Welcome to the September 27, 2019 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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At Least 70 Countries Have Had Disinformation Campaigns, Study Finds
The New York Times
Davey Alba; Adam Satariano
September 26, 2019
Researchers at Oxford University in the U.K. have found that governments worldwide are stepping up their online disinformation campaigns despite more aggressive regulatory efforts by Internet platforms and governments. The number of countries with political disinformation campaigns increased to 70 in the last two years, with evidence of social media manipulation by at least one political party or government entity in each nation. Facebook remains the most popular social network for disinformation, hosting organized propaganda campaigns in 56 countries. The researchers cited China's emergence as a major disinformation source, with this year's Hong Kong protests a signal of its expansion agenda; Oxford's Philip N. Howard said such initiatives can no longer be attributed to "lone hackers, or individual activists, or teenagers in the basement doing things for clickbait." Oxford's Samantha Bradshaw added that campaigns intend to produce memes, videos, or other content that exploit social networks' algorithms and their amplifying effects.
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How Cities Can Leverage Citizen Data While Protecting Privacy
MIT News
Rob Matheson
September 25, 2019
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have found a way for cities to preserve their citizens’ privacy while using their data to improve efficiency. The researchers analyzed data from more than 380,000 government service requests by citizens across 112 cities in one Indian state for an entire year. The team used this dataset to measure each city government's efficiency in completing those service requests. Based on field research in three of the cities, the researchers also identified the citizen data that is necessary, useful, or unnecessary for improving efficiency when delivering the requested service. The researchers used this process to identify "model" cities that maximized privacy and efficiency. Other cities around the world could use similar methodologies to evaluate their own government services, according to the researchers.
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Atlas the Humanoid Robot Is Doing Gymnastics
The Washington Post
Peter Holley
September 25, 2019
Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot has evolved from performing middle-school gymnastics to professional human-level acrobatics in a matter of months. Three years ago, the Atlas robot could barely walk, and had none of the fluidity and agility it currently exhibits. Boston Dynamics said Atlas acquired its new athletic skills via simplification, with an optimization algorithm converting high-level descriptions of each maneuver into dynamically feasible reference movements, and a model predictive controller seamlessly blending sequential maneuvers. "Using this approach, we developed the routine significantly faster than previous Atlas routines, with a performance success rate of about 80%," the company said.
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Researchers Create 'Player Trait Model' Allowing for Personalized Games
University of Waterloo News
September 25, 2019
Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada have developed a tool that will enable user-experience designers to create more effective, personalized video games and marketing campaigns. The "player traits model," when used in conjunction with a 25-item survey, can evaluate the kinds of video games different people will enjoy. The model is based on five traits: social, aesthetic, challenge, goal, and narrative. The survey questions were developed by a multidisciplinary team of four researchers in the HCI Games Group of Waterloo's Games Institute. Said Waterloo researcher Gustavo Tondello, "It is important to understand the relationship between personality, playing preferences, and enjoyment of game elements because this knowledge has uses in the design of targeted and adaptive games, as well as gameful applications and advertising campaigns."
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Croc-Spotting Drone Patrol Takes Off Down Under
Agence France-Presse
September 26, 2019
In response to five attacks on people by crocodiles during 2017-2018, including two fatalities, high-tech aerial drones known as "croc spotters," which patrol along riverbeds to detect crocodiles, recently were tested in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. The drones are equipped with an artificial intelligence algorithm that scans incoming video to identify the reptiles in creeks, rivers, and beaches. The system is based on shark-spotting drones that are designed to detect a different kind of apex predator. As the pilot operates the drone, the algorithms scans the video and sends an alert back to the pilot if it sees a threat. The algorithm’s designers say it is 93% accurate in identifying crocodiles, while the naked eye only offers 16-19% accuracy.
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99% of Misconfigurations in the Public Cloud Go Unreported
ZDNet
Charlie Osborne
September 24, 2019
The recent growth in the adoption of cloud-based technologies and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has resulted in loss of information caused by misconfigurations and weak credentials in the public cloud space. Researchers at McAfee say that only 1% of IaaS misconfigurations are reported, suggesting there are numerous companies around the world unwittingly leaking data. The researchers surveyed 1,000 IT professionals from 11 countries and aggregated cloud usage data from over 30 million McAfee Mvision cloud users. The team found that while companies believe they average 37 IaaS misconfiguration issues per month, in reality the figure is closer to 3,500. The majority (90%) of respondents said they had encountered security issues with IaaS, but only 26% said they were equipped to handle misconfiguration audits.
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Numbers Limit How Accurately Digital Computers Model Chaos
UCL News
September 24, 2019
Researchers at University College London (UCL) in the U.K. and Tufts University found digital computers employ numbers that are based on flawed versions of actual numbers, which may lead to inaccuracies in simulations of chaotic systems and limit high-performance computing and machine learning applications. Digital computers only use rational numbers—which can be expressed as fractions—and these fractions' denominators must be a power of 2. The researchers used 4 billion single-precision floating-point numbers, ranging from plus to minus infinity, to compare the mathematical reality of a one-parameter chaotic system to digital systems' forecasts if all available single-precision floating-point numbers were utilized. The predictions were completely incorrect for certain values of the parameter, while calculations for others appeared correct, but deviated by up to 15%. Said UCL’s Peter Coveney, “Chaos is more commonplace than many people may realize and even for very simple chaotic systems, numbers used by digital computers can lead to errors that are not obvious but can have a big impact. Ultimately, computers can't simulate everything."
