July 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers** * By Peter Robison 28 June 2019, 22:46 CEST […] Continua qui: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-softwar…

July 4, 2019

Email Tracking Is Creepy and Invasive and No One Should Do It - VICE

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xpwj/email-tracking-is-creepy-and-inva… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 3, 2019

Fwd: [DNAmazon Admits Alexa Voice Recordings Saved Indefinitely

by Matteo G.P. Flora

"After U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) demanded Amazon outline its data privacy policies, Amazon in a letter that was publicly disclosed on Tuesday said that consumers have the option to delete their recordings – but even if they do, the company or third-party developers may still save records of customers’ interactions with Alexa." Articolo: < https://threatpost.com/amazon-admits-alexa-voice-recordings-saved-indefinit… > PDF della risposta: < https://www.coons.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Amazon%20Senator%20Coons__Respon… > Che diranno i Garanti Europei? M -- Matteo G.P. Flora Founder and CEO at TF Group A Via Vitruvio 1, Milano (MI) M +39.347.9676430 E mf(a)thefool.it W http://thefool.it

July 3, 2019

Libra: US Congress asks Facebook to pause development | Technology | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/03/libra-us-congress-asks-f…> The US Congress has asked Facebook to pause development on its Libra cryptocurrency until lawmakers have had more time to investigate the ramifications of the company’s actions. In a letter from the Democratic heads of the house committee on financial services and its subcommittees, the legislators ask the company to “immediately cease implementation plans”. “Because Facebook is already in the hands of over a quarter of the world’s population, it is imperative that Facebook and its partners immediately cease implementation plans until regulators and Congress have an opportunity to examine these issues and take action,” the letter says. “During this moratorium, we intend to hold public hearings on the risks and benefits of cryptocurrency-based activities and explore legislative solutions. Failure to cease implementation before we can do so risks a new Swiss-based financial system that is too big to fail.” [...]

July 3, 2019

Are computers making work more routine and less social? | Eurofound

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/blog/are-computers-making-work… The spread of ICT in the economy is changing both the types of jobs that employ people and the types of tasks that people perform in their jobs. The latest research on the content of work suggests that computerisation has boosted the proportion of jobs with social interaction at their core, while at the same time reducing social tasks within certain jobs (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 3, 2019

Chinese border guards put secret surveillance app on tourists' phones

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/02/chinese-border-guards-surveil…> Chinese border police are secretly installing surveillance apps on the phones of visitors and downloading personal information as part of the government’s intensive scrutiny of the remote Xinjiang region, the Guardian can reveal. The Chinese government has curbed freedoms in the province for the local Muslim population, installing facial recognition cameras on streets and in mosques and reportedly forcing residents to download software that searches their phones. An investigation by the Guardian and international partners has found that travellers are being targeted when they attempt to enter the region from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. Border guards are taking their phones and secretly installing an app that extracts emails, texts and contacts, as well as information about the handset itself. Tourists say they have not been warned by authorities in advance or told about what the software is looking for, or that their information is being taken. The investigation, with partners including Süddeutsche Zeitung and the New York Times, has found that people using the remote Irkeshtam border crossing into the country are routinely having their phones screened by guards. [...]

July 3, 2019

Aggression Detectors: The Unproven, Invasive Surveillance Technology Schools Are Using to Monitor Students

