- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Jaywalkers in Jinan get high-tech slap in face
by Alberto Cammozzo May 6, 2017

May 6, 2017

Esempio estremo di escalation della tecnologia della sicurezza: la citta di Jinan (oltre 7M ab.) installerà sistemi di riconoscimento facciale per rilevare e punire l'attraversamento stradale dei pedoni e altre infrazioni stradali. Verrà usato in combinazione con un sistema "reputazionale" di pubblicazione sociale dell'infrazione e uno sanzionatorio, per cui per i recidivi le multe saranno più salate. Mi travesto da Kurzweil e profetizzo una nuova singolarità. Non quella utopica dei transumanisti, ma una distopica della rivolta contro le social machines. <http://www.ecns.cn/2017/05-05/256173.shtml> Traffic police in Jinan, Shandong province, recently installed facial recognition equipment at street intersections to go after jaywalkers and other violators. "When pedestrians or drivers of nonmotorized vehicles run a red light, the equipment will take four snapshots and a 15-second video," said Wei Jinghuo, director of the Jinan traffic police technology service center. "Jaywalkers can usually be identified the same day by comparing the images with those in the databases of the public security authorities. "The technology enables us to recognize the image of each jaywalker in a crowd." The move is part of a 100-day campaign that will start soon in the city. Once identified, jaywalkers will be notified by the traffic police and asked to accept punishment at local traffic police branches. Jaywalkers will be subject to fines as high as 50 yuan ($7.20). Those caught by police on the spot will be given a choice: half an hour of education on traffic rules or 20 minutes of volunteer work assisting police in traffic guidance. For those who refuse to take their punishment, the police will inform employers or residential communities by letter, and their information will be published in the media. Information on jaywalkers will also be uploaded to the traffic credit system Jinan plans to create before the end of next year. Once it's completed, jaywalkers' information will be included in personal credit archives, which will increase the cost of future violations of traffic rules. Wei said the punishment details are still being developed, as the snapshot system has only been on trial for a month. A number of Chinese cities－including Mianyang, Sichuan province, and Fuzhou, Fujian province－have also started using facial recognition to clamp down on jaywalkers. In Mianyang, data captured by the facial recognition equipment are displayed on a screen next to the street. Dong Xiaoxia, an employee of a State-owned enterprise in the energy industry in Jinan, said more time is needed to know whether or not the system works. "It depends on whether the authorities can enforce it," Dong said. "Can the police authorities really expose jaywalkers' information in the media? How will traffic credit records influence the jaywalkers?" Zhang Qihua, a senior student at a university in Jinan, said the campaign shows authorities' attitude toward clamping down on uncivilized behavior. "It is a good trend. Like the crackdown on drunken driving, I think a crackdown on jaywalkers will also work," Zhang said.

4 6

Taser Will Use Police Body Camera Videos “to Anticipate Criminal Activity”
by Alberto Cammozzo May 5, 2017

May 5, 2017

Algoritmi analizzano i flussi video delle bodycam per prevedere futuri comportamenti criminali e anticiparli <https://theintercept.com/2017/04/30/taser-will-use-police-body-camera-video…> [...] In 2010, Taser’s longtime vice president Steve Tuttle “proudly predicted” to GQ <http://www.gq.com/story/shock-ow-taser-protector-axon-company-profile> that once police can search a crowd for outstanding warrants using real-time face recognition, “every cop will be RoboCop.” Now Taser has announced <http://investor.axon.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1020306&Year=&Releases…> that it will provide any police department in the nation with free body cameras, along with a year of free “data storage, training, and support.” The company’s goal is not just to corner the camera market, but to dramatically increase the video streaming into its servers. With an estimated one-third of departments using body cameras, police officers have been generating millions of hours of video footage. Taser stores terabytes of such video on Evidence.com <http://evidence.com/>, in private servers, operated by Microsoft, to which police agencies must continuously subscribe for a monthly fee. Data from these recordings is rarely analyzed for investigative purposes, though, and Taser — which recently rebranded itself <https://www.axon.com/company/news/our-future-as-axon> as a technology company and renamed itself “Axon” — is hoping to change that. [...]

