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Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia | Technology | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 7, 2019

Nov. 7, 2019

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/06/twitter-spy-saudi-arabia…> Two former Twitter employees have been charged with spying after they reportedly obtained personal account information for critics of the government of Saudi Arabia. A complaint unsealed on Wednesday in US district court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts. One of the former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of spying and falsifying an invoice to obstruct an FBI investigation. He is a US citizen. The other former employee, a Saudi citizen named Ali Alzabarah, was accused of accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Alzabarah accessed accounts of a number of prominent government critics including that of Omar Abdulaziz, a prominent journalist with more than 1 million followers who was close to late Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a US resident, was killed by the Saudi government last year. The US justice department also alleged that the employees – whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information – were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts. Alzabarah allegedly admitted to his supervisors that he accessed user data and said he did it out of curiosity. He was placed on administrative leave, his work-owned laptop was seized, and he was escorted out of the office. The next day, he flew to Saudi Arabia with his wife and daughter and has not returned to the United States, investigators said. A warrant for his arrest was issued as part of the complaint. [...]

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Screen time might be physically changing kids’ brains
by Giacomo Tesio Nov. 7, 2019

Nov. 7, 2019

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614672/screen-time-might-be-physically-c… The study: Forty-seven 3- to 5-year-olds took a test to measure their cognitive abilities, and their parents were asked to answer a detailed survey about screen time habits. Questions included: How frequently do they use that screen? What type of content are they viewing? And is there an adult sitting with the child talking about what they’re watching? The answers were scored against a set of screen time guidelines put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The kids also had their brains scanned in an MRI machine. Brain changes: The scans revealed that kids who spent more time in front of screens had what the authors call lower “white matter integrity.” White matter can be roughly thought of as the brain’s internal communications network—its long nerve fibers are sheathed in fatty insulation that allows electrical signals to move from one area of the brain to another without interruption. The integrity of that structure—how well organized the nerve fibers are, and how well developed the myelin sheath is—is associated with cognitive function, and it develops as kids learn language. Lead author John Hutton of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital told MIT Technology Review there’s a clear link between higher screen use and lower white matter integrity in the children his team studied. That structural change appears to be reflected in the results of the cognitive test the kids took as well, which showed high screen time associated with lower levels of language and literacy skills. “The effect size is substantial, as these findings also rigorously controlled for multiple comparisons across the brain,” Hutton says. [...] Unfortunately, that’s not so easy. “It’s hard to say what the ‘safe’ age or amount of screen time is,” Hutton says. “My motto is ‘Screen-free until three’—this at least gets kids to preschool with a solid anchor in the real world, where their basic sense of connection with caregivers and early language skills have solidified.” Giacomo

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http://humanitariantechnologies.net/
by Agata Lo Tauro Nov. 7, 2019

Nov. 7, 2019

http://humanitariantechnologies.net/ All the best to all of you! agata https://it.linkedin.com › agata-lo-tauro-6723257b <https://it.linkedin.com/in/agata-lo-tauro-6723257b>

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AI4CH - Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics for Cultural Heritage - abstract submission
by Agata Lo Tauro Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/registrazione-ai4ch-artificial-intelligence-in… L'abstract submission è ok. E per le cordate J.C. De Martin ci aiuta? :-) Pedico mi ha chiesto: "Ma hai citato il nome J.C. De Martin "? Più chiaro di così? :-) Volevo anche essere a Volunteer Member of the Committee. Voi li conoscete? *All the best to all of you!* *Si fa quel che si può* *agata* https://it.linkedin.com › agata-lo-tauro-6723257b <https://it.linkedin.com/in/agata-lo-tauro-6723257b>

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Giornata di studio su "En attendant les robots" (6 dic. 2019, Parigi)
by Antonio Casilli Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

Dear all, se siete a Parigi il 6 dicembre prossimo, la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Paris Saclay organizza una giornata di studio dedicata al mio libro "En attendant les robots" (in uscita in italiano per i tipi della Feltrinelli a maggio prossimo). Tra i co-organizzatori, il neonato Centre Internet et Société CNRS, gemello d'oltralpe del Nexa. Il centro è diretto da Francesca Musiani e Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, che sarà la discussant dell'ultima tavola rotonda su lavoro e commons digitali. Fate pure circolare l'informazione se c'è qualche vostra conoscenza potenzialmente interessata. Il link per iscriversi è qui: http://msh-paris-saclay.fr/event/journee-etudes-casilli-msh/ Cheers, ---a --- JOURNEE D’ETUDES « EN ATTENDANT LES ROBOTS » AVEC ANTONIO CASILLI – 6/12/2019 Programme : La journée sera animée par Florent Le Bot (IDHES / université d’Evry), historien et membre de la revue L’Homme & la Société, et se déroulera à l’ISC-PIF (113 rue nationale Paris, 75013). 9h30 : Accueil café – Mot d’ouverture par André Torre, Directeur de la MSH Paris-Saclay 10h / 11h30 Présentation de « En attendant les Robots » par Antonio Casilli (TelecomParis / i3) 11h45 / 12h45 : « Quand l’ouvrier devient robot » : Antonio Casilli & David Gaborieau (CNAM / CEET) 12h45 / 14h00 Déjeuner 14h00 / 15h00 : « La fin du travail ou le retour du marchandage ? » Antonio Casilli & Claude Didry (CMH / ENS) 15h15 / 16h15 : « Les ‘commons’ numériques pour repenser les protections sociales à l’heure des plateformes » Antonio Casilli & Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay (CIS / CNRS) -- Antonio A. Casilli Associate Professor (HDR), Telecom Paris (Paris School of Telecommunications) Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3 UMR 9217 CNRS) Associate Member, LACI-IIAC (EHESS) Faculty Fellow, Nexa Center for Internet & Society *We respect your right to disconnect. This email send time is due to my own workflow efficiency. You are in no obligation to take action or reply to it outside your office hours.*

