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European Law Journal, Special Issue da me co- curato, Internet and Human Rights
by oreste.pollicino April 3, 2019

April 3, 2019

Cari saluti, o --- Dai il tuo 5x1000 alla Bocconi. Aiuta gli studenti meritevoli a costruire il proprio futuro. CF 80024610158. www.unibocconi.it/5x1000 Please note that the above message is addressed only to individuals filing Italian income tax returns. 5x1000 is a percentage of Italian personal income tax that taxpayers can allocate to Universities, scientific research and non profit organizations. ---

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The Landlord Wants Facial Recognition in Its Rent-Stabilized Buildings. Why? - The New York Times
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 3, 2019

April 3, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/nyregion/rent-stabilized-buildings-facia… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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The future of computing and why you should care
by Giacomo Tesio April 3, 2019

April 3, 2019

https://puri.sm/posts/the-future-of-computing-and-why-you-should-care/ Let me start by stating: I believe we can change the future of computing for the better. However, currently something is wrong with our digital world; something basic, something is rotten at the core. I want to talk to you about what that is, how it came to be, and why we must change it. [...] # History All corporations, including all Big Tech giants, have a single goal: Maximize Shareholder Value. That’s it. That’s the only goal. But it’s not just a goal. Under eBay v. Newman, a lawsuit setting legal precedent stating: > The law makes it literally malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits. So if given the choice of making $1 by exploiting people online, or opting to treat people ethically, the Corporation must exploit people online for the dollar, or the board of directors and executives could face a lawsuit from any shareholder that claims they did not maximize the value of their shares. The regulations at the foundation of Big Tech are forcing the exploitation of our digital rights. [...] If somebody approached your bedroom window from outside, put a camera up and started recording, you would immediately call the authorities and report the numerous laws broken—a case would be opened, arrests could be made, charges could be pressed, trials could ensue, criminals could go to jail; but in the digital world none of that exists—you are forced to leak far more details than a camera in your bedroom would share, and you are forced to leak that personal data from your phone all the time. Big Tech exploits you every millisecond of every day. [...] AI algorithms from Big Tech have one input variable: $Maximize_Shareholder_Value. That translates directly into - Gather everything on all of the society - Keep people digitally captive - Maximize exposure time - Polarize opinion to elicit more profit [...] Maximizing shareholder value in a society that has nearly no digital rights, guarantees exploitation of that society. Why did we let this happen? How did we let this happen? I know why. Because… It’s convenient to give up control. It is convenient for you to download a proprietary application that exploits you, agree to the legal binding terms of service you didn’t read, and blissfully believe Big Tech is helping you in the digital world. It’s inconvenient to stand up for your freedom. It seems we are offered to choose between convenience and control or inconvenience and freedom. [...] The largest challenge we will face is the marketing budgets of Big Tech, when they claim things like: “We protect your privacy” ~ Big Tech Actually, You exploit personal private data without a persons knowledge “We use encryption” ~ Big Tech Actually, It’s inside proprietary apps that you control “We are secure” ~ Big Tech Actually, You hold the master keys controlling society “You can trust us” ~ Big Tech Actually, You won’t let anybody verify anything [...] # The present Currently, Big Tech is maximizing shareholder value without values. [...] I believe there are five fundamental digital rights: 1. Right to Change Providers If a person wants to change a service provider, they can easily move to another. (Decentralized Services) 2. Right to Protect Personal Data A person owns and controls their own master keys to encrypt all data and communication, nobody else. (User-controlled Encryption) 3. Right to Verify Society has the freedom to inspect the source of all software used, and can run it as they wish, for any purpose. (Software Freedom) 4. Right to be Forgotten A service provider only stores the minimal personal data necessary to provide the service. Once the data is no longer required, it is deleted. (Minimal Data Retention) 5. Right to Access A person must not be discriminated against nor forced to agree to any terms and conditions before accessing a service. (Personal Liberty) If we can do those things, we can change the future of computing for the better. # The future As technology gets closer and closer to our brain, the moral issues of digital rights become clearer and clearer. [...] A question to consider: What Big Tech Company would you purchase your future brain implant from? This is coming. However, I believe we can change the future of computing for the better. Let’s stand together and invest, use, and recommend products and services that respect society. What future will you choose?

