December 2025 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] "Stefano Rodotà (appositamente richiamato dall’Aldilà mentre giocava a scacchi)"
by Simone Aliprandi Jan. 18, 2026

Jan. 18, 2026

Buongiorno a tutti. Ero uscito dalla lista qualche tempo fa e non stavo più seguendo le discussioni. Mi hanno però segnalato questo thread interessantissimo che mi permetto di riaprire, in particolare citando le parole di Guido Scorza che lo scorso 24 luglio, commentando quel documento circolato in forma pseudonima, aveva scritto: > Nella dimensione pubblica, fuori da qui, ho scelto di non commentare > il documento che, peraltro, non mi è mai stato trasmesso dal suo > autore o dai suoi autori e mi è semplicemente stato inoltrato – con un > certo ritardo rispetto alla sua prima uscita – da alcuni amici che lo > avevano ricevuto. [...] > Le ragioni alla base di questa scelta sono tante e, tra queste, certamente > il fatto che una parte di me rifiuta culturalmente l'idea di commentare > l'opinione di un collega o di un paio di colleghi che, pur conoscendomi > benissimo, non solo e non tanto scelgono di criticarmi e, in alcuni passaggi, > credo, diffamarmi (ma non tocca a me dirlo) in forma pseudonima ma, > soprattutto, per farlo disturba/no la memoria di una persona alla quale devo > tantissimo (incluso il lavoro che faccio in questo momento) [...] > Sto ricevendo centinaia di messaggi di solidarietà (credo non necessari > considerata la natura dell'iniziativa) e sto provando a rispondere a tutti > con la conseguenza che la mia risposta potrebbe non essere immediata. Alla luce di quanto emerso in questi giorni, vorrei porre a Scorza pubblicamente qui un paio di domande (visto che altrove mi ha "bloccato"), e sperando che non dica semplicemente di andare ad ascoltare la sua arringa preventiva pubblicata sui suoi canali un giorno prima dell'uscita dell'inchiesta di Report e FattoQuotidiano. Chiaramente dopo l'uscita del servizio (che ha portato varie prove di quanto sostenuto) quell'arringa preventiva non ha più molto senso e anzi assume toni un po' grotteschi. 1) Lei ritiene ancora che quel documento sia diffamatorio e contenga delle falsità? Se sì, si è attivato per fare denuncia all'autorità giudiziaria? 2) Lei pensa ancora che non si debba disturbare la memoria di Rodotà, dato che in questi giorni in molti (compreso lo stesso Ranucci nelle due puntate andate in onda fin qui) hanno fatto cenni proprio a Rodotà e a come il suo progetto di autorità indipendente è stato svilito? 3) Anche oggi sta ricevendo quelle "centinaia di messaggi di solidarietà" oppure sta ricevendo messaggi di altra natura? Grazie per le risposte che vorrà gentilmente fornirmi. E grazie a chiunque altro in questa lista voglia esprimere il suo parere sul tema. Perché - inutile far finta di nulla - è tutto di una gravità enorme e difficilmente si potrà far finta di nulla a livello istituzionale; anzi, c'è pure il rischio che adesso la macchia d'olio si estenda anche ad altri soggetti e altre autorità. Un caro saluto a tutti. -- Simone Aliprandi (https://aliprandi.org/)

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"The US government's de facto ban on new DJI drones is here"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 23, 2025

Dec. 23, 2025

*The US government's de facto ban on new DJI drones is here * Published Dec 23, 2025 | Mitchell Clark The US government has placed a de facto ban on the import and sale of new drones and drone parts made outside of its borders, including ones from popular manufacturers like DJI. While people are still able to fly the drones they currently own and retailers can sell current models, it's a major blow to the drone market in the country. A press release from the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, predictably cites national security as the reason for the policy change. It acknowledges that "unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones, offer the potential to greatly enhance public safety and innovation," but goes on to say that "criminals, hostile foreign actors, and terrorists can use them to present new and serious threats to our homeland." It lists major events, like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 summer Olympics, as potential reasons to "safeguard" its airspace. [...] continua: https://www.dpreview.com/news/2878865139/us-drone-ban-2025-dji

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Democrazia in tempo di guerra. Disciplinare la cultura e la scienza, censurare l'informazione
by antonio Dec. 22, 2025

Dec. 22, 2025

C'era una data. C'erano due nomi pesanti come macigni della coscienza critica italiana: Alessandro Barbero e Angelo D'Orsi. C'era un titolo: "Democrazia in tempo di guerra. Disciplinare la cultura e la scienza, censurare l'informazione". Ora non c'è più niente. L'evento previsto per domani, 9 dicembre 2025 al Teatro Grande Valdocco di Torino è stato cancellato per revoca della concessione della sala. Una decisione comunicata dall'alto, secca, asettica. Ma che ha un odore preciso, inconfondibile: puzza di censura. Chi prova a raccontarla come una "questione organizzativa" prende in giro l'intelligenza delle persone. Qui non salta un concerto per un problema all'impianto elettrico. Qui viene tolta una sala a un evento che parlava di censura, guerra, propaganda, libertà di informazione. La coincidenza è così grossa da diventare una confessione. ... Torino non è una città qualunque. È città operaia, partigiana, universitaria, critica. È città di ANPI, di memoria, di lotte civili. Ed è proprio per questo che questa cancellazione pesa doppio. Perché è uno strappo simbolico. La storia insegna una cosa semplice: la censura non inizia mai con un boato. Inizia con una sala negata. Oggi tocca a due storici. Domani a un giornalista. Dopodomani a un insegnante. Poi, quando il silenzio sarà diventato abitudine, toccherà a tutti. https://wordnews.it/2025/12/08/democrazia-in-tempo-di-guerra-a-torino-salta… A.

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GIG-ARTS 2026: Keynote speaker + deadline reminder
by Mauro SANTANIELLO Dec. 18, 2025

Dec. 18, 2025

Dear Colleagues, We are delighted to announce* Prof. Iris Eisenberger as the keynote speaker* for the Tenth GIG-ARTS Conference, taking place at Dublin City University on May 14–15, 2026. Iris Eisenberger is Professor of Innovation and Public Law at the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law at the Faculty of Law (University of Vienna). Her work focuses on innovation and technology law, the protection of fundamental and human rights and research at the intersection of law, innovation and society. Please remember that the deadline for submitting abstracts is *19th January 2026*. All information about the 10th edition of GIG-ARTS, including submission guidelines and proposal requirements, is available at: https://gig-arts.eu/dublin-2026/ Best wishes, The Organizing Committee

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Meta incassa 7 miliardi di dollari l’anno da spot-truffa, e lo sa – Attivissimo.me
by Alberto Cammozzo Dec. 18, 2025

