Patients in England cannot stop their data being processed by the Palantir-built NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), but individual NHS trusts can choose not to use it, health minister Preet Kaur Gill has told MPs. The minister, who was appointed last month to cover health innovation and safety, told fellow Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan that patients can only opt out of secondary uses of data such as planning and research. On the main opt-out mechanism, she said: "The National Data Opt-Out does not currently apply to products used in the NHS FDP. In most cases, this is because data is being used for the purpose of direct care." Last month, NHS England confirmed it had changed policy so some Palantir staff can access identifiable patient data through a new "admin" role. A briefing document seen by The Financial Times and confirmed by The Register warned that granting access could create a "risk of loss of public confidence" in NHS England's assurances about safeguarding patient data. Answering a separate question from Labour MP Rachael Maskell, Gill confirmed that NHS trusts running hospitals, mental health and other services can opt out. "Where NHS organizations would like to use alternative solutions, they retain the ability to procure locally, provided solutions meet applicable standards and support the delivery of national priorities," she said. According to NHS England statistics, 168 of 214 NHS trusts have signed up to use the FDP, with 123 live and 80 reporting benefits. All but one of England's 42 integrated care boards, Greater Manchester, have also joined. Palantir's role in the FDP, which followed similar pandemic-era work for NHS England, has become increasingly contentious. Last week, Parliament's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee said the NHS should end Palantir's involvement, and MPs have tabled 40 written questions about the supplier, which also works for intelligence agencies and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the last month. Responding to a question from Labour MP Mark Sewards, Gill said the government will decide this year whether to extend Palantir's current FDP contract beyond its February 2027 expiry. She noted the program was among just 14 percent of major government projects to get a green rating from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, "indicating that the NHS FDP is on track." In a further answer to Neil Duncan-Jordan, Gill said the contract includes an exit management process covering intellectual property rights. "In addition, the contract includes controls to support transition and continuity of services in the event of termination, ensuring that operational delivery and patient services are protected," she said. "In principle, another supplier could provide equivalent functionality in the future," Gill added, signaling that even if Palantir's contract is not renewed, the government wants to retain the FDP. "It would take planning, time, and resources to run a compliant procurement and then move services and data across safely." ®
BORK!BORK!BORK! We're big fans of retro computing here at Vulture Central, and so it is with a certain delight that we can report XP-era Windows has been spotted disgracing itself on London's Docklands Light Railway. Spotted by Register reader Tim Hayward, the wonderfully named DaisySignApp.exe has thrown up an application error. While the Windows shell might be shorn of all of XP's fripperies, the Recycle Bin icon hints at the operating system's origins. Hayward reckoned that XP was stalking the DLR, but it could also be Windows Server 2003. Support for Windows Server 2003 finally ended in 2015. XP was sunset in 2014, so the DLR display is rather out of date. Then again, as any IT administrator would admit, if something isn't broken, there's no point fixing it, no matter how much Microsoft would encourage them to. In this case, it is unlikely that the operating system is at fault (although one could argue that it should handle a misbehaving application more discreetly), and DaisySignApp.exe should be dealing with its own dirty laundry rather than throwing an exception in commuters' faces at Limehouse station. Limehouse connects London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to the UK's National Rail services. It was one of the first DLR stations and predates the borked operating system by more than a decade. Indeed, at the time of the DLR's opening in 1987, Microsoft was preparing to inflict Windows 2.0 upon the world – the delights of later versions and the company's GUI dominance were still a few years in the future. The DLR also seemed like a glimpse into the future back in the 1980s. However, a fair chunk of its underpinnings, such as formerly disused railway viaducts, hark back to an earlier era. Anyone looking at today's iteration of Windows might wonder how much of it dates back to what's on display at Limehouse. ®
"Anthropic said on Friday it will 'abruptly disable' its most advanced AI models for all users,"
reports Reuters, "after the U.S. government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of its national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement."
Anthropic's blog post writes that the directive applies to foreign nationals "whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance."
"Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected."
We received the directive from the government today at 5:21pm (ET)... Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or "jailbreaking" Fable 5... We have not even received a disclosure of a concerning non-universal potential jailbreak that led to a harmful result. The potential jailbreaks that have been disclosed to us are either entirely benign responses or are minor findings that provide no Mythos-specific uplift.
To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws. Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government. We have reviewed a report that we believe is the basis of the government's directive and validated that the level of capability displayed there is widely available from other models (including OpenAI's GPT-5.5), and is used every day by the defenders who keep systems safe... We are complying with the government's legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users. However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.
As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles. We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Reuters notes that Amazon's cloud unit AWS "said late on Friday that Anthropic has asked it to revoke access to the models for 'all users in all regions.'"
Dean Ball, a former White House official who contributed to the AI Action Plan the administration issued in the summer of 2025, said in a post on X that the order suggests all "non-Americans" would be restricted from using Anthropic's latest models, including those based in the U.S. "This means you should expect to have to prove your citizenship to use Anthropic models," Ball said.
Several key Anthropic personnel, including co-founder Chris Olah, AI researcher Andrej Karpathy and philosopher Amanda Askell, were born outside the United States.
Anthropic said on Friday it will "abruptly disable" its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for all users after the U.S. government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, whether inside or outside the U.S., citing national security concerns.
The AI company said it received an order at 5:21 p.m. ET, instructing it to suspend
Attackers took over more than 400 packages in the Arch User Repository (AUR) this week and rewrote their build scripts to install a credential stealer on any machine that built them.
The malware is a Rust binary built to harvest developer secrets. When it lands with root, it can also load an eBPF rootkit to hide itself. The AUR is Arch Linux's community package collection, and it is separate
Google on Friday said it's pursuing legal action against a Chinese cybercrime network, accusing it of using its Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) agent to send phishing text messages targeting Americans.
The network is said to be behind the development and management of a phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) software kit called Outsider, per the tech giant.
"The operation weaponized Gemini to help
Instead of hiding on the laptops and servers defenders watch most closely, a China-nexus group spent close to a decade hidden inside the Linux login system itself.
Sygnia, which tracks the group as Velvet Ant, says it backdoored the PAM and OpenSSH components that decide who is allowed to sign in, planting its access where ordinary cleanup could not reach it. The network it targeted had no
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The first quarter of 2026 produced the most blocked and delayed data center projects on record, according to a new study shared with NBC News. The study -- conducted by Data Center Watch, a project of the AI intelligence firm 10a Labs that tracks local data center activity -- found that data center opponents blocked or delayed at least 75 projects nationwide worth about $130 billion from January through March, the most in a three-month period since the group began tracking in 2023.
"The quarter reflected a structural shift rather than a cyclical spike: communities have internalized an opposition playbook, legislative sessions introduced formal regulatory uncertainty, and the number of active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states," the authors wrote, noting that the total number and value of data centers blocked or delayed during the first three months of 2026 roughly matched the total for all of 2025.
[...] The report found that legislative pushes for moratoriums on constructing data centers ballooned during the first quarter of 2026, sponsored by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The report found such proposals introduced in 14 states from January through March, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., introducing a federal version. Though none of the proposals has been signed into law, one did reach the desk of Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in Maine. She vetoed it in April.
More than 300 bills were introduced in statehouses across the country just in the first six weeks of 2026, the authors found, saying it marked "a clear shift from incentive-focused policies toward regulatory oversight as the scale of energy demands became clearer." What's more, the study found that the number of active grassroots opposition groups across the country more than doubled from 396 at the end of 2025 to 833 by March. The authors found that the states with the most opposition groups through that month were Maryland, Ohio and Texas. "In some cases," they wrote, "opposition mobilized before any project was officially filed, the mere rumor of a data center was enough to trigger organized resistance."
@Chocobozzz Hey, so recently I received some issues for my native Peertube tvOS client, PeerTV, regarding an inability for them to login to their accounts on specific instances that require either OpenID or OAuth. I tried implementing that, but I found out that in order to use passkeys from the apple device I need to coordinate with specific instances and have the accept some sort of credential from my app (which seems rather difficult). I tried using only the user and password to sign in with SSO but there were challenges and it wasn’t consistently logging in the users.
Did you face a similar issue with the Peertube iOS app? Can you share what you were able to do to get that working (if it even works with SSO at all)?
NanoClaw, a secure agent framework, has partnered with supply chain platform JFrog to allow AI agents to fetch resources from JFrog's reviewed registries. Gavriel Cohen, creator of NanoClaw and co-founder of NanoCo AI, announced the tie-up on Thursday evening in San Francisco at a JFrog event that concluded with a World Cup watch party. Cohen explained that one of the features of Claw agents – OpenClaw and variations like NanoClaw – is that they can improve themselves by fetching tools and resources that they don't have. That works fine, he explained, when there's a manual approval process for accessing known local data. But it's not ideal for npm packages, even when the agent involved is sandboxed and isolated as it is in NanoClaw. Malicious code within a container may still be able to take harmful actions, even if the scope of potential activity is constrained. Developers, Cohen said, may not be familiar with a given package and it can take time to thoroughly assess whether a package is legitimate and uncompromised. "So we teamed up with JFrog and we integrated NanoClaw with JFrog's registries," said Cohen. The arrangement provides a way to reduce the agent's exposure to untrusted content. When the agent downloads new tools and libraries, the software comes from a vetted source. Cohen also announced the availability of what he called an agent factory, his company's homegrown system used to handle pull requests (PRs) using NanoClaw agents. The agent factory, he explained, is an attempt to triage pull requests, which have surged thanks to AI coding agents. "It's very easy now to point a coding agent at a repo and say, 'open a pull request for this repo,'" he explained. "And it's very difficult as a maintainer to tell the difference between a high quality contribution from somebody who's really using the open source project versus someone who's just trying to build up the reputation [using automated methods]. So to help us tackle this, we built an agent factory that helps us review every single contribution to NanoClaw." The agent factory is referred to as the PR Factory in the actual pull request. It's built with NanoClaw and hosted on exe.dev, a service that provides VMs with persistent storage. "When a PR opens, the factory spins up a dedicated worker agent for it, posts a thread to Slack, and the worker triages the change, reviews the diff, and proposes a test plan," Cohen explains in the documentation. "Nothing consequential happens on its own: merges, test runs, and credentialed GitHub actions each surface as an approval card in the thread, and only fire when a human clicks approve." Cohen acknowledged that some developers will think it's madness to process unsanitized PRs that could contain prompt injections or unsafe code. And he asked the assembled audience of developers how many had seen the phrase on the projected slide: "Never, ever, ever do this." Anyone who has spent time using and configuring AI agents in a development context has seen something of the sort in configuration files like Claude.md, which gets loaded as instructions to the underlying agent and model. "If you see something like this in the Claude.md file and the agent instructions say, 'Important: Never run drop database production,' it tells you two things. You know that that agent has deleted a production database before. And you know that it can actually still do it again. That's why the instruction is there." This elicited a knowing laugh from the audience. Cohen went on to say that the agent will do it again because instructions are not a way of enforcing security or safety. "Instructions help steer an agent AI towards valuable output, but it's not a safety mechanism," he said. "The only way to reliably prevent an agent from taking undesired action is not allowing it to take that action, not giving it the ability to take the action." That is the purpose of NanoClaw. ®
Amid the unrelenting demand for AI infrastructure, SK Hynix, the world’s largest supplier of HBM memory used in high-end GPUs, now expects to triple its wafer capacity. You'll just have to wait through two more US presidential elections and then some. All that capacity won’t come online until 2034, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won told Nikkei Asia in a recent interview. SK Hynix’s valuation has soared in recent months. The company is one of three major producers of NAND flash and DRAM memory, large quantities of which are required to support the burgeoning AI inference market. Samsung and Micron are the other two major players in this space. This demand has led to skyrocketing memory prices for consumer DRAM and SSDs, some of which have more than tripled in price compared to this time last year. SK Hynix and the other major memory makers meanwhile have seen their revenues explode. Chey's comments come just a week after SK Hynix said that it planned to double its production capacity within the next five years. “Our calculations show that our wafer capacity will double within five years. But honestly once all these facilities are built, it won’t just double, it will triple by around 2034,” Chey told Nikkei. SK is in the process of bringing four additional wafer fabs online, with the first phase reportedly on track to come online as early as 2027. The South Korean memory slinger had previously planned to ramp production of these facilities over the next two decades, but has pulled in its timeline in hopes of satiating AI’s memory addiction. “There is currently no way to move faster than this,” Chey told the newswire. While much of this capacity will be built on SK’s home turf, the company is exploring its options for overseas manufacturing, with Japan being one of the potential destinations, with Chey calling it an “excellent” candidate due to its robust semiconductor supply chains. Unfortunately, the buildout is unlikely to drive down memory prices for consumers any time soon. As we previously reported, memory prices are not expected to peak until later this year at the earliest. Analysts warn that memory prices are more likely to plateau going into 2027 rather than plummeting like we’ve seen in past DRAM and NAND boom-bust cycles. These boom-bust cycles have been a fact of life for commodity electronics manufacturers, like SK Hynix and Samsung, for years. Prices typically spike as inventories are drawn down and crater as new capacity is brought online. On the one hand, AI infrastructure demand has helped to stabilize this to some extent. On the other hand, the AI boom kicked off in 2022 at what was arguably the worst possible time. "This demand started in the Valley for the DRAM industry. That makes financially trying to build additional capacity really challenging," TechInsights analyst James Sanders told El Reg late last year. Business is once again booming for memory vendors presenting ample opportunities for labor disputes over competition as well as fab expansions. Unfortunately, there’s no changing the fact that the fastest anyone can bring a leading edge memory fab online is about three years. ®
Jeff Bezos says his new AI startup, Prometheus, is working toward an "artificial general engineer" capable of helping design complex physical products such as robots, drugs, manufacturing systems, and rocket engines. The Verge reports: The NYT first reported on Prometheus last November, but now Bezos is sharing more information about the startup after a $12 billion funding round, putting the company at a $41 billion valuation. Bezos serves as co-CEO of Prometheus alongside Vik Bajaj, who co-founded Alphabet's health-focused research group, Verily. The startup currently has around 150 employees.
The tools Prometheus intends to build could help develop physical products across several industries, including robotics, drug design, and manufacturing, the NYT reports. "Blue Origin is a perfect example of a company that could benefit from the tools that Prometheus is building," Bezos tells the NYT. "Any company that is building sophisticated devices -- like rocket engines -- would benefit greatly from this kind of technology."
The Justice Department has approved Paramount Skydance's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery without requiring divestitures or other concessions. The deal still faces scrutiny from state attorneys general. Politico reports: The decision, expected to be announced Friday, paves the way for Paramount to combine with the entertainment and media company behind a vast film and television studio, CNN, and the HBO Max streaming service, which would be combined with Paramount+ to create a new offering boasting about 200 million subscribers. The deal, which would upend the Hollywood ecosystem by combining two historic rival studios, is opposed by many in the entertainment industry who fear it could lead to mass layoffs, among other concerns.
After an extensive review, DOJ officials determined the transaction did not pose a threat to competition and declined to challenge it, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The department approved the merger without requiring any divestitures, behavioral remedies or concessions, according to one of the people. [...] The DOJ's approval does not end the merger's legal scrutiny. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been reviewing the transaction and could still sue to block the deal despite federal regulators signing off. A spokesperson for Bonta's office told POLITICO earlier this week "the Paramount acquisition of Warner Brothers remains an active investigation."
[...] Throughout those discussions, Paramount maintained that the merger would strengthen competition rather than diminish it, creating a media company better positioned to compete with streaming leaders and deep-pocketed technology rivals, according to people familiar with the matter. Hollywood workers fear the merger could trigger another wave of layoffs in an industry already reeling from years of consolidation. Critics argue that billions in promised cost savings will come at the expense of jobs, fewer opportunities for creators and greater concentration of power across film, television and streaming.
ShinyHunters claims it exploited a critical Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day to compromise more than 100 organizations, including the University of Nottingham, where it says it stole 40GB of student and billing data. "ShinyHunters posted the UK university on its data leak site on Tuesday before publishing the stolen files later that same day, presumably because the school refused to pay the extortion demand," reports The Register. From the report: "University of Nottingham on our leak site is one of the first publicly confirmed incidents," a ShinyHunters spokesperson told us. "We have only just started outreach to affected orgs and are actively looking to reach an agreement with affected orgs." They didn't say when they planned to post the other 100 or so claimed victims.
A Google threat intelligence report published Thursday afternoon corroborated ShinyHunters' claims to have compromised more than 100 organizations. Google said it spotted malicious activity, "consistent with the exploitation of CVE-2026-35273," between May 27 and June 9, and notified more than 100 global orgs "whose IP addresses correlated with potentially vulnerable endpoints." Most of these, we're told, are based in the US and 68 percent are in the higher-education sector. Oracle has released a "patch availability document," but it's unclear whether a patch is currently available.
GitHub has been struggling with service availability in recent months as traffic on the platform has surged, driven in large part by AI-assisted coding and agentic development workflows. The code-sharing site has been trying to address those issues by expanding capacity and migrating more workloads to Azure infrastructure, but reliability remains uneven. In the May 2026 GitHub Availability Report, GitHub acknowledges nine incidents that degraded performance, one fewer than its April report. That's something. But Jakub Oleksy, SVP of software engineering at GitHub, says there's more to be done. "We are making structural changes that permanently remove failure modes," he said in the report. "We acknowledge that we have work to do, but we’re committed to getting it done and making GitHub reliable when and where you need it." Microsoft’s code hosting site also briefly halted new Copilot subscriptions to reduce the cost impact of its AI services and to adjust its Copilot pricing to account for shifting model provider policies. As noted in an April post, GitHub had planned to increase its capacity by 10x back in October 2025, but by February 2026 it had become evident that a 30x expansion would be needed to accommodate the surge of pull requests, commits, and new repos. Last year, GitHub reportedly handled 1 billion commits for the entire year. Now it receives 1.4 billion commits every month. “We’re now serving 40 percent of monolith traffic from Azure (up from 8 percent in February), with Git traffic at 30 percent and repository replication at 99 percent,” said Oleksy. “We’ve more than doubled our effective capacity in four months.” Oleksy notes that efforts to isolate GitHub’s primary database cluster by moving users, authentication, and authorization into separate domains should prevent failures that cascade across the system. That hasn’t quite solved GitHub’s ongoing availability challenges, in part because Azure has also confronted capacity problems recently. There were nine incidents in May compared to 10 incidents in April. And June is on pace for a similar number. The Missing GitHub Status Page, an unofficial project to track GitHub service problems, counts 12 incidents in May and reports uptime over the past 90 days at 87.26 percent. By month, the project puts GitHub availability at 78.33 percent in April, 93.86 percent in May, and 88.39 percent for June so far. GitHub's Official Status Page presents a far more flattering view of availability, with uptime figures mostly around 99.9 percent for the listed services. These figures depend upon what gets counted and the duration of the disruption. GitHub’s own incident history page cites 26 incidents in April, 23 in May, and 12 to date in June. ®
I’m wondering what happens when a report is made. I imagine it sends an email to the Mobilizon hosting manager.
But if a French association runs a group, it may be liable for the content published within that group. We might want several levels of reporting:
one at group level (e.g. via private message). Also, are all messages sent by the event organisers available at group level? (Can the organisation provide moderation training at this level already?)
one at platform level.
From what I understand, both are possible. Is that right ?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is suing to dismantle the infrastructure behind an alleged massive AI-powered cybercrime operation. On Friday, the tech giant announced a lawsuit against an alleged Chinese cybercrime network called Outsider Enterprise, which Google says uses AI in its campaigns to send scam text messages impersonating Google and other brands to steal passwords and credit card numbers.
Outsider Enterprise has financially scammed "hundreds of thousands of victims" with losses "estimated in the millions." The group deployed 9,000 fake websites, 1 million fraudulent web domains, and 2.5 million texts sent to Android users in a two-week period, according to Google. "55,000 spam texts were flagged by Android users in just two weeks this past May -- that's more than two text spam complaints a minute," Google said.
Google said it uses "AI-powered tools to fight AI-powered scams", which enable the company to detect scams and alert users of suspicious calls and text messages, leading to the interception of more than 10 billion scam messages a month. The company said it has been collaborating with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to block the scam text messages and said it is coordinating with the FBI, which is taking unspecified law enforcement actions.
