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Report: Uber in DC
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

http://lwp.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/Uber-Workplace.pdf Executive Summary The on-demand ride-hailing industry presents challenges for its new workforce . These include: drivers not knowing how much they earn; increased financial risk and debt; and dangers to health and safety . In keeping with the mission of the Kalmanovitz Intiative for Labor and the Working Poor to advance public policy that improves workers’ lives, this report about a two-year investigation of the working conditions of 40 Uber drivers in the Washington, D .C . area reveals that: 1. Uber drivers do not know how much they earn or lose. • 100% of drivers experienced difficulties with, or barriers to, calculating their actual compensation . 2. Data about the Uber workplace is limited. • Regulators and researchers do not have access to basic information about labor conditions . 3. Uber drivers are encouraged to take on financial risk and debt. • 33% of drivers took on debt as a result of their work on the ride-hailing platform . 4. Uber drivers report challenges to their health and safety. • 30% of drivers reported physical assaults or safety concerns . 5. Despite these challenges, the Uber workplace remained attractive. • 50% of drivers would recommend the job to a friend . • 45% of drivers planned to keep working the job for at least six more months . (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Microsoft staff are openly questioning the value of diversity
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

https://qz.com/1598345/microsoft-staff-are-openly-questioning-the-value-of-… Some Microsoft employees are openly questioning whether diversity is important, in a lengthy discussion on an internal online messaging board meant for communicating with CEO Satya Nadella. Two posts on the board criticizing Microsoft diversity initiatives as “discriminatory hiring” and suggesting that women are less suited for engineering roles have elicited more than 800 comments, both affirming and criticizing the viewpoints, multiple Microsoft employees have told Quartz. The posts were written by a female Microsoft program manager. [...] “I have an ever-increasing file of white male Microsoft employees who have faced outright and overt discrimination because they had the misfortune of being born both white and male. This is unacceptable,” the program manager wrote in a comment later. [...] As the controversy around Google’s firing of Damore illustrated, it can be extremely contentious for companies to wade into disciplining employees for their personal views on such issues. They can face intense criticism for retaliating against individual speech because it’s not politically correct—and if the company doesn’t respond, critics can say they’re not supporting an inclusive workplace. The abundance of online forums for employees to express their views is a complicating factor, as is the modern worker’s high level of comfort with sharing their views online. [...] The post racked up nearly 1,000 comments, with many male programmers jumping in to take an opposing view. As in the two posts from January and April, not all comments were anti-diversity: Some Microsoft employees argued back against their colleagues. “Where? How? Proof? Data? If if it is [skewed] let’s fix that. But just saying Microsoft has less female than male engineer [sic] is not a valid point,” a male Microsoft employee responded to a separate employee who defended the original poster.

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French government releases in-house IM app to replace WhatsApp and Telegram use
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

https://www.zdnet.com/article/french-government-releases-in-house-im-app-to… French government open-sources in-house-made end-to-end encryption IM app named Tchap. [...] But despite the French government's plans, the app's launch didn't go as planned. On the same day it was released, French security researcher Baptiste Robert found a security flaw in Tchap that would have allowed anyone to register an account and spy on the French government's internal communications. The researcher found that by adding a government email domain on top of his regular email, like so name@domain.com@french-government-domain.com, he could register on the app, even when not being authorized to do so.

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Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking By Default
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

Q.E.D. Per chi crede ancora che a Mozilla interessi la privacy degli utenti. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-firefox-to-enable-hy… Mozilla has told BleepingComputer that they will be enabling the tracking feature called hyperlink auditing, or Pings, by default in Firefox. There is no timeline for when this feature will be enabled, but it will be done when their implementation is complete. For those not familiar with hyperlink auditing, it is a HTML feature that allows web sites to track link clicks by adding the "ping=" attribute to HTML links. When these links are clicked, in addition to navigating to the linked to page, the browser will also connect to the page listed in the ping= attribute, which can then be used to record the click.

