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AI firm that worked with Vote Leave given new coronavirus contract | Technology | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo June 6, 2020

June 6, 2020

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/02/ai-firm-that-worked-with…> An artificial intelligence firm hired to work on the Vote Leave campaign may analyse social media data, utility bills and credit rating scores as part of a £400,000 contract to help the government deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The company, Faculty, was awarded the contract by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government last month. However the full details of its work for the government are unknown because the published version of the contract was partly redacted. The disclosure comes amid questions from civil liberties groups as to how private companies hired by the government during the pandemic are using confidential data. The unredacted portion of the contract shows that the MHCLG said such work was likely to require data from “social media, utility providers and telecom bills, credit rating agencies” as well as from the government, but provides few other specifics. It brings the number of government contracts awarded to Faculty to at least nine in the last two years. The contracts in total are worth at least £1.6m. [...]

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Una “Netflix” cattolica, nasce la piattaforma VatiVision
by don Luca Peyron June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

L’iniziativa frutto di una collaborazione tra Vetrya e Officina della Comunicazione. Paolo Ruffini: il Vaticano non è né il censore né il detentore della linea editoriale ma guarda questa iniziativa con favore. Una piattaforma in cui avere... visioni ? dl https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/it/2020/06/04/news/una-netflix-catt… _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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Gaia-X Technical Architecture
by Giuseppe Attardi June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

I firmatari sono tutti tedeschi, eccetto gli. Spagnoli di Open Nebula, ta cui Ignacio Llorente. https://www.heise.de/downloads/18/2/9/0/6/1/1/7/gaia-x-technical-architectu… <https://www.heise.de/downloads/18/2/9/0/6/1/1/7/gaia-x-technical-architectu…> — Beppe

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Privacy, il Garante Soro: "Bene Immuni. Se le altre app non hanno valutato i rischi, interverremo" - Intervista ad Antonello Soro - Repubblica.it
by J.C. DE MARTIN June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

*Privacy, il Garante Soro: "Bene Immuni. Se le altre app non hanno valutato i rischi, interverremo" - Intervista ad Antonello Soro - Repubblica.it * Parla il Garante per la protezione dei dati personali: "Le piattaforme online hanno troppo potere sui nostri dati. La questione va portata in Europa". E poi: "Il ricorso a sistemi autogestiti e autoprodotti è avvenuto con poche garanzie" Intervista ad Antonello Soro, Presidente del Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Di Arturo Di Corinto, La Repubblica, 5 giugno 2020) L'app Immuni ha avviato la settimana di sperimentazione in quattro regioni, la ministra Paola Pisano ieri sera in audizione parlamentare ha chiarito gli aspetti del suo utilizzo e annunciato perfino un voucher di 300 euro per pagare la connettività Internet a chi non può farlo da solo. Della norma riferita a Immuni il Parlamento si occupa già da due settimane, ma le opposizioni sono comunque sul piede di guerra tanto che la Lega ha disertato l'audizione. Sparuti ma aggressivi drappelli di critici dell'app di tracciamento nazionale continuano a puntare il dito contro il lavoro di Bending Spoons e dei 74 esperti, ma quasi nessuno discute dell'uso di decine di app regionali e comunali usate per la sorveglianza sanitaria. Come quella lombarda che nei termini di servizio chiarisce la sua funzione di controllo ad personam degli utilizzatori. *Ne abbiamo parlato con il Presidente dell'Autorità Garante della Privacy, Antonello Soro. E abbiamo cominciato proprio da qui. Presidente, ancora ci si chiede se Immuni manda i dati all'estero e se ci geolocalizza. Ma non lo fanno già le app regionali?* "Immuni non lo fa. Nelle prime settimane sotto la spinta emotiva, regioni, comuni e imprese hanno promesso il ricorso a un app salvifica usando come base giuridica l'ordinanza della Protezione civile recepita poi con decreto legge. Per alcuni è rimasto un progetto, altri ne hanno fatto uno strumento. Ma il ricorso a sistemi autogestiti e autoprodotti anche da società non italiane che hanno offerto tecnologie e servizi è avvenuto con poche garanzie". *Complice l'opinione pubblica che non dava valore alla Privacy?* "L'Italia sembrava innamorata della Corea del Sud e della Cina. Le misure di contrasto tecnologiche apparivano giustificate e illustri virologi hanno detto che era un babbeo chi si preoccupava della privacy e chi la definiva una fisima". [...] continua qui: https://www.gpdp.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb/9359888