MX Linux 25.2 is here, now with kernel 7.0 if you choose – although the Raspberry Pi edition still needs some work. MX Linux has been quietly turning into one of the Reg FOSS desk’s favorite distros for a few years now. It has a number of desirable attributes, and with version 25.2 released late last month, some of the slightly bumpier parts of the major upgrade to version 25 are getting smoothed out. We looked at MX Linux 25 in November last year, and reported that one of the niftiest features in previous versions had been lost. In MX 23 and before, you could choose which init system the OS used every time it booted up: so, for instance, you could normally run with the classic sysvinit, but if you needed to install something which demanded systemd, you could temporarily boot up with systemd as the init, install your app, and then switch back. In our testing, we’ve found that some things require Agent P’s Swiss Army Knife of a “System and Service Manager” to install, but once they’re in place on your computer, they will run quite happily without it. Alternatively, if it’s something you only occasionally run, you can start up with systemd only when you need it. The way that MX Linux did this no longer works on kernel 6.12 or above. So, in order to continue to offer a choice of inits at all, MX 25.0 made you choose at install time: either pick the systemd version, or the sysvinit version. (And if you wanted KDE Plasma, it was only available in systemd form.) MX Linux 25.1 fixed that with a new, different, switchable-init system. However, that made upgrading from 23 to 25 tricky, and after we tried it, the OS still worked, but the handy suite of MX Tools didn’t. These aren’t essential, but they significantly facilitate common adjustments and tweaks such as installing extra external apps, switching repositories and mirrors, managing kernel versions, installing additional device drivers such as the eternally problematic Nvidia drivers, and much more. They’re one of the distro’s key advantages, and well worth having. We dug out the machine in our test fleet, which runs MX, and tried the option in the installation program that installs over the top of an existing copy of MX. It worked fine, with some caveats: it’s not quite as capable as Ubuntu’s in-place reinstall, which spares your home directory while reinstalling the OS around it. MX simply overwrites the old OS; it doesn’t pick up any config from it – but it’s quicker and easier than custom partitioning. We had to re-enable our swap partition, and add a user account that matched the old one, but everything worked fine. With the MX Tools, it was fast and easy to choose local repositories for updates, and reinstall some handy proprietary apps such as Google Chrome and Slack. The distro comes with Flatpak preinstalled, and we used that to install Gear Lever to make it easier to reinstall Panwriter. The new MX Linux version 25.2 optionally includes the new kernel 7.0, from the Liquorix project that we looked at in 2022. For the Xfce edition, you can choose the normal edition, with a Debian kernel, or the AHS edition with the newer kernel. The KDE edition only comes in AHS form, and the lightweight Fluxbox edition for low-end kit only offers the Debian kernel. There are any number of Debian and Ubuntu based remixes and meta-distributions out there, but MX Linux is perhaps the single most user-friendly distro we’ve seen that isn’t based on systemd. It’s fast, lightweight, and much easier to get configured and installed than Devuan, or even than Debian itself. It also has better tools for adjustment and customization than any member of the Ubuntu or Debian family, and rivals the best Arch Linux-based distros such as Garuda Linux. As we reported from the Ubuntu Summit, Canonical is beginning a push into AI. Since then, the roadmap for Ubuntu 26.10 “Stonking Stingray” has been published, including what it calls a Context-aware desktop – powered by LLMs. Similar changes have already come to Linux Lite 8.0, which is based on Ubuntu 26.04. This too bundles a local LLM for all your error-filled artificial-plagiarism needs. We suspect that such developments may yet drive a small exodus of Ubuntu users – and if you also want to get away from systemd at the same time, then MX Linux is an excellent place to start. Bootnote: MX Linux on the Raspberry Pi Finally, version 25.2 sees the Raspberry Pi respin updated to the new base OS. Until 25.2, the Pi version was still on MX version 22. As this rather outdated description says, this is a separate edition of MX Linux with Xfce, but built in part from the packages in the Raspberry Pi OS rather than directly from Debian – so it looks and works like MX, but is compatible with most Pis and most apps for PiOS. For instance, the Pi configuration commands, and EEPROM updater, work fine on MX on the Pi, but they don’t on (for instance) Alpine Linux. We tried MX Linux 24.2 for the Raspberry Pi on both 4 GB and 8 GB Pi 5 machines and on a Pi 4, but it wouldn’t get past the splash screen for us – but the previous release worked very well, so once it’s received a little more TLC, this could turn out to be a good option for Pi users wanting a more configurable desktop OS. ®
A disgruntled IT worker faces 21 months behind bars after being found guilty of sabotaging his former employer’s systems for more than a year and half. Ezekiel Dean Potter, 34, was fired from his IT support job at Iowa’s SaydelU Community School District (SCSD) in April 2023. He was found guilty of causing various technical damages to SCSD’s systems betwUeen May 2023 and January 2025.UU At his sentencing hearing on June 11, the court heard thaUt the IT worker had gathered and stored more than 300 Saydel user accountU credentials before he was terminated from his position. Potter’s other offenses included deleting SCSD’s Facebook page on June 1, 2023, and data related to its Apple School Manager program, which prevented it from managing Macs and iPads. The disgruntled worker, who the prosection described in its sentencing memo [PDF] as “a plague on the Saydel Community School District,” was just one of two IT staff members who had the required privileges to make changes to the Facebook account. The deletion ended up being a permanent one, and SCDC had to create a new page in August. Following his intrusion into the district’s Apple School Manager on June 14, 2023, SCSD’s IT team had to work with Apple for a week to restore their access after Potter deleted users’ passwords, phone numbers, billing information, and the primary mobile device server management information, court documents [PDF] showed. He also attempted to delete all user accounts and restricted access for those who still had one. Potter’s next offense took place between July and August 2023, when he attempted to interfere with SCSD’s GoDaddy account, unsuccessfully resetting usernames and passwords. Potter logged into this GoDaddy account no less than 26 times, including on one occasion where he used his company-issued PC supplied by his subsequent employer, convenience store and pizza chain Casey’s. The IT specialist then took an extended break from his cyber sabotage. Court documents mention Potter successfully gaining access to SCDC’s Google and Gmail accounts in October 2024, but he waited even longer to act on this access. It wasn’t until January 2025 that he logged into SCDC’s PowerSchool-based Schoology learning platform using one of the district’s Google accounts to which he had access, and deleted the account of one of the organization’s IT staff. This had the knock-on effect of locking out teachers during a school day and, in turn, preventing them from teaching for two hours. He returned a week later and deleted an additional nine district Gmail accounts, including current and former staff, the district IT director, and superintendent. Investigations showed that even though Potter switched to a VPN during one of the January intrusions, his IP address was later traced back to him and his employer, The Printer Inc, which he joined after leaving Casey’s. He left that job on January 23, 2025, for reasons not disclosed. Potter seemingly trusted at least one of his coworkers enough to “wipe” a USB drive he left in his old desk, asking them to do so after he departed the company. That trust was misplaced, however, as the coworker instead reported the USB to management, and what followed ultimately proved to be Potter’s undoing. The Printer Inc passed the USB to law enforcement, and later the FBI, which forensically examined the device, finding spreadsheets filled with more than 300 district usernames and passwords, a floor plan for Saydel High School, as well as personal data pertaining to Potter and pay stubs from his employment at SCSD. In total, the district incurred $73,375 worth of costs related to employees' lost time, digital forensics, learning downtime, and time spent working with other vendors to remediate his intrusions. SCSD's insurer spent an additional $27,893.75 in payments for digital forensics and remediation work, taking the total losses up to $101,268.81. Potter was indicted on October 15, 2025, and arrested the following day, but released on pretrial supervision after accepting responsibility for his offenses. He later entered a guilty plea in January 2026, and was found guilty in February. At his sentencing hearing on Thursday, Potter expressed deep regret for his actions, especially for disrupting children’s learning, and for failing his family. "I never intended to negatively affect students, but I recognize that harm was still done and I'm deeply sorry," he said, according to local media. "This experience humbled me in ways I never expected, but I needed that." His defense attorney, Joseph Herrold, stated: “Mr. Potter now fully sees the impact of his actions and deeply regrets the harm he caused.” Herrold argued against a prison term, instead asking for a five-year probation term, owing to Potter’s deep regret and the strong deterrent that comes with his felony conviction. The public defender also pointed to Potter’s clean criminal background, noting only one prior harassment misdemeanor related to a 2010 case, when he was just 18 years old. Potter was convicted following immature conduct from the backseat of a vehicle, for which he received a $65 fine. Herrold also said Potter’s restitution order to repay $59,668.81 in total, with $31,775.06 going to SCSD and $27,893.75 to its insurer, Travelers Indemnity Company, only furthered the deterrent effect, and would impact his lifestyle for years to come. Prosecuting the case, US attorney David C. Waterman, pushed instead for a 26-month prison term, saying: “Defendant’s actions were not a one-time lapse in judgment. They were calculated, malicious, and seemingly motivated only by the defendant’s vindictiveness.” He added: “The defendant’s attacks on SCSD’s systems are troubling not just because of the significant damage he caused – tens of thousands of dollars, without accounting for the unknown but clearly extensive disruption to teaching and school activities – but also because of the defendant’s motivations. “It appears the defendant repeatedly assaulted SCSD out of spite and pure maliciousness, despite knowing his actions would affect not only his former boss and IT colleagues, but also school faculty, administrators, and students.” ®
A leaker with a strong Apple rumor track record says a touchscreen MacBook is "100% confirmed. If true, it would mark a major reversal for Apple, which has long argued that the Mac is built for indirect input rather than reaching up to touch a vertical screen. MacRumors reports: Instant Digital has a good track record for Apple rumors and has provided some strikingly accurate information in the past, so it's always worth noting what they have to say about Apple's plans. The claim is also backed by several recent reports. [...] Touchscreen support is expected to be one of several major upgrades coming to Apple's next-generation high-end MacBook Pro models. Other rumored features include M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, an OLED display, a Dynamic Island (i.e., no notch), and a thinner design. The new laptops could also adopt MacBook Ultra branding.
Notably, macOS 27 Golden Gate also introduces a more touch-friendly interface, since Apple's Sidecar feature now allows users to tap and interact with macOS interface elements using a finger on their iPad. Apple apparently is not going to advertise the new MacBook Pro/Ultra as a touch-first device like the iPad -- it will be "touch-friendly, not touch-first," according to [Bloomberg's Mark Gurman]. In that sense, Apple will let customers use touch and mouse gestures interchangeably for all functions. Further reading: Steve Jobs Was Wrong About Touchscreen Laptops (2012)
Longtime Slashdot reader Dotnaught shares a report from The Register: For the past 90 days, Microsoft has been quietly patching a firmware flaw in Surface devices that allowed the hardware to be bricked with a single packet, though only for those who have disabled Secure Core and Secure Boot. And the company's Copilot AI software inadvertently helped identify the faulty firmware.
According to Jack Darcy, a security researcher based in Australia, his instance of Microsoft Copilot stumbled across the bug after being asked to adjust the screen backlighting on a Surface device. The Copilot-conjured Python script ended up rendering the researcher's laptop inoperable by overwriting the embedded controller firmware. "Copilot autonomously created and executed four progressively aggressive Python scripts during a probe for backlight control values that sent raw SSAM ioctl commands (SSAM_CDEV_REQUEST = 0xC028A501) directly to the SAM microcontroller through the SAM software path," Darcy explained to The Register.
[...] "We appreciate the work of Jack Darcy and The Register for reporting this issue under a coordinated vulnerability disclosure," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "Our investigation found that a deprecated UEFI interface could trigger a boot loop on some devices. To trigger this loop, the user must have administrator privileges and have already disabled the Secure Boot security feature. We have released updates to address the issue for most impacted devices."
That means managed devices are not at risk. But those using Linux, or Windows users who have disabled Secure Core and Secure Boot for gaming, or who use custom Windows drivers, or who have USB boot enabled, may still be vulnerable if their systems haven't received the update. We're uncertain about the range of Surface devices affected. Our source said it appears to be all of them (Surface Laptops 3-6, Surface Book 1-3) except for Surface Go models. ARM variants, however, have not been tested. The report notes that Microsoft is planning to move the Surface stack to a more secure architecture based on Rust code.
"Our most recent Surface for Business hardware features a major architectural shift in terms of improved reliability and security that spans our embedded controller, UEFI, but also some of our drivers," said David Abzarian, chief architect for Microsoft Surface. "We're investing in the most secure foundation for a PC by building our embedded controller firmware from the ground up in Rust (as part of leveraging and contributing to the Open Device Partnership (ODP)) in addition to a rewrite of the UEFI DXE Core in Rust; these projects are known as Secure EC and Project Patina respectively."
"We're also not only shipping some of our drivers written in Rust, but also helping co-develop the framework Windows Drivers in Rust (WDR) to help enable a broad set of partners in the Windows ecosystem to capitalize on these benefits. I will also note that all of these efforts are open-source promoting one of our key security principles around transparency."
Sam Bankman-Fried lost his appeal to overturn his FTX fraud conviction and 25-year sentence. Reuters reports: In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said prosecutors' evidence against Bankman-Fried "was, conservatively stated, robust." "While he was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators that FTX customer funds were safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds on real estate, political contributions, and investments," Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote on behalf of the panel.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They may next ask all the active judges on the 2nd Circuit to hear the case, or ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. Bankman-Fried is also seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump, according to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 for "masterminding one of the largest financial frauds in American history," wrote US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He was convicted on all charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering.
Other noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar: ICS device exposure remains flat as attack surface widens, Microsoft issues incident response playbook for AI, IBM and AT&T accused of hack cover-ups.
Infineon is set to open a $5.8 billion power-chip fab in Dresden on July 2, backed by about $1.1 billion in EU Chips Act subsidies. The plant will make power semiconductors for AI data centers and could eventually add up to $5.8 billion in annual revenue as demand for AI infrastructure strains global electricity systems. Bloomberg reports: Infineon, traditionally a chipmaker for the automotive industry, has increasingly benefited from soaring demand for power chips used in AI data centers, which will be produced at the new facility. "The AI data centers currently being built and planned around the world will consume twice as much electricity in 2030 as they do today," [said Chief Operating Officer Alexander Gorski]. "That's as much as the entire Federal Republic of Germany."
Chip production at the Dresden fab will be scaled over time depending on demand, potentially adding as much as 5 billion euros in revenue per year, Gorski said, declining to comment on when full capacity will be reached. The company has invested around 2 billion euros on construction and the remaining amount will be spent over time to add more machines to the fab, he added.
The new facility is "a key catalyst," Bank of America analysts including Didier Scemama wrote in a note last week. Demand from Al customers is materially above Infineon's current capacity, they said, adding the imbalance could improve in the 2027 and 2028 financial years. The analysts raised their Al power revenue forecast for the company by 500 million euros to 4.5 billion euros for 2028.
Infineon expects data center-related revenue to rise from around 1.5 billion euros in fiscal 2026 -- roughly 10% of sales -- to 2.5 billion euros in 2027, it said last month. The hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in AI are driving the rapid expansion of data center capabilities around the world. Infineon doesn't produce advanced AI chips, like those designed by Nvidia. But the power semiconductors it plans to produce in Dresden are still needed for AI infrastructure.
KPMG's October 2025 report on the wonders of agentic AI has been accused of demonstrating one of the tech's less desirable talents: making things up. Research outfit GPTZero claims a forensic review of the Big Four firm's October 2025 report, "Total Experience: Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI," found that only five of its 45 citations correctly pointed to the cited source; the rest ranged from mangled and misleading to partially fabricated or too vague to verify. The consulting industry has form here. Last year, Deloitte ended up refunding the Australian government after AI-generated content slipped into a taxpayer-funded report. GPTZero dubbed the phenomenon "vibe citing" – the citation equivalent of vibe coding – where generative AI appears to stitch together fragments of real sources, invent titles, or otherwise produce references that look convincing until someone actually clicks them. GPTZero alleges that roughly half of the report's factual claims were false, unsupported, or attributed to the wrong source. Several case studies highlighting supposedly cutting-edge deployments of agentic AI appear to have been particularly creative. Among the examples highlighted by GPTZero were purported agentic AI deployments at UBS, Swiss Federal Railways, and Transport for London. According to GPTZero, the sources cited to support those case studies either did not substantiate the report's claims or contained alterations and paraphrasing that undermined their reliability. “These factual errors are not confined to the report’s footnoted passages,” GPTZero said. “On page 42, the authors claim that Emirates airline has adopted a mobile chatbot named Sara (false) that can converse directly with passengers (partially true) and change their flights (false). In fact, Sara is a robot assistant introduced by Emirates in 2023 (not a chatbot) that lacks the ability to alter flight bookings.” Not all of the alleged problems involved external sources. GPTZero noted that the report appears to contradict KPMG's own research, citing a figure of 55 percent of CEOs ranking AI as their top investment priority. KPMG's 2025 CEO Outlook, released the same month, put the number at 71 percent. KPMG has since removed the report from some of its websites while it investigates how the publication made it into the wild, according to the Financial Times. A spokesperson at KPMG told The Register: "KPMG International takes the accuracy and integrity of its published content seriously. The report has been removed and we are reviewing the circumstances surrounding its publication. We expect all our people to follow our guidelines on the responsible use of AI, including human oversight to validate content and verify independent sources." Consulting firms have spent years warning clients about AI hallucinations. According to GPTZero, KPMG may have just provided a live demonstration. ®
Pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk says data related to clinical trial participants was stolen as part of a cyberattack. The affected patient data was pseudonymized and not directly linked to names or other direct identifiers, the company said. The maker of the Wegovy weight-loss drug said the affected data types include patient ID, information on trial participation, gender, year of birth, biomarkers, health/immunogenicity data, and lifestyle factors including smoking status, alcohol use, and BMI. "This information is not directly linked to any patients by name or other direct identifiers," the Novo Nordisk said on its dedicated page for the attack. "Information about identity would therefore require access to underlying information, identifying patients by name etc. This information was not exposed. We therefore do not consider the incident to enable any third party to identify participants in our clinical trials." The same statement confirmed that the attack affected a "limited number of internal IT systems," and the company said some systems have been taken offline as a precaution. Although it does not believe there is an immediate risk stemming from the breach, it nonetheless warned patients to remain vigilant for anything that could be connected to the data stolen during the attack. A separate letter sent to the company's healthcare partners (HCPs) states that additional personal information may have been stolen and could lead to targeted phishing attempts. Affected HCP data includes names and registration numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, WhatsApp details, and office locations. "Based on the nature of the exposed data, the potential consequences of the incident include targeted phishing attempts through emails, phone, and WhatsApp, or fraudulent communications impersonating colleagues," Novo Nordisk said in the letter. "We recommend that you remain vigilant against unexpected messages or calls and report any suspicious activity to us." The pharma biz warned that it may take time to bring these systems back online, but it is working to do so "in a controlled and safe manner." Elsewhere, it all sounds like standard practice. Outside experts were called in to help investigate, and Novo Nordisk has not yet confirmed the scale of the breach, nor will it until the experts have more time to assess the damage. Novo Nordisk added that the attack has had no impact on its core business operations, which remain running as normal. The attack was announced on what should have been a day of celebration for the company, whose flagship semaglutide weight-loss and diabetes pill received the green light to become the UK's first daily GLP-1 tablet hours earlier. The Wegovy pill joins the list of approved weight-management treatments that act as agonists for the GLP-1 receptor. All the other approved treatments are injectables, including Wegovy and Ozempic, both of which are also developed by Novo Nordisk. The Danish company employs roughly 67,900 people across 80 countries, and markets products in nearly every country globally. ®
Amazon says its datacenters used about 2.5 billion gallons of water last year, but claims that's far less than rival hyperscalers and that it remains on track to become "water positive" by 2030. In a blog post, the digital tat bazaar and cloud computing biz says the 2.5 billion gallon figure covers its entire global datacenter footprint for 2025. It downplayed the number by comparing it to the volume of water Americans - a country of 350 million people - used on lawns and gardens over the same period. Amazon disclosed water usage of 0.12 liters per kilowatt-hour (L/kWh) at its data facilities, and claimed Microsoft used 0.27 L/kWh during 2025, while Meta's consumption stood at 0.19 L/kWh in 2024 and Google was the thirstiest at 1.15 L/kWh during the same year. The Register has asked Microsoft, Meta and Google to comment. The water usage, we're told, is 75 percent of the way to Amazon's goal - announced in 2022 - of being "water positive" by 2030. It means facilities return more water to the environment than they consume, via measures including rainwater capture or other treating waste water for reuse. The figures come amid growing pushback against datacenter construction in the US. A recent Ipsos survey found most Americans don't want facilities built nearby, citing worries over electricity prices, eyesore buildings, and water-hungry operations. This echoes a 2022 report that found Google datacenters were consuming more than a quarter of all the water used in The Dalles, Oregon. Or, if you'd rather not to blame the industry itself, you could go with the line that Chinese operatives are spreading propaganda over social media, a claim that OpenAI and other interested parties are keen to promote. Whatever the cause of the backlash, the underlying numbers are real: datacenter water use has been climbing for years, driven by the sheer growth in facility numbers and by AI servers, which run hotter and demand more cooling than traditional kit. Water consumption at Microsoft's facilities surged 34 percent to 6.4 million cubic meters in 2022, for example, with generative AI blamed. Making matters worse, many datacenters now in the pipeline in the US are slated for areas already experiencing drought, according to analysis by The Guardian newspaper. Amazon says that its facilities use "free air cooling" about 90 percent of the time, pulling in outside air and flowing it past servers to absorb the heat, with no water involved - though it does resort to evaporative cooling during the hottest weather. But as The Register outlined last year, kicking the water habit completely will be nearly impossible, regardless of what claims the operators may make. ®
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Few business leaders have been as deeply embedded in popular culture as Elon Musk, the ambitious entrepreneur who has become a central figure in internet culture and amassed a fortune that has made him the world's first trillionaire. At a time when concerns about inequality are high and public attitudes toward the ultra-wealthy have soured, Musk has managed to retain a loyal following despite his stratospheric net worth and without the folksy persona that endeared other tycoons such as Warren Buffett to the masses.
While admirers view Musk's no-filter style as part of his appeal, critics have accused him of wielding oligarch-like power, raised concerns about governance at his companies and objected to his increasingly partisan political interventions. Still, SpaceX, the sprawling rocket, satellite and AI company that together with electric-car maker Tesla form the center of Musk's empire, raised a record $75 billion in its initial public offering on Thursday, highlighting investor enthusiasm for his business ventures. Prior to the share sale, Forbes pegged his net worth at roughly $780 billion, far ahead of the man next in line, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page.
"The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth tomorrow," said Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth. "And only one other person, (Oracle founder) Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion." Most of Musk's wealth now rests with SpaceX, where he holds a stake worth roughly $866 billion. Along with Tesla and the rest of his properties, his net worth will exceed $1.1 trillion when the stock begins trading Friday, according to Forbes and Reuters calculations based on company filings.
EXCLUSIVE For the past 90 days, Microsoft has been quietly patching a firmware flaw in Surface devices that allowed the hardware to be bricked with a single packet, though only for those who have disabled Secure Core and Secure Boot. And the company's Copilot AI software inadvertently helped identify the faulty firmware. According to Jack Darcy, a security researcher based in Australia, his instance of Microsoft Copilot stumbled across the bug after being asked to adjust the screen backlighting on a Surface device. The Copilot-conjured Python script ended up rendering the researcher's laptop inoperable by overwriting the embedded controller firmware. "Copilot autonomously created and executed four progressively aggressive Python scripts during a probe for backlight control values that sent raw SSAM ioctl commands (SSAM_CDEV_REQUEST = 0xC028A501) directly to the SAM microcontroller through the SAM software path," Darcy explained to The Register. The SAM or SSAM is the embedded controller used in Surface devices. And as our source explained, Microsoft’s implementation of the controller in Surface devices did not include any defense against arbitrary write values. Microsoft does not consider the bug to be a practical threat. "There is no realistic attack scenario with this issue," a spokesperson told The Register. "In order to successfully exploit it, an attacker would need to interact with specific drivers and send commands to a hardware interface. This would require administrator privileges on the machine, as well as disabling the Secure Boot feature. With this access, they could perform any number of actions." Commonly, Darcy said, digital devices require holding a button down or connecting a jumper cable to enable arbitrary write access. But that security check is absent in Surface devices, we're told, enabling Copilot to vandalize the firmware in the absence of Secure Core and Secure Boot. Essentially, the probing triggered an update command from the SAM that overwrote the UEFI and Secure Boot firmware. Surface devices treated to this sort of probing should continue to operate because the SAM was already initialized and is running in RAM. But upon reboot, when the SAM tries to reload using corrupted data in its non-volatile storage, it will fail to initialize, and the system will be unable to Power-On Self-Test (POST). The Python script crafted by Copilot on the security researcher's Surface device iterated blindly over a particular Target Category and the set of Command ID (CID) pairs, sending empty/null payloads to WRITE commands. The result, Darcy explained, is that the SET Feature Report was called with null payload, the Output Report was called with null payload, and other CIDs were hit by SET commands that wrote garbage data. As a result, the device became inoperable. We're told this has been a common complaint about Surface devices online support forums over the years, though we have no way to determine whether boot failures reported for other Surface devices can be attributed to this specific problem. Many Surface hardware issues reported publicly appear to be fixable through various troubleshooting techniques. But devices made inoperable by SAM access, our source insists, are permanently bricked – a situation that can entail hundreds of dollars in repairs for a new motherboard. No USB, no factory reset, no access to the BIOS/UEFI, we're told. Darcy said that the SAM Bus is terribly designed. "There is no way to see the current value without scanning the bus," he said. "But scanning the bus kills the unit." The problem is that the CIDs, which are like APIs for the SAM, have been interleaved in a way that's dangerous. "If all the reads were grouped together (say, CIDs 0x01–0x0F) and all the writes were grouped separately (say, CIDs 0x10–0x1F), a probe script could safely scan the read range without ever accidentally wandering into write territory," Darcy said. "You could even put a simple bounds check in your code: 'only probe below 0x10.' Done. Safe. "But because reads and writes are interleaved in the same numbering space, there is no safe range to probe. You literally cannot scan even two consecutive CIDs without a coin-flip chance of hitting a write command. The moment you decide to enumerate what's available, you're already firing blind writes, because the command space gives you zero structural information about which operations are safe and which are destructive." Managed devices not at risk The Register asked Microsoft about our source's claims on March 10, 2026. A company spokesperson reiterated a prior suggestion that the researcher contact the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), an effort our source found too cumbersome. Rather than publishing details about what might have been a potential zero-day flaw – we were uncertain about the Secure Boot/Secure Core requirement at the time – The Register reached out to internal Microsoft sources in an effort to get someone's attention. By March 12, with the help of Microsoft media relations, we managed to coordinate a conversation between Darcy and Madeline Eckert, senior program manager with MSRC. Microsoft subsequently acknowledged the vulnerability and committed to issuing a fix. The Register in turn agreed to delay publication for 90 days while repairs were made. We're told most affected devices have been updated (via Windows Update), or will receive updates in coming weeks. The issue did not meet the bar for a CVE, according to the company. "We appreciate the work of Jack Darcy and The Register for reporting this issue under a coordinated vulnerability disclosure," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "Our investigation found that a deprecated UEFI interface could trigger a boot loop on some devices. To trigger this loop, the user must have administrator privileges and have already disabled the Secure Boot security feature. We have released updates to address the issue for most impacted devices." That means managed devices are not at risk. But those using Linux, or Windows users who have disabled Secure Core and Secure Boot for gaming, or who use custom Windows drivers, or who have USB boot enabled, may still be vulnerable if their systems haven't received the update. We're uncertain about the range of Surface devices affected. Our source said it appears to be all of them (Surface Laptops 3-6, Surface Book 1-3) except for Surface Go models. ARM variants, however, have not been tested. Microsoft moving Surface to Rust One of the things we learned from Darcy during the effort to get this issue patched is that Microsoft is planning to move the Surface stack to Rust. We understand from David Abzarian, chief architect for Microsoft Surface, that work is underway to transition future Surface for Business hardware to a more secure architecture based on Rust code. "Our most recent Surface for Business hardware features a major architectural shift in terms of improved reliability and security that spans our embedded controller, UEFI, but also some of our drivers," said Abzarian in a statement provided to The Register. "We’re investing in the most secure foundation for a PC by building our embedded controller firmware from the ground up in Rust (as part of leveraging and contributing to the Open Device Partnership (ODP)) in addition to a rewrite of the UEFI DXE Core in Rust; these projects are known as Secure EC and Project Patina respectively. "We’re also not only shipping some of our drivers written in Rust, but also helping co-develop the framework Windows Drivers in Rust (WDR) to help enable a broad set of partners in the Windows ecosystem to capitalize on these benefits. I will also note that all of these efforts are open-source promoting one of our key security principles around transparency." Asked to comment, Darcy said, "The fact that a device can be destroyed, irreparably from userspace is... certainly an interesting design decision. While I applaud Microsoft for their beautiful, and innovative Surface series, a little more innovation around verifying incoming data at the firmware level would have been greatly appreciated." We're told Microsoft provided Darcy with a Surface laptop as a show of appreciation. ®
Je débute sur Framagenda. J’ai crée mon calendrier, ajouter mes contacts et envoyer une invitation pour chaque évènement aux participants. J’ai reçu un mail sur ma boîte Zimbra disant que mon contact acceptait mon invitation. Pourtant, quand je consulte mon calendrier sur Framagenda, il est indiqué que la réponse est en attente. Comment faire pour synchroniser la réponse avec Framagenda ?
