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Re: [nexa] "Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing Europe’s grand cloud project"
by Giuseppe Attardi Oct. 29, 2021

Oct. 29, 2021

“Very quickly it became clear that these guys were dominant in the technical groups,” said Lechelle, CEO of Scaleway. Not quickly enough: I thought this would happen since the beginning. They have many more technical people, and they can afford to spend their time in extra work like this. An Italian proverb says: “La volpe a custodia del pollaio”, but in this case you even admit the fox within the chicken coop. — Beppe > On 29 Oct 2021, at 12:00, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > From: "J.C. DE MARTIN" <juancarlos.demartin(a)polito.it> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] "Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing > Europe’s grand cloud project" > Message-ID: <fd07f750-23b6-8e46-c64e-fd33905cfe1a(a)polito.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed" > > *Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing Europe’s grand > cloud project* > > /The initiative, meant to boost Europe’s cloud services, is failing to > fix the problems is was intended to solve./ > > By Clothilde Goujard and Laurens Cerulus > > October 26, 2021 6:00 am > > https://www.politico.eu/article/chaos-and-infighting-are-killing-europes-gr…

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No end in sight for chip shortage as supply chain problems pile up | Ars Technica
by J.C. DE MARTIN Oct. 29, 2021

Oct. 29, 2021

No end in sight for chip shortage as supply chain problems pile up "We're not talking about quarters. We're talking about years.” by Tim De Chant - Oct 28, 2021 9:32pm CET https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/no-end-in-sight-for-chip-shortage-a… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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"Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing Europe’s grand cloud project"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Oct. 29, 2021

Oct. 29, 2021

*Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing Europe’s grand cloud project* /The initiative, meant to boost Europe’s cloud services, is failing to fix the problems is was intended to solve./ By Clothilde Goujard and Laurens Cerulus October 26, 2021 6:00 am https://www.politico.eu/article/chaos-and-infighting-are-killing-europes-gr…

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Privacy Pride, 13 novembre 2021
by Federico Leva (Nemo) Oct. 28, 2021

Oct. 28, 2021

Mi segnalano e inoltro: iniziativa contro le recenti norme anti-privacy, da TERREG al famigerato DL capienze. (Aggiungerei il famoso DL ascensori del 2016,* palesemente illegittimo ma tuttora apparentemente vigente, e non parliamo poi del Digital Services Act in arrivo.) https://privacybenecomune.it/ ---- Comitato: Privacy Bene Comune La tendenza globale dei governi di tutto il mondo è quella di aumentare la sorveglianza e ciò che più spesso viene colpito è il diritto alla tutela dei propri dati personali o, più brevemente, la privacy. Ma quello contro la privacy è solo uno dei segnali dell’insofferenza generalizzata dei governi nei confronti delle authority, organi indipendenti di garanzia, che costituiscono un agile strumento per arginare il potere esecutivo ma anche per arginare lo strapotere economico di quei soggetti che, sempre più spesso, sembrano essere i veri ispiratori e beneficiari delle politiche governative. Privacy Pride! Il pomeriggio del 13 novembre 2021 avrà perciò inizio il primo Privacy Pride! Resta in ascolto. ---- Si nota un certo livello di disperazione e devo dire che lo comprendo... Federico (*) https://www.gpdp.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9704851

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Doctorow: Europe's Digital Services Act: on a Collision Course With Human Rights | Electronic Frontier Foundation
by J.C. DE MARTIN Oct. 28, 2021

Oct. 28, 2021

Europe's Digital Services Act: on a Collision Course With Human Rights https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/10/europes-digital-services-act-collisio… By Cory Doctorow (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Big tech’s push for automation hides the grim reality of ‘microwork’ | Phil Jones | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Oct. 27, 2021