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YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Let Toxic Videos Run Rampant - Bloomberg
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 3, 2019

April 3, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-02/youtube-executives-ignor… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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What comes after “open source”
by Giacomo April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

https://words.steveklabnik.com/what-comes-after-open-source Software licences regulate distribution, but cannot regulate production. (technically they can, but practically, they can’t. I get into this below.) This is also the main challenge of whatever comes after open source; they cannot rely on the legal tactics of the last generation. I don’t have solutions here. [...] When developers talk about problems they see in open source, it’s often that there are production problems. Companies don’t “give back” money or developer hours. Programmers today don’t seem to be upset that, if they’ve developed any proprietary extensions to their open source software, that those extensions are not shared back with the community. They care that the production process is impeded by additional pressure, without providing resources. If a company were to add a proprietary feature to an open source project, yet pays five employees to develop the open source part further, the FSF sees this as a tragedy. The commons has not been enriched. The new generation of open source developers sees this as a responsible company that thankfully is contributing to the development of something they use and care about. Software licenses can only restrict what people can do when they distribute the source code, and that’s it. It cannot force someone to have a bug tracker, or a code of conduct, or accept your patch. Copyleft can force an absolute minimal “contribution” back to your project, but it can’t force a good-faith one. This makes it an inadequate tool towards building something with the kinds of values that many developers care about. [...] Earlier, I said that you can’t use licenses to regulate production, and that’s technically not true. For example, say that I own a brand, like McDonalds. I own the intellectual property surrounding that brand. I can licence that intellectual property to others, contingent on them producing hamburgers (and whatever else) in a certain way, according to my specification. This doesn’t really work with the way that open source is set up. The entities are in reverse here; it’s the software developers that want to be able to dictate things, but it’s the project that sets the license terms. [...] I’m still, ultimately, left with more questions than answers. But I do think I’ve properly identified the problem: many developers conceive of software freedom as something larger than purely a license that kinds in on redistribution. This is the new frontier for those who are thinking about furthering the goals of the free software and open source movements. ____ L'articolo è a tratti superficiale e si fonda su assuzioni ed osservazioni discutibili, ma ha l'enorme merito di porre una domanda che viola un tabù: cosa viene dopo l'open source? Per quanto ammiravole sia l'onestà intellettuale in conclusione, l'assenza di risposte deriva dalla scelta delle domande sbagliate. E se ci chiedessimo invece cosa viene dopo il software libero? Come rendiamo concretamente fruibili le libertà promosse dal software libero a tutti gli abitanti di questo pianeta? Quali strumenti legali, culturali e tecnici possono mettere tutti in condizione di scrivere e modificare il proprio software? Giacomo

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VMware Suit Concludes in Germany
by Giacomo April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/ Today, Christoph Hellwig announced the conclusion of his case against VMware in Germany. The Hamburg Higher Regional Court affirmed the lower court's decision, which dismissed the case on purely procedural grounds; they did not address the main question of the case. Hellwig has decided with his legal counsel, Till Jaeger, and after conferring with Conservancy, to not appeal the case further in German courts. “The subject of the complaint I filed was the question of whether the distribution of the software Hypervisor vSphere VMware ESXi 5.5.0 software is copyright infringement because VMware has no permission to create a derivative work from Linux under the GNU General Public License (GPL)” says Hellwig. Both courts declined to consider that essential question. VMware, in their news item about the decision by the Court, announced that they will finally remove vmklinux from vSphere. Both Hellwig and Conservancy had asked VMware to remove the Linux code from VMware's proprietary kernel many times. While the preferred form of GPL compliance is release of the entire work under the terms of the GPL, a common alternative is to merely remove the GPL'd code from the product. VMware chose the latter method to comply. [...]

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Podcast: "A Critic of Cryptocurrencies Says Bitcoin Needs To Be Burnt With Fire"
by J.C. DE MARTIN April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

*A Critic of Cryptocurrencies Says Bitcoin Needs To Be Burnt With Fire* By Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal 25 marzo 2019, 11:55 CET [...] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/a-critic-of-cryptocurren…

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Experimental Security Research of Tesla Autopilot, Tencent Keen Security Lab, 2019-03
by Alberto Cammozzo April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

<https://keenlab.tencent.com/en/whitepapers/Experimental_Security_Research_o… Fake lane attack [...] could the car regard some inconspicuous markings we made on the ground as a normal lane? Misleading the autopilot vehicle to the wrong direction with some patches made by a malicious attacker, in sometimes, is more dangerous than making it fail to recognize the lane. We paint three inconspicuous tiny square in the picture took from camera, and the vision module would recognize it as a lane with a high degree of confidence as below shows [...]

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"L'intelligenza artificiale? Non è vera intelligenza"
by Marco Ciurcina April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

Il filosofo americano: "I computer non hanno una mente perché non hanno una coscienza" Il mistero della realtà (Raffaello Cortina Editore, pagg. 300, euro 26) raccoglie dieci lezioni tenute da John Searle all'Università di Girona, nel 2015. In ciascuna di esse, il filosofo americano, allievo di Austin e «nipote» (intellettualmente parlando) di Frege, si occupa delle questioni ancora aperte per la filosofia del XXI secolo. Lo fa dal suo versante, quello della filosofia della mente e del linguaggio (che ha insegnato all'Università di Berkeley, dove oggi, a 86 anni, è professore emerito); quello della filosofia analitica, di cui è uno degli esponenti più celebri, grazie alla sua teoria degli «atti linguistici». E, in particolare, Searle affronta quella che per lui è «la vera domanda» per la filosofia oggi, ovvero: «Come è possibile conciliare ciò che pensiamo della realtà umana con la realtà più elementare descritta dalle scienze dure?». ... [continua qui] http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cultura/lintelligenza-artificiale-non-vera-in… Leggendo l'intervista parrebbe un libro interessante. Qualcuno l'ha letto? m.c.

