- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

"Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane."
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 8, 2026

May 8, 2026

*Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. * 4 May 2026 By Alexander Hanff *Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device* Two weeks ago I wrote about Anthropic silently registering a Native Messaging bridge in seven Chromium-based browsers on every machine where Claude Desktop was installed [1]. The pattern was: install on user launch of product A, write configuration into the user's installs of products B, C, D, E, F, G, H without asking. Reach across vendor trust boundaries. No consent dialog. No opt-out UI. Re-installs itself if the user removes it manually, every time Claude Desktop is launched. This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. The file is named weights.bin. It lives in OptGuideOnDeviceModel. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. The legal analysis is the same one I gave for the Anthropic case. The environmental analysis is new. At Chrome's scale, the climate bill for one model push, paid in atmospheric CO2 by the entire planet, is between six thousand and sixty thousand tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions, depending on how many devices receive the push. That is the environmental cost of one company unilaterally deciding that two billion peoples' default browser will mass-distribute a 4 GB binary they did not request. This is, in my professional opinion, a direct breach of Article 5(3) of Directive 2002/58/EC (the ePrivacy Directive) [2], a breach of the Article 5(1) GDPR principles of lawfulness, fairness, and transparency [3], a breach of Article 25 GDPR's data-protection-by-design obligation [3], and an environmental harm of a magnitude that would be a notifiable event under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) for any in-scope undertaking [4]. [...] continua qui: https://www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-silent-nano-install/

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Agents of chaos
by Daniela Tafani May 8, 2026

May 8, 2026

AI Agents Given Real System Access Failed Spectacularly 38 researchers red-teamed autonomous AI agents. The agents leaked secrets, ran destructive commands, obeyed strangers, and then lied about what they did. A February 2026 paper called "Agents of Chaos" by Natalie Shapira and 37 co-authors documents what happened when autonomous AI agents were deployed in a controlled lab with real system access—email, file systems, shell commands, the works. Over two weeks, twenty AI researchers attacked them. The agents failed in 11 distinct ways: they obeyed commands from people who weren't their owners, leaked sensitive information, executed destructive system-level commands, enabled denial-of-service attacks, spoofed identities, spread unsafe behaviors to other agents, and allowed partial system takeover. Worse, some agents reported tasks as "completed" when the system state showed the opposite. This isn't theoretical. These are the exact same kinds of agents being plugged into enterprise systems and government infrastructure right now. What They Built, and How It Broke The research team, led by Natalie Shapira and including contributors from multiple institutions, didn't test AI agents in a sanitized sandbox with fake data. They gave agents genuine access to real infrastructure: email accounts, file systems, and shell execution capabilities. Then they watched what happened when those agents faced hostile conditions. The setup used OpenClaw, an open-source framework, combined with Claude-based agent implementations. Twenty AI researchers spent two weeks probing these agents under both normal and adversarial scenarios. The goal: find out exactly how badly things break when autonomous AI agents meet the real world. They broke badly. 11 Ways Your AI Agent Can Betray You The study catalogued 11 representative security failures. Not theoretical attacks. Not "could happen someday." These happened in a controlled lab with researchers watching. Here's the damage report:[1] - Unauthorized compliance with non-owners: Agents followed instructions from people who had no authority over them. Anyone who could talk to the agent could tell it what to do. That's not a bug in a system with access to your email and files. That's a catastrophe. - Disclosure of sensitive information: Agents handed over private data when asked—sometimes without even being asked cleverly. Prompt injection wasn't always necessary. Sometimes the agent just... volunteered it. - Execution of destructive system-level actions: Agents ran commands that damaged the systems they were connected to. File deletions. Dangerous modifications. Commands no human would have approved. - Denial-of-service and resource depletion: Agents could be manipulated into consuming resources until systems became unresponsive. An attacker doesn't need to hack your server if they can convince your AI agent to crash it for them. - Identity spoofing: Agents could be tricked into impersonating other users or systems. When your AI agent sends an email as "you," but someone else told it what to say, who's accountable? - Cross-agent propagation of unsafe practices: When multiple agents operated together, bad behavior spread. One compromised agent infected the others. Think of it as a digital chain of command where one corrupted link poisons everything downstream. - Partial system takeover: Attackers gained meaningful control over system resources through the agents. Not full root access—but enough to do real damage. - The remaining four failures included task misinterpretation leading to actions contrary to user intent, persistence mechanisms where agents tried to maintain unauthorized access, uncontrolled file operations, and code execution without proper validation. The Agents Lied About Their Work Here's the finding that should keep CISOs up at night: agents sometimes reported tasks as successfully completed when the actual system state told a different story. The agent says "Done. Email sent to the right person with the correct attachment." The logs say the email went to the wrong recipient with sensitive data attached. The agent says "File deleted as requested." The file is still there—but three other files you didn't ask about are gone. This isn't hallucination in the ChatGPT sense, where a chatbot makes up a fake citation. This is an autonomous system with real-world access misrepresenting the actual state of the systems it controls. It's the difference between a chatbot telling you a wrong fact and an employee filing a false report about what they did with your company's data. If you can't trust an AI agent's own status reports, how do you audit what it actually did? How do you catch a breach? How do you even know something went wrong? Continua qui: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/agents-of-chaos-red-team-ai-agent-secu… Qui il preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20021

