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Carbolytics
by Giacomo Tesio March 15, 2022

March 15, 2022

AdTech is the primary business model of the data economy ecosystem or, in other words, the “money making machine that fuels the Internet”. In 2021, the global ad spending across platforms reached $763.2 billion, and it is expected to rise 10% in 2022. Moreover, in 2020, 97.9% of Facebook’s and 80% of Google’s global revenue was generated from advertising, and, excluding China, these companies, together with Amazon, will dominate 80% to 90% of the market in 2022. Yet, despite the extraordinary importance of AdTech within the global economy, its methods and processes are extremely opaque, and thus incredibly difficult to control and regulate. [...] The investigation identified more than 21 million cookies per single visit to the landing page of all these websites, belonging to more than 1200 different companies, which translates to an average traffic of 197 trillion cookies per month, resulting in 11,442 monthly metric tonnes of CO2 emissions. It’s important to understand that this number reflects browser-based cookie traffic and does not include app tracking activity, so we estimate this number to be dramatically higher. [...] # Highlights [1] The carbon costs of the tracking cookie ecosystem from the top one million websites have been measured for the first time. [2] The top one million websites contain a total of 21,805,649 cookies. [3] Cookies are sent around over 198 trillion times per month. [4] The most installed cookie in our sample list is _ga (Google Analytics), found on over 534 thousand sites. [5] The first thousand cookies (the top 0.018%), by the number of sites they are installed on, cause a stunning 50% of all the emissions, and the top 1% of cookies (a little over 53 thousand) corresponds to 82% of emissions. [...] # Conclusions In any case, cookie-based tracking technologies are not the only solution available to advertisers today – complex fingerprinting, for instance, can provide the exact same amount of information. On the other hand, behavioural advertising as a whole is under scrutiny not just because of privacy or (newly raised) environmental concerns, but also simply because there is evidence that it might not be as beneficial for publishers as it is for advertisers. Continua su https://carbolytics.org/report.html Giacomo

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96° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 23 Marzo 2022 | Modalità Telematica
by Nexa Media March 15, 2022

March 15, 2022

Gentilissimi, vi segnaliamo che il 96° Nexa Lunch Seminar, /*"La preservazione dei mondi virtuali"*/, con ospite *Lorenzo Plini* (Co-fondatore e direttore editoriale di MMO.it), si svolgerà *mercoledì 23 marzo, 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-96> NEXA 96° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledì 23 marzo 2022, ore 13.00 - 14.00 https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-96 La preservazione dei mondi virtuali Speaker Lorenzo Plini (Co-fondatore e direttore editoriale di MMO.it) This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air *PARTECIPA ONLINE ALL'INCONTRO: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent* Giocati ogni giorno da milioni di persone connesse da ogni parte del mondo, i *mondi virtuali* rappresentano una delle nuove frontiere dell’*intrattenimento digitale*. Recentemente è diventato mainstream il concetto di *“metaverso”*, con molte delle principali multinazionali tech che stanno cercando di imporsi sul mercato con investimenti miliardari sulla *realtà virtuale*, ma in verità i mondi virtuali esistono fin dagli anni ’90 grazie a progetti sperimentali e avanguardistici come /Ultima Online/ e /Second Life/. I mondi virtuali sono prodotti che vengono supportati costantemente dagli sviluppatori nel corso degli anni, quindi hanno una natura profondamente mutevole. Tuttavia, con la crescita dell’industria numerosi mondi virtuali sono cambiati profondamente o, nei casi più sfortunati, sono persino stati chiusi. Si pone dunque un importante *problema di preservazione*, dato che un’opera culturale dovrebbe restare accessibile anche a distanza di anni: così come si conservano le pellicole del cinema muto, infatti, è importante preservare i mondi virtuali dall’oblio. Nonostante i passi avanti, tuttavia, c’è ancora molta strada da fare prima che la preservazione dei videogiochi goda di un riconoscimento a tutti gli effetti. Nel caso dei mondi virtuali, poi, la questione è resa ancora più complicata dalla loro natura always-online. Come si può dunque garantire la preservazione dei mondi virtuali? Vi sono alcune possibili soluzioni, ognuna con i suoi vantaggi e le sue limitazioni. Si tratta però di una questione spinosa e tuttora in discussione, che tocca temi legali, commerciali, artistici e sociologici. BIOGRAFIA - e informazioni supplementari [Lunch96] *Lorenzo PLINI* , 30 anni, è dottore in Scienze della Comunicazione. Vive e lavora a Torino come giornalista pubblicista. Da sempre appassionato di mondi virtuali, ha iniziato a scrivere di videogiochi nel 2011 per SpazioGames. Dal 2016 è il co-fondatore e caporedattore di MMO.it. Nel 2020 ha contribuito alla stesura e pubblicazione di un libro, "Gioco dunque sono. Filosofia del videogamer" di Massimo Villa. Nel 2021 ha curato un capitolo intitolato "Dove l’immaginario incontra il reale: il caso World of Warcraft" all'interno della raccolta di saggi "Configurazioni e Trasfigurazioni. Discorsi sul paesaggio mediato", in collaborazione con le Università di Torino e Palermo. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * Bartle R., /Designing Virtual Worlds/, New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis, 2003. * Contato A., /Through the Moongate: La storia di Richard Garriott, Origin Systems Inc. e Ultima - Parte II - Da Wing Commander a Ultima VII e Portalarium/, senza editore, 2021 * Crosby J., /Galaxies: An Empire Remembered: The Definitive Unauthorized Guide to Star Wars Galaxies/, senza editore, 2018 * Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. LINK <https://www.themade.org> * Sito ufficiale di World of Warcraft Classic. LINK <https://worldofwarcraft.com/it-it/wowclassic> * Change.org: Legacy servers among World of Warcraft community. LINK <https://www.change.org/p/mike-morhaime-legacy-server-among-world-of-warcraf…> * Blizzard annuncia World of Warcraft Classic, server vanilla in arrivo. LINK <https://www.mmo.it/index.php/2017/11/03/blizzard-world-of-warcraft-classic-…> * Star Wars Galaxies Legends. LINK <https://swglegends.com> 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> #MMO <https://twitter.com/GiochiMMO> 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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Kyiv transport app is transformed into life-saving war information tool | Ukraine | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo March 15, 2022

