Useful resource for Coronavirus
Hi all! Hope you’re all safe and isolated - I found this, seems to be the best resource for organising efforts around Coronavirus: www.coronavirustechhandbook.com All the data and graphs you could ever want, tips for remote working, tools for organising mutual aid groups, and crowdsourced specialist advice for doctors, teachers, charities, all kinds of things. Have a look. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Il Manifesto: Let's get the network data
I think trust should not be placed primarily in technological solutions, an app where we can fine-tune our privacy preferences. Rather, the focus should be on creating social institutions that are capable of analyzing these system-wide dynamics, based on all this data, and then develop policies within a democratic framework. I know, lots of people will argue -- as liberal theory has for the last 200 years -- that personal privacy is a precondition for democracy, but that Gutenberg Galaxy argument is really limiting our thinking. Let's face it, that system-level, deeply privacy-invasive, knowledge exists already, but since it's housed in closed institutions (profit and/or security-focused) nobdoy on the outside (scientists, public, democratic decision-making bodies) has no access to it. For about 15 years, we could observe the consequences of this, and it's a vast accumulation of wealth and power in the hand of an unaccountable few, at expense of public institutions left to play catch-up they cannot win. That leaves us with either issuing soft appeals, or accepting unaccountable backroom deals, like the one that the Trump-administration may, or may not, preparing with Google and Palantier. The latter is really a worst-case scenario. I think we should think in a different direction. How about mandating that big data companies make their data available for public-interest research? What public-interest research is in practice, and how to handle the inevitable privacy issues, could be left to decide to a science review board. There is lots of experience with that. Wouldn't that open a much more interesting discussion? All the best. Felix On 26.03.20 15:07, Andreas Broeckmann wrote: > folks, it's probably no surprise that we are getting, only this morning, > two reposts that advocate a more aggressive employment of data-driven > measures, both implying that data privacy may have to be curtailed in > the service of public health. (i've excerpted the crucial passages from > both messages below.) > > in germany, the minister for health yesterday had to withdraw a law > proposal that would have gone in this direction, in the face of strong > protests, incl. from the ministry of justice. > > i wonder what the options for technical solutions might be that could be > more acceptable for people concerned about data protection and civil > rights. (to me, the italian appeal to the benevolence of the GAFA seems > all too naive, though understandable in the desperate situation in > italy.) would it perhaps even be possible to think forward, to consider > improvements to the technical systems that would give smartphone users > (are we talking about anybody else?) a greater level of control about > their data profiles, at least in the long run? or other real advantages? > > just speculating... > > -a > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Il Manifesto: Let's get the network data
folks, it's probably no surprise that we are getting, only this morning, two reposts that advocate a more aggressive employment of data-driven measures, both implying that data privacy may have to be curtailed in the service of public health. (i've excerpted the crucial passages from both messages below.) in germany, the minister for health yesterday had to withdraw a law proposal that would have gone in this direction, in the face of strong protests, incl. from the ministry of justice. i wonder what the options for technical solutions might be that could be more acceptable for people concerned about data protection and civil rights. (to me, the italian appeal to the benevolence of the GAFA seems all too naive, though understandable in the desperate situation in italy.) would it perhaps even be possible to think forward, to consider improvements to the technical systems that would give smartphone users (are we talking about anybody else?) a greater level of control about their data profiles, at least in the long run? or other real advantages? just speculating... -a Am 26.03.20 um 11:28 schrieb William Waites: > > Marcel Salathé: I fear we will need stronger measures > > Interview by Sylvie Logean for Le Temps > Original: https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/marcel-salathe-crains-ne-devions-aller-vers-mesures-plus-strictes > Translation by William Waites > 2020/03/25 > Marcel Salathé:> The only way to manage this health crisis, in the absence of treatments > and while we wait for an effective and safe vaccine - which we know we > won't have before 9-18 months - is to attack the problem as the Asian > countries have done: with large-scale testing, isolating the sick, and > tracing people who have been in contact with infected people and > isolating them in turn if necessary. This strategy, recommended by the > World Health Organisation and which we could accomplish in Switzerland > while protecting personal data, has the immense advantage of enabling a > rapid and active extinction of local outbreaks, while avoiding strict > confinement for a long period of time. Am 26.03.20 um 09:59 schrieb nettime's avid reader: EDITORIAL Let's get the network data EDITION OF THE 03/25/2020 POSTED 24.3.2020, 19:12 We are a group of journalists who want to join the country's effort against contagion. But as information workers we know that all of this will be a dead letter if we don't have the data to power these tools. Without data we die. Government and European institutions must ask those who have these data to make them available to health and administrative authorities to limit the damage. The great service providers: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, know