Abstract

Technological and business innovations are changing the trust architecture of individuals, businesses and society. There are profound ramifications when we try to trust the recommender systems of a digital platform, a stranger's car in a sharing economy or an AI-powered system. The same conundrum exists in B2B world. Distributed trust architecture, powered by blockchain and other technologies, are emerging as one key foundational answer to the challenge. This talk outlines the current state, risks and opportunities surrounding distributed trust architecture and its implications to system design, innovation, human-machine relationships and Responsible AI.

Biography: Dr. Zhu leads the Software and Computational Systems Research Program at Data61, CSIRO. The research program has 200+ people innovating in the following research areas: big data analytics infrastructure, computational and simulation sciences platforms (including verticals such as satellite/aerial images, visual analytics and AR/VR), data modelling and integration, data platforms, trustworthy systems, distributed systems, business process management, legal informatics/regulation technology, provenance, blockchains, software ecosystems, software engineering/architecture, DevOps, privacy and cybersecurity.

He is also a conjoint full professor at University of New South Wales (UNSW). He chairs Australia's blockchain standards committee. He is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He formerly worked in several technology lead positions in software industry before obtaining a PHD degree in software engineering from UNSW. He has been a research lead in several collaborative projects with Australia government agencies, defence, standardisation bodies and commercial companies. For example, he led the B2B reference software architecture effort for Australia's lending industry. He was a committee member of the Standards Australia IT -015 (system and software engineering) group and IT-038 (Cloud Computing) group and contributes to the ISO/SC7/WG42 on architecture related standards. He is currently the chairperson of Standards Australia's blockchain and distributed ledger committee. He has supervised more than a dozen PhD students as their primary supervisor and taught software architecture courses at UNSW and University of Sydney.

His personal research interests include Software Architecture, Cloud, Dependable Distributed Systems, (Big) Data Analytics Infrastructure, Software Ecosystem, Platform Economics, Blockchain, Continuous Deliveries/Deployment, DevOps, Model Driven Development (MDD), Business/Software Processes and Software Engineering.

Abstract

Federated Learning (FL) is a machine learning setting where multiple entities (clients) collaborate in solving a machine learning problem, under the coordination of a central server or service provider. It is the current learning approach appropriate for preserving data privacy and data integrity. Each client’s raw data is stored locally and not exchanged or transferred; instead of local learning focused updates intended for immediate aggregation are used to achieve the learning objective. This presentation presents the context of federated learning, discusses its key elements, and gives attention to software libraries, communication attacks and outlines current lines of study.
This presentation presents the context of federated learning and why it is necessary. Its key elements are analyzed, and attention is given to software libraries, communication attacks and current lines of study.

Biography: Francisco Herrera received his M.Sc. in Mathematics in 1988 and Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1991, both from the University of Granada, Spain. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada and Director of the Andalusian Research Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence (DaSCI). He's an academician in the Royal Academy of Engineering (Spain). In the seventh edition of Guide2Research's ranking of the top 1000 scientists in the field of computer science and electronics in 2021 he is ranked 19th in the world and number 1 in Spain (receiving more than 105000 citations in Scholar Google, and H-index 157). (https://research.com/scientists-rankings/computer-science/2021/)

He has been the supervisor of 51 Ph.D. students. He has published more than 500 journal papers. He has been nominated as a Highly Cited Researcher (in the fields of Computer Science and Engineering, respectively, 2014 to present, Clarivate Analytics). He currently acts as Editor in Chief of the international journal "Information Fusion" (Elsevier). He acts as editorial member of a dozen of journals.

His current research interests include among others, computational intelligence information fusion and decision making, and data science (including data preprocessing, prediction, non-standard classification problems, and big data).

Abstract

Patent analysis is crucial for technology monitoring, forecasting, and assessment, and facilitates entrepreneurs and different stakeholder groups to develop forward-looking technologies and business strategies. However, the speed and scale in the development of disruptive technologies, such as blockchain, present a challenge for analysts and experts. In this presentation, we demonstrate how one can use an unsupervised systematic patent analysis framework that applies to the patent space. A sample of 13 393 blockchain-related patents published between January 2014 and June 2020 is used to test the proposed framework. Specifically, this framework merges cosine and density-based outlier detection methodologies to improve the identification of outliers within clusters of patents. The identified outliers are visualized through an age-outlier technology opportunity analysis map that represents the different levels of novelty existing in each cluster of the patent sample. The map facilitates companies to better target their R&D efforts and maximize the return of technology investments. Benchmark results show that the proposed outlier detection method improves recall, precision, and f1 score. In addition, the results show that the cluster with a higher percentage of outliers represents the Internet of Things applications of blockchain technology.

