- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The Future of Computers: The Neighborhood and The Nursing Home
by 380° July 28, 2021

July 28, 2021

Buongiorno, nel recentissimo articolo [1] segnalato oggi in lista [2] Doctorow scrive: «If our society was a house, the walls would all be made of flaking asbestos and the attic would be stuffed with oily rags» questa metafora della casa mi ha riportato alla mente un provocatorio articolo di Kyle Rankin, chief security officier di Purism: https://puri.sm/posts/the-future-of-computers-the-neighborhood-and-the-nurs… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- The Future of Computers: The Neighborhood and The Nursing Home July 2, 2021 [...] Maintaining a computer, like a house, requires some effort and sometimes expertise. The do-it-yourself folks in the neighborhood would tackle projects themselves and might help a neighbor with their projects, while others would hire those jobs out to professionals. Generally speaking, people in this neighborhood had autonomy and freedom in how they lived in their homes. [...] some of the wealthier owners, in the name of security and aesthetics, moved into gated communities. These communities might have guards at the gates, and guests have to be registered ahead of time. While you do own your home, there are also strict rules on what you can add to your property and what you can do in the community. Common areas in the community are well-maintained with nice landscaping. [...] Today many people believe they are living in an elite gated community, when in fact they moved into a nursing home. While these residents are well taken care of by a full-time staff, they have very little autonomy. Residents are monitored all the time, and everything from their entertainment to their meals to their daily schedules is decided by the owner of the home, with residents just given a handful of acceptable choices. All doors are locked with keys the owner controls, including locks on individual rooms. This is all done in the name of safety and security because these residents aren’t trusted to take care of themselves. If they make their own meals they might start a fire, and if they are allowed to leave the home alone, they might get lost or hurt themselves. As long as residents stay in the home with each other under the watchful eye of the paid staff, they will be safe. [...] The future of computers will be divided into neighborhoods and nursing homes. In the traditional neighborhoods, residents truly own their property, can repair and improve it themselves (or hire a professional), aren’t constantly under surveillance, and they and their guests can come and go as they please. These residents will control their own security and be able to lock their doors with their own keys. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- OVVIAMENTE anche la narrazione del "buon vicinato di persone responsabili" fa acqua da tutte le parti... ma IMHO l'articolo aiuta a riflettere (ANCHE sull'ecosistema analogico oltre che su quello digitale) in merito all'autonomia, alla partecipazione e alla responsabilità collettiva nei confronti dell'ambiente (quello digitale INFINITAMENTE più semplice da gestire rispetto a quello fisico). Saluti, 380° [1] https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-danger… [2] https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2021-July/021981.html -- 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>.

1 0

Doctorow, "The infosec apocalypse is nigh"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 28, 2021

July 28, 2021

*The infosec apocalypse is nigh* Cory Doctorow /27 luglio 2021// / When the Pegasus Project dropped last week, it was both an ordinary and exceptional moment. The report – from Amnesty, Citizenlab, Forbidden Stories, and 80 journalists in 10 countries – documented 50,000 uses of the NSO Group's Pegasus malware. https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pegasus-project/ The 50,000 targets of NSO's cyberweapon include politicians, activists and journalists. The Israeli arms-dealer – controlled by Novalpina Capital and Francisco Partners – has gone in to full spin mode. NSO insists that the report is wrong, but also that it's fine to spy on people, and also that terrorists will murder us all if they aren't allowed to reap vast fortunes by helping the world's most brutal dictators figure out whom to kidnap, imprison and murder. As I say, all of this is rather ordinary. The NSO Group's bloody hands, immoral practices and vicious retaliation against critics are well established. [...] continua qui: https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-danger…

2 1

Pegasus spyware is just the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power | George Monbiot | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo July 28, 2021

July 28, 2021

Bella posizione dell'ottimo Monbiot su potere e asimmetria informativa. Da leggere. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/27/pegasus-spyware-autoc…> [...] The government is turning politics into a one-way mirror. Just as it learns more about our lives, it ensures we learn ever less about its own machinations. Its proposed changes to the Official Secrets Act would treat journalists and other citizens making “unauthorised disclosures” as if they were spies, threatening them with “increased maximum sentences”, which probably means 14 years. It has so far resisted calls for a public interest defence. But unauthorised disclosures of government malfeasance are essential to democracy. While illegitimate scrutiny is ramped up, legitimate scrutiny is stifled.[...]

