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Spyware economico a disposizione: aumentano le nazioni che sorvegliano i propri cittadini.
by Alberto Cammozzo Aug. 3, 2016

Aug. 3, 2016

*Snapping up cheap spy tools, nations 'monitoring everyone'* LIMA, Peru (AP) — It was a national scandal. Peru's then-vice president accused two domestic intelligence agents of staking her out. Then, a top congressman blamed the spy agency for a break-in at his office. News stories showed the agency had collected data on hundreds of influential Peruvians. Yet after last year's outrage, which forced out the prime minister and froze its intelligence-gathering, the spy service went ahead with a $22 million program capable of snooping on thousands of Peruvians at a time. Peru — a top cocaine-producing nation — joined the ranks of world governments that have added commercial spyware to their arsenals. The purchase from Israeli-American company Verint Systems, chronicled in documents obtained by The Associated Press, offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look into how easy it is for a country to purchase and install off-the-shelf surveillance equipment. The software allows governments to intercept voice calls, text messages and emails. Except for blacklisted nations like Syria and North Korea, there is little to stop governments that routinely violate basic rights from obtaining the same so-called "lawful intercept" tools that have been sold to Western police and spy agencies. People tracked by the technology have been beaten, jailed and tortured, according to human rights groups. Targets identified by the AP include a blogger in the repressive Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, opposition activists in the war-ravaged African nation of South Sudan, and politicians and reporters in oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. "The status quo is completely unacceptable," said Marietje Schaake, a European Union lawmaker pushing for greater oversight. "The fact that this market is almost completely unregulated is very disturbing." The Verint documents that AP obtained in Peru, including training manuals, contracts, invoices and emails, offer more detail than previously available on the inner workings of a highly secretive industry. "There is just so little reliable data on this," said Edin Omanovic, a researcher at Privacy International, a London-based advocacy group. "These commercial tools are being used in a strategic and offensive way in much the same way that military tools are used." The scope and sophistication revealed in the Peru documents approximates, on a small scale, U.S. and British surveillance programs catalogued in 2013 by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. That trove showed how the U.S. government collected the phone records of millions of Americans, few suspected of crimes. Even after some reforms, there is still much to be done in the U.S. and abroad to rein in Big Brother, privacy advocates say. [...] <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f799cfd080b04b93a34df61fc007b096/snapping-ch…>

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Fascicolo sanitario elettronico: aggiornate le specifiche tecniche di interoperabilità
by Mauro Alovisio Aug. 3, 2016

Aug. 3, 2016

- Gent.me/mi - segnalo dal sito Agid - Fascicolo sanitario elettronico: aggiornate le specifiche tecniche di interoperabilità Fascicolo sanitario elettronico: aggiornate le specifiche tecniche di interoperabilità [image: Logo agid] *Martedì, 2 Agosto, 2016* Si è concluso il processo di integrazione dei servizi di interoperabilità messi a disposizione delle regioni sull’infrastruttura nazionale Si è concluso positivamente il processo di integrazione dei servizi di interoperabilità messi a disposizione delle regioni sull’infrastruttura nazionale necessaria a garantire l’interoperabilità dei FSE con il servizio di identificazione degli assistiti attraverso il sistema Tessera Sanitaria. Con il consolidamento del processo di interoperabilità con le regioni che ad oggi hanno svolto i test, le specifiche tecniche pubblicate il 6 Maggio 2015 hanno quindi subito un processo di riorganizzazione funzionale per dare coerenza all’intero lavoro. Sono state strutturate in modo da avere un master, “Specifiche tecniche per l’interoperabilità tra i sistemi regionali di FSE”, che presenta lo scenario architetturale di riferimento e i principali processi di interoperabilità necessari e previsti in sede di prima implementazione del FSE, e una serie di allegati che mirano a dettagliare nello specifico la particolare materia di riferimento: A – Processi di business B – Framework e dataset dei servizi base C – Affinity Domain Italia D – Identificazione di un assistito E – Servizi di identificazione F – Configurazione delle Porte di Dominio Queste specifiche sostituiscono le precedenti e definiscono in maniera esaustiva i riferimenti tecnici per lo sviluppo dei servizi di interoperabilità regionali. Tag: fascicolo sanitario elettronico <http://www.agid.gov.it/tags/fascicolo-sanitario-elettronico> Documento allegato notizia: Nuove specifiche tecniche Fascicolo sanitario elettronico <http://www.agid.gov.it/sites/default/files/documenti_indirizzo/specifiche_f…> Pagina interna sull'argomento: Sanità digitale <http://www.agid.gov.it/agenda-digitale/pubblica-amministrazione/sanita-digi…> - [image: Facebook logo] Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A//www.agid.gov.it/notizie/2016/…> - [image: Twitter logo] Twitter <http://twitter.com/share?url=http%3A//www.agid.gov.it/notizie/2016/08/02/fa…> Ultimo aggiornamento 02 Agosto 2016 http://www.agid.gov.it/notizie/2016/08/02/fascicolo-sanitario-elettronico-a… Cordiali saluti Mauro Alovisio

