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Rage Inside the Machine: an insightful, brilliant critique of AI's computer science, sociology, philosophy and economics
by J.C. DE MARTIN Sept. 5, 2020

Sept. 5, 2020

*Rage Inside the Machine: an insightful, brilliant critique of AI's computer science, sociology, philosophy and economics* / Cory Doctorow / 9:19 pm Thu Jun 27, 2019 Rob Smith is an eminent computer scientist and machine learning pioneer whose work on genetic algorithms has been influential in both industry and the academy; now, in his first book for a general audience, Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All, Smith expertly draws connections between AI, neoliberalism, human bias, eugenics and far-right populism, and shows how the biases of computer science and the corporate paymasters have distorted our whole society. [...] continua qui: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/27/rage-inside-the-machine-an-in.html

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Perché si vendono pochi giornali online
by don Luca Peyron Sept. 4, 2020

Sept. 4, 2020

Analisi interessante, buona lettura e buona giornata dl https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/stazione-futuro-riccardo-luna/2020/08/27/… _________________________ 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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Amazon's Alexa for Residential Is a Brewi Privacy Nightmare
by J.C. DE MARTIN Sept. 4, 2020

Sept. 4, 2020

https://gizmodo.com/amazons-alexa-for-landlords-is-a-privacy-nightmare-wait… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Intercettazioni in Italia: per chi se lo fosse perso
by Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) Sept. 3, 2020

Sept. 3, 2020

- 140 Telecommunication Interception Centers - 700 Server - 1100 Police's Wiretapping Desk - 3500 persons involved - 60million Euros https://www.diritto24.ilsole24ore.com/art/guidaAlDiritto/dirittoPenale/2020… Fabio

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Tribunale USA dichiara illegali le attività di sorveglianza di massa dell'NSA
by Roberto Resoli Sept. 3, 2020

Sept. 3, 2020

La reazione di Snowden: "Sette anni fa, quando le notizie annunciarono che ero stato accusato come criminale per aver detto la verità, non avrei mai immaginato che avrei vissuto abbastanza per vedere i nostri tribunali condannare le attività della NSA come illegali e nella stessa sentenza attribuirmi il merito di averle smascherate." --- "Seven years ago, as the news declared I was being charged as a criminal for speaking the truth, I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA's activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them." https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/united-states-v-moalin-ninth-circuit-op… https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1301251393832050688?s=20

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The danger of Alphabet’s move into the risk business - Morozov
by Stefano Zacchiroli Sept. 2, 2020

Sept. 2, 2020

Without much fanfare, Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences unit, has launched Coefficient Insurance. It was only a matter of time before Google’s parent got into the health insurance business — in fact, one wonders what took it so long. With Google’s intimate knowledge of our daily patterns, contacts and dreams, the search engine group has for years had a far better picture of risk than any insurer. [..] Continua qui: https://www.ft.com/content/cfe91d3e-624e-4f66-a9de-cc9bbdb016f5 -- Stefano Zacchiroli . zack(a)upsilon.cc . upsilon.cc/zack . . o . . . o . o Computer Science Professor . CTO Software Heritage . . . . . o . . . o o Former Debian Project Leader & OSI Board Director . . . o o o . . . o . « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »

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ADM Systems in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A European Perspective
by Enrico Nardelli Sept. 2, 2020

Sept. 2, 2020

A report by Berlin-based NGO AlgorithmWatch and German Bertelsmann Foundation https://algorithmwatch.org/en/project/automating-society-2020-covid19/ ... This is why we decided to publish this “preview report”, fully dedicated to an initial mapping and exploration of ADM systems deployed throughout Europe as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. Especially given the uncertainties around the resurgence of the virus that are present at the time of writing, we felt it was necessary and urgent to provide a first snapshot of the socio-technical systems deployed against the virus in the 16 European countries investigated in the ‘Automating Society’ project. ... -- EN ===================================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Dipartimento di Matematica - Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/ http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ ===================================================================== --

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Apple fa lo sgambetto a Google e Facebook: con iOS 14 cambia il tracciamento dei dati
by don Luca Peyron Sept. 1, 2020

Sept. 1, 2020

Il nuovo sistema operativo della casa di Cupertino, in arrivo nelle prossime settimane, cambierà in modo drastico la modalità di profilazione degli utenti. E potrebbe far male i big player dell'advertising online. Buona lettura e buona domenica dl https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/apple-fa-sgambetto-e-google-e-facebook-ios-… _________________________ 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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Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing - The Correspondent
by Alberto Cammozzo Aug. 31, 2020

