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"‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza"
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 7, 2024

April 7, 2024

*‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza* /The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal./ By Yuval Abraham April 3, 2024 In 2021, a book <https://books.google.co.il/books/about/The_Human_Machine_Team_How_to_Create…>titled “The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World” was released in English under the pen name “Brigadier General Y.S.” In it, the author — a man who we confirmed to be the current commander of the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200 — makes the case for designing a special machine that could rapidly process massive amounts of data to generate thousands of potential “targets” for military strikes in the heat of a war. Such technology, he writes, would resolve what he described as a “human bottleneck for both locating the new targets and decision-making to approve the targets.” Such a machine, it turns out, actually exists. A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.” [...] continua qui: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

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IBM and the Holocaust
by 380° April 6, 2024

April 6, 2024

Buongiorno, non mi pare fosse già stata segnalata in questa lista. Non è cronaca, è storia (controversa?); essendo stata raccontata nel 2001, è storia di 5 minuti fa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation is a book by investigative journalist and historian Edwin Black which documents the strategic technology services rendered by US-based multinational corporation International Business Machines (IBM) and its German and other European subsidiaries for the government of Adolf Hitler from the beginning of the Third Reich through to the last day of the regime, at the end of World War II when the US and Germany were at war with each other. [...] Dehomag, the German subsidiary of which IBM owned 90%, [...] On April 12, 1933, the German government announced plans to conduct a long-delayed national census.[2]: 54 The project was particularly important to the Nazis as a mechanism for the identification of Jews, Roma, and other ethnic groups deemed undesirable by the regime. Dehomag offered to assist the German government in its task of ethnic identification, focusing upon the 41 million residents of Prussia.[2]: 55 This activity was not only countenanced by Thomas Watson and IBM in America, Black argues, but was actively encouraged and financially supported, with Watson himself traveling to Germany in October 1933 and the company ramping up its investment in its German subsidiary from 400,000 to 7,000,000 Reichsmark—about $1 million (equivalent to $23.5 million in 2023).[2]: 60 This injection of American capital allowed Dehomag to purchase land in Berlin and to construct IBM's first factory in Germany, Black charges, thereby "tooling up for what it correctly saw as a massive financial relationship with the Hitler regime".[2]: 60 [...] The 1933 census, with design help and tabulation services provided by IBM through its German subsidiary, proved to be pivotal to the Nazis in their efforts to identify, isolate, and ultimately destroy the country's Jewish minority. Machine-tabulated census data greatly expanded the estimated number of Jews in Germany by identifying individuals with only one or a few Jewish ancestors. Previous estimates of 400,000 to 600,000 were abandoned for a new estimate of 2 million Jews in the nation of 65 million.[2]: 110 As the Nazi war machine occupied successive nations of Europe, capitulation was followed by a census of the population of each subjugated nation, with an eye to the identification and isolation of Jews and Romani. These census operations were intimately intertwined with technology and cards supplied by IBM's German and new Polish subsidiaries, which were awarded specific sales territories in Poland by decision of the New York office following Germany's successful Blitzkrieg invasion.[2]: 193 Data generated by means of counting and alphabetization equipment supplied by IBM through its German and other national subsidiaries was instrumental in the efforts of the German government to concentrate and ultimately destroy ethnic Jewish populations across Europe.[2]: 198 Black reports that every Nazi concentration camp maintained its own Hollerith-Abteilung (Hollerith Department), assigned with keeping tabs on inmates through use of IBM's punchcard technology.[2]: 351 In his book, Black charges that "without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did."[2]: 352 [...] In his book, Black quotes Leon Krzemieniecki, the last surviving person involved in the administration of the rail transportation to Auschwitz and Treblinka, as stating he knew the punched card machines were not German machines, because the labels were in English. Black details how income from the machines leased in Poland was sent through Geneva to IBM in New York. (giusto per evidenziare come le sanzioni abbiano sempre funzionato benissimo, n.d.r.) [...] No machines were sold – only leased. IBM was the sole source of all punch cards and spare parts. It serviced the machines on site either directly or through its authorized dealer network or field trainees. There were no universal punch cards. Each series of cards was custom-designed by IBM engineers to capture information going in and to tabulate information the Nazis wanted to extract. After the publication of the 2012 expanded edition, he wrote for the Huffington Post, "The punch cards, machinery, training, servicing, and special project work, such as population census and identification, was managed directly by IBM headquarters in New York, and later through its subsidiaries in Germany, known as Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft (DEHOMAG), Poland, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and other European countries." He added that the punch cards bore the indicia of the German subsidiary Dehomag.[10] [...] In early 2021, Black published the 20th anniversary edition with special public events and a syndicated article stating that in twenty years, "not a comma has been changed", adding that "IBM has never requested a correction or denied any facts in the book." --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- C'è pure stata una controversia sull'editing dell'articolo stesso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust#Wikipedia_editing_contr… La cosa *tristissima* è che a distanza di più di 60 anni c'era e c'è ancora chi nel /mainstream/ _disquisice_ sulle responsabilità dirette i meno di IBM nell'organizzazione dell'olocausto, l'aggiramento dei divieti all'esportazione e minchiate simili. Il *cuore* della questione, invece, è affrontato solo da "freaks" con la *fissa* per la protezione dei (meta)dati personali, SPECIALMENTE quelli sensibili, ma la protezione deve essere per *tutti* i (meta)dati personali; leggiamo in cosa consiste il cuore di questa questione: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- In the early 1880s, Herman Hollerith (1860–1929), a young employee at the U.S. Census Bureau, conceived of the idea of creating readable cards with standardized perforations, each representing specific individual traits such as gender, nationality, and occupation. The millions of punched cards created for the population counted in the national census could then be sorted on the basis of specific bits of information they contained—thereby providing a quantified portrait of the nation and its citizens.[2]: 25 A circuit-closing device was used to electromagnetically record the data represented by the perforations. The technology enabled searching for individuals using the traits as search terms.[3] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Tutto parte da un database centralizzato controllato da un complesso militare-indistriale nel quale sono raccolti "specific individual traits"... ve lo dice un fricchettone :-O Loving, 380° [2] Black, Edwin (2009) [2001]. IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation (Paperback) (Second ed.). Washington, DC: Dialog Press. OCLC 958727212. [3] Jefferson, Brian (2020). Digitize and Punish: Racial Criminalization in the Digital Age. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. p. 20. -- 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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Top Israeli spy chief exposes his true identity in online security lapse | Israel | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo April 5, 2024

