January 2026 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The new 2025 Eurostat data on citizens’ digital skills (DSI)
by Alessandro Brolpito Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Buongiorno, Le ultime statistiche sugli competenze digitali dei cittadini europei. Statistics | Eurostat <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/isoc_sk_dskl_i21/default/tab…> Significative differenze tra i diversi paesi UE, per l'Italia la situazione migliora. Alessandro

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Deadline reminder: Abstract submissions for GIG-ARTS Dublin 2026 (19 January 2026)
by Mauro SANTANIELLO Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Dear Colleagues, Just a friendly reminder that the deadline to submit extended abstracts for the 10th GIG-ARTS Conference (Dublin City University, 14–15 May 2026) is *19 January 2026*. Submission (extended abstract) guidelines: - Up to 500 words - Please include: research question(s), theoretical framework, approach & methodology, and expected findings / empirical outcomes - Submit via the conference portal: https://conftool2026.gig-arts.eu/ The full Call for Papers (including key dates and conference details) is available here: https://gig-arts.eu/dublin-2026/. Best regards, Mauro Santaniello, on behalf of the Organizing Committee Prof. Mauro Santaniello (PhD) Associate Professor in Political Science ICPC <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/> Director| GIG-ARTS <https://gig-arts.eu/> Coordinator| Giganet <https://www.giga-net.org/> Secretary SWING <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/swing-2025> Scientific Coordinator | UNU-CRIS <https://cris.unu.edu/people> Associate Research Fellow PRIN on Digital Sovereignty <https://www.internetpolicyresearch.eu/internet-and-communication-policy-cen…> Principal Investigator Latest publications <https://docenti.unisa.it/023694/ricerca/pubblicazioni>

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Europe's executives need to skill up to solve our total US cloud dependency
by B. J. Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Fonte: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/ft-on-european-cloud/ Contenuto: Europe is experiencing a crisis of digital autonomy. Our dependence on US big tech has been growing for decades and is now nearly total, at a time when worries about our former ally are no longer theoretical. Might we, like the [International Criminal Court in The Hague, find ourselves locked out of our own mailboxes](https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/31/international_criminal_co… if we say something that is [upsetting to the US government](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-threatens-new-icc-sanctions… > This post was written in response to [an article in the Financial Times](https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/fb9e9503-759d-…. Despite the [highly encouraging words on the FT website urging us to send in articles](https://www.ft.com/content/e3e8ff2b-95c7-48f8-9eda-312494422e10), this submission only received an automated reply. So then here in slightly adjusted form: Upper management of most governments and companies in Europe are fundamentally non-technical, and make IT policy decisions based on input from consultants and industry-provided and -infused professionals. And these are telling them that the three big US cloud providers (Amazon, Microsoft and Google) are the only game in town. This leads to curious statements like [recently in the FT](https://www.ft.com/content/854fcad0-0d39-438b-975b-adf9d8b89827) from the director of the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) that it is “currently impossible to store data fully in Europe because US companies dominate digital infrastructure [..] If I want my information 100 per cent in the EU, keep on dreaming”. Yet, many of the excellent employees of CCB (whom I encounter at conferences) would be able to do that after only a single visit to a local computer store. Their director apparently does not know this. > The FT article otherwise makes some good points, by the way! If one has taken as an axiom that only the big three US cloud service providers can do computing, it easily follows that Europe plays no role anymore. Yet, this premise is not true - many large scale IT systems [do not in fact run on special US cloud services](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/our-self-inflicted-cloud-crisis/). They run on local computers, computers that can be rented (or even bought) anywhere. Up until maybe five years ago, it was still highly controversial [to marry tax systems to proprietary foreign cloud services](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/beware-cloud-is-part-of-the-software/), so we didn’t do it (back then). The director of the CCB is not alone in not realizing what is (im)possible. Recently the Dutch government decided to move all documents and email from the tax agency to the Microsoft cloud because [they saw no alternative](https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/dutch-tax-authorities-opt-for-microsoft-for-email-and-calendar-). They admitted that this means our tax operations [will now become vulnerable to sanctions, and that the US grants itself legal access to our data](https://berthub.eu/tkconv/document.html?nummer=2025D52688#:~:text=De%20drie%20genoemde%20wettelijke%20instrumenten%20maken%20het). Since Microsoft’s [July admission in the French senate](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/our-self-inflicted-cloud-crisis/#:~:text=Microsoft%20has%20just%20admitted), we know that European data on Microsoft servers, even those physically in Europe, can be accessed by US agencies. Until quite recently, companies and governments were able to control their own data on local servers. The IT people that did that have not vanished, they and their skills are still around. Top leadership, lacking technical expertise, however has allowed itself to become fully indoctrinated that nothing other than US clouds is acceptable or even possible. When confronted with these unacceptable realities, decision makers will often say they’ll look into changing this situation once a European place delivers exactly the functionality currently procured from the US. This could be a long wait since it is not easy to recreate the American experience without any customers, who admit they are only going to engage once parity has been achieved. And likely not then either - companies also find it nearly impossible to switch between US cloud service providers! It is always a risk to get too deeply in bed with specific vendors, especially for unwieldy large systems. Luckily, it is also possible to base services on generic compute, storage and network capacity, something we have [amply available in Europe](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-european-cloud-ladder/). Cloud-based experts may say this is hard, but I run a popular [parliamentary monitoring system entirely on a single non-cloud server](https://opentk.nl). It hosts all parliamentary documents since 2008. If I can do this, governments could relearn to do it as well. This would not only liberate us from US tech hegemony. Using non-proprietary technologies would also ensure we do not get tied to any specific proprietary cloud provider, which would then end up as a mandatory partner to run vital systems [for the next few decades](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/beware-cloud-is-part-of-the-software/). To get any progress, two things are needed. Leadership within enterprise and government needs to skill up and grasp the digital realities, and not only parrot wisdom from a consulting industry that itself fully believes only in US clouds. And secondly, with that newfound understanding, large scale IT operators should reengage with the generic IT capabilities that do exist in Europe, and that until a few years ago were able to run things like our tax agencies. This is vital since if upper management continues to wait until Europe’s industry recreates the US offerings, while declaring nothing else is possble, Europe will indeed continue as a digital colony of the US. This at a time when the consequences of [accepting such utter dependence could be terrible](https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/cyber-security-pre-war-reality-check/). -- Inviato con l'email di [Proton Mail](https://pr.tn/ref/2P5MPTKZY2G0).