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Why Slow Networks Really Cost More Than Fiber
by Giovanni Biscuolo June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

Buongiorno nexiani, executive summary: «When Metrics Are Set Appropriately High, The Government Has Saved Money» ...ovvero pensare a infrastrutture di rete che durino più di 30 anni senza perdere in prestazioni... pare da visionari eh?!? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/why-slow-networks-really-cost-more-fi… --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] So if you chose now, in 2020, to finance a broadband network delivering the federal standard of 25/3 as its top speed, you have already built an obsolete network that can not even keep up with normal usage of the Internet today. How many households could you get to recoup that $500 investment? The answer is zero, unless you have a monopoly. In places that have at least two choices for broadband Internet, market analysts are demonstrating that eventually no one will subscribe to DSL or advanced DSL networks, because they are not keeping up with consumption. That leaves the only real choices in broadband today as high-speed cable and fiber-to-the-home, for download purposes. The choices narrow even more if you’re prioritizing upload-based uses, like video conferencing. Only fiber-to-the-home works for this, until cable systems can be upgraded to be symmetrical. In essence, if you build a $500 connection giving a basic slow speed, no one would willfully pay for its use unless given no other choices. Furthermore, the network will eventually become so slow that it can’t even make use of the Internet—much like dialup today. In the end, you’ve spent $500 per household, with potentially no willing buyers. That’s a total loss. Now, take the same scenario and apply the $5,000 fiber investment. If you are patient with the pace the infrastructure investment has to be recovered, you can space out how many years you are willing to wait to recover that $5,000. If you can wait ten years, it is around $42 per month plus interest. If you can wait twenty years, it is a little past $20 per month plus interest. The more years you add, the lower that monthly payment can be stretched—and you get to use the network at the same time. And you have a network that can not only service the needs of today, but also handle the level of demand needed for tomorrow and the distant future, with very little additional money needed to upgrade. It can also be utilized to simultaneously deliver 5G and a whole ecosystem of wireless companies as follow on users to help cover your costs. When data consumption starts requiring 10 gigabit/10 gigabit connections, your same $5,000 investment remains useful, and in fact had that capacity ready five years ago. When average data consumption reaches 100 gigabit symmetrical or terabit symmetrical well into the future, your exact same network remains useful and ready for the challenge. You will still have willing buyers for its capacity because it remains relevant. And, given that broadband is an essential service that people will need their entire life, you will have a dedicated funding source. Even if it takes you 30 years to recover your costs, that still makes financial sense because fiber is expected to be useful for decades past those 30 years. That $5,000 cost can also be seen as a $10 per month for less than half of the asset’s usefulness, whereas a $500 cost in a slower speed will end being a $500 loss, and leaves you with a network that needs to be replaced by fiber anyway. When Metrics Are Set Appropriately High, The Government Has Saved Money North Dakota’s experience should be instructive for other state and federal policy makers. 60 percent of its households and businesses already have access to fiber to the home. An analysis by the consulting firm Conexon, which specializes in rural fiber by rural cooperatives, has found that while states across the country that received tens of millions of dollars from the federal government for broadband, almost all lack dense fiber networks—with the exception of a state like North Dakota. Blue areas represent high-speed. Source: Broadband map based off Conexon analysis of government spending in broadband found at https://nationalunbroadbandmap.com/ How did that happen? How did nearly identical amounts of public investments in broadband yield such massive discrepancies? It boils down to the decisions the local governments and small private ISPs in North Dakota made with that government money. The federal government had extremely low expectations on how the subsidies should be spent, sometimes approving of projects as slow as 10 mbps/1 mbps. Companies like AT&T and Frontier spent those dollars to slightly improve services in their legacy copper networks on the cheap to reach those low numbers, rather than take it to discount a transition to fiber. Frontier ignored profitably opportunities to deploy fiber for so long that it is now undergoing bankruptcy due to its neglect. Meanwhile, in North Dakota, the local government and small private ISPs made the decision to invest those federal government dollars, and their own local investments to match, into building out fiber networks. Now those networks are being paid off in the long run. And the local, state, and federal governments no longer need to come back and spend money to replace anything there. Those fiber networks will be able to offer symmetrical 10 gigabit services, 100 gigabit services, and terabit services well into the 21st century. And they will able to do so without government subsidies, but rather financed by typical monthly payments from users. Meanwhile, we’re going to have to spend another estimated $80 billion on the rest of the country that lacks fiber-to-the-home because we didn’t require fiber in the first place. [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Saluti, Giovanni -- Giovanni Biscuolo

