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E' online il programma di Biennale Tecnologia 2024 (Torino, 17-21 aprile)
by J.C. DE MARTIN March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024

Questa mattina è stato presentato il programma della quarta edizione di Biennale Tecnologia, la manifestazione su tecnologia e società organizzata dal Politecnico, che si terrà a Torino dal 17 al 21 aprile 2024. Il programma è online sul sito www.biennaletecnologia.it <https://www.biennaletecnologia.it>. Di incontri che hanno a che fare in qualche modo con le tecnologie digitali ce sono moltissimi, per cui non provo neanche a elencarli... lasciate solo che evidenzi la presenza del grande Cory Doctorow, che terrà la lectio conclusiva di Biennale domenica 21 aprile alle ore 18:30. Ingresso libero e gratuito, fino a esaurimento posti. Ciao, juan carlos

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locandina spettacolo su Chelsea Manning/Wikileaks - Torino 11 Aprile
by Norberto Patrignani March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024

Carissim*, segnalo questo spettacolo su Chelsea Manning/Wikileaks a Torino 11 Aprile, allego locandina ciao! Norberto

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When it comes to privacy, it’s all or nothing
by Daniela Tafani March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024

Taurus leak: When it comes to privacy, it’s all or nothing The German Taurus leak shows one thing very clearly: encrypted and secure communication does not work for the few. Instead, it must become the standard for everyone. 23.03.2024 um 07:20 Uhr - Gastbeitrag, Meredith Whittaker An alarming breach of state secrecy recently rocked German newswires. On March 1, Margarita Simonjan, head of Russian TV network RT, published confidential communications between German military officials, turning strategically sensitive deliberations into public news and further polarizing an already fierce debate centered on Europe’s support for Ukraine–or lack thereof. How did this happen? The alleged culprit was the German military’s reliance on insecure communications systems. According to official sources, one of the officials involved in the conversation joined using not sufficiently secure software or an insecure line. Software that enables encryption as an option, not as the default, will always undermine privacy eventually. Because it takes only one person forgetting to “turn on” encryption to ruin it for everyone – and just like that, to enable a breach. This incident underscores something important: private communications only work if everyone participates. If one person or endpoint is compromised, the whole network goes with it. Which means that digital privacy and security must be embedded at the core of our digital infrastructure. As we saw with the German military, relegating privacy to the status of optional „add ons“ or institutional infrastructure for a privileged few means that they will, at some point, fail. And when they do, they will fail everyone. Encryption is a collective endeavor For decades, the human right to communicate privately has been a fractious proposition, with security services and law enforcement agencies frequently voicing opposition to the idea of digital privacy as the default for everyone. This oppositional position was cemented in the 1990s, as the internet moved from a hypothetical to the infrastructure of daily life. And the arguments made against privacy then are familiar today, namely that widespread encryption and the privacy it enables would facilitate criminal activities. Of course, the same entities arguing against privacy for us were not so keen on exposing their own communications and operations. At the same time that they argued for backdoors and weak privacy for the masses, they worked to ensure that their own communications remained protected by encryption. Ultimately, their stance amounted to: „privacy for me, not for thee“. And as we see, this stance results in “no privacy for any of us” in practice. This truth lies at the heart of the recent German military breach. Often overlooked in discussions surrounding digital privacy and security is the fact that end-to-end-encryption is a collective endeavor and should be the default. The integrity of encrypted communication is only as strong as its weakest link. A single participant using an insecure connection can compromise the privacy of the entire network, making the widespread adoption of end-to-end-encrypted communications one of the few strategies that can mitigate against such risks. Encryption should not be optional This incident illuminates the inherent fallacy of perceiving encryption as an optional feature or relying solely on closed, intra-organizational tools for secure communication. The reality of our interconnected world necessitates constant communication with individuals within and outside any single organization’s bubble – be it for sharing critical intelligence, coordinating with allies, or the mundane yet essential exchanges of daily life. Further, the networks and people a given person or organization is required to communicate with changes frequently, as the exigencies and focus of their work and the world they’re situated in shifts. What does not shift is the need for these communications to remain secure and private. Ironically, it was Stewart Baker, former head of the US National Security Agency, who articulated this dilemma in the 1990s, albeit from a perspective that opposed mass privacy. He highlighted the fact that if encryption wasn’t default, it would not be widely used. And this would thus leave even those endeavoring to apply encryption in bespoke or selective contexts (criminals, in his selective example) exposed to surveillance. Because, somewhere, somehow, they would slip up. Or, they would need to contact their father, or friends, or accountant on an unencrypted line. Thus, their “conspiracy”, in his words, would be discoverable by security services, due to the fact that only default encryption ‘for everyone’ is capable of truly protecting privacy for anyone. While he was arguing against the principle of privacy for everyone, Baker’s analogy unwittingly underscores the crux of the problem we currently face: without ubiquitous end-to-end encryption by default, every organization, be it a governmental body or otherwise, is left permanently exposed. Encryption goes beyond technology This also highlights the fact that to understand private communications, we cannot simply focus on technology. We must also appreciate the nature of how people communicate. Namely, that each one of us has many relationships with others around us; from our families, to our friends, to our colleagues. And that these boundaries are constantly shifting and blurred. Organizations partner with third parties routinely. Colleagues become friends. Family can be estranged. And it is frequently necessary to check in with a partner or friend about our location, our plans, and other intimate information. If only some of these conversations are private, the rest of them provide a surface area for interception and ultimately violation of privacy. Just as Baker noted. Each of us, always, communicates across a dynamic network that extends well beyond our workplace and profession. It is this fact that makes systems where end to end encryption is an option for some communications, but not the default for all, insufficient. The recent breach in German military communications serves as a compelling argument for the adoption of universally accessible, secure communication platforms. And this is why truly private messengers like Signal offer simple, unified messaging apps, capable of connecting with any other person using it. Communication platforms and tools are critical infrastructure These mass platforms and standards are not merely tools. They must be understood as critical infrastructure for the digital age, ensuring that privacy and security are not privileges but rights accessible to all. By making end-to-end encryption the default, and ensuring that this default is available to everyone not siloed within a given company or institution, we safeguard not just the communication between high-ranking officials but the human right to privacy of every individual. A right that to be honored for anyone, anywhere, must transcend organizational boundaries and national borders. To ensure privacy for anyone, we must champion systems that provide privacy to everyone. „Privacy for me but not for thee“ is an idea that, even in the 1990s, was understood to be fatally flawed. Those of us who believe in the human right to privacy must champion options that provide this right to the masses. Because if we don’t, everything from journalism, to dissent, to the sensitive communications of high ranking German military officials will be put at risk. https://netzpolitik.org/2024/taurus-leak-when-it-comes-to-privacy-its-all-o…