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CfP Workshop on Engineering Accountable Information Systems Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden, June 10-11, 2019
by Ben Wagner April 2, 2019

April 2, 2019

Dear all, we currently have a call for papers on Accountable Systems for a workshop at ECIS 2019 that might be interesting for many people on this list: https://easychair.org/cfp/ECIS2019-EAIS <https://easychair.org/cfp/ECIS2019-EAIS> Deadline for submissions is 15 March 2019. If you have any questions about it please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Best, Ben -- Dr. Ben Wagner Assistant Professor Institute for Information Systems and Society Vienna University of Economics and Business Director, Privacy & Sustainable Computing Lab Email: ben.wagner(a)wu.ac.at <mailto:ben.wagner@wu.ac.at> | Tel: +43-1-31336-6061 Web: https://www.privacylab.at/ <https://www.privacylab.at/> | Twitter: @benwagne_r ECIS 2019 Workshop: Engineering Accountable Information Systems The function of information systems in society is increasingly in focus of information systems research. One outstanding challenge is how to build information systems which promote accountability, as part of a wider debate on fairness, accountability, and transparency principles (e.g., ACM FAT*). This need for accountability must be reflected on all layers of systems engineering, ranging from process analysis to concrete technical components and primitives employed during implementation. Based on our existing research we believe that three specific areas of information systems research are most relevant in this context: user cognition and human behaviour in relation to the design of interfaces; automated decision-making systems and decision-support systems; critical business processes with a particular need for accountability. In all these and further areas, accountability in complex information systems needs to be addressed through technical mechanisms. Existing high-level considerations on accountability in information systems notwithstanding, however, the concrete engineering and implementation of such mechanisms has so far received only limited attention. Similarly, the challenges arising during such transformations of abstract accountability concepts into concrete technologies as well as the critical evaluation of respective implementations are only rarely covered by existing research. We see this workshop as an opportunity to close these gaps through engaging with the existing debate on accountability while integrating key knowledge from the information systems community. Importantly, our approach to accountable systems is not just focused on high level norms of system development, but indispensably also incorporates practical questions of engineering and designing actual systems. We therefore encourage submissions from the above-mentioned and other areas of accountability engineering as long as they sufficiently incorporate questions of concrete systems engineering and implementation. Submission Guidelines Authors should follow the ECIS 2019 guidelines for research in progress papers, with papers between 4 and 7 pages in length. A poster is not required. Full details are available here: http://ecis2019.eu/information-to-authors <http://ecis2019.eu/information-to-authors> Submissions must be made through the EasyChair system via the following link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecis2019eais <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ecis2019eais> For questions about the workshop, submissions or review process, contact the chairs via ecis2019eais[at]easychair[dot]org Relevant Dates • Submissions due by March 15 2019 • Replies by April 15 2019 • Final Papers due June 1 2010 • Workshop will be held on June 10 and 11, at Stockholm University’s Kista campus. Organizing & Program Committee Chairs • Ben Wagner, WU Vienna • Frank Pallas, TU Berlin • Florian Cech, TU Vienna • Ancsa Hannak, CSH Vienna Program Committee • Soheil Human, WU Vienna • Till Winkler, WU Vienna • Niels ten Oever, University of Amsterdam • Jörg Pohle, HIIG Berlin • Claudia Müller-Birn, FU Berlin • Juhi Kulshreshta, GESIS, Leibniz • Eliška Pírková, University of Helsinki • Juan Quintero, FAU Erlangen Nürnberg • Eva Zangerle, University of Innsbruck • Abhijnan Chakraborty, MPI Saarbrucken • Piotr Sapiezynski, Northeastern University • Jat Singh, University of Cambridge • Martina Zitterbart, KIT Karlsruhe • Giovanni Sartor, EUI Florence • Abbas Masnavi, CalTech • Golnaz Bidabadi, San Jose State University • Melanie Herschel, IPVS, University of Stuttgart Publication Accepted papers will be published as part of an open-access online collection with CEUR Workshop Proceedings http://ceur-ws.org/ <http://ceur-ws.org/> and an overview of the workshop findings will be published with CAIS (Communications of the Association for Information Systems). Venue The conference will be held in Stockholm University’s Kista campus on June 10 and 11. -- Dr. Ben Wagner Assistant Professor Institute for Information Systems and Society Vienna University of Economics and Business Director, Privacy & Sustainable Computing Lab Email: ben.wagner(a)wu.ac.at | Tel: +43-1-31336-6061 Web: https://www.privacylab.at/ | Twitter: @benwagne_r

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