April 5, 2024

Nell'articolo sono interessanti ed agghiaccianti i link ad articoli sull'impiego di due /target recomendation systems/ nell'industrializzazione del massacro. Uno dei due è passato in lista se ricordo bene. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/top-israeli-spy-chief-exposes…> Top Israeli spy chief exposes his true identity in online security lapse The identity of the commander of Israel’s Unit 8200 is a closely guarded secret. He occupies one of the most sensitive roles in the military, leading one of the world’s most powerful surveillance agencies, comparable to the US National Security Agency. Yet after spending more than two decades operating in the shadows, the Guardian can reveal how the controversial spy chief – whose name is Yossi Sariel – has left his identity exposed online. The embarrassing security lapse is linked to a book he published on Amazon, which left a digital trail to a private Google account created in his name, along with his unique ID and links to the account’s maps and calendar profiles. The Guardian has confirmed with multiple sources that Sariel is the secret author of The Human Machine Team, a book in which he offers a radical vision for how artificial intelligence can transform the relationship between military personnel and machines. Published in 2021 using a pen name composed of his initials, Brigadier General YS, it provides a blueprint for the advanced AI-powered systems that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been pioneering during the six-month war in Gaza. An electronic version of the book included an anonymous email address that can easily be traced to Sariel’s name and Google account. Contacted by the Guardian, an IDF spokesperson said the email address was not Sariel’s personal one, but “dedicated specifically for issues to do with the book itself”. Do you have information about this story? Email harry.davies(a)theguardian.com, or (using a non-work phone) use Signal or WhatsApp to message +44 7721 857348. The security blunder is likely to place further pressure on Sariel, who is said to “live and breathe” intelligence but whose tenure running the IDF’s elite cyber intelligence division has become mired in controversy. Unit 8200, once revered within Israel and beyond for intelligence capabilities that rivalled those of the UK’s GCHQ, is thought to have built a vast surveillance apparatus to closely monitor the Palestinian territories. However, it has been criticised over its failure to foresee and prevent Hamas’s deadly 7 October assault last year on southern Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped about 240 people. Since the Hamas-led attacks, there have been accusations that Unit 8200’s “technological hubris” came at the expense of more conventional intelligence-gathering techniques. In its war in Gaza, the IDF appears to have fully embraced Sariel’s vision of the future, in which military technology represents a new frontier where AI is being used to fulfil increasingly complex tasks on the battlefield. Sariel argued in the published book three years ago that his ideas about using machine learning to transform modern warfare should become mainstream. “We just need to take them from the periphery and deliver them to the centre of the stage,” he wrote. One section of the book heralds the concept of an AI-powered “targets machine”, descriptions of which closely resemble the target recommendation systems the IDF is now known have been relying upon in its bombardment of Gaza. Over the last six months, the IDF has deployed multiple AI-powered decision support systems that have been rapidly developed and refined by Unit 8200 under Sariel’s leadership. They include the Gospel and Lavender, two target recommendation systems that have been revealed in reports by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 magazine, its Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and the Guardian. The IDF says its AI systems are intended to assist human intelligence officers, who are required to verify that military suspects are legitimate targets under international law. A spokesperson said the military used “various types of tools and methods”, adding: “Evidently, there are tools that exist in order to benefit intelligence researchers that are based on artificial intelligence.” Targets machine On Wednesday, +972 and Local Call placed the spotlight on the link between Unit 8200 and the book authored by a mysteriously named Brigadier General YS. Sariel is understood to have written the book with the IDF’s permission after a year as a visiting researcher at the US National Defense University in Washington DC, where he made the case for using AI to transform modern warfare. Aimed at high-ranking military commanders and security officials, the book articulates a “human-machine teaming” concept that seeks to achieve synergy between humans and AI, rather than constructing fully autonomous systems. It reflects Sariel’s ambition to become a “thought leader”, according to one former intelligence official. In the 2000s, he was a leading member of a group of academically minded spies known as “the Choir”, which agitated for an overhaul of Israeli intelligence practices. An Israeli press report suggests that by 2017 he was head of intelligence for the IDF’s central command. His subsequent elevation to commander of Unit 8200 amounted to an endorsement by the military establishment of his technological vision for the future. Sariel refers in the book to “a revolution” in recent years within the IDF, which has “developed a new concept of intelligence centric warfare to connect intelligence to the fighters in the field”. He advocates going further still, fully merging intelligence and warfare, in particular when conducting lethal targeting operations. In one chapter of the book, he provides a template for how to construct an effective targets machine drawing on “big data” that a human brain could not process. “The machine needs enough data regarding the battlefield, the population, visual information, cellular data, social media connections, pictures, cellphone contacts,” he writes. “The more data and the more varied it is, the better.” Such a targets machine, he said, would draw on complex models that make predictions built “on lots of small, diverse features”, listing examples such as “people who are with a Hezbollah member in a WhatsApp group, people who get new cellphones every few months, those who change their addresses frequently”. He argues that using AI to create potential military targets can be more efficient and avoid “bottlenecks” created by intelligence officials or soldiers. “There is a human bottleneck for both locating the new targets and decision-making to approve the targets. There is also the bottleneck of how to process a great amount of data. Then there is the bottleneck of connecting the intelligence to the fire.” He adds: “A team consisting of machines and investigators can blast the bottleneck wide open.” Intelligence divide Disclosure of Sariel’s security lapse comes at a difficult time for the intelligence boss. In February, he came under public scrutiny in Israel when the Israeli newspaper Maariv published an account of recriminations within Unit 8200 after the 7 October attacks. Sariel was not named in the article, which referred to Unit 8200’s commander only as “Y”. However, the rare public criticism brought into focus a divide within Israel’s intelligence community over its biggest failure in a generation. Sariel’s critics, the report said, believe Unit 8200’s prioritisation of “addictive and exciting” technology over more old-fashioned intelligence methods had led to the disaster. One veteran official told the newspaper the unit under Sariel had “followed the new intelligence bubble”. For his part, Sariel is quoted as telling colleagues that 7 October will “haunt him” until his last day. “I accept responsibility for what happened in the most profound sense of the word,” he said. “We were defeated. I was defeated.”

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Piracy Shield: guerra aperta cin Assoprovider (et al?), multa e FOIA d'un mund lader!
by 380° April 5, 2024

