StyleID: Identity Disentanglement for Anonymizing Faces

Privacy of machine learning models is one of the remaining challenges that hinder the broad adoption of Artificial Intelligent (AI). This paper considers this problem in the context of image datasets containing faces. Anonymization of such datasets is becoming increasingly important due to their central role in the training of autonomous cars, for example, and the vast amount of data generated by surveillance systems. While most prior work de-identifies facial images by modifying identity features in pixel space, we instead project the image onto the latent space of a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) model, find the features that provide the biggest identity disentanglement, and then manipulate these features in latent space, pixel space, or both. The main contribution of the paper is the design of a feature-preserving anonymization framework, StyleID, which protects the individuals' identity, while preserving as many characteristics of the original faces in the image dataset as possible. As part of the contribution, we present a novel disentanglement metric, three complementing disentanglement methods, and new insights into identity disentanglement. StyleID provides tunable privacy, has low computational complexity, and is shown to outperform current state-of-the-art solutions.Comment: Accepted to Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), July 2023. Will appear in Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PoPETs), volume 1, 2023. 15 pages including references and appendix, 16 figures, 5 table

Problems and Challenges when Building a Manager for Unused Objects

International audienceLarge object-oriented applications may occupy hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of memory. During program execution, a large graph of objects is created and constantly changed. Most object runtimes support some kind of automatic memory management based on garbage collectors (GC) whose idea is the automatic destruction of unreferenced objects. However, there are referenced objects which are not used for a long period of time or that are used just once. These are not garbage-collected because they are still reachable and might be used in the future. Due to these unused objects, applications use much more resources than they actually need. In this paper we present the challenges and possible approaches towards an unused object manager for Pharo. The goal is to use less memory by swapping out the unused objects to secondary memory and only leaving in primary memory only those objects which are needed and used. When one of the unused objects is needed, it is brought back into primary memory

Problems and Challenges when Building a Manager for Unused Objects

International audienceLarge object-oriented applications may occupy hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of memory. During program execution, a large graph of objects is created and constantly changed. Most object runtimes support some kind of automatic memory management based on garbage collectors (GC) whose idea is the automatic destruction of unreferenced objects. However, there are referenced objects which are not used for a long period of time or that are used just once. These are not garbage-collected because they are still reachable and might be used in the future. Due to these unused objects, applications use much more resources than they actually need. In this paper we present the challenges and possible approaches towards an unused object manager for Pharo. The goal is to use less memory by swapping out the unused objects to secondary memory and only leaving in primary memory only those objects which are needed and used. When one of the unused objects is needed, it is brought back into primary memory

Video Game Art Reader

The inaugural issue of VGAR celebrates video game culture as inclusive and global. Opening with an interview with the art director of the first independent Cuban video game, Savior, while the following essays from art historians, literary theorists, game designers, artists, educators, museum curators, and programmers all engage with video games as an important part of the global art landscape. Each engages with what makes good game art with special attention to the transnational cadre of gamers that play them

LayStream: composing standard gossip protocols for live video streaming

Gossip-based live streaming is a popular topic, as attested by the vast literature on the subject. Despite the particular merits of each proposal, all need to implement and deal with common challenges such as membership management, topology construction and video packets dissemination. Well-principled gossip-based protocols have been proposed in the literature for each of these aspects. Our goal is to assess the feasibility of building a live streaming system, \sys, as a composition of these existing protocols, to deploy the resulting system on real testbeds, and report on lessons learned in the process. Unlike previous evaluations conducted by simulations and considering each protocol independently, we use real deployments. We evaluate protocols both independently and as a layered composition, and unearth specific problems and challenges associated with deployment and composition. We discuss and present solutions for these, such as a novel topology construction mechanism able to cope with the specificities of a large-scale and delay-sensitive environment, but also with requirements from the upper layer. Our implementation and data are openly available to support experimental reproducibility

Forensic analysis of linux physical memory: Extraction and resumption of running processes.

Traditional digital forensics’ procedures to recover and analyze digital data were focused on media-type storage devices like hard drives, hoping to acquire evidence or traces of malicious behavior in stored files. Usually, investigators would image the data and explore it in a somewhat “safe” environment; this is meant to reduce as much as possible the amount of loss and corruption that might occur when analysis tools are used. Unfortunately, techniques developed by intruders to attack machines without leaving files on the disks and the ever dramatically increasing size of hard drives make the discovery of evidence difficult. These increased interest in research on live forensics (attempting to obtain evidence while the system is running) and on volatile memory forensic analysis. Because of the important role they play in computing systems, volatile memory is a source of information about running processes, network connections, opened files and/or loaded kernel modules that might be valuable to forensic investigations. In this thesis we show that when provided with an image of the physical memory of a Linux system, it is possible to extract data about a specific running process, enough to be able to resume its execution on a prepared environment. We also describe two proof-of-concept tools gettsk and memexec developed for this purpose. This would allow investigators to not only obtain information about a suspicious running task from a RAM dump, but also to perform further inquiry through techniques such as malware analysis

Swapping styles: an exploration of fashion leadership, brands, and group membership in the context of clothing swaps

The purpose of this study was to explore how consumers use clothing to identify with fashion consumer groups and the role of brands in this process. To address this purpose, I examined the consumption behaviors of fashion leaders within the clothing swap environment. An emerging consumption phenomenon, clothing swaps involve the exchange of clothing items between two consumers to acquire "new-to-them" clothing without spending money. An increasingly popular means of acquiring clothing, swaps occur both in person at swap parties and online through swap websites. Although swaps have become popular among consumers, very little academic research exists on swaps as a particular consumption environment. Thus, this study addresses a major gap that exists within the consumer behavior literature. An ethnographic approach to research was used to address the purpose of the study. Specifically, consumption behaviors of fashion leaders were investigated relative to the clothing swap. Three methods of data collection were employed, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and netnographic observation. A total of five in-person swap parties were observed. Interviews were conducted with sixteen females aged 19 to 37. In addition, five clothing swap websites were observed over a one month period. Data were analyzed for similarities and differences which were then used in the development of the thematic interpretation. Three conceptual areas surfaced and are used to structure the interpretation: The Fashion Leadership Experience, Fashion Leaders and Group Membership, and The Clothing Exchange Experience. Within each area, themes that emerged through the analysis of data are interpreted and issues important to each theme are addressed. The broader relevance of the interpretation was then considered in relation to the existing literature on the topic. Findings indicate that fashion leadership reflects individual needs for uniqueness as well as group identification. Brands were not found to be a motivation for apparel consumption among fashion leaders, however, they are important to the expression of fashion leadership. Findings also shed light on the role of swapping in facilitating fashion leadership and the extent to which clothing swaps broaden traditional concepts of exchange and the consumption cycle. Although this study addresses major gaps in the literature, it also points to the need for further inquiry into fashion consumer group membership, brands, and consumer behavior within the clothing swap environment

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 25 (08) 1972

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