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Competition To Identify Sexual Predators In Chat Logs

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Lugano, Switzerland, and other universities from the U.S. and Europe organize a competition to automatically identify sexual predators in chat logs. The task is described as: 'The goal of this sub-task is to identify classes of authors, namely online predators. You will be given chat logs involving two (or more) people and have to determine who is the one trying to convince the other participants(s) to provide some sexual favor. You will also need to identify the particular conversation where the person exploits his bad behavior.' Their data set covers hundreds of chat logs with dozens of true positives (i.e., chats where one is trying to hit on another)."

19 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Simple algorithm by srussia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A/S/L

    --
    Set your phasers on "funky"!
    1. Re:Simple algorithm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Arithmetic shift left...?

    2. Re:Simple algorithm by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh yeah, the good ol' Internet. Where the men are real men, women are real men, and kids are real FBI agents.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Ummm by vlm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    automatically identify sexual predators in chat logs

    OK sounds good hate those guys

    trying to convince the other partecipants(s) to provide some sexual favor

    Whoa whoa who here, thats me and my wife not a bunch of predators.

    Whoever would have guessed that the govt trying to get into my bedroom would mean they're scanning my chat logs.

    I suppose Target store wants to monetize this too...

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    1. Re:Ummm by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do try to differentiate between a computer science exercise and a government policy.

      Do try to be a little less naive.

      Just scroll down a few stories here on Slashdot and find a UK proposal to scan ALL internet communications in real time.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  3. False positives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not everyone who solicits sexual favors is a "predator". They seem to be making that leap.

    1. Re:False positives? by TWX · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not everyone who solicits sexual favors is a "predator". They seem to be making that leap.

      Hell, some people seemingly solicit for sexual favors when they actually want nothing of the sort. Just the other day, two guys were shouting at each other, and unless this was some kind of passive-aggressive homoerotic fantasy being acted out, the one's invitation, "Suck my dick!" to the other was almost undoubtedly not solicited with any expectation or desire behind it...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:False positives? by TWX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, they'll need to develop a chatbot that acts like a normal person, and a chatbot that acts like a sexual predator, and then all three of the pieces of software could go through a rapid automated evolutionary development process.

      Some friends of mine did that once, and put them into a teen-oriented IRC channel. "Lace" was about thirty lines long, and mostly just pretended to be teenage girl playing with anatomy and inviting others to do the same. The other one, whose name escapes me, was about a gig and a half from all of the conversation it had absorbed.

      The big one was kickbanned quickly, within a few minutes. "Lace" remained in the channel for the better part of an hour until people stopped replying to it, and was finally booted when the moderator-bot kicked it when "Lace" posted, "you're boring! I shouldn't have left #hotstuff" or something like that, citing that "Lace" was advertising for other channels.

      The guy who had written the serious, big one was devastated. The guy who wrote lace had the rage-comics troll face look for the next several days.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  4. Sample by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?

    BritneySpears14: Aight.

    bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.

    BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.

    bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

    BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.

    bloodninja: Me too baby.

    BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.

    bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.

    BritneySpears14: Hey...

    bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.

    BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.

    bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.

    BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.

    bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.

    bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.

    BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.

    bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.

    bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.

    bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.

    bloodninja: Baby?

    -------------------

    bloodninja: Ok baby, we got to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep it ready for you.

    j_gurli3: thats ok. ok i'm a japanese schoolgirl, what r u.

    bloodninja: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.

    j_gurli3: haha, ok lets go.

    j_gurli3: i put my hand through ur hair, and kiss u on the neck.

    bloodninja: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.

    j_gurli3: haha, ok, u know that turns me on.

    j_gurli3: i start unbuttoning ur shirt.

    bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't wear shirts.

    j_gurli3: No, ur not really a Rhinocerus silly, it's just part of the game.

    bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't play games. They f*cking charge your ass.

    j_gurli3: stop, cmon be serious.

    bloodninja: It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.

    bloodninja: I stomp my feet, the dust stirs around my tough skinned feet.

    j_gurli3: thats it.

    bloodninja: Nostrils flaring, I lower my head. My horn, like some phallic symbol of my potent virility, is the last thing you see as skulls collide and mine remains the victor. You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.

    bloodninja: Goddam am I hard now.

    --------------

    BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?

    eminemBNJA: Aight, yeah I'm ready.

    BritneySpears14: I like your music Em... Tee hee.

    eminemBNJA: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.

    BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.

    BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.

    eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.

    BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.

    eminemBNJA: Oh ****

    BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.

    eminemBNJA: Oh ****

    eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

    1. Re:Sample by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Me: Hey beautiful
      Her: Wow, thanks. That was unexpected
      Me: I'm not saying it because it's nice, I'm saying it because it's true.
      Her: My my, whats gotten into you? Youre in a really sweet mood rite now :)
      Me: I realized It's time to talk to beautiful girls and chew bubble gum, and I'm all outta gum.
      Her: You know I have a boyfriend right? Why are you saying this to me anyway?
      Me: I've got balls of steel!
      Her: lol you probably do cause he'd be pissed if he saw this.
      Me: I'm an equal opportunity ass kicker!
      Her: HAHA omg, you're so weird today. You tell me I'm beautiful and now you're acting all alpha.
      Me: Balls of steel!
      Her: Right right. Look, honestly I think you're kind of cute so if you're not doing anything right now, why don't you come over? Just don't tell anyone okay :)
      Me: Hail to the king, baby
      Her: lol, just get the hell over here
      Me: Damn I'm good

  5. Re:Useful tool by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Funny

    I already have one.

    int hitting_on_me(female F)
    {
          return 0;
    }

    Ta-da.

