Quinta’s weblog

TL;DR I’m not arguing against contact tracing apps; I’m critical of Apple and Google’s approach. In the past months our Iphones and Androids received operating systems updates, a joint effort by the two companies to help in the fight against COVID-19. The updates introduced new operating system functions for applications (APIs Application Programming Interfaces) to enable Contact Tracing apps developed by national health authorities. Without this update, Tracing Apps can’t work properly, mainly due to bluetooth power management by iphones. When an iphone’s screen is off, it detects bluetooth beacons but does not emit them. It’s mute but not deaf.…

Source (Consciousness -> Meaning -> Symbols) -> Communication ->(Symbols -> Meaning -> Consciousness) Receiver When a person communicates with another the process may be described as above:The receiver interprets the symbols she received, extracting a meaning that she internalizes with her consciousness. The source was conscious and had the intention of communicating and a meaning of what she  wanted to communicate; she codified the meaning in symbols that have been communicated. In this act of communication both source and receiving parties need to have some shared model to base the encoding and interpretation of the meaning; a shared context and…

The important report is here. It’s a very important and interesting reading. A mini-synthesis of the findings in the 400 pages long report can be found in this twitter thread. As many readers know, I have devoted a significant part of my public life to promote competition in the digital space (“dimensione immateriale”), have proposed comprehensive bills while I was in the parliament and wrote a book “Capitalismo Immateriale” (in english it’d be “Virtual Capitalism”, 5 stars rating in italy and a good number of reprints) explaining in great detail the business models and practices that this report has found…

5G is fundamental for the economic development of the country. Yes, but why? Because of its lower latency? Because it will allow us to talk to the fridge and to know if the yogurt has expired? To enable the circulation of self-driving cars or to allow remote surgical operations? Let’s try to shed some light, let’s understand – beyond the hype – why the real “killer application” of the new mobile generation, for users, will probably not be any of those advertised so far. 5G, some technical elements Let’s remember that the promise of the distinguishing features of 5G relates…

Post muto. Il Ministero ha allestito 140 sale Centro Intercettazioni Telecomunicazioni (CIT) con rete dedicata e cablaggio e dotazione dedicata di Pc portatili. In ogni sala CIT è stato inoltre installato il server ministeriale e realizzato il software per la gestione dell’archivio digitale multimediale e per l’archivio documentale; 60 milioni di euro sono gli investimenti già spesi per le infrastrutture tecnologiche, per le opere murarie e per gli acquisti necessari; 700 i server e i rack dedicati alle sole intercettazioni; oltre 1100 i PC dedicati e destinati alle sale d’ascolto; circa 3.500 le persone coinvolte nella formazione specifica (personale amministrativo,…

English version below. Questi sono dei passaporti sanitari italiani (“fedi di sanità”)  in vigore durante la peste del 1722 (grazie wikipedia, ebay). All’inizio della pandemia avevo letto una intervista ad un famosissimo virologo americano (che non ritrovo) in cui dava per scontato che ad un certo punto avremmo avuto dei braccialetti attestanti la nostra immunità. La Electronic frontier foundation ha scritto un pezzo molto acuminato contro l’idea di passaporti di immunità digitali. In esso mischia considerazioni a base tecnologica con considerazioni a base medica. E’ chiaro che un prerequisito affinchè un simile passaporto abbia un senso è che i test…

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Circa quattro mesi fa avevo sentito la necessità di replicare ad un articolo di Franco Debenedetti dal titolo “Il caso TIM e il bastone tra le reti”. Questa era la replica. Adesso colgo lo spunto offerto da un suo nuovo articolo sull’Huffington post per dire il mio punto di vista sulla vicenda. Ecco qui: Articolo Commento Beppe Grillo non è mai stato tenero con Telecom Italia: intorno al 2010 ne frequentava le assemblee; una sera Santoro mi invitò ad Annozero per discutere con lui di una questione di immobili che l’incumbent di telecomunicazioni stava vendendo. È quindi con una certa…

This time I side with Trump. Twitter reminded us that we are all guests on their platform and we follow their rules. They have decided that the enough is enough and from now on they can put warnings, next to twits to inform us that they contain falsehoods. They also decided that although Trump has repeatedly violated the terms of service, he can continue to do so because he is him, and not a generic Mrs. Anna who can quietly disappear from the social network in silence. This is not a failure by Twitter, but by the laws. The law…