Dec. 18, 2025

Mi chiedo come possano ancora giustificarsi account istituzionali di imprese e enti pubblici su Meta. Dovremmo richiedere di cancellarli. Alberto. <https://attivissimo.me/2025/11/11/podcast-rsi-meta-incassa-7-miliardi-di-do…> Podcast RSI – Meta incassa 7 miliardi di dollari l’anno da spot-truffa, e lo sa 11 - 14 minutes Questo è il testo della puntata del 10 novembre 2025 del podcast Il Disinformatico della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, scritto, montato e condotto dal sottoscritto. Il testo include anche i link alle fonti di questa puntata. Le puntate del Disinformatico sono ascoltabili anche tramite iTunes, YouTube Music, Spotify e feed RSS. Il mio archivio delle puntate è presso Attivissimo.me/disi. Se vi è capitato di notare una pubblicità sfacciatamente truffaldina su Facebook o Instagram e avete provato a segnalarla ma non è successo nulla e lo spot è rimasto al suo posto, c’è una buona ragione. Anzi, ci sono sette miliardi di buone ragioni. Meta, la società che gestisce questi due social network oltre a WhatsApp, incassa infatti sette miliardi di dollari ogni anno dalle pubblicità fraudolente. E grazie a un’indagine appena pubblicata da Reuters, sappiamo che i dirigenti di Meta sono perfettamente consapevoli di questa situazione e hanno deciso di non fare nulla, perché l’ammontare di qualunque sanzione delle autorità sarebbe inferiore a quello che incassa. Non solo: quando Meta si accorge che un inserzionista sta truffando, spesso non lo blocca, ma si limita a farlo pagare di più per continuare a pubblicare i suoi spot che raggirano gli utenti. In altre parole, Meta guadagna di più da una pubblicità truffaldina che da uno spot onesto. Non è una teoria: lo dicono i documenti interni di Meta stessa. Benvenuti alla puntata del 10 novembre 2025 del Disinformatico, il podcast della Radiotelevisione Svizzera dedicato alle notizie e alle storie strane dell’informatica. Io sono Paolo Attivissimo. Ogni giorno, Meta mostra agli utenti di Facebook, Instagram e WhatsApp circa 15 miliardi di pubblicità ad alto rischio di truffa. Da queste pubblicità incassa 7 miliardi di dollari l’anno. Alla fine del 2024, l’azienda prevedeva che il 10% del suo fatturato globale, circa 16 miliardi di dollari, sarebbe derivato dal fatto di mostrare consapevolmente ai propri utenti delle pubblicità che promuovono truffe o prodotti illegali. Sono alcuni dei dati che emergono da un’inchiesta pubblicata pochi giorni fa da Reuters e basata su documenti interni di Meta. I comportamenti intenzionali di Meta rivelati dall’inchiesta lasciano a bocca aperta per il loro cinismo assoluto. Gran parte delle truffe sui suoi social network proviene da operatori che vengono rilevati eccome dai servizi di monitoraggio antifrode interni, ma Meta blocca questi inserzionisti solo se questi sistemi automatici sono sicuri almeno al 95% che sia in corso una truffa. Se la percentuale è inferiore, Meta semplicemente fa pagare all’inserzionista un importo maggiore per ciascuno spot, ma non lo blocca. C’è di più: la documentazione interna dell’azienda di Mark Zuckerberg spiega che un utente che clicca su una pubblicità fraudolenta verrà bombardato da altre pubblicità truffa, grazie agli automatismi, i famosi algoritmi social, che cercano di presentare agli utenti delle pubblicità basate sui loro interessi. Altre informazioni interne dimostrano che Meta ha ordinato ai suoi team antifrode di non intervenire contro gli inserzionisti sospettati di frode se bloccarli rischia di far perdere a Meta più dello 0,15% del fatturato globale. A ottobre 2024, i dirigenti di Meta hanno presentato a Zuckerberg in persona un piano antifrode, che invece di agire drasticamente avrebbe concentrato i propri sforzi nei Paesi nei quali si temeva un intervento a breve del legislatore. Hanno poi concordato che avrebbero tentato di ridurre gli incassi legati a truffe, gioco d’azzardo illegale e merci proibite dal 10,1% circa del 2024 al 7,3% entro la fine di quest’anno. Hanno i mezzi per bloccare le truffe, ma li applicano con il contagocce per non causare cali troppo repentini nel fatturato aziendale. È difficile leggere i dati portati alla luce dall’indagine di Reuters senza evocare la parola “complicità”. Qui non si tratta più di un semplice “se non paghi per qualcosa, il prodotto in vendita sei tu”. Non è più una sorta di compromesso di convenienza, nel quale gli utenti accettano di essere sorvegliati a scopo pubblicitario in cambio di un servizio che permette loro di restare in contatto con parenti, amici e clienti. Meta sta volutamente, consapevolmente dando i propri utenti – cioè noi – in pasto ai truffatori perché guadagna dalle loro truffe. Questa è la reale natura dei social network che quattro miliardi di persone al mondo continuano a usare. Un territorio di caccia per criminali, che ingannano gli adulti con finti investimenti facili e seducono i minori per ricattarli minacciando di pubblicare le loro foto intime, e la passano liscia perché le loro inserzioni su Facebook e Instagram contribuiscono al fatturato. È per questo che segnalare una truffa sui social network di Meta è molto spesso una perdita di tempo. Anche a me è capitato di segnalare account che erano sfacciatamente in violazione delle regole di Facebook o di Instagram, perché presentavano immagini di minori in atteggiamenti illegali o fingevano di essere account di celebrità che promuovevano investimenti e prodotti, e mi è capitato di sentirmi rispondere spesso che andava tutto bene così. Addirittura segnalare in massa spesso è inutile. I documenti interni di Meta rivelano che l’azienda lo sa e non fa praticamente nulla. Uno di questi documenti, datato 2023, mette in luce il livello stratosferico di indifferenza di Meta verso i suoi utenti truffati o esposti a truffe. In quel periodo gli utenti di Facebook e Instagram stavano inviando circa centomila segnalazioni valide di tentativi di truffa ogni settimana, ma Meta le ignorava o le respingeva nel 96% dei casi. Però possiamo consolarci, perché i responsabili della sicurezza si erano impegnati, in questi documenti, a ridurre questa percentuale al 75%. Per loro, lasciar correre tre truffe su quattro sarebbe un bel risultato. Lo so che niente di tutto questo vi farà chiudere i vostri account Instagram, Facebook o WhatsApp. Moltissimi utenti hanno investito anni nel creare una rete di amicizie e di contatti su questi social network e quindi sono comprensibilmente molto riluttanti a smettere di usarli anche di fronte a rivelazioni come queste. Il loro atteggiamento spesso è del tipo “sì, lo so che mi profilano, ma tanto non ho niente da nascondere, facciano pure; io non voglio perdere i contatti con i parenti e gli amici, e se non fanno abbastanza contro le frodi starò attento a non cliccare sulle pubblicità.” Ma stare attenti a non abboccare agli spot non basta. Questa intenzionale, calcolata carenza di vigilanza di Meta sui propri social favorisce infatti un ecosistema di truffatori impuniti e ben attrezzati ,che rubano gli account degli utenti e ne prendono il controllo per diffondere i loro raggiri usando le identità delle vittime. In questo modo gli amici di quelle vittime crederanno che il consiglio di investimento in criptovalute arrivi da una persona di fiducia, e abboccheranno più facilmente. L’indagine di Reuters cita un esempio eloquente fra tanti. Una donna ha scoperto di non poter più accedere al proprio account Facebook e si è accorta che qualcuno lo stava usando per mostrare una falsa tessera da dipendente sulla quale c’era la sua faccia. Il testo del post annunciava che lei (la vittima) era ora “certificata per le criptovalute”. La donna ha segnalato subito il problema a Meta, ripetutamente, ma non è successo nulla. Il suo account, con il suo nome e la sua faccia, continuava ad annunciare che lei era diventata ricca grazie alle cripto e voleva dare ai suoi amici la stessa opportunità. Chiedere alla polizia di intervenire è stato inutile: gli agenti le hanno detto che normalmente Meta non risponde alle segnalazioni di account rubati neanche quando arrivano dalle forze dell’ordine. E così la donna ha cercato di avvisare tutti i propri contatti, chiedendo di non interagire con il suo account e di segnalarne il furto a Meta. Ma anche questo non è servito a nulla. Nonostante un centinaio di segnalazioni, Meta non ha fatto niente per parecchio tempo, e così i truffatori sono riusciti a raggirare cinque suoi colleghi che si sono fidati dei consigli che a loro sembravano provenire da lei e hanno perso cifre ingenti. I documenti interni di Meta rivelano un altro aspetto poco conosciuto del mondo delle frodi online: i truffatori sono ricchi. Per trovare le proprie vittime, investono in campagne di spot sui social per decine o centinaia di migliaia di dollari. Uno dei documenti cita il caso di un truffatore che ha pagato a Meta ben 250 mila dollari per fare inserzioni nelle quali si spacciava per il primo ministro canadese e propinava, anche qui, investimenti in criptovalute. Avete capito bene: un criminale ha pagato a Meta quella cifra. Non c’è da sorprendersi se Meta ha chiuso un occhio e anzi nei suoi documenti interni ha sottolineato che le sue regole attuali non segnalerebbero affatto questo tipo di account. A volte gli occhi che vengono chiusi sono ben più di uno. Gli stessi documenti interni dell’azienda rivelano che alcuni grandi inserzionisti truffaldini potevano accumulare oltre cinquecento violazioni senza essere puniti. E alcune campagne fraudolente sono immense: quattro di esse, rimosse da Meta qualche mese fa, fruttavano da sole all’azienda di Zuckerberg incassi per 67 milioni di dollari al mese. E la soluzione di Meta a questo tipo di problema è stata aumentare le tariffe per gli inserzionisti sospettati di essere fraudolenti. Gli stessi documenti sottolineano che Meta vuole ridurre questo flusso di incassi legati alle frodi, ma farlo troppo in fretta potrebbe avere appunto un effetto deleterio sulle sue proiezioni di fatturato e potrebbe spaventare gli azionisti. Tanto le sanzioni delle autorità costerebbero meno dei tre miliardi e mezzo di dollari che Meta guadagna ogni sei mesi dalle pubblicità sfacciatamente ingannevoli. Meta ha risposto all’inchiesta di Reuters dicendo che i documenti interni “mostrano una visione selettiva che distorce l’approccio di Meta alle frodi e alle truffe” e che la stima che il 10% del fatturato derivi da frodi è approssimata per eccesso, ma non ha fornito un dato più esatto. L’azienda ha aggiunto che negli ultimi diciotto mesi le segnalazioni di truffe da parte degli utenti sono calate del 58% e che ha rimosso oltre 134 milioni di contenuti fraudolenti. Ma non ha indicato quanti non ne ha rimossi. E rimane sempre il solito problema che in questi social network la volpe è la guardia del pollaio. E ora sappiamo che prende anche soldi per lasciare che altri spennino i suoi polli. Cioè noi. È comprensibile che di fronte a notizie di questo genere si provi impotenza e rassegnazione. I social network sono una parte troppo ben radicata delle nostre attività personali e professionali. È difficile, quasi impossibile farne a meno, e quindi si sopportano angherie come quelle messe in luce dalla meticolosa indagine di Reuters. Ma in realtà la scelta fra accettare una gestione cinica e scellerata come questa e rinunciare ai social network è una falsa alternativa. Ci sono social network nei quali la volpe non è la guardia del pollaio, non possiede il pollaio, e non fa entrare nel pollaio le faine per guadagnarci. Sono i social network come Mastodon, quelli del cosiddetto fediverso, quelli creati dagli utenti per gli utenti, senza un CEO o un proprietario che può fare il bello e il cattivo tempo e senza un algoritmo che sceglie per noi cosa farci vedere e cosa no. Nulla vieta di installare sul telefono, tablet o computer un’app social gratuita come Mastodon accanto a Facebook o Instagram e poi proporre gradualmente ai propri contatti di passare a una piattaforma meno oppressiva. Nessuna grande caotica migrazione improvvisa, ma una transizione graduale. È quello che faccio io, e funziona. Se rivelazioni come queste di Reuters vi ispirano almeno a provare a cambiare le cose invece di attendere invano che cambino da sole, fateci un pensierino.