1 0

Re: [nexa] Digitalizzazione e innovazione: cosa dice il Piano di ripresa e resilienza?
by Giuseppe Attardi July 27, 2021

July 27, 2021

Ecco un contributo sul Cloud per la PA, che ho scritto per il Forum Diseguaglianze e Diversità: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I_aOVvzHbhXy0gdJ3bMix9IntEgKT1Dk/view?usp=… <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I_aOVvzHbhXy0gdJ3bMix9IntEgKT1Dk/view?usp=…> — Beppe > On 26 Jul 2021, at 13:15, <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> wrote: > > From: "VETRO' ANTONIO" <antonio.vetro(a)polito.it <mailto:antonio.vetro@polito.it>> > To: mailing list nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>> > Subject: [nexa] Digitalizzazione e innovazione: cosa dice il Piano di > ripresa e resilienza? > Message-ID: <4C3EFD9E-D144-48C2-AD89-784184AA630E(a)polito.it <mailto:4C3EFD9E-D144-48C2-AD89-784184AA630E@polito.it>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Un tema trattato più volte in questa lista, tuttavia ho pensato valesse la pena condividere anche questa sintesi del collega dell’Università di Torino, > molto efficace perché (secondo me) in un linguaggio accessibile, chiaro nell’indicare le criticità, e richiede pochi minuti di lettura. > > https://volerelaluna.it/in-primo-piano/2021/07/26/digitalizzazione-e-innova… <https://volerelaluna.it/in-primo-piano/2021/07/26/digitalizzazione-e-innova…> > > A. >

4 4

le app per la scuola del vicino sono sempre più open
by Stefano Quintarelli July 27, 2021

July 27, 2021

Le applicazioni per la scuola promosse dal governo francese. https://apps.education.fr confrontatele con quelle promosse in Italia. ciao, s.

4 3

Fair use via Machine Learning
by Giacomo Tesio July 27, 2021

July 27, 2021

Upload any song protected by copyright. Our Neural Network will "Learn" your song. You can then download what we "Learned." https://fairuseify.ml/ :-D Giacomo

3 3

Siglato protocollo tra il Garante Privacy e il Capitolo italiano di Creative Commons
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 26, 2021

July 26, 2021

https://creativecommons.it/chapterIT/index.php/1330/ (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Protocollo tra Garante Privacy e Creative Commons Semplificare le informative privacy attraverso il metodo "Creative Commons”
by Mauro Alovisio July 26, 2021

July 26, 2021

Gent.me/mi segnalo interessante iniziativa del Garante privacy: *Semplificare le informative privacy attraverso il metodo "Creative Commons” Protocollo tra Garante Privacy e Creative Commons* Semplificare l'elaborazione delle informative privacy usando il metodo Creative Commons, il sistema attraverso il quale il contenuto e il significato delle licenze per la fruizione di contenuti protetti dal diritto d’autore sono tradotti in simboli standard, universali, generabili automaticamente attraverso un’apposita piattaforma. Proseguendo nella sua azione di semplificazione degli adempimenti previsti dal Regolamento Ue, l’Autorità Garante italiana per la protezione dei dati personali ha siglato un protocollo d’intesa <https://www.garanteprivacy.it/garante/document?ID=9684813> che avvia la collaborazione con il Capitolo italiano di “Creative Commons” (CC), un’organizzazione internazionale senza scopo di lucro. L’obiettivo è quello di valutare la realizzabilità di un sistema sul modello di quanto finora realizzato da CC per il diritto d’autore, che consenta ai titolari del trattamento di generare in maniera automatica un’informativa semplice e chiara e, per questa via, permettere alle persone di acquisire maggiore consapevolezza sul contenuto delle informative riguardanti il trattamento dei loro dati personali. Sebbene lo studio parta dall'analisi del contesto italiano, l'obiettivo finale è quello di creare un sistema da mettere a disposizione in tutti gli Stati membri europei per costruire un ambiente digitale in cui le questioni legate alla protezione dei dati siano gestite in modo coordinato nel mercato unico digitale. L'Italia si candida in questo modo ad essere il primo Paese a sperimentare l’implementabilità del metodo Creative Commons al campo della privacy, con l’obiettivo di fare da apripista e condividere i propri risultati. *Roma, 26 luglio 2021* https://www.garanteprivacy.it/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9684797