Aug. 31, 2020

Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing Economics correspondent at De Correspondent Jesse Frederik <https://thecorrespondent.com/655/blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost…> Blockchain technology is going to change everything: the shipping industry, the financial system, government … in fact, what won’t it change? But enthusiasm for it mainly stems from a lack of knowledge and understanding. The blockchain is a solution in search of a problem. Sjoerd Knibbeler made this image for The Correspondent; the rest of the images in this piece are from his series 'Current Studies' (2013-2016), which you can read more about at the end of the article. In front of a sea of coders sitting on folding chairs, their laptops on folding tables, a man appears on a purpley-blue lit stage. “Seven hundred blockchaingers,” the man shouts at his audience. He points at each programmer in the room. “Machine-to-machine learning … ” And then, at the top of his voice: “Energy transition! Health! Public safety and security! Future of pensions!” We are at the Blockchaingers Hackathon 2018 in Groningen, the Netherlands. And something really, really big is happening here, according to the speakers. Earlier on, a film trailer voice asked those present if they could imagine that right here, right now, in this room, they were about to find solutions that would change “a billion lives”. A planet spontaneously combusted in the accompanying video. And then the Dutch state secretary for the Interior, Raymond Knops arrived, decked out in tech couture: a black hoodie. He’s here as a “super accelerator” (whatever that means). “Everyone senses that blockchain is going to change government drastically,” the state secretary said. I’ve been hearing a lot about blockchain in the last few years. I mean, who hasn’t? It’s everywhere. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought: but what is it then, for God’s sake, this whole blockchain thing? And what’s so terribly revolutionary about it? What problem does it solve? That’s why I wrote this article. I can tell you upfront, it’s a bizarre journey to nowhere. I’ve never seen so much incomprehensible jargon to describe so little. I’ve never seen so much bloated bombast fall so flat on closer inspection. And I’ve never seen so many people searching so hard for a problem to go with their solution. ‘Agents of change’ in a small Dutch town They knew nothing about the blockchain yet in Zuidhorn, a town with just under 8,000 people in the north-east of the Netherlands. “What we did know is that it’s coming for us and that it’s disruptive,” a civil servant from the town told a Dutch weekly news magazine. “We could sit back and wait, or choose to move forwards.” In Zuidhorn they decided to move forwards. A municipal poverty aid package for children would “be put on the blockchain”. Maarten Veldhuijs, a student and blockchain enthusiast, was given an internship with the municipality. His first job was to explain what blockchain is. When I asked him, he said it is “a kind of system that can’t be stopped”, that it’s “actually a force of nature”, or rather, “a decentralised consensus algorithm”. OK, it’s hard to explain, he conceded eventually. “I said to Zuidhorn: ‘I’ll just build you an app, then you’ll understand’.” So he did. His first job was to explain what blockchain is ... OK, it’s hard to explain, he conceded eventually The children’s aid package gives families living in poverty the right to a bicycle, trips to the theatre and the cinema, and so on. In the past, that was a nightmare of bureaucracy, receipts and documentation. But thanks to Velthuijs’s app it became simple: you scan your code in the shop, you get your bike, and the shopkeeper gets their money. Suddenly, the tiny town was proclaimed “one of the international forerunners in blockchain technology”. There was national media attention and even awards: they won a prize for pioneers in municipal work and received nominations for an IT project award and a civil service award. Local administrators became more and more enthusiastic. Velthuijs and his team of “students” were the ones who shaped this new world. But that term didn’t show enough respect. In Zuidhorn some people already preferred to call them “agents of change”. [...]

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RFC8890: The Internet is for End Users
by Giacomo Tesio Aug. 31, 2020

Aug. 31, 2020

Un'interessantissima presa di posizione dell'Internet Architecture Board, commentata da uno degli autori: https://www.mnot.net/blog/2020/08/28/for_the_users L'RFC è qui: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8890.html Meritano entrambi una lettura attenta. Il principio "rough consensus and running code" è di per sé insufficiente a tener testa al potere (i "kings and presidents") di questa epoca per il semplice fatto che le aziende che lo detengono, dispongono di lobbisti per produrre consenso e programmatori per produrre il codice. QUIC (su cui verrà basato HTTP/3), cui lavora lo stesso autore, è un esempio: risolve problemi che esistono esclusivamente su scala planetaria, in aziende come Google, Amazon e Microsoft, ma rende molto più complesso implementare server indipendenti che lo supportino. L'RFC poi propone cone modello di successo Web: la competizione al servizio degli utenti degli user agent (aka browser) permetterebbe di servirli meglio. Solo un breve accenno viene fatto alla realtà fattuale: aumentando enormemente la complessita di Chrome, Google ha spazzato via la concorrenza (proprio come spera di fare con QUIC sui server). "Rough consent and running code" è dunque un principio che di per sé facilita il consolidamento del potere. La scelta del termine "end users" poi, è così limitante da richiedete una lunga chiarificazione del concetto nel RFC. "The Internet is for every human" sarebbe stato più chiaro... e più impegnativo. D'altro canto, accettare consapevolmente la responsabilità politica dell'architettura di Internet è un serio passo avanti. Giacomo

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