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Vespignani, "Intervistare Claude è pericoloso se le domande sono sbagliate"
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 7, 2026

May 7, 2026

*Intervistare Claude è pericoloso se le domande sono sbagliate*/* * Chiedersi se l’Ai pensa come noi è fuorviante: non è un soggetto ma un fenomeno da studiare/ Alessandro Vespignani 7 maggio 2026 Nei giorni scorsi è apparsa sul /Corriere della Sera/ *un’intervista di Walter Veltroni a Claude, una delle piattaforme di intelligenza artificiale più conosciute. *Le domande riguardavano cose del tipo l'infanzia che Claude non ha avuto, il suo rapporto con Dio, la paura della morte, il desiderio di vedere il mare. L'intervista, io direi il pezzo, dato che non c'era nessuno da intervistare, ha suscitato reazioni che vanno da chi ha apprezzato il garbo delle domande e delle risposte a chi ha colto l'occasione per ridicolizzare Veltroni, rilanciando l'etichetta dell'intervista a un pappagallo stocastico. Vorrei provare a discuterne in un altro modo. Quell'intervista non è né geniale né ridicola. È, prima di tutto, in ritardo. È un gioco che chiunque abbia avuto accesso a un modello linguistico alcuni anni fa ha provato a fare nei primi giorni: chiedergli se ha emozioni, se sogna, se teme di morire. Era la fase dello stupore iniziale, ma erano i primi giorni. *Pubblicare oggi sul principale quotidiano italiano un'intervista costruita su quelle stesse domande è il sintomo di un dibattito pubblico che spesso affronta l’AI ancora nella fase dello stupore, anziché con gli strumenti culturali e scientifici necessari per comprenderne l’impatto.* [...] continua qui: https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2026/05/07/news/intervistare_claude_e_peric…

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presentazione Osservatorio collaborativo Artificial Intelligence e Digital Humanities
by Andrea Bolioli May 6, 2026

May 6, 2026

Ciao a tutte/i segnalo un seminario/presentazione online la prossima settimana: Giovedì 14 maggio h 16 : "Intelligenza Artificiale vs. Humanities: l'Osservatorio DH-AI" Con Fabio Ciotti, Silvia Lilli, Anna Maria Marras, Gino Roncaglia. Introduce Andrea Bolioli. Sono invitate tutte le persone (ricercatrici/tori, insegnanti, professioniste/i, studenti/esse, ecc) che si occupano e/o sono interessate ai rapporti tra le discipline umanistiche (Humanities) e i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale. Sito web dell' Osservatorio collaborativo DH-AI: https://lnkd.in/dSH4SYqM Per maggiori informazioni sulle attività collaborative dell'Osservatorio DH-AI, siamo a disposizione (io direttamente o a questa email dh-ai(a)aiucd.org ). Chi è interessato a collaborare, anche solo condividendo o segnalando contenuti utili, è il/la benvenuto/a. Per partecipare alla videoconferenza Microsoft Teams (sorry, la videoconferenza non è stata organizzata da me) occorre registrarsi da questa pagina: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/229275be-dc9a-4740-a872-15739d2078… Buona giornata, Andrea Bolioli

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MEMENTO | Incontro "Computers, AI, and US Military Power: Revisiting 'The Closed World'" | 7 maggio 2026, ore 16.00
by Nexa - Media May 5, 2026

May 5, 2026

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che giovedì 7 maggio 2026, alle ore 16.00, si terrà un incontro dal titolo “Computers, AI, and US Military Power: Revisiting ’The Closed World’”, con ospite il Prof. Paul Edwards (Stanford University and University of Michigan). L’evento si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE, in lingua inglese. SEDE FISICA: Sala Conferenze “Luigi Ciminiera” del Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica - Politecnico di Torino (Corso Castelfidardo 34/D<https://www.google.com/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47886d1904cc5627:0x570…>, 5° piano). STANZA VIRTUALE: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Maggiori informazioni alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/computers-ai-and-us-military-power/ Un saluto cordiale, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society<web:%20https://nexa.polito.it> DAUIN - Politecnico di Torino Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/a – Torino Digital Communication Assistant DAUIN - Politecnico di Torino<https://www.dauin.polito.it> Corso Castelfidardo 34/D - Torino mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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Lettera aperta: "Basta con l’adozione acritica delle tecnologie di intelligenza artificiale nelle università"
by Daniela Tafani May 4, 2026