Google has sued an alleged China-based cybercrime operation it says used AI-powered phishing kits to blast out millions of scam text messages and funnel victims to fake websites designed to steal passwords, payment cards, and other sensitive information. The complaint targets a group Google refers to as the "Outsider Enterprise," which the company describes as a sprawling criminal network that operates on Telegram and supplies phishing tools to other fraudsters. According to Google's filing, the operation has been linked to more than 9,000 fraudulent websites, over one million malicious URLs, and scams that have allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of people. The group's biz model centers on distributing phishing kits that enable criminals to impersonate Google and other trusted brands through large-scale text message campaigns, Google claims. Victims are directed to fraudulent websites designed to steal login credentials, payment card details, and other sensitive information, it adds. Google's allegation is not that AI is somehow breaking into people's phones, but rather that the technology appears to have been used to help churn out phishing content, allowing the operation to push more scams, more quickly, and with less effort. Android users flagged more than 55,000 spam texts linked to the operation during a two-week period in May, we're told, while the company detected roughly 2.5 million messages containing links to Outsider-controlled websites sent to Android devices during the same time frame. The lawsuit forms part of a broader effort involving federal law enforcement and US telecom providers. Google said it is coordinating with the FBI, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to disrupt the infrastructure behind the campaigns and block malicious messages before they reach users. "The criminals behind the Outsider Enterprise built a business out of impersonating trusted brands to defraud hundreds of thousands of victims," said Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division. "Criminals increasingly use AI to make fraud like this more convincing and harder to detect. Together with partners like Google, we can disrupt criminal networks in ways no single organization could on its own." The lawsuit may never put the alleged operators in a courtroom, but it could still help pull apart the infrastructure behind the campaigns. ®
UPDATED SpaceX priced its blockbuster initial public offering at $135 a share on Friday, raising $75 billion and valuing Elon Musk's rocket biz at roughly $1.78 trillion. Retail investors piled in to get a handful of Musk's magic beans, sending shares up 19% on the first day, valuing the company at over $2.1 trillion, and turning the South African native into the world's first trillionaire based on his stakes in both SpaceX and Tesla. The haul for the space exploration and satellite company could rise to about $86 billion if underwriters exercise their option to buy more stock, making it the largest IPO in US history. The company confirmed [PDF] that 555.6 million shares of Class A common stock were sold in the offering, with another 83.3 million available to underwriters. SpaceX is a loss-making company. In its Form S-1, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it divided operations into Space (Falcon 9 and the like), Connectivity (Starlink), and AI. Only the Connectivity segment is turning a profit, to the tune of $4.4 billion in 2025, while the others continue to rack up losses. Making a profit from AI continues to elude many companies – SpaceX is not the only entity where investment exceeds revenue, and Starship remains a work in progress. In the company's Form S-1, SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.9 billion on revenue of $18.7 billion in 2025. The IPO values the company at more than 90 times that revenue. According to The Financial Times, the IPO was heavily oversubscribed – orders exceeded the number of shares on offer by more than three times. Retail investors also ordered more than $100 billion of shares, and were allocated between 20 and 25 percent of the shares sold. The record-breaking IPO reflects investor appetite for AI-related companies, as well as a bet that SpaceX's estimate of a $28.5 trillion total addressable market, including $22.7 trillion in "Enterprise Applications," proves realistic. Skeptics may recall that promises and assurances associated with Elon Musk rarely survive contact with reality. In addition to his trillion-dollar net worth, Musk may also be in line for a vast Tesla payout if the carmaker hits targets including a sharp rise in valuation and the delivery of a million robots over the next decade. ®
London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is planning to cut around 700 extra frontline posts after being blocked from awarding a software contract to US supplier Palantir, Commissioner Mark Rowley said. On May 20, the capital's deputy mayor for policing and crime Kaya Comer-Schwartz refused to approve the MPS's plan to hand its Unified Operational Analytics (UOA) contract, worth up to £50 million over two years, to Palantir. The force already uses Palantir in professional standards investigations into its own officers. In the written version of his report to the London Policing Board on June 11, Rowley said the MPS has to reduce its full-time equivalent (FTE) headcount by 1,150 in the current financial year to balance its budget. The UOA would have covered around 500 of these by reducing staff time spent on backroom work including intelligence reports, mobile device analysis, and data processing. "Following the decision not to award the contract with the preferred supplier Palantir, the delivery of these circa 500 FTE reductions are now at risk," Rowley wrote, adding that the UOA also looked likely to allow the force to cut a further 200 FTE serious and organized crime (SOC) posts. "We are now in a scenario where, in the absence of additional new funding, we must identify and implement in-year cuts to our services to Londoners, rather than using technology to automate administrative and research-heavy areas of the MPS," the Commissioner wrote. The MPS "may be able to take the edges off these reductions" if it can quickly find an alternative route to UOA functionality, Rowley said. But as any procurement would likely take months, the force must plan greater cuts in frontline policing. A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: "The mayor fully supports the Met using modern technology to drive efficiencies and improve the performance of the police. However, as with all procurement, we must always ensure the correct processes are followed and that Londoners get value for money. "In this case, the Met did not present its procurement strategy for approval, as required, and the process followed by the Met did not adequately demonstrate value for money for Londoners for a proposed contract at this value. Given the tight budgetary constraints the police are operating under, it's even more important that robust processes are followed when awarding large contracts. "The Met does face a difficult financial situation, which stems from the huge cuts implemented by the previous government and the significant underfunding of the Met's capital city responsibilities. The mayor has already doubled the policing budget from City Hall and he will continue to do everything he can to support the Met and secure the national funding needed for policing in our city." The dispute comes as the Home Office announced an expansion of AI use across policing in England and Wales, with large-scale pilots in up to ten forces this financial year aimed at helping officers process digital evidence. The work will be run centrally by a new body, PoliceAI. ®
Plymouth City Council has joined the growing ranks of public bodies defeated by the humble BCC field after exposing the email addresses of around 500 home-schooling families in a mass-mailing mishap. The blunder comes barely a week after City of York Council disclosed a similar mistake that exposed the email addresses of hundreds of disabled residents, suggesting that some public sector workers remain engaged in an ongoing battle with one of email's oldest features. The message, sent by Plymouth's Elective Home Education team, was meant to share information about upcoming legislative changes, but it also shared the email addresses of hundreds of home-schooling families with one another. A Register reader who contacted us about the incident described the aftermath as "a bit of a mess," claiming follow-up communications caused further confusion among recipients. Plymouth City Council did not respond to The Register's questions, but in a statement provided to local media, it admitted the incident was caused by human error and affected approximately 500 families. "Unfortunately, due to human error, a recent email was sent to approximately 500 families without using the BCC function, meaning recipient email addresses were visible," the council said. The authority said it contacted recipients as soon as it became aware of the problem, apologized, and asked families to delete the email and refrain from using any details they had received. It stressed that the message included no information relating to children and consisted solely of a general update. The council said the email mishap was investigated internally and that affected families were contacted again once officials had pieced together what went wrong. It also promised extra checks designed to keep future mailing lists out of public view. The council also reported the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). An ICO spokesperson told The Register: "We can confirm that we received a report from Plymouth City Council regarding this incident. After carefully assessing the information in the report, we provided data protection advice and closed the case with no further action." While the exposure appears limited to email addresses rather than more sensitive personal information, the incident serves as another reminder that some of the most common data breaches do not involve sophisticated cybercriminals or ransomware gangs. Sometimes all it takes is sending an email to a few hundred people and clicking the wrong box. ®
The UK government has set up an advisory board for its digital ID project, intended "to challenge the government on emerging ideas or policy decisions to ensure the system works for everyone," says the Cabinet Office. The board includes David Rogers, an Internet of Things security expert and CEO of security consultancy Copper Horse. He is no stranger to government advisory panels, having previously sat on a group formed in 2020 to consider telecoms diversification. A year later, as chairman of the GSMA's fraud and security group, he backed the then-Conservative government's Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022. Rogers has provided El Reg with comments over the years, and in 2014 discussed iPhone 6 biometric security, arguing that better usability would cut data loss overall because most people found PIN locks too cumbersome. Justine Roberts, founder and chief executive of UK parenting forum Mumsnet, is also on the board. The site experienced a data breach in 2019 due to a cloud migration affecting 46 user accounts, leading Roberts to apologize. More recently, some Mumsnet posters have been unimpressed by the government's digital ID plans, with one responding to the prime minister's October 2025 announcement with "Honestly, who is he kidding?" and "Desperate stuff to justify this authoritative bs." During the public consultation, some posters promoted the Sex Matters campaign to let Brits include their sex in their digital IDs. Another board member, Victor Dominello, has relevant experience as the minister who launched New South Wales' digital driver's license in 2019, saying it was more secure than the physical equivalent. In 2022, a researcher at security company Dvuln found numerous security flaws in the Service NSW app that hosts the license and other government services, although the state government said these did not pose a risk to customer information. Other members include John Fallon, former chief executive of Pearson and the lead non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office; Anne-Marie Imafidon, who runs social enterprise Stemettes, which encourages people to consider jobs in tech and science; and digital regulation lawyer Emma Wright. The board will meet quarterly for as long as the digital ID program lasts. The government is also setting up engagement exercises with the digital verification and financial services sectors. It is currently running a People's Panel with around 100 to 120 participants meeting in Birmingham and on Zoom to hear from experts and ministers before producing recommendations, in return for £550 in cash or vouchers. ®
Cybersecurity researchers have described what they say is a new class of attack that can trick artificial intelligence (AI) coding agents into running arbitrary code on developer machines.
Called Agentjacking by Tenet Security, the attack can be triggered by means of a fake error report crafted using Sentry, an open-source error-tracking and performance-monitoring platform.
"The attack
Rilevate 5 nuove vulnerabilità, di cui 3 con gravità “alta”, in Vim, noto editor di testo avanzato. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati.
Pokemon Go players' optional location scans reportedly helped train Niantic Spatial's visual positioning system, which uses camera imagery and 3D maps to navigate when GPS is unavailable or jammed. According to DroneXL, that technology is now being paired with Vantor's drone navigation software for military and intelligence use, raising questions about whether gamers understood that footage collected for in-game rewards could eventually support defense systems. From the report: The pipeline runs from a mobile game to the battlefield in three steps. Players scanned the physical world. Niantic Spatial turned those scans into a 3D map that lets a machine locate itself by sight when satellite signals fail. And in December 2025, Niantic Spatial announced a partnership with Vantor, the defense and intelligence firm formerly known as Maxar Intelligence, to fuse that ground-level system with Vantor's aerial navigation software for use in GPS-denied operations.
I have spent years covering how drones lose their way the moment an electronic warfare unit switches on a jammer, a problem that has spread from the battlefield into civilian airspace, from Ukrainian workshops cycling through navigation generations to American programs scrambling for alternatives. The unsettling part of this story is not the technology. It is where the training data came from, and whether the people who supplied it would have agreed had anyone explained the destination. "Now as part of Scopely (the Saudi-owned company that acquired Niantic last year for $3.5 billion), Pokemon GO data is not shared with Niantic Spatial," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. "AR Scans collected through Pokemon GO were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time. The discontinuation of AR scanning and the end of data sharing with Niantic Spatial were part of the transition planning associated with Pokemon GO's move to Scopely."
For most of the past decade, managed detection and response was the answer to a real problem. Security teams couldn't staff around the clock, couldn't hire enough analysts, and needed someone else to handle the alert queue. MDR stepped in. It worked well enough. Until now.
The threat landscape has changed faster than the MDR model can adapt. Attackers are using AI to move faster, generate more
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of three now-patched security flaws impacting LangGraph, including a critical vulnerability chain that could result in remote code execution.
LangGraph is an open-source framework created by LangChain to build complex, stateful, and multi-agent artificial intelligence (AI) agentic applications.
"An SQL injection in LangGraph's function could
Rilevata una nuova vulnerabilità in MongoDB Server con gravità “alta”. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di accedere ad informazioni sensibili e di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio sui sistemi interessati.
EPISODE 11 "And uh... what are you doing?" the Head of Security asks, entering the Security office as I'm making my way to the exit – with a PC under my arm. "Just taking this back to the office to archive the contents and then reset it to factory defaults," I say. "Company policy when someone has been... let go." There have been a number of changes at Security – the same number of changes as there used to be members of Security staff. Apparently, eating endless pastries and watching pirated movies isn't an industry-standard procedure for security professionals. Furthermore, the spate of alcohol thefts from the boardroom liquor cabinet seems to have ended after HR discovered several empty bottles in Security's overflowing recycling bin... HR acted swiftly (for a change) and a whole new security team was employed, headed by a keen new broom – who's currently blocking the doorway... To say that he's enthusiastic in his role would be an understatement. His first move was to isolate Security onto a completely separate internet feed, firewalled off from the rest of the Company. Move two was to implement a plan of recording the equipment people leave the building with – something that's proving rather unpopular with laptop users. "Oh, I don't think we'll need it to be erased," he says, holding out his hands to retrieve the machine from my grasp. "Really, there's no telling what's on this machine," I say. "Malware, copyright movies, porn even. We don't know. It's safer – for the Company – if we just start from a clean machine. We might even just dump it to be on the safe side." "Sure," the Head of Security says. "Though that machine looks like it's almost brand new. It's still got stickers on it! And it looks fairly... high end. I think we can take the risk. I'm pretty up-to-date with IT security and the like – so maybe you should let me worry about..." "I think this should probably be HR's call," I respond. "They may want to be sure the Company isn't exposed to any risk that the machine might present." "I can call HR if you like," the Chief Pie-eater suggests, calling my bluff and reaching for his phone. "But I doubt they'd be too concerned." "They should be. If there's malware installed on the recovery partition, you'll reinfect the machine when you restore it to factory defaults." "Thanks for your concern," he says, wresting the machine from my grasp and stepping out of the doorway. ... So that's how it's going to be. Obviously, we knew there was going to be trouble. We prepared ourselves for it. The new Security team has an enthusiasm for the job that was completely absent from the former crew, mainly because they're jockeying for the position of 2IC. The Boss is waiting for me when I get back to Mission Control. "Just had a call from Security. Apparently, you were trying to... remove... one of their machines?" "Yeah. I was going to erase it and restore it to factory settings." "Couldn't you just do that there?" "We prefer to do a reinstall on the DMZ segment – just in case there's any malware on the machine after we restore it." "Right. Well, I talked to the guy, and it certainly sounded like he had everything under control," the Boss assures me. And so there you go. The Boss can determine someone's technical competence from a two-minute phone call. It must be one of his superpowers, along with the toxic body odor and the ability to sniff out a kebab stand in a farmers' market. Two minutes later, in Mission Control… "Right," I say, entering Mission Control. "Everyone ready?" The PFY nods. The lead candidate for 2IC of Security nods. "One of the pitfalls with security types is that they often shave with Occam's razor," I say. "When seeing someone leaving the office with a PC under their arm, they immediately think 'office theft,' rather than thinking 'did this person bring the aforementioned machine into the office in the first place, wait until they heard someone approaching, then make to exit the office?'" The 2IC candidate contemplates this silently. "Another problem with security types is how to celebrate a victory. In this situation, a wise person would not simply 'upgrade' their desktop machine with this newer and shinier item – because it might have an infected operating system – AND infected recovery partition. No, a wise person would first sca-" "Ooh, we're in business!" the PFY interrupts, as his machine receives a ping. "Right," I say to Security 2IC, "I'd give it maybe half an hour – to really trash your network – before I head downstairs. Then maybe I'd ask why all the machines in your office appear to be going crazy." "And you think that would be enough to get him fired, do you?" he asks. "It will be when you discover the stash of Company laptops in the boot of his car as he leaves the parking basement," the PFY says. "And make sure you have the Head of HR with you." "Why's that?" the soon-to-be Head of Security asks. "Because one of the laptops is his..." BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99
For more than a decade, Dr. Joseph Mercola cautioned parents against a potentially lifesaving shot of vitamin K for their newborn babies: “Vitamin K shots are completely unnecessary for your newborn.”
But now, in a break from his past warnings, Mercola is saying he no longer believes that.
ProPublica contacted Mercola recently as it was preparing an article about babies who died as a result of their parents turning down the vitamin K shot. Mercola’s new point of view is just as unequivocal as his old one: “The data is clear: vitamin K saves lives,” he wrote in an April article on his website two days after ProPublica contacted him. He added: “Based on the totality of the published evidence, I support vitamin K prophylaxis for all newborns.”
He also directed parents to speak to their children’s pediatricians.
“Vitamin K deficiency bleeding is rare, but when it occurs, the consequences can be devastating and irreversible,” Mercola wrote. “A single injection at birth can prevent it. Please talk to your doctor.”
Mercola is a leading vaccine skeptic and an ardent supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is a popular figure online, with a Facebook page that has some 1.7 million followers. He sends out a daily newsletter and sells alternative treatments for a variety of ailments.
His reversal comes at a critical moment. Hospitals and research studies have documented an alarming jump in babies not receiving the vitamin K shot, which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1961 to help newborns’ blood to clot. Without it, research shows, babies are 81 times more at risk for late vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can be fatal.
Just as has happened with measles and other vaccines, vitamin K shots have become the target of a deluge of false information online. That has caused some parents to view it as an unnecessary pharmaceutical intervention amid a lingering mistrust of the medical system following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some point to a 2010 post from Mercola, entitled “The Dark Side of the Routine Newborn Vitamin K Shot.” A doctor in Tennessee recalled reluctant families citing the article, as did doctors in Oregon.
In the years that followed, Mercola stood by his opposition. He reiterated his position in 2014, after four babies in Nashville, Tennessee, suffered vitamin K deficiency bleeding. And he did so again in 2019, after hospital staff contacted child protective services in Illinois and took temporary custody of a newborn whose parents refused the shot for their baby.
In place of the shot, Mercola had recommended vitamin K drops, which are taken orally and have been touted online as a popular alternative. The drops, however, are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and research shows they are not as effective as the shot, though they are used in some European countries.
In his April article, he addressed the rampant false information online regarding the vitamin K shot and acknowledged the role his writing may have played in spreading it. “The internet contains a significant amount of misinformation about vitamin K,” Mercola wrote. “Some of it may reference my own 2010 article. That article reflected the state of a scientific debate that has since been resolved. The science moved forward, and so have I.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola published an article on his website saying he’d changed his views on vitamin K. He now says vitamin K shots are the “prudent choice” and he encourages parents to consult their pediatrician.Mercola.com, highlighted by ProPublica
In fact, the science around the vitamin K shot has been settled for decades. The discovery of vitamin K and its role in clotting blood won the Nobel Prize in 1943. Newer studies have confirmed and furthered many of the findings that were available in 2010, but they do not represent a scientific shift from previous research. Some recent studies that Mercola cited in the April article document the rise in babies not receiving the shot and the catastrophic bleeding in the brain that can follow, but again both reinforce the same science that has encouraged giving the shot for more than 60 years.
In Mercola’s earlier posts, he wrote about what he deemed to be risks from the shot, beginning with “inappropriate” and “unnecessary” pain to the baby. He incorrectly claimed that the amount of vitamin K injected into newborns was far more than the needed dose. In addition, he wrote that the shot may contain preservatives that can be “toxic” to a baby’s immune system.
Benzyl alcohol is often used as a preservative in vitamin K shots, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations have stressed that it’s safe. In the 1980s, doctors realized that some extremely premature babies suffered benzyl alcohol toxicity, but, according to the CDC, that was because they were on so many medications containing it. In addition, many hospitals now offer preservative-free options.
Some families have also expressed fear about a “black box warning,” which appears on a drug’s label to alert providers of serious risks. The shot does contain a boxed warning, as do more than 400 other medications, but that is primarily related to adults and vitamin K that is given through an IV, not as a shot in the thigh muscle, which is how doctors typically administer vitamin K to babies. None of the dozens of doctors interviewed by ProPublica said they have ever seen an adverse reaction in an infant who received a vitamin K shot.
But even back in 2010, Mercola dispelled one popular misconception that vitamin K injections increased the risk of cancer. That belief stemmed from a pair of older refuted studies. In 2010, he wrote, “that conclusion was in error.” In April, he reinforced that message.
Alternative treatments promoted by Mercola have attracted federal scrutiny. He and his companies have had to pay millions of dollars to settle allegations that he had made false claims about the safety of products.
During the pandemic, for instance, the FDA sent Mercola a warning letter after he offered unapproved and misbranded products, including vitamin C, on his website as ways to prevent or treat COVID-19.
In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission announced it was mailing $2.59 million to people who bought Mercola indoor tanning systems. The agency charged that Mercola and his companies claimed the tanning systems were safe and that research showed that indoor tanning doesn’t raise the risk of melanoma, a type of skin cancer.
Mercola did not admit wrongdoing. His online posts include a disclaimer that they are intended as a way of sharing knowledge and information, not medical advice. He also has said his 2010 vitamin K article was based on an interview with a Dutch researcher who studied vitamin K.
Mercola, a doctor of osteopathic medicine, declined to be interviewed for this story but said his current stance is accurately reflected in the April article. “While I do not agree with all of the characterizations and conclusions in your summary,” he wrote in response to questions from ProPublica, “I have nothing further to add at this time.”
Even though Mercola has now reversed his position on vitamin K, many on social media still cling to debunked and distorted claims. On Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, unsubstantiated claims often go unchecked.
One theme that has emerged on social media is the notion that God created babies perfectly, and there must be a reason they are born without sufficient vitamin K. In one video on TikTok, a woman who identifies herself as a nurse asked, “Did God really get it wrong?”
Responding to another, someone wrote, “Just know our creator didn’t make a mistake. Every baby is born like this for a reason.”
Others lump the vitamin K shot, which is not a vaccine, in with vaccines. A comment on a video about the vitamin K shot declared, “My baby isn’t getting any vaccines.” It received more than 600 likes.
Mercola also is not the only doctor being cited by vitamin K shot opponents. Commenters on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit have directed people to Dr. Suzanne Humphries, who has spoken out about vaccines and the vitamin K shot for many years.
“My opinion is that the more I read about vitamin K,” she said in a video posted in 2014, “the more I can’t believe that it’s injected into newborn infants.”
Last month, she appeared in a lengthy interview on the website of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy. She cited the pair of studies from more than 30 years ago that found an association between the shot and cancer, though they were both called into question shortly after they were published. As even Mercola noted in 2010, severaladditionalstudies found no increased risk of cancer following the shot.
“Those of us that believe in a divine creator,” she said, “believe that maybe it is by design, or that actually it is by design, and that there’s a reason for it.”
Humphries did not respond to requests for comment.
During Kennedy’s time at Children’s Health Defense, the group published a post in 2020 that claimed aluminum adjuvants — added components that boost the body’s immune response — in vaccines are “significant sources of early exposure” to aluminum. Some vitamin K shots contain a small amount of aluminum, but studies have not found any evidence of serious or long-lasting harm. Adjuvants, according to the CDC, have been used “safely in vaccines for decades.”
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense, said the aluminum concern remains, as does the cancer fear, despite multiple studies that found no basis for them. He said he would like to see more research on the vitamin K shot, as well as other newborn interventions like the hepatitis B vaccine.
“I do want to look at the individual components of these shots in conjunction with everything else that the infant is getting,” he said, “and to me that body of literature is really incomplete.”
Hooker said he worked with Kennedy for many years and, while they are no longer in direct contact, he has full confidence in the country’s leading federal health official. But Kennedy’s silence has served to deepen skepticism among experts.
“Now we’re starting to see something that I never saw, which was brain bleeds and gut bleeds in infants,” said Rep. Kim Schrier, a Washington Democrat who worked as a pediatrician for more than 15 years before running for Congress. “And that’s so scary and heartbreaking.”
At an April House subcommittee hearing, Schrier confronted Kennedy about vitamin K, saying that he made parents distrust doctors and shots, and as a result some parents are refusing the vitamin K shot and other standard care.
“Right now, Secretary Kennedy, given what I just told you about vitamin K, will you just tell pregnant women out there for the record, ‘Yes, you should get your babies the vitamin K shot’?” Schrier asked Kennedy.
Kennedy did not oblige her. He said he has never said anything about the vitamin K shot.
An HHS spokesperson did not answer ProPublica’s questions but said the CDC recommends that parents give newborns the vitamin K shot within 6 hours of their birth to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding. She acknowledged that uptake of the shot has declined during recent years “as public trust in health care institutions has fallen, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic amid heavy-handed mandates and inconsistent messaging during the Biden administration.”
“Rebuilding that trust,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, “requires honesty, informed consent, and respect for individual choice.”
Schrier said she empathizes with parents who are inundated with so many conflicting messages. She said she recently stepped out of the Capitol building and overheard a woman say — inaccurately — that every childhood vaccine contains glyphosate, which was an ingredient in some forms of the weed killer Roundup.
