January 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Twitter embraces Google Cloud
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 24, 2019

Jan. 24, 2019

> Twitter migrates data to Google Cloud to keep the world tweeting > > Twitter is in the business of helping people share information > and find out what’s happening around the world. And with > people tweeting more and more every day, the data > produced by these tweets starts to add up. > > Twitter knew this meant they needed more storage and more > compute power. To keep processing massive amounts of > data 24/7, the social media platform was expecting to > transfer over 300 petabytes of data storage to the cloud. > > To determine if a migration of this scale would even be > possible, Twitter had a rigorous cloud evaluation process. > After months of in-depth analysis, Twitter engineers found > Google Cloud to be the best fit for Twitter’s needs because > it provided flexibility in storage and compute scaling in both > dimensions independently while also providing access to > a high-speed network. > > "Once you actually aggregate up the network differences and > the savings from having more flexible resources, then the > difference [with Google Cloud] was dramatic." https://cloud.google.com/twitter/ In altri termini: "è inutile che cercate di regolamentare il trasferimento di dati personali fra le aziende, troveremo sempre il modo di (e la scusa per) condividere ciò che vogliamo condividere". Mi sorprende che non abbiano tirato fuori l'impatto energetico e il riscaldamento globale... Delenda carthago^W^W Server in ogni casa, per ogni famiglia. E' l'unica soluzione. Geopolitica, tecnologica e culturale. Giacomo

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Ethical design is not superficial
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 24, 2019

Jan. 24, 2019

> We should embrace being uncomfortable. > We live in a political and social hellscape. > The majority of us have no job security, we can’t afford > houses and we can’t afford to have families. Many of us > can’t even afford healthcare. None of this is comfortable, > so we may as well do something to change that for our > futures, and for future generations. > > There’s no point wasting time pretending to be ethical > when we could spend that time learning to have a real > impact. If you aren’t able to do that with your current > employer, find another, ethical employer. https://laurakalbag.com/ethical-design-is-not-superficial/

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Italian lawmaker requests details of new police facial recognition system | BiometricUpdate
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

E ancora nessuno parla di SARI real-time... <https://www.biometricupdate.com/201901/italian-lawmaker-requests-details-of…> An Italian legislator is requesting more information about the facial recognition system recently introduced for use by Italian police, which draws on a database of 16 million mugshots, or roughly one in three Italian adults, ZDNet reports. Five Star Movement MP Federico D’Inca has filed a question in parliament requesting details about SARI (Automated System for Image Recognition), which was officially launched after an eight-month trial in July of last year. Former MP Stefano Quintarelli questioned the system’s mandate on social media, but police and the Italian Data Protection Authority have said SARI simply extends the utility of its AFIS system from fingerprints to facial biometrics. “If before we could describe the physical appearance of a subject, identified by a picture, only by manually entering the written information into our database, now we can enter the picture itself into the system,” forensics department official Fabiola Mancone told ANSA, Italy’s national press agency, according to ZDNet. Of the 16 million people in the database, 7 million have been stopped repeatedly by police, while the other 9 million have had their picture taken once by police. D’Inca is requesting details about how images are selected, how long they are stored for, who has access to them, and whether the database has gone through penetration testing. He also asks about the two versions of SARI, the currently deployed system for comparing images, and the yet-to-launch real-time facial recognition analysis of public camera feeds to detect people on a watchlist. “We are not against the SARI itself, which could prove useful. However, these technologies could in theory undermine the privacy and freedom of citizens in ways previously unheard of. It is therefore necessary to carefully monitor their deployment,” D’Inca tells ZDNet. Law enforcement officials’ responses have not yet been delivered in parliament. Biometric data retention policies are increasingly under scrutiny, as more facial recognition systems are deployed for law enforcement applications.

