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Who is benefiting more from the cyberisation of intelligence, the spooks or their foes?
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 12, 2016

Nov. 12, 2016

Ultimo pezzo di uno special report dell'Economist su intelligence e tecnologia. <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709773-who-benefiting-more-c…> “THE COMPUTER WAS born to spy,” says Gordon Corera, who covers intelligence for the BBC, Britain’s national broadcaster. The earliest computers, including Colossus and SEAC, were used by signals intelligence (known as SIGINT) in Britain and America to help break codes. But computers also happen to have become supremely good at storing information. Searching a database is a lot easier than searching shelves of files like those compiled by the East German secret police, the Stasi—which stretched for 100km. The job used to be to discover what a hostile country was up to by attaching crocodile clips to telephone lines emerging from its embassy, intercepting communications, collecting data and decrypting them. It was an industrial process. Breaking code was laborious, but once you had succeeded, the results endured. “Twenty years ago we had a stable target, a stately pace of new technology and point-to-point communications,” says a senior intelligence officer. Cryptography evolved slowly, so “when you cracked a code it could last from ten to 30 years.” The internet changed everything. Roughly $3.4trn a year is being invested in networked computers, phones, infrastructure and software. The pace is set by businesses, not spooks. Individual packets of data no longer travel on a dedicated phone line but take the route that is most convenient at that instant, blurring the distinction between foreign and domestic communications. Signal intelligence used to be hard to get hold of. Today it gushes in torrents. The trick is to make sense of it. [] Gli altri pezzi dello Special report. * Shaken and stirred <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709778-intelligence-services…> * Standard operating procedure <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709776-how-war-terror-turned…> * You’re US government property <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709772-edward-snowden-villai…> * Happenstance and enemy action <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709777-western-intelligence-…> * The solace of the law <http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21709775-blueprint-intelligenc…>

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Ctrl+Z: Silicon Valley leaders U-turn on Donald Trump
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 12, 2016

Nov. 12, 2016

Gli arcinemici di Silicon Valley si riallineano. <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/11/silicon-valley-donald-tr…> Most tech industry leaders railed against the Republican, but some are now changing their tune as they consider what his presidency will mean [] <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/11/peter-thiel-joins-donald…> Peter Thiel goes 'big league', joining Trump's presidential transition team [] Thiel nel transition team è una notizia preoccupante, la sua Palantir è fornitrice di software di "information awareness" delle agenzie e ambisce (a suon di cause) ad essere adottata dall'esercito. Alberto

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FAIR data management: best practices and open issues.
by Francesco Ruggiero Nov. 11, 2016

Nov. 11, 2016

Gentilissimi, Il 14 e il 15 novembre si svolgerà il workshop “*FAIR datamanagement: best practices and open issues. RDA National Event in Italy*” sulla condivisione, il riuso e la riproducibilità dei dati della ricerca, con particolare attenzione ad alcuni ambiti scientifici e alle infrastrutture di ricerca ad essi correlate. L'evento si terrà presso la Biblioteca Umanistica, Sala Comparenti dell'Università di Firenze, in Piazza Brunelleschi, 2. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili all'indirizzo: https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-national-event-italy-14- 15-november-2016-agenda L'iscrizione è obbligatoria insieme con il versamento di una piccola quota di 22,22 euro e va fatto on-line. Non sarà possibile accettare alcun pagamento in loco: https://www.rd-alliance.org/fair-data-management-best- practices-and-open-issues-rda-national-event-italy Cordiali saluti -- Francesco Ruggiero Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: http://nexa.polito.it mail: francesco.ruggiero(a)polito.it tel. +39 011 090 7219

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“Let us Calculate!”: Leibniz, Llull, and the Computational Imagination | The Public Domain Review
by J.C. DE MARTIN Nov. 11, 2016

Nov. 11, 2016

Sulla scia del recente mercoledì di Nexa, condivido con voi questo splendido articolo dell'amico Jonathan Gray: http://publicdomainreview.org/2016/11/10/let-us-calculate-leibniz-llull-and… JC (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Biometric data on terrorists needed to activate global tripwire says INTERPOL
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 10, 2016

Nov. 10, 2016

L'assemble generale di Interpol preme per un database biometrico (impronte e DNA) <https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-media/News/2016/N2016-147> BALI, Indonesia – The lack of biometric data being shared on terrorists at the international level is creating a dangerous security gap for exploitation by returning foreign terrorist fighters. With at least 15,000 fighters still estimated to be within the conflict zones of which an unknown number could return home to engage in radicalization or covert cell operations, the INTERPOL General Assembly has emphasised the urgency with which this threat needs to be addressed. The proliferation of aliases, the complexity of fake travel documents, deception tactics falsely declaring individuals have died in the conflict zones, and even basic issues linked to transliteration present mounting challenges to law enforcement in the field. Information made available at the frontlines, via INTERPOL, should enable timely and effective action to properly identify suspects and equally as important, to exonerate innocent individuals and minimize disruption to legitimate travel flows. The role of biometric information focused on unique identifiers, such as fingerprints and DNA, is pivotal in this context. Although INTERPOL currently holds information on nearly 9,000 foreign terrorist fighter – including from within the conflict zone – less than 10 per cent of these files include biometric data or high resolution images which could be used for facial recognition. “Although information shared via INTERPOL has enabled national law enforcement agencies to prevent numerous terrorists and aspiring foreign terrorist fighters from travelling, the lack of biometric data remains a weak link,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock. [] Alberto