March 15, 2022

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/15/kyiv-transport-app-is-transfo…> Before the war, it was the official city app to buy tickets for transport and pay for parking or utility bills in the Ukrainian capital. Now Kyiv Digital has been transformed into a life-saving tool that warns of air raids, and directs people to the nearest bomb shelter or garage with petrol supplies. With the help of the country’s chief digital transformation officer (CDTO) – the Kyiv <https://www.theguardian.com/world/kyiv> deputy mayor Petro Olenych – the app’s focus was changed in just 24 hours as Russia <https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia> invaded. It has already issued thousands of warnings and alerts, shared maps of bomb shelters, disseminated information on how to support the army and provided links to official sources of information. According to a spokesperson for CDTO the app now has 1.5 million users and is one of the top free applications in the Ukrainian app store. “Kyiv Digital has become the essential tool for warnings and alarms in the city. The novelties include a map of bomb shelters, map of available pharmacies and the access of insulin, a map of grocery stores, a map of points with free water and bread, pet shops, humanitarian headquarters, and more,” the spokesperson said. “The app has been around for a while and l found it very useful [before] because you could pay for parking on it and buy tickets for buses and trolleybuses,” said Denys Malakhatka, a scientific academic researcher. “Since the war started, they changed the app. They now send you alerts about when to take shelter and I also really like the fact that they let you know when the potential attack has ended,” said Malakhatka. “I think it’s great that they tell you when it’s over and you can relax,” he said. In peacetime the underground train service was used by about 1 million people a day; now the stations serve as emergency shelters for an estimated 15,000 Kyiv residents, who bed down on platforms and in hallways once the city’s curfew begins at 7pm. The Metro is running on one track every 90 minutes while the opposite platform has stationed carriages for people to wait, sit or sleep. As part of the digital war support, the government has also beefed up wifi access <https://wifi.kyivcity.gov.ua/>across the city, providing internet links to more than 200 bomb shelters to maintain emergency information links and allow people to keep in touch with relatives. “We must adapt our services and we have done. Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are working more cohesively and productively than ever. The reason is obvious. We defend our country, our cities, our residents, our parents, our children and our future. This is our home so we will fight to the last,” said Olencyh in a statement. Google has also rolled out rapid air alert systems for android phones in Ukraine <https://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine> at the request of the Ukrainian government. “This work is supplemental to the country’s existing air raid alert systems, and based on alerts already being delivered by the Ukrainian government,” it said on a company blog. Not everybody appreciates their phone apps’ change of focus to the conflict. “There are eight to 10 alarms a day – and when I’m sleeping I don’t want to hear them as well,” said Kyle Kondratiev, a lightning designer-turned humanitarian volunteer humanitarian. But for many other Kyivans, the app has become essential, not least because it includes a map of working petrol stations <https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-kyiv/3425918-u-zastosunku-kiiv-cifrovij-zav…>. With public transport severely limited, and many petrol stations closed, drivers without the app can face long queues or lengthy searches for fuel.

