May 2016 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

New Report: "Perspectives on Big Data, Ethics, and Society"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

*Perspectives on Big Data, Ethics, and Society* May 23, 2016 URL: http://bdes.datasociety.net/council-output/perspectives-on-big-data-ethics-… Download Full Report (PDF) http://bdes.datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Perspectives-on-Big-… The Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society publishes a comprehensive white paper consolidating conversations and ideas from two years of meetings and discussions. Report Prepared By: Jacob Metcalf, Emily F. Keller, and danah boyd I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society was convened to bring together researchers from diverse fields who were thinking deeply about ethical, social and policy challenges associated with the rise of “big data” research and industry, with an eye toward developing recommendations about future directions for the field. Our reports, meetings, and ongoing conversations have consistently indicated that there is a disjunction between the familiar concepts and infrastructures of science and engineering, on the one hand, and the epistemic, social, and ethical dynamics of big data research and practice, on the other. We contend that facilitating ethical conduct in data science and related endeavors requires careful consideration of big data’s broad technical, social, and political contexts. Big data is marked by technical advances in storage capacity, speed, and price points of data collection and analysis, and by a move towards understanding data as continuously collected, almost-infinitely networkable, and highly flexible. The ability to analyze datasets from highly disparate contexts and generate new, unanticipated knowledge sets the stage for both the power and peril of big data research and broader data science-related analysis. The conceptual, regulatory, and institutional resources of research ethics developed over the last 70 years were premised on assumptions about human data research practices that sometimes do not easily apply to data analytics work done under the umbrella of big data. This results in conflicts over whether big data research methods should be excluded from or forced to meet existing norms, whether existing norms should be made to accommodate the special circumstances of big data, or whether entirely new norms and institutional commitments are needed. The Council’s findings, outputs, and recommendations—including those described in this white paper as well as those in earlier reports—address concrete manifestations of these disjunctions between big data research methods and existing research ethics paradigms. We have identified policy changes that would encourage greater engagement and reflection on ethics topics. We have indicated a number of pedagogical needs for data science instructors, and endeavored to fulfill some of them. We have also explored cultural and institutional barriers to collaboration between ethicists, social scientists, and data scientists in academia and industry around ethics challenges. Overall, our recommendations are geared toward those who are invested in a future for data science, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence guided by ethical considerations along with technical merit.

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"Programmers Aren't Writing Green Code Where It's Most Needed"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

*Programmers Aren't Writing Green Code Where It's Most Needed* Written by Michael Byrne May 22, 2016 // 09:00 AM EST Confession? I don't write green code. I mean, it might be green code just by coincidence, but I've never really thought too much about the relative energy consumption demanded by this design pattern or algorithm versus some other. Sadly, this is true even when I'm working with actual hardware and low-level software, such as that written in plain C for embedded devices (in my case, for an Arduino board or other microcontroller platform). What's more, I don't think the green code idea has ever come up in my years of computer science classes. I'm hardly the exception, according to a paper presented this week at the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering. In interviews and surveys conducted with 464 software engineers from a range of disciplines—including mobile, data center, embedded, and traditional software development—researchers found that where green coding most matters, its practice is rare. […] Continua qui: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/programmers-arent-writing-green-code-where…

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Google might just have built the internet of tyranny [Google Home]
by Alberto Cammozzo May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

At Google’s most recent glitzy presentation, at it’s “I/O” developers conference, the company showed off new apps and features for many of its products, but what was most striking was the technology underlying it. Building on what it has shown previously, it demonstrated how advanced its machine learning techniques were, specifically their ability to understand and process natural language. And as Google Photos ably demonstrates, the technology is already increasingly good at recognising objects in photos. Moments after demonstrating this level of intelligence, the company revealed a new product called *Google Home*. This is a speaker that sits in your home and will respond to voice commands. In other words, it will listen to everything you say – using those advanced language processing abilities to figure out what you’re requesting. Google isn’t the only company working on this – Amazon, Facebook and others are all working on similar technology. Whether the company realises it or not, it is building the tools for perfect surveillance. Thanks to Google and the rest of the modern tech industry, the Internet of Things could easily become the Internet of Tyranny. You don’t have to think too hard to imagine how this same technology could be used for surveillance, especially when considering the technologies that we know governments are already employing in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. If there’s a microphone in every home, listening to everything we do, and some intelligent algorithms at work picking up on keywords and phrases, it would be easily for an aspiring totalitarian government to use such technologies to prevent legitimate political opposition, and not just crime. If a sufficiently malevolent government wanted to employ such surveillance it would make the East German secret police look like amateurs. [...] <http://www.alphr.com/technology/1003552/google-might-just-have-built-the-in…>

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NYT: "Google Prevails as Jury Rebuffs Oracle in Code Copyright Case"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

