We propose adaptive weight decay, which automatically tunes the hyper-parameter for weight decay during each training iteration. For classification problems, we propose changing the value of the weight decay hyper-parameter on the fly based on the strength of updates from the classification loss (i.e., gradient of cross-entropy), and the regularization loss (i.e., $\ell_2$-norm of the weights). We show that this simple modification can result in large improvements in adversarial robustness — an area which suffers from robust overfitting — without requiring extra data accros various datasets and architecture choices. For example, our reformulation results in 20\% relative robustness improvement for CIFAR-100, and 10\% relative robustness improvement on CIFAR-10 comparing to the best tuned hyper-parameters of traditional weight decay resulting in models that have comparable performance to SOTA robustness methods. In addition, this method has other desirable properties, such as less sensitivity to learning rate, and smaller weight norms, which the latter contributes to robustness to overfitting to label noise, and pruning.

Standard adversarial attacks change the predicted class label of a selected image by adding specially tailored small perturbations to its pixels. In contrast, a universal perturbation is an update that can be added to any image in a broad class of images, while still changing the predicted class label. We study the efficient generation of universal adversarial perturbations, and also efficient methods for hardening networks to these attacks. We propose a simple optimization-based universal attack that reduces the top-1 accuracy of various network architectures on ImageNet to less than 20%, while learning the universal perturbation 13× faster than the standard method.To defend against these perturbations, we propose universal adversarial training, which models the problem of robust classifier generation as a two-player min-max game, and produces robust models with only 2× the cost of natural training. We also propose a simultaneous stochastic gradient method that is almost free of extra computation, which allows us to do universal adversarial training on ImageNet.

State-of-the-art adversarial attacks on neural networks use expensive iterative methods and numerous random restarts from different initial points. Iterative FGSM-based methods without restarts trade off performance for computational efficiency because they do not adequately explore the image space and are highly sensitive to the choice of step size. We propose a variant of Projected Gradient Descent (PGD) that uses a random step size to improve performance without resorting to expensive random restarts. Our method, Wide Iterative Stochastic crafting (WITCHcraft), achieves results superior to the classical PGD attack on the CIFAR-10 and MNIST data sets but without additional computational cost. This simple modification of PGD makes crafting attacks more economical, which is important in situations like adversarial training where attacks need to be crafted in real time.

It is well-known that many machine learning models are susceptible to adversarial attacks, in which an attacker evades a classifier by making small perturbations to inputs. This paper discusses how industrial copyright detection tools, which serve a central role on the web, are susceptible to adversarial attacks. As proof of concept, we describe a well-known music identification method and implement this system in the form of a neural net. We then attack this system using simple gradient methods and show that it is easily broken with white-box attacks. By scaling these perturbations up, we can create transfer attacks on industrial systems, such as the AudioTag copyright detector and YouTube’s Content ID system, using perturbations that are audible but significantly smaller than a random baseline. Our goal is to raise awareness of the threats posed by adversarial examples in this space and to highlight the importance of hardening copyright detection systems to attacks.

Adversarial training, in which a network is trained on adversarial examples, is one of the few defenses against adversarial attacks that withstands strong attacks. Unfortunately, the high cost of generating strong adversarial examples makes standard adversarial training impractical on large-scale problems like ImageNet. We present an algorithm that eliminates the overhead cost of generating adversarial examples by recycling the gradient information computed when updating model parameters. Our "free" adversarial training algorithm achieves comparable robustness to PGD adversarial training on the CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 datasets at negligible additional cost compared to natural training, and can be 7 to 30 times faster than other strong adversarial training methods. Using a single workstation with 4 P100 GPUs and 2 days of runtime, we can train a robust model for the large-scale ImageNet classification task that maintains 40% accuracy against PGD attacks.

Data poisoning is an attack on machine learning models wherein the attacker adds examples to the training set to manipulate the behavior of the model at test time. This paper explores poisoning attacks on neural nets. The proposed attacks use ``clean-labels''; they don't require the attacker to have any control over the labeling of training data. They are also targeted; they control the behavior of the classifier on a specific test instance without degrading overall classifier performance. For example, an attacker could add a seemingly innocuous image (that is properly labeled) to a training set for a face recognition engine, and control the identity of a chosen person at test time. Because the attacker does not need to control the labeling function, poisons could be entered into the training set simply by putting them online and waiting for them to be scraped by a data collection bot. We present an optimization-based method for crafting poisons, and show that just one single poison image can control classifier behavior when transfer learning is used. For full end-to-end training, we present a ``watermarking'' strategy that makes poisoning reliable using multiple (approx. 50) poisoned training instances. We demonstrate our method by generating poisoned frog images from the CIFAR dataset and using them to manipulate image classifiers.

Location and allocation of emergency response units are assumed to be interdependent in the incident management system. System costs will be excessive if delay regarding allocating decisions is ignored when locating response units. This paper presents an integrated method to solve location and allocation problem of emergency vehicles on freeways. The principle is to begin with a location phase for managing initial incidents and to progress through an allocation phase for managing the stochastic occurrence of next incidents. Previous studies used the frequency of independent incidents and ignored scenarios in which two incidents occurred within proximal regions and intervals. The proposed analytical model relaxes the structural assumptions of Poisson process (independent increments) and incorporates evolution of primary and secondary incident probabilities over time. Interdependent ERUs location-allocation problem is solved by taking stochastic information of future incidents explicitly into account with lookahead. The mathematical model overcomes several limiting assumptions of the previous models, such as no waiting time, returning rule to original depot, and fixed depot. The initial nonlinear stochastic model is linearized. The temporal locations flexible with lookahead are compared with current practice that locates units in depots based on Poisson theory. An efficient heuristic algorithm is implemented to deal with time-consuming process of a large-scale problem in real time.