January 2022 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] IBM Watson: an interesting lesson learned in AI/ML in medicine
by Giuseppe Attardi March 20, 2022

March 20, 2022

Ci sono alcune spiegazioni a questo esito. Prima di tutto Watson era basato su tecnologie di 20 anni fa, ormai obsolete con l’avvento del Deep Learning, e dei Transformer Model allenati su enormi collezioni di testi non annotati. Poi i modelli attuali di ML sono efficaci solo su task molto specifici. Credo Watson non fosse in grado di mettere insieme conoscenze da diverse fonti: i successi sbandierati riguardavano casi molto rari di malattie che riusciva a individuare sulla base di una ricerca sui testi di letteratura medica. Oggi si stanno svilupoando sistemi basati su transformers in grado di svolgere contemporaneamente più task, analizzando insieme testi, immagini AWHY in modalità end-to-end. Questo però richiede corpora di allenamento misti e ben annotati, ciò che chiamo Human-in-the-loop e che distingue l’AI dalla semplice statistica, che ancora non sono facili da trovare, specialmente nel settore medico, a causa di questioni di privacy. Insomma occorre trasferire le competenze umane attraverso l’apprendimento dal comportamento degli esperti umani, che si basano su segnali diversi e svariati. IBM aveva tentato di accaparrarsi tali dati con un accordo molto criticato col NHS britannico. In Iitalia aveva tentato la stessa operazione con lo Human Technopole. Mi risulta che la ASL di Bolzano abbia acquistato una versione di Watson, salvo poi accorgersi che Watson era allenato solo su testi inglesi. In definitiva, le potenzialità per l’AI nel campo medico sono enormi, e stanno già producendo significativi progressi in campi come la selezione di molecole, la sintesi di farmaci, ecc. , mentre le applicazioni alla diagnosi sono più lontane. — Beppe > On 31 Jan 2022, at 12:00, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > From: Enrico Nardelli <nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] IBM Watson: an interesting lesson learned in AI/ML in > medicine > Message-ID: <b0ea1988-c601-2834-2b5a-67b462940a70(a)mat.uniroma2.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > > It started in Jeopardy and ended in loss. IBM's flagship AI Watson Health has been sold to venture capitalists for an undisclosed sum thought to be around a billion dollars, or a quarter of what the division cost IBM in acquisitions alone since it was spun off in 2015. > > ... > > When clinical trials were published, Watson came up short every time. It didn't matter what field it was in, it consistently scored less well than human clinicians – sometimes under 50 per cent – and demonstrated some alarming blind spots in suggested treatments. Medical professionals had enough to worry about without babysitting a broken AI: it got dropped. > > ... > > IBM's Watson Health failed at the time, like so much AL/ML, because it didn't know what the question was – ironic, since the game of Jeopardy at which it excelled is all about deducing questions from data. It wanted to automate the highest skilled aspects of healthcare, diagnosis and treatment, but the problem wasn't one of getting the most data and the best algorithm. Rather, the problem was one of meaning. > > ... > > Fortunately, this sad case does not mean AI-based tools can't work in medicine, nor even that Watson Health won't do so, nor that AIs' evaluation and adoption has been slowed down. Ask the right questions, such as "why do some patients get readmitted" and can you spot them early?, and you get the right answers. AI in healthcare is being adopted, and it shows every sign of deserving its place. > > ... > > https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/31/machine_learning_the_hard_way/ > > > -- EN

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"US pushes to change EU’s digital gatekeeper rules"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Jan. 31, 2022

