CST499 - Week 5

What milestones did you accomplish this week?

This week I finished the results section of my paper. I had a lot of results so figuring out which were the most important to share was difficult. Completing this part helped me think of ideas for the discussion section, which I have already started writing. I also outlined the introduction.

What is your plan for next week?

Next week I will finish the discussion and conclusion. The biggest hurdle will be hitting the minimum number of pages. I don't want to add fluff just to reach it. I am also hoping to finish the introduction and abstract, the final components. Then I just have to record my video and I am pretty much done.

CST499 - Week 4

What milestones did you accomplish this week?

Since my part of the research project is done, there were no specific milestones to reach this week. However, completing the video outline gave me some insight into how my report will flow. I also gained some presentation knowledge from the NPS briefing I assisted with this week. 

What is your plan for next week?

The results section of my paper is a top priority since it is due next week. The biggest challenge will be how to present the results effectively without thorough discussion. I also need to prepare slides for the Capstone presentation video, but I don't expect that to take much time.

CST499 - Week 3

What milestones did you accomplish this week?

This week I finished part 1 of my Capstone report. It's just a rough draft, so I am sure I will be modifying it later. I'm already thinking of things that likely need further elaboration. Fortunately, Dr. Tao has given me the go ahead to use the research that I have already done for the report. I had been extremely anxious waiting for his decision, but now I am feeling better (although I do wish my internship had more for me to do). 

What is your plan for next week?

I am going to complete the results section of my paper. I already have the results gathered, so I just need to figure out how to present them properly. I found a couple resources to help. I also think I know how I am going to outline my video. I am in Monterey helping an NPS student prepare a briefing this week on the previous work we did, so hopefully that gives me some useful insight as well.

CST499 - Week 2

What milestones did you accomplish this week?

This week I finished up my part of the research project. All my models have been trained against all my feature representations, and the results have been screenshotted and saved in documents. I have been in contact with my project advisor to keep her updated on my progress. Unfortunately, the meeting with Raytheon has been postponed until the 18th. It does not appear that we will be receiving data anytime soon. I updated Dr. Tao with this information, and he has requested a summary of my current contributions.  

What is your plan for next week?

Since finishing my tests took longer than expected, I still have to summarize my results for the team to review. I will use this summary as a basis for my summary to Dr. Tao. Other than that, my plan is just to start writing my paper unless something comes up. 

CST499 - Week 1

What project milestones did you accomplish this week? 

Conference Paper

This week I finished writing my part of a conference paper that is being reviewed by Dr. Thulasiraman. It contains a summary of all my work over the last few months involving feature extraction from 5G and Modbus PCAP files and the training and tuning of basic autoencoder models. This conference paper provides the basis for my current work.

Model Configurations

This week I created a convolutional autoencoder model. This was the final model I needed to build. I already tested it with the original feature representation (ICMP flood) using scaled and unscaled data. 

Feature Representations

I finished aggregating results for my “novel flows” idea using the basic autoencoder model. Rather than using “synthetic flows” to test my models (as before), I excluded a couple of real flows from training and marked their subflows as anomalous. The partitioning of the flows is also different from the previous work (forward flows vs. inward flows).

What is your plan for next week?

Over the next couple days, I am going to finish testing my models with all the feature representations I have. Three models are being compared for anomaly detection: Basic autoencoder, convolutional autoencoder, and KMeans. Feature representations include flows (forward and inward), MITM, and query responses. Results will be aggregated and sent to Dr. Thulasiraman for review. This will conclude my initial testing, although I do not expect any breakthroughs.

On Friday, Raytheon network engineers will be meeting with our team to discuss steps forward. We will be discussing the network architecture and concept of operations (CONOPS). Hopefully this results in new ideas for feature representations. I am going to ask questions about query response values I found in the Modbus data. I am also going to try to get an update on when we can expect new feature sets.