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The Resilience of the Internet in Ukraine | RIPE Labs
by Alberto Cammozzo March 12, 2022

March 12, 2022

<https://labs.ripe.net/author/emileaben/the-resilience-of-the-internet-in-uk…> At the end of the second week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the devastating effects of this war are very visible in mainstream media. Over two million people have fled the violence so far, and immense damage is being done to cities, towns and villages across the country. In spite of all that is happening, the Ukrainian Internet appears to be holding up. And while it is terrible to see the resiliency of a country's Internet tested in this way, it is good to see that it is still functioning. There has been some speculation as to why this is. For example, it may be that the Ukrainian Internet is deliberately not being targeted by the invaders. Or it may be that it is structured in such a way that makes it hard to attack. In this article, we take a closer look at certain factors that may be contributing to the the resiliency of the Ukrainian Internet. Lack of market concentration at end-user networks One interesting dimension of the Ukrainian Internet is the lack of market concentration in the end-user market. If we calculate the Herfindahl Hirschman index (HHI), an economic indicator for market concentration, we find that Ukraine is one of the least concentrated markets worldwide. Note that we calculate the HHI based on APNIC data for which networks serve users in a particular country. From this data we take all networks with over 1% users for the particular country, and from that we calculate HHI. Because we convert from percentages to fractions (divide by 100) we get an HHI between 0 (not concentrated) and 1 (monopoly): Top 10 least concentrated markets for end-user per network (ASN) Country HHI 1 Brazil 0.018 2 Russia 0.047 3 United States 0.05 4 Ukraine 0.052 5 Lebanon 0.067 6 Singapore 0.069 7 Albania 0.072 8 Guadelope 0.081 9 South Africa 0.083 10 Japan 0.087 Why is this important? There are no dominant players in the market, so if an individual network goes down, this has a relatively small effect on the whole network. It is also relevant to note that, for the most part, the networks with significant amounts of users are Ukrainian companies. For the Russian regime to shut down Ukrainian networks, they would have to force these Ukrainian companies to do so. This is different from situations where a government shuts down the Internet in the country it governs, as we saw in Egypt in the Arab Spring. In that case, the Egyptian government ordered Egyptian networks to shut down the Internet and the networks complied. We also look at how these networks are interconnected. For the networks where we have RIPE Atlas probes, we can measure the path between these networks. This is depicted in Figure 1: Figure 1: How Ukrainian end-user networks interconnect, as seen from RIPE Atlas The outer ring of this visualisation represents end-user networks. For this visualisation, the only networks that are shown (as green arcs) in the circle are those that serve over 1% of the population of the country. In the case of Ukraine, you see a large 'gap' in the left side of circle (roughly 55%). This is due to the fact that more than half of the networks serving end-users in Ukraine serve less than 1% of the population. For the networks that we have data for, you can see that there are many options between the networks, we either see them directly interconnecting, or interconnection is mediated by one of the many Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in Ukraine (depicted by orange circles in Figure 1). Note that we don't directly observe resiliency, because the paths that we measure are the active paths, and due to how Internet routing works, we can't see backup paths until they are activated. Resiliency in IXPs Zooming in on the IXPs, we see 19 IXPs in Ukraine listed in PeeringDB: Figure 2: IXPs in Ukraine (source PeeringDB) If we measure the path between all networks that we have RIPE Atlas probes in, we see 13 IXPs in these paths. This indicates there are a lot of IXPs active, which facilitates resilient interconnection. We visualise the paths between probes in Figure 3. Each cell here represents a path between RIPE Atlas probes in Ukraine, and you can see that the majority of these paths are mediated by IXPs (the total of coloured cells). It's also striking how many different IXPs are used, indicating that there is not a single dominant IXP. Probes are ordered north (top left of Figure 3) to south (bottom right). Figure 3: IXPs between RIPE Atlas probes in Ukraine Market concentration at transit networks If we move our focus to transit networks, we see similar patterns. For the influence (directly and indirectly) of networks over particular countries, we look at the AS Hegemony scores in the Internet Health Report. This data is derived from RIPE RIS and Routeviews, and these hegemony scores indicate how influential one network is over a part of the Internet. For instance how influential a particular ISP is over the population of users in a particular country. This is what that looks like for Ukraine: Figure 4: Top 10 of dependencies for Ukranian end-users (3rd column) We can