Jan. 31, 2022

*US pushes to change EU’s digital gatekeeper rules * /Washington officials worry that the Digital Markets Act could target American firms./ By Samuel Stolton January 31, 2022 1:16 pm The United States is pressing the EU to revise rules targeting digital giants to make them focus less on American companies and ensure they will also cover tech firms from outside the U.S., according to a new paper distributed to Brussels officials and seen by POLITICO. The move, which aims to change the so-called Digital Markets Act, highlights Washington's concern about plans to rein in the biggest tech companies as the U.S. government is targeting Brussels officials in the midst of ongoing talks in the Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council, a high-level transatlantic discussion group. In addition to the scope of the plans, the Biden administration also cites security concerns regarding Brussels' efforts. "We think it is important that regulatory efforts on either side of the Atlantic do not create unintended adverse consequences, such as inadvertent cybersecurity risks or harms to technological innovation," the paper states. "We have also been clear that we oppose efforts specifically designed to target only U.S. companies where similarly situated non-U.S. companies would not be covered." Late last week Washington circulated the eight-point policy document to "select" MEPs and member countries, in the middle of key negotiations between EU institutions on the bloc’s draft gatekeeper rules. [...] Continua qui: https://www.politico.eu/article/us-government-in-bid-to-change-eu-digital-m…

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Progetto MonitoraPA: Google Analytics nella PA - CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
by Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) Jan. 31, 2022

Jan. 31, 2022

Sappiamo tutti che Google Analytics non và più bene per il GDPR (evviva!): Da qui l'idea di avviare un progetto per: 1. Misurare la presenza di Google Analytics sui siti delle PA 2. Notificare tutti i DPO delle PA 3. Fare Data Analytics dai risultati 4. Espostone al Garante dettagliato Ora servono "braccia" (intellettuali) per fare gli scripts, specificati qui https://github.com/hermescenter/monitorapa. La Chat del Gruppo di lavoro è https://t.me/monitoraPA . L’obiettivo software è spezzettare singoli script affinché: A) Ci sia come artefatto intermedio un file “amministrazione.txt” arricchito che sia importabile in excel con campi aggiunti e che permetta di fare analici di risultato per tipo di PA, per geografia, etc etc B) Lo script di evaluation se c’è Google Analytics sia sostituibile per riusare il progetto software, per misurare altre cose in futuro in modo agevole rifacendo emailing massivi e arricchimento tale e quale. Approposito di "B", vista la sentenza tedesca sull'uso dei Google Fonts Embedded, c'è spazio per estendere questo strumento come mezzo generico e di veloce adattabilità a fare test e notifiche massive, anche per altri scenari di violazione o non compliance. C'è già una disponibilità di più NGO e individui per disseminare i risultati del progetto, ma se non si crea un gruppo comunitario, il progetto non accadrà :* Fabio

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Opportunita' dottorato LINAS in IA e diritto a QUB
by GC F Jan. 31, 2022

Jan. 31, 2022

Cari tutti, Volevo informarvi che ci sono posti disponibili per la scuola di dottorato LINAS finanziata da un grant Leverhulme qui a Queen's University Belfast, dove mi sono trasferito da poco come Chair in Law and Technology. Le tematiche sono quelle di IA, diritto e società'. In particolare, sono disponibili due posizioni a tema aperto (oltre ad altre con tematiche predefinite) nell'ambito di ricerca di LINAS. Di seguito trovate informazioni dettagliate: https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/Study/linas Mettetemi pure in contatto con candidati interessati, se ne conoscete. Le scadenze indicate sul sito sono state protratte fino a fine Febbraio. Ci sono, dunque, ancora i tempi per inviare nuove domande di ammissione. Sono disponibile alla supervisione per la porzione giuridica del dottorato. La supervisione poi verrà' svolta anche da un altro docente con competenze tecniche. In generale, LINAS cerca giuristi con attitudine e disposizione a cimentarsi con aspetti tecnici o candidati STEM con interessi giuridici, etici e socio-economici (forse anche piu' adatti al tema di LINAS). In ogni caso, qualsiasi proposal che discute AI e proprietà' intellettuale, algorithmic enforcement online, content moderation, filtraggio e monitoraggio e tensioni con diritti fondamentali rientra tra i temi LINAS, oltre certamente a candidati interessati a studiare i profili di responsabilità della macchina e relativi aspetti tecnici, giuridici e etici. Con i saluti più' cordiali, Giancarlo

