August 2020 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The German Constitutional Court Nixes Foreign Surveillance - Lawfare
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 19, 2020

Aug. 19, 2020

https://www.lawfareblog.com/german-constitutional-court-nixes-foreign-surve… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Secret government tracking software hidden in apps - Android Authority
by Alberto Cammozzo Aug. 18, 2020

Aug. 18, 2020

<https://www.androidauthority.com/government-tracking-apps-1145989/> A new report today from The Wall Street Journal exposes yet another concerning development when it comes to mobile phone tracking. According to the report, at least one federal contractor puts government tracking software in over 500 mobile applications. The contractor — a Virginia-based company called Anomaly Six LLC — pays mobile developers to include its in-house tracking code within their apps. The trackers then collect anonymized data from our phones and Anomaly Six aggregates that data and sells it to the US government. It sounds crazy, but it’s happening. What’s more, it appears it’s totally legal. See also: US-China trade war: Why every Chinese phone maker should prepare for the worst Government tracking: What you need to know The report from The Wall Street Journal makes it clear that the tracking software from Anomaly Six appears in over 500 mobile applications. However, Anomaly Six would not disclose the apps with which it has partnerships. The WSJ was unable to glean this information through other methods. One would assume you could dive into the terms of service agreements of popular apps and find references to Anomaly Six. That would be a waste of time, though, because app developers don’t need to disclose the Anomaly Six tracker to users. Therefore, you could have one or even dozens of apps with Anomaly Six’s government tracking code and you would have no idea. The tracking code used by this federal contractor does not need to be disclosed to the user by the app on which it's running. To be clear, the data Anomaly Six collects is anonymized. Each smartphone is attached to an alphanumeric identifier that isn’t linked to the name of the phone’s owner. Of course, there are plenty of ways one could use “anonymous” data such as these to figure out who owns the device. For example, the device will likely be idle at night while the owner sleeps, and the device’s location at that time is likely the owner’s home. Once you have that info, it isn’t hard to start concluding other user habits, such as where they work, what they use to commute, where they go out to eat, etc. Since Anomaly Six doesn’t disclose its government tracking software, there’s no way to opt-out. In brief: you are being tracked and your smartphone habits are being sold to the government and there’s nothing you can do about it. How is this legal? Since the idea of tracking location data via smartphones is still so new, laws and regulations related to the practice are behind the curve. Since the data Anomaly Six collects is technically anonymous and since it isn’t selling the data for commercial purposes — i.e. advertising or marketing — it’s fine to do this within the eyes of the law. Related: Is selling your privacy for a cheaper phone really a good idea? The big question, though, is what the government is doing with this data. Is it just keeping tabs on its citizens? Does it use it for law enforcement purposes? Is it using it as a counter-terrorism tactic? There are a lot of questions here, but Anomaly Six has no intention of answering them. According to the company, the business it conducts is considered confidential (although technically not classified), so it can’t elaborate on its business partners without their strict permission. Obviously, that permission isn’t likely to be easy to get.

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Material Called Pedot the Answer to Connecting Humans to AI?
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 18, 2020

Aug. 18, 2020

Scientists have discovered a ground-breaking bio-synthetic material that they claim can be used to merge artificial intelligence with the human brain. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/artificial-i… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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The German Constitutional Court Nixes Foreign Surveillance - Lawfare
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 18, 2020

Aug. 18, 2020

https://www.lawfareblog.com/german-constitutional-court-nixes-foreign-surve… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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MiSE, MID e MUR: al via bando sui Poli europei di innovazione digitale
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 18, 2020

Aug. 18, 2020

Opportunità dl https://www.mise.gov.it/index.php/it/per-i-media/notizie/it/198-notizie-sta… ? _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Sulla colonizzazione algoritmica dell'Africa
by Federico Guerrini Aug. 17, 2020

Aug. 17, 2020

Ciao, sul tema del colonialismo digitale c'è questo interessante paper (scovato via The Syllabus): "Algorithmic colonization of Africa": https://script-ed.org/article/algorithmic-colonization-of-africa/ L'ho letto, e molte delle considerazioni che fa sono applicabili non solo all'Africa, ma al contesto generale (i.e. visione degli essere umani solo come merce da cui estrarre dati, utilitarismo digitale, assenza totale di consultazione dei "soggetti" a cui vengono applicati gli algoritmi, ecc.); ci sono però alcune osservazioni interessanti sul contesto africano, ad esempio su come il celebrato microcredito tramite M-Pesa possa in realtà portare a situazioni di perenne debito, oppure sulla sorveglianza della popolazione in Sudafrica. Abstract *We live in a world where technological corporations hold unprecedented power and influence. Technological solutions to social, political, and economic challenges are rampant. In the Global South, technology that is developed with Western perspectives, values, and interests is imported with little regulation or critical scrutiny. This work examines how Western tech monopolies, with their desire to dominate, control and influence social, political, and cultural discourse, share common characteristics with traditional colonialism. However, while traditional colonialism is driven by political and government forces, algorithmic colonialism is driven by corporate agendas. While the former used brute force domination, colonialism in the age of AI takes the form of ‘state-of-the-art algorithms’ and ‘AI driven solutions’ to social problems. Not only is Western-developed AI unfit for African problems, the West’s algorithmic invasion simultaneously impoverishes development of local products while also leaving the continent dependent on Western software and infrastructure. By drawing examples from various parts of the continent, this paper illustrates how the AI invasion of Africa echoes colonial era exploitation. This paper then concludes by outlining a vision of AI rooted in local community needs and interests.* Ciao, Federico -- https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fellowships/journalist-fellows/p… www.federicoguerrini.com Il mio ultimo libro: Vivere Social http://www.bol.it/libri/Vivere-social.-Manuale/Federico-Guerrini/ea97888971…

