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GitHub suspends accounts of Russian devs at sanctioned companies
by 380° April 21, 2022

April 21, 2022

Buongiorno nexiane, https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/github-suspends-accounts-of-… «GitHub suspends accounts of Russian devs at sanctioned companies» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Russian software developers are reporting that their GitHub accounts are being suspended without warning if they work for or previously worked for companies under US sanctions. According to Russian media outlets, the ban wave began on April 13 and didn't discriminate between companies and individuals. For example, the GitHub accounts of Sberbank Technology, Sberbank AI Lab, and the Alfa Bank Laboratory had their code repositories initially disabled and are now removed from the platform. # Blocked repository or flagged company (habr.com) Considering that these companies were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury last week and Microsoft owns GitHub, an American company, the action is not unexpected. However, suspending the private accounts of dozens of individuals that host no content connected to any sanctioned entities is quite surprising. [...] Bleeping Computer has reached out to GitHub asking for a comment on the reported suspension wave, and a spokesperson of the platform has responded with the following: Like any company that does business in the U.S., GitHub may have to restrict users and customers identified as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) or other denied or blocked parties under U.S. and other applicable sanctions laws, or that may be using GitHub on behalf of blocked parties. At the same time, GitHub’s vision is to be the global platform for developer collaboration, no matter where developers reside. We examine government sanctions thoroughly to be certain that users and customers are not impacted beyond what is required by law. - GitHub According to this, the suspended private accounts are either affiliated, collaborating, or working with/for sanctioned entities. However, even those who previously worked for a sanctioned company appear to be suspended by mistake. This means that Russian users, in general, can suddenly find their projects wiped and accounts suspended, even if those projects have nothing to do with the sanctioned entities. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- 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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Planting Undetectable Backdoors in Machine Learning Models
by Marco Ciurcina April 21, 2022

April 21, 2022

Given the computational cost and technical expertise required to train machine learning models, users may delegate the task of learning to a service provider. We show how a malicious learner can plant an undetectable backdoor into a classifier. On the surface, such a backdoored classifier behaves normally, but in reality, the learner maintains a mechanism for changing the classification of any input, with only a slight perturbation. Importantly, without the appropriate "backdoor key", the mechanism is hidden and cannot be detected by any computationally-bounded observer. We demonstrate two frameworks for planting undetectable backdoors, with incomparable guarantees. ... https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06974

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97° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 27 Aprile 2022 | Modalità Telematica
by Nexa Media April 21, 2022

April 21, 2022

Gentilissimi, vi segnaliamo che il 97° Nexa Lunch Seminar, /*"La nuova strategia europea in materia di dati"*/, con ospite *Giacomo Conti* (Project Manager Centro Nexa), si svolgerà *mercoledì 27 aprile, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00*, in modalità telematica, utilizzando la piattaforma di videoconferenza BigBlueButton. Sarà possibile partecipare al seminario connettendosi al seguente indirizzo: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-97> NEXA 97° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledì 27 aprile 2022, ore 13.00 - 14.00 https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-97 La nuova strategia europea in materia di dati Speaker Giacomo Conti (Project Manager Centro Nexa) This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air *PARTECIPA ONLINE ALL'INCONTRO: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent* Le operazioni di ogni tipo sui dati sono ormai all’ordine del giorno nel mondo di oggi. Scambi, compravendite e semplici raccolte di enormi quantità di dati sono azioni quotidiane sia per imprese private che per enti pubblici. L’Unione Europea, e nella fattispecie la Commissione Europea, ha recentemente pubblicato la sua */New European Data Strategy/*: una pianificazione di atti normativi composta fondamentalmente da tre regolamenti, che intende rendere l’UE un mercato libero e sicuro nel quale scambiare i dati. Il *Data Governance Act*, il *Digital Service Act* ed il *Digital Markets Act* sono i tre regolamenti che, nelle intenzioni della Commissione, dovrebbero rivoluzionare il mercato dei dati in Europa. Quali saranno i vantaggi di queste potenziali nuove norme? E quali le problematiche? Inoltre, occorre considerare l’Unione Europea non come un soggetto assoluto, ma al contrario insito in un mercato globale, costretto a fronteggiare la concorrenza di altri Paesi, primo fra tutti gli Stati Uniti, dotato di un sistema normativo completamente diverso (ed inaspettatamente forse ancora più complicato) di quello europeo. BIOGRAFIA - e informazioni supplementari [Lunch97] *Giacomo CONTI*, laureato in Giurisprudenza e grande appassionato di informatica, riveste attualmente il ruolo di Project Manager presso il Centro Nexa. Il suo ambito primario di competenza è la responsabilità nell'uso del software e i problemi di privacy derivanti dalle nuove tecnologie. Amante dei videogiochi, è fondatore del sito di critica e approfondimento MMO.it. È iscritto all'Ordine dei Giornalisti del Piemonte dal 2016. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * Commissione Europea, /Una Strategia Europea per i dati/, Bruxelles, 19 febbraio 2020, LINK <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0066&…> * Commissione Europea, /Strategia europea in materia di dati/, LINK <https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-…> * World Economic Forum, /Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class/, 2011, LINK <https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ITTC_PersonalDataNewAsset_Report_2011.pdf> * Commissione Europea, /Proposta di Regolamento del Parlamento Europeo e del Consiglio relativo alla governance europea dei dati (DGA)/, Bruxelles, 25 novembre 2020, LINK <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0767&…> * Commissione Europea, /Proposta di Regolamento del Parlamento Europeo e del Consiglio relativo a un mercato unico dei servizi digitali (legge sui servizi digitali) e che modifica la direttiva 2000/31/CE/, Bruxelles, 15 dicembre 2020, LINK <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0825&f…> * Commissione Europea, /Regolamento […] relativo a mercati equi e contendibili nel settore digitale (legge sui mercati digitali)/, Bruxelles 15 dicembre 2020, LINK <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020PC0842&f…>, Capo II. Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> <https://www.instagram.com/nexa_center/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/3054864/admin/> #nexalunchseminar <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexalunchseminar&src=typd> #EuropeanCommission <https://twitter.com/EU_Commission> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) dal 2006 è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l'Università di Torino, studia Internet (e più in generale le Tecnologie digitali) e i suoi rapporti con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Anita Botta*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 347 131 3903, anita.botta(a)polito.it. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

