June 2021 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt Rush | The New Yorker
by Alberto Cammozzo June 8, 2021

June 8, 2021

<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobal…> [...] In Kolwezi, children as young as three learn to pick out the purest ore from rock slabs. Soon enough, they are lugging ore for adult creuseurs. Teen-age boys often work perilous shifts navigating rickety shafts. Near large mines, the prostitution of women and young girls is pervasive. Other women wash raw mining material, which is often full of toxic metals and, in some cases, mildly radioactive. If a pregnant woman works with such heavy metals as cobalt, it can increase her chances of having a stillbirth or a child with birth defects. According to a recent study in The Lancet, women in southern Congo “had metal concentrations that are among the highest ever reported for pregnant women.” The study also found a strong link between fathers who worked with mining chemicals and fetal abnormalities in their children, noting that “paternal occupational mining exposure was the factor most strongly associated with birth defects.” This year, cobalt prices have jumped some forty per cent, to more than twenty dollars a pound. The lure of mineral riches in a country as poor as Congo provides irresistible temptation for politicians and officials to steal and cheat. Soldiers who have been posted to Kolwezi during periods of unrest have been known to lay down their Kalashnikovs at night and enter the mines. At a meeting of investors in 2019, Simon Tuma Waku, then the president of the Chamber of Mines in Congo, used the language of a gold rush: “Cobalt—it makes you dream.” After Kasulo’s mayor fled, many residents began tearing away at the ground beneath them. Some wealthier locals hired creuseurs to dig under their houses, with an agreement to split the profits. Two teams of creuseurs could each work twelve-hour shifts, chipping at the rock with hammers and chisels. A pastor and his congregation began digging under their church, stopping only for Sunday services. By the end of 2014, two thousand creuseurs were working in the neighborhood, with little regulation. Kajumba and his coöperative soon joined in the hunt for minerals. One man on Kajumba’s team, Yannick Mputu, remembers this period as “the good times.” He told me, “There was a lot of money, and everybody was able to make some. The minerals were close to the surface, and they could be mined without digging deep holes.” But the conditions quickly became dangerous. Not long after the mayor formally prohibited excavating for minerals, a mine shaft collapsed, killing five miners. Still, people kept digging, and by the time researchers for Amnesty International visited, less than a year after the discovery of cobalt in Kasulo, some of the holes made by creuseurs were a hundred feet deep. Once diggers reached seams of ore, they followed the mineral through the soil, often without building supports for their tunnels. As Murray Hitzman, the former U.S.G.S. scientist, pointed out, the heterogenite closest to the surface often contains the least cobalt, because of weathering. Creuseurs in Kasulo were risking their lives to obtain some of the worst ore.[...]

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"Il Green Pass tra criticità e fiducia" | 11 Giugno 2021, ore 18:00
by Nexa Media June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

Gentilissimi, vi invitiamo a partecipare all'incontro dal titolo*:** * *"Il Green Pass tra criticità e fiducia"*, che si terrà *venerdì 11 giugno*, dalle ore 18:00 alle ore 20:00. Ospiti: *Prof. Giovanni Boccia Artieri* (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), *Prof. Felicia Pelagalli* (Università Sapienza di Roma), *Prof. Stefano Zanero* (Politecnico di Milano), *Avv. Carlo Blengino* (Il Post), *Arch. Claudia Giulia Ferrauto* (Il Foglio). Maggiori informazioni sull'incontro sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/2021/06/greenpass <https://nexa.polito.it/2021/06/greenpass> Sarà possibile partecipare al seminario connettendosi al seguente indirizzo: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent <https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent> 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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Ban biometric surveillance: civil society demands outright prohibitions on public and private use
by Enrico Nardelli June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

Access Now and over 175 civil society organizations, activists, and researchers from across the globe are calling for a ban on uses of facial recognition and remote biometric recognition that enable mass and discriminatory targeted surveillance. Civil society organizations, activists, researchers, and technologists are drawing a line in the sand and demanding legal prohibitions on the use of these tools in publicly accessible spaces, whether by governments, law enforcement, or private actors. “Facial recognition and related biometric recognition technologies have no place in public. These technologies track and profile people as they go about their daily lives, treating them as suspects and creating dangerous incentives for overuse and discrimination,” said Daniel Leufer, Europe Policy Analyst at Access Now. “They need to be banned here and now.” These surveillance tools have the capacity to identify, follow, single out, profile, and track people everywhere they go, undermining human rights and civil liberties. They are an attack on privacy and data protection, exacerbate inequality and discrimination, and have the potential to muzzle freedom of expression and assembly — further solidifying the criminalization of protest. ... continua qua https://www.accessnow.org/civil-society-ban-biometric-surveillance/ -- EN ===================================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Dipartimento di Matematica - Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/ http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ ===================================================================== --

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Re: [nexa] Is Online Test-Monitoring Here to Stay?
by maurizio lana June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

