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

Editorial Board FT: “Fresh thinking needed to keep Big Tech in check”

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Fresh thinking needed to keep Big Tech in check Fines alone cannot solve structural challenges behind privacy lapses Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill. Facebook’s commitment to changing its ways when it comes to protecting user data and privacy remains dubious © Reuters July 18, 2019 9:00 am by The editorial board https://www.ft.com/content/ea028300-a88d-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04 (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 18, 2019

Musk rivela la tecnologia di Neuralink per collegare il cervello al computer

by don Luca Peyron

L’obiettivo è quello di fare sì che una persona possa dettare senza parlare 40 parole al minuto, oppure di navigare su Internet “con il pensiero”. Una “fusione” con l’intelligenza artificiale che apre anche interrogativi etici sia legati alla privacy mentale sia a possibili manipolazioni cui le persone potrebbero essere esposte. Ci siamo davvero? Buona lettura dl https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/musk-cervello-collegato-al-computer _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

July 18, 2019

The Innisfil experiment: the town that replaced public transit with Uber | Cities | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jul/16/the-innisfil-experiment-the-…> When Daniel Arrega, 19, heads to work at a mall in Innisfil, he has few options for his commute. Walking along the highway would take nearly three hours. A taxi is faster but expensive. So he takes the town’s public transit: Uber. “It’s great for young people, especially if you don’t have a licence,” he said after arriving at the branch of Tommy Hilfiger where he works. In 2017, the town in Ontario, Canada, embarked on an ambitious – and, to its critics, fraught – experiment. It handed responsibility for public transit to the ride-sharing app Uber. Innisfil Transit’s Uber network connects popular areas, called ‘hubs’ such as municipal buildings and leisure amenities. Innisfil Transit’s Uber network connects popular areas, called ‘hubs’ such as municipal buildings and leisure amenities. Instead of buses or trains plying regular routes, it is Uber’s roving cars that function as the transit fleet. When a rider opens the app, Innisfil Transit pops up as the cheapest option to travel between a network of popular areas called “hubs”, such as libraries, the recreation centre or municipal buildings. The costs per ride vary, but on average passengers pay an average of CAD$5 (£3), with the city subsiding the rest. Trips outside subsidised areas receive a flat $6 discount. Two years later, the Innisfil authorities argue that the project has been a success. Ridership is high – in 2018 there were 85,943 trips – and many residents have embraced the service. [...]

July 18, 2019

'Wizard' hacker charged after financial records of nearly every Bulgarian exposed | World news | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/18/wizard-hacker-charged-after-f…> A 20-year-old cybersecurity worker has been arrested in Bulgaria and charged with hacking the personal and financial records of millions of taxpayers, as police continue to investigate the country’s biggest ever data breach. Bulgaria’s NRA tax agency is facing a fine of up to €20m ($22.43m) over the hack, which was revealed this week and is thought to have compromised the records of nearly every working adult among the country’s population of 7 million. Speaking at a government meeting on Wednesday, prime minister Boyko Borissov described the arrested man as a “wizard” hacker and said the country should hire similar “unique brains” to work for the state. But some experts who have examined the stolen data said the techniques used in the attack were relatively basic and spoke more to a lack of adequate data protection measures than the hacker’s ability. “The reason for the success of the attack does not seem to be the sophistication of the hacker, but rather poor security practices at the NRA,” said Bozhidar Bozhanov, chief executive at cybersecurity firm LogSentinel. Yavor Kolev, head of the police’s cybersecurity unit, said the male suspect was arrested on Tuesday afternoon. Officers raided his home and office in the capital, Sofia, and seized computer devices containing encrypted data. The investigation into the hack was still at an early stage, he added, and police were looking into the possibility that other people were involved. Bulgaria’s finance minister, Vladislav Goranov, has apologised for the attack, which exposed the names of millions of people and companies and revealed information about incomes, tax declarations, health insurance payments and loans. Sofia city prosecutors said the man had been charged with a computer crime, would be held for another three days and faced up to eight years in jail if found guilty. The attack has reignited a long-running debate about lax cybersecurity standards in Bulgaria. A person claiming to be a Russian hacker and responsible for the breach emailed local media on Monday and denounced the government’s cybersecurity efforts as a “parody”. [...]

July 18, 2019

What the Superhuman Controversy Reveals About the Shifting Ethics of Software | The New Yorker

by Antonio Vetro'

"The defense of technologies like pixel-tracking has long been that they are designed to operate at scale, where they are said to be harmless. But technologies that are useful and morally permissible in that context may be harmful and unethical at the ordinary, human level. The question then is how and when to scale them back." https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/what-the-superhuman-con… AV

July 17, 2019

Ue apre un’indagine antitrust su Amazon sull’uso dei dati dei dettaglianti indipendenti

by Luigi Scorca

https://www-lastampa-it.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.lastampa.it/economia/201…

July 17, 2019

It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried | Surveillance | The Guardian

by J.C. DE MARTIN

It’s not that we’ve failed to rein in Facebook and Google. We’ve not even tried Shoshana Zuboff The tech giants use our data not only to predict our behaviour but to change it. But we can resist this attack on democracy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/02/facebook-google-data-… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 17, 2019

Re: [nexa] Infografica: The big five technology firms have spent billions buying rivals in recent years

by Antonio Servetti

Grazie Antonio, anche per l'highlight, aiuta sempre a capire se vale la pena approfondire e, soprattutto, si ha un opinione con cui confrontarsi dopo che lo si è letto. Concordo che è una bella infografica, da qualche parte si trova anche il plot interattivo che ti dice cosa sono gli altri pallini, anche relativamente grossi, se ci vai sopra con il mouse? Tipo i due grossi palloni di Apple 2011 e 2016? (scusate l'ignoranza) Grazie - Antonio Se. On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 9:22 PM antonio.vetro(a)polito.it < antonio.vetro(a)polito.it> wrote: > Non è cosa nuova, ma l'infografica è a mio parere molto efficace > > > https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/16/calls-to-rein-in-the-te… > > > > == Sent from my wireless device == > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa >

July 17, 2019

Onward! Another #GoogleWalkout Goodbye - Google Walkout For Real Change - Medium

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://medium.com/@GoogleWalkout/onward-another-googlewalkout-goodbye-b733… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 17, 2019

”The Growing Skill Divide in the U.S. Labor Market”

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/may/growing-skill-divide-us-… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

July 17, 2019