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Un dipendente infedele o uno stato opaco?
by de petra giulio March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024

Vi segnalo un contributo molto utile di Carlo Blengino sul tema dell’accesso alle banche dati SOS. https://centroriformastato.it/un-dipendente-infedele-o-uno-stato-opaco/

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MEMENTO | 112° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 27 marzo 2024, ore 13.00
by Nexa - Media March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che mercoledì 27 marzo, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00, si terrà il 112° Nexa Lunch Seminar con un incontro dal titolo: "'Pay or ok': you cannot be serious". Ospite dell'incontro: Marco Giraudo (Università degli Studi di Torino). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA dell'incontro: Campus Luigi Einaudi, Lungo Dora Siena, 100 Edificio D4, II piano, Aula H1 (MAPS<https://www.google.com/maps/place/Campus+Luigi+Einaudi/@45.0734963,7.699408…>) STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Per maggiori dettagli è possibile consultare la pagina web dell'evento: https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-112 Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer 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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L'AI e il cambio di paradigma
by Antonio March 24, 2024

March 24, 2024

Immaginate che il prossimo primo d'aprile, le BigTech facciano al mondo un bel pesce d'aprile. Si mettano d'accordo e spengano i loro server. Una disconnessione, non di un paio d'ore come è successo il 5 marzo con Facebook e consorelle [1], ma per sempre, o comunque per un periodo molto lungo. A parte lo shock iniziale, la comunità di sviluppatori open source sarebbe in grado, nel giro di poco tempo, di mettere su delle alternative valide, considerata l'enorme quantità di software libero in grado di coprire la quasi totalità dei servizi "offerti" dalle Big. Già, la quasi ... Ma con l'intelligenza artificiale come la mettiamo? Non è questione di software, l'AI è basata su una manciata di linee di codice (v. il mio nanoLLaMA [2]) disponibile in rete liberamente. Non è questione di dati in input. Common Crawl [3] è lì per questo, basta una connessione ed un hard disk decente e i dati sono pronti. E' ovviamente una questione di potenza di calcolo e di corrente elettrica, insomma, dei "chip" che riescano ad effettuare miliardi di miliardi di "moltiplicazioni" al secondo e accesi per mesi e mesi [4]. Quindi ... siamo "bloccati". Il miglior lock-in che l'industria del hardware (Nvidia) e del software è riuscita a mettere in atto. A. [1] https://notizie.tiscali.it/cronaca/articoli/anomalie-siti-meta/ [2] https://github.com/opensignature/stories [3] https://commoncrawl.org/ [4] https://www.saela.eu/flops/

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La società del XXI secolo
by Antonio March 23, 2024

