- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Ai al servizio dell'uomo
by don Luca Peyron Jan. 25, 2019

Jan. 25, 2019

Buongiorno a voi tutti, Un contributo dalle nostre "bande" Affiancare etica e tecnologia per un’intelligenza artificiale che ponga sempre al centro l’uomo e sia al servizio di un autentico sviluppo. Ma servono nuovi criteri, categorie e linguaggi. E occorre sviluppare un’etica degli algoritmi. Intervista a tutto campo con Paolo Benanti, docente di etica delle tecnologie e membro del Gruppo di esperti del Mise https://agensir.it/italia/2019/01/24/intelligenza-artificiale-paolo-benanti…

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Come intercettare un Continente
by Matteo G.P. Flora Jan. 25, 2019

Jan. 25, 2019

Ciao! Come forse molti di voi sanno da qualche anno (3) tengo una video rubrica giornaliera online parlando di come "La rete ci cambia". Ho accumulato nel tempo qualche milione di minuti di ascolti (annulla, ovviamente) ed un piccolo pubblico molto affezionato. Da qualche mese tengo anche appuntamenti "a due" in cui ospito amici e personalità di spicco ed in cui per una mezz'oretta parliamo a microfono aperto di un tema caro ad entrambi. Si tratta di video molto "easy" e aperti, su temi spesso di interesse per una nicchia di persone. Questa settimana la chiacchierata ha incluso l'amico Andrea "Pila" Ghirardini, uno dei massimi esperti a livello europeo di "Lawful Interception" e l'argomento è "Come Intercettare un Continente". Se vi interessa il tema potrebbero essere 40 minuti piacevoli da ascoltare. Qui su YouTube: https://youtu.be/sqvv0lhww84 Qui su Facebook: https://business.facebook.com/MatteoFloraOfficial/videos/918063225053840 Qui le altre puntate di MIC: http://mgpf.it/mic Come al solito ogni commento è bene accetto e se qualcuno di voi pensa di avere qualcosa da raccontare di "nerd" e adatto ad un piccolo pubblico (meno di 100.000 persone) molto interessato al mondo IT, scrivetemi ed organizziamo una chiacchierata! Un caro saluto. M. [image: photo] *Matteo G.P. Flora* Founder and CEO, TF Group srl +39.347.9676430 | mf(a)thefool.it http://thefool.it Via Vitruvio, 1, Milano (MI), Italy <http://us.linkedin.com/in/matteoflora> <http://facebook.com/lastknight> <http://youtube.com/user/mgpfvideo> <http://twitter.com/lastknight> L'ultimo Video: #MIC - Andrea Ghirardini ci racconta come Intercettare un Continente <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXpfqfnMmZE> <http://mgpf.it/digitalupdate>

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Why free software evangelist Richard Stallman is haunted by Stalin’s dream
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 25, 2019

Jan. 25, 2019

> If you are carrying a mobile phone, it is always tracking your movements > and it could have been modified to listen to the conversations around you. > I call this product Stalin’s dream. What would Stalin have wanted to hand > out to every inhabitant of the former Soviet Union? Something to track > that person’s movements and listen to the person’s conservations. > > Fortunately, Stalin could not do it because the technology didn’t exist. > Unfortunately for us, now it does exist and most people have been > pressured or lured into carrying around such a Stalin’s dream device, > but not me. I am suspicious of new digital technology. I expect it to have > new malicious functionalities. It has happened so many times that I have > learned to expect this, so I have always checked before I start using some > new digital technology. I asked to find out what is nasty about it and I found > out these two things. It was something like 20 years ago, and I decided it > was my duty as a citizen to refuse, regardless of whatever convenience it > might offer me. To surrender my freedom in this way was failing to defend > a free society. This is why I do not have a portable phone. I refuse to carry > a portable phone. I never have one and unless things change, I never will. > I do use portable phones, lots of different ones. If I needed to call someone > right now, I would ask one of you, “Could you please make a call for me?” > If I am on a bus and it is late and I need to tell somebody that I am going > to arrive late, there is always some other passenger in the bus who will > make a call for me or send a text for me. Practically speaking, it is not > that hard. https://factordaily.com/richard-stallman-india/

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Twitter embraces Google Cloud
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 24, 2019