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Hong Kong: "YouTube terminates CE nominee John Lee’s campaign channel, citing US sanctions"
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 21, 2022

April 21, 2022

*YouTube terminates CE nominee John Lee’s campaign channel, citing US sanctions** * Local | 20 Apr 2022 3:27 pm YouTube took down the campaign channel of HK chief executive candidate John Lee Ka-chiu on Wednesday, as its parent company Google said to comply with the US sanctions against the HK former number-two official. This came a day after Lee’s campaign office started to live broadcast Lee’s meeting with Hong Kong deputies to the NPC and CPPCC on Facebook and YouTube on Tuesday, and was originally planning to broadcast the meeting with the Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication sector today. Upon request for comments, a Google spokesman said the company complies with applicable US sanctions laws and enforces related policies under its Terms of Service. [...] continua qui: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/189329/YouTube-termi…

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EU: Policing: France proposes massive EU-wide DNA sweep, automated exchange of facial images - European Digital Rights (EDRi)
by Alberto Cammozzo April 20, 2022

April 20, 2022

EU: Policing: France proposes massive EU-wide DNA sweep, automated exchange of facial images The French Presidency of the Council is seeking EU-wide comparisons of every DNA profile held by police forces against all those held by other national police forces, as well as EU policing agency Europol, as part of plans to upgrade the ‘Prüm’ network of police databases. It also hopes to automate the police exchange of facial images by eliminating requirements for human review. By Statewatch · April 20, 2022 <https://edri.org/our-work/eu-policing-france-proposes-massive-eu-wide-dna-s…> *Networking police databases* The proposals come in an amended version of a proposal <https://www.statewatch.org/media/3247/eu-council-prum-presidency-proposals-…> (pdf) originally published by the European Commission in December 2021, which will upgrade the Prüm network of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle registration databases to include facial images and “police records”, as well as driving licence data <https://www.statewatch.org/news/2022/february/eu-got-a-driving-licence-you-…>, if the Council has its way. The Prüm system currently allows law enforcement authorities to compare a DNA profile – for example, taken from a criminal suspect or found at a crime scene – and use it to run a search against all other participating member states’ DNA databases. As well as EU member states, this also includes the UK <https://www.statewatch.org/brexit-goodbye-and-hello-the-new-eu-uk-security-…>. *Mass DNA searches* But the Presidency’s plan goes much further: under the revamped Prüm system, a central “router” would be set up to manage interconnections between different national databases, simplifying the current system which requires mutual interconnections between every participating state <https://www.statewatch.org/media/3249/eu-council-prum-notifications-declara…> (pdf). The Presidency now aims to use that router for the mass comparison of DNA profiles (emphasis added in all quotes): /“Member States shall, at the initial connection to the router via their national contact points, *conduct an automated search by comparing all their DNA profiles, with all DNA profiles stored in all other Member States’ databases and Europol*. Member States and Europol shall agree bilaterally on the modalities of these automated searches.”/ The same article goes on to say that such mass searches could be a regular undertaking: /“*Member States may agree bilaterally to conduct automated searches also at a later stage* by comparing DNA profiles, with all DNA profiles stored in all other Member States’ databases and Europol. Member States and Europol shall agree bilaterally on the modalities of these automated searches.”