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The Yoda of Silicon Valley
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 18, 2018

Dec. 18, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/science/donald-knuth-computers-algorithm… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Studi su political propaganda tramite Facebook e Google
by Stefano Leucci Dec. 18, 2018

Dec. 18, 2018

Studi commissionati da Senato degli Stati Uniti sulla polarizzazione dei voti per mano russa durante le elezioni del 2016. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/533-read-report-internet-research-a… https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/534-oxford-russia-internet-research…

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Ex Edge developer blames Google tricks in part for move to Chromium
by Giacomo Dec. 17, 2018

Dec. 17, 2018

Al di là dell'ironia cosmica, Microsoft messa all'angolo da Google (che già controlla nei fatti Mozilla) non è una buona notizia, per nessuno. For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least ‘special’ access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else’s?” This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn’t keep up. For example, they recently added a hidden empty div over YouTube videos that causes our hardware acceleration fast-path to bail (should now be fixed in Win10 Oct update). Prior to that, our fairly state-of-the-art video acceleration put us well ahead of Chrome on video playback time on battery, but almost the instant they broke things on YouTube, they started advertising Chrome’s dominance over Edge on video-watching battery life. What makes it so sad, is that their claimed dominance was not due to ingenious optimization work by Chrome, but due to a failure of YouTube. On the whole, they only made the web slower. https://www.onmsft.com/news/ex-edge-developer-blames-google-tricks-in-part-… Giacomo

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Fabio Chiusi su articlo di Fred Turner "Machine Politics"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 17, 2018

Dec. 17, 2018

Inoltro con autorizzazione di Fabio (di cui condivido la stima e l'ammirazione per Fred Turner dai tempi di "From Counterculture to Cyberculture"). juan carlos https://harpers.org/archive/2019/01/machine-politics-facebook-political-pol… *Fabio Chiusi: *Un pezzo straordinario, che traccia le radici ideologiche del dibattito su Internet e democrazia, e mostra - tramite Norbert Wiener, Stewart Brand e i "New Communalists" - quanto profonde siano le ragioni dell'egemonia culturale delle destre che è oggi sotto gli occhi di tutti, in tutto il globo. Qualche messaggio di fondo, per agevolare spunti di riflessione: - l'utopia di sostituire la politica con la tecnologia è in realtà una distopia - c'è un filo rosso che lega la cibernetica a Zuckerberg, ed è l'idea che basti dare voce a chi non ce l'ha, "connettere il mondo", per distruggere la possibilità stessa di esiti autoritari (di nuovo, una pericolosa menzogna ideologica) - la nuova destra, l'alt-right, è il movimento che meglio di ogni altro ha fatto sue le modalità di rivendicazione delle istanze dei movimenti controculturali degli anni 60 (mentre la sinistra, che dovrebbe coglierne i frutti, oggi è disarmata) - (questo lo aggiungo io in questi termini, dopo aver letto lo splendido "Contro la tua realtà" di Angela Nagle) Gramsci aveva ragione: è cambiando la cultura, una sottocultura alla volta, che si cambia la politica; e di nuovo, è la destra ad averlo capito e messo in pratica al meglio nell'ecosistema attuale dell'informazione. Messaggio finale? È tempo di smetterla di pensare che salvare la democrazia sia una questione di tecnologie, e ripensare a come salvaguardare e rinnovare le nostre istituzioni: "Speaking our truths has always been necessary, but it will never be sufficient to sustain our democracy. It’s time to let go of the fantasy that engineers can do our politics for us, and that all we need to do to change the world is to voice our desires in the public forums they build. For much of the twentieth century, Americans on both the left and right believed that the organs of the state were the enemy and that bureaucracy was totalitarian by definition. Our challenge now is to reinvigorate the institutions they rejected and do the long, hard work of turning the truths of our experience into legislation." Ma leggete Fred Turner, a mio parere - e non solo - uno dei migliori storici di Silicon Valley in circolazione.

