May 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

A hacker is wiping Git repositories and asking for a ransom
by Giacomo Tesio May 4, 2019

May 4, 2019

Urge alfabetizzare anche gli scribi... :-) https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-hacker-is-wiping-git-repositories-and-askin… The attacks started earlier today, appear to be coordinated across Git hosting services (GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab), and it is still unclear how they are happening. [...] The hacker claims all source code has been downloaded and stored on one of their servers, and gives the victim ten days to pay the ransom; otherwise, they'll make the code public. > To recover your lost code and avoid leaking it: Send us > 0.1 Bitcoin (BTC) to our Bitcoin address > ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA and contact us > by Email at admin(a)gitsbackup.com with your Git login > and a Proof of Payment. If you are unsure if we have > your data, contact us and we will send you a proof. > Your code is downloaded and backed up on our servers. > If we dont receive your payment in the next 10 Days, > we will make your code public or use them otherwise. [...] Some users who fell victim to this hacker have admitted to using weak passwords for their GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket accounts, and forgetting to remove access tokens for old apps they haven't used for months --both of which are very common ways in which online accounts usually get compromised. However, all evidence suggests that the hacker has scanned the entire internet for Git config files, extracted credentials, and then used these logins to access and ransom accounts at Git hosting services. > Dang, I thought all those "/.git/config" scans we detected > were harmless. Guess we know what the goal was now. > > — Bad Packets Report (@bad_packets) May 3, 2019

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Libertà di stampa e rivoluzione digitale
by don Luca Peyron May 4, 2019

May 4, 2019

Buongiorno a tutti. In occasione della ventiseiesima Giornata mondiale per la libertà di stampa, che si celebra ogni 3 maggio su iniziativa dell’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite, il Consiglio d’Europa ha pubblicato il Rapporto dal titolo “Freedom of expression in 2018”, con l’obiettivo di individuare le principali minacce alla libertà d’espressione in Europa rilevate nell’anno passato e le azioni che i governi dovrebbero avviare per contrastarle in via prioritaria. Si legge tra l'altro: "The adverse impacts of the digital revolution on the financial viability of quality journalism, and on local and investigative reporting in particular, are beginning to capture the attention of governments. Large parts of the media sector are still struggling to adapt to the draining of their advertising-based revenue streams, while the top beneficiaries of this shift are doing little to support quality journalism. This transformation calls for new approaches and policies aimed at ensuring the financial viability and diversity of a sector that is vital to democracy. A number of states are considering direct and indirect forms of state support, novel tax policies and new notions of corporate social responsibility. Improving the working conditions of professional journalists is vital if this dangerous trade is to remain attractive for next generation talents" https://rm.coe.int/freedom-of-expression-2018-/1680943557 Buona lettura e buona domenica dl _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App
by Stefano Quintarelli May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

China’s Algorithms of Repression Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/05/01/chinas-algorithms-repression/reverse-… ciao, s. -- reserve your meeting with me at http://cal.quintarelli.it

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Why we need to reinvent democracy for the long-term
by Giacomo Tesio May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

Provocazioni molto interessanti. IMHO l'autore sottovaluta l'età media della popolazione rappresentata e decenni di propaganda individualista fra le cause della miopia politica odierna (che peraltro non va generalizzata, sebbene sia evidentemente maggioritaria). Tuttavia la deriva totalitaria globale è effettivamente dietro l'angolo. Abbiamo bisogno di nuove forme di Democrazia? Forme di Democrazia capaci di scalare a livello globale (possibilmente in modo pacifico)? E l'Informatica che ora appartiene al dominio del problema, potrebbe fornire (parte del)la soluzione? E come, se rimane una conoscenza esoterica? O magari abbiamo solo bisogno di disarmare il Capitalismo? Di privare di qualsiasi Potere Politico il Capitale? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190318-can-we-reinvent-democracy-for-the-… It’s common to claim that today’s short-termism is simply a product of social media and other digital technologies that have ratcheted up the pace of political life. But the fixation on the now has far deeper roots. One problem is the electoral cycle, an inherent design flaw of democratic systems that produces short political time horizons. Politicians might offer enticing tax breaks to woo voters at the next electoral contest, while ignoring long-term issues out of which they can make little immediate political capital, such as dealing with ecological breakdown, pension reform or investing in early childhood education. Back in the 1970s, this form of myopic policy-making was dubbed the “political business cycle”. Add to this the ability of special interest groups – especially corporations – to use the political system to secure near-term benefits for themselves while passing the longer-term costs onto the rest of society. Whether through the funding of electoral campaigns or big-budget lobbying, the corporate hacking of politics is a global phenomenon that pushes long-term policy making off the agenda. [...] The time has come to face an inconvenient reality: that modern democracy – especially in wealthy countries – has enabled us to colonise the future. We treat the future like a distant colonial outpost devoid of people, where we can freely dump ecological degradation, technological risk, nuclear waste and public debt, and that we feel at liberty to plunder as we please. [...] Some suggest that democracy is so fundamentally short-sighted that we might be better off with “benign dictators”, who can take the long view on the multiple crises facing humanity on behalf of us all. [...] A surprisingly large number of heads were nodding in the audience, but mine was not amongst them. [...] A more fundamental point is that there may be ways to reinvent representative democracy to overcome its current bias towards the here and now. In fact, several countries have already embarked on pioneering experiments to empower the citizens of the future. [...] We are in the midst of an historic political shift. It is clear that a movement for the rights and interests of future generations is beginning to emerge on a global scale, and is set to gain momentum over coming decades as the twin threats of ecological collapse and technological risk loom ever larger. The dream of a benign dictator is not the only option to deal with our long-term crises. Democracy has taken many forms and been reinvented many times, from the direct democracy of the Ancient Greeks to the rise of representative democracy in the 18th Century. The next democratic revolution – one that empowers future generations and decolonises the future – may well be on the political horizon.