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Trump’s Air Strikes Targeted a Scientific Research Institute, Venezuela Says
by Daniela Tafani Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Trump’s Air Strikes Targeted a Scientific Research Institute, Venezuela Says By Joe Wilkins Published Jan 8, 2026 As Venezuelans begin to pick up the rubble following massive air strikes by the United States over the weekend, the full scope of the destruction is slowly coming into focus. As Agence France-Presse reports, Venezuelan officials say the US air strikes that killed at least 56 soldiers also destroyed numerous non-military targets, including the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC). On Wednesday, the country’s science and technology minister Gabriela Jimenez shared footage of an obliterated building which she says housed the mathematics department at the IVIC. On top of this, Jimenez said that four other IVIC buildings were targeted for destruction: the physics, chemistry, ecology, and nuclear research centers. “Two missiles struck the area directly,” Jimenez wrote on Telegram referencing the mathematics center, per AFP which translated the comment. “The attack was total: these areas housed servers and equipment essential to our computer networks that were completely devastated.” The minister characterized the attacks as an “unprecedented act of imperial aggression.” Why the institute was targeted is unclear. The IVIC is located on the southwestern outskirts of Caracas, nearly 11 miles away from the Fuerte Tiuna, the military installation from which Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were kidnapped by US special forces on Saturday. In addition to the academic buildings, the governor of La Guaira, Jose Alejandro Teran, said the US air strikes destroyed a medicine warehouse located on the coastal city near Caracas. “Tons of medicine burned to ash, tons of food,” Teran said in a video posted on social media. “Here are the results of what the bombs and missiles of the United States government have done… to destroy our warehouses full of medicine and food.” Though Trump has emphasized the deaths of Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers, numerous civilians also lost their lives in the barrage. Those fatalities include 45-year old single mother Yohana Rodríguez Sierra, who was killed by a US missile. At least one of Sierra’s daughters was injured in the missile strike. At least 150 US war planes and drones took part in the devastation, which the Trump administration and American media have characterized as a “precision operation.” <https://futurism.com/future-society/trump-venezuela-research-institution>

