AI Excel Spreadsheet Maker Free

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  • Catalog server

    Catalog server

    A catalog server provides a single point of access that allows users to centrally search for information across a distributed network. In other words, it indexes databases, files and information across large network and allows keywords, Boolean and other searches. If you need to provide a comprehensive searching service for your intranet, extranet or even the Internet, a catalog server is a standard solution.

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  • Social media marketing

    Social media marketing

    Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for practitioners and researchers. Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, among others, have built-in data analytics tools that companies can use to track the progress, success, and engagement of social media marketing campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g. more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone". Firms that use social media marketing can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media", rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy. == Purposes and tactics == Social media may be employed in marketing as a communications tool that makes companies accessible to those who are interested in their product and visible to those who are not familiar with their products. It is used by companies to create buzz, learn from customers, and target them. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search, seven are social media-dependent. This means that if brands with little to no social media presence tend to show up less on Google searches. While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and—in the past—Google+ have a larger number of monthly users, the visual media-sharing-based mobile platforms garner a higher interaction rate in comparison, and have registered the fastest growth, and have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content. Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as opposed to Twitter, which has a .03% interaction rate with an average of 210 million monthly users. Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require significant financial investment. To this end, companies make use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to reach audiences much wider than through traditional print, television, or radio advertisements alone at a fraction of the cost, as most social networking sites can be used at little or no cost (however, some websites charge companies for premium services). This has changed the ways that companies approach and interact with customers, as a substantial percentage of consumer interactions are now being carried out over online platforms with much higher visibility. Customers can post reviews of products and services, rate customer service, and ask questions or voice concerns directly to companies through social media platforms. According to Measuring Success, over 80% of consumers use the web to research products and services. Thus social media marketing is also used by businesses in order to build relationships of trust with consumers. To this aim, companies may hire personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report under the title of online community managers. Handling these interactions in a satisfactory manner can result in an increase of consumer trust. To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, three steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns: Identifying the extent of the social chatter Engaging the influencers to help Developing a proportional response == Strategies == === Passive approach === Social media can be a useful source of market information and a way to hear customers' perspectives. Blogs, content communities, and forums are platforms where individuals share their reviews and recommendations of brands, products, and services. Businesses are able to tap into and analyze customer voices and feedback generated in social media for marketing purposes. In this sense, social media is a relatively inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers and managers to track and respond to consumer-identified problems and detect market opportunities. === Active approach === Social media can be used as a public relations tool, a direct marketing tool, and a communication channel to target very specific audiences, with social media influencers and social media personalities as effective customer engagement tools. This tactic is widely known as influencer marketing, which gives brands the opportunity to reach their target audience via a group of selected influencers advertising their product or service. Brands were projected to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data. The use of customer influencers, such as popular bloggers, can be an efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services. == Engagement == Engagement with the social web means that customers and stakeholders are active participants rather than passive spectators. An example of these are consumer advocacy groups and groups that criticize companies (e.g., lobby groups or advocacy organizations). The use of Social media in a business or political context allows people to express and share opinions about a company's products, services or business practices, or a government's actions. On social media, each participant becomes part of the marketing department (or a challenge to the marketing effort) as other customers read their comments or reviews. The effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns is dependent on the promotion of online engagement. With the advent of social media marketing, it has become increasingly important to gain customer interest in products and services, which can eventually be translated into buying behavior, or voting and donating behavior in a political context. New online marketing concepts of engagement and loyalty have emerged which aim to build customer participation and brand reputation. Engagement in social media for the purpose of a social media strategy is divided into two parts. The first is proactive, regular posting of new online content, which can be seen through digital photos, digital videos, text, and conversations. It is also represented through sharing of content and information from others via weblinks. The second part is reactive conversations, with social media users responding to those who reach out to others' social media profiles through comments or messages. == Campaigns == === Local businesses === Small businesses use social networking sites as a promotional technique. Businesses can follow individuals' social media usage in their local area and advertise specials and deals, which can be exclusive and in the form of "get a free drink with a copy of this tweet". This type of message encourages other locals to follow the business on their official websites in order to obtain the promotional deal. The business's brand visibility is enhanced in the process. Social networking sites are also used by small businesses to develop their own market research on new products and services. By encouraging their customers to give feedback on new product ideas, businesses can gain insights on whether or not a product may be accepted by their target market enough to merit full production. In addition, customers will feel the company has engaged them in the process of co-creation—the process in which the business uses customer feedback to create or modify a product or service to fill a need of the target market. Such feedback can be presented in various forms, such as surveys, contests, and polls. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, also provide opportunities for small businesses to find candidates to fill staff positions. Review sites such as Yelp help small businesses build their reputation beyond brand visibility. Positive customer peer reviews help influence new prospects to purchase goods and services more than company advertising. == Benefits == Social Media Marketing allows companies to promote themselves to large, diverse audiences that could not be reached through traditional marketing such as phone and email-based advertising. Marketing on most social media platforms also comes at little to no cost, making it accessible to virtually any size business. Social Media Marketing accommodates personalized and direct marketing that targets specific demographics and markets. Companies can engage with customers directly, allowing them to obtain feedback and resolve issues almost immediately. Another advantage of social media marketing is that it's an ideal environment for a company to conduct market research. It can be used

