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friendshipcampaign · 4 years

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Session Recap 11/24/19: The Truth Will Be Brought to Light

Voski cast Dancing Lights at a distance, forming them into a humanoid shape, and tried drawing the creatures towards it as a distraction. Sure enough, they galloped after it -- revealing that their bodies looked and moved in a way that felt somewhat “off” -- which allowed the party to sneak past them and get to the tomb. There were heavy canvas walls set up blocking it off, but Amaranth was able to cut through them easily and the party snuck inside.

There was a downwards drop to get to the tomb. At the bottom were two slender white pillars, covered in eye and wing motifs, and a closed door about fifteen feet below. Kriv asked Volfred if he would hold the rope ladder to allow them to get down to the entrance, and the party all descended. Amaranth searched the entrance for traps of any kind and noted that the chain across it gave off a faint glow if you went to try to pick it, signifying that it was likely Alarmed. Voski was able to disarm it using Dispel Magic, however, and Amaranth then picked the lock.

As he approached the door, Kriv cast Detect Evil and Good and was able to pick up on an aura of consecration on the tomb -- and overwhelming desecration around it as a result the Abyssal breach. Once the party were inside, the Abyssal whispering that had surrounded them since they entered the exclusion zone vanished. It was a small space. Voski cast Dancing Lights again in order to see in the darkened tomb, revealing a sarcophagus and a statue of what appeared to be a heavy-set human man, un-bearded with curly hair and wearing armor with an insignia of eyes in a circle on the front. His hands were locked in a symbol that mimicked wings, and looked like they had held the sword. Up on the ceiling was a circle of painted eyes and wings with a mysterious, smoothed blank spot in the center. There were two plaques written in Celestial.

Erwyn went over to read one of the plaques, which said that the tomb held the body of Auster. But there was a strange missing spot where it looked like the name of the deity the hero had served was meant to be. He relayed this to the group and Kriv, who was incredibly excited by all this, scribbled some notes down in a notebook he was carrying with him. Erwyn then went to read the other plaque, which seemed to have slightly less professional craftsmanship. This one read:

“When the seeker of truth offers sacrifice in the high temple, then shall the truth be brought to light, and her eyes shall be opened, and her wings shall shelter us once more.”

Kriv tried using the Rhymer’s Ring to cast “Divine Sight” but again only saw the blurred image of a female figure with wings surrounding her head like a crown, that almost hurt to look at, when he focused on any images related to the deity. For just one moment, however, the image flickered and became clear, and she turned her face, opening a face full of eyes to look at him, and he felt (but didn’t actually hear) the message “The truth will be brought to light” resounding through his body.

Trying to explain what had happened to the rest of the party, Kriv scribbled a rudimentary sketch of the goddess in his notebook. With this revelation, the party discussed the potential connection between the deity and the demons now in the city, but still didn’t have enough information to come to a conclusion. Erwyn decided to try casting Detect Magic and was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of magical energy in the room. The statue had a strong Transmutation energy to it, and the rest of the stone of the whole tomb was steeped in Abjuration magic that felt almost as if it was pulsing, like a faint heartbeat. There was also the incredibly strong magical residue of some powerful Conjuration magic, that seemed to be centered on the two plaques and the empty spot on the ceiling (though it was present throughout).

The party discussed among themselves the likelihood that the goddess had sealed herself away, or if she had somehow been erased. They also talked about the fact that none of them, even the three who had lived in Veritas before, had ever heard of a High Temple in the city -- only the Low Temple (although Voski then had a moment of wracking her brains trying to figure out why the locals still called it that, if this place had been forgotten). In fact, religion always had a weirdly difficult time sticking in Veritas.

Voski commented that it seemed like the Raliv Mercantile Company had a vested interest in the sword that had been found in the tomb, since people associated with swords were going missing. On the other hand, Erwyn said that he had been wondering if the blacksmith really had been taken by demons, musing about the shadow creature that had tried to take him the other night.

While the group talked, Kriv started investigating the sarcophagus. He noted an odd spot in the corner that seemed to have a joint not as precise as the other stonework. He suggested they open it. Amaranth teased him that he was becoming a criminal like the rest of them and he added that he wasn’t entirely happy about the idea, but he wanted to know what was going on. After a cursory inspection, Amaranth deemed it safe to open. She, Kriv, and Ditto all tried to push the stone on top away, with Voski inspiring Amaranth in her attempt.

Suddenly, the statue sprang to life, bearing its fists down at Amaranth. She dodged out of the way of its first attack, as it was somewhat off-balance from not realizing it was missing its sword, but it made contact with the second attempt and slammed her into the wall of the tomb. The statue called out, “Quid queritis?” in Celestial.

“Kriv, talk to it,” Ditto called out. “Tell it you’re with Bahamut!”

“I don’t think that’s going to work!” he called back.