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MEMENTO | 190° Mercoledì di Nexa | 14 gennaio 2026, ore 17.00
by Nexa - Media Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che mercoledì 14 gennaio, alle ore 17.00, si terrà il 190° Mercoledì di Nexa con un incontro dal titolo "Fine del diritto? La sostituzione tecnologica nell’era nuova". Ospite dell'incontro: Ugo Mattei (Università degli Studi di Torino). 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-190 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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A post-American, enshittification-resistant internet
by Enrico Nardelli Jan. 12, 2026

Jan. 12, 2026

Intervento di Cory Doctorow al 39-mo Chaos Communication Congress https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-a-post-american-enshittification-resistant-inte… Trump has staged an unscheduled, midair rapid disassembly of the global system of trade. Ironically, it is this system that prevented all of America's trading partners from disenshittifying their internet: the US trade representative threatened the world with tariffs unless they passed laws that criminalized reverse-engineering and modding. By banning "adversarial interoperability," America handcuffed the world's technologists, banning them from creating the mods, hacks, alt clients, scrapers, and other tools needed to liberate their neighbours from the enshittificatory predations of the ketamine-addled zuckermuskian tyrants of US Big Tech. Well, when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla. The Trump tariffs are here, and it's time to pick the locks on the those handcuffs and set the world's hackers loose on Big Tech. Happy Liberation Day, everyone! Enshittification wasn't an accident. It also wasn't inevitable. This isn't the iron laws of economics at work, nor is it the great forces of history. Enshittification was a choice: named individuals, in living memory, enacted policies that created the enshittogenic environment. They created a world that encouraged tech companies to merge to monopoly, transforming the internet into "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four." They let these monopolists rip us off and spy on us. And they banned us from fighting back, claiming that anyone who modified a technology without permission from its maker was a pirate (or worse, a terrorist). They created a system of "felony contempt of business-model," where it's literally a crime to change how your own devices work. They declared war on the general-purpose computer and demanded a computer that would do what the manufacturer told it to do (even if the owner of the computer didn't want that). We are at a turning point in the decades-long war on general-purpose computing. Geopolitics are up for grabs. The future is ours to seize. In my 24 years with EFF, I have seen many strange moments, but never one quite like this. There's plenty of terrifying things going on right now, but there's also a massive, amazing, incredibly opportunity to seize the means of computation. Let's take it. ' -- -- EN https://www.hoepli.it/libro/la-rivoluzione-informatica/9788896069516.html ====================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Past President 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: https://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: https://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 ====================================================== --

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"Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Jan. 10, 2026

Jan. 10, 2026

Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods /404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer./ Joseph Cox Jan 8, 2026 at 9:00 AM A social media and phone surveillance system ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, and follow them from their places of work to home or other locations, according to material that describes how the system works obtained by 404 Media. Commercial location data, in this case acquired from hundreds of millions of phones via a company called Penlink, can be queried without a warrant, according to an internal ICE legal analysis shared with 404 Media. The purchase comes squarely during ICE’s _mass deportation effort_ <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-04/ice-border-patrol-dodge…> and continued _crackdown on protected speech_ <https://x.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1975899183644356640?ref=404media.co>, alarming civil liberties experts and raising questions on what exactly ICE will use the surveillance system for. [...] continua qui (PAYWALL): https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-tool-to-monitor-phones-in-entire-neighb…

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Serie di podcast "Contro lo smartphone. Per una tecnologia più democratica"
by Nexa - Media Jan. 8, 2026

Jan. 8, 2026

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi segnaliamo con piacere che è ora disponibile sul sito web del Centro Nexa la serie di podcast dal titolo "Contro lo smartphone. Per una tecnologia più democratica". Seguendo il filo logico dell'omonimo libro, in cinque puntate il Co-Direttore Nexa Juan Carlos De Martin esplora la storia e le implicazioni di una tecnologia innovativa, necessaria e utile, ma spesso poco trasparente. Di seguito il link agli episodi: https://nexa.polito.it/podcast-sullo-smartphone/ Vi ringraziamo per l'attenzione. 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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Storia dell’informatica italiana
by maurizio lana Jan. 8, 2026

