back to article UK Home Sec Amber Rudd unveils extremism blocking tool

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced a tool that purports to detect and block jihadist content online, and tech companies may end up being legally required to use it. London-based firm ASI Data Science was handed £600,000 by government to develop the unnamed algorithm, which uses machine learning to analyse Daesh …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    Well this is fantastic. I guess we've entered the age where the Government will be able to censor material from the public without the public ever really knowing.

    All in the name of terrorism and our safety of course.

    1. m0rt

      Or rather what we have actually done is fund another private firm whose owners/founders *know* people in the civil service (and in the space of a couple of weeks this will come out ), along with independent tests showing just how crap this 'amazing' tech actually is. Rudd has put her name to it so we should be pretty sure of the outcome.

      Wonder how much from Al Jazeera will get incorrectly flagged?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Incorrectly flagged?

        Better. I'm waiting for everyone holding up random coloured and shaped bits of paper in the videos to break the algo and slip through.

        (see the reg articles on breaking ai or image recognition with a single pixel)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Wonder how much from Al Jazeera will get incorrectly flagged?"

        I'm pretty sure at some point that to will become a "terrorist" news outlet.

        Can't have the other persons point of view after all.

      3. Rob D.

        > Wonder how much from Al Jazeera will get incorrectly flagged?

        The ASI blurb video on YouTube appears to be using an Al Jazeera news item about Daesh to show the negative response to the scoring algorithm versus a positive response to a propaganda video.

      4. Saigua

        Bloom filters at Stainsbury's are $600k and 0.00 01 BTC, that's the way it is.

        I wonder how much from Albertson's will get incorrectly flagged.

        This will probably put the lid on the Theresa May bits where she wonders about shorting those people engaged in Labor; just when the exact opposite of what it supposedly discusses (plus honorifics and NHS LSD microdosing ad libum for the people who voted stay, and not waiting to TKO the rest of the wait or EU exit or probably poorly coined political terms in general) is earnestly needed.

    2. macjules

      The department claimed the algorithm has an "extremely high degree of accuracy", with only 50 out of a million randomly selected videos requiring additional human review.

      1) 'Randomly Selected' - Permanent Undersecretary of State's Pornhub bookmarked favourites?

      2) '50 out of a million requiring additional human review' - there were some Pornhub videos he hadn't watched yet?

      3) 'extremely high degree of accuracy' - CivilServantSpeak for 'Capita says they have fixed the bugs'.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Doubtless this has been independently verified and its training set as well as the algorithm are open for inspection.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          If you can do it for that dataset what's to stop it being used for other datasets...a slippery slope...TMay blocking anti May sites...just imagine no May day...no distress calls.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      False Positive rate ?

      Probably includes anything that involves criticism of the current lot or videos of former Home Secretaries in French Maids' outfits.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: False Positive rate ?

        >former Home Secretaries in French Maids' outfits.

        As an equal-opportunities person, I'm happy to say that that prospect appals me, regardless of the gender of the former HS.

    4. Nick Kew
      Headmaster

      I guess we've entered the age where ...

      Where have you been this past decade?

      Of course I agree with the point you were making. It's your wording I take issue with.

    5. hammarbtyp

      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. JLV

        >Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

        colere patronos

        Their campaign contributors, who else?

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Come on. It's progress. They used to burn books.

      1. Lotaresco
        Coat

        "They used to burn books.

        IRTA "They used to bum books."

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > "used to bum"

          How did you train your brain in such a way? I shudder to think

    7. macjules

      Actually it is not 'used' by the Government at all. the purpose of the software is to intercept the upload process and prevent the video actually making it online to Vimeo, Youtube etc., whom I presume would be requested to integrate the ASI software into their sites.

      More information here

      1. Allan George Dyer

        @macjules - What really impressed me about that presentation is that they already have a coffee mug branded with their platform name. This must be mature, reliable technology, right?

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oops... sorry we forgot to mention the trojan that was included for free

      We would like to use this blocking tool and it does nothing else honest :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oops... sorry we forgot to mention the trojan that was included for free

        > We would like to use this blocking tool and it does nothing else honest :)

        It's more appropriate with the missing comma after "else" !

    9. Mark 85

      @wolfetone

      Well this is fantastic. I guess we've entered the age where the Government will be able to censor material from the public without the public ever really knowing.

      Yes, the slippery sloop has been trod upon and there's no telling how steep it is or how slippery. What's next... political parties added to the mix? Anything on the whim of government wanting to ban? I'm surprised a certain leader hasn't jumped in on this about "fake news"....

  2. TRT Silver badge

    "unnamed algorithm"

    I don't believe it.

    £600,000 = £500,000 for the fact-finding market analysis and spin team, £90,000 for cost over-run protection and £10,000 for actual work. The very least they are going to get out of it is a decent acronym to name their tool with.

    1. ibmalone

      Re: "unnamed algorithm"

      I can suggest names for free. "Big Brother" or "Maybot".

      1. DaveTheForensicAnalyst

        Re: "unnamed algorithm"

        I was going to go with "Rudd's Crud"

        1. Captain Hogwash

          Re: "unnamed algorithm"

          Ruddy hell!

        2. Lotaresco

          Re: "unnamed algorithm"

          "I was going to go with "Rudd's Crud""

          Comprehensive Restriction of Upload and Download by DAESH

          or CRUDD

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re:[ "unnamed algorithm"].... I was thinking more

            Automated

            Detection of

            Extremist

            Propaganda

            Transmission

            There you go. Snappy, took 2 minutes to come up with, apt... belies the reality. That'll be £6 million please. More likely:

            British

            Internet

            Governance

            Jihadi

            Information

            Zerg

            Upload

            Monitoring

          2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

            Re: "unnamed algorithm"

            ...by DAESH

            That's ok, I like my extremism in english, so I go looking for ISIS.

      2. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: "unnamed algorithm"

        How about ESPY? Expert System Probes You.

      3. handleoclast

        Re: "unnamed algorithm"

        I can suggest names for free. "Big Brother" or "Maybot".

        The name Maybot is already in use.

        Sadly, I found Maybot to be rather unconvincing. It made far too much sense and showed too much human feeling to pass for the real thing. But with further development it can only improve.

        1. monty75

          Re: "unnamed algorithm"

          The name Maybot is already in use.

          John Crace got there long before

    2. Gordon 10

      Re: "unnamed algorithm"

      CensorBot.

      Soon to be forked by every other Government Department, Quango and busybody who thinks they are entitled to block random content regardless of the actual legislation. (CEOP, FACT, Movie Pigopolists, City of London Plod - I'm looking at you)

      The Capita cubicle slaves in some dodgy offshore tech hub are going to be busy operating the master blacklist that it really runs off.The "AI" is just a randomiser on the top.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "unnamed algorithm"

      They could name a boat after it, the censorship or they could call it ruddy mc c*ntface

    4. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

      Re: "unnamed algorithm"

      As for the project logo, may I suggest a picture of smugly grinning Stalin?

      http://www.onlygossip.net/public/upload/images/2/1/b/54540a22ea45a_.jpg

  3. Aladdin Sane
    Joke

    detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy

    60% of the time, it works every time.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy

      What does that actually mean? Either it detects something as what it's looking for or it doesn't. If it detects 94% than that's a meaningful figure. But what does "with 99.99f% accuracy" mean? Unless it's a means of saying it has 0.005% false positives - which they could say more explicitly - I can't see that it has any meaning at all. I would instinctively distrust anyone who produces a statement like that. OTOH I suppose there might have been something meaningful that went into the Rudd "I don't really understand it but it went something like this" regurgitation mill.

