Fundamental Design Flaws Research Articles

Breaking CaptchaStar Using the BASECASS Methodology

In this article, we present fundamental design flaws of CaptchaStar. We also present a full analysis using the BASECASS methodology that employs machine learning techniques. By means of this methodology, we find an attack that bypasses CaptchaStar with almost 100% accuracy.

COVID-19, the Russo-Ukrainian War, the global sustainable development project and post-crises demography

The global sustainable development project as currently conceived is foundering, and the twin crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War have driven a stake through its heart. Some of the reasons for this failure are fundamental design flaws, while others are practical. The resources to bring the project – or its successor, and any other global sustainable development project of similar design and ambition that might emerge – to a successful conclusion do not exist, and never did. What lessons are we learning, and how can they inform post-2030 sustainable development goals? In this essay, the effects of the catastrophes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the global sustainable development project are enumerated, SDG by SDG, with special attention being paid to the implications for demography. In closing, recommendations for reforms of the project are presented, as are some suggestions for the field of demography in the changed global context. The most concrete, feasible immediate recommendations are to make up recently lost ground, specifically in the areas of vaccination and education; and to reform the profoundly flawed international asylum and refugee system.

Probabilities towards death: bugsplat, algorithmic assassinations, and ethical due care

ABSTRACT This article explores the principle of due care in war and the myth that improved battlefield technology makes Western warfare inherently more ethical. The discursive construction – which I term virtuous chaoplexic militarism – of the US as ethical by virtue of its utilization of technologically advanced modes of killing, seeks to dissolve the ethico-political dilemmas of war into quantifiable problems to-be-solved. This article illustrates this dissolution by outlining the transformation within US military decision-making from an ethics of practical judgement to a computational techno-ethics. To do this, I evaluate two concrete cases of US algorithms of militarism. The first case traces the rise of collateral damage estimation algorithms, colloquially known as bugsplat. I examine how bugsplat is programmed, its fundamental design flaws, and its practical exploitation by commanders to erroneously tick the box of ethical due care. The second case explores the SKYNET machine-learning algorithm that was designed to construct ‘legitimate targets’ for US drone strikes via heterogeneous correlations of SIM card metadata. While drone strikes are widely praised for their capacity to individualize targeting, the algorithmic process of SKYNET ultimately erodes the individual subjectivity that is foundational for ethics of war through data constructions of ‘terroristness.’ As both cases demonstrate, the ultimate goal of this virtuous chaoplexic militarism is to render the ethico-political dilemmas of killing quantifiable, predictable, and solvable. There exists an urgent need to interrogate socio-technical interactions in the military setting; and specifically, the degree to which practical judgement has been outsourced to a morally problematic computational techno-ethics.

Suggestion of cognitive enhancement improves emotion regulation.

Cognitive training seems a promising approach to enhance emotion regulation. To establish a causal connection, researchers must compare the training intervention with a control group that accounts for improvements induced by some factors other than the training. Despite this familiar methodology, the influence of expectations on the transfer effects of training remains poorly understood. We tested this possibility in 2 experiments, where a procedure was designed to intentionally induce a placebo effect via the suggestion of cognitive enhancement to evaluate the role of expectation in emotion regulation gains from cognitive training. Both the Placebo and Control groups completed the identical short-term working memory training (20 min) in Experiment 1. New participants were recruited to complete a long-term pseudotraining program (7 days) in Experiment 2. The results from the 2 experiments consistently showed that the Placebo group, who expected benefits from the training, unlike the Control group, showed less negative emotion and better regulatory effects after pseudotraining, irrespective of the duration of the training. Thus, inadequate control of expectation is a fundamental design flaw that potentially undermines any causal inferences. These findings also suggest a novel perspective for optimizing the experimental designs in psychological interventions and advancing the understanding of emotion regulation enhancement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

All about uncertainties and traps: Statistical oracle-based attacks on a new CAPTCHA protection against oracle attacks