Jan. 24, 2019

> Twitter migrates data to Google Cloud to keep the world tweeting > > Twitter is in the business of helping people share information > and find out what’s happening around the world. And with > people tweeting more and more every day, the data > produced by these tweets starts to add up. > > Twitter knew this meant they needed more storage and more > compute power. To keep processing massive amounts of > data 24/7, the social media platform was expecting to > transfer over 300 petabytes of data storage to the cloud. > > To determine if a migration of this scale would even be > possible, Twitter had a rigorous cloud evaluation process. > After months of in-depth analysis, Twitter engineers found > Google Cloud to be the best fit for Twitter’s needs because > it provided flexibility in storage and compute scaling in both > dimensions independently while also providing access to > a high-speed network. > > "Once you actually aggregate up the network differences and > the savings from having more flexible resources, then the > difference [with Google Cloud] was dramatic." https://cloud.google.com/twitter/ In altri termini: "è inutile che cercate di regolamentare il trasferimento di dati personali fra le aziende, troveremo sempre il modo di (e la scusa per) condividere ciò che vogliamo condividere". Mi sorprende che non abbiano tirato fuori l'impatto energetico e il riscaldamento globale... Delenda carthago^W^W Server in ogni casa, per ogni famiglia. E' l'unica soluzione. Geopolitica, tecnologica e culturale. Giacomo

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Ethical design is not superficial
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 24, 2019

Jan. 24, 2019

> We should embrace being uncomfortable. > We live in a political and social hellscape. > The majority of us have no job security, we can’t afford > houses and we can’t afford to have families. Many of us > can’t even afford healthcare. None of this is comfortable, > so we may as well do something to change that for our > futures, and for future generations. > > There’s no point wasting time pretending to be ethical > when we could spend that time learning to have a real > impact. If you aren’t able to do that with your current > employer, find another, ethical employer. https://laurakalbag.com/ethical-design-is-not-superficial/

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Italian lawmaker requests details of new police facial recognition system | BiometricUpdate
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

E ancora nessuno parla di SARI real-time... <https://www.biometricupdate.com/201901/italian-lawmaker-requests-details-of…> An Italian legislator is requesting more information about the facial recognition system recently introduced for use by Italian police, which draws on a database of 16 million mugshots, or roughly one in three Italian adults, ZDNet reports. Five Star Movement MP Federico D’Inca has filed a question in parliament requesting details about SARI (Automated System for Image Recognition), which was officially launched after an eight-month trial in July of last year. Former MP Stefano Quintarelli questioned the system’s mandate on social media, but police and the Italian Data Protection Authority have said SARI simply extends the utility of its AFIS system from fingerprints to facial biometrics. “If before we could describe the physical appearance of a subject, identified by a picture, only by manually entering the written information into our database, now we can enter the picture itself into the system,” forensics department official Fabiola Mancone told ANSA, Italy’s national press agency, according to ZDNet. Of the 16 million people in the database, 7 million have been stopped repeatedly by police, while the other 9 million have had their picture taken once by police. D’Inca is requesting details about how images are selected, how long they are stored for, who has access to them, and whether the database has gone through penetration testing. He also asks about the two versions of SARI, the currently deployed system for comparing images, and the yet-to-launch real-time facial recognition analysis of public camera feeds to detect people on a watchlist. “We are not against the SARI itself, which could prove useful. However, these technologies could in theory undermine the privacy and freedom of citizens in ways previously unheard of. It is therefore necessary to carefully monitor their deployment,” D’Inca tells ZDNet. Law enforcement officials’ responses have not yet been delivered in parliament. Biometric data retention policies are increasingly under scrutiny, as more facial recognition systems are deployed for law enforcement applications.

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Face recognition: Are Italy's police using millions more mugshots than is legal?
by Alberto Cammozzo Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