2 1

trovato a Padova
by Alberto Cammozzo May 5, 2017

May 5, 2017

adesivo applicato sopra a un pannello informativo videosorveglianza sulla pubblica via a Padova <https://twitter.com/dontTag/status/860436605483483136> ciao, Alberto

2 2

Fear & Loathing of the Online Self - Roma 22 e 23 maggio
by donna d.r. May 5, 2017

May 5, 2017

ciao volevo segnalare alla lista questa cosa che facciamo a Roma insieme a Geert Lovink, alla quale partecipano Wendy Chun, Biella Coleman, Jodi Dean, Bifo la partecipazione è gratuita ma bisogna registrarsi qui perche dobbiamo capire quanta gente viene https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fear-and-loathing-of-the-online-self-tickets-3… spero di vedervi! saluti donatella

1 0

Hey computer scientists stop hating humanities
by Antonio Vetrò May 5, 2017

May 5, 2017

Un bell’articoletto di Wired su un punto caro alla filosofia del Centro Nexa: https://www.wired.com/2017/04/hey-computer-scientists-stop-hating-humanitie… Un saluto, Antonio -- Antonio Vetrò, Ph.D. Director of Research Nexa Center for Internet and Society DAUIN, Politecnico di Torino https://nexa.polito.it/people/avetro

6 5

A False Facial Recognition Match Cost This Man Everything
by Alberto Cammozzo May 4, 2017

May 4, 2017

Denver resident Steve Talley files $10 million lawsuit after face-matching technology ruined his life <http://www.vocativ.com/418052/false-facial-recognition-cost-denver-steve-ta…> One night in September 2014, Steve Talley answered a knock at his door from a man who claimed to have accidentally hit his car. He had no reason to expect that the next few moments would change the course of his life. Dressed only in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, Talley went out and crouched in the driveway to inspect his car — but there was no damage. Suddenly, Talley said, he was ambushed. Three men dressed in what Talley describes as SWAT gear tackled, kicked and punched the then-44-year-old Denver man. After the brutal beating, one explained that Talley was under arrest for two recent armed bank robberies, one of which involved a physical assault on a police officer. “I remember telling them they were crazy, and they had got the wrong guy,” said Talley, a father of two and financial analyst who had recently lost his job. Talley wasn’t lying, though it would take two months for his public defender to prove it. His arrest had followed anonymous tips from people who had seen surveillance footage on the news and mistakenly thought it was Talley. His ex-wife, fighting Talley for custody of their children at the time, also identified him as the suspect. Charges were finally dropped after Talley’s lawyer unearthed an audio recording of him at work at a financial firm at the time of the first robbery. Now dealing with a host of medical, personal and financial problems stemming from his arrest, Talley didn’t know how things could get worse. Then he was arrested again in December 2015, charged with committing the second bank robbery. This time, Denver police, with the assistance of an FBI examiner using facial comparison technology, claimed to match Talley with the sunglasses and hat-clad suspect. The software and approach that was used, it has been shown <https://theintercept.com/2016/10/13/how-a-facial-recognition-mismatch-can-r…>, only garners a subjective estimate as to whether two images show the same person. It’s meant to serve as an investigative tool not evidence. Talley had an alibi for the day of the robbery — he had signed in to a soup kitchen across town. And yet, the case went to trial. But there was even stronger evidence pointing to his innocence. A bank teller told the jury she was absolutely certain Talley was not the robber. Further analysis of a mole on his cheek not visible in the CCTV footage and the fact that his height and weight did not match that of the suspect helped to finally convince the prosecution to drop charges. But the damage was already done. Now homeless, unemployed, facing health complications, and estranged from his children, Talley still struggles with what happened to him. He’s filed a $10 million federal lawsuit <http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/15/fbi-denver-police-sued-false-arrest-ex…> against the city of Denver and its police department that he hopes will finally clear his name. The lawsuit alleges that officers involved violated identification procedures and protocols in interviewing the bank teller of the second robbery. The Denver City Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the ongoing case. []

