EL PASO, Texas El Pasos new FBI chief is worried about an old problem: advances in encryption technology that may allow criminals to plot or commit crimes with impunity.

Something that concerns not just the FBI but all law enforcement is what we call lawful access. Technology companies are deploying encryption software in which the customer can encrypt and only (they) and the end-user can access, said Luis M. Quesada, special agent in charge of the El Paso Field Office as of this month.

Encryption is useful when it comes to protecting private information like banking, he said, but unrestricted use of this technology could pose a threat to the public. It means we couldnt follow kidnappings, child pornography, terrorist acts the lone terrorist shooters which usually communicate through (digital) platforms, he said.

One example cited is the Sutherland Springs, Texas, shooting, in which a gunman killed 26 people and left 20 others injured at First Baptist Church. The shooters phone was encrypted and police didnt at the time have the technology to find out if he had co-conspirators.

We want to know if the shooter was communicating with somebody else, if he was being radicalized. It could lead us to somebody else to prevent the next event. Or if we arrest a child pornographer wed like to know who hes communicating with so we have a map of who hes (talking to) and save more kids, Quesada said. He suggested the problem could be addressed through legislation of these technologies.

Quesadas comments on Tuesday echoed concerns expressed in July by Attorney General William P. Barr and, more recently, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL). Some of it centers around Facebooks plan to provide state-of-the-art encryption on messages in all of its platforms, but concerns other companies applications as well.

At the July technology conference at Fordham University, Barr noted that one Mexican drug cartel was using WhatsApp as its privacy communication method to keep U.S. authorities from finding out when the next fentanyl shipment would be sent across the border.

Efforts to curb unfettered access by the general public to encrypted technology go back to the Obama administration and further. Back in 2015, then-FBI Director James B. Comey warned the Senate Judiciary Committee that malicious actors could take advantage of Web technology to plot violent crimes, steal private information or sexually abuse children. Back then the catchphrase wasnt lawful access, but instead going dark.

Former El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief Victor M. Manjarrez said law-enforcement officials have been fighting criminals use of technology since the days of two-way handheld radios.

We came across encrypted radios used by drug traffickers in Southern Arizona in the early 2000s. You could hear them talking but couldnt (make out) the words, he said.

Manjarrez, now associate director of the Center for Law & Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso, said even if Congress were actually cooperative with each other and restricted encrypted technology, organized criminals will eventually find a way to defeat it.

The problem is that technology changes so fast that transnational criminal organizations can overcome obstacles much quicker than we can change or legislate policy, he said.

Manjarrez said the only way law-enforcement agencies can prevent crimes shielded by technology is to be proactive.

Law-enforcement by nature is reactive. At some point we need to decide we have to be proactive. Just like the Department of Defense in terms of counterterrorism, they seek out the threats. At some point, I think, well have to accept that in law enforcement, he said.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the United States-Mexico border.

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FBI worried about criminals access to encryption technology - fox5sandiego.com

One of lifes greatest quests is to understand the human condition and how to cope with lifes struggles. Yet, most fail to realize they must first look at the stories of these struggles they tell, and how they inevitably shape the course in which their life leads. These struggles could be in relationships, at work, dealing in personal finances, or how one views themselves and others. Regardless of the situation, these struggles can leave a person feeling stuck. Some individuals contend with these struggles and wear a happy face, others have a more bitter outlook, and sometimes, its a bit of both.

Model developer, Chris Templeton, explores the integral role of storytelling in our lives by saying, We all tell stories, and while some of these stories do serve a greater good in our lives, those that do us a disservice have the greatest impact on how we live our lives. As you become aware of these stories and the world around you, you begin to stop living life by default.

Templeton pinpoints the first step to being freed from the weight some of these stories carry is to answer three simple questions. The questions are:

When one addresses their lifes stories through these questions, they can begin to create new and more authentic stories that serve their best interest. Each question develops a higher level of self-awareness that aids in dramatically improving well-being and creates a far more meaningful life. It provides the ability to tap into passion, redefine life, and let go of the things that cannot be controlled.

Once these questions are answered, Templeton points to renowned Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, for the next step in shaping a life with meaning. Frankl states, Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

By harnessing the power of self-awareness, one can then begin the process of increasing the space between stimulus and response. With that space they are able to move from default stories to deliberate behavior that serves them and those they interact with. As a result, it gives the ability to build the foundation to understand other human behavior, drive the development of healthy relationships, and have the utmost control of both the perception of others, as well as how others perceive things and people around them.