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Face recognition: Are Italy's police using millions more mugshots than is legal?
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

<https://www.zdnet.com/article/face-recognition-are-italys-police-using-mill…> Italy's police have been using a new facial-recognition system for the past few months. It's based on a database of 16 million mugshots, nine million of which belong to people who have been identified by the police only once, while the other seven million are of individuals who have been stopped repeatedly. Officially introduced in July last year following an eight-month testing phase, SARI (Automated System for Image Recognition) has already helped in the arrests of shoplifters <http://www.arezzonotizie.it/cronaca/riconoscimento-visivo-dalle-telecamere-…> and burglars <http://www.veronasera.it/cronaca/svaligiano-casa-anziana-ladri-riconoscimen…> across the country. But it's also raised doubts and questions about its legality. The first question mark surfaced over the number of people included in the database. As former MP and well-known technology expert Stefano Quintarelli noted <https://twitter.com/quinta/status/1038132627402838016> on Twitter, a record set of 16 million faces in a population of roughly 50 million adults would correspond to roughly one in three Italians, excluding teenagers, being put on record. "When did we decide such a listing?" Quintarelli asked rhetorically. In an official statement, the State police described <http://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/135b92536bb3957899899171> the new system as a more advanced interface of AFIS, the automated fingerprint identification system that's been in use for many years and which contains not only the fingerprints but also mugshots of suspects. "If before we could describe the physical appearance of a subject, identified by a picture, only by manually entering the written information into our database, now we can enter the picture itself into the system," forensics department official Fabiola Mancone told <https://quifinanza.it/innovazione/video/polizia-sari-riconoscimento-volti/2…> national press agency ANSA. In other words, the new system is simply far more effective and less time-consuming than the previous one, but not really a change of paradigm or a threat to the privacy of citizens. That was also the thinking of the Italian Data Protection Authority, which in July last year issued <https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb…> an opinion that found SARI to be perfectly compliant with the law. Still, neither this statement, nor the material released by the police seemed capable of fully explaining the origin of the 16 million-picture database used by the police, because the AFIS fingerprint system alone does not seem to justify that number. In the ensuing debate, Five Stars MP Federico D'Inca filed a parliamentary question <http://aic.camera.it/aic/scheda.html?numero=4-01149&ramo=C&leg=18>, asking for more details on SARI. His question focused mainly on asking for more information about how the pictures had been selected, how long they will be stored, who can access them, and whether penetration tests aimed at ensuring the security of the database had been performed. In another part of the question document, D'Inca relates to the SARI system being available in two versions. The first version is the one currently deployed, based on an existing dataset of images; the second, still to be implemented, will instead analyze the live camera feeds of people attending public events to compare them to a watchlist of persons of interest for the law-enforcement agency. The process is similar to that trialed <https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-live-facial-recognition-system-is-being-…> in the UK by the Metropolitan Police in central London in December. Tommaso Scannicchio, lawyer and fellow of the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights, stressed <https://medium.com/@ORARiccardo/anche-litalia-si-%C3%A8-munita-di-un-sistem…> how, by making participants at public events feel under surveillance, this real-time system could engender a 'chilling' effect <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect>, described by Wikipedia as "the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction". Considering the breath-taking speed at which new technologies are implemented, the time to assess the pros and cons of the system before its use becomes widespread might be limited. "We are not against the SARI itself, which could prove useful. However, these technologies could in theory undermine the privacy and freedom of citizens in ways previously unheard of. It is therefore necessary to carefully monitor their deployment," D'Inca tells ZDNet. At the time of writing, his parliamentary question has still to be answered.

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Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

> If this (quite limited) declarativeNetRequest API ends up being > the only way content blockers can accomplish their duty, this > essentially means that two content blockers I have maintained > for years, uBlock Origin ("uBO") and uMatrix, can no longer exist. > > Beside causing uBO and uMatrix to no longer be able to exist, > it's really concerning that the proposed declarativeNetRequest > API will make it impossible to come up with new and novel > filtering engine designs, as the declarativeNetRequest API is > no more than the implementation of one specific filtering > engine, and a rather limited one (the 30,000 limit is not > sufficient to enforce the famous EasyList alone). https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=896897&desc=2#c23 Giacomo

