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"Still searching - We need a new technical constitution"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 26, 2020

July 26, 2020

Carissimi, vi segnalo un breve articolo scritto in occasione della pubblicazione di una nuova edizione del pionieristico: "The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology" di Langdon Winner (University of Chicago Press, 1986). Buona domenica! juan carlos THR Blog / July 23, 2020 *Still Searching** */*We need a new technical constitution.*/* * Richard Hughes Gibson In July 2009, the /American Journal of Sociology/ published something peculiar: a review of Michael Young’s 1958 book /The Rise of Meritocracy/. The review’s appearance so long after its publication wasn’t its only oddity. The review had, the journal’s editor explains, “arrived at /AJS/ by snail mail, with a date stamp of 2048 in the postmark,” having been submitted by one Barbara Celarent, a professor at the University of Atlantis. Professor Celarent—whose name derives from several sources, including a medieval mnemonic poem for remembering valid syllogistic forms—was later revealed to be the alter ego (or on his telling, sometime collaborator) of Andrew Abbott, the venerable sociologist at the University of Chicago. Over the ensuing six years, thirty-five more reviews would be published under Celarent’s name, her chosen authors scattered across the global and modern history, including Thoreau (/Walden/, 1854), the Senegalese writer Mariama Bâ (/So Long a Letter/, 1980), the Indian social reformer Pandita Ramabai (/The High Caste Hindu Woman/, 1887), and the midcentury French West Indian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon (/A Dying Colonialism/, 1959). Why do this? Celarent was invented, Abbott has explained, to aid his project of taking a broader view of social theory both in terms of time and space. But Abbott wasn’t simply informing his guild about titles due fresh attention. The Celarent project also issues a quiet challenge to readers to consider which books they’d choose for such a /long-view/ review. It raises several intriguing questions about how we gauge the success or failure of a book. Perhaps the first question is the most interesting of all: What books would make your Celarent list? It’s a intriguing prompt to put to friends. If I had it my way, there’d be a Celarent column in all of the journals I read regularly, including this one. One of the books on my own Celarent mental list has reappeared in a second edition thirty-four years after its initial publication: the political theorist Langdon Winner’s /The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology/. The new edition confirms the book’s status as a classic on the topic of technology’s social meanings. Yet that we are receiving a fresh edition of this book—largely unchanged from its 1986 text—is also troubling. As Winner points out in the new preface, he’s left the original chapters largely “as is” because their counsel remains applicable even if some of his examples (such as the “appropriate technology” movement of the seventies) are historical material now. Reading the book, one receives regular reminders of just how little progress has been made on the core issues that Winner addressed in the mid-eighties: the digital revolution, the environment, and what was already called the “energy crisis.” Winner hoped to invigorate the search for limits on technology in the first edition. The second edition underscores what we already know: We’re still searching for those limits over three decades later. […] Continua qui: https://hedgehogreview.com/blog/thr/posts/still-searching

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The Court of Justice invalidates Decision 2016/1250 on the adequacy of the protection provided by the EU-US Data Protection Shield
by Giacomo Tesio July 26, 2020

July 26, 2020

Che anno! :-D https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/p1_3117876/en/ Giacomo

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Intel ‘Stunning Failure’ Heralds End of Era for U.S. Chip Sector - Bloomberg
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 25, 2020

July 25, 2020

Intel ‘Stunning Failure’ Heralds End of Era for U.S. Chip Sector By Ian King 25 July 2020, 05:07 CEST World’s largest chipmaker considers outsourcing manufacturing Crucial technology expertise is shifting overseas, to TSMC https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-25/intel-stunning-failure-h… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any)) (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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"The Quiet Return of Feudalism" (commento sul libro di Kotkin "The Coming of Neo-Feudalism")
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 24, 2020

