- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
by Giuseppe Attardi April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 11:42, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > L'uomo non è più al vertice di tale catena alimentare, ma alla base. Abbiamo messo sopra l’uomo i mercati. Sono i loro appetiti che dobbiamo sfamare. > > Ci va bene così? Certo che no. —

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The Web is missing an essential part of infrastructure: an Open Web Index
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.03846.pdf From the users’ point of view, search engines are reliable and trustworthy sources, providing fair and unbiased results. However, it has been found that search results simply should not be considered “neutral”. Some scholars argue that an unbiased search engine is simply not possible, as there is no ideal result set against which a bias can be measured [5,6]. Therefore, I argue that every search engine presents its own algorithmically generated view of the web’s content. Every such view can be different, and none of them are the definitive or correct one. Problems that may arise from search engines’ interpreting the world in certain ways are, amongst others, reinforcing stereotypes, e.g., towards women [7]; influencing public opinion in the context of political elections (e.g., [2]), and preferring dramatic interpretations of rather harmless health-related symptoms [13]. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to have only one (or a few) dominant search engines imposing their view on the Web's content, which is, on closer inspection, really only one of many possible views. Therefore, I argue for building an index of the Web that will form the basis for a multitude of search engines and other services that are based on Web data.

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SuperTuxKart 1.0 Release
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

Basta un video gioco per far Politica? http://blog.supertuxkart.net/2019/04/supertuxkart-10-release.html You can play with your friends online, and it doesn't have to be split screen anymore - your gaming partners can be in a different city, country, or even continent - you can still meet for a race or two. Cross-continent may not work the best; you should try to have a reasonable ping - 100ms works fine, and we had some races with 300ms ping, though unavoidable sudden stuttering and karts jumping around is more frequent at higher latencies. Even more important than the ping (unless it's abnormally high) is that there isn't packet loss or packet slowdowns (jitter), so a stable connection is required, especially for the server hosts. The bandwidth use is minimal even for hosting 10 players, so as long as you don't use a metered connection it should be fine for anyone with 150 kilobytes (~1.2 megabit) per second upload speed to spare. If that's still too much, less bandwidth is used with fewer players.

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Bad bots now make up 20 percent of web traffic
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.zdnet.com/article/bad-bots-focus-on-financial-targets-make-up-2… So-called "bad bots" can be tasked with performing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, they can scrape and steal data, they may be used to automatically publish fake content or reviews, and also skew advertising and visitor metrics. Bots, in general, are estimated to make up roughly 37.9 percent of all Internet traffic. In 2018, one in five website requests -- 20.4 percent -- of traffic was generated by bad bots alone. According to Distil Networks' latest bot report, "Bad Bot Report 2019: The Bot Arms Race Continues," the financial sector is the main target for such activity, followed by ticketing, the education sector, government websites, and gambling. [...] A total of 73.6 percent of bad bots are classified as Advanced Persistent Bots (APBs), which are able to cycle through random IP addresses, switch their digital identities, and mimic human behavior. An example of this is mouse mimicry, in which the bot is able to simulate mouse events a genuine visitor may perform on a website domain. These tactics are used to try and appear as a legitimate user for the purposes of ad fraud, as well as brute-force attacks against online accounts, competitive data mining, transaction fraud, spam, and phishing campaigns. Amazon is the leading ISP for bad bot traffic origins. In total, 18 percent of bad bot traffic came from the firm's services, a jump from 10.62 percent in 2017. [...] The United States outstrips all other countries as a generator of bad bots. In total, 53.4 percent of bad bot traffic came from the US, followed by the Netherlands and China.

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Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion. - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Parola per parola, il formidabile discorso della giornalista che ha inchiodato Facebook
by Giacomo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

https://www.agi.it/estero/perche_facebook_minaccia_la_democrazia-5367741/ne… Questo è accaduto perché nel Regno Unito noi abbiamo un limite ai soldi che puoi spendere in campagna elettorale. Esiste perché nel diciannovesimo secolo le persone andavano in giro con letteralmente carriole cariche di soldi per comprarsi i voti. Per questo venne votata una legge che lo vieta e mette dei limiti. Ma questa legge non funziona più. La campagna elettorale del referendum infatti si è svolto soprattutto online. E tu puoi spendere qualunque cifra su Facebook, Google o YouTube e nessuno lo saprà mai, perché queste aziende sono scatole nere. [...] Non ho bisogno di dirvi che odio e paura sono stati seminati in rete in tutto il mondo. Non solo nel Regno Unito e in America, ma in Francia, Ungheria, Brasile, Myanmar e Nuova Zelanda. E sappiamo che c’è come una forza oscura che ci collega tutti globalmente. E che viaggia sulle piattaforme tecnologiche. Ma di tutto questo noi vediamo solo una piccola parte superficiale. [...] La nostra democrazia è in crisi, le nostre leggi non funzionano più, e non sono io a dirlo, è un report del nostro parlamento ad affermarlo. Questa tecnologia che avete inventato è meravigliosa. Ma ora è diventata la scena di un delitto. E voi ne avete le prove. E non basta ripetere che in futuro farete di più per proteggerci. Perché per avere una ragionevole speranza che non accada di nuovo, dobbiamo sapere la verità. _____ Nemmeno la verità basterebbe. Per avere una ragionevole speranza che non accada di nuovo bisogna smontare l'infrastruttura che permette queste manipolazioni. Giacomo

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Make ReCaptcha's "I'm not a robot" accurate - strugee.net
by Alberto Cammozzo April 21, 2019

April 21, 2019

<https://strugee.net/blog/2019/04/make-recaptchas-im-not-a-robot-accurate> [...] I threw together a browser extension in like 30 minutes that changes "I'm not a robot" to "I want to do unpaid image classification". [...] today I've uploaded the latest version of this extension to both addons.mozilla.org and the Chrome Web Store. So at least if you're getting screwed by Google, you'll be able to make them be honest about how they're screwing you. Here's a screenshot: Screenshot of a test page with Google ReCaptcha on it; "I'm not a robot" has been replaced with "I would like to do unpaid image classification" [...]

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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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