Kriv then aimed his hammer at the statue’s hands, managing to smash into it with two strikes as he positioned himself protectively in front of Amaranth. The statue barely flinched. Voski then cast Shatter on it, and though the statue was shaken, it still stood tall -- and continued to repeat its question in the same exact intonation. Amaranth scurried towards the door, shouting to the others to run towards the exit, with Ditto running after her. Erwyn started to follow, but first turned back to the statue and shouted out the Celestial translation of: “The truth will be brought to light!”

The statue stopped and turned, looking directly at him. “Quid queritis?” it asked.

Erwyn replied that they only wanted to know the truth, and the name of the goddess. And the statue stopped, walked back to its place, and became inanimate once more. The party collectively breathed a sigh of relief as Erwyn explained that the statue had asked what they were looking for and had responded to his honestly that they were seeking the truth. Kriv used Lay on Hands to heal Amaranth some and Voski also used a Cure Wounds on her. The party then discussed whether there was anything else they wanted to investigate before they leave, and apprehensively, Erwyn suggested that he was interested in trying to use his portal-detecting abilities to get more of an idea of what was going on in Veritas. He said he was concerned it would be overwhelming, but that since the temple seemed somewhat sheltered from the Abyssal energies that were all over the rest of the city, it might be the safest place to try to get more information.

Shakily, Erwyn put his hands to his head and tried to focus as he reached out to sense the planar energy around him. The first thing that hit him was the remnants of the breach that had occurred months ago, fortunately no longer active but still somewhat overwhelming. He shuddered and his ears twitched. But as he pushed his senses further, he found that he sensed another source of Abyssal energy -- stronger, more active. A minor breach, that felt slimy to his mind. And then another one -- this felt darker, emptier, and colder, and reminded him of being inside the Ring of Mindshielding. And then, after he steadied himself and pushed to the edges of his perception, a third Abyssal breach -- all within the city of Veritas.

Erwyn collapsed, falling to his knees. Kriv steadied him, grabbing his shoulders, as Erwyn explained to the group that he’d felt three more active breaches, all drawing from different layers of the Abyss. Voski asked if he felt like he could describe what those layers had felt like to someone else and he began to explain the breaches to the others and describe what he’d felt. As Erwyn continued to speak, Kriv squeezed his shoulder tighter. Voski suggested that if they wanted to learn more about the Abyss, the yochlol at the tavern might be able to tell them more -- particularly if they retrieved what she was looking for. They also agreed they needed to alert the Gatekeepers. And Erwyn expressed that he was concerned about the number of portals -- three of them, just like the three eyes that were the cult’s symbol.

The group went to leave the tomb. When the last of them left, the statue’s posture relaxed slightly and it raised its eyes towards the ceiling once more.

Erwyn, still wobbly, struggled a little with the rope ladder, but Kriv supported him as he climbed. At the top, Volfred noted that Amaranth was still looking a little rough after getting attacked and nuzzled her gently with his nose. As the group emerged from the canvas enclosure that marked off the tomb, however, Erwyn noted that the creatures that had been lurking around the tomb were better hidden this time. He messaged Voski about distracting them and she cast a Dancing Lights in the distance once more, but only a few of them broke off to chase it this time.

“Hey!” a voice called. “Stand your ground, idiots!”

Voski extinguished her lights.

A strange, misshapen creature -- looking like it was formed from dead body parts, with an arm sticking out of its head -- stepped forward and asked which one of the party had spotted them. Erwyn slowly raised his hand, but Voski pushed it down. It then asked if there was any chance of the party laying down all of their things and letting the creatures eat them, commenting that they looked delicious. As it chatted with them, saying that there weren’t a lot of good conversationalists around, Ditto tried and failed to charm it. As the conversation with the creature continued, Voski asked if she could step closer to share a secret with it -- for the purpose of negotiations, of course. It warned her that the other creatures being scared of it was the only thing keeping them in line, but agreed.

Voski stepped forward, making sure her back was turned to the party, and opened up a pocket in her armor to show it the broach with the symbol of Lolth she’d been given, saying that she didn’t have time for this, and it if didn’t get out of their way and let them pass, it wouldn’t have time to explain itself. The creature seemed surprised.

“Oh, okay. Got a…. sponsor then,” it said, sounding scared -- and more than a little disappointed.

As Voski stepped back, the creature called out to the other ones in Abyssal. They begrudgingly started to move away from the party, licking their lips and looking very disappointed. Voski waved at them. As she returned to the others, they all clamored to know what she had done, but she was tight-lipped as usual, even with Ditto zipping around asking her if she had done something magical or was just that persuasive.

The party started to move in the direction Voski had sensed the harp earlier. It lead them closer to the epicenter of the area where the breach had occurred, the dark Abyssal water growing deeper as they went. Once they were within a reasonable range, Voski cast Locate Object once more. She was able to lead them to the place where it was resting, but unfortunately it seemed that it was underneath the waters that had flooded the street. Voski and Ditto, who intended to Levitate the harp if at all possible, moved closer, carefully navigating the rubble in the area to avoid falling too deeply into the waters.