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://features.propublica.org/aggression-detector/the-unproven-invasive-s…> Ariella Russcol specializes in drama at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York, and the senior’s performance on this April afternoon didn’t disappoint. While the library is normally the quietest room in the school, her ear-piercing screams sounded more like a horror movie than study hall. But they weren’t enough to set off a small microphone in the ceiling that was supposed to detect aggression. A few days later, at the Staples Pathways Academy in Westport, Connecticut, junior Sami D’Anna inadvertently triggered the same device with a less spooky sound — a coughing fit from a lingering chest cold. As she hacked and rasped, a message popped up on its web interface: “StressedVoice detected.” “There we go,” D’Anna said with amusement, looking at the screen. “There’s my coughs.” The students were helping ProPublica test an aggression detector that’s used in hundreds of schools, health care facilities, banks, stores and prisons worldwide, including more than 100 in the U.S. Sound Intelligence, the Dutch company that makes the software for the device, plans to open an office this year in Chicago, where its chief executive will be based. California-based Louroe Electronics, which has loaded the software on its microphones since 2015, advertises the devices in school safety magazines and at law enforcement conventions, and it said it has between 100 and 1,000 customers for them. Louroe’s marketing materials say the detection software enables security officers to “engage antagonistic individuals immediately, resolving the conflict before it turns into physical violence.” Students at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York, test an aggression detector by acting out a scripted scene for a ProPublica reporter. In the wake of the shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school and other massacres, U.S. schools are increasingly receptive to such pitches. Congress approved more than $25 million for school security improvements last year, and one analyst expects new technology could augment the $2.7 billion market for education security products. Besides Sound Intelligence, South Korea-based Hanwha Techwin, formerly part of Samsung, makes a similar “scream detection” product that’s been installed in American schools. U.K.-based Audio Analytic used to sell its aggression- and gunshot-detection software to customers in Europe and the U.S., including Cisco Systems Inc.’s professional security division. However, an Audio Analytic spokesman told ProPublica that it has since changed its business model and stopped selling the aggression detector software. By deploying surveillance technology in public spaces like hallways and cafeterias, device makers and school officials hope to anticipate and prevent everything from mass shootings to underage smoking. Sound Intelligence also markets add-on packages to recognize the sounds of gunshots, car alarms and broken glass, while Hauppauge, New York-based Soter Technologies develops sensors that determine if students are vaping in the school bathroom. The Lockport school district in upstate New York is planning a facial-recognition system to identify intruders on campus. Yet ProPublica’s analysis, as well as the experiences of some U.S. schools and hospitals that have used Sound Intelligence’s aggression detector, suggest that it can be less than reliable. At the heart of the device is what the company calls a machine learning algorithm. Our research found that it tends to equate aggression with rough, strained noises in a relatively high pitch, like D’Anna’s coughing. A 1994 YouTube clip of abrasive-sounding comedian Gilbert Gottfried (“Is it hot in here or am I crazy?”) set off the detector, which analyzes sound but doesn’t take words or meaning into account. Although a Louroe spokesman said the detector doesn’t intrude on student privacy because it only captures sound patterns deemed aggressive, its microphones allow administrators to record, replay and store those snippets of conversation indefinitely. “It’s not clear it’s solving the right problem. And it’s not clear it’s solving it with the right tools,” said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a University of Utah computer science professor who studies how replacing humans with artificial intelligence affects decision-making in society. Some experts also dispute the underlying premise that verbal aggression precedes school violence, since they say mass shooters like Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, tend to be quiet beforehand. “I can’t imagine when it would be useful, honestly,” said Jillian Peterson, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Nancy Rappaport, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who studies school safety, said the audio surveillance could have the unintended consequence of increasing student distrust and alienation. She added that schools are opting for inexpensive technological fixes over solutions that get to the root of the problem, such as more counseling for troubled kids. One Louroe microphone with aggression software sells for about $1,000. Sound Intelligence CEO Derek van der Vorst said security cameras made by Sweden-based Axis Communications account for 90% of the detector’s worldwide sales, with privately held Louroe making up the other 10%. He said the Axis cameras, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars including back-end systems, contain more recent, sophisticated versions of the software than the Louroe equipment does. [...]

July 2, 2019

121° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 luglio 2019

by Nexa Media

Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-121> NEXA 121° Mercoledì di Nexa Mercoledì 10 luglio 2019, ore 18.00 - 20.00 Politecnico di Torino http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-121 Condividere la conoscenza legale Speaker Marco Ciurcina (Avvocato e Fellow Centro Nexa) e Puria Nafisi Azizi (Dyne.org) This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air Negli ultimi anni si è diffusa la pratica di *lavorare sui documenti legali utilizzando strumenti di condivisione* (wiki, ecc.). Si sono diffusi anche dispositivi che permettono di elaborare documenti legali attraverso flussi di domande e risposte. Alcuni di questi, sono progetti in software libero (per es., Docassemble <https://github.com/jhpyle/docassemble> e KSweb <https://ks.studiolegale.it/>). In occasione del seminario verrà illustrato il funzionamento e le caratteristiche di KSweb, analizzando nello specifico: # l'uso di una base di conoscenza (flusso di domande e risposte e compilazione di un documento) # la generazione e condivisione di una base di conoscenza. BIOGRAFIE - e informazioni supplementari [mercoledì121] *Marco CIURCINA*, avvocato in Torino, opera nel campo del diritto commerciale e contrattuale, diritto dell'Information Technology, diritto d'autore, brevetti e marchi, in particolare con focus su software libero, contenuti e dati aperti. Docente in "Diritto ed etica della comunicazione" presso il Politecnico di Torino. Attivamente impegnato per la promozione del software libero e delle libertà digitali. *Puria Nafisi AZIZI *nasce a Milano nel 1982 da una famiglia di architetti e artisti. Da sempre ha una bivalenza tra design e tecnologia scoprendo solo poi che le due cose non sono disgiunte e anzi per ottenere buoni risultati bisogna altresí aggiungere amor proprio per il lavoro e per i risultati di impatto sociale. Hacktivista di Software Libero (netstudent, hiptia, assoli...). Attualmente lavora con una delle free software foundry piú grandi e politicamente esposte d'europa (Dyne.org <https://www.dyne.org/>) per il progetto europeo DECODE <https://decodeproject.eu/> dove fa l'esperto di tecnologia a alto impatto sociale su ledger distribuiti e Interaction Design per la crittografia. Da due anni a questa parte si cura anche della manutenzione dello strumento KSWEB <https://ks.studiolegale.it/> per la generazione, la diffusione e la permeazione della conoscienza strutturata. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * https://slides.com/mac5/deck-6. * https://ks.studiolegale.it <https://ks.studiolegale.it/>. * https://github.com/puria/ksweb. * https://docassemble.org/. * https://github.com/jhpyle/docassemble <https://github.com/jhpyle/docassemble>. Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> #marcociurcina <https://twitter.com/marcociurcina> #nexawednesday <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexawednesday&src=typd> #azizi <https://twitter.com/pna> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che studia Internet e il suo effetto sulla società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma divulgativo, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Francesco Ruggiero*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 349 1335082, francesco.ruggiero(a)polito.it <mailto:francesco.ruggiero@polito.it>. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>.