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Studio del MIT sul degrado cognitivo da uso di LLM
by Roberto Resoli Dec. 18, 2025

Dec. 18, 2025

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 «This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. ... » rob

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"National Sovereignty Under Siege,The Shadow of Surveillance: Germany’s New Era of State Intrusion in Berlin"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 17, 2025

Dec. 17, 2025

*The Shadow of Surveillance: Germany’s New Era of State Intrusion in Berlin* With each passing day, German democracy is becoming a more relative category. In Berlin, the city authorities have adopted a new law giving local security forces the authority to surveillance. The Berlin House of Representatives passed an amendment to the General Security and Order Act (ASOG), granting law enforcement unprecedented authority to infiltrate the most private sanctums of citizens’ lives. This law, ostensibly designed to combat terrorism and serious crime, allows police to secretly enter homes to install spyware—known as “state trojans”—on personal devices, alongside a suite of other invasive tools like mass geodata requests and biometric scanning of social networks. But beneath the veneer of public safety lies a deeper narrative: a government grappling with economic turmoil and plummeting leadership approval, potentially wielding these powers as a blunt instrument for political control. As we dissect this development, one can’t help but wonder— is this the price of security, or the dawn of a surveillance state? [...] continua qui: https://restmedia.st/the-shadow-of-surveillance-germanys-new-era-of-state-i…

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"AI is making us work more" - by Tawanda Munongo
by Damiano Verzulli Dec. 16, 2025