CAPTCHAs are security mechanisms that try to prevent automated abuse of computer services. Many CAPTCHAs have been proposed but most have known security flaws against advanced attacks. In order to avoid a kind of oracle attacks in which the attacker learns about ground truth labels via active interactions with the CAPTCHA service as an oracle, Kwon and Cha proposed a new CAPTCHA scheme that employ uncertainties and trap images to generate adaptive CAPTCHA challenges, which we call “Uncertainty and Trap Strengthened CAPTCHA” (UTS-CAPTCHA) in this paper. Adaptive CAPTCHA challenges are used widely (either explicitly or implicitly) but the role of such adaptive mechanisms in the security of CAPTCHAs has received little attention from researchers.In this paper we present a statistical fundamental design flaw of UTS-CAPTCHA. This flaw leaks information regarding ground truth labels of images used. Exploiting this flaw, an attacker can use the UTS-CAPTCHA service as an oracle, and perform several different statistical learning-based attacks against UTS-CAPTCHA, increasing any reasonable initial success rate up to 100% according to our theoretical estimation and experimental simulations. Based on our proposed attacks, we discuss how the fundamental idea behind our attacks may be generalized to attack other CAPTCHA schemes and propose a new principle and a number of concrete guidelines for designing new CAPTCHA schemes in the future.

The evolution of school league tables in England 1992–2016: ‘Contextual value‐added’, ‘expected progress’ and ‘progress 8’

Since 1992, the UK Government has published so‐called ‘school league tables’ summarising the average General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) ‘attainment’ and ‘progress’ made by pupils in each state‐funded secondary school in England. While the headline measure of school attainment has remained the percentage of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs, the headline measure of school progress has changed from ‘value‐added’ (2002–2005) to ‘contextual value‐added’ (2006–2010) to ‘expected progress’ (2011–2015) to ‘progress 8’ (2016–). This paper charts this evolution with a critical eye. First, we describe the headline measures of school progress. Second, we question the Government's justifications for scrapping contextual value‐added. Third, we argue that the current expected progress measure suffers from fundamental design flaws. Fourth, we examine the stability of school rankings across contextual value‐added and expected progress. Fifth, we discuss the extent to which progress 8 will address the weaknesses of expected progress. We conclude that all these progress measures and school league tables more generally should be viewed with far more scepticism and interpreted far more cautiously than they have often been to date.

Machine learning and empathy: the Civil Rights CAPTCHA

Human interactive proofs HIPs are a basic security measure on the Internet to avoid automatic attacks. There is an ongoing effort to find a HIP that is secure enough yet easy for humans. Recently, a new HIP has been designed aiming at higher security: the Civil Rights Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart CAPTCHA. It employs the empathy capacity of humans to further strengthen Securimage, a well-known text CAPTCHA. In this paper, we analyze it from a security perspective, finding fundamental design flaws. Using several well-known machine learning ML algorithms, we analyze to what extent these flaws affect its security. We discover that thanks to them, we can create a successful side-channel attack. This attack is able to correctly solve the HIP on 20.7% of occasions, much more than enough to consider it broken. Thus, we show that there is no need to solve the problem of optical character recognition nor empathy analysis for computers to break this particular HIP. ML can be successfully used to break a HIP that uses both with a side-channel attack. This security analysis can be applied to other HIPs. It will allow to test whether they are leaking too much information by unexpected ways, given non-evident design flaws. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Human Behavior Paradox and a Social Science Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Are financial markets predictable? How to predict the financial markets? These important questions are not answerable in the existing framework of either finance or economics. This paper shows in details that these questions are also not answerable in the existing framework of modern physics. In order to answer these important questions, this papers shows that one must develop a new interpretation of quantum mechanics which makes social science to be a branch of quantum physics like optics and chemistry. By critically examining the question how to predict the human behavior using Newtonian physics, special relativity, general relativity, thermodynamics, and QM with the Copenhagen interpretation, this paper reaches a stunning conclusion that the existing laws in all branches of physics can neither explain nor forecast the human behavior. This is the intolerable human behavior paradox facing physicists today: on one hand, the modern physics can explain and forecast the behavior of physical systems ranging from the tiniest elementary particles to the largest structures of the visible universe with amazing accuracy; on the other hand, ironically the existing physics cannot explain nor forecast the human behavior in our everyday life. The most important contribution of this paper is to prove that it is much easier to solve the measurement problem in QM, the human paradox, and many unanswerable questions in social science together than to solve them individually. This paper proposes a new interpretation, called JJW interpretation of QM, to replace the flawed Copenhagen interpretation and solve the measurement problem, human paradox, and many unanswerable questions in social science. The central points of JJW interpretation of QM is condensed into five new fundamental laws of physics, which are called physics laws of social science (PLSS). PLSS turns out to be a very powerful tool for social science because it reformulates every single problem in economics, politics, and other branches of social science into a physics problem. PLSS solves many outstanding fundamental questions in social science: how humanity should govern itself, whether the future can be forecasted, and how to predict the future. In economics, a fundamental equation of economics can be derived from PLSS. The fundamental equation of economics invalidates many popular economic theories and models, and concludes that the existing economics is not really a science without an extensive house cleaning. In political science, PLSS leads a conclusion that US constitution has many fundamental design flaws, and the permanent world peace is theoretically and practically feasible. Based on the extensive empirical evidence of human behavior supporting PLSS and the profound logical consequence of PLSS, this paper concludes that JJW interpretation is probably the correct interpretation of QM. This paper also shows that JJW interpretation of quantum mechanics is experimentally testable.

