December 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The future internet regulation - Aral Balkan at the European Parliament - With Slides - La Quadrature du Net

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Circa 17’ molto ben spesi: https://video.lqdn.fr/videos/watch/861c07f7-7e9b-4e64-9765-cf1de592c8a0 (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Dec. 3, 2019

Call for Human Centre Solutions EU project

by barbaracarfagna＠libero.it

Call for Human Centre Solutions: LEDGER, an EU funded project, empowers people to solve problems using decentralised technologies such as blockchain, peer to peer or distributed ledger technologies https://ledgerproject.eu/ nexa mailing list >nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it >https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa

Dec. 3, 2019

Fwd: Job Vacancy post-doc

by J.C. DE MARTIN

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Job Vacancy post-doc Resent-Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2019 17:29:31 +0100 Resent-From: d004620(a)polito.it Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2019 16:27:33 +0000 From: Sapignoli, Maria <sapignoli(a)eth.mpg.de> To: info(a)nexa.polito.it <info(a)nexa.polito.it> To whom it might concern, Can you please circulate the announcement below in your center, to your networks, PhD students, or other individuals or groups who might be interested in applying for these positions? This is a *post-doc vacancy* for the project */AI/ming Toward the Future: Policing, Governance, and Artificial Intelligence *at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Germany). See file attached and link below. Link: https://recruitingapp-5034.de.umantis.com/Jobs/2%3Flang=eng Login | Bewerbermanagement: Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung | Haufe Talent Management <https://recruitingapp-5034.de.umantis.com/Jobs/2%3Flang=eng> recruitingapp-5034.de.umantis.com Haufe Talent Management Many thanks in advance. Best wishes, Maria Sapignoli Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Advokatenweg 36, 06114 Halle (Saale), Germany www.eth.mpg.de/sapignoli <http://www.eth.mpg.de/sapignoli>

Dec. 3, 2019

[Legal Design Roundtable] - 1-2 April, UCLouvain

by Monica Palmirani

Sono a segnalare l'iniziativa sul Legal Design che si terrà nei giorni 1-2 Aprile, presso la UCLouvain - Université Catholique de Louvain, dal titolo "Legal Design Roundtable". http://eitlab.eu/ldr2020-cfp/ =========================================== Full professor of Legal Informatics School of Law Coordinator of MSCA-ITN EJD LAST-JD-RIoE Scientific Director of Legal Blockchain Lab Director of the Summer School LEX Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna C.I.R.S.F.I.D. http://www.cirsfid.unibo.it/ Palazzo Dal Monte Gaudenzi - Via Galliera, 3 I - 40121 BOLOGNA (ITALY) Tel +39 051 277217 Fax +39 051 260782 E-mail monica.palmirani(a)unibo.it<mailto:monica.palmirani@unibo.it>

Dec. 3, 2019

How we fixed DRM in Portugal (and so can you)

