a Quinta 's weblog : un Blog di Stefano Quintarelli

Robe da matti sulla censura dei libri in USA

la notizia è qui:

Books being removed from Kobo and other online stores TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

in sostanza, Kobo (concorrente di Amazon Kindle) è stato oggetto di lamentele perchè c'erano titoli erotici.

allora li hanno cancellati. anche quelli che i clienti avevano già "comprato"

non è la prima volta che succede, era già successo nel 2009 con Amazon
Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices - NYTimes.com.

In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

ricordo che un libro elettronico per la legge non è un libro che uno compra, ma un servizio, per cui "semplicemente" hannod eciso di interrompere il servizio per quei libri, non solo peri futuri clienti, ma anche per i passati

peccato che per i clienti un ebook sia un book, e non esiste che qualcuno si introduce in casa nostra per toglierlo dalla libreria, dopo che abbiamo pagato per ottenerlo!

questi sono diritti che dovrebbero essere sanciti per i clienti. le norme per il copyright non devono essere a vantaggio solo di una delle due parti, ma di tutti !

bisognerebbe che qualche parlamentare si muovesse al riguardo!
(ah, già...)

Legge regionale umbra sulle TLC

Dopo quella pugliese, interessante la legge umbra sulle TLC, al di là della dichiarazione di principi.

Download DGR_2013_508_Preadozione

Oltre a rendere i cavidotti "opera di urbanizzazione primaria", incentiva la creazione di cooperative, società, etc., per la posa dell'ultimo miglio in fibra. Un mio vecchio pallino per cui avevo anche presentato emendamenti al Fare...

Peccato non poter andare all'evento di presentazione della legge "Internet come diritto, neutralità, opportunità di sviluppo" a salutare alcuni relatori vecchi amici che non vedo da un po'...

Ericsson "redefines" small cells with Radio Dot - Rethink Wireless

Ericsson "redefines" small cells with Radio Dot - Rethink Wireless.

The Swedish giant unveiled the Radio Dot with great fanfare, claiming it would transform the enterprise small cell space by moving the price points for coverage and capacity. The Dot platform harnesses some of the radio/antenna integration technology which has gone into Ericsson's flagship offering for the new-look carrier network, the AIR. But the Dot itself is a highly simplified 3G/LTE unit with an antenna and power amp, which links to an indoor access point that handles most of the processing - like a miniaturized, indoor version of the increasingly distributed, virtualized architecture taking over the macro layer.

Datagate, intercettata la Merkel Ma Obama nega tutto

Datagate, intercettata la Merkel<br>Ma Obama nega tutto - Mondo - l'Unità - notizie online lavoro, recensioni, cinema, musica.

Datagate, intercettata la Merkel
Ma Obama nega tutto

Il governo tedesco: «Spiato dall'intelligence Usa il cellulare di Angela Merkel». Der Spiegel on line cita prove consistenti. Merkel chiama Obama: «Inaccettabile». Il presidente americano nega tutto: «Mai spiato il tuo telefonino».

Telecom Italia to abandon fixed grid spin-off plan - report - Telecompaper

brrr.

Telecom Italia to abandon fixed grid spin-off plan - report - Telecompaper.

Telecom Italia is to withdraw its plan to raise much-needed funds by spinning off its fixed network, reports Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. The plan, championed by former chairman Franco Bernabe, was initially approved by the board in May before a decision by regulator Agcom in July forced the company to put the project on hold. Telefonica's move gradually to increase its influence on Telecom Italia also slowed down the proposal to raise as much as EUR 14 billion through the network unbundling, with the Spanish operator said to prefer the option to raise around EUR 9 billion by selling off Telecom Italia's Latin American assets. The withdrawal of the spin-off project is set to be confirmed at a board meeting on 07 November when new chief executive Marco Patuano is expected to unveil a business plan addressing how to reduce the company’s EUR 29 billion debt. A successor to Bernabe, who resigned on 03 October, may also be appointed at the meeting.

Why the NSA's Defense of Mass Data Collection Makes No Sense - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic

Why the NSA's Defense of Mass Data Collection Makes No Sense - Bruce Schneier - The Atlantic.

