May 2022 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Cook: "The persecution of Julian Assange" (recensione libro di Melzer)

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*The persecution of Julian Assange** * Jonathan Cook 4 May 2022 16:43 UTC /According to UN torture expert, the UK and US have colluded to publicly destroy the WikiLeaks founder – and deter others from exposing their crimes/ // The British home secretary, Priti Patel, will decide this month whether Julian Assange is to be extradited to the United States, where he faces a sentence of up to 175 years <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61162908> – served most likely in strict, 24-hour isolation in a US super-max jail. He has already spent three years in similarly harsh conditions in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison. The 18 charges laid against Assange in the US relate to the publication by WikiLeaks in 2010 of leaked official documents, many of them showing that the US and UK were responsible for war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one has been brought to justice for those crimes. Instead, the US has defined Assange’s journalism as espionage - and by implication asserted a right to seize any journalist in the world who takes on the US national security state - and in a series of extradition hearings, the British courts have given their blessing. The lengthy proceedings against Assange have been carried out in courtrooms with tightly restricted access and in circumstances that have repeatedly denied journalists the ability to cover the case properly. Despite the grave implications for a free press and democratic accountability, however, Assange’s plight has provoked little more than a flicker of concern from much of the western media. Few observers appear to be in any doubt that Patel will sign off on the US extradition order – least of all Nils Melzer <https://www.geneva-academy.ch/masters/ll-m/faculty/profile/47-nils-melzer>, a law professor, and a United Nations’ special rapporteur. In his role as the UN’s expert on torture, Melzer has made it his job since 2019 to scrutinise not only Assange’s treatment during his 12 years of increasing confinement – overseen by the UK courts – but also the extent to which due process and the rule of law have been followed in pursuing the WikiLeaks founder. Melzer has distilled his detailed research into a new book, The Trial of Julian Assange <https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/697240/the-trial-of-julian-assange…>, that provides a shocking account of rampant lawlessness by the main states involved – Britain, Sweden, the US, and Ecuador. It also documents a sophisticated campaign of misinformation and character assassination to obscure those misdeeds. [...] continua qui: https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/show-trial-julian-assange-book

May 5, 2022

Re: [nexa] Kaspersky fuori dalla PA: cosa faranno aziende e privati?

by Roberto Resoli

Il 3 maggio 2022 08:47:38 CEST, Mauro Alovisio <mauro.alovisio(a)gmail.com> ha scritto: >Gent.mi > >Segnalo > >https://www.punto-informatico.it/kaspersky-fuori-dalla-pa-cosa-faranno-azie… > > >Un caro saluto > >Mauro Vitalba Azzollini (giurista) su Domani: https://www.editorialedomani.it/politica/italia/sicurezza-dati-guerra-ucrai… " ... Il timore è che prodotti e servizi informatici russi possano essere veicolo di attacchi. Sia la raccomandazione che il decreto legge sembrano riguardare, pur senza farvi espresso riferimento, l’antivirus di produzione russa Kaspersky, il più usato dalla pubblica amministrazione italiana e da molti privati. Kaspersky è, invece, esplicitamente menzionato dall’Ufficio federale per la sicurezza dell'informazione (Bsi), in Germania, e dal Centro governativo di sicurezza informatica (Anssi), in Francia. In particolare, l’ente tedesco invita a «sostituire le applicazioni del portafoglio di software di protezione antivirus di Kaspersky con prodotti alternativi». «Le azioni delle forze armate e/o di intelligence in Russia e le minacce mosse dalla Russia» - si legge nel comunicato dell’Agenzia tedesca - «sono associate a un rischio significativo di successo di un attacco informatico. ... Il Garante ha chiesto a Kaspersky Lab di «fornire il numero e la tipologia di clienti italiani, nonché informazioni dettagliate sul trattamento dei dati personali effettuato nell’ambito dei diversi prodotti o servizi di sicurezza». ... " rob

May 4, 2022

Re: [nexa] Will Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 unmask anonymous Arab dissidents? | Technology News | Al Jazeera