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Software e responsabilità da prodotto: il caso del Boeing 737 MAX 8
by don Luca Peyron May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

Buona lettura per chi vorrà e buona giornata! dl Non sembra assurdo parlare, quasi in termini fantascientifici con sfumature apocalittiche, di una sfida uomo-macchina. Che disgraziatamente è stata vinta dai calcolatori in entrambe le occasioni. https://www.cyberlaws.it/2019/software-responsabilita-prodotto-caso-boeing/ _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Police in Washington are running sketches through Amazon's facial recognition software | Daily Mail Online
by Alberto Cammozzo May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

Esempio lampante di estensione impropria dell'impiego di una tecnologia con esiti potenzialmente gravssimi (o perfino letali). Mentre l'ingenuo pensa che il riconoscimento automatico funzioni come quello della mente umana, in realtà nessuno può prevedere come si comporti un algoritmo addestrato su delle foto quando gli si propone un identikit segnaletico. <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6986553/Police-Washington-r…> In a previously undocumented use of facial recognition software, police in Washington state are using Amazon's 'Rekognition' to track down criminals with as little as an artist's sketch. According to a report from The Washington Post, police in Washington County are able to compare pictures of suspects harvested from security cameras and eye-witness' cell phone pictures against databases containing 300,000 mugshots of known criminals. In just Washington County Police Department alone, the report states more than 1,000 facial scans were logged last year which have helped identify subjects, sometimes leading officers to home arrests. [...]

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Data, dispossession, and Facebook: techno-imperialism and toponymy in gentrifying San Francisco
by Antonio Vetro' May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

Studio segnalato da un collega urbanista; un fenomeno made in USA, ma mi sembra degno di segnalazione https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2019.1591143 <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2019.1591143> ABSTRACT This article situates the 2015 rebranding of Zuckerberg San Francisco General within San Francisco’s technopolitical landscape. After Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated to the hospital, thereby acquiring naming rights, local toponymical tension percolated. This was in part due to Facebook’s gentrifying role in the city and the racial violence such processes constitute, as well as ongoing practices data colonialism. The latter includes Facebook’s attempt at pairing hospital data with user data in order to augment its scope into intimate and bodily geographies. In exploring the intertwining of gentrification and data colonialism, here I forge the concept of techno-imperialism as an analytic and as a point of departure in understanding Facebook’s multi-scalar impacts. As I suggest, the transformation of “The General” to “The Zuckerberg” indexes the company's techno-imperiality, as well as its efforts to mask its dispossessive impacts. PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331983645_Data_dispossession_and_F…

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"European cooperative Fairbnb wants to make the short-term rental market more just"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 3, 2019

May 3, 2019

04.29.19 *European cooperative Fairbnb wants to make the short-term rental market more just** * /The new platform is raising funds to help create a community-oriented alternative to big home-sharing platforms. /https://www.fastcompany.com/90339528/european-cooperative-fairbnb-wants-to-change-the-short-term-rental-market

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Don’t let industry write the rules for AI
by Giacomo Tesio May 2, 2019

