April 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Opinion | Think You’re Discreet Online? Think Again - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 22, 2019

April 22, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/opinion/computational-inference.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Dichiarazione di Ola Bini sulla detenzione arbitraria nella prigione di El Inca, Ecuador
by Giacomo April 22, 2019

April 22, 2019

https://freeolabini.org/it/statement-from-ola/ Credo fermamente nel diritto alla privacy. Senza privacy perdiamo la libertà di agire, e senza l'azione siamo schiavi. Ecco perché ho dedicato la mia vita a questa lotta. La vigilanza è una minaccia per tutti noi, dobbiamo fermarla. I leader del mondo stanno conducendo una guerra contro la conoscenza. Il caso contro di me si basa sui libri che ho letto e sulla tecnologia che ho. Questo è un ThoughtCrime Orwelliano. Non possiamo permettere che questo accada. Il mondo si chiuderà sempre più vicino attorno a noi, finché non ci sarà rimasto nulla. Se l'Ecuador può fare questo, anche gli altri possono farlo. Dobbiamo fermare questa idea ora, prima che sia troppo tardi.

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Re: [nexa] How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
by Giuseppe Attardi April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 11:42, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > L'uomo non è più al vertice di tale catena alimentare, ma alla base. Abbiamo messo sopra l’uomo i mercati. Sono i loro appetiti che dobbiamo sfamare. > > Ci va bene così? Certo che no. —

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The Web is missing an essential part of infrastructure: an Open Web Index
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.03846.pdf From the users’ point of view, search engines are reliable and trustworthy sources, providing fair and unbiased results. However, it has been found that search results simply should not be considered “neutral”. Some scholars argue that an unbiased search engine is simply not possible, as there is no ideal result set against which a bias can be measured [5,6]. Therefore, I argue that every search engine presents its own algorithmically generated view of the web’s content. Every such view can be different, and none of them are the definitive or correct one. Problems that may arise from search engines’ interpreting the world in certain ways are, amongst others, reinforcing stereotypes, e.g., towards women [7]; influencing public opinion in the context of political elections (e.g., [2]), and preferring dramatic interpretations of rather harmless health-related symptoms [13]. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to have only one (or a few) dominant search engines imposing their view on the Web's content, which is, on closer inspection, really only one of many possible views. Therefore, I argue for building an index of the Web that will form the basis for a multitude of search engines and other services that are based on Web data.

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SuperTuxKart 1.0 Release
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

Basta un video gioco per far Politica? http://blog.supertuxkart.net/2019/04/supertuxkart-10-release.html You can play with your friends online, and it doesn't have to be split screen anymore - your gaming partners can be in a different city, country, or even continent - you can still meet for a race or two. Cross-continent may not work the best; you should try to have a reasonable ping - 100ms works fine, and we had some races with 300ms ping, though unavoidable sudden stuttering and karts jumping around is more frequent at higher latencies. Even more important than the ping (unless it's abnormally high) is that there isn't packet loss or packet slowdowns (jitter), so a stable connection is required, especially for the server hosts. The bandwidth use is minimal even for hosting 10 players, so as long as you don't use a metered connection it should be fine for anyone with 150 kilobytes (~1.2 megabit) per second upload speed to spare. If that's still too much, less bandwidth is used with fewer players.