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NYT: "Make Algorithms Accountable"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 2, 2016

Aug. 2, 2016

NYT Op-Ed *Make Algorithms Accountable** * By JULIA ANGWIN August 1, 2016 Algorithms are ubiquitous in our lives. They map out the best route to our destination and help us find new music based on what we listen to now. But they are also being employed to inform fundamental decisions about our lives. Companies use them to sort through stacks of résumés from job seekers. Credit agencies use them to determine our credit scores. And the criminal justice system is increasingly using algorithms to predict a defendant’s future criminality. Those computer-generated criminal “risk scores” were at the center of a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that set the first significant limits on the use of risk algorithms in sentencing. The court ruled that while judges could use these risk scores, the scores could not be a “determinative” factor in whether a defendant was jailed or placed on probation. And, most important, the court stipulated that a presentence report submitted to the judge must include a warning about the limits of the algorithm’s accuracy. This warning requirement is an important milestone in the debate over how our data-driven society should hold decision-making software accountable. But advocates for big data due process argue that much more must be done to assure the appropriateness and accuracy of algorithm results. […] Continua qui: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opinion/make-algorithms-accountable.ht…

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Archeologia del ransomware
by Antonio Casilli Aug. 2, 2016

Aug. 2, 2016

Per coloro che leggono il francese, ecco un articolo di ZDNet basato su una mia ricerca (+ su una mia intervista) a proposito del primo caso documentato di ransomware, e dei legami visibili tra malware, industria dell'antivirus e legislazioni contro la cybercriminalità. --- Ransomware : retour sur les racines du mal ou l’étrange cas du Dr Popp Sécurité : Depuis 2009, les ransomwares sont devenus l’arme favorite des cybercriminels. Pourtant, en 1989 déjà, un premier malware de ce type faisait beaucoup parler de lui. Mais force est de constater que les choses ont beaucoup évolué depuis ce premier essai balbutiant. Read more: http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/ransomware-retour-sur-les-racines-du-mal-ou-… --- -- Antonio A. Casilli Associate Professor, Telecom ParisTech Research Fellow Edgar-Morin Center (EHESS)

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Volume "Protezione transnazionale dei dati personali"
by Alessandro Mantelero Aug. 1, 2016

Aug. 1, 2016

Segnalo, a quanti fossero interessati, che da questo pomeriggio è disponibile sul sito dell'editore Roma Tre Press il nuovo volume curato dai Professori Giorgio Resta e Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich su "La protezione transnazionale dei dati personali dai 'safe harbour principles' al 'privacy shield'". Il volume è liberamente scaricabile al seguente indirizzo: http://ojs.romatrepress.uniroma3.it/index.php/PTD/article/view/934/883 -- 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 EMAIL POLICY: twice a day (Mon-Fri)

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Facebook lures Africa with free internet - but what is the hidden cost?
by fabio chiusi Aug. 1, 2016

Aug. 1, 2016

Facebook has signed up almost half the countries in Africa – a combined population of 635 million – to its free internet service in a controversial move to corner the market in one of the world’s biggest mobile data growth regions.Facebook’s co-founder and chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, has made it clear that he wants to connect the whole world to the internet, describing access as a basic human right. His Free Basics initiative, in which mobile users are able to access the site free of data charges, is available in 42 countries, more than half of them in Africa. Continua qui: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook-free-basics-internet… f.

