The David E. Rumelhart Prize for Contributions to the Theoretical Foundations of Human Cognition was founded in 2001 in honor of the cognitive scientist David Rumelhart to introduce the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for cognitive science. It is awarded annually to "an individual or collaborative team making a significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition". The annual award is presented at the Cognitive Science Society meeting, where the recipient gives a lecture and receives a check for $100,000. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the next year's award winner is announced. The award is funded by the Robert J. Glushko and Pamela Samuelson Foundation. The Rumelhart Prize committee is independent of the Cognitive Science Society. However, the society provides a large and interested audience for the awards. == Selection Committee == As of 2022, the selection committee for the prize consisted of: Richard Cooper (chair) Dedre Gentner Robert J. Glushko Tania Lombrozo Steven T. Piantadosi Jesse Snedeker == Recipients ==
Vinted
Vinted Group UAB is a Lithuanian technology company best known for its online marketplace Vinted. Vinted is the leading second-hand fashion marketplace in Europe and a go-to destination for all kinds of second-hand items. According to the company, its mission is to make second-hand the first choice worldwide. The company operates as an ecosystem of businesses, including the Vinted Marketplace (its peer-to-peer resale platform), Vinted Go (logistics and shipping services), Vinted Pay (in-app payment solutions), and Vinted Ventures (an investment arm supporting the circular economy). Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, it also has offices in Germany and the Netherlands and employs more than 2,200 people. == History == Vinted was co-founded in 2008 by Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas in Vilnius, Lithuania. The idea originated when Mitkute was moving house and wanted a way to sell clothes she no longer needed. Janauskas helped her create a website where users could trade clothing items. In 2016, Dutch entrepreneur Thomas Plantenga joined Vinted as a strategy consultant and later became Chief Executive Officer, leading the company through a period of international growth. In 2019, Vinted became Lithuania’s first technology unicorn after raising €128 million at a €1 billion valuation in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. In October 2020, it acquired United Wardrobe, a Dutch competitor, and in November 2020 German Kleiderkreisel and Mamikreisel were officially merged into the Vinted platform. In 2024 it acquired Trendsales, a Danish resale platform. According to Vogue Business, Vinted’s revenue grew 61% between 2022 and 2023 and the company posted a net profit of €17.8 million in 2023. Usage of Vinted in the UK has grown from 1.2 million users in 2021, to 8 million in 2023. In 2024, the group reported consolidated revenue of €813.4 million (up 36% from 2023) and a net profit of €76.7 million, up 330% from 2023. As of 2024, Vinted was valued at approximately €5 billion, operating in more than 26 markets worldwide and announcing plans to launch in Ireland, Greece, Latvia, Slovenia, and Estonia in 2025. As of 2025 the company employed more than 2,200 people. In April 2026, Vinted completed a secondary share transaction of €880m, valuing the company at €8bn. == Products and operations == Vinted primarily resells clothing but now supports multiple categories including homeware, kidswear, electronics, books, collectibles, and high-value fashion. Vinted has worked with public figures such as Paul Mescal and Alexa Chung on exclusive wardrobe sales and has also partnered directly with charities including Oxfam on initiatives which promote the social and environmental value of second-hand fashion, such as the Style for Change fashion show at London Fashion Week. In 2025, Vinted produced its first television format, the second-hand fashion competition series RE/Style, hosted by Emma Willis. The show features emerging fashion designers from across Europe creating runway-ready looks from second-hand garments and aired on Prime Video UK. In 2025, Vinted was reported as France’s top clothing retailer by sales volume. == Criticism == Vinted has faced scrutiny from European data protection authorities in France, Lithuania, and Poland following complaints regarding GDPR compliance and account blocking practices. In July 2024, the Lithuanian authority fined the company €2,375,276. The case was coordinated by a dedicated Vinted Working Group under the European Data Protection Board. In early 2024, Swedish police reported around 300 fraud cases linked to the platform, in which users’ bank accounts were targeted by scammers. In October 2024, Channel 4 in the United Kingdom aired a documentary examining safety and privacy concerns related to the platform, including the sexualisation of underage users’ images and risks associated with second-hand baby products lacking safety certification. In November 2025, BBC News reported that Vinted’s update to its sizing system in the United Kingdom led to widespread user criticism. Vinted said the update was intended to standardise sizing across international brands.