by Giacomo Tesio

Digital Restrictions Management (originally introduced by the entertainment industry as Digital Rights Management), are technologies that prevent, control, or restrict the use of hardware, software, or other creative works like books, films, music, etc.. They are also known as anti-copy technologies. In 1998 in USA and in 2001 in Europe, these technologies were given legal protection by the lawmakers. Copyright holders convinced the lawmakers that they needed DRM to be protected by the law in order to stop file-sharing without commercial purposes. This legal protection meant that breaking the DRM started to be illegal or a crime. In Portugal, for example, breaking the DRM had a penalty of up to one year in prison, until 2017. Even if you did something legal. In Europe, we have a set of copyright exceptions to guarantee fundamental rights. These are uses of the work we are allowed to do without having to ask permission to the rightholders and authors. Depending on the law in your country, you can make a private copy, use works or parts of works for education and scientific research, quotations for criticism or review. Libraries and other cultural heritage institutions have a set of exceptions that allow them to make available works to the public and to digitally preserve those works, and the press also has a set of exceptions to guarantee the right to information. These exceptions are described in article 5 of the InfoSoc European Directive. When lawmakers gave legal protection to DRM, they didn't really protect these exceptions, which meant that while citizens have these rights, they cannot exercise them, since there is no way to exercise most of them without breaking the DRM. For instance, if you bought a music CD and your country has a private copy exception[^1], you can make a digital copy to listen to its music on your mobile phone. But, if the CD has DRM, while you still have the right to make a copy, you cannot exercise it, since there is no way to make a private copy of a DRMed CD without breaking the DRM, which you are not allowed to do. [...] With the knowledge of how to exercise our rights, we decided to test the law. We got a DVD with DRM and contacted IGAC telling them we wanted to make a private copy, and asked them for the "means" to make such private copy without breaking the DRM. This would be a copyright exception in Portugal, and thus a legal action. The first request we actually made was for the means to legally watch a DVD with DRM on our GNU/Linux laptop, but IGAC didn't understand this request, so we used the private copy exception, which seems to be easier to understand. After pointing IGAC to the law and which exact articles we were trying to exercise, they told us they couldn't give us what we asked since they didn't have those "means", as the rightholders had not deposited them. That is a situation the law didn't foresee, therefore there was no penalty for rightholders that didn't make such a deposit. We made sure to get a written statement from IGAC saying they didn't have those "means" (either to that DVD or anything else), which was important for us to use as a proof that the law at that moment didn't work. [...] During the discussions in the Portuguese Parliament, we pointed out that the law at that time didn't work since IGAC didn't have the "means" needed. We went a step further and claimed that, if they didn't want to change the law as we proposed, they had to at least change it to establish a punishment for the rightholders not handing those "means" over, and that the parliament should invite them to speak, and explain why they didn't do it. Both IGAC and the rightholders were called to the Parliament. Both admitted they didn't have the keys, and the rightholders even added they would never get the keys from the companies that made the DRM systems. # Present your alternative At this point, our feeling was that most members of the parliament knew we were right: the solution the law had didn't and couldn't work. So, they were ready to approve the change in the law. The approved law was proposed by the Left Bloc, with the votes in favour of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Greens Party, and the Persons, animals, and Nature Party and was promulgated by the President of Portugal on 2nd of June of 2017. The law also prohibited DRM in public domain works, in new editions of public domain works, and in works published by public entities or funded by public money. Continua su https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20191113-01.en.html Giacomo

Dec. 3, 2019

The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

by Giacomo Tesio

Ethos Capital seems on track to complete their takeover of .org early next year. ICANN claims it is powerless to stop the acquisition. ISOC president Andrew Sullivan suggested nothing but a court order would make ISOC change their minds. (To that end, optimists can write to the state DA, who still has to approve the sale.) Sullivan also reported in his latest public letter that the acquisition of PIR (their 990, for reference) was for $1.135B. This seems to be well below the market value of .org, even if the buyer doesn’t reconsider bolder price hikes. Lance Wiggs (investor, consultant, former councillor for InternetNZ) estimates that this undervalues the registry by $1B-10B, depending on how creatively it is managed, and that the investors took almost no risk for a chance at a 5x return. And while there is a range of estimates out there for the true value of .org, the sale price is on the low end under conservative assumptions. How did this happen? Among other things: - No competitive bid. [...] - No public market / sale analysis. [...] - No public story of how the deal came together. [...] - No discussion of alternatives to financing an endowment. [...] Sullivan also shared many conflicting thoughts in an interview with the Register: he thinks not many people care about the sale; public pushback has been strong; the sale would not have happened if there had been public discussion. His presentation of the offer to the ISOC Board also highlighted a need for speed and secrecy, and details were redacted from the board’s minutes. Continua su https://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/12/02/the-dot-org-fire-sale-sold-for-half… Giacomo

Dec. 3, 2019

A Different Kind of Transparency

by Giacomo Tesio

Librem 5 Birch Hardware Schematics We are excited to share the hardware schematics for the Librem 5 Birch batch with you today. You may be wondering why anyone would share their hardware schematics with the world? After all making a ground breaking open and freedom respecting phone is expensive and takes a long time. We are doing it because we believe in the freedom to choose hardware and software that treats you like a person and not a commodity to be exploited for profit. We believe that you should have full ownership of your hardware, you shouldn’t have to essentially rent it from a company to be safe. While privacy and security are popular marketing terms these days, when many companies use those words they expect your complete and blind trust and reliance. While we believe you should trust us, we don’t require you to put blind trust in us. By publishing our schematics we give you the ability to verify that trust on your own (or with the help of someone else). Continua su https://puri.sm/posts/a-different-kind-of-transparency/ Giacomo

