Najort

‘High likelihood of human civilisation coming to end’ by 2050, report finds
Harry Cockburn, The Independent, le 4 juin 2019
▻https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-warming-end-human-civilisation-research-a894353

It also argues that the detrimental impacts of climate breakdown, such as increasing scarcity of food and water, will act as a catalyst on extant socio-political instabilities to accelerate disorder and conflict over the next three decades.

Based on lack of meaningful global action to rapidly extinguish all greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, the authors sketch out a scenario in which global emissions peak in #2030.

In this case, using several existing studies, they hypothesise average global temperatures may reach 3C above pre-industrial levels by #2050.

“Even for 2C of warming, more than a billion people may need to be relocated and in high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end,” the paper says.

A doomsday future is not inevitable! But without immediate drastic action our prospects are poor. We must act collectively. We need strong, determined leadership in government, in business and in our communities to ensure a sustainable future for humankind.

... donc c’est foutu!

On l’ajoute à la troisième compilation :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/680147

#effondrement #collapsologie #catastrophe #fin_du_monde #it_has_begun #Anthropocène #capitalocène

Le Conseil d’État donne raison à notre recours contre ParcourSup
Solidaires étudiant-e-s – syndicats de luttes et Mouvement National Lycéen (MNL), Solidaires, le 11 juillet 2019
▻https://solidaires.org/Le-Conseil-d-Etat-donne-raison-a-notre-recours-contre-ParcourSup

Cette décision ouvre droit, pour les candidat-e-s ayant fait acte de candidature avant le 11 mars 2018, à des indemnisations. Solidaires étudiant-e-s et le MNL encouragent les candidat-e-s qui ont été recalé-e-s, durant la campagne 2018, dans des formations à formuler des recours auprès des tribunaux administratifs, en contactant si besoin les syndicats étudiants et lycéens.

#parcoursup #sélection #Solidaires #recours #justice

Amazon Is Watching
▻https://onezero.medium.com/amazon-is-watching-d51b20f1668a

The Internet giant is wiring homes, neighborhoods, and cities with cameras and microphones, and powering the nation’s intelligence services. Are we sure we can trust it?

Amazon’s reputation for serving its customers with low prices and ruthless efficiency might help to explain why, in survey after survey, the Seattle-based company ranks as America’s most valuable — nay, most loved — brand. One recent study found that Amazon is the second most-trusted institution of any kind in the United States, ahead of Google, the police, and the higher-education system, and trailing only the U.S. military. At a time when an endless string of privacy and election scandals has left Facebook’s reputation in smoldering ruins, and Google’s has been dented by YouTube’s radicalization and content moderation woes, Amazon’s is stronger than ever.

Facebook va-t-il casser la finance ?
Par EVGENY MOROZOV pour le Courrier Suisse du 22 juillet 2019
▻https://lecourrier.ch/2019/07/22/facebook-va-t-il-casser-la-finance

Brief. Facebook vient d’annoncer le lancement de la crypto-monnaie Libra pour les utilisateurs FB qui n’ont pas de compte en banque. Parmi les intérêts qui motivent cette diversification, l’entreprise – qui s’apprête à affronter un débat public sur son avenir – « semble avoir compris que sa meilleure arme consistera à recourir au populisme ». Éclairage.

Peut-être ses opposants ont-ils mal compris la nature du risque qu’elle présente. Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet et quelques autres posent un problème fondamentalement différent des autres secteurs. Tant qu’elles trafiquent des données7, et tant que ces dernières restent le moteur de la démocratie comme de l’économie, ces multinationales exerceront une influence disproportionnée sur les décisions qui devraient être prises par les parlements, et non par les marchés. Peu importe qu’ils l’exercent grâce à l’extraction de nos données et l’envoi de publicités, ou grâce à l’achat de nos données et la vente de leurs services. Un modèle économique, aussi rentable soit-il, ne peut en aucun cas constituer un fondement démocratique solide. Pour cela, nous avons des constitutions.

This Israeli Face-recognition Startup Is Secretly Tracking Palestinians
▻https://www.aurdip.org/this-israeli-face-recognition.html

Anyvision Interactive Technologies is one of Israel’s most curious startups. It has shown extraordinary growth, and its technology is being used by the army to monitor West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints on the way into Israel — while using a network of cameras deep inside the West Bank. The company’s co-founder and chief executive, Eylon Etshtein, told TheMarker that his company is sensitive to racial and gender bias and only sells to democracies. Anyvision is Israel’s most high-profile (...)

