Search

Smart speakers and voice-based virtual assistants are core components for the success of the IoT paradigm. Unfortunately, they are vulnerable to various privacy threats exploiting machine learning to analyze the generated encrypted traffic. To cope with that, deep adversarial learning approaches can be used to build black-box countermeasures altering the network traffic (e.g., via packet padding) and its statistical information. This letter showcases the inadequacy of such countermeasures against machine learning attacks with a dedicated experimental campaign on a real network dataset. Results indicate the need for a major re-engineering to guarantee the suitable protection of commercially available smart speakers.

Smart speakers and voice-based virtual assistants are used to retrieve information, interact with other devices, and command a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) nodes. To this aim, smart speakers and voice-based assistants typically take advantage of cloud architectures: vocal commands of the user are sampled, sent through the Internet to be processed and transmitted back for local execution, e.g., to activate an IoT device. Unfortunately, even if privacy and security are enforced through state- of-the-art encryption mechanisms, the features of the encrypted traffic, such as the throughput, the size of protocol data units or the IP addresses can leak critical information about the habits of the users. In this perspective, in this paper we showcase this kind of risks by exploiting machine learn- ing techniques to develop black-box models to classify traffic and implement privacy leaking attacks automatically. We prove that such traffic analysis allows to detect the presence of a person in a house equipped with a Google Home device, even if the same person does not interact with the smart device. We also present a set of experimental results collected in a realistic scenario, and propose possible countermeasures.

Domaines de recherches: Anthropologie, Anthropologie des couleurs, Antiquité, Anthropologie des sens. Mots-clés : Sumérien, Akkadien, Littérature, Divination, Sensoriel, couleur.

In this paper I will analyse the different features of the Pleiades in the astronomical, astrological, and calendrical interpretation as well as their mythical and cultural background in ancient Mesopotamia. According to cuneiform sources, the Pleiades are among the most important stars. They are simply known in Sumerian as ―the Stars‖ (MUL.MUL), while their Akkadian name, ―the Bristle‖ (zappu), links them to the imagery and the cultural context of the ―Bull of Heaven‖ constellation (Taurus), to which they belong. Pleiades are frequently depicted as seven dots or seven stars, and identified on a mythological level with groups of seven divine beings. In fact, the Sumerian ideogram for ―seven‖ is used as an alternative name for the Pleiades. In particular they show a close relation to a group of demons, called the Seven (Sebēttu), that, according to an etiological myth, causes the eclipse of the moon. The relation of the Pleiades to the war and death sphere is strengthened by their association with the Netherworld god Nergal/Erra, as well as their identification with the god’s planet (Mars). Finally, the Pleiades are among the few celestial bodies that receive a cult, and specific prayers are dedicated to them. From the sources it emerges that the Pleiades are mainly related to the movement of the Moon, and it is worth noting that the list of constellations of the ecliptic begins precisely with the Pleiades. Furthermore, the Pleiades play an important part in the calendrical reckoning, a role that is clearly stated in almanacs as the MUL.APIN, as well as in the intercalation scheme based on the conjunction of the Moon and the Pleiades.

Cyber security is always a main concern for critical infrastructures and nation-wide safety and sustainability. Thus, advanced cyber ranges and security training is becoming imperative for the involved organizations. This paper presets a cyber security training platform, called THREAT-ARREST. The various platform modules can analyze an organization’s system, identify the most critical threats, and tailor a training program to its personnel needs. Then, different training programmes are created based on the trainee types (i.e. administrator, simple operator, etc.), providing several teaching procedures and accomplishing diverse learning goals. One of the main novelties of THREAT-ARREST is the modelling of these programmes along with the runtime monitoring, management, and evaluation operations. The platform is generic. Nevertheless, its applicability in a smart energy case study is detailed.

Despite the devastation produced by centuries of European colonization, Amerindian societies have maintained worldviews and conceptions of humanity which present a great richness, originality and variety. As shown both by Lévi-Strauss (1992) and, in a study perspective closer to Eliade's approach, by Sullivan (1988), they share some common characteristics which it is useful to compare, by difference and analogy, with those of Euro-Western cosmologies. As Viveiros de Castro argued with specific reference to the indigenous cosmologies of the Amazon, the importance of the aspects of relationality of reality, its eminently transformative dynamic nature, the ontological multiplicity of its components, the importance of the perspective of observation and of the situation of interaction for the determination of the reality of what "is seen", the joint consideration of 'society' and 'nature' in terms of an inseparable intertwining of relational networks, are in fact characteristic features of what he proposed to call "perspectivism Amerindian ". To these features must be added what the Brazilian anthropologist calls, giving the adjective a different meaning from the more common one, the "anthropomorphic" but not "anthropocentric" character of the ontologies widespread in the indigenous Amazon. Contrary to the tendency, prevailing with the development of modern sciences, to contrast 'cosmology' and 'anthropology', Amazonian indigenous "socio-cosmologies" offer an example of how humanity and the world they can be thought along lines of interdependence. In this paper, I provide an overview of recent debates on these issues, particularly focusing on the case of the ethnographical studies on Makuna people.