Monthly Archives: March 2020

New Bill Would Strengthen Protections for Journalists Over Classified Info – The Intercept

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Almost a year after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.

The legislation to amend the 1917 Espionage Act was introduced by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in the Senate and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in the House of Representatives. Wyden and Khanna told The Intercept they crafted the legislation to preserve the governments need for secrecy while strengthening protections for members of the press and expanding legal channels for government whistleblowers.

When I think about espionage, Im thinking about somebody like Aldrich Ames, Wyden said in an interview, referring to the CIA officer who passed secrets to the KGB before his arrest in 1994. What my bill does is refocus the Espionage Act to the core issue, which is ensuring that the more than four million government employees and contractors with a security clearance dont violate their oaths by divulging government secrets.

The Espionage Act makes it a crime to for anyone to share secrets relating to the national defense with people who are not authorized to hear them. The statute makes no exception for members of the press who obtain and report classified information, but there is broad agreement among legal scholars that prosecuting a journalist for unearthing and publishing government secrets would violate the First Amendment.

The Wyden-Khanna bill would narrow the scope of the lawtoprimarily target offenders with current or expired security clearances, as well as any agents of a foreign government to whom they may pass information. Members of the press or the publiccould be prosecuted if they committed a separate crime in the course of obtaining the information,but not for soliciting information or for speech activity like publishing.

Journalists shouldnt be prosecuted simply for getting information from a source or transmitting that information, Khanna said in an interview. Hackers who break the law to get secret information should be prosecuted, he said, but to prosecute those who obtain such information legally would be tantamount to criminalizing speech.

The bill also removes the broadest language in the Espionage Act, which allows anyone to be charged for conspiring with leakers. Press freedom advocates have long worried that that part of the act could be abused by overzealous prosecutors to criminalize standard journalistic practices such as asking for information.

In April 2019, the government unsealed an indictment against Assange charging him with one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The indictment alleged that as part of his relationship with former U.S. Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning, he hadoffered to help crack a password on a Defense Department computer system. Around that time, Manning transmitted documents to Assange that WikiLeaks would later publish: case files of men detained at Guantanamo Bay and documents revealing torture and civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bulk-release tactics of the transparency platform would later attract widespread criticism for exposing the identities of U.S. government informants and collaborators and putting them in danger.

A month after the Trump administrations first indictment, prosecutors added 17 criminal counts under the Espionage Act, which involved Assange soliciting the classified material from Manning. The indictment included three counts of having communicated documents by publishing them on the internet.

This is the first time the government, to my knowledge, has charged anyone with the pure communication of information under the Espionage Act, and that is very concerning, said Kathleen Ruane, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. Thats pure communication of information. Thats reporting.

Khanna told The Intercept that the new bill wouldnt stop the prosecution of Assange for his alleged role in hacking a government computer system, but would make it impossible for the government to use the Espionage Act to charge anyone solely for publishing classified information.

But while the bill creates protections for publishers, it doesnt address a key complaint of press freedom and civil liberties advocates: that over the past decade, the Espionage Act has served as the governments weapon of choice to punish unauthorized press leaks.

Instead, the bill expands carve-outs that allow security clearance holders to more freely communicate as whistleblowers with members of Congress, inspectors general, and other government regulatory bodies that oversee technology and privacy. The Espionage Act includes language suggesting that classified information can only be sent to Congress by lawful demand of a congressional committee; the new measure would allow clearance holders to provide information to any member of Congress without a specific request or demand.

Americans who learn about waste, fraud, and abuse, even if its classified, ought to be able to go to any member of Congress with that information, Wyden said. I just think thats the proper way to proceed.

Throughout the 20th century, it was extremely rare for the government to bring criminal cases against those accused of sharing government secrets with journalists. That changed under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Obamas Justice Department famously brought more Espionage Act cases against whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.

Donald Trump has continued the practice, using the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees and contractors for allegedly sharing information about Russian hacking into U.S. state election infrastructure, leaking information about the U.S. drone program, and other sensitive topics.

Khanna told The Intercept that revealing classified information should still be a crime for those with clearances, but that prosecutors and judges should have discretion to weigh the consequences of the leak against the motives of the source.

I dont think we can have a situation where people who have security clearances can simply leak information in violation of their oath and their responsibility, Khanna said. That could put lives in danger in many cases.

Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight Institute at Columbia University, told The Intercept that the bill was a crucial effort to ensure national security journalists are protected while doing their jobs.

These protections for journalists are vital, Abdo said in an email. It is also vital that Congress enact additional protections for national-security whistleblowers, who risk personal and professional sanction to expose government malfeasance and corruption.

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How Swedish authorities invented the rape charge against Julian Assange – Pressenza, International Press Agency

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Thanks to the investigative work and perseverance of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually being revealed.

One of the most successful false news stories of the last decade is the story of two women who filed a rape complaint against Julian Assange with the Swedish police in August 2010, and that the founder of Wikileaks escaped from the Swedish justice system by fleeing to England. The advantage of the Swiss Nils Melzer is that he speaks fluent Swedish, and was then able to consult the original documents. And then, to his amazement, it turned out that the course of events was quite different.

The rewriting of a womans statement.

In fact, as Melzer stated recently in an important interview with the Swiss online magazine Republik, to which I shall refer below, one of the two women, who was simply accompanied by the other, was horrified when the police before her eyes began to draw up a rape report from her statements. She, as she pointed out on several occasions, had sexual relations with Assange on a totally consensual basis, and only contacted the authorities to find out whether it would be possible to force him to take an AIDS test. As soon as she realized that the police were starting to do something completely different, she interrupted the interrogation in a state of shock and left the room. However, only a few hours later, the headline appeared in large letters in the Swedish tabloid press: Julian Assange was accused of double rape.

In that regard, Melzer has an explosive document an e-mail from the supervisor of the consensually appointed police officer, in which he asks him to rewrite the interrogation protocol correctly. This appears to be due to the fact that the Public Prosecutors Office was already closing the case, as the womans statements were not sufficient for an accusation of rape.

As the original text of the document was deleted from the computer, it was not possible to restore it. However, its content can be easily guessed from the initial reaction of the Public Prosecutors Office: because according to Melzer, the Public Prosecutors Office stated that although S. W.s statements were credible, they did not give any indication of a crime.

The woman could also have sent a text message to a friend at the police station: she had the impression that the police were only interested in getting their hands on Assange.

The second womans announcement.

The second woman plays an obscure role, at first, she was just an escort. According to Melzer, she not only suggested to the first woman to go to the police, but also directed her to the guard post where one of her friends was on duty. This is the same person who at that time and this was already a legally incorrect procedure conducted the interrogation. Later, this police friend also forged the document.

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However, only one day after the first woman was questioned, the second woman made her own statement and reported that Assange had slept with her without protection and against her will. According to Swedish law, this would indeed amount to rape. However, Mr. Melzer highlights the contradictions in the statement. Let us also look at the chronology: curiously, the Swedish media reported a double rape before this second woman made her statement.

How Assange tried to confront Swedish justice

Thanks to Melzers research, the claim that the founder of Wikileaks systematically fled Swedish justice is clearly false. According to Melzer, it is the opposite. Mr Assange contacted the Swedish authorities on several occasions because he wanted to talk about these allegations. The authorities weighed in the balance.

Thanks to the investigation and the perseverance of the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually coming out: The Swedish authorities were never interested in Assanges testimony. They deliberately left him in the dark. But it also allowed them to control him. Imagine facing rape charges for nine and a half years by an entire state team and the media but not being able to defend yourself because the charges were never brought.

Thanks to the research and perseverance of the UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, the truth is gradually coming out: the two women obtained a legal representative who was by chance the partner of the former minister of justice, Thomas Bodstrm. He maintained a confidential relationship with the United States and has worked closely with the CIA. In the meantime, Assange requested permission to leave the country and even received authorisation.

Englands intervention

During the flight to Berlin, his laptops disappeared from his checked baggage. Scandinavian Airlines refused to provide any information about this. The founder of Wikileaks subsequently travelled to London, from where he continued to offer his cooperation to the Swedish judicial system. Until he learned of a possible plot against him. According to Melzer, From that moment on, his lawyer said that Assange was willing to testify in Sweden, but demanded diplomatic assurances that Sweden would not extradite him to the United States. However, the Swedes consistently refused to give such an assurance.