“I can just see how this is going to spiral right now. It gets out there, then it’s on social media,” Schrier said. “Every parent just doesn’t want to do the wrong thing.”
Do You Have Information About Parents Declining Vitamin K Shots?
I want to understand more about why families decline a vitamin K shot. I know how difficult it is to talk about losing a child and how hard it can be to process this kind of grief. Words can’t express how sorry I am for your loss. ProPublica’s goal is to give the public the best, most trustworthy information. If you have a story to share, I hope you will reach out to me when you’re ready.
Duaa Eldeib
Send me your tips, stories and documents. Reach me by email or securely on Signal at 312-730-4797. I take the protection of my sources extremely seriously.
An INTERPOL-led operation last month resulted in the disruption of Sniper Dz, a decade-long phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform, Group-IB said Thursday.
The effort, codenamed Operation Ramz, took place between October 2025 and February 2026, and saw authorities from 13 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region making 201 arrests.
Included among them was Guedz, the primary
Bonjour, j’ai crée un sondage pour une réunion, les personnes ont voté, j’ai pu accéder aux résultats de leurs votes . Mais hier les votes avaient disparu… le tableau est vide, comment les retrouver ? Merci à tous et toutes pour votre aide
BORK!BORK!BORK! Windows swings for a six but smacks the stumps instead as the baleful glow of a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) adorns Worcestershire County Cricket Club. We were worried that, with recent editions of Windows, the traditional white monospaced text on a blue background of a BSOD was becoming a thing of the past. Thankfully, Worcestershire County Cricket Club, founded in 1865, is keeping the old ways alive with a BSOD to bring a tear to many a system administrator's eye. Spotted by Register reader Rhodri Howell, Windows has been felled by a DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE, probably due to a bit of hardware not waking up when Windows asked it to, or the driver experiencing an unexpected teatime. The screens on top of the club's sign are usually there to beam messages at attendees, but in this case, it looks like at least one is a bit poorly, which might have contributed to Windows throwing in the towel or, to use cricket terminology, conceding. For the uninitiated, cricket is a team sport in which a ball is thrown at an individual called a "batter'" who defends several sticks in the ground called a "wicket." The sport is notable for a variant called a "test," which can last for several days, involve multiple games, and still end up in a draw. Windows, on the other hand, is an operating system more than capable of knocking an administrator for six and lobbing the odd googly or two at the unwary. The word "test" is also something that doesn't seem to trouble Microsoft so much these days, at least if what the company has delivered in recent months is anything to go by. No amount of shin pads or even the toughest of boxes is sufficient to ward off an eyewatering Windows update. Microsoft's current CEO, Satya Nadella, is a fan of the sport, and so the sight of Windows disgracing itself above Worcestershire County Cricket Club's signage (and the three black pears of the county's emblem) is doubly distressing. As the saying goes: "It's just not cricket." ®
La tangenziale di Napoli è ufficialmente la prima smart road Italia. L'infrastruttura ha ricevuto la certificazione dal Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti (MIT), affermandosi come un modello pionieristico per l'intero Paese.
Il concetto è semplice ma rivoluzionario: una strada che non è più solo asfalto, ma un'entità intelligente che dialoga con i veicoli per migliorare sicurezza ed efficienza. Questa non è fantascienza, ma una trasformazione concreta già in atto. Grazie a una rete avanzata di sensori, telecamere e sistemi di comunicazione, la tangenziale partenopea diventa un laboratorio a cielo aperto per la mobilità del futuro. Vediamo nel dettaglio come funziona e quali vantaggi porta agli automobilisti.
Cos'è esattamente una smart road?
Una smart road è un'infrastruttura capace di "parlare" con i veicoli che la percorrono. Supera il suo ruolo passivo per diventare un sistema attivo che raccoglie, elabora e condivide dati in tempo reale. Possiamo immaginarla come un grande sistema nervoso digitale che monitora costantemente il traffico e le condizioni ambientali. La normativa definisce una strada intelligente attraverso tre aree di intervento principali.
Monitoraggio del traffico in tempo reale
Sensori distribuiti lungo il percorso misurano costantemente i flussi di traffico. Questi dati vengono inviati a un centro di controllo che può prevedere la formazione di code, ottimizzare gli accessi e prendere decisioni basate su informazioni precise e aggiornate. Si passa così da una gestione reattiva a un controllo proattivo della viabilità.
Sicurezza e controllo meteo
La sicurezza è una priorità. Centraline meteo e sensori idrogeologici monitorano le condizioni dell'asfalto, rilevando pioggia, nebbia o altri rischi. In caso di potenziale pericolo, come un allagamento, il sistema allerta immediatamente gli operatori, consentendo interventi tempestivi prima che si verifichi un problema.
Comunicazione V2I: il dialogo tra veicolo e strada
Questo è il cuore del progetto. La tecnologia V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) permette uno scambio di informazioni bidirezionale. La strada invia ai veicoli connessi messaggi su incidenti, cantieri, ostacoli o la velocità consigliata per evitare rallentamenti. Allo stesso tempo, le auto inviano dati al sistema, contribuendo a creare una mappa del traffico estremamente accurata.
Napoli e la prima smart road Italia: un progetto certificato
Il progetto della Tangenziale di Napoli, sviluppato dal Gruppo Autostrade per l’Italia con il supporto tecnologico di Movyon, rappresenta un vero cambio di paradigma. Lungo i suoi 22 km, è in fase di installazione una complessa infrastruttura tecnologica: 217 telecamere intelligenti 15 portali per il rilevamento dei veicoli 8 centraline meteorologiche 40 antenne per la comunicazione V2I Questa dotazione crea un ecosistema cooperativo dove veicoli e strada collaborano per un unico obiettivo: rendere ogni viaggio più fluido e sicuro.
Quali sono i vantaggi concreti per chi guida?
Tale tecnologia si traduce in benefici tangibili per gli automobilisti. Sulla Tangenziale di Napoli sono già attivi servizi che segnalano in tempo reale la presenza di un veicolo fermo dopo una curva o un cantiere improvviso, aumentando la sicurezza percepita.
Inoltre, il sistema può suggerire la velocità ottimale per evitare la creazione di ingorghi. Invece di limitarsi a segnalare una coda già formata, aiuta attivamente a prevenirla. Questo significa meno stress, riduzione dei tempi di percorrenza e una guida più rilassata.
Il futuro è già qui: il test con la guida autonoma
La prova più evidente del potenziale di questa tecnologia è stata una sperimentazione unica in Italia, condotta tra Vomero e Fuorigrotta. Un'auto a guida autonoma ha percorso un tratto di strada adattando la sua velocità non solo tramite i propri sensori, ma grazie alle informazioni ricevute dalla strada.
L'auto del futuro non sarà più un'entità isolata, ma un veicolo perfettamente integrato in un ecosistema comunicante. Quello che sembrava uno scenario da film è oggi un progetto concreto che pone le sue radici proprio in Italia, guidando la rivoluzione della mobilità intelligente.
COMPUTEX 2026 It’s hard enough for startups to compete with AMD and Nvidia on chip design. The rise of rack-scale architectures has only made things harder. Companies not only have to invest in chip design but also the mechanical, thermal, and power engineering necessary to pack six dozen or more AI accelerators into a single rack that functions as one enormous GPU. At Computex last week, Delos Data, a startup funded by former Intel and Barefoot Networks execs, showed off a modular server platform aimed at giving chip startups a shortcut to rack scale. One of the challenges with the move to rack scale is actually the sheer amount of networking that needs to be enabled at the box. A typical eight GPU HGX node only needs one or two ports per GPU. By comparison, a GB300 NVL72 needs 18 400 Gbps ports per GPU. Nvidia and AMD have developed custom racks with integrated backplanes, power delivery, and cooling. Delos by comparison is keeping things relatively simple by designing a chassis that, at least from the front, looks more like a switch than a GPU server. It features 36 OSFP ports, nine for each of the four OAM sockets at the heart of the system. OAM, if you’re not familiar, is an open socket commonly used by high-performance accelerators requiring more interconnect bandwidth and power delivery than standard PCIe cards can manage. Assuming 200 Gbps SerDes, that works out to 3.6 TB/s per chip of interconnect, the same as Nvidia's new Rubin GPUs. OSFP means that customers can use standard DACs or pluggable transceivers, and switches depending on how large they want their scale-up domain to be. And while OSFP is usually associated with Ethernet, you can run just about anything you want through them, whether it be UALink, Ultra Ethernet, PCIe, or something else. From a deployment standpoint, these systems would be wired up like any other hyperscale system, just a whole lot denser. Delos isn’t the only option out there for chip startups looking for scale up reference design. AWS for example appears to be repurposing Nvidia’s MGX form factor for its Trainium 3 rack systems, while AMD’s Helios rack is now an OCP standard. Both designs would, in theory, be easier to service, but Delos argues that its modular design offers greater flexibility. “It makes it a little bit more flexible in terms of, maybe you want a scale up domain of 100 or maybe you want it a scale up domain of one,” CTO Dan Daly told El Reg. “It just depends on how many cables you want to plug in. This also allows you to go plug into different types of switches… it could be simpler switches, maybe even optical circuit switches (OCS).” Using existing packet switches from Broadcom or Marvell, such a design could support 512-1,024 accelerators in a single layer fabric depending on whether you're using 200 Gbps or 100 Gbps SerDes. Using multi-layer fabrics, OCS, and/or 2D/3D toruses, the compute domain could scale even further, all while using off-the-shelf components. While OSFP keeps things simple and easy, it also means power consumption could become problematic for larger compute domains requiring pluggable optics. In fact, this is why Nvidia has taken so long to embrace optical scale-up. Copper may not have the reach, but it uses a fraction of the power. Delos CEO Ed Doe tells us the company is already exploring versions of the system that will use near package or co-packaged optics out to MPO-style connectors rather than the OSFP. The startup isn't just doing hardware. As anyone who's done large scale networking knows, the physical and logical topologies — that is, the way devices communicate with one another on the network — can look very different depending on the workload. Delos has developed a software orchestration platform designed to facilitate the configuration and monitoring of these switched fabrics or meshes in order to enable dynamic rerouting of traffic in the event of a link failure. At Computex, this software platform, which Delos has dubbed its Nonstop AI network, was on display, allowing attendees to pull links at random and see the network react and correct itself automatically. The company's ambitions don't stop at network orchestration and systems. We're told Delos has additional products in the works, and we don't know for sure what they are, but a high radix switch design built atop merchant silicon would certainly complement its Nonstop AI systems. ®
La rivoluzione nel campo del calcolo quantistico sta accelerando grazie a QRAM e qubit, un'importante scoperta proveniente dalla Cina. Un team di scienziati ha sviluppato un componente chiave che promette di abbattere una delle barriere più complesse che hanno finora limitato questa tecnologia.
Questa innovazione potrebbe finalmente liberare l'incredibile potenza dei computer del futuro. Ma di cosa si tratta esattamente e perché è una notizia così rilevante?
Il grande ostacolo: perché i computer quantistici erano bloccati?
Immaginiamo di possedere la macchina più veloce del mondo, ma di poterla usare solo su un tipo di strada che non è ancora stata costruita. Per anni, questa è stata la situazione del calcolo quantistico. Sebbene la loro capacità di elaborazione sia teoricamente sbalorditiva, un enorme collo di bottiglia ne ha sempre limitato l'applicazione pratica. Il problema risiede nella differenza fondamentale tra i computer classici e quelli quantistici.
I nostri dispositivi quotidiani lavorano con i bit, che possono avere solo due valori: 0 o 1. Al contrario, i computer quantistici usano i qubit. Grazie al principio della sovrapposizione, un qubit può essere 0, 1 o entrambi i valori contemporaneamente. Questa proprietà permette di processare una quantità di dati esponenzialmente maggiore. Il punto critico? Tutta la nostra informazione digitale, dai big data alle foto, è scritta in codice binario. I processori quantistici non potevano leggere direttamente questi dati. Era necessaria una conversione lenta e complessa, che finiva per annullare il vantaggio di velocità del calcolo quantistico.
QRAM e qubit: cos'è e come funziona
Qui entra in gioco la scoperta dei ricercatori della Zhejiang University. Il team ha costruito la prima memoria ad accesso casuale quantistica, o QRAM, perfettamente integrata in un processore quantistico superconduttore. Possiamo immaginarla come un traduttore universale e istantaneo. Questo dispositivo agisce come un ponte: prende i dati classici in formato binario e li "traduce" in un linguaggio che i qubit possono comprendere e processare immediatamente.
Un passo concreto verso il futuro
Non si tratta di un'ipotesi teorica. I test hanno fornito risultati straordinari, dimostrando il potenziale del sistema QRAM qubit sviluppato in Cina. Il componente è riuscito a gestire pacchetti di dati da 4 e 8 bit, mettendoli in stato di sovrapposizione e processando più input contemporaneamente. Questo successo abbatte la barriera che separava la potenza del calcolo quantistico dalle sue applicazioni nel mondo reale.
Quali sono le applicazioni pratiche?
Le ricadute di questa tecnologia saranno enormi e toccheranno settori chiave della nostra vita e dell'economia. L'impatto potrebbe essere profondo e trasformativo in campi come:
Analisi dei big data: La capacità di analizzare moli di dati oggi inimmaginabili, scoprendo schemi e correlazioni invisibili ai sistemi attuali.
Intelligenza artificiale: Lo sviluppo di modelli di IA molto più complessi e potenti, capaci di risolvere problemi che oggi consideriamo irrisolvibili.
Ricerca farmaceutica: Forse l'ambito più affascinante. Si potrebbero simulare milioni di interazioni molecolari in pochi istanti per scoprire nuove cure o sviluppare farmaci personalizzati.
Operazioni che oggi richiedono anni potrebbero essere completate in un lampo.
Un futuro sempre più vicino
La creazione della prima QRAM funzionante non è solo un avanzamento tecnico. È la chiave che potrebbe finalmente aprire le porte del calcolo quantistico al mondo, trasformando una promessa futuristica in uno strumento concreto. Il futuro, un tempo relegato alla fantascienza, sta bussando sempre più forte alla nostra porta. E, a quanto pare, parla il linguaggio dei qubit.
Riverside County has launched an 8-mile "smart freeway" pilot on northbound I-15 near Temecula, using roadway sensors and an algorithm to coordinate ramp meters and suggest speeds rather than widening the freeway. Officials say the $33 million project could reduce stop-and-go traffic and travel times. According to SFGATE, similar systems in Australia and Denver reportedly cutting delays by 20% to 65%. From the report: Unlike typical on-ramp stoplights that run on a timer lasting a few seconds, Interstate 15 drivers could find themselves waiting up to four minutes or even longer while the system determines the necessary speed for traffic entering the freeway. By spacing out the cars, transportation officials hope to improve traffic flow, reduce stop-and-go traffic and decrease the amount of time that travelers have to spend on the freeway.
The transportation commission spent $33 million to build the project, which will run for two years. Riverside County Transportation Commission spokesperson David Knudsen told SFGATE that if the program is successful, the agency will work with Caltrans to deploy it elsewhere in the county and then potentially to other traffic choke points in California. "This system is a lot less expensive than trying to build new lanes, and so the idea here is let's make the system that we have work better," he said.
Knudsen said the program is not managed by artificial intelligence but instead uses advanced sensors in the roadway to monitor real-time traffic conditions and make adjustments. The stretch of freeway that connects Temecula at the Riverside/San Diego County line to the Interstate 215 interchange in Murrieta can be notoriously clogged. What can be less than a 10-minute drive with no traffic can take between 25 and 45 minutes during the afternoon peak period, according to the transportation commission. "The intent is to create a consistent flow of traffic on the freeway system, and the coordinated ramp metering among the three on-ramps ... will help do that," Knudsen said. "If we can manage that, then we can help prevent that stop-and-go traffic frustration that so many people feel ... on the freeway."
Authorities in Europe have disrupted AudiA6, a cryptocurrency laundering service used by ransomware gangs and cybercriminal networks.
Europol, in a statement issued Thursday, said the dismantling of AudiA6 cut off a "key financial pipeline used to wash hundreds of millions in illicit profits." The service is estimated to have been used to launder more than €336 million (~$389 million) since the
ON CALL 你好 Nǐ hǎo, dear reader, and welcome to another installment of On Call, The Register's Friday column that shares your stories of translating technical trauma while delivering transcendent tech support. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Jackson" who told us about his time providing tech support in a university's biology department. "It was sometime in the mid-2000s and our IT group at the time consisted of myself, my boss, and a part-timer," he told On Call. "We were a very casual IT group; nothing in the way of any formal policies or standards for anything at all. If someone needed a new PC, we just ordered parts and assembled them ourselves." The department's PC fleet therefore had a diverse gene pool, with no two machines possessing the same bill of materials. "This was fine by me – I enjoyed building them and it never really caused any issues that I couldn't handle," Jackson told On Call. "Until one day we got a panicked support call from one of the secretaries who claimed that her PC just rebooted and then started talking to her." Jackson and his colleagues didn't believe a word of it until the secretary stopped talking and placed her phone next to the talking PC. "I could clearly hear a muffled voice repeating a message of some sort," Jackson told On Call. There was nothing for it but to visit the PC, which he found hung in the middle of a Power-On Self-Test, flashing an alphanumeric error code and unmistakably playing a voice through its internal speaker. In Chinese! Jackson rebooted the machine and it ended up in the same state, reciting the same message. Chinese isn't a language in which Jackson is fluent, so he had no idea what the PC was trying to tell him. "After poking around in the BIOS, I found the culprit," Jackson revealed. "This particular model of motherboard had a 'talking error BIOS' whereby certain POST codes triggered the playback of a friendly, spoken error message, with Chinese set as the default language." Jackson found the relevant BIOS settings, changed the default language to English, and the next time he rebooted the machine it helpfully let him know: "Your floppy drive may not be connected properly." In his mail to On Call, Jackson hypothesized that the PC's CMOS battery died, so the BIOS was unable to access its stored settings and reverted to factory settings that assumed the presence of a nonexistent second floppy drive. "It triggered a feature I didn't even know the motherboard had!" Jackson told On Call. Have you found yourself flummoxed by a feature you didn't know about? If so, click here to send On Call an email – we'll assume that's a feature you know well – so we can tell your story on a future Friday. ®
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: While traditional hotspots in the region such as Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia focus on services such as cosmetic surgery, IVF or physicals, China is trying to differentiate itself by providing some of the world's most advanced procedures. "There are two reasons why a patient travels for medical treatments: availability of advanced treatments and price," said Victor Cao, operations director of Joyful Medical, an agency in Shanghai that connects international patients to advanced cancer therapies in China. "Chinese people used to travel overseas for treatments that were not available at home, but now tables have turned."
As expanding visa-free policies eased travel in the past year or so, videos are proliferating on social media of foreigners recounting their positive experiences of treatment in China, usually for consumer procedures like acupuncture and tooth scaling. But one treatment that's more quietly gaining traction is CAR-T, among the most promising breakthroughs in oncology but unavailable in most countries, or extremely costly. The process sees doctors collect T cells from the patient's blood then modify them in a lab to produce a special receptor, CAR, that can bind to a specific protein on cancer cells. These engineered cells are then multiplied into large numbers and infused back into the patient. The CAR-T cells seek out cancer cells carrying the target antigen and kill them. In the US, one single infusion can cost between $300,000 to $475,000, according to the American Cancer Society. In China, the equivalent costs about $150,000 to $180,000, and it could get even cheaper -- its drug regulator recently accepted a marketing application for a therapy aimed to be priced below 300,000 yuan ($44,000).
China's medical tourism market remains in its infancy. Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone in Hainan, which was designated as the country's only special medical zone in 2013, treated just a few thousand foreign medical tourists last year, compared to hundreds of thousands of domestic patients who visited. There, patients can access advanced drugs, devices, and therapies approved in other countries but not elsewhere in mainland China. But China is pushing to upgrade its economy and reshape its global image from just a manufacturing hub into a provider of high-value services, and demand for medical tourism is surging. Globally, the market is estimated at around $34 billion and expected to reach $126 billion by 2035, according to San Francisco-based Grand View Research. Meanwhile, China's sector is projected to grow from $1.3 billion in 2025 to $3.4 billion by 2035, according to New York-based firm Market Research Future. "The patients chose China for something they can't get at home," said Shi Haoying, the group's founder and chief executive officer. "I think the growing attention to medical tourism to China is the inevitable result of long-term accumulation and development in many areas, such as growing medical technologies, quality of service and cost-effectiveness."
Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, added: "Many new treatments, including in very advanced areas, are made in China but too advanced for the state of its healthcare system and the ability of its patients to pay for these things. It's in China's interest to integrate into the international system."
Enterprises that have watched Claude claw its way toward mass appeal over the past few months of capacity challenges and pricing realignment should take a closer look at Anthropic's offerings, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). The tech consultancy has been tracking Anthropic's moves over the past six months and says that the AI biz is taking credible steps toward making itself an enterprise AI provider. "Currently, no frontier model company is mature enough to be evaluated as an enterprise AI provider on its own," IDC said in a recent report. "But Anthropic is running at full speed to get there before its competitors." The report is titled "The Transformation of Anthropic (and What to Do About It)," and advises enterprises to revisit their LLM and agent evaluations with an eye toward seeing whether Anthropic might work out as a reliable technology provider. Enterprises, IDC says, remain largely unsold on Anthropic's Claude models, with only 19 percent using them extensively and 25 percent actively evaluating them. OpenAI and Google are better represented in enterprises, with about 42 percent and 38 percent of organizations using their respective products, per IDC's FERS Survey, March 2026. According to The Information, about 86 percent of Anthropic’s 2025 revenue was projected to come from enterprise sales. OpenAI, the report claims, derives just 40 percent of its revenue from business sales, though that figure ($5.2 billion) represented a higher dollar amount than Anthropic's business revenue ($3.9 billion) at the time. That was back in January, only two months after Anthropic began shifting enterprises away from seat-based pricing toward usage-based pricing. Since then, IDC says Anthropic has taken a series of steps to make itself more credible as an enterprise AI provider. "This conclusion might not be obvious: From January through May 2026, Anthropic produced well over 100 public interactions, including official announcements, release notes, blog posts, X posts, partner announcements, hiring news, policy moves, and press-covered transactions," the report says. These initiatives, such as the launch of the Claude Partner Network, have expanded distribution, bolstered brand perception, facilitated future growth, enhanced "stickiness" (aka lock-in), strengthened enterprise support, addressed the needs of specific industries, demonstrated innovation, and shored up the compute supply necessary to deliver services at scale. According to IDC, the enterprise ecosystem commonly focuses on a vendor-neutral, multi-LLM strategy. Nonetheless, the biz argues that the company has made its technology visible enough that Claude is increasingly coming up in conversations among IT decision makers. "Anthropic's transformation has just started, but the direction is clear enough for CIOs and CISOs to pay attention and reassess where Claude fits in a multi-LLM or an agentic AI Strategy," the IDC report says. ®
Two recent studies argue that smartphones may have contributed to falling birthrates by reducing in-person social interaction, sexual frequency, and other conditions tied to unintended pregnancies. "One of the studies published in May is called 'The Collapse of Teen Fertility in the Digital Era' and the other, published just Monday, is titled 'Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T's 2007-2011 Carrier Monopoly,'" reports KTLA. "Both were chronicled in a New York Times piece by political writer Sabrina Tavernise on Monday." Slashdot reader sabbede submitted the story. From the report: The one from May, authored by two University of Cincinnati professors, posits that teen fertility "collapsed globally" starting around 2007 -- the same year the first iPhone was released. "Smart phones changed how teens spend time with each other ... this change in turn drove the collapse in teen fertility," the study's abstract reads. "Once enough teens are on the phone, being on the phone is where the peer network is; in-person time falls sharply, and with it the unstructured contact in which most unintended teen conceptions occur." The study claimed that countries "across the income and policy spectrum" were affected by the teen fertility drop, and that researchers used data from multiple countries, including the U.S., England and Wales, to rule out "country-specific contraceptive access and welfare reform stories." "This model predicts that the shift towards the phone-mediated equilibrium affects multiple aspects of teen behavior," the abstract continues, concluding that "the same instrument that produces a collapse in teen fertility produces a surge in teen suicides."
The study published on Monday looks more closely at the United States, explaining that nationwide general fertility rates have fallen 22% since 2007. "[This is] a sustained decline not readily explained by economic conditions, contraceptive use, housing or childcare costs, or other commonly cited factors," the National Bureau of Economic Researchers study states. "We assess the potential role of a different shock: the diffusion of the smartphone." As mentioned before, the first iPhone was rolled out in 2007, and this study makes use of that timeframe as "a natural experiment" by using data from 2007 through 2011, when iPhones were only sold on AT&T. "From June 2007 through February 2011, the device was sold only on AT&T, allowing us to identify its effect from variation in AT&T's mobile broadband coverage," the study says. "Entropy-balanced Poisson and synthetic difference-in-differences event studies imply that access to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5-8.0% at ages 15-19 and 3.2-6.6% at ages 20-24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts. Placebo analyses applied to Verizon and Sprint's pre-2011 coverage footprint are null.