April 5, 2024

Buongiorno, «Per Piracy Shield ormai è guerra aperta: è arrivata la multa» https://tecnologia.libero.it/per-piracy-shield-ormai-e-guerra-aperta-e-arri… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- La piattaforma antipirateria *Piracy Shield* è ancora al *centro delle polemiche*, ed è *bombardata da critiche* che si riversano automaticamente sull' *Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM)*, che tanto l'ha voluta e che la gestisce direttamente, anche se non l'ha sviluppata in casa ma se l'è fatta regalare dalla Lega Serie A di calcio. Alle critiche l'AGCOM risponde con un muro sempre più alto, con la tolleranza zero e [minimizzando gli effetti collaterali dello scudo antipezzotto]. Ma anche con le *multe*, come testimonia l'ultima comunicazione dell'associazione italiana degli Internet Provider, *Assoprovider*, che rappresenta oltre 250 aziende grandi e piccole. [minimizzando gli effetti collaterali dello scudo antipezzotto] <https://tecnologia.libero.it/piracy-shield-l-agcom-ammette-qualche-errore-8…> 1.1 *AGCOM multa Assoprovider* ────────────────────────────── A dare la notizia è stata la stessa Assoprovider: *AGCOM ha fatto la multa* all'associazione per “ /ostacolo ad attività di vigilanza/“. In pratica, secondo AGCOM, Assoprovider avrebbe provato a bloccare l'applicazione del Piracy Shield rifiutandosi di fornire all'Autorità la lista degli Internet Provider italiani. [...] Secondo Assoprovider, però, questa richiesta è inutile (come sarebbe stata inutile la risposta) perché AGCOM gestisce il *ROC (Registro degli Operatori della Comunicazione)*, al quale tutti gli Internet Provider sono obbligati a iscriversi. AGCOM, in pratica, avrebbe chiesto ad Assoprovider una lista di aziende che l'Autorità già conosce. 1.2 *Assoprovider contro AGCOM* ─────────────────────────────── La *multa di AGCOM ad Assoprovider* arriva in un momento in cui il clima tra l'associazione e l'Autorità è, a dir poco, teso. Ancora prima del lancio di Piracy Shield, infatti, Assoprovider ha criticato aspramente il meccanismo della piattaforma e ha persino *tentato di bloccarne il lancio*. Assoprovider si è rivolta al *TAR del Lazio*, ma alla fine non è riuscita a impedire l'avvio dello scudo anti pirateria. Dopo le prime segnalazioni di siti *legali bloccati per sbaglio* da Piracy Shield, però, Assoprovider è tornata alla carica chiedendo ad AGCOM la *lista di tutti i siti bloccati*. [...] 1.3 *Le multe per gli utenti* ───────────────────────────── Comunque vada tra Assoprovider e AGCOM, le *multe* che interessano maggiormente gli italiani sono quelle fatte *agli utenti del pezzotto*. C'è una grandissima confusione, infatti, su come e quando verranno multati i primi utenti e la confusione è in gran parte dovuta ad una *cattiva comunicazione da parte dell'AGCOM*. A inizio marzo, infatti, il commissario AGCOM *Massimiliano Capitanio* aveva annunciato che era già stato firmato un *accordo tra Guardia di Finanza e Procura di Roma* per favorire l'identificazione degli utenti, ma a fine mese è stato smentito dal presidente AGCOM *Giacomo Lasorella*, che ha precisato che l'accordo *non è stato ancora firmato*. Ad oggi nessuno sa realmente come verranno individuati e multati i clienti del pezzotto, anche perché tramite la piattaforma Piracy Shield *si vede il peccato ma non il peccatore*: si blocca il flusso audio-video pirata, ma non è possibile sapere chi lo sta guardando. Per avere nomi e cognomi degli utenti delle IPTV pirata, infatti, è necessario *entrare fisicamente* (o al limite informaticamente, tramite attività di cyberspionaggio) *nei computer dei criminali* che trasmettono il pezzotto: solo lì, infatti, ci sono i dettagli sui clienti e, soprattutto, sui mezzi di pagamento utilizzati. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Comunucato di Assoprovider: https://assoprovider.it/piracy-shield-agcom-multa-assoprovider/ Qui altri interessanti dettagli: https://www.ilsoftware.it/piracy-shield-spieghiamo-perche-agcom-ha-multato-… «Piracy Shield: spieghiamo perché AGCOM ha multato Assoprovider» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Sebbene la notizia della multa a carico di Assoprovider sia venuta a galla soltanto nelle scorse ore, con una semplice ricerca su sito AGCOM abbiamo accertato che il provvedimento sanzionatorio risale al 19 marzo 2024. (https://www.agcom.it/documents/10179/33556417/Delibera+79-24-CONS/ddd272b0-…) Secondo AGCOM, Assoprovider non ha fornito alcuna fondata motivazione per giustificare l’omessa comunicazione dell’elenco degli associati, che altre associazioni analoghe pubblicano sul proprio sito Internet. Inoltre, “contrariamente a quanto osservato da Assoprovider, le banche dati a disposizione dell’Autorità (Registro pubblico degli Operatori di Comunicazione ed elenco dei soggetti richiedenti l’autorizzazione generale per la fornitura ed i servizi di comunicazione elettronica presso il MIMIT) non forniscono alcun elemento in ordine all’appartenenza degli operatori alle Associazioni“, si legge nella delibera dell’Autorità. AGCOM critica aspramente il comportamento di Assoprovider qualificandolo come una condotta particolarmente grave: “la conoscenza da parte dell’Autorità dell’elenco degli associati ad Assoprovider costituiva un requisito imprescindibile ai fini dell’effettivo funzionamento della piattaforma, come chiarito nel corso dei lavori del tavolo tecnico“. A valle della violazione contestata, l’Autorità ha così deciso di infliggere ad Assoprovider una multa di 1.032 euro diffidando altresì l’associazione dal proseguire con il comportamento sin qui tenuto. La contestazione può essere comunque impugnata e contestata dinanzi al TAR del Lazio entro 60 giorni. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ieri 4 Aprile, poi, MonitoraPA(Parody) pubblica questo tweet: https://twitter.com/Monitorapa/status/1775971307231887409 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Con questa risposta @AGCOMunica rigetta il FOIA di @assoprovider , ne disconosce il ruolo di rappresentanza e afferma che la conoscenza dell'elenco degli associati "costituisce un requisito imprescindibile ai fini dell'effettivo funzionamento della piattaforma #PiracyShield". --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Il messaggio include 3 immagini, una per ciascuna pagina del documento con il quale il 2 Aprile scorso AGCOM fornisce riscontro alla istanza di accesso agli atti presentata il 27 Febbraio scorso [1] Il documento di risposta di AGCOM è molto interessante e varrebbe la pena venga diffuso il più possibile ma: 1. I messaggi su Twitter _non_ vengono archiviati nè su Wayback Machine né su archive.today (aka archive.is) [2] 2. Assoprovider non ha pubblicato la risposta Ho le immagini salvate in locale e vorrei tanto inviarle in lista ai fini archivistici: cosa ne dicono i legali in lista, per favore? Comunque, nessuno mi impedisce di farne un riassunto: in buona sostanza AGCOM dice che l'istanza viene rigettata perché - rifiutando di fornire l'elenco degli associati - Assoprovider non ha dimostrato i propri poteri rappresentativi e ciò non permette di valutare se sussiste un interesse concreto, diretto ed attuale corrispondente ad una situazione giuridicamente tutelata e collegata. L'istanza appare inoltre essere volta al controllo generalizzato dell'operato dell'amministrazione, espressamente escluso in base all'art. 24 della legge 241/1990. Non sia mai che qualcuno voglia esercitare un controllo generalizzato sull'operato di una pubblica amministrazione, FOIA d'un mund lader! Saluti, 380° [1] https://assoprovider.it/piracy-shield-assoprovider-agcom/ documento completo qui: https://assoprovider.it/piracyaccessoatti (entrambi il link anche su Wayback Machine) [2] qui la documentazione di Internet Archive: https://help.archive.org/help/how-to-archive-your-tweets-with-the-wayback-m… «You can request an archive of all your Tweets from Twitter and upload that archive to the Wayback Machine for your Tweets to be archived.», quindi solo i titolari degli account possono attivare l'archiviazione (di tutti i loro messaggi) -- 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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Il Centro Nexa a Biennale Tecnologia 2024 | 18-21 aprile 2024
by Nexa - Media April 5, 2024