      I wish she and Davis would swap jobs. He seems to have his head screwed on right about the Home Office and its doings while she seems sound on Brexit.

      1. veti Silver badge

        Re: detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy

        I read that as "it has a 6% false negative rate, and a 0.005% false positive rate". It's expressed clumsily, but it's weighted towards false negatives, which is a good thing.

  4. Buzzword

    99.995% is impossible

    Even humans aren’t that accurate.

    If you’re positively identifying terror videos at that rate, you must have a huge false-positive rate. So a movie like Mad Max Fury Road, featuring fighty young people with big guns on dusty desert roads, would probably be flagged as jihadi propaganda.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      Peppa Pig dubbed in Arabic

      1. Zippy's Sausage Factory

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        You laugh but an episode of Peppa Pig is banned in Australia...

        (for saying spiders aren't dangerous, basically, which is a little bit misleading in Oz...)

        1. wolfetone Silver badge

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          "You laugh but an episode of Peppa Pig is banned in Australia...

          (for saying spiders aren't dangerous, basically, which is a little bit misleading in Oz...)"

          More fool them for living in a country that's trying to kill them every day.

          1. onefang

            Re: 99.995% is impossible

            "More fool them for living in a country that's trying to kill them every day."

            Only on days with a 'Y' in them.

        2. onefang

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          "You laugh but an episode of Peppa Pig is banned in Australia...

          (for saying spiders aren't dangerous, basically, which is a little bit misleading in Oz...)"

          There's only three dangerous to people spiders in Oz, funnel web spider, jump spider, and red back spider. The jumping bird spider is only dangerous to birds, and that one that went viral carting a mouse up the side of a 'fridge, well it was just helping it's mate get to the cold cheese. As for the so called dangerous white tail spider, that one's a myth.

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: 99.995% is impossible

            "As for the so called dangerous white tail spider, that one's a myth."

            Whitetails are aggressive (most spiders try and run away, white tails attack) and whilst not particularly venomous seem to have pretty filthy fangs which lead to a high chance of infection when they bite.

            A friend in New Zealand lost a finger (actually the entire metatarsal back to the wrist) after being bitten by one. Apparently it still aches 20 years later.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Peppa Pig dubbed in Arabic

        The sad part is that they never get to taste it.

        1. Scroticus Canis
          Unhappy

          Re: Peppa Pig dubbed in Arabic

          That can't be kosher!

        2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Peppa Pig dubbed in Arabic

          The sad part is that they never get to taste it

          Not every Arab is Muslim y'know.

    2. Ben Tasker

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      > 99.995% is impossible

      Not at all impossible for the test's they'll have run.

      If you've _very_ carefully curated your test content, with an eye to claiming a high headline effectiveness rate you could quite easily score damn near 100% (though you don't want 100, because people would question that). Of course, the Government would *never* massage figures, so it couldn't possibly be they're using the best result from a test designed to prove it works (rather than look for failure scenarios)

      In real world conditions, definitely not going to happen.

      1. Len Goddard

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        You don't have to be that careful. Just use the learning dataset as a test dataset.

    3. Cuddles

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      "Even humans aren’t that accurate."

      That's not entirely fair. Given the, presumably deliberate, lack of details given, it's not unreasonable to assume that the test set is actually the same as the training set. Under those circumstances, it's very easy to get close to 100% accuracy - "Here's a video we've already told you is a terrorist video. Is it a terrorist video?". That's about what I'd expect if you pay just £600k to a largely unheard of small company (they don't even get a mention on Wiki, and their own website mainly talks about empowering your productionising (yes, really) by teaching you data science in 8 easy step). You get what you pay for, and Rudd paid for people who can spout buzzwords she likes the sound of.

      1. streaky

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        Here's a video we've already told you is a terrorist video. Is it a terrorist video?

        TBH this isn't how that works. It's here's a curated set of ISIS/not videos. Here's another *different* set of ISIS videos mixed with other, which are/aren't, what's the accuracy rate? If they did it the way you say their reputation would be in tatters by the end of the day, I doubt they're that stupid.

        That being said with real world data the reality is it's going to be massively inaccurate. It's entirely possible for a tool like this to exist and kinda work but I'd suggest only using it for flagging videos for a real person to look at - although as others have pointed out meat-based AI fails at this sort of thing too.

        1. Kane

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          "If they did it the way you say their reputation would be in tatters by the end of the day, I doubt they're that stupid."

          Weellll....it is only lunchtime, we've still got some time to play with until the end of the day.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          TBH this isn't how that works. It's here's a curated set of ISIS/not videos. Here's another *different* set of ISIS videos mixed with other, which are/aren't, what's the accuracy rate? If they did it the way you say their reputation would be in tatters by the end of the day, I doubt they're that stupid.

          There are three different error rates. The training error rate, which is unnaturally high and not meant to be cited outside the algorithm, the test error rate, which is a reasonable measure of the progress of the algorithm and is used as an indicator of when it's "cooked" so to say, and the validation error rate, which is done at the end as a measure of how good it is.

          If Amber Rudd saw all three and someone explained what they were, what are the chances she wouldn't cite the wrong one?

          1. Sir Runcible Spoon

            Re: 99.995% is impossible

            "what are the chances she wouldn't cite the wrong one?"

            Ooh, ooh, I know this one.....0%?

        3. Cuddles

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          "TBH this isn't how that works. It's here's a curated set of ISIS/not videos. Here's another *different* set of ISIS videos mixed with other, which are/aren't, what's the accuracy rate? If they did it the way you say their reputation would be in tatters by the end of the day"

          Yes, that was exactly my point. The process you cite is how it's supposed to work. When you have an unheard-of, buzzword spouting company claiming incredibly high accuracy with a tiny amount of funding that wouldn't even cover validating their tests, it's clearly not how it actually did work. Maybe it's not quite as blatant as simply using the training set as the test set, but clearly there's something fishy going on.

      2. Impudicus

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        People used to say that 99% of programs work, 99% of the time.

    4. ibmalone

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      If they're using the term "accuracy" correctly (proportion of true negative and true positive out of all all outcomes, taking into account relative frequencies of positives and negatives), then it's pretty impressive, though still means about 5 in 100,000 other videos will be incorrectly flagged. All it needed was someone to spend £600k? Bit sceptical, unless it's checking whether the publisher is listed as "Islamic State".

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        I'm being very sceptical. Everyone is talking about error rates, and neural nets, and such and such.... I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm just checks the metadata for the word "(C) DAESH".

        I look forward to when Rudd takes her piece of no name software written by a no name company with it's no brains logic, with the money spent mainly on team building exercises and shiny business cards and insists to the development labs in Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc that they have to make it the gatekeeper of their systems.

        Will not go down well.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    5. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      "with only 50 out of a million randomly selected videos requiring additional human review."

      So in the testing phase , to verify that figure , they must have human-reviewed a million videos.

      That must have eaten into the 600k fund

      1. Chris G

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        @Prst.V.Jeltz. My thinking exactly.

        A minister wouldn't lie would they?

        1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          A minister wouldn't lie would they?

          If a minister speaks an untruth about something they are too stupid to understand(*), have they lied?

          (*) Or their job depends on them not understanding it.

        2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          A minister wouldn't lie would they?

          Of course not. Now, this this nice dry land I have to sell in the Doggerlands - I'm happy to sell it to you, sight unseen.