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  • Weird SoundCloud

    Weird SoundCloud

    Weird SoundCloud, or SoundClown, is a mashup parody music scene taking place on the online distribution platform SoundCloud. The scene has been described by its producers and music journalists to be a satirical take on electronic dance music, and useless, throwaway internet content. One critic, Audra Schroeder, categorized it as an in-joke that is "deconstructing and reshaping memes and popular music, recontextualizing the sacred texts of millennial chat rooms." == Origins == In a January 2014 interview, DJ Kevin Wang suggested that the Weird SoundCloud has "been around in the last one to two years", but started to gain much more popularity the previous year through electronic dance music internet blogs. Weird SoundCloud producer Ideaot suggested that some in the phenomenon came from the YouTube poop scene. Another producer in the community, DJ @@ (AT-AT), reasoned that producers joining the scene "want to express their musicality, see it as a more mature form of YouTube Poop," or are "just looking for recognition on social media sites." AT-AT said that it was "a fun thing to do, and after I stopped making proper music I felt I needed a bit of an outlet for my creativity. The fact that people enjoyed it and/or treated it as a travesty (Direct quote from one of my tracks) spurs me on." == Characteristics == Weird SoundCloud is a mash-up and parody music genre labeled by journalist Audra Schroeder as an in-joke that is "deconstructing and reshaping memes and popular music, recontextualizing the sacred texts of millennial chat rooms." Most tracks range from around 30 seconds to one minute in length. The people who make weird SoundCloud are known as SoundClowns, a term coined by producer Dicksoak. Ideaot described the weird SoundCloud community as "largely just people who are friends with each other." Noisey critic Ryan Bassil spotlight the variety of music coming out of the weird SoundCloud landscape: "One minute you could be listening to the Seinfeld theme reimagined as an aneurysm inducing dubstep corker, the next, you're recovering from hearing a version of Tenacious D's "Tribute" that's akin to having a stroke." Bassil analyzes that the tracks "often take the past and repurpose it into something that, although not altogether useful, sounds fresh and reflective of the abstract, confusing panoramic that encapsulates the modern internet." Bassil compared the lexicon of SoundClown's track titles to that of Reddit and Twitter users. According to Dicksoak, most works of the style are critiques of EDM or "are just uploaded because they sound funny." However, Bassil disagreed, writing that there are also many tracks that keep repurposing a certain meme, such as "mom's spaghetti" or the re-use of vocals from recordings by hip hop group Death Grips. He describe the scene's re-use of memes as a satirical take on pointless online content that is only on the internet to "do nothing other than fill the void": They're changing the format of the original work's intended message or audience - a technique often employed by top-tier digital media companies - and in doing so they're sarcastically, ironically, taking the piss out of what Web 2.0's turned into - an open arena where the most ridiculous, unashamed, often pointless piggy-back content can rack up thousands and thousands of clicks. == Notable examples == There are mash-ups that "disrupt the flow of popular music", in the words of writer Schroeder, such as a "flutedrop" remix of the Miley Cyrus song "Wrecking Ball" and Shaliek's mashup of music by Bruno Mars and Korn. In November 2013, Wang released a set of mp3 files on SoundCloud named Best Drops Ever, which included tracks like "A Drop So Epic a Bunch of NYU Bros Already Bought a 3-Day Weekend Pass for It" and "A Drop So Crazy You'll Kill Your Family". All of the tracks start as normal electronic dance music build-ups, before they drop into a "bait and switch" audio or film clip such as Filet-O-Fish commercials, the Whitney Houston song "I Will Always Love You" and the film Bambi (1942) that ruins the anticipation. The collection is a parody of the over-importance and over-focus of the drop and lack of care of the overall quality of a song common in the modern electronic dance music scene. Wang has released more than 45 tracks in the weird SoundCloud, some of them receiving around a million plays. Subgenres of Weird SoundCloud include Macklecore, mash-ups and remixes that include the works of American hip-hop recording artist Macklemore, and Biggiewave, which include samples of songs from the album Ready to Die (1994) by The Notorious B.I.G. Common audio and meme sources used include Skrillex, the Martin Garrix track "Animals", Thomas the Tank Engine, Shrek, Macklemore, "Gangnam Style", the Bruno Mars track "Uptown Funk", the Disturbed track "Down with the Sickness", Space Jam, the Childish Gambino track "Bonfire", the Death Grips track "Takyon" and air horn sound effects. == Reception == Bassil praised the SoundClown scene as "loveable and strangely honest", reasoning that it "just reminds me that we're all humans on the internet, all searching for #content that means something, something to connect with, but usually only dredging up bastardised versions of things we've already read, seen, or watched before." Bassil also described the weird SoundCloud as a more successful version of a similar scene known as weird YouTube; the reason for the success of SoundClowns is due to SoundCloud's discovery algorithm: "Small collectives and trends are able to form, and there's an abundance of tracks from artists who are almost forging careers out of it, as opposed to uploading one viral hit." Publications have made lists of weird SoundCloud works, such as BuzzFeed's "23 Of The Weirdest Songs On Soundcloud", Obsev's "Weird SoundCloud Mashups That Must've Been Made While Drunk", and Thump's "9 of the Best and Most Upsetting Soundclowns we Could Find", where writer Isabelle Hellyer called it the "most influential genre of music in human history." A Your EDM writer called it "oddly addicting."

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  • MDS matrix

    MDS matrix

    An MDS matrix (maximum distance separable) is a matrix representing a function with certain diffusion properties that have useful applications in cryptography. Technically, an m × n {\displaystyle m\times n} matrix A {\displaystyle A} over a finite field K {\displaystyle K} is an MDS matrix if it is the transformation matrix of a linear transformation f ( x ) = A x {\displaystyle f(x)=Ax} from K n {\displaystyle K^{n}} to K m {\displaystyle K^{m}} such that no two different ( m + n ) {\displaystyle (m+n)} -tuples of the form ( x , f ( x ) ) {\displaystyle (x,f(x))} coincide in n {\displaystyle n} or more components. Equivalently, the set of all ( m + n ) {\displaystyle (m+n)} -tuples ( x , f ( x ) ) {\displaystyle (x,f(x))} is an MDS code, i.e., a linear code that reaches the Singleton bound. Let A ~ = ( I n A ) {\displaystyle {\tilde {A}}={\begin{pmatrix}\mathrm {I} _{n}\\\hline \mathrm {A} \end{pmatrix}}} be the matrix obtained by joining the identity matrix I n {\displaystyle \mathrm {I} _{n}} to A {\displaystyle A} . Then a necessary and sufficient condition for a matrix A {\displaystyle A} to be MDS is that every possible n × n {\displaystyle n\times n} submatrix obtained by removing m {\displaystyle m} rows from A ~ {\displaystyle {\tilde {A}}} is non-singular. This is also equivalent to the following: all the sub-determinants of the matrix A {\displaystyle A} are non-zero. Then a binary matrix A {\displaystyle A} (namely over the field with two elements) is never MDS unless it has only one row or only one column with all components 1 {\displaystyle 1} . Reed–Solomon codes have the MDS property and are frequently used to obtain the MDS matrices used in cryptographic algorithms. Serge Vaudenay suggested using MDS matrices in cryptographic primitives to produce what he called multipermutations, not-necessarily linear functions with this same property. These functions have what he called perfect diffusion: changing t {\displaystyle t} of the inputs changes at least m − t + 1 {\displaystyle m-t+1} of the outputs. He showed how to exploit imperfect diffusion to cryptanalyze functions that are not multipermutations. MDS matrices are used for diffusion in such block ciphers as AES, SHARK, Square, Twofish, Anubis, KHAZAD, Manta, Hierocrypt, Kalyna, Camellia and HADESMiMC, and in the stream cipher MUGI and the cryptographic hash function Whirlpool, Poseidon.

