May 2020 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

What Was TON And Why It Is Over

by Giacomo Tesio

https://telegra.ph/What-Was-TON-And-Why-It-Is-Over-05-12 Interessantissima lettura. Giudice o meno, TON era fuffa blockchain e come tale destinata, secondo la mia autorevolissima predizione (:-D), a fallire miseramente entro il 2020. Per cui Durov non la conta giusta e mi piacerebbe molto leggere la sentenza. Ma per quanto giungano da un bimbo imbronciato cui è stato tolto il giocattolo, le considerazioni geopolitiche sono assolutamente imperdibili. :-D Giacomo _____ For the last 2,5 years some of our best engineers have been working on a next-generation blockchain platform called TON and a cryptocurrency we were going to name Gram. TON was designed to share the principles of decentralization pioneered by Bitcoin and Ethereum, but to be vastly superior to them in speed and scalability. We were very proud with the result – the technology we created allowed for an open, free, decentralized exchange of value and ideas. When integrated with Telegram, TON had the potential to revolutionize how people store and transfer funds and information. Unfortunately, a US court stopped TON from happening. How? Imagine that several people put their money together to build a gold mine – and to later split the gold that comes out of it. Then a judge comes and tells the mine builders: "Many people invested in the gold mine because they were looking for profits. And they didn't want that gold for themselves, they wanted to sell it to other people. Because of this, you are not allowed to give them the gold." If this doesn't make sense to you, you are not alone – but this is exactly what happened with TON (the mine), its investors, and Grams (the gold). A judge used this reasoning to rule that people should not be allowed to buy or sell Grams like they can buy or sell Bitcoins. Perhaps even more paradoxically, the US court declared that Grams couldn't be distributed not only in the United States, but globally. Why? Because, it said, a US citizen might find some way of accessing the TON platform after it launched. So, to prevent this, Grams shouldn’t be allowed to be distributed anywhere in the world – even if every other country on the planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON. This court decision implies that other countries don’t have the sovereignty to decide what is good and what is bad for their own citizens. If the US suddenly decided to ban coffee and demanded coffee shops in Italy be closed because some American might go there – we doubt anyone would agree. And yet, despite that, we have made the difficult decision not to proceed with TON. Sadly, the US judge is right about one thing: we, the people outside the US, can vote for our presidents and elect our parliaments, but we are still dependent on the United States when it comes to finance and technology (luckily not coffee). The US can use its control over the dollar and the global financial system to shut down any bank or bank account in the world. It can use its control over Apple and Google to remove apps from the App Store and Google Play. So yes, it is true that other countries do not have full sovereignty over what to allow on their territory. Unfortunately, we – the 96% of the world’s population living elsewhere – are dependent on decision makers elected by the 4% living in the US. This may change in the future. But today, we are in a vicious circle: you can’t bring more balance to an overly centralized world exactly because it’s so centralized. We did try though. We're leaving it to the the next generations of entrepreneurs and developers to pick up the banner and learn from our mistakes. I am writing this post to officially announce that Telegram’s active involvement with TON is over. You may see – or may have already seen – sites using my name or the Telegram brand or the "TON" abbreviation to promote their projects. Don’t trust them with your money or data. No present or past member of our team is involved with any of these projects. While networks based on the technology we built for TON may appear, we won’t have any affiliation with them and are unlikely to ever support them in any way. So be careful, and don’t let anyone mislead you. I want to conclude this post by wishing luck to all those striving for decentralization, balance and equality in the world. You are fighting the right battle. This battle may well be the most important battle of our generation. We hope that you succeed where we have failed.

May 13, 2020

Re: [nexa] The forever temporary contact tracing app

by Giacomo Tesio

On 13/05/2020, Giovanni Biscuolo <giovanni(a)biscuolo.net> wrote: > Apple and Google have been > adamant about their intentions to restrict this system only to help > mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, and I believe them. ROTFL ! ! ! :-D :-D :-D Prescriverei una sana somministrazione di favole di Esopo. ;-) Per rinforzare il buon senso. Giacomo

May 13, 2020

Re: [nexa] Privacy e contact tracing: cosa può andare storto?