Voski cast Dancing Lights again and placed one right over where she sensed the harp, to signify where it was to Ditto. The wizard conjured a tool to clear off some of the algae in that spot and Voski sent her light underwater to illuminate what was down there. It revealed a nice leather case, clearly magical in some way as it seemed to have protected its cargo. Ditto Levitated it out of the water, revealing the traditional drow spiderweb designs on the vibrantly-colored case. She was then able to push it to the shore and gently lower it to the ground. As Voski started making her own way back, she stepped on a board that shattered and dropped her into the water. As some of the strange vines started coiling around her legs, Ditto cast another Levitate to get her safely out of harm’s way. Voski hissed at the vines.

Once everyone was safely on the shore, Voski asked if Ditto had felt anything strange when she’d touched the case. She reported she hadn’t, and deemed it was probably safe to carry around. Kriv opened up the demiplane so that they could transport it safely as they made their way out of the exclusion zone.

They started to make their way towards the entrance and reached the deep pool of Abyssal water they’d had to cross earlier. Ditto offered to cast Fly on a couple of party members to get them across and Amaranth immediately shouted that she wanted to be able to fly. Ditto explained that unfortunately she only had two castings, so whoever got it cast on them would have to carry someone else, but promised Amaranth that she would cast the spell on her later. Instead, Voski picked her up while Kriv scooped Erwyn up like a baby, and the spell was cast on the two dragonborn. Amaranth was disappointed that Voski didn’t do anything fun with the spell and just ferried her across. Meanwhile, Kriv took things relatively gently with Erwyn but still seemed to be enjoying the spell -- and once he dropped him off, darted around a little more, with Ditto delightedly joining him, before the spell ran out.

The party made their way out of the entrance to the exclusion zone, only to be greeted by an entire flock of the demonic pigeons watching the area -- and them -- from above. However, they were still able to sneak across town to their hiding place just fine. Additionally, as soon as they stepped pass the barrier, the intensity of the Abyssal presence relented, which was a significant relief to the group.

Once they were in the basement they had scouted out earlier as a good place to spend the night, Voski cast Tiny Hut for an extra level of safety. She also pulled out her scale care kit to start attending to some of the grime from the exclusion zone, as Ditto conjured a scrub brush and Kriv pulled out soap for everyone else to use. Tiktik had rejoined the group after they left the exclusion zone and Ditto filled them in on everything that had happened, petting them a lot as she did. Kriv and Amaranth both sent messages to the Gatekeepers via the Infinite Library -- the former asking about the goddess and sharing what they’d learned about her, and the latter updating them on the situation with the new portals.

Ditto asked Erwyn if he was able to detect portals outside of the city of Veritas, and he informed her his abilities only allowed him to pick up on planar interference about a mile out. She then cast a Sending to Nilo, to let him know that she and the rest of the party had gotten out of the exclusion zone okay.

“Hey Ditto, you did some great stuff today,” he replied, “And your friends? They’re just amazing! We’re so grateful that you had them come along, it was--”

As she was out of spells for the night, it was only to herself, but Ditto still spoke aloud again to say “I know.”

#session recap

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architectnews · 4 years

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Arquine Competition MEXTÓPOLI 2021 Pavilion

Arquine International Competition 2021, Mexican Design Contest News, Architecture

Arquine Competition No.23 MEXTÓPOLI 2021 Pavilion

5 Nov 2020

Arquine Competition No.23 Pavilion

1. Introduction

Arquine summons to project the meeting point in the public space, where keeping a safe distance, we will meet.

In uncertain times, we ask ourselves what to do in the public space during MEXTRÓPOLI 2021. For the past five years, the Arquine Competition has called for the design and construction of a pavilion that, temporarily inserted in the city, would allow the interaction between architecture and the citizenship.

We know that the pandemic has changed and will continue to change how we live, but to what extent?

After twenty-two years summoning specific ideas and proposals, Arquine invites you to speculate on new ways of using the public space, focused on the design of a meeting point where proximity and encounter are the mail characteristics.

A device, a prototype, an installation or artifact must be proposed to encourage people to meet and build trust in celebrating the city in community. The proposal must be replicable, scalable, accessible, inclusive, with the possibility of adaptation to diverse context, low cost and fast execution. It can be a closed or roofed space, or you can also think about open, flexible or dispersed proposals.

We want to invite you to think about the possibility of humanizing our cities, of reinventing the use of the urban environment in a creative, versatile and economical way. A meeting point that, when built as part of MEXTRÓPOLI 2021, will allow us to meet again.

2. Legal regime of the contest

This contest with jury intervention is open and anonymous, in one phase and will follow the provisions of the administrative and technical rules. From the moment of registration, contestants agree to accept in its entirety and without appeal the regulations, techniques and procedures established in the administrative and the technical rules.