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Slide e video Open Access Week @Polito. -- Torino, 2018-10-22/24
by Rossana Morriello Dec. 17, 2018

Dec. 17, 2018

Buongiorno, sono disponibili online allindirizzo seguente le slide e alcuni video degli incontri tenuti al Politecnico di Torino in occasione della Open Access Week lo scorso ottobre http://www.biblio.polito.it/eventi_culturali/2018/oa_week_polito18 Sul magazine online del Politecnico PoliFlash è stato pubblicato anche un breve articolo di contesto https://tinyurl.com/y86nvou7 Un saluto cordiale Rossana Morriello ----------------- Rossana Morriello Politecnico di Torino QVAL - Servizio Qualità e Valutazione Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino Tel. +39 011 0906009 Email <mailto:rossana.morriello@polito.it> rossana.morriello(a)polito.it Descrizione: Descrizione: firmaDescrizione: Descrizione: menu_button_banner1 -----------------

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dubbio filosofico (ma pratico) Analisi di piattaforme: segretezza o free software?
by Claudio Agosti Dec. 17, 2018

Dec. 17, 2018

Vagamente inspirato dall'email di Giacomo Tesio, che diceva "*L'etica hacker che il software libero esprime si fonda sul valore della Curiosità, da cui derivano strumentalmente gli altri valori: Libertà, Condivisione, Onestà Intellettuale etc... sono funzionali a massimizzare la conoscenza tecnologica disponibile, verificandone la correttezza sperimentalmente, applicandola attraverso la creazione del software.*", Voglio portvi un quesito non teorico che devo affrontare in questi giorni... Scenario: https://twitter.com/WolfieChristl/status/1071473931784212480 Io lavoro in un progetto che vuole analizzare i dati di facebook; facebook ostacola attiviamente la sua analisi* Io mi sveglio alla mattina, vado a vedere i grafici, e se un parser dei miei è rotto, devo aggiornarlo. e questo task diventa la priorità su qualunque altra cosa. Non mi trovo in una posizione agevole. In questa situazione, pubblicare le logiche che usi, è un modo per rendere il lavoro di facebook più semplice. I poteri in gioco non sono per nulla comparabili. Fb ha dei team dedicati all'antiscraping; La soluzione dovrebbe essere una community solida, la quantità di creatività che potremmo metterci supererebbe quella della compagnia che investe. Ma al momento non siamo in questa condizione, e con che coraggio, quel componente, lo tengo free software (tutto il resto rimane free sw, ma su quel componente, ho dubbi). Come si fa? ciao, Claudio * Il tweet riporta di una una tecnica che hanno messo in atto 1 anno fa, ora ne hanno affiancate altre più subdole. -- Claudio Agosti, https://facebook.tracking.exposed, @_vecna PGP keybase.io/vecna - Research Associate - DATACTIVE University of Amsterdam https://data-activism.net

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Senators aim to give internet companies doctor-like duties to protect our data – TechCrunch
by J.C. DE MARTIN Dec. 14, 2018

Dec. 14, 2018

https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/12/senators-aim-to-give-internet-companies-d… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Intervista sui rapporti Facebook/Stato in Jacobin Italia
by Antonio Casilli Dec. 14, 2018

Dec. 14, 2018

Hello all, appena uscita online: Facebook e gli altri divoratori di mondi https://jacobinitalia.it/facebook-e-gli-altri-divoratori-di-mondi/ Si tratta di una delle mie rare interviste in Italiano, allora ho parlato parecchio. Buona lettura, --a -- Antonio A. Casilli Associate Professor (HDR), Telecom ParisTech Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3 UMR 9217 CNRS) Associate Member, LACI-IIAC (EHESS) Faculty Fellow, Nexa Center for Internet & Society

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10th Nexa Conference-Workshop Decode Project | 18th December 2018, Turin
by Nexa Media Dec. 14, 2018

Dec. 14, 2018

Conferenza Nexa <http://nexa.polito.it/> *10th Nexa Conference* *Workshop Decode Project* /in cooperation with FULL (Future Urban Legacy Lab)/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ */Urban Digital Commons and The Future of Cities/* *Tuesday, 18th December 2018* Conference room "Luigi Ciminiera" <http://www.polito.it/ateneo/sedi/index.php?bl_id=TO_CIT11&fl_id=XP05&rm_id=…>, DAUIN, Politecnico, Corso Castelfidardo 34/D, Torino (Map <https://www.google.it/maps/place/45%C2%B003%2751.1%22N+7%C2%B039%2733.5%22E…>) /Free entry while seats last, subject to registration (required) at the address:/http://nexa2018.eventbrite.com *Twitter hashtag* della conferenza: #nexa2018 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/nexa2018?src=hash> The Conference is accredited by The Council of the Turin Bar Association <http://www.ordineavvocatitorino.it/>. The participation entitles the members to 2 training credits. Abstract “Smart Cities” and “Smart Communities” have been recurrent keywords in countless projects and initiatives in the last decade, addressed to the emerging problems of our cities in the XXI century: pollution monitoring systems, smart grids, devices for remote health monitoring, robots for assisting aging population, traffic management systems are some examples. Recently the smart city rhetoric has attracted an increasing number of critics because most of the funding agendas and of the proposed solutions are ascribable to forms of technocratic and market driven governance -often bound to black box technologies and data- which do not really address the real causes of the complex urban issues. To recover the neglected role of societies in the urban governance, several counter-proposals are rooted on the notions of social and civic rights, citizens active participation through technology, and on the idea of urban digital commons. The 10th Nexa Conference is focused on the latter: we will discuss the role of urban digital commons in shaping the future governance of our cities, in the context of two ongoing projects: the Digital Open Urban Twin at the Future Urban Legacy Lab, and the H2020 project DECODE. Information Information about the Conference program and the speakers is available at: https://nexa.polito.it/conf2018 LogoNexaLogodecode <https://decodeproject.eu/>LogoFull <http://urbanlegacylab.net/> LogoUe DECODE is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme, under grant agreement number 732546. The Nexa Center for Internet & Society at Politecnico di Torino (DAUIN) - Studying the Internet, exploring its potential, experimenting new ideas. *For more information, visit:* https://nexa.polito.it/ <https://nexa.polito.it>