#Anyvision #Bosch #Microsoft #Mossad #Qualcomm #Amazon #algorithme #CCTV #smartphone #Identité #biométrie #facial #vidéo-surveillance #sécuritaire #surveillance #consommation #frontières #voyageurs (...)

##Identité ##voyageurs
##ACLU

Dire que je n’en avais jamais parlé ici ?!

ELO#182 - Kalmunity Vibe Collective
Dror, Entre Les Oreilles, le 15 octobre 2014
▻https://entrelesoreilles.blogspot.com/2014/10/elo182-kalmunity-vibe-collective.html

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KB2mVbQ1s7I/VD7D-7beRqI/AAAAAAAAL6s/-VpVO5n27yA/s1600/Kalmunity.jpg

Conseil aux touristes de passage à Montréal (Québec, Canada) : le monument à ne pas rater, bien avant le Stade Olympique, le Jardin Botanique ou le Musée des Beaux Arts, c’est le Kalmunity.

Le collectif Kalmunity est à géométrie variable selon la disponibilité des uns et des autres. En comptant les invités de passage, près de 100 musiciens sont passés par cette université montréalaise de la musique, dont le seul membre permanent est Jahsun, le batteur et fondateur depuis 2003. Certains y firent leurs débuts, mais d’autres l’ont rejoint avec des pedigrees impressionnant, comme le bassiste Mark Haynes qui a déjà joué avec Janet Jackson, Gladys Knight ou Patti Labelle...

Le principe de leurs concerts est simple : 100% improvisation ! Un musicien lance un motif mélodique ou rythmique, et les autres s’adaptent. Les cuivres, par exemple, se soufflent des idées à l’oreille avant de se lancer. Neuf fois sur dix, c’est génial. Dix fois sur dix, c’est magique !

En ce moment, toutes les semaines, vous avez le choix entre le Kalmunity Vibe Collective (KVC), les mardis soirs au Petit Campus (57 Prince Arthur Est), ou le Kalmunity Jazz Collective, les dimanches soirs au Résonance Café (5175 av. du Parc). Si vous devenez tellement accros que vous voulez les imiter, ils organisent également des ateliers d’improvisations ouverts aux artistes débutants ou confirmés, à peu près toutes les deux semaines.

Le mardi, une demi douzaine de chanteurs/rappeurs/slammeurs s’assoient au premier rang et écoutent la musique groovy aux influences multiples délivrée par le groupe (funk, soul, R and B, jazz ou rap, mais aussi reggae, dub ou rythmes africains). Ils se joignent aux improvisations selon leur inspiration, seuls ou à plusieurs (bien sûr les textes sont écrits, mais la façon de les chanter ou de les déclamer est improvisée). La poésie est à l’honneur, mais les paroles engagées sont encouragées également, qu’elles soient en français, en anglais ou dans toute autre langue disponible.

Parmi les chanteuses régulières, on croise parfois Malika Tirolien, le secret le mieux gardé de Montréal... Née en Guadeloupe (elle est la petite fille de Léon Gontran Damas, guyanais et cofondateur avec Senghor et Césaire du mouvement de la négritude !), elle vit à Montréal et tente également une carrière solo. Vous entendrez probablement bientôt parler d’elle.

Le dimanche, il y a moins de chanteurs et la musique lorgne plus vers le jazz, ce qui permet néanmoins de mettre Malika encore plus en valeur quand elle est là. Un peu à la manière des américains des Snarky Puppy, avec lesquels Malika Tirolien a également chanté, il est impensable que le KVC ne devienne pas plus célèbre... s’ils le désirent.

Mais peut-être ne courent-ils pas après le succès mondial et préfèrent un engagement dans leur communauté. En témoigne leurs nombreuses participations à des concerts au profit de causes qu’il juge justes, comme par exemple les étudiants québécois en grève, l’éducation en Palestine ou les rescapés du tremblement de terre en Haïti.