Taken together, these cohort effects imply that the diffusion of the iPhone deepened the decline in births among women under 30 while suppressing the rise in births among older women." "Overall, the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33-52% of the decline in the general fertility rate among women aged 15-44," researchers continued. "National-survey evidence on time use and sexual behavior is consistent with the iPhone reducing in-person interactions, increasing pornography use and reducing sexual frequency."
Canonical is expanding its hardware certification efforts with a new focus on ARM-powered laptops, a move that reflects the growing momentum behind ARM architecture in the personal computing market. As ARM processors become increasingly common in laptops thanks to their impressive balance of performance, battery life, and efficiency, Canonical aims to ensure that Ubuntu users receive a seamless experience on this emerging class of hardware.
The initiative represents another step in Ubuntu’s long-standing effort to provide reliable Linux support across a wide range of devices while strengthening relationships with hardware manufacturers.
Why ARM Laptops Matter More Than Ever
For years, x86 processors from Intel and AMD dominated the laptop market. However, the landscape has changed significantly as ARM-based systems have become more powerful and capable.
Modern ARM laptops offer several advantages:
Longer battery life
Lower power consumption
Reduced heat output
Always-on connectivity capabilities
Competitive performance for everyday workloads
As manufacturers increasingly invest in ARM hardware, Linux distributions face growing pressure to ensure compatibility matches what users expect from traditional x86 systems. Canonical has already spent years supporting ARM across cloud, server, IoT, and embedded environments, making laptops a natural next step.
What the Certification Program Does
The new certification effort builds upon Canonical’s existing Ubuntu Certified Hardware program, which validates systems through extensive testing covering both hardware and operating system functionality. Certified devices undergo comprehensive verification to ensure Ubuntu operates correctly across critical components and daily workflows.
Testing typically includes:
Wireless networking
Audio functionality
Graphics performance
Bluetooth support
USB device compatibility
Power management
Suspend and resume behavior
Firmware integration
Security features such as TPM support
The goal is to eliminate the uncertainty that Linux users sometimes face when purchasing new hardware.
Creating a Better Ubuntu Experience on ARM
Historically, Linux support on ARM laptops has varied significantly between devices. Some systems work exceptionally well, while others require manual configuration, custom kernels, or vendor-specific patches.
The Btrfs filesystem continues to receive significant performance tuning, and one of the latest areas of focus is snapshot deletion performance. While Btrfs snapshots have long been praised for their speed, flexibility, and efficient use of storage, deleting large numbers of snapshots has historically been one of the filesystem’s most resource-intensive operations.
Recent kernel development efforts are helping address that problem by improving metadata handling, reducing lock contention, and streamlining internal cleanup processes. The result is faster snapshot removal and less disruption on systems that rely heavily on snapshots for backups, rollbacks, and system recovery.
Why Snapshot Deletion Has Been Challenging
Btrfs is a copy-on-write (CoW) filesystem that stores data and metadata in a highly interconnected structure. This design enables many advanced features, including:
Instant snapshots
Subvolumes
Checksumming
Compression
Efficient data sharing between snapshots
However, the same architecture that makes snapshots so efficient to create can make them more complex to remove. When a snapshot is deleted, Btrfs must determine which blocks are still referenced by other snapshots and which can be safely reclaimed. On systems with many snapshots, this process can generate significant metadata activity.
Recent Performance Improvements
Developers have been working to reduce overhead associated with Btrfs metadata operations, which directly impacts snapshot cleanup performance.
Recent kernel updates include:
Reduced lock contention during extent tree operations
More efficient extent buffer traversal
Improved handling of internal filesystem structures
Reduced contention during metadata searches
General transaction and cleanup optimizations
These changes help the filesystem spend less time waiting on internal locks and more time performing actual cleanup work.
Less Impact During Cleanup Operations
One common complaint among Btrfs users has been elevated I/O activity during large snapshot deletion jobs.
On systems that maintain dozens, or even hundreds, of snapshots, cleanup operations could temporarily increase:
Disk activity
CPU usage
I/O wait times
Metadata processing workloads
Recent improvements are designed to make these operations less disruptive by reducing bottlenecks inside the filesystem's metadata management code.
For users running backup servers, NAS appliances, or snapshot-heavy desktop systems, these optimizations can improve overall responsiveness while cleanup tasks run in the background.
Polish lawmakers have voted to criminalize "trash streaming," with up to five years in prison for online broadcasts of serious crimes such as rape or murder, animal cruelty, humiliating violence, gambling promotion, or even simulated depictions of those acts. Reuters reports: The move is part of a broader push by Poland to tighten regulation of online content. Recent measures include banning the use of mobile phones by children under 16 in schools and introducing stricter age verification rules to access pornography. Under the new provisions, broadcasting crimes punishable by more than five years in prison, including murder or rape, will itself be classed as a separate offence punishable by up to five years behind bars.
The law also covers content showing cruelty to animals, violence aimed at humiliating others, and the promotion of gambling. The same penalties will apply to individuals who simulate or falsely portray the commission of such crimes while streaming, lawmakers said.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp doesn’t think frontier AI labs prepping for IPOs really understand what their customers need, and that ignorance is making Palantir a success. Karp had a wide-ranging, often rambling and self-interrupting sit-down (coherent compared to some of his other interviews, to be fair) with CNBC’s Sara Eisen on Wednesday in which he said that every single enterprise customer Palantir has is unhappy with frontier AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. Those companies, says Karp, are operating on a “hyper religion of hyper optimism” that doesn’t reflect the experiences of their customers. “They believe all problems present, past, and future, including the ones they create but don’t acknowledge, are going to be solved by them,” Karp opined. “Enterprises are fed up because they know this doesn’t actually work this way, and isn’t working.” That frustration, Karp said, is driving businesses to Palantir’s Foundry systems, which act as AI-agnostic data integration platforms for unifying disparate data sources and cognizing them with whatever LLMs a customer chooses to deploy. Pitch to prospects or not, Karp is on to something. AI projects are largely loss makers for the companies that deploy them, and have been for some time. Only 28 percent of AI use cases fully meet ROI expectations, according to a recent Gartner estimate, and most fail to ever get out of the pilot stage. Despite that, business leaders keep shoveling coal into the AI furnace to try to extract value, which, if you ask Karp, simply isn’t there unless you’re pairing those models with some decent infrastructure. Infrastructure Palantir can provide, natch. “It’s not just the man and woman on the street who are unhappy with the frontier labs,” Karp said, pointing to “every single enterprise we deal with” being frustrated with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI’s ability to provide value for their businesses. Karp said that Palantir leadership has been debating whether they should pay potential customers to go talk to frontier labs themselves before signing a contract with his outfit. “People come out of there screaming, saying 'this could never work for me, they don’t understand the enterprise, they don’t care about my enterprise,'” he said of customers. Frontier labs, Karp opined, just want customers to "tokenmax” – that is, to view token consumption as a measure of productivity and usefulness. The charge isn’t out of left field. Google CEO Sundar Pichai even nodded to the phenomenon at I/O last month. Burning more and more tokens is getting to be expensive for companies, and OpenAI is reportedly considering reducing its per-token charge to attract more customers in its growing war with Anthropic, which Karp called the “leading frontier firm” in his interview. Karp wouldn’t give a straight answer when asked whether OpenAI, Anthropic, and other frontier labs could do what Palantir is doing, but he did imply some doubt. Sure, they have some good engineers on staff, he said, but that doesn’t matter a lick if they “don’t talk to the enterprises or understand the technical challenges” their customers are facing in deploying their models. “When you go to San Francisco and talk to them, their basic vibe is ‘we don’t have to solve your problem today because tomorrow you’re going to go away and all your problems are going to be solved,’” Karp charged. “It’s largely religious.” Karp also called out OpenAI’s recent agreement to acquire UK-based AI consulting firm Tomoro, which will form part of the newly launched OpenAI Deployment Company aimed at helping customers generate returns from their ChatGPT investments, as an attempt to replicate Palantir's success. “It’s a complete farce,” Karp said. “They don’t understand how unlikeable they are.” By that, Karp said, it’s not that AI lab leadership isn't friendly – he said he's buddies with some of them and that they’re great to chat with – but “the product doesn’t actually work and it’s very expensive.” To that end, he added, most of the things that Anthropic brags about in public, for example, are successful because they’re “running on Palantir,” Karp charged. “It is not that LLMs aren’t crucial for the world, it’s just that the implementation is where the value is, certainly in the next 7 years,” Karp explained. In essence, what the Palantir boss seems to believe is that simply tossing an LLM at business problems isn't an actual solution. What Karp had to say on CNBC was, in his usual way, boisterous, confrontational, and self-aggrandizing, but look at the rate of AI returns in the enterprise right now and you have to admit he's got at least a partial point. ®
The ShinyHunters extortion crew exploited an unpatched flaw in Oracle PeopleSoft to break into enterprise systems, steal data, and demand payment to keep it private. The campaign hit universities hardest.
Google's Mandiant attributes it to the group it tracks as UNC6240, and dates the activity between May 27 and June 9. Oracle did not publish its advisory until June 10, so the bug was a
AI may or may not be pushing lots of people out of the workforce, but Anthropic has good news as the Claude creator is creating temporary positions to promote the adoption of AI, even as CEO Dario Amodei ponders policy interventions to counter "job displacement." The AI biz has announced the launch of Claude Corps, a $150 million program that will pay 1,000 Claude Corps Fellows $85,000 (plus benefits and a token budget) for one year to help advance the missions of nonprofit organizations using generative AI. Meanwhile, the tech industry continues to take on debt to build datacenters while balancing its books by shedding employees. According to job search biz TrueUp, the tech sector this year has averaged 935 layoffs per day, up from 674 per day in 2025. Anthropic's program debuts alongside the publication of Amodei's latest musing about his optimism "that, even in a world with AIs that are better than everyone at everything, humans can live lives of deep purpose and strive to build awe-inspiring and beautiful things." Claude Corps' stated goal is to provide host organizations with valuable tools and systems and to help participating fellows "build AI skills that will serve them in their careers" – however long those careers last until AIs are better than everyone at everything. There is, of course, no guarantee that AI will surpass human cognition or folly. But Amodei likes to talk about the idling of human labor, just in case, even if that sort of chatter fuels the firebombers. Anthropic says that it is announcing Claude Corps alongside its policy framework for dealing with AI's impact on work. The framework is titled "Policy on the AI Exponential," which is the same title Amodei used for his post. The policy's call for company-endorsed regulatory intervention is predicated on the claim that "AI is advancing at exponential speed," though the document cites no evidence of exponential capability gains and offers no time frame – a necessary variable to calculate periodic gains. Judging by AI model benchmark metrics, recent AI improvement has been incremental, a rate of advancement too timid to turn heads in the attention economy. Using data from Stanford HAI's 2026 AI Index report, even impressive gains such as AI model performance on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark rising from 60 percent to nearly 100 percent of the human baseline in a single year are not, by themselves, evidence of broad "exponential" progress across AI. Alarmism aside, Claude Corps will be funded and steered by Anthropic and implemented by computer education nonprofit CodePath, which will serve as the employer of record for fellows. The 12-month-long fellowships begin with "intensive training on using Claude in non-profit settings," augmented by five hours of additional training each week. Fellows are expected to use their remaining time coaching their respective nonprofits on the ins and outs of AI workflows. The gig comes with support from a CodePath mentor and office hours from Anthropic, which may prove useful for reactivating Claude accounts that have been suspended after triggering Claude's overly sensitive safety guardrails. Some 400 nonprofits are expected to host Claude Corps Fellows over the next 12 months, including Braven (job prep for low-income students), Code the Dream (coding education), and Heartland Forward (economic growth for middle America). "If Claude Corps works, we'll have a foundation for something much larger: a model for widening AI's benefits during a period of vast economic change," Anthropic says. And if not, as New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro put it, "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." ®
Data theft and extortion group ShinyHunters has exploited a critical Oracle PeopleSoft bug as a zero-day to compromise more than 100 organizations, including the University of Nottingham, across 300 vulnerable instances. A spokesperson for the cybercrime crew on Thursday told The Register that they exploited CVE-2026-35273 to break into the university’s PeopleSoft system and steal 40 GB of personal data and billing records belonging to hundreds of thousands of current and former students. ShinyHunters posted the UK university on its data leak site on Tuesday before publishing the stolen files later that same day, presumably because the school refused to pay the extortion demand. “University of Nottingham on our leak site is one of the first publicly confirmed incidents,” a ShinyHunters spokesperson told us. “We have only just started outreach to affected orgs and are actively looking to reach an agreement with affected orgs.” They didn’t say when they planned to post the other 100 or so claimed victims. A Google threat intelligence report published Thursday afternoon corroborated ShinyHunters’ claims to have compromised more than 100 organizations. Google said it spotted malicious activity, “consistent with the exploitation of CVE-2026-35273,” between May 27 and June 9, and notified more than 100 global orgs “whose IP addresses correlated with potentially vulnerable endpoints." Most of these, we’re told, are based in the US and 68 percent are in the higher-education sector. PeopleSoft is a widely used enterprise software suite that large corporations and institutions use to manage their human resources, payroll and billing applications, supply chains, and student records. CVE-2026-35273 is a 9.8 CVSS-rated vulnerability that allows remote, unauthenticated attackers with network access via HTTP to compromise PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools and fully take over the platform. On Wednesday, a day after ShinyHunters leaked the school’s data, the University of Nottingham confirmed the breach and Oracle issued an out-of-band security alert. It’s unclear, however, if the software provider has issued a patch to fix the security flaw. The Register reached out to Oracle, and did not receive any response to our questions. Google-owned Mandiant Chief Technology Officer Charles Carmakal, in a brief LinkedIn post on Thursday, warned that PeopleSoft was one of two zero-day vulnerabilities “actively being exploited in the wild.” “Oracle released mitigations,” Carmakal wrote. “Patches should come soon.” The other zero-day, for the record, is this Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager vulnerability.®
The boffins on Google’s DeepMind team unveiled an experimental new language model this week that uses techniques originally developed for AI image generators to boost text output performance by as much as 4x when running on resource-constrained consumer hardware. It's free to download and you can run it with just 18 GB of DRAM or VRAM. The model, codenamed DiffusionGemma, is the latest addition to Google’s open weights model family. But unlike Gemma 4, which launched this spring, the 26 billion-parameter mixture of experts (MoE) model isn’t a large language model in a conventional sense. Instead, it’s actually closer to image models like Stable Diffusion or Flux. Rather than generating tokens one after another in an autoregressive fashion, DiffusionGemma generates entire paragraphs' worth of tokens at the same time. The process looks a lot like how a diffusion model turns what’s essentially static into an image through a series of denoising steps. As Google explains it, DiffusionGemma works by laying out a canvas of random tokens, and then refining them until the final output is reached. Compared to conventional LLMs, which are memory-bandwidth bound and require a lot of VRAM, diffusion models are a predominantly compute-bound workload, which is why the Chocolate Factory is positioning these models for local deployment. LLMs are autoregressive. During token generation, the model’s active parameters need to be streamed from memory for every token generated, making memory bandwidth a major bottleneck. In the cloud, inference providers balance compute and memory bandwidth by processing hundreds or thousands of requests in parallel. As you might have guessed, this isn’t something the average user running a local model on their notebook can do. However, many consumer products, like high-end graphics cards, have plenty of excess horsepower, which DiffusionGemma can take advantage of to boost output performance. Diffusion language models aren’t perfect. Google isn’t the first to explore this tech. Previous models, like DREAM or Mercury 2, demonstrated major speedups over conventional LLMs, but generally underperformed them in benchmarks for their size. DiffusionGemma doesn’t appear to be any different. According to Google, the 26 billion-parameter model falls just behind Gemma 4 12B in the GPQA-Diamond benchmark, with its main advantage being output speed, and even then it’s not as impressive as Google has made it out to be. The chart shows a roughly 2.25x speedup for DiffusionGemma over the 12B parameter LLM with speculative decode enabled. Compared to Gemma 4 26B-A4B, the speedup is nearly 4x when running a single Nvidia H100. DiffusionGemma is being released as an experimental model rather than an enterprise focused one, like we saw with Gemma 4. The model is available for download on popular model repos like Hugging Face under a highly permissive Apache 2.0 license with support already merged into popular inference engines like vLLM, MLX, and HF Transformers, with support for Llama.cpp coming soon. While local inference has largely been the domain of AI enthusiasts, companies like Google are increasingly leaning on the tech to cut cloud costs associated with their AI services. As you may recall, back in May, Google quietly began shipping a small LLM with its Chrome web browser. ®
Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific zero-day vulnerability hunter with an axe to grind against Microsoft, released yet another exploit late Wednesday that the researcher claims will spawn a command prompt that provides total access to the BitLocker volume. This bug, called GreatXML, was “an accidental discovery,” according to the researcher, who said it only took four hours to find. They claim this exploit (published on GitHub and Git-based code-hosting platforms) can bypass BitLocker on any system that has ever run a Microsoft Defender Offline scan at any point in the past. GreatXML comes just a day after Nightmare released exploit code for RoguePlanet, which allows local privilege escalation and leads to SYSTEM-level control over an affected machine. This brings the researcher’s zero-day count to eight. The earlier six - RedSun, UnDefend, BlueHammer, YellowKey, GreenPlasma, and MiniPlasma - all have patches as of this week’s Patch Tuesday event. Redmond on Wednesday told The Register that it is aware of RoguePlanet, and “actively investigating the validity and potential applicability of these claims.” The Windows giant didn’t immediately respond to our inquiries about GreatXML, including when it planned to issue a patch. Microsoft has said none of the vulnerabilities were reported via its official channels prior to being made public. The company also banned Nightmare’s earlier GitHub account, and seemingly threatened legal action before dialing back its rhetoric after steep backlash from the security community. Nightmare Eclipse, who some researchers suggest is an ex-Microsoft employee, harbors a very personal grudge against the Windows giant and its communications with bug hunters. They have promised to keep the zero-days coming, but waffle on the timing. Last month, the researcher pledged a big July 14 drop: “I will make sure your bones are shattered that day,” and then added, “nothing will be released this June (or maybe I will release smtg, depending on circumstances).” On Tuesday, they changed course. “I will be unable to mass disclose zerodays in July 14th, RoguePlanet took way more time than expected and truly drained me. I might take a break but I can't say for sure what I will be doing for next month, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's smtg.” A day later, Nightmare released the “accidental” GreatXML BitLocker bypass. According to the researcher, the BitLocker bypass first requires copying “unattend.xml” and the “Recovery” directory to the root of the recovery partition. The next step is rebooting into WinRE by Shift-clicking Restart. “If everything was done correctly, a shell with unrestricted access to the bitlocker volume will spawn,” Nightmare wrote. Also, if the scan hasn’t even been initiated on the Windows system, first you’d need to either log in and initiate it, or “figure out a way to boot into WinRE in offline scan state.” Security sleuth Will Dormann followed Nightmare’s steps to reproduce GreatXML, and said the writeup seems “flawed.” In his testing, Dormann said the command prompt appeared the next time a Defender Offline scan ran. “And in order to trigger a Microsoft Defender Offline scan, you both need to be logged in to Windows, and also have admin credentials,” he wrote on social media. “And if you've already got that level of access, you can just turn off bitlocker.” “The writeup for GreatXML suggests that the prerequisite is that Windows Defender Offline has been executed at some point in the past,” Dormann added. “And that after planting two files in WinRE, all you need to do is [Shift]-reboot into WinRE, and Windows will automatically go into Microsoft Defender Offline scan mode. But this is not the case in any of the 3 lineages of Win11 that I have handy.” ®
Two security teams have shown, in separate research published this week, that OpenClaw, the popular self-hosted AI agent, can be driven to run attacker-controlled code or hand over sensitive data through ordinary-looking inputs.
Imperva buried instructions inside shared contacts, vCards, and location pins that the agent executed without the victim ever seeing them. Varonis built a test agent on
Security researcher Chaotic Eclipse (aka Nightmare-Eclipse and MSNightmare) has released a new Windows BitLocker bypass dubbed GreatXML, a day after they published an exploit for Microsoft Defender.