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  • List of speech recognition software

    List of speech recognition software

    Speech recognition software is available for many computing platforms, operating systems, use models, and software licenses. Here is a listing of such, grouped in various useful ways. == Acoustic models and speech corpus (compilation) == The following list presents notable speech recognition software engines with a brief synopsis of characteristics. == Macintosh == == Cross-platform web apps based on Chrome == The following list presents notable speech recognition software that operate in a Chrome browser as web apps. They make use of HTML5 Web-Speech-API. == Mobile devices and smartphones == Many mobile phone handsets, including feature phones and smartphones such as iPhones and BlackBerrys, have basic dial-by-voice features built in. Many third-party apps have implemented natural-language speech recognition support, including: == Windows == === Windows built-in speech recognition === The Windows Speech Recognition version 8.0 by Microsoft comes built into Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. Speech Recognition is available only in English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese and only in the corresponding version of Windows; meaning you cannot use the speech recognition engine in one language if you use a version of Windows in another language. Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8 Pro allow you to change the system language, and therefore change which speech engine is available. Windows Speech Recognition evolved into Cortana (software), a personal assistant included in Windows 10. === Windows 7, 8, 10, 11 third-party speech recognition === Braina – Dictate into third party software and websites, fill web forms and execute vocal commands. Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance Communications – Successor to the older DragonDictate product. Focus on dictation. 64-bit Windows support since version 10.1. Tazti – Create speech command profiles to play PC games and control applications – programs. Create speech commands to open files, folders, webpages, applications. Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 versions. Voice Finger – software that improves the Windows speech recognition system by adding several extensions to it. The software enables controlling the mouse and the keyboard by only using the voice. It is especially useful for aiding users to overcome disabilities or to heal from computer injuries. === Microsoft Speech API === The first version of the Microsoft Speech API was released for Windows NT 3.51 and Windows 95 in 1995, it was then part of Windows up to Windows Vista. This initial version already contained Direct Speech Recognition and Direct Text To Speech APIs which applications could use to directly control engines, as well as simplified 'higher-level' Voice Command and Voice Talk APIs. Speech recognition functionality included as part of Microsoft Office and on Tablet PCs running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. It can also be downloaded as part of the Speech SDK 5.1 for Windows applications, but since that is aimed at developers building speech applications, the pure SDK form lacks any user interface (numerous applications were available), and thus is unsuitable for end users. == Built-in software == Microsoft Kinect includes built-in software which allows speech recognition of commands. Older generations of Nokia phones like Nokia N Series (before using Windows 7 mobile technology) used speech-recognition with family names from contact list and a few commands. Siri, originally implemented in the iPhone 4S, Apple's personal assistant for iOS, which uses technology from Nuance Communications. Cortana (software), Microsoft's personal assistant built into Windows Phone and Windows 10. == Interactive voice response == The following are interactive voice response (IVR) systems: CSLU Toolkit Genesys HTK – copyrighted by Microsoft, but allows altering software for licensee's internal use LumenVox ASR Tellme Networks; acquired by Microsoft == Unix-like x86 and x86-64 speech transcription software == Janus Recognition Toolkit (JRTk) Mozilla DeepSpeech was developing an open-source Speech-To-Text engine based on Baidu's deep speech research paper. Weesper Neon Flow – professional voice-dictation software that provides offline speech-to-text processing on macOS and Windows using local AI models. It is not open source and offers a paid subscription after a 15‑day free trial. Vocalinux – open-source speech transcription software for Linux. == Discontinued software == IBM VoiceType (formerly IBM Personal Dictation System) IBM ViaVoice – Embedded version still maintained by IBM. No longer supported for versions above Windows Vista. Untested above macOS 10.4 or on Macintoshes with an Intel chipset. Quack.com; acquired by AOL; the name has now been reused for an iPad search app. SpeechWorks from Nuance Communications. Yap Speech Cloud – Speech-to-text platform acquired by Amazon.com.

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  • Star Awards for Social Media Award

    Star Awards for Social Media Award

    The Star Awards for Social Media Award was an award presented annually from 2014 to 2016 at the Star Awards, where Mediacorp of Singapore recognises entertainers under their employment with awards for artistic and technical merit for outstanding performances of the year. == History == The category was introduced in 2014, at the 20th Star Awards ceremony; Jeanette Aw received the award and it is given in honour of a Mediacorp artiste with the most social media engagement. The results are based on the calculations from three international social media analysis systems; artistes must be active on at least one of the following platforms in order to qualify: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Since its inception, the award has been given to two artistes. Carrie Wong is the most recent and final winner in this category. Since the ceremony held in 2016, Aw remains as the only artiste to win in this category twice, surpassing Wong who has one win. The award was discontinued from 2017 onwards as the popularity element of the award is already represented in the Top 10 Most Popular Male Artistes and Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes awards. == Recipients ==

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  • G.9970

    G.9970

    G.9970 (also known as G.hnta) is a Recommendation developed by ITU-T that describes the generic transport architecture for home networks and their interfaces to a provider's access network. G.9970 was developed by Study Group 15, Question 1. G.9970 received Consent on December 12, 2008 and was Approved on January 13, 2009. == Relationship with G.hn == G.9970 (G.hnta) and G.9960 (G.hn) are two ITU-T Recommendations that address home networking in a complementary manner. While G.9970 addresses layer 3 (network layer) of the home network architecture, G.9960 addresses layers 1 (physical layer) and 2 (data link layer).

