Category: Technology

If you are allergic to cookies, these small markers used by websites to study the behavior of Internet users and send them targeted advertising, you can, in principle, escape them more easily from April 1.

Since the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018, websites are required to allow Internet users to refuse cookies. But, on banners that appear consistently, it is much easier to click “accept” than “decline”. In general, the “refuse” button is hidden in submenus requiring many clicks, in order to dissuade the user.

The National Commission for Computing and Liberties noted the problem some time ago and has given publishers a period of time to come into compliance. In principle, this period ended on April 1, 2021. From now on, the button allowing to refuse cookies must be as visible as the one which allows to accept them. Websites that do not comply with this rule may be subject to penalties.

But this new regulation is not to the delight of professionals, who fear a drop in advertising revenue. Indeed, if Internet users have an easier time refusing cookies, they will undoubtedly be more likely to do so. Without these small markers, the ads will be less effective, which could impact the market.

Certain sites, for which advertising is an essential method of financing, are looking for solutions. Some, like LeMonde.fr, have opted for the “cookie wall” technique, which forces the user to subscribe if they refuse cookies. Initially considered abnormal, this practice was authorized by the State Council in June 2020. Other advertising profiling methods are also in preparation, in particular based on data collected by Google.

In an op-ed on Chinese state television CGTN, which recently obtained permission from the CSA to broadcast in French. This young woman, who presents herself as a freelance journalist based in France, dismantles the accusations of genocide and persecution suffered by the minority orïghoure.

Except that this ”Laurene Beaumond “, who says he has visited Xinjiang several times, does not have a press card, according to our colleagues from World who have not found his trace in the file of the Commission of the identity card of French professional journalists. On his Twitter account, created in March 2021, it is also an illustrative photo, available for purchase in image banks, which serves as a profile photo.

An “ editor’s note ” precedes the article published on francais.cgtn.com, to present the supposed author: ” Freelance journalist based in France, with a double degree in art history and archeology at the University of Sorbonne-IV and holder of a master’s degree in journalism, Laurène Beaumond worked in various Parisian editorial offices before posing her suitcases in Beijing where she lived for almost 7 years. “ However, outside this forum, a search on Google does not reveal any article with the occurrence “Laurene Beaumond”. Strange, for a journalist who lived in China and collaborated with “several newsrooms in France”.

“Laurène Beaumond”, in a long speech, refutes the accusations formulated by those who denounce the sterilizations of women orïghoures and the forced labor of this Muslim minority. “Where do these new pasionarias of the ‘Uyghur cause’ come from, this ethnic group whose fate had not preoccupied anyone until now?”, can we thus read. A ” parody of trial made remotely in China ”, writes “Laurene Beaumond“, without “no concrete evidence”. According to her, there are no Chinese re-education camps, contrary to the surveys documented by some researchers that she therefore describes as “new pasionarias of the Uyghur cause”. And to describe the happiness Uyghurs have in living in Xinjiang, where she is said to have visited a dozen times between 2014 and 2019. An idyllic picture that echoes Chinese propaganda point by point.

According to Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, which recently paid the price for the attacks on the Chinese ambassador, the false profile of Laurène Beaumond appeared at the end of 2020. On Twitter, he invited the journalist to the interview, if it exists …

I dare not imagine that @CGTNFrench who has just obtained the authorization by the @csaudiovisual to broadcast in France publishes articles on Xinjiang written by fake profiles posing as journalists based in France, such as “Laurène Beaumond” https://t.co/XNVB87YaWE

– Antoine Bondaz (@AntoineBondaz) March 31, 2021

For a year, 174 telecommunications equipment, the majority of which in rural areas, have been sabotaged or set on fire, France Inter revealed Thursday April 1. This report from the Ministry of the Interior, which France Inter was able to consult, was drawn up a year after the start of the calls for “reconnect with Direct Action” by attacking telecommunications infrastructure such as cell towers or fiber optic cables. These calls were relayed by websites that the ministry associates with the ultra-left.

The vast majority of these sabotaged or burned down infrastructures (137) are located in rural areas, only two infrastructures were targeted in the Paris conurbation. The most affected departments are Haute-Garonne, Isère, Ardèche, Drôme and Bouches-du-Rhône. These actions caused significant damage, including network cuts in many municipalities, as well as consequences on the functioning of services deemed to be of public utility.

In one year, only 26 people suspected of being involved in 14 incidents have been arrested. They seem particularly motivated by the desire to damage equipment suspected of being “an instrument of surveillance and enslavement of the masses”. Beyond these political convictions, some seem to have acted out of fear of collecting personal data, fear of the airwaves, refusal of visual pollution, or because of the loss of value of their homes located near infrastructure. .