1 0

Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse? · fast.ai
by maurizio lana July 26, 2021

July 26, 2021

in questo ambito è possibile che la moneta cattiva scacci quella buona? cioè che il codice scritto dai sistemi di AI, anche se crappy, soppianti quello buono /ottimo prodotto da analisti e programmatori capaci? se è possibile, si può fare qualcosa cosa per evitarlo? nel senso che se già è così difficile [eufemismo] che sistemi di AI prodotti da soggetti umani operino in modo eticamente e culturalmente soddisfacente, c'è da chiedersi come possano operare dei crappy software prodotti da sistemi di AI imperfetti [eufemismo] Maurizio Il 25/07/21 12:00, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it ha scritto: > Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2021 09:52:35 +0000 > From: Alberto Cammozzo <ac+nexa(a)zeromx.net> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse? · fast.ai > Message-ID: <E381DC52-434E-41A8-B178-D071057565EB(a)zeromx.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > <https://www.fast.ai/2021/07/19/copilot> > > [...] > According to OpenAI’s paper, Codex only gives the correct answer 29% of the time. And, as we’ve seen, the code it writes is generally poorly refactored and fails to take full advantage of existing solutions (even when they’re in Python’s standard library). > > Copilot has read GitHub’s entire public code archive, consisting of tens of millions of repositories, including code from many of the world’s best programmers. Given this, why does Copilot write such crappy code? > > The reason is because of how language models work. They show how, on average, most people write. They don’t have any sense of what’s correct or what’s good. Most code on GitHub is (by software standards) pretty old, and (by definition) written by average programmers. Copilot spits out it’s best guess as to what those programmers might write if they were writing the same file that you are. OpenAI discuss this in their Codex paper: > > “As with other large language models trained on a next-token prediction objective, Codex will generate code that is as similar as possible to its training distribution. One consequence of this is that such models may do things that are unhelpful for the user” > > One important way that Copilot is worse than those average programmers is that it doesn’t even try to compile the code or check that it works or consider whether it actually does what the docs say it should do. Also, Codex was not trained on code created in the last year or two, so it’s entirely missing recent versions, libraries, and language features. For instance, prompting it to create fastai code results only in proposals that use the v1 API, rather than v2, which was released around a year ago. > > Complaining about the quality of the code written by Copilot feels a bit like coming across a talking dog, and complaining about its diction. The fact that it’s talking at all is impressive enough! > > Let’s be clear: The fact that Copilot (and Codex) writes reasonable-looking code is an amazing achievement. From a machine learning and language synthesis research point of view, it’s a big step forward. > > But we also need to be clear that reasonable-looking code that doesn’t work, doesn’t check edge cases, and uses obsolete methods, and is verbose and creates technical debt, can be a big problem. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the knowledge gap between rich and poor is widening witten, bainbridge, nichols, how to build a digital library ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana - 347 7370925

4 3

Digitalizzazione e innovazione: cosa dice il Piano di ripresa e resilienza?
by VETRO' ANTONIO July 26, 2021

July 26, 2021

Un tema trattato più volte in questa lista, tuttavia ho pensato valesse la pena condividere anche questa sintesi del collega dell’Università di Torino, molto efficace perché (secondo me) in un linguaggio accessibile, chiaro nell’indicare le criticità, e richiede pochi minuti di lettura. https://volerelaluna.it/in-primo-piano/2021/07/26/digitalizzazione-e-innova… A.

2 1