April 5, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Invitandovi a partecipare alla quarta edizione di Biennale Tecnologia "Utopie realiste", che si terrà da giovedì 18 a domenica 21 aprile 2024, vi segnaliamo, tra gli oltre 160 appuntamenti previsti in programma, gli incontri a cui partecipano alcuni tra i membri del nostro centro di ricerca. Nel dettaglio, interverranno all'evento: 1. Juan Carlos De Martin, co-fondatore e co-direttore del Centro Nexa; 2. Luca De Biase, trustee del Centro Nexa; 3. Bruce Sterling, trustee del Centro Nexa; 4. Simone Arcagni, faculty associate del Centro Nexa; 5. Antonio Santangelo, senior research fellow del Centro Nexa; 6. Mauro Alovisio, fellow del Centro Nexa; 7. Carlo Blengino, fellow del Centro Nexa; 8. Luca Peyron, faculty fellow del Centro Nexa; Per maggiori informazioni sugli interventi del Centro Nexa a Biennale Tecnologia 2024 è possibile consultare la pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/biennale-tecnologia-24 Vi ricordiamo che questa edizione di Biennale Tecnologia si terrà in presenza a Torino, con una formula che vedrà alternarsi lezioni, incontri, dibattiti, mostre e spettacoli ad accesso gratuito, ospitati presso il Politecnico di Corso Duca degli Abruzzi (sede centrale della manifestazione), il Castello del Valentino, Piazzale Duca d'Aosta ma anche negli spazi delle Officine Grandi Riparazioni e Piazza San Carlo, in aggiunta ad altre 20 sedi del programma OFF di Biennale Tecnologia. Grazie per l'attenzione, 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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Where did all the IP numbers go? The US Department of Defense has them
by Antonio April 4, 2024