Biography: Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo received the Ph.D. in Information Security in 2006 from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He currently holds the Cloud Technology Endowed Professorship at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He is the founding co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research & Practice, founding Chair of IEEE TEMS TC on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies. He also serves as the Department Editor of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, and IEEE Transactions on Big Data. He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker and IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor (2021 - 2023), a Web of Science's Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Cross-Field – 2020, and the recipient of the 2019 IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing Award for Excellence in Scalable Computing (Middle Career Researcher).

His research has been funded by NASA, National Security Agency, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, CPS Energy, LGS Innovations, MITRE, Texas National Security Network Excellence Fund, Australian Government National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund, Australian Government Cooperative Research Centre for Data to Decision, Lockheed Martin Australia, auDA Foundation, Government of South Australia, BAE Systems stratsec, Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration Incorporated, Australian Research Council, etc.

Abstract

The proliferation of sensing and AI technologies has enabled various AIoT (AI+IoT), which has increasingly changed our daily life, ranging from how we operate smart appliances at home to how we drive on road. Unsurprisingly, unconventional risks and threats associated with AIoT technology have emerged because of the two main features of AIoT, i.e., sensors and actuator in the loops, AI-enabled decision-making algorithms. In this talk, we survey typical attacks against AIoT in the literature and show the trend of these attacks. We found most attacks utilize one type of vulnerability, which can be summarized as simple attacks. Based on prior work, we introduce the concept of AMpLe attacks, a new class of system-level security vulnerabilities resulting from a combination of adversarial machine learning and physics-based injection of information-carrying signals into hardware. Finally, we discuss possible future directions for improving the security of AIoT.

Biography: Wenyuan Xu is currently a professor in the College of Electrical Engineering at Zhejiang University. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and M.S. degree in Computer Science and Engineering, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University in 2007. Her research interests include wireless networking, embedded systems security, and IoT security. Dr. Xu received the NSF Career Award in 2009. She was granted tenure (an associate professor) in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of South Carolina in the U.S prior to taking the position at Zhejiang University.

She has served as Co-Chair of NDSS 2022 and 2023, the Track Chair of Hardware, Side Channels, and Cyber-Physical Systems for ACM CCS 2021, and she is an associated editor of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Transactions on Sensor Networks, IEEE Internet of Things Journal. She received the best paper awards of ACM CCS 2017 and ACM AsiaCCS 2018.

Biography: Dr Mark Staples is a Senior Principal Researcher in CSIRO’s Data61, and leads research in blockchain, software engineering, software architecture, and regtech. He is active in ISO’s international standardization committee on blockchain and DLT, and has been a member of OECD’s Blockchain Expert Policy Advisory Board, and the steering committee for Australian Government’s National Blockchain Roadmap. He previously held research management positions in CSIRO’s Data61 and in NICTA, and in industry has held software engineering and engineering management positions in companies developing implantable medical devices, electronic payments systems, and distributed control systems. He has undergraduate degrees in computer science and cognitive science from the University of Queensland, and a PhD in computer science from the University of Cambridge.

Biography: Xinghuo Yu is an Associate Deputy Vice-Chancellor, a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow, and a Distinguished Professor at RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), Melbourne, Australia. He is the Junior Past President of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. He received BEng and MEng degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, in 1982 and 1984, and PhD degree from Southeast University, Nanjing, China in 1988, respectively. His main research areas include control systems engineering, intelligent and complex systems, and smart power and energy systems. He received many awards and honours for his contributions, including the 2018 MA Sargent Medal from Engineers Australia, the 2018 Australasian AI Distinguished Research Contribution Award from Australian Computer Society, and the 2013 Dr.-Ing. Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award from IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.

He is a Fellow of IEEE, Engineers Australia, Australian Computer Society, and Australian Institute of Company Directors. He has worked extensively with industries in energy, security, resources, and manufacturing, having served on the Board of Governors of the Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) (2003-2006) and the Science Advisory Committee of the Advanced Manufacturing CRC (2008-2013), and a Non-Executive Director of Oceania Cyber Security Centre Limited (2016-2021) and its Interim Chair from April 2020 to January 2021.

Biography: Karen Cohen is a Monash University Science Graduate and Alumni, she is the Founder and Director of Emerging Tech Talent, a company that helps humans connect to Emerging Technology. She is the Founder of Women in Emerging Tech and Previous Deputy Chair for Blockchain Australia. She is Community Champion for Algorand Foundation and Program Manager for AlgoHub. She is the 2021 winner of the Lift Off Awards for Diversity and Inclusion Tech Leader.

