Category Archives: Technology

Google, Government, Technology, Terrorism

Google finally acts to block internet terrorists

GOOGLE

The Internet Search Giant Google is to start automatically searching for extremist material online. After months and years of campaigning by human rights groups and other lobbyists, it finally seems to be taking seriously the threat of terrorists on the web.

Through a process of algorithm adaptation Google will enhance the effectiveness of its computers to look for potentially dangerous content. This will then be reviewed to decide if it should be taken down.

Technology firms, including Google and its video streaming site YouTube, have been accused of foot-dragging and failing to remove extremist material quickly enough.

Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice-president, has now announced a plan to tackle the problem. He admits the search engine had previously not done enough.

“There should be no place for terrorist content on our services. While we and others have worked for years to remove content that violates our policies, the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done,” he said.

As part of the new effort, Google will use new technology to help identify extremist videos.

It is also extending its funding of experts who decide whether material should be taken down from the web.

The firm has pledged a “tougher stance” on videos that do not directly violate its rules but contain, for example, inflammatory religious or supremacist content.

In future, these will appear with a warning and adverts will not run with them, meaning those who post them online will not make money from such content.

And YouTube will re-direct potential Islamic State recruits who search for extremist material to anti-terror videos aimed at stopping them from being radicalised.

Mr Walker said: “Collectively these changes will make a difference. And we’ll keep working on the problem until we get the balance right.

“Extremists and terrorists seek to attack and erode not just our security but also our values – the very things that make our societies free. We must not let them. Together, we can build lasting solutions that address threats to our security. We are committed to playing our part.”

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who was chairman of the home affairs select committee in the last Parliament, welcomed Google’s announcement.

She said: “The committee recommended that they should be more proactive in searching for – and taking down – extremist content.

“News that Google will now proactively scan content is therefore welcome, though there is still more to do.

“Still today there is illegal content easily accessible on YouTube – including terrorist propaganda. Google cannot delay in implementing these new rules.

“As with any other business, social media companies have a responsibility to make sure their platforms are safe. These steps are the first in a series which need to be taken to ensure they are fulfilling their important obligations.”

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has called on fellow EU ministers to apply joint pressure on technology firms to do more to tackle the problem of extremism online.

At a meeting concluded in Luxembourg, Mr Johnson is hoping that all 28 foreign ministers will agree to establish an industry-led forum on preventing radicalisation via the internet.

In the wake of the Manchester bomb attack last month, links to handbooks imploring extremists to murder, and providing instructions for constructing home-made bombs, are still readily available.

 

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China, Research, Science, Technology

A quantum leap in the pursuit of a secure and new type of internet

QUANTUM SCIENCE

Quantum

China’s quantum satellite, Micius. The satellite has beamed entangled particles of light to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

Scientists have taken a major step towards building a global quantum internet by beaming “entangled” particles of light from a satellite to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

The feat paves the way for a new kind of internet which draws on the curious ability for subatomic particles to be connected to one another despite being far apart and even on opposite sides of the planet.

Researchers believe that by linking particles together in this way, encrypted information could be sent from place to place across a quantum network with no danger of it being decrypted and read by others, as can be done on the existing internet.

Jian-Wei Pan, who led the research at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei in China, said the demonstration was a moment he had been dreaming of since 2003. “Many people thought it was a crazy idea, because it was very challenging,” he said.

The work obliterates the previous world record for sending pairs of photons that are connected to one another by a strange rule of quantum physics first spotted by Einstein. Until now, the farthest researchers had ever sent entangled photons stood at a mere 65 miles, less than one tenth of the distance achieved in the satellite experiment.

“It’s a first step, and a major step, toward creating a global quantum network,” said Pan. “All the previous methods are limited to about 100km so can only work within a city.”

The experiment relied on the world’s first quantum-enabled spacecraft: a Chinese satellite called Micius. As it soared over China, the satellite created pairs of photons with properties that were linked through quantum entanglement. It then beamed these simultaneously to ground stations in Delingha, Lijiang and Nanshan. Each pair of particles travelled up to 1,240 miles before they reached their destinations. Details of the study are published in Science.

