Cybercriminology - Research, Education, Consultancy

02/07/2019

Talk about misuse of technology. One really horrible example I came across recently is the app DeepNudes. It uses a software that similar to Deepfakes creates images that aren’t real, and not just images but n**es of women. The app undresses women with one click by using an open-source algorithm (pix2pix) that uses generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create a DeepFake or in that case a DeepNude. The algorithm was trained on 10,000 n**es of women, no mentioning of n**es of men ofc. While the developer claims to have only created this for entertainment purposes and income, one might just ask why we don’t put technology to better use than objectifying women and weaponising technology like this to create such an unnecessary application.

The app is down now, due to high, unexpected traffic, and will not go online again due to re-consideration of how much it can actually be misused. For example Hashtag **n or Hashtag could now be perpetrated without actually being in possession of a n**e picture. A DeepNude can and will serve the purpose to blackmail, extort and thus harm (female) victims.

ML/AI could & should be put to better use than that.

Can be read up further here:

"The probability that people will misuse it is too high."

24/06/2019

Image-based abuse - an Indian case.
Also better known as revenge p**n, image-based abuse means when someone distributed intimate imagery of a partner or ex-partner to inflict harm and/or blackmail the victim.
In the case of India, Culture plays quite an impactful role for the (female) victims as well.
“While laws may exist on paper, it is the culture of shame that surrounds female sexuality (of any kind) and fear of judgement and victim-blaming that most women and young girls end up suffering in silence.”

Sanam Sharma* was in the 11th grade when a photograph of her in her underwear was shared with her classmates. Manya Sen* was 22 and Aditi Rao had just finished

22/04/2019

This goes very much in line with what I found out during my research on online romance scam and we**am blackmail in 2015. This crime is highly organized, targets elderly women, the scammers pretend to be in a military position or work from remote, widowed and find excuses when asked to meet on video chat or just talk in telephone.

Romance scams are increasing, say Australian experts. Nigerian scammers use pre-written playbooks - similar to those used by telemarketing centres - to convince victims to send money.

24/07/2018

Hackers often employ social engineering techniques because the human weakness factor is much easier to pe*****te than network weaknesses

02/05/2018

A topic that affects everyone living the digital live - image-based abuse or also called revenge p**n that can in some cases lead to sextortion.

Carrie Goldberg is a pioneer in the field of sexual privacy, using the law to defend victims of hacking, leaking, and other online assaults.

06/02/2018

Interesting article about child grooming -

The nature of sexual offending has changed, but can we better identify sexual groomers before abuse occurs?

02/01/2018

A really interesting talk [in German] that I was able to attend at the 34C3 (Chaos Computer Club). It's a great data analysis on distributing fake news, bots and how the 'filter bubble' works on the example of Twitter.

https://media.ccc.de/c/34c3/34c3-9268-social_bots_fake_news_und_filterblasen Therapiestunde mit einem Datenjournalisten und vielen bunten Visualisierungen „A...

14/12/2017

Ein 20-Jähriger aus dem Landkreis Regensburg wurde wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs zu einer Jugendstrafe verurteilt.