Computer Science

The fields of statistics and machine learning design algorithms, models, and approaches to improve prediction. Larger and richer behavioral data increase predictive power, as evident from recent advances in behavioral prediction technology. Large internet platforms that collect behavioral big data predict user behavior for internal purposes and for third parties (advertisers, insurers, security forces, political consulting firms) who utilize the predictions for personalization, targeting and other decision-making. While standard data collection and modeling efforts are directed at improving predicted values, internet platforms can minimize prediction error by "pushing" users' actions towards their predicted values using behavior modification techniques. The better the platform can make users conform to their predicted outcomes, the more it can boast its predictive accuracy and ability to induce behavior change. Hence, platforms are strongly incentivized to "make predictions true". This strategy is absent from the ML and statistics literature. Investigating its properties requires incorporating causal notation into the correlation-based predictive environment---an integration currently missing. To tackle this void, we integrate Pearl's causal do(.) operator into the predictive framework. We then decompose the expected prediction error given behavior modification, and identify the components impacting predictive power. Our derivation elucidates the implications of such behavior modification to data scientists, platforms, their clients, and the humans whose behavior is manipulated. Behavior modification can make users' behavior more predictable and even more homogeneous; yet this apparent predictability might not generalize when clients use predictions in practice. Outcomes pushed towards their predictions can be at odds with clients' intentions, and harmful to manipulated users.

Online fringe communities offer fertile grounds for users seeking and sharing ideas fueling suspicion of mainstream news and conspiracy theories. Among these, the QAnon conspiracy theory emerged in 2017 on 4chan, broadly supporting the idea that powerful politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities are closely engaged in a global pedophile ring. Simultaneously, governments are thought to be controlled by "puppet masters," as democratically elected officials serve as a fake showroom of democracy. This paper provides an empirical exploratory analysis of the QAnon community on this http URL, a Reddit-esque news aggregator, which has captured the interest of the press for its toxicity and for providing a platform to QAnon followers. More precisely, we analyze a large dataset from /v/GreatAwakening, the most popular QAnon-related subverse (the Voat equivalent of a subreddit), to characterize activity and user engagement. To further understand the discourse around QAnon, we study the most popular named entities mentioned in the posts, along with the most prominent topics of discussion, which focus on US politics, Donald Trump, and world events. We also use word embeddings to identify narratives around QAnon-specific keywords. Our graph visualization shows that some of the QAnon-related ones are closely related to those from the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and so-called drops by "Q." Finally, we analyze content toxicity, finding that discussions on /v/GreatAwakening are less toxic than in the broad Voat community.

Smart weight scales offer bioimpedance-based body composition analysis as a supplement to pure body weight measurement. Companies such as Withings and Fitbit tout composition analysis as providing self-knowledge and the ability to make more informed decisions. However, these aspirational statements elide the reality that these numbers are a product of proprietary regression equations that require a binary sex/gender as their input. Our paper combines transgender studies-influenced personal narrative with an analysis of the scientific basis of bioimpedance technology used as part of the Withings smart scale. Attempting to include nonbinary people reveals that bioelectrical impedance analysis has always rested on physiologically shaky ground. White nonbinary people are merely the tip of the iceberg of those who may find that their smart scale is not so intelligent when it comes to their bodies. Using body composition analysis as an example, we explore how the problem of trans and nonbinary inclusion in personal health tech goes beyond the issues of adding a third "gender" box or slapping a rainbow flag on the packaging. We also provide recommendations as to how to approach creating more inclusive technologies even while still relying on exclusionary data.

The rapid expansion of cyberspace has greatly facilitated the strategic shift of traditional crimes to online platforms. This has included malicious actors, such as extremist organisations, making use of online networks to disseminate propaganda and incite violence through radicalising individuals. In this article, we seek to advance current research by exploring how supporters of extremist organisations craft and disseminate their content, and how posts from counter-extremism agencies compare to them. In particular, this study will apply computational techniques to analyse the narratives of various pro-extremist and counter-extremist Twitter accounts, and investigate how the psychological motivation behind the messages compares between pro-ISIS and counter-extremism narratives. Our findings show that pro-extremist accounts often use different strategies to disseminate content (such as the types of hashtags used) when compared to counter-extremist accounts across different types of organisations, including accounts of governments and NGOs. Through this study, we provide unique insights into both extremist and counter-extremist narratives on social media platforms. Furthermore, we define several avenues for discussion regarding the extent to which counter-messaging may be effective at diminishing the online influence of extremist and other criminal organisations.

