Attendance

INTRODUCTION – COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY, STANDARDISATION I – Metaphors, technoscientific analogies and communication 1 – The role of metaphors in science and technology communication. The problem of loss of meaning linked to the abandonment of technical rigour. Rem tene and Occam's razor as essential tools 2 – Metaphors, analogies and cultural syncretism in technoscientific communication: cyberspace, borderless Internet, Information Superhighway, cybernetics, Cyberwarfare, metaverse, avatars, AI, digital natives II – The impact of geo-industrial strategies on information technologies, social behaviour and standardisation 3 – Techno-neo-medievalism and multipolarity of powers: the role of industry in determining social behaviour and in the appropriation/commodification of rights 4 – From techno-libertarian utopias to techno-regulation. The transition from the socio-psychological to the regulatory dimension. Technological anarchism, politics and standardisation 5 – The ethics of technology as a tool of government: nudging, überrights, and technocratic paternalism PART ONE – Identity, identification and information technologies 6 – Identity and identification between law and social demands. Pseudonymity and anonymity as social necessities and tools for breaking gender identity, identification as a tool for ensuring state security and transaction certainty 7 – The misunderstanding of the “subjectivity” of artificial intelligence and the removal of individual responsibility 8 – The role of correspondence in the dematerialisation of individual interaction 9 – The impact of information technologies on identity and identification. The construction of the right to anonymity between the need for social control, industrial models and respect for rights. The role of identification in the development of the access and platform market. The de facto repeal of the limit for acquiring the capacity to act 10 - Identification as a battleground where opposing visions of the relationship between the state and the citizen clash. Technologically mediated identification and the loss of the state's role. Technological lock-in and discriminatory consequences on public and private interaction. PART TWO – Privacy and personal data protection 11 – Secrecy, power and the individual. The role of secrecy in individual relationships, with the state and between states 12 – From confidentiality to the right to privacy 13 – Secrecy, confidentiality and privacy 14 – The evolution of the concept of privacy: from the right to be alone to the right to be forgotten and control over personal information 15 – The confusion between privacy and personal data protection. Cultural, economic and political impact 16 – Privacy as a fetish and the compression of fundamental rights to freedom of thought, research, press and information 17 – The impact of standardisation on the development of cryptography: SSL, VPN, DoH, Oblivious DoH, differential privacy 18 – The multifaceted and contradictory role of cryptography: a tool for social antagonism (“defence” against the state), protection of economic rights (DRM), transaction security (certificates and digital signatures), police investigations (computer forensics), commission of crimes (ransomware, confidentiality of communications, secrecy of information), economic destabilisation (cryptocurrencies and blockchain). Case studies: Zodiac Killer, Fritz Chip, Crypto AG, Wikileaks, ReVIL, Cloud/Client Side Scanning PART THREE – CYBERSECURITY 19 – The many faces of cybersecurity: national security, infrastructure protection, state defence, protection of the information assets of institutions, companies and individuals, guaranteeing the functioning of products and services that are potentially dangerous to individuals. System security or personal safety? 20 – The Colossus of Rhodes. The role of underground culture and the technology industry in building a vulnerable society. The evolution of the security industry and the role of techno-anarchism. Technological complexity and the instrumental management of planned obsolescence and its impact on security/safety. 21 – Approaches to security: security through obscurity vs full disclosure. 22 – From cybersecurity to cyberwarfare. Offensive exploitation of technological vulnerabilities and social models built by the digital economy. Blurring of the line between judicial investigations and military actions. Case studies: US Executive Order 13884/19 on the remote blocking of Adobe services in Venezuela, Encrochat and the secret défense nationale, 23– Profiling and disinformation: the dematerialisation of the “self”, the noumenisation of reality and the construction of consensus based on the construction of the phenomenon. Deep fakes and fake news. 24– The weaponisation of knowledge. Control over technological knowledge as a geopolitical lever.

None. However it helps having a general knowledge of how technology of information works.

Presentations will be used during the lessons and will then be made available to students. All the course materials are available on the course's classroom. This is the code: vln6ktnn

Classroom attendance. Tuesday 18,00-20,00 - Wednesday 8,00-10,00.

The final exam consists of a multiple-choice test.

The following non-compulsory readings are also recommended: Wacks, Raymond Privacy. A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press (ed. it. Privacy. Una sintetica introduzione Monti&Ambrosini) Monti, Andrea Cybercrime e responsabilità penale degli enti Giuffré-Francis Lefevbre Chiccarelli, Stefano – Monti, Andrea Spaghetti Hacker I ed. Apogeo, II ed. Monti&Ambrosini editori Monti, Andrea - Wacks, Raymond National Security in the New World Order, Routledge Monti, Andrea The Digital Rights Delusion Routledge Monti, Andrea Lost in the Shell, Routledge

In-class lectures