Per quasi tutta la giornata di lunedì 14 ottobre, grossi problemi con il cloud di Amazon, cioè Amazon Web Services, hanno bloccato tanti servizi nel mondo, anche in Italia. Ma attenzione: la causa del down è negli Usa, non in Europa. E allora smettiamola di parlare a vanvera di sovranità digitale europea e italiana e cominciamo a farla sul serio In Italia per quasi un giorno intero – almeno secondo Downdetector come riportato ma molti giornali – ci sono stati forti disservizi in Fastweb, Vodafone, TIM, Wind, Iliad, CoopVoce, OpenFiber, e in Agenzia delle Entrate, Poste Italiane, Intesa San Paolo. Il guasto ha interessato la regione US-EAST-1, con datacenter in Virginia, Stati Uniti. E allora perché sono andati offline servizi pubblici come l'Agenzia delle Entrate o Poste? In sostanza: cosa ci fanno i dati e i programmi del Ministero delle Entrate e di Poste Italiane in Virginia (USA)? Alla faccia della sovranità digitale! Leggi l'articolo di Vannini oppure ascolta il suo podcast

Amazon ha fatto sapere di aver identificato la causa del problema e ha annunciato: "Continuiamo a osservare un ripristino nella maggior parte dei servizi interessati". Secondo quanto riportato da Downdetector, i problemi hanno riguardato diversi servizi e piattaforme fra cui WhatsApp, Open AI, Canva, Clash Royale, Perplexity, Amazon stessa, Airbnb, Intesa San Paolo, Tim, l’Agenzia delle Entrate, Vodafone, Fastweb, Google, Iliad, WindTre e Cloud e Poste Italiane. Questo genere di avvenimenti è un monito al delegare servizi importanti, magari di interesse pubblico, oltre a quelli commerciali, su infrastrutture private in mano ai broligarchi. Link all'articolo qui

Con lo sviluppo dell’intelligenza artificiale i data center consumano sempre più acqua, lasciando a secco intere comunità Una famiglia che abita nella contea di Newton, a un’ora e mezza in macchina da Atlanta, da diversi anni ha problemi con l’acqua. Racconta infatti il New York Times che dal 2018 la lavastoviglie, la macchina del ghiaccio, la lavatrice e il gabinetto hanno smesso uno per uno di funzionare. Poi, nel giro di un anno, la pressione dell’acqua si è ridotta a un rivolo. Finché dai rubinetti del bagno e della cucina non usciva più acqua. Nulla. Ma il problema, ovviamente, non riguarda solo questa famiglia. [...] Tutto questo perché? Perché dal 2018, appunto, è cominciata la costruzione del nuovo data center di Meta. I data center sono immensi centri di elaborazione dati che in breve tempo sono diventati la spina dorsale della nostra economia. Sono l’infrastruttura critica che alimenta l’archiviazione cloud, i servizi di emergenza, i sistemi bancari, le comunicazioni e la logistica. Ma sono i data center sono strutture gigantesche che consumano quantità immense di energia, suolo e acqua. Con il rapido sviluppo dell’intelligenza artificiale, questi consumi sono destinati a crescere a ritmo esponenziale. Leggi l'articolo

AMAZON TARGETED FOR COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL’S GAZA GENOCIDE, TELEKOM FOR COOPERATION WITH THE GERMAN MILITARY AND ELON MUSK’S STARLINK—COMMUNIQÉ ~ Juju Alerta ~ An anti-militarist group has claimed responsibility for two arson attacks on commercial vehicles from Amazon and Deutsche Telekom in the early hours of Tuesday. The Amazon vans were torched on a site on Koppelweg, in the south of the German capital, while Telekom parking was situated in Lichtenberg in Berlin’s east, reported German media. No people were hurt. In a communiqé, the un-named group said it was “celebrating” the opening of the new Amazon Tower in Berlin, citing disgust with the company’s lending its computing power to the Israeli military (along with Google and Microsoft). “The destruction and starvation in Gaza unfolding before our eyes, the planned complete relocation of the population, and the AI-based massacre and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people, including many children, are being calculated and stored on Amazon Web Services’ servers”, said the group. It also named Amazon as a key contractor for the American military and a “generous sponsor of King Trump’s military parade … State and capital in lockstep toward fascism”. Telekom was targeted due to its “support for the Bundeswehr” and as a “supplier of IT to border authorities, police, and intelligence services”, said the communiqué. The activists also cited T-Systems, which works in collaboration with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network. Citing Amazon’s competing Project Kuiper, the text said that “Musk and Bezos, with their corporate networks, are thus technocrats who not only profit from wars but can now influence their course”. “Demanding life against militarism and technologies of death is right, just as it is right to claim and defend antimilitarism against nationalism”, concluded the commuiqué, “It is right to liberate life from all militarism and war, from the state and patriarchy”. Amazon condemned the act, a spokesperson told Reuters, while Deutsche Telekom said it could not comment on pending investigations. These attacks are not unusual, noted observers. In 2020 and 2021 more than 400 cars were set alight in Berlin. In 2021, the total number of cars, including those that caught fire when vehicles in the vicinity were torched, surpassed 700. The post Berlin: Anti-militarists claim arson of Amazon and Deutsche Telekom vehicles appeared first on Freedom News.

