July 2021 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Revealed: leak uncovers global abuse of cyber-surveillance weapon | Surveillance | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo July 18, 2021

July 18, 2021

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/revealed-leak-uncovers-global…> Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak. The investigation by the Guardian and 16 other media organisations suggests widespread and continuing abuse of NSO’s hacking spyware, Pegasus, which the company insists is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists. Pegasus is a malware that infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators of the tool to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones. The leak contains a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016. Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organisation, and Amnesty International initially had access to the leaked list and shared access with media partners as part of the Pegasus project, a reporting consortium. The presence of a phone number in the data does not reveal whether a device was infected with Pegasus or subject to an attempted hack. However, the consortium believes the data is indicative of the potential targets NSO’s government clients identified in advance of possible surveillance attempts.

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An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang review – Facebook’s battle for domination | Journalism books | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo July 18, 2021

July 18, 2021

<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/18/an-ugly-truth-inside-facebook…> How many books are there about Facebook? I’ve lost count. Many of them belong to the genre of the “insider” story – by an early investor in the company, perhaps; or by a supposed intimate of its founder and Supreme Leader; or by an ex-employee with a bad conscience for the societal damage for which he (and it’s always a he, by the way) has been responsible; or (occasionally) by a vigorous critic of social media such as Siva Vaidhyanathan or Franklin Foer. I’ve read most of these and so approached An Ugly Truth with a degree of scepticism on account of its subtitle: “Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination”. But this book is different. For one thing, its co-authors are not “insiders”, but a pair of experienced New York Times journalists who were members of a team nominated in 2019 for a Pulitzer prize. Much more importantly, though, they claim to have conducted over 1,000 hours of interviews with 400-odd people, including Facebook executives, former and current employees and their families, friends and classmates, plus investors and advisers to Facebook, and lawyers and activists who have been fighting the company for a long time. So if this is an “insider” account, it’s better sourced than all of its predecessors in the genre. We’ll get to what this account reveals in a moment, but first let’s clear up the title. It comes from the header on an internal memo sent by Andrew Bosworth (AKA “Boz”), a senior Facebook executive and one of Mark Zuckerberg’s closest confidants. “So we connect more people,” it says. “That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs someone a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is de facto good.” In a way, this tells you everything you need to know about Facebook. The only thing Boz omitted to mention is that the more people Facebook “connects”, the more money it makes. And the view from its HQ is that it’s still early days in the growth story. After all, Facebook currently has 2.8 billion monthly active users and there are 7.8 billion people on the planet at the moment. Which means, in the megalomaniacal view of the company’s Supreme Leader, that leaves 5 billion still to be “connected”. Only then – when every sentient being on the planet is on Facebook – will the world’s problems be solved. And if you think I’m making this up, then an inspection of some of Zuckerberg essays on his Facebook page may give you pause. Although progress to world domination has, to date, been progressing according to plan, there have been some hiccups – or, at any rate, PR problems – on the way. In focusing their inquiry, Frenkel and Kang have largely concentrated on what’s gone on within Facebook over just four years – from the 2016 presidential election that brought Trump to power to Biden’s election in 2020. They had plenty of material to go on. Among other things, this period includes: Russian hacking of the Clinton campaign; its consummate exploitation of Facebook’s advertising system to disseminate disinformation and introduce chaos into public discourse; the Trump campaign’s mastery of those same systems for the same purposes; the Cambridge Analytica scandal; the smear campaign against George Soros; the way in which Facebook’s expansion into Myanmar facilitated a genocidal campaign against the country’s Rohingya Muslims; the livestreaming by the shooter of the Christchurch massacre in 2019; and the use of Facebook by the insurgents to plan (and livestream) the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January. The co-authors’ exhumation of these ghastly skeletons makes for gripping as well as depressing reading. Two things in particular stand out. The first is that, in most of the cases, people within Facebook were aware of – and alarmed about – what was happening on the company’s systems, either because they had detected them or had been alerted by well-informed outsiders. And yet, when they communicated their concerns to people above them in the managerial hierarchy, nothing much happened – which possibly explains why in some cases Zuckerberg seemed to be unaware of the looming crises until it was too late to claim ignorance. Many Facebook employees are anguished about what their employer has been doing in its relentless quest for growth The most striking example of this is what happened when internal investigators led by the cybersecurity guru Alex Stamos uncovered the extent of Russian meddling on Facebook’s systems. Stamos’s attempts to alert his superiors to what was going on were brushed off. All mention of Russia in his draft white paper were deleted by senior staff. But as news media began to suss that something big was up, it was decided that the company’s board should be briefed on it the day before its quarterly meeting on 7 September 2017. On 6 September, therefore, Stamos gave a presentation to a delegated subcommittee of three board members. They were stunned and furious in an expletive-deleted way. “How the fuck are we only hearing about this now?” said Erskine Bowles, who had been Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. The full board meeting was equally fractious. But nothing substantive happened. Why? Because the board members serve entirely at Zuckerberg’s pleasure. In its regular filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company sums it up nicely: “Mark Zuckerberg, our founder, chairman and CEO, is able to exercise voting rights with respect to a majority of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock and therefore has the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to the stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. This concentrated control could… result in the consummation of such a transaction that our other stockholders do not support.” Zuckerberg could fire the entire board and there is nothing that anyone could do about it. This extraordinary document is nowhere cited in An Ugly Truth, and yet it underpins its entire narrative. One of the book’s striking revelations is that there is more anxiety inside the company than we realised. Many Facebook employees have been anguished, frustrated or angry about what their employer has been doing in its relentless quest for growth. Some have tried to alert their superiors to their concerns. But time and again the bad news hasn’t persuaded those bosses because they didn’t sync with the overriding imperative of endless corporate growth. And, as HL Mencken famously observed, it’s difficult to explain something to someone whose salary depends on not understanding it. Zuckerberg’s obsession with growth is what underpinned the Myanmar catastrophe. Facebook rolled into a country with no democratic traditions, providing connectivity for people who had never before used the internet. The company’s executives knew zilch about the country other than it was promising territory for their CEO’s cherished “next one billion” project. In entering Myanmar, Facebook had – as the book puts it – “thrown a lit match on to decades of simmering racial tension and had then turned the other way when activists pointed to the smoke slowly choking the country”. In the end, human rights officials estimated that 24,000 Rohingya were murdered and 700,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh. And while this was going on, the inflammatory rhetoric of 18 million Facebook users that fuelled the genocide was monitored by just five native Burmese speakers, the book reports, none of whom was actually based in Myanmar. So the “ugly truth” about Facebook is that it’s an immensely powerful corporation with a toxic business model, led by an autocratic founder who is hell-bent on world domination. A prominent critic of the company once observed that “the problem of Facebook is Facebook”. Wrong. The problem of Facebook is Zuckerberg. And the question posed by this splendid book is: what are we going to do about him?