          Fine land, was farmed for generations but now lying fallow..

        3. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: 99.995% is impossible

          "A minister wouldn't lie would they?"

          No, but they might knowingly avoid learning their brief so that they remained too ill-informed to make a true statement on matters where the truth conflicted with Party Policy.

      2. Flywheel

        Re: 99.995% is impossible

        to verify that figure , they must have human-reviewed a million videos

        Or maybe Google et al managed to incorporate those reviews into all those bloody CAPTCHAs we've been doing...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          CAPTCHAs

          Select all images containing BEHEADINGS.

    6. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: 99.995% is impossible

      The figures sound perfectly reasonable to me.

      99.995% of the internet is cat videos and only 6% of terrorist beheading feature kittens, so the test dataset was the entire internet and the algorithm is: (drumroll)

      return false == IsCatPresent();

      (More seriously, given any non-random algorithm that isn't completely one-sided, I can obtain any error rate I want by fixing the test dataset.)

  5. Felonmarmer

    False Positives

    "detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy."

    So how many false positives?

    "only 50 out of a million randomly selected videos requiring additional human review"

    Ahhhh so you don't know.

    1. Rob D.

      Re: False Positives

      The answer is in the quote used - the false positive rate is claimed as 0.005% or 50 out of a million. You can find this number also discussed by Marc Warner on a range of recent interviews online.

      There are also some fairly frank admissions that the training is focused on achieving a low false positive rate rather than letting it rise to get more than the 94% detection rate (6% failure rate), that it cannot detect all forms of Daesh propaganda, and that Daesh make it relatively easy to detect with relatively consistent 'branding' while other organisations are less formulaic and more varied.

      So independent validation would be interesting to see, but ASI Data Sciences, while I presume making hay while the sun shines, do not appear to be carpet bombing media outlets with super-inflated claims.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    First they came for the Jihadist and I did not speak out,

    because I wasn't a Jihadist.

    You know where I'm going with this. Let me be f*cking crystal clear, I do not trust this government as far as I can throw it. They are the nastiest, most vile pieces of sh*t I have ever seen, just for balance the alternative isn't much better either.

    This blocking tool will be a piece of code linked to an evolving government block list and I do not for one minute think this will be limited to social media. The fact they are alluding to legislation makes this worse.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      First they came for the Jihadist and I thought "good".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @disgustedoftunbridgewells

        Agreed, it was sarcasm, however in this case I think it's pretty obvious they aren't just after the jihadists.

    2. Ben Tasker

      > This blocking tool will be a piece of code linked to an evolving government block list and I do not for one minute think this will be limited to social media.

      Worse, they're using AI so when they inevitably get caught blocking something they shouldn't, they're gonna shrug and say "sorry, dunno how it learned that one, clearly a mistake"

      I don't trust this government either, but actually the one that really worries me is the next government (or the one after that). What are they going to do with this lovely infra we, the tax payer, have been building for them?

      Longer term, it's almost certain newer platforms will arise to get around the Government's fuckery, but in the short-term it's potentially pretty unpleasant (and spinning up those new platforms may potentially carry a lot of risk).

    3. Ian Bush
      Coat

      You can see it happening already - it's blocked some of your vowels, replacing them with stars

      1. Kane
        Alien

        "You can see it happening already - it's blocked some of your vowels, replacing them with stars"

        My god, it's full of stars!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          You may mock my replacing of vowels but one day in the future when the thought police are looking for deviants I'll be safe.

          1. hplasm
            Happy

            Really...?

            "...when the thought police are looking for deviants I'll be safe.."

            You are accused of publishing images of sphincters, prohibited under the ASCII ART prohibition act 2020. how do you plead?

            " * "

            1. Aladdin Sane

              Re: Really...?

              Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government."

              - Lenny Bruce

              1. sabroni Silver badge

                Re: lovely infra we, the tax payer, have been building for them

                They're going to give it back to us and stop spending half the money on executive bonuses! It's a win win!!

    4. Arthur the cat Silver badge
      Trollface

      This blocking tool

      As an alternative title to Home Secretary that's not bad.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      do you honestly think, in your wildest dreams, that "inappropriate" traffic is not being constantly monitored?

      get yer ass down to cheltenham and wake up

  7. James 51
    FAIL

    The story I read before this one:

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/13/deep_neural_net_trojan_code/

  8. Tony Paulazzo

    Only our propaganda is good propaganda. Doubleplusgood! We are at way with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia!

    1. Fonant
      Big Brother

      What about when Daesh/ISIS become our allies against the next threat?

      We all know that old enemies can very easily become allies. How does this AI deal with that?

      Can this program also modify historical videos to match the current government's version of events?

      1. onefang

        Re: What about when Daesh/ISIS become our allies against the next threat?

        "We all know that old enemies can very easily become allies. How does this AI deal with that?"

        Simple, just reverse the polarity. Some clever Doctor taught them that.

  9. HmmmYes

    I heard this on the radio.

    My instant bullshit detector went off.

    From the BBC report:

    'ASI Data Science said the software can be configured to detect 94% of IS video uploads.'

    Ok. How many video that arn't IS video uploads does it trigger on?

    Is there something special about IS videos? You know, AL Queada, or the legion of homosexual jihadis, or whatever bunch of disgruntled muslims?

    For 200k I can produce an algorithm that will detect 100% of IS AQ or whatever terror group vids:

    If file_suffix in known_video_formats then:

    print("Danger Terrorist!!!")

    1. hammarbtyp

      Standards based approach

      They have obviously got around to implementing RFC 3514

      About time too. I can now sleep soundly in my bed

    2. Rob D.

      Engage brain

      > My instant bullshit detector went off.

      This isn't an excuse for disengaging the brain and engaging the Daily Mail outrage reflex. The information required is either in the article (actually in the sentence quoted) or it is repeated elsewhere on a range of online sites discussing exactly this topic.

      The claimed failure rate is 6% (94% detection rate - hint, take 100 and subtract 6 to get 94). Just in case percentages are too hard to work with, that means of every 100 IS videos in a larger sample that the algorithm is used to assess, the claimed expectation is that 6 will not be flagged as problematic.

      Yes, there is something special about IS videos which again, minimal reading to get marginally informed about the subject and what has been said publicly about the success of this against IS videos, highlights the fact that IS have really formulaic approaches to producing propaganda videos. This makes the IS videos a standout choice for being successfully detected using machine learning and this is explicitly acknowledged by ASI Data.

      The 200K algorithm has a false positive rate slightly above 0.005% as well.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Engage brain

        Then this is a waste of everyone's time and money.

        The amount of time spent finishing/vetting/implementing this software > the amount of time ISIS needs to change its formula.

        Its gov.uk, it will take 3 years to get the software into any system that matters, and by then the chances are we're onto the next asymmetric war in a desert.

      2. HmmmYes

        Re: Engage brain

        Those figure come from UKGOV who paid 600k to ASI.

  10. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    The terrifying alternative ...

    ... teach critical thinking in schools.

    The downside: instead of patronising sneering techies politicians would have to deal with patronising sneering school children until they are old enough to vote.

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: The terrifying alternative ...

      There's another alternative, that politicians could actually listen to technical experts and either develop enough knowledge to understand what they're saying or to take it on trust.

      The real 'sneering' is what politicians do to experts by disregarding everything they have got to say that doesn't match their (the politicians) already held beliefs. Nobody is calling Rudd an idiot for not understanding encryption - they are calling her it for being sure that she's right even though (a) she has admitted she doesn't understand it and (b) all the experts are telling her she's wrong.