Pamphlet war
A pamphlet war is a protracted argument or discussion through printed media, especially between the time the printing press became common, and when state intervention like copyright laws made such public discourse more difficult. The purpose was to defend or attack a certain perspective or idea. Pamphlet wars have occurred multiple times throughout history, as both social and political platforms. Pamphlet wars became viable platforms for this protracted discussion with the advent and spread of the printing press. Cheap printing presses, and increased literacy made the late 17th century a key stepping stone for the development of pamphlet wars, a period of prolific use of this type of debate. Over 2200 pamphlets were published between 1600–1715 alone. Pamphlet wars are generally credited for powering many key social changes of the era, including the Reformation and the Revolution Controversy, the English philosophical debate set off by the French Revolution. == History of the pamphlet in England == Throughout Europe in the 16th century, printed tracts were used to argue religious doctrine and foment support for religious causes. In England, Henry VIII used print literature to justify his break from the Catholic Church. During the subsequent reigns of Edward and Mary, print polemics escalated into propaganda warfare, as print media gained enormous potential to sway common opinion. By the 1560s, print was widely used to convey news. In 1562, the first pamphlets appeared, which discussed the English forces sent to aid the Protestant French Huguenots. In 1569, pamphlets reported the revolt of the Northern Earls and the subsequent Rebellion of the same year. In the 1580s, pamphlets began to replace broadsheet ballads as the means to convey information to the general public. Over the next century, the pamphlet became the principal means of garnering support for a cause or an idea, and was particularly influential during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Through the ensuing decades, the pamphlet lost some popularity due to the emergence of newspapers and journals, but continued to be an important medium of public debate, as illustrated by the Revolution Controversy a full century later in the 1790s. == Pamphlet printing == Coming from a Latin word, "pamphlet" literally means "small book." In the early days of printing, the format of the book or pamphlet depended on the size of the paper used and the number of times it was folded. If a page was only folded once, it was called a folio. If it was folded twice, it was known as a quarto. An octave was a paper folded three times. A pamphlet was usually 1-12 sheets of paper folded in quarto, or 8-96 pages. It was sold for one or two pennies apiece. The printing of a pamphlet involved many people: the author, the printer, suppliers, print-makers, compositor, correctors, pressmen, binders, and distributors. Once the pamphleteer had written the pamphlet, it was sent to the printing house to be corrected, set into type, and printed. The papers were then given to the printer's warehouse-keeper, who bundled the copies and sent them to the bookseller, who was probably the one financing the printing. He was responsible to bind the pamphlets, usually by sewing them, and then sold them wholesale to individual bookselling vendors. The booksellers then sold them from a stall in the marketplace. == Pamphlet subjects == Pamphlets began as the means of conveyance for religious debates, and therefore religious topics were one of the main subjects they dealt with. The definition of a pamphlet came to mean a short work dealing with social, political, or religious issues. Typical topics included the Civil war, Church of England doctrines, Acts of Parliament, the Popish Plot (see below), the Stuart Era, and Cromwell propaganda. In addition, pamphlets were also used for romantic fiction, autobiography, scurrilous personal abuse, and social criticism. They contained much of the propaganda of the 17th century in the midst of the religious and political turmoil. They were also used for debates between the Puritans and the Anglican. During the Glorious Revolution, pamphlets were political weapons. == Authors == There were many authors of pamphlets. However some of the more popular authors include Daniel Defoe, Thomas Hobbes, Jonathan Swift, John Milton, and Samuel Pepys. Also included in the midst are Thomas Nashe, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Matthew Prior. In 1591–1592, Robert Greene released a series of pamphlets which later inspired many other authors including Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker. == Critics == Pamphlets, along with their vast popularity, received criticism. There were many in the time period who believed that pamphlets were full of foolishness. They thought the pamphlets were not good enough literature and that they would turn people from "good" writing. They believed that pamphlets would be the end of the great volumes of literature and that great writing would be forgotten. == News reporting == Pamphlets made a great difference in the way news was reported to the general public. With the publication of pamphlets, it was no longer difficult for people to hear of events taking place far away. The closer the occurrence was to London, the easier and faster people