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MacArthur Fellowship Goes to Director Annie Dorsen for 'Algorithmic Theater'
The Los Angeles Times
Jessica Gelt
September 25, 2019
Director Annie Dorsen, who creates performance pieces she calls "algorithmic theater,” will receive a $625,000 2019 MacArthur Fellowship. The Fellowships are presented annually to individuals who demonstrate “exceptional creativity” through a “track record of significant achievement and manifest promise for important future advances.” Dorsen’s first production featured two computers on a stage recontexualizing a TV dialogue between philosopher Michel Foucault and linguist Noam Chomsky. A 2019 project used 11 laptops that "sing" continuously, using an algorithm that generates songs based on mantras from different spiritual traditions. Dorsen said her work was inspired by an essay by English mathematician Alan Turing suggesting humans could produce the semblance of thinking in a machine, even though they don’t truly know what thinking is. Said Dorsen, "Both [computer science and theater] have to do with the uncertainty between truth and illusion—what you can trust, how you know what you know, and do your eyes deceive you."
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One Small Step for Electrons, One Giant Leap for Quantum Computers
University of Rochester NewsCenter
Lindsey Valich
September 25, 2019
Researchers at the University of Rochester and Purdue University have developed a technique for relaying data over long distances by transferring the state of electrons, a step toward realizing fully functional quantum computers. If two electrons in opposite states are sufficiently close to each other, their states will swap back and forth, without the electrons themselves switching positions. Rochester's John Nichol and colleagues induced this effect by cooling a semiconductor chip to extremely low temperatures and using quantum dots to corral four electrons in a row, then transferring the electrons so they came in contact and switched states. Purdue's Michael Manfra described the ability to transfer electron states as "an important step for showing how information can be transmitted quantum-mechanically—in manners quite different than our classical intuition would lead us to believe.”
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Hackers Say They Took Over Vote Scanners Like Those Coming to Georgia
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Neisse
September 26, 2019
A report from the DEF CON Voting Machine Hacking Village conference described the discovery of a hack for commandeering ballot-scanning machines similar to those soon to be deployed in Georgia. Hackers at the conference seeking weaknesses in voting technology broke into the scanner with a screwdriver and replaced a memory card, allowing them to run their own operating system. Jeremy Epstein, vice chair of ACM’s U.S. Technology Policy Committee and an election and cybersecurity expert, said the conference report emphasizes the need for both strong paper-ballot audits, and physical security of voting equipment. Said Epstein, "The good thing about the paper ballots, unlike the touchscreen machines historically used in Georgia, is in the worst case the paper ballots are in a box" that can be used to verify votes are tabulated accurately.
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Virtual Airport to Improve Accessibility for Passengers with Additional Mobility Needs
Cranfield University
September 26, 2019
Scientists at Cranfield University in the U.K. have built a virtual airport environment in order to find ways to improve the air travel experience for passengers with mobility restrictions. Among the initial uses of the environment will be finding ways to provide better wayfinding and navigation for travelers, especially those with unseen impairments. The three-dimensional setting can be adjusted to reproduce different design configurations, ambient conditions, and activities within a bespoke or simulated real-world airport. Cranfield is collaborating with Theia Immersive, which provides immersive technology for designing inclusive and accessible spaces. Theia CEO Michael Calver said, "Immersive technology is set to help change the way in which spaces, places, products, and services are designed, enabling designers to better consider the needs of each end user."
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Huawei Suspended From Global Forum Aimed at Combating Cybersecurity Breaches
The Wall Street Journal
Anna Isaac
September 18, 2019
Huawei Technologies' membership in the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (First) has been suspended, following legal advice in the wake of revisions to U.S. export rules. The global forum aims to encourage international cooperation in fighting cyberattacks, and the sharing of knowledge about vulnerabilities. The suspension bars the Chinese company from participating in cybersecurity discussions and from using an automated platform for sharing information on malware; this could impede Huawei's ability to correct glitches in its own systems. First said the temporary suspension was driven by U.S. policy to restrict technology exports to Huawei, which could apply to material shared on mailing lists, in the forum's working groups, and between members. The White House claims China's government can direct Huawei to spy on its behalf, and is pressuring allies to rethink the company's role in delivering sensitive communications infrastructure, including 5G networks.
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Algorithm Expands Neurologists' Ability to Assess for Clot Removing Procedure
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Ruth SoRelle
September 24, 2019
Faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have developed DeepSymNet, an algorithm that can help physicians assess whether a patient suffering from ischemic stroke could be helped by an endovascular procedure to remove a clot blocking an artery. The machine learning tool can be used to analyze a computed tomography (CT) angiogram (scan of blood vessels) by automatically "learning" subtle image patterns that can serve as a proxy for other imaging modalities. The researchers tested the tool by identifying patients in their stroke registry who had suffered a stroke or had conditions that mimicked a stroke. DeepSymNet learned to identify blockages in the CT images, and to use those images to define the area of the brain that had died. Said UTHealth’s Dr. Sunil A. Sheth, “The advantage is you don’t have to be at an academic health center or a tertiary care hospital to determine whether this treatment would benefit the patient. And best of all, CT angiogram is already widely used for patients with stroke.”
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