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Software to detect paedophiles Trends Prof Yash
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Software to detect paedophiles Scientists have developed “anti-grooming” software which can tell young people if they are chatting to an adult posing as a child on the internet. Trials among pupils at a secondary school have shown it to be remarkably effective in helping them spot other internet user’s real ages. The program, which has been developed by Lancaster University, can work out a person’s age and gender by using language analysis techniques, detecting words which are often used by people of a particular age group. Computer experts believe it could be a significant breakthrough in helping to catch paedophiles. At first, the 350 young people who took part in the trial — from the Queen Elizabeth School in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria — were unwittingly exposed to an experiment to find out if they could tell when they were chatting to adults posing as children. Only 18 per cent correctly guessed whether they were talking to an adult or a child. Approximately four out of five children thought they were chatting to a teenager when it was, in fact, an adult. Youngsters of all age groups at the school — even 17-year-olds — failed to spot the impostors. Girls were more adept than boys at guessing ages correctly, with a 22 per cent success rate compared to the boys’ 16 per cent. However, when the anti-grooming software was installed on their computers, it correctly worked out whether it was an adult or a child using a chatroom in 47 cases out of 50 - including when an adult was pretending to be a child. “Paedophiles often pose as children online and our research indicates that children don’t find it easy to spot an adult pretending to be a child,” said Professor Awais Rashid, from Lancaster University’s computing department. “We hope to develop an automated system which can pick up on quirks of language particular to a certain age group. These language patterns can help us to expose adults who seek to groom children online. “The software looks at a range of things, for example, the structure of sentences, the language which is being used and also things which indicate deception.” He added that teenagers at the school were using simplistic strategies to determine the ages of people they met online, often taking them at their word without exercising caution. He said this highlighted the urgent need for a “safety net of some sort”. It is hoped that an early working version of the software could be available by next summer. Researchers believe the software could eventually be used to pick up on “stylistic footprints” used by paedophiles, which would help police track them as they move around the internet. Police have been monitoring the impact of the pilot scheme, hoping the software will shorten the time-consuming process of examining logs of internet chat and other online material in the search for suspicious behaviour. Alison Wilkinson, from Queen Elizabeth School, said: “We are concerned about the dangers our pupils face when they’re online and have welcomed the opportunity to help the project, at the same time as raising pupils’ awareness of the risks. It has been chilling to watch them being taken in by adults masquerading as teenagers.” The software is being developed as part of a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. — By arrangement with The Independent
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Trends LONDON: Superfast quantum computing, one of the holy grails of science, could be a step closer following the invention of a new device capable of producing so-called “entangled” light on demand. Scientists at Toshiba Corp’s research centre in Cambridge, England, said on Wednesday their Entangled Light Emitting Diode (ELED) opened a path to ultra-powerful semiconductor chips..
Soyuz returns from space station mission KOROLYOV, Russia: A Russian Soyuz spacecraft containing an international trio of astronauts who oversaw the final assembly stage of a $100 billion space station landed safely on Kazakhstan’s steppe on Wednesday. Russian Oleg Kotov, NASA’s Timothy Creamer and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi arrived near the town of Zhezkazgan as planned, at 0725 Moscow time (0325 GMT), Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow said.
Chemist, biologist wins MIT inventor’s prize BOSTON: A University of California chemistry and biology professor whose research is applied widely in biotechnology became on Wednesday the first woman to win the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Prize for outstanding inventor. Carolyn Bertozzi, 43, won the $500,000 prize, awarded annually by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Lemelson Foundation, for her work manipulating processes within living cells to engineer their surfaces and secreted proteins.
Government offers jobs grant to Florida space workers CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: The Labour Department on Wednesday announced a $15 million emergency grant to help space shuttle workers start new careers in Florida, a politically important swing state with a high jobless rate. The shuttle program is scheduled to end after two more launches from the Kennedy Space Centre this year and about 8,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs.
Missing piece found in particle puzzle GENEVA: Research scientists announced on Monday they had identified the missing piece of a major puzzle involving the make-up of the universe by observing a neutrino particle change from one type to another. The CERN physics research centre near Geneva, relaying the announcement from the Gran Sasso laboratory in central Italy, said the breakthrough was a major boost for its own LHC particle collider program to unveil key secrets of the cosmos.
Mexico heroes’ bones paraded before identification MEXICO CITY: Mexican soldiers on Sunday paraded the bones of the heroes of the country’s Independence War down the capital’s most famous street before scientists begin trying to solve a century-old mystery by identifying the bones. “Thanks to them, Mexico exists,” President Felipe Calderon said at a ceremony involving hundreds of soldiers, a 100-piece military band and watched by thousands of Mexicans. — Reuters |
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THIS UNIVERSE We know that hydrogen and oxygen join to form water. Then, why is the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen explosive? The joining of oxygen and hydrogen to form water is not a quiet love affair. It is necessarily a violent meeting in which lot of energy is released. Water is the ash of hydrogen burning. Chemically, this burning is in essence the combination of two atoms of hydrogen with one of oxygen. This reaction is highly exothermic. What is the difference in the composition of the gasses present in an air conditioned room and a room that has not been air conditioned? Air conditioning is a general term that does not describe all rooms that are “air conditioned”. In places like India during summer it means cooling in a way that also removes some of the moisture in the air. This happens when the outside air is passed over super cooled grills and then allowed to expand. The moisture is removed by condensation over the grills. This tends to dry up the air and give us a greater sense of comfort in addition to the cooling we get. You must have noticed that cooling by desert type of coolers gives us cool air but the humidity increases and in spite of low temperature the comfort level is not very high. We often continue to perspire. Therefore the change in the air of an air conditioned room is the following kind: In general the humidity is low. Because the same air often keeps circulating, in a badly air conditioned room occupied by many people, the level of carbon dioxide can be higher. Not just carbon dioxide but the danger of airborne infection could also increase. If, on the other hand, properly installed air filters are kept in good shape, and flow of the outside air is sufficient, the room can be quite healthy. Without such care too much time in a poorly controlled air conditioned room is not very healthy. Is it true that black objects attract lightning? Lightning is a high current discharge between the earth and clouds that have acquired different electrical potential. I do not know if the colour is positively implicated in this. Electrical conductivity would be, as also the height above ground and the shape of the object — a tall pointed object would be more vulnerable. |
The software looks at a range of things, for example, the structure of sentences, the language which is being used and also things which indicate deception.
Toshiba invention brings quantum computing closer
