Archives of IT’s Post

Last call for papers! AIT's 2025 Forum: Norms for the Digital Age is now starting to take shape and our call for papers deadline is 5pm, Monday 16 September! The Forum will take place on Tuesday 28 January 2024 at the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists Livery Hall. We are now inviting ideas for talks and possible panels on the role or impact of norms across a variety of technologies and contexts of use. These should be around 300 – 500 words. We have outlined panels on the following topics: – IT Professionalism in the Digital Age  – Journalism in the Digital Age: Changing Roles and Norms – Norms for Students of the Digital Age: From Calculators to ChatGPT – International Cyber Norms: Will the UN’s Cyber Norms Change the Behaviour of States? – And any other ideas you believe of value to understanding norms for the digital age Send your ideas and abstracts to: [email protected]

Here is food for thought on using music together with geospatial location plus external unpredictable events as private keys for an OTP phone conversation. Sheet music can be played by multiple instruments, so combining the same music played by different instruments expands the possible music tracks that can be created to billions. Then, as a gateway to those same private keys, you add the 129,600,000 possible longitude and latitude to the second point to the locations of the two people on a phone call. It's likely to take at least 1 year and $50 million dollars to use BRUTE FORCE to decode just one OTP encrypted phone call based on the statistics required by Bitcoin to hack just one blockchain transaction. Why would anyone bother? This is not rocket science.

Updating my profile with my current published work. The following are links to all of the outputs from my recent PhD study. Smith K, Wilson I.D., Critical infrastructures: a comparison of definitions, Int. J. Critical Infrastructures, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2 2023 DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2024.10046186 Smith, K. and Wilson, I.D.,The challenges of the internet of things considering industrial control systems. In Privacy, Security and Forensics in The Internet of Things (IoT) (pp. 77-94). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Smith K, Wilson I.D, Towards a Typology: The 5P’s of Cyber Security Frameworks (awaiting publication) Davies G, Smith K, The feasibility of creating a universal digital forensics framework, Journal of Forensic Legal & Investigative Sciences, 5:027 2019 https://lnkd.in/ejjhu6Jc 

The recent announcement that China is hacking US State Department calls reminded me of some work I carried out a decade ago on a new concept for One Time Pad encryption that cannot be hacked About 10 years ago I worked with a notable scientist with over 400 patents to his name for many technologies on his idea for new techniques for one time pad encryption of phone calls. In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is larger than or equal to the size of the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a random secret key (also referred to as a one-time pad). Then, each bit or character of the plaintext is encrypted by combining it with the corresponding bit or character from the pad using modular addition. Sadly my friend passed away a few years ago so we were only able to produce an OTP that worked with prerecorded voice calls and not real-time live calls. The OTP model we were working on required the use of music to generate the OTP. The concept is that exact copies of music are available all over the world to provide the secret key and the proposed public key uses a string of emoticons (there are over 3,000 Unicode icons in the world library). The public key string is changed for every phone call and that string relates to a theorem whereby every emoticon string of say 6 icons refers to a selected piece of music that both the sender and receiver use as an OTP to encrypt the call.  However the selection of each public key emoticon could be agreed on privately that for example a combination of 6 emoticons refers to the latitude, longitude and daily temperature of any place in the world today and the next day for time a flight arrived at an airport in some agreed country and so on and that in turn this provides the private key for which music track is selected. A decade ago when I worked on this with my scientist friend computing power was nowhere near as powerful as it is today as can be seen by the powerful AI software operating and it was not possible to have a real-time OTP so maybe that’s possible given today’s computing power

Another DeepSeek Post: Open Source Innovation, but Stay Cautious DeepSeek showcases the power of open source with novel approaches like replacing supervised fine-tuning (#SFT) with reinforcement learning (#RL) and clever reward functions—no human labeling or massive datasets needed. Their research is open and detailed:https://lnkd.in/enJVUR7v However, be mindful of data security. DeepSeek’s outputs are censored, and under China’s 2017 Cybersecurity Law, any data shared with them is accessible by the Chinese government. More info: https://lnkd.in/ef3S8zVV Innovation is exciting—use wisely!