For more information visit http://www.ohthestorieswetell.com.

About Chris Templeton:

Driven by the strong desire to better understand the dynamics of personal and professional relationships, Chris Templeton began studying the reason behind human suffering in 2003, thus borning the Oh The Stories We Tell model. After years of studying and analysis, he has gone on to practicing the model through consulting individuals and organizations seeking to uncover and relieve themselves from their lifes sufferings. This is the first article in a multi-part series that will explore the process of removing ones self from stories that are not subservient to their well-being and crafting a life of meaning.

About Oh The Stories We Tell

Oh The Stories We Tell is an inspirational website founded by Chris Templeton.

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The creator of Oh The Stories We Tell Gives The Answer to Unlocking Why Humans Suffer and How to Create Greater Meaning - PRUnderground

Self-driving cars are already hitting roads across the country.

But for all their high-tech whositswhatsits, they still lack one important element: social awareness.

While autonomous technologies have improved substantially, they still ultimately view the drivers around them as obstacles made up of ones and zeros, rather than human beings with specific intentions, motivations, and personalities, according to MIT CSAIL.

The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has been exploring whether self-driving vehicles can be programmed to classify motorists social personalities and better predict what other cars will do.

Using a psychology tool called Social Value Orientation (SVO), scientists classified driving behavior based on the degree to which someone is selfish (egoistic) versus altruistic or cooperative (prosocial).

The system estimates motorists SVOs to create real-time trajectories for autonomous cars.

Working with and around humans means figuring out their intentions to better understand their behavior, graduate student Wilko Schwarting, lead author on the paper, said in a statement.

Peoples tendencies to be collaborative or competitive often spills over into how they behave as drivers, he continued. In this paper, we sought to understand if this was something we could actually quantify.

Testing their algorithm on cerebral tasks like merging lanes and making unprotected left turns, the team showed they could better predict the behavior of other cars by a factor of 25 percent.

In left-turn simulations, for example, their car knew to wait when the approaching vehicle had a more egoistic driver and to make the turn when the opposing motorist was more prosocial.

Existing technology can warn operators of oncoming traffic or blind-spot automobiles. But CSAILs platform takes it a step further by, for instance, providing a warning in the rear-view mirror that an oncoming car has an aggressive driver.

Creating more human-like behavior in autonomous vehicles is fundamental for the safety of passengers and surrounding vehicles, since behaving in a predictable manner enables humans to understand and appropriately respond to the AVs actions, Schwarting explained.

Moving forward, the team plans to apply their model to pedestrians, bicycles, and other components of driving environments, as well as robots that regularly interact with humans.

The MIT CSAIL systemnot yet robust enough to be implemented on real roadsis described in full in a paper published this week by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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MIT Researchers Teach Autonomous Cars to Predict Driver Behavior - Geek

Disney+ Launch: A whole new world of excellent content, the same password reuse problem

Consumers and critics alike have long clamored for the Disney+ streaming service, however, its recent launch has once again exposed the risks with password reuse. Even a mega-brand like Disney has password risks.

An investigation found that less than 48 hours after launch, thousands of exposed Disney+ passwords and accounts were already for sale. It appears the site was targeted by a credential stuffing attack. In other words, cybercriminals took exposed username and password pairs from a previous data breach and then automated the process of trying these compromised credentials to gain access to consumers Disney+ accounts, this is known as account takeover.

The reason credential stuffing attacks are successful is that many users continue to reuse passwords across multiple accounts. Recent research from Google found that a staggering 52 percent of people use the same password for multiple accounts, and even worse, 13 percent use the same combination for every account! The sheer scale of a site like Disney+ increases the probability that credential stuffing attacks will be successful.

Expecting human behavior to change quickly is not a good solution as customers and users are just too lax about passwords and protecting their own accounts. Therefore, companies must anticipate that password reuse will continue due to its convenience and add in steps to reduce the risk.

One simple way is to have a pop-up box reminding users at account setup about the importance of selecting a strong, unique password. Companies could also add a link to a free password check tool that allows the user to check if the password has already been exposed.

To reduce the risk from automated attacks, organizations should make good password hygiene a priority and implement a multi-layered approach. There is no panacea to the problem, but by applying a layered approach, the risk of credential stuffing attacks is reduced.