The Ministry of the Interior notes a growing mobilization against infrastructure linked to 5G, whether technical equipment or commercial equipment. This mobilization, qualified as “large”, ranges from apolitical opposition to politicized movements. While the French make intensive use of the Internet, the fiber optic network is also increasingly targeted, in particular because of the ease of access.

Certain actions are directly claimed by groups associated with the ultra-left, but in the majority of cases, the sites only relay information about these degradations. Among the texts that may have inspired actions, the one posted in April 2020 and entitled “In May, do what you want: a call to conflict”. We can read there: “At a time when almost everyone is working / studying / sharing / relaxing / learning / rebelling / having sex … in front of a screen, what would happen if a few fiber optic cables under a easy access hatches were sabotaged (sic)? “ These texts are sometimes accompanied by manuals detailing the means to be implemented to degrade or destroy the equipment. They also give advice in order to avoid any questioning, in particular requiring action on isolated, poorly protected and therefore easily accessible infrastructures.

This situation is not unique to France. Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom also faced a series of telecommunication tower fires during the spring of 2020. Some groups even went so far as to exchange their “advice” with one another. country to country.

Helen Mort had never sent intimate photos of herself in her life. But someone, an acquaintance or a stranger, has fished harmless photos of her from social media and uploaded them to a porn platform so that other users can put their faces on the bodies of porn actresses. The whole thing should be as hardcore as possible, he urged. “My ordeal has scared, embarrassed, paranoid and crushed me,” says the British writer, who came across porn with herself over the past year.

Most people don’t want to appear in porn that they didn’t strip themselves for. Half of humanity can assume that this is unlikely to happen. The other half are women. Women like Helen Mort.

It is called deepfake when a well-trained artificial intelligence manipulates a video and goes through setting by setting until it actually looks as if the head belongs to the foreign body, as if someone is talking and moving, even though he himself does know nothing. The more convincing this is to be, the more computing power the computer needs and the more technical understanding the user needs. Or you can simply order a tailor-made video from the numerous order deepfakers on the Internet. If you don’t put too much emphasis on outsmarting even the last few experts, you can do it Cheapfake on. There are apps for that. Last year, a bot in the chat app Telegram became famous for automatically creating nude deepfakes from hundreds of thousands of photos sent in. Cost: $ 1.25 per image.

The number of fake videos on the Internet has been growing exponentially since 2018 and doubles about every six months, analyzes the company Sensity, whose software exposes deepfakes. More than 90 percent of the fake videos show pornography, and again almost all of them have a protagonist who did not know about it. Often the victims are women in public, actresses like Emma Watson or singers like Lena Meyer-Landrut. But it also affects the neighbor, the colleague, the ex-girlfriend. An over-ambitious mother in the US recently made deepfakes to bully her daughter’s rivals on the cheerleading team. In India, investigative journalist Rana Ayyub was attacked with a deepfake porn video that hit millions of cell phones. Ayyub ended up in the hospital with anxiety and felt more inhibited in her work afterwards.

The videos are a threat to democracy

Virtual violence also hurts. It can silence women, push them out of public life – and often aims to do just that. But the world can no longer afford silent women. We need more women in politics, business, culture and journalism. So we have to protect them better.

Deepfakes are a threat to democracy. Deliberately scattered misinformation on the Internet is a powerful weapon that deepfakes make even more convincing and powerful. Just imagine the damage it would do if a video shows a pharmaceutical boss handing Angela Merkel a thick stack of 100 euro bills. Or in which Annalena Baerbock holds hands with Armin Laschet.

Open detailed view

People have to learn that basically you can’t rely on anything you see. That contradicts the self-image that has always been shaped. Seeing is believing it says in English. I believe what I saw with my own eyes. It will be a long process before a healthy distrust spreads. And then the question arises as to which mistrust is healthy in society as a whole. Finally, pictures document events. They are supposed to show what is true. Anyone who has seen a white policeman pressing his knee on the neck of the black George Floyd for almost nine minutes has a harder time denying racism and police violence. It is important for a functioning society that facts can be proven. But what if you can no longer trust your own eyes?

For a long time the answer was: people have to acquire media literacy. You have to learn to distinguish between truth and fake. But even experts have difficulties in identifying the particularly well fake videos as such. And the technology just keeps getting better. The solution cannot lie with the individual, but has to be systematic – laws are required. But as always, regulation is lagging behind technical progress. Writing good laws is complex. A complete ban would be wrong, because the technology has positive areas of application. In a film about activists fighting for homosexuals and transgender people in Chechnya, for example, fake characters replaced the vulnerable whistleblowers last year. And deepfakes are a means of satire. Just as an idea, there is nothing against letting mask corruption politicians Nüßlein, Sauter and Löbel dance a little to ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money”.