At the same time, however, it was legally difficult for Swedish justice to keep the case on hold for years without closing it and bringing charges. Today, unusually, the British justice system has intervened to prevent the case from being closed.According to Melzer, yes, the British, that is the Crown Prosecution Service, wanted to prevent the Swedes from closing the case at all costs. But the British would have to be happy if they no longer had to guard the Ecuadorian embassy at a cost of millions of dollars of taxpayers money to prevent Assange from fleeing.

Why the United States is afraid of Assange

The background to all these strange events is obvious to Melzer. He points out that at the time Assange was systematically denouncing the serious war crimes of the United States in collaboration with the New York Times, The Guardian and Spiegel. Only a few months earlier, in April 2010, WikiLeaks had released the Murder video footage that US whistleblower Chelsea Manning had handed over to the organisation. The video shows members of the US military laughing as they shot people in Baghdad from a helicopter, including two members of the Reuters news agency. They were also shooting at the wounded, the people helping them and children.

No criminal proceedings were brought against any of the soldiers. On the contrary, the United States gave a directive to all allied countries to initiate all possible criminal actions against the founder of Wikileaks.

If Assange is extradited to the United States, Melzer believes that he will not be subject to any legal proceedings. He will be brought before the infamous spy court, from which no one has ever been acquitted, and the trial will be held behind closed doors and on the basis of secret evidence. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison. Melzer concludes that none of the war criminals in the Yugoslav civil war has been sentenced to more than 45 years.

How journalists were misled

The fact that all this has gradually come to public attention is less due to the effectiveness of the media which, on the contrary, has long refused to take note of Melzers research findings than to the perseverance and tireless work of various activists, as well as the fact that they managed to attract celebrities to the demonstrations, solidarity meetings, signature campaigns and calls for Assanges release.

Although the press was very busy first with Assange and Wikileaks, the rape story that had been launched also had some success: it was assumed without a doubt that it was already true, and then, for many years, the fate of Wikileaks founder, who had fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was received with some indifference.

They often allow themselves to be manipulated by the arguments of the United States: that Assange is not a real journalist, has put people in danger with his publications, and is an accomplice of Putin. But these ideas about Assange, if examined more closely, are only a variant of the diversionary manoeuvre described by Melzer, namely that he has discovered war crimes and that this is a crime, in order to pass himself off as a criminal and thus eliminate the real scandal.

Unlike many of her colleagues, a correspondent for the German Taz gave with minimal words of self-criticism: Bettina Gaus admits today that she too has fallen under the spell of the image of events that has been broadcast in public without ever being questioned. Little by little, the wind is changing.

And although the Reporters Without Borders organisation remains reluctant to explicitly label Assange as a journalist, instead of simply attesting to his journalistic activity, worldwide vigils were organised in January for the founder of Wikileaks, in which journalists associations also participated. A positive contribution of the news magazine ZDF is that it has tried to make the scandal discovered by Melzer known to a wider public.

Published for the first time by Ortwin Rosner on streifzueg.org and adopted by our media partner Untergrund-Blttle.

Translation Pressenza London

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How Swedish authorities invented the rape charge against Julian Assange - Pressenza, International Press Agency

What next in the world of post-quantum cryptography? – Ericsson

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Research in quantum computers is advancing quickly and researchers recently claimed to have reached quantum supremacy, in other words, the ability of quantum computers to perform a calculation out of reach of even the most powerful classical supercomputers.

However, any claims that quantum computers are close to cracking any practically used cryptosystems are highly exaggerated. Such powerful quantum computers are very likely several decades away, if indeed they will ever be built. Many significant technical advances are still required before a large-scale, practical quantum computer can be achieved, and some commentators even doubt whether such a scenario will ever be possible.

What we do know, however, is that large-scale cryptography-breaking quantum computers are highly unlikely to develop during the next decade. Yet, in spite of this, systems which need very long-term protection such as government systems with classified information or root certificates with very long lifetimes must nevertheless start preparing to replace todays asymmetric algorithms.

In traditional cryptography, there are two forms of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric.

Most of today's computer systems and services such as digital identities, the Internet, cellular networks, and crypto currencies use a mixture of symmetric algorithms like AES and SHA-2 and asymmetric algorithms like RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) and elliptic curve cryptography.

The asymmetric parts of such systems would very likely be exposed to significant risk if we experience a breakthrough in quantum computing in the coming decades.

In anticipation of such a quantum computing paradigm, cryptography is being developed and evolved by using so-called quantum-safe algorithms. They run on classical computers and are believed to withstand attacks from powerful quantum computers.

