February 2012 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

la farfalla dell'accessibilità
by Simone Aliprandi Feb. 29, 2012

Feb. 29, 2012

Su Apogeonline si parla oggi del Progetto Farfalla. In un periodo in cui si fa un gran parlare di farfalle, è forse il caso di dedicare un po’ di spazio ad un altro tipo di lepidottero, di ben più nobili intenti. Nel sottobosco di progetti open source sviluppati in Italia infatti “svolazza” da qualche anno un progetto davvero utile e illuminato: il Farfalla Project è un software che mira a massimizzare l’accessibilità in rete, funzionando sia sotto forma di normale pacchetto installabile sia come tecnologia cloud a disposizione dei gestori dei siti. [leggi l'intero articolo: http://www.apogeonline.com/webzine/2012/02/29/il-vispo-progetto ] Un caro saluto. -- Simone Aliprandi - http://www.aliprandi.org

1 0

"Google can't track every single click of your web surfing. Only most of them."
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 29, 2012

Feb. 29, 2012

Google can't track every single click of your web surfing. Only most of them. Posted by *Matthias Gelbmann <http://w3techs.com/users/profile/2>* on 27 February 2012 *Summary:* /If you don't trust //Google, you may want to avoid it while surfing the web. Good luck to you./ If you are anything like me, you love a lot of what Google offers. As soon as I fire up my Google Chrome browser, I head over to Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs or Picasa. And whenever I stop wasting my time on Google+, I continue doing so on YouTube. These services are mostly free and reliable, why should I think twice about using them? [...] Continua qui: http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/google_cant_track_every_single_click_of_your_…

1 0

Fwd: Accesso aperto: proposta integrata
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 29, 2012