With these credential screening measures, organizations can easily avoid the negative media coverage and more importantly, customers would know if their accounts are at risk for account takeover. This would be helpful for Disneys recent password issue.

In the digital age, hackers covet consumer credentials with the same fervor Darth Vader displayed in trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side. And while its impossible for any company to entirely prevent against credential stuffing or other forms of attack, eliminating password reuse goes along way in strengthening the Rebelthat is, consumerAlliance. May the force be with Disney+.

The post Disney and the Password Reuse Problem appeared first on Enzoic.

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*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Enzoic authored by Enzoic. Read the original post at: https://www.enzoic.com/disney-password/

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Disney and the Password Reuse Problem - Security Boulevard

Pollution and clutter fill the crowded streets. Sprawling billboards stretch across the long faces of buildings, illuminating the ground far below. Corporations are looming over every strip of the city. A change in climate has made much of the Earth uninhabitable. This is the November of 2019 that Ridley Scott depicts in the 1982 film, Blade Runner. Strangely enough, the 2019 of today does not stray too far from some aspects of the world in the movie.

Blade Runner finds beauty in depicting a world that suffers from many of the problems we face today. It finds pleasantness in the imperfections of the world that are in large part caused by humans. Its ability to attempt to warn of the dangers of human behavior assist Blade Runner in retaining its relevance in culture to this day.

Illuminated billboards crowd countless frames in the film, representing the ever-present and intrusive nature of corporations in society that not unlike the scene, one would find stepping foot into Times Square in New York. The stunning postmodern architecture that fills the landscapes of Blade Runner is constantly hidden under a blanket of advertisements, causing those in the world to neglect the beauty in the environment that surrounds them.

Mike Sano, a senior at Montclair State, reflects on what he took away from the movie.

Electronic billboards fill Times Square in New York City. Photo courtesy of Times Square District Management Association, Inc.

The beauty of the architecture is clouded by obnoxious, bland ads, Sano observed. As for today, all of these things are happening; not as rapidly as it happened in the film, but were getting there.

Although beautiful, Sano also describes the architecture in the film as extremely cluttered.

[The architecture] takes away from the personal, individual human experience, Sano said. Its no longer about having positive mental health, its about using what you see to sell you things.

Now, more than ever, corporations are bounding further away from serving the needs of individuals. With constant buyouts and mergers, we are seeing the number of corporations dwindle while the survivors grow larger by the day. This is reflective of the world in Blade Runner.

The Tyrell Corporation is, in part, everywhere in the world of this story. The same couple of advertisements are depicted on the billboards every time they are on screen. When we open up our computers or turn on the TV, we see the same cycle of commercials and advertisements, tailored to our unique selves.

Lilly Rapps, a sophomore at Montclair State, reflects on what she finds most striking about what Blade Runner accurately depicted about 2019.

A sprawling electronic billboard in Blade Runner (1982). Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The best prediction by far was the electronic billboards and how society relies so heavily on the advertisement industry, Rapps said.

The society in the film and the one in which we live, embrace what advertisers push onto us, to the point where the advertisements influence people more than people influence the ads. People are now a product of the products they are consuming.

Sano also notes that the cluttered feel of the city and the intrusive nature of corporations and advertisements in the films world take away from the personal, individual human experience.

Smog fills a decrepit building in Blade Runner (1982). Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

The human experience is a motif that the story of Blade Runner revolves around. The audience is constantly forced to ask themselves what being human actually means. The replicants, bioengineered individuals that are identical to humans, saved for their lack of emotion, show time and time again throughout the film that there is a profoundly blurred line between being human and being less-than.

Our Nov. 2019 bears some resemblance to the likes of that in the film Blade Runner. Nearly forty years ago, the film warned against many of the dangers that our society continues to face. It is time to remember to embrace the human experience before all of our moments are lost in time, like tears in the rain.

#FocusClimateChange is a School of Communication and Media-wide project that focuses on how climate change affects our world on local, national, and international scales. To see all pieces of work related to #FocusClimateChange, please visit focusclimatechange.org.