3. Contest organization

The Arquine Competition No.23, MEXTRÓPOLI 2021 Pavilion is organized by Arquine, who will be responsible for organizing the development of the contest, the administrative and technical information, give answer to the participants FAQs, keeping the minutes of the plenary meeting as well as all actions for the proper conduct of this contest.

All correspondence relating to this contest will be sent to the email address:

[email protected]

4. Objective

Design universal proposals for the reactivation and the use of public space in a temporary and collective way.

5. Contestants

The invitation is open to architects and architecture students all over the world. Teams, collective and individual participants are welcome. The groups may incorporate professionals or students from other disciplines. We recommend having an architect or architecture student in the team.

It is not necessary to have some record of the professional association of the country of origin to participate.

Each entrant or team may submit only one proposal.

In any case the team member may be part of another.

They may not participate:

Members of the Jury of this contest, or members of Arquine nor MEXTRÓPOLI.

People with ties of kinship with members of the Jury, spouses or persons associated with affective similar relationship of cohabitation or affinity, or those with stable professional relationships.

6. Information and consultation

Participants may send their questions to the address [email protected] with the same email used to confirm the registration. Complete answers and clarifications will be made through the contest website and all contestants will have access. The list of questions and answers, along with the complete rules will be provided to the jury. The list of questions will be published on the website of Arquine on the date indicated on the calendar.

6.1. Registration

To make your registration effective, you must provide a fee that will be given in two stages of registration:

First stage of registration

From August 17th to October 19th, 2020

$1,250 MXN Peso or $60 US Dollar (International registration)

Second stage of registration

From October 20th, 2020 to January 4th , 2021

$1,500 MXN Peso or $75 US Dollar (International registration)

Contestants will confirm their registration by the payment of the fee (only one payment). The amount depends on the stage of registration. There is no additional cost to the registration, since the entire process of participation and submission of proposals will be through the Internet.

7. Methods for the contribution

To formalize the registration to the competition is necessary to make the payment (one payment) by means of a credit or debit card, via Paypal, Mercado Pago or another online payment system:

Wire transfer:

Introducing the bank account information:

Arquine

Bank: BBVA Bancomer

Clave: 012180 001443769433

Swift: BCMRMXMMPYM

Referenced deposit (only in Mexico):

Paying in any bank:

Arquine

Bank: BBVA Bancomer

Account: 0144376943

Once the contribution is made, the contestant must write an email sending an image of the deposit receipt or bank transfer. Later, the contestant will receive the registration key with which can create a user and access the system. The cost of the fee is per team and not per participant.

8. Confirmation

Remember that you have to send the receipt to [email protected] so you can get the confirmation with the user name and password to access the system (within a maximum period of 72 hours).

When accessing the system, you must edit and complete the data of your team and download all the complementary information that is provided for the development of the proposal. The electronic mail with which the registration is made must be of the person that appears as representative; this will be the only interlocutor throughout the development of the contest.

9. Anonymity

The work will be presented under the code generated by the system in the registration process, this should be placed in the upper right box of the sheet and identify the file only with this code [ARQ-23C-XXXX]. All the proposals submitted after the deadline or those that violate the requirement of anonymity, will be automatically excluded.

10. Documentation needed

A digital image with the entirety of the project. The board must contain all the necessary information to explain and understand the proposal. It is essential that the submitted image contains, at least, the following:

Diagrams, views, sketches, renderings, or any other form of visual representation that will help explain the project. General plans and layouts of the project, including floor plans and sections, adequately scaled to ensure the comprehension of the plans.

If you design a physical proposal, constructive details that are considered essential to explain the project.

A 250 word-long (max) descriptive text. Any text or description can only be delivered in either Spanish or English.

The image or board must comply with the following format: rectangular in shape, 90cm long and 60cm high (horizontal display), 72 dpi, and only .JPG will be accepted. The file must be no larger than 5MB in order to facilitate uploads and downloads.

Remember that the file name must be the same as the user code you will be given upon registration [ARQ-23C-XXXX]. Other formats won’t be accepted, and only the projects uploaded on time will be on the contest.

11.Jury

The Jury members are the key to a good contest. Their experience and the method for evaluation are the best guarantee to ensure transparency. A record containing the reasoned opinion that substantiates the choice of the winning projects will be developed.

To this end, the jury will the reasons why they consider that the winning proposal is worthy of that rating and present a comparison with the proposals that occupy the 2nd and 3rd prize.

The jury may choose a winner that doesn’t follow the basis but has a solution that they consider superior.

Documents or comments generated at the plenary session of the jury will be published in the Arquine media.

12.Members of the jury

It will be announced on October 7th.

13.Jury functions

The jury will freely and autonomously select one proposal among all the projects delivered, which complies with the rules and guidelines established by these bases.

The jury may exclude the works for the following reasons:

Delivery outside or without complying with the provisions of the basis period.

Breach of anonymity, either because they revealed authorship by any means, either by presenting identification graphic elements of the identity of the author of the proposal.

Any attempt at communication or pressure the members of the jury, duly accredited.

