title: Matters of trust, privacy and security: An examination of the technical, legal and social principles and values of encryption

authors: Dizon, Michael

abstract: Encryption is a complex, multifaceted and enigmatic technology. From a technical standpoint, encryption underpins the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of computer data and information systems. At the same time, from the perspective of law and society, its use can hinder the ability of governments to investigate and prosecute crimes and protect national security and public safety. The conflict between information security and privacy on one side and national security and law enforcement on the other has been debated since the so-called Crypto Wars in the United States in the 1990s and the issues seem intractable. Is there a way to balance or reconcile these competing principles and values?

In this workshop (which will be given at the IEEE TrustCom 2019 in Rotorua, New Zealand, from 5-8 August 2019), we will present the results of our research on the principles and values of encryption in New Zealand. In our presentation, we will summarise the key technical principles and rules that underlie encryption. We will then relate this to the legal rules that apply to encryption. There is a common belief that, aside from export control rules, encryption is not subject to regulation. Based on our research, we found that encryption is in fact already regulated by various laws. We will discuss what these laws are and how they impact the development, implementation and use of encryption. Finally, we will discuss how people in New Zealand prioritise and understand the fundamental principles and values of encryption (most especially trust) and how these can be reflected in any proposed encryption laws and policies.

text: Matters of trust, privacy and security: An examination of the technical, legal and social principles and values of encryption Encryption is a complex, multifaceted and enigmatic technology. From a technical standpoint, encryption underpins the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of computer data and information systems. At the same time, from the perspective of law and society, its use can hinder the ability of governments to investigate and prosecute crimes and protect national security and public safety. The conflict between information security and privacy on one side and national security and law enforcement on the other has been debated since the so-called Crypto Wars in the United States in the 1990s and the issues seem intractable. Is there a way to balance or reconcile these competing principles and values?

In this workshop (which will be given at the IEEE TrustCom 2019 in Rotorua, New Zealand, from 5-8 August 2019), we will present the results of our research on the principles and values of encryption in New Zealand. In our presentation, we will summarise the key technical principles and rules that underlie encryption. We will then relate this to the legal rules that apply to encryption. There is a common belief that, aside from export control rules, encryption is not subject to regulation. Based on our research, we found that encryption is in fact already regulated by various laws. We will discuss what these laws are and how they impact the development, implementation and use of encryption. Finally, we will discuss how people in New Zealand prioritise and understand the fundamental principles and values of encryption (most especially trust) and how these can be reflected in any proposed encryption laws and policies.

year: 2019

title: Prompt-GAN – Customisable hate speech and extremist datasets via radicalised neural language models

authors: Govers, Jarod

subjects: Artificial Intelligence

abstract: Online hate speech and violent extremism knows no borders, no political boundaries, no remorse. Researchers face an uphill battle to collect hate speech data in volumes and topical diversity suitable for training state-of-the art content-moderation systems. Neural language models ushered in a new era of synthetic data generation in use across various businesses, all despite calls for research to protect against unintended toxic output. We present a method for radicalising pre-trained neural language models to identify real online hate speech, as well as present the risks of rouge radicalised AI bots which could undermine our trust in social media. We present Prompt-GAN, a prompt-tuning adversarial approach with three achievements. We demonstrate prompt-tuning’s ability to generate realistic types of hate and non-hate speech which mimics political extremist discourse. Prompt-GAN’s architecture offers a twofold reduction in memory and runtime requirements compared to fine-tuning. Finally, Prompt-GAN improves hate speech classification F1-scores by up to 10.1% and sets a new record in neural language simulation compared to the current state-of-the-art across three benchmark datasets.

text: Prompt-GAN – Customisable hate speech and extremist datasets via radicalised neural language models Online hate speech and violent extremism knows no borders, no political boundaries, no remorse. Researchers face an uphill battle to collect hate speech data in volumes and topical diversity suitable for training state-of-the art content-moderation systems. Neural language models ushered in a new era of synthetic data generation in use across various businesses, all despite calls for research to protect against unintended toxic output. We present a method for radicalising pre-trained neural language models to identify real online hate speech, as well as present the risks of rouge radicalised AI bots which could undermine our trust in social media. We present Prompt-GAN, a prompt-tuning adversarial approach with three achievements. We demonstrate prompt-tuning’s ability to generate realistic types of hate and non-hate speech which mimics political extremist discourse. Prompt-GAN’s architecture offers a twofold reduction in memory and runtime requirements compared to fine-tuning. Finally, Prompt-GAN improves hate speech classification F1-scores by up to 10.1% and sets a new record in neural language simulation compared to the current state-of-the-art across three benchmark datasets.

year: 2022

title: A history of Māori literacy success

authors: Derby, Melissa

abstract: This article explores literacy in 19th century Māori society, and in particular, this work considers the initial interactions Māori tribal groups had with literacy following contact with British settlers. The overarching purpose of this article is to respond to the increasingly prevalent suggestion that literacy is a Western competency, and that to be concerned with ensuring Māori children are achieving well in reading and writing is an act of colonisation. This work illustrates that these narratives run counter to the history, behaviour, and values of many tribal groups in New Zealand. More specifically, the historical interactions Māori had with literacy illustrate that both the ability and the desire to succeed in reading and writing was a feature of Māori historical practices. Therefore, to ensure high levels of literacy achievement in contemporary times is not a colonising act but rather aligns with Māori history, behaviour, and values.

text: A history of Māori literacy success This article explores literacy in 19th century Māori society, and in particular, this work considers the initial interactions Māori tribal groups had with literacy following contact with British settlers. The overarching purpose of this article is to respond to the increasingly prevalent suggestion that literacy is a Western competency, and that to be concerned with ensuring Māori children are achieving well in reading and writing is an act of colonisation. This work illustrates that these narratives run counter to the history, behaviour, and values of many tribal groups in New Zealand. More specifically, the historical interactions Māori had with literacy illustrate that both the ability and the desire to succeed in reading and writing was a feature of Māori historical practices. Therefore, to ensure high levels of literacy achievement in contemporary times is not a colonising act but rather aligns with Māori history, behaviour, and values.

year: 2021