March 2018 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Extremism pays. That’s why Silicon Valley isn’t shutting it down | John Naughton | Opinion | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo March 19, 2018

March 19, 2018

<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/18/extremism-pays-why-si…> Zeynep Tufecki is one of the shrewdest writers on technology around. A while back, when researching an article on why (and how) Donald Trump appealed to those who supported him, she needed some direct quotes from the man himself and so turned to YouTube, which has a useful archive of videos of his campaign rallies. She then noticed something interesting. “YouTube started to recommend and ‘autoplay’ videos for me,” she wrote, “that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content.”[...]

1 0

Implementation roadmap for open science data
by Diego Giorio March 18, 2018

March 18, 2018

E' stato pubblicato il documento sugli open data scientifici in cloud Buona domenica a tutti D. https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/swd_2018_83_f1_staff_working_…

1 0

Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook | Facebook Newsroom
by J.C. DE MARTIN March 17, 2018

March 17, 2018

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica/ (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

'They'll squash you like a bug': how Silicon Valley keeps a lid on leakers | Technology | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo March 17, 2018

March 17, 2018

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/16/silicon-valley-internal-…> One day last year, John Evans (not his real name) received a message from his manager at Facebook telling him he was in line for a promotion. When they met the following day, she led him down a hallway praising his performance. However, when she opened the door to a meeting room, he came face to face with members of Facebook’s secretive “rat-catching” team, led by the company’s head of investigations, Sonya Ahuja. The interrogation was a technicality; they already knew he was guilty of leaking some innocuous information to the press. They had records of a screenshot he’d taken, links he had clicked or hovered over, and they strongly indicated they had accessed chats between him and the journalist, dating back to before he joined the company “It’s horrifying how much they know,” he told the Guardian, on the condition of anonymity. “You go into Facebook and it has this warm, fuzzy feeling of ‘we’re changing the world’ and ‘we care about things’. But you get on their bad side and all of a sudden you are face to face with [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s secret police.”

1 0

Facebook bans Trump campaign’s data analytics firm for taking user data - The Washington Post
by Alberto Cammozzo March 17, 2018

March 17, 2018

<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/03/16/facebook-bans-…> Facebook is suspending the Trump-affiliated data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, after learning that it failed to delete data that it had taken inappropriately from users of the social network, Facebook said late Friday. Facebook said it was suspending the accounts of Strategic Communication Laboratories, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, as well as the accounts of University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan and Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies. Cambridge Analytica, a firm that specializes in using online data to create voter personality profiles in order to target users with political messages, ran data operations for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The company was funded by Trump supporter and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and the president's former senior adviser Stephen K. Bannon once sat on its board. The company, which began working for the Trump campaign in June 2016, promised that its so-called "psychographic" profiles could predict the personality and political leanings of every adult in the United States. []

1 0

Libro bianco IA
by Giacomo Tesio March 16, 2018

March 16, 2018

Ciao a tutti, vi invito a leggere e contribuire con integrazioni e correzioni a questo testo http://libro-bianco-ia.readthedocs.io/it/latest/ (entro il 12 marzo). Il testo sembra abbastanza bilanciato dove analizza il dibattito in corso sulla intelligenza artificiale, ma al momento ne emerge una visione piuttosto ingenua, sia delle tecniche di AI sia della pubblica amministrazione. Proprio perché l'intelligenza artificiale (e l'informatica in generale) può contribuire enormemente alla efficienza dello Stato, non vi è alcuna ragione per ignorare i problemi che l'uso improprio di queste tecnologie possono causare ed anzi è importante informare i non addetti ai lavori sulle strategie necessarie per ridurne i rischi. Per fare solo un esempio, sarà fondamentale per la pubblica amministrazione essere in grado di spiegare precisamente il funzionamento previsto della IA nel momento in cui questa partecipi con i propri calcoli ad una decisione amministrativa, in caso di ricorsi o vertenze legali, ma anche di essere in grado di dimostrare la sua aderenza a tale funzionamento previsto in tribunale. Tali esigenze di trasparenza da un lato e tutela legale della PA dall'altro hanno enormi implicazioni pratiche, come la necessità di disporre dei sorgenti, della documentazione, di procedure di compilazione verificate e replicabili, dei dati necessari a riprodurre esattamente la calibrazione della AI, etc... di qualunque software (o anche qualunque SaaS) di questo tipo che entri a servizio della PA. E sarà altrettanto importante, per i stabilire un rapporto di fiducia con cittadini, che i "processi decisionali" della IA siano completamente trasparenti, in modo tale che il cittadino possa comprenderli veramente ed eventualmente identificare e correggere eventuali errori che lo riguardano. Il testo è lungo ed interessante, ma il tempo è poco... Buona lettura! ;-) Giacomo

1 1

The science of fake news
by Alberto Cammozzo March 16, 2018

March 16, 2018

The science of fake news Science 09 Mar 2018: Vol. 359, Issue 6380, pp. 1094-1096 DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2998 David M. J. Lazer, Matthew A. Baum, Yochai Benkler, Adam J. Berinsky, Kelly M. Greenhill, Filippo Menczer, Miriam J. Metzger, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Pennycook, David Rothschild, Michael Schudson, Steven A. Sloman, Cass R. Sunstein, Emily A. Thorson, Duncan J. Watts and Jonathan L. Zittrain The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials. [...] <http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1094.full>

1 0

"Censorship machines" in Europa (per proteggere copyright)
by Giacomo Tesio March 15, 2018

March 15, 2018

Ciao, avevo letto qualcosa alcuni giorni fa ma pensavo fossero esagerazioni... Ora inizio ad essere preoccupato: https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/censorship-machines/ https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-upload-filters-code/ https://www.liberties.eu/en/videos/say-no-to-online-censorship-europe-copyr… Giacomo

1 0

What is (not) digital social innovation? (testo in inglese ed in italiano)
by Luigi Scorca March 15, 2018

March 15, 2018

https://medium.com/@hello_32776/what-is-not-digital-social-innovation-ca251…

1 0

The 600+ Companies PayPal Shares Your Data With
by Giovanni Garifo March 14, 2018

March 14, 2018

1 0