Work

Master's Thesis

My thesis explored the concept of an alternative meta-scheme that made use of text adventures for authentication. That is, the shared secret between the user and server was a story, implemented as a text adventure game. Text adventures were a popular genre of gaming in the 1970s and '80s, which involved typing commands into a text-only interface in order to solve puzzles and explore vast and interactive virtual worlds. A popular game in this genre is Zork, originally published in 1980, but a perennial favourite of old and new gamers alike. My thesis explored three different prototype text adventures for authentication, mapping to three threat models. My third system yields some resistance to keylogging due to random variances in the puzzle itself. Security analysis of the three schemes and comparisons to related work in alternative authentication systems are given. [PDF]

Past WISP Work

Over the course of summer 2008, I worked for Internet Lake Simcoe in Georgina, Ontario, with funding from South Shore Community Broadband. My title was Network Strategist, but most of my work involved the backend support of the Community Broadband service, which was three wireless technologies: Trango M900 and M2400 Access Points and Tropos Outdoor MetroMesh routers, utilizing the 900MHz and 2.4GHz spectrums, respectively. There's also a large variety of other backhaul and high capacity links connecting this network, including large scale towers distributed across the region. Community Broadband is an exciting program in Georgina, a community mostly without any form of broadband Internet service prior to ILS and SSCB. It was also a great place for me to play with a whole bunch of Linux boxes and fancy wireless equipment.

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In the domain of ccsl.carleton.ca, I'm carson. Put it together, and you can contact me.
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