Oct. 27, 2021

<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/27/big-techs-push-for-au…> When customers in the London borough of Hackney shop in the new Amazon Fresh store, they no longer pay a checkout operator but simply walk out with their goods. Amazon describes “just walk out shopping” as an effortless consumer experience. The rise of automated stores during the pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg. Floor-cleaning robots have been introduced in hospitals, supermarkets and schools. Fast-food restaurants are employing burger-grilling robots <https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/27/white-castle-rolls-out-more-robots-from-m…> and chatbots. And delivery bots <https://www.reuters.com/technology/pandemic-pushes-chinese-tech-giants-roll…> are being rolled out at an accelerated pace. As Anuja Sonalker, chief executive of Steer Tech, a tech company specialising in self-parking, ominously said last year <https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-t…>: “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.” With the realisation that machines are immune to viruses and social distancing, we have seen the return of an apocalyptic consensus: according to one recent prediction <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54622189>, as many as half of all work tasks are at risk of automation by 2025. Such gloomy forecasts conjure a world where robots do all the work and humans are consigned to history’s dustbin. We’ve been here before. Throughout capitalist history, times of crisis have bred anxieties about robots stealing our jobs. After the 2008 financial crash, a series of studies pointed to <https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-future-of-employment/> an automation tsunami that would swallow as much as half of the world’s work in the coming decades. Although that much-prophesied dystopia has not yet arrived, a scenario less spectacular but equally grim is growing in its shadow:**the rise of microwork. In short, microwork refers to the human “jobs” that involve nudging artificial intelligence in the right direction. Workers, mainly in the global south, sit at computers clicking on images that, for instance, show autonomous vehicles how to navigate city centres, facial recognition cameras how to spot emotions, and marketing software how to spot breeds of horse. “For a penny, you might pay for a person to tell you if there is a human in a photo,” Jeff Bezos explained, at the public opening of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), the first and most infamous of such sites. Like other similar platforms, such as Clickworker, which match underemployed and jobless people with online piecework, Mechanical Turk operates on a simple premise. The platform hosts contractors, often large tech companies such as Twitter <https://blog.mturk.com/twitter-improves-search-with-real-time-human-computa…>, who outsource short data tasks such as labelling images – lasting a few seconds to a few minutes – to workers with few labour rights or secure hours. Such sites <https://www.wired.com/story/newly-unemployed-labeling-photos-pennies/> have seen a boom in users during the pandemic. At a time when many have lost their jobs and are stuck inside, work that only requires an internet connection and a laptop can offer a much-needed source of income. The platforms often present the work as the preserve of glamorous young freelancers. But hazy promises of the remote -work dream disguise a brutal reality. Many workers on these sites have few other options, or are otherwise excluded from the formal economy. They may reside in poor rural areas, prisons <https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/28/18285572/prison-labor-finland-artificial…> or refugee camps <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13784487>, and find microwork through non-governmental programmes that aim to “Give Work, not Aid <https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hbs.…>”. A World Bank researcher in 2012 wrote of a situation where millions of tiny digital tasks generated “thousands of jobs <https://blogs.worldbank.org/psd/from-millions-of-tasks-to-thousands-of-jobs…>”. But microwork is often so sporadic and poorly paid it can hardly be called a “job”. In 2018, formerly middle-class Venezuelans facing an increasingly desperate economic situation sat at laptops and annotated images of urban areas to train autonomous vehicles. Workers were paid by the task and, in some cases, made less than$30 a week <https://restofworld.org/2021/self-driving-cars-outsourcing/>. In many respects, the work differs little from the survivalism of<https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/ab…>“wage hunters and gatherers <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/ab…>”, who spend their days doing a dizzying range of odd jobs such as shoe-shining, selling tissues and picking litter. With jobs on microwork sites lasting as little as a few seconds, workers must continually hunt for work <https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/digital-piecework>, and might be contracted by upwards of 50 “requesters” over the course of a day. Carved into tiny segments, the jobs are opaque, often surreal and sometimes humiliating. One task on Mechanical Turk allegedly asked <https://gizmodo.com/horror-stories-from-inside-amazons-mechanical-turk-1840…> workers – or “Turkers” – to post pictures of their feet for reasons unexplained. Opacity, however, is no software glitch. By design, the platforms obscure operations and preclude worker organisation, promising contractors a dream scenario: all the work without the troubles associated with an actual workforce. Impenetrable rating systems, which permit contractors to reject “bad” tasks <https://www.mturk.com/worker/help> out of hand, only allow workers to contact and “challenge” the contractors, who are under no obligation to reply. Wage theft is thus all too common – a report <https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilo.…> by the International Labour Organization found that on one major platform, about 15% of all tasks go unpaid. In a statement, which has been edited for length, Amazon Web Services said, “MTurk is a marketplace where requesters determine how much they are willing to pay a worker to complete a specific task. The amount of compensation workers receive depends on the price requesters set, the number of tasks workers complete, and the quality of their work. Most workers see MTurk as part-time work or a paid hobby, and they enjoy the flexibility to choose the tasks they want to work on and work as much or as little as they like. While the overall rate at which workers’ tasks are rejected is very low (less than 1%), they also have access to a number of metrics that can help them determine if they want to work on a task, including the requester’s historical record of accepting tasks.” The freedoms many of us have enjoyed working from home during the pandemic are the flipside of new kinds of control and surveillance. Meetings on Teams and Zoom send data straight to Microsoft and Amazon. Militant bosses have made employees keep their webcams on <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/shirking-from-home-staff-feel…> to display their faces and keystrokes. Like the workers on microwork sites, our labour is increasingly captured as data to power artificial intelligence. How the data is then used remains a mystery. Maybe to directly show AI how to do our jobs; or perhaps to expose AI to data about the emotions we experience at work. One thing seems clear: increasingly the primary or secondary role of work is no longer just work, but to show robots how to do our jobs, even if this aspiration in many cases remains a far-flung fantasy. But the picture is not wholly bleak. Just as these sites act as experimental labs for new forms of exploitation and control, they also generate new strategies of resistance. In lieu of union representation, workers resort to letter-writing campaigns <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/03/amazon-mechanical-turk-w…> to draw attention to their work, forums <https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-13/how-good-is-ai-much-a…> that challenge the platform, and browser plug-ins <https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thev…> to spotlight unscrupulous contractors. Online forums become loose networks of support that offer advice and guidance to platform users. These tactics remain in their infancy. But as all our jobs are increasingly driven by the demands of “big data”, we will need similar tactics to wrestle back some control of our working lives – as well as taking notice of those who make our digital lives so seemingly “effortless”. * Phil Jones is the author of Work Without the Worker: Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism

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Fwd: “Dalla mente computazionale alla mente incarnata - Il caso della visione”
by J.C. DE MARTIN Oct. 27, 2021

Oct. 27, 2021

Vi segnalo questo incontro. jc --------- Cari colleghi, con la presente comunichiamo che giovedì 28 ottobre, ore 17:45, il Prof. Alfredo Paternoster terrà un seminario dal titolo: “Dalla mente computazionale alla mente incarnata - Il caso della visione” Maggiori informazioni nella locandina allegata. Il seminario si terrà presso l’Aula Buzano del Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche “G. L. Lagrange”. Ricordiamo che nel rispetto delle attuali normative, la capienza dell’Aula Buzano è limitata. Sarà possibile quindi seguire il seminario anche in modalità telematica, tramite Zoom, utilizzando le seguenti credenziali: https://polito-it.zoom.us/j/85703113019?pwd=NXVLblRaRDBRYm05NzRQTmlNRTdRUT09 ID riunione: 857 0311 3019 Passcode: 812112 Accedendo al seminario online, si prega di tenere microfono e videocamera disattivati; per porre domande al termine del seminario si prega di chiedere la parola in chat. Questo seminario fa parte delle iniziative promosse dal progetto "SMaILE". Maggiori informazioni sul progetto sono reperibili sul sito https://www.smaile.it/. Cordiali saluti, DISMA Politecnico di Torino Dipartimento di eccellenza 2018-2022 ---------- Dear colleagues, it is our pleasure to invite you to the seminar “Dalla mente computazionale alla mente incarnata - Il caso della visione” by Prof. Alfredo Paternoster. The seminar will be held on Thursday, October 28, at 17:45. See the attached flyer for further information. The seminar will be held in the Aula Buzano of the Department of Mathematical Sciences "G. L. Lagrange". We remind you that, according to the current regulations, the capacity of the Lecture Hall is limited. Therefore, it will be possible to follow the seminar also in telematic mode, through Zoom, using the following credentials: https://polito-it.zoom.us/j/85703113019?pwd=NXVLblRaRDBRYm05NzRQTmlNRTdRUT09 ID riunione: 857 0311 3019 Passcode: 812112 By accessing the online seminar, please keep your microphone and video camera turned off; to ask questions at the end of the seminar, please ask for the floor in chat. This seminar is part of the initiatives promoted by the project "SMaILE". More information about the project can be found at https://www.smaile.it/. Best regards, DISMA Politecnico di Torino Dipartimento di eccellenza 2018-2022

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JShelter - An anti-malware Web browser extension
by 380° Oct. 26, 2021