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Annual report lays out the challenges of protecting fundamental rights in the digital age
by Alessandro Brolpito Jan. 31, 2022

Jan. 31, 2022

Dear all, The EU's annual report on Protecting fundamental rights in the digital age (europa.eu) <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_6699> The report covers 5 policy areas: - Tackling the challenges of online moderation - Safeguarding fundamental rights where artificial intelligence is used - Addressing the digital divide - Protecting people working through platform - Supervising digital surveillance More about digital citizenship, to me the key success indicator of the current digital transition Europe’s Digital Decade: digital targets for 2030 | European Commission (europa.eu) <https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-…> Alessandro

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IBM Watson: an interesting lesson learned in AI/ML in medicine
by Enrico Nardelli Jan. 31, 2022

Jan. 31, 2022

It started in Jeopardy and ended in loss. IBM's flagship AI Watson Health has been sold to venture capitalists for an undisclosed sum thought to be around a billion dollars, or a quarter of what the division cost IBM in acquisitions alone since it was spun off in 2015. ... When clinical trials were published, Watson came up short every time. It didn't matter what field it was in, it consistently scored less well than human clinicians – sometimes under 50 per cent – and demonstrated some alarming blind spots in suggested treatments. Medical professionals had enough to worry about without babysitting a broken AI: it got dropped. ... IBM's Watson Health failed at the time, like so much AL/ML, because it didn't know what the question was – ironic, since the game of Jeopardy at which it excelled is all about deducing questions from data. It wanted to automate the highest skilled aspects of healthcare, diagnosis and treatment, but the problem wasn't one of getting the most data and the best algorithm. Rather, the problem was one of meaning. ... Fortunately, this sad case does not mean AI-based tools can't work in medicine, nor even that Watson Health won't do so, nor that AIs' evaluation and adoption has been slowed down. Ask the right questions, such as "why do some patients get readmitted" and can you spot them early?, and you get the right answers. AI in healthcare is being adopted, and it shows every sign of deserving its place. ... https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/31/machine_learning_the_hard_way/ -- 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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What is the quantum apocalypse and should we be scared?
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 30, 2022

Jan. 30, 2022

Profezie o tentativi di esorcizzare le paure? Buona lettura dl https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60144498 _______________________ 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 Controversy Surrounding Hybrid Cryptography - Dhole Moments
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 30, 2022