Dec. 16, 2025

Un punto di vista... interessante, completo di riflessioni che non mi pare di aver letto/sentito in giro... "AI is making us work more" https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/ Bye, DV --------------------------------- Intro <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#intro> I was listening, recently, to an episode of /The Pragmatic Engineer/ podcast with Armin Ronacher <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45kVol96IlM>, and something he said really resonated with me. He pointed out how paradoxical it is that AI was supposed to /free us/ and allow us to work less yet, somehow, we find ourselves /working more than ever before/ (timestamp <https://youtu.be/45kVol96IlM?si=1KM2tNSzrU8lQA3g&t=2536>). I have seen the same trend in my own work patterns. This increase in work is not necessarily in the sense of being busier because there’s /more/ work to do. Instead, it manifests as a psychological compulsion to keep going. The very existence of these /hyper-capable/ tools seems to have created a /new kind of pressure/, an existential duty to keep working, to keep driving *the machine that never sleeps*. 996 in the Valley <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#996-in-the-valley> The /996/ concept - working from 9AM to 9PM, six days a week - used to only be associated with Chinese tech companies, having been championed by the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma. The rest of the world, however, used to see it as nothing more than an extreme, sustainable model of hustle culture. In 2025, however, there have been several reports of this (toxic?) work culture /migrating west/. According to a recent Wired investigation <https://www.wired.com/story/silicon-valley-china-996-work-schedule>, AI start-ups in Silicon Valley have begun to adopt 996-style work schedules. The rationalisation, of course, is /“to stay competitive”/. Leaders at these companies believe that with things moving so fast, especially in the AI space, and with developers having access to tools that can keep going so long as there’s a human there to steer them, people must worker harder to keep up with that. It has become not at all unusual to see job postings that make it clear to prospective hires that they should look forward to long, gruelling hours. When the machine never tires <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#when-the-machine-nev…> Throughout human history, the natural constraint on work was always /human fatigue/. We stopped working when we were tired. And, we took time to rest because our minds and bodies needed to recover. However, the introduction of generative AI and agents fundamentally shifts the status quo. These tools never tire, never switch off, and never lose motivation. even as you rest, the tool keeps running, always available to generate ideas, code, text, designs, etc. As a result, a new psychological loop forms: “Every moment I don’t spend prompting, I’m falling behind.” The system insidiously guilts you for not /leveraging/ it constantly. Allowing AI to sit there, just waiting, feels like a waste. It’s subtle, but corrosive. Any downtime becomes a missed opportunity, and rest turns into inefficiency. Within this framework, leisure becomes a moral failure. From the lamp to LLMs <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#from-the-lamp-to-llms> Of course, this is not an entirely novel development. From lamps to lightbulbs, and now with LLMs, certain human advancements have had the capacity to transform the nature of work. This transformation comes in the form of leverage, allowing us to do more, to transcend limitations, and manifest more than we ever could. In the case of the aforementioned illumination technologies, people who had to set their tools down at sundown because it was now too dark to work could now go on well into the night. And, with that came a subtle shift as /“can work”/ transformed into /“should work”/. Such is the nature of advancement - recently acquired luxuries quickly transform into necessities, and pushing our newfound capabilities to their limits becomes an expectation. With this, the /996/ culture re-emerges, not because someone imposed it but because the tools themselves, and the culture surrounding them, make rest feel like lost potential “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.” - Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Book by Yuval Noah Harari The Burnout Society, Upgraded <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#the-burnout-society-…> The Korean-German philosopher, /Byung-Chul Han/ saw this coming. In his book, /The Burnout Society/, he argued that modern work culture replaced external oppression with internalised /“self-discipline”/. We don’t need anyone shouting orders at us anymore. Instead, we do it to ourselves in the name of /“productivity”/, /“passion”/, and /“self-actualisation”/. AI amplifies this dynamic. It extends what Han calls /“the excess of positivity”/ - what I would call /the tyranny of can/ - which is the idea that we /can/ always do more, and therefore /must/. “/Possum, ergo debeo./” “/I can, therefore I must./” There is no external whip required here. Just a quiet, internalised command: /the machine can keep going, so why can’t you?/ The Psychological Toll <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#the-psychological-to…> The recurring narrative within the tech community is mostly the same: infinite tools + infinite leverage = infinite potential. But, I find this to be a corrosive mentality with potentially devastating effects on our psyches. Where feeling tired used to be a signal to rest, now it’s a /sign of weakness/. Every break you take feels like a gap in your /potential productivity/. What we become, then, is our own taskmasters. From the moment we wake until our heads hit the pillow in the evening, we must make use of every available moment. We internalise the myth of this infinite potential and, under the guise of our own search for freedom, we exploit ourselves, putting constant pressure on ourselves to prompt, iterate, and improve. All to keep up with a *machine that never sleeps*. Sadly, as a recent NextGen Hero analysis <https://nextgenhero.io/why-ai-firms-embracing-996-culture-may-be-sabotaging…> pointed out, this “hyper-productivity loop” is self-defeating. As burnout rates climb, creative output falls, and the majority of teams working /996/ often become /less/ instead of more innovative when compared to balanced ones. And, as the machine continues to improve, so too does the baseline expectation of what you should get out of it. What once looked like “good output” becomes “not enough”. We struggle to improve our prompts, and mould the deluge of mediocre output into something useful. Meanwhile, as a consequence of how the loudest proponents of this technology speak about it, we absorb the belief that we /can (and should)/ be orders of magnitude more productive, we /can (and should)/ build lucrative businesses, and we /can (and should)/ multiply our abilities with AI tools. Any kind of doubt, scepticism, or negativity is shunned. Any failure on your part to use AI tools to elevate yourself is, at best, a skill issue and, in the worst case, stubborn refusal to embrace a revolutionary technology. Rest as resistance <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#rest-as-resistance> In such a world, rest itself becomes an act of rebellion. If AI gives us near-limitless productive capacity, the truly radical act might be to /not/ use it at all. By setting realistic targets for ourselves, and putting up boundaries, we can slow the erosion of our humanity. Similarly, AI creates nigh-infinite consumption potential. /OpenAI/’s Sloptok <https://openai.com/index/sora-2/> can generate endless content, which could just as easily trap us in a /Sisyphean-loop/ of consuming limitless content. In itself, saying /“enough”/ might be a kind of innovation. Because, ironically, most research supports the idea that innovation and creativity emerge from reflection <https://pcad.edu/ctl/the-role-of-reflection-in-creativity-and-learning/> not exhaustion. Our best ideas usually come not from being “on” all the time, but from being free enough to /ponder/ and let our minds /wander/. So, what now? <https://tawandamunongo.dev/posts/2025/10/ai-work-more/#so-what-now> The way I see it, this is ultimately a story about culture. Tools don’t demand work; /people/ and /systems/ do. The machine doesn’t care whether or not you sleep. What keeps us awake are the stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be /“productive”/. So, maybe, the challenge of the AI era isn’t just learning how to /leverage/ these tools. It’s learning to /live with them/ in a healthy way that doesn’t allow them to enslave us. And, as I will explore in the second part of this series, it’s also knowing /when/ and /how/ to use them in a way that doesn’t diminish our efforts. Because, just as the light bulb extended the day, AI is extending the /workday/. The question is whether we’ll allow it to extend the /night/, too. ---------------------------------- -- 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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diritto di autore: novità normativa su tutela delle fotografie semplici
by Mauro Alovisio Dec. 15, 2025

Dec. 15, 2025

segnalo novità di interesse https://www.altalex.com/documents/2025/12/09/fotografie-semplici-tutela-est… Cordiali saluti Mauro

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Servizi cloud "made in USA" e compliance EU: l'analisi tedesca
by Damiano Verzulli Dec. 13, 2025

Dec. 13, 2025

Il documento (in tedesco) da cui è scaturito il tutto è questo: https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/gutachten-zu-zugriffsmoeglichkeiten-von-us-… Un'articolo descrittivo (in inglese) è questo: => "Academics advise German gov: almost no way to stop US accessing cloud data" A newly-released expert opinion suggests Germany was worried just before Donald Trump took office, and with good reason. source: https://www.thestack.technology/academics-advise-german-gov-almost-no-way-t… ========================================================================= A month before Donald Trump took office, Germany's Ministry of the Interior asked experts at the University of Cologne to determine if German data on the cloud could be kept out of the reach of US intelligence agencies and law enforcement. A document released this week under a freedom of information request [1] shows, it received a fairly straightforward response back in March: not really, no. Even data stored on servers physically located on German soil and operated by a German company may be exposed to the jurisdiction of US courts, if that company so much as has a website that can be accessed in the USA. (However, this only applies to cases of specific personal jurisdiction which limits prosecution.) In the following months, Microsoft, Google, and AWS all sought to set up structures they said would satisfy the data sovereignty requirements of EU countries. With no changes in the multi-layered American legal framework to access data, though, the formal advice solicited by the German government suggests these efforts could be in vain. Extraterritorial reach According to the FOI request [2], Researcher Moritz Schneider launched a request for the expert opinion in October, after it was referred to in an academic journal, and on Tuesday the interior ministry released a lightly-redacted version the legal opinion. The document shows that, in late 2024, the German government wanted to specifically know if US intelligence agencies could legally get at cloud data – and if hyperscalers could legally preclude themselves from accessing such data, either through encryption or by way of German subsidiaries. The Cologne university's faculty of law (via experts whose identities were redacted) thought not. Between a Reagan-era executive order allowing covert operations and more modern rules requiring access to evidence, they said, a US company would likely have no legal way to resist a US government attempt to access any information it could access, or over which it has control by way a subsidiary. Being party to the encryption of data for which it does not hold the keys could technically work, the experts said, and could also see the hyperscaler face legal sanction for what amounts to evading responsibility. US extraterritorial reach could extend to not only German subsidiaries of US companies, but to German-native companies with only the barest connection to the USA, said the legal scholars. However, the researchers said these possibilities were dependent on the specific case. A German company that offers services to US customers could face access demands, they said – simply by operating a website from which Americans are not specifically excluded. Hyperscaler promises In June, Microsoft announced an update to its EU sovereign-data offering [3] to ensure that European-resident employees must authorise access to data by non-European engineers, with servers under the control of a subsidiary with only European directors. Neither of those measures would make any accessible data proof against US demands, according to the German opinion; as long as Microsoft has control over the staff, servers, or subsidiary, all would be within the reach of the US justice system. Microsoft also said data on Azure could be encrypted via external key management, with the keys hosted on hardware security modules (HSMs) that could be anywhere, including on the customer premises. In such a case, the German analysis suggests, Microsoft would still be liable to hand over any metadata it can access, while facing tough questions and possible sanction for enabling the encryption. In July, the General Counsel of Microsoft France told French courts [4] that the company could not guarantee they would not had over European data to US authorities if a legitimate request was made. However, the lawyer added that situation had never occurred. Also in June, AWS promised a "built, operated, controlled, and secured in Europe" cloud option [5] that is "subject to local laws." German-resident subsidiaries would keep both data and metadata in the EU, Amazon said, with a fully EU-citizen management and oversight board, and the ability to operate indefinitely in isolation if it should be disconnected from the rest of the AWS cloud. As with Microsoft, Amazon's operational control over those subsidiaries and their employees would still give the US theoretical access to data, according to the German opinion. In November, Google held a Digital Sovereignty Summit in Munich [6]. It has been selling "disconnected cloud services" [7] on the continent, providing air-gapped solutions for NATO [8] and the UK Ministry of Defence [9]. Those systems allow for the use of its advanced tools in an environment entirely under the control of the client, Google said – by dint of being on-premises and entirely disconnected from the internet. [1] https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/gutachten-zu-zugriffsmoeglichkeiten-von-us-… [2] https://fragdenstaat.de/anfrage/gutachten-zu-zugriffsmoeglichkeiten-von-us-… [3] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/06/16/announcing-comprehensive-sovere… [4] https://www.senat.fr/compte-rendu-commissions/20250609/ce_commande_publique… [5] https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/aws/built-operated-controlled-and-secured-i… [6] https://cloud.google.com/events/digital-sovereignty-summit-munich?hl=en&ref… [7] https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2023-03-15-Proximus-and-Google-Cloud… [8] https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2025-11-24-NATO-and-Google-Cloud-Sig… [9] https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2025-09-11-Google-Cloud-Awarded-Land… ========================================================================= Bye, DV -- 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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Does the ‘Military-Digital Complex’ Control Everything?
by Dario Guarascio Dec. 12, 2025