Ne les ratez pas si vous passez à Montréal, car ils enregistrent peu, ils quittent rarement leur ville et ils ne sont jamais aussi bons que sur scène, le soir où vous y serez ! Vous pouvez aussi y retourner autant de fois que vous voulez puisque, par définition, chaque représentation est une expérience unique qui rend d’ailleurs, c’est le principal défaut du Kalmunity, tous les autres concerts banals et ennuyeux !

▻http://www.kalmunity.com
▻http://www.facebook.com/kalmunity
▻http://www.youtube.com/kalmunity
▻https://soundcloud.com/kalmunity

Les concerts des mardis soirs sont retransmis en direct sur facebook. Pas de très bonne qualité, mais ça donne une idée :
▻https://www.facebook.com/pg/Kalmunity/live_videos

#Kalmunity #Musique #Montreal #Improvisation #shameless_autopromo #Entre_Les_Oreilles #Jazz #Groove

Internet : « Aujourd’hui, le marché permet de moins en moins à de nouveaux acteurs indépendants d’émerger »
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/07/17/internet-aujourd-hui-le-marche-permet-de-moins-en-moins-a-de-nouveaux-acteur

Dans une tribune au « Monde », Jean-Baptiste Rudelle, PDG de Criteo lance un cri d’alarme pour le maintien d’un Internet ouvert, face à l’emprise des grandes plates-formes américaines, en passe de contrôler, seules, des pans entiers de l’économie. L’Internet ouvert est menacé et risque de disparaître sous nos yeux. Mais nous regardons ailleurs, sans prendre la mesure de ce que nous sommes en train de sacrifier. L’Internet ouvert est un principe fondateur du Web. Il vise à donner la possibilité à chacun (...)

#domination #GAFAM

https://img.lemde.fr/2019/06/24/566/0/6000/3000/1440/720/60/0/ad8fc63_xg_ZoPSuTiFGErc3DlP3Tu8o.jpg

This Israeli Face-recognition Startup Is Secretly Tracking Palestinians
Amitai Ziv, Haaretz, le 15 juillet 2019
▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-this-israeli-face-recognition-startup-is-secretly-tracking-palesti

Anyvision Interactive Technologies is one of Israel’s most curious startups. It has shown extraordinary growth, and its technology is being used by the army to monitor West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints on the way into Israel — while using a network of cameras deep inside the West Bank. The company’s co-founder and chief executive, Eylon Etshtein, told TheMarker that his company is sensitive to racial and gender bias and only sells to democracies.

Anyvision is Israel’s most high-profile biometric recognition firm, particularly in facial recognition. The company notes that its software can be hooked up to cameras of all kinds and be installed and used immediately, requiring little computing capacity.

TheMarker has learned that Anyvision is taking part in two special projects in assisting the Israeli army in the West Bank. One involves a system that it has installed at army checkpoints that thousands of Palestinians pass through each day on their way to work from the West Bank. The product lets the army quickly identify whether the person passing through has an Israeli work permit, thereby shortening the wait at the border.

The army said in a statement in February: “As part of a wide-ranging program to upgrade the crossings in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] through the addition of technology, 27 biometric crossings have been established and new identification and inspection stations have been added. The inspection procedure at the crossings has become more efficient and significantly faster.”

Anyvision’s second project is much more confidential and includes facial recognition technology elsewhere in the West Bank, not just at border crossings. Cameras deep inside the West Bank try to spot and monitor potential Palestinian assailants.

At TheMarker’s most recent Technovation conference in June, Yaniv Cohen, Anyvision’s accountant, described how the facial recognition firm built its first prototype in 2014 and launched its initial product commercially three years later, working with government clients, security agencies and foreign corporations. In 2018, Anyvision raised $28 million (led by the German company Bosch) and increased revenues sixfold.
“The company operates in the field of picture processing, and its power is in its technology,” Cohen said. “Its people have developed new generations of the product at an extraordinary pace, which has let them attract customers and enter new markets, helping them quickly raise funds and race ahead.”

Anyvision’s president, Amir Kain, is the former head of Malmab, the Defense Ministry’s security department. One of Anyvision’s advisers is Tamir Pardo, the former head of the Mossad intelligence service.

Pinpoint accuracy

According to a presentation on its website, Anyvision has a staff of 240 including 30 Ph.D.s and is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It says the company operates in 43 countries and at more than 350 locations such as stadiums, airports and casinos.