also calculate this score for the influence of a particular ISP over the networks in a particular country (the difference is that not all networks have the same number of users, so in the first case the influence is weighted over users, the second it's weighted over networks). Figure 5: Top 10 of dependencies for Ukrainian networks (ASNs, last column) If there are networks that Ukrainian networks depend on, these seem to be the large international players, many of them so called "tier1" networks, and note that Russian transit networks are absent. Mobile vs Fixed Internet The data we collect and see is mostly about the fixed Internet. Insights into what happens with mobile Internet are a lot harder to obtain from the data we collect in RIPE RIS and RIPE Atlas. The best public data we found on this is in Cloudflare Radar. This data shows how, during the beginning of the war, the traffic they received shifted towards more mobile use. This also explains the slow but steady decline we see indicators of the fixed Internet (for instance the number of connected RIPE Atlas probes). With 2 million people fleeing in a country of 44 million people, it is expected that the fixed Internet is less used, due to people shutting down their home and/or office Internet routers. Figure 6: Cloudflare Radar data suggests shift away from fixed towards mobile Internet Figure 7: RIPE Atlas connected probes in Ukraine shows a slow but steady decline since the invasion started Other similar indicators of user activity see the same trend; e.g. Google transparency report, Gatech IODA. The Physical Layer In the end, the Internet infrastructure in Ukraine is a man-made structure, at the very core consisting of routers, a transport medium (fibre mostly) and electricity to power it all. Loss of power or extensive damage to the underlying fibres would mean no more physical connectivity; i.e. the Internet stops working. Cables There is a really good explanation of the role physical fibres play in keeping the Internet in Ukraine connected from Telegeography . What we see there also suggests resilience on the physical layer. In short, there are diverse fibre paths from multiple organisations providing services over these fibres. That said, physical infrastructure is being damaged in specific parts of the country. Even as that is happening, though, engineers on the ground are doing incredible work to carry out repairs under profoundly difficult circumstances (more on this below). Power Internet infrastructure needs electricity to function. With power going out in Mariupol, we are hearing reports of the devastating effects this is having on people in the city, which of course go well beyond loss of Internet connectivity alone. Focusing on the Internet here, though, we do indeed see that with this loss of power, Internet connectivity appears to have been badly affected in the city. An example of this is the local provider CDS, who operate out of Mariupol. This ISP, which represents 0.3% of all users in Ukraine, went dark on the night of the 28 February (see Figure 8). Again, despite the resilience of the Ukrainian Internet, we are seeing damage as a result of the war. Figure 8: Gatech IODA showing signals for CDS (AS43554) Humans There are other indications of the determination of network operators in Ukraine to keep the Internet running. We see outages, but also quick recovery of networks, in what can only be obscenely difficult circumstances. We reported on the sabotage of Triolan earlier. Another example of this is Ukrtelekom, which serves around 5% of the Ukrainian population. They had an outage on the morning of 8 March, but this only lasted for 3 hours thanks to the efforts of network operators. Figure 9: Gatech IODA showing signals for Ukrtelekom (AS6849) According to reports that we have received from the ground, network operators from different providers are teaming up to help each other - for example by repairing fibres - so as to make sure that the people relying on the Internet are able to keep on communicating with one another. An engineer in Kyiv working on repairing a fibre (shared on LinkedIn) (Image source) Conclusion We hope to have provided some insights as to why the Ukrainian Internet is remaining resilient under these dire circumstances. Due to low market concentration at multiple levels and the relatively high number of interconnect facilities, there are no obvious chokepoints, or individual networks whose loss would have a crippling effect on the Internet in Ukraine. Qrator resilience ratings suggest the same. But there is a break-point for all infrastructure. For instance, if power goes out, or if there are large scale physical disruptions, these likely will have significant effects on the Internet in Ukraine. As we receive more information about power shortages, this can have an effect on the Internet in Ukraine as a whole. For more background on the Ukrainian Internet we refer to Alex Semenyaka's presentation at the Kyiv Internet days in 2019. Again, our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people, and we continue to hope for a peaceful resolution of this conflict soon. We encourage anyone who knows of specific efforts to help Ukrainian network operators to leave further information on those efforts in the comments below.