Dec. 3, 2019

Chinese tech groups shaping UN facial recognition standards | Financial Times

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.ft.com/content/c3555a3c-0d3e-11ea-b2d6-9bf4d1957a67> Chinese technology companies are shaping new facial recognition and surveillance standards at the UN, according to leaked documents obtained by the Financial Times, as they try to open up new markets in the developing world for their cutting-edge technologies. Companies such as ZTE, Dahua and China Telecom are among those proposing new international standards — specifications aimed at creating universally consistent technology — in the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for facial recognition, video monitoring, city and vehicle surveillance. Standards ratified in the ITU, which comprises nearly 200 member states, are commonly adopted as policy by developing nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where the Chinese government has agreed to supply infrastructure and surveillance tech under its “Belt and Road Initiative”, according to experts. “African states tend to go along with what is being put forward by China and the ITU as they don’t have the resources to develop standards themselves,” said Richard Wingfield, head of legal at Global Partners Digital, a company working on human rights on the internet. Europe and North America have their own regional standards setting bodies, such as the IETF, IEEE and 3GPP, which are dominated by domestic industry players. The ITU, on the other hand, is a space where companies outside of North America and Europe tend to shape and drive standard development. [...]

Dec. 2, 2019

Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff on Big Tech and democracy - Business Insider

