This week we discovered an interesting article from ACM Queue, a bimonthly magazine of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This article, written by researchers Jinnan Guo, Peter Pietzuch, Andrew Paverd, and Kapil Vaswanin, explores how as the demand for trustworthy AI systems grows, the confluence of Federated Learning (FL) and Confidential Computing emerges as a promising solution.  Trustworthy AI Using Confidential Federated Learning The article emphasizes the crucial need to ensure the trustworthiness of AI systems, particularly in safeguarding personal information. It highlights two key methodologies, Federated Learning (FL) and Confidential Computing, as effective approaches to achieving this goal. While FL addresses privacy concerns by enabling collaborative model training […]

The Department of Commerce has released a request for comment on AI Accountability Policy. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is requesting comments on AI system accountability measures and policies. The comments will help the administration to draft and issue a report on AI accountability policy development focusing on AI assurance ecosystems. Comments are due June 10th, 2023. Summary: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) hereby requests comments on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) system accountability measures and policies. This request focuses on self-regulatory, regulatory, and other measures and policies that are designed to provide reliable evidence to external stakeholders – that is, to provide assurance – – that AI systems […]

CCC submitted a response to a Request for Information (RFI) released by Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD), National Coordination Office (NCO), and National Science Foundation (NSF) on the 2023 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan. CCC previously released a blog about the importance of the RFI, and encouraged the computing community to respond. CCC’s response was written by: Nadya Bliss (Arizona State University)  Elizabeth Bradley (University of Colorado-Boulder)  Randal Burns (Johns Hopkins University)  Thomas M. Conte (Georgia Institute of Technology)  David Danks (University of California San Diego)  Nathan Evans (Arizona State University)  Kevin Fu (Northeastern University)  Haley Griffin (Computing Community Consortium)  William D. Gropp (University of […]

Last month, CCC council member Katie Siek, along with two PhD student collaborators, Zaidat Ibrahim and Alexander Hayes from Indiana University, released an article in the journal The Conversation about public concern regarding the use of period tracking apps.    Recently, many, including researchers and experts, have voiced apprehension over using period tracking applications since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, fearing that state and local governments may attempt to subpoena user’s period data from the owners of these apps. Some have even gone so far as to input false data into these period tracking apps, in the hopes that this “junk data” will confuse the applications’ algorithms, and cause […]

First announced at President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, the U.S./U.K. privacy-enhancing technologies prize challenges, are now open for registration. Co-sponsored by the National Institute for Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation, and planned in coordination with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and counterparts in the United Kingdom, the prize challenges seek to catalyze research to bring about solutions to financial crime and public health emergencies. Solutions to pressing global issues such as preventing financial cybercrime and enhancing pandemic response capabilities requires vast amount of high quality data. Privacy-enhancing technologies will enable the cultivation and analysis of large datasets without jeopardizing a citizens’ fundamental right […]

Latanya Sweeney, Harvard University, will present “How Technology Will Dictate Our Civic Future,” as part the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Lecture Series on February 10th, 2022 from 12pm – 1:15pm EDT.  Latanya Sweeney is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School and in the a part of the faculty for the Department of Arts and Sciences. In addition, she is the Editor-in-Chief of Technology Science, director and founder of the Public Interest Tech Lab and of the Data Privacy Lab. Before coming to Harvard she was the Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. […]