When we compare post-quantum cryptography with the currently used asymmetric algorithms, we find that post-quantum cryptography mostly have larger key and signature sizes and require more operations and memory. Still, they are very practical for everything except perhaps very constrained Internet of Things devices and radio.

Large-scale cryptography-breaking quantum computers are highly unlikely to develop during the next decade

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently standardizing stateless quantum-resistant signatures, public-key encryption, and key-establishment algorithms and is expected to release the first draft publications between 20222024. After this point, the new standardized algorithms will likely be added to security protocols like X.509, IKEv2, TLS and JOSE and deployed in various industries. The IETF crypto forum research group has finished standardizing two stateful hash-based signature algorithms, XMSS and LMS which are also expected to be standardized by NIST. XMSS and LMS are the only post-quantum cryptographic algorithms that could currently be considered for production systems e.g. for firmware updates.

The US government is currently using the Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite for protection of information up to top secret. They have already announced that they will begin a transition to post-quantum cryptographic algorithms following the completion of standardization in 2024.

Why should the industry be taking note of this decision? Top secret information is often protected for 50 to 75 years, so the fact that the US government is not planning to finalize the transition to post-quantum cryptography until perhaps 2030 seems to indicate that they are quite certain that quantum computers capable of breaking P-384 and RSA-3072 will not be available for many decades.

When we turn our focus to symmetric cryptography as opposed to asymmetric cryptography, we see that the threat is even more exaggerated. In fact, even a quantum computer capable of breaking RSA-2048 would pose no practical threat to AES-128 whatsoever.

Grovers algorithm applied to AES-128 requires a serial computation of roughly 265 AES evaluations that cannot be efficiently parallelized. As quantum computers are also very slow (operations per second), very expensive, and quantum states are hard to transfer from a malfunctioning quantum computer, it seems highly unlikely that even clusters of quantum computers will ever be a practical threat to symmetric algorithms. AES-128 and SHA-256 are both quantum resistant according to the evaluation criteria in the NIST PQC (post quantum cryptography) standardization project.

In addition to post-quantum cryptography running on classical computers, researchers in quantum networking are looking at quantum key distribution (QKD), which would theoretically be a provably secure way to do unauthenticated key exchange.

QKD is however not useful for any other use cases such as encryption, integrity protection, or authentication where cryptography is used today as it requires new hardware and is also very expensive compared to software-based algorithms running on classical computers.

In a well-written white paper, the UK government is discouraging use of QKD stating that it seems to be introducing new potential avenues for attack, that the hardware dependency is not cost-efficient, that QKDs limited scope makes it unsuitable for future challenges, and that post-quantum cryptography is a better alternative. QKD will likely remain a niche product until quantum networks are needed for non-security reasons.

Standardization of stateless quantum-resistant signatures, public-key encryption and key-establishment algorithms is ongoing and first draft publications are expected no earlier than 2022

The calculation recently used to show quantum supremacy was not very interesting in itself and was contrived to show quantum supremacy. The claim was also criticized by competing researchers who claim that the corresponding classical calculation could be done over a million times faster. Quantum computers able to solve any practical problems more cost-effectively than classical computers are still years away.

The quantum supremacy computer consists of 54 physical qubits (quantum bit), which after quantum error correction corresponding to only a fraction of a single logical qubit. This is very far away from quantum computers able to break any cryptographic algorithm used in practice which would require several thousand logical qubits and hundreds of billions of quantum gates. Scaling up the number of qubits will not be easy, but some researchers believe that the number of qubits will follow a quantum equivalent of Moores law called Nevens law. We will likely see undisputed claims of quantum supremacy in the coming years.

Since our earlier post in 2017 about post-quantum cryptography in mobile networks, the hype around quantum computers and the worries about their security impacts have been more nuanced, aligning with our previous analysis.

Recent reports from academia and industry now says that large-scale cryptography-breaking quantum computers are highly unlikely during the next decade. There has also been general agreement that quantum computers do not pose a large threat to symmetrical algorithms. Standardization organizations like IETF and 3GPP and various industries are now calmly awaiting the outcome of the NIST PQC standardization.