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Bad bots now make up 20 percent of web traffic
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.zdnet.com/article/bad-bots-focus-on-financial-targets-make-up-2… So-called "bad bots" can be tasked with performing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, they can scrape and steal data, they may be used to automatically publish fake content or reviews, and also skew advertising and visitor metrics. Bots, in general, are estimated to make up roughly 37.9 percent of all Internet traffic. In 2018, one in five website requests -- 20.4 percent -- of traffic was generated by bad bots alone. According to Distil Networks' latest bot report, "Bad Bot Report 2019: The Bot Arms Race Continues," the financial sector is the main target for such activity, followed by ticketing, the education sector, government websites, and gambling. [...] A total of 73.6 percent of bad bots are classified as Advanced Persistent Bots (APBs), which are able to cycle through random IP addresses, switch their digital identities, and mimic human behavior. An example of this is mouse mimicry, in which the bot is able to simulate mouse events a genuine visitor may perform on a website domain. These tactics are used to try and appear as a legitimate user for the purposes of ad fraud, as well as brute-force attacks against online accounts, competitive data mining, transaction fraud, spam, and phishing campaigns. Amazon is the leading ISP for bad bot traffic origins. In total, 18 percent of bad bot traffic came from the firm's services, a jump from 10.62 percent in 2017. [...] The United States outstrips all other countries as a generator of bad bots. In total, 53.4 percent of bad bot traffic came from the US, followed by the Netherlands and China.

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Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion. - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Parola per parola, il formidabile discorso della giornalista che ha inchiodato Facebook
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.agi.it/estero/perche_facebook_minaccia_la_democrazia-5367741/ne… Questo è accaduto perché nel Regno Unito noi abbiamo un limite ai soldi che puoi spendere in campagna elettorale. Esiste perché nel diciannovesimo secolo le persone andavano in giro con letteralmente carriole cariche di soldi per comprarsi i voti. Per questo venne votata una legge che lo vieta e mette dei limiti. Ma questa legge non funziona più. La campagna elettorale del referendum infatti si è svolto soprattutto online. E tu puoi spendere qualunque cifra su Facebook, Google o YouTube e nessuno lo saprà mai, perché queste aziende sono scatole nere. [...] Non ho bisogno di dirvi che odio e paura sono stati seminati in rete in tutto il mondo. Non solo nel Regno Unito e in America, ma in Francia, Ungheria, Brasile, Myanmar e Nuova Zelanda. E sappiamo che c’è come una forza oscura che ci collega tutti globalmente. E che viaggia sulle piattaforme tecnologiche. Ma di tutto questo noi vediamo solo una piccola parte superficiale. [...] La nostra democrazia è in crisi, le nostre leggi non funzionano più, e non sono io a dirlo, è un report del nostro parlamento ad affermarlo. Questa tecnologia che avete inventato è meravigliosa. Ma ora è diventata la scena di un delitto. E voi ne avete le prove. E non basta ripetere che in futuro farete di più per proteggerci. Perché per avere una ragionevole speranza che non accada di nuovo, dobbiamo sapere la verità. _____ Nemmeno la verità basterebbe. Per avere una ragionevole speranza che non accada di nuovo bisogna smontare l'infrastruttura che permette queste manipolazioni. Giacomo

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Make ReCaptcha's "I'm not a robot" accurate - strugee.net
by Alberto Cammozzo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

<https://strugee.net/blog/2019/04/make-recaptchas-im-not-a-robot-accurate> [...] I threw together a browser extension in like 30 minutes that changes "I'm not a robot" to "I want to do unpaid image classification". [...] today I've uploaded the latest version of this extension to both addons.mozilla.org and the Chrome Web Store. So at least if you're getting screwed by Google, you'll be able to make them be honest about how they're screwing you. Here's a screenshot: Screenshot of a test page with Google ReCaptcha on it; "I'm not a robot" has been replaced with "I would like to do unpaid image classification" [...]

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Report: Uber in DC
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