Fundamental Design Flaws of United States Constitution

The United States Constitution is one of the most important documents in the history because it has set an example of a successful constitutional democracy for the world, and the freedom, peace, and prosperity of American people over last 227 years have been built upon the constitution. Despite its importance, this paper shows that the US constitution has many fundamental design flaws. In an earlier paper, we have proposed that the most stable political structure for any nation is the equilibrium political structure characterized by a set of 16 democratic principles. The natural following up research is to compare the US constitution with the theoretical equilibrium political structure. The results of the comparison are very fascinating and summarized in this paper. The conclusion is that although the US constitution is very well-designed overall, there are many fundamental design flaws, and many problems facing this country right now are direct results of the design flaws of US constitution. This paper has one profound implication for the future generations: the US government will probably be the first government in the world history that will last forever. The reason is simply because the current US constitution is very close to the equilibrium political structure, and all equilibrium structures in physics, chemistry, and biology can last forever. The United States constitution will be almost perfect if we can correct 22 fundamental design flaws outlined in this paper.

A Physics Solution to the Hardest Problem in Social Science: Physics Foundation of Permanent World Peace

One problem is standing out above all others in social science: how should humanity govern itself? The problem is so important that all wars of humanity in the past, present, and future, are directly related to this problem. Despite the fact that this problem has attracted interests of some greatest thinkers for thousands of years: Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Kant, Marx, Einstein, Hayek, and many others, yet the problem remains unsolved. The latest thinking on this humanity governing problem by mainstream social scientists is represented by views of Friedrich Hayek. In his writings, Hayek repeatedly warned that we must shed the illusion that we can deliberately create the future of mankind. This paper disagrees with Hayek and proves for the first time that this problem is solvable scientifically applying recently-created physics laws of social science, if the problem is formulated in a correct way: what kind of governing political structure of humanity is most stable? Most-stable structure problems appear routinely in the theoretical and experimental condensed matter physics. We show that the humanity governing problem is equivalent to find an equilibrium political structure of a human society, which is a many-body physics problem 100% solvable using the maximum entropy approach widely-used in the condensed matter physics. This paper establishes the framework and methodology of quantum politics and replaces traditional political philosophy with quantum physics as the solid foundation of political science, and analyzes the equilibrium political structure of a human society. The main results are quite surprising: (1) Quantum physics does provide a firm scientific foundation for social science. For the first time, political science, economics, and other social science become branches of quantum physics just like optics and chemistry. (2) Quantum physics says that we can create free, fair, just, peaceful, and prosperous human societies. We prove that there is certainly no better alternative than the equilibrium political structure, which is defined by a set of 16 democratic principles. (3) The existing democratic governments in the world can be improved in significant ways. For example, there are many fundamental design flaws in the US constitution. American civil wars, slavery, epidemic gun violence, and run away government debts are some direct results of design flaws of the US constitution. (4) Quantum physics clearly says that there is a global political equilibrium state, which corresponds to the permanent world peace. This paper provides a theoretically-sound and practical solution to eliminate the nuclear, biological, chemical, robotic, and other forms of weapons of massive destruction. In the long run, humanity can grow up and will put an end to deaths, miseries, and economic destruction caused by wars, which have been plagued us since the dawn of humanity.

