Hi-Tech Crime CRIM30375

"Biometric screening, surveillance #drones , social media snooping, license plate readers—all this and more would be required by new federal legislation to expand high-tech spying on U.S. citizens and immigrants alike at and near the U.S. border" #GG2052 https://t.co/m3iTB5qX03 — Anna Jackman (@ahjackman) December 21, 2017

How are bitcoin, cryptowallets and blockchain related? Some jargon busted Shutterstock Efpraxia D. Zamani , De Montfort University When the bitcoin was first introduced eight years ago, it promised to change payments . People would be able to transact directly with each other, without needing to place their trust in banks – but that promise still hasn’t materialised and adoption of bitcoins is low. We were first told in 2009 that many transactions would be verifiable and validated by the bitcoin protocol. However, as we argued in a recent study , a significant adoption barrier to bitcoin is the lack of usability. Since the inception of cryptocurrency, developers and researchers have been using metaphors to explain bitcoin in a clear effort to help people feel more comfortable with the technology. A secure application for holding bitcoins is dubbed a “cryptowallet”, the trading platforms where people can buy and sell bitcoins are ca...

Is your computer secretly mining bitcoin alternatives? A guide to 'cryptojacking' What’s going on in your computer? Shutterstock Bill Buchanan OBE , Edinburgh Napier University Nothing comes for free, especially online. Websites and apps that don’t charge you for their services are often collecting your data or bombarding you with advertising. Now some sites have found a new way to make money from you: using your computer to generate virtual currencies . Several video streaming sites and the popular file sharing network The Pirate Bay have allegedly been “cryptojacking” their users’ computers in this way, as has the free wifi provider in a Starbucks cafe in Argentina . Users may object to this, especially if it slows down their computers. But given how hard it is for most companies to make money from online advertising, it might be something we have to get used to – unless we want to start paying more for things. Units of cr...

The people who abuse MPs online Liam Mcloughlin , University of Salford and Stephen Ward , University of Salford It is often perceived that people who abuse MPs with vile, even criminal, comments on social media fit a specific demographic: basement dwelling “keyboard warriors”, solitary white males, socially inept, often angry with a grudge to bear. But this perception grossly misunderstands the nature of abuse and the abusers themselves. Our research suggests that abusers actually have closer characteristics to wider society. Our study indicates that the culprits of abuse are ordinary citizens who feel unrepresented by the current political system and inspired into abusive online behaviour by the traditional media’s negative narrative of politics. When MPs met for a Whitehall debate on the abuse and intimidation of candidates in the 2017 general election, there were some deeply emotional accounts. Labour MP Diane Abbot, for example, read out examples of the sexist and rac...

Online abuse on Facebook and Twitter can't be solved by regulation alone Shutterstock Laura Bliss , Edge Hill University The severity of abuse conducted online during 2017’s general election has brought the issue into sharp focus for politicians, some of whom have urged the prime minister to legislate against Facebook, Twitter and Google to make them liable for content posted on their sites. Complaints about online harassment in the UK continue to rise. A recent response to a freedom of information request from the BBC revealed that , on average, the police receive 200 reports of online abuse each day – which has been described by Essex Police chief constable, Stephen Kavanagh, as just “the tip of the iceberg”. But prosecutions under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 have fallen, according to the most recent official figures . A report published recently by the Committee on ...

Six ways (and counting) that big data systems are harming society GarryKillian/Shutterstock.com Joanna Redden , Cardiff University There is growing consensus that with big data comes great opportunity , but also great risk . But these risks are not getting enough political and public attention. One way to better appreciate the risks that come with our big data future is to consider how people are already being negatively affected by uses of it. At Cardiff University’s Data Justice Lab , we decided to record the harms that big data uses have already caused, pulling together concrete examples of harm that have been referenced in previous work so that we might gain a better big picture appreciation of where we are heading. We did so in the hope that such a record will generate more debate and intervention from the public into the kind of big data society, and future we want. The following examples are a condensed version of our recently...

How to spot fake news – an expert's guide for young people from www.shutterstock.com Beth Hewitt , University of Salford Every time you go online, people are competing for your attention. Friends, strangers, businesses, political organisations, charities and news websites all serve up a constant stream of eye-catching pictures, videos and articles, wherever you might go looking for information – Google, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or YouTube. But in the race to catch your eye, not all of these players feel like they have to tell the truth – and you can’t always rely on social media platforms to filter out the falsehoods. The result is fake news: stories that are specially designed to mislead or deliberately misinform people. Over the past six months, I’ve been part of a team of researchers and producers from the University of Salford and CBBC Newsround working to understand the impact of fake news on young people livi...