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Facebook pumps $7.5m into an independent AI ethics centre (c/o Uni Munich)
by gabriele elia Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

quante università italiane hanno 7.5 Mni€ di budget per AI? e quante da una solo convenzione? https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent… [https://i2.wp.com/www.artificialintelligence-news.com/wp-content/uploads/20…]<https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent…> Facebook pumps $7.5m into an independent AI ethics centre<https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent…> An independent AI ethics research centre is set to receive $7.5 million of funding courtesy of the folks at Facebook. The new research centre is called the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and was created in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). www.artificialintelligence-news.com An independent AI ethics research centre is set to receive $7.5 million of funding courtesy of the folks at Facebook. The new research centre is called the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and was created in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Facebook, like many companies, is fighting outside concerns about the development of AI and its potential societal impact. The centre should help to ensure Facebook keeps up with ethical best practices. Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, Director of Applied Machine Learning at Facebook, wrote in a blog post: “At Facebook, ensuring the responsible and thoughtful use of AI is foundational to everything we do — from the data labels we use, to the individual algorithms we build, to the systems they are a part of. We’re developing new tools like Fairness Flow, which can help generate metrics for evaluating whether there are unintended biases in certain models. We also work with groups like the Partnership for AI, of which Facebook is a founding member, and the AI4People initiative. However, AI poses complex problems which industry alone cannot answer, and the independent academic contributions of the Institute will play a crucial role in furthering ethical research on these topics.” Independent, evidence-based research will be conducted by the institute to provide insight and guidance for society, industry, legislators, and decision-makers across the private and public sectors. Furthermore, the institute wants to specifically address the concerns surrounding AI such as safety, privacy, fairness, and transparency.

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Itasec 2019 a Pisa dal 12 al 15 febbraio
by Arturo Di Corinto Jan. 22, 2019

Jan. 22, 2019

Cari nexiani, forse alcuni di voi lo sanno, visto che Torino è un nodo del Laboratorio Nazionale di cybersecurity, ma vorrei ricordare a quelli che pensano di venire a Itasec19, la terza conferenza nazionale organizzata dal laboratorio che il giorno 27 termina la possibilità di iscriversi con uno sconto sostanziale alla conferenza. Per questo vi giro la lettera del presidente del CINI e direttore del Laboratorio, prof. Paolo Prinetto. un salutone --------------------------------> Sono ancora aperte le Early Registration a ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> fino al 27 gennaio p.v.. ITA*SEC*, la prima Conferenza Italiana sulla Cybersecurity, è un evento annuale organizzato dal Laboratorio Nazionale di Cybersecurity del CINI. L’edizione 2019 si terrà a Pisa, presso la sede del CNR, dal 12 al 15 febbraio 2019. ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> inizierà martedì 12 febbraio con un’intera giornata dedicata a Workshop Scientifici e Tutorial: i primi approfondiranno aspetti legati alla ricerca, mentre i secondi illustreranno temi di interesse generale. ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> proseguirà poi da mercoledì 13 a venerdì 15 con la Conferenza organizzata in tre Spazi principali: lo *Spazio Stakeholder*, lo *Spazio Scientifico/Tecnico* e lo *Spazio Espositivo*. La partecipazione allo Spazio Stakeholder e allo Spazio Espositivo è gratuita. L’accesso al Workshop e Tutorial Day e a tutte le altre sessioni della Conferenza prevede invece una quota di registrazione. E’ obbligatorio per tutti registrarsi tramite il sito ufficiale www.itasec.it <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> al seguente link: https://consorzio-cini.formstack.com/forms/registration_to_ita_sec_2019 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> . Sul sito sono riportati anche il programma completo e i dettagli sui vari aspetti logistici. Può seguirci su Twitter.@cybersecnatlab. <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> Con l'auspicio di poterla incontrare in occasione della Conferenza, colgo l’occasione per porgerle i più cordiali saluti. Prof. Paolo Prinetto Direttore del Laboratorio Nazionale di Cybersecurity - CINI -- Arturo Di Corinto www.dicorinto.it ---------------------------------> AVVERTENZE AI SENSI DEL D.Lgs. 196/2003 Le informazioni contenute in questo messaggio di posta elettronica e/o nel/i file/s allegato/i sono da considerarsi strettamente riservate. Il loro utilizzo è consentito esclusivamente al destinatario del messaggio, per le finalità indicate nel messaggio stesso. Qualora riceviate questo messaggio senza esserne il destinatario, Vi preghiamo cortesemente di darcene notizia via e-mail e di procedere alla distruzione del messaggio stesso, cancellandolo dal Vostro sistema. Conservare il messaggio stesso, divulgarlo anche in parte, distribuirlo ad altri soggetti, copiarlo, od utilizzarlo per finalità diverse, costituisce comportamento contrario ai principi dettati dal D.Lgs. 196/2003