For AI technology to fulfill its full promises, we must design effective mechanisms into the AI systems to support responsible AI behavior and curtail potential irresponsible use, e.g. in areas of privacy protection, human autonomy, robustness, and prevention of biases and discrimination in automated decision making. In this paper, we present a framework that provides computational facilities for parties in a social ecosystem to produce the desired responsible AI behaviors. To achieve this goal, we analyze AI systems at the architecture level and propose two decentralized cryptographic mechanisms for an AI system architecture: (1) using Autonomous Identity to empower human users, and (2) automating rules and adopting conventions within social institutions. We then propose a decentralized approach and outline the key concepts and mechanisms based on Decentralized Identifier (DID) and Verifiable Credentials (VC) for a general-purpose computational infrastructure to realize these mechanisms. We argue the case that a decentralized approach is the most promising path towards Responsible AI from both the computer science and social science perspectives.

In this work, we developed a deep learning model-based approach to forecast the spreading trend of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States. We implemented the designed model using the United States to confirm cases and state demographic data and achieved promising trend prediction results. The model incorporates demographic information and epidemic time-series data through a Gated Recurrent Unit structure. The identification of dominating demographic factors is delivered in the end.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to the billions of physical objects around the planet that are now connected to the Internet, many of which store and exchange the data without human interaction. In recent years the Internet of Things (IoT) has incredibly become a groundbreaking technical innovation that has contributed to massive impact in the ways where all the information is handled incorporate companies, computer devices, and even kitchen equipment and appliances, are designed and made. The main focus of this chapter is to systematically review the security and privacy of the Internet of Things in the present world. Most internet users are genuine, yet others are cybercriminals with individual expectations of misusing information. With such possibilities, users should know the potential security and privacy issues of IoT devices. IoT innovations are applied on numerous levels in a system that we use daily in our day-to-day life. Data confidentiality is a significant issue. The interconnection of various networks makes it impossible for users to assert extensive control of their data. Finally, this chapter discusses the IoT Security concerns in the literature and providing a critical review of the current approach and proposed solutions on present issues on the Privacy protection of IoT devices.

In recent years, electronic retail payment mechanisms, especially e-commerce and card payments at the point of sale, have increasingly replaced cash in many developed countries. As a result, societies are losing a critical public retail payment option, and retail consumers are losing important rights associated with using cash. To address this concern, we propose an approach to digital currency that would allow people without banking relationships to transact electronically and privately, including both internet purchases and point-of-sale purchases that are required to be cashless. Our proposal introduces a government-backed, privately-operated digital currency infrastructure to ensure that every transaction is registered by a bank or money services business, and it relies upon non-custodial wallets backed by privacy-enhancing technology such as blind signatures or zero-knowledge proofs to ensure that transaction counterparties are not revealed. Our approach to digital currency can also facilitate more efficient and transparent clearing, settlement, and management of systemic risk. We argue that our system can restore and preserve the salient features of cash, including privacy, owner-custodianship, fungibility, and accessibility, while also preserving fractional reserve banking and the existing two-tiered banking system. We also show that it is possible to introduce regulation of digital currency transactions involving non-custodial wallets that unconditionally protect the privacy of end-users.

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is a reality now. This paradigm shift has caught everyones attention in a large class of applications, including IoT-based video analytics using smart doorbells. Due to its growing application segments, various efforts exist in scientific literature and many video-based doorbell solutions are commercially available in the market. However, contemporary offerings are bespoke, offering limited composability and reusability of a smart doorbell framework. Second, they are monolithic and proprietary, which means that the implementation details remain hidden from the users. We believe that a transparent design can greatly aid in the development of a smart doorbell, enabling its use in multiple application domains. To address the above-mentioned challenges, we propose a distributed framework to orchestrate video analytics across Edge and Cloud resources. We investigate trade-offs in the distribution of different software components over a bespoke/full system, where components over Edge and Cloud are treated generically. This paper evaluates the proposed framework as well as the state-of-the-art models and presents comparative analysis of them on various metrics (such as overall model accuracy, latency, memory, and CPU usage). The evaluation result demonstrates our intuition very well, showcasing that the AWS-based approach exhibits reasonably high object-detection accuracy, low memory, and CPU usage when compared to the state-of-the-art approaches, but high latency.

This work takes a first look at domain names related to COVID-19 (Cov19doms in short), using a large-scale registered Internet domain name database, which accounts for 260M of distinct domain names registered for 1.6K of distinct top-level domains. We extracted 167K of Cov19doms that have been registered between the end of December 2019 and the end of September 2020. We attempt to answer the following research questions through our measurement study: RQ1: Is the number of Cov19doms registrations correlated with the COVID-19 outbreaks?, RQ2: For what purpose do people register Cov19doms? Our chief findings are as follows: (1) Similar to the global COVID-19 pandemic observed around April 2020, the number of Cov19doms registrations also experienced the drastic growth, which, interestingly, pre-ceded the COVID-19 pandemic by about a month, (2) 70 % of active Cov19doms websites with visible content provided useful information such as health, tools, or product sales related to COVID-19, and (3) non-negligible number of registered Cov19doms was used for malicious purposes. These findings imply that it has become more challenging to distinguish domain names registered for legitimate purposes from others and that it is crucial to pay close attention to how Cov19doms will be used/misused in the future.