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  • Media intelligence

    Media intelligence

    Media intelligence uses data mining and data science to analyze public, social and editorial media content. It refers to marketing systems that synthesize billions of online conversations into relevant information. This allow organizations to measure and manage content performance, understand trends, and drive communications and business strategy. Media intelligence can include software as a service using big data terminology. This includes questions about messaging efficiency, share of voice, audience geographical distribution, message amplification, influencer strategy, journalist outreach, creative resonance, and competitor performance in all these areas. Media intelligence differs from business intelligence in that it uses and analyzes data outside company firewalls. Examples of that data are user-generated content on social media sites, blogs, comment fields, and wikis etc. It may also include other public data sources like press releases, news, blogs, legal filings, reviews and job postings. Media intelligence may also include competitive intelligence, wherein information that is gathered from publicly available sources such as social media, press releases, and news announcements are used to better understand the strategies and tactics being deployed by competing businesses. Media intelligence is enhanced by means of emerging technologies like ambient intelligence, machine learning, semantic tagging, natural language processing, sentiment analysis and machine translation. == Technologies used == Different media intelligence platforms use different technologies for monitoring, curating content, engaging with content, data analysis and measurement of communications and marketing campaign success. These technology providers may obtain content by scraping content directly from websites or by connecting to the API provided by social media, or other content platforms that are created for 3rd party developers to develop their own applications and services that access data. Technology companies may also get data from a data reseller. Some social media monitoring and analytics companies use calls to data providers each time an end-user develops a query. Others archive and index social media posts to provide end users with on-demand access to historical data and enable methodologies and technologies leveraging network and relational data. Additional monitoring companies use crawlers and spidering technology to find keyword references, known as semantic analysis or natural language processing. Basic implementation involves curating data from social media on a large scale and analyzing the results to make sense out of it.

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  • Application-release automation

    Application-release automation

    Application-release automation (ARA) refers to the process of packaging and deploying an application or update of an application from development, across various environments, and ultimately to production. ARA solutions must combine the capabilities of deployment automation, environment management and modeling, and release coordination. == Relationship with DevOps == ARA tools help cultivate DevOps best practices by providing a combination of automation, environment modeling and workflow-management capabilities. These practices help teams deliver software rapidly, reliably and responsibly. ARA tools achieve a key DevOps goal of implementing continuous delivery with a large quantity of releases quickly. == Relationship with deployment == ARA is more than just software-deployment automation – it deploys applications using structured release-automation techniques that allow for an increase in visibility for the whole team. It combines workload automation and release-management tools as they relate to release packages, as well as movement through different environments within the DevOps pipeline. ARA tools help regulate deployments, how environments are created and deployed, and how and when releases are deployed. == ARA Solutions == All ARA solutions must include capabilities in automation, environment modeling, and release coordination. Additionally, the solution must provide this functionality without reliance on other tools.

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  • Virtual collective consciousness

    Virtual collective consciousness

    Virtual collective consciousness (VCC) is a term rebooted and promoted by two behavioral scientists, Yousri Marzouki and Olivier Oullier in their 2012 Huffington Post article titled: "Revolutionizing Revolutions: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Arab Spring", after its first appearance in 1999-2000. VCC is now defined as an internal knowledge catalyzed by social media platforms and shared by a plurality of individuals driven by the spontaneity, the homogeneity, and the synchronicity of their online actions. VCC occurs when a large group of persons, brought together by a social media platform think and act with one mind and share collective emotions. Thus, they are able to coordinate their efforts efficiently, and could rapidly spread their word to a worldwide audience. When interviewed about the concept of VCC that appeared in the book - Hyperconnectivity and the Future of Internet Communication - he edited, Professor of Pervasive Computing, Adrian David Cheok mentioned the following: "The idea of a global (collective) virtual consciousness is a bottom-up process and a rather emergent property resulting from a momentum of complex interactions taking place in social networks. This kind of collective behaviour (or intelligence) results from a collision between a physical world and a virtual world and can have a real impact in our life by driving collective action." == Etymology == In 1999-2000, Richard Glen Boire provided a cursory mention and the only occurrence of the term "Virtual collective consciousness" in his text as follows: The trend of technology is to overcome the limitations of the human body. And, the Web has been characterized as a virtual collective consciousness and unconsciousness The recent definition of VCC evolved from the first empirical study that provided a cyberpsychological insight into the contribution of Facebook to the 2011 Tunisian revolution. In this study, the concept was originally called "collective cyberconsciousness". The latter is an extension of the idea of "collective consciousness" coupled with "citizen media" usage. The authors of this study also made a parallel between this original definition of VCC and other comparable concepts such as Durkheim's collective representation, Žižek's "collective mind" or Boguta's "new collective consciousness" that he used to describe the computational history of the Internet shutdown during the Egyptian revolution. Since VCC is the byproduct of the network's successful actions, then these actions must be timely, acute, rapid, domain-specific, and purpose-oriented to successfully achieve their goal. Before reaching a momentum of complexity, each collective behavior starts by a spark that triggers a chain of events leading to a crystallized stance of a tremendous amount of interactions. Thus, VCC is an emergent global pattern from these individual actions. In 2012, the term virtual collective consciousness resurfaced and was brought to light after extending its applications to the Egyptian case and the whole social networking major impact on the success of the so-called Arab Spring. Moreover, the acronym VCC was suggested to identify the theoretical framework covering on-line behaviors leading to a virtual collective consciousness. Hence, online social networks have provided a new and faster way of establishing or modifying "collective consciousness" that was paramount to the 2011 uprisings in the Arab world. == Theoretical underpinnings of VCC == Various theoretical references in fields ranging from sociology to computer science were mentioned in order to account for the key features that render the framework for a virtual collective consciousness. The following list is not exhaustive, but the references it contains are often highlighted: Émile Durkheim's collective representations are at the heart of VCC since collectivity taken decisions according to Durkheim's assumptions will approve or disapprove individuals' actions and help them eventually reach their final goal. Marshall McLuhan's global village: The shrinking of our big world to a small place called cyberspace is made possible by technological extensions of human consciousness. Carl Jung's collective unconscious: When a society witnesses significant changes, the anchoring of archetypal images (e.g., political leaders) seems to be deeply rooted in individuals' collective unconscious that is likely to bias their political choices. Individual memories of public events were also supposed to convey a "collective awareness" that can be subconsciously altered by the instantaneous spread of information through social networking around the world. Daniel Wegner's transactive memory (TM): social-networking platforms such as Facebook during the Tunisian revolution or Twitter during the Egyptian revolution served as placeholders of a VCC where information can be harnessed and steered to the highly specific revolutionary purpose. Although research on TM was originally limited to couples, small groups, and organizations, recent studies strongly suggest that an effective TM can operate on a very large scale too. James Surowiecki's wisdom of crowds Collective influence algorithm: The CI (Collective influence) algorithm is effective in finding influential nodes in a variety of networks, including social networks, communication networks, and biological networks. It has been used to identify influencers on social-media platforms, to identify key nodes in transportation networks, and to identify potential drug-targets in biological networks. == Some illustrations of VCC == Besides the studied effect of social networking on the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the former via Facebook and the latter via Twitter other applications were studied under the prism of VCC framework: The Whitacre's virtual choir: A compelling example of the degree of autonomy and self-identity members of a spontaneously created network through a VCC is Eric Whitacre's unique musical project that involved a collection of singers performing remotely to create a virtual Choir. The effect of all the voices illustrated a genuine virtual collective empathy merging the artist's mind with all the singers through his silent conducting gestures. The Harlem Shake dance: The Bitcoin protocol: It was questioned whether or not the Bitcoin protocol can morph into virtual collective consciousness. The Byzantine generals problem was used as an analogy to understand the behavioral complexity of the community of Bitcoin's users. Artificial Social Networking Intelligence (ASNI): refers to the application of artificial intelligence within social networking services and social media platforms. It encompasses various technologies and techniques used to automate, personalize, enhance, improve, and synchronize users' interactions and experiences within social networks. ASNI is expected to evolve rapidly, influencing how we interact online and shaping our digital experiences. Transparency, ethical considerations, media influence bias, and user control over data will be crucial to ensure responsible development and positive impact.

