Censorship is one of the most mainstreamed tools for repression in the digital age. Sometimes it is abuses of copyright regulation, sometimes just a tool for expression control, sometimes the collab...
Claudio Agosti
Claudio Agosti (also know as vecna) is a software developer with a focus on explaining and researching into the abstractness of algorithm surveillance and data marketing.
He's leading two open source projects; https://facebook.tracking.exposed and https://invi.sible.link. The first is a collaborative effort in analyzing Facebook's dynamics, algorithm and black-box logic. The goal is to offer a tertiary service, privacy-preserving, in the hope that algorithms can be more widely understood. The second, begun with https://trackography.org and then with a fellowship (opentech.fund), has the mandate of developing a pipeline for web trackers analysis and campaigning.
He is a member of the Good Technology Collective and the Berlin-based think tank Diem25. He contributed to the documentary Nothing to Hide and is vice president of the Hermes Center. Previously, he worked in internet security audit, security training, hacking and research.
Algorithms, corporate surveillance and elections: Argentinian and Italian cases
The effects of digital communication have been observed and commented on, but what about the key player in this process? Through quantitative and qualitative data, from the count of shares and likes t...
The quest for algorithm diversity: a dive into facebook.tracking.exposed dataset
While Trump was busy making the filter bubble a mainstream problem, we were developing https://facebook.tracking.exposed. We can’t solve a political problem with technology but we might at least ...
The capture of traditional media by Facebook and its implications for free speech and privacy. Facebook, Apple and Google have all recently made significant strides in the field of publishing, with...
This workshop is for journalists who wish to learn how to receive material from anonymous sources. During the workshop, the Hermes Study Centre will be at your disposal to enable you to test a par...
During the Wired Next Festival 2014 - the event mostly remembered for the blitz of taxi drivers against Uber Italy - it was explained, in a few hours, how a newsroom can be equipped with a new edito...
A debate inspired by an article by BBC reporter Dave Lee, where he questions how to report when there are cyber attacks. Listed below there are some points to highlight the main themes analyzed. "Cyb...
The business model of online media, which appears during user navigation as a seemingly innocent banner between intelligence and legal gaps, is causing a flow of data towards foreign nations. This d...
This workshop is for journalists who wish to learn how to receive material from anonymous sources. During the workshop, the Hermes Study Centre will be at your disposal to enable you to test a part...
Anonymous whistleblowing: how to receive information from anonymous sources via web
Starting a platform for digital whistleblowing is far from simple. More and more international media are gearing up to provide an anonymous and interactive web "letterbox" with which journalistic sour...
Tracking a person online: effects, countermeasures and the responsibility of the media
When surfing online we know that we leave traces of our browsing, sources and influences. The filter bubble makes our results more similar to what we expect, and these two things are connected. Precis...
In the past few years the relevance of “Digital Leaks” (OffshoreLeaks, Cables, Snowden, etc) has been an important enabling factor for investigative journalism development. The famous “big inter...
How is cyberactivism evolving, from Anonymous to other groups that use the Internet to defend freedom of expression and the free circulation of information? What is the role of leaking in this scena...
Can the confidential journalistic source still be protected in this overcontrolled and overconnected era? Through an Italian project named GlobaLeaks, sponsored by the Radio Free Asia Foundation, we h...
Online voting is an increasingly discussed issue, searching for a more participatory form of democracy for citizens. Can current platforms provide the same guarantees as the physical vote? In this...
Wiretaps and "webtaps" Who can tap what and how? From the near impossibility of ensuring secure phone calls to the ease of ensuring near secure web communications. A romp through security, technolo...