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In ricordo di Philippe Aigrain (1949-2021)
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 18, 2021

July 18, 2021

https://nexa.polito.it/philippe-aigrain-ricordo jc

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Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy | The White House
by don Luca Peyron July 17, 2021

July 17, 2021

Non ancora passato in lista mi pare, una presa di posizione interessante. Buona lettura Dl Https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/07/09/ex…

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FROM RISKS 32.76 - Social-credit score system for Germany (Vorausschau)
by Diego.Latella July 16, 2021

July 16, 2021

FYI _[The following has been reused without explicit authorization under blanket permission granted for all Risks-Forum Digest materials. The author(s), the RISKS moderator, and the ACM have no connection with this reuse.]_ D > Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2021 08:46:32 +0200 > From: Thomas Koenig <tkoenig(a)netcologne.de> > Subject: Social-credit score system for Germany (Vorausschau) > > The German ministry for education and science (BMBF) has published a > study > in which it puts forward a Chinese-style social credit system for > Germany. > > A translated quote from the long version on an official BMBF > https://www.vorausschau.de/vorausschau/de/home/home_node.html#zukuenfte > (the > web site's design is atrocious, trying to find the information is quite > difficult). > > ``Highly controversial at the beginning, the bonus point system is > largely > accepted in the 2030s. It establishes new norms in everyday life that > were not possible before. The participatory development of the rules > also > ensures greater acceptance among the population. Approval of the bonus > system is growing, particularly in view of the increasing dynamics of > climate change. A point-based evaluation, for example, the of > ecological > footprint -- helps to make the polluter-pays principle transparent.'' > > Participation in the point system would be voluntary in the sense that > not > participating would bring very real drawbacks. Another quote: > > ``The bonus system is also helpful for the labor market, which > continues > to suffer from a shortage of skilled workers. system is helpful. It > helps > to identify qualification potential and efficiently organize the > spatial > mobility of the workforce.'' > > So, not participating would lead to lower chances of getting a job. > > China is explicitly mentioned as a role model. D -- Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR/ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it [1]) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) CNR/GI-STS (http://gists.pi.cnr.it) https://www.isti.cnr.it/People/D.Latella - ph: +390506212982, mob: +39 348 8283101, fax: +390506212040 =================== The quest for a war-free Links: ------ [1] http://www.isti.cnr.it

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New EDRi report reveals depths of biometric mass surveillance in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland
by Diego.Latella July 16, 2021

