Automated Discovery of Internet Censorship by Web Crawling

Censorship of the Internet is widespread around the world. As access to the web becomes increasingly ubiquitous, filtering of this resource becomes more pervasive. Transparency about specific content that citizens are denied access to is atypical. To counter this, numerous techniques for maintaining URL filter lists have been proposed by various individuals and organisations that aim to empirical data on censorship for benefit of the public and wider censorship research community. We present a new approach for discovering filtered domains in different countries. This method is fully automated and requires no human interaction. The system uses web crawling techniques to traverse between filtered sites and implements a robust method for determining if a domain is filtered. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach by running experiments to search for filtered content in four different censorship regimes. Our results show that we perform better than the current state of the art and have built domain filter lists an order of magnitude larger than the most widely available public lists as of Jan 2018. Further, we build a dataset mapping the interlinking nature of blocked content between domains and exhibit the tightly networked nature of censored web resources

The Dark Side of Micro-Task Marketplaces: Characterizing Fiverr and Automatically Detecting Crowdturfing

As human computation on crowdsourcing systems has become popular and powerful for performing tasks, malicious users have started misusing these systems by posting malicious tasks, propagating manipulated contents, and targeting popular web services such as online social networks and search engines. Recently, these malicious users moved to Fiverr, a fast-growing micro-task marketplace, where workers can post crowdturfing tasks (i.e., astroturfing campaigns run by crowd workers) and malicious customers can purchase those tasks for only $5. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of Fiverr. First, we identify the most popular types of crowdturfing tasks found in this marketplace and conduct case studies for these crowdturfing tasks. Then, we build crowdturfing task detection classifiers to filter these tasks and prevent them from becoming active in the marketplace. Our experimental results show that the proposed classification approach effectively detects crowdturfing tasks, achieving 97.35% accuracy. Finally, we analyze the real world impact of crowdturfing tasks by purchasing active Fiverr tasks and quantifying their impact on a target site. As part of this analysis, we show that current security systems inadequately detect crowdsourced manipulation, which confirms the necessity of our proposed crowdturfing task detection approach

Digital Marketing Strategies in a Neo bank: Implementation of SEO & Sentiment Analysis

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Driven Marketing, specialization in Digital Marketing and AnalyticsIn the financial sector it is crucial to have a good SEO strategy due to the highly competitive nature and sensitivity of the information handled. In addition to providing brand visibility, it generates trust and credibility, capturing quality leads and positioning the brand as an expert in the sector, thus building long-lasting relationships with customers. This Internship Report provides an overview of the strategies and techniques used to improve the SEO and Social Media statistics of MyInvestor, a Spanish digital banking company. The Internship took place in the Digital Marketing Department, between the dates September 5 2022, and July 31 2023. The objective of the internship was to apply the knowledge learned in the first year of the master's degree, specifically, to perform an SEO and Sentiment Analysis audit to establish in order to create a marketing strategy. This work has significant implications for the neo banking sector. By conducting a competitive analysis of companies operating in the Spanish digital banking market, strengths and weaknesses are identified in terms of web content, user experience, products and social media campaigns. In addition, collaboration with influencers is highlighted as a strategy to increase brand visibility and reach in the Spanish market. An analysis of online coverage, online sentiment, online engagement is also performed to understand public opinion about the brand and find new influencers. These strategies and techniques applied in the work aim to improve search engine rankings and increase brand visibility in the neobank sector. In conclusion, this work contributes to strengthen the company's presence and reputation in the neo banks market in Spain

The importance of research in university's webometric ranking: UNIOSUN case study

Objective: Cybermetrics or webometrics is an emerging discipline concerned with the quantitative analysis of the internet and web contents related to ranking of the World Universities which from an academic and scientific point of view are very important and informative. The aim of the study is to elucidate the role of research in the webometric ranking of Universities.Methods: A review of literature was conducted.Results: Websites are the most efficient and cheapest way for boosting all the three academic missions: teaching, research and technology transfer. Web indicators are used for ranking purposes; they are not based on number of visits or page design but on the global performance and visibility of the universities. The current composite indicator include impact variable (50%) based on link visibility of the University and web activity (50%) on a ratio 1:1. The activity variable comprises of web presence, openness and excellence. Clearly, the research mission plays a central role in the definition of World-class university status; academic papers published in high impact international journals are very important in the ranking. Many indicators serve the purpose of ranking, but most observers know that research matters more than anything else in defining the best institutions.Conclusion: A large web presence is made possible only with the effort of a large group of authors. All academic staff should be involved in quality research activities. Availability of infrastructure, scientific collaborations at all levels are most important in increasing the capacity of scientific productivity and visibility which are the major components in ranking.Keywords: Research, role, webometrics, UNIOSUN, universitie

Term Graph Representations for Cyclic Lambda-Terms

We study various representations for cyclic lambda-terms as higher-order or as first-order term graphs. We focus on the relation between `lambda-higher-order term graphs' (lambda-ho-term-graphs), which are first-order term graphs endowed with a well-behaved scope function, and their representations as `lambda-term-graphs', which are plain first-order term graphs with scope-delimiter vertices that meet certain scoping requirements. Specifically we tackle the question: Which class of first-order term graphs admits a faithful embedding of lambda-ho-term-graphs in the sense that: (i) the homomorphism-based sharing-order on lambda-ho-term-graphs is preserved and reflected, and (ii) the image of the embedding corresponds closely to a natural class (of lambda-term-graphs) that is closed under homomorphism? We systematically examine whether a number of classes of lambda-term-graphs have this property, and we find a particular class of lambda-term-graphs that satisfies this criterion. Term graphs of this class are built from application, abstraction, variable, and scope-delimiter vertices, and have the characteristic feature that the latter two kinds of vertices have back-links to the corresponding abstraction. This result puts a handle on the concept of subterm sharing for higher-order term graphs, both theoretically and algorithmically: We obtain an easily implementable method for obtaining the maximally shared form of lambda-ho-term-graphs. Also, we open up the possibility to pull back properties from first-order term graphs to lambda-ho-term-graphs. In fact we prove this for the property of the sharing-order successors of a given term graph to be a complete lattice with respect to the sharing order. This report extends the paper with the same title (http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6338v1) in the proceedings of the workshop TERMGRAPH 2013.Comment: 35 pages. report extending proceedings article on arXiv:1302.6338 (changes with respect to version v2: added section 8, modified Proposition 2.4, added Remark 2.5, added Corollary 7.11, modified figures in the conclusion