Jan. 30, 2022

<https://soatok.blog/2022/01/27/the-controversy-surrounding-hybrid-cryptogra…> [...] Why Hybrid Cryptosystems? At some point in the future (years or decades from now), humanity may build a practical quantum computer. This will be a complete disaster for all of the cryptography deployed on the Internet today. In response to this distant existential threat, cryptographers have been hard at work designing and attacking algorithms that remain secure even when quantum computers arrive. These algorithms are classified as post-quantum cryptography (mostly to distinguish it from techniques that uses quantum computers to facilitate cryptography rather than attack it, which is “quantum cryptography” and not really worth our time talking about). Post-quantum cryptography is often abbreviated as “PQ Crypto” or “PQC”. However, a lot of the post-quantum cryptography designs are relatively new or comparatively less studied than their classical (pre-quantum) counterparts. Several of the Round 1 candidates to NIST’s post quantum cryptography project were broken immediately (PDF). Exploit code referenced in PDF duplicated below.: #!/usr/bin/env python3 import binascii, struct def recover_bit(ct, bit): assert bit < len(ct) // 4000 ts = [struct.unpack('BB', ct[i:i+2]) for i in range(4000*bit, 4000*(bit+1), 2)] xs, ys = [a for a, b in ts if b == 1], [a for a, b in ts if b == 2] return sum(xs) / len(xs) >= sum(ys) / len(ys) def decrypt(ct): res = sum(recover_bit(ct, b) << b for b in range(len(ct) // 4000)) return int.to_bytes(res, len(ct) // 4000 // 8, 'little') kat = 0 for l in open('KAT_GuessAgain/GuessAgainEncryptKAT_2000.rsp'): if l.startswith('msg = '): # only used for verifying the recovered plaintext. msg = binascii.unhexlify(l[len('msg = '):].strip()) elif l.startswith('c = '): ct = binascii.unhexlify(l[len('c = '):].strip()) print('{}attacking known-answer test #{}'.format('\n' * (kat > 0), kat)) print('correct plaintext: {}'.format(binascii.hexlify(msg).decode())) plain = decrypt(ct) print('recovered plaintext: {} ({})'.format(binascii.hexlify(plain).decode(), plain == msg)) kat += 1 More pertinent to our discussions: Rainbow, which was one of the Round 3 Finalists for post-quantum digital signature algorithms, was discovered in 2020 to be much easier to attack than previously thought. Specifically, for the third round parameters, the attack cost was reduced by a factor of 2^{20}, 2^{40}, and 2^{55}. That security reduction is just a tad bit more concerning than a Round 1 candidate being totally broken, since NIST had concluded by then that Rainbow was a good signature algorithm until that attack was discovered. Maybe there are similar attacks just waiting to be found? Given that new cryptography is accompanied by less confidence than incumbent cryptography, hybrid designs are an excellent way to mitigate the risk of attack advancements in post-quantum cryptography: If the security of your system requires breaking the cryptography used today AND breaking one of the new-fangled designs, you’ll always be at least as secure as the stronger algorithm. Art: Lynx vs Jackalope Why Is Hybrid Cryptography Controversial? Despite the risks of greenfield cryptographic algorithms, the NSA has begun recommending a strictly-PQ approach to cryptography and have explicitly stated that they will not require hybrid designs. Another pushback on hybrid cryptography comes from Uri Blumenthal of MIT’s Lincoln Labs on the IETF CFRG mailing list (the acronym CRQC expands to “Cryptographically-Relevant Quantum Computer”): Here are the possibilities and their relation to the usefulness of the Hybrid approach. 1. CRQC arrived, Classic hold against classic attacks, PQ algorithms hold – Hybrid is useless. 2. CRQC arrived, Classic hold against classic attacks, PQ algorithms fail – Hybrid is useless. 3. CRQC arrived, Classic broken against classic attacks, PQ algorithms hold – Hybrid is useless. 4. CRQC arrived, Classic hold against classic attacks, PQ algorithms broken – Hybrid useless. 5. CRQC doesn’t arrive, Classic hold against classic attacks, PQ algorithms hold – Hybrid is useless. 6. CRQC doesn’t arrive, Classic hold against classic attacks, PQ algorithms broken – Hybrid helps. 7. CRQC doesn’t arrive, Classic broken against classic attacks, PQ algorithms hold – Hybrid is useless. 