Hi-Tech Crime CRIM30375

Why science fiction set in the near future is so terrifying Westworld: how far away is this future? ©2016 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved Amy C. Chambers , Newcastle University This article accompanies episode 10 of The Anthill podcast on the future . From Humans to Westworld , from Her to Ex Machina , and from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to Black Mirror – near future science fiction in recent years has given audiences some seriously unsettling and prophetic visions of the future. According to these alternative or imagined futures, we are facing a post-human reality where humans are either rebelled against or replaced by their own creations. These stories propose a future where our lives will be transformed by science and technology, redefining what it is to be human. The near future science fiction sub-genre imagines a future only a short time away from the period in which it is produced. Channel 4/AMC’s Humans imag...

Internet's cloak of invisibility: how trolls are made Bildagentur Zoonar GmbH/Shutterstock.com Pam Ramsden , University of Bradford Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing American journalist who is proud of his abusive online posts, was permanently banned from Twitter last year after a particularly offensive tirade. Yiannopoulos has often been described as a professional troll. So what makes a troll – professional or otherwise – tick? Trolling is a relatively new term that is used to describe online behaviour that is disruptive, offensive and hurtful towards other internet users. Trolls intend to provoke a reaction from others which allows for an escalation in their abusive behaviour. The extent to which they participate in negative behaviour can range from annoyance to extreme cruelty, such as posting abusive messages on memorial pages . Are trolls ordinary people living ordinary lives until they are online? And why do some people be...

Robots and AI could soon have feelings, hopes and rights ... we must prepare for the reckoning A new population? Shutterstock Christopher Markou , University of Cambridge Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will broadly be defined not just by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century turns upon this latter consideration. While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers. It is clear, however, that the European Parliament is making inroads towards taking an AI-centric future seriously. Last month, in a 17-2 vote, the parliament’s legal affairs commi...

Why watching Westworld's robots should make us question ourselves HBO Tony Prescott , University of Sheffield For a sci-fi fan like me, fascinated by the nature of human intelligence and the possibility of building life-like robots, it’s always interesting to find a new angle on these questions. As a re-imagining of the original 1970s science fiction film set in a cowboy-themed, hyper-real adult theme park populated by robots that look and act like people, Westworld does not disappoint. Westworld challenges us to consider the difference between being human and being a robot. From the beginning of this new serialisation on HBO we are confronted with scenes of graphic human-on-robot violence. But the robots in Westworld have more than just human-like physical bodies, they display emotion including extreme pain, they see and recognise each other’s suffering, they bleed and even die. What makes this acceptable, at least within Westwo...

Students might like like to read the two previous postings about Playboy (via The Conversation). They will you to understand just how popular such magazines once were, and how internetworked digital technology, made them largely irrelevant. The issue of "pornification" as mentioned in the lecture is something (implicitly) raised here and is a key interest of one of the article authors ( Gail Dines ). Regards from, Phil

Playboy magazine's return to nudity is a naked bid to cover up its irrelevance Sarah Niblock , University of Westminster Playboy magazine’s announcement that it will be bringing naked pictorials back to its pages after a year’s absence was strangely timed to coincide with Valentine’s Day. But it was not a declaration that pulled at my heartstrings. Cooper Hefner, the 25-year-old son of Playboy founder Hugh, and now the magazine’s chief creative officer, said removing nude images had been a mistake. Under the hashtag #NakedIsNormal, he wrote on Twitter: “Today we’re taking our identity back and reclaiming who we are.” The “we” in that statement has been drooping steadily for years. After Playboy launched in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe as its centrefold, sales peaked in 1972 when the November issue featuring Lenna Sjööblom sold 7.16m copies. In the decades that followed, the publication spawned an entire global empire synonymous with a ...

Why your father's Playboy can't compete in today's world of hard-core porn Gail Dines , Wheelock College and David L Levy , University of Massachusetts Boston Last week Playboy offered the latest example of how much times are changing in the digital age. The pioneer of soft-core porn announced that it is no longer going to publish images of naked women, beginning in March. Before we all celebrate this as a feminist victory, we need to ask why Playboy has now decided to rebrand itself as a lifestyle magazine for young men, much like Vice and FHM, or, put another way, Cosmopolitan for men. Playboy successfully launched porn as a viable mainstream industry, but ironically, it is now a victim of the competition it spawned. The industry has evolved from soft-core magazines to hard-core internet platforms, and Playboy’s old advertising-based business model became obsolete. Playboy simply cannot compete in the world of contemporary porn because its pin-up style pictures ...

Body cameras: coming to a school near you soon Tom Ellis , University of Portsmouth The use of body cameras by front line police and other uniformed enforcement agencies is increasing at an unstoppable rate both in the US and UK. In the UK, video cameras have been seen primarily as a way of supporting police officers to better enforce order or collect evidence. Whereas in the US, their use has been very much driven by the need to control police behaviour – particularly in light of the high number of police shootings of young black men . The first study in the UK to evaluate the blanket roll out of cameras to all front line officers in a single jurisdiction was carried out on the Isle of Wight. And our research showed that public order and assault crimes went down by nearly 20% when all front line police officers wore the body cameras. It is not surprising then that police forces across the world, including in China, have made the decision to use these body worn video cameras....

What are the Orwellian dystopias of the 21st century? Simon Willmetts , University of Hull Fictional metaphors matter, and in the battle to safeguard our civil liberties few metaphors matter more than George Orwell’s 1984 . Although first published almost 70 years ago, the lasting salience of this most archetypal dystopia is undeniable. In the week after Edward Snowden’s revelations of US government mass surveillance were first revealed, sales of the novel rocketed by 6,000% . A year later, in Thailand, 1984 became a symbol of resistance to government repression, and was promptly banned. And following Trump’s inauguration and the conspicuously Orwellian admission by one of his chief strategists, Kellyanne Conway, that his administration trades in “alternative facts”, 1984 once again leapt to the top of the bestseller list . Orwell is ingrained in the West’s political lexicon. “Big Brother”, “Newspeak” and “DoubleThink” are now bywords for totalitarianism and political mendacit...

What's the real risk from consumer drones this holiday season? Andrew Maynard , Arizona State University This holiday season, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is estimating that over one million small “Unmanned Aerial Systems” (sUAS’s) – drones, to the rest of us – will be sold to consumers. But as hordes of novice pilots take to the air, just how safe are these small bundles of metal, plastic, video cameras and whirling blades? A few weeks ago, a British toddler lost an eye as an out-of-control drone sliced into his face . It may have been a freak occurrence, but it hammered home the message that sUASs – at least in some hands – can be accidents waiting to happen. This hasn’t escaped the attention of the FAA. Earlier this year, the agency convened a task force in the US on overseeing UAS safe use with a legally enforceable registration system. Let’s get this thing in the air! Cola Richmond , CC BY-ND ...

Satellites, mathematics and drones take down poachers in Africa Thomas Snitch , University of Maryland In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed in South Africa for their horns , which end up in Asia as supposed cures for a variety of ailments. An estimated 30,000 African elephants were slaughtered last year for their tusks to be turned into trinkets. The world loses three rhinos a day and an elephant every 15 minutes. Simply stated, this is an unsustainable situation. Our team at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies has created a new multifaceted approach to combat poaching in Africa and Asia. We devise analytical models of how animals, poachers and rangers simultaneously move through space and time by combining high resolution satellite imagery with loads of big data – everything from moon phases, to weather, to previous poaching locations, to info from rhinos’ satellite ankle trackers – and then applying our own algorithms. We can predict where the k...