Actors Disrupted…Mechanical Entertainers

Most textbooks are pretty dry. They lay out a lot of facts, but they are rarely engaging. When beginning the project to develop a textbook for the CYB 100 Infowars class, one student suggested that the book should try to re-create the classroom experience students have at York College. In order to do that, students were included at all phases of the development process, and one student in particular collaborated on the development of the book by creating all the visual content. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz talks with her collaborator and student, Natilie McCallick, a senior cybersecurity management major at the York College of Pennsylvania about the experience they had while developing their new textbook on Information Warfare.

There has been a significant increase in maritime traffic in the last few decades as supply chains become more and more robust. With more targets of opportunity, there has been a parallel rise in piracy around the world. GPS has been an important technology to impact maritime navigation, but emerging technologies are not just facilitating better maritime travel, they are aiding piracy with capabilities like GPS spoofing. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz is joined by York College of Pennsylvania student Alex Kemble, a cybersecurity major and ship technician, as they discuss the impact of GPS spoofing on the maritime industry,

Boundaries come in many forms. They can be physical, verbal, psychological, emotional, virtual, and machine generated. Boundaries can be the subject of nation state conflict. They can be something you discuss while lying on your therapists couch. Boundaries come into play when we talk about establishing “work-life balance.” Since the launch of the Internet, boundaries have been changing, and Artificial Intelligence is continuing to push our proverbial boundaries. On this episode of WMD, I am joined once again by the author of the Polymathic Being Blog and recently published book Paradox: Book One of the Singularity Chronicles, Mr. Michael Woudenberg, as we become cartographers and explore the changing landscape of global boundaries.

One of the best parts of being a college professor is seeing students grow from recent high school graduates into young professionals. Students in the cybersecurity management program at the York College of Pennsylvania are required to complete a research project into a cybersecurity related topic of their choice. The students choose really interesting topics including the ethics of technologies, data privacy, the Dark Web, cyber risk, and just about anything you can imagine. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands over the WMD microphone to York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity management students Matt DeSoye, Ty Foster, Jack Griffin, Colin Harris, and JJ Soyke to discuss their research and how it impacted their professional development as they head into their final semester, look for their first job, and begin “adulting”!

Who owns your face? What about your voice? Or your natural body movements Have you ever thought about what makes you uniquely you? The recent actors’ and writers’ strikes brought the potential impacts of AI to public attention, and the actors’ guild was particularly concerned about deepfakes because an actors, voice, appearance, and body movements are part of their proprietary brand, and every time they work, what used to be their personal property is captured on film as data. The very same data that can be used to create deepfakes. If we as humans can’t “own” what makes us uniquely who we are, and instead we become the property of anyone who captures our likeness, how do we maintain our unique identity? On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands over the WMD hosting position to York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity management student Allen Yang who will explore the potential benefits and harms of deepfake technology.

Have you ever thought about what cyberspace looks like? We imagine video games, social media, the output of a search engine, or maybe something more Hollywood like the Matrix. But what do invisible spectrum signals look like? How do you have situational awareness of a place that is invisible? On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands off the microphone to York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity management student Joel Appiah-Kubi to explore the many ways that business analytics can be used to improve cybersecurity.

Each week millions of people tune in to watch as two teams of eleven players each face one another across the gridiron in a test of physical strength, speed, and agility. Just for the love of the game. Other than live-streaming the games, what roles could cybersecurity possibly play in such a physical contest?  You might be surprised! I'll be talking with two of my cybersecurity management students here at York College of Pennsylvania., Drew Thomas, and Carter, to explore the many ways technology and data are changing the NFL. From communication, to safety, to performance analytics.

It's time for a new season of WMD! Listen in as we explore the impact of technology, social change, and disruption.

Movies like iRobot, WALL-E, and the Terminator portray humanoid robots as characters in movies about robots. Other movies, like Iron Man, implement robotics technology as part of the context of the story, such as Iron Man’s suit and swarming Iron Man drones. But changes in robotic technology are beginning to catch up to the Hollywood imagination, and robotics are generating new capabilities in the entertainment industry to create movies and experiences. Things like sophisticated motion capture puppetry, aerial footage shot from drones, and interactive robotic characters in amusement parks are becoming commonplace. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands off the hosting seat to York College of Pennsylvania Cybersecurity student Allen Yang and his friends to explore the many uses of robots in entertainment.

Automation in the manufacturing industry has been going on for years, beginning with the very first assembly line designed by Henry Ford. With wide adoption of robotics and the Internet of Things, the next big impact is coming from the implantation of AI and machine learning, which will interact with the existing automation technologies to enable things like computer vision and smart factories. Having no humans in the manufacturing line with machines that direct themselves is the stuff of science fiction. On this episode of WMD, I hand off the microphone to York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity student Devon Tolbert, as he interviews his friends, Alex, Bradley, and Cullen, who attend other colleges who are studying engineering, computer science, and the trades within the manufacturing industry, as they discuss the effects of AI in manufacturing, and what this could mean for the future of humans in the workforce, asking the question: is the impending future of machine learning horrifying or overwhelmingly positive to society.