It says its products are being used at some of the most well-protected airports in the world and claims a 99.9% accuracy rate for its facial recognition technology compared with 70% among competing systems. It says that on average, it suffers less than one false reading a day. Anyvision was recently named a Cool Vendor by Gartner, the research and consulting firm that honors breakthrough technology developed by startups.

In the middle of last month, Anyvision raised $31 million from Microsoft’s M12 venture capital fund as well as investment fund DFJ Growth and Israeli investor Eyal Ofer’s O.G. Tech. The startup has raised $74 million in first-round funding at an estimated company valuation of $500 million. Firms that have already invested include Qualcomm and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The company sells three products based on its technology. The first, Better Tomorrow, identifies suspicious behavior; it’s the kind used at airports and casinos. Its SesaMe product uses facial recognition technology on smartphones; for example, Bank Hapoalim employs the system to let users open bank accounts through its app. The third product, Insights, can tell supermarket chains what shoppers are looking at in the aisles.

“On a commercial level, industry has been trying for 15 years to develop facial and body recognition and computerized vision, but it didn’t come to fruition,” Etshtein, the co-founder and chief executive, told TheMarker. “We have the technology to make this leap, so we’re attracting the market’s attention.”

The controversy over facial recognition

Anyvision’s involvement in the West Bank is being revealed amid a lively debate around the world on the use of biometric technology, especially facial recognition. About a month ago, San Francisco became the first American city to outlaw facial recognition technology. And camera maker Axon recently decided to eliminate its products’ facial recognition capacity, based on the recommendations of an ethics committee that it had formed.

“Regarding the global trend, I can say that a few newspapers have adopted a very left-wing approach. I wouldn’t say that it’s representative. We did a market study about the American population and found that the rate of support for facial recognition technology for use in security is off the charts,” Etshtein said.

“We support regulating the field so that the technology won’t be biased based on gender or race, and also due to privacy issues. We’re very sensitive to such matters, so of all the companies in the world, Microsoft decided to go with us. We’re also working in the [U.S.] Senate, through lobbyists, to explain why artificial intelligence is a good thing,” he added.

“No one in the world does mass surveillance other than China, and I don’t operate in China. I also don’t sell in Africa or Russia. We only sell systems to democratic countries with proper governments. For example, you’ll find statements by the mayor of Nice [France], who says he can finally locate a child who has gotten lost, an old person with dementia or someone with malicious intentions.”

Presented with the argument that the West Bank isn’t governed democratically and that mass surveillance is being carried out there, Etshtein responded: “It’s really a huge dilemma, but I’m not the guy to ask this. Ultimately we’re a technology company that does the maximum so that its technology isn’t misused.”

The American Civil Liberties Union recently published a major study — “The Dawn of Robot Surveillance” — on crowd monitoring using video technology and its impact on civil rights.

Also, a high-profile information security researcher, Bruce Schneir, wrote: “It used to be that surveillance cameras were passive. Maybe they just recorded, and no one looked at the video unless they needed to. Maybe a bored guard watched a dozen different screens, scanning for something interesting. In either case, the video was only stored for a few days because storage was expensive.”

“Increasingly, none of that is true,” he added. “Recent developments in video analytics — fueled by artificial intelligence techniques like machine learning — enable computers to watch and understand surveillance videos with human-like discernment. Identification technologies make it easier to automatically figure out who is in the videos. And finally, the cameras themselves have become cheaper, more ubiquitous, and much better; cameras mounted on drones can effectively watch an entire city. Computers can watch all the video without human issues like distraction, fatigue, training, or needing to be paid. The result is a level of surveillance that was impossible just a few years ago.”

Quoting from the ACLU report, Schneir noted that they “won’t just record us, but will also make judgments about us based on their understanding of our actions, emotions, skin color, clothing, voice, and more.”

Last month a number of civil rights groups including the ACLU sent a letter to Google, Amazon and Microsoft asking that they not provide such technology to the U.S. government. “We are at a crossroads with face surveillance, and the choices made by these companies now will determine whether the next generation will have to fear being tracked by the government for attending a protest, going to their place of worship, or simply living their lives,” Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director for the ACLU of California, wrote in the letter.

In October, Google announced that it was withdrawing from bidding on a $10 billion contract to develop facial recognition technology for U.S. military drones. The company dropped out following protests by its employees over the use of the technology. Google then said it had found that the technology could be used in ways that violate its ethics guidelines.