buongiorno, insegno all'università, e trovo che i software di proctoring siano deprecabili. non sto a raccontare qui a voi come e perché lo sono. la questione vera sono gli esami e il loro contenuto. se la prova d'esame verifica conoscenze nozionistiche è ovvio che si debba (?) ricorrere ai software di proctoring. ma un esame universitario non può continuare ad usare il medesimo modello concettuale dell'interrogazione alla scuola primaria. qui si vede che ai rivolgimenti portati dalla pandemia si può rispondere restando accozzati a quello che si faceva prima, oppure si può farne occasione e stimolo per rinnovare, cambiare, migliorare: come possiamo eliminare dagli esami la componente di nozionismo per centrarli sempre più, tutti, sulla verifica di competenze? Maurizio Il 07/06/21 12:00, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it ha scritto: > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2021 18:56:57 +0200 > From: Antonio Iacono <antiac(a)gmail.com> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] Is Online Test-Monitoring Here to Stay? > Message-ID: > <CAPN6PEQ2xL-+=GABRJpUpJw0WAmtzOZphBYj286iqkvj=rrORg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Proctorio claimed that it could not detect a face in the image, and > refused to let him into his exam. Yemi-Ese turned on more lights and > tilted his camera to catch his face at its most illuminated angle; it > took several tries before the software approved him to begin. > > Like many test-takers of color, Yemi-Ese, who is Black, has spent the > past three semesters using software that reliably struggles to locate > his face. Now, whenever he sits down to take an exam using Proctorio, > he turns on every light in his bedroom, and positions a ring light > behind his computer so that it shines directly into his eyes. > > L'intero articolo è qui: > https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/is-online-test-monitori… > > Antonio > > p.s. Proctorio è usato anche in alcune università italiane ------------------------------------------------------------------------ il faut essayer, nous aussi. c'est ça, le progrès. à force d'essayer, peut-être qu'on aura à la fin les organes nécessaires, par exemple l'organe de la dignité, ou de la fraternité... " r. gary, les racines du ciel ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana - 347 7370925

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Ecco il costo nascosto delle spedizioni Amazon
by Luigi Scorca June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

https://www.editorialedomani.it/tecnologia/ecco-il-costo-nascosto-delle-spe… Luigi

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Memento | 141° Mercoledì di Nexa | 9 Giugno 2021 | Nuovo Link per collegarsi all'incontro
by Nexa Media June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì ***9 giugno**, dalle ore 18.00 alle ore 20.00, si svolgerà il 141° Mercoledì di Nexa, con un incontro dal titolo: *"/Didattica a distanza e "benessere digitale": profili di tutela dei dati personali e diritto d'autore/"*. Ospiti://*Prof. Avv.* *Guido Noto La Diega *(University of Stirling e Fellow Centro Nexa) e *Dr. Avv. Giulia Schneider* (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa). Maggiori informazioni sull'incontro sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-141 <https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-141> Vi segnaliamo che per problemi tecnici l'incontro, diversamente da quanto annunciato in precedenza, si terrà sulla piattaforma BigBlueButton al nuovo indirizzo: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent <https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent> 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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clausole contrattuali standard per i trasferimenti di dati personali a paesi terzi
by Mauro Alovisio June 7, 2021

June 7, 2021

Gent.me/mi segnalo che il 4 giugno 2021, la Commissione Europea ha pubblicato la versione finale della decisione di attuazione sulle clausole contrattuali standard per i trasferimenti di dati personali a paesi terzi ai sensi del Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati dell'UE ("GDPR"), nonché la versione finale delle nuove clausole contrattuali standard (le "SCC"). https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/1_en_annexe_acte_autonome_cp_… https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/1_en_act_part1_v5.pdf Cordiali saluti Mauro Alovisio

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(no subject)
by Giovanni Leghissa June 6, 2021

June 6, 2021

https://cepa.org/russias-red-boxes-menace-the-internet/ buona giornata Giovanni

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Is Online Test-Monitoring Here to Stay?
by Antonio Iacono June 6, 2021

June 6, 2021

Proctorio claimed that it could not detect a face in the image, and refused to let him into his exam. Yemi-Ese turned on more lights and tilted his camera to catch his face at its most illuminated angle; it took several tries before the software approved him to begin. Like many test-takers of color, Yemi-Ese, who is Black, has spent the past three semesters using software that reliably struggles to locate his face. Now, whenever he sits down to take an exam using Proctorio, he turns on every light in his bedroom, and positions a ring light behind his computer so that it shines directly into his eyes. L'intero articolo è qui: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/is-online-test-monitori… Antonio p.s. Proctorio è usato anche in alcune università italiane

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Microsoft’s Kate Crawford: ‘AI is neither artificial nor intelligent’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo June 6, 2021

June 6, 2021

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/06/microsofts-kate-crawford…> Kate Crawford studies the social and political implications of artificial intelligence. She is a research professor of communication and science and technology studies at the University of Southern California and a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research. Her new book, Atlas of AI, looks at what it takes to make AI and what’s at stake as it reshapes our world. You’ve written a book critical of AI but you work for a company that is among the leaders in its deployment. How do you square that circle? I work in the research wing of Microsoft, which is a distinct organisation, separate from product development. Unusually, over its 30-year history, it has hired social scientists to look critically at how technologies are being built. Being on the inside, we are often able to see downsides early before systems are widely deployed. My book did not go through any pre-publication review – Microsoft Research does not require that – and my lab leaders support asking hard questions, even if the answers involve a critical assessment of current technological practices. What’s the aim of the book? We are commonly presented with this vision of AI that is abstract and immaterial. I wanted to show how AI is made in a wider sense – its natural resource costs, its labour processes, and its classificatory logics. To observe that in action I went to locations including mines to see the extraction necessary from the Earth’s crust and an Amazon fulfilment centre to see the physical and psychological toll on workers of being under an algorithmic management system. My hope is that, by showing how AI systems work – by laying bare the structures of production and the material realities – we will have a more accurate account of the impacts, and it will invite more people into the conversation. These systems are being rolled out across a multitude of sectors without strong regulation, consent or democratic debate. What should people know about how AI products are made? We aren’t used to thinking about these systems in terms of the environmental costs. But saying, “Hey, Alexa, order me some toilet rolls,” invokes into being this chain of extraction, which goes all around the planet… We’ve got a long way to go before this is green technology. Also, systems might seem automated but when we pull away the curtain we see large amounts of low paid labour, everything from crowd work categorising data to the never-ending toil of shuffling Amazon boxes. AI is neither artificial nor intelligent. It is made from natural resources and it is people who are performing the tasks to make the systems appear autonomous. [...]

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