by Giacomo Tesio

Caro Giovanni, senza in alcun modo volerti offendere, tempo che tu non abbia ben presente come funzionano questo tipo di organizzazioni malavitose. Hanno un interesse ENORME a controllare precisamente i territori in cui operano. Certamente tengono sotto stretto controllo i propri affiliati, ma la loro capacità di controllare la popolazione è ridotta in precisione e scala da fattori economici. On 12/05/2020, Giovanni Biscuolo <giovanni(a)biscuolo.net> wrote: > La realtà è che mi pare che non ci sia nessuna evidenza storica che > queste organizzazioni criminali siano interessate ad instaurare un > sistema di sorveglianza di massa, semmai uno "ad personam". > > [...] non mi pare > abbiano incentivi a farlo nei confronti di un sistema di contact > tracing... Immagine che potenziale ricattatorio avrebbe la possibilità di ricostruire il grafo dei contatti dei cittadini di una città come Roma o Milano. Al di là del COVID-19: immagina di poter sapere chi incontra chi e con quanta frequenza semplicemente installando un piccolo Raspberry PI in tutti gli esercizi che ti pagano il pizzo. Magari in cambio di un piccolo sconto. Il tipo di avversari governativi che immagini tu costituisce un piccolo sottoinsieme delle organizzazioni che potrebbero ignorare la foglia di fico della sicurezza del Contract Tracing. Un sottoinsieme pericolosissimo per carità, ma un sottoinsieme. >> Le avranno considerate i fautori di tale sistema? >> Qualcosa mi dice che non c'hanno pensato minimamente. > > Credo che nel threat model del contract tracing via App questo tipo di > scenario sia trascurabile rispetto a quello dell'intercettazione di > queste informazioni per arricchire i già colmi database di sorveglianza > globale. Io temo che non sia affatto trascurabile, invece. Le organizzazioni malavitose utilizzano sempre molto abilmente ogni falla dello Stato. E qui si intende aprire una voragine (pealtro inefficace o nociva contro la pandemia). I GAFAM sono il problema che abbiamo tutti davanti agli occhi e che i politici non hanno il coraggio, l'interesse o la capacità di risolvere. Ma esistono molti altri avversari, ben infiltrati nello Stato, e non meno pericolosi. Giacomo

May 13, 2020

Re: [nexa] The forever temporary contact tracing app

by Giovanni Biscuolo

Antonio Casilli <antonio.casilli(a)telecom-paris.fr> writes: [...] > ("Coronavirus tracing apps are coming. Here’s how they could reshape surveillance as we know it" > by Woodrow Hartzog (Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School) > https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-tracing-app-ap…) --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Second, governments will want these tools for their own purposes. Google and Apple are creating a playbook for governments on how our phones can be repurposed for all kinds of surveillance. Apple and Google have been adamant about their intentions to restrict this system only to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, and I believe them. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Io e molti altri NO... e non abbiamo più bisogno di "mostrare le prove" :-) "Trust by authority" (o in questo caso dovremmo dire "by ethics washing"?) è finita da un pezzo (non solo in occidente), non si torna più indietro. Saluti, Giovanni. -- Giovanni Biscuolo

May 13, 2020

Naomi Klein: How big tech plans to profit from the pandemic | News | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/13/naomi-klein-how-big-tech-plans…> or a few fleeting moments during the New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday 6 May, the sombre grimace that has filled our screens for weeks was briefly replaced by something resembling a smile. “We are ready, we’re all-in,” the governor gushed. “We are New Yorkers, so we’re aggressive about it, we’re ambitious about it … We realise that change is not only imminent, but it can actually be a friend if done the right way.” The inspiration for these uncharacteristically good vibes was a video visit from the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who joined the governor’s briefing to announce that he will be heading up a panel to reimagine New York state’s post-Covid reality, with an emphasis on permanently integrating technology into every aspect of civic life. “The first priorities of what we’re trying to do,” Schmidt said, “are focused on telehealth, remote learning, and broadband … We need to look for solutions that can be presented now, and accelerated, and use technology to make things better.” Lest there be any doubt that the former Google chair’s goals were purely benevolent, his video background featured a framed pair of golden angel wings. Just one day earlier, Cuomo had announced a similar partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop “a smarter education system”. Calling Gates a “visionary”, Cuomo said the pandemic has created “a moment in history when we can actually incorporate and advance [Gates’s] ideas … all these buildings, all these physical classrooms – why, with all the technology you have?” he asked, apparently rhetorically. It has taken some time to gel, but something resembling a coherent pandemic shock doctrine is beginning to emerge. Call it the Screen New Deal. Far more hi-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters, the future that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent – and highly profitable – no-touch future. Anuja Sonalker, the CEO of Steer Tech, a Maryland-based company selling self-parking technology, recently summed up the new virus-personalised pitch. “There has been a distinct warming up to humanless, contactless technology,” she said. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.” It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces, but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration “in the community” was already booming. But in the future that is hastily being constructed, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration. This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under guise of virus control), and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence”, but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centres, content-moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyper-exploitation. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants. [...]