/ The Presidency has somehow managed to include these provisions prior to one that says: /“*Searches may be conducted only in individual cases* and in respect of the same guarantees and safeguards that are required for similar searches at national level.” / A mass, automated search and comparison of DNA profiles is evidently not an “individual case”. If it were implemented now, the proposal would involve the processing of millions of items of sensitive personal data – EU member states held a total of almost 17 million DNA samples at the end of 2021, according to the latest statistics on DNA databases circulated within the Council of the EU <https://www.statewatch.org/media/3248/eu-council-prum-statistics-2021-5436-…> (pdf, see table below). All but two member states’ DNA databases grew during the course of 2021, some substantially: Bulgaria’s by 30%, and Poland’s by 38%. The intention is to have the upgraded Prüm operational by 2027, by which time those databases will have grown even more. The Council may also be seeking to weaken the applicable safeguards, or at least to make them less specific: the phrase “in respect of the same guarantees and safeguards that are required for similar searches at national level” has been inserted in place of the previous text, which required searches to be conducted “in compliance with the national law of the requesting Member State.” *Automating the exchange of facial images* The intention is also for the upgraded Prüm network to include police facial recognition databases, which could form the technical backbone of a Europe-wide mass biometric surveillance system <https://edri.org/our-work/press-release-ec-jumps-the-gun-on-prum/>. Under the Commission’s proposal <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2021:784:FIN>, member states would have submitted a facial image for a search against all other member states’ databases, and in return would have received a list of potential “candidates” for matches that would require human review before any further personal data could be exchanged. The Commission recently emphasized this point to /Wired/ <https://www.wired.com/story/europe-police-facial-recognition-prum/>, saying that “a human will review the potential matches and decide if any of them are correct, before any further action is taken.” The Council, however, has other plans. The latest proposed version of the text deletes the requirement for human review, and instead makes it optional: /“The national contact point of the requesting Member State may decide to manually confirm a match between two facial images. If so decided, it shall inform the requested Member State and shall confirm this match with facial images reference data received from the requested Member State.”/ The implication is, then, that the matching of facial images should generally be done automatically. Here, as with DNA and other types of data covered by the new Prum system, the Council has changed the requirement for searches to be conducted “in compliance with national law” to “in respect of the same guarantees and safeguards that are required for similar searches at national level.” *National DNA database content (stains and persons), 2021* *State* *01-Jan-21* *31-Dec-21* *% change* Belgium 101,098.00 108,049.00 7% Bulgaria 43,611.00 56,736.00 30% Czechia 277,213.00 287,357.00 4% Denmark 163,614.00 172,574.00 5% Germany 1,244,119.00 1,198,826.00 -4% Estonia 74,259.00 78,874.00 6% Greece 38,408.00 42,014.00 9% Spain 441,165.00 460,309.00 4% France 5,594,676.00 6,025,945.00 8% Croatia 10,085.00 10,802.00 7% Ireland 40,250.00 47,877.00 19% Cyprus 18,565.00 19,432.00 5% Latvia 72,930.00 77,215.00 6% Lithuania 140,770.00 149,523.00 6% Luxembourg 7,835.00 9,073.00 16% Hungary 161,306.00 167,946.00 4% Malta 799.00 156.00 -80% Netherlands 379,826.00 398,931.00 5% Austria 296,422.00 309,155.00 4% Poland 117,287.00 161,702.00 38% Portugal 14,163.00 14,163.00 0% Romania 57,857.00 68,466.00 18% Slovenia 32,948.00 33,684.00 2% Slovakia 94,482.00 99,027.00 5% Finland 207,651.00 212,412.00 2% Sweden 209,048.00 211,814.00 1% UK 6,337,964.00 6,446,391.00 2% 16,178,351.00 16,868,453.00 4% /Figures for the UK are taken from the national DNA database statistics, available here <https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-dna-database-statistics>./