Quantum computers will likely be highly disruptive for certain industries, but probably not pose a practical threat to asymmetric cryptography for many decades and will likely never be a practical threat to symmetric cryptography. Companies that need to protect information or access for a very long time should start thinking about post-quantum cryptography. But as long as US government protects top secret information with elliptic curve cryptography and RSA, they are very likely good enough for basically any other non-military use case.

Read our colleagues earlier blog series on quantum computing, beginning with an introduction to quantum computer technology.

Read our earlier technical overview to cryptography in an all encrypted world in the Ericsson Technology Review.

Visit our future technologies page to learn how tomorrows world is evolving.

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What next in the world of post-quantum cryptography? - Ericsson

DARPA to Explore Fully Homomorphic Encryption in New Program – ExecutiveBiz

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is pursuing an effort to develop hardware that allows for computing on encrypted data with continuous protection.

DARPA said Monday its Data Protection in Virtual Environments or DPRIVE program aims to accelerate computations done with fully homomorphic encryption or FHE, an approach that protects encrypted data while still allowing for processing.

FHE uses lattice cryptography to block cyber attacks via complex, nearly unsolvable mathematical barriers. However, FHE computations generate noise that would eventually corrupt the data at a certain point, and addressing this noise results in a large amount of computational overhead.

The DPRIVE program aims to reduce this overhead and accelerate FHE computations.

"Today, DARPA is continuing to invest in the exploration of FHE, focusing on a re-architecting of the hardware, software and algorithms needed to make it a practical, widely usable solution," said Tom Rondeau, a program manager at DARPA.

The agency hosted a proposer's event on Monday to further inform interested parties on the program. DARPA also launched a presolicitation for DPRIVE and will continue to accept responses through June 2.

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Gilles Brassard honoured by the BBVA Foundation for his work in quantum computing – Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

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Gilles Brassard, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at Universit de Montral, along with Charles Bennett of IBM's New York State Research Center and Peter Shor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been awarded the BBVA Foundation's Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the basic sciences category for "outstanding contributions to the areas of computing and quantum communication."

Thee three researchers will receive the award June 2 in Bilbao, Spain, and will share the 400,000 that comes with it.

Professor Brassard is the seventh Canadian to receive the prize and the first ever in the basic sciences category (physics, chemistry, mathematics).

In 1984, Brassard and Bennett devised the first quantum cryptography technique, which makes it possible to encode messages in order to exchange information with absolute confidentiality. Then, in 1993, they laid the foundations for quantum teleportation in collaboration with four other researchers. The group proved that it was possible to transport information in subatomic particles, such as photons, from one place in the galaxy to another, without physically moving them. This principle is based on the rules of quantum theory, according to which a particle can simultaneously exist in several states.

Industry is currently investing billions of dollars in quantum technologies, particularly in China and Europe, and the theoretical work of Brassard, Bennett and Shor has helped put this discipline on track.

This is the third major award that Brassard and Bennett have jointly won on the international scene. In 2018, the duo received the Wolf Prize in Physics from the President of Israel, a prize often seen as leading to a Nobel Prize in Physics. Last year in China, they were awarded the Micius Prize for their breakthroughs in quantum theory.

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Gilles Brassard honoured by the BBVA Foundation for his work in quantum computing - Quantaneo, the Quantum Computing Source

Amir Taaki on Bitcoin and Building Dissident Technology in 2020 – Nasdaq

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Amir Taaki was one of Bitcoins first-ever dedicated developers and perhaps the one most infamously focused on maintaining privacy and freedom from authority.

In 2014, Forbes listed Taaki on its 30 Under 30 list of technology stars for creating Dark Wallet, the first privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet to include a CoinJoin mixer. That same year, Taaki received even more notoriety as Dark Wallet was twice named in the Financial Action Task Forces (FATF) report on the potential money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks posed by cryptocurrencies.

In 2015, Taaki traveled to Rojava, Syria, to serve with the YPG Military, a component of the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After months of fighting on the front, he spent more than a year working with Rojavas economics committee.

Taaki also created Libbitcoin and Bitcoins BIP proposal system as well as DarkMarket, the prototype for what eventually became OpenBazaar, an open-source protocol for e-commerce. Outside of his development work, Taaki also founded the anarchist group UnSystem, which included Cody Wilson, creator of a 3D-printable gun, and Mihai Alisie, co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine and Ethereum.

Now, Taaki has returned as a contributor to multiple projects, many of which have not yet been revealed to the public. Although he is not ready to completely reveal his hand, the dissident technologist expressed a strong appreciation for the people in the crypto community, as well as a loss of confidence in its leadership and overarching direction.