      1. Rob D.

        Re: The terrifying alternative ...

        The terrifying alternative would be commenting on the wrong story about Amber Rudd though we wouldn't want to sneer.

        Hint: this article is about machine learning algorithms being applied to identifying a specific class of problematic on-line content with a view to equipping content providers and hosting platforms with a means to take down illegal material. It is not about encryption and it isn't about something Amber Rudd has said which flies in the face of technical possibilities.

    2. GnuTzu
      Big Brother

      Re: The terrifying alternative ...

      Simple, they can't control those with critical thinking. Wait, did you not know you were being controlled?

  11. smudge
    Black Helicopters

    First they came for the Jihadist and I did not speak out,

    because I wasn't a Jihadist.

    You know where I'm going with this.

    Indeed. But it's still worth spelling out.

    I am not an AI expert, but my first thought when I saw this reported elsewhere was "Surely they can train it to detect other things?".

    Porn next - probably illegal stuff first, but eventually anything that the kids shouldn't see.

    Ultimately, though - anything that the Government doesn't like.

    1. Fonant
      Meh

      Only an issue If It Works

      I don't think it actually works. So not a problem.

    2. Mark 85

      Porn would be doubtful as so many politicos seem to love it. They might make it by "special invite only" or some such but I'm guessing there wouldn't be anymore "new" porn for them watch after a short time.

      1. Rob D.

        What is illegal?

        Porn may not be to everyone's taste but (most of) it isn't illegal in many jurisdictions.

        ML algorithms could be trained, to varying degrees of success, to try and spot any type of asset on the Internet. Any government could (and many probably will) use such available technology to apply the laws as best they can in their jurisdiction. If the ML algorithms are good enough then it may help a government apply them more assiduously so it is the laws defining something as illegal which need the scrutiny not so much the fact that better algorithms exist for identifying content.

        In the UK there are types of material online that are deemed illegal both reasonably and popularly so. We have the opportunity to vote for politicians to update those laws (or not) as we democratically wish. In other countries, the law on what is acceptable content may be less to your personal taste while there is little or no mechanism for influencing them.

  12. JakeMS

    Different Configuration

    Can we get one that's configured to detect and remove videos which contain extremist content from Theresa May and Amber Rudd? it is truly terrifying seeing speeches and videos by Amber Rudd for example where she talks about removing encryption and such like.

    Genuinely terrifying to see such incompetence and alarming speeches. It'd be great to have these people filtered out of society!

    1. smudge

      Re: Different Configuration

      It'd be great to have these people filtered out of society!

      Such a filter already exists. We call it a "General Election".

      Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work so well.

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Different Configuration

        @ smudge

        "Such a filter already exists. We call it a "General Election".

        Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work so well."

        Upvote from me. We need more options/variation.

        1. Chronos

          Re: Different Configuration

          NONE OF THE ABOVE would be nice. If that wins, all of the candidates are barred from future elections and the parties have to go away with an "F-, try harder" for a big rethink.

        2. Bernard M. Orwell
          Go

          Re: Different Configuration

          "Upvote from me. We need more options/variation."

          Start a party? In principle, we should be able to do that....

        3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Different Configuration

          "We need more options/variation."

          Such as "Don't ever put this one on a ballot sheet again".

      2. Primus Secundus Tertius

        Re: Different Configuration

        @ smudge

        Many people would say that in Britain, general elections do deliver the will of the people. 1945, 1979, 1997, even 2010 with its indecisive result.

        Problems arise in deeply divided places such as Ireland and Belgium. The lesson is that democracy only works if there is sufficient consensus or apathy.

        Politicians rarely discuss apathy, because apathy causes high falutin' political verbosity to dissolve.

      3. Mark 85

        @smudge -- Re: Different Configuration

        Such a filter already exists. We call it a "General Election".

        That only partially works. Look at the current crop of politicians. There's other solutions but discussing them in public will bring an enquiry from the plod so we don't/can't discuss. Fine with me but I wish the electorate had better discretionary powers to realize what BS is being shoveled and it's real value.

    2. Chronos
      Stop

      Re: Different Configuration

      Genuinely terrifying to see such incompetence and alarming speeches. It'd be great to have these people filtered out of society!

      No. If anything, it needs to be preserved for posterity. When they look back on the early 21st Century and find that "patronising" became a euphemism for smarter people telling the clueless they're wrong, we need as much evidence as we can muster. Covering up history never did anyone any good.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My son has just pointed out ...

    ... that 1,000 people deliberately searching for such material would be much, much more effective. You could fund it with a bounty programme.

    1. hatti

      Re: My son has just pointed out ...

      I would do that for a coconut and chocolate confection :)

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: chocolate confection.

        I misread that. I need sleep.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My son has just pointed out ...

      But harder to massage the results.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

    This has a bit the ring of the Phorm scam...

    An unknown bunch of muppets suddenly appearing from nowhere with an infallible & cunning plan, based on magic, and once again taking the buffoons in the Home Office for a costly ride.

    1. HmmmYes

      Re: Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

      Ah youve google the company too and tried to find a name or something that you could check.

      A quick look on companies house comes back with nothing.

      Then a google brinks up he CEO on linkin.

      Seemed to have been formed Sep 2015 - so 2.5 years old.

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Re: Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

        Hmm indeed. ASI happens to coincide with Ambient Sound Investments, an investment company set up by original Skype developers.

        This page tells that Jaan Tallinn has invested in the project

        http://www.cityam.com/253029/ai-firm-asi-data-science-raises-15m-investment-backing

    2. Rob D.

      Re: Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

      So unknown that twenty seconds on Google turns content from the last couple of years. And even the ASI CEO states that the plan is not infallible - in several interviews words to the effect of the algorithm is trained for low false positives rather than high false negatives, IS videos are really easy to train ML algorithms to find because of their repeated style, and other organisations would be considerably harder to deal with.

      As for magic - well, someone from the 17th century would probably consider antibiotics as witchcraft and electric lights as magic, but for a technology web site, a discussion about Machine Learning shouldn't really create too many surprises.

      1. HmmmYes

        Re: Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

        ' train ML algorithms to find because of their repeated style'

        I guess human learning will kick in and IS will change the style.

        Too much BS, too little detail.

        Ill raise your 20 years of ML and give you Autonomy.

        1. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: Hmm. ASI Data Science, eh?

          Are you sure this algorithm doesn't use the Autonomy platform...

  15. Terry 6 Silver badge

    I can't help thinking that...

    Daes ( or equivalent bunch of murderous nutters) will find a way to subvert the £600k software rather easily, rather soon. I dunno, maybe colourise the images, and add a banner that says "we're all nice to our mothers".

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My prediction

    Those results look decidedly like:

    1) They had 50 jihadi johnny videos in total, hence the complete disparity in decimal places.

    2) They tested on their training data. Don't do that. Seriously, don't do that.

    Let's also not forget that 3 of their 50 videos got through. This number will go up when the bastards start tweaking their videos.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: My prediction

      "They tested on their training data. Don't do that. Seriously, don't do that."

      Voiceover: Of course, they were testing on their training data.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: My prediction

        I have modified my opinion.

        I now think their mistake was to let a politician see the training error. Amber doesn't understand the necessary hashtags to realise that's an unrealistic thing to cite.

