Model extraction (ME) attacks represent one major threat to Machine-Learning-as-a-Service (MLaaS) platforms by ``stealing'' the functionality of confidential machine-learning models through querying black-box APIs. Over seven years have passed since ME attacks were first conceptualized in the seminal work. During this period, substantial advances have been made in both ME attacks and MLaaS platforms, raising the intriguing question: How has the vulnerability of MLaaS platforms to ME attacks been evolving? In this work, we conduct an in-depth study to answer this critical question. Specifically, we characterize the vulnerability of current, mainstream MLaaS platforms to ME attacks from multiple perspectives including attack strategies, learning techniques, surrogate-model design, and benchmark tasks. Many of our findings challenge previously reported results, suggesting emerging patterns of ME vulnerability. Further, by analyzing the vulnerability of the same MLaaS platforms using historical datasets from the past four years, we retrospectively characterize the evolution of ME vulnerability over time, leading to a set of interesting findings. Finally, we make suggestions about improving the current practice of MLaaS in terms of attack robustness. Our study sheds light on the current state of ME vulnerability in the wild and points to several promising directions for future research.

Machine learning is rapidly becoming as ubiquitous as data itself. Quite literally wherever there is an abundance of data, machine learning is somehow intertwined. After all, what utility would data have if we were not able to use it to predict something about the future? Luckily there is a plethora of toolkits and frameworks that have made it rather simple to deploy ML in Python. Specifically, Sklearn has done a terrifically effective job at making ML accessible to developers.

Machine learning as a service (MLaaS) refers to a number of services that offer machine learning tools as a part of cloud computing services. The main benefit of this solution is that customers can get started with machine learning applications quickly without installing specific software or provisioning their own servers. All the actual computations are handled by the provider's own data centers. MLaaS providers offer services for data transformation, predictive analytics, data visualization, and advanced machine learning algorithms. Currently, the major MLaaS platforms suggest ready-made solutions for the majority of popular machine learning applications, including recommender systems, forecasting, image and video analysis, advanced text analytics, machine translation, automated transcription, speech generation, and conversational agents.

The boom of deep learning induced many industries and academies to introduce machine learning based approaches into their concern, competitively. However, existing machine learning frameworks are limited to sufficiently fulfill the collaboration and management for both data and models. We proposed NSML, a machine learning as a service (MLaaS) platform, to meet these demands. NSML helps machine learning work be easily launched on a NSML cluster and provides a collaborative environment which can afford development at enterprise scale. Finally, NSML users can deploy their own commercial services with NSML cluster. In addition, NSML furnishes convenient visualization tools which assist the users in analyzing their work. To verify the usefulness and accessibility of NSML, we performed some experiments with common examples. Furthermore, we examined the collaborative advantages of NSML through three competitions with real-world use cases.

As of the end of 2017, the top five public companies of the world by market capitalization were Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook -- all digital natives. One of the common traits between these companies is the fact that they deal with 1s and 0s instead of tangible assets and they are in possession of vast amounts of already digitalized business and consumer data. Add on top large R&D budgets, access to elite academic talent, open-mindedness towards systematic experimentation and it is no surprise that, to date, they have been able to leverage machine learning to its fullest by launching numerous internal and end-user facing smart applications. Having noticed these positive examples, by now, most business leaders in other industries have figured out that this machine learning thing really matters; and it ain't going away anytime soon. So the waves of automation and data-driven decision making have recently started crushing on their shores as these businesses slowly but surely make headway with their digital transformation initiatives.

Hyperparameters are critical in machine learning, as different hyperparameters often result in models with significantly different performance. Hyperparameters may be deemed confidential because of their commercial value and the confidentiality of the proprietary algorithms that the learner uses to learn them. In this work, we propose attacks on stealing the hyperparameters that are learned by a learner. We call our attacks hyperparameter stealing attacks. Our attacks are applicable to a variety of popular machine learning algorithms such as ridge regression, logistic regression, support vector machine, and neural network. We evaluate the effectiveness of our attacks both theoretically and empirically. For instance, we evaluate our attacks on Amazon Machine Learning. Our results demonstrate that our attacks can accurately steal hyperparameters. We also study countermeasures. Our results highlight the need for new defenses against our hyperparameter stealing attacks for certain machine learning algorithms.

Cloud machine learning platforms, sometimes referred to as machine learning as a service (MLaaS) solutions, can help make artificial intelligence (AI) affordable. But experts say enterprises and small businesses considering these services should also consider the potential challenges of these services before rushing in. Machine learning (ML), the branch of artificial intelligence concerned with creating computer systems that can learn without being explicitly programmed, is experiencing an undeniable boom. In its Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions, 2018, Deloitte Global wrote, "In 2018, large and medium-sized enterprises will intensify their use of machine learning. The number of implementations and pilot projects using the technology will double compared with 2017, and they will have doubled again by 2020."

As each year wraps up experts pull their crystal balls from their drawers and start peering into it for a glimpse of what's to come in the next one. At BigML, We have been following such clairvoyance carefully this past holiday season to compare and contrast with our own take on what 2017 will have in store, which can come across as quite unorthodox to some experts out there. For the TL;DR crowd, our crystal ball is showing us a cloudy (no pun intended) 2017 Machine Learning market forecast with some sunshine behind the clouds for good measure. To put it more directly, enterprises need to look beyond the AI hype for practical ways to incorporate Machine Learning into their operations. This starts with the right choice of internal platform that will help them build on smaller, low hanging fruit type projects that leverage their proprietary datasets.