David Folkenflik occupies a unique role at NPR: He’s a journalist who writes about journalism. And that includes the very organization where he works, which is once again being threatened by conservatives in Washington. The second Trump administration has aggressively gone after the media in its first few months. It’s kicked news organizations out of the Pentagon. It’s barred other newsrooms from access to the White House. And Trump supporters in Congress have targeted federal funding for public media. In late March, the heads of NPR and PBS testified on Capitol Hill to defend public broadcasting from Republicans accusing them of political bias. Meanwhile, some major news organizations seem to be capitulating and bending to the will of the Trump administration. Folkenflik, who’s been covering media for two decades for NPR, says journalism across the country is facing a two-pronged attack from both commercial and political forces. “You’re seeing sort of discrete and specific and seemingly almost comedic attacks. You don’t say ‘Gulf of America’? Get to the back of the line,” Folkenflik says. “I think it’s actually part of a larger effort to control the flow of information.” On this week’s episode of More To The Story, Folkenflik talks to host Al Letson about this unprecedented moment for journalists, why more media outlets seem to be bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, and how journalism can begin to win back public trust. Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Find More To The Story on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Pandora, or your favorite podcast app.

La dipendenza europea dall’infrastruttura cloud americana solleva preoccupazioni sulla sicurezza. Il Cloud Act permette agli USA di accedere ai dati globali, mettendo a rischio la privacy e la sicurezza nazionale dell’Europa Cinque settimane di Donald Trump e gli europei stanno scoprendo per la prima volta quello che Vasco cantava 46 anni fa: non siamo mica gli americani. E non solo non siamo gli americani, improvvisamente scopriamo che i loro interessi non coincidono con i nostri. E non solo i loro interessi non coincidono con i nostri, presto scopriremo che spesso sono opposti. Indice degli argomenti * La fine dell’alleanza transatlantica e le conseguenze per l’Europa * L’incontro Trump-Zelensky e la vera natura della politica estera americana * Terre rare: l’estorsione di Trump all’Ucraina e il destino dell’Europa * Il problema dell’infrastruttura cloud e la dipendenza europea dagli Usa * Il Gdpr e i fallimenti degli accordi per la protezione dei dati * La soluzione per liberarsi dal cloud americano * Il ritorno all’hosting come alternativa praticabile Leggi l'articolo

