The economics of coercion and conflict : an introduction

This chapter introduces the author’s selected papers on the economics of coercion and conflict. It defines coercion and conflict and relates them. In conflict, adversaries make costly investments in the means of coercion. The application of coercion does not remove choice but limits it to options that leave the victim worse off than before. Coercion and conflict are always political, but a number of key concepts from economics can help us understand them. These include rational choice, strategic interaction, increasing and diminishing returns, scale and state capacity, surplus extraction, and Type I errors. The chapter concludes that the economist’s toolkit, although not complete, is useful

Cryptographic Protocols for Privacy Enhancing Technologies: From Privacy Preserving Human Attestation to Internet Voting

Desire of privacy is oftentimes associated with the intention to hide certain aspects of our thoughts or actions due to some illicit activity. This is a narrow understanding of privacy, and a marginal fragment of the motivations for undertaking an action with a desired level of privacy. The right for not being subject to arbitrary interference of our privacy is part of the universal declaration of human rights (Article 12) and, above that, a requisite for our freedom. Developing as a person freely, which results in the development of society, requires actions to be done without a watchful eye. While the awareness of privacy in the context of modern technologies is not widely spread, it is clearly understood, as can be seen in the context of elections, that in order to make a free choice one needs to maintain its privacy. So why demand privacy when electing our government, but not when selecting our daily interests, books we read, sites we browse, or persons we encounter? It is popular belief that the data that we expose of ourselves would not be exploited if one is a law-abiding citizen. No further from the truth, as this data is used daily for commercial purposes: users’ data has value. To make matters worse, data has also been used for political purposes without the user’s consent or knowledge. However, the benefits that data can bring to individuals seem endless and a solution of not using this data at all seems extremist. Legislative efforts have tried, in the past years, to provide mechanisms for users to decide what is done with their data and define a framework where companies can use user data, but always under the consent of the latter. However, these attempts take time to take track, and have unfortunately not been very successful since their introduction. In this thesis we explore the possibility of constructing cryptographic protocols to provide a technical, rather than legislative, solution to the privacy problem. In particular we focus on two aspects of society: browsing and internet voting. These two events shape our lives in one way or another, and require high levels of privacy to provide a safe environment for humans to act upon them freely. However, these two problems have opposite solutions. On the one hand, elections are a well established event in society that has been around for millennia, and privacy and accountability are well rooted requirements for such events. This might be the reason why its digitalisation is something which is falling behind with respect to other acts of our society (banking, shopping, reading, etc). On the other hand, browsing is a recently introduced action, but that has quickly taken track given the amount of possibilities that it opens with such ease. We now have access to whatever we can imagine (except for voting) at the distance of a click. However, the data that we generate while browsing is extremely sensitive, and most of it is disclosed to third parties under the claims of making the user experience better (targeted recommendations, ads or bot-detection). Chapter 1 motivates why resolving such a problem is necessary for the progress of digital society. It then introduces the problem that this thesis aims to resolve, together with the methodology. In Chapter 2 we introduce some technical concepts used throughout the thesis. Similarly, we expose the state-of-the-art and its limitations. In Chapter 3 we focus on a mechanism to provide private browsing. In particular, we focus on how we can provide a safer, and more private way, for human attestation. Determining whether a user is a human or a bot is important for the survival of an online world. However, the existing mechanisms are either invasive or pose a burden to the user. We present a solution that is based on a machine learning model to distinguish between humans and bots that uses natural events of normal browsing (such as touch the screen of a phone) to make its prediction. To ensure that no private data leaves the user’s device, we evaluate such a model in the device rather than sending the data over the wire. To provide insurance that the expected model has been evaluated, the user’s device generates a cryptographic proof. However this opens an important question. Can we achieve a high level of accuracy without resulting in a noneffective battery consumption? We provide a positive answer to this question in this work, and show that a privacy-preserving solution can be achieved while maintaining the accuracy high and the user’s performance overhead low. In Chapter 4 we focus on the problem of internet voting. Internet voting means voting remotely, and therefore in an uncontrolled environment. This means that anyone can be voting under the supervision of a coercer, which makes the main goal of the protocols presented to be that of coercionresistance. We need to build a protocol that allows a voter to escape the act of coercion. We present two proposals with the main goal of providing a usable, and scalable coercion resistant protocol. They both have different trade-offs. On the one hand we provide a coercion resistance mechanism that results in linear filtering, but that provides a slightly weaker notion of coercion-resistance. Secondly, we present a mechanism with a slightly higher complexity (poly-logarithmic) but that instead provides a stronger notion of coercion resistance. Both solutions are based on a same idea: allowing the voter to cast several votes (such that only the last one is counted) in a way that cannot be determined by a coercer. Finally, in Chapter 5, we conclude the thesis, and expose how our results push one step further the state-of-the-art. We concisely expose our contributions, and describe clearly what are the next steps to follow. The results presented in this work argue against the two main claims against privacy preserving solutions: either that privacy is not practical or that higher levels of privacy result in lower levels of security.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Agustín Martín Muñoz.- Secretario: José María de Fuentes García-Romero de Tejada.- Vocal: Alberto Peinado Domíngue

An Introduction to Destructive Coordination

Polanyi (1944, [1957] 1968) has distinguished three 'patterns of social integration,' namely 'reciprocity', 'redistribution' and 'exchange.' This triad has provided the starting point for most subsequent discussion. Our purpose is to introduce a further type of coordination, the 'destructive mode of coordination'. This mode achieves coordination by intimidation, threat, and the use of non-institutionalized coercive means. Resources and human efforts are allocated in order to appropriate what other people produce. Two simple examples provide an introductory illustration, traffic circles (roundabouts) and prisons. Appropriation through pirating provides a further example of destructive coordination. More specifically, biopiracy (blood patenting) is discussed in order to clarify the relationship between destructive coordination and the institutionalization of property rights. Finally, we focus on the role of destructive coordination as a transitional mechanism that is supported by the institutional vacuum ultimately yielding to other modes of coordination.mode of coordination, destructive coordination, institutional vacuum, biopiracy, indeterminate property rights

Online Manipulation: Hidden Influences in a Digital World

Privacy and surveillance scholars increasingly worry that data collectors can use the information they gather about our behaviors, preferences, interests, incomes, and so on to manipulate us. Yet what it means, exactly, to manipulate someone, and how we might systematically distinguish cases of manipulation from other forms of influence—such as persuasion and coercion—has not been thoroughly enough explored in light of the unprecedented capacities that information technologies and digital media enable. In this paper, we develop a definition of manipulation that addresses these enhanced capacities, investigate how information technologies facilitate manipulative practices, and describe the harms—to individuals and to social institutions—that flow from such practices. We use the term “online manipulation” to highlight the particular class of manipulative practices enabled by a broad range of information technologies. We argue that at its core, manipulation is hidden influence—the covert subversion of another person’s decision-making power. We argue that information technology, for a number of reasons, makes engaging in manipulative practices significantly easier, and it makes the effects of such practices potentially more deeply debilitating. And we argue that by subverting another person’s decision-making power, manipulation undermines his or her autonomy. Given that respect for individual autonomy is a bedrock principle of liberal democracy, the threat of online manipulation is a cause for grave concern

Online support for shop-floor operators using body movements tracking

This paper presents results of experiments on the integration of human operators and automation in the context of assembly systems. Several experiments have been conducted to evaluate the use of augmented reality applications in order to provide dynamic work instructions and online feedback information to a shop-floor operator. Based on these results, an experimental platform has been developed so that the shop-floor operator and the automated system behave as a closed-loop system