heard of it. For example, the Battle of Edgehill took place on 23 October 1642. The first pamphlet reporting the incident was printed on 25 October 24 hours after some of the orders reported had been given. While not entirely accurate, and hurriedly made, the pamphlet nonetheless was able to tell the general public what had happened in the battle. A more accurate, specific, and readable account was available in a pamphlet printed on 26 October, and the "authorized" version was available only five days after the battle took place. == Marprelate pamphlets == In 1588, a series of pamphlets marked a turning point for the Puritans, dividing them from other Protestants in the country. The authors wrote under the pseudonym of Martin Marprelate and his two sons of the same name. The true identities of the authors were never discovered. The pamphlets aimed to provoke authorities to take action against censorship. The series was among the first to ask questions directly of its readers. == Early pamphlet wars == === Elizabethan pamphlet wars === As a means of forming or swaying public opinion, pamphlets like these had a part in influencing society, even as the content was itself influenced by society. During the 16th century and continuing for a short while in the early 17th century in England there was rise in the use of pamphlet wars to discuss a myriad of issues spanning from the civil war, to religious freedoms and the roles of women in society. The Queen herself participated in these discussions, making sure that she was widely read and understood by her people in order to gain favour and establish herself as the monarch despite being a woman. Examples of her use of this medium appear in To the Troops at Tilbury written in 1588, On Mary's Execution written in 1586, and many more. Another famous writer of this period to take advantage of the pamphlet was Emilia Lanier, famous for her arguments about the role of women. A common idea promoted by many literary works and the general attitude towards women, Lanier's work "Eve's Apology in Defence of Women" refuted the belief that Eve is responsible for the fall of man. A very uncommon and unpopular stance to take, Lanier accomplishes her defence through structuring it as an apology, one of the earliest subversive feminist texts. Similarly, Francis Bacon wrote his Essays to promote his idea of morality and other complicated social issues. For example, his work, "Of Love" examines the various understandings of the concept of love, particularly as it was perceived during the Elizabethan era. === Eikon Series === From 1649 until 1651, some five pamphlets were published in a debate about the execution of King Charles I of England (1600-1649). Prior to his execution, King Charles wrote the first pamphlet in the discussion, Eikon Basilike’’ (from the Greek “eikon” for image and “basileus” for king). The subtitle of this work - Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings - indicates that Charles sought to portray himself as a martyr to the cause of regal prerogative. In the following months, several response pamphlets were published (collectively known as the "Eikon" series), including: Eikon Alethine, Eikon e Pistes, Eikonoklastes, and Eikon Aklastos,” alternately attacking or defending the king, his regicide, and his self-portrait in “Eikon Basilike.” == Popish Plot and Elizabeth Cellier == In the 1680s, after being acquitted of the "Meal-Tub Plot" for which she was accused, Elizabeth Cellier wrote Malice Defeated, which, along with The Matchless Picaro, sparked a pamphlet war surrounding debate of the ascension of a Catholic king to the thro
Social media optimization
Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of online platforms to generate income or publicity to increase the awareness of a brand, event, product or service. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social news websites, video sharing websites such as YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter). SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to drive web traffic, and draw attention to a company or creator. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites. SMO is used to strategically create online content ranging from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips that encourages and entices people to engage with a website. Users share this content, via its weblink, with social media contacts and friends. Common examples of social media engagement are "liking and commenting on posts, retweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content". Social media optimization is also an effective way of implementing online reputation management (ORM), meaning that if someone posts bad reviews of a business, an SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results. In the 2010s, with social media sites overtaking TV as a source for news for young people, news organizations have become increasingly reliant on social media platforms for generating web traffic. Publishers such as The Economist employ large social media teams to optimize their online posts and maximize traffic, while other major publishers now use advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology to generate higher volumes of web traffic. == Relationship with search engine optimization == Social media optimization