by 380°

Alberto, nexiane sono basito: a qualcuno risulta che sia mai stato possibile pubblicare su Twitter senza autenticazione?!? É molto interessante osservare - ancora una volta - come la più becera disinformazione sia in grado di apparire autorevole citando /a caso/ "activists and experts"; tra l'altro sono davvero curioso di leggere cosa /davvero/ avrebbe detto Jillian York della EFF (perché nel caso la EFF si sarebbe fatta /molto/ male da sola) Piccolo indizio per i meno avvezzi al trucchetto usato in questo tipo di narrativa: autenticazione /non/ significa identificazione Alberto Cammozzo via nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> writes: > <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/3/will-elon-musks-twitter-2-0-unmask-…> > > Twitter appears to be going private, Mumble mumble: perché fino a oggi cos'è stata?!? Non è /per caso/ che il lapsus freudiano è che Twitter verrà /privata/ dell'influenza governativa USA... o almeno questa potrebbe essere l'intenzione? > leaving dissidents in the Middle East and North Africa concerned that > a safe space to speak freely, amid various forms of state censorship, > is about to disappear. Eggià peccato, per far contenti i dissidenti occidentali (?) tocca scontentare i dissidenti mediorientali e nordafricani, la cui identità è perfettamente nota a Twitter (e una discreta serie di agenzie di intelligence) ma viene gelosamente tenuta /riservata/ [...] > But turning Twitter into a private venture with no oversight Significa che Twitter non rispetterà la legge oppure non rispetterà gli ordini del governo/congresso USA e della Commissione EU? [...] > Along with making algorithms open-source ROTFL: algoritmi open-source è una perla [...] > Many have questioned how the self-proclaimed “free-speech absolutist” > plans to go about verifying the identity of human users and whether it > would force anonymous users to reveal their real identities. ...ma da quando in qua Internet è mai stata anonima?!? Ancora con 'sta favoletta? Se volete proteggere i dissidenti di ogni latitudine e longitudine date loro dei dispositivi con sistemi operativi affidabili e verificabili E una rete dove sia possibile connettersi in modo davvero anonimo (tipo GNUnet), /poi/ ne riparliamo. > If “authenticating all humans” includes de-anonymisation, De-anonimizzare gli utenti Internet è quello che le agenzie di intelligence di mezzo mondo sanno fare benissimo, soprattutto se amiche di quella USA [...] > Authenticating human users is a process that can be done in various > ways. Bingo!... e non tutti questi metodi implicano la necessità che l'utente si /identifichi/. > Wael Alalwani, a digital rights advocate and data scientist, explained > it could range from “ticking a CAPTCHA box ... dove sarà necessario individuare tutte le foto di "muschio bianco" (white Musk) :-D > … all the way to uploading official documents and personal photos”. Oppure: «How messaging provides Anonymity» https://docs.gnunet.org/handbook/gnunet.html#How-messaging-provides-Anonymi… e «Egos»: https://docs.gnunet.org/handbook/gnunet.html#Egos [...] > Twitter users who tweet anonymously against repressive governments > will be the first segment affected if they end up revealing their > identity. Aridaje con la confusione tra autenticazione (che già c'è in Twitter) e identificazione [...] > Tweeting anonymously, non è /mai/ stato possibile, semmai con pseudonimo (come nell'articolo si /accenna/)... banalmente identificabile dall'ultimo dei cretini con sufficiente autorità [...] > users may start to move elsewhere, with the encrypted messaging app > Telegram being “the most obvious option”. altra boiata galattica, visto che le chat di gruppo e i supergruppi su Telegram /non/ possono essere crittografati... e anche i messaggi uno a uno crittografati /non/ sono leggibili su altri device, quindi è una /mezza/ funzione. [...] > In 2019, it l'Egitto > introduced tighter restrictions that allow the state to block websites > and social media accounts for “fake news” or incitement. mumble, mumble, mumble: dove l'ho vista applicata la stessa cosa?!?... mmmmmmmh [...] > Despite Twitter becoming a haven for hate speech and disinformation > over the years, anonymous users have still been able to speak freely > without fearing immediate reprisals. finché Twitter glielo ha permesso, perché ci sono dissidenti e dissidenti, neh?!? > To better shield and support anonymous users, The Big Pharaoh said > Twitter should continue to “protect the privacy of users”. ROFTL [...] > Alalwani warns that knowing the real identities of activists could > “augment the mass-surveillance activities applied by governments with > the support of the new Twitter”. Ma una dichiarazioncina di Snowden o Assange non ci starebbe troppo bene?!? [...] > Instead of the app being in the hands of a sole private owner with > huge infamous influence, ways of “collective governance, co-ownership, > and data ownership should be discussed”, he suggested. Notare lo sforzo immane che devono fare pur di non chiedere manco per sbaglio che il software sia libero :-O Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «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>.