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«I satelliti per internet ci ruberanno la notte»: l’astrofisico lancia l’allarme
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 17, 2020

Aug. 17, 2020

E quindi uscimmo a *riveder le stelle* ... o forse no? Buona lettura dl https://torino.corriere.it/piemonte/20_agosto_14/i-satelliti-internet-ci-ru… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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An Algorithm Has Been Developed to Obstruct AI Facial Recognition, and It's Free to Use
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 17, 2020

Aug. 17, 2020

Mosse e contromosse, in terza missione di una università per giunta, interessante! Buona lettura e buona domenica dl https://fstoppers.com/pictures/algorithm-has-been-developed-obstruct-ai-fac… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Privacy vs. community: Should schools require students to turn on cameras?
by Giacomo Tesio Aug. 17, 2020

Aug. 17, 2020

The questions foster raging conversations on school listservs and over dinner tables. Should students be mandated to turn on their cameras and connect to the class to show eye contact and smiles? If their cameras are dark, how do the teachers even know they're there, or what they're up to? What about students who feel anxious with cameras on and people watching? And what if students live in a household with living conditions that they don't want shared with the rest of the class? Continua con una serie di aneddoti (e senza mai considerare il mezzo di comunicazione o gli usi che chi lo controlla potrebbe fare dei volti degli studenti e delle informazioni deducibili sulla loro famiglia e la loro casa) su https://www.ktvu.com/news/privacy-vs-community-should-schools-require-stude… La domanda però è interessante. Personalmente ho messo un server Jitsi a disposizione della scuola per permettere a mia figlia di accontentare le richieste pressanti degli insegnanti di accendere la telecamera, SENZA consegnare il suo volto ai database di Google ed ai loro sistemi di riconoscimento facciale. La sicumera con cui pretendevano che accendesse la telecamera mi faceva supporre che fossero stati istruiti così. Ma da chi? Webminar del Ministero? E su quale base legale? Giacomo

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An Alexa Bug Could Have Exposed Your Voice History to Hackers
by Giacomo Tesio Aug. 16, 2020

Aug. 16, 2020

Findings published on Thursday by the security firm Check Point reveal that Alexa's web services had bugs that a hacker could have exploited to grab a target's entire voice history, meaning their recorded audio interactions with Alexa. Amazon has patched the flaws, but the vulnerability could have also yielded profile information, including home address, as well as all of the "skills," or apps, the user had added for Alexa. An attacker could have even deleted an existing skill and installed a malicious one to grab more data after the initial attack. "Virtual assistants are something that you just talk to and answer, and usually you don’t have in your mind some kind of malicious scenarios or concerns," says Oded Vanunu, Check Point's head of product vulnerability research. "But we found a chain of vulnerabilities in Alexa's infrastructure configuration that eventually allows a malicious attacker to gather information about users and even install new skills." For an attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities, she would need first to trick targets into clicking a malicious link, a common attack scenario. Underlying flaws in certain Amazon and Alexa subdomains, though, meant that an attacker could have crafted a genuine and normal-looking Amazon link to lure victims into exposed parts of Amazon’s infrastructure. By strategically directing users to track.amazon.com—a vulnerable page not related to Alexa, but used for tracking Amazon packages—the attacker could have injected code that allowed them to pivot to Alexa infrastructure, sending a special request along with the target's cookies from the package-tracking page to skillsstore.amazon.com/app/secure/your-skills-page. Continua su https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-alexa-bug-exposed-voice-history-hackers/ Cattivi hacker cattivi! Hanno questo brutto vizio di ignorare i tabù che proteggono queste microspie^W apparecchiature dagli accessi non autorizzati (autorizzate dal produttore, non dal acquirente, ovviamente). Forse inizieremo ad avere sistemi ragionevolmente sicuri quando i produttori dovranno per legge premiare gli hacker e risarcire gli acquirenti con la stessa cifra, come minimo un migliaio di euro, ogni volta che i primi riescono a dimostrare la credulità dei secondi, mostrando quanto male spendono i propri soldi. Giacomo

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