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#FOCUSCLIMATECHANGE: Reflecting on the 2019 of 'Blade Runner' in the 2019 of Today - The Montclarion

In this podcast talked with Carmine Savastano who runs the Neapolis Media Group and is the author of the book Two Princes And A King, about the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations. Carmine is also coming out with a new book in February titled Human Time Bomb: The Violence Within Our Nature. You can pre-order this book by going here:

Pre-order Human Time Bomb: The Violence Within Our Nature

Carmines new book came about as part of his research into the origins of violent human behavior. We live in times of discord and cultural mania and his work sheds led on some of the reasons why. This discussion with Carmine also was provoked by his publication of an article he wrote titled Origins of Violence that you can find here with summary and resource links:

https://www.tpaak.com/origins-of-violence

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Podcast: Why Is There So Much Discord? Carmine Savastanos Three Origins Of Violence Provide An Answer Mike Swanson (11/21/2019) -...

The latest eco-friendly alternative to plastic comes from an unexpected source: trees.

Inventors of the material, Woodly, say its made from cellulose.

Harvested from trees grown in sustainably-managed forests in Finland.

Jaakko Kaminen is the CEO.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CEO OF WOODLY, JAAKKO KAMINEN, SAYING:

"Woodly is an entirely new type of plastic. It is carbon neutral, wood based, nevertheless it's transparent and it can be used in various types of applications."

The process transforms wood into pearl-like granules.

That can then be made into a clear, plastic film for use in packaging.

It's designed to be recyclable - though its not biodegradable.

But Woodly say the energy recovered from the products...

yields 70% less fossil-based carbon dioxide than burning traditional plastics.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) CEO OF WOODLY, JAAKKO KAMINEN, SAYING:

"In our opinion there are two problems related to plastic packaging. The number one is a human problem, the misuse of plastics, called littering. And the second problem is related to the material itself and that is about climate change and CO2 emissions. The first problem will be solved by changing the human behavior and the second problem is solved by redesigning plastics and we are solving the second problem."

In the initial stages, the plastic will contain 40 to 60% bio-based content.

And together with packing manufacturer Wipak,

the company aims to have its plastic film products in store by the end of 2019.

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The eco-friendly plastic that grows on trees - Yahoo News UK

George Segals Abraham and Isaac.

Tucked behind the University Chapel, George Segals perennially misunderstood Abraham and Isaac depicts a bearded man brandishing a knife, preparing to slay a college-aged youth bound and on his knees. The pieces poignancy and structural ambiguity invite double-takes and photographs. Among students and campus visitors, it has gained an unfortunate reputation.

To some, its simply that statue.

Oh, that statue? Yeah, I know it, said Benjy Jude 23.

Others take a more critical angle.

It does not look good from this direction, commented a passerby.

And others were less tactful.

Wait, said Nate Moore 22. Are you talking about the blowjob statue?

Despite these colorful interpretations, Segals work is firmly rooted in historical context. The piece was originally intended for Kent State University as a memorial for the infamous Kent State shooting, which occurred there on May 4, 1970. Segal chose the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to express, in his words, the eternal conflict between adherence to an abstract set of principles versus the love of your own child.

The dynamic of whats happening between the two figures in the Abraham and Isaac is not always obvious, said James Steward, Director of the Princeton University Art Museum. Ive heard a number of interpretations posited, especially viewed from certain angles, which again is why I think in that case in particular it is important to note the context of what the backstory of the narrative happens to be to sort of discredit some of these superficial interpretations.

In Segals own time, his work wasnt without controversy. Kent State rejected the sculpture, questioning both its apparently violent imagery and questionable subject matter. The work was then donated to the University, where Segal taught sculpture from 1968-69. It now stands beneath the University Chapel, where it was first installed in 1974, along with a weathered label and the text of Genesis 22, which relays Abrahams near-sacrifice of his son at Gods command.

I was also a student here, so I used to walk by it all the time, said Moulie Vidas GS 09, a professor of Judaic studies. Its very evocative.

Even to those on whom the pieces historical associations are lost, the sculpture serves as an enigmatic landmark. Many alumni, faculty, and students find the piece provocative for thought, conducive to new interpretations and, yes, a great spot for photos.

Across campus, the subject matter of art installations varies in intelligibility. Take the stern John Witherspoon, who scolds passersby from an alcove high on East Pyne Hall. The Witherspoon statue yields itself more easily to interpretation than the abstract Oval With Points, a favored photo-stop for tourists outside of Morrison Hall. Abraham and Isaac falls somewhere between them.