Dec. 12, 2025

Segnalo: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/12/does-the-military-digital-complex-control-… Buona giornata, dario -- *Dario Guarascio* Dipartimento di Economia e Diritto, Sapienza Università di Roma <http://www.uniroma1.it/strutture/dipartimenti> Via del Castro Laurenziano n° 9, 00161 Roma Edificio A (6° piano) -ala B, stanza n° 606 E-mail: dario.guarascio(a)uniroma1.it <nome.cognome(a)uniroma1.it> *Sito web* italiano - https://sites.google.com/a/uniroma1.it/darioguarascio/ inglese - https://sites.google.com/a/uniroma1.it/darioguarascio-eng/ -- *Fai crescere le giovani ricercatrici e i giovani ricercatori*** *con il 5 per mille alla Sapienza* Scrivi il codice fiscale dell'Università *80209930587 **Cinque per mille <https://www.uniroma1.it/it/node/23149>*

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MEMENTO | 17° Convegno Annuale del Centro Nexa | "Contro la casa di vetro. Opacità, schedatura e potere nell’età digitale" | Lunedì 15 dicembre 2025
by Nexa - Media Dec. 11, 2025

Dec. 11, 2025

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che lunedì 15 dicembre, dalle ore 9.30 (accoglienza dalle 9.00) alle ore 18.00, presso la Sala Luigi Ciminiera del DAUIN – Politecnico di Torino (5° piano), Corso Castelfidardo 34/D<https://maps.app.goo.gl/PmXAxuEuZ2B7Yact7>, si terrà il 17° Convegno Annuale del Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, dal titolo: "Contro la casa di vetro. Opacità, schedatura e potere nell’età digitale". L'evento verrà registrato, e il video sarà pubblicato sul nostro canale YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/@NexaCenter> e sito web<https://nexa.polito.it/conv2025> nei giorni successivi al convegno. Vi invitiamo a consultare la seguente pagina https://nexa.polito.it/conv2025 per scoprire tutti gli interventi in programma e gli ospiti invitati. L'iscrizione al convegno è libera e gratuita: iscriviti QUI<https://mobilizon.it/events/497677b1-d8a8-4001-89cd-d8bbd0f5667c>. Speriamo di vedervi numerosi! Vi ringraziamo per l'attenzione e vi auguriamo una buona giornata, Un saluto cordiale, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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U.S. Department of War - Hegseth Introduces Department to New AI Tool
by Daniela Tafani Dec. 10, 2025

Dec. 10, 2025

Hegseth Introduces Department to New AI Tool Dec. 9, 2025 | By C. Todd Lopez, Pentagon News | Yesterday, several employees at the Pentagon got a pop-up on their computers inviting them to use a new artificial intelligence tool developed for the War Department. Some were skeptical, wondering if the invitation was part of a cybersecurity test. [...] "When GenAI was asked, "How will you help the Department of War achieve its mission," through a user prompt, it replied with a list of capabilities, including, among other things, creating and refining documents, analyzing information, processing and analyzing satellite images, and even auditing computer code for security purposes." <https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4355797/hegseth-intro…>

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Account mobilizon di Centro Nexa e ActivityPub
by Roberto Resoli Dec. 10, 2025

Dec. 10, 2025

Salve, Noto con molto piacere che Centro Nexa ha iniziato ad usare il servizio Mobilizon (istanza mobilizon.it) per divulgare eventi. È un sw libero eccellente, sviluppato dalla benemerita associazione francese Framasoft. Trattandosi di un sistema federato con il protocollo ActivityPub le sue utenze dovrebbero essere visibili dal Fediverso, rendendo immediato pubblicizzare lí gli eventi. Questo non accade (nella mia esperienza) con l'utenza: @centro_nexa_su_internet_societa@mobilizon.it https://mobilizon.it/@centro_nexa_su_internet_societa Riesco a visualizzarla, ma non a vedere gli eventi, né a seguirla. É un vero peccato, perché ho fatto lo stesso per la mia associazione: @linuxtrent@mobilizon.it https://mobilizon.it/@linuxtrent E ha funzionato bene. rob

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$64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition
by Daniela Tafani Dec. 10, 2025

Dec. 10, 2025

$64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition Data Center Watch Executive Summary $18 billion worth of data center projects were blocked, and another $46 billion of projects were delayed over the last two years in the face of opposition from residents and activist groups. There are at least 142 activist groups across 24 states organizing to block data center construction and expansion. Opposition to data center construction is largely motivated by local concerns. While the exact reasons opponents cite vary from location to location, some common themes are higher utility bills, water consumption, noise, impact on property value, and green space preservation. Data center projects that involve building their own power supplies are likely to attract additional opposition related to energy-generating infrastructure. A recent survey shows that while a majority of Americans support data center construction in the abstract, most are skeptical of projects in their communities. The backlash to data center development is bipartisan and does not follow the typical ideological fault lines of American politics. There have been projects blocked in red states and blue states, and there are both Republican and Democratic officials opposing new projects. A review of public statements by elected officials in districts with large data center projects (50 MW>) under consideration found that 55% of the politicians who had taken public positions against the data center projects were Republicans, and 45% were Democrats. This bipartisan opposition is notable because major data center developments tend to be located in red states, with Virginia and Oregon being notable exceptions. Even in famously business-friendly Texas, there is bi-partisan support for additional regulations on data center development in the State Senate. While there is bipartisan opposition to data center development, the exact issues emphasized by activists often differ based on their partisanship. On the left, you often see arguments around environmental concerns, while on the right, conservatives will often cite opposition to tax abatements. However, concerns over power consumption and grid strain have gained support across the political spectrum. And the traditional NIMBY opposition to new developments is driven by local residents and doesn’t tend to have a partisan lean. Data center challenges arise primarily at the local level, as most permitting decisions are made by local authorities. Consequently, even a supportive White House has limited control over delays arising at the local level. Data center development is becoming an important issue in local politics. In Cascade Locks, Oregon, voters recalled two Port Authority officials in June 2023 for supporting a $100 million data center project from Roadhouse Digital. Following the recall election, the new board canceled the data center project in July 2023. In Warrenton, Virginia, residents voted out all town council members who supported Amazon’s proposed data center in the November 2024 election. The newly elected council, composed entirely of project opponents, now has the mandate to block the data center. The future looks like Virginia The tremendous growth of the data center industry in Northern Virginia has spurred intense data center opposition. Virginia is now the focal point for community opposition to data centers in the United States, with 42 activist groups campaigning to slow, stop, or further regulate data center development. Opposition in Virginia is becoming increasingly professional and organized. In 2023, the Data Center Reform Coalition was founded to coordinate efforts among environmental, conservation, and homeowner association groups opposed to data center projects. The Data Center Reform Coalition is a growing organization, adding new members to its platform as opposition to data centers continues to rise in Virginia. Data center development has become an important political issue, with candidates for local, state, and federal office regularly taking positions on it. Legislative and regulatory measures aimed at curtailing data center growth have been introduced at both local and state levels. As data center development accelerates elsewhere in the country, local pushback on data centers is likely to follow the same pattern seen in Virginia. <https://www.datacenterwatch.org/report>