May 13, 2020

Re: [nexa] Privacy e contact tracing: cosa può andare storto?

by Stefano Quintarelli

Ciao, On 12/05/2020 14:59, Giuseppe Attardi wrote: > Un malware può raccogliere ben di più e inviare tutto a un server: > posizione geografica, codici bancari, tutto quello che riesce a trovare > sullo smartphone. si, accedendo al file system se il device e' rooted. solo per precisare che con l'attacco descritto basta ascoltare la radio. ciao, s.

May 12, 2020

The forever temporary contact tracing app

by Antonio Casilli

"this technology, once deployed, will not be “rolled back.” We are repeatedly told that contact tracing apps and COVID-19-related surveillance are temporary measures for use until the pandemic passes. That’s likely to be a fantasy. Surveillance inertia is remarkably difficult to resist. Norms get set and practices and tools become entrenched. And who can say when this will wind down? We’re still dealing with the supposedly temporary surveillance authorized almost 20 years ago in the wake of after 9/11. Rollbacks are rare and highly unlikely because the tools we build today will create a path dependency that will shape our future data and surveillance practices." ("Coronavirus tracing apps are coming. Here’s how they could reshape surveillance as we know it" by Woodrow Hartzog (Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School) https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-tracing-app-ap…) -- Antonio A. Casilli Professor, Telecom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3 UMR 9217 CNRS) Associate Member, LACI-IIAC (EHESS) Faculty Fellow, Nexa Center for Internet & Society *We respect your right to disconnect. This email send time is due to my own workflow efficiency. You are in no obligation to take action or reply to it outside your office hours.*

May 12, 2020

Re: [nexa] Privacy e contact tracing: cosa può andare storto?

by Giuseppe Attardi

L’attacco è ingegnoso, anche se complicato da effettuare, perché richiede l’installazione di malware su due o più dispositivi che si trovino contemporaneamente insieme col terzo da attaccare. Ma se pensiamo di passare attraverso un malware, allora perché limitarsi a individuare l’associazione con il rolling identifier? "Da questo punto in poi, iat sarà associato ad A sino a quando A non lo cambierà.” Un malware può raccogliere ben di più e inviare tutto a un server: posizione geografica, codici bancari, tutto quello che riesce a trovare sullo smartphone. Sarei stato più colpito se l’attacco consentisse di raccogliere informazioni sul terzo dispositivo C, quello non infetto da malware. -- > On 12 May 2020, at 11:08, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > From: Stefano Quintarelli <stefano(a)quintarelli.it <mailto:stefano@quintarelli.it>> > Cc: nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: Re: [nexa] Privacy e contact tracing: cosa può andare > storto? > Message-ID: <469c6920-09db-1a0a-d192-6d00957261f1(a)quintarelli.it <mailto:469c6920-09db-1a0a-d192-6d00957261f1@quintarelli.it>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed > > cio, > > senza replicare a tutto, risalendo fino a Lo spirito delle leggi e > all'ODHIR, mi concentro sul punto tecnico (*) > > On 09/05/2020 21:13, Giuseppe Attardi wrote: >> I rischi dell’uso dell’attuale app sono stati abbondantemente sviscerati, e per quelli sono state date delle risposte, che personalmente considero soddisfacenti. > > credo che questo nn sia stato preso nella dovuta considerazione > https://www.cybersecurity360.it/nuove-minacce/app-di-contact-tracing-e-vuln… <https://www.cybersecurity360.it/nuove-minacce/app-di-contact-tracing-e-vuln…> > > credo anche che la mitigazione tecnica sia complicata, in ragione della > scelta di base apparentemente effettuata, e che la mitigazione normativa > sarebbe semplice; vediamo se sara' implementata > > > ciao, s. > > > (*) che poi e' anche il senso della mia mail prcendete in cui facevo un > parallelo con la telefonia mobile e, rispetto alla polarizzazione si/no, > invitavo a riflettere sul "come", peraltro con scarso successo essendomi > stato risposto che una procedura che prevede che uno dichiari > direttamente ai propri peer di essere positivo era commendevole, ma non > cosi' un meccaismo di comunicazione anonima > > > -- > reserve your meeting with me at https://cal.quintarelli.it <https://cal.quintarelli.it/> >