A tool for good?

Among Anyvision’s investors, Microsoft has attracted particular attention. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. company’s investment had been delayed so that Anyvision could ensure that its technology met Microsoft’s ethics standards.

Bloomberg quoted Anyvision’s chief commercial officer, Max Constant, as saying: “They’re asking the question now of how do we leverage this in a way so that we can actually make sure that this is a tool for good.”

What are Microsoft’s guidelines regarding tools for good? Israel’s military control over the West Bank, parts of which are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, is opposed by the international community and is seen by many people around the world as a violation of human rights. The U.S. group Freedom House describes the West Bank as “not free,” with a rating of 25 out of 100 points.

The Israeli surveillance operation in the West Bank is undoubtedly among the largest of its kind in the world. It includes monitoring the media, social media and the population as a whole — and now it turns out also the biometric signature of West Bank Palestinians. This monitoring op is now competing with the Chinese regime, that intensively uses facial recognition and monitors its civilians’ activity on social networks.

Voir aussi :

Israel secretly tracking Palestinians with FRT
DM Chan, Asia Times, le 15 juillet 2019
►https://seenthis.net/messages/792939

Et en #France, à #Nice (#Reporty) :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/745558
►https://seenthis.net/messages/761518

La CNIL défavorable à l’utilisation de l’application de sécurité Reporty à Nice
Claire Legros, Le Monde, le 22 mars 2018
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2018/03/22/la-cnil-defavorable-a-l-utilisation-de-l-application-de-securite-reporty-a-n

A ces questions, la CNIL (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés) vient d’apporter une première réponse, claire et motivée, à propos du dispositif d’origine israélienne Reporty, que la ville de Nice avait commencé à déployer.

#Anyvision_Interactive_Technologies #Palestine #israel #surveillance #vidéo-surveillance #Face-recognition

How Israeli-Designed Drones Became Russia’s Eyes in the Sky for Defending Bashar al-Assad
▻https://theintercept.com/2019/07/16/syria-war-israel-russia-drones

Last summer, Israel shot down yet another military drone near the line that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. The confrontation would have been business as usual, if not for a twist : Images of the destroyed drone showed Cyrillic tail markings and other identifiable components of a Forpost belonging to Russia. The findings presented an awkward geopolitical moment : Syria and Russia are allies, and Syria and Israel are bitter enemies — but the Russian (...)

#surveillance #aérien #drone

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/07/GettyImages-997056900-1563212846-e1563212891516.jpg

Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost Was a Member of Secret Facebook Group
▻https://theintercept.com/2019/07/12/border-patrol-chief-carla-provost-was-a-member-of-secret-facebook-grou

When news broke that thousands of current and former Border Patrol agents were members of a secret Facebook group filled with racist, vulgar, and sexist content, Carla Provost, chief of the agency, was quick to respond. “These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see — and expect — from our agents day in and day out,” Provost said in a statement. “Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.” For Provost, a (...)

#ICE #DHS #Facebook #migration #discrimination #surveillance #frontières

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/07/AP_19011717223005-carla-provost-1562880580-e1562880654126.jpg

Vers des villes politiquement intelligentes
▻http://www.internetactu.net/2019/07/10/vers-des-villes-politiquement-intelligentes

Ingénieur, data scientist, spécialiste en mathématiques appliqués, chercheur au Berkman Klein Center pour l’internet et la société de Harvard, spécialiste de la ville intelligente, Ben Green (@benzevgreen) pourrait avoir le parfait profil du technosolutionniste. C’est pourtant tout le contraire qu’on découvre dans son livre The smart enough city (qu’on pourrait traduire sous le titre de La ville avec juste ce qu’il faut d’intelligence ou La ville suffisamment intelligente) qui vient de paraître aux MIT (...)

#Waze #algorithme #Predpol #solutionnisme #criminalité #BigData #santé

##criminalité ##santé
/assets/images/logo_ia.png

Israel secretly tracking Palestinians with FRT
▻https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/israel-secretly-tracking-palestinians-with-frt

Israel’s most high-profile facial recognition technology (FRT) startup, Anyvision Interactive Technologies, is being used by the army to monitor West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints on the way into Israel — while using a network of cameras deep inside the West Bank, Haaretz reported. Anyvision is taking part in two special projects. One involves a system that it has installed at army checkpoints that thousands of Palestinians pass through each day on their way to work from the West Bank. (...)