On Monday, workers at Philadelphia’s Center City Whole Foods voted 130-100 to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. It marks the first time an Amazon-owned Whole Foods store has voted to unionize—and it is one of the first major union elections of the second Trump presidency.  The organizing effort, which workers say has been in the works for over a year, went public in November. Workers say it was driven by myriad demands, including a push for increased pay. The base wage at the Center City Whole Foods is $16 per hour. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the living wage for a single person in Philadelphia, without dependents, is over $22 per hour. (Amazon, which has owned Whole Foods since 2017, is worth about two and a half trillion dollars.)  Khy Adams speaking to Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia. UFCW Local 1776 Whole Foods workers told me the low pay means they have to work multiple jobs to manage their bills. Khy Adams, 32, makes $16.50 an hour in the hot foods department but has to work as a culinary instructor on the side. She often logs well over 50 hours per week between her two jobs. > “The union-busting propaganda started happening within weeks.” Mase Veney, 26, has worked in the produce department for three years. Mostly, he said, that means “lifting heavy boxes” in a freezing cooler. About a year and a half ago, at the end of his shift, Veney emerged to talk to a friend in another department. “I just came out to take a break because I was freezing cold,” he said. But for this small break, he was castigated for wasting time. Then, he said, some of his shifts mysteriously disappeared from the calendar.  After that incident, Veney joined forces with four other workers to figure out how to start a union. Whole Foods workers marching for unionization.UFCW Local 1776 Almost immediately after going public, they faced opposition. Fliers reading “stay whole, vote no” circulated around the store. Managers that Veney and his coworkers were used to working with were transferred to other locations of Whole Foods. “The union-busting propaganda started happening within weeks,” Adams said. During the first week of January, UFCW 1776 filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that at least one worker was fired as retaliation for union activity and that “supervisors coercively told employees that they would not be getting wage increases because of their union activities and made promises of wage increases if they did not vote to unionize.” (Amazon disputes these assertions. A Whole Foods representative said that the company will implement a raise when it is legal to do so.)  Strange faces started showing up around the store, workers said, as the unionization vote approached. “They started bringing in people from Texas, people from Florida—a lot of people from New York. There was one person who was there from California,” Adams told Mother Jones. The new people, who wore “Culture Champion” merchandise, never told her their job title. They were oddly gregarious, Adams remembered. “We’re here to help with anything you need,” she recalls them saying. And the new colleagues were especially eager, Adams recalled, to talk about why unionizing could be harmful to workers. Yet when she tried to assign them tasks, they were nowhere to be found. “On any given day, I would see maybe four or five people that would have ‘Culture Champion’ merch on, but they wouldn’t necessarily be performing a job,” she said. Whole Foods workers with union swag.UFCW Local 1776 Meanwhile, her department was chronically understaffed: dishes regularly piled up because too few people were hired to wash them. Adams often tried her best to manage preparing the rotisserie chickens, operating the hot bar, and tending to the soups all at the same time.  On Monday, when the results began to come in, Adams almost could not believe it. “The propaganda machine wanted us to believe that we were isolated, that no one wanted this, that we were just on an island all by ourselves,” she said. “But I’m not the only person who wants this—we aren’t the only group of people who want this.”  In a statement, the company said: “We are disappointed by the outcome of this election, but we are committed to maintaining a positive working environment in our Philly Center City store.” Now, the challenge for the newly unionized Whole Foods workers is to negotiate with their employers. Amazon has been more than willing to deploy anti-union tactics in the past. In October, the company received a complaint from the NLRB over its refusal to negotiate with unionized delivery drivers employed by a third-party company. And when a Staten Island Amazon warehouse voted to unionize nearly three years ago, the company refused to come to the bargaining table. While refusing to bargain is illegal, the penalties are minimal. After voting to unionize, Whole Foods workers held a press conference outside of the Center City Philadelphia Whole Foods store. UFCW LOCAL 1776 The unionized Whole Foods workers will also be facing a much more anti-union NLRB—just hours after their election, Trump fired former General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who was well-known for going after Amazon.  Now, “we have to certify these votes, to make sure that everything goes through and that Amazon doesn’t try to throw a wrench in that plan, which they are very much known for,” Adams said. During the vote-certification process, Amazon will have a chance to challenge any ballots filed.  “I feel like it’ll make Amazon fight harder, because they know that Trump’s in office,” Veney said. “But we have a lot of people behind us, backing us up, and I think we can make this thing happen.” The unionized workers, knowing they won’t be supported on the federal level by Trump, are looking to local and state-level politicians for backup.  Their first challenge, Veney said, is simple. Earlier this month, the Center City Philadelphia store was reportedly exempted from a region-wide wage increase. Workers said they were told this was because Amazon didn’t want to sway the outcome of the election.  “The vote is now over,” Adams said. “So where are our wage increases that you said you were going to give us?” 

Urso, 'avanti con la sovranità digitale' Non si capisce se lo dice con ironia o è convinto, forse non sa cosa sia Amazon Web Services? l Consiglio dei ministri ha approvato, oggi, la delibera che dichiara l'interesse strategico nazionale del programma di investimento iniziale da 1,2 miliardi di euro presentato da Amazon Web Services (AWS), per stabilire ed espandere l'infrastruttura e i servizi cloud in Italia. Lo si apprende da una nota derl Mimit. Il Ministro commenta: "L'investimento di Amazon Web Service consolida il ruolo dell'Italia come hub europeo d'innovazione. Oggi facciamo un ulteriore passo verso la sovranità digitale, Si rimane basiti nel leggere tali dichiarazioni. Si tratta di un provvedimento che mette la parola fine alla possibilità che i provider italiani ed europei si sviluppino. Si consegna il cloud ad Amazon e, con altri provvedimenti, ad altri provider d'oltre oceano. E dichiarano che sono provvedimenti che fanno avanzare l'Italia verso la sovranità digitale. MA E' UN MEME? Oltre tutto senza tenere conto della regolamento europeo per la protezione dei dati (GDPR) che è considerta da molti, compresa la corte europea di giustizia in conflitto con la normativa USA che regola il cloud. Sul sito di ANSA la notizia

Puntata del 10 nevembre 2024. Da domani, 11 Novembre, TSMC smetterà di vendere a Pechino chip con tecnologia sotto i 7nanometri (inclusi). A che tecnologia sono arrivate le industrie della repubblica popolare cinese? Quanto divario le separa ancora da quelle occidentali? Vedremo tutto questo, legandolo alla condizione geopolitica Taiwanese. Alcuni cambi di licenze continuano a mettere in crisi la nostra coscienza: il software libero è sempre la scelta migliore? Anche quando Amazon dice di sì? Sempre più progetti si stanno muovendo verso licenze non compatibile con la tradizionale definizione di software libero; i motivi ci sembrano quantomeno comprensibili. Chiudiamo con alcune notiziole riguardo ai temi del copyright, dei sistemi di trasporto pubblico su ferro ma, soprattutto, di tecnologie digitali obsolete. Ascolta l'audio sul sito di Radio Onda Rossa