is an increasingly important factor in search engine optimization, which is the process of designing a website in a way so that it has as high a ranking as possible on search engines. Search engines are increasingly utilizing the recommendations of users of social networks such as Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram to rank pages in the search engine result pages. The implication is that when a webpage is shared or "liked" by a user on a social network, it counts as a "vote" for that webpage's quality. Thus, search engines can use such votes accordingly to properly ranked websites in search engine results pages. Furthermore, since it is more difficult to tip the scales or influence the search engines in this way, search engines are putting more stock into social search. This, coupled with increasingly personalized search based on interests and location, has significantly increased the importance of a social media presence in search engine optimization. Due to personalized search results, location-based social media presences on websites such as Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, and Yahoo! Local have become increasingly important. While social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, it differs in several ways. Primarily, SMO focuses on driving web traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search engine ranking is also a benefit of successful social media optimization. Further, SMO is helpful to target particular geographic regions in order to target and reach potential customers. This helps in lead generation (finding new customers) and contributes to high conversion rates (i.e., converting previously uninterested individuals into people who are interested in a brand or organization). == Relationship with viral marketing == Social media optimization is in many ways connected to the technique of viral marketing or "viral seeding" where word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. An effective SMO campaign can harness the power of viral marketing; for example, 80% of activity on Pinterest is generated through "repinning." Furthermore, by following social trends and utilizing alternative social networks, websites can retain existing followers while also attracting new ones. This allows businesses to build an online following and presence, all linking back to the company's website for increased traffic. For example, with an effective social bookmarking campaign, not only can website traffic be increased, but a site's rankings can also be increased. In a similar way, the engagement with blogs creates a similar result by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogosphere. Social media optimization is considered an integral part of an online reputation management (ORM) or search engine reputation management (SERM) strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence. SMO is one of six key influencers that affect Social Commerce Construct (SCC). Online activities such as consumers' evaluations and advices on products and services constitute part of what creates a Social Commerce Construct (SCC). Social media optimization is not limited to marketing and brand building. Increasingly, smart businesses are integrating social media participation as part of their knowledge management strategy (i.e., product/service development, recruiting, employee engagement and turnover, brand building, customer satisfaction and relations, business development and more). Additionally, social media optimization can be implemented to foster a community of the associated site, allowing for a healthy business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship. == Origins and implementation == According to technologist Danny Sullivan, the term "social media optimization" was first used and described by marketer Rohit Bhargava on his marketing blog in August 2006. In the same post, Bhargava established the five important rules of social media optimization. Bhargava believed that by following his rules, anyone could influence the levels of traffic and engagement on their site, increase popularity, and ensure that it ranks highly in search engine results. An additional 11 SMO rules have since been added to the list by other marketing contributors. The 16 rules of SMO, according to one source, are as follows: Increase your linkability Make tagging and bookmarking easy Reward inbound links Help your content to "travel" via sharing Encourage the mashup, where users are allowed to remix content Be a user resource, even if it doesn't help you (e.g., provide resources and information for users) Reward helpful and valuable users Participate (join the online conversation) Know how to target your audience Create new, quality content ("web scraping" of existing online content is ignored by good search engines) Be "real" in the tone and style of the posts Don't forget your roots; be humble Don't be afraid to experiment, innovate, try new things and "stay fresh" Develop an SMO strategy Choose your SMO tactics wisely Make SMO a key part of your marketing process and develop company best practices Bhargava's initial five rules were more specifically designed to SMO, while the list is now much broader and addresses everything that can be done across different social media platforms. According to author