For Taaki, what became a lifelong dedication to building technology free from authoritarian intervention started with an interest in what draws many people to Bitcoin: the promise of open-source development for breaking from authority.

I happened to be 16 when I discovered the open-source movement, which, for me, was absolutely incredible that there are people around the world who build this technology which plays a foundational role in our infrastructure and our internet, Taaki told Bitcoin Magazine. I kind of decided, Im going to devote my life to make this dream happen. And it was something that captured my mind for the next decade.

From his open-source involvement, Taaki found other technologists who were deeply concerned with politics. Of the many ideologies he was exposed to, he found anarchy especially interesting. It led him to ask questions about the nature of society and hierarchy and how a richer and more sophisticated society could be created. He saw Bitcoin as an unstoppable force to this end.

[At] my first talk about Bitcoin in Amsterdam, it was the EPCA conference I said, look guys, this is a radical technology. Now were here, you cant stop us, Taaki recalled. This is what were going to do for you.

Sometimes, his strong anti-middleman stance put him in direct conflict with other early Bitcoin developers another group he saw as a roadblock to free and open development as he defined it.

Gavin Andressen reached out to me and said, I didnt really like how you were talking at the conference. I think you should stop talking about Bitcoin publicly, Taaki said. Gavin preceded to put up roadblocks for me to participate in developing Bitcoin to sideline me from Bitcoin. Every time I tried to commit code to the Bitcoin Core project, it was blocked and I realized it was impossible for me to work with those people. Thats why I started working on Libbitcoin, to rewrite Bitcoin source code to have alternative implementation.

Taakis work on the BIP review system was originally intended to establish some standardization for implementations and public review of changes to the code. But he now sees the system as a hindrance on development in Bitcoin that favors the status quo over technological progress.

The problem is that the culture we initiated in those early days has completely overtaken the mindspace of Bitcoin, explained Taaki. That was not the original intent. Originally, the intent was to have Bitcoin be a conservative against changes. But it wasnt to stop any kind of progress from happening inside of Bitcoin. Its very poorly engineered. Its very inefficient. The developments in cryptography that are happening now are going to lead to a system thats eventually going to supersede Bitcoin.

Looking back at the Bitcoin community he had been a part of in the early 2010s, Taaki sees distance between the philosophies that first drew him to the technology and the philosophical camps that have been established today.

What weve seen happen since then is that those simplistic ideologies, which initially converged around Bitcoin, havent really been able to guide us, he said. And so weve seen a diversification from these ideologies Theres this weird, regressive or reactionary Bitcoin culture ... and its opposed to any kind of change or progress or development or advancement.

Taaki also noted concerns about the cryptocurrency space he had been a part of years ago now being co-opted by outsiders business- or authority-focused groups who want to take technology out of the hands of the idealistic cypherpunks who worked with Satoshi to usher in the era.

Were in this very strange place inside of crypto culture where were facing significant challenges to the technology, of it being co-opted by external actors, by actors who dont necessarily have a philosophical vision or goal we originally had in mind, he said. Maybe Im talking about people like ConsenSys, or maybe Im talking about central bank digital currencies or Facebook Bottom line: The only way that were going to overcome these challenges is by having coherent analysis, a system of organization and some kind of narrative so that we can develop something thats coordinated.

After leading the technological development and ideological conversation around Bitcoin for nearly five years, Taaki traveled to Rojava, an autonomous region in Northern Syria where forces were trying to build and defend a direct democracy based on Libertarian, socialist and anarchist principles that promoted decentralization, gender equality, environmental sustainability as well as religious, political and cultural tolerance and diversity.

Despite seeking a technology development role, Taaki spent his first year in Rojava serving on the front lines of a war with ISIS.

It was mad, Taaki explained. I was literally shipped to war, handed a kalashnikov as we were driving to the frontlines and told, Dont worry, if youre not dead in two weeks, youll know everything there is to know about fighting in a war. It was a mad time. It was chaos, but I managed to get out of that position after a few months.

Taaki returned to Syria in 2019, this time in a role reviewing technical projects for the region.