<https://www.zdnet.com/article/face-recognition-are-italys-police-using-mill…> Italy's police have been using a new facial-recognition system for the past few months. It's based on a database of 16 million mugshots, nine million of which belong to people who have been identified by the police only once, while the other seven million are of individuals who have been stopped repeatedly. Officially introduced in July last year following an eight-month testing phase, SARI (Automated System for Image Recognition) has already helped in the arrests of shoplifters <http://www.arezzonotizie.it/cronaca/riconoscimento-visivo-dalle-telecamere-…> and burglars <http://www.veronasera.it/cronaca/svaligiano-casa-anziana-ladri-riconoscimen…> across the country. But it's also raised doubts and questions about its legality. The first question mark surfaced over the number of people included in the database. As former MP and well-known technology expert Stefano Quintarelli noted <https://twitter.com/quinta/status/1038132627402838016> on Twitter, a record set of 16 million faces in a population of roughly 50 million adults would correspond to roughly one in three Italians, excluding teenagers, being put on record. "When did we decide such a listing?" Quintarelli asked rhetorically. In an official statement, the State police described <http://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/135b92536bb3957899899171> the new system as a more advanced interface of AFIS, the automated fingerprint identification system that's been in use for many years and which contains not only the fingerprints but also mugshots of suspects. "If before we could describe the physical appearance of a subject, identified by a picture, only by manually entering the written information into our database, now we can enter the picture itself into the system," forensics department official Fabiola Mancone told <https://quifinanza.it/innovazione/video/polizia-sari-riconoscimento-volti/2…> national press agency ANSA. In other words, the new system is simply far more effective and less time-consuming than the previous one, but not really a change of paradigm or a threat to the privacy of citizens. That was also the thinking of the Italian Data Protection Authority, which in July last year issued <https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/guest/home/docweb/-/docweb-display/docweb…> an opinion that found SARI to be perfectly compliant with the law. Still, neither this statement, nor the material released by the police seemed capable of fully explaining the origin of the 16 million-picture database used by the police, because the AFIS fingerprint system alone does not seem to justify that number. In the ensuing debate, Five Stars MP Federico D'Inca filed a parliamentary question <http://aic.camera.it/aic/scheda.html?numero=4-01149&ramo=C&leg=18>, asking for more details on SARI. His question focused mainly on asking for more information about how the pictures had been selected, how long they will be stored, who can access them, and whether penetration tests aimed at ensuring the security of the database had been performed. In another part of the question document, D'Inca relates to the SARI system being available in two versions. The first version is the one currently deployed, based on an existing dataset of images; the second, still to be implemented, will instead analyze the live camera feeds of people attending public events to compare them to a watchlist of persons of interest for the law-enforcement agency. The process is similar to that trialed <https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-live-facial-recognition-system-is-being-…> in the UK by the Metropolitan Police in central London in December. Tommaso Scannicchio, lawyer and fellow of the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights, stressed <https://medium.com/@ORARiccardo/anche-litalia-si-%C3%A8-munita-di-un-sistem…> how, by making participants at public events feel under surveillance, this real-time system could engender a 'chilling' effect <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect>, described by Wikipedia as "the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction". Considering the breath-taking speed at which new technologies are implemented, the time to assess the pros and cons of the system before its use becomes widespread might be limited. "We are not against the SARI itself, which could prove useful. However, these technologies could in theory undermine the privacy and freedom of citizens in ways previously unheard of. It is therefore necessary to carefully monitor their deployment," D'Inca tells ZDNet. At the time of writing, his parliamentary question has still to be answered.

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Google proposes changes to Chromium which would disable uBlock Origin
by Giacomo Tesio Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

> If this (quite limited) declarativeNetRequest API ends up being > the only way content blockers can accomplish their duty, this > essentially means that two content blockers I have maintained > for years, uBlock Origin ("uBO") and uMatrix, can no longer exist. > > Beside causing uBO and uMatrix to no longer be able to exist, > it's really concerning that the proposed declarativeNetRequest > API will make it impossible to come up with new and novel > filtering engine designs, as the declarativeNetRequest API is > no more than the implementation of one specific filtering > engine, and a rather limited one (the 30,000 limit is not > sufficient to enforce the famous EasyList alone). https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=896897&desc=2#c23 Giacomo

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Facebook pumps $7.5m into an independent AI ethics centre (c/o Uni Munich)
by gabriele elia Jan. 23, 2019