July 16, 2021

NEW EDRI REPORT REVEALS DEPTHS OF BIOMETRIC MASS SURVEILLANCE IN GERMANY, THE NETHERLANDS AND POLAND ELLA JAKUBOWSKA [5], POLICY ADVISOR, EDRI [6] In a new independent research report [7] by the Edinburgh International Justice Initiative (EIJI) [8], EDRi reveals the shocking extent of unlawful biometric mass surveillance practices in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland which are taking over our public spaces like train stations, streets, and shops. The EU and its Member States must act now to set clear legal limits to these practices which create a state of permanent monitoring, profiling and tracking of people. > "Whilst EU laws say that each of us is innocent until proven guilty, > the prevalence of biometric mass surveillance practices across Europe > flips this on its head. Each of us is treated as suspicious until > 'proven' innocent, by often discriminatory and persecutory deployments > of systems that never should have been rolled out in the first place," > says Ella Jakubowska, Policy Advisor at EDRi. Read more [1]. (Summaries > available in German [2], Dutch [3], Polish [4]) -- Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR/ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it [9]) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) CNR/GI-STS (http://gists.pi.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 I don't quite know whether it is especially computer science or its subdiscipline Artificial Intelligence that has such an enormous affection for euphemism. We speak so spectacularly and so readily of computer systems that understand, that see, decide, make judgments, and so on, without ourselves recognizing our own superficiality and immeasurable naivete with respect to these concepts. And, in the process of so speaking, we anesthetise our ability to evaluate the quality of our work and, what is more important, to identify and become conscious of its end use. […] One can't escape this state without asking, again and again: "What do I actually do? What is the final application and use of the products of my work?" and ultimately, "am I content or ashamed to have contributed to this use?" -- Prof. Joseph Weizenbaum ["Not without us", ACM SIGCAS 16(2-3) 2--7 - Aug. 1986] Links: ------ [1] https://edri.org/our-work/new-edri-report-reveals-depths-of-biometric-mass-… [2] https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Rise-and-Rise-of-Biometric-… [3] https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Rise-and-Rise-of-Biometric-… [4] https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Rise-and-Rise-of-Biometric-… [5] https://twitter.com/ellajakubowska1 [6] https://edri.org/ [7] https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/EDRI_RISE_REPORT.pdf [8] https://internationaljusticeinitiative.com/ [9] http://www.isti.cnr.it

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Lettera aperta a sostegno della deroga ai diritti di proprietà intellettuale previsti dai TRIPS per la produzione di vaccini anti-COVID
by Nexa Media July 15, 2021

July 15, 2021

Gentilissimi, vi segnaliamo che è stata pubblicata la lettera aperta a sostegno della deroga ai diritti di proprietà intellettuale previsti dai TRIPS per la produzione di vaccini anti-COVID, firmata da oltre 100 accademici, tra i quali il Co-Direttore del Centro Nexa Marco Ricolfi. Condividiamo quindi di seguito il link alla pagina dove potrete trovare il testo completo della lettera aggiornato con l’ultima lista dei firmatari, il file pdf della lettera, e il link al form per apporre ulteriori firme: https://research.kent.ac.uk/socril/ip-scholarship-trips-waiver/ <https://urlsand.esvalabs.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fresearch.kent.ac.uk%2Fsocril%…> Cordialmente,   -- 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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carta derechos digitales
by Stefano Quintarelli July 15, 2021

July 15, 2021

La spagna adotta una carta dei diritti digitali https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/presidente/actividades/Documents/2021/140721-C… leggendola, penso che con Stefano (rip), Anna, JC e gli altri, avevamo fatto un bel lavoro. ciao, s.

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Consultazione pubblica UE su Carta diritti digitali
by Marina Caporale July 15, 2021

July 15, 2021

Segnalo anche questa consultazione pubblica, non mi sembra sia passata: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_2288 [https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/assets/framework/images/logo/ec…]<https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_2288> Press corner | European Commission<https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_2288> Highlights, press releases and speeches. Today, as a follow-up to its Digital Decade Communication of 9 March, the Commission is launching a public consultation on the formulation of a set of principles to promote and uphold EU values in the digital space. The consultation, open until 2 September, seeks to open a wide societal debate and gather views from citizens, non-governmental and civil ... ec.europa.eu MC Marina Caporale http://www.unibo.it/docenti/marina.caporale [cid:843ccc01-6d1d-4c36-b927-107dc49a1272]

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People Staring at Computers
by Alberto Cammozzo July 15, 2021

July 15, 2021

<https://kylemcdonald.net/psac/> [...] Maybe an email, or a phone call from Apple. Instead, my first indication that something was "wrong" was a real-life visit from the organization best known for protecting the President of the United States of America. They rang the doorbell a few times. It woke me up, and I tried to ignore it. There were always kids playing with the doorbells in our apartment building. But the kids don't normally shout, "this is the Secret Service, open the door", so I took that as my cue to get out of bed. I cracked the door open a few inches, and an agent was already leaning into the frame. He explained that he was from the Electronic Crimes Task Force, and that they had a search warrant. Under different circumstances it could have been quite cinematic, but it was an incredibly hot summer morning in Brooklyn. I was tired, and wearing only gym shorts. I saw the two agents behind him look me up and down, and they relaxed. [...]

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