"This was an accidental discovery, it took a total of 4 hours to find this," the researcher said in a post on Blogger. "If you ever attempted to use Windows Defender Offline Scan, you're
Datacenters got you down? Worried that even the most innocuous questions will spin up AI models running in water-guzzling, energy-sucking, planet-destroying hyperscalers? You need CrankGPT. No, we’re not talking about surrendering to AI psychosis: we’re talking about a literal hand-cranked machine loaded with a voice agent that can respond to questions and even translate speech into other languages, provided someone keeps the power flowing. There’s an onboard custom-built capacitor board to store some juice, mind you, but it only provides around 20 seconds of crank-free runtime before you’ve gotta keep crankin’ to keep it alive. That, and it takes a bit of time to get it running - according to the documentation website, it’s a 30-second process “from the moment you start cranking to the moment you’re having a conversation with CrankGPT.” According to the AI expert duo behind the device, computer scientist Katrin Tomanek and former Google Advanced Technology and Projects Group technical project lead Alex Kauffmann, CrankGPT still delivers impressive results despite the need to perform some hard physical labor for your tokens (though we’d argue some exercise for your AI might not be a bad thing). “Asking Claude to add two numbers for you is like swatting a fly with a wrecking ball,” Kauffmann told The Register in an email. This tongue-in-cheek demonstration, Kauffmann said, may be a bit of light fun, but it’s an exercise in demonstrating what his and Tomanek’s AI company, Squeez, is all about: small, private specialized AI models that, in a pinch, might not even need very much energy or a connection to the web to operate. “Squeez produces customized, efficient, and private models that can run on small, inexpensive hardware to solve specific problems,” Kauffmann explained, citing tasks like voice recognition for someone with a strong accent or speech impediment, or specially-trained, local AIs that are subject matter experts in topics like gardening or auto repair, but won’t touch subjects outside their wheelhouse. Contrary to the flashy dot-com for CrankGPT the pair have set up, Kauffmann told me, Squeez has no plans to pursue spin cycle class-powered AI stacks for dev teams, though he said if anyone wants to foot the bill, he'd be happy to give it a shot. "Off-the-shelf bike generators are shockingly expensive and they're fussy to build," Kauffmann said. Still, "a good biker can maintain a steady 120W output, so a class of twenty could power a Blackwell." Speaking of wheelhouses, what’s inside that box? If there’s a tiny computer in a 3D-printed box with a crank attached, there’s a good possibility it’s going to be a Raspberry Pi, and that’s the case here. CrankGPT’s brain is built on a stock RPi 5 with 8 GB of RAM and a cooling fan HAT, and audio input and output are handled by a dedicated I/O HAT designed for voice assistants running RPis. Power comes from the aforementioned crank, which is actually an off-the-shelf 20W switchable voltage hand crank unit built for emergency USB device charging, and is stored in the custom capacitor unit the duo built. “The neatest part of the whole thing is that you can actually feel the inference,” Kauffmann told us. “The amount of resistance the crank presents varies depending on the amount of work the board is doing, so when it's really working (generating words for instance), the crank becomes much harder to turn than when it's idling waiting for you to say something.” As for software, the device is running the most stripped-down, bare bones instance of DietPi the pair could compile, which is able to boot into a functional userspace in about three seconds. The voice agent is the truly original piece of work done for the project, as detailed in the documentation page, and was built entirely from scratch. “We wanted to understand the system end to end and have as few dependencies as possible,” the documentation page notes. It’s available on GitHub for those interested in trying it out. Speech recognition is handled by the Moonshine automatic speech recognition engine, chosen for its speed, while text-to-speech synthesis is handled by Piper, chosen again for its low-resource edge inference capabilities. As for the models running on the thinking itself, there are a few that are behind CrankGPT, with Liquid LFM2 1.2B providing a general-purpose voice agent, and Gemma 3 1B being used for translation. CrankGPT can switch between translation and various prompts (e.g., general question answering and games like two truths and a lie) via a knob on the side of the enclosure. “It’s entirely configurable,” Kauffmann told us. “We added a couple of physical inputs (the knob, a button, a switch) to make experimentation easier.” Kauffmann added that he and Tomanek were surprised by how well the translation function worked. “We did no fine tuning, it's just a two-line prompt and it works really well for high-coverage languages,” he explained. While the demonstration focuses on audio prompts and responses, Kauffmann explained that the device supports all sorts of different models, with the only real limitation being inference time and the amount of hand cranking one wants to do to get their response. “We’ve generated images (small), made poetry (bad), and written code using the same setup,” the CrankGPT makers wrote in their documentation, all with “a hand crank, a little computer, and a small stack of speech and language models running locally.” If you’re interested in building your own CrankGPT model, keep an eye on the documentation page we linked earlier in this story, as Kauffmann told us he and Tomanek are planning to release all the plans and schematics in the coming days, while the aforementioned custom voice agent is already available for tinkering. “It's a pretty straightforward setup, the only tricky part is that SBCs like the Raspberry Pi will sometimes draw enough current to trigger a little generator's overcurrent protection,” Kauffmann told us. If you have a spare $300 lying around (that’s what Kauffmann estimates the RAM pricing surge has driven the build cost up to, from the $150 he spent when building CrankGPT last year), then you, too, may soon be able to build your own completely off-grid, standalone AI box so you can keep chatting with your favorite micro LLM if and when its bigger cousins knock the grid offline. ®
Amazon, along with the rest of the industry, has gotten so used to framing everything that happens through the context of AI that it has lost the plot on their Graviton chip lineup, and along with it their own credibility. Which is a shame, because it's actually a triumph of a chip. First, the Wall Street Journal breathlessly reported that Snowflake's $6 billion AWS commitment was "for agentic computing chips." Then AWS's own press release heralded the release of their latest chips "for the Agentic AI era." In both cases, they were referring to their Graviton line. You could be forgiven for thinking this was some kind of GPU. No, that's Trainium. (Technically, Trainium isn't a GPU, nor is it a CPU, but rather a systolic array. Don't worry; most AI engineering software doesn't know what the hell that is, either.) Graviton is AWS's general purpose Arm CPU, which can be used for AI in much the same way as Excel can be used as a database. But that's far from its only, or even primary, purpose. Let's dive into what Graviton actually is. Price / Performance / Reality For the longest time, Amazon refused to issue benchmarks, competitively positioning its then-nascent Arm line against Intel. Many of us thought this meant that the results would underwhelm — so you can imagine my surprise when real-world workload tests showed 35 percent to 40 percent better performance in a wide variety of situations. It was as if Amazon had built something amazing, but was somehow embarrassed to admit it. Those days are long behind us; they trumpet in the subhead of their announcement that Graviton 5 means "apps run 35% faster, ML inference is 35% faster, and databases are 30% faster." To their credit, I was expecting those numbers to be against something ancient, but in a refreshing bout of honesty, they're comparing them to Graviton 4, itself no slouch. They are also 9 percent more expensive. Once upon a time, new generations of AWS instances were notably less expensive than their predecessors. Going from a c4.large to a c5.large meant you'd get better performance, and the instance itself was a whopping 15 percent cheaper. Upgrading was a no-brainer! That started changing, and now upgrading means the instance becomes more expensive. AWS's position is that this is an incomplete analysis, since the improved performance means you'd pay less for a given workload. In some cases, this is correct, but in others, it's akin to saying that a Ferrari offers better price performance than my Honda CR-V because I can drive it to work three times faster. Logic, as well as traffic lights, disagree. Amazon's contention is correct for customers who have large fleets of nodes that they run at high degrees of CPU utilization. Switching those fleets to the new hotness will absolutely result in a price performance improvement, provided the workload and the stars both align. However, for customers who need a fixed number of nodes (think database companies, who offer each customer of theirs a set number of replicas, or workloads of the form "each environment gets three nodes, one in each AZ"), this represents a pure 9 percent price hike going from old generations to new ones. That puts many customers in a pickle: upgrade to new instance families, or stay on the old ones and watch availability become constrained in the coming years as AWS stops racking old chips. (Hi, Amazon PR! If you're about to pop into my inbox to tell me that won't happen, I have a customer I'd love for you to have a chat with!) But this price hike isn't happening in a vacuum. It's happening against a backdrop of "an 8GB Raspberry Pi is now $175, over twice its launch price of $85." Components have become fiendishly expensive across the board as giant companies compete for capacity, and AWS has to be feeling that pressure. Two companies each asked to buy all of AWS's Graviton capacity for the year; AWS clearly has room to kick their prices into the stratosphere! Somehow, they're not only resisting the siren song of "please gouge me, business daddy," but also managing to keep availability strong for customers of all stripes; I upgraded my developer node in my tiny unremarkable AWS account yesterday, and it Just Worked. And so... Despite the nonsense marketing, I don't want to detract from just how amazing Annapurna Labs (Amazon's chip division) has been at churning out wildly performant silicon year over year. Their chips are legitimately great, and the Graviton 5 numbers are a triumph. Lost against the backdrop of "Agentic AI," the stuff underpinning all of it continues to work, improve, and largely pass by unremarked. Keep going. ®
ZTE has won three prestigious awards at Selular Award 2026, held on June 8, 2026, at Menara Peninsula Hotel, Jakarta. The awards recognize ZTE's contributions and innovations in advancing artificial intelligence (AI)-powered network technologies amid the acceleration of digital transformation and 5G development in Indonesia. ZTE's contributions to advancing AI-powered network innovation have been recognized by Selular Media Network (SMN), a leading telecommunications and technology media organization in Indonesia, through three awards at Selular Award 2026. ZTE received honors in the categories of Best AI Technology Fixed Wireless Access, Best AI Network Ecosystem, and Best Native AI Baseband. These awards reflect ZTE's capabilities across network access, ecosystem development, and core infrastructure, further strengthening its position as a technology partner supporting digital transformation and the evolution of AI-driven networks in Indonesia. The Selular Award is an annual appreciation program organized by Selular Media Network (SMN) to recognize outstanding achievements and contributions across Indonesia’s ICT and digital technology industry. As the first and most consistent telecommunications industry award since 2003, the Selular Award serves as a benchmark for excellence, honoring companies and brands that demonstrate innovation, strong performance, and meaningful contributions to Indonesia’s digital transformation. Through this award, the public and business community can identify industry leaders that continue to create value and drive progress in the digital ecosystem. This year's Selular Award carries the theme "Leading The Future: Building Exponential Value in 5G-Advanced and AI Economy", highlighting the convergence of AI and 5G-Advanced as key drivers of digital economic growth. Kevin Fang, Marketing Director of ZTE Indonesia, said: "Digital transformation today is no longer driven solely by connectivity, but also by the ability of networks to operate more intelligently, efficiently, and adaptively. Through the AI-powered innovations we have developed—from broadband access to core infrastructure—ZTE is committed to delivering network solutions that are ready to meet connectivity demands in the AI and 5G-Advanced era. These awards motivate us to continue delivering meaningful innovations that create value for the industry, our customers, businesses, and society." Indonesia's telecommunications industry is currently entering a critical phase in its digital transformation journey. According to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, revenue from AI-powered applications in Indonesia grew by 127% year-on-year, the highest growth rate in Southeast Asia, with 80% of users interacting with AI applications daily. This momentum reflects the growing demand for network infrastructure that is not only fast and reliable but also capable of supporting AI workloads. On the infrastructure side, GSMA Intelligence projects that 5G investment in Indonesia could contribute up to USD 41 billion to the national GDP between 2024 and 2030. This projection highlights the strategic role of 5G as a connectivity foundation that supports digital transformation and the growth of the digital economy. At the same time, the increasing adoption of AI and data-driven services is driving demand for networks that are faster, more reliable, and capable of handling greater capacity. As part of its commitment to supporting these developments, ZTE continues to deliver innovations across the entire network technology value chain, from broadband access to core infrastructure. On the access side, ZTE provides AI-powered Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) solutions designed to expand high-speed connectivity more efficiently and flexibly. The solution serves as a strategic approach to supporting broadband inclusion while addressing the growing demand for connectivity across different regions. In addition, ZTE is building an open ecosystem that integrates AI, connectivity, cloud computing, and various digital technologies within a collaborative framework involving operators and enterprises. At the core infrastructure level, ZTE embeds AI capabilities natively into the baseband, the key component responsible for network signal processing. By integrating AI directly into the baseband from the design stage, networks can analyze, optimize, and adapt operations more intelligently and in real time. This approach enables more autonomous and efficient network operations while preparing networks for the demands of the 5G-Advanced era. Moving forward, ZTE will continue to deepen collaboration with operators, enterprises, and industry partners in Indonesia while strengthening its technology portfolio, ranging from wireless access solutions and optical transport to data center infrastructure and telecommunications energy solutions. In line with Indonesia's vision of becoming one of Southeast Asia's leading digital economies, ZTE remains committed to accelerating the nation's digital transformation through AI-driven innovation, intelligent connectivity, and next-generation network technologies that benefit more industries and regions across the country. Contributed by ZTE.
A new analysis of The Gentlemen operation has revealed that the financially motivated threat group initially operated as an affiliate responsible for conducting double extortion attacks, while leveraging resources from various ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) schemes like LockBit (aka Tenacious Mantis), Qilin (aka Pestilent Mantis), and Medusa (aka Venomous Mantis).
According to a detailed report
It won't be making smartphones great again. The long-awaited Trump-branded smartphone has finally arrived, and it appears to be exactly what many suspected: an existing handset in gold drag. Repair biz iFixit got its hands on the Trump Mobile T1 after the device became available in May, and its teardown found the model is essentially an HTC U24 Pro with cosmetic tweaks and a Trump-friendly gold finish. It was almost exactly a year ago that the Trump Organization unveiled the Trump Mobile cellular service and heralded the coming of the T1 Phone, described as "a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States." Few expected the gilt gadget to live up to that promise, as there are effectively no mass-market smartphones built in the US, with the possible exception of Purism's Liberty Phone, which is priced at a challenging $1,999 for those who absolutely must have a smartphone made outside China. Despite accepting $100 deposits to pre-order the coveted handwarmer, Trump Mobile failed to deliver the device by August last year, as promised, and many started to believe it would never show up. But it arrived this May amid claims that the Trump Mobile website was leaking customer data to anyone who sent an HTTP POST request. The nerds at iFixit passed the Trump Phone through a CT scanner alongside an HTC U24 Pro to confirm that the internals of the two devices are almost an exact match. They even went so far as swapping the main board of the T1 for that of the HTC phone, and showed that it not only fits, but the phone still works. One difference iFixit noted is that the multichip package housing the 12 GB of LPDDR5 memory and 512 GB of storage is from Micron, whereas the corresponding package in HTC's phone is supplied by SK hynix. The HTC U24 Pro is a mid-range smartphone that was launched almost exactly two years ago in June 2024. It is based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 platform, has a 6.8-inch display, and came with Android 14 at launch, whereas the Trump phone features Android 15. In other words, it's a fairly unremarkable smartphone, sprayed gold and marketed to Trump fans for a promotional price of $499. To be fair, as iFixit makes clear, this is not a bad price for a device like this, so aureate wannabes are not being overcharged here. But as iFixit also makes clear, the device may be assembled in Florida, but it was designed in China and the vast majority of its parts have been sourced from and made in China as well. ®
UPDATED Following notes from several readers, we followed up directly with VRChat on Thursday at 1945 GMT and they told us that the Maine Attorney General's office apparently posted a fake breach report. According to an email from VRChat's head of community, Charles Tupper, "VRChat did not submit this Notice of Data Incident, and the employee/email cited does not exist. We have no reason to believe that our data or systems have been compromised. We are in the process of contacting the Maine Attorney General's office to have this removed." In an effort to get to the bottom of this, The Register dialed the phone number on the report as well, but it connected to a line that is not in service. We also tried emailing the address on the report and got no reply. We could find no record of a Scott Caruso affiliated with VRChat. We apologize for the error, but generally speaking, government data breach reports are considered reliable. The fakers apparently even created a false notice that VRChat ostensibly sent to customers! If anybody knows who filed this apparently fake report and why, get in touch through our contact page, or through our secure tipline. The original story is below: Online chat platform VRChat says a recent cyberattack compromised the data belonging to nearly 2.5 million users. It confirmed the “data security incident” in a report filed with Maine’s attorney general, but has not disclosed it via public channels. The company’s report confirmed that its cloud environment was accessed between May 10-12, with the unauthorized intruder making off with information concerning 2,436,782 users. This included VRChat usernames, email addresses, whether a user was a VRChat+ subscriber, login histories (including device, hardware identifiers, and IP addresses), and Steam or Meta user IDs. It does not believe passwords, credit cards or other payment information, or government IDs used for age verification were affected. “VRChat sincerely regrets that this security incident occurred,” the company stated in its disclosure. “We understand that trust between our platform and its community is earned through consistent action, and we take full responsibility for the concern this event has caused. “The security and privacy of our players' information remain our highest priority, and we are committed to doing everything within our power to protect it.” VRChat said that after it was made aware of the intrusion, it contained the threat and implemented additional security controls, as well as engaging outside security experts. And in an unusual move for US breaches, the San Francisco-based company did not offer identity theft or credit monitoring services. Offering these kinds of services is not a legal requirement, but doing so is highly common, especially regarding attacks that affect so many individuals. VRChat does not publish the total number of registered users that it has on its books, but its documentation states that “the platform has grown to millions of users,” who have collectively published tens of millions of unique pieces of content for it since its first release in 2014. The part game, part chat platform is an online, open-world chatroom where people walk around interacting with one another via their 3D avatars. It has been compared to Second Life in that users explore other users' worlds, play mini-games, and partake in casual chit-chat, with support for both virtual reality headsets and conventional PCs. You can also think of it as something similar to Meta’s vision for the metaverse, just without all the coworking and KPI meetings, and with way more users. ®
This article is aimed at bioinformatics platform leads, ML infrastructure engineers, and genomics budget owners who are now running GPU-accelerated workflows in the cloud. It's about a hidden cost problem that almost every genomics infrastructure team is paying for — and very few are actively measuring. The observations here are specific to short-read sequencing workflows, which remain the dominant data type in production genomics environments. Short-read sequencing pipelines, standard in next-generation sequencing (NGS) workflows, used to be CPU-heavy. You'd run them on a cluster, they'd grind through alignment and variant calling over hours, and the bottleneck was CPU throughput. GPU acceleration wasn't the story. That has changed. AI-driven variant calling, GPU-accelerated alignment tools like Parabricks, and deep learning models running on top of sequencing data have all moved toward the GPU, which means teams are managing serious GPU infrastructure for the first time. The cost model that comes with GPU cloud differs sharply from CPU clusters, and people are bringing CPU-era assumptions about pipeline reliability and cost accounting into a GPU environment. That mismatch is costing them. We work with a lot of these teams, and when we ask about infrastructure costs, they almost always lead with the same number: cost per sample. That's what gets reported upward, what sits in the budget. What that number hides is where things get interesting. When pipelines fail A typical short-read germline variant calling pipeline has maybe ten to 15 distinct processing steps. You start with raw FASTQ files off the sequencer, run quality control, alignment, duplicate marking, base quality score recalibration, variant calling, annotation — each step hands off to the next. These pipelines mostly run on workflow managers like Nextflow or Snakemake, which do have built-in mechanisms for resuming failed jobs. Nextflow has a flag designed to let you pick up from step eight of 11 rather than restarting from scratch. In principle, that's exactly the right solution. In practice, the problem is configuration. For that flag to work, Nextflow needs to find its cache directory — the folder that records which steps completed successfully. If the solutions architect set up the compute environment without properly configuring persistent disk space for that cache, the file isn't there when you need it, and the pipeline restarts from step one anyway. That's a setup failure rather than a tool limitation, but the result is the same: you've paid for compute you didn't get output from. When a large task fails mid-execution rather than at a clean step boundary, even proper checkpointing won't save you, because the task has to be rerun in full. A problem difficult to measure Genomics teams working with Nebius consistently report that 15 to 40 percent of their pipeline runs hit at least one failure and restart before completion. Pinning the figure down precisely is hard, and we have no definitive numbers that reflect the reality here. The range is wide because it depends heavily on how mature the infrastructure setup is. Teams with well-configured environments sit at the low end; teams newer to GPU cloud, or running on spot instances with higher interruption rates, sit at the high end. What makes this invisible is that if your metric is cost per completed sample, a failed run that eventually completes still looks like one sample at normal cost. The retry disappears from the number that gets reported. For example, a GPU-accelerated whole genome sequencing pipeline — germline variant calling — takes roughly two GPU-hours on an H200. At current on-demand rates that's about $9 of compute per sample, and that's the visible cost. Now apply a 25 percent failure rate — toward the conservative end of what teams report. For every four samples you complete, one run failed, restarted, and ran from the beginning. Your real cost per completed sample isn't $9 anymore — it's $11.25, a 25 percent hidden markup. Scale that to a team processing 2,000 samples a month: the visible compute bill says $18,000, but the real cost is $22,500. That's $4,500 a month — $54,000 a year — in compute that produced no output. For a mid-size genomics team, that's a meaningful fraction of the cloud budget, and it shows up nowhere as waste. That's before you touch storage. The hidden costs The storage picture is more nuanced than people expect. A standard whole genome generates roughly 200 gigabytes of raw FASTQ data, but that's the uncompressed figure. In practice, almost everything going into cold storage is compressed, typically down to around 30 gigabytes per sample, so the storage cost per sample is quite manageable. Where it gets complicated is retrieval. When you want to reanalyze archived samples — say, running a new cohort through an updated pipeline — you pull those compressed files back, and your infrastructure then needs to decompress them. That 30-gigabyte compressed file expands to 200 gigabytes, which means you need the disk space and memory headroom to handle the expansion. If the environment wasn't sized for it, you get failures or severe slowdowns at the decompression step, which becomes another category of hidden cost that's rarely accounted for up front. In cancer research, the numbers are much larger. Somatic mutation calling runs at 60x to 100x sequencing depth, so 600-gigabyte FASTQ files aren't unusual. Everything I've described scales accordingly. The key point: retrieval from cold storage always has a cost, regardless of where your compute lives relative to your storage. Some platforms charge for data egress between regions on top of that. Either way, the teams that haven't modeled their reanalysis frequency as a real line item are almost always surprised when they do. Tracking, tracking and tracking... Bioinformatics engineers know the failure rates, because they're the ones watching jobs fail at 2am. But by the time the numbers roll up to whoever controls the budget, it's just "cloud costs." There's no line item for "compute we paid for and got no output from." Cloud billing by service and instance type doesn't surface this. You see your GPU compute spend, your storage spend, your egress. You don't see "20% of your GPU spend this month was on runs that didn't complete." That decomposition requires deliberate instrumentation, and most teams haven't built it yet. What teams should measure instead of cost per sample Teams should measure a few things instead. First, completion rate: the percentage of pipeline runs that complete without failure or restart. That's your pipeline reliability score, directly linked to compute waste. Second, cost per attempted sample versus cost per completed sample. If those numbers are meaningfully different, you have a problem worth fixing. Third, storage retrieval frequency and the infrastructure overhead of decompression: how often you're pulling archived data back, and whether you've properly sized the disk and memory headroom for it. This is the gap between what looks cheap in the storage bill and what it costs to use the data. One thing genomics infrastructure teams should do differently starting this week Instrument your pipeline failure rate, right now, before anything else. The number itself doesn't fix anything, but it makes the problem visible. Once you can show that 15 or 25 percent of your compute spend is going toward runs that restart — with real dollar figures attached — the conversation about fixing the underlying infrastructure becomes easy to have. People move fast when they can see the waste. Everything else follows from that — better checkpointing configuration, smarter storage architecture, more stable compute — but you have to see the problem first. Discover the breakthroughs shaping the future of AI in healthcare and life sciences. Visit https://nebius.com/solutions/life-sciences-and-healthcare to learn more and register for the 2026 AI Discovery Awards ceremony: nebius.com/ai-discovery-award. Anastasia Raskolova Anastasia is a senior product manager for healthcare & life sciences at Nebius, where she focuses on infrastructure product for drug discovery and clinical AI workflows. Before that, she spent her career building ML products across computer vision, recommendation systems, and generative AI — and stays grounded in the clinical reality through volunteering in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. Contributed by Nebius.
HANDS ON At WWDC this week, Apple introduced container machines, which are persistent virtual machines running Linux, bearing some resemblance to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Microsoft's operating system. Developers using macOS, as with those on Windows, face the problem that most applications are deployed to Linux, creating a mismatch between the development machine and the deployment target. The friction is less for macOS, which, like Linux, is Unix-like, but still exists. Apple's solution builds on the Container project previewed at WWDC last year. Version 1.0 was released at this year's WWDC, complete with the new container machine feature. The project uses standard Open Container Initiative (OCI) containers, and both the containers and container machines run on lightweight virtual machines (VMs), giving strong isolation. On Windows, WSL is an important tool for developers. Could container machines have a similar impact for Mac devs? There is potential, but Apple has work to do both on features and documentation, and the project is tucked away on GitHub rather than being presented as part of macOS. The code is written in Swift and is open source on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license. It uses another Swift package called containerization, which is also open source. We tried a brief hands-on, installing the 1.0 release from the GitHub release package on Tahoe 26.5.1. Only macOS 26 is supported. The name "container machine" is intended to convey that the feature combines both a container and a VM. The feature uses Apple's native virtualization framework, and the command line interface integrates well with macOS. Once installed, the command container machine run will open a terminal in the default container machine. Another option is to run a command such as container machine run uname -a, which will execute in the default container machine but without leaving the macOS shell. Once installed, the command container machine create is enabled, though only containers that include the /sbin/init system initialization program will work. Many container images designed for running applications, rather than being used for persistent VMs, do not include this. The solution is to build a custom container image from a Dockerfile, for which the documentation now includes examples. We used the Dockerfile supplied in a tutorial that sets up a container machine based on Ubuntu 24.04 with the Swift SDK included, followed by the steps to develop using Visual Studio Code running on macOS and connecting to the container machine via VS Code remoting. This worked and we were able to build a project on Linux and run it using VS Code and Safari on the Mac side, but debugging breakpoints were not hit. We tried again with a .NET project, for which debugging worked correctly. By default, a container machine mounts the macOS home directory with read-write permissions. This is great for accessing code or other assets from both macOS and the container machine, but not good for security. A rogue package installed on Linux, for example, could easily harvest credentials from a .ssh folder in macOS. This is configurable via the --home-mount argument. Setting access to "none" is more secure. The memory available to a container machine defaults to half the system memory. In our case that is 32 GB, but after launching the VM and starting PostgreSQL, the actual memory used, according to Activity Monitor, was only 1 GB. Additional memory is used on demand, but a limitation described in the technical overview is that memory cannot be released back to the host. In other words, memory usage will increase during use and can only be released by restarting the VM. WSL supports GUI applications via the X11 or Wayland graphic systems. An issue raised by a user about GUI applications in containers was closed on the basis that developers can install XQuartz, a project for running the X windows system on macOS, and then use container-to-host networking to connect, though we did not try this. GUI support appears not to be a goal of the project. Mac developers already have many ways to run Linux containers or VMs, including the mature ecosystem around Docker, Podman, Colima, UTM, VirtualBox, and OrbStack, to mention some contenders, as well as the option of using SSH to connect to a remote Linux VM. That means Apple has some work to do to establish its native container tools, and now container machines, as serious alternatives. On the plus side, the system is lightweight, aside from the inability to release memory, and performed well in our quick hands-on. A WWDC video has further details, alongside the documentation on GitHub. ®
NASA's sprint to save the Swift observatory has reached another milestone: Katalyst Space's LINK robotic servicing spacecraft is now installed atop its Pegasus XL launcher. The milestone came less than a year after the space agency awarded the rescue contract. The next step will be to attach the Pegasus XL to the Stargazer carrier aircraft (the last airworthy Lockheed L-1011 TriStar), which will carry it from NASA's Wallops facility to the Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean for launch. Launch is expected to occur later this month. The goal is to boost the Swift observatory, whose orbit is decaying faster than expected due to increased solar activity. Swift lacks thrusters to compensate for the problem, so a return to Earth in the coming months is inevitable without intervention. Engineers recently bought the vehicle a little extra time by orienting the spacecraft and reducing the science output, but there is precious little margin in the timelines. The mission is high-risk, and Swift has little to lose. However, if successful, the approach could extend the lifetimes of other craft, including the Hubble Space Telescope, which will also re-enter the atmosphere in the coming years without intervention. Although NASA rejected a proposal by its now administrator Jared Isaacman to reboost the observatory using a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, if the mission to Swift is a success, the agency will have another, far less expensive, option to consider. Like Swift, Hubble's orbit is decaying, and there will come a point in the coming years when managers must decide whether to attempt to extend the life of the veteran observatory, devise a way of performing a controlled re-entry, or let nature take its course. Swift was one of the missions slated for the chopping block under proposed budget cuts, so a successful rescue would mark a remarkable turnaround. Extending spacecraft beyond their primary mission isn't unusual. ESA, for instance, just endorsed extensions for several veteran missions, including Mars Express, XMM-Newton, and SOHO. But a Swift-style orbital rescue is something altogether different, and one that operators of other spacecraft facing decaying orbits will be watching closely. ®
If you use Office 2019 on a Mac, your software will soon stop working properly and there's nothing you can do but buy an upgrade. From July 13, 2026, Office applications on the Apple platform could lose the ability to edit, save, or create new files. Opening and printing will still work, but otherwise it's "reduced functionality mode" time, as Microsoft puts it. The problem is due to the expiration of the certificate used to validate the user's Office license, and it will affect both Microsoft 365 subscribers on macOS, iPhone, and iPad and non-subscribers. Affected software includes Office 2021 and 2019. The fix requires an update to macOS 12 or later, or iOS 17 on an iPad or iPhone, followed by an application update, which is where the problems could start. While updates are a way of life for Microsoft 365 subscribers, they aren't for everyone. Office 2021 users can manually update – support for that product ends on October 13, 2026 – but Office 2019 users are out of luck. Support ended on October 10, 2023, and, according to Microsoft, "Because Office 2019 cannot be updated to the required version, this issue cannot be resolved by updating or reinstalling Office 2019 for Mac." The solution? Perhaps a Microsoft 365 subscription? Or switch to using Microsoft 365 on the web? The issue doesn't affect Windows or Android devices, but it is galling for Apple users who purchased Office 2019 and will soon be sent to "reduced functionality mode" with no support from Microsoft. The lack of updates is understandable, considering that support ended years ago, but turning the application into little more than a viewer due to an expired license certificate seems like poor form. Users on social media have been understandably annoyed with the situation and Microsoft's stance. One wrote, they were "completely happy with Office 2019 and saw no need to upgrade to the latest version." But now they will. Or switch to a different vendor. "This is appalling from Microsoft, will definitely not be supporting them in the future." ®
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Dutch semiconductor startup Qualinx is claiming a breakthrough of sorts in European sovereign manufacturing thanks to an end-to-end semiconductor fabrication flow it is using for its new satnav chips. The firm, a spin-off from Delft University of Technology, says it has demonstrated that security-critical chips for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure can be designed, manufactured, and delivered entirely within Europe. Tape-out of the Qualinx QLX3xx, a family of ultra-low-power Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) systems-on-chip (SoCs), represents the first step on the path toward a fully automated trusted European manufacturing flow, the company claims. But Qualinx is a fabless design shop and relies on a contract manufacturer to make the chips for it. In this case, it is GlobalFoundries (GF), an international business with its headquarters in the US – so much for sovereign manufacturing. The pair say that GF's Dresden fab is establishing a European manufacturing flow with funding from the European Chips Act. This will ensure that every step of the production process occurs within the EU, so that no sensitive design data leaves the region. "This first secure product demonstrates that a fully European manufacturing path – from mask services to wafer production – is already a reality today," said Qualinx CEO Tom Trill. Qualinx is perhaps placing an emphasis on security-critical chips because there are already European semiconductor firms that design and manufacture their own products, such as STMicroelectronics. And Reg readers with long memories will recall that the UK once had its own processor company in the shape of Bristol-based Inmos, which made the Transputer, manufactured at Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) in South Wales – now sold off to US chip biz Vishay Intertechnology. The Qualinx chip will be made using GF's FDX fully depleted silicon-on-insulator manufacturing process, which we understand is a 12nm node. While advanced, this is some way behind cutting-edge processes such as Taiwanese chip giant TSMC's 2nm N2 process, now in mass production. But there has been debate about whether Europe really needs cutting-edge fabs. The European Commission's new Digital Sovereignty package proposes a Chips Act 2.0 that would fund a sovereign "AI chip factory." But as the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) points out, European chip demand comes mostly from the automotive sector and industrial applications, which rely on 28/22nm technology, not cutting-edge silicon. "We are demonstrating that Europe can rely on a secure, end-to-end semiconductor manufacturing flow that meets the highest requirements of aerospace and defense," stated GF SVP and general manager Dr Manfred Horstmann. "Our partnership with Qualinx marks the first operational milestone." ®
Most good security work is invisible by design. Today is the exception.
