IEEE VR 2022 Workshop


X-IRL risks

Identifying privacy and security risks in inter-reality attacks and interactions

IEEE VR

Date of workshop: Sunday 13 March at 2pm (Auckland, NZ: UTC +13)

Format: Online discussion, 1 hour with audience engagement via Padlet

Overview

This workshop extrapolates how virtual interactions and data trails may generate IRL (in real-life) consequences. Participation in the metaverse and other XR technologies and spaces (AR and MR) may lead to new surface attacks and vectors, the emergence of new adversaries and threat scenarios, and a heightened need for regulatory action, organisational defences, and user-specific security tools. The goal of this workshop is to illuminate the potential inter-reality risks generated between real and virtual worlds. It aims to gather insight from researchers and industry leaders in the digital-to-XR and privacy and security communities in a collaborative and thought-provoking examination of the expanding cybersecurity terrain. The one-hour workshop will be held online presenting a moderated discussion and question time.

Topics include:

The workshop will be structured as:

Workshop Participants

Dr Mashhuda Glencross
Dr Mashhuda Glencross

Dr. Glencross is deputy discipline leader of the Human Centred Computing Discipline at the school of ITEE at the University of Queensland where she leads the Graphics and Visualisation research theme in the Centre for Energy Data Innovation. In this area, she directs research into tools and technologies to visualise and support decision making in Energy sector businesses. With a background in industrially focused research, her work in computer graphics, computer vision and visualisation has been supported through industry contracts, UK-EPSRC and ARENA funding. Her work has had commercial impacts across computer games, visual effects, displays, mobile phones and image-based capture technologies.

Professor Kenny Mitchell
Professor Kenny Mitchell

Edinburgh Napier University's professor Kenny Mitchell is a Technical Director of Rendering for Roblox Corp building the Metaverse. He is also co-founder of 3FINERY Ltd and non-executive director of Cobra Simulation Ltd. An ACM SIGGRAPH pioneer and IEEE Senior he has a wealth of recognized excellence across the highest levels of technology for video games, movie visual effects, consumer products and Theme Park attractions. Whilst an Imagineer, he founded Disney Research in the UK. He co-founded 3FINERY with patented Intermediated Reality communication technology and supports Cobra Simulation Ltd's software strategy for training simulation markets.

Dr Jassim Happa
Dr Jassim Happa

Dr Jassim Happa is a Lecturer in the Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL). He has a research background in both cybersecurity and computer graphics. He served as an intrusion detection system analyst during his national service in Norway in 2006 and 2007. He completed a PhD in Engineering from the University of Warwick in early 2012 in computer graphics. He was a research fellow at the University of Oxford in 2011-2019 and is currently a visiting academic. He joined RHUL in 2019 and has 11 years of experience in proof-of-concept and production environment tool development for cybersecurity and computer graphics. Since 2015, he has led several interdisciplinary research projects in topics related to: visual analytics, threat modelling, deception, network defences with machine learning, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), cyber resilience, data protection and human factors in cybersecurity.

Professor Anthony Steed
Professor Anthony Steed

Professor Anthony Steed is Head of the Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics group at University College London. He has over 25 years' experience in developing virtual reality and other forms of novel user interface systems. He has long been interested in creating effective immersive experiences. While originally most of his work considered the engineering of displays and software, more recently it has focussed on user engagement in virtual reality, embodied cognition and the general problem of how to create more effective experiences through careful design of the immersive interface. He received the IEEE VGTC's 2016 Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award. Prof. Steed is the main author of the recent book "Networked Graphics: Building Networked Graphics and Networked Games". He is currently very interested in tele-collaboration using mixed-reality.

Noelle Martin
Noelle Martin

Noelle Martin is an award-winning activist and law reform campaigner for her efforts to help criminalise image-based sexual abuse across Australia. She delivers speeches and regularly speaks to the media all over the world about the human cost of advances in technology, particularly deepfakes. She was admitted as a lawyer in Western Australia, and recently completed her Master of Laws dissertation unravelling the vast global implications of the metaverse according to Facebook (Meta). She was awarded Young Western Australian of the Year in 2019, and listed as an honoree on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list of 2019. She hopes to one day complete a PhD at the intersection of law, technology, women's rights, and human rights.

Moderator

Dr Moya Kate Baldry
Dr Moya Kate Baldry

Moya Baldry is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland. They are an interdisciplinary researcher focused on narrative, emerging technologies, security and AI. With a background spanning narrative and innovative, digital media design and research, Moya is currently scoping the breadth of novel attacks in Extended-Reality applications and technologies. Moya’s doctoral project explored the design of an indeterminate, complex VR narrative featuring an AI authoring system that engages in the narrative as an angry, digital spider (the mother).

Audience Contribution

X-IRL threat scenarios (across social, psychological, emotional , technical, reputational, economic, political and cultural consequencess) may be suggested prior to workshop by emailing the moderator. These may be discussed in the workshop via the Padlet.

Contact

Email: m.baldry@uq.edu.au