by Alberto Cammozzo

Interessante il pezzo in cui sono descriti i tentiativi di applicare una legge che Google non apprezza: *MD: *I think it's even worse, because in the case of the surveillance capitalists, we already have regulations - like the copyright reform in Germany, for example. But Google essentially reacted to that by deciding that any German content producers and publishers who used that law would be delisted by Google in the text, video, photo categories, with only the headline remaining. We decided to test it, and within only two weeks, our search traffic had gone down by 85%. To state that in very clear terms: We stuck to the law and the result was a decline in our traffic. This clearly highlights our total dependence on Google, and Google's abuse of that. And what it also clearly shows is that Google is effectively in a position to overrule the rule of law, and with that the power of the market, in a country. When France introduced the European copyright reform, Google did exactly the same thing. The French publishers who made use of the law, were also delisted. This, in turn, led to most of the French publishers giving in. This is a symbolic showdown between the tech monopolists and the state governed by rule of law. Google has perhaps overstepped the mark this time. <https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-professor-shoshana-zuboff-on-big-te…> <https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-professor-shoshana-zuboff-on-big-te…> *Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer*: Shoshana, the recipients of the Axel Springer Award preceding you were Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Berners-Lee and then Jeff Bezos. At least two of them play a major role in your book. And not exactly as role models. How do you feel about being in the company of such awardees? *Shoshana Zuboff, author and scholar: *Well, I welcome the realization that our digital future is at stake. In a battle, you sometimes have to take sides. We have both been on the same page about this for a long time. In 2014, I responded to your courageous open letter to Eric Schmidt, which you titled "Why we are afraid of Google". We are fighting for the same cause, as we did with our friend Frank Schirrmacher, who passed away some years ago. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and the like unfortunately have the fate of our society in their hands. *MD: *We have always said that we, as a company, and even as a society, must have a /frenemy/-relationship with these companie/s/. We admire them for the jobs they have created, the value they have generated, and the improvements they have given to society. At the same time, however, we must stay alert and criticize the dangers they bring. Your book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" is, to my mind, a work of historical importance. And I think it is going to change how our society deals with the digital Internet platforms. I get the impression that the way the platforms are perceived has changed pretty significantly over the last years, particularly over the last months. A couple of years ago, everybody was totally fascinated by the technological possibilities, the easiness of the use cases, the comfort that this brought to our daily lives. Then came Cambridge Analytica, the emergence of fake news, the rise of populism in England, in the USA, in other countries in Europe and in the world, and people started to realize that the price they have to pay may be much higher than they thought. If they just hand over their data, the principle of the surveillance economy will become the new normal. *SZ: *I think we are at a turning point. There is no question in my mind that we are at the beginning of a new phase in the development and in the history of surveillance capitalism. What we will see in this phase is the emergence of a new vision. This will see us move in the direction of asserting democratic governance over the Internet, which is perceived by the surveillance capitalists to be the last ungoverned space. *MD: *Do you see Europe playing a leadership role in developing policies to regulate the tech platforms? America has done almost nothing to date, whereas Europe has really been at the forefront in defining new rules, for example, by imposing the three big billion-plus penalties on Google. What kind of role do you see Europe playing? Or are those who argue that Europe just doesn't understand the technology right in that assertion? *SZ: *I think that the sensibilities in Germany and in Europe more generally have been quite different from those in the United States. Although, things are changing in America now. I would definitely say, however, that there is a much greater sensibility in Europe that democracy is something we have to fight for. Europe understands that democracy can be rapidly undermined by unexpected new sources of power that we didn't anticipate. There is an awareness here that democracy requires protection. That's something we're not necessarily used to in America. We've taken everything far too much for granted there. So, I think Europe has been in the vanguard since the beginning. Nevertheless, many members of the European Parliament would like to believe that our work is done now with the GDPR – the general data protection regulation – and that we can now put our feet up and pop the champagne corks. I do believe that the GDPR does, of course, represent some great breakthroughs. The fact is, however, that privacy law as we know it, and anti-trust law as we know it, will not stop an outlaw surveillance capitalism in its tracks. How Google and Facebook skirt regulations today-- and what to do about it *MD: *You are absolutely right. Speaking from the standpoint of someone who works in a digital publishing house every day, I can say that GDPR, contrary to some expectations of it, even strengthens the position of Google and Facebook in the digital advertising market. The large platforms can afford the best lawyers and, correspondingly, they can guarantee compliance with the new complex data requirements. At the same time, thanks to the wide range of online services they offer and the millions of user accounts, they can use the one-time consent given by users for their own benefit. By comparison, smaller companies in the digital advertising industry are threatened in their very existence by the new legislation. GDPR is good, but it does not solve the problems of surveillance capitalism, instead strengthening the position of its protagonists. Because, as you have written, the surveillance capitalist will always be one step ahead. *SZ: *History has shown that efforts towards regulation fail when they are not based on a detailed understanding of the industry that they are regulating. Anti-trust and privacy law were hugely creative legislative undertakings, largely in the 20th century, some more recently. But they were designed for other forms of enterprise, other market forms and problems that were structurally different to the ones we face today. *MD: *Perhaps we need agile regulation. You start a regulatory process; watch how it works, change and adapt it. In short, you act like a tech platform. They are also constantly changing their strategy, doing turnarounds and are always on the move, while a regulation takes three years of preparation. By the time a law is implemented, it's already outdated. *SZ: *Well, agile regulation would be one possibility. Another one is principle-based regulation, where the principles themselves are not agile, but the way you deal with them is. There are some very clear principles which, if the political will is there, would be quite easy to regulate and would almost overnight challenge the legitimacy of what I call the 'surveillance dividend'. At the present time, you cannot compete on the market unless you are willing to produce this surveillance dividend, that is, the gain companies pull out of user data. This dividend is directed in an unacceptable manner against freedom and democracy, and it has become a menace to society. So, if we can define principles that will essentially curb this mechanism, then we can in my opinion take a giant step towards effective regulation. In the gilded age of industrialization, we already had great entrepreneurs, who we later came to call 'robbers'. J P Morgan used to say, "We don't need law. We have the law of supply and demand. We have the law of survival of the fittest. Those are the only laws we need. Law will simply get in the way of business, of prosperity, and of innovation." And that's exactly the same message we are hearing from the surveillance capitalists today, without actually realizing it is recycled propaganda from over a century ago. [...]

Dec. 2, 2019

Portland plans to propose the strictest facial recognition ban in the country

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Portland plans to propose the strictest facial recognition ban in the country** */ //Portland, Oregon, aims to ban the use of the controversial technology not only by city government, but also by private companies./ By Sean Captain 5 minute Read As the federal government plods along on developing privacy laws, some cities are taking matters into their own hands—with facial recognition technology at the top of the list. Now, Portland, Oregon, has plans to ban the use of facial recognition for both the government and private businesses in the city, a move that could make Portland’s ban the most restrictive in the United States. [...] https://www.fastcompany.com/90436355/portlands-proposed-facial-recognition-…

Dec. 2, 2019