May 2021 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

WEBINAR REMINDER - Cyber-security, Nuclear Weapon Systems and Strategic Stability
by Diego.Latella May 24, 2021

May 24, 2021

======================================================= [Con preghiera di diffusione] [Please forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested] =========================== WEBINAR ANNOUNCEMENT =========================== Cyber-security, Nuclear Weapon Systems and Strategic Stability THURSDAY MAY 27, 2021 at 5:30 pm (CEST) - Opening: Antonello Provenzale, President - Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa Diego Latella, CNR-ISTI (IT) - Cyber-security and Critical Infrastructures, a Global Challenge Domenico Laforenza, CNR-IIT (IT) - Strategic Stability and Cyber and Space Dependency in Nuclear Assets Beyza Unal, Chatham House (UK) The webinar is organised by Gruppo Interdisciplinare su Scienza, Tecnologia e Società (GI-STS) dell'Area della Ricerca di Pisa del CNR In cooperation with Areaperta - Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa Centro Interdisciplinare Scienze per La Pace dell'Università di Pisa Istituto di Biofisica del CNR Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione ``A. Faedo'' del CNR Laboratorio Informatica e Società del CINI Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs Unione degli Scienziati Per Il Disarmo Under the auspices of La Nuova Limonaia Rete Università per la Pace The meeting will take place in Zoom, at the following link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85979020637?pwd=ZmNMbWxoVllXUmxBVUw4TllXZFBVdz09 For more information, please refer to the "Events" page in the web site of the "Gruppo Interdisciplinare su Scienza, Tecnologia e Società" (GI-STS) dell'Area della Ricerca di Pisa del CNR, reachable selecting "GI-STS" in the menu "Vita di Area" in the home page of Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa (http://www.area.pi.cnr.it ). -- -- Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR-ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) https://www.isti.cnr.it/People/D.Latella - ph: +390506212982, mob: +39 348 8283101, fax: +390506212040 =================== The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn how to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity. -- Sir Joseph Rotblat

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Memento | 88° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 26 Maggio 2021
by Nexa Media May 24, 2021

May 24, 2021

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì ***26 maggio*, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00*, si svolgerà l'88° Nexa Lunch Seminar, con un incontro dal titolo: /*"Blockchain e Privacy: un binomio impossibile?"*/ Ospite: *Giacomo Conti* (Centro Nexa su Internet & Società). 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 possibile accedere alla conference call attraverso il seguente link: https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar <https://meet.nexacenter.org/LunchSeminar> Maggiori informazioni sull'incontro sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-88 <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-88> 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/ <https://nexa.polito.it/> _mail:_anita.botta@polito.it <mailto:anita.botta@polito.it> tel: 011 090 7219

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Technology is driving the future, but who is doing the steering?
by Giuseppe Attardi May 24, 2021

May 24, 2021

In this year’s Gödel lecture, Moshe Vardi will explain why the ethical lens is too narrow for dealing with technology’s impact on society. This talk will argue that the ethical lens is too narrow. The real issue is how to deal with technology’s impact on society. https://informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2020?utm_campaign=feed&utm_term=news <https://informatics.tuwien.ac.at/news/2020?utm_campaign=feed&utm_term=news> — Beppe

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Free Speech and Hate Speech - Annual Review of Political Science Vol. 22 (May 2019)
by Giovanni Biscuolo May 23, 2021