To some, it raises modern questions about intergenerational divides. Isaac, at the mercy of Abrahams hands, may prove a particularly apt image in the age of ok boomer.

I think some of the contemporary questions that it raises are about obedience versus resistance to authority, which is something we have to think about these days, Vidas said. You can take it to the place of the climate conflict, which is in some sense an intergenerational conflict. Are we sacrificing our Isaacs for industry and capitalism?

Others see a story of forgiveness and compassion expressed in the bronze sculpture, which may assert universal claims about human behavior.

Th[e] story [of Abraham and Isaac], of course, is classically one of forgiveness and compassion, Steward said. So I think it would be fair to suspect perhaps that that was part of the artists messaging.

Others emphasize themes of obedience versus resistance, posing Abraham as the reluctant state punishing his rebellious son, while others are troubled by the works religious resonance.

As the Kent State tragedys 50th anniversary approaches this May, the question of where the sculpture resides has become more pressing.

[Abraham and Isaac] stands today, as it has for some 40 years, in exile on the campus of Princeton University, wrote Werner Lange, a professor at Kent State from 1975-94, in a column for a Cleveland news site in 2018. As we approach the 50th anniversary of this watershed moment in modern U.S. history, it is high time that this thought-provoking work of art be brought home from its foolishly imposed exile.

While the homecoming of Abraham and Isaac remains uncertain, it is the statues mysterious aura that serves as its greatest appeal. Provocative both then and now, Abraham and Isaac elicits stronger reactions, ranging from shock to curiosity to discomfort, than many other pieces of campus art.

[Campus art] is meant to interrupt the way that any one of us occupies and moves through space, said Mitra Abbaspour, the Haskell Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University Art Museum. It can have many diverse intentions or ambitions after that to offer a space of contemplation, to provoke thought, to dwarf us as physical bodies, to cause us to feel our own mortality or fragility, to make us feel monumental, to give us a sense of, in fact, strength.

On a college campus, pieces such as Abraham and Isaac possess the ability to spark engaging conversations about everything, ranging from resistance and forgiveness to the politics of fellatio and the climate crisis, and to serve as a means of stirring thought within the community.

... Perhaps [public art] can become, again, fodder for conversation, Steward said. Presumably, we are here as part of an academic community because we want to have those conversations, and because we are absolutely happy to invite the public into that conversation too.

The art museum plans to update the interpretative resources that accompany all campus art, including by providing more context and information about pieces such as Abraham and Isaac. Until then, visitors will be left to intuit the pieces meaning for themselves.

Abraham and Isaac continues to stand in solitude, adjacent to the corner of William and Washington, inviting pedestrians to stop and ponder on their way up the steps to Firestone Plaza.

Originally posted here:
Art in the bubble: 'Abraham and Isaac' - The Daily Princetonian

Malkia Klabu (Queen Club) is a loyalty program designed with and for young women (like this one from Shinyanga, who is on our Youth Advisory Board) to address multiple structural and psychological barriers to accessing sensitive health products. (Photo by Lauren Hunter)

As the school term ends in Tanzania, 18-year old Neema is looking forward to spending time with her boyfriend back home, though she worries he has been unfaithful while apart. She feels anxious whenever her mother gossips about the bad girls who were expelled from school for getting pregnant and who shamed their families. The stakes are high. Shed like to reconnect with her boyfriend in hopes of being together long-term, but also avoid pregnancy and protect herself from HIV. To feel safe and confident about her boyfriends intentions, she wants him to get tested for HIV. Neema feels the stirrings of independence and wants to take charge by seeking health services on her own, but she must tread carefully to avoid suspicion amongst her family and community.

At first glance, Neema should be able to easily get what she needs. She regularly visits drug shops that sell condoms and oral contraception while running errands. Yet she cant get her hands on these products, learn about them, or trust that theyll allow her to better control her future. Why? Shes surrounded by adults in her life who closely monitor and police her behavioradults who, despite their best intentions, enforce social norms that censure contraceptive use through fear and misinformation. Whether feeling ashamed to ask for something behind the counter, getting quizzed about why she needs sensitive products, or being denied outright because shes wearing a school uniform, the shops arent designed with Neemas explicit and subtler needs in mind. This represents a missed opportunity to sell a product that could prevent yet another teenage pregnancy, school dropout, and descent into cyclical poverty.

