Clever Arbiters Versus Malicious Adversaries

When moving from known-input security to chosen-input security, some generic attacks sometimes become possible and must be discarded by a specific set of rules in the threat model. Similarly, common practices consist of fixing security systems, once an exploit is discovered, by adding a specific rule to thwart it. To study feasibility, we investigate a new security notion: security against undetectable attacks. I.e., attacks which cannot be ruled out by any specific rule based on the observable behavior of the adversary. In this model, chosen-input attacks must specify inputs which are indistinguishable from the ones in known-input attacks. Otherwise, they could be ruled out, in theory. Although non-falsifiable, this notion provides interesting results: for any primitives based on symmetric encryption, message authentication code (MAC), or pseudorandom function (PRF), known-input security is equivalent to this restricted chosen-input security in Minicrypt. Otherwise, any separation implies the construction of a public-key cryptosystem (PKC): for a known-input-secure primitive, any undetectable chosen-input attack transforms the primitive into a PKC. In this paper, we develop the notion of security based on open rules. We show the above results. We revisit the notion of related-key security of block ciphers to illustrate these results. Interestingly, when the relation among the keys is specified as a black box, no chosen-relation security is feasible. By translating this result to non-black box relations, either no known-input security is feasible, or we can recognize any obfuscated relation by a fixed set of rules, or we can build a PKC. Any of these three results is quite interesting in itself

Computational propaganda : exploring mitigation strategies for political parties in online brand contexts

Abstract : This research delves into the phenomenon of computational propaganda on social media, and draws on social media specialists from some of South Africa’s best performing brands to explore potential strategies political parties can employ to mitigate against crises that occur as a result of computational propaganda. This research is of importance given that South Africa is entering its first ever National Elections since the identification of computational propaganda as a threat to electoral processes. To date, there is no research that explores this within the South African context. The research entailed semi-structured interviews with eight social media managers, selected using the purposive non-probability sampling method. In addition to this, the research interviewed a communications head from South Africa’s largest political party in order to assess what strategies are already in place. These two sets of data were consolidated resulting in four potential strategies to mitigate against the risk of computational propaganda. The four potential mitigation strategies are grouped into two approaches, the first approach relates to preventative measures political parties can take, namely protecting brand identity and aligning communications. The second approach related to defensive measures political party brands could take in the event of a computational propaganda event, namely online reputation management and integration of communication. The research further uncovered contextual considerations political party brands must take into account before employing strategies to mitigate against crises that arise as a result of computational propaganda.M.A. (Communication Studies

How to be an American: community anticommunism and the grassroots right, 1948-1956

This thesis explores the political and cultural impact of community-level conservative activists during the early Cold War red scare in America. It provides a comprehensive overview of the hitherto overlooked aspect of the so-called McCarthy-era - amateur counter-subversives who contributed to the national mood of anticommunism in obscure but meaningful ways. It also establishes significant philosophical and practical connections between disparate groups - some nakedly right-wing, others more vaguely 'patriotic' - that demonstrate the existence of a loose but genuine grassroots anticommunist network. In the broader historical sense, by contextualising the achievements of the embryonic conservative movement, this thesis builds upon the challenges the body of literature that posits the 1960s as the essential decade in the emergence of the modern, socially conservative Republican right. In the last years of the 1940s, factions within the political and legal establishment used red scare rhetoric and new loyalty regulations to visit brief but potent misery upon their liberal and leftist enemies. At the same time, less well-connected Americans signed up for the ideological struggle. Some were members of influential civic organizations - such as the American Legion - whose long-held enmity towards left-wing politics found fresh urgency in the Cold War age; Others joined newly formed pressure groups with the expressed aim of defending their towns and suburbs from Soviet-inspired subversion. Veterans groups, school board campaigns, religious bodies, and women's patriotic societies: all provided forums for local-level attacks on perceived un-Americanism. This thesis utilizes the literature, letters and ephemera of such organizations, as well as local newspaper reports, legal and political investigations, and the personal recollections of activists, to document and analyze the most significant actions carried out in the name of community anticommunism. It examines how grassroots campaigners worked to reshape what it meant to be American, and finds ways in which their efforts - scorned as absurdly reactionary by contemporary observers - pointed towards a shifting American political landscape

Perspectives on Digital Humanism

This open access book aims to set an agenda for research and action in the field of Digital Humanism through short essays written by selected thinkers from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, philosophy, education, law, economics, history, anthropology, political science, and sociology. This initiative emerged from the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism and the associated lecture series. Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationships between people and machines in digital times. It acknowledges the potential of information technology. At the same time, it points to societal threats such as privacy violations and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, automation and loss of jobs, ongoing monopolization on the Web, and sovereignty. Digital Humanism aims to address these topics with a sense of urgency but with a constructive mindset. The book argues for a Digital Humanism that analyses and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind toward a better society and life while fully respecting universal human rights. It is a call to shaping technologies in accordance with human values and needs

‘Lowering your standards’?: assessing the procedural legitimacy of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Today technical web standards have become one of the most important mechanisms of internet governance, impinging on a wide range of areas of public policy from privacy and to freedom of speech. Despite their importance, however, the processes through which web standards are developed are not well understood, and to date, very little empirical research has been conducted to examine the procedural legitimacy of web standards consortia. To address this gap in the literature, this thesis develops and applies an analytical framework inspired by deliberative democratic theory to assess the procedural legitimacy of the World Wide Web Consortium in the context of its development of the highly controversial Encrypted Media Extension specification. In doing so, the thesis argues that the W3C is characterised by a lack of procedural legitimacy. Specifically, it will be shown how the framing of the W3C as a purely coordinative and technical organisation acted to marginalise principle based objections to the EME proposal and undermine participant’s attempts to engage fully with the public policy questions raised by the specification. The thesis also raises concerns about the consortium’s diversity and outlines several practical recommendations for how the procedural deficits identified by the research might be addressed