May 23, 2021

Care nexiane, segnalo questo interessante saggio di analisi del tema in oggetto, nel quale trovo anche qualche utile elemento in merito alle c.d. "fake news" (nella sezione "The Thinker-Based Argument") https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051517-012343 Free Speech and Hate Speech Annual Review of Political Science Vol. 22:93-109 (Volume publication date May 2019) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051517-012343 Jeffrey W. Howard - Department of Political Science, University College London --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Abstract Should hate speech be banned? This article contends that the debate on this question must be disaggregated into discrete analytical stages, lest its participants continue to talk past one another. The first concerns the scope of the moral right to freedom of expression, and whether hate speech falls within the right's protective ambit. If it does, hate speech bans are necessarily unjust. If not, we turn to the second stage, which assesses whether speakers have moral duties to refrain from hate speech. The article canvasses several possible duties from which such a duty could be derived, including duties not to threaten, harass, offend, defame, or incite. If there is a duty to refrain from hate speech, it is yet a further question whether the duty should actually be enforced. This third stage depends on pragmatic concerns involving epistemic fallibility, the abuse of state power, and the benefits of counter-speech over coercion. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Dopo una lunga analisi, che vale la pena leggere, nelle conclusioi scrive: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] The first concerns our limited moral motivation. Politicians can be unscrupulous in the quest to maintain power, and there is an enduring worry that they will abuse statutes restricting speech to silence political adversaries. The second, related element concerns our limited epistemic competence about moral matters. Many of our fellow citizens hold mistaken views about what political morality requires and so are liable to suppress speech that they view as dangerous and objectionable but that is, in fact, perfectly legitimate. [...] Finally, there are inherent difficulties in authoring statutes that are not objectionably over-inclusive, leading to the prosecution of speakers who do not merit prosecution. This makes us unavoidably and heavily reliant on prosecutorial discretion in the enforcement of hate speech restrictions, which compounds the previous worries. [...] Counter-speech tends to be defended by those who think that the moral right to freedom of expression protects hate speech (e.g., Brettschneider 2012), or who think that the state is morally unreliable. This makes sense; if banning hate speech is morally misguided (for either reason), counter-speech is the only morally permissible remedy. Yet even if we view hate speech as morally unprotected, and even if we would generally trust the state to ban it, it could still be the case that counter-speech is simply more effective at combating hateful views than is the law. That would itself be a powerful consideration against criminalization. [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Saluti, Giovanni. -- Giovanni Biscuolo «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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Milano, sospeso per un mese il prof che aveva condiviso post sessista...
by Giovanni Biscuolo May 22, 2021

May 22, 2021

Buongiorno, https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/05/15/milano-sospeso-per-un-mese-il-p… «Milano, sospeso per un mese il prof che aveva condiviso post sessista su Kamala Harris: “Se vai a letto con l’uomo giusto” sarai come lei» di F. Q. | 15 Maggio 2021 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Il procedimento nei confronti di Marco Bassani è terminato dopo sei mesi: per trenta giorni, ha stabilito il Consiglio di amministrazione della Statale, né lezioni né stipendio. Capezzone: "Sanzione censoria" [...] All’origine il meme condiviso su facebook che conteneva un attacco sessista alla neoeletta vicepresidente americana Kamala Harris. “Sarà un’ispirazione per le giovani ragazze: se vai a letto con l’uomo giusto, potente e ben ammanicato, anche tu puoi essere il secondo violino di uomo con demenza. Come la storia di Cenerentola insomma”, era il contenuto del messaggio scritto sul social e che in poche ore aveva fatto il giro della rete, finendo poi rimosso. La decisione di sospendere il professore per un mese, privandolo anche dello stipendio, è stata presa dal Consiglio di amministrazione della Statale che si è tenuto venerdì 14 maggio. [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/docente-sospeso-post-sulla-harris-i… «Il docente sospeso per un post sulla Harris: "Io non allineato alle banalità della sinistra"» 16 Maggio 2021 - 08:00 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] Nuova Costituente ha fatto partire una raccolta di fondi per sostenere le spese legali del professore, intenzionato a far valere in tribunale le sue ragioni. [...] Bassani si è limitato a condividere un meme satirico, scritto da altri, nel quale si ricordava sono fatti accertati pure dal fact-checking della Reuters quell'episodio che vide la giovane Kamala Harris ricevere un importante incarico politico, lautamente retribuito, dal proprio amante (che allora era sindaco di San Francisco). [...] In effetti, la contestazione che il rettore Elio Franzini ha inviato a Bassani a novembre lascia perplessi dove afferma che «quanto accaduto non costituisce un episodio isolato, essendo Sua abitudine esprimere pubblicamente sui social network opinioni forti, dal contenuto talvolta estremo». [...] «In fondo, è bene che sia toccato a me: che ho più di 50 anni e sono professore ordinario. Fosse capitato a un giovane studioso agli inizi della carriera, l'avrebbero triturato. Ma voglio trasformare questa follia in una battaglia a difesa dei valori di libertà, perché questa nuova Inquisizione è davvero pericolosa». [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- https://www.ilfoglio.it/cultura/2021/05/18/news/-e-ancora-universita-o-la-c… "E' ancora università o la Cina di Mao?". Parla il professore Bassani, sospeso dalla Statale Carmelo Caruso 18 mag 2021 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Ha condiviso un meme sessista contro Harris: "Mi sono scusato, rimosso. Cosa devo fare ancora?" Si chiama Marco Bassani e insegna Storia delle dottrine politiche. "Ho condiviso un meme stupido ma non è il mio pensiero. Ho rimosso il clic. Vengo sospeso per un mese dallo stipendio. Ma non basta". Come stanno le università italiane? [...] “L’ho vista. L’ho condivisa. Ho sbagliato. Non è il mio pensiero. Ho abbassato la guardia. Me ne scuso. L’ho fatto. L’ho cancellata poche ore dopo. Ma quello che è seguito va oltre”. [...] A Bassani viene chiesto di presentarsi di fronte a un tribunale speciale. E’ formato da tre professori del consiglio di disciplina. Insieme al suo avvocato produce una memoria difensiva di 85 pagine. [...] Vengo sospeso con una legge che risale al 1933 e con la motivazione che sarei ‘non nuovo a simili episodi’. Non vengo sospeso per quello che ho fatto ma per quello che dicono che sia”. [...] I suoi colleghi cosa ne pensano? “In molti mi dicono che ho ragione e aggiungono di non dirlo in giro. C’è un’università sempre più spaventata, docenti intimiditi. Sono terrorizzati di passare per misogini, razzisti. Io difendo la libertà di poter fare anche un click improvvido”. Difende la libertà di sbracare? “Non difendo lo sbraco. Ma non posso accettare il processo, l’autodafé, la sospensione e che non li si ritenga neppure sufficienti”. Bassani, come tutti i professori, era affiancato da un brillante ricercatore. In una lettera, pubblica, ha fatto sapere che il turbamento, per i modi aggressivi con cui il professore Bassani è stato attaccato sulla stampa, lo inducono a cercare lavoro altrove e che “l’occasione è gradita per porgere cordiali saluti”. Come sta l’università italiana? --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- -- Giovanni Biscuolo «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>. .

