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Opinion | It’s Time to Break Up Facebook - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 9, 2019

May 9, 2019

It’s Time to Break Up Facebook By Chris Hughes Mr. Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, is a co-chairman of the Economic Security Project and a senior adviser at the Roosevelt Institute. May 9, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuc… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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chiamate telefoniche promozionali a mezzo bot
by Alberto Cammozzo May 9, 2019

May 9, 2019

Recentemente ricevo chiamate promozionali anche "a raffica" di Enel Energia effettuate a mezzo bot, cioè con voce registrata. Capita anche a voi? Oltre ad essere una pratica aggressiva che inquina enormemente l'ecosistema delle comunicazioni (ormai non rispondo ormai più a chiamate di cui non conosco il numero) a mio avviso usare la segreteria è illegale: con una segreteria telefonica non è possibile esercitare il diritto di cancellazione. E l'estensione del registro delle opposizioni alle chiamate su cellulare attende il regolamento attuativo... Che ci vorrà mai? Intanto ho inviato questa PEC a Enel e (pc) al Garante. Ciao, Alberto Spettabile Enel Energia, sto ricevendo numerose Vostre telefonate promozionali, a volte più di una volta al giorno: questa pratica di marketing predatorio è estremamente molesta per gli utenti e danneggia gravemente l'immagine della Vostra azienda che mostra così poco rispetto per il pubblico. Quando la chiamata è effettuata da un operatore ho sempre chiesto di non essere più contattato (senza alcun esito). Ultimamente però le chiamate sono opera di un sistema automatico con voce registrata (che lascia anche messaggi in segreteria telefonica), nel quale purtroppo non avete previsto di introdurre una opzione di opt-out da successive chiamate. Nell'impossibilità di esercitare il diritto di essere cancellato dagli elenchi di chiamata previsto dalla vigente normativa sui dati personali, mi vedo costretto ad agire formalmente con la presente. Pertanto: - vi CHIEDO di rimuovere il numero XXXXXXXXX intestato a mio nome dalle vostre liste di chiamata; - vi DIFFIDO dall'effettuare qualsiasi chiamata promozionale a questo numero a partire da otto giorni solari dalla data odierna: in caso contrario mi vedrò costretto a provvedere a mia tutela con i mezzi opportuni, incluso il reclamo formale al GPDP. - vi INVITO a introdurre una opzione di opt-out nel risponditore automatico, con la quale l'utente possa esercitare i diritti sanciti dal GDPR ed essere così cancellato dagli elenchi di chiamata; Per conoscenza invio la presente al Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali. Distinti saluti, Alberto Cammozzo

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Fwd: Rules for Electronic Platforms in the EU
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 9, 2019

May 9, 2019

(Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any)) Begin forwarded message: > Resent-From: <d004620(a)polito.it> > From: "Giuseppe Mastruzzo - IUC Director" <direttore(a)iuctorino.it> > Date: 9 May 2019 at 12:06:03 CEST > To: "Giuseppe Mastruzzo - IUC Director" <direttore(a)iuctorino.it> > Subject: Rules for Electronic Platforms in the EU > > Rules for Electronic Platforms in the EU > by Prof. Teresa Rodríguez de las Heras Ballell > > A seminar on > Monday May 27 – 17:15/18:45 > at the > International University College of Turin > Piazza Paleocapa 2, Torino

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Ecco perché Unicredit abbandona Facebook e Instagram
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/finanza-e-mercati/2019-05-05/ecco-perche-un… UniCredit abbandona l’intero gruppo che proprietariamente fa capo a Facebook, di cui evidentemente non si fida più. Per motivi etici - e quindi con un valore economico oltre che reputazionale - già emersi dopo lo scandalo Cambridge Analytica. Ma soprattutto, pare di capire, per le modalità con cui la capogruppo Facebook e le sue controllate - quindi non l’intero mondo dei social network, tanto che UniCredit resterà su Twitter e LinkedIn - continuano a gestire i dati dei clienti delle banche.