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[Responsible AI] The Systemic Risks of Mismatched Uncertainty, Sylvie Delacroix, King's College
by Daniele Quercia Dec. 9, 2025

Dec. 9, 2025

Format: 35 min talk + 25 min Q&A The Systemic Risks of Mismatched Uncertainty: Why Professional AI Needs More Than Better Calibration Join the meeting<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NzY3NmJlZjYtZjdiOS00…> AI systems deployed in healthcare, education, and law face a critical challenge: many forms of professional uncertainty resist the probabilistic quantification that current systems privilege. A physician pondering whether to document suspected domestic abuse faces uncertainties about appropriate inquiry, patient safety risks, and trauma-informed care that cannot meaningfully be reduced to confidence scores. When diagnostic systems express high algorithmic confidence while failing to communicate these contextual uncertainties, the resulting mismatch between expressed and actual uncertainty creates cascading systemic risks. This talk examines why technical improvements in uncertainty quantification (while valuable) cannot address the fundamental epistemological mismatch between algorithmic confidence and professional judgment. Drawing on my recent analysis of healthcare and judicial contexts, I show how this mismatch risks eroding professionals' capacity to refine the tacit, experience-based judgment that distinguishes expert from novice performance: precisely the forms of situated knowing that depend on engaging with uncertainty rather than resolving it prematurely. The solution requires shifting from designer-centric to genuinely participatory approaches: building technical architectures that enable professional communities to iteratively refine how systems communicate uncertainty, treating uncertainty expression itself as evolving professional knowledge rather than a fixed algorithmic problem. Further reading: 1. Delacroix, S., Robinson, D., Bhatt, U., Domenicucci, J., Montgomery, J., Varoquaux, G., Ek, C.H., Fortuin, V., He, Y., Diethe, T. and Campbell, N., 2025. ‘Beyond Quantification: Navigating Uncertainty in Professional AI Systems’, RSS: Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, 1(1), p.udaf002. 2. Delacroix, S., 2025. 'Designing with uncertainty: LLM interfaces as transitional spaces for democratic revival'. Minds and Machines, 35(4), p.41. 3. Delacroix, S., 2025. ‘Moral Perception and Uncertainty Expression in LLM-Augmented Judicial Practice’, Minds and Machines, 35 (44) 4. Fraile Navarro, D., Lewis, M., Blease, C., Shah, R., Riggare, S., Delacroix, S., Lehman, R., 2025. 'GenAI and the changing dynamics of clinical consultations', British Medical Journal, 391:e085325 Sylvie Delacroix’s work focuses on data & machine ethics. She is the Inaugural Jeff Price Chair in Digital Law at King's College London; and also the founding Director of the Centre for Data Futures and a visiting professor at the Centre for Language AI research at Tohoku University (Japan). Her work has always been animated by a commitment to bridge the gap between theory and practice. This has led to launch or be involved in a variety of ethics and public policy initiatives. She is currently working on agency-enhancing uncertainty communication features for LLMs deployed in morally loaded contexts. She is also considering the social sustainability of the data ecosystem that makes generative AI possible. Subscribe to future talk announcements: Anyone outside Bell Labs can receive talk announcements by subscribing to the mailing list. To subscribe, send an empty email with the subject line "Subscribe RAI” to daniele.quercia(a)polito.it

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Letture tra teologia - filosofia e tecnologia
by don Luca Peyron Dec. 9, 2025

Dec. 9, 2025

Alcuni articoli che spero possano essere interessanti. Buona lettura dl https://www.archivioteologicotorinese.it/ojs/index.php/att/issue/view/7374 _________________________ don Luca Peyron Pastorale della Cultura tecno scientifica - Apostolato Digitale Arcidiocesi di Torino apostolatodigitale.it <https://www.apostolatodigitale.it/>

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‘Don’t pander to the tech giants!’ How a youth movement for digital justice is spreading across Europe
by Alberto Cammozzo Dec. 9, 2025