#surveillance #vidéo-surveillance #biométrie #CCTV #facial #discrimination #Anyvision

https://static.asiatimes.com/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-15-at-11.13.08-AM-900x540.png

Pont de Sully : l’usage de gaz lacrymogène a été tel que le commandant des CRS a perdu connaissance
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/140719/pont-de-sully-l-usage-de-gaz-lacrymogene-ete-tel-que-le-commandant-des-crs

Un compte-rendu rédigé par la police sur l’évacuation des écologistes pacifiques du pont de Sully, le 28 juin, à Paris, indique que le commandant des CRS chargé des opérations a lui-même perdu « connaissance par suffocation de gaz lacrymogène ». Plus de cinq litres de gaz avaient été aspergés en moins de 30 minutes.

#Violences_policières #Extinction_Rebellion,_CRS,_violences_policières,_paris,_Police,_A_la_Une

https://static.mediapart.fr/etmagine/default/files/2019/07/13/sully.png

’Black vest’ protesters storm Panthéon in Paris CNN
▻https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48969438

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJoBfDGedkw

FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches, TheWashingtonPost, 07 juillet 2019
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-find-state-drivers-license-photos-are-gold-mine-facial-recog

A cache of records shared with The Washington Post reveals that agents are scanning millions of Americans’ faces without their knowledge or consent.

Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by researchers with Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.

Libra, la cryptomonnaie de Facebook : comme un air de fin du monde…
▻https://jcenglebert.weebly.com/blog

Je soutiens ici que le lancement par Facebook de la cryptomonnaie Libra devrait faire dresser les cheveux sur la tête de n’importe quelle personne saine d’esprit. Je me base pour ma démonstration sur le travail que j’ai réalisé concernant les applications et implications environnementales de la technologie blockchain, technologie sous-jacente aux cryptomonnaies. Je vais tout d’abord revenir sur les caractéristiques majeures de Facebook et des blockchains. Ensuite, je vais donner un bref aperçu de la (...)

#cryptomonnaie #domination #Facebook #Libra #profiling

http://jcenglebert.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/5/9/25597221/1537874_orig.jpeg

Zero-hour contracts take a huge mental and physical toll – poor eating habits, lack of sleep and relationship problems
▻https://theconversation.com/zero-hour-contracts-take-a-huge-mental-and-physical-toll-poor-eatin

The number of workers on zero-hours contracts continues to rise in the UK. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that between October and December 2018 there were between 777,000 and 911,000 people working on zero-hours contracts. But the impact of such contracts seems to be underestimated by the government. An independent government review of modern working practices states that : “To ban zero-hours contracts in their totality would negatively impact many more people than it (...)

#Deliveroo #UberEATS #Uber #travail #santé

##santé

https://images.theconversation.com/files/283111/original/file-20190708-51278-1uq0b74.jpg

Code in Chinese surveillance app analysed, RUB news
▻https://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2019-07-03-it-security-code-chinese-surveillance-app-analysed

Travellers entering China from Kyrgyzstan have to install an app on their phones, as was unearthed by investigative journalists. IT experts from Bochum have analysed the application’s function.

Computer security researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), in collaboration with the association of investigative journalists from NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), have analysed how the Chinese surveillance app works that travellers must have installed on their phones when crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan to China. The researchers have unearthed that the app scans the phone for approximately 73,000 specific files. Moreover, it compiles a report for the border officials, including for example the most recent phone activities, contacts, SMS, and social media accounts. The researchers published their findings online. In the media, the investigation results were reported on 2 July 2019.

An SZ reader had informed the newspaper of the procedure where travellers have to hand over their unlocked phone to a border official for the purpose of installing the app. Subsequently, the media houses started investigating the issue and consulted Professor Thorsten Holz. The Head of the Chair for Systems Security at Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at RUB and one of the speakers of the Casa Cluster of Excellence (short for Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries) is an expert for software application analysis.