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  • Cryptographic multilinear map

    Cryptographic multilinear map

    A cryptographic n {\displaystyle n} -multilinear map is a kind of multilinear map, that is, a function e : G 1 × ⋯ × G n → G T {\displaystyle e:G_{1}\times \cdots \times G_{n}\rightarrow G_{T}} such that for any integers a 1 , … , a n {\displaystyle a_{1},\ldots ,a_{n}} and elements g i ∈ G i {\displaystyle g_{i}\in G_{i}} , e ( g 1 a 1 , … , g n a n ) = e ( g 1 , … , g n ) ∏ i = 1 n a i {\displaystyle e(g_{1}^{a_{1}},\ldots ,g_{n}^{a_{n}})=e(g_{1},\ldots ,g_{n})^{\prod _{i=1}^{n}a_{i}}} , and which in addition is efficiently computable and satisfies some security properties. It has several applications on cryptography, as key exchange protocols, identity-based encryption, and broadcast encryption. There exist constructions of cryptographic 2-multilinear maps, known as bilinear maps, however, the problem of constructing such multilinear maps for n > 2 {\displaystyle n>2} seems much more difficult and the security of the proposed candidates is still unclear. == Definition == === For n = 2 === In this case, multilinear maps are mostly known as bilinear maps or pairings, and they are usually defined as follows: Let G 1 , G 2 {\displaystyle G_{1},G_{2}} be two additive cyclic groups of prime order q {\displaystyle q} , and G T {\displaystyle G_{T}} another cyclic group of order q {\displaystyle q} written multiplicatively. A pairing is a map: e : G 1 × G 2 → G T {\displaystyle e:G_{1}\times G_{2}\rightarrow G_{T}} , which satisfies the following properties: Bilinearity ∀ a , b ∈ F q ∗ , ∀ P ∈ G 1 , Q ∈ G 2 : e ( a P , b Q ) = e ( P , Q ) a b {\displaystyle \forall a,b\in F_{q}^{},\ \forall P\in G_{1},Q\in G_{2}:\ e(aP,bQ)=e(P,Q)^{ab}} Non-degeneracy If g 1 {\displaystyle g_{1}} and g 2 {\displaystyle g_{2}} are generators of G 1 {\displaystyle G_{1}} and G 2 {\displaystyle G_{2}} , respectively, then e ( g 1 , g 2 ) {\displaystyle e(g_{1},g_{2})} is a generator of G T {\displaystyle G_{T}} . Computability There exists an efficient algorithm to compute e {\displaystyle e} . In addition, for security purposes, the discrete logarithm problem is required to be hard in both G 1 {\displaystyle G_{1}} and G 2 {\displaystyle G_{2}} . === General case (for any n) === We say that a map e : G 1 × ⋯ × G n → G T {\displaystyle e:G_{1}\times \cdots \times G_{n}\rightarrow G_{T}} is an n {\displaystyle n} -multilinear map if it satisfies the following properties: All G i {\displaystyle G_{i}} (for 1 ≤ i ≤ n {\displaystyle 1\leq i\leq n} ) and G T {\displaystyle G_{T}} are groups of same order; if a 1 , … , a n ∈ Z {\displaystyle a_{1},\ldots ,a_{n}\in \mathbb {Z} } and ( g 1 , … , g n ) ∈ G 1 × ⋯ × G n {\displaystyle (g_{1},\ldots ,g_{n})\in G_{1}\times \cdots \times G_{n}} , then e ( g 1 a 1 , … , g n a n ) = e ( g 1 , … , g n ) ∏ i = 1 n a i {\displaystyle e(g_{1}^{a_{1}},\ldots ,g_{n}^{a_{n}})=e(g_{1},\ldots ,g_{n})^{\prod _{i=1}^{n}a_{i}}} ; the map is non-degenerate in the sense that if g 1 , … , g n {\displaystyle g_{1},\ldots ,g_{n}} are generators of G 1 , … , G n {\displaystyle G_{1},\ldots ,G_{n}} , respectively, then e ( g 1 , … , g n ) {\displaystyle e(g_{1},\ldots ,g_{n})} is a generator of G T {\displaystyle G_{T}} There exists an efficient algorithm to compute e {\displaystyle e} . In addition, for security purposes, the discrete logarithm problem is required to be hard in G 1 , … , G n {\displaystyle G_{1},\ldots ,G_{n}} . === Candidates === All the candidates multilinear maps are actually slightly generalizations of multilinear maps known as graded-encoding systems, since they allow the map e {\displaystyle e} to be applied partially: instead of being applied in all the n {\displaystyle n} values at once, which would produce a value in the target set G T {\displaystyle G_{T}} , it is possible to apply e {\displaystyle e} to some values, which generates values in intermediate target sets. For example, for n = 3 {\displaystyle n=3} , it is possible to do y = e ( g 2 , g 3 ) ∈ G T 2 {\displaystyle y=e(g_{2},g_{3})\in G_{T_{2}}} then e ( g 1 , y ) ∈ G T {\displaystyle e(g_{1},y)\in G_{T}} . The three main candidates are GGH13, which is based on ideals of polynomial rings; CLT13, which is based approximate GCD problem and works over integers, hence, it is supposed to be easier to understand than GGH13 multilinear map; and GGH15, which is based on graphs.