*Google Prevails as Jury Rebuffs Oracle in Code Copyright Case* By NICK WINGFIELD and QUENTIN HARDY MAY 26, 2016 A jury ruled in favor of Google on Thursday in a long legal dispute with Oracle over software used to power most of the world’s smartphones. Oracle contended that Google used copyrighted material in 11,000 of its 13 million lines of software code in Android, its mobile phone operating system. Oracle asked for $9 billion from Google. Google said it made fair use of that code and owed nothing. The victory for Google cheered other software developers, who operate much the way Google did when it comes to so-called open-source software. Unlike traditional software created by corporations and tightly held, open-source products are released, often with some restrictions, for anyone to use and modify. […] Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/technology/google-oracle-copyright-code.h…

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Fwd: [ NNSquad ] Jury finds Google's implementation of Java in Android was fair use
by Simone Basso May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

#GoodNews :-) -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [ NNSquad ] Jury finds Google's implementation of Java in Android was fair use Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 13:26:30 -0700 From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren(a)vortex.com> To: nnsquad(a)nnsquad.org Jury finds Google's implementation of Java in Android was fair use http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/26/jury-finds-googles-implementation-of-java-… Software developers can breathe a massive sigh of relief -- a jury found today that Google's implementation of 37 Java APIs in Android qualified as fair use. "Today's verdict that Android makes fair use of Java APIs represents a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products," a Google spokesperson said. - - - Given the all too common pattern of such cases, this is a stunning win for the good guys. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein (lauren(a)vortex.com) http://www.vortex.com/lauren Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone. _______________________________________________ nnsquad mailing list http://lists.nnsquad.org/mailman/listinfo/nnsquad

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fisiognomica biometrica?
by Alberto Cammozzo May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

Israeli Startup Claims to Spot Terrorists With Facial Recognition A Tel Aviv startup called Faception has developed technology that purportedly can identify character traits, including spotting who might be a terrorist, by analyzing a person's face. The startup, founded in 2014, and which presented its technology at a high-tech accelerator conference in Mountain View, California, last week sponsored by the venture capital fund 500 Startups, claims 80 percent accuracy in identifying character traits based on analysis of photographs of faces. It has already signed up a homeland agency to help spot terrorists, according to company CEO Shai Gilboa. The technology is geared to identify a range of specific traits, beyond spotting terrorists, including, for example, identifying extroverts, people with high IQs and even professional poker players. In a demonstration of the technology's effectiveness, Gilboa said Faception scanned 50 participants at a recent poker competition and picked out four of them as top players. Two of the four finished in the top three of the tournament. [...] <http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/tech-roundup/1.721480> Aspettiamo fiduciosi teorie sull'atavismo biometrico fondate incrollabilmente sul Machine Learning. Alberto

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"Who Controls the Public Sphere in an Era of Algorithms?"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

http://www.datasociety.net/events/who-controls-public-sphere/ On February 26, 2016, Data & Society held the /Who Controls the Public Sphere in an Era of Algorithms?/ workshop to drill into the assumptions, values, and tensions at the core of growing concerns about the control and shaping of the public sphere in an era of algorithms. The workshop was organized as part of Data & Society’s developing Algorithms and Publics <http://www.datasociety.net/initiatives/additional-projects/algorithms-and-p…> project and was informed by – and produced – a set of documents for understanding what’s at stake (thanks to workshop participants for contributing to and strengthening this work): * Mediation, Automation, Power <http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/ap/MediationAutomationPower_2016.pdf>, a contemporary issues primer * Assumptions and Questions <http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/ap/QuestionsAssumptions_background-primer_2…>, a background primer * Case Studies <http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/ap/CaseStudies_PublicSphere_2016.pdf>, a complement to the contemporary issues primer * Executive Summary for Workshop <http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/ap/ExecutiveSummary_PublicSphere_2016.pdf> * Workshop Summary <http://www.datasociety.net/pubs/ap/WorkshopNotes_PublicSphere_2016.pdf>, extended notes from the workshop We’ve also begun publishing additional pieces inspired by the workshop and its themes in Data & Society’s /Points/ collection: * Ethan Zuckerman, Ben Franklin, the Post Office and the Digital Public Sphere <https://points.datasociety.net/ben-franklin-the-post-office-and-the-digital…> * Fenwick McKelvey, No More Magic Algorithms: Cultural Policy in an Era of Discoverability <https://points.datasociety.net/no-more-magic-algorithms-cultural-policy-in-…> * danah boyd, Facebook Must Be Accountable to the Public <https://points.datasociety.net/facebook-must-be-accountable-to-the-public-7…> And research analyst Robyn Caplan pulled together some threads from this work in an op-ed on Facebook and journalism in NYT’s Room for Debate <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/05/17/is-facebook-saving-journali…>. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ /Who Controls the Public Sphere in an Era of Algorithms?/ was supported by Open Society Foundations and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Fwd: PA in streaming Le priorità nazionali di intervento per Smart Cities & Communities | FORUM PA 2016
by Mauro Alovisio May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