Feb. 29, 2012

La prof. Maria Chiara Pievatolo, collega dell'Università di Pisa, ha postato su una lista privata il seguente splendido messaggio sull'open access. La prof. Pievatolo, che da anni lavora con grande competenza e passione a favore dell'accesso aperto, auspica che anche nel nostro paese nasca un forte movimento di opinione che reclami il libero accesso ai risultati della ricerca pubblica. Mette inoltre in guardia a proposito di possibili effetti perversi dei meccanismi di valutazione della ricerca che sono in fase di definizione da parte dell'ANVUR. Sottoscrivendo totalmente il suo messaggio, sono lieto, col suo consenso, di condividerlo con voi. juan carlos -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Accesso aperto: proposta integrata Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:39:55 +0100 From: Maria Chiara Pievatolo <pievatolo(a)dsp.unipi.it> Organization: Università di Pisa Salve. [...] Parto da un principio elementare: quanto è finanziato da denaro pubblico deve essere pubblico, - affinché il contribuente non paghi due volte la stessa cosa (e gli atenei non la paghino tre volte, prima stipendiando i ricercatori, poi fornendo gratis agli editori gli articoli e il referaggio, e infine ricomprando i loro testi a carissimo prezzo: https://svpow.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-sc…) - perché il cittadino possa controllare come sono spesi i suoi soldi (trasparenza) Un simile principio, unito allo "sciopero" dei ricercatori contro Elsevier, ha portato, negli USA, alla vittoria della primavera accademica (https://minimacademica.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/rwa-e-ufficialmente-defunta/) Questo principio si attua: a) con le politiche di mandato (l'ente finanziatore finanzia la ricerca, ma impone l'obbligo di depositarne i prodotti in archivi) che oggi in Italia sono applicate a macchia di leopardo (http://www.telethon.it/ricerca-progetti/ricercatori/open-access) e che invece dovrebbero essere estese a tutta la ricerca a finanziamento pubblico o comune b) con le politiche di deposito legale: per partecipare a un concorso pubblico o alla valutazione della ricerca i titoli devono essere depositati in un archivio aperto (oggi questo vale solo per il conseguimento del titolo di dottore di ricerca). Rispetto al copyright, i mandati impongono al ricercatore di non cederlo totalmente all'editore; i depositi invece lo bypassano. Questo modello è concettualmente facile da attuare perché la nostra ricerca è già pagata, a monte. Gli editori svolgono solo il ruolo, parassitario, di recintare i beni comuni col pretesto che sono loro a farci valutare la ricerca, quando con la rete possiamo benissimo fare da soli (http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/btfp/?p=1033 btw, il testo di cui sto parlando nella pagina indicata, che sostiene tesi simili alle mie, è stato recensito sul NYT). Agostino Quadrino propone un sistema di sottoscrizione per i testi scolastici, che non sono pagati a monte (http://www.garamond.it/index.php?pagina=372) La sua proposta, che è simile a quella dell'illuminista Lessing (http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/classici/lessing.html) si integra perfettamente con la mia, a condizione che successivamente i testi così ottenuti siano liberati in archivi ad accesso aperto, in modo che possano essere riutilizzabili. L'attuale esercizio di valutazione della ricerca è ad accesso chiusissimo: i testi da valutare sono depositati in un archivio elettronico riservati, e sono destinati ad essere cancellati per evitare che qualcun altro ci butti l'occhio per sbaglio (http://www.roars.it/online/?p=3604) I suoi esiti, se nessuno si opporrà e se si adotterà, come sembra (http://www.roars.it/online/?p=4846) il sistema delle liste di editori (eccellenti, così così, figli di nessuno) saranno pure oligopolistici: gli editori piccoli chiuderanno, quelli nuovi non nasceranno nemmeno. Un esempio: le traduzioni italiane più recenti degli scritti politici di Kant sono la mia, uscita in volume per Firenze University Press e ad accesso aperto qui (http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/dida/kant_7/) e quella di Gonnelli, uscita per L.. La mia traduzione fa concorrenza a L. perché corregge alcuni errori di Gonnelli, perché costa meno (la versione on-line è addirittura gratis) e perché ciascun testo è sotto licenza cc-by-sa. In questo modo, chi volesse correggere i miei errori potrebbe farlo facilmente. Se però la valutazione della ricerca mi dice che il mio testo sarà giudicato negativamente perché è uscito presso un editore piazzato male nella lista, potrò sperare di ricevere un giudizio positivo solo se troverò un valutatore coscienzioso che legge anchei testi - mentre chi pubblica con L., a sua volta, avrà un giudizio positivo a meno che non trovi un valutatore coscienzioso. Quindi il ricercatore medio la prossima volta sceglierà di pubblicare con L.,che, determinando la sua carriera, sarà in grado di imporgli le sue condizioni: non gli concederà mai quello che FUP ha concesso a me.Che cosa c'entra tutto questo con la libera concorrenza, che dovrebbe essere cara al governo Monti? Che tipo di società costruiamo, se gli oligopolisti dell'editoria recintano la ricerca pubblica (http://minimacademica.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/monbiot-i-latifondisti-della…) lasciando gli altri al Grande Fratello e alla pirateria? Vorrei scomodare anche altri, più seri, principi filosofici, come la libertà dell'uso pubblico della ragione e il carattere di bene comune della cultura, ma è tardi e mi trattengo. La Crui può produrre solo linee guida. Per estendere la politiche di mandato e di deposito legale occorre una coscienza civile forte e diffusa, che si deve scontrare con lobby fortissime. Idee come le mie, in realtà, vanno di moda. Purtroppo, però, vengono di solito privatizzate in testi con su scritto "proprietà letteraria riservata". Il primo passo che ho intenzione di fare è chiedere pubblicamente a uno di questi autori perché le sue modalità di pubblicazione non sono in armonia con le sue idee. Credo di aver trovato la persona giusta perché, probabilmente, in buona fede. Ma mi piacerebbe che questo fosse solo il punto di partenza: l'accesso aperto deve entrare nella discussione pubblica. Buonanotte, MCP (*) Ho usato L. come variabile per indicare un qualsiasi editore trattato dalla lista come prestigioso. Al posto di L. ci potrebbe essere, per esempio, M., E., S. o anche W. :-) -- Maria Chiara Pievatolo Dipartimento di Scienze politiche e sociali Università di Pisa Via Serafini 3 56126 Pisa (Italy) http://www.sp.unipi.it/index.php?page=/hp/pievatolo http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/btfp https://twitter.com/btfp1

