Search

Automated clinical text anonymization has the potential to unlock the widespread sharing of textual health data for secondary usage while assuring patient privacy and safety. Despite the proposal of many complex and theoretically successful anonymization solutions in literature, these techniques remain flawed. As such, clinical institutions are still reluctant to apply them for open access to their data. Recent advances in developing Large Language Models (LLMs) pose a promising opportunity to further the field, given their capability to perform various tasks. This paper proposes six new evaluation metrics tailored to the challenges of generative anonymization with LLMs. Moreover, we present a comparative study of LLM-based methods, testing them against two baseline techniques. Our results establish LLM-based models as a reliable alternative to common approaches, paving the way toward trustworthy anonymization of clinical text.

Malicious traffic detectors leveraging machine learning (ML), namely those incorporating deep learning techniques, exhibit impressive detection capabilities across multiple attacks. However, their effectiveness becomes compromised when deployed in networks handling Terabit-speed traffic. In practice, these systems require substantial traffic sampling to reconcile the high data plane packet rates with the comparatively slower processing speeds of ML detection. As sampling significantly reduces traffic observability, it fundamentally undermines their detection capability. We present Peregrine, an ML-based malicious traffic detector for Terabit networks. The key idea is to run the detection process partially in the network data plane. Specifically, we offload the detector's ML feature computation to a commodity switch. The Peregrine switch processes a diversity of features per-packet, at Tbps line rates - three orders of magnitude higher than the fastest detector - to feed the ML-based component in the control plane. Our offloading approach presents a distinct advantage. While, in practice, current systems sample raw traffic, in Peregrine sampling occurs after feature computation. This essential trait enables computing features over all traffic, significantly enhancing detection performance. The Peregrine detector is not only effective for Terabit networks, but it is also energy- and cost-efficient. Further, by shifting a compute-heavy component to the switch, it saves precious CPU cycles and improves detection throughput.