I was looking at open-source solutions, like how to build a mobile phone network, he said. I also looked at how we could deploy cryptocurrencies. The so-called leaders I reached out to were very limited in their thinking and did not offer much support Theres so much to consider and if your goal is to create the infrastructure for five million people, its so different from making individual accounts for an app-based marketplace you can download.

If this seems like an opportunity for one of Bitcoins most prominent developers to implement the technology in a region that could clearly benefit from it, Taaki emphasized that it wasnt.

The reality is if any administration in the world were to say that they wanted to deploy Bitcoin in a region of their country, there is no group that has the software infrastructure ready to set up a reliable financial network, Taaki explained. For example, if in Hong Kong, theres a guy who has Bitcoin, he can extend a line of credit to Syria, and he can cash out to a local pool of dollars. Or people in Syria who have assets like oil can issue futures or upper-finance instruments on that asset so that they can get investment to build their infrastructure. Theres a really great application of this technology, but were just not thinking on that level.

Taaki lists oft-lauded use cases in places like Venezuela, Cyprus and Iran as distractions that keep the Bitcoin community from truly preparing the technology to help distressed places around the world before they are too far gone.

Those were lost opportunities, he said. Its sad, thats our failure as a community. And those future opportunities should be what we choose to face and engage in our market so we can develop better technology. But were not doing that right now. Instead, its a bunch of technologists playing around with blockchain technology. I see no practical basis in reality to what were doing right now.

In addition to his work promoting a freer society in Syria, Taaki is establishing an academy in Barcelona that incubates new technology projects and offers training in cryptocurrency development. Hes also working on Nym, which he described as an alternative to Tor. Of course, his mission to strengthen the privacy and freedom from authority inherent in technologies like Bitcoin is an ongoing focus as well.

Im also working on anonymization of cryptocurrencies and products, Taaki said. The same same technology I am building out will be a platform or a library that we can use to build other products like decentralized exchanges, marketplaces and also a generalized platform for issuing anonymous smart contracts and other financial instruments A lot of people are asking for a new release of Dark Wallet, but Im not going to release a bad product. CoinJoin is broken but I will develop something thats better.

Ultimately, Taakis is a working life dedicated to strengthening tools in the hands of dissidents those who seek to communicate and transact without interference from political authorities, who hope to establish a better and freer society.

The legacy of the civilization that we live in is a state-based civilization based off of a hierarchical system of control and specialization of labor, which leads to all of the modern problems we have, Taaki said. We want to create a different kind of society, which is free, where people have liberty and the natural wealth of peoples creative energies is developed and nurtured. The emerging field of cryptography offers us a power that we can use to create new financial instruments and networks that can be used as a tool to stop state power and control, and create space where marginalized communities can operate outside of state control.

An expanded version of this conversation will be released on the Bitcoin Magazine Podcast.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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Amir Taaki on Bitcoin and Building Dissident Technology in 2020 - Nasdaq

How is AI and machine learning benefiting the healthcare industry? – Health Europa

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In order to help build increasingly effective care pathways in healthcare, modern artificial intelligence technologies must be adopted and embraced. Events such as the AI & Machine Learning Convention are essential in providing medical experts around the UK access to the latest technologies, products and services that are revolutionising the future of care pathways in the healthcare industry.

AI has the potential to save the lives of current and future patients and is something that is starting to be seen across healthcare services across the UK. Looking at diagnostics alone, there have been large scale developments in rapid image recognition, symptom checking and risk stratification.

AI can also be used to personalise health screening and treatments for cancer, not only benefiting the patient but clinicians too enabling them to make the best use of their skills, informing decisions and saving time.

The potential AI will have on the NHS is clear, so much so, NHS England is setting up a national artificial intelligence laboratory to enhance the care of patients and research.

The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, commented that AI had enormous power to improve care, save lives and ensure that doctors had more time to spend with patients, so he pledged 250M to boost the role of AI within the health service.

The AI and Machine Learning Convention is a part of Mediweek, the largest healthcare event in the UK and as a new feature of the Medical Imaging Convention and the Oncology Convention, the AI and Machine Learning expo offer an effective CPD accredited education programme.

Hosting over 50 professional-led seminars, the lineup includes leading artificial intelligence and machine learning experts such as NHS Englands Dr Minai Bakhai, Faculty of Clinical Informatics Professor Jeremy Wyatt, and Professor Claudia Pagliari from the University of Edinburgh.

Other speakers in the seminar programme come from leading organisations such as the University of Oxford, Kings College London, and the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham.