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Fun Fictions in Economics
by Giacomo Tesio April 20, 2019

April 20, 2019

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/fun-fictions-in-economics Economists pride themselves on being the serious social science, the one most deserving of status as an actual science. I will let others make the comparative assessment, but there is an awful lot of nonsense that passes as serious analysis within economics. For cheap fun, I thought I would use a nice spring afternoon to highlight some of my favorites. Myth 1: The Robots Are Taking All the Jobs Myth 2: We Are Threatened by a Declining Population Myth 3: Technology Is Shifting Income Upwards to the More Skilled Myth 4: The Government Debt Will Impoverish Our Kids Myth 5: Economy Threatening Bubbles Are Difficult to Detect Myth 6: CEOs Manipulate Share Prices with Buybacks to Maximize Shareholder Value

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The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

dell’ottobre scorso, mi era sfuggito. jc The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected America’s public schools are still promoting devices with screens — even offering digital-only preschools. The rich are banning screens from class altogether. By Nellie Bowles Oct. 26, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-schools.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Google Offers Europeans Choice to Download Rival Web Browser
by Giacomo Tesio April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

Come sfruttare l'incompetenza per fingere rispettare la norma alla lettera. Speriamo che le persone preposte in UE sappiano cosa sia il WHATWG, come (non) funzionino i Living Standard e come Google rimanga padrone del Web attraverso di essi anche se un paio di persone in più si scaricano un browser diversamente alternativo come Firefox. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-18/google-offers-europeans-… Starting Thursday and following a software update, users in the EU opening Google’s mobile app store will be presented with a choice of alternatives to Google search and Chrome. The Alphabet Inc. unit said options will vary by market, but Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and Norway’s Opera are notable competitors in the European search and browser market respectively. The changes could help Google avoid additional fines after being scrutinized by the EU for almost a decade. The European Commission, the bloc’s antitrust body, last year fined Google 4.3 billion euros ($4.8 billion) for strong-arming device makers into pre-installing its Google search and Chrome browser, giving it a leg up because users are unlikely to look for alternatives if a default is already preloaded. The EU ordered Google to change that behavior and threatened additional fines if it failed to comply.

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Amazon’s empire rests on its low-key approach to AI
by Luigi Scorca April 19, 2019

April 19, 2019

https://amp.economist.com/business/2019/04/13/amazons-empire-rests-on-its-l…

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Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means.
by gianluca quaglia April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019

Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means. The plan is going to be tricky to pull off, both technically and politically, but the Kremlin has set its sights on self-sufficiency. by Charlotte Jee March 21, 2019 MIT Technology review In the next two weeks, Russia is planning to attempt something no other country has tried before. It’s going to test whether it can disconnect from the rest of the world electronically while keeping the internet running for its citizens. This means it will have to reroute all its data internally, rather than relying on servers abroad. The test is key to a proposed “sovereign internet” law currently working its way through Russia’s government. It looks likely to be eventually voted through and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, though it has stalled in parliament for now. [...] continua qui https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613138/russia-wants-to-cut-itself-off-fr…

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Derrière la percée des « gilets jaunes », des réseaux pas si « spontanés » et « apolitiques »
by Alberto Cammozzo April 18, 2019

April 18, 2019

<https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/04/17/derriere-la-percee-…> Il y a cinq mois tout juste, le 17 novembre 2018, des Français manifestent pour la première fois au Mans (Sarthe) contre la hausse des taxes sur les carburants. Parmi eux, certains arborent fièrement la mention « Colère 72 » au dos de leur gilet jaune, comme un emblème. Les initiés savent qu’il s’agit là d’une référence à un groupe Facebook qui réunit des milliers de mécontents du département de la Sarthe. « C’est nous qui avons relayé l’appel du 17 novembre dans la région. On a donné de l’élan au début du mouvement », revendique Jonathan Torres, l’un des administrateurs de cette communauté. Quand le premier appel à manifester du mouvement des « gilets jaunes » a circulé, des membres de « Colère 72 » sont rapidement montés en première ligne. Et il n’y a pas que dans la Sarthe. En retraçant la circulation des coups de gueule à l’origine de la révolte comme la vidéo de Jacline Mouraud contre le supposé matraquage des automobilistes, visionnée plus de 5 millions de fois sur Facebook, nous avons retrouvé la trace de dizaines de groupes similaires : « Colère 04 », « Colère 17 », « Colère 68 »… En tirant le fil, nous avons une nébuleuse de trente-cinq communautés, qui associent le plus souvent le mot « Colère » à un département et totalisaient près de 200 000 membres début avril 2019. Signe que leur création a été coordonnée d’une manière ou d’une autre, la plupart (25 sur 35) sont nées entre le 9 janvier 2018 et le 4 février 2018, selon notre relevé. [...]

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