14.Procedure for failure

The jury will meet in a plenary session to evaluate the proposals and discuss to issue the verdict.

Prior to any consideration, they will proceed to the approval of the admission or rejection of proposals. The jury agreed a selection procedure according to the quantity and quality of the proposals. In case of a tie, there will be a new discussion.

The competition results will be published on the website of Arquine the day indicated on the calendar of these bases.

All records and documents derived from the procedure for the decision are the property of Arquine. The jury is forced to choose a winner. Explanatory graphic documents of the prize-winning proposals, as well as the names of all contestants who have not requested anonymity will be disseminated through different Arquine media.

15.Prizes

a. First Place:

Construction of the winner proposal

$100,000.00 Mexican pesos.

MEXTROPASE VIP for the team members (2**) and pack of books from Arquine.

b. Second Place:

$50,000.00 Mexican pesos.

MEXTROPASE VIP for the team members (2**) and pack of books from Arquine.

c. Third Place:

$25,000.00 Mexican pesos.

MEXTROPASE VIP for the team members (2**) and pack of books from Arquine.

d. Mentions:

The Jury can choose as many Mention projects as they consider.

Pack of books from Arquine

*The winning team will have to follow the progress of the work, providing Arquine the plans of the executive project for the development of the winning proposal and following up on its construction, through the channels agreed with the team Arquine.

16.Calendar

August 3rd 2020 Competition launch

August 17th 2020 Registration begins

October 7th 2020 Jury announcement

October 19th 2020 End of first registration stage

End of FAQ period

October 26th 2020 FAQ Publication

January 4th 2021 End of registration process

January 8th, 2021 Proposal upload deadline (till 23:59h Mexico City time)

January 11th 2021 Jury’s verdict

January 14th 2021 Results announcement (#ArquineJams)

January 18th 2021 Executive development of the proposal

February 8th 2021 Proposal construction/ development

March 8th 2021 If It’s a physical proposal, construction in site

March 12th 2021 Inauguration

17.Publication

It is expressly stated that the proposals may be reproduced for diffusion by the contest organizers for any other purpose than the promotion.

Contestants that choose not to authorize the exhibition of his proposals (if they are not on the winning list) must expressly indicate it.

18.Intellectual Property Rights

Contestants retain the intellectual property of the works presented, but will yield to the contest organizers exhibition rights, reproduction and publication and other corresponding to the object of the competition, who are obliged to spread the name of the author in each publication, exhibition or activity in which the proposal is incorporated. Also, the authors undertake to refer to the convener’s bodies of the contest in any subsequent publication in which your proposal appears. The submitted proposals may not be used for the development of projects by architects, engineers or technicians to different respective authors. The papers presented can be developed only within the framework of MEXTRÓPOLI 2021. In any case, remain in anonymity those not winning contestants who had applied. In case of publishing the built project, in other media, it should be mentioned that it arises from the Arquine No.23 Competition and carried out within the framework of MEXTRÓPOLI2021.

Arquine International Competition 2021 images / information from Arquine, 041120

Previously on e-architect:

Arquine Competition No. 20

Arquine Competition No.20 MEXTÓPOLI 2017 Pavilion: photos : Moritz Bernoulli Arquine Competition MEXTÓPOLI Pavilion

Location: Mexico

Arquine Competition

picture from Arquine

XIV Arquine International Competition

Arquine International Competition

A Shelter for the Displaced

Arquine has always been interested in the exploration of subjects that are important and relevant for society in general, to encourage an opening of spaces for the dialogue and the participation of architects who are faced with specific problems through a project-based response and we are happy to summon you to its 14th International

Architecture Book

Website: Architecture

Building Competitions : Archive

Comments / photos for the Arquine Competition No.23 MEXTÓPOLI 2021 Pavilion page welcome

Website: Arquine

The post Arquine Competition MEXTÓPOLI 2021 Pavilion appeared first on e-architect.

#e-architect

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endenogatai · 4 years

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Sentinel loads up with $1.35M in the deepfake detection arms race

Estonia-based Sentinel, which is developing a detection platform for identifying synthesized media (aka deepfakes), has closed a $1.35 million seed round from some seasoned angle investors — including Jaan Tallinn (Skype), Taavet Hinrikus (Transferwise), Ragnar Sass & Martin Henk (Pipedrive) — and Baltics early stage VC firm, United Angels VC.

The challenge of building tools to detect deepfakes has been likened to an arms race — most recently by tech giant Microsoft, which earlier this month launched a detector tool in the hopes of helping pick up disinformation aimed at November’s US election. “The fact that [deepfakes are] generated by AI that can continue to learn makes it inevitable that they will beat conventional detection technology,” it warned, before suggesting there’s still short term value in trying to debunk malicious fakes with “advanced detection technologies”.

