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Critical Infrastructure Protection and Public-Private Partnerships in the United States and the European Union
Velásquez, Jorge Fidel ; Střítecký, Vít (vedoucí práce) ; Butler, Eamonn (oponent) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent)
The international system is full of threats and risks that threaten the security and resilience of individuals, organizations, enterprises, and nations which heavily rely on Critical Infrastructure (CI). Therefore, it is necessary to assure the protection of CIs as the damage or disruption of the services provided by CIs can have detrimental effects on society. Consequently, in order to achieve the protection of CIs, governments need to develop effective alliances with the private sector to overcome the issues and challenges that may emerge when creating, protecting or rehabilitating CIs. However, the liaison between the public and the private sector is a delicate topic as effective methodologies and strategies should be developed to assure Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). For this reason, this study investigates the role of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the creation, protection, and rehabilitation of CIs. Furthermore, this paper analyses the evolution of the CIP and PPP concepts, as well as the United States and the European Union strategic approach to CIP and PPPs. Also, it develops a framework for analysis to evaluate PPPs in CIP, therefore, four projects that applied the PPP methodology for their development were selected for analysis. These projects are the Long Beach California...
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Aggrieved misogynists, Violent Terrorists, or Both: Analysing the Manosphere to Understand Acts of Extremist Violence by Men's Rights Activists
McDonald, Heather Buchanan ; Kay, Rebecca (vedoucí práce) ; Střítecký, Vít (oponent) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent)
In May 2020, a violent attack in Canada was labelled for the first time as incel terrorism; however, this attack is not the first time incels have been linked to acts of mass violence. Incels are just one subgroup of many amidst the manosphere; an online extension of the contemporary men's rights movement rife with anti-feminism, misogyny, and male supremacy. Increasingly we are witnessing real-world violent attacks by individuals affiliated with subgroups of the manosphere or those who have followed the ideas put forth there. This dissertation aimed to identify how the manosphere can aid us in better understanding of the threat posed by extremist men's rights activists. Therefore, the researcher analysed prominent manosphere websites and subsections of the website Reddit.com to uncover the ideologies and the behaviours driving the contemporary men's rights movement, and if these were reflective of the motives and writings of men's rights activists who had committed acts of mass violence. Key words: anti-feminism, misogyny, men's rights movement, male supremacy, gender- based violence, gender, feminism.
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From Russia with Fear: The Presence of Emotion in Russian Disinformation Tweets
Pocyte, Agniete ; Butler, Eamonn (vedoucí práce) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent) ; Střítecký, Vít (oponent)
Russian disinformation continues to be an ongoing issue in the present security environment. International organisations (e.g. EU) and researchers highlight that emotional appeals (mostly related to fear, anger, and prejudice) in Russian disinformation are used to deepen social division and increase polarisation surrounding a particular issue (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2019; Sivek, 2018; Nisbet & Kamenchuk, 2019; Asmolov, 2018; Bennet & Livingston, 2018; Schmitt, 2018; Karlsen, 2016). While the acknowledgement of emotional appeals in the disinformation literature is common, research into these appeals is sparse. The present study provides an overview of both emotion and disinformation literature and aims to answer three research questions: what emotions are present in Russian disinformation, are some emotions more common than others, and does disinformation communicate specific topics through discrete emotions? Through emotion (sentiment) analysis we found presence of all 8 of Plutchik's emotions in a Russian disinformation tweet dataset; fear, anger, trust, anticipation, sadness, joy, disgust, and surprise. Within the tweet corpus, approximately 5% of tweets belonged to a discrete emotional frame, with fear and anger the most prevalent by a large margin. Specific emotion categories...
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Cyber Threat Intelligence: A Proposal of a Threat Intelligence Cycle from an Enterprise Perspective
Meli Tsofou, Cedric ; Butler, Eamonn (vedoucí práce) ; Střítecký, Vít (oponent) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent)
The number of cyber attacks over the last decade has been increasing sharply while being more and more targeted and sophisticated at the same time. These types of targeted and sophisticated attacks are called advanced persistent threats (APTs) and cause lots of damages to companies through data losses, injecting viruses, amongst others. While cyber threat intelligence has been recognized by experts as an efficient tool to combat APTs, its implementation has been rather slow mainly due to a lack in clarity, consensus, and little academic research as to what exactly is cyber threat intelligence from the perspective of enterprise cyber security. Therefore, there is need to provide a unifying definition of cyber threat intelligence and its creation process from enterprise perspective. Through the lens of comparative analysis, this paper aims to challenge the stability of currently existing cyber threat intelligence cycles and definitions by a thematic analysis of various cyber security white papers and academic literature. Qualitative analysis will equally permit to have an insider view of the field and forge subjective opinions and allow for ambiguity, contradiction, and the generation of new ideas.