March 23, 2024

Noi siamo il nostro profilo Facebook? Le intelligenze artificiali sono tecnologie o soggetti sociali? Com’è possibile che il bitcoin abbia creato una crisi in Kazakistan? Come ha fatto un chatbot su Twitter ad aver imparato frasi razziste, violente e antisemite senza bisogno di programmazione? La società del XXI secolo è il prodotto di un panorama sociale che vede interconnessi persone (e le loro relazioni), dati (nella forma di informazioni e algoritmi) e tecnologie (dispositivi e servizi sempre nuovi). Le scienze sociali, da un punto di vista teorico e metodologico, ci aiutano ad analizzare questi fenomeni e a immaginare risposte. Ultimo manuale (è uscito un paio di mesi fa) di Davide Bennato. https://www.laterza.it/scheda-libro/?isbn=9788859300755 Recensione: https://www.doppiozero.com/lavoro-povero-con-vita-digitale-o-vita-povera-co… (comprende pure il commento al saggio di Alessandro Somma "Abolire il lavoro povero" [1]) [1] https://www.laterza.it/scheda-libro/?isbn=9788858153505

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Nuova rivista su AI "a gratis"
by Diego Giorio March 23, 2024

March 23, 2024

Credo che possa interessare i nexiani. Però non trovo il costo dell'abbonamento, dato che immagino solo il primo numero sia in omaggio. https://aire.lexxion.eu/current_issue/AIRe Buon fine settimana D.

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Can Large Language Models Reason and Plan?
by Daniela Tafani March 21, 2024

March 21, 2024

Can Large Language Models Reason and Plan? Subbarao Kambhampati Large Language Models (LLMs), essentially n-gram models on steroids that have been trained on web-scale lan- guage corpora (or, effectively, our civilizational knowledge), have caught our collective imagination with linguis- tic behaviors that no one expected text completion systems to possess. By training and operation, LLMs are perhaps best seen as giant non-veridical memories akin to an external System 1 for us all (see Figure 1). Their seem- ing versatility has however led many researchers to wonder whether they can also do well on planning and reasoning tasks typically associated with System 2 competency. Nothing in the training and use of LLMs would seem to suggest remotely that they can do any type of princi- pled reasoning (which, as we know, often involves computationally hard inference/search). What LLMs are good at is a form of universal approximate retrieval. Unlike databases that index and retrieve data exactly, LLMs, as n- gram models, probabilistically reconstruct completions for the prompt word by word–a process we shall refer to as approximate retrieval. This means that LLMs can’t even guarantee memorizing complete answers, something that is the flip side of their appeal about constructing “novel” prompt completions on the fly. The boon (“creativity”) and bane (“hallucination”) of LLMs is that n-gram models will naturally mix and match–and have almost as much trouble strictly memorizing as we do. It is indeed the very basis of their appeal. https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.15125 oppure https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.04121.pdf

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Sharenting: influencer e rischi per i minori, proposta di legge in arrivo
by 380° March 21, 2024

March 21, 2024

Buongiorno, che ignorante che sono, non immaginavo nemmeno che il fenomeno avesse un proprio nome: "sharenting". «Sharenting: influencer e rischi per i minori, proposta di legge in arrivo» 20 Mar 2024 - 11:55 https://www.orizzontescuola.it/sharenting-influencer-e-rischi-per-i-minori-… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- La condivisione di foto e video dei figli sui social media, pratica conosciuta come “sharenting”, è un fenomeno in preoccupante aumento. Sebbene motivato dall’amore e dall’orgoglio genitoriale, questo comportamento può nascondere diverse insidie. La condivisione di foto e video dei figli sui social media, pratica conosciuta come “sharenting”, è un fenomeno in preoccupante aumento. Sebbene motivato dall’amore e dall’orgoglio genitoriale, questo comportamento può nascondere diverse insidie. = Pericoli per i minori = * Pedofilia: I contenuti pubblicati online, anche se apparentemente innocenti, possono essere utilizzati da pedofili per alimentare i loro abusi. * Cyberbullismo: Le foto e i video dei bambini possono essere usati per creare meme, insulti o altri contenuti offensivi, con gravi conseguenze sulla loro reputazione e autostima. * Diritto alla privacy: I minori non hanno la capacità di esprimere il proprio consenso alla condivisione della loro immagine online. Lo sharenting viola il loro diritto alla privacy e li priva del controllo sulla propria identità digitale. = Proposta di legge = La social media strategist e giornalista Serena Mazzini, impegnata da anni nello studio dello sharenting, presenterà alla Camera dei Deputati i dati raccolti sulle sue ricerche. L’obiettivo è quello di sensibilizzare il Parlamento sui rischi di questa pratica e di promuovere una proposta di legge per vietarla. = Misure alternative = Esistono modi alternativi per condividere i momenti speciali con i propri figli senza esporli a rischi online. Alcune semplici precauzioni: * Limitare la condivisione a reti private: Condividere foto e video solo con familiari e amici fidati, utilizzando piattaforme con impostazioni di privacy adeguate. * Nascondere il volto del bambino: Offuscare il volto del bambino o utilizzare emoji per coprire i tratti distintivi. * Non condividere informazioni personali: Evitare di pubblicare dati sensibili come il nome completo, la data di nascita o la scuola frequentata. * Sensibilizzare i figli: Crescendo, è importante educare i figli sui rischi della condivisione online e coinvolgerli nelle decisioni che riguardano la loro privacy. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Per approfondimenti in merito allo "sharenting": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharenting# Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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