The event all takes place at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham on the 17th and 18th March 2020. Tickets to the AI and Machine Learning are free and gains you access to the other seven shows within MediWeek.

Health Europa is proud to be partners with the AI and Machine Learning Convention, click here to get your tickets.

Do you want the latest news and updates from Health Europa? Click here to subscribe to all the latest updates and stay connected with us here.

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How is AI and machine learning benefiting the healthcare industry? - Health Europa

An implant uses machine learning to give amputees control over prosthetic hands – MIT Technology Review

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Researchers have been working to make mind-controlled prosthetics a reality for at least a decade. In theory, an artificial hand that amputees could control with their mind could restore their ability to carry out all sorts of daily tasks, and dramatically improve their standard of living.

However, until now scientists have faced a major barrier: they havent been able to access nerve signals that are strong or stable enough to send to the bionic limb. Although its possible to get this sort of signal using a brain-machine interface, the procedure to implant one is invasive and costly. And the nerve signals carried by the peripheral nerves that fan out from the brain and spinal cord are too small.

A new implant gets around this problem by using machine learning to amplify these signals. A study, published in Science Translational Medicine today, found that it worked for four amputees for almost a year. It gave them fine control of their prosthetic hands and let them pick up miniature play bricks, grasp items like soda cans, and play Rock, Paper, Scissors.

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Its the first time researchers have recorded millivolt signals from a nervefar stronger than any previous study.

The strength of this signal allowed the researchers to train algorithms to translate them into movements. The first time we switched it on, it worked immediately, says Paul Cederna, a biomechanics professor at the University of Michigan, who co-led the study. There was no gap between thought and movement.

The procedure for the implant requires one of the amputees peripheral nerves to be cut and stitched up to the muscle. The site heals, developing nerves and blood vessels over three months. Electrodes are then implanted into these sites, allowing a nerve signal to be recorded and passed on to a prosthetic hand in real time. The signals are turned into movements using machine-learning algorithms (the same types that are used for brain-machine interfaces).

Amputees wearing the prosthetic hand were able to control each individual finger and swivel their thumbs, regardless of how recently they had lost their limb. Their nerve signals were recorded for a few minutes to calibrate the algorithms to their individual signals, but after that each implant worked straight away, without any need to recalibrate during the 300 days of testing, according to study co-leader Cynthia Chestek, an associate professor in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan.

Its just a proof-of-concept study, so it requires further testing to validate the results. The researchers are recruiting amputees for an ongoing clinical trial, funded by DARPA and the National Institutes of Health.

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An implant uses machine learning to give amputees control over prosthetic hands - MIT Technology Review

Tying everything together Solving a Machine Learning problem in the Cloud (Part 4 of 4) – Microsoft – Channel 9

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This is the final, part 4 of a four-part series that breaks up a talk that I gave at the Toronto AI Meetup. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 were all about the foundations of machine learning, optimization, models, and even machine learning in the cloud. In this video I show an actual machine learning problem (see the GitHub repo for the code) that does the important job of distinguishing between tacos and burritos (an important problem to be sure). The primary concepts included is MLOps both on the machine learning side as well as the deliver side in Azure Machine Learning and Azure DevOps respectively.

Hope you enjoy the final of the series, Part 4! As always feel free to send any feedback or add any comments below if you have any questions. If you would like to see more of this style of content let me know!

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Tying everything together Solving a Machine Learning problem in the Cloud (Part 4 of 4) - Microsoft - Channel 9

Improving your Accounts Payable Process with Machine Learning in D365 FO and AX – MSDynamicsWorld.com

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Everywhere you look there's another article written about machine learning and automation. You understand the concepts but aren't sure how it applies to your day-to-day job.

If you work with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations or AX in a Finance or Accounts Payable role, you probably say to yourself, Theres gotta be a better way to do this. But with your limited time and resources, the prospect of modernizing your AP processes seems unrealistic right now.

If this describes you, then dont sweat! Weve done all the legwork to bring machine learning to AP and specifically for companies using Dynamics 365 or AX.

Join us to learn about:

To learn about our findings, join us on Wednesday March 25th at any of three times for our "Improving your Accounts Payable Process with Machine Learning" webinar.

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Improving your Accounts Payable Process with Machine Learning in D365 FO and AX - MSDynamicsWorld.com