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NYT: "Shoshana Zuboff Explains Why You Should Care About Privacy"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 22, 2021

May 22, 2021

*Shoshana Zuboff Explains Why You Should Care About Privacy* /In a wide-ranging interview, the author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” talks about why people should pay attention to how big tech companies are using their information.// / By Lauren Jackson May 21, 2021 It was a grenade lobbed into the tenuous peace between Apple and Facebook — a software update that explicitly asked iPhone users whether an app should be allowed to track their digital movements across the other apps and sites that they use. Apple pitched the feature, App Tracking Transparency, as a triumph for privacy. But for Facebook, it was an attack striking a key source of revenue: the personal data of its users. The dispute represents a further deterioration in the relations between the two companies and their chief executives, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook. In a recent episode of The Daily, Mike Issac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times, asked a question at the heart of this conflict: “Do people care about privacy?” The answer, as he explained, will determine the conflict’s trajectory — and the limitations on Big Tech’s power in a largely unregulated, hypercompetitive fight for market dominance. After the episode aired, we called someone who thinks deeply about both privacy and the economic forces behind this competition: Shoshana Zuboff, author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” In the following interview, we ask Ms. Zuboff about the significance of this update in regards to privacy protections long term, the prospect of platform regulation and her vision for a less-extractive digital future. Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited. [...] continua qui: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/technology/shoshana-zuboff-apple-google-…

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What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?
by Giovanni Biscuolo May 22, 2021