April 4, 2024

No, non è una "notizia", non è un articolo recente. E' di ben 16 anni fa [1]. "IPv6 is on its way which will end this discussion for good (or at least for a looong time), but with a bit of rearranging IPv4 could probably last us for quite a while yet" Siamo nel 2024, della transizione a IPv6 [2] neanche se ne parla più, o almeno non si danno scadenze (chi diceva 2022, 2025, 2030 ...) In quell'articolo erano elencati alcuni "proprietari" degli /8 IP block. 12 blocchi, per un totale di 201 milioni di indirizzi IP, appartenevano al Dipartimento della Difesa statunitense. Poi c'erano le grandi aziende AT&T, Apple, Ford, Mercedes, ecc. Ma oggi, sarà ancora così? Incuriosito, qualche giorno fa ho fatto partire uno script per tirarmi giù i dati e ho scoperto che: L'US Army & DoD hanno sempre 200M di indirizzi [3][4]. AT&T, Apple, Ford, Cogent, Mercedes un blocco /8 a testa, (circa 17M) e le altre "big"? Comcast si è portata a 70M, in mezzo ai provider cinesi, Chinanet con 100M, China169 62M. Microsoft che negli anni novanta snobbava Internet, ora è in possesso di 55M di indirizzi. Amazon ne ha 64M, Alibaba 24M, Google 22M. I giapponesi di SoftBank sono a 45M, poco più di Korea Telecom 44M. Gli europei? La tedesca DTAG ne ha 34M, France Telecom e Telecom Italia, appaiati a 20M. A. [1] https://www.pingdom.com/blog/where-did-all-the-ip-numbers-go-the-us-departm… [2] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transizione_IPv4/IPv6 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assigned_/8_IPv4_address_blocks [4] https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ipv4-address-space.xhtml

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Algorithmic Attention Rents: A theory of digital platform market power | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose - UCL – University College London
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 4, 2024

April 4, 2024

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2023/nov/algorit… (messaggio spedito in movimento - scusate brevità ed eventuali refusi)

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E' disponibile il programma completo di e-privacy XXXIV @ Firenze
by Marco A. Calamari April 3, 2024

April 3, 2024

e-privacy XXXIV @ Firenze Il Programma Il Progetto Winston Smith è lieto di invitarti alla edizione primaverile di e- privacy, che si terrà in presenza ed in videoconferenza il 16 e 17 maggio a Firenze. «Moneta elettronica e altri traccianti» Il contante, i documenti fisici, le auto disconnesse come strumenti di libertà Il programma, gli abstract delle relazioni e le short bio dei relatori sono già disponibili sul sito del Convegno https://e-privacy.winstonsmith.org/ Ringraziamo i relatori per la qualità degli interventi proposti, particolarmente in linea col tema di questa edizione, e che promettono di essere veramente interessanti. Vi aspettiamo. Contatti: per contatti generali e per la stampa:eprivacy@winstonsmith.org per contatti dai relatori: cfp-eprivacy(a)winstonsmith.org, Maggiori informazioni sul sito del Convegno http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.org.