a lot, if not everything, about social relationships, mobility, the mood, the physical conditions, of millions and millions of Italians, we talk about those Italians of more dynamic and competitive areas, living on the net, constantly talking to the net. We need to know what happened in February, how it is possible that the volcano exploded in Italy, and above all we must now enclose the contagion areas, identifying the most dangerous groups precisely in the passage from north to south of the wave of the coronavirus. Only the databases of these profiling powers would allow us to hopefully fight this war. As the European Commission claims, it is not a question of expropriating anyone. We ask these large corporations for collaboration, we want institutions to get attention for concrete cooperation. We would like the government to get positive answers from those who are partners in the public administration, from companies that are collecting invaluable masses of data for the movement of a large part of the population on their e learning and smart working platforms. We have read that Mark Zuckerberg fears a collapse of his servers due to the excess of users by quarantined citizens. Then he too should bring these people out of the house by shortening the time of isolation, help governments to georeference the real areas of transmission of the virus. A platform that gathers almost half of the earth's population is in itself a common good, a universal service. Let these great technological brands gain the honor of being an essential part of our lives by using the virality of the network against the virality of the disease. They know a lot, if not all. They know where, how and when the contagion opportunities have arisen, the rush of the virus has accelerated. Can all this be made available to the country right away? Owners of these platforms can elaborate, trace calculate the crisis points, developing graphs that make us understand in Lazio or Campania or Sicily what is about to happen. Let them independently give us the results of this elaboration. We don't want to get our hands in their drawers. Let the owners of these drawers make us win this battle, to save victims, to limit suffering, to save
Marcel Salathé: I fear we will need stronger measures
Marcel Salathé: I fear we will need stronger measures Interview by Sylvie Logean for Le Temps Original: https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/marcel-salathe-crains-ne-devions-aller-vers-mesures-plus-strictes Translation by William Waites 2020/03/25 EPFL professor expresses his frustration about the authorities' management of the COVID-19 crisis. Despite the appeals of experts as early as January, the Swiss authorities were slow to act, losing precious time. [photograph of Marcel Salathé] Marcel Salathé, professor at EPFL, believes that, when it comes to the authorities, "we are dealing with a kind of magical thinking, a kind of hope that the situation will spontaneously improve". The director of the Digital Epidemiology Laboratory at the Biotech Campus in Geneva and professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne closely follows the COVID-19 pandemic across the world with machine learning tools. For him, it was clear several weeks ago that we would be facing a dramatic situation. He doesn't hide his frustration with the authorities who, despite the appeals of experts, have been slow to act. Le Temps: several scientists tried to alert the authorities very early about the health emergency, in Switzerland and elsewhere, that the exponential growth of the COVID-19 epidemic would represent. Why did they take so long to react? Marcel Salathé: I think that's an eminently political question. We were working on these questions already in January and we were able to predict what was going to happen. Based on what happened in Wuhan, we could see, in effect, that the number of infected people was following a nearly perfectly exponential curve. At the same time, given our vulnerability to this virus and a lack of preventative or therapeutic treatments for it, we knew that the situation would be very difficult to manage, even more so when the epidemic spread to Iran and Italy despite the confinement measures taken in China. These were the observations that made us raise the alarm at the end of January. Unfortunately, we were not taken seriously then and received no support from the political class. In the eyes of many, we were simply being alarmist. On your Twitter account, you recently expressed your loss of confidence in the political arena... I understand that it's difficult to reconcile all the different existing interests, to find the right equilibrium. But I was particularly shocked by the lack of appreciation for the work of Swiss scientific experts that weren't, at any time, involved in the decision-making process. I expected the political actors to take the threat seriously, that the authorities would strongly attack the situation from the beginning, but this was not the case, which is terribly frustrating. Our objective is still not, today, to point the finger, but to face this crisis together. This is why we have created, with a team of scientists, a volunteer task force with the goal of producing studies that can be useful for the authorities. Happily, in the past few days, a communication channel seems to have been opened. It is a narrow channel, but at least it exists. In your opinion, did the the Federal Council try to appear too reassuring to the population? I think rather that part of our leaders did not, at that time, grasp the true gravity of the situation. This observation, valid for Switzerland, is also true for nearly all European countries as well as the United States, which, unlike the Asian countries, haven't lived through the trauma linked to the preceding SARS-CoV-1 and MERS epidemics. We also need to mention that, among the countries which reacted inadequately, Switzerland nevertheless rapidly decided to impose courageous measures, forbidding, for example, gatherings of more than 1000 