May 22, 2021

Buongiorno, un'interessante intervista a Prof. Loretta J. Ross dello Smith College (Northampton, Massachusetts, USA), femminista e attivista per i diritti civili da più di 40 anni e tra i 153 firmatari della famosa (famigerata?) lettera [1] «A Letter on Justice and Open Debate» (aka Harper's Letter). «What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?» By Jessica Bennett - Published Nov. 19, 2020 - Updated Feb. 24, 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/style/loretta-ross-smith-college-cancel-… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] Professor Ross, 67, an unlikely figure in the culture wars. A radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades, she was one of the signatories of a widely denounced letter in Harper’s Magazine, for which she herself was called out. “There’s such an irony for being called out for calling out the calling-out culture,” she said. “It really was amusing.” [...] She doesn’t believe people should be publicly shamed for accidentally misgendering a classmate, which she once did, leading to a Title IX complaint that was later dismissed; for sending a stupid tweet they now regret; or for, say, admitting they once liked a piece of pop culture now viewed in a different light, such as “The Cosby Show.” Professor Ross thinks call-out culture has taken conversations that could have once been learning opportunities and turned them into mud wrestling on message boards, YouTube comments, Twitter and at colleges like Smith, where proving one’s commitment to social justice has become something of a varsity sport. “I think this is also related to something I just discovered called doom scrolling,” Professor Ross told the students. “I think we actually sabotage our own happiness with this unrestrained anger. And I have to honestly ask: Why are you making choices to make the world crueler than it needs to be and calling that being ‘woke’?” The antidote to that outrage cycle, Professor Ross believes, is “calling in.” Calling in is like calling out, but done privately and with respect. “It’s a call out done with love,” she said. That may mean simply sending someone a private message, or even ringing them on the telephone (!) to discuss the matter, or simply taking a breath before commenting, screen-shotting or demanding one “do better” without explaining how. Calling out assumes the worst. Calling in involves conversation, compassion and context. It doesn’t mean a person should ignore harm, slight or damage, but nor should she, he or they exaggerate it. “Every time somebody disagrees with me it’s not ‘verbal violence.’” Professor Ross said. “I’m not getting ‘re-raped.’ Overstatement of harm is not helpful when you’re trying to create a culture of compassion.” There was call-out culture when Professor Ross was young. “We called it ‘trashing,’” she said, referring to a term used by Jo Freeman, in an essay in Ms., to describe infighting within the women’s movement. “It used to be you’d be calling someone out to a duel. This is how Alexander Hamilton got shot!” Professor Ross said. “What’s new is the virality and the speed and the anonymity.” [...] The idea of “calling in” occurred to Professor Ross at a speech she was organizing at Smith in 2015 to honor Gloria Steinem. What was up with all the nastiness she saw on Twitter, she asked a young woman. “Oh, you mean ‘calling out’?’’ the woman said. “You-all named it?’” Professor Ross said in surprise. She soon assembled a group of students to practice the techniques of “calling in” and took the message on the road. During quarantine this summer, she began offering an online course called Calling In the Calling Out Culture, and is working on a book of the same name. [...] More troublesome, Professor Ross and others agree, is when small infractions become big infractions; when context gets lost and facts are distorted, or it becomes difficult to discern between the two. “These algorithms can’t distinguish between outrage and shaming that is proportionate and outrage and shaming that is disproportionate to the original transgression,” said Molly Crockett, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University who studies moral outrage online. Back on her Zoom call, Professor Ross pulled up another slide, this one with a photo of Natalie Wynn, a popular YouTuber who has put together a kind of taxonomy of call-out culture after being “canceled” multiple times. Its characteristics include presumption of guilt (without facts or nuance getting in the way); essentialism (when criticism of bad behavior becomes criticism of a bad person); pseudo-intellectualism (proclaiming one’s moral high ground); unforgivability (no apology is good enough); and, of course, contamination, or guilt by association. [...] Some said later that the prospect of call outs had made them hesitant to speak up or ask questions in classes, or endlessly planning for the arguments that might ensue. [...] What’s the difference between calling in and a regular confrontation? What if calling out in fact is the most effective way to seek progress — as with, say, in the case of a public figure? And when is politely trying to “call in” simply no longer effective? “You can’t be responsible for someone else’s inability to grow,” Professor Ross said. “So take comfort in the fact that you offered a new perspective of information and you did so with love and respect, and then you walk away. “We have a saying in the movement: Some people you can work with and some people you can work around. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that the calling-in practice means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back.” --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Lunga vita e prosperità, Giovanni. [1] https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_on_Justice_and_Open_Debate -- Giovanni Biscuolo «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>. .

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Once Tech’s Favorite Economist, Now a Thorn in Its Side - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 22, 2021

May 22, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/technology/tech-antitrust-paul-romer.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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A proposito di "storia"...
by Damiano Verzulli May 22, 2021

May 22, 2021

Ho appena scoperto, grazie ad un amico, questo sito: https://lovelylab.verdebinario.org/ Sfogliare il relativo calendario [1] mi ha istantaneamente fatto pensare al nostro Prof. Meo, l'unico che --per semplici meriti anagrafici-- potrebbe scrivere interi articoli su tutte (o, comunque, molte) delle sue pagine. Bye, DV // classe 1971 [1] https://lovelylab.verdebinario.org/#calendario -- Damiano Verzulli e-mail: damiano(a)verzulli.it --- possible?ok:while(!possible){open_mindedness++} --- "...I realized that free software would not generate the kind of income that was needed. Maybe in USA or Europe, you may be able to get a well paying job as a free software developer, but not here [in Africa]..." -- Guido Sohne - 1973-2008 http://ole.kenic.or.ke/pipermail/skunkworks/2008-April/005989.html

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Lawmakers want to force Big Tech to give researchers more data - Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 21, 2021

May 21, 2021

https://www.protocol.com/policy/social-media-data-act (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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