  17. DaveTheForensicAnalyst

    Sounds like they've been getting project plans from Blackadder and Baldric again "Well, no, it’s not a particularly cunning trick, because we’ve seen through it! But obviously they thought it was cunning when they thought it out."

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Being a flat earther MGTOW psychonaut tinfoil hatter that works in IT Infrastructure god damn hippy type person who somehow manages to still have a job, its great to see and hear people in these comments all agreeing on what would have been a tin foil hatter type view when I first started to read el reg.

    No idea why Im commenting this but it is very refreshing to see. Posting anonymous for the obvious..!

    1. Rob D.
      Pint

      There are indeed a crazy number of tin foil hat perspectives on here that should have been thoroughly derided. In the age of Brexit and Trump, stupid things said loudly and often seem to sway a surprising number of people.

  19. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    False positives?

    "94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy"

    I'd like to hear what proportion of everything else gets identified as Daesh propaganda, let's say there's 10 million cat videos to every Daesh recruiting video and the algorithm picks only 1% as evil...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: False positives?

      Based on those stats it would libel 500 kitlers for every true positive.

    2. 's water music

      Re: False positives?

      10 million cat videos to every Daesh recruiting video and the algorithm picks only 1% as evil...

      All Cat videos are evil as any fule kno

    3. Rob D.

      Re: False positives?

      > "94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy". I'd like to hear what proportion of everything else gets identified as Daesh propaganda

      As per the quoted text, 0.005% (claimed) of everything else gets identified as Daesh propaganda. It's intended to be trained that low and miss so much Daesh content at 6% because large content providers need false positives to be a very low rate or they would be blocking too much acceptable content while actual Daesh content is a mere speck in the ocean of cat videos.

      Elsewhere noted, but cats are inherently evil anyway.

  20. Christoph

    So she just waves her magic wand

    And says "Daesha Kedavra!" and all that nasty content just vanishes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So she just waves her magic wand

      “Daesha Kedavra”. Hasn’t he just signed for Man City?

  21. This post has been deleted by its author

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you hate people having a voice by using technology, just say so Amber.

    And what if so called terrorists do exactly the same without watching a video? Maybe they are 'unconventional' in Rudd's eyes, a bit more educated and read books at the British Library? What then?

    Has clueless Amber Rudd thought of her next 'back of fag packet' techy suppression move? If you hate people having a voice by using technology, just say so Amber.

    "Oh, it's horrible, put it back in the box!"

    (Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson’s pet tarantula has been evicted from the MoD HQ – because a colleague is afraid of spiders)

    "The 41-year-old kept his beloved pet, named Cronus after a Greek god who castrated his dad and ate his children to stop them overthrowing him"

    Now that sounds like a video worth watching, hey Amber?

  23. Robert2018

    Technology has been there years to do this

    I wonder as an IT professional if the Ministers are even aware that the capability, filtering and monitoring has been around for many years.. A brave new thought given the recent problems with MP's and ministers being caught with porn on their computers is why the hell they force us all to be GDPR/PCI compliant and still don't use the firewall technology and monitoring for the top echelon of government staff. ITS BEEN AROUND FOR YEARS!!! get a grip you stupid people and lead by example..

    1. Alister
      Stop

      Re: Technology has been there years to do this

      I wonder as an IT professional

      STOP!

      You are patronising.

      Amber says so.

  24. dbgi

    Project Requirements

    Of course I can imagine how the project requirements went.

    Rudd: "I want a system that blocks hashtags, everyone knows Jihadists use them"

    ASI: "Blocks all hashtags. You got it!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Project Requirements

      Blah, Blah, Blah (mouthpiece of utter conjecture)...

      "Leave no stone unturned" (apply hyberbole to everything, even the mundane, including profiteering Energy Suppliers; utterly useless in that regard too)

      Best

      Amber Rudd #ElmerFudd

  25. cantankerous swineherd

    looking forward to this flagging up tom and jerry cartoons.

  26. hammarbtyp

    "detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy."

    Funny way to spell Danish. Still the world will be a safer place with a few less Carlsberg ads

    1. Geekpride

      Probably.

  27. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

    During WW2...

    ...the Germans broadcast continual propaganda via presenters such as 'Lord Haw-Haw' (William Joyce). They also wanted "... to incite violence in our communities, recruit people to their cause, and attempt to spread fear in our society...". Indeed, we were in a much more comprehensive shooting war with them.

    We never made it illegal to listen to Lord Haw-Haw.

    1. Swarthy
      Big Brother

      Re: During WW2...

      I'm thinking....

      Radicalizing propaganda does not work well on people who are happy, safe, or even apathetic. Agitprop generally only serves to move people away from apathy, in whatever direction they are inclined. If a person feels that the Mideast should be left to sort their problems, the Daesh videos will make them less sympathetic; however someone who feels that "The Man" has been giving them grief will see the same video and think "That's how you handle The Man!"

      So, in short: If you want to stop Agitprop videos from radicalizing you citizens, stop shitting on them and making the Murdering Terror Bastards seem reasonable in comparison.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was really impressed with the announcement this morning. The Government have procured a new system that can instantaneously detect and translate any written or spoken language (around 6,900 worldwide including 11 different indigenous languages in the UK alone) appearing in a video file and determine that it contains Jihadi content with over 99.9% accuracy.

    I am very convinced that my alarm didn't go off and it is now April 1st.

  29. Chris G

    Curious

    As to why, with the much vaunted abilities that GCHQ is supposed to have, she hasn't announced the software having been developed by them.

    Perhaps they have already told her to piss off because it is unlikely to work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Curious

      Maybe GCHQ believe an algorithim that just detects a black flag with arabic script on it is a little beneath them?

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Curious

      ASI Data Science offers a range of bespoke services to businesses, including consulting, training and sourcing data specialists from its own data science fellows and community.

      [http://www.cityam.com/253029/ai-firm-asi-data-science-raises-15m-investment-backing]

      So perhaps, given the relative newness of ASI and the above description, perhaps ASI is just an acceptable public and commercial front for those who wish to remain in the shadows.

  30. AegisPrime
    Facepalm

    Mystery algorithms?

    Presumably the Elders Of The Internet bestowed them upon her when she returned their black box with the blinking light?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

  31. Spanners Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    ¿¿Extremist content??

    If we blocked extremist content "properly", it would block A huge chunk of the government for a start. Certainly, Ms Rudd would find it hard to get her thoughts online.

    I am not sure it needs to block Boris. He may not be so much extremist as extremely stupid. We can block Ree-Smogg though. It's a bit late though. Most of his nasty comments are already out there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ¿¿Extremist content??

      What's odd is how they find their own bile content perfectly acceptable, reasonable, somehow 'Normal'? As though it's fit for human consumption.

      Jacob Rees-Mogg's idea that he'd be somehow undermining the skill and dedication of 'Nanny', changing his child's nappy. Proudly stating he had never done it.

      What sort of example does that show to absentee fathers FFS and there is a lot more of them, than would-be terrorists.

  32. katrinab Silver badge
    WTF?

    "detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy"

    What does this even mean?

    So it is 99.995% accurate with 94% of the videos. How accurate is it with the other 6% of daesh videos. How accurate is it with the considerably larger population of cat videos, videos of people playing computer games, porn and so on?

  33. batfink
    Flame

    only 50 out of a million randomly selected videos requiring additional human review

    And they know this how?

    How many out of that million were (correctly) identified as positive for "terrorist content"? How many were (correctly) declared "clean"?

    So that infers that some human has checked all of the videos and agreed with the classification. Not a bad effort, given the timeframe and ££ involved.