Sentinel co-founder and CEO, Johannes Tammekänd, agrees on the arms race point — which is why its approach to this ‘goal-post-shifting’ problem entails offering multiple layers of defence, following a cyber security-style template. He says rival tools — mentioning Microsoft’s detector and another rival, Deeptrace, aka Sensity — are, by contrast, only relying on “one fancy neural network that tries to detect defects”, as he puts it.

“Our approach is we think it’s impossible to detect all deepfakes with only one detection method,” he tells TechCrunch. “We have multiple layers of defence that if one layer gets breached then there’s a high probability that the adversary will get detected in the next layer.”

Tammekänd says Sentinel’s platform offers four layers of deepfake defence at this stage: An initial layer based on hashing known examples of in-the-wild deepfakes to check against (and which he says is scalable to “social media platform” level); a second layer comprised of a machine learning model that parses metadata for manipulation; a third that checks for audio changes, looking for synthesized voices etc; and lastly a technology that analyzes faces “frame by frame” to look for signs of visual manipulation.

“We take input from all of those detection layers and then we finalize the output together [as an overall score] to have the highest degree of certainty,” he says.

“We already reached the point where somebody can’t say with 100% certainty if a video is a deepfake or not. Unless the video is somehow ‘cryptographically’ verifiable… or unless somebody has the original video from multiple angles and so forth,” he adds.

Tammekänd also emphasizes the importance of data in the deepfake arms race — over and above any specific technique. Sentinel’s boast on this front is that it’s amassed the “largest” database of in-the-wild deepfakes to train its algorithms on.

It has an in-house verification team working on data acquisition by applying its own detection system to suspect media, with three human verification specialists who “all have to agree” in order for it to verify the most sophisticated organic deepfakes.

“Every day we’re downloading deepfakes from all the major social platforms — YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, then there’s Asian ones, Russian ones, also porn sites as well,” he says.

“If you train a deepfake model based on let’s say Facebook data-sets then it doesn’t really generalize — it can detect deepfakes like itself but it doesn’t generalize well with deepfakes in the wild. So that’s why the detection is really 80% the data engine.”

Not that Sentinel can always be sure. Tammekänd gives the example of a short video clip released by Chinese state media of a poet who it was thought has been killed by the military — in which he appeared to say he was alive and well and told people not to worry.

“Although our algorithms show that, with a very high degree of certainty, it is not manipulated — and most likely the person was just brainwashed — we can’t say with 100% certainty that the video is not a deepfake,” he says.

Sentinel’s founders, who are ex NATO, Monese and the UK Royal Navy, actually started working on a very different startup idea back in 2018 — called Sidekik — building a Black Mirror-esque tech which ingested comms data to create a ‘digital clone’ of a person in the form of a tonally similar chatbot (or audiobot).

The idea was that people could use this virtual double to hand off basic admin-style tasks. But Tammekänd says they became concerned about the potential for misuse — hence pivoting to deepfake detection.

They’re targeting their technology at governments, international media outlets and defence agencies — with early clients, after the launch of their subscription service in Q2 this year, including the European Union External Action Service and the Estonian Government.

Their stated aim is to help to protect democracies from disinformation campaigns and other malicious information ops. So that means they’re being very careful about who gets access to their tech. “We have a very heavy vetting process,” he notes. “For example we work only with NATO allies.”

“We have had requests from Saudi Arabia and China but obviously that is a no-go from our side,” Tammekänd adds.

A recent study the startup conducted suggests exponential growth of deepfakes in the wild (i.e. found anywhere online) — with more than 145,000 examples identified so far in 2020, indicating a ninefold year-on-year growth.

Tools to create deepfakes are certainly getting more accessible. And while plenty are, at face value, designed to offer harmless fun/entertainment — such as the likes of selfie-shifting app Reface — it’s clear that without thoughtful controls (including deepfake detection systems) the synthesized content they enable could be misappropriated to manipulate unsuspecting viewers.

Scaling up deepfake detection technology to the level of media swapping going on on social media platforms today is one major challenge Tammekänd mentions.

“Facebook or Google could scale up [their own deepfake detection] but it would cost so much today that they would have to put in a lot of resources and their revenue would obviously fall drastically — so it’s fundamentally a triple standard; what are the business incentives?” he suggests.

There is also the risk posed by very sophisticated, very well funded adversaries — creating what he describes as “deepfake zero day” targeted attacks (perhaps state actors, presumably pursuing a very high value target).

“Fundamentally it is the same thing in cyber security,” he says. “Basically you can mitigate [the vast majority] of the deepfakes if the business incentives are right. You can do that. But there will always be those deepfakes which can be developed as zero days by sophisticated adversaries. And nobody today has a very good method or let’s say approach of how to detect those.

“The only known method is the layered defence — and hope that one of those defence layers will pick it up.”

Sentinel co-founders, Kaspar Peterson (left) & Johannes Tammekänd (right). Photo Credit: Sentinel

It’s certainly getting cheaper and easier for any Internet user to make and distribute plausible fakes. And as the risks posed by deepfakes rise up political and corporate agendas — the European Union is readying a Democracy Action Plan to respond to disinformation threats, for example — Sentinel is positioning itself to sell not only deekfake detection but bespoke consultancy services, powered by learnings extracted from its deepfake data-set.

