Training strategy for a lightweight countermeasure model for automatic speaker verification

The countermeasure (CM) model is developed to protect Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) systems from spoof attacks and prevent resulting personal information leakage. Based on practicality and security considerations, the CM model is usually deployed on edge devices, which have more limited computing resources and storage space than cloud-based systems. This work proposes training strategies for a lightweight CM model for ASV, using generalized end-to-end (GE2E) pre-training and adversarial fine-tuning to improve performance, and applying knowledge distillation (KD) to reduce the size of the CM model. In the evaluation phase of the ASVspoof 2021 Logical Access task, the lightweight ResNetSE model reaches min t-DCF 0.2695 and EER 3.54%. Compared to the teacher model, the lightweight student model only uses 22.5% of parameters and 21.1% of multiply and accumulate operands of the teacher model.Comment: ASVspoof202

Protecting Voice Controlled Systems Using Sound Source Identification Based on Acoustic Cues

Over the last few years, a rapidly increasing number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems that adopt voice as the primary user input have emerged. These systems have been shown to be vulnerable to various types of voice spoofing attacks. Existing defense techniques can usually only protect from a specific type of attack or require an additional authentication step that involves another device. Such defense strategies are either not strong enough or lower the usability of the system. Based on the fact that legitimate voice commands should only come from humans rather than a playback device, we propose a novel defense strategy that is able to detect the sound source of a voice command based on its acoustic features. The proposed defense strategy does not require any information other than the voice command itself and can protect a system from multiple types of spoofing attacks. Our proof-of-concept experiments verify the feasibility and effectiveness of this defense strategy.Comment: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), Hangzhou, China, July-August 2018. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1803.0915

Workshop Report from the 33rd Workshop of the Pugwash Study Group on the Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions: 'Achieving realistic decisions at the seventh BWC review conference in 2011'

This workshop was hosted by the Association Suisse de Pugwash in association with the Geneva International Peace Research Institute GIPRI. The meeting was supported by a grant provided by the Swiss federal authorities. The workshop took place immediately prior to the Seventh Review Conference on the operation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in December 2011. It was attended by 57 participants, all by invitation and in their personal capacities, from 17 countries including, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA) and Ukraine. This report is the sole responsibility of its author, who was asked to prepare a brief account of the proceedings of the meeting in consultation with the Steering Committee. It does not necessarily reflect a consensus of the workshop as a whole, nor of the Study Group. The workshop was strictly governed by the Chatham House Rule, so reference to specific speakers is not detailed here

The new nuclear arms control environment : trip report and project conclusions

Includes bibliographical references. "July 2002"This paper reports the results of 9 conference, workshops and private meetings held on the current diplomatic and security problems associated with nuclear arms control, both before and after September 11. Appendixes include participants and questions.unpublishednot peer reviewe

Unauthorized Aliens in the United States

[Excerpt] The unauthorized alien (illegal alien) population in the United States is a key and controversial immigration issue. In recent years, competing views on how to address this population have proved to be a major obstacle to enacting comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The unauthorized alien issue is likely to be a key challenge if, as the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House have indicated, the 111th Congress takes up immigration reform legislation this year. It is unknown, at any point in time, how many unauthorized aliens are in the United States, what countries they are from, when they came to the United States, where they are living, and what their demographic, family, and other characteristics are. Demographers develop estimates about unauthorized aliens using available survey data on the U.S. foreign-born population. These estimates can help inform possible policy options to address the unauthorized alien population. According to recent estimates by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), approximately 10.8 million unauthorized aliens were living in the United States in January 2009. Using different sources, the Pew Hispanic Center has estimated the March 2008 unauthorized resident population at about 11.9 million. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and other federal laws place various restrictions on unauthorized aliens. They have no legal right to live or work in the United States and are subject to removal from the country. At the same time, the INA provides limited avenues for certain unauthorized aliens to obtain legal permanent residence. Over the years, a range of options has been offered for addressing the unauthorized resident alien population. In most cases, the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of aliens in the United States who lack legal status. One set of options centers on requiring or encouraging illegal aliens to depart the country. Those who support this approach argue that these aliens are in the United States in violation of the law and that their presence variously threatens social order, national security, and economic prosperity. One departure strategy is to locate and deport unauthorized aliens from the United States. Another departure strategy, known as attrition through enforcement, seeks to significantly reduce the size of the unauthorized alien population by across-the-board enforcement of immigration laws. One of the basic tenets of the departure approach is that unauthorized aliens in the United States should not be granted benefits. An opposing strategy would grant qualifying unauthorized aliens various benefits, including an opportunity to obtain legal status. Supporters of this type of approach do not characterize unauthorized aliens in the United States as lawbreakers, but rather as contributors to the economy and society at large. A variety of proposals have been put forth over the years to grant some type of legal status to some portion of the unauthorized population. Some of these options would use existing mechanisms under immigration law to grant legal status. Others would establish new legalization programs. Some would benefit a particular subset of the unauthorized population, such as students or agricultural workers, while others would make relief available more broadly. This report will be updated if developments warrant

Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering

In their seminal paper in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Zave and Jackson established a core ontology for Requirements Engineering (RE) and used it to formulate the "requirements problem", thereby defining what it means to successfully complete RE. Given that stakeholders of the system-to-be communicate the information needed to perform RE, we show that Zave and Jackson's ontology is incomplete. It does not cover all types of basic concerns that the stakeholders communicate. These include beliefs, desires, intentions, and attitudes. In response, we propose a core ontology that covers these concerns and is grounded in sound conceptual foundations resting on a foundational ontology. The new core ontology for RE leads to a new formulation of the requirements problem that extends Zave and Jackson's formulation. We thereby establish new standards for what minimum information should be represented in RE languages and new criteria for determining whether RE has been successfully completed.Comment: Appears in the proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, 2008 (RE'08). Best paper awar