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Revealed: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws | Technology | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo March 2, 2019

March 2, 2019

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/02/facebook-global-lobbying…> facebook has targeted politicians around the world – including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne – promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook’s behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed. The documents, which have been seen by the Observer and Computer Weekly, reveal a secretive global lobbying operation targeting hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 states of the EU. The documents include details of how Facebook: • Lobbied politicians across Europe in a strategic operation to head off “overly restrictive” GDPR legislation. They include extraordinary claims that the Irish prime minister said his country could exercise significant influence as president of the EU, promoting Facebook’s interests even though technically it was supposed to remain neutral. Sign up to the Media Briefing: news for the news-makers Read more • Used chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s feminist memoir Lean In to “bond” with female European commissioners it viewed as hostile. • Threatened to withhold investment from countries unless they supported or passed Facebook-friendly laws. [...]

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What the hell is a blockchain phone—and do I need one?
by J.C. DE MARTIN March 2, 2019

March 2, 2019

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613051/what-the-hell-is-a-blockchain-pho… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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ENISA sulla sicurezza dei sistemi ICT elettorali
by Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) - lists March 2, 2019

March 2, 2019

Mentre il Governo, e nello specifico M5S, promuove il voto online per le politiche, l’ENISA ci informa: Election cybersecurity - Challenges and opportunities https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/enisa-position-papers-and-opinions… Molto interessate da approfondire, nella sezione 5 entra nel merito del voto elettronico e voto online, chiaramente identificandoli come rischi abbandonati da tutti i paesi europei (tranne Belgio ed Estonia) e sottolineando come il voto online sia enormemente più rischioso del voto elettronico. "Given that the majority of Member States have either postponed or discontinued the use of electronic voting, the risk associated with the voting process can be considered to be somewhat reduced. Examples of countries that have postponed or discontinued electronic voting include Ireland,15 the Netherlands,16 France,17 Finland18 and Germany.19 In the Netherlands in 2017, the government also decided to return to counting votes by hand instead of the electronic counting due to cybersecurity concerns.20 Examples of countries that make use of electronic voting technology include Estonia21 and Belgium22. Taking into consideration that, as noted above, the roll- out of electronic voting has been either discontinued or postponed in a number of Member States, the cybersecurity risk level in relation to the voting process is considered medium. This cybersecurity risk level is likely to be higher in countries where e-voting systems are being implemented. A distinction should also be made between online and offline e-voting systems, where the former is likely to entail a higher cybersecurity risk level than the latter. " Fabio

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Ian Kerr - Can robots invade your privacy? - 4 Marzo 2019 - 14:30
by Alina Trapova March 1, 2019

March 1, 2019

Cari tutti, vi giro l'invito (sotto) alla Public Lecture che il *Prof Ian Kerr* terrà *lunedì prossimo (04.03.2019) alle 14:30*, a Milano presso l'Università Bocconi (via Sarfatti, 25, *aula 33*) su *“Can robots invade your privacy?”*. Se qualcuno fosse in zona e avesse voglia di partecipare è il benvenuto - é stata un'iniziativa dell'ultimo minuto. Un caro saluto, Alina Trapova *Can Robots Invade Your Privacy?* Machines are getting pretty good at doing things by themselves. They can sense their environments. They can learn from the data that they have gathered or been given. And, they can make accurate predictions or sound decisions about people and things which can be acted upon without human intervention or oversight. As a result, robots and AIs are starting to outperform human experts in an increasing array of narrow tasks, including driving, surgery, and medical diagnostics. This is fueling a growing optimism that robots and AIs will exceed humans more generally and spectacularly; some think, to the point where we will have to consider their moral and legal status. But the law does not currently think about robots in this way. For example, when it comes to spying robots or AI used by law enforcement agencies to conduct mass surveillance, privacy law generally applies only when some human comes to know what the robots know. Judge Posner, for example, has famously opined that robots and AIs cannot invade privacy because they are not sentient beings. Indeed, most judges and many lawyers share the view that since robots and AIs are incapable of human-level cognition, they are of no consequence to our privacy—we don’t need to worry about privacy unless or until there are human eyes on the data. In this keynote address, Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology challenges the traditional view from both a legal and ethical perspective. He argues that when the likes of Siri or Alexa are able to form reliable beliefs about us and are also able to act on those beliefs, the traditional approach of Judge Posner and others leads to the wrong conclusion in law and in ethics.

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Facebook's Most Intriguing New Hires Aren't in Silicon Valley—They're in Washington
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-most-intriguing-new-hires-arent-in-silicon-va… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Intelligenza Artificiale e Comunità del Futuro | 16 marzo MDW
by Marco Zappalorto Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

Cari tutti, Sperando di fare cosa gradita, vi contatto per informarti riguardo un evento realizzato da *Nesta Italia* all'interno della Milano Digital Week: "*Intelligenza Artificiale e Comunità del Futuro*". L'evento vuole indagare le potenzialità sociali dell'intelligenza artificiale e capirne la sua influenza sulle comunità del futuro. L'evento si divide in un momento di arena cittadina al mattino con la presenza di esperti sull'argomento e un workshop al pomeriggio per spiegare il funzionamento di questa nuova tecnologia. L'evento si svolgerà *sabato 16 marzo dalle 09.30 alle 14.30 in viale Sarca 226 Milano*. Vi chiedo cortesemente di registrare il vostro interesse utilizzando il seguente form <https://nestaitalia-dot-yamm-track.appspot.com/Redirect?ukey=1rZG7m_79QLRbg…> . Buona giornata, Marco [image: AIforSocial19-Nesta_SaveTheDate.jpg] -- Marco Zappalorto | Chief Executive Nesta Italia| M: +39 3392087213 | *Intelligenza artificiale. Cosa ne pensate? Fateci sapere le vostre opinioni compilando il nostro survey qui: **https://it.surveymonkey.com/r/AIforthePeople <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://it.surveymonkey.com/r/AIforthePeople&s…>* *Bastano pochissimi minuti!*