“We have a whole product — meaning we just don’t offer a ‘black box’ but also provide prediction explainability, training data statistics in order to mitigate bias, matching against already known deepfakes and threat modelling for our clients through consulting,” the startup tells us. “Those key factors have made us the choice of clients so far.”

Asked what he sees as the biggest risks that deepfakes pose to Western society, Tammekänd says, in the short term, the major worry is election interference.

“One probability is that during the election — or a day or two days before — imagine Joe Biden saying ‘I have a cancer, don’t vote for me’. That video goes viral,” he suggests, sketching one near term risk.

“The technology’s already there,” he adds noting that he had a recent call with a data scientist from one of the consumer deepfake apps who told him they’d been contacted by different security organizations concerned about just such a risk.

“From a technical perspective it could definitely be pulled off… and once it goes viral for people seeing is believing,” he adds. “If you look at the ‘cheap fakes’ that have already had a massive impact, a deepfake doesn’t have to be perfect, actually, it just has to be believable in a good context — so there’s a large number of voters who can fall for that.”

Longer term, he argues the risk is really massive: People could lose trust in digital media, period.

“It’s not only about videos, it can be images, it can be voice. And actually we’re already seeing the convergence of them,” he says. “So what you can actually simulate are full events… that I could watch on social media and all the different channels.

“So we will only trust digital media that is verified, basically — that has some method of verification behind that.”

Another even more dystopian AI -warped future is that people will no longer care what’s real or not online — they’ll just believe whatever manipulated media panders to their existing prejudices. (And given how many people have fallen down bizarre conspiracy rabbit holes seeded by a few textual suggestions posted online, that seems all too possible.)

“Eventually people don’t care. Which is a very risky premise,” he suggests. “There’s a lot of talk about where are the ‘nuclear bombs’ of deepfakes? Let’s say it’s just a matter of time when a deepfake of a politician comes out that will do massive damage but… I don’t think that’s the biggest systematic risk here.

“The biggest systematic risk is, if you look from the perspective of history, what has happened is information production has become cheaper and easier and sharing has become quicker. So everything from Gutenberg’s printing press, TV, radio, social media, Internet. What’s happening now is the information that we consume on the Internet doesn’t have to be produced by another human — and thanks to algorithms you can on a binary time-scale do it on a mass scale and in a hyper-personalized way. So that’s the biggest systematic risk. We will not fundamentally understand what is reality anymore online. What is human and what is not human.”

The potential consequences of such a scenario are myriad — from social division on steroids; so even more confusion and chaos engendering rising anarchy and violent individualism to, perhaps, a mass switching off, if large swathes of the mainstream simply decide to stop listening to the Internet because so much online contents is nonsense.

From there things could even go full circle — back to people “reading more trusted sources again”, as Tammekänd suggests. But with so much at shapeshifting stake, one thing looks like a safe bet: Smart, data-driven tools that help people navigate an ever more chameleonic and questionable media landscape will be in demand.

TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear contributed to this report

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k2kid · 7 years

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British tanks and barbed wire.

The tank and the creation of tank doctrine in the First World War was a process that hoped to take advantage of the use of a mechanical machine to overcome the obstacles that the Western Front with its static warfare footprint of obstacles in the form of trenches, barbed wire, and more telling, the destruction of the landscape replacing what existed with a mire of mud and shell-holes. Using technology to leverage the mechanical advantage of motive power surrounded by a metal shell with tracks that could navigate the wasteland of battle space it was hoped that these mechanical behemoths would be a game changing tool for the Imperial forces.

Aerial view of the Somme Front Photo: NARA/U.S. War Dept.

At their introduction at the Somme during the battle of Courcelette the tanks were not fully incorporated into the tactics of this engagement. The tanks wandered the battlefield, got stuck and put out of action. But worse than this was the apparent lack of coordination between the new and old – of armor and infantry – did not allow the tank and infantry to be the breakout weapon system that would radically change the course of the war.

Detail from Map 6 of the Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War showing employment of tanks at Courcelette on 15 September 1916.

Part of this was related to the mechanical limitations of the tank. It was slow. It was a noisy and noxious environment to work in. The terrain of the Western Front worked against it. The mud, ditches, and other geographic hazards offered natural obstacles to overcome and coupled with an active defence and tactics the metal encasing the tankers simply would delay the tank’s eventual demise during action.

But the tank was viewed as a breakthrough weapon. A weapon that would energize an attack and make a significant difference to the Entente Powers.

An interesting photograph of captured British tanks. The soldiers behind the tree are German and they have mounted the tank on supports so that a flat-bead rail-car can be placed under it to allow it to be transported. The tank in the foreground is ready to be placed on the rail-car and the tank in the background is on a rail-car. The Germans have captured these tanks and are preparing them to be transported to the rear for reclamation and re-use.