The Pervasive Problem With Placebos in Psychology

To draw causal conclusions about the efficacy of a psychological intervention, researchers must compare the treatment condition with a control group that accounts for improvements caused by factors other than the treatment. Using an active control helps to control for the possibility that improvement by the experimental group resulted from a placebo effect. Although active control groups are superior to “no-contact” controls, only when the active control group has the same expectation of improvement as the experimental group can we attribute differential improvements to the potency of the treatment. Despite the need to match expectations between treatment and control groups, almost no psychological interventions do so. This failure to control for expectations is not a minor omission—it is a fundamental design flaw that potentially undermines any causal inference. We illustrate these principles with a detailed example from the video-game-training literature showing how the use of an active control group does not eliminate expectation differences. The problem permeates other interventions as well, including those targeting mental health, cognition, and educational achievement. Fortunately, measuring expectations and adopting alternative experimental designs makes it possible to control for placebo effects, thereby increasing confidence in the causal efficacy of psychological interventions.

Tuning ‘de Vries-like’ properties in siloxane- and carbosilane-terminated smectic liquid crystals

Smectic liquid crystals with ‘de Vries-like’ properties are characterized by a maximum layer contraction of ≤1% upon transition from the non-tilted SmA phase to the tilted SmC phase. To expand the current library of ‘de Vries-like’ liquid crystals, we have developed a rational design strategy based on a concept of frustration between two structural elements, one promoting the formation of a SmA phase (chloro-terminated side-chain) and another promoting the formation of a SmC phase (siloxane-terminated side-chain). In this paper, we show that one can tune this apparent frustration—and further improve de Vries-like properties—by substituting the 2-phenylpyrimidine core in our first-generation siloxane-terminated mesogens with one of three cores known to be stronger SmC-promoting elements: 6-phenylpyridazine, 2-phenylpyridine and 2-phenylthiadiazole. We also address a fundamental design flaw of siloxane-terminated mesogens, i.e., the hydrolytic instability of siloxane oligomers, by substituting the siloxane end-group with a chemically inert carbosilane end-group. As a result of this study, we found a carbosilane-terminated 2-phenylthiadiazole mesogen that forms a SmC phase at room temperature with de Vries-like properties that are comparable to those of bona fide de Vries-like liquid crystals.

A novel vascular clip design for the reliable induction of 2-kidney, 1-clip hypertension in the rat.

The 2-kidney, 1-clip (2K1C) model has provided many insights into the pathogenesis of renovascular hypertension. However, studies using the 2K1C model often report low success rates of hypertension, with typical success rates of just 40-60%. We hypothesized that these low success rates are due to fundamental design flaws in the clips traditionally used in 2K1C models. Specifically, the gap widths of traditional silver clips may not be maintained during investigator handling and these clips may also be easily dislodged from the renal artery following placement. Therefore, we designed and tested a novel vascular clip possessing design features to maintain both gap width and position around the renal artery. In this initial study, application of these new clips to the left renal artery produced reliable and consistent levels of hypertension in rats. Nine-day application of clips with gap widths of 0.27, 0.25, and 0.23 mm elicited higher mean arterial blood pressures of 112 ± 4, 121 ± 6, and 135 ± 7 mmHg, respectively (n = 8 for each group), than those of sham-operated controls (95 ± 2 mmHg, n = 8). Moreover, 8 out of 8 rats in each of the 0.23 and 0.25 mm 2K1C groups were hypertensive, whereas 7 out of 8 rats in the 0.27 mm 2K1C group were hypertensive. Plasma renin concentrations were also increased in all 2K1C groups compared with sham-operated controls. In summary, this novel clip design may help eliminate the large degree of unreliability commonly encountered with the 2K1C model.