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The CIA’s ‘Pokémon Go’ App is Doing What the Patriot Act Can’t
by Alberto Cammozzo July 31, 2016

July 31, 2016

[...] Firstly, the app requires an excessive amount of permissions on a user’s device, including the ability to read your contacts, find accounts on your device, and access your camera. The app even requires full access to a user’s Google account, which it can then use to read your emails, send emails from your account, browse your Google Drive documents and photos, etc. But apparently that’s just “a mistake” and will be “corrected soon.” Secondly, the game’s privacy policy contains such gems as: “We may disclose any information about you (or your authorized child) that is in our possession or control to government or law enforcement officials or private parties.” What could go wrong? But wait, it gets worse! The maker of the app? Niantic Labs. Never heard of them? That’s because until last year they were an internal start-up of none other than Google, the NSA-linked Big Brother company. Even now Google remains one of Niantic’s major backers. Niantic was founded by John Hanke, who also founded Keyhole, Inc., the mapping company which was created with seed money from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, and which was eventually rolled into Google Maps. So yes, the Pokémon game currently taking the internet by storm (and scooping up all their data, including activities, movements and communications) was created by a CIA-linked businessman who gestated his company at Google. [...] <https://www.corbettreport.com/the-cias-pokemon-go-app-is-doing-what-the-pat…>

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Obama Finally Decides Who’s In Charge When America Comes Under Cyberattack
by Alberto Cammozzo July 31, 2016

July 31, 2016

The White House has placed the Justice Department squarely in charge of responding to cyberthreats against the United States, under a presidential directive issued Tuesday. At the same time, the Homeland Security Department will immediately help agencies and companies, if requested, stanch the bleeding from a hacker assault on networks, or “assets,” President Barack Obama said. For years, there has been confusion in the private sector and internally among agencies about who’s in charge when hackers hit the homeland. Justice will take the lead in “threat response” or investigating a system attack on site, identifying the perpetrator and breaking up attack operations because foreign adversaries often are involved. “In view of the fact that significant cyberincidents will often involve at least the possibility of a nation-state actor or have some other national security nexus, the Department of Justice, acting through the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, shall be the federal lead agency for threat response activities,” the directive states. <http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/obama-finally-decides-whos-cha…>

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Re: [nexa] publica Moglen's keynote: "The last kilometer, the last chance"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 30, 2016

July 30, 2016

"This is the last generation in which the human race gets a choice." .... "By 2025 it will be all over". Il keynote address di Eben Moglen e Mishi Choudhary all'ultima edizione di Re:publica a Berlino: https://youtu.be/-T4bZ5R-MH8 juan carlos

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How To Fool AI Into Seeing Something That Isn’t There
by Alberto Cammozzo July 30, 2016

July 30, 2016

How To Fool AI Into Seeing Something That Isn’t There [...] Today, neural nets are quite good at recognizing faces and spoken words—not to mention objects, animals, letters, and words. But they do make mistakes—sometimes egregious mistakes <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/11710136/Google-Photos-assigns…>. “No machine learning system is perfect,” says Kurakin. And in some cases, you can actually fool these systems into seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there. As Kurakin explains, you can subtly alter an image so that a neural network will think it includes something it doesn’t, an these alterations may be imperceptible to the human eye—a handful of pixels added here and another there. You could change several pixels in a photo of an elephant, he says, and fool a neural net into thinking it’s a car. Researchers like Kurakin call these “adversarial examples.” And they too are security holes. With their new paper [1], Kurakin, Bengio, and Goodfellow show that this can be a problem even when a neural network is used to recognize data pulled straight from a camera or some other sensor. Imagine a face recognition system that uses a neural network to control access to a top-secret facility. You could fool it into thinking you’re someone who you’re not, Kurakin says, simply by drawing some dots on your face. Goodfellow says this same type of attack could apply to almost any form of machine learning, including not only neural networks but things like decision trees <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree_learning> and support vector machines <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine>—machine learning methods that have been popular for more than a decade, helping computer systems make predictions based on data. In fact, he believes that similar attacks are already practiced in the real world. Financial firms, he suspects, are probably using them to fool trading systems used by competitors. “They could make a few trades designed to fool their competitors into dumping a stock at a lower price than its true value,” he says. “And then they could buy the stock up at that low price.” In their paper, Kurakin and Goodfellow fool neural nets by printing an adversarial image on a piece of a paper and showing the paper to a camera. But they believe that subtler attacks could work as well, such as the previous dots-on-the-face example. “We don’t know for sure we could do that in the real world, but our research suggests that it’s possible,” Goodfellow says. “We showed that we can fool a camera, and we think there are all sorts of avenues of attack, including fooling a face recognition system with markings that wouldn’t be visible to a human.” [...] <https://www.wired.com/2016/07/fool-ai-seeing-something-isnt/> [1] <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.02533v1.pdf>

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