Biography: Bill Angelidis is a specialist technology entrepreneur who brings strong business development skills to VACRO’s board. He founded and continues to manage the successful IT services company, ASTA Solutions. Mr Angelidis’ skills and interests centre on assisting start-ups and not-for-profit organisations to develop and meet strategic objectives to meet long-term goals. He enjoys nothing more than bringing people and opportunities together.

Biography: Dr. Tieyan Li is an expert on security and applied cryptography, and a technology generalist on applications, systems and networks. He is currently leading Digital Trust research, on building the trust infrastructure for future digital world, and previously on mobile security, IoT security, and AI security at Shield Lab., Singapore Research Center, Huawei Technologies. Dr. Li is also the director of Trustworthy AI C-TMG and the vice-chairman of ETSI ISG SAI. Dr. Li received his Ph.D. Degree in Computer Science from National University of Singapore. He has more than 20 years experiences and is proficient in security design, architect, innovation and practical development. He was also active in academic security fields with tens of publications and patents.

Dr. Li has served as the PC members for many security conferences, and is an influential speaker in industrial security forums. His current research topics include: Trustworthy AI, Trustworthy Computing, Trustworthy Identity and Future Network Infrastructure.

Biography: Burak Kantarci is an Associate Professor and the Founding Director of the Next Generation Communications and Computing Networks (NEXTCON) Research Lab and the Smart Connected Vehicles Innovation Centre (SCVI) at the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Kantarci holds a Ph.D in computer engineering; and he is a globally recognized researcher particularly in mobile cloud computing, mobile crowd-sensing and AI-driven solutions for secure and trustworthy cyberspace. Dr. Kantarci is the co-author of over 200 publications in established journals and conferences, and 13 book chapters. He is well known for his contributions to the quantification of data trustworthiness in mobile crowd-sensing (MCS) systems, and game theoretic incentives to promote user participation in MCS campaigns with high value data; as well as AI-backed access control, authentication and machine learning-backed intrusion detection solutions in sensing environments.

Dr. Kantarci served as the Chair of IEEE Communications Systems Integration and Modeling Technical Committee, and has served as the Technical Program Co-Chair/ Symposium Co-chair of more than twenty international conferences/ symposia/ workshops including IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – Communications Systems QoS, Reliability and Modeling (CQRM) symposium. An Editor of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, IEEE Internet of Things, Elsevier Vehicular Communications, an associate editor for IEEE Networking Letters, an area editor for IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, and an associate editor for IEEE Access. Dr. Kantarci a senior member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and senior member of the IEEE, and an ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Biography: Nasir Uddin has spent close to 12 years working in the United States (Microsoft and Oracle) and Australian (Deakin University/Callista Software Services) industry in engineering and consulting roles. He started his career in Australia as a Software Engineer and currently working as an Advisor Cloud Security Architect for Microsoft USA. He is one of the serving Chairs (award committee) of the IEEE Computer Society MGA board and previous Chair and Secretary of the IEEE Computer Society, Victorian Section. At present he spends his free time as a mentor (Microsoft volunteering program) active-duty service members, veterans and reserves including those with clearance, creating short-term and long-term career goals and support them along the way in their career transition journey. He is also a regular reviewer of Security and Software Engineering academic Conferences.

Biography: Weizhi Meng is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Hong Kong. Prior to joining DTU, he worked as a research scientist in Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore. He is currently directing the SPTAGE Lab at DTU Compute, DTU. He won the Outstanding Academic Performance Award during his doctoral study, and is a recipient of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) Outstanding Paper Award for Young Engineers/Researchers in both 2014 and 2017. He also received the IEEE ComSoc Young Researcher Award for Europe, Middle East, & Africa Region (EMEA) in 2020. His primary research interests are cyber security and intelligent technology in security including intrusion detection, smartphone security, biometric authentication, trust management, malware detection, blockchain in security, and IoT security.

Biography: Salil Kanhere received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA. He is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering with UNSW Sydney, Australia. His research interests include the Internet of Things, cyber physical systems, blockchain, pervasive computing, cybersecurity, and applied machine learning. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and ACM, an ACM Distinguished Speaker and an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor. He has received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2020) and the Humboldt Research Fellowship (2014), both from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. He has held visiting positions at I2R Singapore, Technical University Darmstadt, University of Zurich and Graz University of Technology.

He serves as the Editor in Chief of the Ad Hoc Networks journal and as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions On Network and Service Management, Computer Communications, and Pervasive and Mobile Computing. He has served on the organising committee of several IEEE/ACM international conferences and is the General Co-Chair for the IEEE Blockchain Conference in 2021 and the Program Chair of IEEE PerCom in 2022. He has co-authored a book titled Blockchain for Cyberphysical Systems published by Artech House in 2020.