The performance of autonomous robots, i.e. robots that can make their own decisions and choose their own actions, is becoming increasingly impressive, but most of them are still constrained to labs, or controlled environments. In addition to this, these robots are typically only able to do intelligent things for a short period of time, before either crashing (physically or digitally) or running out of things to do. In order to go beyond these limitations, and to deliver the kind of autonomous service robots required by society, we must conquer the challenge of combining artificial intelligence and robotics to develop systems capable of long-term autonomy in everyday environments. This talk will present recent progress in this direction, focussing on the mobile robots for security and care domains developed by the EU-funded STRANDS project (http://strands-project.eu) which have so far completed over 106 days of autonomy in real service environments. In particular the presentation will cover our approach which combines probabilistic verification and machine learning to produce a planning system which controls how the robots select and execute their tasks over these extended periods of autonomy.

Many modern security exploits rely on alignment of memory chunks to corrupt or leak memory content across privilege levels. Exploit mitigations such as ASLR and the use of large address spaces come to limit feasibility and reliability of such attacks. In this talk, we present a technique to abstract global heap configurations to approximate heap layout predictions in a program. Our implementation and experiments show that such abstraction scales to real programs like ls and ssh. We prove our heap representation to be a canonical abstraction "ala Clarke" by relating a concrete and abstract versions of the heap transition system. While such abstraction can be dependent on the allocator and was originally designed to work for the Linux GNU glibc allocator, our methodology is generic and can be applied to any dynamic memory allocator implementation.

Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) has become somewhat of a buzzword in recent years. The promises are huge:  Preventing cyber attacks in real time through blocklist sharing; secure collaboration across sectors; mass automation through machine learning. Those of us who study it have a good understanding of how it should be implemented and the concept of a ‘best practice’ – so why is it that structured intelligence languages such as STIX are not more common? This talk will discuss the theory behind structured intelligence and how it works in practice and the main pitfalls. An in depth look at the Analyst approach and supporting technologies that are required to make scalable CTI a reality including specific examples of where CTI has been used effectively to prevent national level cyber security incidents and the working practices of a global Intelligence team working at the cutting edge of CTI development.

Currently, there is no over-arching framework for how to conceptualize the problems which affect digital networks. As a result, policy affecting digital networks is often created as an ad-hoc response to the latest crisis with minimal consideration for the ethical costs of specific technical interventions. Typical approaches, such as cybersecurity, frame these problems as primarily technical in nature, downplaying the potential human cost of network fragility. I propose that the philosophy of public health may serve as a useful framework for thinking about the normative justification for—and the ethical limits on—government involvement in cyberspace. This approach encourages more public involvement in the security of digital networks and encourages international collaboration in the model of public health institutions like the WHO. In addition to being a useful way of thinking about network robustness, a public health model also helps one think through the ways in which network insecurity literally is a health problem with the potential to impact physical and mental wellbeing.

The concept of privacy has divided lawyers, scholars and policymakers for decades, not only in terms of whether it is a good or bad thing, but even what it is. Some say it is a human right, some that it is a prerequisite for democracy; others note that individuals are prone to breaching their own privacy and are remarkably relaxed about it, and have described various privacy paradoxes or other common inconsistencies in attitude - all of which make it extremely problematic to determine when privacy, or its breach, is in the interests of individuals or society. The divisions have become more pressing since the growth of digital technologies, the development of the legal concept of data protection, and the ubiquitous collection of big data. There are two reasons for this disarray. First, different privacy discourses are going on simultaneously, talking past each other and cheerfully engendering various category errors. Certain discourses, for example in law or cybersecurity, even have a hegemonic tendency to assume that they 'own' the concept of privacy. Secondly, this is compounded by technological change that is forcing constant conceptual revision and changes in social attitudes. This talk sets out a series of seven types of privacy discussion, which are distinct but relatable to each other, as a first step towards clearing up the confusion, and argues that there must be a strong firewall between conceptual definitions of privacy, and debates about its value.

The concept of privacy has divided lawyers, scholars and policymakers for decades, not only in terms of whether it is a good or bad thing, but even what it is. Some say it is a human right, some that it is a prerequisite for democracy; others note that individuals are prone to breaching their own privacy and are remarkably relaxed about it, and have described various privacy paradoxes or other common inconsistencies in attitude - all of which make it extremely problematic to determine when privacy, or its breach, is in the interests of individuals or society. The divisions have become more pressing since the growth of digital technologies, the development of the legal concept of data protection, and the ubiquitous collection of big data.There are two reasons for this disarray. First, different privacy discourses are going on simultaneously, talking past each other and cheerfully engendering various category errors. Certain discourses, for example in law or cybersecurity, even have a hegemonic tendency to assume that they 'own' the concept of privacy. Secondly, this is compounded by technological change that is forcing constant conceptual revision and changes in social attitudes. This talk sets out a series of seven types of privacy discussion, which are distinct but relatable to each other, as a first step towards clearing up the confusion, and argues that there must be a strong firewall between conceptual definitions of privacy, and debates about its value.

The presentation will speak about EU's Network Information Security (NIS) Directive , Cyber Security Strategy (EU and national), National CSIRT, and the vision of the Office of the Commissioner of Electronic Communications and Postal Regulation for Cyprus. George Michailidis, Commissioner of Cyprus national regulatory authority (OCECPR) for Electronic Communications and Postal Services Bio: George has more than 20 years of experience in ICT.  He holds a B.Eng in Computer Engineering and an MSc in Communication Systems.  For the last 14 years he has been working for multinational organizations holding various senior Regional Service Delivery and Service Management roles, accountable for the provision of impeccable service through, reorganizations, outsourcing and the implementation/adoption of IT Best Practices.  Currently is leading the Cyprus national regulatory authority (OCECPR) for Electronic Communications and Postal Services as well as the regulatory authority for Network and Information Security (NIS) for Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs).  In addition he has been tasked to setup and operate the National CSIRT.  The office is also the coordinating body for the implementation of Cyprus Cybersecurity Strategy. As part of his regulatory duties he is a Board member and Vice Chair 2018, of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), the European Mediterranean Regulators Group (EMERG) and the European Regulators Group for Postal Services (ERGP).  Outside his regulatory duties he is the Vice President of itSMF Cyprus (IT Service Management Forum), tasked to promote IT Best practices in Cyprus.  He is PMP@, ITIL@ and COBIT5@ certified.

Domestic and mobile interactive systems are becoming increasingly pervasive, residing already in significant proportions of trouser pockets, backpacks, and family dining rooms. Can these systems be made to be ethical?  What is their impact on society? What are our obligations as researchers and system developers? Can we expect an increased presence of machine intelligence to help us neutralise our biases and improve our world?  Demonstrable answers to many of these questions are surprisingly straight forward, and will be given here.  See also Professor Bryson's website: http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/%7Ejjb/web/research.html