    Or are they just saying their system said "Dunno" on 50 of them and they just assumed all the others must be ok then?

    And while I'm ranting, how did it go identifying, say, neo-nazi or Continuity IRA videos? Or don't they count as "terrorist" because they're not in Arabic?

    What's that familiar smell? Ah yes - it's bullshit.

  34. oldrusty
    Angel

    Political bullshit

    The bit that makes you laugh when a politician speaks about cryptography, is the ignorance of how most cryptography can be jotted down on a piece of paper with a Pen or Pencil.. For example:

    B = B + S[0]

    D = D + S[1]

    for i = 1 to r do

    {

    t = (B*(2B + 1)) <<< lg w

    u = (D*(2D + 1)) <<< lg w

    A = ((A ⊕ t) <<< u) + S[2i]

    C = ((C ⊕ u) <<< t) + S[2i + 1]

    (A, B, C, D) = (B, C, D, A)

    }

    A = A + S[2r + 2]

    C = C + S[2r + 3]

    Now the really technical and hard to understand bit, that Ms Rudd seems to find impossible to grasp or understand, is that anyone, yes anyone can now go and type that into there computer and presto!

    The marvels of modern technology!

    What's all these calls about backdoors about then? What it's always all about, MONEY ie: when they where using old broken crap, they found a load of guys stole a crap load and then got caught and murdered. So clearly the political establishment hasnt learnt it's leasson and would like to break it all again because you know, trust us... What's wrong with a few guys stealing a few Million here and there, even the president with no Tax returns would agree right Amber?

    1. Lotaresco
      Headmaster

      Re: Political bullshit

      r is undefined

      loop does not execute

      1. oldrusty

        Re: Political bullshit

        R is the number of the rounds w-bit round keys S[0, ... , 2r + 3]

        I'm guessing there extremist blocking tool with be of course YouTube!

        Where they can moan and complain and YouTube will bend over backwards going, of course minister, yes, minister. "We'll remove it right away!"

        1. Lotaresco

          Re: Political bullshit

          "R is the number of the rounds w-bit round keys S[0, ... , 2r + 3]"

          r is still undefined

          PEBUK

    2. Allan George Dyer
      Joke

      Re: Political bullshit

      @oldrusty - "anyone, yes anyone can now go and type that into there computer"

      Uh, excuse me, I can't find the ⊕ key...

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shes wrong

    They don't want this: ""The purpose of these videos is to incite violence in our communities, recruit people to their cause, and attempt to spread fear in our society."

    They want us to die. Keeping people from knowing that, is only giving them more advantage.

    1. oldrusty

      Re: Shes wrong

      I agree it's far more ethical to just cache the video and then target the twit that uploaded it with an instant account ban. But just remember what government put the instant upload capability in there hand's with a smart phone in the first place. There's 5 step's to glorious communism...

      Lookup Yuri Bezmenov on YouTube and sit there and listen carefully, he's not on the Wiki of Defectors to the USA but! "Deception was his Job!" and he outlines it well, we're in the Crisis stage!

      Because of the "We're entitled to take away peoples rights and freedoms because we can mentality!"

    2. smudge
      Joke

      Re: Shes wrong

      They want us to die.

      And statistics prove that they are being 100% successful in this.

  36. nichomach
    Big Brother

    I would note that...

    ...having happened on this report just now, 6Music's just started playing "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing". Not only is it obviously live, they're using it take the mick...

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    That £600k figure...

    We're all focused on how cheap it is for what it purports to do, but what we haven't been told is that the £600k is just the development cost. There will be a licensing charge at a extremely generous, "I'm starving me own kids 'ere" rate of just £1 per video uploaded.

  38. Patrician

    I'm a little bit hazy on how this "tool" will work in the real world; so it spots an "extremist item" on a website and does what? It can't take it down as it won't have access to the site to do so. So the best that could be done would be a message sent to site owners, which would/could, depending on geographical location of said website host/owner, be completely ignored surely?

    1. Roj Blake Silver badge

      The tool is given to the website's owners, they install it, and it does its stuff after that.

      1. Patrician

        Ah, okay, thanks. So any sites dedicated to "extremist material will not use it and not be affected; can't see this being to successful to be honest.

      2. oldrusty

        Pfft... Re: The tool is given

        The tool is given to website owners and then in censors people after that...

        The USA is in the hot seat of trouble because it chose it's bed fellows, it chose to go with Russia and India same as the UK, the fact they suddenly find out it's actually all powered by the KGB Pushkin super weapon known as "Communism" TCP-IP "The Communist Parties Intellectual Property" and then scream on about regulating a wiretap, that is actually the wiretap of the Communist Party as published and written about by Matt Blaze for the people by the people to spy upon the politically elected is purely down to there own misinformation and there own political hubris!

        In india they worship Jai Ma Kali, the Goddess of "death" as spoken about in the Christian bible as the Black Virgin Mary and all this Rays of the Sun crap you read about, oh that would be Cambodia with the Jai of Amun. Last time I checked Vietnam was still in the throws of "Communism" and it hasn't taken long for the misinformed spies from both the UK and the USA to follow in there footsteps going we're doing this to protect you all, meanwhile at the Bank, there elected President and his kids has been busy evading taxes and getting rich with Mob money. It's just so surreal that at last they find the face of there Democratic enemies sitting there smiling going "we told you so!" I don't even recognize my own country any more, it's turning into the very police state they swore it would never become and out there on the net is the wiretapping device's for any law abiding citizen to download so they can all go after these corrupt politicians and destroy everything they thought they knew as the truth and expose them to the ONE world truth. That in the end - "Communism" wins!

  39. Wolfclaw

    Can it be used to block Amber Rudd, Comrade Corbyn and Wee Jimmy Sturgeon ?

  40. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    Machine learning.

    All 'terrorists' need to do is get a copy of the software and run their videos through it, making small changes until they pass. Because it uses machine learning, by its nature, this would be trivially easy. SO basically, what Amber Rudd has done is give more than half a million quid to her mates to produce something that by definition is non-functional, and by logical analysis is non-fixable. It just goes to show she really is as clueless as her predecessor.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Machine learning.

      > It just goes to show she really is as clueless as her predecessor.

      A shoe-in to replace the Maybot in the top job then.

      1. smudge

        Re: Machine learning.

        A shoe-in to replace the Maybot in the top job then.

        With a majority of just 346, I am cheerfully confident that it won't be Rudd.

        Unfortunately, other idiots are available.

    2. James R Grinter

      Re: Machine learning.

      Adversarial attacks on machine learning are the new hotness!

      Here’s an idea: develop or improve some video encoding software, get lots of folk using it, and then flip a switch. Now everyone’s uploading “terrorist content”.

    3. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: Machine learning.

      If I were IS, I'd make my propaganda videos resemble Conservative Party Political Broadcasts.

      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: Machine learning.

        If I were IS, I'd make my propaganda videos resemble Conservative Party Political Broadcasts.

        Who's to say they don't? I for one am not going to be watching either of them, so wouldn't be able to tell.

    4. onefang

      Re: Machine learning.

      "All 'terrorists' need to do is get a copy of the software and run their videos through it, making small changes until they pass. Because it uses machine learning, by its nature, this would be trivially easy."

      All they need to do is put a small rainbow in one corner of their flag.

  41. Tigra 07
    Thumb Up

    "tests have shown the tool automatically detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy."

