Colloquium Computer Science - Dr. Marcos Antonio Simplicio Junior, São Paolo University

Title: Secure Electronic Elections and Topics in AI Security

Abstract:

The talk will cover two topics: "Secure Electronic Elections" and "AI Security". The first is usually a topic of controversy: even though the security of Brazilian electronic voting machines has been evolving since it was first introduced for national elections in 1996, the transparency of the process is commonly a matter of debate. Our goal is to discuss this topic from a technical perspective, discussing how the system works today and which are potential points of improvement (and, if time allows, discuss some of the fraud allegations that helped to fuel riots at the Brazilian capital in 2022). The second topic is focused on the growing security concerns involving the adoption of AI for a variety of tasks: since modern AI models (e.g., LLMs) were not designed with cybersecurity in mind, they are prone to a multitude of attacks like jailbreaking and prompt injection. The goal of the talk is to give a brief overview of the issues, proposed solutions, and the (many) remaining challenges.

Short Bio:

Marcos Antonio Simplicio Junior received his PhD (2010) degree in Electrical/Computing Engineering at the University of Sao Paulo, Escola Politecnica, where he assumed the role of Associate Professor in 2011. He has been involved in research projects related to cryptography and cybersecurity since 2007, often in partnership with the private and public sectors. Those initiatives covered a broad range of scenarios, such as e-voting systems, vehicular networks, cloud computing, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, mobile health, secure password storage, banking transactions, adversarial AI, blockchain, and Internet of Things. Those resulted in more than a hundred cybersecurity-related publications, including award-winning academic articles, international patents and contributions to international standards. He is currently the coordinator of the Brazilian Computer Society's Cybersecurity Especial Committee.