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Re: [nexa] Barcellona: infrastruttura open source per evitare raccolta dati studenti
by Giuseppe Attardi March 11, 2022

March 11, 2022

Bravi. Sono tecnologie simili a quelle che il Cloud GARR fornisce, istanziabili a piacere con (DaaS) Deployment as a Service. L’autenticazione invece è federata col servizio IDEM, integrato con SPID. OnlyOffice è alla base del servizio Cloud WorkPlace (https://garr.workplace.garr.it/ <https://garr.workplace.garr.it/>, un servizio integrato di lavoro collaborativo, che consente editing online in contemporanea, gestione progetti, posta. — Beppe > On 10 Mar 2022, at 19:33, <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> wrote: > > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2022 17:25:40 +0100 > From: Stefano Quintarelli <stefano(a)quintarelli.it <mailto:stefano@quintarelli.it>> > To: Eleonora Panto <eleonora.panto(a)gmail.com <mailto:eleonora.panto@gmail.com>>, Nexa > <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>> > Subject: Re: [nexa] Barcellona: infrastruttura open source per evitare > raccolta dati studenti > Message-ID: <f4496f4a-72b3-76ab-f588-1ad642560a8d(a)quintarelli.it <mailto:f4496f4a-72b3-76ab-f588-1ad642560a8d@quintarelli.it>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > wordpress, nextcloud (con ooffice), moodle, bigbluebutton, un mail server e keycloak come SSO. > > pagheranno servizi di admin/training/customizzazioni/infrastruttura > > ben fatto > > On 10/03/22 16:30, Eleonora Panto wrote: >> >> Il Comune di Barcellona investe 340.000 euro in uno strumento open source che eviti la >> "raccolta massiccia di dati sugli studenti" >> >> https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2022-02-09/barcelona-crea-un-software-p… <https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2022-02-09/barcelona-crea-un-software-p…> >> <https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2022-02-09/barcelona-crea-un-software-p… <https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2022-02-09/barcelona-crea-un-software-p…>> >> >> Nell'articolo in spagnolo, ma facilmente traducibile, sono anche indicate le cifre che il >> comune ha investito per creare l'infrastruttura sw , anche se non e' chiaro quante scuole >> (dice tre centri ma non e' chiaro a cosa si riferisce) ne beneficiano.. >> >> >> saluti Eleonora >> -- >> ///|\\\ \\\|/// ///|\\\ \\\|/// ///|\\\ \\\|/// >> Eleonora Pantò >> abbonati a Lapilli <https://eleonorapanto.substack.com/ <https://eleonorapanto.substack.com/>> - la newsletter su educazione e >> digitale >> www.puntopanto.it <http://www.puntopanto.it/> <http://www.puntopanto.it <http://www.puntopanto.it/>> | @epanto <https://twitter.com/epanto <https://twitter.com/epanto>>

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Facebook and Instagram let users call for death to Russian soldiers over Ukraine | Facebook | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo March 11, 2022

March 11, 2022

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/11/facebook-and-instagram-l…> Facebook and Instagram users in some countries will be allowed to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, after parent company Meta made a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, according to internal emails to its content moderators. “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’. We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” Meta said in a statement. The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, in a recent change to the company’s rules on violence and incitement. Telegram: the app at the heart of Ukraine’s propaganda battle Read more The temporary policy changes on calls for violence against Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. In the email recently sent to moderators, Meta highlighted a change in its hate speech policy pertaining both to Russian soldiers and to Russians in the context of the invasion. “We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the hate speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, except prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it’s clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (eg content mentions the invasion, self-defense, etc),” it said in the email. “We are doing this because we have observed that in this specific context, ‘Russian soldiers’ is being used as a proxy for the Russian military. The hate speech policy continues to prohibit attacks on Russians.” In response, Russia’s embassy to the US demanded Washington “stop the extremist activities of Meta and take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice”. “Meta’s aggressive and criminal policy leading to incitement of hatred and hostility towards Russians is outrageous,” the embassy said. “The company’s actions are yet another evidence of the information war without rules declared on our country.” Last week, Russia blocked access to Facebook and Twitter in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform. Many major media platforms have announced new content restrictions around the conflict, including blocking Russian state media RT and Sputnik in Europe, and have demonstrated carve-outs in some of their policies during the war. Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the Ukrainian far-right Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited. Meta spokesman Joe Osborne previously said the company was “for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard”.