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Mason: "We must be told what Cummings and Palantir are doing with NHS data"
by J.C. DE MARTIN June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

*We must be told what Cummings and Palantir are doing with NHS data* Why is a firm backed by the CIA, and founded by a Trump-supporting billionaire, getting access to a massive store of our personal health information? Paul Mason 4 June 2020 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/we-must-be-told-what-cummi…

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California’s statehouse is considering a controversial facial recognition bill - The Verge
by Alberto Cammozzo June 4, 2020

June 4, 2020

Il riconoscimento facciale mostra la sua vera natura repressiva, a Hong Kong come in California, ma invece di promuovere una vera simmetria informativa [1], si considera una conquista la foglia di fico della "prior notice"... <https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279539/california-facial-recognition-ab…> As protestors square off against police across the country, California is readying a bill that could expand the state’s use of facial recognition, including for law enforcement purposes. Introduced as Assembly Bill 2261, the bill would provide a framework by which companies and government agencies could legally engage in facial recognition, provided they give prior notice. The bill has been moving slowly through the state legislature since February and is being considered by the Assembly Appropriations Committee this week. For supporters, it’s an important privacy measure, heading off the more extreme uses of widely available technology. Ed Chau, the assemblyman who introduced the bill, called it “the long overdue solution to regulate the use of facial recognition technology by commercial, state and local public entities,” in an editorial for CalMatters on Tuesday. [...] [1] Facing Facism. Unique biometric identifiers and data totalitarianism: socio-technical considerations <http://cammozzo.com/Papers/Cammozzo-2013-ETHICOMP-FacingFacism.pdf>

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NYT: How Your Phone Betrays Democracy
by maurizio lana June 4, 2020

June 4, 2020

buongiorno, qualcuno ha letto o conosce questa indagine del NewYork Times, raccontata in 2 articoli: Thompson, Stuart A., e Charlie Warzel. 2019. «Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy». /The New York Times/, 19 dicembre 2019, par. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-ce…. Warzel, Charlie, e Stuart A. Thompson. 2019. «How Your Phone Betrays Democracy». /The New York Times/, 21 dicembre 2019, par. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/21/opinion/location-data-democr…. da pensare che in certi momenti e luoghi convenga andare con un cellulare GSM senza memoria e senza GPS. come si va in montagna con gli scarponi e non con le ciabatte. o come si va al mare con le ciabatte non con gli scarponi. ogni tempo e luogo il cellulare adatto. makes sense? maurizio -- 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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More Mass Surveillance Is Never The Answer
by Giacomo Tesio June 4, 2020