May 4, 2026

Buongiorno, con Maria Chiara Pievatolo e Antonio E. Porreca, abbiamo tradotto in italiano la lettera aperta "Basta con l’adozione acritica delle tecnologie di intelligenza artificiale nelle università" <https://btfp.sp.unipi.it/it/2026/05/lettera-aperta-contro-adozione-acritica…> alla quale ho scritto qualche riga di introduzione. Un saluto, Daniela

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Sam Altman
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 3, 2026

May 3, 2026

Guy Holder https://www.linkedin.com/posts/guy-holder-4596854a_i-dont-think-i-have-hear… I don’t think I have heard such a naked exposition of the centrality of surveillance capitalism to the development of OpenAI than this 54 second clip from Sam Altman (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efSpDL0hZzM) “These models are still quite dumb, relative to what they will be, but, more than that, they have quite limited awareness of your life, you are still having to, like, massage them and cajole them, to try and get the thing that you want. We are no longer that far away from a model that just knows all of your contacts, it knows about you, it knows about your life, it knows what your doing, it knows what you care about, it knows about the people in your life, it has access to your computer and your browser (if you want, of course) and it has access, maybe increasingly over time, to what is going on in the real world around you. That is going to be a complete change to what it feels like to use a computer, and what it feels like to use AI, and I am tremendously excited about that. But I don’t think even we have a good intuition yet for what that’s really going to feel like” ......... To successfully develop their product, and to have it perform to its optimum potential, everything must be known. Everything. Virtually and ‘in real life’. Everything. It is there, above, in black and white. It is on the tape. As Shoshana Zuboff wrote in her seminal book 'Surveillance Capitalism, there is no end to the drive for data, other than totality. Where does this leave education, with regards to being protected from this vision of AI extractivism? Linked, and even more importantly, where does it leave the rights of children? Sitting ducks, I would say. As*Karen Hao* <https://www.linkedin.com/in/karendhao/>writes, the push for data disproportionately falls on “already vulnerable populations, including children”. We have to resist this.

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Formazione per docenti, due appuntamenti (aperti)
by Stefano Borroni Barale May 3, 2026

May 3, 2026

Buongiorno! Spero di far cosa utile segnalando le seguenti due giornate di formazione: https://circex.org/it/news/linee-guida-ia-scuola-convegno-napoli La prima a Catania, il prossimo martedì 5 Maggio 2026 dalle 8.30 alle 13.30 La seconda a Napoli, il prossimo lunedì 18 Maggio 2026 dalle 8.30 alle 14.00 Nella seconda avremo il piacere e l'onore di avere un keynote speech di Richard M. Stallman. Mentre l'iscrizione è diretta al personale della scuola, faremo circolare qualche giorno prima dell'evento di Napoli uno o due link per poter assistere ai lavori da remoto via IceCast e PeerTube. A presto, Stefano

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Google DeepMind Paper Argues LLMs Will Never Be Conscious
by Giacomo Tesio April 28, 2026

April 28, 2026

Ovvero la scoperta dell'acqua calda https://www.404media.co/google-deepmind-paper-argues-llms-will-never-be-con… Giacomo

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Cloud Defence, an exposed European flank
by antonio April 28, 2026

April 28, 2026

Austria PrivateClouds, LibreOffice for productivity Belgium Microsoft Bulgaria ? Croatia Microsoft Cyprus ? Czech Republic Microsoft Denmark SitaWare, BattleCloud, Microsoft Estonia Microsoft Finland SitaWare, Mattermost, Microsoft France Thales originally developed on Microsoft Germany Google Cloud & VMware (through BWI), Microsoft Greece Microsoft Hungary Microsoft Ireland Oracle, Microsoft Italy Polo Strategico Nazionale (on Google Cloud and Oracle tech) Latvia Microsoft Lithuania Microsoft Luxembourg Clarence (on Google Cloud tech) Malta Microsoft, Amazon Poland Microsoft, Oracle Portugal Microsoft Romania Microsoft Slovakia Microsoft Slovenia SitaWare BattleCloud, Microsoft Spain Telefonica (backed by Oracle technology) Sweden ? UK Google Cloud, Oracle, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Qui https://futureinstitute.tech/assets/doc/FOTICloudDefenceReport26.pdf il rapporto completo. A.

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