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Barcellona: infrastruttura open source per evitare raccolta dati studenti
by Eleonora Panto March 10, 2022

March 10, 2022

Il Comune di Barcellona investe 340.000 euro in uno strumento open source che eviti la "raccolta massiccia di dati sugli studenti" https://elpais.com/espana/catalunya/2022-02-09/barcelona-crea-un-software-p… Nell'articolo in spagnolo, ma facilmente traducibile, sono anche indicate le cifre che il comune ha investito per creare l'infrastruttura sw , anche se non e' chiaro quante scuole (dice tre centri ma non e' chiaro a cosa si riferisce) ne beneficiano.. saluti Eleonora -- ///|\\\ \\\|/// ///|\\\ \\\|/// ///|\\\ \\\|/// Eleonora Pantò abbonati a Lapilli <https://eleonorapanto.substack.com/> - la newsletter su educazione e digitale www.puntopanto.it | @epanto <https://twitter.com/epanto>

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Terzo volume dell' Enciclopedia dei dati digitali - L'etica dei dati digitali: L'equità
by Vetro' Antonio March 10, 2022

March 10, 2022

Sperando di fare cosa gradita soprattutto a chi si occupa della c.d. etica dei dati e dei problemi di discriminazione algoritmica, segnalo che il prof. Carlo Batini ha pubblicato su Bicocca open archive con licenza Creative Commons il terzo volume dell' Enciclopedia dei dati digitali, intitolato L'etica dei dati digitali: L'equità Il volume può essere scaricato dal link https://boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/357958 In precedenza nel 2021 il prof. Batini ha pubblicato il Volume 1 di Introduzione ai dati digitali al link https://boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/301758 e il Volume 2 dedicato ai Modelli dei dati al link https://boa.unimib.it/handle/10281/301806 Antonio V.

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Italy fines US facial recognition firm Clearview AI | Courthouse News Service
by Alberto Cammozzo March 10, 2022

March 10, 2022

<https://www.courthousenews.com/italy-fines-us-facial-recognition-firm-clear…> (AFP) — Italy's data privacy watchdog on Wednesday fined U.S.-based firm Clearview AI 20 million euros (almost $22 million) over its controversial facial recognition software. The watchdog ordered the company to delete data relating to people in Italy and banned it from further collection and processing of information there. Clearview AI says it has built up a database of more than 10 billion facial images taken from public websites, from social media to news sites, which it touts as a tool for law enforcement. Italy's privacy watchdog said that, despite Clearview's assertions to the contrary, the firm had allowed the tracking of citizens and people in Italy. "The personal data held by the company, including biometric and geolocation data, are processed unlawfully," the watchdog said. The company had also violated several principles of GDPR, a European Union privacy regulation introduced in 2018 to control who can access personal data. In addition to the fine, the watchdog said Clearview should designate an EU representative to act as "an interlocutor" with plaintiffs. Campaigners have condemned Clearview's use of images for being open to abuse, and a number of groups including Privacy International last year filed complaints with data regulators in France, Austria, Italy, Greece and Britain. In December, France's privacy watchdog ordered Clearview to delete data on its citizens and cease further collection. Meanwhile in June last year, Canada's independent parliamentary watchdog ruled that both Clearview's database and the use of it by federal police were illegal.

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European Health and Digital Executive Agency
by Alessandro Brolpito (ETF) March 10, 2022

March 10, 2022

Dear all, In relation to NEXA event of yesterday, thanks again Prof. Pagallo, an interesting event organised by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) on 14 March 2022. Further information about the event and agenda is available here<https://digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu/en/latest/events/digital-europe-progr…>. Regards, Alessandro Alessandro Brolpito (ETF) Senior Human Capital Development Expert - Digital Skills and Learning Policy and Public Outreach Department ADDRESS Villa Gualino, Viale Settimio Severo 65, I - 10133 Torino TELEPHONE +39 011 630 2279 FAX +390116302200 E-MAIL info(a)etf.europa.eu WEB http://www.etf.europa.eu

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