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the weaponization of the device (How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens)
by 380° April 20, 2022

April 20, 2022

Buongiorno nexiane, un lunghissimissimissimo articolo che spiega, ancora una volta, come lo spyware venga utilizzato in tutto il mondo per ogni tipo di operazione... e intendo proprio per /ogni/ tipo: dalla sorveglianza dei dissidenti o nemici politici (europei inclusi) a quella dei consorti di persone talmente ricche da potersi permettere di acquistare spyware (e infrastrutture dedicate) /indipendentemente/ dagli ipocriti gestori dei permessi di commercializzazione di quel software. Sperano di fermare il fenomeno con dei procedimenti giudiziari, ipocriti che non sono altro. Nessuno pensi, anche solo per temporanea distrazione, che Pegasus sia l'unico o il peggiore, perché sarebbe oltremodo offensivo. Scusate la lunghezza dell'estratto, ho cercato di includere solo quello che ritengo significativo. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/how-democracies-spy-on-their-… «How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] In Catalonia, more than sixty phones—owned by Catalan politicians, lawyers, and activists in Spain and across Europe—have been targeted using Pegasus. This is the largest forensically documented cluster of such attacks and infections on record. Among the victims are three members of the European Parliament, including Solé. Catalan politicians believe that the likely perpetrators of the hacking campaign are Spanish officials, and the Citizen Lab’s analysis suggests that the Spanish government has used Pegasus. A former NSO employee confirmed that the company has an account in Spain. (Government agencies did not respond to requests for comment.) The results of the Citizen Lab’s investigation are being disclosed for the first time in this article. I spoke with more than forty of the targeted individuals, and the conversations revealed an atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust. Solé said, “That kind of surveillance in democratic countries and democratic states—I mean, it’s unbelievable.” [...] According to an analysis by the Citizen Lab, phones connected to the Foreign Office were hacked using Pegasus on at least five occasions, from July, 2020, through June, 2021. The government official confirmed that indications of hacking had been uncovered. According to the Citizen Lab, the destination servers suggested that the attacks were initiated by states including the U.A.E., India, and Cyprus. (Officials in India and Cyprus did not respond to requests for comment.) About a year after the Downing Street hack, a British court revealed that the U.A.E. had used Pegasus to spy on Princess Haya, the ex-wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, one of the Emirates. Maktoum was engaged in a custody dispute with Haya, who had fled with their two children to the U.K. Her attorneys, who are British, were also targeted. [...] A senior European law-enforcement official whose agency uses Pegasus said that it gave an inside look at criminal organizations: “When do they want to store the gas, to go to the place, to put the explosive?” He said that his agency uses Pegasus only as a last resort, with court approval, but conceded, “It’s like a weapon. . . . It can always occur that an individual uses it in the wrong way.” [...] Establishing strict rules about who can use commercial spyware is complicated by the fact that such technology is offered as a tool of diplomacy. [...] “Everything that we are doing, we got the permission from the government of Israel,” Hulio (uno dei fondatori di NGO, i produttori di Pegasus, n.d.r.) told me. “The entire mechanism of regulation in Israel was built by the Americans.” [...] NSO sees itself as a type of arms dealer, operating in a field without established norms. [...] Hulio said, “I just remember that one day the lawsuit happened, and they shut down the Facebook account of our employees, which was a very bully move for them to do.” He added, referring to scandals about Facebook’s role in society, “I think it’s a big hypocrisy.” NSO has pushed for the suit to be dismissed, arguing that the company’s work on behalf of governments should grant it the same immunity from lawsuits that those governments have. So far, the U.S. courts have rejected this argument. [...] WhatsApp’s aggressive posture was unusual among big technology companies, which are often reluctant to call attention to instances in which their systems have been compromised. The lawsuit signalled a shift. The tech companies were now openly aligned against the spyware venders. Gheorghe described it as “the moment the whole thing just exploded.” [...] Microsoft, Google, Cisco, and others filed a legal brief in support of WhatsApp’s suit. Goodwin, the Microsoft executive, helped to assemble the coalition of companies. “We could not let NSO Group prevail with an argument that, simply because a government is using your products and services, you get sovereign immunity,” she told me. “The ripple effect of that would have been so dangerous.” Hulio argues that when governments use Pegasus they’re less likely to lean on platform holders for wider “back door” access to users’ data. He expressed exasperation with the lawsuit. “Instead of them, like, actually saying, ‘O.K., thank you,’ ” he told me, “they are going to sue us. Fine, so let’s meet in court.” [...] Israel has become the world’s most significant source of private surveillance technology in part because of the quality of talent and expertise produced by its military. “Because of the compulsory service, we can recruit the best of the best,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “The American dream is going from M.I.T. to Google. The Israeli dream is to go to 8200,” the Israeli military-intelligence unit from which spyware venders often recruit. [...] In 2019, NSO was saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt as part of a leveraged-buyout deal in which a London-based private-equity firm, Novalpina, acquired a seventy-per-cent stake. Recently, Moody’s, the financial-services firm, downgraded NSO’s credit rating to “poor,” and Bloomberg described it as a distressed asset, shunned by Wall