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The Human Element: Addressing Human Adversaries in Security Domains
by
James Pita
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPUTER SCIENCE)
December 2012
Copyright 2012 James Pita
Object Description
| Title | The human element: addressing human adversaries in security domains |
| Author | Pita, James A. |
| Author email | jpita@usc.edu;pitajames@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Computer Science |
| School | Viterbi School of Engineering |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-12-15 |
| Date submitted | 2012-12-04 |
| Date approved | 2012-12-04 |
| Restricted until | 2012-12-04 |
| Date published | 2012-12-04 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Tambe, Milind |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gratch, Jonathan Marsella, Stacy Kraus, Sarit John, Richard Weller, Nicholas |
| Abstract | Recently, game theory has been shown to be useful for reasoning about real-world security settings where security forces must protect critical assets from potential adversaries. In fact, there have been a number of deployed real-world applications of game theory for security (e.g., ARMOR at Los Angeles International Airport and IRIS for the Federal Air Marshals Service). Here, the objective is for the security force to utilize its limited resources to best defend their critical assets. ❧ An important factor in these real-world security settings is that the adversaries involved are humans who may not behave according to the standard assumptions of game-theoretic models. There are two key shortcomings of the approaches currently employed in these recent applications. First, human adversaries may not make the predicted rational decision. In such situations, where the security force has optimized against a perfectly rational opponent, a deviation by the human adversary can lead to adverse affects on the security force's predicted outcome. Second, human adversaries are naturally creative and security domains are highly dynamic, making enumeration of all potential threats a practically impossible task and solving the resulting game, with current leading approaches, would be intractable. ❧ My thesis contributes to a very new area that combines algorithmic and experimental game-theory. Indeed, it examines a critical problem in applying game-theoretic techniques to situations where perfectly rational solvers must address human adversaries. In doing so it advances the study and reach of game theory to domains where software agents and humans may interact. More specifically, to address the first shortcoming, my thesis presents two separate algorithms to address potential deviations from the predicted rational decision by human adversaries. Experimental results, from a simulation that is motivated by a real-world security domain at Los Angeles International airport, demonstrated that both of my approaches outperform the currently deployed optimal algorithms which utilize standard game-theoretic assumptions and additional alternative algorithms against humans. In fact, one of my approaches is currently under evaluation in a real-world application to aid in resource allocation decisions for the United States Coast Guard. ❧ Towards addressing the second shortcoming of enumeration of a large number of potential adversary threat capabilities, I introduce a new game-theoretic model for efficiency, which additionally generalizes the previously accepted model for security domains. This new game-theoretic model for addressing human threat capabilities has seen real-world deployment and is under evaluation to aid the United States Transportation Security Administration in their resource allocation challenges. |
| Keyword | game theory; behavioral game theory; security; decision making; robust decision making |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Pita, James A. |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume6/etd-PitaJamesA-1380.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Full text | The Human Element: Addressing Human Adversaries in Security Domains by James Pita A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMPUTER SCIENCE) December 2012 Copyright 2012 James Pita |