Dietary cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients: a review of the Harvard Egg Study and other data

For many years, both the medical community and the general public have incorrectly associated eggs with high serum cholesterol and being deleterious to health, even though cholesterol is an essential component of cells and organisms. It is now acknowledged that the original studies purporting to show a linear relation between cholesterol intake and coronary heart disease (CHD) may have contained fundamental study design flaws, including conflated cholesterol and saturated fat consumption rates and inaccurately assessed actual dietary intake of fats by study subjects. Newer and more accurate trials, such as that conducted by Frank B. Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health (1999), have shown that consumption of up to seven eggs per week is harmonious with a healthful diet, except in male patients with diabetes for whom an association in higher egg intake and CHD was shown. The degree to which serum cholesterol is increased by dietary cholesterol depends upon whether the individual's cholesterol synthesis is stimulated or down-regulated by such increased intake, and the extent to which each of these phenomena occurs varies from person to person. Several recent studies have shed additional light on the specific interplay between dietary cholesterol and cardiovascular health risk. It is evident that the dynamics of cholesterol homeostasis, and of development of CHD, are extremely complex and multifactorial. In summary, the earlier purported adverse relationship between dietary cholesterol and heart disease risk was likely largely over-exaggerated.

SOFTWARE TOOL FOR AUTOMATED FAILURE MODES AND EFFECTS ANALYSIS (FMEA) OF HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS

Offshore, marine, aircraft and other complex engineering systems operate in harsh environmental and operational conditions and must meet stringent requirements of reliability, safety and maintainability. To reduce the high cost of development of new systems in these fields improved design management techniques and a vast array of computer aided techniques are applied during design and testing stages. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is generally used in the above industries to reduce design risks. At present FMEA cannot be carried out automatically. Although various FMEA software tools exist, they basically provide data management for a manual analysis. It is generally recognised that failure analyses are usually carried out after the system has been designed, and often after it has been manufactured. If any fundamental design flaws or safety risks in the system are identified at this stage then modifications to the hardware are often costly. The software tool for automated FMEA is based on qualitative modelling of generalised information flow (energy, information or mass) in a system, recognising that the primary functions of mechanical, electrical, thermal and/or hydraulic systems (or their combination) as well as modem neuromechanic systems (also called mechatronic systems in the mechanical domain) are the generation, transmission and conversion of energy. The paper explains some underlying principles of software operation and provides a description of the software

Career guidance and social exclusion: A cautionary tale

The relationship of career guidance to public-policy interventions designed to address social exclusion is examined.The nature and origin of the concept of social exclusion are analysed, and the roles of career guidance in response to it are reviewed, particularly in relation to young people who have dropped out of formal education, training and employment or are at risk of doing so. It is suggested that such strategies need to take account of the subjective frame of reference of such young people, including understanding the work in which they are already engaged within the informal economies. The issues raised by such considerations provide a rationale for the partnership arrangements - with, for example, youth workers and community mentors - which have characterised these strategies. Within this context, the development of the new Connexions Service is critically examined. It is argued that it contains fundamental design flaws, from which a number of problems have stemmed. It is concluded that while career guidance has an important contribution to make in strategies to address social exclusion, this should be secondary to its role in supporting individual progression and development within the societal structures to which inclusion is being sought.

Appraisal and Optimisation of Dense Medium Plant Separations

An extensive plant-orientated testwork campaign was undertaken to quantify and determine the causes of significant dense medium cyclone operating inefficiencies. Comprehensive plant trials, with 20–30 people sampling up to 100 process (medium and coal) streams simultaneously for eight hour shifts permitted both magnetite media and coal processing characteristics to be simultaneously quantified. Dense medium classification and coal partition curves were principally used to show that the root cause of inefficient cyclone performance was related to incorrect magnetite particle size in the cyclone circuits. When magnetite with the correct specifications was used in the plant, the reasons for coarse magnetite in the cyclone circuits was found not to result from selective fine magnetite losses in the small coal circuits, but from a fundamental design flaw in the magnetite distribution system. The flawed system was shown to prevent correct specification magnetite entering the cyclone circuits, thereby starving t...