Street traders. [...] “I know there have been misuses,” Hulio said. “It’s hard for me to live with that. And I obviously feel sorry for that. Really, I’m not just saying that. I never said it, but I’m saying it now.” Hulio said that the company has turned down ninety customers and hundreds of millions of dollars of business out of concern about the potential for abuse. But such claims are difficult to verify. [...] Asked about the extreme abuses ascribed to his technology, Hulio invoked an argument that is at the heart of his company’s defense against WhatsApp and Apple. “We have no access to the data on the system,” he told me. “We don’t take part in the operation, we don’t see what the customers are doing. We have no way of monitoring it.” When a client buys Pegasus, company officials said, an NSO team travels to install two racks, one devoted to storage and another for operating the software. The system then runs with only limited connection to NSO in Israel. [...] The competition, Hulio argued, is far more frightening. “Companies found themselves in Singapore, in Cyprus, in other places that don’t have real regulation,” he told me. “And they can sell to whoever they want.” The spyware industry is also full of rogue hackers willing to crack devices for anyone who will pay. “They will take your computers, they will take your phone, your Gmail,” Hulio said. “It’s obviously illegal. But it’s very common now. It’s not that expensive.” Some of the technology that NSO competes with, he says, comes from state actors, including China and Russia. “I can tell you that today in China, today in Africa, you see the Chinese government giving capabilities almost similar to NSO.” According to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, China supplies surveillance tools to sixty-three countries, often through private firms enmeshed with the Chinese state. “NSO will not exist tomorrow, let’s say,” Hulio told me. “There’s not going to be a vacuum. What do you think will happen?” [...] Last month, the European Parliament formed a committee to look into the use of Pegasus in Europe. Last week, Reuters reported that senior officials at the European Commission had been targeted by NSO spyware. The investigative committee, whose members include Puigdemont, will convene for its first session on April 19th. Puigdemont called NSO’s activities “a threat not only for the credibility of Spanish democracy, but for the credibility of European democracy itself.” [...] “People can survive and can adapt to almost any situation,” Hulio once told me. NSO Group must now adapt to a situation in which its flagship product has become a symbol of oppression. “I don’t know if we’ll win, but we will fight,” he said. One solution was to expand the product line. The company demonstrated for me an artificial-intelligence tool, called Maestro, that scrutinizes surveillance data, builds models of individuals’ relationships and schedules, and alerts law enforcement to variations of routine that might be harbingers of crime. “I’m sure this will be the next big thing coming out of NSO,” Leoz Michaelson, one of its designers, told me. “Turning every life pattern into a mathematical vector.” [...] On his mother’s phone, which had been hacked eight times, the researchers found a new kind of zero-click exploit, which attacked iMessage and iOS’s Web-browsing engine. There is no evidence that iPhones are still vulnerable to the exploit, which the Citizen Lab has given the working name Homage. When the evidence was found, Scott-Railton told Campo, “You’re not going to believe this, but your mother is patient zero for a previously undiscovered exploit.” --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- bla bla bla bla... tutto /dovrebbe/ essere riassunto con questo unico paragrafo: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- The exploit triggered two video calls in close succession, one joining the other, with the malicious code hidden in their settings. The process took only a few seconds, and deleted any notifications immediately afterward. The code used a technique known as a “buffer overflow,” [...] The company concluded that NSO had injected malicious code into files in Adobe’s PDF format. It then tricked a system in iMessage into accepting and processing the PDFs outside BlastDoor. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Ecco appunto, siamo fermi alla /preistoria/ dell'informatica, quando gli exploit si attivavano con dei banalissimi buffer overflow e i documenti binari potevano essere /eseguiti/ come codice macchina... bah?!? Governanti, vi è mai venuto in mente di spendere almeno un decimo di quello che spendete per /tentare/ di proteggere i dispositivi dei vostri amici, o un centesimo di quello che spendete per attaccare i dispositivi dei vostri nemici, per finanziare lo sviluppo di sistemi operativi migliori (la sicurezza degli applicativi verrebbe via /gratis/)?... che tra l'altro già ci sono :-O Possibile che in questo regime chi sfrutta abili programmatori sociopatici, che stanno svegli per due giorni di fila per trovare il bit, sia in grado di fare soldi a palate nel settore dell'informatica?... e chi non fa spyware fa software per profilare e /controllare/ i comportamenti dei propri urtenti, mentre decine di migliaia di hacker in tutto il mondo fanno cose che farebbero volentieri a meno di fare e non riescono a dedicarsi a ciò che desiderano?!? Gli spyware e i malware [1] non sono armi, sono /solo/ software, opere letterarie, basta saperle leggere per comprenderle... e comprendere dove non funzionano. C'è un sacco di gente che lo saprebbe fare e ancora di più che saprebbe imparare a farlo, se solo ne avesse la possibilità. Governanti, siete troppo pieni di voi per comprendere, non c'è altra spiegazione. Saluti, 380° [1] https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html.en «As of April, 2022, the pages in this directory list around 550 instances of malicious functionalities (with more than 650 references to back them up), but there are surely thousands more we don't know about.» -- 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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Ukrainian Citizens Are Using a Bot to Help Spot Russian Troops
by Alberto Cammozzo April 20, 2022