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Three New Scandals Show How Pervasive and Dangerous Mass Surveillance is in the West, Vindicating Snowden
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 10, 2016

Nov. 10, 2016

<https://theintercept.com/2016/11/04/three-new-scandals-show-how-pervasive-a…> [] Earlier this month, a special British court that rules on secret spying activities issued an emphatic denunciation of the nation’s domestic mass surveillance programs. The court found that “British security agencies have secretly and unlawfully collected massive volumes of confidential personal data, including financial information, on citizens for more than a decade.” Those agencies, the court found, “operated an illegal regime to collect vast amounts of communications data, tracking individual phone and web use and other confidential personal information, without adequate safeguards or supervision for 17 years.” On Thursday, an even more scathing condemnation of mass surveillance was issued by the Federal Court of Canada. The ruling “faulted Canada’s domestic spy agency for unlawfully retaining data and for not being truthful with judges who authorize its intelligence programs.” Most remarkable was that these domestic, mass surveillance activities were not only illegal, but completely unknown to virtually the entire population in Canadian democracy, even though their scope has indescribable implications for core liberties: “the centre in question appears to be the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s equivalent of a crystal ball – a place where intelligence analysts attempt to deduce future threats by examining, and re-examining, volumes of data.” The third scandal also comes from Canada – a critical partner in the Five Eyes spying alliance along with the U.S. and UK – where law enforcement officials in Montreal are now defending “a highly controversial decision to spy on a La Presse columnist [Patrick Lagacé] by tracking his cellphone calls and texts and monitoring his whereabouts as part of a necessary internal police investigation.” The targeted journalist,Lagacé, had enraged police officials by investigating their abusive conduct, and they then used surveillance technology to track his calls and movements to unearth the identity of his sources. Just as that scandal was exploding, it went, in the words of the Montreal Gazette, “from bad to worse” as the ensuing scrutiny revealed that police had actually “tracked the calls and movements of six journalists that year after news reports based on leaks revealed Michel Arsenault, then president of Quebec’s largest labour federation, had his phone tapped.” [] Alberto

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Do U.S. Efforts to Deter Russian Cyberattacks Signal the End of Cyber Norms?
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 10, 2016

Nov. 10, 2016

In un contesto in cui gli accordi internazionali vietano attacchi diretti alle infrastrutture critiche, si parla di "deterrence by leak" <http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/11/07/do-u-s-efforts-to-deter-russian-cyber…> According to a NBC News report, the United States has penetrated Russia’s electric grid, telecommunications networks, and command and control systems in order to be able to launch retaliatory cyberattacks if the Kremlin attacks critical infrastructure during the election. An unidentified senior official reportedly said that if Russia attacked critical infrastructure then Washington could shut down some Russian systems. Washington has called out China and Russia for “preparing the battlefield” by penetrating and surveilling networks in the past. Admiral Michael Rogers, head of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2015, “We believe potential adversaries might be leaving cyber fingerprints on our critical infrastructure partly to convey a message that our homeland is at risk if tensions ever escalate toward military conflict.” The NBC report is confirmation (by leak) that the United States is, not surprisingly, doing the same. This is clearly an effort to create a deterrent. President Obama also reportedly warned President Putin about interference in the election at their last meeting two months ago. Like Lawfare‘s Jack Goldsmith, I am skeptical that deterrence by leak is an effective method. In previous leaks claiming the United States would respond with cyberattacks, there has been no visible follow through. While there may have been covert disruptions, there is little reason to think Moscow would take these new reports more seriously. Moreover, the Russians can easily remain below the threshold of an attack on critical infrastructure. The theft and public disclosure of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign manager John Podesta have been more than effective in stirring up questions about the integrity and legitimacy of the electoral process. Russian hackers do not need to take down the power grid; brief distributed denial of service attacks on social media platforms on election day could do the trick. [] Alberto

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The Privacy Paradox and Europe's Way Forward on Data Protection
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 9, 2016