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  • Dynamic knowledge repository

    Dynamic knowledge repository

    The dynamic knowledge repository (DKR) is a concept developed by Douglas C. Engelbart as a primary strategic focus for allowing humans to address complex problems. He has proposed that a DKR will enable us to develop a collective IQ greater than any individual's IQ. References and discussion of Engelbart's DKR concept are available at the Doug Engelbart Institute. == Definition == A knowledge repository is a computerized system that systematically captures, organizes and categorizes an organization's knowledge. The repository can be searched and data can be quickly retrieved. The effective knowledge repositories include factual, conceptual, procedural and meta-cognitive techniques. The key features of knowledge repositories include communication forums. A knowledge repository can take many forms to "contain" the knowledge it holds. A customer database is a knowledge repository of customer information and insights – or electronic explicit knowledge. A Library is a knowledge repository of books – physical explicit knowledge. A community of experts is a knowledge repository of tacit knowledge or experience. The nature of the repository only changes to contain/manage the type of knowledge it holds. A repository (as opposed to an archive) is designed to get knowledge out. It should therefore have some rules of structure, classification, taxonomy, record management, etc., to facilitate user engagement.

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  • Actor-critic algorithm

    Actor-critic algorithm

    The actor-critic algorithm (AC) is a family of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms that combine policy-based RL algorithms such as policy gradient methods, and value-based RL algorithms such as value iteration, Q-learning, SARSA, and TD learning. An AC algorithm consists of two main components: an "actor" that determines which actions to take according to a policy function, and a "critic" that evaluates those actions according to a value function. Some AC algorithms are on-policy, some are off-policy. Some apply to either continuous or discrete action spaces. Some work in both cases. == Overview == The actor-critic methods can be understood as an improvement over pure policy gradient methods like REINFORCE via introducing a baseline. === Actor === The actor uses a policy function π ( a | s ) {\displaystyle \pi (a|s)} , while the critic estimates either the value function V ( s ) {\displaystyle V(s)} , the action-value Q-function Q ( s , a ) , {\displaystyle Q(s,a),} the advantage function A ( s , a ) {\displaystyle A(s,a)} , or any combination thereof. The actor is a parameterized function π θ {\displaystyle \pi _{\theta }} , where θ {\displaystyle \theta } are the parameters of the actor. The actor takes as argument the state of the environment s {\displaystyle s} and produces a probability distribution π θ ( ⋅ | s ) {\displaystyle \pi _{\theta }(\cdot |s)} . If the action space is discrete, then ∑ a π θ ( a | s ) = 1 {\displaystyle \sum _{a}\pi _{\theta }(a|s)=1} . If the action space is continuous, then ∫ a π θ ( a | s ) d a = 1 {\displaystyle \int _{a}\pi _{\theta }(a|s)da=1} . The goal of policy optimization is to improve the actor. That is, to find some θ {\displaystyle \theta } that maximizes the expected episodic reward J ( θ ) {\displaystyle J(\theta )} : J ( θ ) = E π θ [ ∑ t = 0 T γ t r t ] {\displaystyle J(\theta )=\mathbb {E} _{\pi _{\theta }}\left[\sum _{t=0}^{T}\gamma ^{t}r_{t}\right]} where γ {\displaystyle \gamma } is the discount factor, r t {\displaystyle r_{t}} is the reward at step t {\displaystyle t} , and T {\displaystyle T} is the time-horizon (which can be infinite). The goal of policy gradient method is to optimize J ( θ ) {\displaystyle J(\theta )} by gradient ascent on the policy gradient ∇ J ( θ ) {\displaystyle \nabla J(\theta )} . As detailed on the policy gradient method page, there are many unbiased estimators of the policy gradient: ∇ θ J ( θ ) = E π θ [ ∑ 0 ≤ j ≤ T ∇ θ ln ⁡ π θ ( A j | S j ) ⋅ Ψ j | S 0 = s 0 ] {\displaystyle \nabla _{\theta }J(\theta )=\mathbb {E} _{\pi _{\theta }}\left[\sum _{0\leq j\leq T}\nabla _{\theta }\ln \pi _{\theta }(A_{j}|S_{j})\cdot \Psi _{j}{\Big |}S_{0}=s_{0}\right]} where Ψ j {\textstyle \Psi _{j}} is a linear sum of the following: ∑ 0 ≤ i ≤ T ( γ i R i ) {\textstyle \sum _{0\leq i\leq T}(\gamma ^{i}R_{i})} . γ j ∑ j ≤ i ≤ T ( γ i − j R i ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\sum _{j\leq i\leq T}(\gamma ^{i-j}R_{i})} : the REINFORCE algorithm. γ j ∑ j ≤ i ≤ T ( γ i − j R i ) − b ( S j ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\sum _{j\leq i\leq T}(\gamma ^{i-j}R_{i})-b(S_{j})} : the REINFORCE with baseline algorithm. Here b {\displaystyle b} is an arbitrary function. γ j ( R j + γ V π θ ( S j + 1 ) − V π θ ( S j ) ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\left(R_{j}+\gamma V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j+1})-V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j})\right)} : TD(1) learning. γ j Q π θ ( S j , A j ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}Q^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j},A_{j})} . γ j A π θ ( S j , A j ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}A^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j},A_{j})} : Advantage Actor-Critic (A2C). γ j ( R j + γ R j + 1 + γ 2 V π θ ( S j + 2 ) − V π θ ( S j ) ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\left(R_{j}+\gamma R_{j+1}+\gamma ^{2}V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j+2})-V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j})\right)} : TD(2) learning. γ j ( ∑ k = 0 n − 1 γ k R j + k + γ n V π θ ( S j + n ) − V π θ ( S j ) ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\left(\sum _{k=0}^{n-1}\gamma ^{k}R_{j+k}+\gamma ^{n}V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j+n})-V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j})\right)} : TD(n) learning. γ j ∑ n = 1 ∞ λ n − 1 1 − λ ⋅ ( ∑ k = 0 n − 1 γ k R j + k + γ n V π θ ( S j + n ) − V π θ ( S j ) ) {\textstyle \gamma ^{j}\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {\lambda ^{n-1}}{1-\lambda }}\cdot \left(\sum _{k=0}^{n-1}\gamma ^{k}R_{j+k}+\gamma ^{n}V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j+n})-V^{\pi _{\theta }}(S_{j})\right)} : TD(λ) learning, also known as GAE (generalized advantage estimate). This is obtained by an exponentially decaying sum of the TD(n) learning terms. === Critic === In the unbiased estimators given above, certain functions such as V π θ , Q π θ , A π θ {\displaystyle V^{\pi _{\theta }},Q^{\pi _{\theta }},A^{\pi _{\theta }}} appear. These are approximated by the critic. Since these functions all depend on the actor, the critic must learn alongside the actor. The critic is learned by value-based RL algorithms. For example, if the critic is estimating the state-value function V π θ ( s ) {\displaystyle V^{\pi _{\theta }}(s)} , then it can be learned by any value function approximation method. Let the critic be a function approximator V ϕ ( s ) {\displaystyle V_{\phi }(s)} with parameters ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } . The simplest example is TD(1) learning, which trains the critic to minimize the TD(1) error: δ i = R i + γ V ϕ ( S i + 1 ) − V ϕ ( S i ) {\displaystyle \delta _{i}=R_{i}+\gamma V_{\phi }(S_{i+1})-V_{\phi }(S_{i})} The critic parameters are updated by gradient descent on the squared TD error: ϕ ← ϕ − α ∇ ϕ ( δ i ) 2 = ϕ + α δ i ∇ ϕ V ϕ ( S i ) {\displaystyle \phi \leftarrow \phi -\alpha \nabla _{\phi }(\delta _{i})^{2}=\phi +\alpha \delta _{i}\nabla _{\phi }V_{\phi }(S_{i})} where α {\displaystyle \alpha } is the learning rate. Note that the gradient is taken with respect to the ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } in V ϕ ( S i ) {\displaystyle V_{\phi }(S_{i})} only, since the ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } in γ V ϕ ( S i + 1 ) {\displaystyle \gamma V_{\phi }(S_{i+1})} constitutes a moving target, and the gradient is not taken with respect to that. This is a common source of error in implementations that use automatic differentiation, and requires "stopping the gradient" at that point. Similarly, if the critic is estimating the action-value function Q π θ {\displaystyle Q^{\pi _{\theta }}} , then it can be learned by Q-learning or SARSA. In SARSA, the critic maintains an estimate of the Q-function, parameterized by ϕ {\displaystyle \phi } , denoted as Q ϕ ( s , a ) {\displaystyle Q_{\phi }(s,a)} . The temporal difference error is then calculated as δ i = R i + γ Q θ ( S i + 1 , A i + 1 ) − Q θ ( S i , A i ) {\displaystyle \delta _{i}=R_{i}+\gamma Q_{\theta }(S_{i+1},A_{i+1})-Q_{\theta }(S_{i},A_{i})} . The critic is then updated by θ ← θ + α δ i ∇ θ Q θ ( S i , A i ) {\displaystyle \theta \leftarrow \theta +\alpha \delta _{i}\nabla _{\theta }Q_{\theta }(S_{i},A_{i})} The advantage critic can be trained by training both a Q-function Q ϕ ( s , a ) {\displaystyle Q_{\phi }(s,a)} and a state-value function V ϕ ( s ) {\displaystyle V_{\phi }(s)} , then let A ϕ ( s , a ) = Q ϕ ( s , a ) − V ϕ ( s ) {\displaystyle A_{\phi }(s,a)=Q_{\phi }(s,a)-V_{\phi }(s)} . Although, it is more common to train just a state-value function V ϕ ( s ) {\displaystyle V_{\phi }(s)} , then estimate the advantage by A ϕ ( S i , A i ) ≈ ∑ j ∈ 0 : n − 1 γ j R i + j + γ n V ϕ ( S i + n ) − V ϕ ( S i ) {\displaystyle A_{\phi }(S_{i},A_{i})\approx \sum _{j\in 0:n-1}\gamma ^{j}R_{i+j}+\gamma ^{n}V_{\phi }(S_{i+n})-V_{\phi }(S_{i})} Here, n {\displaystyle n} is a positive integer. The higher n {\displaystyle n} is, the more lower is the bias in the advantage estimation, but at the price of higher variance. The Generalized Advantage Estimation (GAE) introduces a hyperparameter λ {\displaystyle \lambda } that smoothly interpolates between Monte Carlo returns ( λ = 1 {\displaystyle \lambda =1} , high variance, no bias) and 1-step TD learning ( λ = 0 {\displaystyle \lambda =0} , low variance, high bias). This hyperparameter can be adjusted to pick the optimal bias-variance trade-off in advantage estimation. It uses an exponentially decaying average of n-step returns with λ {\displaystyle \lambda } being the decay strength. == Variants == Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic (A3C): Parallel and asynchronous version of A2C. Soft Actor-Critic (SAC): Incorporates entropy maximization for improved exploration. Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG): Specialized for continuous action spaces.