April 20, 2022

A Citizen-like chatbot allows Ukrainians to report to the government when they spot Russian troops — here's how it works <https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-military-e-enemy-telegram-app-2022-4> In February of 2020, the Ukrainian government released a new app that would make good on President Zelenskyy's key campaign promise: to root out bureaucracy and digitize key parts of the government. In peacetime, the app Diia was meant to be a central hub for citizens' interactions with their government, allowing someone to access their identity cards, pay their taxes, and receive public services. Now, during wartime, the country's Ministry of Digital Transformation has launched a new feature called E-Enemy over Diia, allowing any Ukrainian citizen to inform the army when they spot Russian troops and infantry. "Anyone can help our army locate Russian troops," an update on March 10th by the ministry. "Use our chat bot to inform the Armed Forces," it said. As footage of the invasion flooded social media and Telegram, Ukrainian security forces relied heavily on intelligence gathered over the platforms to find and locate Russian troops. The country's internal affairs ministry even created a preliminary version of the chatbot to source information on Russian troop movements over the app. At least in one instance, the government announced intelligence gathered over Telegram helped Ukrainian troops find and destroy enemy convoys near Kyiv. But, according to Slava Banik, director of E-services development at the Ministry of Digital transformation, verification of intelligence took a long time through the previous version and often Russian bots would flood disinformation onto the platform. Diia, according to the Ministry of Digital Transformation, changes that by requiring users to login and authenticate themselves via the e-passport system. "We know for sure it's a real person sending the info and not a Russian bot," Banik told Insider. While users log in to E-Enemy through Diia, they are then redirected to a Telegram chatbot that asks users if they are the primary source for the intelligence, alongside basic information about the types of troops, whether they were moving on foot or in vehicles, the number of troops, and the time of contact. According to the ministry, over 260,000 people have used the app since it launched last month. Sofiya Danylova, an editor at a local Kyiv publication, used the earlier version of the app before it was linked to the Diia platform. Russian troops were entering through Chernihiv, a city close to Ukraine's border with Belarus. Danylova, who's family friends lived in a village close to where troops were advancing, pleaded with Danylova to find a way to inform Ukrainian troops of the situation. They were unfamiliar with Telegram or how to use chatbots. Danylova found the chatbot and uploaded videos of Russian troops advancing that her friends had taken. "Our friends identified the V marking on the Russian vehicles moving along their villages," Danylova said. To be safe, she also sent the information to a friend that served in the Ukrainian army. Slava Churpita, a bar owner in the country's capital, had a similar experience. She was asked to use the bot by a neighbor, who had just seen possible Russian drones flying over her area. Churpita sent the information provided by the witness, making sure to credit that it was second hand information. But she said, she was ultimately unsure of how useful the information might have been. [...]