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Facebook let Netflix (et al?, n.d.r.) see user DMs [...]
by 380° April 3, 2024

April 3, 2024

Buongiorno Daniela, mi hai anticipato :-) scusa(te) ma per questioni "archivistiche" preferisco un nuovo thread in lista nexa e per questo ho tolto i riferimenti al thread precedente [1] entrambe le notizie (questa e [1]) sono "vecchie" ma ora sono sostanziate e "rinverdite" dal fatto che alcuni documenti sono stati (ri)pubblicati completamente in chiaro per completezza, ecco la pagina CourtListener di «Klein v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (3:20-cv-08570)»: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18714274/klein-v-facebook-inc dove sono elencati tutti i documenti, molti dei quali sono liberamente disponibili. il documento relativo alle accuse a Netflix è questo: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour… Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> writes: > Grazie, 380°. Oggi c'è anche questo: > > META WATCH OUT Netflix had ‘access to people’s private Facebook messages’ as part of secret ‘special relationship’ lawsuit claims > Meta has rejected the claims [...] > https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/27077170/meta-facebook-netflix-special-relati… Riporto quello di Ars Technica che mi sembra riassumere meglio i termini della questione. «Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit» https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [Scharon Harding] - Mar 28, 2024 8:40 pm UTC [...] The streaming business' demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [ [PDF]] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix. [PDF] <https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Klein-v.-Meta-Platfo…> Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges ────────────────────────────────────────────────── [...] The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [ [PDF]] doesn't mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing. [...] The litigation claims the companies formed a lucrative business relationship that included Facebook allegedly giving Netflix access to Facebook users' private messages: By 2013, Netflix had begun entering into a series of “Facebook Extended API” agreements, including a so-called “Inbox API” agreement that allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook's users' private message inboxes, in exchange for which Netflix would “provide to FB a written report every two weeks that shows daily counts of recommendation sends and recipient clicks by interface, initiation surface, and/or implementation variant (e.g., Facebook vs. non-Facebook recommendation recipients). … In August 2013, Facebook provided Netflix with access to its so-called “Titan API,” a private API that allowed a whitelisted partner to access, among other things, Facebook users' “messaging app and non-app friends." Meta [said] it rolled out end-to-end encryption "for all personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook" in December. And in 2018, Facebook [told Vox] that it doesn't use private messages for ad targeting. But a few months later, The New York Times, citing "hundreds of pages of Facebook documents," [reported that] Facebook "gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages." Facebook has [denied] that it let third-party companies view its users' private messages When reached for comment, a Meta spokesperson declined to comment on specific questions, including why Meta ended Facebook Watch. However, the company rep again denied claims that Facebook let Netflix read its users' private messages. The spokesperson said Facebook's agreement with Netflix only "allowed people to message their friends on Facebook about what they were watching on Netflix, directly from the Netflix app" and that Meta's "confident the facts will show this complaint is meritless." [PDF] <https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/complaint.pdf> [said] <https://about.fb.com/news/2023/12/default-end-to-end-encryption-on-messenge….> [told Vox] <https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17177842/facebook-advertising-ads-explained-m…> [reported that] <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/report-facebook-let-companies-g…> [denied] <https://about.fb.com/news/2018/12/facebooks-messaging-partnerships/> Facebook's streaming ambitions ════════════════════════════════ [...] But Facebook Watch never really took off as a full-fledged TV/movie streaming effort à la Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. And in 2023, efforts essentially ended when Facebook [said] it wasn't renewing any Watch shows [...] it seemed plausible that Facebook simply thought it couldn't compete in streaming. At the time, Meta said it was going to focus on making VR experiences instead. [...] The plaintiffs also claimed that after Facebook was confident about having enough budget to license the likes of /Dawson's Creek/ "in competition with Netflix" in 2018, the Watch budget was mysteriously and suddenly slashed by $750 million that same year. Zuckerberg allegedly said via email in May 2018 that the budget changes were based on "knowing what I know today about our strategy and financial outlook." The letter alleges: Despite… protestations, Zuckerberg's abrupt new Watch strategy became policy—Facebook began dismantling the multi-billion dollar original content business it had built over the past two years… Amidst the sudden pivot in Facebook's video strategy, the data partnership between Netflix and Facebook reached new heights. Those new heights included, per the litigation, a new data-sharing agreement in July 2018 and Netflix reaching $200 million in advertising spend with Meta by 2019. [said] <https://deadline.com/2023/04/red-table-talk-canceled-mina-lefevre-exits-fac…> [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- > Qualcuno oggi ha osservato che, se accedi a Netflix con il tuo account > Facebook, "acconsenti" alla condivisione dei dati. Vedremo che fine farà questa causa. Intanto è sempre più chiaro in cosa consise il "mercato dei fatti vostri" a cui stiamo assistendo [...] Saluti, 380° [1] https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2024-April/052414.html (Message-ID: 033accffc13b4e588aec1769583a99c3(a)unipi.it) -- 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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Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say
by 380° April 2, 2024