This isnt unusual. Many public health innovations lack pathways to reach vulnerable customer bases, even with significant last-mile efforts. Polio vaccine teams, for example, often cant reach the most physically and politically isolated communities harboring polio transmission. Business-as-usual is unlikely to solve such market failures. Even efforts to innovate for the base of the pyramid typically focus on lower-cost alternatives or improving distribution; they rarely address the larger contextual forces that keep products out of reach for customers like Neema. Previously, weve written about how patient-centered approaches can help overcome behavioral gaps in the last mile, but the challenge facing Neema exceeds what innovators can optimize with a patient focus alone. She has the desire, intention, and access (at face value) to get what she needs, but the distribution system, as designed, doesnt allow her to act.

So how can social innovators account for these challenges when rolling out health products like HIV self-test kits or self-administered injectable contraception? We recommend building on our previous model of combining design thinking and behavioral science to not only design services for the core user, but also identify and creatively address broader barriers and cultural norms that would otherwise block uptake among vulnerable groups.

Typical product diffusion starts with early adopters, slowly shifts to the broader population, and finally lands with more-vulnerable customers, as marketers learn more about them over time. For goods that drive significant social impact, we have a moral imperative to accelerate this process, and design thinking offers a practical way forward. Design thinking is a creative, empathetic innovation process that draws on ethnographic methods, and relies on rapid prototyping and real-world testing of potential solutions. The approach can help unpack ambiguous opportunity areas, revealing unmet needs among vulnerable customers that innovators might otherwise overlook.

In our own work to design girl-friendly drug shops, where young women can get sexual and reproductive health products and counsel, we interviewed and shadowed girls in their homes, communities, and during shopping trips to learn about their hopes, aspirations, and whats holding them backbarriers they often wont express with traditional research methods. At the same time, through story-based interviews and observations with drug shop owners and employees, we learned about their motivations and business practices, and how they serve different customers. By empathizing with both groups lived experiencesthe foundation of design thinkingwe quickly identified which aspects of community health services should be adapted to fit within each populations unique needs, and solicited their feedback on low-fidelity prototypes before investing in the final solution.

A drug shop owner receives self-test kits from researcher Moza Albert Chitela, co-packaged with specialized referral information to youth-friendly health facilities. Feedback from shop owners and employees informed low-fidelity program prototypes before investment in the final solution. (Photo by Lauren Hunter)

We found that young women often visit drug shops, usually at the behest of their parents. Although contraception (and at some point soon, HIV self-test kits) are ubiquitous in these corner shops, young women with enough nerve to ask for a sensitive product are often hassled by shopkeepers who are willing to forego a sale, despite pressures to maintain profits, to reinforce social norms. From these insights, we conceived of a home delivery program for young women to discreetly get contraception and HIV self-tests at their doorstep. While this idea solved the gatekeeping problem, it failed to excite young women when prototyped and did nothing to help the most vulnerable girlsthose without phones. Further, because we observed that shopping is often a quick, purpose-driven chore that leaves little room to explore new products, a delivery service would lack marketing touchpoints to grow demand. This low-stakes learning allowed us to quickly change course.

Feedback from girls and shopkeepers led us to home in on a loyalty program designed to address multiple structural and psychological barriers: sparking delight in otherwise mundane shopping by awarding prizes from mystery boxes stocked with desirable items, and printing coded symbols for sensitive products on the back of cards to which girls can point instead of having to ask aloud. Shopkeepers were excited about the program because it fit into their workflows, gave them implicit permission to provide sensitive products to young women through the buy-in of their professional association and coalition of participating shops, and could ultimately increase their bottom line.

Rather than accepting the status quo or campaigning for widespread cultural change, design thinking allowed us to create an immediate, actionable solution to circumvent harmful norms in ways that fold into girls and shopkeepers organic behavior. While we still support efforts to shift harmful mindsets, using design thinking can create more immediate market change and allow girls to access health products that improve their lives right away.

While design thinking unlocks creative ideas and allows teams to progressively narrow in on a solution set, many aspects of product or service design are still based on well-informed guesswork. Design teams dont typically pull in rigorously validated, external evidence (rather viewing themselves as charting new territory), and instead draw on real-world feedback from prototyping to help de-risk solutions. Yet its often impossible to prototype every aspect of a solution, and this creates risk. The stakes are especially high when the focus is on vulnerable customers like young women, who have less power or agency than a typical customer. Mitigating these risks is necessary if the ultimate go-to-market strategy is intended to account for the needs of all customers and those who influence their choices.

