Conspiracy theories are not just outlandish ideas. They can also be political weapons.Conspiracy theories have come to play an increasingly prominent role in political systems around the world. In Revealing Schemes, Scott Radnitz moves beyond psychological explanations for why people believe conspiracy theories to explore the politics surrounding them and places two questions at thecenter of his account: What leads regimes to promote conspiracy claims? And what are their effects? Using a new database of over 1,500 conspiracy claims collected from 12 post-Soviet states - a region of the world where such theories have long thrived-he shows that purveyors of conspiracy tend toenter the fray in moments of uncertainty and chaos. Conspiracy claims flow most freely where there is serious political competition rather than unbridled autocracy; and in response to destabilizing events that challenge a regime's ability to continue ruling. Leaders who anticipate future challengescan disseminate conspiracy narratives proactively as an insurance policy. But if conspiracy becomes overused, it can also backfire. Radnitz shows that individuals who are exposed to a greater amount of intrigue are more cynical and generally more conspiratorial. Yet, conspiracists are alsosuspicious of the motives of authority figures who tout conspiratorial ideas. The upshot is that conspiracism as a political strategy may become less effective over time. At a time of heightened distrust in democratic institutions and rising populism, understanding how conspiracy theories are usedin a region where democracy came late-or never arrived - can be instructive for concerned citizens everywhere.

Conspiracy theories are not just outlandish ideas. They can also be political weapons. Conspiracy theories have come to play an increasingly prominent role in political systems around the world. In Revealing Schemes, Scott Radnitz moves beyond psychological explanations for why people believe conspiracy theories to explore the politics surrounding them, placing two questions at the center of his account: What leads regimes to promote conspiracy claims? And what effects do those claims have on politics and society? Focusing on the former Soviet Uniona region of the world where such theories have long thrivedhe shows that incumbent politicians tend to make conspiracy claims to demonstrate their knowledge and authority at moments of uncertainty and threat. They emerge more often where there is serious political competition rather than unbridled autocracy and in response to events that challenge a regime's ability to rule. Yet conspiracy theories can also be habit-forming and persist as part of an official narrative even where immediate threats have subsideda strategy intended to strengthen regimes, but that may inadvertently undermine them. Revealing Schemes explores the causes, consequences, and contradictions of conspiracism in politics with an original collection of over 1,500 conspiracy claims from across the post-Soviet region, two national surveys, and 12 focus groups. At a time of heightened distrust in democratic institutions and rising illiberal populism around the world, understanding how conspiracy theories operate in a region where democracy came lateor never arrivedcan be instructive for concerned citizens everywhere.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference IFIP TCS 2000 held in Sendai, Japan in August 2000. The 32 revised full papers presented together with nine invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 70 submissions. The papers are organized in two tracks on algorithms, complexity, and models of computation and on logics, semantics, specification, and verification. The book is devoted to exploring new frontiers of theoretical informatics and addresses all current topics in theoretical computer science.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Security and Cryptography for Networks, SCN 2020, held in Amalfi, Italy, in September 2020*. The 33 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on blockchain; multiparty computation; oblivious RAM; primitives and constructions; signatures, encryption, and algebraic constructions; symmetric crypto; theory and lower bounds ; zero-knowledge. *The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The metaverse is not merely a futuristic concept but a tangible force that, when harnessed, can revolutionize patient experiences, care delivery, and outcomes. The global market projection foresees a staggering CAGR of 35.28% and a valuation of $54.47 billion by 2030. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies have propelled medical training, teaching modules, and surgical procedures to unprecedented precision. However, these advancements are not without their challenges. Examining the Metaverse in Healthcare: Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions delves into the intricacies of this technological paradigm shift, dissecting the opportunities, challenges, and future directions it presents. The book navigates the complexities of integrating these technologies, exploring how the metaverse builds upon existing concepts such as Virtual Clinics, AI utilization, augmented reality, Human Digital Twins, medical simulations, and robotics. It examines the impact on patient and clinician experiences, identifying the gaps and obstacles that must be overcome.

It was a time when anything seemed possible–instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury–and for a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi made it all come true. Promising to double investors’ money in three months, the dapper, charming Ponzi raised the “rob Peter to pay Paul” scam to an art form. At the peak of his success, Ponzi was raking in more than $2 million a week at his office in downtown Boston. Then his house of cards came crashing down–thanks in large part to the relentless investigative reporting of Richard Grozier’s Boston Post. A classic American tale of immigrant life and the dream of success, Ponzi’s Scheme is the amazing story of the magnetic scoundrel who launched the most successful scheme of financial alchemy in modern history.

Locally decodable codes (LDCs) are codes that simultaneously provide efficient random access retrieval and high noise resilience by allowing reliable reconstruction of an arbitrary bit of a message by looking at only a small number of randomly chosen codeword bits. Local decodability comes with a certain loss in terms of efficiency – specifically, locally decodable codes require longer codeword lengths than their classical counterparts. Private information retrieval (PIR) schemes are cryptographic protocols designed to safeguard the privacy of database users. They allow clients to retrieve records from public databases while completely hiding the identity of the retrieved records from database owners. In this book the author provides a fresh algebraic look at the theory of locally decodable codes and private information retrieval schemes, obtaining new families of each which have much better parameters than those of previously known constructions, and he also proves limitations of two server PIRs in a restricted setting that covers all currently known schemes. The author's related thesis won the ACM Dissertation Award in 2007, and this book includes some expanded sections and proofs, and notes on recent developments.

Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction | One of Time Magazines's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 | Longlisted for the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards "An entertaining quest to trace the origins and implications of the names of the roads on which we reside." —Sarah Vowell, The New York Times Book Review When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class. In this wide-ranging and remarkable book, Deirdre Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr., the wayfinding means of ancient Romans, and how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany. The flipside of having an address is not having one, and we also see what that means for millions of people today, including those who live in the slums of Kolkata and on the streets of London. Filled with fascinating people and histories, The Address Book illuminates the complex and sometimes hidden stories behind street names and their power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn’t—and why.

This book presents the first comprehensive overview of various verifiable computing techniques, which allow the computation of a function on outsourced data to be delegated to a server. It provides a brief description of all the approaches and highlights the properties each solution achieves. Further, it analyzes the level of security provided, how efficient the verification process is, who can act as a verifier and check the correctness of the result, which function class the verifiable computing scheme supports, and whether privacy with respect to t he input and/or output data is provided. On the basis of this analysis the authors then compare the different approaches and outline possible directions for future work. The book is of interest to anyone wanting to understand the state of the art of this research field.