May 2, 2019

Technology companies are running a campaign to bend research and regulation for their benefit; society must fight back, says Yochai Benkler. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01413-1 Industry has mobilized to shape the science, morality and laws of artificial intelligence. On 10 May, letters of intent are due to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) for a new funding programme for projects on Fairness in Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with Amazon. In April, after the European Commission released the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, an academic member of the expert group that produced them described their creation as industry-dominated “ethics washing”. In March, Google formed an AI ethics board, which was dissolved a week later amid controversy. In January, Facebook invested US$7.5 million in a centre on ethics and AI at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. [...] Inside an algorithmic black box, societal biases are rendered invisible and unaccountable. When designed for profit-making alone, algorithms necessarily diverge from the public interest — information asymmetries, bargaining power and externalities pervade these markets. For example, Facebook and YouTube profit from people staying on their sites and by offering advertisers technology to deliver precisely targeted messages. That could turn out to be illegal or dangerous. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged Facebook with enabling discrimination in housing adverts (correlates of race and religion could be used to affect who sees a listing). YouTube’s recommendation algorithm has been implicated in stoking anti-vaccine conspiracies. I see these sorts of service as the emissions of high-tech industry: they bring profits, but the costs are borne by society. (The companies have stated that they work to ensure their products are socially responsible.) [...] When the NSF lends Amazon the legitimacy of its process for a $7.6-million programme (0.03% of Amazon’s 2018 research and development spending), it undermines the role of public research as a counterweight to industry-funded research. A university abdicates its central role when it accepts funding from a firm to study the moral, political and legal implications of practices that are core to the business model of that firm. So too do governments that delegate policy frameworks to industry-dominated panels. [...] Governments should use that leverage to demand that companies share data in properly-protected databases with access granted to appropriately insulated, publicly-funded researchers. Industry participation in policy panels should be strictly limited. Industry has the data and expertise necessary to design fairness into AI systems. It cannot be excluded from the processes by which we investigate which worries are real and which safeguards work, but it must not be allowed to direct them. Organizations working to ensure that AI is fair and beneficial must be publicly funded, subject to peer review and transparent to civil society. And society must demand increased public investment in independent research rather than hoping that industry funding will fill the gap without corrupting the process. _____ Non credo che si possa limitare l'influenza dell'industria senza escluderla completamente dal processo decisionale. Se partecipa, non può che imporre la propria forza economica e culturale per assicurarsi la massimizzazione dei profitti. Di conseguenza, le Università e gli enti di ricerca che ricevono fondi da privati andrebbero esclusi dal processo. Un'idea interessante potrebbe ispirarsi alla legge 266 del 1991: stabilire per legge che una certa quota dei proventi delle società che si occupano di Informatica vada devoluta a un ente completamente indipendente dalle aziende stesse che li usa per finanziare la ricerca delle Università e degli enti di ricerca non compromessi. Lo stesso, in realtà, si potrebbe fare con la medicina e in generale laddove la ricerca abbia rilevanza economica. Giacomo

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The Do-Not-Track Act of 2019
by Giacomo Tesio May 2, 2019

May 2, 2019

Scusate... aggiungo l'oggetto... :-( On 02/05/2019, Giacomo Tesio <giacomo(a)tesio.it> wrote: > Bell'esempio di proposta di legge dalle buone intenzioni ma > controproducente. > > Potrebbe spingere gli utenti a fidarsi maggiormente del Web, ma senza > appropriato supporto tecnico, il tracciamento rimane possibile e non > osservabile: non c'è modo di scoprire e punire i trasgressori (a meno > che non facciano diversi passi falsi facilmente evitabili). > > L'header "Do Not Track" non può funzionare perché affida la protezione > della privacy al lato sbagliato della connessione TCP: il server non > ha nessun interesse a scartare le informazioni che il browser gli > manda comunque visto che può salvarle dove nessuno le troverà mai. > > Per impedire il tracciamento bisogna intervenire sui browser. > A questi la legge dovrebbe imporre specifiche minime a garanzia degli > utenti. > La sicurezza non può essere Opt-In. > > > > https://spreadprivacy.com/do-not-track-act-2019/ > > When you turn on the setting in your browser that says “Do Not Track”, > you probably expect to no longer be tracked on most websites you > visit. Right? Well, you would be wrong. But don’t worry, you’re not > alone. > > Our recent study on the Do Not Track (DNT) browser setting indicated > that about a quarter of people have turned on this setting, and most > were unaware big sites do not respect it. That means approximately 75 > million Americans, 115 million citizens of the European Union, and > many more people worldwide are, right now, broadcasting a DNT signal. > [...] > > While DuckDuckGo actively supports the passing of strong, > comprehensive privacy laws, we also recognize that it will take time > for them to take effect worldwide. In the meantime, governments can > provide immediate relief by enacting separate, simpler Do Not Track > legislation. [...] > > That’s why we're announcing draft legislation that can serve as a > starting point for legislators in America and beyond. It’s entitled > the "Do-Not-Track Act of 2019" and, if it were to be enacted, would > require sites to respect the Do Not Track browser setting in this > manner: > > - No third-party tracking by default. [...] > - No first-party tracking outside what the user expects. [...] > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa >

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