and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, Lee Odden, a Social Media Strategy is also necessary to ensure optimization. This is a similar concept to Bhargava's list of rules for SMO. The Social Media Strategy may consider: Objectives e.g. creating brand awareness and using social media for external communications. Listening e.g. monitoring conversations relating to customers and business objectives. Audience e.g. finding out who the customers are, what they do, who they are influenced by, and what they frequently talk about. It is important to work out what customers want in exchange for their online engagement and attention. Participation and content e.g. establishing a presence and community online and engaging with users by sharing useful and interesting information. Measurement e.g. keeping a record of likes and comments on posts, and the number of sales to monitor growth and determine which tactics are most useful in optimizing social media. According to Lon Safko and David K. Brake in The Social Media Bible, it is also important to act like a publisher by maintaining an effective organizational strategy, to have an original concept and unique "edge" that differentiates one's approach from competitors, and to experiment with new ideas if things do not work the first time. If a business is blog-based, an effective method of SMO is using widgets that allow users to share content to their personal social media platforms. This will ultimately reach a wider target audience and drive mor
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.
Apprenticeship learning
In artificial intelligence, apprenticeship learning (or learning from demonstration or imitation learning) is the process of learning by observing an expert. It can be viewed as a form of supervised learning, where the training dataset consists of task executions by a demonstration teacher. == Mapping function approach == Mapping methods try to mimic the expert by forming a direct mapping either from states to actions, or from states to reward values. For example, in 2002 researchers used such an approach to teach an AIBO robot basic soccer skills. === Inverse reinforcement learning approach === Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the process of deriving a reward function from observed behavior. While ordinary "reinforcement learning" involves using rewards and punishments to learn behavior, in IRL the direction is reversed, and a robot observes a person's behavior to figure out what goal that behavior seems to be trying to achieve. The IRL problem can be defined as: Given 1) measurements of an agent's behaviour over time, in a variety of circumstances; 2) measurements of the sensory inputs to that agent; 3) a model of the physical environment (including the agent's body): Determine the reward function that the agent is optimizing. IRL researcher Stuart J. Russell proposes that IRL might be used to observe humans and attempt to codify their complex "ethical values", in an effort to create "ethical robots" that might someday know "not to cook your cat" without needing to be explicitly told. The scenario can be modeled as a "cooperative inverse reinforcement learning game", where a "person" player and a "robot" player cooperate to secure the person's implicit goals, despite these goals not being explicitly known by either the person nor the robot. In 2017, OpenAI and DeepMind applied deep learning to the cooperative inverse reinforcement learning in simple domains such as Atari games and straightforward robot tasks such as backflips. The human role was limited to answering queries from the robot as to which of two different actions were preferred. The researchers found evidence that the techniques may be economically scalable to modern systems. Apprenticeship via inverse reinforcement learning (AIRP) was developed by in 2004 Pieter Abbeel, Professor in Berkeley's EECS department, and Andrew Ng, Associate Professor in Stanford University's Computer Science Department. AIRP deals with "Markov decision process where we are not explicitly given a reward function, but where instead we can observe an expert demonstrating the task that we want to learn to perform". AIRP has been used to model reward functions of highly dynamic scenarios where there is no obvious reward function intuitively. Take the task of driving for example, there are many different objectives working simultaneously - such as maintaining safe following distance, a good speed, not changing lanes too often, etc. This task, may seem easy at first glance, but a trivial reward function may not converge to the policy wanted. One domain where AIRP has been used extensively is helicopter control. While simple trajectories can be intuitively derived, complicated tasks like aerobatics for shows has been successful. These include aerobatic maneuvers like - in-place flips, in-place rolls, loops, hurricanes and even auto-rotation landings. This work was developed by Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, and Andrew Ng - "Autonomous Helicopter Aerobatics through Apprenticeship Learning" === System model approach === System models try to mimic the expert by modeling world dynamics. == Plan approach == The system learns rules to associate preconditions and postconditions with each action. In one 1994 demonstration, a