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The CNIL’s restricted committee imposes a financial penalty of 50 Million euros against GOOGLE LLC
by Francesco Mecca Jan. 22, 2019

Jan. 22, 2019

https://www.cnil.fr/en/cnils-restricted-committee-imposes-financial-penalty… On 21 January 2019, the CNIL’s restricted committee imposed a financial penalty of 50 Million euros against the company GOOGLE LLC, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding the ads personalization. -- Francesco Mecca me(a)francescomecca.eu

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ACLU sues for records on facial recognition use by the Department of Justice
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 22, 2019

Jan. 22, 2019

<https://www.fedscoop.com/aclu-foia-facial-recognition-department-of-justice/> The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Justice demanding any records on the agency’s use of facial recognition technology. The request seeks records from the DOJ as a whole, as well as component agencies the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. The request is extensive <https://www.aclu.org/aclu-foia-request-doj-facial-recognition>. The organization is asking for 20 distinct sets of records ranging from any policy direction on the use facial recognition to “records relating to inquiries to companies, solicitations from companies, or meetings with companies about the purchase, piloting, or testing of face recognition, gait recognition, or voice recognition technology” and beyond. The group additionally wants any records showing the accuracy rates of the systems employed and records showing what audit work has been done to determine or assess the accuracy rate. This news is just the latest in the ACLU’s strong ongoing opposition to the use of facial recognition technology by government entities. The ACLU filed a similar request with the Department of Homeland Security in October 2018. In contrast to this most recent FOIA, though, which seeks information regardless of the vendor of the technology, the DHS FOIA focused on learning more about the agency’s work with Amazon’s Rekognition software. Just last week, the ACLU and a coalition of other civil rights groups wrote letters to the three big purveyors of facial recognition technology — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — demanding in no uncertain terms <https://www.fedscoop.com/aclu-demands-amazon-microsoft-google-stop-facial-r…> that they cease doing business with government customers. And over the summer, the group put members of Congress in the facial recognition crosshairs <https://www.fedscoop.com/aclu-puts-members-congress-facial-recognition-cros…> to see how they’d react. While this last action — a study in which 28 sitting members of Congress were falsely identified as individuals who have been arrested for a crime — prompted some action from lawmakers <https://www.fedscoop.com/amazon-rekognition-lawmakers-letters-again/>, federal agencies have remained pretty quiet. The companies developing the technology have also reacted to public criticism differently. Google, notably, has backed down <https://www.fedscoop.com/google-jedi-drops-out-artificial-intelligence/> from some government work, citing its new AI principles, and Microsoft has argued for proactive regulation <https://www.fedscoop.com/public-contrast-google-microsoft-says-itll-stay-en…>. Amazon, meanwhile, a company that is often the target of the ACLU’s opposition, has maintained <https://www.fedscoop.com/amazon-support-government-customers-teresa-carlson/> that facial recognition is a positive and powerful tool for government. “There have always been and will always be risks with new technology capabilities,” Dr. Matt Wood, head of AI at AWS, wrote in a blog post <https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/some-quick-thoughts-on-the-public-discussi…> this summer. “But we believe it is the wrong approach to impose a ban on promising new technologies because they might be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes in the future.”

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'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism
by Vincenzo Mario Bruno Giorgino Jan. 22, 2019

Jan. 22, 2019

'The goal is to automate us': welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-s… Vi giro la connessione ad un'intervista all'autrice di Surveillance Capitalism che può interessare molti. Buona giornata, Vincenzo Giorgino

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