Researchers Agatha Mnyippembe and Kassim Hassan combine design thinking with behavioral science to design for the core user and creatively address barriers to the uptake of HIV self-testing and contraceptives among young women. (Photo by Lauren Hunter)

Incorporating the evidence-based tools and principles of behavioral science into insights and solutions generated through the design thinking process minimizes these risks by increasing the likelihood that the end-to-end experience will succeed, ultimately bolstering impact. Behavioral science is rooted in well-established theories of human behavior, characterized by behavioral biases and heuristics (like valuing the present more than the future). Its best known for identifying the impact nudges have on improving the uptake, efficacy, or acceptability of an existing product or service. Many are familiar with the classic examples of how opt-out policies can increase organ donations or how automating enrollment into 401(k) plans can increase retirement savings.

On its own, however, behavioral science offers little structure to identify and clarify ambiguous barriers and opportunities, or to create solutions that address them. In our work with drug shops, behavioral science helped us shape and evaluate elements of different options, such as the default choices and incentives embedded within them. But it did not provide practical guidance on choosing between them, such as investing more in the home delivery concept or the loyalty card program. Rather, we used our design thinking insights to find our way to the most promising solution space. When coupled with design thinking, behavioral science becomes a tool to de-risk an innovative concept for maximum possible impact.

Combining insights from design thinking and behavioral science

Mapping design-thinking insights to evidence-based behavioral principles can reveal strengths and weaknesses in service design. This worked well in our past work to drive HIV treatment adherence using patient-centered approaches, and weve continued to employ this approach to broader, market-blocking norms. In Tanzania, we mapped our insights against common biases from behavioral science and the corresponding nudges to address them (see chart). This revealed that the loyalty program worked within girls reality, but added emotional appeal and fun to their routine trips drug shops. It also leveraged multiple strategies from behavioral science, including commitments (planning to complete an action), incentives (rewards for being a repeat customer), and social ties (a feeling of belonging as a program member). By using nudges to mitigate risk on the smaller aspects of behavior changefor example, encouraging repeat visits to the shop with positive reinforcement, and reducing the gap between intentions and actions via commitment deviceswe could focus on the bigger, structural bets of introducing the product experience to the drug shop channel, such as breaking down gatekeeper norms and building trust between shop owners and young women. During a soft launch of our loyalty program, we found that more young women bought and reported using contraceptive and HIV testing products. We have since implemented a randomized experiment in four wards in Tanzania to more precisely measure its impact.

When we use design thinking and behavioral science in tandem, our products and services can have much broader reach and faster adoption among groups who can benefit the most. In this way, girls like Neema can take control of their futures and thrive within communities, markets, and systems designed with them in mind.

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Marrying Empathy and Science to Spread Impact - Stanford Social Innovation Review

Through early adulthood, exposure to new experienceslike learning to drive a car or memorizing information for an examtriggers change in the human brain, re-wiring neural pathways to imprint memories and modify behavior. Similar to humans, the behavior of Florida carpenter ants is not set in stonetheir roles, whether it is protecting the colony or foraging for food, are determined by signals from the physical and social environment early in their life. But questions remain about how long they are vulnerable to epigenetic changes and what pathways govern social behavior in ants.

Now, a team led by researchers in thePerelman School of Medicine discovered that a protein called CoREST, a neural repressor that is also found in humans, plays a central role in determining the social behavior of ants. The results, published inMolecular Cell, also revealed that worker ants called Majors, known as brawny soldiers that protect colonies, can be reprogrammed to perform the foraging rolegenerally reserved for their sisters, the Minor antsup to five days after they emerge as an adult ant. However, the reprogramming is ineffective at the 10-day mark, revealing how narrow the window of epigenetic plasticity is in ants.

How behavior becomes established in humans is deeply fascinatingwe know its quite plastic especially during childhood and early adolescencehowever, of course, we cannot study or manipulate this experimentally, saysthe studys senior authorShelley Berger, the Daniel S. Och University Professor in the departments of Cell and Developmental Biology and Biology, and director of the Penn Epigenetics Institute. Ants, with their complex societies and behavior, and similar plasticity, provide a wonderful laboratory model to understand the underlying mechanisms and pathways."

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Reprogramming ant 'soldiers' - Penn: Office of University Communications