humanoid learns a generalized plan from only two demonstrations of a repetitive ball collection task. == Example == Learning from demonstration is often explained from a perspective that the working Robot-control-system is available and the human-demonstrator is using it. And indeed, if the software works, the Human operator takes the robot-arm, makes a move with it, and the robot will reproduce the action later. For example, he teaches the robot-arm how to put a cup under a coffeemaker and press the start-button. In the replay phase, the robot is imitating this behavior 1:1. But that is not how the system works internally; it is only what the audience can observe. In reality, Learning from demonstration is much more complex. One of the first works on learning by robot apprentices (anthropomorphic robots learning by imitation) was Adrian Stoica's PhD thesis in 1995. In 1997, robotics expert Stefan Schaal was working on the Sarcos robot-arm. The goal was simple: solve the pendulum swingup task. The robot itself can execute a movement, and as a result, the pendulum is moving. The problem is, that it is unclear what actions will result into which movement. It is an Optimal control-problem which can be described with mathematical formulas but is hard to solve. The idea from Schaal was, not to use a Brute-force solver but record the movements of a human-demonstration. The angle of the pendulum is logged over three seconds at the y-axis. This results into a diagram which produces a pattern. In computer animation, the principle is called spline animation. That means, on the x-axis the time is given, for example 0.5 seconds, 1.0 seconds, 1.5 seconds, while on the y-axis is the variable given. In most cases it's the position of an object. In the inverted pendulum it is the angle. The overall task consists of two parts: recording the angle over time and reproducing the recorded motion. The reproducing step is surprisingly simple. As an input we know, in which time step which angle the pendulum must have. Bringing the system to a state is called “Tracking control” or PID control. That means, we have a trajectory over time, and must find control actions to map the system to this trajectory. Other authors call the principle “steering behavior”, because the aim is to bring a robot to a given line.
Human rights and encryption
Human rights and encryption refers to the ways in which digital encryption affects human rights. Encryption can be used as both a detriment and a boon to human rights; for example, encryption can be used to enforce digital rights management for video games. This kind of video game licensing can render software unusable long term and represents the erosion of consumer rights. At the same time, encryption is fundamental part of internet security. Asymmetrical encryption is used extensively online for authentication, providing users confidence their internet traffic is not being misdirected. Encryption is also used to obfuscate information as it travels from end-to-end over the internet, preventing eavesdropping and tampering. Encryption can also provide anonymity, which is an important consideration for freedom of expression. Despite its drawbacks, encryption is essential for a free, open, and trustworthy internet. == Background == === Human rights === Human rights are moral principles or norms for human behaviour that are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because they are a human being". Those rights are "inherent in all human beings" regardless of their nationality, location, language, religion, ethnic origin, or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time and are universal and egalitarian. === Cryptography === Cryptography is a long-standing subfield of both mathematics and computer science. It can generally be defined as "the protection of information and computation using mathematical techniques." Encryption and cryptography are closely interlinked, although "cryptography" has a broader meaning. For example, a digital signature is "cryptography", but not technically "encryption". == Overview == Under international human rights law, freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In Article 19 of the UDHR states that "everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice". Since the 1970s, the availability of digital computing and the invention of public-key cryptography have made encryption more widely available. (Previously, encryption techniques were the domain of nation-state actors.) Cryptographic techniques are also used to protect the anonymity of communicating actors and privacy more generally. The availability and use of encryption continue to lead to complex, important, and highly contentious legal policy debates. Some government agencies have made statements or proposals to lessen such usage and deployment due to hurdles it presents for government access. The rise of commercial end-to-end encryption services have pushed towards more debates around the use of encryption and the legal status of cryptography in general. Encryption, as defined above, is a set of cryptographic techniques to protect information. The normative value of encryption, however, is not fixed but varies with the type and purpose of the cryptographic methods used. Traditionally, encryption (cipher) techniques were used to ensure the