    50 percent of the time it works every time.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have no desire to endorse or support violence as an answer to anything. Violence is the abandonment of any other form of communication. The sense of being denied a voice, or a life, is hateful and induced hatred.

    The violence exported by 'western' and globalist cartel interests is a broad spectrum dominance over the 'developing world' that includes setting the official narrative and increasingly enforcing it - by law or by economic sanction or by mob.

    This is a way of thinking that sucks out profit regardless of negative effect on others or the environment. Fear blindness always starts in the people it then works through.

    But fighting a perceived and believed evil does not make us good, righteous or delivered to paradise.

    Communication is lost to the cognitive dissonance that blames to shame and afflict or target penalty upon.

    Communication is the great need when inflammations are denied and more deeply repressed to become world threatening chaos. But it has to begin within our own hearts - or the mind capture merely persists under this or that polarised 'identity' set against another.

    As for oppressed peoples; they generate coded private messaging that seems innocuous. And the criminal intent starts raving about pizza. But the laws of oppression operate against the population as a whole, to degrade and deny freedom to be. Of course criminal acts are to be checked and met with the law. But the interpretation of the law extends the label of 'terrorist threat' to anyone and anything that offers a 'rival' perspective to the official narrative. To a dictated version of what the world is and how you must thinks and act. Or else.

  43. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Yay

    the government has got the jihadies off the internet....

    Now for the next enemy... how about the racists.........they're all evil too

    Now for the next enemy...... those filthy commies (and fellow travellers) bet they're all upto no good

    And the next enemy... cant have UKIP stoking the fires of nationalism....

    And labour is a threat to the rightful rule of the tories... so we'll ban them

    the pr0n is long gone thanks to the great firewall of great britian

    So we're doomed to an internet of shopping sites that never pay tax here and cat videos..... and some of those cats look dodgey as fek..

    1. Tigra 07

      Re: Yay

      It would be simpler to just create a North Korean intranet for us to live in. You have access to Government controlled news, shopping sites, and the Supreme Leader's personal blog.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Yay

    There is no great firewall, there is only something that's broken vs something that's fixed, how did computers come about? The actual history of the internet? It came about from the telephone system.

    Re: Now for the next enemy...... those filthy commies (and fellow travellers) bet they're all upto no good.

    You could surmise that yes, they broke into the SWIFT banking network and started embezzling large sums of cash unbeknownst to several members of there own party, however when it came to light that's what they where doing those lucky individuals where exposed to phase 5 of the 5 steps. ie: They where lined up against a wall and shot.

    As for Labor, they are the political left - in other-words they are the RED party just like Republicans are also the far LEFT, it's just nice having the Democrat's out of the way for a bit. But there will be no more embezzling of funds, so they're pretty much skint!

    As for the pr0n being gone, clearly you haven't searched that hard for it last time I checked it's still out there in radical abundance and they wonder why so many people become a recluse with a strong right hand.

    The CATS are symbolic... Black Cats "Fu** Communism" is I believe is the mantra of the US Skunk works being of course an idiom of Cop's as Cat's and a reminder of the works of Mark Twain. Lenin’s love of cats is testimony, despite the image of Lenin as an unfeeling, granite-chiseled caricature of a statue, of his immense humanity. The working class must, like cats, demand there independence.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      WTF?

      Re: Yay

      WTF?

      You been at my painkillers?

  45. unwarranted triumphalism

    Government does something to combat terrorism

    And just look at the usual suspects complaining...

    BTW the vicious and bigoted secularist hatred exhibited by many users on this site is also a form of extremism... just saying.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

      "And just look at the usual suspects complaining..."

      Anonymous Coward isn't the same person!

    2. Rob D.
      Pint

      Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

      > BTW the vicious and bigoted secularist hatred exhibited by many users on this site is also a form of extremism... just saying.

      Sad to see but spot on.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

        What absolute rot!

    3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

      Except it doesn't combat terrorism, because by its nature, ML is incapable of doing this. What it does is divert public funds to a private company, and reduce the freedom of the general public. Something the Tory government* is very good at, and the reason our country is is such a mess.

      *Other governments are available; your satisfaction may go down as well as up...

    4. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

      ...and just to check; you do know that secularism is the alternative to fundamentalist theocracy, don't you? Are you advocating a theocracy, and if so, please inform us non-believers as to the One True Faith, so we can convert immediately, and avoid being [beheaded/burned at the stake/broken on the wheel]*

      *Delete as appropriate.

      1. unwarranted triumphalism

        Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

        Absolutely nothing you said represents my views in any way. I'm not even slightly religious.

        But you do you.

  46. oldrusty

    Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

    No-ones complaining, in fact some of us are celebrating, you see once you become declared as an enemy of the People which is pretty much on par with where the US & UK sit at the moment, you loose all benefits of being aligned with the Left. It is no accident that some people who shall remain nameless in the news can't seem to get any money or financing for the troubled condo's or property re-development scheme's. That little black mark next to there name will never be erased or wiped off the slate.

    1. unwarranted triumphalism

      Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

      s/loose/lose

      s/condo's/condos

      s/scheme's/schemes

      s/there/their

      Disappointing.

      1. Rob D.
        Headmaster

        Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

        s/No-ones/No-one's/

        But expected. It's why the apostrophe may have to retire. The comma took a bit of a beating as well.

      2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: Government does something to combat terrorism

        you missed

        s/contents of OP's post/total bollocks/

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Fact

    All the 'false positives' that were blocked turned out to be SNP videos due to the number of beardo the weirdo types in the frame.

  48. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Why do ControllerPeople™ always look half-decayed and suffering?

    A vision of the future:

    Amber Rudd's face beaming from large Telescreens all over London with the text "Amber Alert!" in scrolling letters underneath as Immigrant/Muslim/Pakistani/Nigerian/Whatever mobs protected by Antifa goons ransack shops and burn down cars as Whitey cowers in fear in his bathub in darkened bathrooms while being scolded by The Press in 20-page editorials for his white supremacism, vigilantism and deplorable Anglo-Saxonism by writers bearing frankly $ethnic names while only Asians armed with shotguns and baseball bats defend their families and livelihoods. As the Commitee against Anti-Semitism delivers the latest on the increasing HateThreat one can, by resolutely drilling down into the newstream, find out that Israel is ripping apart Syria, Lebanon and Jordan for incorporation into a Largish Chosen Land. At the same time limited nuclear war is being fought over Ukraine's right to be the Latest Democracy run by NonDemocrats and it's all Putin's fault. All of this is being calmly observed via Augmented Reality by smirking Oligarchs tended by Tensorflow Robobutlers as they take a morning dump into solid gold seats.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Great can they apply it to the pro Tory Daily Mail and Express newspapers as well ? Plenty of xenophobic hate filled bile in those rags !

    1. oldrusty

      Re: Those Rags

      YOUR NOT LISTENING

      Yuri Bezmenov (KGB Defector) - Go look him up on youtube bro, then sit there and listen to the entire broadcast titled (Deception was my Job) - it was filmed way back in the 70's and he even tell's you about Big Brother coming to Washington in the guise of Technology used by the Soviets to Destroy the USA from within. He sum's it up beautifully, "the greedy capitalists and useful idiots will be unable to help themselves!"

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You can't help feeling sorry for Amber Rudd

    Being so incompetent and so gullible must really suck.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You can't help feeling sorry for Amber Rudd

      Give her a break, she's got Dunning–Kruger syndrome.

