Abstract: In the past few years, spear phishing and email-borne social engineering have become one of the most costly security threats, causing over $5 billion in reported losses. These attacks take several forms: some ask the recipient to wire transfer money to the attacker's account, others ask for W2 forms containing social security numbers, and some trick the recipient into sending their credentials by impersonating a widely used service like Microsoft Outlook. Existing security systems fail to detect spear phishing, because the emails...
Beyond the Buzz: impactful data science and machine learning at BuzzFeed
Over the past few years BuzzFeed has become the largest digital media network in the world, operating globally across multiple platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram in addition to its’ own website and multiple apps. While the network is fueled by content generated from hundreds of creators around the world, it is supported and powered by a world class technology and infrastructure team that supports massive data collection, analysis, and productization. In this...
Title: Iron Age Hebrew Epigraphy in the Silicon Age - An Algorithmic Approach To Study Paleo-Hebrew Inscriptions
Abstract: Handwriting comparison and identification, e.g. in the setting of forensics, has been widely addressed over the years. However, even in the case of modern documents, the proposed computerized solutions are quite unsatisfactory. For historical documents, such problems are worsened, due to the inscriptions’ preservation conditions. In the following lecture, we will present an attempt at addressing such a...
Science is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial
“I sometimes think that general and popular treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as original work.” - Charles Darwin, 1865
As the largest encyclopedia in the world, it is not surprising that Wikipedia reflects the state of scientific knowledge. However, Wikipedia is also one of the most accessed websites in the world, including by scientists, which suggests that it also has the potential to shape science. This paper shows that it does.
Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Six reasons Fake News is the end of the world as we know it Date: May 2, 2017 Time: 9:00AM - 5:00PM Location: The Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, fake news became a global issue, spanning popular media, academia, and industry. On May 2nd 2017, Harvard University will host an exploratory discussion on how computer science can address the problem of fake news. Discussion will include both technical and policy-facing perspectives from guests in academia and journalism. Please join us as...
Abstract: Borders (and walls!) need not be physical. The vision of an open, global, Internet is increasingly threatened by construction of virtual barriers between countries. Mistrust regarding the security of cloud computing and other online services is widespread and the temperature of the global debate has risen dramatically since Snowden and other revelations of systematic, mass surveillance. Restrictions on data flows between the US and EU remain contentious. Extreme examples of forced data localization include a proposal for a German-only 'Internetz', and a...
On Wednesday, April 19th, CRCS hosted a celebration of computer science at Harvard in honor of Harry Lewis, Gordon McKay professor of computer science and former dean of the College. Friends, family, students, and colleagues gathered to celebrate professor Lewis' 70th birthday and the news that - in his words - he would "someday be retiring." They spoke of the myriad ways professor Lewis has enriched their lives through his personal investment in their success, his emphasis on character over knowledge, and his insistence on integrity over popularity. The day-...
Uncovering Vote Trading Through Networks and Computation
Abstract:
Vote trading, also commonly known as logrolling, is a cornerstone of the positive analysis of politicians' behavior in collective decision making. However, as the trading of votes is not directly observable, studying vote trading empirically is very challenging. We have developed a general and scalable methodology that facilitates the detection of logrolling on a large scale. In principle, our approach can be applied to a broad variety of voting data (beyond the realm of...