Technology can only be combated with technology and with laws that incorporate technology instead of banishing it. For example, a mandatory deepfake scanner that searches websites, especially porn and social media platforms, finds and reports manipulated media, would be conceivable. Fake porn must be banned and fakers punished who do business with strange faces and use violence. Poet Helen Mort has started a petition for deepfake law in the UK. It can’t be muted, she says. “I want deepfakes to be seen as a form of hate crime.”

Even before the results of the ballot box, the ballot is already recorded in history. The vote for or against the creation of a union in an Amazon warehouse in Alabama ends on Monday, March 29, after a David-style campaign against Goliath. The counting of the votes is due to begin on Tuesday and could give rise to a historic first on the lands of the trade giant, which will not come out of this election unscathed, whatever the outcome. Explanations.

The list of demands is growing

Members of the RWDSU distribution union have taken turns, day and night, since the fall, at the entrance to the Bessemer (Alabama) complex. This mobilization was born of an alert sent by a worker of 51 years, Darryl Richardson, who contacted the union to denounce the fear of being fired for nothing, the too short breaks and the hellish pace. The father of four previously worked for an automotive supplier, where the hourly wage had nearly doubled in a few years “thanks to the union”. “I know what a union can bring”, he said.

At the start of the pandemic, the company paid a bonus of two dollars per hour, before withdrawing it after three months. The move was one of the triggers, according to RWDSU regional leader Joshua Brewer. “Usually when a company like Amazon comes to Bessemer with a state-of-the-art warehouse and all these great jobs, you don’t have those kinds of problems. There, in four months, the employees couldn’t take it anymore.”, he recalls.

Among the employees mobilized, Lafonda Townsend acknowledges having been “happy with the salary” when hired. “That was before I saw how hard it is, she describes now. The break room is very far away and you have to eat like a prisoner, super fast, to be back on time, because if you are a minute late, you will be counted an unpaid hour. “

The movement took hold in a conservative state

The members of the RWDSU distribution union did everything to carry out the voting project for their creation. They first had to secure 3,000 tentative agreements, out of a total of 5,800 warehouse workers, before moving on to the actual campaign to demand a seat at the negotiating table. The milestone of 3000 supporters was not easy in this poor and conservative American region.

“It is a historically anti-union state, said former Democratic nomination contestant Bernie Sanders. It is no small thing in Alabama to stand up against a big corporation. “ Thus, it is in this state that is found “the only Mercedes factory without a union in the world”, notes historian Michael Innis-Jiménez.

“Historically, industries in the northeast [des Etats-Unis] came to the south (…) because the workforce is cheaper, less likely to be represented, and easier to lay off. “

Michael Innis-Jiménez, professor at the University of Alabama

to AFP

If the movement has taken hold, it is in part thanks to the history of the RWDSU, which participated, in the 1960s, in the organization of the marches against segregation alongside Martin Luther King and John Lewis, in Selma. The warehouse workers are predominantly African-American and have been sympathetic to the process.

Amazon delivers fierce opposition

As the campaign progressed, America’s second-largest employer became embroiled in a bitter communication struggle. Spokesmen have recently attacked, on Twitter, elected officials who support the union. They also denied the problem of workers forced to urinate in plastic bottles for lack of time to go to the toilet, referring to revelations dating from 2018, confirmed by documents and photos reported by various media, including the media. investigative The Intercept (in English).

Internally, the group has resorted to all kinds of deterrence tactics, including text messages extolling social benefits (including health insurance “since the first day”) posters in the toilets. According to employees, during “information meetings” Regularly, Amazon has brandished the scarecrow of high union dues (nearly $ 500 per year) and insisted on current incomes of at least $ 15 per hour, more than double the minimum wage in this poor state.

“They pounded workers day after day, telling them that with a union they should strike and then they could not pay their bills.”

Joshua Brewer, RWDSU host in Alabama

to AFP

The RWDSU even suspects the firm of having asked local authorities to shorten the time limit for the red light from the intersection to the entrance of the warehouse, a strategic location of the campaign, to prevent its members from arguing with drivers for too long. . According to pro-union media More Perfect Union, the county has confirmed that it has changed the duration at Amazon’s request, officially to make traffic easier.

The movement could make a stain of oil

LPrevious organizing efforts within Amazon have failed in the United States. “Like most American employers, Amazon wants to maintain its power over everything and make sure workers can’t negotiate anything.”, analyzes Rebecca Givan, professor of social relations at Rudgers University in New Jersey. According to her, the group is ready to “almost unlimited spending” for “prove that any attempt is doomed to failure and discourage other employees in advance”.

Since the start of the mobilization in Alabama, however, the RWDSU says it has “received more than 1000 requests from about fifty different warehouses”. “This movement could not have happened anywhere other than here, where people died in the streets for the right to vote, enthuses Alabama Democratic Party chairman Christopher England. We are going to make history again “.