July 24, 2020

Lo segnalo in questa lista per il ruolo centrale che ha il "big tech" nel commento. jc "The Quiet Return Of Feudalism" JULY 15, 2020 JORGE GONZÁLEZ-GALLARZA /"The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class," by Joel Kotkin, (New York: Encounter Books, 2020), 224 pages./ Few policy items have more ominously heralded the ongoing realignment of our politics than Universal Basic Income. That its proponents and detractors can’t seem to agree on what UBI is intended for in the first place is merely a measure of that omen. [...] continua qui: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-quiet-return-of-feudal…

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Barber tracing
by Giuseppe Attardi July 23, 2020

July 23, 2020

Sono andato dal barbiere che ha riaperto da poco. Appena entrato mi ha fatto firmare un foglio (sa, è per il tracciamento), dove ho dovuto indicare il mio nome e numero di telefono, ovviamente la posizione l’ora erano impliciti. Con la firma dichiaravo di non essere ammalato né di avere avuto contati con ammalati. Pochi giorni prima ero andato dal dentista: lì il foglio coi miei dati, compreso un questionario riguardante il mio stato di salute e i miei contati con persone infette, era un PDF inviato via whatsapp, da stampare (sic) e riportare firmato. Privacy? Obiettivi? Chi riceve i dati? Chi li conserva? Quanti saranno i falsi positivi? Servirà davvero? Benvenuti nel mondo reale. Non vi parlo di quello virtuale. — Beppe

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Re: [nexa] nexa Digest, Vol 135, Issue 35
by maurizio lana July 22, 2020

July 22, 2020

Il 21/07/20 12:00, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it ha scritto: > Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2020 11:01:31 +0200 > From: don Luca Peyron <dluca.universitari(a)gmail.com> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] Sulla didattica a distanza > > "Altro che web, abbiamo perso un anno". Il prof filosofo: scuola vittima > della pandemia" parla il presidente di Alma Laurea > > https://www.quotidiano.net/politica/altro-che-web-abbiamo-perso-un-anno-il-… buongiorno, il link è protetto, si leggono solo le prime 10 righe. suggerisco comunque che nei corsi che hanno 100, 200, 300 studenti, il professore si vede e si ascolta meglio in video che in presenza. cioè: soprattutto nella parte 'umanistica' dell'università, mi pare, molti esaltano l'importanza delle lezioni in presenza ma c'è qualcuno che si chiesto che 'valore di presenza' abbiano quei corsi? possiamo parlare sulla base di dati prodotti da un'indagine seria e ampio fra gli studenti? o ci basiamo su un docente che ha avuto e fatto per 50 lezioni in un altro modo? e nella nostra università italiana che ammette la figura dello studente lavoratore _che non frequenta le lezioni_ le lezioni in video a distanza aprono opportunità di contatto dello studente con il docente che prima erano impensabili. maurizio lana -- http://maurobiani.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/patrick-george-zaky-libero.… ----- Maurizio Lana Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Università del Piemonte Orientale piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli tel. +39 347 7370925

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"Star Critic of Big Tech Has Side Gig Working for Amazon, Apple"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 22, 2020

July 22, 2020

*Star Critic of Big Tech Has Side Gig Working for Amazon, Apple** * By David McLaughlin July 17, 2020, 10:00 AM GMT+2 Updated on July 17, 2020, 7:06 PM GMT+2 Fiona Scott Morton is widely recognized as a top antitrust expert, known for her warnings that American tech giants are stifling competition and innovation. Yet Scott Morton, a Yale University economist and former Justice Department official, is also advising two of the biggest names in tech -- Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. -- as they confront federal antitrust investigations. She didn’t disclose those relationships in papers she recently co-authored outlining how the U.S. could bring antitrust cases against Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. […] Continua qui: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-17/amazon-apple-hire-one-of…

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The great coronavirus-tracing apps mystery
by Giacomo Tesio July 22, 2020