The British High Command’s tacticians also considered the threat of German use of tanks (in fact, the Germans made use of captured British tanks during the war) and published pamphlets and guides in May and December 1917 and again in February 1918 as the doctrine for the employment of tanks changed with increased practical service and combat experience.

Barbed wire was a major obstacle in the battlespace. It was employed to limit tactical movement of attacking soldiers and this maze of razor sharp wire was unremitting in its potential harm. If avoided the soldiers were channeled into pre-sighted cross-fires of enemy machine guns. If engaged the wire slowed down the advance and separated units from each other. The cohesiveness of the attack would be lost and with the adoption of artillery “lifts” the need for the Canadian infantry to be close behind the artillery barrage during an attack in order to benefit from its effectiveness made the elimination of wire entanglements and obstacles a necessary task before an attack, in the case of artillery, or during an attack, in the case of the tank, an important tool allowing the movement of troops towards their objectives.

Double-Apron Wire Entanglement Diagram

On February 28, 1918, the 8th and 10th Battalions were tasked with training with tanks of the 7th Tank Battalion. The exercise at Noulette Wood, due west of Lens, France was the location of the drill and as outlined in the instructions, the intent was to show the utility of tanks in dealing with enemy barbed wire. The instructions are concise. The battalion will use two companies as an attacking wave, half the battalions battle strength, in platoons. Each platoon would follow a tank across the intervening space until the barbed wire obstacle was breached. The first wave would then “mop-up” the first objective and the following companies would follow through to the final objective. As stated in the orders the intent is to, “…improve their [the soldiers’] confidence in the work done by tanks.”

Double-Apron Wire Entanglement incorporating Concertina Wire inside it.

Regretfully, the Battalion’s nor the Brigade’s War Diaries indicate the effectiveness of the exercise but one may surmise that the ability of tanks to crush wire effectively had been tested and was considered reliable enough to make the training and familiarization of infantry in this tactic important and relevant enough to familiarize two battalions.

Soon, this tactic would be useful for open warfare. Tanks and infantry would be used in concert to exploit gaps in the German defences but the full realization of the value of tanks in battle would not be fully realized by the Germans in the Second World War.

SECRET.

Copy No…..

8th CANADIAN BATTALION (90th RIFLES). -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

OPERATIONAL ORDER No. 1A -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

28th February, 1918.

A Battle Practice with Tank will be carried out with the 7th Tank Battalion at Square R. 34 just south of NOULETTE WOOD,

The 8th Canadian Battalion at 10.00 a.m.

The 10thI.Battalion at 2. p.m.

The purpose of this practice is to show Battalions the formation they must get into to cross the wire after the tanks.

The formation to be used in the intervening spaces between the wire is not tied down by the fact of using tanks in this operation.

The practice will also show the part that the Tanks play in an operation in addition to making a track through the enemy’s wire.

On completion of the tactical exercise, a tank will make a track over a wire obstacle consisting of three rows of Double Apron Fence, file with concertina wire. Men will be marched over this obstacle, as this will improve their confidence in the work done by tanks.

THE ATTACK: The attack will be made on a two company frontage in two waves of four lines.

Each company will be allotted four tanks.

The first wave (A and B. Coys) will go to and mop-up the first Objective which will be shown as a line of flags.

The second wave (C and D. Coys) will leap-frog the first wave at this point and will proceed after the tanks to the final objective, which they will capture and mop-up in turn.

THE FORMATION: The tanks will be numbered and each Platoon will be allotted one tank, which it will follow until getting to the objective to which it is going.

The Battalion and the Tanks will be formed up as laid down in the attached sketch to commence with.

When actually crossing the wire or the places where the wire would be, the Platoons must be in this formation. Immediately on passing this obstacle, they will deploy and carry on with the mopping up of the objective.

[Signed] Lieut. and Adjutant 8th Canadian Battalion (90th Rifles)

Distribution:-

Copy No. 1 – O.C. A. Coy. 2 – O.C. B. Coy. 3 – O.C. C. Coy. 4 – O.C. D. Coy. 5/7 – OFFICE.

Image taken from S.S. 135 The Training and Employment of Divisions, 1918. This diagram shows one platoon behind each tank. Four platoons make up a company.

Diagram extracted from 8th Battalion OPERATIONAL ORDER No. 1A February 28, 1918 showing tank and platoon formation for exercise.

OPERATIONAL ORDER No. 1A February 28, 1918.

Tank Tactics and Barbed Wire: February 1918 The tank and the creation of tank doctrine in the First World War was a process that hoped to take advantage of the use of a mechanical machine to overcome the obstacles that the Western Front with its static warfare footprint of obstacles in the form of trenches, barbed wire, and more telling, the destruction of the landscape replacing what existed with a mire of mud and shell-holes.

#8th Battalion #barbed wire #concertina wire #double-apron wire entanglement #Noulette Wood #tanks

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