”This month, Congress held multiple hearings on cryptocurrency, in which lawmakers called for new regulations and expressed concern about the threat that this new technology poses to the U.S. banking industry and traditional financial system.”
Citat
Under denna kategori publicerar vi intressanta, roliga och tankeväckande citat som rör internet och ett fritt, öppet samhälle.
Nyckelvittnet mot Assange fängslad på Island efter ny upprepad brottslighet
»Last week we learned of the CIA plan to kidnap or kill Assange in the centre of London and now the key witness of the US prosecution against him is in prison for serial offences – the same person that a few weeks ago confirmed in interviews that the elements in the indictment against Julian where he was the only witness, were total fabrications. The case against Assange should be dropped and under no circumstances, given recent revelations, can the UK extradite him.«
Citat från Wikileaks chefredaktör Kristinn Hrafnsson, med anledning av att huvudvittnet mot Julian Assange – som tagit tillbaka sitt vittnesmål – nu fängslats för ny upprepad brottslighet.
Läs mer: Key witness in Assange case jailed in Iceland after admitting to lies and ongoing crime spree »
FBI hemlighöll dekrypterings-nyckel för företag som drabbats av ransomware
»The FBI refrained for almost three weeks from helping to unlock the computers of hundreds of businesses and institutions hobbled by a major ransomware attack this summer, even though the bureau had secretly obtained the digital key needed to do so, according to several current and former U.S. officials. The key was obtained through access to the servers of the Russia-based criminal gang behind the July attack. Deploying it immediately could have helped the victims, including schools and hospitals, avoid what analysts estimate was millions of dollars in recovery costs. But the FBI held on to the key, with the agreement of other agencies, in part because it was planning to carry out an operation to disrupt the hackers, a group known as REvil, and the bureau did not want to tip them off.«
Det hela påminner lite om hur svensk polis hemlighåller nya säkerhetsluckor, för att själv kunna utnyttja dem för hemlig dataavläsning.
Pegasus och annan statlig spyware sågas av FN-kommissionär
Europarådet har hållit en utfrågning kring spionprogramvaran Pegasus, som enligt uppgift använts för att övervaka journalister, oppositionella och politiker runt om i världen. Bland annat medverkade FN:s människorättskommissionär Michelle Bachelet. Här är ett par citat ur hennes anförande.
»Without minimal safeguards and control, expensive and highly intrusive technologies will continue to be used to monitor voices regarded as critical or hostile at home and abroad. These technologies, that detect and exploit vulnerabilities of digital communications without leaving any trace will keep being used as weapons to silence dissent and punish independent reporting.«
»First and foremost, the human rights law applicable here is clear: surveillance measures can only be justified in narrowly defined circumstances, based on the law. In addition, such measures must be both necessary and proportionate to a legitimate goal. Government hacking at the scale reported is never going to meet these criteria.«
Det skall tilläggas att även svenska myndigheter använder Pegasus eller snarlik spyware för övervakning, inom ramen för hemlig dataavläsning.
• Statement by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet »
LA/USA: Polisen samlar in sociala medieprofiler från alla de talar med
»Copies of the “field interview cards” that police complete when they question civilians reveal that LAPD officers are instructed to record a civilian’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts, alongside basic biographical information. An internal memo further shows that the police chief, Michel Moore, told employees that it was critical to collect the data for use in “investigations, arrests, and prosecutions”, and warned that supervisors would review cards to ensure they were complete.«
The Guardian: Revealed: LAPD officers told to collect social media data on every civilian they stop »
Kritiska röster om EU:s nya regelverk för AI
I går presenterade EU-kommissionen sitt »Proposal for a Regulation on a European approach for Artificial Intelligence«.
Som vi tidigare rapporterat – utifrån läckt material – vill EU-kommissionen ha ett förbud mot användning av AI för övervakning. Detta gäller speciellt övervakning kopplad till kameraövervakning med ansiktsigenkänning i realtid. Dock är detta inget heltäckande förbud, utan innehåller ett antal undantag och brasklappar.
Nu börjar reaktionerna på förslaget droppa in. Sarah Chander, Senior Policy Lead on AI hos European Digital Rights (EDRi) säger:
»Whilst it is positive that the Commission acknowledges that some uses of AI are simply unacceptable and need to be prohibited, the draft law does not prohibit the full extent of unacceptable uses of AI and in particular all forms of biometric mass surveillance. This leaves a worrying gap for discriminatory and surveillance technologies used by governments and companies. The regulation allows too wide a scope for self-regulation by companies profiting from AI. People, not companies need to be the centre of this regulation.«
Lotte Houwing, från nederländska Bits of Freedom:
»Biometric mass surveillance reduces our bodies to walking barcodes with the intention of judging the links between our data, physical appearance and our intentions. We should protect this sensitive data because we only have one face, which we cannot swap or leave at home. Once we give up this data we will have lost all control.«
ZDNet rapporterar:
»For Nick Holliman, professor at Newcastle University’s school of computing, the vagueness of the EU’s new rules reflect a lack of understanding of a technology that takes on many different shapes. ”There are risks of harm from not regulating AI systems, especially in high-risk areas, but the nature of the field is such that regulations are being drafted onto a moving target,” Holliman tells ZDNet.