Together with his PhD researcher Moritz Contag, he analysed both the actual app and more specifically two of the app’s helper programs that were available only in machine code format, i.e. ones and zeros. The code can be run by a processor, but is unreadable to humans.
Report on social media accounts and phone activities

The analysed Android app compiles a report containing information such as phone contacts, sent SMS messages and the recent call log, including the mobile station with which the phone was connected. With the aid of the first helper program, the app finds out which Chinese social media apps are installed on the phone and which accounts are linked with them.

The second helper program scans the phone for specific files. To this end, it contains a list of 73,315 so-called checksums. They are typically used to verify data integrity, pretty much like a digital fingerprint. If, for example, a user downloads a file from the Internet, the relevant checksum is typically also available. Following the download, the computer or the mobile device can calculate the checksum of the downloaded file and match it against the expected checksum. If the file was corrupted during download, the calculated and the expected checksums don’t match. File integrity is verified if both sums are the same.
Search for specific videos

Accordingly, the checksum constitutes a digital fingerprint of each file, i.e. each video, each text and audio file. The app calculates the checksums for all files available on the phone and matches them against an existing list. “However, it’s not possible to deduce the file’s content from the checksum,” explains Thorsten Holz. In the subroutine, the researchers from Bochum found another information in addition to the checksums, namely the file size.

Using these parameters, the RUB team identified more than 1,300 files and shared them with the SZ and NDR investigative team. Based on these and other sources, more than 2,000 files were reconstructed that were subsequently analysed in detail by the investigative team together with colleagues from The Guardian and The New York Times. Those included video and audio files containing Islamist propaganda, but also a document about the Dalai Lama and rock music by a Japanese band.

“The app is a surveillance tool used to scan mobile phones for specific information at the border – very fast and very efficiently,” concludes Thorsten Holz.

Training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613630/training-a-single-ai-model-can-emit-as-much-carbon-as-five-cars-in

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/datacentercolored.jpg?cx=0&cy=275&cw=3000&ch=1688&sw1200

In a new paper, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, performed a life cycle assessment for training several common large AI models. They found that the process can emit more than 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent—nearly five times the lifetime emissions of the average American car (and that includes manufacture of the car itself).

It’s a jarring quantification of something AI researchers have suspected for a long time. “While probably many of us have thought of this in an abstract, vague level, the figures really show the magnitude of the problem,” says Carlos Gómez-Rodríguez, a computer scientist at the University of A Coruña in Spain, who was not involved in the research. “Neither I nor other researchers I’ve discussed them with thought the environmental impact was that substantial.”

They found that the computational and environmental costs of training grew proportionally to model size and then exploded when additional tuning steps were used to increase the model’s final accuracy. In particular, they found that a tuning process known as neural architecture search, which tries to optimize a model by incrementally tweaking a neural network’s design through exhaustive trial and error, had extraordinarily high associated costs for little performance benefit. Without it, the most costly model, BERT, had a carbon footprint of roughly 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent, close to a round-trip trans-American flight.

What’s more, the researchers note that the figures should only be considered as baselines. “Training a single model is the minimum amount of work you can do,” says Emma Strubell, a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the lead author of the paper. In practice, it’s much more likely that AI researchers would develop a new model from scratch or adapt an existing model to a new data set, either of which can require many more rounds of training and tuning.

The significance of those figures is colossal—especially when considering the current trends in AI research. “In general, much of the latest research in AI neglects efficiency, as very large neural networks have been found to be useful for a variety of tasks, and companies and institutions that have abundant access to computational resources can leverage this to obtain a competitive advantage,” Gómez-Rodríguez says. “This kind of analysis needed to be done to raise awareness about the resources being spent [...] and will spark a debate.”

“What probably many of us did not comprehend is the scale of it until we saw these comparisons,” echoed Siva Reddy, a postdoc at Stanford University who was not involved in the research.
The privatization of AI research

The results underscore another growing problem in AI, too: the sheer intensity of resources now required to produce paper-worthy results has made it increasingly challenging for people working in academia to continue contributing to research.

#Intelligence_artificielle #Consommation_énergie #Empreinte_carbone

The Second Drone Age
▻https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/turkey-second-drone-age

How Turkey Defied the U.S. and Became a Killer Drone Power Finding oneself in the crosshairs of a military drone is, for most people, not the most comforting situation. Yet at an air show last fall, tens of thousands of people had a different reaction. A military drone took off from a runway, and moments later it began transmitting its view to a giant screen on stage. The video from the drone was clear enough to pick out your own face among the crowd. It was exactly what the drone’s pilot, (...)