Jan. 23, 2019

quante università italiane hanno 7.5 Mni€ di budget per AI? e quante da una solo convenzione? https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent… [https://i2.wp.com/www.artificialintelligence-news.com/wp-content/uploads/20…]<https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent…> Facebook pumps $7.5m into an independent AI ethics centre<https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/01/21/facebook-independent…> An independent AI ethics research centre is set to receive $7.5 million of funding courtesy of the folks at Facebook. The new research centre is called the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and was created in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). www.artificialintelligence-news.com An independent AI ethics research centre is set to receive $7.5 million of funding courtesy of the folks at Facebook. The new research centre is called the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence and was created in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Facebook, like many companies, is fighting outside concerns about the development of AI and its potential societal impact. The centre should help to ensure Facebook keeps up with ethical best practices. Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, Director of Applied Machine Learning at Facebook, wrote in a blog post: “At Facebook, ensuring the responsible and thoughtful use of AI is foundational to everything we do — from the data labels we use, to the individual algorithms we build, to the systems they are a part of. We’re developing new tools like Fairness Flow, which can help generate metrics for evaluating whether there are unintended biases in certain models. We also work with groups like the Partnership for AI, of which Facebook is a founding member, and the AI4People initiative. However, AI poses complex problems which industry alone cannot answer, and the independent academic contributions of the Institute will play a crucial role in furthering ethical research on these topics.” Independent, evidence-based research will be conducted by the institute to provide insight and guidance for society, industry, legislators, and decision-makers across the private and public sectors. Furthermore, the institute wants to specifically address the concerns surrounding AI such as safety, privacy, fairness, and transparency.

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Itasec 2019 a Pisa dal 12 al 15 febbraio
by Arturo Di Corinto Jan. 22, 2019

Jan. 22, 2019

Cari nexiani, forse alcuni di voi lo sanno, visto che Torino è un nodo del Laboratorio Nazionale di cybersecurity, ma vorrei ricordare a quelli che pensano di venire a Itasec19, la terza conferenza nazionale organizzata dal laboratorio che il giorno 27 termina la possibilità di iscriversi con uno sconto sostanziale alla conferenza. Per questo vi giro la lettera del presidente del CINI e direttore del Laboratorio, prof. Paolo Prinetto. un salutone --------------------------------> Sono ancora aperte le Early Registration a ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> fino al 27 gennaio p.v.. ITA*SEC*, la prima Conferenza Italiana sulla Cybersecurity, è un evento annuale organizzato dal Laboratorio Nazionale di Cybersecurity del CINI. L’edizione 2019 si terrà a Pisa, presso la sede del CNR, dal 12 al 15 febbraio 2019. ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> inizierà martedì 12 febbraio con un’intera giornata dedicata a Workshop Scientifici e Tutorial: i primi approfondiranno aspetti legati alla ricerca, mentre i secondi illustreranno temi di interesse generale. ITA*SEC*19 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> proseguirà poi da mercoledì 13 a venerdì 15 con la Conferenza organizzata in tre Spazi principali: lo *Spazio Stakeholder*, lo *Spazio Scientifico/Tecnico* e lo *Spazio Espositivo*. La partecipazione allo Spazio Stakeholder e allo Spazio Espositivo è gratuita. L’accesso al Workshop e Tutorial Day e a tutte le altre sessioni della Conferenza prevede invece una quota di registrazione. E’ obbligatorio per tutti registrarsi tramite il sito ufficiale www.itasec.it <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> al seguente link: https://consorzio-cini.formstack.com/forms/registration_to_ita_sec_2019 <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> . Sul sito sono riportati anche il programma completo e i dettagli sui vari aspetti logistici. Può seguirci su Twitter.@cybersecnatlab. <https://consorzio-cini.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=30db5cf0f27d2310f…> Con l'auspicio di poterla incontrare in occasione della Conferenza, colgo l’occasione per porgerle i più cordiali saluti. Prof. Paolo Prinetto Direttore del Laboratorio Nazionale di Cybersecurity - CINI -- Arturo Di Corinto www.dicorinto.it ---------------------------------> AVVERTENZE AI SENSI DEL D.Lgs. 196/2003 Le informazioni contenute in questo messaggio di posta elettronica e/o nel/i file/s allegato/i sono da considerarsi strettamente riservate. Il loro utilizzo è consentito esclusivamente al destinatario del messaggio, per le finalità indicate nel messaggio stesso. Qualora riceviate questo messaggio senza esserne il destinatario, Vi preghiamo cortesemente di darcene notizia via e-mail e di procedere alla distruzione del messaggio stesso, cancellandolo dal Vostro sistema. Conservare il messaggio stesso, divulgarlo anche in parte, distribuirlo ad altri soggetti, copiarlo, od utilizzarlo per finalità diverse, costituisce comportamento contrario ai principi dettati dal D.Lgs. 196/2003

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