November 2021 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

DEF Digital Ethics Forum - 18 19 nov
by Franco Marra Nov. 3, 2021

Nov. 3, 2021

L'etica e il digitale. Uno dei temi più dibattuti. Se parla in questo evento di Sloweb, il DEF del 18-19 nov, descritto in questo articolo de il "Mondo Economico". Io sono uno dei fondatori di Sloweb e invito tutti voi del qualificato gruppo di discussione di Nexa ad una partecipazione attiva. Iscrivetevi, grazie! https://mondoeconomico.eu/sotto-la-lente/con-il-def-2021-cittadini-piu-cons…

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A Beginner's Guide to Social Media Verification - bellingcat
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 3, 2021

Nov. 3, 2021

<https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2021/11/01/a-beginners-guide-to-social…> At Bellingcat, we research and investigate misinformation and disinformation <https://theconversation.com/misinformation-disinformation-and-hoaxes-whats-…>in their many forms. Even the most logical, intelligent thinkers can be convinced by claims that are entirely untrue. In the worst cases, the impact can be severe. On the subreddit QAnoncasualties <https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/>, for example, distraught users share stories about people close to them who have been taken in by the QAnon conspiracy theory <https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/qanon/>. Yet it’s not just QAnon that has sent people down the internet rabbithole. In recent months, mass protests have taken place across the world against vaccines and Covid-19 measures, often based around false and misleading claims espoused on social media. Incidences of mis- and disinformation, meanwhile, have targeted the likes of the Black Lives Matter movement <https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/how-fake-news-goes-viral/>, the rollout of 5G technology <https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbw492p>and even tragic events such as the Beirut Port explosion <https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020/08/07/the-beirut-explosion-is-it-…>of 2020. *“What Advice Can You Give?”* Bellingcat researchers are commonly approached by people who want to know whether a story they have read online is true. Learning the basics of verification can help answer a great deal of those questions. Not only is verification a vital component of Belllingcat’s work, it also plays a key part in the workshops we run. // The following guide seeks to explain how we can be vigilant about the videos and photos we see online while identifying those that contain misleading, misattributed or false information. Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated. A critical mindset and a close look at the context of an image or post, allied with simple tools such as a Google search or reverse image platforms, are often all it takes to discover whether a piece of content is genuine. As this guide looks at some of the first steps for uncovering misinformation and disinformation, it is not fully comprehensive. Other good guides can be found here <https://datajournalism.com/read/handbook/verification-3>, here <https://researchguides.journalism.cuny.edu/factchecking-verification/UGC-ve…>and here <https://firstdraftnews.org/>. A list of further resources will be included at the bottom of this article. More seasoned open source researchers may find advanced guides or articles more useful. A selection of these can be found via the “Verification <https://www.bellingcat.com/?s=verification>” tag on our website. *First steps* When looking at media shared online, it is helpful to be aware of some basic fact-checking principles to look for. 1. *Originality* During most high profile news incidents, a number of photographs and videos will appear online. Amongst these are likely to be misleading, recycled images and sometimes even outright fakes. It is therefore important to ascertain the originality of the media shared. For example, has a picture been repurposed or used before? Reverse image search platforms, which we will discuss later, are extremely simple to use and can quickly help uncover previous uses of an image online. 2. *Who* is the source of the photo or video online? Consider who the source of the photo or video is, what platform it was posted on and whether this may influence the veracity of the content. Was it posted on a site with poor moderation standards? Is the poster an anonymous individual or do they appear to be a real person? Have they posted about conspiracies previously? What do the responses to the post say and do they show a different side to the story? 3. *Where* was the photo or video taken? This is an expansive topic and is an important component of the work we do at Bellingcat. But if it can be proven that an event took place at a location separate to that claimed in a video, there is a good chance we can verify the information it contains is false. A guide to geolocation can be found here <https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2014/07/09/a-beginners-guide-t…>. 4. *When* was the photo or video captured? Once a location has been established, chronolocation helps us to determine the time an event happened. If it can be proven that a video or image was taken at a time long before or after that which is claimed in a post, there is a good chance we can verify its claims as false. A guide to chronolocation can be found here <https://medium.com/quiztime/lining-up-shadows-2351ae106cec>. 5. *Why* was it captured? People post media online for all kinds of reasons. Some may be genuine but others may be doing so to further a political or personal viewpoint. It is important to understand the motivation behind posts. For example, if a post has been made by someone who has a history of posting about misinformation, conspiracies or from a heavily biased viewpoint, it is wise to exercise caution and carry out further checks as to the veracity of what they are posting. Keeping these fundamentals in mind, let’s look at how to conduct some basic verification checks in practice. [...]