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US Weapons Systems Are Easy Cyberattack Targets, New Report Finds
by Alberto Cammozzo Dec. 14, 2018

Dec. 14, 2018

lo stesso approccio alla sicurezza dell'IOT, salvo che le "cose" sono armi... Dal rapporto originale: [] Many weapon systems use such systems to carry out essential functions. For example, a ship may use industrial control systems to control engines and fire suppression systems. According to NIST, industrial control systems were originally designed for use in trusted environments, so many did not incorporate security controls. 34 Government and industry reports state that attacks on these systems are increasing. However, DOD officials said that program offices may not know which industrial control systems are embedded in their weapons or what the security implications of using them are. [] <https://www.wired.com/story/us-weapons-systems-easy-cyberattack-targets/> The first step in solving any problem is admitting there is one. But a new report <https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-128> from the US Government Accountability Office finds that the Department of Defense <https://www.wired.com/story/why-big-tech-and-the-government-need-to-work-to…> remains in denial about cybersecurity threats to its weapons systems. Specifically, the report concludes that almost all weapons that the DOD tested between 2012 and 2017 have “mission critical” cyber vulnerabilities. “Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications,” the report states. And yet, perhaps more alarmingly, the officials who oversee those systems appeared dismissive of the results. The GAO released its report Tuesday, in response to a request from the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of a planned $1.66 trillion in spending by the Defense Department to develop its current weapons systems. Subtitled "DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities," the report finds that the department "likely has an entire generation of systems that were designed and built without adequately considering cybersecurity." Neither Armed Services Committee chairman James Inhofe nor ranking member Jack Reed responded to requests for comment. The GAO based its report on penetration tests the DOD itself undertook, as well as interviews with officials at various DOD offices. Its findings should be a wakeup call for the Defense Department, which the GAO describes as only now beginning to grapple with the importance of cybersecurity, and the scale of vulnerabilities in its weapons systems. “I will say that the GAO can be prone to cyber hyperbole, but unless their sampling or methodology were way off or deliberately misleading, DOD has a very grave problem on its hands,” says R. David Edelman, who served as special assistant to President Obama on cybersecurity and tech policy. “In the private sector, this is the sort of report that would put the CEO on death watch.” DOD testers found significant vulnerabilities in the department’s weapon systems, some of which began with poor basic password security or lack of encryption. As previous hacks of government systems, like the breach at the Office of Personnel Management <https://www.wired.com/2016/10/inside-cyberattack-shocked-us-government/> or the breach of the DOD’s unclassified email server <https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/state-department-email-breach/index…>, have taught us, poor basic security hygiene can be the downfall of otherwise complex systems. "In the private sector, this is the sort of report that would put the CEO on death watch." R. David Edelman, former White House cybersecurity adviser The GAO report says that one tester was able to guess an admin password on a weapons system in nine seconds. Other weapons used commercial or open source software but administers failed to change the default passwords. Yet another tester managed to partially shut down a weapons system by merely scanning it—a technique so basic, the GAO says, it “requires little knowledge or expertise.” Testers were sometimes able to take full control of these weapons. “In one case, it took a two-person test team just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system they were testing,” the report states. The DOD also had a hard time detecting when testers were probing the weapons. In one case, testers were in the weapons system for weeks, according to the GAO, but the administrators never found them. This, despite the testers being intentionally “noisy.” In other cases, the report states that automated systems did detect the testers, but that the humans responsible for monitoring those systems didn’t understand what the intrusion technology was trying to tell them. [...]

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