May 4, 2022

Dave Walden

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*David Walden, a computer scientist who helped develop a machine that would evolve to become the backbone of the internet for decades, died on April 27 at his home in East Sandwich, Mass. He was 79.* The cause was complications of mantle cell lymphoma, his wife, Sara Walden, said. In 1969, Mr. Walden was part of a small team of talented young engineers whose mission was to build the Interface Message Processor. Its function was to switch data among computers linked to the nascent Arpanet, the precursor to the internet. The first I.M.P. was installed that year at the University of California, Los Angeles. The I.M.P.s would be crucial to the internet until the Arpanet was decommissioned in 1989. …………. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/technology/david-walden-dead.html

May 4, 2022

Why eliminating A.I. bias is harder than it seems

by Enrico Nardelli

... it turns out that mitigating bias is far harder than even many experts assume, as a story last week in the tech publication The Register pointed out https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/01/ai_models_racist/?tpcc=nleyeonai . The story cited a research paper published in the science journal Science Advances that looked at racial bias in an A.I. system designed to classify brain activity from functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) scans. It turns out that the datasets of fMRI data used to train these kind of A.I. systems don’t have much data from Black Americans. So it’s not surprisingly that the algorithms performed poorly on scans of Black patients. But what is surprising is that even when the researchers curated a training dataset consisting only of data from Black Americans, the resulting system still performed worse on Black patients than the standard system performed on white patients. ... https://links.newsletter.fortune.com/e/evib?_t=5c2d888702774d17aa3d0350287b… -- EN ===================================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Presidente di "Informatics Europe" Direttore del Laboratorio Nazionale "Informatica e Scuola" del CINI Dipartimento di Matematica - Università di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it online meeting: https://blue.meet.garr.it/b/enr-y7f-t0q-ont ===================================================================== --

May 4, 2022

ai for good

by don Luca Peyron

https://news.mit.edu/2021/artificial-intelligence-tool-can-help-detect-mela… Cose buone dal mondo recitava una vecchia pubblicità dl _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

May 4, 2022

La guerra dell’informazione è senza limiti

by David Schmudde

Buongiorno a tutti, mi permetto di segnalare la traduzione italiana di un mio intervento su QCodeMag sulla guerra dell'informazione per capire meglio le dimensioni del conflitto cibernetico fra Russia e Ucraina dal 2014. "La guerra dell’informazione è senza limiti (e senza limiti sono le conseguenze)" https://www.qcodemag.it/interventi/la-guerra-dellinformazione-e-senza-limit… I vostri commenti sono benvenuti! Un caro saluto, David a Torino, IT, Beyond the Frame https://schmud.de

May 4, 2022

Memento | Convegno "Ricerca, educazione e accesso al patrimonio culturale" | 6 maggio 2022, ore 9.00-18.00

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che *venerdì**6 maggio*, dalle ore 9.00 alle ore 18.00, presso il Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Aula Marconi, Piazzale Aldo Moro n. 7, Roma, si terrà il convegno organizzato dall'Istituto di Informatica Giuridica e Sistemi Giudiziari, e dal Capitolo Italiano Creative Commons: /*"Ricerca, educazione e accesso al patrimonio culturale. Un confronto tra diritti fondamentali ed eccezioni al diritto d'autore"*/. Per chi non potesse partecipare in presenza sarà possibile collegarsi da remoto; in entrambi i casi è necessario iscriversi al seguente link: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3860291188661858060 Partecipano al convegno, tra gli altri: *Marco Ricolfi*, Co-Fondatore e Co-Direttore del Centro Nexa, Università degli studi di Torino; *Maurizio Borghi*, Trustee del Centro Nexa, Università degli studi di Torino; *Deborah De Angelis*, Fellow del Centro Nexa, Creative Commons - Capitolo italiano. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/ricerca-educazione-accessopatrimonioculturale 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/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

May 4, 2022

“AI research is a dumpster fire and Google’s holding the matches”

by J.C. DE MARTIN

AI research is a dumpster fire and Google’s holding the matches Scientific endeavor is no match for corporate greed https://thenextweb.com/news/ai-research-dumpster-fire-and-googles-holding-t… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

May 4, 2022

Will Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0 unmask anonymous Arab dissidents? | Technology News | Al Jazeera