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Saudi Arabia and the Emirates Involvement in Yemen War: A Comparative Analysis
Khalife, Sawsan ; Karásek, Tomáš (vedoucí práce) ; Butler, Eamonn (oponent) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent)
The dissertation compares the unique involvement of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates in the Yemeni war. The scholarship has yet to provide a comprehensive account on the Saudi and Emirati involvement in Yemen that explains their choice to get involved on such a massive scale military intervention. In comparing the cases of their involvement in Yemen war - this research aims to reflects on intangible aspects of power. That is, the ability to use state resources in order to reach political aims. Never before had we the opportunity to contrast the abilities of the two states to exercise power for political aims on such massive scale. In order to explore these aspects, and further advance the literature around the coalition framework in Yemen, this research mirrors one state, Saudi Arabia, in front of its coalition ally, the Emirates, in a deliberate attempt to value, assess and analyse the state interests in Yemen and the measures to reach them. This is accomplished by linking the national interests with the actual involvement in Yemen. Without making a connection between the incentives in the context of national interests, and the tactical level of the operations, assessment of their power capabilities in this case study remains largely limited in scope and constrained within tactical walls. The...
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Responding to Hybrid Warfare: The Case of the Attempted Assassination of Sergey Skripal
Kondrushenko, Yuliia ; Hays II, George (vedoucí práce) ; Van Puyvelde, Damien (oponent) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent)
The concept of hybrid warfare, parsimonious but poorly defined in terms of theory, failed to provide an operational framework for relevant research or policy purposes. With a more holistic approach to hybrid warfare, this thesis means to revitalize a decaying interest to this topic, prove its relevance, as well as provide a new, broad understanding of the phenomenon that is fit for practical purposes. To study the means of state response to hybrid warfare through public policy, this dissertation adopted a case study approach. Ignoring the more 'traditional' hybrid scenarios, such as cyber attacks in the Baltics, this research focused on a more novel interpretation of a hybrid attack, such as the case of attempted assassination of Sergey Skripal. Cases of such unorthodox nature of hybrid warfare have the potential to unveil significant evidence base for both research and policy-making purposes in terms of prevention and reaction to hybrid scenarios. With findings of the research focusing on the triangulation of theory with a real-world scenario, this dissertation lays foundation for the new understanding of hybrid warfare and, possibly, a more comprehensive theory of hybrid warfare in the future.
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Multidimensional Analysis of Security Concerns over Immigration: the Case of the United Kingdom
Cherkas, Alina ; Střítecký, Vít (vedoucí práce) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent) ; Kay, Rebecca (oponent)
2 Abstract Building upon the Paris school of securitisation, this dissertation investigates the relationship between securitised migration and the perception of the European Union in the United Kingdom. Being among the first quantitative studies in the field of security, the work applies various data visualisation techniques and standard quantitative methods to study the phenomenon of migration securitisation in the UK between 2004 and 2018 based on the European Social Survey Data. Extensive exploratory analysis uncovers the existence of a distinct group of people in the UK who perceive both the EU and migration as threats. The analysis also finds stark regional and temporal differences that suggest a certain degree of securitisation of the migration issue in the run-up of the Brexit referendum, which disappears shortly after. Regression analysis using a fixed-effect model provides a reliable estimate of a strong and substantial effect of securitised migration on the perception of the EU. Keywords: Brexit, migration, securitisation, United Kingdom, visualisation, regression analysis.
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Cyber Hype Versus Cyber Reality - How Severe Is The Threat That Chinese Cyber-Attacks Pose To United States' National Security?
Tay, Kai Lin ; Van Puyvelde, Damien (vedoucí práce) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent) ; Špelda, Petr (oponent)
Cyber threats regarding China's political espionage and intellectual property theft have featured prominently in United States (U.S.) government's public discourse in recent years. This thesis examines the threats that China's cyber-attacks pose to U.S. national security and critically assesses whether the government discourse surrounding China's cyber-attacks accurately reflects the actual threats. Overall, the study shows that China's cyber-attacks do not pose an existential threat to U.S. national security, contrasting U.S. government officials' claims which tend to exaggerate and depict Chinese cyber-attacks as an existential threat. Based on cyber- attack data between the U.S. and China from January 2013 to May 2019, this paper observes that China primarily conducts long-term espionage, exerting economic, diplomatic and social impacts, but does not conduct any degradative cyber-attacks. The study also observes from government statements surrounding two cyber-attacks - Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack and Operation Cloudhopper - that U.S. government officials exaggerated China's cyber-attacks in imposing counterintelligence impacts of mortal danger, and inflated China as an unprecedented threat that unfairly benefits Chinese firms at the expense of U.S. firms. This paper concludes that...
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5G, China and the Global Governance of Cyberspace
Petrov, Angelica ; Van Puyvelde, Damien (vedoucí práce) ; Fitzgerald, James (oponent) ; Střítecký, Vít (oponent)
Five years ago, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) anticipated that 2019 - 2020 would see the emergence of a prototype of 5G technology that would enable global deployment. Due to the enhanced capabilities, 5G is envisioned to be the backbone of a fully interconnected society, expanding from smart watches to entire factories. The unprecedented benefits, and also the risks of the technology brought 5G to the forefront of international debate between different stakeholders ranging from governments, to industry, to academia. The discussions were further fuelled by the US ban imposed on the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE for building the 5G infrastructure. Despite the increased attention the study of China and the development of 5G, beyond the US moratorium it is still new and under- studied. This research examines how the role of China in global cyberspace governance changed with the development and deployment of 5G. For the investigation, the study employs a triangulation of two qualitative methods - document analysis and discourse analysis. To unpack the research question, the study firstly examines the key international governance institutions involved in the development of 5G. Hence it provides a theoretical contribution to the latest academic debates on cyberspace governance...
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