July 22, 2020

Germany's Corona-Warn-App was rolled out nationwide in June. A few days ago, the Robert Koch Institute provided an update on its progress, celebrating the fact that it had now been installed by around 16 million people. "A successful start that speaks for great interest and acceptance among the population," a statement from the app's developer said. Bear in mind, however, that there are 83 million Germans, and it is thought more than half of the population need to have an app before it is truly effective. "The app works" added the institute's president Prof Lothar Wieler. He went on to say that about 500 app users had tested positive for the virus and "had the opportunity to warn others via the app". But he then said: "We cannot say exactly how many people were warned, because of the decentralised approach of the app." In other words, we do not know whether the software is performing its key function. To know how well your app is performing, it is also vital to understand whether it is producing a lot of false positives or false negatives - in bald terms, whether the software is failing to alert people who have been in close contact with an infected user, and sending warnings to those who haven't. That's important to know, because studies have indicated that Bluetooth is an unreliable way to determine the distance between two people in some common situations. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) told us it too didn't know because, once again, the log history it would need to tap into "remains with the users, encrypted on their smartphones". We wondered as a workaround whether Germany's manual contact tracers might provide RKI with a record of people who had come to their attention after being alerted by the app. No, came the answer. Local municipalities run manual contact tracing and do not share this information. RKI added that it hoped scientific tests would eventually assess the app's impact in the "medium to long term", but had yet to work out how this would be achieved. Switzerland faces the same issue. Continua con una disanima dei non-successi nei diversi stati su https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485569 Io non posso che ammirare l'acume dietro Google ed Apple. Sono riusciti a deployare su milioni di cellulari un framework che non solo non può funzionare, ma la cui inefficacia non può essere dimostrata per ragioni tecniche ed etiche: quanti contagi dovremmo causare in laboratorio ed in quanti scenari diversi per verificare che le previsioni di rischio sono completamente campate in aria? E, capolavoro nel capolavoro, se la gente lo attiva e qualcosa va storto, la colpa sarà dei governi, mentre se nessuno lo attiva, la colpa sarà della popolazione ignorante e malfidata. Giacomo

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Major Security Flaws Found in South Korea Quarantine App
by Giacomo Tesio July 21, 2020

July 21, 2020

In April, South Korea began requiring all visitors and residents arriving from abroad to isolate themselves for two weeks. To monitor compliance, they had to install an app whose name in Korean means Self-Quarantine Safety Protection. As of last month, more than 162,000 people had downloaded the app, which tracks users’ locations to ensure they remain in designated quarantine areas. Violators might be required to wear tracking wristbands or pay steep fines. In May, Mr. Rechtenstein returned to his home in Seoul from a trip abroad. While self-isolating at home, he became curious about the government’s seemingly simple app and what extra features it might have. That prompted Mr. Rechtenstein to peek under the hood of the code, which is how he discovered several major security flaws. He found that the software’s developers were assigning users ID numbers that were easily guessable. After guessing a person’s credentials, a hacker could have retrieved the information provided upon registration, including name, date of birth, sex, nationality, address, phone number, real-time location and medical symptoms. Mr. Rechtenstein also found that the developers were using an insecure method to scramble, or encrypt, the app’s communications with the server where data was stored. Instead of HTTPS, the security standard used by apps like Gmail and Twitter, the app used an encryption key written directly into its code. Doing so meant hackers could easily find the key and decode the data if they had tried. It also meant the key did not change depending on the message being sent or on the user sending it. The key was also far from random: It was “1234567890123456.” [...] Over time, the government also asked Mr. Jung’s team to add surveillance functions to the app, which officials said increased their workload and prevented them from spending time hunting for security flaws. [...] “We were simply overwhelmed with work,” said Koo Chang-kyu, a South Korean official. Continua su https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/technology/korea-coronavirus-app-securit… (best viewed without JavaScript ;-) Giacomo

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Sulla didattica a distanza
by don Luca Peyron July 21, 2020

July 21, 2020

"Altro che web, abbiamo perso un anno". Il prof filosofo: scuola vittima della pandemia" parla il presidente di Alma Laurea Buona lettura dl https://www.quotidiano.net/politica/altro-che-web-abbiamo-perso-un-anno-il-… _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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