I Am Error

I Am Error is a platform study of the Nintendo Family Computer (or Famicom), a videogame console first released in Japan in July 1983 and later exported to the rest of the world as the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES). The book investigates the underlying computational architecture of the console and its effects on the creative works (e.g. videogames) produced for the platform. I Am Error advances the concept of platform as a shifting configuration of hardware and software that extends even beyond its ‘native’ material construction. The book provides a deep technical understanding of how the platform was programmed and engineered, from code to silicon, including the design decisions that shaped both the expressive capabilities of the machine and the perception of videogames in general. The book also considers the platform beyond the console proper, including cartridges, controllers, peripherals, packaging, marketing, licensing, and play environments. Likewise, it analyzes the NES’s extension and afterlife in emulation and hacking, birthing new genres of creative expression such as ROM hacks and tool-assisted speed runs. I Am Error considers videogames and their platforms to be important objects of cultural expression, alongside cinema, dance, painting, theater and other media. It joins the discussion taking place in similar burgeoning disciplines—code studies, game studies, computational theory—that engage digital media with critical rigor and descriptive depth. But platform studies is not simply a technical discussion—it also keeps a keen eye on the cultural, social, and economic forces that influence videogames. No platform exists in a vacuum: circuits, code, and console alike are shaped by the currents of history, politics, economics, and culture—just as those currents are shaped in kind

Perspectives on Digital Humanism

This open access book aims to set an agenda for research and action in the field of Digital Humanism through short essays written by selected thinkers from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, philosophy, education, law, economics, history, anthropology, political science, and sociology. This initiative emerged from the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism and the associated lecture series. Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationships between people and machines in digital times. It acknowledges the potential of information technology. At the same time, it points to societal threats such as privacy violations and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, automation and loss of jobs, ongoing monopolization on the Web, and sovereignty. Digital Humanism aims to address these topics with a sense of urgency but with a constructive mindset. The book argues for a Digital Humanism that analyses and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind toward a better society and life while fully respecting universal human rights. It is a call to shaping technologies in accordance with human values and needs

Cyber Humanitarian Interventions: The viability and ethics of using cyber-operations to disrupt perpetrators’ means and motivations for atrocities in the digital age

In the contemporary digital age, mass atrocity crimes are increasingly promoted and organised online. Yet, little attention has been afforded to the question of whether proactive cyberspace operations might be used for human protection purposes. Beginning with the framework of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), this thesis asks: How might cyber-operations be used ethically to protect populations from mass atrocity crimes? To answer this question, I introduce the concept of ‘cyber humanitarian interventions’, and argue that such measures can be used to disrupt potential perpetrators’ means and motivations for atrocities. Specifically, I contend that cyber humanitarian interventions can be used to frustrate potential perpetrators’ communication channels, logistical supply chains, and funding, as well as to stymie potential perpetrators’ desire for violence via online, targeted, tailor-made campaigns based on their big data. These capabilities can be used in an ethically acceptable manner, and thus ought to be pursued prior to the resort to other more forceful measures to protect. Moreover, and perhaps more controversially, I argue that, in some circumstances, there is a qualified responsibility to deceive potential perpetrators – via online disinformation – in order to fulfil responsibilities to protect. This thesis seeks to make three key contributions. First, it contributes to extant literatures on R2P, atrocity prevention, and cyberspace by offering cyber humanitarian interventions as a hitherto neglected tool for human protection. Second, it furthers ethical debates on atrocity prevention by providing an in-depth analysis of how cyber humanitarian interventions can be deployed ethically. Third, it challenges prevailing conceptions of disinformation by arguing that that there is, in fact, a qualified responsibility to deceive potential perpetrators into not committing atrocities via online disinformation. In sum, this thesis aims to bring 21st century capabilities to bear on centuries-old crimes, and highlights cyber humanitarian interventions as a more peaceful, cost-effective, and politically palatable tool to protect vulnerable populations from mass atrocity crimes

The hunt for the paper tiger: The social construction of cyberterrorism.

For two decades, there has been a high-profile debate on the issue of cyberterrorism. Politicians, law enforcement agents, the information security industry, other experts and the press have all made claims about the threats to and vulnerabilities in our society, who is responsible and what should be done. This is a UK study in the field of Information Systems based on interpretative philosophical assumptions. The framework for the study is provided by the concept of moral panic, propounded by Cohen (2002) and elaborated by Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) and Critcher (2003). Moral panic is used widely in the reference discipline of Sociology as a tool for investigating the social construction of social problems in cases where there is heightened public concern and intense media interest, closely followed by changes in legislation and social control mechanisms. This study employs moral panic as an heuristic device to assist in the investigation of the social mechanisms at work in the social construction of cyberterrorism. The corpus of data for analysis comprised articles from the UK national press relevant to cyberterrorism. A grounded theory approach was used to analyse these articles in order to identify images, orientations, stereotypes and symbolisation and to examine representational trends over time. Reflexivity in such a task is of the utmost importance, and the analytic process leading to an explanation of the social processes at work was deliberately divorced from the moral panic framework in order to guarantee rigour in the findings. The findings set out an explanation of how the concept of cyberterrorism has been constructed over two decades and compares this explanation with a framework provided by a model of moral panic. These findings are then linked to wider issues about national security, civil liberties and state control of information and communication technologies