      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

        Re: You can't help feeling sorry for Amber Rudd

        Looking around Westminster, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's contagious.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Re: Those Rags...

    Most news paper outlets are propaganda pieces for the far LEFT .. he even admits that in the video..

    So the C library, your precious C library is actually harmful and unsafe with no sure way to harmonize the computer code into anything useful, in other-words your left with nothing but something closely resembling a virus, that you prattle on about being a secret capability.

    The secret capability is actually your own missile defense system, with more holes in it than a pile of swiss cheese!

  52. scrubber

    Videos create terrorists

    Shouldn't the security services be looking at this computer given that it has seen hundreds of pro-terrorism videos?

    If the computer can look and not get turned shouldn't we trust the people just as much?

    In the free marketplace of ideas we need computers to determine what us humans can and can't handle.

  53. Rob D.
    Stop

    Unconcious incompetence

    Lack of knowledge does not confer the ability to provide a valid opinion.

    This applies not just to Amber Rudd if she happens to make foolish pronouncements about encryption (which in this case, she hasn't), but as well to the many comments on this thread supported by neither the knowledge nor the inclination to acquire the knowledge about the topic under discussion. Instead such comments are particularly able to demonstrate a deep lack of understanding or a willingness to play the affront card well before actual thinking occurs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's unconscious incompetence {facepalm}.

      It's unconscious incompetence {facepalm}.

      What was it you were trying to say again?

      Something about lack of knowledge and ability to provide a valid opinion...

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Sneering techies"

    And she's surprised she gets sneered at, when:

    - She always seems to go after citizens rights and privacy because fuck the plebs

    - She doesn't understand what she is trying to control, but wants that power anyway

    - She doesn't understand her own role

  55. oldrusty
    FAIL

    Eventually

    Eventually the US and the UK will remember this all came out in the wash years ago, back in the 80's and Putin's mistake was letting these guys out of the Gulag which is where Stalin chucked them all in the first place. Because when they investigated this incident before, they found the Isreali's helping them with there espionage where in fact double agents standing a Hanukkah behind there front door so when people went in there apartment they disturbed the Hanukkah from it's standing position. Chuck em back in the gulag!

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Eventually

      >Chuck em back in the gulag!

      What, haven't you seen reports of Daesh camps? my impression is that the only real difference is the location, yet Daesh seem to be able to get people to want to go to their camps.

      I think even Yuri Bezmenov missed this one; make the gulag attractive and people will be queuing to visit...

  56. JaitcH
    FAIL

    'Has Criticised "Patronising" Techies That "Sneer" At Politicians.'

    This ignorant Tory has only herself to blame, she is a living example of the term "dumb as a brick", as did her predecessor.

    Without a doubt this schema will fail - particularly in the U.S. of A. with it's First Amendment,

  57. Long John Brass
    Terminator

    Is anyone else here worried about...

    What happens when you feed a machine AI terrorist videos 24/7?

    Remember SkyNet anyone? Hello?

    1. Lotaresco

      Re: Is anyone else here worried about...

      "Remember SkyNet anyone?"

      It's not exactly difficult to remember, it's been in operation since 1970 and is now on its fifth generation.

      Skynet

  58. he1345

    Pretty sure TOR or VPN will mitigate this...

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wonder what it is actually spotting?

    Recently read a great article [https://lukeoakdenrayner.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/the-chestxray14-dataset-problems/] on AI interpretation of chest x-ray images - by comparison with propaganda videos a relatively controlled and circumscribed data set. Ought to be easy? Turns out the system accurately identified all the chest x-rays where there was fluid on the lungs. Also turns out a) doctors don't need x-rays to do that and b) they install drains before the x-ray is taken (because ethical!) and so the algorithm was actually spotting chest drains.

    What's the betting that the algorithm here is detecting 'black flag with squiggly white writing'?

    Actually (of course) the papers a bit more complex and I have probably totally misunderstood-seems people were validating the systems success in 'identifying' conditions against a set of tags that had been applied previously - so another issue is that you might actually have a 96% success rate in identifying the 10% of images that were identified in your training set, and never know you are missing the other 90% of images that weren't tagged in your training set where the flag guy had run out of white paint.

  60. Szymon Kosecki

    Great! But will it block Amber Rudd too? Otherwise, it's hardly ane extremism filter... /s

  61. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fun fun fun

    It's an autobahn....

    Very crafty work

  62. onefang

    'In a statement she said: "The purpose of these videos is to incite violence in our communities, recruit people to their cause, and attempt to spread fear in our society. Those bastards, spreading fear in our society is our job!"'

    FTFY

  63. Scroticus Canis
    Holmes

    "The purpose of these videos is to incite violence ... and attempt to spread fear in our society."

    I think the most "fear" from watching one of these videos would be the plod knocking down your door.

    Hardly any normal people would want to see this stuff or go looking for it; those that did see this stuff would feel disgust rather than be intimidated by it.

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF

    "According to the Home Office, tests have shown the tool automatically detects 94 per cent of Daesh propaganda with 99.995 per cent accuracy."

    What the hell does that mean? Does it detect 6 per cent of material with .005 per cent accuracy? is that probability of accuracy? Sounds like bullshit to me.

    I give it a 13 per cent chance of being 17 per cent useful 14 per cent of the time.

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: WTF

      And that's 50/50.

  65. Extreme Aged Parent

    Our Security

    In this world where the bad guys are trying to cause us death and distress, weapons that we are using to defend ourselves with should not be broadcast to our enemies. Reading through the posts here there are mentioned ways around this defence program.

    Some things are above the need to be freely broadcast and need to be kept as secret until that requirement is past. I am a firm believer of an open society, but when this freedom is being turned against us then we need to restrict that spread of knowledge. We should remember the people of Bletchley Park, many of whom took their secrets to their graves.

    Today we are fighting an ideology that wants to destroy our way of life just as much as Mr. Hitler did. We need to remember that careless talk does cost lives. The difficulty that we have in getting intelligence about the next terrorists target is simply down to the fact that they do not broadcast their next act. We should also not broadcast our weaponry...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Our Security

      Dear Aged Parent. If you think anything in this thread has compromised our security I want some of the pills you are on.

      Lets's imagine you locked up your Werther's Originals in a safe. If I published a guide to cracking the combination lock, you could have justifiably claimed I was aiding the bad guys. If I pointed out that the safe was actually a kids toy, and the combination lock was nothing more than a clicky wheel to amuse a 4 year old, I'm doing you a favour.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Our Security

        >If I pointed out that the safe was actually a kids toy, and the combination lock was nothing more than a clicky wheel to amuse a 4 year old

        Just hope the said safe isn't in the US being used by government agencies, as then you are likely to be on the receiving end of an extradition demand - remember in the eyes of the user it is a 'safe'. Also, TPTB will regard the use of anything more secure as defacto evidence that you are up to no good...

  66. oneofafew

    FCKIP

    I was in England. Stansted outgoing flight cancelled. OK boys...lets find a quaint pub and ales. Current legislation being processed...licence required for air rifles. En route...a place selling tanks and other serious hardware. Maybe terrorists can't afford the fuel bill !

  67. oneofafew

    Celeb Idiots

    It was embarrassing when Rudd took her lonely brain cell on tour and spoke about how disgusting the cheese market was. Mind you...telling lies live on TV...the WH in a league of their own. Tune in to Hillbilly (KFC) Saunders. A chat with selective amnesia Neilson..."WTF...I'M getting paid loads" One wonders what all this is doing for the sale of sniper rifles !

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