1 0

Second-Hand Markets for Digital Copies: An EU Copyright Chimera? | U. Bocconi, 5 maggio
by Aura Bertoni May 4, 2017

May 4, 2017

Cari amici della lista Nexa, Vi segnalo il prossimo appuntamento del ciclo seminariale del centro ASK Bocconi. Domani, venerdì 5 maggio, alle ore 12.30 sarà presente Eleonora Rosati (Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law, University of Southampton) con un intervento dal titolo Second-Hand Markets for Digital Copies: An EU Copyright Chimera? L'incontro si terrà nell'edificio di via Sarfatti 25, stanza 32. Per informazioni: ASK - Art, Science and Knowledge tel. +39 02 5836 3710 ask(a)unibocconi.it A presto, Aura Aura Bertoni, PhD, LLM Bocconi University ASK Research Centre Department of Legal Studies Via Roentgen 1 20136 Milan Italy +39 02 5836 5771 --- 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. ---

1 0

Zittrain: How Online Platforms Shape American Discourse - The Atlantic
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 3, 2017

May 3, 2017

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/american-discourse-v… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

1 0

Jack Ma Sees Decades of Pain as Internet Upends Old Economy
by Luigi Scorca May 3, 2017

May 3, 2017

Leggilo su https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-23/jack-ma-sees-decades-of-… Luigi

1 0

Report: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel “worthless”
by Alberto Cammozzo May 2, 2017

May 2, 2017

<https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/05/facebook-helped-advertisers-target…> Facebook's secretive advertising practices became a little more public on Monday thanks to a leak out of the company's Australian office. This 23-page document discovered by /The Australian/ <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/digital/facebook-targets-ins…> (paywall), details in particular how Facebook executives promote advertising campaigns that exploit Facebook users' emotional states—and how these are aimed at users as young as 14 years old. According to the report, the selling point of this 2017 document is that Facebook's algorithms can determine, and allow advertisers to pinpoint, "moments when young people need a confidence boost." If that phrase isn't clear enough, Facebook's document offers a litany of teen emotional states that the company claims it can estimate based on how teens use the service, including "worthless," "insecure," "defeated," "anxious," "silly," "useless," "stupid," "overwhelmed," "stressed," and "a failure." /The Australian/ says that the documents also reveal a particular interest in helping advertisers target moments in which young users are interested in "looking good and body confidence” or “working out and losing weight." Another section describes how image-recognition tools are used on both Facebook and Instagram (a wholly owned Facebook subsidiary) to reveal to advertisers "how people visually represent moments such as meal times." And it goes into great detail about how younger Facebook users express themselves: according to Facebook Australia, earlier in the week, teens post more about "anticipatory emotions" and "building confidence," while weekend teen posts contain more "reflective emotions" and "achievement broadcasting." [...] *Update, 5/1 12:12 p.m.: *Facebook has issued a statement disputing /The Australian/'s report. "The premise of the article is misleading," the company wrote in its authorless statement <https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/comments-on-research-and-ad-targeting/>. "Facebook does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state. The analysis done by an Australian researcher was intended to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook. It was never used to target ads and was based on data that was anonymous and aggregated." Just like the company said in its original apology, it repeated this vague explanation: "Facebook has an established process to review the research we perform. This research did not follow that process, and we are reviewing the details to correct the oversight." However, the statement didn't acknowledge why Facebook did not make any distinction clear to /The Australian/. As of press time, /The Australian/ has not updated its report, nor has it printed or disclosed full pages of the quoted to either confirm or dispute Facebook's response.

1 0