May 12, 2020

Ethics Washing vs Ethics Bashing (was Facebook and the Folly of Self-Regulation | WIRED)

by Giovanni Biscuolo

Buongiorno, grazie mille per questo bellissimo articolo. "J.C. DE MARTIN" <demartin(a)polito.it> writes: > https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-and-the-folly-of-self-regulation/ --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] In an op-ed in The New York Times, the board’s new leadership declared: “The oversight board will focus on the most challenging content issues for Facebook, including in areas such as hate speech, harassment, and protecting people’s safety and privacy. It will make final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram (which Facebook owns).” [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- «Xe pèso el tacòn del buso», dicono alcuni veneti. Ethics Washing, non ci sono altre definizioni possibili per operazioni come questa. Questo modo di _abusare_ dell'etica mi fa, perdonate il francesismo, particolarmente _incazzare_ perché è usato da (alcuni di?) quelli che contrastano il fenomeno per promuovere il ben peggiore "Ethics Bashing". So che Nexa ha uno specifico progetto «Data and Algorithm Ethics» (https://nexa.polito.it/data-and-algorithm-ethics) e sono molto curioso di leggere le pubblicazioni che ne scaturiranno. Elettra Bietti, nel paper sotto riportato, propone di uscire da questo fuorviante modo di ragionare - la «weaponization of “ethics” rhetoric» - e trattare le questioni etiche in modo meno _compartimentato_. «From Ethics Washing to Ethics Bashing. A View on Tech Ethics from Within Moral Philosophy» https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3351095.3372860 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] "ethics bashing." This consists in the trivialization of ethics and moral philosophy now understood as discrete tools or pre-formed social structures such as ethics boards, self-governance schemes or stakeholder groups. The misunderstandings underlying ethics bashing are at least threefold: (a) philosophy and "ethics" are seen as a communications strategy and as a form of instrumentalized cover-up or façade for unethical behavior, (b) philosophy is understood in opposition and as alternative to political representation and social organizing and (c) the role and importance of moral philosophy is downplayed and portrayed as mere "ivory tower" intellectualization of complex problems that need to be dealt with in practice. This paper argues that the rhetoric of ethics and morality should not be reductively instrumentalized, either by the industry in the form of "ethics washing," or by scholars and policy-makers in the form of "ethics bashing." [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Il paper completo in PDF è qui: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3351095.3372860) è impegnativo ma per me è stato uno studio molto gratificante e formativo. Vi saluto con citazione di una frase che _adoro_, estratta e adattata dal paper: «be aware of vulnerabilities but also combat them by embedding resistance to the exploitation and instrumentalization» Per me vale anche per la tecnologia :-) Saluti, Giovanni. -- Giovanni Biscuolo

May 12, 2020

Reminder | 129° Mercoledì di Nexa | 13 Maggio 2020

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che domani, mercoledì 13 maggio, dalle ore 18.00 alle ore 20.00, si svolgerà il 129° Mercoledì di Nexa, con un incontro dal titolo: *Valutazione e comparazione di software open source per le Pubbliche Amministrazioni*. Ospiti: /Guido Pera//(Responsabile del Centro di competenza AgID per il riuso del software), //Antonio Vetrò//(Ricercatore al DAUIN e Senior Research Fellow Centro Nexa) e //Marco Conoscenti//(Ricercatore Post-Doc al Centro Nexa)./ L'incontro si svolgerà in *modalità telematica*, utilizzando il software open source di conference call *Jitsi Meet*. Per chi vorrà partecipare live al seminario sarà quindi possibile accedere alla conference call attraverso il seguente link: https://meet.nexacenter.org/MercolediNexa Per chi non potrà partecipare alla conference call sarà possibile, come di consueto, seguire il seminario live via web sul canale YouTube del Centro Nexa all'indirizzo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD5EKqTUlbY Maggiori informazioni sull'incontro sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-129 Cordiali saluti,   -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino _web:_ https://nexa.polito.it/ _mail:_anita.botta@polito.it <mailto:anita.botta@polito.it> tel: 011 090 7219

May 12, 2020