In the future, scavengers and raiders locked out of gated communities and hunted by private security forces will stalk grocery-robots in the wastes between gates and distribution centers, pilfering the contents for sustenance. https://t.co/URIefIeOVy — Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) December 5, 2017 This echoes some points I made at the BSC 2017 Annual Conference on issues of autonomous vehicles and future crimes (the designing out thereof).

Illegal wildlife trade is one of the biggest threats to endangered species – and the UK is a key player Melanie Flynn , University of Huddersfield You might not have heard of a pangolin, but they are widely claimed to be the most illegally trafficked mammal in the world. With their armoured shell and long noses, pangolins are often called “scaly anteaters” because of their preferred diet. Much like the UK’s native hedgehog, when in danger, pangolins can roll into a ball – exposing only the tough scales for protection Earlier this year, Thai customs officials seized 136 live pangolins and 450kg of pangolin scales smuggled into the country from Malaysia. These scales, which were likely destined to be used in traditional Asian medicines are worth around $75,000. Second to habitat loss, illegal trade of wildlife is considered the biggest threat to many endangered species. Although it is controlled by laws created by member countries of the Convention on International Trade i...

Should we fear the rise of drone assassins? Two experts debate shutterstock. Peter Lee , University of Portsmouth and Steve Wright , Leeds Beckett University A new short film from the Campaign Against Killer Robots warns of a future where weaponised flying drones target and assassinate certain members of the public, using facial recognition technology to identify them. Is this a realistic threat that could rightly spur an effective ban on the technology? Or is it an overblown portrayal designed to scare governments into taking simplistic, unnecessary and ultimately futile action? We asked two academics for their expert opinions. Overactive imagination risks panic and distress Peter Lee is a Reader in Politics and Ethics and Theme Director for Security and Risk Research and Innovation at the University of Portsmouth. The newly released short film offers a bleak dystopia with humans at the mercy...

How Blade Runner 2049 prepares us to welcome robots for real Sony Pictures Victoria Lorrimar , University of Oxford and Michael Burdett , University of Oxford The idea of dangerous, inhumane artificial intelligence taking over the world is familiar to many of us, thanks to cautionary tales such as the Matrix and Terminator franchises. But what about the more sympathetic portrayals of robots? The benevolence of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character in the later movies of the franchise may have been the exception in older portrayals of AI, but human-like machines are often represented more positively in contemporary films. Think of Ex Machina , Chappie or A.I. Artificial Intelligence . This shift is very likely representative of a wider shift in how we think about these technologies in reality. Blade Runner 2049, long-anticipated sequel to the original 1982 Blade Runner film, is a part of this shift. ...

Blade Runner's chillingly prescient vision of the future Marsha Gordon , North Carolina State University Can corporations become so powerful that they dictate the way we feel? Can machines get mad – like, really mad – at their makers? Can people learn to love machines? These are a few of the questions raised by Ridley Scott’s influential sci-fi neo-noir film “ Blade Runner ” (1982), which imagines a corporation whose product tests the limits of the machine-man divide. Looking back at the original theatrical release of “Blade Runner” – just as its sequel, “Blade Runner 2049” opens in theaters – I’m struck by the original’s ambivalence about technology and its chillingly prescient vision of corporate attempts to control human feelings. From machine killer to machine lover Even though the film was tepidly received at the time of its release, its detractors agreed that its imagining of Los Angeles in 2019 was wonderfully atmospheric and artfully disconcerting. Looming over...

Revenge porn laws may not be capturing the right people Research has shown that 23% of young Australians have been subjected to image-based abuse. Shutterstock Terry Goldsworthy Australia is moving quickly towards creating laws to deal with the perceived menace of revenge porn. Both the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales have recently introduced specific laws, bringing them into line with Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. But the creation of new offences may not be the panacea it is intended to be. Instead, we should focus our efforts on overcoming investigative challenges and implementing crime prevention strategies in a more practical approach. What do we mean by revenge porn? When it first became an issue, “revenge porn” referred to the unauthorised public release of intimate images that arose from a relationship. However, the term is now used to capture the illegal distribution of intimate images,...