Privacy Concerns and Consumer Acceptance of Blockchain-Enabled Services

When creating Blockchain-Enabled Services (BCES) for consumers, service providers have to be aware of consumers’ privacy concerns. We argue that Blockchains are perceived ambivalently by consumers regarding privacy and that startup BCES companies will be affected differently by privacy concerns than established brands. On the one hand, consumers may perceive the decentralized nature of Blockchains as an inherent privacy risk due to potential data breaches. On the other hand, BCES provide consumers with the opportunity to escape data eco-systems of existing company networks, particularly when BCES are provided by a startup. We develop various hypotheses on the impact of privacy concerns on the acceptance of BCES. Using scenarios with BCES applications for international money transfer and hotel booking, we suggest an experimental design which manipulates the nature of the provider (startup versus established brand) and the amount of services provided

An efficient sound and data steganography based secure authentication system

The prodigious advancements in contemporary technologies have also brought in the situation of unprecedented cyber-attacks. Further, the pin-based security system is an inadequate mechanism for handling such a scenario. The reason is that hackers use multiple strategies for evading security systems and thereby gaining access to private data. This research proposes to deploy diverse approaches for authenticating and securing a connection amongst two devices/gadgets via sound, thereby disregarding the pins’ manual verification. Further, the results demonstrate that the proposed approaches outperform conventional pin-based authentication orQR authentication approaches. Firstly, a random signal is encrypted, and then it is transformed into a wave file, after which it gets transmitted in a short burst via the device’s speakers. Subsequently, the other device/gadget captures these audio bursts through its microphone and decrypts the audio signal for getting the essential data for pairing. Besides, this model requires two devices/gadgets with speakers and a microphone, and no extra hardware such as a camera, for reading the QR code is required. The first module is tested with real-time data and generates high scores for the widely accepted accuracy metrics, including precision, Recall, F1 score, entropy, and mutual information (MI). Additionally, this work also proposes a module helps in a secured transmission of sensitive data by encrypting it over images and other files. This steganographic module includes two-stage encryption with two different encryption algorithms to transmit data by embedding inside a file. Several encryption algorithms and their combinations are taken for this system to compare the resultant file size. Both these systems engender high accuracies and provide secure connectivity, leading to a sustainable communication ecosystem.peer-reviewe

The Role of Generative AI in Global Diplomatic Practices: A Strategic Framework

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) transforms the domain of diplomacy in the 21st century, this research addresses the pressing need to evaluate the dualistic nature of these advancements, unpacking both the challenges they pose and the opportunities they offer. It has been almost a year since the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI that revolutionised various work domains with its capabilities. The scope of application of these capabilities to diplomacy is yet to be fully explored or understood. Our research objective is to systematically examine the current discourse on Digital and AI Diplomacy, thus informing the development of a comprehensive framework for the role of Generative AI in modern diplomatic practices. Through the systematic analysis of 230 scholarly articles, we identified a spectrum of opportunities and challenges, culminating in a strategic framework that captures the multifaceted concepts for integration of Generative AI, setting a course for future research and innovation in diplomacy

Sustainable Digital Sovereignty: Interdependencies Between Sustainable Digitalization and Digital Sovereignty

This study is dedicated to the interdependencies between digital sovereignty and sustainable digitalization, which need to be explicitly linked to an increasing degree in political discourse, academia, and societal debates. Digital skills are the prerequisites for shaping digitalization in the interest of society and sustainable development

Privacy and Security in the Cloud: Some Realism About Technical Solutions to Transnational Surveillance in the Post-Snowden Era

Since June 2013, the leak of thousands of classified documents regarding highly sensitive U.S. surveillance activities by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden has greatly intensified discussions of privacy, trust, and freedom in relation to the use of global computing and communication services. This is happening during a period of ongoing transition to cloud computing services by organizations, businesses, and individuals. There has always been a question of inherent in this transition: are cloud services sufficiently able to guarantee the security of their customers’ data as well s the proper restrictions on access by third parties, including governments? While worries over government access to data in the cloud is a predominate part of the ongoing debate over the use of cloud serives, the Snowden revelations highlight that intelligence agency operations pose a unique threat to the ability of services to keep their customers’ data out of the hands of domestic as well as foreign governments. The search for a proper response is ongoing, from the perspective of market players, governments, and civil society. At the technical and organizational level, industry players are responding with the wider and more sophisticated deployment of encryption as well as a new emphasis on the use of privacy enhancing technologies and innovative architectures for securing their services. These responses are the focus of this Article, which contributes to the discussion of transnational surveillance by looking at the interaction between the relevant legal frameworks on the one hand, and the possible technical and organizational responses of cloud service providers to such surveillance on the other. While the Article’s aim is to contribute to the debate about government surveillance with respect to cloud services in particular, much of the discussion is relevant for Internet services more broadly

Authoritarian Privacy

Privacy laws are traditionally associated with democracy. Yet autocracies increasingly have them. Why do governments that repress their citizens also protect their privacy? This Article answers this question through a study of China. China is a leading autocracy and the architect of a massive surveillance state. But China is also a major player in data protection, having enacted and enforced a number of laws on information privacy. To explain how this came to be, the Article first turns to several top-down objectives often said to motivate China’s privacy laws: advancing its digital economy, expanding its global influence, and protecting its national security. Although each has been a factor in China’s turn to privacy law, even together they tell only a partial story. Central to China’s privacy turn is the party-state’s use of privacy law to shore up its legitimacy amid rampant digital abuse. China’s whiplashed transition into the digital age has given rise to significant vulnerabilities and dependencies for ordinary citizens. Through privacy law, China’s leaders have sought to interpose themselves as benevolent guardians of privacy rights against other intrusive actors—individuals, firms, even state agencies and local governments. So framed, privacy law can enhance perceptions of state performance and potentially soften criticism of the center’s own intrusions. China did not enact privacy law in spite of its surveillance state; it embraced privacy law in order to maintain it. The Article adds to our understanding of privacy law, complicates the conceptual relationship between privacy and democracy, and points towards a general theory of authoritarian privacy

Advanced Research Workshop: Terrorists’ Use of the Internet: Assessment and Response: Final Report

This report contains findings from the Advanced Research Workshop supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme on terrorists’ use of the Internet, held at Dublin City University on 27th-29th June 2016. The event was co-organised by the Cyberterrorism Project and the VOX-POL Network of Excellence. The workshop consisted of a total of 31 presentations, followed by a roundtable discussion during which participants formulated a set of recommendations. 60 delegates attended the symposium, from 13 different countries, including researchers and representatives from NATO HQ, NATO CCD-COE, UNICRI, the European Defence Agency, the Bavarian Police Academy and the Italian Carabinieri. This report provides summaries of each of the presentations and presents the workshop’s final recommendation