8. CRQC doesn’t arrive, Classic broken against classic attacks, PQ algorithms broken – Hybrid is useless. Uri Blumenthal, IETF CFRG mailing list, December 2021 (link) Why Hybrid Is Actually A Damn Good Idea Art: Scruff Kerfluff Uri’s risk analysis is, of course, flawed. And I’m not the first to disagree with him. First, Uri’s framing sort of implies that each of the 8 possible outputs of these 3 boolean variables are relatively equally likely outcomes. It’s very tempting to look at this and think, “Wow, that’s a lot of work for something that only helps in 12.5% of possible outcomes!” Uri didn’t explicitly state this assumption, and he might not even believe that, but it is a cognitive trap that emerges in the structure of his argument, so watch your step. Second, for many candidate algorithms, we’re already in scenario 6 that Uri outlined! It’s not some hypothetical future, it’s the present state of affairs. To wit: The advances in cryptanalysis on Rainbow don’t totally break it in a practical sense, but they do reduce the security by a devastating margin (which will require significantly larger parameter sets and performance penalties to remedy). For many post-quantum algorithms, we’re still uncertain about which scenario is most relevant. But since PQ algorithms are being successfully attacked and a quantum computer still hasn’t arrived, and classical algorithms are still holding up fine, it’s very clear that “hybrid helps” is the world we most likely inhabit today, and likely will for many years (until the existence of quantum computers is finally settled). Finally, even in other scenarios (which are more relevant for other post-quantum algorithms), hybrid doesn’t significantly hurt security. It does carry a minor cost to bandwidth and performance, and it does mean having a larger codebase to review when compared with jettisoning the algorithms we use today, but I’d argue that the existing code is relatively low risk compared to new code. From what I’ve read, the NSA didn’t make as strong an argument as Uri; they said hybrid would not be required, but didn’t go so far as to attack it. Hybrid cryptography is a long-term bet that will protect the most users from cryptanalytic advancements, contrasted with strictly-PQ and no-PQ approaches. Why The Hybrid Controversy Remains Unsettled Even if we can all agree that hybrid is the way to go, there’s still significant disagreement on exactly how to do it. Hybrid KEMs There are two schools of thought on hybrid Key Encapsulation Mechanisms (KEMs): Wrap the post-quantum KEM in the encrypted channel created by the classical KEM. Use both the post-quantum KEM and classical KEM as inputs to a secure KDF, then use a single encrypted channel secured by both. The first option (layered) has the benefit of making migrations smoother. You can begin with classical cryptography (i.e. ECDHE for TLS ciphersuites), which is what most systems online support today. Then you can do your post-quantum cryptography inside the existing channel to create a post-quantum-secure channel. This also lends toward opportunistic upgrades (which might not be a good idea). The second option (composite) has the benefit of making the security of your protocol all-or-nothing: You cannot attack the weak now and the strong part later. The session keys you’ll derive require attacking both algorithms in order to get access to the plaintext. Additionally, you only need a single layer. The complexity lies entirely within the handshake, instead of every packet. Personally, I think composite is a better option for security than layered. Hybrid Signatures There are, additionally, two different schools of thought on hybrid digital signature algorithms. However, the difference is more subtle than with KEMs. Require separate classical signatures and post-quantum signatures. Specify a composite mode that combines the two together and treat it as a distinct algorithm. To better illustrate what this looks like, I outlined what a composite hybrid digital signature algorithm could look like on the CFRG mailing list: primary_seed := randombytes_buf(64) // store this ed25519_seed := hash_sha512256(PREFIX_CLASSICAL || primary_seed) pq_seed := hash_sha512256(PREFIX_POSTQUANTUM || primary_seed) ed25519_keypair := crypto_sign_seed_keypair(ed25519_seed) pq_keypair := pqcrypto_sign_seed_keypair(pq_seed) Your composite public key would be your Ed25519 public key, followed by your post-quantum public key. Since Ed25519 public keys are always 32 bytes, this is easy to implement securely. Every composite signature would be an Ed25519 signature concatenated with the post-quantum signature. Since Ed25519 signatures are always 64 bytes, this leads to a predictable signature size relative to the post-quantum signature. The main motivation for preferring a composite hybrid signature over a detached hybrid signature is to push the hybridization of cryptography lower in the stack so developers don’t have to think about these details. They just select HYBRIDSIG1 or HYBRIDSIG2 in their ciphersuite configuration, and cryptographers get to decide what that means. TL;DR Hybrid designs of post-quantum crypto are good, and I think composite hybrid designs make the most sense for both KEMs and signatures.