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Facebook’s fibre optics in Nigerian state put Africa pivot in focus | World news | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo April 18, 2022

April 18, 2022

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/18/facebook-meta-mainone-fibre-o…> When government officials in the southern Nigerian state of Edo set about radically improving poor internet access for its population of 4 million, they didn’t have to look far for help. MainOne, a company responsible for laying a vast network of fibre-optic cables across west Africa, was an obvious partner. Another, perhaps less obvious one, was Facebook. A joint agreement was signed to install fibre-optic cables running across the state’s capital, Benin City. Since 2019, 400km (250 miles) of cables have been laid in Edo, about a quarter via the partnership between the two companies and the government. “Obviously, Facebook isn’t really a digital infrastructure company, but they invested in these cables,” said Emmanuel Eweka, who worked as a senior government official for the Edo government until last September. In recent years, as Facebook has come under rising legislative pressure in the west, the company has increased its focus on Africa, particularly in countries where the regulatory and legislative environment tends to be much looser. The combination of weak and expensive internet coverage for most of Nigeria’s fast-growing population of more than 200 million people has meant that companies hoping to tap into a potential goldmine of new users – and their data – have sought to invest in the business of helping those potential users get online in the first place. “To make internet data more affordable, Facebook needs to build infrastructures that are almost free,” Eweka said. “In fact, I’d say Facebook actually loses in terms of making money out of those cables. But then they gain it back on the user data that they will generate, and obviously that has huge potential in a country like Nigeria.” New potential users are rapidly emerging in countries with fast-growing populations and rising smartphone use driven by increased connectivity. Just over half of Nigeria’s population currently has access to the internet, and the proportion with access is rising each year. In places like Edo, where government officials are committed to overhauling sparse and expensive internet access, there are ripe opportunities for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to become increasingly central to digital infrastructure, thereby positioning itself to capitalise on the increased connectivity that will follow. Edo’s governor, Godwin Obaseki, has in recent years driven a digitisation agenda that touches on many areas of ordinary life, and tech companies have become fundamental parts of it. In 2019, Facebook invested $20m in internet infrastructure in Edo, and committed alongside MainOne to laying 750km of fibre-optic cables in Edo and the south-western state of Ogun. Both states have committed to building business and technology hubs, expanding internet access for entrepreneurs, tech workers, government agencies and schools. Faster internet supplied through the cables has underpinned a drive to change the way the government in Edo works. The state’s previously “analogue” civil service now uses a Microsoft-based government portal, according to Eweka, using fibre-optic internet access provided by MainOne and Facebook. “The level of accountability this system brings is so effective,” Eweka said. “Right now, if a case file is sent to a civil servant from the governor’s office, the governor can see exactly when it is opened, and whether it has been actualised. So the days where you send one file somewhere and it gets lost in the system are gone.” Schools in Edo and areas where fibre-optic cables can be accessed have benefited from subsidised internet connectivity and are also working with Microsoft-based learning programs, improving the quality of education, officials say. Last November, the government launched the Edo Tech Park, a largely as-yet-unbuilt project on 200,000sq km of land that developers envision will be the centre of the state’s growing tech ecosystem. The hub will provide “live-in, work apartments, residential and commercial real estate, tech incubators, and offices for rent”. Fundamental to the plans are the increased access to faster and cheaper internet services that Meta has helped provide. Stephen Osawaru, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and business consultant in Benin City, works with a network of more than 300 startups in the state. “Many internet businesses in education, agriculture, health and finance didn’t exist five years ago that have now taken advantage of the connectivity in Edo,” he said. “The internet is better and cheaper than it was five years ago; internet penetration is growing at an exponential rate and creating more opportunities,” he said. Both of his businesses have thrived as a result of engagement through Facebook and Instagram and through WhatsApp broadcasts to customers. Funke Opeke founded MainOne in 2008. Since then, a single deep-sea cable running south along the edge of the Atlantic, from Portugal to west Africa and on to South Africa, has expanded, spawning a vast maze of fibre-optic connections. She describes the public-private partnerships in Edo as “a model” for how internet access in Nigeria can be rapidly increased. Opeke said cables are leased by other telecommunication companies and that this lowered costs for mobile operators because operators do not have to build their own infrastructure. “We also build to all the critical points of importance for governments so that we’re able to deliver services to them and help their automation. It’s accelerating development and state services to the people – a win-win for the government and the private sector.” Others are more circumspect, acknowledging the potential benefits to the country alongside the motives of the companies involved. When partnership announcements are made, the tone has sounded “quite altruistic, like they [the technology companies] are doing this to help,” said Gbemisola Alonge, a senior development analyst at Stears, an economic analysis company in Lagos. “But it’s never like that. It’s to expand their reach and increase their [user] base.” A Meta spokesperson said the company worked with partners “to drive innovation on all aspects of performance and efficiency” and that its partnership with MainOne had helped bring online training to 2,000 teachers in Edo and connectivity to four schools and their surrounding communities.