In practice, says Holliman, the regulation seems unworkable, or designed to be defined in detail through case law – and the very idea of having to worry about this type of overhead is likely to drive many businesses away.«
Ytterligare ett citat från samma källa:
»”The EU has wider issues to do with the tech ecosystem: it’s very bureaucratic, it’s hard to get funding, it’s a top-down mentality,” Wolfgang Fengler, lead economist in trade and competitiveness at the World Bank, tells ZDNet. ”The challenge is that these new rules can be seen as business-unfriendly – and I’m not talking for Google, but for small startups operating in the EU.”«
Den tjeckiske ledamoten av Euopaparlamentet, piratpartisten Marcel Kolaja säger:
»The Commission’s plan on AI still leaves some loopholes. Even though the Commission pretends that practices such as biometric identification are banned, in reality, wide exemptions still remain. But these practices could easily be exploited by governments and lead to mass surveillance. And that is unacceptable for us. We have to set clear rules for AI that will protect the freedom of our citizens and will not discriminate against anyone of them. Once the proposal comes to “our table” in the Parliament, I will work to bring the necessary adjustments to the regulation.«
Man kan även notera att förslaget belyser ett problem med hela EU:s beslutsprocess. Med en reglering för hela EU, införd uppifrån, riskerar man att skapa single points of failure. Vilket kan ställas i kontrast mot om olika länder utformar sin egen politik och med tiden lär sig av varandras erfarenheter.
Och det är lite som med EU:s Digital Services Act – man sätter upp ett stelt regelverk för något som ständigt genomgår en dynamisk förändring.
Resurser:
• EDRi: Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Rights: Document Pool »
Chat Control – slutet för privat korrespondens online
»The EU wants to have all private chats, messages, and emails automatically searched for suspicious content, generally and indiscriminately. The stated aim: To prosecute child pornography. The result: Mass surveillance through fully automated real-time messaging and chat control and the end of secrecy of digital correspondence.«
Patrick Breyer, ledamot av Europaparlamentet för Piratpartiet, DE.
Länk: Messaging and chat control – The End of the Privacy of Digital Correspondence »
Facebook lanserar policy för mänskliga rättigheter
Facebook har lanserat en policy för mänskliga rättigheter. Den presenteras så här:
»Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. We build social technologies to enable the best of what people can do together.
Our principles are: give people a voice; serve everyone; promote economic opportunity; build connection and community; keep people safe and protect privacy.
We recognize all people are equal in dignity and rights. We are all equally entitled to our human rights, without discrimination. Human rights are interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.«
Vilket ju i stort sett låter rimligt. Även om en och annan kanske invänder att det där med »protect privacy« skorrar lite falskt.
Man kan också fundera över formuleringen »serve everyone«.
I övrigt innehåller dokumentet rätt mycket corporate fluff och en del politiskt trendriktiga formuleringar som kanske kan bli svåra att omsätta i praktiken – som det är nu för tiden.
Facebook: Corporate Human Rights Policy (PDF) »
Vad som gått förlorat i övervakningsdebatten
»Läggs kontroll till kontroll och registrering till registrering, blir vi själva så småningom slavar i ett kontrollsystem, fångar i ett genomreglerat samhälle, där den enskildes möjligheter att hävda sig gentemot den allt starkare överheten blir allt mindre«, sa Gösta Bohman (M). Skräckbilden är vad vi i dag kallar »algoritmisk reglering«: att få individer att bete sig på det sätt som är kollektivt sett optimalt genom mätning, iterering och datormodeller.
Amelia Andersdotter (Pp) i Liberal debatt
Zuckerberg i kongressutfrågning – efterlyser lagstiftning
De sociala nätjättarna håller just på att vittna inför den amerikanska kongressen. Här är en text från uppsnacket, som fångade mitt intresse:
»When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress on Wednesday, he will call on lawmakers to take explicit action to rewrite the law that protects a free and open internet. In doing so, he will be implicitly asking the federal government to impose huge new regulatory costs on social media sites like his own—costs that will ultimately protect Facebook from rising upstarts.«
Reason: Mark Zuckerberg to Congress: Please Regulate Us (Wink, Wink) »
Ur Zuckerbergs skriftliga inledningsanförande (PDF):
»I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators, which is why in March last year I called for regulation on harmful content, privacy, elections, and data portability. We stand ready to work with Congress on what regulation could look like in these areas. By updating the rules for the internet, we can preserve what’s best about it—the freedom for people to express themselves and for entrepreneurs to build new things—while also protecting society from broader harms. I would encourage this Committee and other stakeholders to make sure that any changes do not have unintended consequences that stifle expression or impede innovation.«
Detta är korporativism i modern tappning – Big Data ber Big Government om kostsam speciallagstiftning som kommer att stoppa nya konkurrenter och uppstickare.
Och som Zuckerberg själv konstaterar, så riskerar sådan lagstiftning att få oväntade och oönskade konsekvenser för det fria ordet och för den tekniska utvecklingen.