1 0

Fwd: [ NNSquad ] The "Right to Be Forgotten": A Threat We Dare Not Forget
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 29, 2012

Feb. 29, 2012

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ NNSquad ] The "Right to Be Forgotten": A Threat We Dare Not Forget Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:44:49 -0800 From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren(a)vortex.com> To: nnsquad(a)nnsquad.org The "Right to Be Forgotten": A Threat We Dare Not Forget http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000938.html Imagine that you're conducting a Google Search for "Beatles" -- but mysteriously, the only results you receive are links to official, authorized pages for their song downloads and related corporate promotional materials. Or perhaps you enter a search for "Rick Santorum" -- but the search results are all links to pages on his official campaign website. Maybe a simple query regarding "John F. Kennedy" provides lots of details about his official presidential papers, but not a single link to information about his reported extramarital activities that we know about today. Or do we know about them? After all, if they're not in the search results, perhaps they don't exist. Right? Wrong! But there are governments, individuals, and organizations who would very much like to make "disappearing search results" scenarios come true on a vast scale, creating a new form of censorship that would make previous censorship efforts -- on and off the Internet -- pale by comparison. We know that search engines like Google are required to abide by valid, legal orders concerning the removal of search results. To date, these have been relatively limited in terms of scope, though there are already many egregious examples of what most of us would probably agree are inappropriate takedown orders. The thankfully now moribund SOPA and PIPA legislation would likely have mandated the removal of search results involving the location of materials that the MPAA, RIAA, and other groups felt were illicit, and in the process would have done enormously wide damages across the Net. But at least SOPA/PIPA supporters weren't trying to erase from memory even the existence of those songs and films! They obviously didn't want us to forget that The Beatles were a great group, or that "Citizen Kane" is a wonderful film. Today though, governments around the world and allied pressure groups, especially in Europe but also elsewhere, even here in the U.S., are pushing a dangerous censorship concept much more akin to Stalin's alteration and censorship of photos than to even the controls envisioned by SOPA and PIPA ( http://j.mp/yZ7wA0 [Wikipedia] ). Generally called the "right to be forgotten" (RTBF), this ultimately insidious concept embodies the view that governments, corporations, other organizations -- and individuals -- should have what amounts to absolute control over related publicly available information, especially in search engine results. Note that our key words here are "publicly available." By and large we're not talking about private data, we're talking about information on public websites that particular individuals or other entities would prefer didn't show up in associated search results. The theory seems simple. If you can dictate and micromanage (for example) Google Search results, you hope to prevent searchers from finding unfavorable information about you, whether true or false. Various types of situations where the "right to be forgotten" has already been invoked includes people acquitted of crimes who had highly publicized trials, doctors trying to suppress complaints from upset patients, a resort unhappy that stories of a fire disaster from decades ago are still associated with their location, and (much more sympathetically) individuals who are the target of websites that were created to harass, libel, or injure them in other ways. The focus on search engines in these regards is a consequence of several factors. One issue is the reality that information on the Net, once available publicly, can be virtually impossible to actually remove, given the global availability of mirrors, archives, and other systems in various jurisdictions that can copy and preserve virtually any data. So -- the thinking goes -- rather than try actually taking actions against the various websites that are the real publishers of the data in question, targeting search engines make for more of a "one stop shopping" regime, to try block people from finding the data even if it's still really out there. Another factor is that the legal bar can be high in some countries for libel and other similar suits. So if governments can be convinced to anoint essentially everyone with the right to demand censorship of any search results that they feel relate unfavorably to themselves, that much lower burden could be widely exploited. It doesn't take more than a few minutes of thought to see the utterly disastrous ramifications of the "right to be forgotten" approach, and the cascading damage to free speech that could easily spread malignantly across the global Internet as a result. The crux of the matter is simple enough. Even if search engine results are selectively expunged on demand, the "upsetting" material in question will still likely exist on the Internet itself, still subject to being located by other means, including via sites that merely discuss related topics, situations, companies, or individuals. This is a crucial point. To be "forgotten" in the usual sense of the "right to be forgotten" proponents would typically end up requiring not only that direct references to sites containing "offending" materials be expunged from search results, but also links to any sites that so much as specifically (or in many cases even generally) discuss, critique, analyze, or otherwise mention the materials in question, or that even note the removal of the more direct links from search engine results themselves! So a site that so much as says, "A controversy arose about whether or not Dr. Foo was providing quality health care, resulting in Google being ordered to remove links to sites operated by those patients," could itself trigger an order that demanded the removal of links mentioning the controversy involving Dr. Foo -- that he would prefer be "forgotten." Like ripples spreading from rocks tossed into a pond, the range of directly and indirectly related sites whose links could be ordered censored from search engine results will tend to spread, multiply, and interact in complex ways, pulling ever more websites into "right to be forgotten" censorship demands. And for all that damaging censorship and invasive restrictions on speech, the primary materials in question will likely still remain easily available. I do not accept as credible the claims of some "right to be forgotten" proponents that just getting the top, main related links out of Google Search results will be enough to satisfy them. It is inevitable that as the reality of the complex network graph associated with such information becomes obvious, calls for ever broader censorship orders, targeting results and links increasingly "distant" from the core sites, will be forthcoming in massive numbers, in a gigantic, nightmarish version of search results "Whac-A-Mole." The only rational approach to the kinds of disputes invoked by "right to be forgotten" advocates should not be censorship, and should not be attempts to delete information and references to that information. Rather, we should be concentrating on providing more information, more context in case of disputes, not less ( http://j.mp/dOE4Vw [Lauren's Blog] ). While the "right to be forgotten" may at first glance seem to have laudable goals, it is in truth an impractical and ultimately abusive concept, that cannot realistically accomplish its stated goals, but that would inevitably do enormous damage to the valid speech rights of an ever widening sphere of organizations and individuals around the world. It is a dangerous Chimera that would create vast new problems, not solve existing ones. The right to be forgotten is a threat that we dare not forget, but that we should most soundly and totally reject. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren(a)vortex.com) http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad

1 0

Fwd: [IP] Wireless carriers claim they're being victimized
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [IP] Wireless carriers claim they're being victimized Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:11:23 -0500 From: Dave Farber <dave(a)farber.net> Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net To: ip <ip(a)listbox.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Lauren Weinstein" <lauren(a)vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>> Date: Feb 28, 2012 6:01 PM Subject: [ NNSquad ] Wireless carriers claim they're being victimized To: <nnsquad(a)nnsquad.org <mailto:nnsquad@nnsquad.org>> Wireless carriers claim they're being victimized http://j.mp/zJ5u0o (This message on Google+) - - - http://j.mp/AogDMi (CNET) "Operators are under extreme pressures. If we are going to build the highways, there has to be a tax on the highways," Mittal said. - - - Hello? Is anybody in there? To listen to these guys, you'd think we're getting our Internet connections for free. Maybe you do? I sure as hell don't. I pay *plenty* for wired and wireless Internet access. It hasn't been for pizzas. What's going on is plain, old, ordinary G-R-E-E-D on the part of the carriers. They can spin until the clothes are dry but it doesn't change the underlying facts. What they really want is to get a piece of the *content* side that they have nothing to do with producing in most cases. They don't like being just Telecom, they want to be Hollywood, too. And the way they want to do it is by using their positions as gatekeepers to their own advantage. And if they're going to use the "tax on the highways" analogy like Mittal in this piece, they'd damn well better be prepared to be fully *regulated* like the utilities they are. Enough of their crocodile tears. We won't be fooled again. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren(a)vortex.com <mailto:lauren@vortex.com>): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 <tel:%2B1%20%28818%29%20225-2800> / Skype: vortex.com <http://vortex.com> _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/14798382-eb93fc78> | Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=14798382&id_secret=14798382-58a8a…> Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now <https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=14798382&id_secret=14798382-…> [Powered by Listbox] <http://www.listbox.com>

