Increasingly, reports warn that state-sponsored actors use social media to spread fake news/disinformation in order to sow distrust and create panic during pandemics and create discord and polarized opinions among people on political issues during democratic elections. Adding to this, social media platforms’ algorithms “add salt to the wound” by feeding their users posts which are aligned with their opinion in order to increase their screen time. How serious and how massive is the problem? What are its implications? And what can/should be done about it?
During this forum, organized jointly by the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT), the CyberPeace Institute and the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) in Geneva, we will discuss not only the technological aspects of this phenomena, but also the regulatory role executive and legislative branches of governments should play. Societal, economical and geopolitical implications will also be debated. This event is open to the general public.
For more information please click below
Following the webinar SwissCovid (DP^3T project) – a proximity-tracing app against COVID-19: building trust in a technology solution organized today by C4DT, the explanations of journalist Marielle Savoy on the question of the population’s support for the Swisscovid application.
Click below to listen to the full report
Thursday 26 September 2019 saw the launch of the CyberPeace Institute, an independent NGO that will address the growing impact of major cyberattacks, assist vulnerable communities, promote transparency, and advance global discussions on acceptable behavior in cyberspace. EPFL President Martin Vetterli will be sitting on the Executive Board, and the Center for Digital Trust is named as a scientific partner.
The C4DT is looking forward to working with the @cyberpeaceinst led by @DuguinStephane and @MarietjeSchaake and supporting its mission to enhance the stability of #cyberspace. Please click below to access the official announcement.
In this talk, Dan Bogdanov will start by introducing secure computing technologies and their potential in enterprise and government use. He will then look at a focus group study of the barriers of adopting such technologies based on interviews in many industries.
September 4, 2019 @ 14:15 in BC 410
by Prof. Ben Zhao, Univ. of Chicago
The lack of transparency in today’s deep learning systems has paved the way for a new type of threats, commonly referred to as backdoor or Trojan attacks. In this talk, Ben Zhao will describe two recent results on detecting and understanding backdoor attacks on deep learning systems.
September 24th, 2019 @ 14:15, room BC 420
Kasra Edalatnejad presents DataShare, a decentralized and privacy-preserving global search system that enables journalists worldwide to find documents via a dedicated network of peers. This work stems from the need of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) for securing their search and discovery platform.
Wednesday, July 3rd 2019 @16:15, room BC 410
By Prof. Wei Meng, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Click is the prominent way that users interact with web applications. Attackers aim to intercept genuine user clicks to either send malicious commands to another application on behalf of the user or fabricate realistic ad click traffic. In this talk, Prof. Wei Meng investigates the click interception practices on the Web.
Tuesday July 23rd, 2019 @10:00, room BC 420
EPFL’s IC School invites you to the 2019 edition of the IC Summer Research Institute (SuRI), held in Lausanne (EPFL, BC 420) on June 13-14. The conference brings together renowned researchers and experts from academia and industry who will present their latest research in cybersecurity, privacy, and cryptography. The event is open to everyone and attendance is free of charge. For more information and to register please click here…
Les attaques de phishing, de plus en plus ciblées et difficiles à détecter, touchent PME, institutions et particuliers ; pour y répondre la HEIG‑VD a lancé le projet « Combattre le Phishing – quelles innovations apporter » en partenariat avec le Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) de l’EPFL, l’UNIL, la Police cantonale vaudoise, la DGNSI, (…)
Europe’s economy now largely runs on digital payments, making reliance on U.S. card rails a systemic exposure. Sanctions, policy shifts, outages, and data-access demands can all cause economic shocks. This is precisely why Wero is both interesting and timely: it is a bank-led, pan-European layer that can reduce strategic dependency. I’m eager to see transparent (…)
OpenClaw is just the latest in a series of AI-powered tools that turn out to be an absolute security nightmare. It is easy (and up to a certain point justified) to blame individual developers for lowering their guard and abandoning good security practices. On the other hand, there is an enormous pressure on developers nowadays (…)
This article is interesting because it shifts the Moltbook debate away from sci‑fi “bot consciousness” and toward concrete security architecture risks. What could possibly go wrong when thousands of OpenClaw‑like agents —with full root access to their owners’ machines— are frolicking in a shared, untrusted environment, swapping prompts, payloads, and jailbreak tricks? His advice is (…)
Parler de souveraineté numérique en Europe devient de plus en plus courant. Même si ça va prendre beaucoup d’années d’avoir un contre-poids aux grandes entreprises américaines, les solutions émergent et s’organisent. Une fois qu’il y aura de l’argent qui alimente ces solutions alternatives, open source ou pas, l’utilité de ces solutions va augmenter drastiquement.
Beyond the author’s predictions for the AI bubble’s aftermath, what struck me most was his explanation of ‘accountability sinks’—people who take the blame for AI’s mistakes. Understanding this concept, which emerges from examining AI companies’ business model, leads to a crucial insight: it’s not just white-collar workers whose jobs will be eliminated, but specifically those (…)
Encrypted messaging app Threema, which is used by the Swiss army and cantonal polices, got acquired by a German private company. Two questions come to mind. First, what kind of implications could a private acquisition such as this have on a country’s sovereignty and critical operations, and how does it deal with them? Second, and (…)
AI empowers journalists by enabling rapid access to and analysis of vast document sets, but it also brings risks: it can be misused to unmask anonymous sources or to fabricate convincing misinformation. Without strong governance, AI may hallucinate, producing false or defamatory claims. In this track, co‑organized by C4DT, we highlight the needs and tools for robust safeguards to ensure that AI strengthens, rather than undermines, journalistic integrity.
I always appreciate this author’s talent for breaking down her research for laypersons like me. This article gives an overview of the current state of evaluating the cognitive capabilities and the shortcomings of these methods. Most importantly, it also provides suggestions for improving them. Definitely a recommendation for enthusiasts, sceptics and everyone in-between!
This article caught my attention for several reasons. Firstly, Russia’s surprising absence from the AI race. Secondly, there is the strategic positioning of Middle Eastern players, such as the UAE, who are using their immense investment capabilities to manoeuvre between superpowers. Thirdly, this is not just about AI; it’s also about broader digital sovereignty. Unlike (…)
This article is interesting because it links digital trust to systemic AI dangers—not just small tech glitches. It predicts how in 2026 AI might spread lies, spy on people, or disrupt jobs and markets faster than today’s content‑moderation and governance mechanisms can manage. This leaves us to question who should control key AI technology.
How do our institutions and the trust they are built on evolve in a digital world? Interview of Imad Aad, project manager at the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) at EPFL.
I find this article interesting because it puts a spotlight on how the technical limits and product decisions of LLMs can shape, and sometimes distort, people’s perception of real-world events. It’s striking to see the same news prompt produce authoritative, up-to-date answers from some models and a blunt, incorrect denial from others, simply because of (…)
I found this article particularly interesting because it highlights how major European companies like Airbus are now treating cloud sovereignty as a strategic criterion in their procurement processes. By explicitly requiring ‘a European provider’ in their tenders, they set an important precedent for other enterprises and even governments across Europe. This move reinforces the idea (…)
C4DT Focus #10, entitled “Swiss democracy faces its digital crossroads”, by C4DT, in collaboration with Gregory Wicky. Fake signature collection, fake ID scandals, and a razor-thin vote on the new federal e-ID have presented the country with an uncomfortable question: how do our institutions and the trust they are built on evolve in a digital world? (…)
Although the target audience of this legal analysis from noyb of the European Commission’s ‘Digital Omnibus’ proposal is clearly lawyers, it still gives the layperson a good overview of the proposed changes to the GDPR and their practical implications.