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Nadella: Microsoft will sell war tech to democracies to “protect freedoms”
by Giacomo Tesio Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that company's $480 million contract to supply HoloLens technology to the military is a "principled decision" and that the company will not "withhold technology" from democratic governments. [...] The intent is to integrate the HoloLens hardware with thermal-imaging, weapons-targeting, and health-monitoring systems to, among other things, provide "increased lethality" of the soldiers using it. A number of Microsoft employees have signed an open letter saying that the company should cancel the contract, arguing that it crosses a line into weapons development. Some 250 staff are said to have signed the letter. Speaking to CNN Business, Nadella defended the decision to enter the contract, saying, "We made a principled decision that we're not going to withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy," adding, "We were very transparent about that decision and we'll continue to have that dialogue [with employees]." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/nadella-microsoft-will-sell-war-tec…

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A QUIC Look at Web Tracking
by Giacomo Tesio Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

QUIC has been developed by Google to improve the transport performance of HTTPS traffic. It currently accounts for approx. 7% of the global Internet traffic. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of user tracking via QUIC from the perspective of an online service. Our analysis reveals that the protocol design contains violations of privacy best practices through which a tracker can passively and uniquely identify clients across several connections. This tracking mechanisms can achieve reduced delays and bandwidth requirements compared to conventional browser fingerprinting or HTTP cookies. This allows them to be applied in resource- or time-constrained scenarios such as real-time biddings in online advertising. To validate this finding, we investigated browsers which enable QUIC by default, e.g., Google Chrome. Our results suggest that the analyzed browsers do not provide protective measures against tracking via QUIC. https://svs.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/publications/2019/2019-02-26-Sy-PET_S…

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Tomasin: “Testo digitale, tu ci inganni”
by J.C. DE MARTIN Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2019-02-25/testo-digitale-tu-ci-ing… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Paris Call - Software Source Code as Heritage
by Giacomo Tesio Feb. 28, 2019

Feb. 28, 2019

Call on each UNESCO Member State to 13. Recognise software source code as a precious asset of humankind, intersecting with human creativity, development, society and culture; 14. Recognise software source code as a fundamental enabler in all aspects of human endeavour; 15. Recognise software source code as a fundamental research document on a par with scholarly articles and research data; 16. Recognise that the source code of software used for the implementation of laws and regulations defines the experience of the law by citizens; 17. Create an enabling legal, policy and institutional environment where software source code can flourish as an integral part of knowledge societies; 18. Integrate the scientific fundamentals of computing/ informatics within general education for all citizens; 19. Support the development of shared infrastructures to collect, preserve and make available software source code; 20. Establish an open and international research infrastructural framework for the large scale analysis and improvement of the quality, safety and security of the software commons; 21. Ensure necessary exceptions to copyright and limitations on intermediary liability related to software for archival, preservation, accessibility, education and research purposes; 22. Enable effective independent auditing of software source code used to make decisions that may affect fundamental rights of human beings and where possible ensure it is made available under an open source license; 23. Implement, with support from UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, the 2015 Recommendation concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage, including in Digital Form, inviting inter-alia Member States to facilitate access to proprietary codes, keys and unlocked versions of technology on a non profit basis. Call on software developers, memory institutions, the business sector, academia and civil society, within their competency, to: 27. Recognise that software is the result of a significant part of the intellectual efforts of humankind over recent decades, and it is an important part of our cultural and industrial heritage; 28. Support efforts to gather and preserve the artifacts and narratives of the history of computing, while the earlier creators are still alive; 29. Promote software development as a valuable research activity, and research software as a key enabler for Open Science/Open Research, sharing good practices and recognising in the careers of academics their contributions to high quality software development, in all their forms; 30. Recognize the importance of contributions by people of all genders from all over the world to the software commons, supporting a diverse and inclusive environment for all aspects of software development and curation; 31. Educating decision makers on the specificities of software, and software source code in particular, raising awareness about the threats to the software commons and the importance to protect it; 32. Encourage all stakeholders to develop a common system of cataloguing to allow for easy identification and retrieval of software source code, even across the many platforms and infrastructures used to develop and/or distribute it; 33. Support stakeholders in developing a universal archive, as part of a broad effort at digital preservation, that will ensure persistence of and universal access to software source code; 34. Encourage multidisciplinary activity in the field of software preservation, and in particular collaboration with the humanities and social sciences whose contributions are essential to study the history of technology; 35. Adapt processes, workflows and licensing schemas in the software industry to ease the transition of future proprietary software source code into the software commons once it is no longer commercially viable; 36. Foster international collaboration to build a common framework for software preservation and access, and mutualise resources, in order to avoid the dispersion of efforts; 37. Promote the recording of the activity of software developers, captured as documentary heritage either in analogue or digital form, which are suitable for preservation in their own right and ensure that they are linked with the source code. 38. Support all stakeholders in developing the understanding that software source code is intertwined more and more with the fabric of our society, hence the utmost care needs to be used during its development process to manage its potential consequences on society and people

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