Jan. 8, 2026

sono usciti i 3 volumi della prima parte della Storia dell'informatica italiana, a cura di Maristella Agosti e Vittorio Cantoni, per CNR edizioni. sono disponibili in accesso aperto all'URL https://www.cnr.it/it/new_editoriali Maurizio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ roughneck and rudeness we should be using, on the ones who practice wicked charms for the sword and the stone, bad to the bone battle's not over even when it's won youssou n'dour & nene cherry, 7 seconds ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana

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EU countries gear up to let US tap their citizens’ biometrics
by Daniela Tafani Jan. 6, 2026

Jan. 6, 2026

EU countries gear up to let US tap their citizens’ biometrics US wants fingerprints and facial scans for visa-free travel, EU governments cave Maximilian Henning EU countries are preparing to allow the United States access to national biometric databases holding sensitive personal data, such as fingerprints and facial scans, in exchange for maintaining visa-free travel to the US. Washington demanded access back in 2022 as a condition for continuing visa-free travel for EU citizens – which it grants to all EU countries except Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus. The scheme is referred to by the US as “Enhanced Border Security Partnerships” (EBSP). The European Commission is set to lead “framework” talks with the US this year to lay down general rules governing how EBSPs should work. EU countries would then engage in direct talks with the Trump administration to conclude their own agreements within the EU framework. There are a couple of exceptions: Denmark and Ireland will not be bound by the framework: Copenhagen due to its carve-outs from the EU treaties, and Dublin because Ireland is not part of the bloc’s passport-free travel zone, the Schengen area. Crucially, the EU-wide deal will only outline the types of databases and categories of data the US will be able to access. Individual capitals will hash out with Washington exactly which national databases and citizens’ data will ultimately be made accessible to US authorities. Capitals already gave a green light Despite increasingly strained EU-US relations over a range of trade and rule-of-law issues, the prospect of the US gaining access to sensitive data on millions of Europeans does not appear to be controversial among EU governments. Capitals agreed to grant the European Commission a negotiating mandate for the framework in December. Only one country was still arguing for a “red line” at that point, according to a diplomatic note obtained by Euractiv. Data on ethnic origins, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, as well as genetic or biometric information, could be transferred under the framework agreement for EBSPs, according to a Commission document outlining its negotiating position. The document also notes that such data should only be transferred “where strictly necessary and proportionate” to prevent criminal or terrorist offences, with appropriate safeguards applied – especially limits on how long the information can be stored. Still, the plans raise questions at a time when the US has sanctioned Commission officials and EU citizens involved in lawmaking and advocacy work, not to mention the Trump administration’s shock abduction of a foreign head of state at the start of this year, as Washington moved unilaterally to prosecute Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro on US soil. The US is also reportedly considering requiring visa-exempt visitors to provide five years’ worth of social media posts before being allowed to enter the country. Euractiv asked both the current Council presidency (Cyprus) and the Commission whether they have any reservations about giving the current US administration access to such sensitive data on EU citizens. By the time of publication, neither had replied. Data protectors want safeguards Some in Brussels are nevertheless raising concerns about the plan. In September, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Wojciech Wiewiórowski, who oversees the Commission’s compliance with data protection rules, noted that the EBSP would set an “important precedent” as the first EU agreement to transfer large volumes of personal data to another country’s border authorities. While Wiewiórowski said he supported establishing an EU-US framework for the planned partnerships, suggesting it could mean better protection for fundamental rights, he also argued that it must be based on “clearly and narrowly” defining which data could be transferred to the US – and, in particular, that only data relating to people actually travelling to the US should be shared. While the Commission and Council have said the exchange of data should be limited to travellers, the exact conditions of the new data-access partnerships will be negotiated with Washington. Talks to cement these deals are also facing a pacy timeline. According to a leaked Council document, the US has said it expects data access to be in place and operational by the end of this year. <https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-countries-gear-up-to-let-us-tap-their-citi…>

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