Dec. 9, 2025

<https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/09/youth-movement-digital-justic…> ‘Don’t pander to the tech giants!’ How a youth movement for digital justice is spreading across Europe Late one night in April 2020, towards the start of the Covid lockdowns, Shanley Clémot McLaren was scrolling on her phone when she noticed a Snapchat post by her 16-year-old sister. “She’s basically filming herself from her bed, and she’s like: ‘Guys you shouldn’t be doing this. These fisha accounts are really not OK. Girls, please protect yourselves.’ And I’m like: ‘What is fisha?’ I was 21, but I felt old,” she says. She went into her sister’s bedroom, where her sibling showed her a Snapchat account named “fisha” plus the code of their Paris suburb. Fisha is French slang for publicly shaming someone – from the verb “afficher”, meaning to display or make public. The account contained intimate images of girls from her sister’s school and dozens of others, “along with the personal data of the victims – their names, phone numbers, addresses, everything to find them, everything to put them in danger”. McLaren, her sister and their friends reported the account to Snapchat dozens of times, but received no response. Then they discovered there were fisha accounts for different suburbs, towns and cities across France and beyond. Faced with the impunity of the social media platforms, and their lack of moderation, they launched the hashtag #StopFisha. It went viral, online and in the media. #StopFisha became a rallying cry, a safe space to share information and advice, a protest movement. Now it was the social media companies being shamed. “The wave became a counter-wave,” says McLaren, who is now 26. The French government got involved, and launched an online campaign on the dangers and legal consequences of fisha accounts. The social media companies began to moderate at last, and #StopFisha is now a “trusted flagger” with Snapchat and TikTok, so when they report fisha content, it is taken down within hours. “I realised that if you want change in your societies, if you come with your idea alone, it won’t work. You need support behind you.” Four years later, this strategy is playing out on an even larger scale. McLaren and other young activists across Europe are banding together against social media and its ruinous effects on their generation. Individually, young people are powerless to sway big tech, but they are also a substantial part of its business model – so, collectively, they are powerful. This is the first generation to have grown up with social media: they were the earliest adopters of it, and therefore the first to suffer its harms. The array of problems is ever-expanding: misogynistic, hateful and disturbing content; addictive and skewed algorithms; invasion of privacy; online forums encouraging harmful behaviours; sextortion; screen addiction; deepfake pornography; misinformation and disinformation; radicalisation; surveillance; biased AI – the list goes on. As the use of social media has risen, there has been a corresponding increase in youth mental health problems, anxiety, depression, self-harm and even suicide. “Across Europe, a generation is suffering through a silent crisis,” says a new report from People vs Big Tech – a coalition of more than 140 digital rights NGOs from around Europe – and Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, their youth-led spin-off. A big factor is “the design and dominance of social media platforms”. Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, for people aged 15 to 29, came about in September last year when People vs Big Tech put out a call – on social media, paradoxically. About 20 young people who were already active on these issues came together at a “boot camp” in London. “We were really given the tools to create the movement that we wanted to build,” says McLaren, who attended with her partner. “They booked a big room, they brought the food, pencils, paper, everything we needed. And they were like: ‘This is your space, and we’re here to help.’” The group is Europe’s first digital justice movement by and for young people. Their demands are very simple, or at least they ought to be: inclusion of young people in decision-making; a safer, healthier, more equitable social media environment; control and transparency over personal data and how it is used; and an end to the stranglehold a handful of US-based corporations have over social media and online spaces. The overarching principle is: “Nothing for us, without us.” “This is not just us being angry; it’s us having the right to speak,” says McLaren, who is now a youth mobilisation lead for Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim. Debates over digital rights are already going on, of course, but, she says: “We find it really unfair that we’re not at the table. Young people have so much to say, and they’re real experts, because they have lived experience … So why aren’t they given the proper space?” McLaren’s work with #StopFisha took her on a journey into a wider, murkier world of gender-based digital rights: misogynist trolling and sexism, cyberstalking, deepfake pornography – but she realised this was just one facet of the problem. What women were experiencing online, other groups were experiencing in their own ways. A fellow activist, Yassine, 23, is well aware of this. Originally from north Africa and now living in Germany, Yassine identifies as non-binary. They fled to Europe to escape intolerance in their own country, but the reality of life, even in a supposedly liberal country such as Germany, hit them like a “slap”, they say. “You’re here for your safety, but then you’re trying to fight not only the system that is punishing the queerness of you, but you also have another layer of being a migrant. So you have two battles instead of one.” As a migrant they are seen as a threat, Yassine says. “Our bodies and movements must be tracked, fingerprinted and surveilled through intrusive digital systems designed to protect the EU.” For queer people, there are similar challenges. These include “shadow-banning”, for example, by which tech platforms “silence conversations about queer rights, racism or anything that is challenging the dominant system”, either wilfully or algorithmically, through built-in biases. Measures such as identity verification “are also putting a lot of people at risk of being erased from these spaces”, says Yassine. There can be good reasons for them, but they can also end up discriminating against non-binary or transgender people – who are often presented with binary gender options; male or female – as well as against refugees and undocumented people, who may be afraid or unable to submit their details online. Given their often tenuous residency status, and sometimes limited digital literacy and access, migrants tend not to speak out, Yassine says. “It definitely feels like you are in a position of: ‘You need to be grateful that you are here, and you should not question the laws.’ But the laws are harming my data.” On a more day-to-day level, Yassine says, they must “walk through online spaces knowing they could do harm to me”. If they click on the comments under a social media post, for example, they know they are likely to find racist, homophobic or hateful attacks. Like McLaren, Yassine says that complaining is futile. “I know that they will come back with, ‘This is not a community guidelines breach’, and all of that.” These are not mere glitches in the system, says Yassine, who now leads on digital rights at IGLYO, a long-running LGBTQ+ youth rights organisation, founded in Brussels, with a network of groups across Europe. “The systems we design inherit the very structures they arise from, so they inevitably become systems that are patriarchal and racist by design.” Adele Zeynep Walton’s participation in Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim came through personal experience of online harm. In 2022, Walton’s 21-year-old sister, Aimee, took her own life. She had been struggling with her mental health, but had also been spending time on online suicide and self-harm forums, which Walton believes contributed to her death. After that, Walton began to question the digital realm she had grown up in, and her own screen addiction. Walton’s parents made her first Facebook account when she was 10, she says. She has been on Instagram since she was 12. Her own feelings of body dysmorphia began when she was 13, sparked by pro-anorexia content her friends were sharing. “I became a consumer of that, then I got immersed in this world,” she says. “Generations like mine thought it was totally normal, having this everyday battle with this addictive thing, having this constant need for external validation. I thought those were things that were just wrong with me.” In researching her book Logging Off: The Human Cost of our Digital World, Walton, 26, also became aware of how little control young people have over the content that is algorithmically served up to them. “We don’t really have any choice over what our feeds look like. Despite the fact there are things where you can say, ‘I don’t want to see this type of content’, within a week, you’re still seeing it again.” Alycia Colijn, 29, another member of Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim, knows something about this. She studied data science and marketing analytics at university in Rotterdam, researching AI-driven algorithms – how they can be used to manipulate behaviour, and in whose interests. During her studies she began to think: “It’s weird that I’m trained to gather as much data as I can, and to build a model that can respond to or predict what people want to buy, but I’ve never had a conversation around ethics.” Now she is researching these issues as co-founder of Encode Europe, which advocates for human-centric AI. “I realised how much power these algorithms have over us; over our society, but also over our democracies,” she says. “Can we still speak of free will if the best psychologists in the world are building algorithms that make us addicted?” The more she learned, the more concerned Colijn became. “We made social media into a social experiment,” she says. “It turned out to be the place where you could best gather personal data from individuals. Data turned into the new gold, and then tech bros became some of the most powerful people in the world, even though they aren’t necessarily known for caring about society.” Social media companies have had ample opportunities to respond to these myriad harms, but invariably they have chosen not to. Just as McLaren found with Snapchat and the fisha accounts, hateful and racist content is still minimally moderated on platforms such as X, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. After Donald Trump’s re-election, Mark Zuckerberg stated at the start of this year that Meta would be reducing factcheckers across Facebook and Instagram, just as X has under Elon Musk. This has facilitated the free flow of misinformation. Meta, Amazon and Google were also among the companies announcing they were rolling back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, post-Trump’s election. The shift towards the right politically, in the US and Europe, has inevitably affected these platforms’ tolerance of hateful and racist content, says Yassine. “People feel like now they have more rights to be harmful than rights to be protected.” All the while, the tech CEOs have become more powerful, economically, politically and in terms of information control. “We don’t believe that power should be in those hands,” says Colijn. “That’s not a true democracy.” Europe’s politicians aren’t doing much better. Having drafted the Digital Services Act in 2023, which threatened social media companies with fines or bans if they failed to regulate harmful content, the European Commission announced last month it would be rolling back some of its data privacy laws, to allow big tech companies to use people’s personal data for training AI systems. “Big tech, combined with the AI innovators, say they are the growth of tomorrow’s economy, and that we have to trust them. I don’t think that’s true,” says Colijn. She also disagrees with their argument that regulation harms innovation. “The only thing deregulation fosters is harmful innovation. If we want responsible innovation, we need regulation in place.” Walton agrees. “Governments and MPs are shooting themselves in the foot by pandering to tech giants, because that just tells young people that they don’t care about our future,” she says. “There’s this massive knowledge gap between the people who are making the decisions, and the tech justice movement and everyday people who are experiencing the harms.” Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim is not calling for the wholesale destruction of social media. All these activists say they have found community, solidarity and joy in online spaces: “We’re fighting for these spaces to accommodate us,” says Yassine. “We’re not protesting to cancel them. We know how harmful they are, but they are still spaces where we have hope.” Colijn echoes this. “Social media used to be a fun place with the promise of connecting the world,” she says. “That’s where we started.” And that’s what they want it to be again. Will big tech pay attention? They might not have a choice, as countries and legislators begin to take action. This week Australia will become the first country to ban social media accounts for under-16s on major platforms including Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and X. Last week, after a two-year deliberation, X was fined €120m (£105m) by the EU for breaching data laws. But these companies continue to platform content that is hateful, racist, harmful, misleading or inflammatory, with impunity. Meanwhile, Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim is just getting started. Other discussions on the table include campaigning for an EU-funded social media platform, an alternative to the big tech oligopoly, created by and for the public. Another alternative is direct action, either protest or consumer activism such as coordinated boycotts. “I think it’s lazy for us to be like: we don’t have any power,” says Walton. “Because we could literally say that about anything: fast fashion, fossil fuels … OK, but how do we change things?” The other alternative is simply to log off. “The other side of the coin to this movement of tech justice, and a sort of liberation from the harms that we’ve experienced over the past 20 years, is reducing our screen time,” says Walton. “It is spending more time in community. It is connecting with people who maybe you would have never spoken to on social media, because you’d be in different echo chambers.” Almost all the activists in Ctrl+Alt+Reclaim attest to having had some form of screen addiction. As much as social media has brought them together, it has also led to much less face-to-face socialising. “I’ve had to sort of rewire my brain to get used to the awkwardness and get comfortable with being in a social setting and not knowing anyone,” says Walton. “Actually, it would be really nice to return to proper connection.”