Nov. 9, 2016

<http://www.liberties.eu/en/news/lithuania-privacy-data-protection> At the Digital Rights Forum 2016, experts discussed the preparedness of companies to implement the General Data Protection Regulation and debated whether we really know what type of data protection people actually need. [] According to the assistant to the European Data Protection Supervisor, Christian D'Cunha, who spoke about the competitive advantages offered by privacy protection, privacy is necessary for the enjoyment of other rights - self expression, creation, innovation and, more recently, choosing what content to access online. "Three-quarters of all people now receive their news through social media, but your experiences there are determined by algorithms. When I sought solace in Facebook after Brexit, you would've thought that 95 percent of the people voted to stay, but that was obviously untrue." D'Cunha said that 91 percent of US residents feel that they can no longer control how companies use their data. "Last year, we visited the Silicon Valley, had meetings with companies and got the impression that the dominant business model nowadays is online behaviorist tracking." According to D'Cunha, the meetings revealed that it was very difficult to gain support from investors without showing how the company could monetize data. Companies wishing to escape this model would simply not attract investment. [] In the second half of the event, Natalija Bitiukova of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute talked about the privacy paradox and presented the study on the public's perceptions of data protection. According to Bitiukova, there is a clear gap between the people's intentions regarding giving access to their data and their behavior in practice. Furthermore, despite claiming that it's important to them, most people, when faced with a violation of their privacy, choose to not report it to any institution.

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Fwd: CfP: Data Science trach for 'Regulating a connected world' conference
by Alberto Cammozzo Nov. 9, 2016

Nov. 9, 2016

Inoltro questa call sperando sia di interesse. "How is data science influencing the social contract? And what are the opportunities for evolving international norms and rules in response to transnational practices of data science and global data markets?" *From:*L.E.M. Taylor [mailto:L.E.M.Taylor@uvt.nl] *Sent:* 9 November, 2016 12:06 PM *To:* Ines Hasselberg *Subject:* TILTing 2017 CFP At TILT we’re in the process of organising the Tilting conference (www.tilburguniversity.edu/tilting2017 <http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/tilting2017>), to take place May 17-19 2017. There’s a data science track, for which I am responsible, which I’d like to make as broad and inclusive as possible – see the outline that follows below. If any of you are interested in pulling together a panel, or making a presentation, about your current research interests or to try out new ideas, you are very welcome. It will be a very diverse crowd and we’re hoping to create good conversations and alliances. The website is now open for the submission of panel and paper ideas. I’d be grateful if you could also send this out to your networks, as I’d also very much like to reach the people you are currently talking to about your research. Best regards, Linnet Data Science track Data science —the practice of organizing, analyzing and using new sources of digital data—, is transforming societies around the world, but that transformation is largely invisible. Algorithmic sorting and categorization, machine learning and artificial intelligence, data emitted through people’s use of technology, from the internet of things and by smart environments are contributing to new types of visibility and changing power dynamics between people, corporations and governments. The use of digital data in policy and planning creates the power to understand and visualize in new ways, but also to monitor and influence to an unprecedented extent. Similarly, the use of digital traces in research is transforming many fields, but with associated shifts in power and practice. Data science therefore has implications for rights, for culture and research, for how economic growth, development and social justice are conceptualized and practiced, and also for modes of resistance and organizing. How are societies balancing the use of data analytics for economic growth, knowledge and security with the need to preserve ‘the play of everyday practice’ (Cohen 2012)? How is data science influencing the social contract? And what are the opportunities for evolving international norms and rules in response to transnational practices of data science and global data markets? Suggested themes Suggested topics for contributions include, but are not limited to: · Cybersecurity and data governance · Algorithmic cultures and related political and social dynamics, including algorithmic accountability · The global implications of data science and data markets · Social and regulatory challenges relating to the Internet of Things · The social and regulatory implications of smart environments · The effects of data science on media and communications · The interaction between data science and culture · The ethics of data science and related technologies · The implications of data science for academic research Questions For questions about possible presentation topics for this track, please contact Dr. Linnet Taylor: L.E.M.Taylor(a)tilburguniversity.edu <http://Mailto:L.E.M.Taylor@tilburguniversity.edu/>

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B. Schneier: Lessons From the Dyn DDoS Attack
by Alessandro Mantelero Nov. 8, 2016

Nov. 8, 2016

Lessons From the Dyn DDoS Attack https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/11/lessons_from_th_5.html Interessante commento di B. Schneier, che induce a riflettere sul fatto che il mercato non possa da solo adeguatamente offrire risposte efficienti in tema di security. Aggiungo che il problema è forse ancor più ampio e tocca i modelli di sviluppo dei prodotti. Mossi da una sorta di bulimia digitale, abbiamo adottato un modello che vede sovente lo sviluppo continuo ed incessante di nuovi servizi (spesso gratuiti). In questo contesto pretendere che prima di immettere sul mercato un prodotto si proceda ad una valutazione del possibile impatto che lo stesso può avere sui singoli e sulla collettività (in termini di sicurezza e diritti) è visto come un costo o un ostacolo all’innovazione. Eppure il modello opposto, incentrato su una preventiva attenta analisi dei rischi potrebbe a creare un ecosistema digitale non solo più sicuro, ma anche più rispettoso ed equo. -- Prof. Avv. Alessandro Mantelero Politecnico di Torino Nexa Center for Internet and Society | Director of Privacy Politecnico di Torino–Tongji University| Coordinator, Double Degree program in Management and IP Law Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology | Part-time Expert, School of Public Administration European Data Protection Law Review | Associate Editor http://staff.polito.it/alessandro.mantelero @mantelero EMAIL POLICY: once a day (Mon-Fri)

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