More Prompt||GTFO
The next three in this series on online events highlighting interesting uses of AI in cybersecurity are online: #4, #5, and #6. Well worth watching.
Entries Tagged "videos"
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AI Applications in Cybersecurity
There is a really great series of online events highlighting cool uses of AI in cybersecurity, titled Prompt||GTFO. Videos from the first three events are online. And here’s where to register to attend, or participate, in the fourth.
Some really great stuff here.
List of Old NSA Training Videos
The NSA’s “National Cryptologic School Television Catalogue” from 1991 lists about 600 COMSEC and SIGINT training videos.
There are a bunch explaining the operations of various cryptographic equipment, and a few code words I have never heard of before.
Adm. Grace Hopper’s 1982 NSA Lecture Has Been Published
The “long lost lecture” by Adm. Grace Hopper has been published by the NSA. (Note that there are two parts.)
It’s a wonderful talk: funny, engaging, wise, prescient. Remember that talk was given in 1982, less than a year before the ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the internet went operational. She was a remarkable person.
Listening to it, and thinking about the audience of NSA engineers, I wonder how much of what she’s talking about as the future of computing—miniaturization, parallelization—was being done in the present and in secret.
New Research in Detecting AI-Generated Videos
The latest in what will be a continuing arms race between creating and detecting videos:
The new tool the research project is unleashing on deepfakes, called “MISLnet”, evolved from years of data derived from detecting fake images and video with tools that spot changes made to digital video or images. These may include the addition or movement of pixels between frames, manipulation of the speed of the clip, or the removal of frames.
Such tools work because a digital camera’s algorithmic processing creates relationships between pixel color values. Those relationships between values are very different in user-generated or images edited with apps like Photoshop.
But because AI-generated videos aren’t produced by a camera capturing a real scene or image, they don’t contain those telltale disparities between pixel values.
The Drexel team’s tools, including MISLnet, learn using a method called a constrained neural network, which can differentiate between normal and unusual values at the sub-pixel level of images or video clips, rather than searching for the common indicators of image manipulation like those mentioned above.
Research paper.
My TED Talks
I have spoken at several TED conferences over the years.
- TEDxPSU 2010: “Reconceptualizing Security”
- TEDxCambridge 2013: “The Battle for Power on the Internet”
- TEDMed 2016: “Who Controls Your Medical Data?”
I’m putting this here because I want all three links in one place.
Google Is Not Deleting Old YouTube Videos
Google has backtracked on its plan to delete inactive YouTube videos—at least for now. Of course, it could change its mind anytime it wants.
It would be nice if this would get people to think about the vulnerabilities inherent in letting a for-profit monopoly decide what of human creativity is worth saving.
Fugitive Identified on YouTube By His Distinctive Tattoos
A mafia fugitive hiding out in the Dominican Republic was arrested when investigators found his YouTube cooking channel and identified him by his distinctive arm tattoos.
Videos and Links from the Public-Interest Technology Track at the RSA Conference
Yesterday at the RSA Conference, I gave a keynote talk about the role of public-interest technologists in cybersecurity. (Video here).
I also hosted a one-day mini-track on the topic. We had six panels, and they were all great. If you missed it live, we have videos:
- How Public Interest Technologists are Changing the World: Matt Mitchell, Tactical Tech; Bruce Schneier, Fellow and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School; and J. Bob Alotta, Astraea Foundation (Moderator). (Video here.)
- Public Interest Tech in Silicon Valley: Mitchell Baker, Chairwoman, Mozilla Corporation; Cindy Cohn, EFF; and Lucy Vasserman, Software Engineer, Google. (Video here.)
- Working in Civil Society: Sarah Aoun, Digital Security Technologist; Peter Eckersley, Partnership on AI; Harlo Holmes, Director of Newsroom Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation; and John Scott-Railton, Senior Researcher, Citizen Lab. (Video here.)
- Government Needs You: Travis Moore, TechCongress; Hashim Mteuzi, Senior Manager, Network Talent Initiative, Code for America; Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow, Georgetown Law Institute for Technology, Law and Policy; and Ashkan Soltani, Independent Consultant. (Video here.)
- Changing Academia: Latanya Sweeney, Harvard; Dierdre Mulligan, UC Berkeley; and Danny Weitzner, MIT CSAIL. (Video here.)
- The Future of Public Interest Tech: Bruce Schneier, Fellow and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School; Ben Wizner, ACLU; and Jenny Toomey, Director, Internet Freedom, Ford Foundation (Moderator). (Video here.)
I also conducted eight short video interviews with different people involved in public-interest technology: independent security technologist Sarah Aoun, TechCongress’s Travis Moore, Ford Foundation’s Jenny Toomey, CitizenLab’s John-Scott Railton, Dierdre Mulligan from UC Berkeley, ACLU’s Jon Callas, Matt Mitchell of TacticalTech, and Kelley Misata from Sightline Security.
Here is my blog post about the event. Here’s Ford Foundation’s blog post on why they helped me organize the event.
We got some good press coverage about the event. (Hey MeriTalk: you spelled my name wrong.)
Related: Here’s my longer essay on the need for public-interest technologists in Internet security, and my public-interest technology resources page.
And just so we have all the URLs in one place, here is a page from the RSA Conference website with links to all of the videos.
If you liked this mini-track, please rate it highly on your RSA Conference evaluation form. I’d like to do it again next year.
James Mickens on the Current State of Computer Security
James Mickens gave an excellent keynote at the USENIX Security Conference last week, talking about the social aspects of security—racism, sexism, etc.—and the problems with machine learning and the Internet.
Worth watching.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.