people. Despite this, we lost precious time. Seen from outside, the strategy of the Federal Council still doesn't seem clear. What model are they working from to face this pandemic? That's a question for which I don't have a precise answer. For now, the Federal Council seems to be applying what I call the "salami technique", which consists of cutting a certain number of measures into fine slices, stronger and stronger, with the goal of obtaining more acceptance from the population. Globally these are good measures, but are they really sufficient? My impression is that the authorities seem to believe that it will still be possible to manage the situation by compromise. We are faced with a sort of magical thinking, a form of hope in the possibility of a spontaneous improvement in the situation, like we observe with seasonal flu. We don't know yet if this is really possible, but the example of Italy shows us that it certainly won't happen. That's the reason why I fear that we will need a much stricter lock-down. To some experts, the Swiss authorities seem to be acting as if they've already lost the war with t
Il Manifesto: Let's get the network data
EDITORIAL Let's get the network data https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Filmanifesto.it%2Ffacciamoci-dare-i-dati-della-rete%2F Open Letter to the Italian Government and the European Institutions. Without the cooperation of the OTTs and the platforms, we grope in the dark and the virus is uncontrollable. The appeal of journalists to mobilize the country's databases: the virality of the network against the virality of the epidemic *** EDITION OF THE 03/25/2020 POSTED 24.3.2020, 19:12 We are a group of journalists who want to join the country's effort against contagion. We understood that our world, that of information and digital relations, is today the main battleground. We want to make available to the country the experience of a profession that, for better or for worse, has always played a role in the national emergency, making vital information transparent and shared. Today we learn from the head of the Civil Protection Borrelli that at least 10 real infected people go around our cities for every single infected person who is intercepted by the health system. This differential translates into hospitalized, intubated and, terribly, deaths. We cannot continue to go blind hunting for asymptomatics. The Italian government and Europe have opened up the technological front. It takes projects, ideas, solutions to limit the infection. But as information workers we know that all of this will be a dead letter if we don't have the data to power these tools. Without data we die. Government and European institutions must ask those who have these data to make them available to health and administrative authorities to limit the damage. The great service providers: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, know a lot, if not everything, about social relationships, mobility, the mood, the physical conditions, of millions and millions of Italians, we talk about those Italians of more dynamic and competitive areas, living on the net, constantly talking to the net. We need to know what happened in February, how it is possible that the volcano exploded in Italy, and above all we must now enclose the contagion areas, identifying the most dangerous groups precisely in the passage from north to south of the wave of the coronavirus. Only the databases of these profiling powers would allow us to hopefully fight this war. As the European Commission claims, it is not a question of expropriating anyone. We ask these large corporations for collaboration, we want institutions to get attention for concrete cooperation. We would like the government to get positive answers from those who are partners in the public administration, from companies that are collecting invaluable masses of data for the movement of a large part of the population on their e learning and smart working platforms. We have read that Mark Zuckerberg fears a collapse of his servers due to the excess of users by quarantined citizens. Then he too should bring these people out of the house by shortening the time of isolation, help governments to georeference the real areas of transmission of the virus. A platform that gathers almost half of the earth's population is in itself a common good, a universal service. Let these great technological brands gain the honor of being an essential part of our lives by using the virality of the network against the virality of the disease. They know a lot, if not all. They know where, how and when the contagion opportunities have arisen, the rush of the virus has accelerated. Can all this be made available to the country right away? Owners of these platforms can elaborate, trace calculate the crisis points, developing graphs that make us understand in Lazio or Campania or Sicily what is about to happen. Let them independently give us the results of this elaboration. We don't want to get our hands in their drawers. Let the owners of these drawers make us win this battle, to save victims, to limit suffering, to save their users. We know it can. We know they can. We do not want to resign ourselves today to the observation that, as Capitalism of Surveillance Shoshanna Zuboff writes, these technological groups "know too much to be free". We want to hope we can share with them the vision that these groups are free because we can know everything. Moreover, most of these giants were born in California, in an extraordinary season of dreams and creativity, in which software became the language of freedom and the sharing of a single connective intelligence. How can they forget where they come from? As a great Italian like Adriano Olivetti predicted, in 1959: information technology is a technology of freedom. Believe us, we practice that lesson that announced us how software and databases are instruments of freedom from the threat of death and suffering. Who can hide these hopes behind the futile reason, especially in this moment, of private interests? We hope that the Italian and Eur