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Israeli surveillance targets US and allies at joint base planning Gaza aid and security, say sources
by Daniela Tafani Dec. 8, 2025

Dec. 8, 2025

Israeli operatives are conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in the country’s south, according to sources briefed on disputes about open and covert recordings of meetings and discussions. The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”. Continua qui: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/08/israel-mass-surveillance-us-b…>

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Île-de-France offers 550000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 8, 2025

Dec. 8, 2025

*Île-de-France offers 550000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform* A trusted digital environment for education and public service In an ambitious digital transformation project, Île-de-France chose Nextcloud partner Leviia to implement Nextcloud as sovereign collaborative suite within the regional platform monlycée.net <https://monlycee.net/>. This initiative connects over 550.000 students, teachers, and administrative staff across hundreds of high schools. In essence, they benefit from a secure, privacy-respecting environment for learning, collaboration and file exchange. The project also puts into the spotlight the region’s, commitment to digital sovereignty, GDPR compliance, and independence from non-European cloud providers. [...] continua qui: https://nextcloud.com/blog/ile-de-france-sovereign-cloud-collaboration-plat…

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MEMENTO | 189° Mercoledì di Nexa | 10 dicembre 2025, ore 17.00
by Nexa - Media Dec. 8, 2025

Dec. 8, 2025

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che mercoledì 10 dicembre, alle ore 17.00, si terrà il 189° Mercoledì di Nexa con un incontro dal titolo "Tech Workers e sindacato: un’analisi ecosistemica". Ospite dell'incontro: Simone Robutti (Tech Workers Coalition, Reversing.works). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono Portineria e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI<https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Maggiori informazioni alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-189 Vi ricordiamo, inoltre, che al termine del Mercoledì di Nexa si terrà il consueto brindisi di fine anno, per salutarci e augurarci buone feste. Un saluto cordiale, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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Mahwish, "Watched, Tracked, and Targeted"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 7, 2025

Dec. 7, 2025

*Watched, Tracked, and Targeted* /Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime./ By Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza Dec. 3, 2025 n the days before we reached the Netzarim checkpoint in Gaza in early April 2024, my wife and I rehearsed a stripped-down version of ourselves. We had already lived through six months of war, but this would be the first time we stood before Israeli soldiers. After seeing journalists killed, hospitals bombed, and bullets ripping through children, we believed that how we told our story could mean everything — for our lives and our chances of getting out. We would tell the truth. But we would keep it to the parts least likely to invite suspicion: that we were a displaced family obeying Israel’s orders, which often came via air-dropped flyers and anonymous, automated phone calls, to evacuate south after our neighborhood in Gaza City was left devastated by months of bombardment; that Asmaa was pregnant; and that our 2-year-old son, Rafik, was weak from malnutrition. We planned to avoid identifying ourselves as journalists. And we would say nothing to betray that we intended for this journey to be the start of our escape from Gaza, that we planned to exit into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. I practiced my answers until the words felt cold. I was prepared to speak only as a father and husband trying to survive. We walked through a shell-scarred stretch of road by the Mediterranean. The stroller wheels scraped against broken concrete; drones hummed above. My /hawiya/ — the green Israeli-authorized ID Gazans carry — was in my pocket. After about two hours of walking, we arrived at Netzarim. A coastal stretch where families once walked the beach, it was now a militarized corridor of tanks, berms, and scanners. Two tanks sat ahead of us, snipers stood above the mounds of debris, and a line of soldiers grew clearer with every step. At the checkpoint, soldiers herded the crowd into groups of five. I kept my eyes on Rafik. A soldier motioned us forward toward a camera: a dark orb behind glass on a tripod, a red light blinking beneath its lens. While Asmaa gripped our son’s hand, soldiers watched a screen behind the camera. Asmaa and Rafik went first. We stared into it and held our breath, waiting for their thumbs-up — the signal soldiers had used for people to move on. Others were pulled aside. [...] continua qui: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/watched-tracked-targeted-israel-sur…

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finanziamento ricerca innovativa [era: Sondaggio della Commissione europea …]
by Giuseppe Attardi Dec. 5, 2025

Dec. 5, 2025

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Giorgio Agamben, Sull’intelligenza artificiale e sulla stupidità naturale
by 380° Dec. 4, 2025

Dec. 4, 2025

Buongiorno, vi propongo queste riflessioni estremamente /ermetiche/ di Agamben in merito all'intelligenza: «Giorgio Agamben, Sull’intelligenza artificiale e sulla stupidità naturale» https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-sull-u2019intelligenza-artificiale… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- «Comincia un'epoca di barbarie e le scienze saranno al suo servizio». L'epoca di barbarie non è ancora finita e la diagnosi di Nietzsche è oggi puntualmente confermata. Le scienze sono così attente a esaudire e persino precorrere ogni esigenza dell'epoca, che quando questa ha deciso che non aveva voglia né capacità di pensare, le ha subito fornito un dispositivo battezzato “Intelligenza artificiale” (per brevità, con la sigla AI). Il nome non è trasparente, perché il problema dell'AI non è quello di essere artificiale (il pensiero, in quanto inseparabile dal linguaggio, implica sempre un'arte o una parte di artificio), ma di situarsi al di fuori della mente del soggetto che pensa o dovrebbe pensare. In questo essa assomiglia all'intelletto separato di Averroè, che secondo il geniale filosofo andaluso era unico per tutti gli uomini. Per Averroè il problema era conseguentemente quello del rapporto fra l'intelletto separato e il singolo uomo. Se l'intelligenza è separata dai singoli individui, in che modo questi potranno congiungersi ad essa per pensare? La risposta di Averroè è che i singoli comunicavano con l'intelletto separato attraverso l'immaginazione, che resta individuale. È certamente sintomo della barbarie dell'epoca, nonché della sua assoluta mancanza di immaginazione, che questo problema non venga posto per l'intelligenza artificiale. Se questa fosse semplicemente uno strumento, come i calcolatori meccanici, il problema in effetti non sussisterebbe. Se invece si suppone, come di fatto avviene, che, come l‘intelletto separato di Averroé, l'AI pensi, allora il problema del rapporto col soggetto pensante non può essere evitato. Bazlen ha detto una volta che nel nostro tempo l'intelligenza è finita in mano agli stupidi. È possibile che il problema cruciale del nostro tempo abbia allora questa forma: in che modo uno stupido – cioè un non pensante ¬– può entrare in rapporto con un'intelligenza che afferma di pensare al di fuori di lui? 12 ottobre 2025 --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- ... in effetti il problema non sussiste, vero?!? :-) Saluti, 380° -- 380° (lost in /traslation/) «Welcome to the chaos of the times If you go left and I go right Pray we make it out alive This is Karmageddon»

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Assurdità antitrust ed apple ATT
by Claudio Agosti Dec. 3, 2025

Dec. 3, 2025

se avete degli amici che lavorano in AntiTrust (AGCM) per piacere chiedetegli un parere su questa situazone: https://www.guerredirete.it/apple-i-dark-pattern-e-la-difficile-battaglia-c… In pratica Meta ha fatto causa ad Apple perché tolga la protezione dal tracking, e "permetta agli sviluppatori di terze parti di usare il loro consent form" -> che significa eterogeneità e dark pattern. non ha senso. l'ATT ha dato un'interfaccia consistente e chiara, gli utenti hanno risposto in grande maggioranza che no, non vogliono essere tracciati, e questo viene messo in discussione come "abuso della posizione dominante" Bonus: Apparentemente, l'antitrust avrebbe dovuto chiedere un parere al Garante, ma l'avrebbe fatto con una domanda molto circoscritta, tipo "ma l'ATT è necessario per rispettare il GDPR?" e il garante gli avrebbe risposto "no", perché di fatto non è necessario (è un gran progresso ed un sistema che raccogliere l'effettivo consenso del cittadino). nell'articolo faccio una speculazione un po' selvaggia... neppure l'interfaccia per chiedermi accesso al GPS, o alla rubrica, è "necessaria per rispettare il GDPR". allora l'antitrust potrebbe imporre questa rimozione? per dare il diritto agli sviluppatori terzi di mettere il loro consent form? (se esistesse un'associazione di sviluppatori di malware, ci proverebbe :)) Le interfacce di raccolta del consenso, standard su apple e su android, sono cresciute per delle esigenze di sicurezza totalmente sovrapposte a quelle di privacy, ma non sono strettamente necessarie al GDPR, non sono state create per il GDPR, ma per delle funzionalità di sicurezza e privacy basilari. con gli anni sono aumentate, e l'ATT per me è l'esempio di come una tecnologia di cui raccogliere l'opt-in/-out non debba per forza essere una periferiche, ma può essere anche un comportamento più sofisticato, come il tracciamento e adv personalizzato. Un caro saluto, Claudio -- Claudio Agosti - Hermes Center, AI Forensics, Reversing Works. Platform Auditor & Tech Researcher [ linktr.ee/claudio.agosti ]

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