#drone #militarisation #aérien #vidéo-surveillance #surveillance

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/05/turkey-drone-illo-final-1557774170.jpg

The vile experiences of women in tech
▻https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/05/03/the-vile-experiences-of-women-in-tech

THE TECHNOLOGY industry vaunts itself as a meritocracy. Yet it is roundly criticised for being unwelcoming to women, in ways large and small. In America, women hold just 25% of jobs in computing, and leave the tech and engineering sectors at twice the rate of men. The situation is worse for women of colour : black women hold only 3% of jobs among women in tech, and Latina women just 1% in America. The gender imbalance is a global problem. In Britain, for example, Europe’s main tech hub, (...)

#algorithme #discrimination #GAFAM #harcèlement

https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/20190503_OPD001.jpg

« La drague est anti-féministe » | StreetPress
▻https://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1561380437-drague-anti-feministe-Valerie-Rey-Robert

Depuis MeToo, on entend beaucoup que les hommes ne peuvent plus draguer. Est-ce mal ?

Non. Je les trouve indécents. Des femmes racontent les souffrances par lesquelles elles sont passées. Et le fait que, en face, des hommes racontent : « Ouais mais moi j’ai envie qu’on me suce la bite » – c’est à ça que ça revient – c’est extrêmement indécent.

Et, par ailleurs, ils ont raison d’avoir peur. Parce que certains ne vont plus pouvoir se comporter comme ils le faisaient. DSK, par exemple, avait visiblement des comportements de prédateur répétés – il était connu pour ça non ? – et continuait autant qu’il le voulait. C’est une question d’époque. Pour les femmes de l’âge de ma mère, c’était normal. Ma mère me racontait que dans les soirées étudiantes de droit et de médecine, il fallait savoir enlever ses talons hauts très vite, pour courir au bon moment. Et il ne fallait pas trop boire, sinon, comme elle le disait, « on y passait ». C’était totalement intériorisé par les femmes. Et une partie des hommes ne pourra aujourd’hui plus baiser non plus. Certains ont construit leur façon d’avoir des relations sexuelles sur l’acharnement, jusqu’à ce que les femmes cèdent. C’est fini ! Et comme certains sont trop inintéressants, moches, pas séduisants, sans humour, pas intelligents, et qu’ils ne pourront plus forcer, ces mecs-là vont rester sur le carreau. Ils vont devoir être ingénieux et plein d’humour au lieu d’insister comme des porcs.

#hétérosexualité #harcelement #drague #espace_public #culture_du_viol #galanterie #sexisme

How Google, Microsoft, and Big Tech Are Automating the Climate Crisis
▻https://gizmodo.com/how-google-microsoft-and-big-tech-are-automating-the-1832790799

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I am not sure how Google’s mission of indexing all the world’s information came to contain the side quest of helping the world in which it sits burn. Or how Bill Gates can talk about fighting climate change at Davos while his company props up and propels its actual largest contributors. (The most impactful move Gates could probably make at this point would be to ask Microsoft to cut ties from the fossil fuel industry.) Or how Amazon can advertise services aimed to optimize the obtaining and burning of carbon with the same blase copy with which it advertises Kindle self-publishing services.

How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You May Not Want The New York Times, 24 juin 2019, par Jennifer Valentino-DeVries
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/technology/e-commerce-dark-patterns-psychology.html

[F]ake messages are an example of “dark patterns,” devious online techniques that manipulate users into doing things they might not otherwise choose to. They are the digital version of timeworn tactics used to influence consumer behavior, like impulse purchases placed near cash registers, or bait-and-switch ads for used cars.

“The important question as a policy matter is what separates a dark pattern from good old-fashioned advertising,” [Woodrow Hartzog, a law and computer science professor at Northeastern University] said. “It’s a notoriously difficult line to find — what’s permissible persuasion vs wrongful manipulation.”

Most sites identified by the researchers used messages that indicated that products were popular, that there were few items in stock or that products would only be available for a limited time. Some were demonstrably false, while others were unclear.

Le « maximum 3 articles par personne » affiché dans les supermarchés, c’est du même acabit.
Et ça s’appelle du neuro-marketting, si mes souvenirs sont tangibles.