Gent.me/mi segnalo in diretta streaming Le priorità nazionali di intervento per Smart Cities & Communities | FORUM PA 2016 <http://eventi.fpanet.it/it/event-details/?id=4908> Tema innovazione e PA, c'è anche lo streaming Le priorità nazionali di intervento per Smart Cities & Communities | FORUM PA 2016 <http://eventi.fpanet.it/it/event-details/?id=4908> Quali sono le priorità tecnologiche di imprese e organismi di ricerca italiani nel 2016? Come impattano le Smart Cities & Commu Visualizza su eventi.fpanet.it <http://eventi.fpanet.it/it/event-details/?id=4908> Anteprima per Yahoo Cordiali saluti

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"Revealed: How copyright law is being misused to remove material from the internet"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

*Revealed: How copyright law is being misused to remove material from the internet* /When Annabelle Narey posted a negative review of a building firm on Mumsnet, the last thing on her mind was copyright infringement/ Alex Hern Monday 23 May 2016 11.02 BST Writing a bad review online has always run a small risk of opening yourself up to a defamation claim. But few would expect to be told that they had to delete their review or face a lawsuit over another part of the law: copyright infringement. Yet that’s what happened to Annabelle Narey after she posted a negative review of a building firm on Mumsnet. Narey, who is the head of programme at an international children’s charity, had turned to London-based BuildTeam for a side return extension, but almost six months later, the relationship had turned acrimonious. The build, which was only supposed to take 10–14 weeks, was still unfinished, she wrote. “On Christmas day a ceiling fell down in an upstairs bedroom,” she says, apparently due to an issue with the plumbing. “Mercifully no one was hurt. [That] there seem to be so many glowing reports out there it is frankly curious. Proceed at your own risk,” the review concluded. […] Continua qui: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/23/copyright-law-internet-m…

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Amnesty: "FRANCE: L'impact de l'état d'urgence"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 26, 2016

May 26, 2016

Depuis la déclaration de l'état d'urgence en France <http://www.amnesty.fr/Informez-vous/Les-actus/Etat-urgence-en-France-reston…>, les autorités ont comptabilisé 3210 perquisitions. Plus de 400 personnes ont été assignées à résidence et 12 lieux de cultes fermés. Dans notre rapport publié le 4 février 2015, nous revenons sur 3 mois de mesures appliquées de façon discriminatoire et disproportionnée. DES PERQUISITIONS SANS CONTRÔLE JUDICIAIRE Le 17 novembre vers 23 heures, Marc, qui habite dans le nord de la France, en Picardie, se trouvait dans son salon quand on a sonné à la porte. Il a entendu quelqu’un qui donnait des coups de pied dans la porte et la frappait. /J’ai cru qu'il s'agissait d'une attaque islamophobe, une vengeance aux attentats de Paris/ [Sa femme Sophie, alors enceinte de huit mois, et son fils âgé de 10 ans se sont réveillés. Ils téléphonent à deux reprises à la police, et se réfugient dans la salle de bains. Pendant ce temps, la police forcé la porte d’entrée, puis a commencé à forcer celle de la salle de bains]/J’ai cru qu’on était perdus. Ils disaient que c’était la police mais on ne les a pas crus. Ma femme et mon enfant paniquaient. Puis, dès que j’ai ouvert la porte, ils m’ont donné un coup au visage et ils nous ont menottés, moi et ma femme /. » * Marc * La perquisition n’a donné lieu à aucune instruction contre Marc ou sa famille. En temps ordinaire, selon le droit pénal français, la perquisition d’un domicile ou d’autres locaux est autorisée par l'autorité judiciaire et vise à recueillir des éléments concernant des personnes soupçonnées d’avoir commis un acte criminel. Sous état d’urgence, les préfets peuvent eux-mêmes autoriser une perquisition, y compris de nuit en invoquant des motifs vagues,« s’il existe des raisons sérieuses de penser que ce lieu est fréquenté par une personne dont le comportement constitue une menace pour la sécurité et l'ordre publics». Cette formulation très vague laisse libre cours à l'interprétation des préfets. Les ordres de perquisition signés par les préfets contiennent généralement des formules toutes faites évoquant la menace pour la sécurité et l’ordre publics ou bien la possibilité que des armes ou des personnes soient cachées. Ils contiennent très peu d'informations précises sur les personnes visées. […] Continua qui: http://www.amnesty.fr/etat-urgence

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