommissioned information stored on the long-term substrate. ROAE complements the SIARD (Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases) standard. Although SIARD is effective at preserving database data and metadata, it lacks the ability to capture the essential search and query functions necessary for meaningful information retrieval. iDA addresses this limitation, ensuring that decommissioned systems remain accessible and functional for future users.

Oppsummering av arbeidet i prosjektet «Regelverk,digitalisering og KI» i 2025.

We propose a new preservation method for relational data and a corresponding tool. The method involves writing a specification that can later be executed by the tool without user interaction, transforming the input files and databases into an encapsulated package suitable for archiving. Thus, the transformation steps become reproducible, which facilitates automation by reusing the specifications and allows for an iterative process, where for each iteration the specification is extended or adjusted and then executed to check that the result is closer to fulfilling future access requirements.

Simulation games are designed to cultivate expertise and rehearse particular skill sets. In order to yield longitudinal effects, sequences of events must be crafted to yield intended learning outcomes, sometimes by focusing on particularly difficult situations and replaying variants. The present paper develops a logic-based approach for encoding the interrelation between action, events and objects in a manner that allows the resulting scenario description to immediately be executed in a game development environment. This has the dual effect of decoupling the description of a scenario from the simulation platform itself, as well as supporting iterative and flexible development of learning content. To this end, we provide three interrelated components: First, we develop a scenario description language based on Answer Set Programming. The language is designed to allow an automated reasoner to deduce a schedule of the future events that are caused by an action taken in a given simulation environment. Secondly, we define a protocol for exchanging actions and computed futures between, respectively, the simulation environment and the external automated reasoner. Finally, as a proof of concept, we develop an API for the Unity Real-Time Development Platform that implements the protocol and offers a software framework for for connecting the computed future events to concrete game objects. This allows the game to evolve coherently from the specification. We argue that the resulting system inherits capabilities for artificial commonsense reasoning from its declarative basis which are useful for reasoning about an evolving emergency incident or training scenario.

Preserving digital information for a very long time is difficult even when using a durable passive storage medium such as photographic film stored under the right conditions. On film one can combine analog descriptions, that is, visual and thus human-readable text and diagrams, with encoded digital information. After hundreds of years, however, the formats used to represent and encode this information may have been forgotten, and any surviving source code may not simply be compiled and run. Explaining how to interpret data stored in a complex format runs the risks both of errors made today and of future misunderstandings. We present a solution based on (1) a very simple abstract machine, (2) independent, technology-neutral descriptions of the machine, preserved in analog form and aimed at future programmers and mathematicians, and (3) a C compiler targeting this machine. Currently, our toolset supports storing and retrieving data in the formats JPEG, TIFF and PDF/A, but other formats can be easily be added by adapting existing C programs for processing these formats. Binaries for the abstract machine are preserved alongside the digital information and the machine descriptions so that future generations can decode and present the information simply by implementing this machine.

Android applications are subject to repackaging attacks, where popular applications are modified, often by inserting malicious logic, re-signed, and then uploaded to an online store to be later on downloaded and installed by unsuspicious users. This paper presents a set of protocols for increasing trust in special-purpose Android applications, termed secured trusted applications, during communication with a trustworthy external hardware device for storing sensitive end user data, termed secured personal device. The proposed approach requires neither operating system modification nor root privileges. The evaluation of our solution shows that the authenticity and integrity of applications, and the confidentiality and integrity of communication, is ensured as long as Android operates correctly.

This document contains technical documentation related to the STG prototype. The main part of this deliverable is the STG prototype itself and the software used by the registration authorities.

This is a security evaluation of the STG – its design as well as how it is being implemented. The evaluation includes the (physically separate but related) nodes of the RA and HSM. Threats from adversaries and security breaches as given by the risk assessment are modeled and documented.

This document describes the results of the security evaluation of the communications system. The evaluation considers communications between the SPD, the STG, the SP node, and the RA node, with respect to threats such as eavesdropping, masquerading, message tampering, and replay attacks. The method of evaluation is to systematically compare a precise description of the communications with the actual messages exchanged in the implementation. The message contents is extracted via network analysis tools applied to a running PCAS instance.

This document describes the identity management functions of the STG and the relevant system interfaces, including provisioning interfaces for Service Providers. A critical objective of PCAS is to vouch for the identities of users, SPDs, and ServiceProviders, an objective that requires identity management procedures and functions. Additionally, the STG is involved in managing several other types of objects, including cryptographic keys and certificates, which support the secure communication infrastructure. Further, the mechanisms for provisioning PCAS to Service Providers are also detailed. Finally, an example of a PCAS service is described.

This document details the data security mechanisms that protect user data stored, the device’s operating system and the communication with the STG and the service provider.