June 4, 2020

Ho come un déjà-vu... Forse la Matrice ha cambiato qualcosa. Giacomo <https://www.teenvogue.com/story/mass-surveillance-coronavirus> # More Mass Surveillance to Track the Coronavirus Threatens Black and Brown Communities United States tech companies, public health experts, and government officials have proposed certain types of surveillance as pathways to reopening the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. Technologies including contact tracing proximity apps, facial recognition, drones, and thermal cameras have been touted as potential ways to slow the spread of the virus and aid in future public health emergencies. Despite these proposals, past crises have shown us that mass surveillance will not only fail to save us, but is practically guaranteed to have negative consequences for Black communities and communities of color. In order to safeguard the privacy and rights of the communities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19, it must be asked: Why is mass surveillance being proposed as one of the most viable solutions to the ongoing pandemic, and why aren't resources being channeled into our broken public health infrastructure instead? This is a particularly urgent question as police forces around the country mobilize against Americans standing up against police brutality, and President Trump urges governors to “track” and lock up protesters. The war on drugs is among the most recent instances of the normalization of mass surveillance under the guise of public safety. In April 2015, USA Today detailed the extent of a bulk surveillance program carried out by the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration. As part of the now-discontinued operation, both agencies logged “billions of calls” from the U.S. to 116 countries, enabling agents to link calls “to troves of other police and intelligence data.” Wiretapping also played a substantial role during the war on drugs, and in 2015, drug offenses accounted for 79% of all applications for wiretaps. The rhetoric of war and the normalization of surveillance during the war on drugs paved the way for the war on terror. In the aftermath of 9/11, expanded surveillance powers were rapidly granted without regard for the long-lasting implications they would have. The Patriot Act completely transformed the nation’s surveillance authority. As detailed by the ACLU, it increased government power to conduct records searches, secret searches, intelligence searches, and “trap and trace" searches. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS, a special registration system that disproportionately focused on Arab and Muslim males, was also welcomed as a viable post-9/11 surveillance measure. Both “wars,” in addition to increasing the government’s surveillance powers, have had extremely high human and financial costs and made suspicionless surveillance of those living in and at the intersections of Black, brown, and Muslim communities acceptable. Whether it's policing tactics such as stop and frisk or surveillance programs like the New York Police Department’s Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program, abstract wars formed during moments of crisis have been used to justify discriminatory policing and surveillance measures against these communities. This is why recent references to “fight a war” against the coronavirus are so unnerving, suggesting that government officials could further the inequalities that have been developed in two previous battles. Mass surveillance has already been welcomed globally as a way to counter the virus. Privacy International, a U.K.-based charity focused on defending privacy, has documented numerous surveillance measures adopted since the pandemic began. In China, an extensive network of CCTV cameras, smartphone monitoring, and facial recognition have been used in what the government has labeled “an all-out people’s war on coronavirus.” In South Korea, credit and debit card transactions, as well as phone-location logs, have been used to trace the movements of those who’ve been infected. In Ecuador, the government has used GPS to monitor individuals in mandatory quarantine. India, the U.K., Singapore, Israel, and numerous other governments have expanded their surveillance capacities, alarming privacy advocates and contributing to the normalization of surveillance. In the U.S., several surveillance technologies have been researched, proposed, and even implemented. Police departments across the country have turned to drones to enforce social distancing measures. DJI Enterprise, a drone company based in China, announced in April that it had already provided drones to 43 police, fire, and public safety organizations from 22 states. Aerial surveillance has been coupled with calls for contact tracing apps, which use technologies such as GPS and Bluetooth to collect data on the movements of people who have contracted the virus. Clearview AI, which faced controversy for taking billions of photos off of social media to develop a facial recognition system, has announced that it is in discussions with government agencies to develop contact tracing apps, NBC News reported. Similarly, Apple and Google announced that they were developing contact tracing software to allow iPhone and Android users to voluntarily report if they had become infected. As noted by Reuters, a significant concern about the apps is that they will "log an overwhelming number of erroneous contacts" and that "privacy worries could limit uptake of the apps." Differing levels of trust, combined with demographic differences in smartphone ownership, pose a challenge to effective implementation of the apps. A recent Pew Research study revealed that only 52% of Americans believe it is at least somewhat acceptable for the government to use people’s cell phones to track the location of those who have tested positive for the virus, while 48% believe it is very or somewhat unacceptable. As the country’s surveillance infrastructure will likely be expanded in response to COVID-19, the privacy concerns of minority communities should not be left out. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities has been well documented. Across the U.S., Black, Latino, and low-income communities have had disproportionate numbers of cases and COVID-19-related deaths. Surveillance measures aimed at stopping the spread of the virus will not only center on these communities, but will be harder to remove after they’re implemented. Black communities and communities of color have already had to grapple with race-based surveillance as well. Surveillance technologies are not immune to manipulation, misuse, and bias, and have been used to keep existing racial and economic inequities in place. Whether it's predictive policing programs or social media monitoring of activists, surveillance has been used to further racial profiling, and skewed theories of criminalization, mass incarceration, and marginalization of the homeless, poor, and undocumented. Nationwide protests against police brutality and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery at the hands of law enforcement officers have renewed conversations about the threat surveillance poses to protest and dissent. The city of Minneapolis, in particular, has been at the center of these conversations. On May 29, Vox reported that a Predator surveillance drone operated by United States Customs and Border Patrol flew over protests "to provide situational awareness" and help police. According to Buzzfeed News, the Minneapolis Police Department already has an array of surveillance technologies at its hands, including "controversial facial recognition software Clearview AI, license plate readers, body cameras, and video analysis tools." On Saturday, Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington announced that the city of Minneapolis has begun analyzing the data and associations of arrested protesters, using the term “contact tracing” to describe these police investigations. Increasing the country’s surveillance infrastructure without regard to current and historic realities places an additional burden on communities that have already been devastated by the onslaught of the virus. If history has taught us anything, it is that there is no guarantee that the normalization of mass surveillance to stop the spread of the virus will be reversed after the pandemic subsides. The surveillance infrastructures of the war on drugs and the war on terror were both in place for years, and set a precedent for how far privacy can be invaded in the name of crisis, even if that also means disenfranchising communities of color. Our focus should be on constructing a response to COVID-19 that not only safeguards the privacy of each individual, but also redistributes resources into the communities who have been hit hardest by the horrors of this new disease.