  6. Competition to help sift all communications? by icebike · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While cloaked in "won't somebody please think of the children" language, it appears to me that this project is really all about developing technology to rapidly scan a mountain of text conversations to identify any instances of behavior for which you have a few documented prototypes.

    Swap in political activist, opposition party, occupy movement, flash mob, or hackers, and the project doesn't seem so appealing. The goal sounds like they would like to find an engine to which you could feed in a few examples and have a few thousand computers watching all conversations on the net.

    Why would Universities participate in that? Are these people that naive? Why not spend the money on education materials, or web sites explaining the sexual predators techniques so at risk populations can be smarter, rather than helping governments build Skynet?

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  7. Re:what about by Elbart · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean freedom positives!

  8. Re:Obvious? by thesandtiger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It isn't always obvious because efforts to get into someone's head aren't always obvious.

    Some people will attempt to groom a chat participant - they will ask more or less innocuous questions, but occasionally throw in one that is just a shade less innocuous than the others. Over time they will push the limits, until eventually some of the most outrageous stuff seems like it's just par for the course from this person. They'll couch all of this in the guise of being a mentor or friend, will back off if their target gets a little iffy, but will try to reconcile and take another tack. When this method is used against a target from a vulnerable population (kids, for example) it's scary how effective it can be and how easily even people who are not in vulnerable groups get taken in (see: people who fall for scams).

    Eventually predators will shift to a more active part once their target has been willing to talk openly about previously forbidden subjects, and they'll attempt to get a cam session, phonecall, pics, meetings, whatever. The target might agree to go on cam or to pics, and at that point the predator has them - "Hey, if you don't keep doing this I'll post those pics/videos everywhere" etc.

    It's easy to recognize the obvious and unsubtle ones, but it's a lot harder to recognize (from a relatively small sample) the more crafty ones unless you're an outside observer. For example, if I were someone being groomed by a predator as I described, I might not balk at a question as to whether I had pubic hair since I'd already been conditioned to trust that person. But if I were an outside observer it would be obvious that is untoward - unfortunately for many people targeted by predators, no outside observer is there to kind of make them realize what's going on.

    As a researcher who often works with young people who have been exploited or put at risk, I've been given chatlogs from predators like the ones I've described above and was just astonished at how things progressed. However, quite a few of the skeevy questions that were asked by predators were ALSO asked in completely innocuous relationships and in that context were not nearly as skeevy. Just flagging based on questions or terms isn't enough - it's a context that needs to be understood.

    The goal, I imagine, in the case of this contest, would be to help automate the process of that "outside observer" to have the software check for suspicious behavior/history and throw a flag once it passes a certain threshold but BEFORE the target gets exploited, and possibly to minimize the number of false positives so that extensive resources aren't wasted on non-predatory relationships.

    Ethical considerations aside, it's an interesting problem and could be applied to a number of areas where you're attempting to detect non-obvious manipulative behavior in any kind of multi-party interaction.

    --
    Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  9. Re:what about by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Funny

    and tabletop role playing game issues

    I put on my robe and wizard hat...

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  10. Re:Dateline NBC by jimbolauski · · Score: 4, Informative
    Your NAMBLA logic fails you once you understand what entrapment truly is. An adult sending sexually explicit text messages to a person posing to be a minor is not entrapment. An adult going over to what they think is a minor's residence with the intent of molesting the minor is not entrapment. It becomes entrapment if the fake minor steers the conversation to an inappropriate conversation.

    A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case.
    However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the Government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a Government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informer or other decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person. So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that Government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity.
    On the other hand, if the evidence leaves a reasonable doubt whether the person had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion on the part of some Government officer or agent, then the person is not guilty.
    In slightly different words: Even though someone may have [sold drugs], as charged by the government, if it was the result of entrapment then he is not guilty. Government agents entrapped him if three things occurred:
    - First, the idea for committing the crime came from the government agents and not from the person accused of the crime.
    - Second, the government agents then persuaded or talked the person into committing the crime. Simply giving him the opportunity to commit the crime is not the same as persuading him to commit the crime.
    - And third, the person was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government agents spoke with him.
    On the issue of entrapment the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped by government agents.

    --
    Knowledge = Power
    P= W/t
    t=Money
    Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
  11. Re:what about by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Agreed, I'd feel a lot better if part of this competition was zero (not "acceptably low") false positives. Some backwards places in the world (yes, I am speaking specifically of America) being accused of sex crimes is a Bad Thing and will ruin your entire life, even if the accusation is baseless. It is not acceptable to create an algorithm that will ruin innocent people's lives with some probability, if used for its intended purpose.

  12. What's That Sound.... by lobiusmoop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's Alan Turing spinning in his grave.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  13. Re:what about by rainmouse · · Score: 4

    Thanks to the incomprehensible network of laws, chances are the victims of a false positive are already guilty of something else, so they deserve it.

    And I guess America deserves it for continuing to vote Republocrat.

    False positives are likely to be acceptable as they will be mining masses of date for juicy bits to pass onto human operators who spend all day reading through terrible filth and slowly going insane (I had a similar job to this). Missing key details is far more worrying than passing a bit of extra work onto the human operators.