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/3/will-elon-musks-twitter-2-0-unmask-…> Twitter appears to be going private, leaving dissidents in the Middle East and North Africa concerned that a safe space to speak freely, amid various forms of state censorship, is about to disappear. Under the prospective ownership of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the popular social media app is expected to undergo changes. But turning Twitter into a private venture with no oversight means some of these changes are bound to restrict the safety and privacy of users, effectively silencing them, activists and experts say. Along with making algorithms open-source and defeating the controversial issue of bots, the billionaire entrepreneur, who reached a buyout deal with Twitter Inc. last week, has also pledged to “authenticate all humans”. “No matter how you spin it, this will exclude certain users of the platform,” Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Al Jazeera. Many have questioned how the self-proclaimed “free-speech absolutist” plans to go about verifying the identity of human users and whether it would force anonymous users to reveal their real identities. If “authenticating all humans” includes de-anonymisation, it is “sure to have a profoundly negative impact on pro-democracy movements across the globe”, Kareem Rifai, a Syrian-American pro-democracy activist, told Al Jazeera. “De-anonymisation makes it dangerous or impossible for opposition activists living under dictatorial regimes to safely criticise their oppressors,” Rifai said. What does ‘authenticating all humans’ mean? Authenticating human users is a process that can be done in various ways. Wael Alalwani, a digital rights advocate and data scientist, explained it could range from “ticking a CAPTCHA box … all the way to uploading official documents and personal photos”. Regardless of how it’s done, both York and Alalwani agree there is “absolutely” cause for concern. While authentication was mentioned as a “solution” to the flourishing bots and spam presence on Twitter, Alalwani believes these “can’t be solved by authentication per se”. Combatting bots in a linear manner may lead to unintended consequences, that do not serve the long-term objective, he said, adding that Twitter users who tweet anonymously against repressive governments will be the first segment affected if they end up revealing their identity. York agrees. “A user who tweets anonymously against a repressive regime … would have to weigh their physical safety against the importance of their work – a choice they shouldn’t have to make,” she said. “I would like to see bots gone, as Musk said, but I’ll still not be happy if anonymous accounts were not allowed any more”, a Cairo-based Twitter user whose pseudonym is The Big Pharaoh, told Al Jazeera. The Big Pharaoh, who has been blogging anonymously since 2004, is known for their strong stance against the Egyptian government. They have nearly 75,000 Twitter followers. They say their anonymity stems from “security concerns”, but also because their blog – also The Big Pharaoh – has become synonymous with their pseudonym. Clamping down on dissent In their earlier days, platforms like Twitter and Facebook provided activists with the means to organise and amplify their demands, essentially becoming key tools that played a role in kickstarting some of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011. In the few years leading up to the revolutions, dissenting voices who had been blogging anonymously since the early 2000s found a wider audience on Twitter as the platform’s popularity skyrocketed after 2008. In a political climate that did not allow independent media to thrive, local activists like The Big Pharaoh were finally able to offer an alternative view that resonated with millions of people. This was also the case for Mahmoud Salem, an Egyptian cybersecurity analyst who authored the blog Rantings of a Sandmonkey. In 2005, Salem started blogging anonymously in a bid to fuel debate on social and political issues at home and in the region. He later turned to Twitter and now shares his thoughts with more than 176,000 followers. Salem says it was “super important” to be able to tweet anonymously in the lead up to the Egyptian uprising, especially in terms of “not confusing the message with the messenger”. Tweeting anonymously, he explained, meant that you were stripped of any labels or affiliations. Egypt Salem, eventually revealed his identity in February 2011, after he said he was almost killed by the police, who briefly detained him for participating in a protest in downtown Cairo. According to Salem, if Twitter decides to force users to relinquish personal information under Musk, it will be the “end of online anonymous activism”, suggesting that users may start to move elsewhere, with the encrypted messaging app Telegram being “the most obvious option”. Salem believes it may also be the end of “fake accounts, and by extension Twitter users’ growth”, casting doubt on whether the new feature will be implemented at all. The formerly anonymous activist now “sporadically” blogs using his real name, but no longer lives in Egypt. “It made sense to leave”, he said, after his friends and business partners all “ended up arrested or exiled”. In recent years, Egypt has launched an unprecedented crackdown on the media, imprisoning dozens and occasionally expelling foreign journalists. In 2019, it introduced tighter restrictions that allow the state to block websites and social media accounts for “fake news” or incitement. And just last week, in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad’s government violently repressed what began as a peaceful uprising in 2011, amendments were made to existing cybercrime laws that would imprison Syrians for up to 15 years for criticising the regime. ‘Protect the privacy of users’ Despite Twitter becoming a haven for hate speech and disinformation over the years, anonymous users have still been able to speak freely without fearing immediate reprisals. To better shield and support anonymous users, The Big Pharaoh said Twitter should continue to “protect the privacy of users”. Salem agreed. “If such a process exists, then there needs to be a mechanism that prevents Twitter from sharing said information,” he said. Otherwise, Twitter may be aiding regimes in extending their repressive practices to digital spaces, too. Alalwani warns that knowing the real identities of activists could “augment the mass-surveillance activities applied by governments with the support of the new Twitter”. While Twitter has historically handed user data to foreign governments in response to legal requests, it has done so carefully and, at times, “fought back when they deem such requests to be unjust”, York said. However, Musk has so far given no indication that he has a sense of the issue. In a tweet published on Tuesday, Musk says: “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law.” He continues: “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.” The statement alarmed activists, who cross the free speech boundary set by their respective governments and guarded by Musk, and indicates “their data could be easily shared with the government to enforce the law”, Alalwani said. Instead of the app being in the hands of a sole private owner with huge infamous influence, ways of “collective governance, co-ownership, and data ownership should be discussed”, he suggested.

May 4, 2022