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Share the profits! Why US businesses must return to rewarding workers properly | Robert Reich | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 30, 2022

Jan. 30, 2022

<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/29/share-the-profits-us-…> According to this week’s release from the commerce department, the US economy has been growing at its fastest pace in almost 40 years. Corporate profits are their highest in 70 years. And the stock market, although gyrating wildly of late, is still scoring record gains. Where egos dare: Manchin and Sinema show how Senate spotlight corrupts Robert Reich Robert Reich Read more So why do most Americans remain gloomy about the economy? Mainly because their real (inflation-adjusted) wages continue to go nowhere. Steeply-rising profits, economic growth and stock market highs – coupled with near-stagnant wages – has been the story of the American economy for decades. Most economic gains have gone to the top. So why not share the profits? Profit-sharing was tried with great success in the early decades of the 20th century but is now all but forgotten. In 1916, Sears, Roebuck & Co, then one of America’s largest corporations with more than 30,000 employees, announced it would begin to share profits with its employees, giving workers shares of stock and thereby making them part-owners. The idea caught on. Other companies that joined the profit-sharing bandwagon included Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, Kodak and US Steel. The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggested profit-sharing as a means of reducing “frequent and often violent disputes” between employers and workers. Profit-sharing gave workers an incentive to be more productive, since the success of the company meant higher profits would be shared. It also reduced the need for layoffs during recessions because payroll costs dropped as profits did. By the 1950s, Sears workers had accumulated enough stock that they owned a quarter of the company. And by 1968, the typical Sears salesperson could retire with a nest egg worth well over $1m, in today’s dollars. The downside was that when profits went down, workers’ paychecks would shrink. And if a company went bankrupt, workers would lose all their investments in it. The best profit-sharing plans took the form of cash bonuses that employees could invest however they wish, on top of predictable wages. But profit-sharing with regular employees all but disappeared in large US corporations. Ever since the early 1980s when corporate “raiders” (now private-equity managers) began demanding high returns, corporations stopped granting employees shares of stock, presumably because they didn’t want to dilute share prices. Sears phased out its profit-sharing plan in the 1970s. Yet, just as profit-sharing with regular employees disappeared, profit-sharing with top executives took off, as big Wall Street banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and high-tech companies began doling out huge wads of stock and stock options to their MVPs. The result? Share prices and chief executive pay (composed increasingly of shares of stock and options to buy stock) have gone into the stratosphere, while the wages of the typical worker have barely risen. Researchers have found that before the 1980s, almost all the increases in share prices on the US stock market could be accounted for by overall economic growth. But since then, a large portion of the increases have come out of what used to go into wages. Jeff Bezos, who now owns around 10% of Amazon’s shares, is worth $170.4bn. Other top Amazon executives hold hundreds of millions of dollars of shares. But most of Amazon’s employees, such as warehouse workers, haven’t shared in the bounty. Amazon used to give out stock to hundreds of thousands of its employees. But in 2018 it stopped the practice and instead raised its minimum hourly wage to $15. The wage raise got headlines and was good PR – Amazon is still touting it – but the decision to end stock awards was more significant. It hurt employees far more than the increased minimum helped them. Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack Robert Reich Robert Reich Read more If Amazon’s 1.2 million employees together owned the same proportion of Amazon’s stock as Sears workers did in the 1950s – a quarter of the company – each Amazon worker would now own shares worth an average of more than $350,000. America’s trend toward higher profits, higher share prices, mounting executive pay but near stagnant wages is unsustainable, economically and politically. Profit-sharing is one answer. But how can it be encouraged? Reduce corporate taxes on companies that share profits with all their workers, and increase taxes on those that do not. Sharing profits with all workers is a logical and necessary step to making the system work for the many, not the few

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Cloud: pubblicato il "bando" UFFICIALE per il Polo Strategico Nazionale
by Damiano Verzulli Jan. 29, 2022

Jan. 29, 2022

"Procedura aperta per l’affidamento, mediante un contratto di partenariato pubblico-privato, della realizzazione e gestione del Polo Strategico Nazionale" => https://www.difesaservizi.it/pubblicazione-gara-per-il-Polo-Strategico-Nazi… 13 anni di durata, 723M€ di valore. Scadenza il 16/03/2022 Chissa' come andra' a finire.... Saluti, DV -- Damiano Verzulli e-mail:damiano@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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