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What does cyber arms control look like? Four principles for managing cyber risk - Andrew Futter - European Leadership Network June 4, 2020
by Diego.Latella June 4, 2020

June 4, 2020

FYI What does cyber arms control look like? Four principles for managing cyber risk [1] Andrew Futter [2] - Associate Professor in International Politics at the University of Leicester European Leadership Network [3] June 4, 2020 Diego -- Dott. Diego Latella - Senior Researcher CNR-ISTI, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy (http:www.isti.cnr.it [4]) FM&&T Lab. (http://fmt.isti.cnr.it) http://www.isti.cnr.it/People/D.Latella - ph: +390506212982, mob: +39 348 8283101, fax: +390506212040 =================== The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn how to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity. -- Sir Joseph Rotblat I don't quite know whether it is especially computer science or its subdiscipline Artificial Intelligence that has such an enormous affection for euphemism. We speak so spectacularly and so readily of computer systems that understand, that see, decide, make judgments, and so on, without ourselves recognizing our own superficiality and immeasurable naivete with respect to these concepts. And, in the process of so speaking, we anesthetise our ability to evaluate the quality of our work and, what is more important, to identify and become conscious of its end use. […] One can't escape this state without asking, again and again: "What do I actually do? What is the final application and use of the products of my work?" and ultimately, "am I content or ashamed to have contributed to this use?" -- Prof. Joseph Weizenbaum ["Not without us", ACM SIGCAS 16(2-3) 2--7 - Aug. 1986] Links: ------ [1] https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/policy-brief/what-does-cyber-arms… [2] https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/person/dr-andrew-futter/ [3] https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/ [4] http://www.isti.cnr.it

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