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The Era of General Purpose Computers is Ending
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

Dividi et impera? https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/02/05/the-era-of-general-purpose-computer… Moore’s Law has underwritten a remarkable period of growth and stability for the computer industry. The doubling of transistor density at a predictable cadence has fueled not only five decades of increased processor performance, but also the rise of the general-purpose computing model. However, according to a pair of researchers at MIT and Aachen University, that’s all coming to an end. [...] As they point out, general-purpose computing was not always the norm. In the early days of supercomputing, custom-built vector-based architectures from companies like Cray dominated the HPC industry. A version of this still exists today in the vector systems built by NEC. But thanks to the speed at which Moore’s Law has improved the price-performance of transistors over the last few decades, the economic forces has greatly favored general-purpose processors. That’s mainly because the cost of developing and manufacturing a custom chip is between $30 and $80 million. [...] But the computational economics enabled by Moore’s Law is now changing. In recent years, shrinking transistors has become much more expensive as the physical limitations of the underlying semiconductor material begins to assert itself. The authors point out that in the past 25 years, the cost to build a leading edge fab has risen 11 percent per year. In 2017, the Semiconductor Industry Association estimated that it costs about $7 billion to construct a new fab. Not only does that drive up the fixed costs for chipmakers, it has reduced the number semiconductor manufacturers from 25, in 2002, to just four today: Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Samsung and GlobalFoundries. [...] It’s not just a deteriorating Moore’s Law. [...] For starters, you have platforms like mobile devices and the internet of things (IoT) that are so demanding with regard to energy efficiency and cost, and are deployed in such large volumes, that they necessitated customized chips even with a relatively robust Moore’s Law in place. [...] Deep learning and its preferred hardware platform, GPUs, represent the most visible example of how computing may travel down the path from general-purpose to specialized processors. [...] But for deep learning, GPUs may only be the gateway drug. [...] Google’s own Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which was purpose-built to train and use neural networks, is now in its third iteration. [...] The authors anticipate that cloud computing will, to some extent, blunt the effect of these disparities by offering a variety of infrastructure for smaller and less catered for communities. The growing availability more specialized cloud resources like GPUs, FPGAs, and in the case of Google, TPUs, suggest that the haves and have-nots may be able to operate on a more even playing field. None of this means CPUs or even GPUs are doomed. Although the authors didn’t delve into this aspect, it’s quite possible that specialized, semi-specialized, and general-purpose compute engines will be integrated on the same chip or processor package. Some chipmakers are already pursuing this path.

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This Is the Best Way to Tax Google and Facebook
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

Una soluzione Win-Win fra Governo e Imprese. Tassare le manipolazioni per normalizzare la sorveglianza. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-03/the-czech-republic-s-… The Czech finance ministry plans to have a digital tax proposal ready by the end of this month. What’s known about it so far is different from other nations’ plans in two important ways: the high proposed tax rate of 7 percent, and the targeting of advertising and personal data sales as the primary base. The country also plans to tax sharing economy platforms. It estimates receipts of about 5 billion korunas ($217 million) a year. France, with six times the Czech Republic’s population, only hopes to receive about 2.6 times as much. At first glance, the idea behind the Czech digital tax is similar to the French one, but the French proposal names platforms that put users in touch with each other for a fee as the primary target, while the Czech one prioritizes targeted ads. [...] There’s also plenty of evidence that ad targeting is a potent political manipulation tool: It has helped malicious actors during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit referendum, arguably helping to subvert democratic institutions. Besides, targeted ad platforms have deprived news organizations of previously reliable revenue streams, creating yet another negative externality for democracy. [...] The often-heard argument that the tax simply will be passed on to advertisers may not be valid with a 7 percent rate: If Facebook and Google merely add it to their bill, advertisers may well think of going elsewhere, including to news sites and traditional advertising media. Governments shouldn’t be shy to ask for more: At some point, this should produce reliable estimates of the true worth of our personal data. [...] Taxing advertising that is based on personal data could make another important contribution to the common good. If the idea is to tax the revenue from clicks on and views of ads shown in a specific country, then platforms such as Facebook and Google must be required to disclose to a government analytical data on where the clicks and impressions occur. Governments would, naturally, want to audit the data. That would be a major step toward much-needed transparency: There’s too little independent control of digital advertising companies’ claims of precise targeting and advertising efficiency. Whatever information governments collect from platforms for tax audit purposes should be available to advertisers and the public, too.