http://lwp.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Uber-Workplace.pdf Executive Summary The on-demand ride-hailing industry presents challenges for its new workforce . These include: drivers not knowing how much they earn; increased financial risk and debt; and dangers to health and safety . In keeping with the mission of the Kalmanovitz Intiative for Labor and the Working Poor to advance public policy that improves workers’ lives, this report about a two-year investigation of the working conditions of 40 Uber drivers in the Washington, D .C . area reveals that: 1. Uber drivers do not know how much they earn or lose. • 100% of drivers experienced difficulties with, or barriers to, calculating their actual compensation . 2. Data about the Uber workplace is limited. • Regulators and researchers do not have access to basic information about labor conditions . 3. Uber drivers are encouraged to take on financial risk and debt. • 33% of drivers took on debt as a result of their work on the ride-hailing platform . 4. Uber drivers report challenges to their health and safety. • 30% of drivers reported physical assaults or safety concerns . 5. Despite these challenges, the Uber workplace remained attractive. • 50% of drivers would recommend the job to a friend . • 45% of drivers planned to keep working the job for at least six more months . (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Microsoft staff are openly questioning the value of diversity
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questioning-the-value-of-… Some Microsoft employees are openly questioning whether diversity is important, in a lengthy discussion on an internal online messaging board meant for communicating with CEO Satya Nadella. Two posts on the board criticizing Microsoft diversity initiatives as “discriminatory hiring” and suggesting that women are less suited for engineering roles have elicited more than 800 comments, both affirming and criticizing the viewpoints, multiple Microsoft employees have told Quartz. The posts were written by a female Microsoft program manager. [...] “I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the misfortune of being born both white and male. This is unacceptable,” the program manager wrote in a comment later. [...] As the controversy around Google’s firing of Damore illustrated, it can be extremely contentious for companies to wade into disciplining employees for their personal views on such issues. They can face intense criticism for retaliating against individual speech because it’s not politically correct—and if the company doesn’t respond, critics can say they’re not supporting an inclusive workplace. The abundance of online forums for employees to express their views is a complicating factor, as is the modern worker’s high level of comfort with sharing their views online. [...] The post racked up nearly 1,000 comments, with many male programmers jumping in to take an opposing view. As in the two posts from January and April, not all comments were anti-diversity: Some Microsoft employees argued back against their colleagues. “Where? How? Proof? Data? If if it is [skewed] let’s fix that. But just saying Microsoft has less female than male engineer [sic] is not a valid point,” a male Microsoft employee responded to a separate employee who defended the original poster.

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French government releases in-house IM app to replace WhatsApp and Telegram use
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

https://www.zdnet.com/article/french-government-releases-in-house-im-app-to… French government open-sources in-house-made end-to-end encryption IM app named Tchap. [...] But despite the French government's plans, the app's launch didn't go as planned. On the same day it was released, French security researcher Baptiste Robert found a security flaw in Tchap that would have allowed anyone to register an account and spy on the French government's internal communications. The researcher found that by adding a government email domain on top of his regular email, like so name@domain.com@french-government-domain.com, he could register on the app, even when not being authorized to do so.

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Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking By Default
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

Q.E.D. Per chi crede ancora che a Mozilla interessi la privacy degli utenti. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-firefox-to-enable-hy… Mozilla has told BleepingComputer that they will be enabling the tracking feature called hyperlink auditing, or Pings, by default in Firefox. There is no timeline for when this feature will be enabled, but it will be done when their implementation is complete. For those not familiar with hyperlink auditing, it is a HTML feature that allows web sites to track link clicks by adding the "ping=" attribute to HTML links. When these links are clicked, in addition to navigating to the linked to page, the browser will also connect to the page listed in the ping= attribute, which can then be used to record the click.

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Fun Fictions in Economics
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/fun-fictions-in-economics Economists pride themselves on being the serious social science, the one most deserving of status as an actual science. I will let others make the comparative assessment, but there is an awful lot of nonsense that passes as serious analysis within economics. For cheap fun, I thought I would use a nice spring afternoon to highlight some of my favorites. Myth 1: The Robots Are Taking All the Jobs Myth 2: We Are Threatened by a Declining Population Myth 3: Technology Is Shifting Income Upwards to the More Skilled Myth 4: The Government Debt Will Impoverish Our Kids Myth 5: Economy Threatening Bubbles Are Difficult to Detect Myth 6: CEOs Manipulate Share Prices with Buybacks to Maximize Shareholder Value

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The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

dell’ottobre scorso, mi era sfuggito. jc The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected America’s public schools are still promoting devices with screens — even offering digital-only preschools. The rich are banning screens from class altogether. By Nellie Bowles Oct. 26, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-schools.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Google Offers Europeans Choice to Download Rival Web Browser
by Giacomo Tesio April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