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Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition software - CNN
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 3, 2021

Nov. 3, 2021

FB annuncia con gran clamore che non userà più il riconoscimento facciale, salvo nei progetti in cui lo userà. 🤔 <https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/02/tech/facebook-shuts-down-facial-recognit…> (CNN Business)Facebook said Tuesday it plans to stop using facial-recognition software that could automatically recognize people in photos and videos posted on the social network, marking a massive shift both for the tech industry and for a company known for collecting vast amounts of data about its billions of users. Facebook, which changed its company name to Meta in late October, also said it plans to delete the data it had gathered through its use of this software, which is associated with over a billion people's faces. The move, announced in a blog post <https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/update-on-use-of-face-recognition/> authored by artificial intelligence vice president Jerome Pesenti, comes as the company is widely scrutinized for the potential real-world harms of its social platforms in the wake of a whistleblower's leak of hundreds of internal documents <https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/tech/facebook-papers/index.html>. Pesenti wrote that the world's largest social network will shutter its facial-recognition system in the coming weeks "as part of a company-wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in our products." Facebook will still be working on facial recognition technology, however, and may use it in its products — range from social networks to a futuristic pair of picture-taking glasses <https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/tech/facebook-smart-glasses-rayban-stories/i…> — in the future. "Looking ahead, we still see facial recognition technology as a powerful tool, for example, for people needing to verify their identity, or to prevent fraud and impersonation," Pesenti wrote. In his post, Pesenti pointed to concerns about the appropriateness of the technology, which has come under scrutiny as it's increasingly used but, in the US, at least, barely regulated. "We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules," Pesenti wrote. Woodrow Hartzog, a law and computer science professor at Northeastern University, called the decision a "win" that shows the need for ongoing privacy advocacy and critiques of tech companies. "It also shows that these technologies are neither inevitable, nor are they indispensable," he said. The move to both stop using the software and to wipe the data that is related to existing users of the feature marks an about-face for Facebook, which has been a major user and proponent of the technology. For years, the social network has allowed people to opt in to a facial-recognition setting that would automatically tag them in pictures and videos — a move that massively benefited Facebook as it made it easier for users to egage with each other, leading them to spend yet more time on Facebook. Pesenti wrote that more than a third of the company's daily active users had opted in to the setting — or more than 643 million people, as Facebook had 1.93 billion daily active users in the third quarter of 2021. Facial recognition software has been fraught with controversy, as concerns mount about its accuracy and underlying racial bias. For example, the technology has been shown to be less accurate when identifying people of color, and several Black men, at least, have been wrongfully arrested due to the use of facial recognition. While there's no national legislation regulating the technology's use, a growing number of states and cities are passing their own rules to limit or ban its use. Pesenti wrote that halting use of facial-recognition software will also mean that Facebook's automatically generated descriptions of images for the visually impaired will no longer add names from those who were recognized in pictures. Despite the timing of Facebook's decision, Caitlin Seeley George, campaign director for digital rights group Fight for the Future, cautioned against dismissing it as a public-relations stunt. She says the move demonstrates that Facebook is questioning the technology's value and it will impact millions of people's lives. The decision, she noted, comes shortly after other companies' announcements trumpeting the technology — such as Delta Air Lines expanding <https://news.delta.com/deltas-exclusive-partnership-tsa-streamlines-check-s…> the use of facial-recognition software for checking in customers for flights. "The fact that a company as big and influential as Facebook is coming out and acknowledging the harms of facial recognition is definitely a sign of the times," she said. Yet since the company is not going to stop working on facial-recognition technology more generally, Hartzog cautioned that it could come back at a later date, "perhaps in a way that is less noticeable but still dangerous to people." "Just because it's not being used in this particular area doesn't give me complete confidence that it's not going to be used in, say, their virtual-reality tools or other settings in other ways," Hartzog said.

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CIA sought revenge against Julian Assange over hacking tool leaks, court hears
by Federico Guerrini Nov. 1, 2021

Nov. 1, 2021

"The CIA wanted revenge against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after WikiLeaks published documents about the CIA’s surveillance tools, a court heard today. Lawyers for Assange told court judges that the Vault 7 leak – which disclosed the CIA’s hacking capabilities – provoked a desire for blood and vengeance from the US intelligence community. They told the court that US agents discussed plans to forcibly remove Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy by kidnapping him and had discussed the idea of poisoning him." (...) "Speaking outside the High Court, Stella Moris described the case as a “political prosecution”. “The inhumane conditions of US prisons have been exposed before these courts in their full barbarity,” she said. “The crimes that have been undertaken by the US government against Julian have also been exposed before these courts.” The WikiLeaks founder faces 17 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving and publishing hundreds of thousands of classified government documents leaked by former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010. He also faced one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which was later bolstered by further contested allegations that he conspired with others to encourage them to obtain classified material through hacking. Assange, who has been held on remand in Belmarsh prison in south-east London since April 2019, could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted. However, the US government said Assange was likely to face a sentence of between four and seven years." https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252508798/CIA-sought-revenge-against-Ju… -- KR Fed.

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