confidentiality of communications and prevent access to information and communications by others and intended recipients. Cryptography can also ensure the authenticity of communicating parties and the integrity of communications contents, providing a key ingredient for enabling trust in the digital environment. There is a growing awareness within human rights organizations that encryption plays an important role in realizing a free, open, and trustworthy Internet. UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye observed, during the Human Rights Council in June 2015, that encryption and anonymity deserve a protected status under the rights to privacy and freedom of expression: "Encryption and anonymity, today's leading vehicles for online security, provide individuals with a means to protect their privacy, empowering them to browse, read, develop and share opinions and information without interference and enabling journalists, civil society organizations, members of ethnic or religious groups, those persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, activists, scholars, artists and others to exercise the rights to freedom of opinion and expression." == Encryption in media and communication == In the context of media and communication, two types of encryption in media and communication can be distinguished: It could be used as a result of the choice of a service provider or deployed by Internet users. Client-side encryption tools and technologies are relevant for marginalized communities, journalists and other online media actors practicing journalism as a way of protecting their rights. It could prevent unauthorized third party access, but the service provider implementing it would still have access to the relevant user data. End-to-end encryption is an encryption technique that refers to encryption that also prevents service providers themselves from having access to the user's communications. The implementation of these forms of encryption has sparked the most debate since the start of the 21st century. === Service providers deployed techniques to prevent unauthorized third-party access. === Among the most widely deployed cryptographic techniques is the securitization of communications channel between internet users and specific service providers from man-in-the-middle attacks, access by unauthorized third parties. Given the breadth of nuances involved, these cryptographic techniques must be run jointly by both the service user and the service provider in order to work properly. They require service providers, including online news publisher(s) or social network(s), to actively implement them into service design. Users cannot deploy these techniques unilaterally; their deployment is contingent on active participation by the service provider. The TLS protocol, which becomes visible to the normal internet user through the HTTPS header, is widely used for securing online commerce, e-government services and health applications as well as devices that make up networked infrastructures, e.g., routers, cameras. However, although the standard has been around since 1990, the wider spread and evolution of the technology has been slow. As with other cryptographic methods and protocols, the practical challenges related to proper, secure and (wider) deployment are significant and have to be considered. Many service providers still do not implement TLS or do not implement it well. In the context of wireless communications, the use of cryptographic techniques that protect communications from third parties are also important. Different standards have been developed to protect wireless communications: 2G, 3G and 4G standards for communication between mobile phones, base stations and base stations controllers; standards to protect communications between mobile devices and wireless routers ('WLAN'); and standards for local computer networks. One common weakness in these designs is that the transmission points of the wireless communication can access all communications e.g., the telecommunications provider. This vulnerability is exacerbated when wireless protocols only authenticate user devices, but not the wireless access point. Whether the data is stored on a device, or on a local server as in the cloud, there is also a distinction between 'at rest'. Given the vulnerability of cellphones to theft for instance, particular attention may be given to limiting service provided access. This does not exclude the situation that the service provider discloses this information to third parties like other commercial entities or governments. The user needs to trust the service provider to act in their interests. The possibility that a service provider is legally compelled to hand over user information or to interfere with particular communications with particular users, remains. === Privacy-enhancing Technologies === There are services that specifically market themselves with claims not to have access to the content of their users' communication. Service Providers can also take measures that restrict their ability to access information and communication, further increasing the protection of users against access to their information and communications. The integrity of these Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), depends on delicate design decisions as well as the