Come sfruttare l'incompetenza per fingere rispettare la norma alla lettera. Speriamo che le persone preposte in UE sappiano cosa sia il WHATWG, come (non) funzionino i Living Standard e come Google rimanga padrone del Web attraverso di essi anche se un paio di persone in più si scaricano un browser diversamente alternativo come Firefox. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-18/google-offers-europeans-… Starting Thursday and following a software update, users in the EU opening Google’s mobile app store will be presented with a choice of alternatives to Google search and Chrome. The Alphabet Inc. unit said options will vary by market, but Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and Norway’s Opera are notable competitors in the European search and browser market respectively. The changes could help Google avoid additional fines after being scrutinized by the EU for almost a decade. The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust body, last year fined Google 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) for strong-arming device makers into pre-installing its Google search and Chrome browser, giving it a leg up because users are unlikely to look for alternatives if a default is already preloaded. The EU ordered Google to change that behavior and threatened additional fines if it failed to comply.

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Amazon’s empire rests on its low-key approach to AI
by Luigi Scorca April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

https://amp.economist.com/business/2019/04/13/amazons-empire-rests-on-its-l…

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Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means.
by gianluca quaglia April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019

Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means. The plan is going to be tricky to pull off, both technically and politically, but the Kremlin has set its sights on self-sufficiency. by Charlotte Jee March 21, 2019 MIT Technology review In the next two weeks, Russia is planning to attempt something no other country has tried before. It’s going to test whether it can disconnect from the rest of the world electronically while keeping the internet running for its citizens. This means it will have to reroute all its data internally, rather than relying on servers abroad. The test is key to a proposed “sovereign internet” law currently working its way through Russia’s government. It looks likely to be eventually voted through and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, though it has stalled in parliament for now. [...] continua qui https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613138/russia-wants-to-cut-itself-off-fr…

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Derrière la percée des « gilets jaunes », des réseaux pas si « spontanés » et « apolitiques »
by Alberto Cammozzo April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019

<https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/04/17/derriere-la-percee-…> Il y a cinq mois tout juste, le 17 novembre 2018, des Français manifestent pour la première fois au Mans (Sarthe) contre la hausse des taxes sur les carburants. Parmi eux, certains arborent fièrement la mention « Colère 72 » au dos de leur gilet jaune, comme un emblème. Les initiés savent qu’il s’agit là d’une référence à un groupe Facebook qui réunit des milliers de mécontents du département de la Sarthe. « C’est nous qui avons relayé l’appel du 17 novembre dans la région. On a donné de l’élan au début du mouvement », revendique Jonathan Torres, l’un des administrateurs de cette communauté. Quand le premier appel à manifester du mouvement des « gilets jaunes » a circulé, des membres de « Colère 72 » sont rapidement montés en première ligne. Et il n’y a pas que dans la Sarthe. En retraçant la circulation des coups de gueule à l’origine de la révolte comme la vidéo de Jacline Mouraud contre le supposé matraquage des automobilistes, visionnée plus de 5 millions de fois sur Facebook, nous avons retrouvé la trace de dizaines de groupes similaires : « Colère 04 », « Colère 17 », « Colère 68 »… En tirant le fil, nous avons une nébuleuse de trente-cinq communautés, qui associent le plus souvent le mot « Colère » à un département et totalisaient près de 200 000 membres début avril 2019. Signe que leur création a été coordonnée d’une manière ou d’une autre, la plupart (25 sur 35) sont nées entre le 9 janvier 2018 et le 4 février 2018, selon notre relevé. [...]