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Bad News! Windows 10 Will Soon Have a Real Linux Kernel
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

Non è tenero e divertente che qualcuno si stupisca ancora? L'Open Source non è Software Libero. Non ne veicola i valori e non ne cura gli interessi. https://itsfoss.com/windows-linux-kernel-wsl-2/ In WSL 2, the Linux kernel compatibility layer has been replaced by the real Linux kernel. So now if you use WSL, you’ll be using the real Linux kernel 4.9. [...] Microsoft is infamous for its Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy. It has started ‘loving’ open source and Linux in the last few years but before that Linux was cancer. The so-called ‘love for Linux’ seems more like ‘lust for Linux’ to me. The Linux community is behaving like a teen-aged girl madly in love with a brute. [...] In the coming years, a significant population of future generation of programmers won’t even bother to try Linux desktop because they’ll get everything right in their systems that comes pre-installed with Windows. Linux kernel will continue to grow in the IT infrastructure, thanks to the efforts of Linux Foundation backed by the enterprise giants for their own interests. The desktop Linux will unfortunately see a decline. The Linux Foundation already doesn’t care about the desktop Linux. Out of the millions it gets, literally nothing goes for the development of desktop Linux (as far as I know). Linux Foundation doesn’t make any effort to support desktop Linux probably because it doesn’t generate any money. Microsoft loves Linux. Microsoft loves Open Source. It’s love is so deep that it open sourced the magnificent Windows calculator so that all of us Linux users could run this marvel of a technology. But when it comes to bringing commercial products like Microsoft Office to Linux, Microsoft suddenly recalls that there is not ‘enough demand’ for MS Office on Linux. Not enough demand? So, were people signing petitions or holding yellow jacket protests for open sourcing Windows calculator?

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Microsoft Will Have You Sued for Not Hosting GNU/Linux on Azure (Paying Rents)
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

http://techrights.org/2019/05/07/azure-ip-advantage-operandi/ in order for “Azure IP Advantage” to be sell-able (or become a selling point) Microsoft must ensure that many FOSS users get attacked by patent trolls. [...] In January 2019 Sound View filed lawsuits against several media companies such as AMC Networks, CBS Interactive and The CW Network. And in April 2019, Sound View diversified its industry targets by filing patent lawsuits against Walmart and Delta Airlines. With this latest round, Sound View has now filed 13 patent infringement lawsuits since starting its campaign against Facebook in February 2016.

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Facebook's Privacy Promise Comes 15 Years Too Late - The Atlantic
by Antonio Vetro' May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

What Facebook Could Have Been - A shareable online diary was an obvious idea in the early 2000s. What if a college student’s version hadn’t won out? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/05/facebooks-privacy-pr… av

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Eben Moglen Illuminates Freedom of Thought in Keynote at re:publica 2019
by Giacomo Tesio May 8, 2019

May 8, 2019

Ieri prendevo in giro mia moglie perché si addormenta davanti ai film di Kubrick... "troppo lenti". Credo che il problema sia più... sistemico. Quanto afferma Moglen è vero, ma parziale. "Biased", direi.. ;-) Il nostro cervello si sta adattando ad un ritmo sempre più veloce. Oltre ai dati, oltre all'attenzione e alla libertà, il Capitalismo ci sottrae sempre più il Tempo. https://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2019/may/07/-moglen-at-republica19/ We are building the new neuro-anatomy of the human race. In the process we are destroying the human attention system, changing our idea of what it means to be human. The effect on our capacity for freedom and self-government is devastating, but not so bad for those who want to govern us. People are increasingly aware of the problem, but don’t know what to do. [...] Gram for gram, that smart phone is denser with sensing than the spy satellite in orbit, and it’s all aimed at you…We don’t need a thing in orbit to take a picture of a golf ball on the ground. Everybody has a little camera, and they take a picture… [...] The computers that we use now push us very hard. Tens of thousands of times a day, they show an advertisement and measure a response. [...] It’s very important to recognize that once behavior collection is what the network really does, then what it attempts to maximize is behavior. This lies beneath the increasingly important intellectual discipline known as persuasive design… [...] The stream of what comes to you [on the net] drowns the inner dialogue, removes interiority, changes your understanding of time. ‘Too long didn’t read.’ How long is too long?” [...] …people carrying an infant in a front carrier. The adult is looking here [phone], and the infant is looking at the adult looking at the phone. That’s the birth of a new cultural system in the human race, spreading faster than Christianity or Islam or any other fast-moving cultural innovation in the history of human kind… [...] Here is our problem: the attention span of the human race collectively is shortening. The previous autonomy of internal mind that we gained barely half a thousand years ago, and which we used to make democracy and the right of the individual and the sense of self-development [that] we call freedom is threatened by our own habits as they take hold in this net we do not want with these media that consume us as we consume them. [...] “‘tl;dr’ is the crisis of the human mind in five characters.”

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