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cognitive warfare
by maurizio lana April 17, 2022

April 17, 2022

la società in cui viviamo è spesso chiamata società dell'informazione. già un gruppo di cacciatori paleolitici ha però bisogno di condividere e far circolare informazione se vuole riuscire a raggiungere e uccidere un bufalo. cioè se vuole essere in grado di sopravvivere. di qui la domanda che faccio sempre ai miei studenti: perché oggi ci chiamiamo "società dell'informazione" se l’informazione è sempre stata necessaria per il funzionamento delle società umane? qui mi pare che ne appaia un aspetto: la guerra si fa _nell_'informazione, mentre 'prima' servivano informazioni per fare la guerra. una trasformazione continua per cui il campo di battaglia si allarga, vengono coinvolti sempre più i civili, il terreno di scontro non è più solo o prevalentemente lo spazio fisico ma è anche il mondo digitale - in quanto le persone _vivono_ nel mondo digitale. quindi è ovvio che venga progettato e prodotto del "cognitive warfare". la grande questione è come ci si difende da esso - e che se i cittadini non sono capaci dal basso di difendersi da esso, allora gli Stati si vedono motivati a intervenire dall'alto. sullo sfondo il fatto che il 97% dei cittadini vive nel mondo digitale dell'informazione senza saperlo; poi c'è un 2% che sa che il mondo digitale è virtuale (!), poi ci sono gli altri, di cui sono parte quelli che discutono di queste cose in nexa. Maurizio Il 15/04/22 10:30, Giovanni Leghissa <giovanni.leghissa(a)unito.it> ha scritto: > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2022 16:58:21 +0200 > From: Giovanni Leghissa <giovanni.leghissa(a)unito.it> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] cognitive warfare > Message-ID: > <CABhx+OwskVmuA-1svmaw3JB9SB+JSy_5o3YHTxshhnNxKSEMQg(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Due articoli sullo stesso tema: cognitive warfare come nuovo teatro di > operazioni > > (Non penso siano questioni off topics) > > > https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/new-tech-new-concepts-chinas-plans-for-ai… > > > https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/dangerous-synergies > > > Ci terrei a qualche commento, per la ragione seguente. Dalla lettura di > questi (e di molti altri testi sul tema: ho scelto di condividere qui > questi perché brevi e incisivi) io ricavo l’impressione che in un prossimo > futuro voci di dissenso verso l’assetto politico-istituzionale delle > democrazie occidentali rischieranno di venir represse o silenziate in > quanto segnali della conquista, da parte del nemico, delle menti di coloro > che di quel dissenso si saranno fatti portatori. > > Ma forse sbaglio. Sarei davvero ansioso di avere un’impressione da parte > della lista. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: <http://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/attachments/20220414/334fae7a/a…> > > ------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |mural of Giulio Regeni in Mohammed Mahmoud Street, Cairo the source is https://alwafd.news/images/thumbs/752/new/027f918bb62bf148193d5920ca67ded7.… the meaning of the place https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20395260| ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Università del Piemonte Orientale piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli tel. +39 347 7370925

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cognitive warfare
by Giovanni Leghissa April 17, 2022

April 17, 2022

Due articoli sullo stesso tema: cognitive warfare come nuovo teatro di operazioni (Non penso siano questioni off topics) https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/new-tech-new-concepts-chinas-plans-for-ai… https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/dangerous-synergies Ci terrei a qualche commento, per la ragione seguente. Dalla lettura di questi (e di molti altri testi sul tema: ho scelto di condividere qui questi perché brevi e incisivi) io ricavo l’impressione che in un prossimo futuro voci di dissenso verso l’assetto politico-istituzionale delle democrazie occidentali rischieranno di venir represse o silenziate in quanto segnali della conquista, da parte del nemico, delle menti di coloro che di quel dissenso si saranno fatti portatori. Ma forse sbaglio. Sarei davvero ansioso di avere un’impressione da parte della lista.

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