April 2, 2024

Buongiorno, executive summary: «No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn't know how this stuff works.» https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/facebook-secretly-spied-on-snap… «Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [Ashley Belanger] - Mar 27, 2024 8:25 pm UTC Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called "Ghostbusters," designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in 2016. The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit from consumers and advertisers, accusing Meta of anticompetitive behavior that blocks rivals from competing in the social media ads market. "Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted, we have no analytics about them," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who has since rebranded his company as Meta) [wrote] in a 2016 email to Javier Olivan. [...] At the time, Olivan was Facebook's head of growth, but now he's Meta's chief operating officer. He responded to Zuckerberg's email saying that he would have the team from Onavo—a [controversial traffic-analysis app] acquired by Facebook in 2013—look into it. [...] What the Onavo team eventually came up with was a project internally known as "Ghostbusters," an obvious reference to Snapchat's logo featuring a white ghost. Later, as the project grew to include other Facebook rivals, including YouTube and Amazon, the project was called the "In-App Action Panel" (IAAP). [...] In an email to Olivan, the Onavo team described the "technical solution" devised to help Zuckerberg figure out how to get reliable analytics about Snapchat users. It worked by "develop[ing] ‘kits' that can be installed on iOS and Android that intercept traffic for specific sub-domains, allowing us to read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage,” the Onavo team [said]. Olivan was told that these so-called "kits" used a "man-in-the-middle" attack typically employed by hackers to secretly intercept data passed between two parties. Users were recruited by third parties who distributed the kits "under their own branding" so that they wouldn't connect the kits to Onavo unless they used a specialized tool like Wireshark to analyze the kits. TechCrunch [reported] in 2019 that sometimes teens were paid to install these kits. After that report, Facebook promptly shut down the project. This "man-in-the-middle" tactic, consumers and advertisers suing Meta have alleged, "was not merely anticompetitive, but criminal," seemingly violating the Wiretap Act. It was used to snoop on Snapchat starting in 2016, on YouTube from 2017 to 2018, and on Amazon in 2018, relying on creating "fake digital certificates to impersonate trusted Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon analytics servers to redirect and decrypt secure traffic from those apps for Facebook's strategic analysis." Ars could not reach Snapchat, Google, or Amazon for comment. [wrote] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [controversial traffic-analysis app] <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/02/facebook-pulls-its-privacy-inva…> [noted] <https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/12/12/instagram-stories-already-generat…> [said] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [reported] <https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/%20history%E2%86%9…> Facebook allegedly sought to confuse advertisers ───────────────────────────────────────────────── Not everyone at Facebook supported the IAAP program. "The company's highest-level engineering executives thought the IAAP Program was a legal, technical, and security nightmare," another [court document] said. Pedro Canahuati, then-head of security engineering, warned that incentivizing users to install the kits did not necessarily mean that users understood what they were consenting to. “I can't think of a good argument for why this is okay," Canahuati said. "No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public. The general public just doesn't know how this stuff works.” Mike Schroepfer, then-chief technology officer, argued that Facebook wouldn't want rivals to employ a similar program analyzing their encrypted user data. "If we ever found out that someone had figured out a way to break encryption on [WhatsApp] we would be really upset," Schroepfer said. [...] [According to Business Insider], advertisers suing said that Meta never disclosed its use of Onavo "kits" to "intercept rivals' analytics traffic." This is seemingly relevant to their case alleging anticompetitive behavior in the social media ads market, because Facebook's conduct, allegedly breaking wiretapping laws, afforded Facebook an opportunity to raise its ad rates "beyond what it could have charged in a competitive market." Since the documents were unsealed, Meta has responded with a [court filing] that said: "Snapchat's own witness on advertising confirmed that Snap cannot 'identify a single ad sale that [it] lost from Meta's use of user research products,' does not know whether other competitors collected similar information, and does not know whether any of Meta's research provided Meta with a competitive advantage." This conflicts with testimony from a Snapchat executive, who alleged that the project “hamper[ed] Snap's ability to sell ads" by [causing] "advertisers to not have a clear narrative differentiating Snapchat from Facebook and Instagram.” Both internally and externally, "the intelligence Meta gleaned from this project was described" as "devastating to Snapchat's ads business," a [court filing] said. [court document] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [According to Business Insider] <https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-execs-decrypt-riva…> [court filing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [causing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> [court filing] <https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscour…> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Tutti i dettagli qui: https://ia802908.us.archive.org/29/items/gov.uscourts.cand.369872/gov.uscou… 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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