December 2018 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Funding Edsurge and 'the Future of Learning'

by J.C. DE MARTIN

http://funding.hackeducation.com/2018/12/29/edsurge (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Dec. 31, 2018

Aether: Responsabilità giuridica dei contenuti su una rete P2P

by Antonello Galati

Dec. 31, 2018

Advertising and academia are controlling our thoughts. Didn’t you know? | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/advertising-academia-… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Dec. 31, 2018

Advertising and academia are controlling our thoughts. Didn’t you know? | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

Ottimo contributo del sempre interessante Monbiot. Da tempo penso che lo status del marketing come disciplina accademica vada ripensato. Senza dubbio richiede un codice etico. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/advertising-academia-…> [...] The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves. So why do they run departments in which researchers explore new means of blocking this capacity? I ask because, while considering the frenzy of consumerism that rises beyond its usual planet-trashing levels at this time of year, I recently stumbled across a paper that astonished me. It was written by academics at public universities in the Netherlands and the US. Their purpose seemed to me starkly at odds with the public interest. They sought to identify “the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to counter or avoid such resistance”. Among the “neutralising” techniques it highlighted were “disguising the persuasive intent of the message”; distracting our attention by using confusing phrases that make it harder to focus on the advertiser’s intentions; and “using cognitive depletion as a tactic for reducing consumers’ ability to contest messages”. This means hitting us with enough advertisements to exhaust our mental resources, breaking down our capacity to think. Intrigued, I started looking for other academic papers on the same theme, and found an entire literature. There were articles on every imaginable aspect of resistance, and helpful tips on overcoming it. For example, I came across a paper that counsels advertisers on how to rebuild public trust when the celebrity they work with gets into trouble. Rather than dumping this lucrative asset, the researchers advised that the best means to enhance “the authentic persuasive appeal of a celebrity endorser” whose standing has slipped is to get them to display “a Duchenne smile”, otherwise known as “a genuine smile”. It precisely anatomised such smiles, showed how to spot them, and discussed the “construction” of sincerity and “genuineness”: a magnificent exercise in inauthentic authenticity. [...]

Dec. 31, 2018

Terrorist Content Regulation: Warnings from the UN and the CoE - EDRi

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://edri.org/terrorist-content-regulation-warnings-from-the-un-and-the-… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Dec. 30, 2018

Fwd: [IP] ISOC Live 12 Streams 4 - Dr. Larry Roberts - 'The ARPANET & Computer Networks'

by J.C. DE MARTIN

> *From: *InternetPolicy <internetpolicy-bounces(a)elists.isoc.org > <mailto:internetpolicy-bounces@elists.isoc.org>> on behalf of Joly > MacFie <joly(a)punkcast.com <mailto:joly@punkcast.com>> > *Reply-To: *Joly MacFie <joly(a)punkcast.com <mailto:joly@punkcast.com>> > *Date: *Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 6:54 PM > *To: *"internetpolicy(a)elists.isoc.org > <mailto:internetpolicy@elists.isoc.org>" > <InternetPolicy(a)elists.isoc.org <mailto:InternetPolicy@elists.isoc.org>> > *Subject: *[Internet Policy] ISOC Live 12 Streams 4 - Dr. Larry > Roberts - 'The ARPANET & Computer Networks' > > Dr. Roberts is much mourned by those who knew him. This is a great > talk, not just historical -- he makes some predictions too. > Interesting to see the perspective from 1986. > > livestream <https://livestream.com/internetsociety/12days04>Today, > *Saturday December 29 2018*, at *7pm EST* (00:00 UTC) the fourth > installment of the Internet Society Livestreaming > <https://isoc.live/>‘s ‘*12 days of Streams*‘ annual highlights is a > memorial and tribute to Internet Hall of Fame inductee *Dr. Lawrence > (Larry) Roberts > <https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/lawrence-roberts>*, who > *died on December 26, aged 82*. Larry Roberts was the leader of the > *ARPANET <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET>* project that gave > birth to the Internet as we know it. Today’s stream is a video that > the *Computer History Museum > <https://www.computerhistory.org/>* managed to archive of the *1986 > ACM Conference on the History of Personal Workstations > <https://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/the-1986-acm-conference-on-the-histor…>*. > Dr. Roberts, one of a number of distinguished speakers, givea a talk > ‘*The ARPANET & Computer Networks <http://bit.ly/arpanethistory>*‘ in > which describes the network’s origin and evolution. As an > introduction, we will stream his *acceptance speech > <https://youtu.be/P7Pj1i6e0s4>* at the Internet Hall of Fame. > > *View on Livestream: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/12days04* > > *Twitter: #12streams http://bit.ly/2SgU9Gu* > *Larry Roberts http://bit.ly/larryroberts* > > *Permalink* > > > https://isoc.live/10751/ > > > http://pixel.wp.com/b.gif?blog=10787942&post=9709&subd=isoc-ny.org&ref=&ema… > >

Dec. 30, 2018

How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook - Report | Privacy International

by J.C. DE MARTIN

http://privacyinternational.org/report/2647/how-apps-android-share-data-fac… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Dec. 30, 2018

Google wins dismissal of facial recognition lawsuit over biometric privacy act - The Verge

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/29/18160432/google-facial-recognition-laws…> Google has been facing a lawsuit since 2016 for alleging scanning and saving the biometric data of a woman who was unwittingly captured in 11 photos taken by a Google Photos user on Android. The lawsuit over facial recognition privacy has just been dismissed by a judge in Chicago, who found that the plaintiff didn’t suffer “concrete injuries,” as first reported by Bloomberg. In the original suit, the woman sued Google for allegedly uploading her data to Google Photos and scanning it to create a template of her face without her permission. The Google lawsuit is one of three cases aimed at prominent tech companies that have allegedly violated the United States’ toughest biometric privacy law and it’s the first one to get dismissed. The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act has long been a huge obstacle for tech companies working on facial recognition initiatives. The law requires companies to obtain people’s explicit permission in order to make biometric scans of their bodies. Illinois citizens who feel their rights have been violated can file lawsuits under the act. Companies including Google, Snapchat, and Facebook all faced lawsuits initiated in 2015 and 2016 for allegedly violating the Illinois law. The other lawsuits are still pending. In April, a federal judge ruled that Facebook must face a class action lawsuit from Illinois users over allegations that it used facial recognition technology photos without explicit user consent. The feature “Tag Suggestions” that offers users suggested people based on their faces in photos allegedly violates the Illinois law.

Dec. 30, 2018

Investigating Apps interactions with Facebook on Android

by Giacomo Tesio

> We found that at least 61 percent of apps we tested automatically transfer data to > Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether people have a > Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not. > We also found that some apps routinely send Facebook data that is incredibly > detailed and sometimes sensitive. Again, this concerns data of people who are > either logged out of Facebook or who do not have a Facebook account. https://privacyinternational.org/campaigns/investigating-apps-interactions-… Giacomo

Dec. 30, 2018

I was a contract worker in Google’s caste system—and it wasn’t pretty

by Giacomo

Interessante esperienza di un avvocato a contratto per Google. https://qz.com/1494111/googles-caste-system-is-bad-for-workers-and-bad-for-…

Dec. 27, 2018