The 2026 Cybersecurity Stars Awards winners are announced across 95 subcategories in four main award categories.
The reason is simple. Cybersecurity is full of work that deserves recognition and rarely gets it. Products that quietly close real gaps. Teams that stop incidents nobody reads about. Companies that raise the
Le nouveau sélecteur de dates et d’heures de framagenda empêche la saisie au clavier.
C’est pour moi une sacrée perte de temps et d’expérience utilisateur.
Serait-il possible de revenir à la version précédente, ou bien d’avoir une option pour choisir le sélecteur qui nous convient ?
It's been one of those weeks. You expect the usual noise: recycled malware, sloppy attacks, another easy target getting hit. Instead, there's a supply chain attack kit in a public repo, a $5,000-a-month RAT that clones browsers, and research showing AI agents can be tricked into leaking real credentials.
The bigger problem is how polished this all looks now. Mule networks run like SaaS.
OpenAI may be headed for Wall Street, but one analyst firm is already warning enterprise customers not to get too attached. In a note published alongside OpenAI's confidential IPO filing, Forrester urged companies to keep their AI options open, arguing that today's market leader could easily become tomorrow's cautionary tale. "Don't lock into long-term contracts; keep your architectures flexible," the firm advised. "In fact, OpenAI could become AI's BlackBerry FIFO (First In, First Out). The company that defines a category is often the one most painfully displaced by it." The caution comes as OpenAI takes its first formal step toward a public listing. Alongside its confidential SEC filing, the company published a roadmap built around three ambitions: AI systems that can accelerate research, AI that boosts economic growth, and eventually a personal AGI assistant for everyone. Forrester was more interested in a fourth question: what happens if OpenAI doesn't stay on top? The firm argues that OpenAI faces what it calls a "trifecta" of challenges: persuade consumers to use its agents instead of rivals', convince enterprises to build around its technology, and stay ahead in the race toward AGI. The enterprise battle may prove the most lucrative. "Whoever automates the dull, expensive middle of a company's operations first becomes the system of record everyone else has to rip out — and almost no one does,” Forrester said. In other words, the first company to get AI agents woven into day-to-day business processes stands a decent chance of becoming yet another piece of software that everyone complains about, but nobody can remove. However, Forrester's advice is that, rather than standardizing on a single provider, enterprises should "anchor to the capability you need — not the brand that got there first — and keep your switching costs low." The warning also comes as OpenAI reportedly weighs cutting prices to fend off growing competition from rivals, including Anthropic. If the AI market is heading for a price war, enterprises may want to think twice before chaining themselves to a single supplier. Forrester also notes that a public listing could provide customers with something they currently lack: visibility into OpenAI's finances. Once public, the company would be required to disclose far more information about the cost of training and operating its models, giving enterprise buyers a clearer picture of the economics behind the AI systems they increasingly depend on. For now, OpenAI remains the company that helped define the generative AI era. Whether it becomes the next Google, the next Microsoft, or AI's answer to BlackBerry is a question investors will soon be paying very close attention to. ®
Oracle has lifted capital spending plans above analyst estimates and expanded borrowing to chase the opportunity it says exists in building datacenters for AI workloads. Despite revenue for Q4 (ended May 31) rising 21 percent year-on-year to $19.2 billion, Oracle's share price fell as markets reacted to its increasing capex, as analysts raised concerns about how Big Red would fund the investments in datacenters. Capex for fiscal 2026 reached $55.7 billion, up from $21.2 billion a year earlier. Speaking to investors, CFO Hilary Maxson said Oracle planned to support its capital investments program by raising around $40 billion in debt and equity in fiscal 2027, including a $20 billion equity issuance already announced. "We don't anticipate raising additional debt funding in calendar year 2026," she said. Last year, Oracle raised $18 billion in debt to help fund its massive datacenter investments. Big Red's market value jumped after it declared $455 billion remaining performance obligations (RPOs) – contracted revenue not yet recognized – more than 300 percent higher than a year earlier. That figure reportedly includes $300 billion for OpenAI alone, as the LLM slinger tries to support its expansion with compute capacity. Maxson said on an earnings call this week: "In order to unlock this unique growth opportunity, we started a program of capital investments. We'll continue those investments in our fiscal year 2027, with an expected net cash outlay for capital expenditures of around $70 billion. This includes customer prepayments and timing impacts expected at around $20 billion-$25 billion, so our reported capex will be higher by this amount." CEO Clay Magouyrk said any increase in capex was not due to component prices but largely due to timing. "Part of my job is to figure out ways to actually accelerate capex. My job is to try to spend the money a little bit faster so I can get ramped revenue sometimes. Component prices in general… I think everyone knows that memory prices have definitely gone up, SSD prices, hard drive prices, etc." However, Magouyrk said Oracle had also been able to lock prices "across the spectrum, whether it be space and power costs, energy costs, people costs, component costs." Oracle added around 400 MW of capacity in Q4 – similar to the last two quarters – and expects to add nearly 1 GW of capacity in fiscal Q1 2027. One analyst told Reuters there is real demand for cloud infrastructure, but the question over how Oracle funds its datacenter expansion "is getting harder, not easier, with capex coming in well above estimates and free cash flow still negative." Oracle announced a number of new customers with its latest financial figures, including a deal for a Fusion HCM system with the US Office of Personnel Management. ®
London's Metropolitan Police and Apple have agreed to share stolen device identifiers, building intelligence they hope will curb the capital's phone theft epidemic. These identifiers will help both organizations track which stolen devices reconnect to mobile networks, giving law enforcement better insight into where the criminal networks behind the thefts operate. The Met has access to stolen device information, such as serial numbers, provided by victims. Apple has access to data indicating when a device has been reactivated and where it's being used. Together, the two organizations believe this combined intelligence will help stamp down on the thefts that have ravaged London's streets for years, earning the city the unofficial title of "phone theft capital of Europe." "If stolen phones cannot be reactivated, their value collapses, and so does the incentive to steal them," said Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. "We are driving up the risk for offenders while cutting off the reward. "Policing is playing its part. In the West End, where this crime was most concentrated, phone theft has fallen by 50 percent through relentless, targeted policing. But we have also gone further by working directly with Apple to address the global market that has allowed this crime to thrive. "This is an important step, but it must not stop here. If you are stealing phones in London, the reality is changing fast. The opportunities are shrinking, the risks are rising, and we are determined to dismantle this criminal model completely." The intelligence-sharing pact follows months of pressure on both the Met and tech companies to take action. Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in December, asking why companies like Apple had not implemented cloud-based blocking or IMEI-linked device locks. Apple launched Stolen Device Protection in January 2024 and has since expanded default-on protections with the iOS 26.4 update, but there has long been a feeling that not enough was being done to tackle London's phone thefts. Rowley reiterated the ultimatum he issued to tech companies in March, demanding that they implement methods of reducing the value of stolen devices, or the UK will push through legislation. The collaboration with Apple is an extension of that, and the Met said Samsung and Google are also making security changes. Google uses several mitigations, including the need for authentication after a factory reset in order to return devices to working order, and an AI-powered feature that detects when devices are snatched and automatically locks the screen. A spokesperson at Google told The Register: "Android's theft protection features provide added security for billions of people, including Londoners. We have expanded default-on protections for UK devices, such as Remote Lock and Theft Detection, and we assist law enforcement with device recovery. Phone theft causes real distress and harm, and we work closely with the Met to protect all those who use our devices." Samsung said last year that it was working with the Home Office to deploy similar measures to tackle phone thefts. It implemented theft-detection tech similar to Google's that locks the screen when the device registers a possible snatching-related movement. It also requires biometric authentication to make security changes when devices are in unfamiliar locations, among other features. Not enough In spite of these actions, the Met announced today that it has asked the Home Office to start drafting anti-phone-theft legislation. "The Met has asked the Home Office to begin preparing legislation to introduce minimum technical standards so that any phone stolen in the UK is effectively unusable," it said. "These standards are complex, but we must be ready to act if industry fails to deliver. "Public support for stronger measures is clear, with 83 per cent of people backing the permanent blocking of stolen smartphones." It added: "While enforcement activity will continue, the Met is clear that the long-term solution lies in collapsing the criminal market." The Register has asked Apple to comment. A Samsung spokesperson said: "Samsung is fully committed to protecting customers with the very latest anti-theft feature technology. We recognise how distressing phone theft can be and have worked at pace to make a significant amount of security enhancements to help address this issue. "We would also like to reiterate that we have completed several requests from both the Home Office and the Met Police to demonstrate how seriously we take phone theft crime." The spokesperson added: "We believe this issue is a collective responsibility and we will continue to work with key stakeholders to help tackle phone-theft crime." The Met said it has almost halved rates of phone thefts in Westminster, with officers making hundreds of arrests and seizing thousands of devices. Thefts are down 45.8 percent, according to data gathered between January and May, although the picture across the wider city is a little less optimistic. The number of theft and robbery offenses in which a mobile phone was stolen has fallen by 14,000 in the last 12 months, representing an 18 percent decrease from the previous year. So far in 2026, overall offenses are down 20.6 percent compared to the same period in 2025. These arrests and seizures were secured through focused periods of enforcement action, namely through Operation Reckoning sprints, the fifth instalment of which concluded on Wednesday. The ten-day operational crackdown on phone thefts across London began on June 1 and resulted in the arrest of "prolific and violent phone thieves," the execution of search warrants at shops suspected of handling stolen devices, and the deployment of pursuit drivers to detain thieves on e-bikes. One visit to a single shop in April saw officers seize more than 1,000 suspected stolen phones and arrest four men between the ages of 22 and 63 on suspicion of handling stolen goods, as well as drug possession with intent to supply. Operation Reckoning is just one initiative targeting phone theft. The Met said last year that in September it dismantled a phone-robbing gang thought to be responsible for roughly half of all phone thefts in London – part of Operation Echosteep. ®
For thirty years, vulnerability management ran on a buffer: the months between when a vulnerability was found and when someone could figure out how to weaponize it. The solution was straightforward enough; triage by severity, schedule the fix, validate, and move on. The buffer was what made that work.
Today, that buffer is gone.
AI didn't make your team slower. It changed the other side of the
Rilevata una vulnerabilità con gravità “alta” in GIMP, noto software open-source di ritocco immagini e foto. Tale vulnerabilità risiede nella libreria GEGL e potrebbe consentire a utenti malintenzionati di eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati tramite file opportunamente predisposti.
Rilevate 8 nuove vulnerabilità, di cui 3 con gravità “alta”, in diversi componenti di Erlang/OTP, piattaforma open source basata sul linguaggio Erlang e sul relativo set di librerie OTP, utilizzata per lo sviluppo di sistemi distribuiti ad alta disponibilità.
Great Marlow School in Buckinghamshire, England, has entered its second day of a shutdown following "a suspected malware incident." Only students sitting their GCSE and A-level exams – those in Years 11 and 13 – were permitted to attend on Wednesday, in line with their exam timetable, and the same goes for Thursday. Students in other years (Years 6-10 and Year 12) were told to stay at home and access what revision materials they can via Microsoft Teams as teachers are currently unable to set them any work. Those scheduled to take internal mock exams, students in Years 10 and 12, will sit them later in the year. Some extracurricular activities, such as Year 7's learn-to-row session, have been rearranged, although the 7 and 8 athletics event will go ahead on Thursday as planned. Great Marlow School's statement suggests it remains in the containment stage of its recovery, with limited access to systems. "As a precautionary measure, we have restricted access to elements of our network while we investigate the issue thoroughly and take the necessary steps to ensure the security and integrity of our systems and data," headteacher Guy Pendlebury said in a statement on the school's website on Tuesday evening. "We are responding in line with guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Immediate action has been taken to contain the incident, and we are working closely with specialist IT and cybersecurity professionals to fully assess the situation and restore normal operations as quickly and safely as possible. Appropriate reporting procedures have also been followed." The school did not comment on whether the attack involved ransomware or if any of its data was presumed compromised. It adds to a grim week for cybersecurity in the education sector. A high school in Illinois also closed for two days this week due to a ransomware attack, but reopened on Wednesday, although its phone lines are still down. And Nottingham Uni confirmed it was the victim of Shiny Hunters. In Wales, 13 schools across the Powys region were affected by a cyberattack that is thought to have led to data theft from only one of these institutions. Powys council disclosed the attack on June 4, saying it was originally identified in April, and sensitive data belonging to students and school staff is suspected of being compromised. None of the 13 schools have closed, however. ®
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) is looking for a new chief executive to take charge of the state-backed savings institution as it attempts to steer a troubled £3 billion digital transformation program back on course. The government-owned bank has launched a search for a permanent successor to former chief executive Dax Harkins, who left earlier this year amid a scandal involving hundreds of millions of pounds in unclaimed funds owed to the estates of deceased customers. Whoever takes the job will get a salary of up to £220,000, a troubled digital transformation program, and what could be described as a challenging in-tray. While the recruitment notice highlights NS&I's 164-year history and its 24 million customers, it also acknowledges that the organization is wrestling with problems that extend well beyond attracting deposits. "Whilst NS&I is successfully meeting its targets for savings and funding for the Government, and service levels to most customers, it is undergoing a major transformation programme and has experienced significant operational failings recently," the job ad states. The successful candidate will take responsibility for Project Rainbow, NS&I's long-running modernization effort that Parliament's Public Accounts Committee tore into earlier this year. In February, MPs branded the program a "full-spectrum disaster" after costs ballooned from an original estimate of around £1.7 billion to approximately £3 billion. The committee concluded that NS&I lacked the capability to deliver the overhaul, had spent £43 million on consultants, and still did not have a credible integrated plan despite five years of work. MPs also questioned how a program originally expected to cost around £1.7 billion had risen to £3 billion while key elements remained unfinished. The new boss will be expected to turn that around. The advert promises "end-to-end accountability for transformation and performance of the organisation," handing the next chief exec responsibility for delivering a program that has already attracted intense scrutiny from Parliament. NS&I is also placing unusual emphasis on crisis management. Candidates are expected to demonstrate experience delivering "a major change/transformation programme within consumer facing industries, at scale," alongside a track record of managing operational issues, reputation management, and recovery. The advert goes further, stating it is "crucial that a highly capable, credible CEO is appointed to lead the organisation through these challenges and re-establish NS&I's reputation and standing as a trusted, efficient and effective national institution." Whoever lands the job will be tasked with proving that one of the government's most heavily criticized IT overhauls can still be rescued before Parliament decides the next chapter of Project Rainbow deserves an equally colorful nickname. ®
The University of Nottingham has confirmed a cyberattack on its student record system after the ShinyHunters crew claimed to have stolen tens of gigabytes of data from the Russell Group institution. "The University of Nottingham has been the victim of a cyber incident and a significant amount of data in our student record system has been accessed by a well-known cybercriminal group," a spokesperson told The Register. "We are working with the third party that maintains the platform to lead a forensic investigation. We understand that those affected will have concerns about what this means for their personal data and we will be offering advice and support to our students as we learn more. "We take the privacy and security of data that we hold seriously, and we have reported this incident to Action Fraud and the Information Commissioner's Office. The university will continue to provide them with further information as our investigation progresses." ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday, saying they had stolen around 40 GB of the institution's data. It reckons this included billing and payment records, credit card and payment details, student finance data, and "campus portal exports." The criminal crew further claimed that the University of Nottingham's Malaysia and China campuses were also compromised. On Wednesday evening, breach notification service Have I Been Pwned added the 10 GB dataset leaked by ShinyHunters to its database, saying around 454,600 university-related email addresses were included. "Tens of gigabytes of data were subsequently published online and included 455k unique email addresses along with extensive personal information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, ethnicities, disabilities, passport numbers, and information relating to academic enrolments and fee payments," HIBP stated. Around the same time, the university acknowledged the attack publicly, saying it affected both current students and alumni. Individuals believed to be affected have been contacted directly, and the university has stood up a dedicated support line. The attack could hardly have come at a worse time for Nottingham, which is embroiled in a dispute with staff after confirming hundreds of redundancies over the next three years. University employees, including teaching staff, have revolted, protesting against the decision by refusing to mark students' assessments. The University and College Union (UCU) entered a period of industrial action on June 1, saying it would not end until July 31. This includes a two-month strike and a boycott of marking duties, similar to action taken by staff in 2022 and 2023. Students have just finished sitting their end-of-year exams, but potentially face having their degree classification decided by predictions based on prior grades, per the university's contingency plans, if staff continue to refuse to carry out marking duties. Alternatively, students can wait to receive their final results, but these will come later than their peers' – not just at Nottingham but at other UK universities – and leave them at a time disadvantage when applying for graduate schemes and entry-level jobs. UK education battered The attack on the University of Nottingham comes amid a spate of other incidents affecting UK schools. Powys council confirmed on June 4 that a cyberattack was affecting 13 schools in the Welsh county, and that data had been stolen from at least one of them. Additionally, Great Marlow School in Buckinghamshire entered its second day of a shutdown today after a "suspected malware attack" on the school forced it into a containment phase. Most students, other than those attending to take their GCSE and A-level exams, have been told to stay home, with teachers unable to set remote work. Students should access what revision materials they can via the school's Microsoft Teams network. ®
The Vietnam-aligned threat actor known as OceanLotus has been attributed to two distinct campaigns that targeted domestic entities and stock investors with a backdoor known as SPECTRALVIPER.
The campaigns involve a prolonged cyber espionage operation aimed at a Vietnamese infrastructure and transport construction corporation between mid-2024 and February 2026, as well as a supply chain attack
Hello ! depuis la dernière mise à jour je n’arrive plus à sélectionner dans mon framagenda des heures qui finissent en “5” comme 9h45 (je peux sélectionner 9h40 ou 9h50 mais pas 9h45). Je suis embêté car j’utilise mon agenda pour le boulot et j’ai des patients à 9h45 et 15h15 par exemple, je ne peux désormais plus sélectionner ces horaires
Rilevate molteplici nuove vulnerabilità in prodotti Palo Alto Networks, di cui una con gravità “critica” nei prodotti Cortex XSOAR e Cortex XSIAM. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire a un utente malintenzionato non autenticato di eludere i meccanismi di autenticazione e alterare dati sui sistemi interessati.
Immagine in evidenza rielaborata con Intelligenza Artificiale
I data center divorano l’1,5% dell’elettricità mondiale. Per la precisione: 415 terawattora nel 2024. L’equivalente di quasi l’intero consumo annuo di energia elettrica di una nazione come la Francia. Ma è una quota destinata a più che raddoppiare entro il 2030, spinta soprattutto dall’intelligenza artificiale generativa, che l’Agenzia Internazionale dell’Energia identifica come “il fattore più importante” di questa crescita.
Le reti elettriche globali sono già sotto pressione, ma la costruzione di nuove linee di trasmissione richiede dai quattro agli otto anni nei paesi più avanzati. Nel frattempo, la domanda di calcolo aumenta così velocemente che nessuna infrastruttura terrestre riesce a stare al passo.
È in questo contesto che governi e aziende tecnologiche hanno cominciato a guardare allo spazio. Del resto, lo spazio offre energia solare continua senza competere con le reti terrestri, la possibilità di sfruttare il raffreddamento passivo nel vuoto senza consumare acqua e di elaborare i dati direttamente a bordo dei satelliti che li raccolgono, senza doverli trasmettere integralmente a Terra. Quello che sembrava fantascienza è diventato, nel giro di pochi anni, un programma industriale con date, contratti e lanci già effettuati.
A maggio 2025, la Cina ha lanciato i primi satelliti di una costellazione per l’elaborazione dei dati direttamente nello spazio. Nella stessa direzione si stanno muovendo anche gli Stati Uniti. Le due grandi potenze hanno avviato programmi concreti, ancora in parte sperimentali, per portare calcolo e archiviazione oltre il cielo. Si tratta, però, di un salto tecnologico con una conseguenza politica: in futuro, i dati più strategici di governi, eserciti e grandi aziende potrebbero non trovarsi più in nessuna nazione.
I progetti a stelle e strisce
I satelliti producono quantità enormi di dati, spesso troppo grandi per essere inviati interamente sulla Terra in tempo reale. Processarli in orbita riduce la latenza e la dipendenza dalle stazioni terrestri. Hewlett Packard Enterprise ha dimostrato la fattibilità di questo approccio con il programma Spaceborne Computer. La multinazionale statunitense, leader nelle soluzioni tecnologiche edge-to-cloud (in cui l’elaborazione dei dati avviene in parte sul dispositivo remoto e in parte sui server centrali), ha installato server commerciali standard sulla Stazione Spaziale Internazionale (ISS) nel 2017, 2021 e 2024. Questo ha permesso di ridurre fino al 90% il volume dei dati da trasmettere a Terra.
In un’intervista a Via Satellite (novembre 2025), Clint Crosier, già responsabile della pianificazione della U.S. Space Force e oggi direttore Aerospace & Satellite Solutions di AWS, ha illustrato i risultati pratici. In un test con la startup italiana D-Orbit, elaborare i dati direttamente a bordo del satellite ha permesso di trasmettere a Terra solo le immagini realmente utili: il satellite ha continuato a soddisfare tutti i requisiti della missione usando il 42% in meno di banda. Liberando quella banda, lo stesso satellite può inviare quasi il doppio dei dati utili senza alcuna modifica all’hardware. Il vantaggio per le applicazioni militari è evidente (non a caso, il Department of Defense Space Strategy statunitense identifica lo spazio come dominio operativo a tutti gli effetti).