*Cyber Laws, Information Technology & Artificial Intelligence* *Buy Now*: https://lnkd.in/gbpVX_Hp _Stay ahead in the evolving world of technology with Cyber Laws, Information Technology & Artificial Intelligence. This comprehensive guide unravels the complexities of cyber laws, IT regulations, and the ethics of AI, empowering you to make informed decisions in the digital age. Perfect for students, professionals, and tech enthusiasts alike—unlock the key to mastering the legal and technological challenges of tomorrow!_

Deepseek sent shockwaves through the AI and technology sectors this week with the unveiling of its advanced AI platform, reportedly developed with only $5 million in funding. The feasibility of constructing such a sophisticated system on a relatively modest budget raises critical questions. A plausible explanation lies in the unauthorized appropriation of intellectual property originating from the United States, highlighting ongoing concerns regarding AI development, cybersecurity, and international IP protections.

Day 16: Today, I explored the high-level concepts of homomorphic encryption (HE) in the context of Federated Machine Learning. Homomorphic encryption enables computations on encrypted data, meaning you can perform calculations as if the data were in plain sight, even though it's actually hidden (this is a vast oversimplification of a complex process). There are three main types of homomorphic encryption: Partially Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) Somewhat Homomorphic Encryption (SHE) Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) Integrating HE into Federated Learning allows for the aggregation of encrypted data. This addition of HE enhances privacy significantly in Federated Learning. Even though the data is trained on local devices, the model updates and their aggregation are encrypted, offering an extra layer of security against potential breaches or attacks. #30daysofflcode #federatedlearning #encryption

𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 In the Secure Aggregation protocol, privacy is also ensured through cryptographic techniques like secret sharing and pairwise masking. 1. Secret Sharing: This method splits a secret into multiple shares, distributed among participants. The secret can only be reconstructed when a minimum number of shares are combined. Shamir’s Secret Sharing is commonly used, where a secret is encoded into a polynomial and shares are generated. Only a subset of participants can reconstruct the secret with the required number of shares. 2. Pairwise Masking: Here, random noise (a "mask") is added to sensitive data before sharing. The server aggregates the masked data, and the noise cancels out, allowing the correct update while keeping individual data private. In federated learning, secret sharing and pairwise masking work together to protect privacy. Secret sharing ensures no one participant has the full data, while pairwise masking hides individual updates. Read here: https://lnkd.in/guvDYEcf [Day 19 of #30DaysOfFLCode]

🔒 **The Future of Internet Security: Quantum Supremacy and Political Power** 🔒 As we look towards the next five years, the advent of quantum supremacy could radically transform global power dynamics. Imagine a scenario where political leaders in the US and the EU achieve quantum supremacy, enabling them to decrypt everything that isn’t quantum-secured and already stored. This capability could allow them to lock their adversaries out of the political arena indefinitely, cementing their control for the next hundred years. Consider the implications: 1. **Political Surveillance**: With quantum decryption, leaders could monitor and suppress opposition in real-time, undermining democratic processes and stifling political dissent. 2. **Power Imbalance**: Quantum supremacy could create a significant power imbalance. Those in control could manipulate information, influence public opinion, and secure their dominance over political and economic landscapes. 3. **Ethical and Legal Challenges**: Utilizing decrypted information to imprison political opponents poses a direct threat to human rights and the rule of law. This dystopian possibility challenges our ethical frameworks and could lead to a future where dissent is met with eternal imprisonment. To prevent such a scenario, we must act now: - **Quantum-Resistant Encryption**: Advocate for the rapid development and implementation of quantum-resistant encryption standards to protect data integrity and privacy. - **Ethical Governance**: Push for the creation of international ethical guidelines and legal frameworks that prevent the misuse of quantum technologies for political gain. - **Transparency and Oversight**: Demand greater transparency and oversight in the development and deployment of quantum technologies to ensure they are used responsibly and ethically. As professionals in the tech and cybersecurity fields, we have a crucial role in safeguarding democratic values and human rights. Let’s collaborate to ensure that technology enhances our freedoms rather than erodes them. #CyberSecurity #TechEthics #QuantumComputing #Encryption #Privacy #PoliticalPower #FutureTech --- Feel free to adjust this to better suit your personal style and specific points you want to emphasize!