Pan said that the kind of cryptography used to keep data safe today relies on complex mathematics which can often be defeated by hackers. “If a future quantum network is established, the security is ensured by the laws of physics, which are unconditionally secure,” he said. “It will be beneficial for all human beings.”

Martin Stevens, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, said he was impressed with the work. “These types of experiments are not easy to do, even within the controlled confines of a laboratory environment. Doing them between two remote ground locations and a satellite flying overhead at a speed of thousands of kilometres per hour is mind-bogglingly difficult.”

In 2015, Stevens sent entangled photons down a 65-mile length of optical fibre. That is good enough for quantum communications between neighbouring towns, but it cannot work for much greater distances, because the signal is gradually lost the more optic fibre it travels down. The advantage of using a satellite is that the particles of light travel through space for much of their journey.

Anton Zeilinger at the Vienna Centre for Quantum Science also praised the work. “It’s an important step towards a worldwide quantum network. If you envisage a quantum network, the question is how to cover large distances and that cannot be done with glass fibres on the ground. You have to go into space, because in glass fibres you lose the signal. It’s very important to show that it works with satellites, so I’m very excited by this.”

Zeilinger is working with Pan on an intercontinental quantum network and hopes to have results to report before the end of the year.

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Government, Politics, Scotland, Society, Technology

Digital interfacing must be embraced by public sector

PUBLIC SECTOR

Digital Interfacing

Digital interfacing within the public sector would allow public bodies to greatly cut costs while providing efficient services. With budgets constrained like never before, politicians must now embrace and incorporate digital platforming into the public sector.

Intro: Digital platforming would help public bodies to provide efficient services by cutting costs.

Over the last 10 to 15 years digital platforms like Google, Amazon and Twitter have been utilised by almost everyone to such an extent that they have disrupted our daily lives.

Part of that disruption has been negative. How many people have you seen looking at their mobile phones when they should have been paying more attention to the world around them? Predominately, however, the disruption caused by the digital era has been positive. Digital technologies clearly deliver a benefit – if they didn’t we wouldn’t use them to the extent that we do.

Consider Airbnb, the digital platform that allows users to make a fast and cheap way of booking accommodation. This interface has three million listings across 65,000 destinations. It’s fast and cheap because it provides a digital link between hosts and guests and removes the need for an intermediary.

These platforms offer ways to receive a service: users identify with the platform rather than the organisation. They are also orientated and focused on customer need as witnessed through the design and delivery of the service.

They also establish trust by offering value that increases with the breadth of services offered and the number of users registered. Most importantly, they remove unnecessary waste and duplication, eliminating tasks, activities, intermediaries and sometimes even whole organisations out of the service.

These radically changing business models have had far reaching implications for the workforce and they will continue to do so. That’s been illustrated through Uber’s impact on local taxi firms and the complexity of protecting workers’ rights and tax revenues in the ‘gig economy’.

In the public sector, digital developments have provided a route to delivering better quality for less cost. Addressing ever-increasing demand of services with reduced budgets is here to stay. NHS Scotland recently created the TURAS platform, one which is geared to support education and training of healthcare workers. It automates processes and allows clinicians to self-serve on training and education material. The net effect has been a cut in administrative overheads.

Government to citizen services need to follow this lead. Public bodies and the services they provide must move to become technology related businesses. Whilst Registers of Scotland have made good progress in this direction, the vast bulk of the Scottish public sector requires wholesale transformation. Substantial changes are needed that will require careful thinking about the right purpose, strategy, culture and structure.

The public sector in Scotland will also need a specific focus on balancing the face-to-face contact needed for some services and by making provision for those people not digitally connected. This will need new investment in connectivity and infrastructure.

Such challenges should not be used as an excuse to avoid embracing digital. Public Sector bodies should be specifically focused on removing unnecessary tasks and activities that might well lead to the closure of entire business units. This must happen where they no longer have a role in delivering services to citizens.

Politicians in Scotland should be bold in realising the changes that are now needed. They could remove some of the barriers around legislation and by promoting partnership with the private sector.

 

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