The basic government defense of the NSA's bulk-collection programs—whether it be the list of all the telephone calls you made, your email address book and IM buddy list, or the messages you send your friends—is that what the agency is doing is perfectly legal, and doesn’t really count as surveillance, until a human being looks at the data.

It's what Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper meant when he lied to Congress. When asked, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" he replied, "No sir, not wittingly." To him, the definition of "collect" requires that a human look at it. So when the NSA collects—using the dictionary definition of the word—data on hundreds of millions of Americans, it’s not really collecting it, because only computers process it.

The NSA maintains that we shouldn't worry about human processing, either, because it has rules about accessing all that data. General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, said that in a recent New York Times interview: "The agency is under rules preventing it from investigating that so-called haystack of data unless it has a 'reasonable, articulable' justification, involving communications with terrorists abroad, he added."

There are lots of things wrong with this defense.

First, it doesn't match up with U.S. law. Wiretapping is legally defined as acquisition by device, with no requirement that a human look at it. This has been the case since 1968, amended in 1986.

Second, it's unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment prohibits general warrants: warrants that don’t describe "the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The sort of indiscriminate search and seizure the NSA is conducting is exactly the sort of general warrant that the Constitution forbids, in addition to it being a search by any reasonable definition of the term. The NSA has tried to secretly redefine the word "search," but it’s forgotten about the seizure part. When it collects data on all of us, it’s seizing it.

Third, this assertion leads to absurd conclusions. Mandatory cameras in bedrooms could become okay, as long as there were rules governing when the government could look at the recordings. Being required to wear a police-issued listening device 24/7 could become okay, as long as those same rules were in place. If you're uncomfortable with these notions, it's because you realize that data collection matters, regardless of whether someone looks at it.

Fourth, creating such an attractive target is reckless. The NSA claims to be one of the biggest victims of foreign hacking attempts, and it’s holding all of this information on us? Yes, the NSA is good at security, but it’s ridiculous to assume it can survive all attacks by foreign governments, criminals, and hackers—especially when a single insider was able to walk out of the door with pretty much all their secrets.

Finally, and most importantly: Even if you are not bothered by the speciousness of the legal justifications, or you are already desensitized to government invasion of your privacy, there is a danger grounded in everything we have learned about how humans respond when put in positions of unchecked power. Assuming the NSA follows its own rules—which even it admits it doesn’t always—rules can change quickly. The NSA says it only looks at such data when investigating terrorism, but the definition of that term has broadened considerably. The NSA is constantly pushing the law to allow more and more surveillance. Even Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, the author of the Patriot Act, says that it doesn’t allow what the NSA claims it allows.

...

Marco.

La concorrenza è bella (per gli altri). Il DRM è la nassa di Amazon per blindare i clienti

CVD.
Scrivevo, a  proposito dei diritti negati degli utenti e come questi diventano strumenti di pratiche commerciali scorrette.

Amazon requires publishers to use Kindle DRM - Boing Boing.

A leaked Amazon ebook contract [PDF] shows that Amazon's default terms for ebook publishers is that they must use DRM, unless they can convince Amazon to leave it off.

Like most DRM vendors -- Apple and Google, for example -- Amazon spends a lot of time implying and flat-out stating that it only uses DRM because the big dumb media companies require it of them. The reality is that DRM's primary beneficiary is the DRM vendor. Once your book is sold with Amazon's DRM on it, only Amazon can give your readers permission to move them out of the Kindle jail and onto another device of your choosing. Of course Amazon wants to force copyright holders and creators to use its DRM -- it's a one-stop way of converting the writer's customer into Amazon's customer. Forever.

Patriot Act author prepares bill to put NSA bulk collection 'out of business' | World news | theguardian.com

Patriot Act author prepares bill to put NSA bulk collection 'out of business' | World news | theguardian.com.

The conservative Republican who co-authored America's Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.

Why the United States Is So Afraid of Huawei | MIT Technology Review

Why the United States Is So Afraid of Huawei | MIT Technology Review.

The threat may be theoretical—but compromised telecom equipment could quickly cripple a nation’s civilian and military infrastructure.