July 2, 2019

Boeing's 737 MAX software outsourced to $12.80-an-hour engineers

by Giacomo Tesio

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsour… Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors. The MAX software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after US regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs. Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $US9 ($12.80) an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India. [...] In one post, an HCL employee summarised his duties with a reference to the now-infamous model, which started flight tests in January 2016: "Provided quick workaround to resolve production issue which resulted in not delaying flight test of 737-MAX (delay in each flight test will cost very big amount for Boeing)." [...] "Boeing was doing all kinds of things, everything you can imagine, to reduce cost, including moving work from Puget Sound, because we'd become very expensive here," said Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing flight controls engineer laid off in 2017. "All that's very understandable if you think of it from a business perspective. Slowly over time it appears that's eroded the ability for Puget Sound designers to design." [...] Sales are another reason to send the work overseas. In exchange for an $US11 billion order in 2005 from Air India, Boeing promised to invest $US1.7 billion in Indian companies. That was a boon for HCL and other software developers from India, such as Cyient, whose engineers were widely used in computer-services industries but not yet prominent in aerospace. [...] "Engineering started becoming a commodity," said Vance Hilderman, who co-founded a company called TekSci that supplied aerospace contract engineers and began losing work to overseas competitors in the early 2000s. US-based avionics companies in particular moved aggressively, shifting more than 30 per cent of their software engineering offshore versus 10 per cent for European-based firms in recent years, said Hilderman, an avionics safety consultant with three decades of experience whose recent clients include most of the major Boeing suppliers. With a strong US dollar, a big part of the attraction was price. Engineers in India made around $US5 an hour; it's now $US9 or $US10, compared with $US35 to $US40 for those in the US on an H1B visa, he said. But he'd tell clients the cheaper hourly wage equated to more like $US80 because of the need for supervision, and he said his firm won back some business to fix mistakes. [...] The MAX became Boeing's top seller soon after it was offered in 2011. But for ambitious engineers, it was something of a "backwater," said Peter Lemme, who designed the 767's automated flight controls and is now a consultant. [...] "It was a stunning fail," he said. "A lot of people should have thought of this problem – not one person – and asked about it." Boeing also has disclosed that it learned soon after MAX deliveries began in 2017 that a warning light that might have alerted crews to the issue with the sensor wasn't installed correctly in the flight-display software. A Boeing statement in May, explaining why the company didn't inform regulators at the time, said engineers had determined it wasn't a safety issue. "Senior company leadership," the statement added, "was not involved in the review."

July 2, 2019

Google's Mysterious Fuchsia OS Developer Site Debuts With New Fascinating Details

by Giacomo Tesio

Anche Forbes si è accorta di Fucshia e riesce a scrivere un intero articolo in proposito senza citare le ovvie ragioni per cui Google investe tanti soldi in un sistema operativo basato su un microkernel per rimpiazzare Linux: 1. avere il controllo di fatto dello sviluppo (come per Chrome) 2. evitare i vincoli di reciprocità della GPLv2 3. fare a meno di leader come Linus https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2019/06/30/googles-mysterious-fu… Giacomo

July 2, 2019