Oct. 26, 2021

Buongiorno nexiane, finalmente un software per (cercare di) impedire a JavaScript di fare i peggiori danni... ovvero: siccome NON VOGLIONO sistemare il runtime JavaScript per evitare che faccia danni, mettiamogli finalmente un bel filtro. https://jshelter.org/ --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- What is JShelter? JShelter is a browser extension to give back control over what your browser is doing. A JavaScript-enabled web page can access much of the browser's functionality, with little control over this process available to the user: malicious websites can uniquely identify you through fingerprinting and use other tactics for tracking your activity. JShelter aims to improve the privacy and security of your web browsing. How does it work? Like a firewall that controls network connections, JShelter controls the APIs provided by the browser, restricting the data that they gather and send out to websites. JShelter adds a safety layer that allows the user to choose if a certain action should be forbidden on a site, or if it should be allowed with restrictions, such as reducing the precision of geolocation to the city area. This layer can also aid as a countermeasure against attacks targeting the browser, operating system or hardware. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Per i dettagli tecnici in merito a quanto sia problematico JavaScript per la sicurezza (via https://jshelter.org/credits/) --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Key ideas The development of this extension is influenced by the paper JavaScript Zero: Real JavaScript and Zero Side-Channel Attacks [1]. It appeared during the work of Zbyněk Červinka and provided basically the same approach to restrict APIs as was at the time developed by Zbyněk Červinka. The Force Point report [2] was a key inspiration for the development of the Network Boundary Shield. Some of the fingerprinting counter-measures are inspired by Farbling of the Brave browser [3]. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Per ulteriori dettagli tecnici: https://jshelter.org/blog/ Saluti, 380° [1] https://attacking.systems/web/files/jszero.pdf [2] «Attacking the internal network from the public Internet using a browser as a proxy» https://www.forcepoint.com/sites/default/files/resources/files/report-attac… [3] https://jshelter.org/farbling/ -- 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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Google vs. 17 Stati USA x questioni Antitrust: qualche dettaglio....
by Damiano Verzulli Oct. 26, 2021

Oct. 26, 2021

Dalla community di TWC ho appena letto un messaggio [1] che parla di una vicenda AntiTrust, formalmente elevata negli Stati Uniti da 17 Stati nei confronti, appunto, di Google. Il documento PDF con il testo delle accuse (che allego) è di 173 pagine... e ancora NON l'ho letto. Tuttavia, nel tweet [2] della fonte originale ci sono diversi estratti interessanti. Questi: ----------------------- "- Google had a plan called "Project NERA" to turn the web into a walled garden they called "Not Owned But Operated". A core component of this was the forced logins to the chrome browser you've probably experienced (surprise!)" "- Google is willing to do almost everything to prevent people from circumventing their ad exchanges - This is what AMP is about - Google habitually insider trades on their ad exchanges in every way you can think of and every way you can't. Too many ways to list here." "- The exchanges are also rigged so that google wins on bids where they aren't the highest bidder. - A large amount of people inside google are aware of all of this - If Google ever tells you some change will increase your ad yield, run. In fact anything they tell you is a lie" ---------------- ...e diverse altre cose. Pensare che tutto questo accada _ANCHE_ con il bene-placet degli Atenei Italiani, che non solo hanno affidato a Google un certo numero dei loro servizi... ma contribuiscono in modo importante a "promuoverla" come uno dei migliori target ai quali i giovani studenti/laureandi in ambito ICT possano ambire.... mi rende estremamente triste. Un caro saluto, DV [1] https://t.me/twcita/64284 [2] https://twitter.com/fasterthanlime/status/1452053938195341314 -- Damiano Verzulli e-mail:damiano@verzulli.it --- possible?ok:while(!possible){open_mindedness++} --- "...I realized that free software would not generate the kind of income that was needed. Maybe in USA or Europe, you may be able to get a well paying job as a free software developer, but not here [in Africa]..." -- Guido Sohne - 1973-2008 http://ole.kenic.or.ke/pipermail/skunkworks/2008-April/005989.html

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Sachs nominato accademico della pontificia accademia
by Stefano Quintarelli Oct. 26, 2021

Oct. 26, 2021

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/10/… The Holy Father has appointed Professor Jeffrey David Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York, U.S.A., as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Curriculum vitae The distinguished Professor Jeffrey David Sachs, born on 5 November 1954 in Detroit, graduated in economics from Harvard University. He is an economist and public policy analyst with expertise in sustainable development, economic development and poverty alleviation. He has taught at Harvard University and was director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is currently president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he is also a professor.

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