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Leaked documents show Facebook leveraged user data to fight rivals and help friends
by antonio.vetro＠polito.it Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

NBC News is releasing almost 7,000 pages of leaked documents showing how Facebook treated user data as a bargaining chip with external app developers. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1076986 == Sent from my wireless device ==

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Online Disinformation and Political Discourse: Applying a Human Rights Framework | Chatham House
by J.C. DE MARTIN Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/online-disinformation-and-politica… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Facebook ends appeal against ICO micro-fine: Admit liability? Never. But you can have £500k
by Giacomo Tesio Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/30/facebook_ends_appeal_against_ico_m… "Given the way our platform worked at the time," Zuck has said, "this meant Kogan was able to access tens of millions of their friends' data". Facebook has always claimed it learned of the data misuse from news reports, though this has been disputed. Both sides will now end the legal fight and Facebook will pay the ICO a fine but make no admission of liability or guilt. The money is not kept by the data protection watchdog but goes to the Treasury consolidated fund and both sides will pay their own costs. The ICO spent an eye-watering £2.5m on the Facebook probe. [...] Deputy commissioner of the ICO James Dipple-Johnstone said: "The ICO welcomes the agreement reached with Facebook for the withdrawal of their appeal against our Monetary Penalty Notice and agreement to pay the fine. The ICO's main concern was that UK citizen data was exposed to a serious risk of harm. Protection of personal information and personal privacy is of fundamental importance, not only for the rights of individuals, but also as we now know, for the preservation of a strong democracy." [...] In October 2018 the ICO imposed a fine of £500,000 on Facebook, which equates to about 17 minutes' profit for the firm – the maximum possible fine because the offences occurred between 2013 and 2015. Under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) brought in last year, however, Facebook could be fined 4 per cent of its $56bn global turnover. ____ Ridicolo. Giacomo

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AI4CH - Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics for Cultural Heritage - abstract submission
by Agata Lo Tauro Nov. 6, 2019

Nov. 6, 2019

Perdonate il sistema da problemi (Abstract submission) Please help? Apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate understanding agata

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Support Engineer Job family country-of-residence block
by Giacomo Tesio Nov. 5, 2019

Nov. 5, 2019

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/5555 In e-group on Monday October 15, 2019 we took the decision to enable a "job family country-of-residence block" for team members who have access to customer data. This is at the expressed concern of several enterprise customers, and also what is becoming a common practice in our industry in the current geopolitical climate. The countries involved are: - China - Russia This issue is to track the addition of the process to the support handbook, and whatever recruiting processes need to be update to make certain that: 1. We do not make offers to individuals residing in these countries 2. Current team members are prevented from moving to these countries and remaining in a role that prohibits it. We do not have a technical way, today, to handle this based on permissions. Doing so would also force us to confront the possibility of creating a "second class of citizens" on certain teams who cannot take part in 100% of their responsibilities, which is a dynamic some of us have experienced at other companies and found highly negative. As such we feel a country block is the most humane solution at this time--especially because it affects zero current employees. We should look into the effort to do this on a permissions-basis. So everyone is clear what the effort would be, and roughly how long this would take. Discussion in #job-family-country-blocks since there are multiple related issues open and content should be consistent, if not shared. Note: In addition to Support, this also affects SREs in infra and SecOps & Anti-Abuse in Security (see related issue). _____ Questione spinosa ed interessante. Non riesco a pensare ad un'altra soluzione che possa ridurre i rischi di sicurezza per l'azienda ed i clienti. GitLab, per chi non lo sapesse, è una società statunitense che non solo è multinazionale, ma fisicamente distribuita in tutto il globo: il lavoro remoto è la norma. Questa scelta (se confermata) sarà estremamente interessante. Vi partecipano concause ed effetti che sono tecniche, culturali e geopolitiche. In una specie di teorema CAP umano, non possiamo avere dimensione globale e sicurezza locale a costi finiti. Giacomo

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