Professor Joss Wright is an Associate Professor, Co-Director of the Oxford EPSRC Cybersecurity Doctoral Training Centre and a Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Wildlife Trade. His work focuses on computational approaches to social science questions, with a particular focus on technologies that exert, resist, or subvert control over information.
Joss’ main areas of research are information controls, with a focus on internet censorship and shutdowns; privacy enhancing technologies and data anonymisation; and cybercrime, with a particular focus on the online illegal wildlife trade and its implications for biodiversity and conservation.
Joss gained his PhD in Computer Science at the University of York, where his work focused on the modelling and analysis of anonymous communication systems. Following this, he spent time at the University of Siegen in Germany, researching security and privacy issues in cloud computing. He joined the OII as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2010.
Information controls, internet censorship, illegal wildlife trade, conservation, privacy enhancing technologies, machine learning, bayesian statistical inference, computational social science.
This project will develop an international hub to track and analyse the global wildlife trade, both online and offline, and develop strategies to reduce the threat of the trade through social policy interventions.
This project seeks to determine how the factors that drive internet filtering can negatively affect vulnerable groups in society.
This project investigates the economic geographies of illegal economic activities in anonymous internet marketplaces.
In the past five years my research has been financially supported by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Oxford Martin School, Google, and the Alan Turing Institute.
With Professor Joss Wright
In this lighthearted lecture we examine some of the history surrounding sightings of Bigfoot and related cryptids. We apply statistical methods to derive underlying patterns from reported sightings and strive to uncover their meaning & implications
With Professor Joss Wright
In this lecture, we will examine some of the history surrounding the Voynich, and apply statistical tools to explore some of its characterics. A hoax? Or an unfathomable repository of ancient wisdom?
With Professor Joss Wright
This year, we will tremblingly delve into a Bayesian analysis of seventy years of UFO sightings, drawn from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) dataset. Scepticism, doubt, and (frankly) statistical rigor may be cast aside.
With Professor Joss Wright
This lecture examines, from a technological angle, the problems involved with gathering, storing and accessing data about individuals in databases whilst preserving their individual privacy.
1 August 2024
Researchers from the University of Oxford have identified analyses of patent-filing trends as a viable way to understand the wildlife trade’s future direction. They say that patent data can help identify future commercial trends.
13 March 2024
Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Bremen share their insights on how digital technologies can be used to wield authoritarian power in the context of the Russian election.
21 September 2023
Jack O’Callaghan, an undergraduate Economics student at the University of Kent, joined the Global Information and Technology Controls Hub at the Oxford Internet Institute as part of the University of Oxford UNIQ+ internship programme.
25 September 2020
New Scientist, 12 October 2023
An analysis of patent records suggests there is growing commercial interest in products derived from rhinos and other threatened wildlife
Vice, 07 April 2022
Bears, pangolins, leopard cats: It’s shockingly easy to buy some of the most endangered species globally on the world's largest social media platform.
The Financial Times, 29 October 2021
Concerns over privacy and national security risks come as MPs launch inquiry into cloud technologies
DPhil student, Oxford University Cyber Security Centre for Doctoral Training
DPhil Student
William is a Rhodes Scholar and DPhil student in Social Data Science at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). His research focuses on developing and applying Multimodal AI systems to explore the impact of internet censorship.
Former Research Assistant
Samantha left the OII to become Assistant Professor at American University. She specialises in computational propaganda, social media and democracy, human rights, and Internet policy
Former DPhil Student
Margie was a DPhil student at the OII.
This course aims to provide students with an understanding of technologies that provide control over information flows and action on the internet, and those that resist or subvert that control.