1 0

Google nuove privacy policies: forti dubi di legittimità della CNIL
by MANTELERO ALESSANDRO Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

qui maggiori dettagli: http://goo.gl/BwCFV

2 2

Neubot 0.4.9 released
by Simone Basso Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

Neubot/0.4.9 released http://www.neubot.org/neubot-0.4.9 Version 0.4.9 is the latest generally-available stable release of Neubot, distributed for Ubuntu >= 10.04, MacOSX >= 10.6, Windows >= XP SP3 and FreeBSD, as well as in source format. If you have already installed Neubot for Ubuntu, MacOSX or FreeBSD, it should update automatically, and we just kindly ask you to verify that this is the case. As a rule of thumb, if it has not updated after a couple of weeks, that is probably a bug and you should report it. Neubot for Windows, instead, needs manual intervention and you can find instructions here: http://www.neubot.org/install-windows#upgrade Instructions for installing from scratch are available here: http://www.neubot.org/download This release contains 142 commits. The diffstat says: 73 changed files with 3,562 additions and 1,025 deletions. Here are the most relevant changes: - MacOS: keep neubot directory clean This commit teaches Neubot updater to periodically check whether the base directory (/usr/local/share/neubot) contains old releases files and directories. If so, old files and directories are removed. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/18cf09e Requested by Alessio Palmero Aprosio some time ago. - www: add latency plots This commit adds latency plots to Neubot Web User Interface, both for speedtest and bittorrent. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/0a523988 Suggested by Francesco Corazza, written by Alessio Palmero Aprosio. - www: less annoying win32 browser notifications This commit makes sure that Neubot does not open the Web User Interface in the default browser more than once per day per type of notification. This means that, for example, you will be notified at most once per day when a new version is available on our servers. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/f0bef78b Reported and prodded by many. - doc/FAQ.rst doc/FAQ-it.rst import and revamp A couple of commits have imported the website faq into the sources tree, allowing for better maintenance. Now the faq is written in restructured text and the html on the web is automatically generated. After the import, both FAQs have been revamped and updated significantly. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/843247c7 https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/1badc97d - Revamped manpage The manual page has been revamped and updated as well. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/4e154a2a - Bug fixes Since Neubot 0.4.6, I've started collecting know bugs information at: https://github.com/neubot/neubot/wiki/errata Here is the list of bugs that have been fixed since the previous release, along with the link to the relevant commit: - Make sure that the Web API always returns sorted keys to the Web User Interface. Fixes settings keys being not properly sorted in settings.html. https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commit/7b3a9689 - More code rationalizations, cleanups and regression tests. Full change log available here: https://raw.github.com/neubot/neubot/0.4.9/ChangeLog Diff since previous version here: https://github.com/neubot/neubot/compare/0.4.8...0.4.9 Commit history here: https://github.com/neubot/neubot/commits/0.4.9 SHA256sums here: https://github.com/neubot/neubot/wiki/sha256 Errata here: https://github.com/neubot/neubot/wiki/errata Data here: http://www.neubot.org/data -- Simone <http://www.neubot.org/people#basso>

1 0

Rif: R: Libertà d'informazione: Assemblea Nazionale di Articolo 21
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

1 0

Libertà d'informazione: Assemblea Nazionale di Articolo 21
by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

1 0

"THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IS SEARCHING YOUR FACEBOOK AND TWITTER FOR THESE WORDS"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 28, 2012

Feb. 28, 2012

*THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IS SEARCHING YOUR FACEBOOK AND TWITTER FOR THESE WORDS * The Department of Homeland Security monitors your updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover "Items Of Interest" (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by theEPIC <http://epic.org/>. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS--or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks--use to generate real-time IOI reports. (Although the released PDF is generally all reader-selectable text, the list of names was curiously embedded as an image of text, preventing simple indexing. We've fixed that below.) [...] Continua qui: http://animalnewyork.com/2012/02/the-department-of-homeland-security-is-sea…

2 1