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Let's Encrypt: Transitioning to ISRG's Root
by Giacomo Tesio April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

Una singola entità controlla una quota enorme dell'infrastruttura crittografica del Web... ma noi ci fidiamo, perché è gratis e quindi sono benefattori... E poi i consumatori sono contenti! Il browser li rassicura! Si sentono protetti! :-D https://letsencrypt.org/2019/04/15/transitioning-to-isrg-root.html On July 8, 2019, Let’s Encrypt will start serving a certificate chain via the ACME protocol which leads directly to our root, with no cross-signature. Most subscribers don’t need to take any action because their ACME client will handle everything automatically. Subscribers who need to support very old TLS/SSL clients may wish to manually configure their servers to continue using the cross-signature from IdenTrust. [...] We’d like to thank IdenTrust for providing a cross-signature while we worked to get our own root trusted. They have been wonderful partners. IdenTrust believed in our mission to encrypt the entire Web when it seemed like a long-term dream. Together, in less than five years, we have helped to raise the percentage of encrypted page loads on the Web from 39% to 78%. Let’s Encrypt is currently providing certificates for more than 160 million websites. We look forward to being able to serve even more websites as efforts like this make deploying HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt even easier. If you’re as excited about the potential for a 100% HTTPS Web as we are, please consider getting involved, making a donation, or sponsoring Let’s Encrypt.

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Opinion | Why You Are No Longer Safe in the Crowd - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

Once, it was easy to be obscure. Technology has ended that. By Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Selinger Dr. Hartzog is a professor of law and computer science. Dr. Selinger is a professor of philosophy. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Brookings Report: "Credit denial in the age of AI"
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

Report <https://www.brookings.edu/search/?post_type=research> Credit denial in the age of AI Aaron Klein <https://www.brookings.edu/experts/aaron-klein/> Thursday, April 11, 2019 *Editor's Note:* /This report is part of "//A Blueprint for the Future of AI <https://www.brookings.edu/series/a-blueprint-for-the-future-of-ai/>//," a series from the Brookings Institution that analyzes the new challenges and potential policy solutions introduced by artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies./ Banks have been in the business of deciding who is eligible for credit for centuries. But in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and big data, digital technologies have the potential to transform credit allocation in positive as well as negative directions. Given the mix of possible societal ramifications, policymakers must consider what practices are and are not permissible and what legal and regulatory structures are necessary to protect consumers against unfair or discriminatory lending practices. In this paper, I review the history of credit and the risks of discriminatory practices. I discuss how AI alters the dynamics of credit denials and what policymakers and banking officials can do to safeguard consumer lending. AI has the potential to alter credit practices in transformative ways and it is important to ensure that this happens in a safe and prudent manner. […] Continua qui: https://www.brookings.edu/research/credit-denial-in-the-age-of-ai/

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Germany: Upload Filters Can Only Be Prevented "As Far As Possible" - TorrentFreak
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

Much of the debate preceding the vote on the new EU Copyright Directive had proponents stating that since so-called "upload filters" weren't explicitly mentioned in the text, opponents must be scaremongering to suggest they will become a reality. In a statement in the wake of Monday's Council vote, Germany now says that not only are they "likely" but they can only be prevented "as far as possible." https://torrentfreak.com/germany-upload-filters-can-only-be-prevented-as-fa… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Facebook has created an insanely detailed map of where everyone in Africa lives
by Antonio Vetro' April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

Lavoro di cui si è parlato circa di due settimane fa, ma ho notato solamente oggi. Mi sembra non sia stato segnalato in lista, chiedo venia in caso contrario. Succo del lavoro: “A census data set is a set of geographical polygons, you know, so like the outline of some city district and a number of people in there,” says James Gill, a Facebook engineer who worked on the project. “What we do is we find locations of buildings. To a good approximation, people live in buildings, and not in fields and forest and mountains. So instead of placing the people in the census district everywhere, we only place them where there are buildings.” Aid workers obviously know this intuitively. The maps help them show up more prepared and ensure no one gets missed. Articolo intero: https://www.fastcompany.com/90331895/facebook-has-created-an-insanely-detai… av

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NYT - we built an "unbelievable" (but legal) facial recognition machine
by Luigi Scorca April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/16/opinion/facial-recognition-n… Luigi

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