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SUMMARY:Understanding the Weaponization of the Web via Data-Driven Analysi
 s - Emiliano De Cristofaro  (UCL)
DTSTART:20210415T140000Z
DTEND:20210415T150000Z
UID:TALK158782@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jon Crowcroft
DESCRIPTION:Over the past 20 years or so\, the world has seen an explosion
  of data. While in the past controlled experiments\, surveys\, or compilat
 ion of high-level statistics allowed us to gain insights into the problems
  we explored\, the Web has brought about a host of new challenges for rese
 archers hoping to gain an understanding of modern socio-technical behavior
 . First\, even discovering appropriate data sources is not a straight forw
 ard task. Next\, although the Web enables us to collect highly detailed di
 gital information\, there are issues of availability and ephemerality: sim
 ply put\, researchers have no control over what data a 3rd party platform 
 collects and exposes\, and more specifically\, no control over how long th
 at data will remain available. Third\, the massive scale and multiple form
 ats data are available in requires creative execution of analysis. Finally
 \, modern socio-technical problems\, while related to typical social probl
 ems\, are fundamentally different\, and in addition to posing a research c
 hallenge\, can also cause disruption in researchers' personal lives. In th
 is talk\, I will discuss how our work has overcome the above challenges. U
 sing concrete examples from our research\, I will delve into some of the u
 nique datasets and analyses we have performed\, focusing on emerging issue
 s like hate speech\, coordinate harassment campaigns\, and deplatforming a
 s well as modeling the influence that Web communities have on the spread o
 f disinformation\, weaponized memes\, etc. Finally\, I will discuss how we
  can design proactive systems to anticipate and predict online abuse and\,
  if time permits\, how the "fringe" information ecosystem exposes research
 ers to attacks by the very actors they study.\n\nBio\n\nEmiliano De Cristo
 faro is a Professor at University College London (UCL)\, where he heads th
 e Information Security Research Group\, a Faculty Fellow at the Alan Turin
 g Institute\, and a co-founder of the iDramaLab. Before moving to London\,
  he was a research scientist at Xerox PARC. He received a PhD in Networked
  Systems from the University of California\, Irvine in 2011. Overall\, Emi
 liano does research in the broad security\, safety\, and privacy areas. Th
 ese days he mostly works on tackling problems at the intersection of machi
 ne learning and security/privacy/safety\, as well as understanding and cou
 ntering information weaponization via data-driven analysis. In 2013 and 20
 14\, he co-chaired the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium\, in 2018\
 , the security and privacy track at WWW and the privacy track at CCS\, and
  in 2020 the Truth and Trust Online (TTO) Conference. He has also received
  best paper awards from NDSS\, ACM IMC\, and the Cybersafety workshop.
LOCATION:meet.google.com/bbd-mrcv-arg
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