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  • White-box cryptography

    White-box cryptography

    In cryptography, the white-box model refers to an extreme attack scenario, in which an adversary has full unrestricted access to a cryptographic implementation, most commonly of a block cipher such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). A variety of security goals may be posed (see the section below), the most fundamental being "unbreakability", requiring that any (bounded) attacker should not be able to extract the secret key hardcoded in the implementation, while at the same time the implementation must be fully functional. In contrast, the black-box model only provides an oracle access to the analyzed cryptographic primitive (in the form of encryption and/or decryption queries). There is also a model in-between, the so-called gray-box model, which corresponds to additional information leakage from the implementation, more commonly referred to as side-channel leakage. White-box cryptography is a practice and study of techniques for designing and attacking white-box implementations. It has many applications, including digital rights management (DRM), pay television, protection of cryptographic keys in the presence of malware, mobile payments and cryptocurrency wallets. Examples of DRM systems employing white-box implementations include CSS and Widevine. White-box cryptography is closely related to the more general notions of obfuscation, in particular, to Black-box obfuscation, proven to be impossible, and to Indistinguishability obfuscation, constructed recently under well-founded assumptions but so far being infeasible to implement in practice. As of January 2023, there are no publicly known unbroken white-box designs of standard symmetric encryption schemes. On the other hand, there exist many unbroken white-box implementations of dedicated block ciphers designed specifically to achieve incompressibility (see § Security goals). == Security goals == Depending on the application, different security goals may be required from a white-box implementation. Specifically, for symmetric-key algorithms the following are distinguished: Unbreakability is the most fundamental goal requiring that a bounded attacker should not be able to recover the secret key embedded in the white-box implementation. Without this requirement, all other security goals are unreachable since a successful attacker can simply use a reference implementation of the encryption scheme together with the extracted key. One-wayness requires that a white-box implementation of an encryption scheme can not be used by a bounded attacker to decrypt ciphertexts. This requirement essentially turns a symmetric encryption scheme into a public-key encryption scheme, where the white-box implementation plays the role of the public key associated to the embedded secret key. This idea was proposed already in the famous work of Diffie and Hellman in 1976 as a potential public-key encryption candidate. Code lifting security is an informal requirement on the context, in which the white-box program is being executed. It demands that an attacker can not extract a functional copy of the program. This goal is particularly relevant in the DRM setting. Code obfuscation techniques are often used to achieve this goal. A commonly used technique is to compose the white-box implementation with so-called external encodings. These are lightweight secret encodings that modify the function computed by the white-box part of an application. It is required that their effect is canceled in other parts of the application in an obscure way, using code obfuscation techniques. Alternatively, the canceling counterparts can be applied on a remote server. Incompressibility requires that an attacker can not significantly compress a given white-box implementation. This can be seen as a way to achieve code lifting security (see above), since exfiltrating a large program from a constrained device (for example, an embedded or a mobile device) can be time-consuming and may be easy to detect by a firewall. Examples of incompressible designs include SPACE cipher, SPNbox, WhiteKey and WhiteBlock. These ciphers use large lookup tables that can be pseudorandomly generated from a secret master key. Although this makes the recovery of the master key hard, the lookup tables themselves play the role of an equivalent secret key. Thus, unbreakability is achieved only partially. Traceability (Traitor tracing) requires that each distributed white-box implementation contains a digital watermark allowing identification of the guilty user in case the white-box program is being leaked and distributed publicly. == History == The white-box model with initial attempts of white-box DES and AES implementations were first proposed by Chow, Eisen, Johnson and van Oorshot in 2003. The designs were based on representing the cipher as a network of lookup tables and obfuscating the tables by composing them with small (4- or 8-bit) random encodings. Such protection satisfied a property that each single obfuscated table individually does not contain any information about the secret key. Therefore, a potential attacker has to combine several tables in their analysis. The first two schemes were broken in 2004 by Billet, Gilbert, and Ech-Chatbi using structural cryptanalysis. The attack was subsequently called "the BGE attack". The numerous consequent design attempts (2005-2022) were quickly broken by practical dedicated attacks. In 2016, Bos, Hubain, Michiels and Teuwen showed that an adaptation of standard side-channel power analysis attacks can be used to efficiently and fully automatically break most existing white-box designs. This result created a new research direction about generic attacks (correlation-based, algebraic, fault injection) and protections against them. == Competitions == Four editions of the WhibOx contest were held in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2024 respectively. These competitions invited white-box designers both from academia and industry to submit their implementation in the form of (possibly obfuscated) C code. At the same time, everyone could attempt to attack these programs and recover the embedded secret key. Each of these competitions lasted for about 4-5 months. WhibOx 2017 / CHES 2017 Capture the Flag Challenge targeted the standard AES block cipher. Among 94 submitted implementations, all were broken during the competition, with the strongest one staying unbroken for 28 days. WhibOx 2019 / CHES 2019 Capture the Flag Challenge again targeted the AES block cipher. Among 27 submitted implementations, 3 programs stayed unbroken throughout the competition, but were broken after 51 days since the publication. WhibOx 2021 / CHES 2021 Capture the Flag Challenge changed the target to ECDSA, a digital signature scheme based on elliptic curves. Among 97 submitted implementations, all were broken within at most 2 days. WhibOx 2024 / CHES 2024 Capture the Flag Challenge again targeted ECDSA. Among 47 submitted implementations, all were broken during the competition, with the strongest one staying unbroken for almost 5 days.

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  • SPKAC

    SPKAC

    SPKAC (Signed Public Key and Challenge, also known as Netscape SPKI) is a format for sending a certificate signing request (CSR): it encodes a public key, that can be manipulated using OpenSSL. It is created using the little documented HTML keygen element inside a number of Netscape compatible browsers. == Standardisation == There exists an ongoing effort to standardise SPKAC through an Internet Draft in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The purpose of this work has been to formally define what has existed prior as a de facto standard, and to address security deficiencies, particular with respect to historic insecure use of MD5 that has since been declared unsafe for use with digital signatures. == Implementations == HTML5 originally specified the element to support SPKAC in the browser to make it easier to create client side certificates through a web service for protocols such as WebID; however, subsequent work for HTML 5.1 placed the keygen element "at-risk", and the first public working draft of HTML 5.2 removes the keygen element entirely. The removal of the keygen element is due to non-interoperability and non-conformity from a standards perspective in addition to security concerns. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Authentication Working Group developed the WebAuthn (Web Authentication) API to replace the keygen element. Bouncy Castle provides a Java class. An implementation for Erlang/OTP exists too. An implementation for Python is named pyspkac. PHP OpenSSL extension as of version 5.6.0. Node.js implementation. === Deficiencies === The user interface needs to be improved in browsers, to make it more obvious to users when a server is asking for the client certificate.

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