Gli Stati Uniti stanno inoltre sviluppando la Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) della Space Development Agency (SDA): una costellazione di centinaia di piccoli satelliti in orbita bassa interconnessi otticamente. Una flotta progettata per garantire comunicazioni resilienti e rilevamento missilistico anche in caso di attacchi a infrastrutture terrestri. A dicembre 2025, la SDA ha assegnato contratti per circa 3,5 miliardi di dollari per la costruzione di altri 72 satelliti di tracciamento missilistico. La logica strategica è chiara: in uno scenario di conflitto, gli impianti e le installazioni a terra sono tra i primi obiettivi a essere colpiti. Una capacità di calcolo dislocata nello spazio, interconnessa otticamente e ridondante offre invece maggiore sicurezza e una continuità operativa difficilmente replicabile sulla Terra.
La Cina accelera: la Three-Body Computing Constellation
Dagli Stati Uniti alla Cina. Come già accennato, il 14 maggio 2025 la Repubblica Popolare ha lanciato i primi 12 satelliti della Three-Body Computing Constellation, sviluppata dall’istituto di ricerca Zhejiang Lab e dall’azienda ADA Space di Chengdu. Ogni satellite offre 744 TOPS (tera-operazioni al secondo) e l’intera rete è progettata per espandersi fino a 2.800 satelliti, con una potenza computazionale complessiva di 1.000 peta-operazioni al secondo, paragonabile per ordine di grandezza ai supercomputer terrestri più potenti. I satelliti sono collegati da link laser inter-satellite (un collegamento che usa fasci di luce laser per trasmettere dati direttamente da un satellite all’altro), alimentati da pannelli solari e raffreddati passivamente dal vuoto, eliminando i costosi sistemi di raffreddamento a liquido dei data center terrestri.
Secondo un piano quinquennale citato dall’emittente televisiva cinese CCTV e ripreso dalla Reuters lo scorso 29 gennaio, la CASC (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation) ha annunciato la costruzione di un’infrastruttura digitale spaziale da un gigawatt di potenza, identificata come pilastro del 15° Piano Quinquennale cinese, integrando capacità cloud, edge computing e terminali per elaborare dati direttamente in orbita.
Il ruolo delle aziende private
C’è però da osservare che la corsa ai data center orbitali non è più una prerogativa dei governi. A novembre 2025, Starcloud ha lanciato il primo satellite equipaggiato con una GPU NVIDIA H100, realizzando la prima dimostrazione di addestramento AI direttamente in orbita. L’11 gennaio 2026, con la missione Twilight di SpaceX, sono arrivati in orbita i primi due nodi del data center orbitale della statunitense Axiom Space, sviluppati in collaborazione con la canadese Kepler Communications e collegati tramite link ottici da 2,5 Gbps.
Google, con il progetto Suncatcher, punta invece a una costellazione di satelliti dotati di TPU (i processori per l’intelligenza artificiale progettati da Google) alimentati da energia solare, con un primo test, in collaborazione con la società di San Francisco Planet Labs, previsto per il 2027. Secondo indiscrezioni, SpaceX starebbe preparando una generazione aggiornata dei satelliti della sua costellazione Starlink capace di ospitare carichi di calcolo, con link ottici inter-satellite a banda ultralarga.
A rendere economicamente plausibili delle infrastrutture permanenti in orbita è anche la riduzione dei costi di lancio, che – secondo uno studio della NASA – sono passati da circa 54mila dollari al chilogrammo con lo Space Shuttle a 2.700 dollari con il razzo riutilizzabile Falcon 9 della società spaziale di Elon Musk: una riduzione di venti volte in due decenni. Tuttavia, la gestione privata di sistemi potenzialmente critici introduce domande (per ora) senza risposta: a cominciare da chi sia responsabile in caso di violazione dei dati su un satellite commerciale.
Dal canto suo, l’Europa non dispone di un programma comparabile per il cloud orbitale. Il progetto IRIS² – 290 satelliti per comunicazioni sicure, contratto da 10,5 miliardi firmato nel dicembre 2024 con il consorzio SpaceRISE – non include infrastrutture di calcolo orbitale autonome. Sul fronte della ricerca, il progetto europeo ASCEND ha completato nel 2024 uno studio che conferma la fattibilità tecnica dei data center orbitali e si pone l’obiettivo di dispiegare 1 GW entro il 2050. ASCEND è guidato da Thales Alenia Space, joint venture tra Thales e Leonardo: la partecipazione dell’azienda italiana è il contributo più diretto del nostro paese a questo scenario.
C’è poi da notare che D-Orbit, startup comasca già protagonista del test AWS, è tra le realtà italiane più avanzate sul tema dell’elaborazione dati in orbita e ha sottoscritto contratti con l’ESA (l’Agenzia spaziale europea) nell’ambito della costellazione di osservazione IRIDE, finanziata con fondi PNRR. Ma l’Italia non ha un programma nazionale dedicato al cloud orbitale. Il rischio è quello già visto in altri ambiti digitali: competenze industriali elevate senza controllo sull’infrastruttura finale.
Vulnerabilità e limiti
Il 24 febbraio 2022, all’ora esatta dell’invasione russa dell’Ucraina, un attacco informatico ha colpito la rete KA-SAT di Viasat (il gigante californiano delle telecomunicazioni satellitari), disabilitando decine di migliaia di modem satellitari in Ucraina e in Europa. Il malware usato – un wiper chiamato AcidRain – non ha violato nessun satellite in orbita, sfruttando invece una vulnerabilità VPN in server di gestione della rete fisicamente localizzati nel nord Italia, propagandosi fino a disabilitare 5.800 turbine eoliche in Germania. A maggio 2022, Stati Uniti, Unione Europea, Regno Unito e una dozzina di governi europei – inclusa l’Italia – hanno attribuito pubblicamente l’attacco al GRU, l’intelligence militare russa.
Il caso Viasat contiene una lezione che vale doppio per i data center orbitali: il punto più vulnerabile di un’infrastruttura spaziale non è il satellite. È tutto ciò che lo gestisce da Terra: stazioni di controllo, reti di uplink, sistemi di autenticazione, catena di fornitura dell’hardware. A questo si aggiunge un problema strutturale specifico dello spazio: il patching. Un data center terrestre può infatti ricevere una patch di sicurezza in pochi minuti. Un satellite in orbita bassa ha finestre di comunicazione limitate, banda ristretta e nessuna possibilità di intervento fisico. Se un sistema orbitale venisse compromesso, la risposta sarebbe strutturalmente più lenta e, in alcuni scenari, impossibile senza un nuovo lancio.
Jamming e spoofing GPS sono già operativi in zona di conflitto e documentati sistematicamente dall’Agenzia europea per la sicurezza aerea (EASA) nel Mar Nero, in Medio Oriente e nel Baltico: dimostrano che l’interferenza deliberata sulle infrastrutture spaziali è una realtà, non un’ipotesi. Un attacco a un sistema orbitale porterebbe le stesse complessità a un livello superiore: chi ha giurisdizione, chi può intervenire, con quali strumenti e in quale tempo utile.
Il vuoto normativo
L’Outer Space Treaty del 1967 attribuisce allo Stato di lancio la giurisdizione e il controllo sugli oggetti spaziali, indipendentemente da dove operino. Ma questo trattato non contempla infrastrutture digitali, non regola la proprietà dei dati in orbita, non prevede meccanismi di applicazione in caso di violazione informatica.
A quasi sessant’anni dalla firma, non esiste nessun trattato internazionale che disciplini specificamente la protezione dei dati nello spazio. Nel 2019, dopo otto anni di negoziato, l’UN COPUOS (la Commissione delle Nazioni Unite sull’uso pacifico dello spazio extra-atmosferico) ha adottato 21 linee guida per la sostenibilità a lungo termine delle attività spaziali: volontarie, non vincolanti e relative a detriti, sicurezza operativa e traffico orbitale. La protezione dei dati non è contemplata.
Il primo segnale che la questione stia diventando urgente sul piano normativo è arrivato a gennaio di quest’anno: SpaceX ha depositato all’americana FCC (Federal Communications Commission) una richiesta per lanciare fino a un milione di satelliti definiti esplicitamente “orbital data centers”. Questo è il primo iter normativo al mondo che affronta direttamente il tema, ma riguarda una sola nazione e non tocca le questioni di giurisdizione sui dati.
Payal Arora, professoressa di AI inclusiva all’Università di Utrecht (Olanda), ha sintetizzato il problema in un’analisi pubblicata da Rest of World nel febbraio 2026: se i dati dei cittadini sono elaborati in orbita, la sovranità digitale “diventa ambigua”, sospesa tra il Paese d’origine, lo Stato di lancio e l’operatore commerciale del satellite. Nessuno dei meccanismi esistenti – né il diritto spaziale internazionale, né il diritto cyber nazionale, né i trattati di mutua assistenza giudiziaria – è stato progettato per rispondere a questi aspetti.
Per decenni il potere digitale è stato ancorato a piattaforme fisiche entro confini nazionali. Anche i cavi sottomarini, che trasportano oltre il 95% del traffico internet globale, hanno una giurisdizione di riferimento, con trattati, procedure e responsabilità definite. Il cloud orbitale rompe questo sistema. I dati possono essere archiviati ed elaborati in luoghi che nessuna autorità nazionale può raggiungere, né fisicamente né giuridicamente. In sostanza, per la prima volta, la localizzazione dei dati smette di coincidere con il territorio.
Come spiega Jane Munga, ricercatrice per l’Africa al Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, la sovranità tende a seguire la proprietà dell’infrastruttura: chi non partecipa al suo possesso e alla sua governance rischia di essere relegato a produttore di dati senza alcuna capacità reale di controllo su come siano archiviati, elaborati o usati. Un’incognita che sconfina dal campo dell’innovazione tecnologica. Quello in corso è un passaggio epocale le cui conseguenze sono ancora da scrivere. Il rischio è che si erigano infrastrutture informatiche cruciali per nazioni, imprese e cittadini che superino la sovranità digitale degli Stati. Senza che ci siano le regole per governarle.
Rep. Norma Torres holds a printout of ProPublica’s reporting on the special treatment given to Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president who was pardoned of a drug conviction. Screenshot via House Appropriations Committee/YouTube
A federal lawmaker is pushing for a provision that would bar the Federal Bureau of Prisons from offering taxpayer-funded VIP perks to pardoned drug lords and child traffickers.
Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat, introduced the measure last month as an amendment to a House appropriations bill, telling her colleagues that there “should never be preferential treatment for narco leaders.”
But after President Donald Trump pardoned him in December, the Central American strongman — who has long maintained his innocence — got what Torres and others have described as the “red carpet” treatment. On the day of his release, ProPublica found, Hernández had in place what’s known as an immigration detainer, a formal request for law enforcement agencies to hold noncitizens for pickup by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet instead of holding him, the Federal Bureau of Prisons scrambled to get the detainer removed so he could walk free. Then, instead of giving him a bus ticket or airfare to get home on his own, prison officials paid a four-man tactical team overtime to drive him six hours from a West Virginia high-security facility to the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, New York, according to records and three people familiar with the situation.
Torres sought to stop that sort of treatment with a narrowly tailored amendment barring the bureau and several other agencies from using taxpayer dollars to give convicted drug traffickers and child traffickers — even those who have been pardoned or received a sentence commutation — special accommodations or transportation, as well as from lifting “any detainers not provided to other inmates.”
Last month, the amendment hit an early stumbling block when the House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines against including it in its proposed 2027 spending bill.
“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to give convicted criminals special accommodations, lifted legal holds, or government-funded transportation,” Torres said in a press release afterward. “We should be enforcing the law, not handing out favors. I’m shocked that my Republican colleagues didn’t agree with that common sense idea.”
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the proposal is dead. Last week in a statement to ProPublica, Torres — a Guatemalan immigrant who last year criticized the decision to pardon Hernández — said she planned to raise the issue before the Rules Committee, which can decide whether previously rejected amendments still get a vote on the House floor.
“I am not giving up,” she said, adding: “The American people deserve a government that enforces the law fairly and holds powerful criminals accountable, regardless of who pardons them.”
A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment on the measure out of respect for members of Congress. Previously, a spokesperson said that the bureau does not discuss conditions of confinement or security procedures and that employee standards of conduct prohibit staff from giving any prisoners preferential treatment. ICE had previously referred questions to the White House, which this week did not respond to a request for comment.
Long before his arrest and controversial release, Hernández had been a polarizing figure, plagued by allegations of corruption in his country. Still, he was seen as a key U.S. ally under the Obama and first Trump administrations, in part because of his apparent interest in tackling drug trafficking and migration issues.
But in 2018, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration arrested his younger brother, former Honduran congressman Tony Hernández, for weapons and drug trafficking charges. The following year, a jury found Tony Hernández guilty in a Manhattan federal trial.
And weeks after the elder Hernández left office in 2022, he was arrested in Honduras and extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Prosecutors said Juan Orlando Hernández funded his political career with money he got from “violent drug-trafficking organizations” in exchange for allowing them to “move mountains of cocaine” out of the country. At one point, they said during trial, he bragged that he would “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”
After a federal jury voted to convict him in early 2024, Hernández was sent to a notorious high-security penitentiary in West Virginia to serve his time. Last year, he appealed to Trump’s sympathies, penning a four-page letter framing his case as a “political persecution” by the Biden administration.
In November — two days before the Honduran presidential election that swept Hernández’s right-wing National Party back into power — Trump announced his intent to pardon his former Central American counterpart. Experts said the timing sent an obvious message on the eve of a tight race; as one former high-ranking U.S. diplomat previously told ProPublica, the pardon was a show of support that served as a “clear green light for the National Party to manipulate the vote.”
On Dec. 1, Trump formally granted Hernández the full pardon, and by the end of the day he was on his way to the swank, five-star hotel in New York City, ProPublica reported. Days later, Renato Stabile, Hernández’s court-appointed lawyer, filed a motion to vacate the judgment and dismiss the indictment in light of the presidential pardon. When prosecutors didn’t file a response opposing it, a federal court agreed to Stabile’s request.
Previously, Stabile told ProPublica his client’s treatment during the release process was appropriate, as Hernández could have been arrested or killed had he been deported to his home country. He also declined to comment on where Hernández stayed but said the government did not pay the bill. Hernández had declined to comment through his attorney.
At the time, Joe Rojas, a retired prison worker and former union leader, said that BOP staff were “disgusted” after the agency “rolled out the red carpet” for Hernández.
Last month, when the amendment came up for debate in front of the 63-member House Appropriations Committee, Torres held up a printed copy of ProPublica’s investigation as she told her colleagues about the special treatment Hernández received and about how the prisons agency had used “our hard-earned taxpayer dollars” to pay for his transport to New York.
“These actions can never be allowed to happen ever again,” she said.
Two other lawmakers spoke in support of the measure. One, Rep. Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, opposed it, calling the amendment “performative and unnecessary.” He did not explain his reasoning to the committee, and his office did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Ultimately, 31 Republicans opposed the amendment and 27 Democrats supported it. None of the Republican members who voted against the amendment responded to requests for comment from ProPublica.
Though Torres plans to raise the issue again this summer in front of the Rules Committee, the 9-4 Republican majority there makes it unlikely the measure will garner enough support to move forward right now.
But if the House fails to agree on spending bills before the end of this Congress, the November elections could change the balance of power and give the Democrats more say in what amendments make it to the floor next year.
The UK Treasury will not say whether it will join the government's £1.7 billion finance and HR transformation strategy until December despite funding the program for five years. Savings from the so-called Matrix cluster of the shared service strategy are contingent on a bunch of departments – including His Majesty's Treasury (HMT) – adopting cloud-based finance and HR software from Workday. To do so, HMT would have to migrate from its customized version of Oracle Fusion. In a letter to a parliamentary spending watchdog, Jerome Glass, director general for the Future Civil Service at the Cabinet Office, said that following delays to the cluster's rollout of the new software, HMT's decision on whether to join had been put back. The Matrix cluster is led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), and includes the Cabinet Office (CO), Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Department for Business and Trade (DBT), Attorney General's Office (AGO), Department for Education (DfE), Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), as well as HMT. In 2024, the Matrix cluster awarded Workday a contract for SaaS finance and HR software and Cognizant a system integration deal with a combined value of £144.3 million. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told the departments to join their allocated shared service clusters. According to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO), published earlier this year, the Cabinet Office said it does not consider departments' joining shared services to be optional, and "departments cannot make the decision to move or leave a cluster without assessing value for money across government, nor the impact on the business case." Nonetheless, having agreed to fund the program with £1.15 billion since 2021, the Treasury is still making up its mind two years after the Workday contract was signed. In his letter to the Public Accounts Committee, Glass said HMT's accounting officers "must be satisfied that the proposal meets the standards set out in Managing Public Money," a government guide for financial management, "including delivering value for money for the Exchequer as a whole." He said HMT was working jointly with the Matrix program to "develop this evidence base." The plan was that departments in the cluster already using cloud-based systems (DfE and HMT) would not join until after the other departments. "HMT's onboarding has therefore always been planned on a longer timetable. Delays in the Matrix programme have had a knock-on impact on HMT receiving key documents and evidence, subsequently pushing back HMT's formal Accounting Officer sign-off decision," the letter said. The NAO has previously reported that aspects of the shared service program will see their go-live delayed from 2028 to 2029. Glass said HMT expected to receive the majority of the documentation "required to assess feasibility and the cost of service by the end of summer 2026." Provided there are no further delays, DfE and HMT should be able to make an "evidence-based decision" by December, he said. In an update earlier this year, the NAO said HMT and DfE had invested significantly in existing finance, HR, and commercial systems based on modern ERP platforms that are "highly configured to accommodate their requirements." Joining the Matrix shared service would "mean loss of some functionality as they seek to converge on data and processes and will have to bear an 'unnecessary cost' to develop their new processes," it said. The spending watchdog also pointed out that the Matrix cluster's business case includes the participation of both DfE and HMT in its financial assumptions. A "sensitivity analysis" revealed a reduction in the program's expected benefits from £185 million to £109 million if the two departments did not join. HMT disputed the calculations, the NAO said. HMT has provided funding for the whole shared service program for the spending review period up to and including the 2028-29 financial year. There are five clusters to the program, including Matrix, covering all Whitehall departments and arm's-length bodies, which have signed contracts totaling around £1.7 billion, some extending beyond the spending review period. Glass's letter said the clusters forecast that benefits from the Shared Services for Government Strategy would reach £4.37 billion over 15 years, broken down into £1.4 billion cashable benefits and £2.98 billion of non-cashable benefits. If the forecasts prove correct, it would be a good deal for the UK taxpayer. Some of the savings, though, will depend on HMT's willingness to join a program it agreed to fund. ®
Rilasciati aggiornamenti di sicurezza che risolvono 12 vulnerabilità, di cui 4 con gravità “alta”, in GitLab Community Edition (CE) ed Enterprise Edition (EE).
Rilevata una nuova vulnerabilità con gravità “critica” nel prodotto Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools, piattaforma utilizzata per lo sviluppo e l’esecuzione delle applicazioni PeopleSoft. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato remoto di eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati.
Per accedere alle build di anteprima di Windows non è più obbligatorio utilizzare un Windows 11 Insider account collegato a Microsoft. Se per anni questa è stata una regola ferrea, oggi le cose sono cambiate.
Esiste infatti un metodo efficace per testare le novità del sistema operativo in anteprima, tutelando la propria privacy e mantenendo il pieno controllo del dispositivo. In questa guida ti mostreremo come fare, passo dopo passo.
Perché l'account Microsoft non è (davvero) obbligatorio?
Molti credono che il programma Insider si basi su una complessa infrastruttura cloud per verificare l'identità del PC. In realtà, il meccanismo è molto più semplice. Il funzionamento di Windows Update dipende da parametri impostati a livello locale. Una volta configurato, il sistema si "autodichiara" parte di un canale Insider e richiede gli aggiornamenti specifici, senza che le verifiche online siano così stringenti. È proprio sfruttando questo principio che la soluzione che stiamo per analizzare riesce ad aggirare l'obbligo dell'account.
OfflineInsiderEnroll: la soluzione a portata di script
La chiave per sbloccare l'accesso alle build di anteprima si chiama OfflineInsiderEnroll. Si tratta di un semplice ma potente script disponibile su GitHub che automatizza le modifiche necessarie al registro di sistema. È uno strumento pulito: non installa driver, servizi permanenti o componenti che restano attivi in memoria. Esegue il suo compito e nient'altro.
Come funziona nel dettaglio?
Il cuore del meccanismo risiede in un valore del registro di sistema chiamato TestFlags. Impostando questo valore su un codice specifico (0x20), lo script comunica a Windows di interrompere le verifiche con i server Microsoft per la validazione dell'iscrizione.
Di conseguenza, le impostazioni locali prendono il sopravvento e Windows Update distribuisce le build sperimentali senza ulteriori controlli. Per rendere l'operazione credibile, lo script imposta anche altre chiavi fondamentali, come BranchName e RingId, simulando in tutto e per tutto un'iscrizione legittima a uno dei canali Insider.
Non solo un windows 11 insider account: i vantaggi nascosti
Uno degli aspetti più interessanti di questo strumento è la sua capacità di andare oltre la semplice iscrizione. Analizzando il codice, si scopre che lo script imposta in automatico anche le chiavi di registro per bypassare i famosi controlli hardware di Windows 11. Questo significa che potrai ricevere le build Insider anche su computer che non soddisfano pienamente i requisiti ufficiali, come la presenza del chip TPM 2.0 o di una CPU recente, garantendo una flessibilità notevole.
Guida pratica: come usare lo script passo-passo
L'utilizzo dello script è incredibilmente intuitivo e non richiede competenze tecniche avanzate. Segui questi semplici passaggi: Scarica l'ultima versione di OfflineInsiderEnroll dalla pagina ufficiale su GitHub. Fai clic con il tasto destro sul file .cmd scaricato e seleziona "Esegui come amministratore".
Si aprirà una finestra del prompt dei comandi con l'elenco dei canali Insider disponibili (Canary, Dev, Beta, Release Preview). Digita il numero corrispondente al canale desiderato e premi Invio. A questo punto, lo script applicherà le modifiche e ti chiederà di riavviare il computer. Al riavvio, vai su Impostazioni > Windows Update: troverai la nuova build di anteprima pronta per essere scaricata.
Ci sono rischi? Cosa devi sapere prima di iniziare
È importante essere trasparenti: ogni modifica non ufficiale al sistema operativo richiede consapevolezza. Sebbene lo script sia ritenuto sicuro dalla community, la sua funzione di ripristino potrebbe non annullare completamente tutte le modifiche apportate. Se in futuro decidessi di tornare a una versione stabile (retail) di Windows, la strada più sicura potrebbe essere un aggiornamento in-place tramite un file ISO ufficiale o, nei casi più complessi, una reinstallazione pulita del sistema operativo.
In conclusione, questo metodo non forza il sistema, ma sblocca semplicemente una via d'accesso già prevista. Dimostra che molte limitazioni sono spesso frutto di scelte strategiche e non di insormontabili vincoli tecnici, offrendoti un nuovo strumento per esplorare il futuro di Windows alle tue condizioni.
La nuova indagine antitrust WhatsApp AI sta ridefinendo le regole del gioco per gli assistenti virtuali in Europa. Con una mossa quasi senza precedenti, la Commissione Europea ha ordinato a Meta di fare un passo indietro, imponendo misure cautelari per garantire una concorrenza leale nel settore. Ma cosa significa questo per il mercato e per il futuro della tecnologia? Scopriamolo insieme.
Cosa è successo esattamente? la mossa di Meta e la risposta europea
Il fulcro della questione è la WhatsApp for Business API. Si tratta dell'interfaccia che le aziende usano per comunicare con i clienti sull'app di messaggistica. Fino a poco tempo fa, anche gli assistenti AI di terze parti potevano accedere liberamente a questa API. Le cose sono cambiate il 15 ottobre 2025.
In quella data, Meta ha introdotto una nuova policy che ha di fatto bloccato la concorrenza. L'unica opzione rimasta era utilizzare Meta AI, l'assistente proprietario dell'azienda. Questa mossa ha immediatamente allertato Bruxelles, che ha avviato un'indagine formale. La gravità della situazione ha spinto la Commissione ad agire d'urgenza. Ha imposto delle misure senza attendere la conclusione dell'inchiesta, una procedura estremamente rara e usata solo una volta in passato.
Una posizione dominante che rischia l'abuso
La rapidità dell'intervento europeo si spiega con un concetto chiave: la posizione dominante. Secondo la Commissione, Meta detiene un potere enorme nel mercato delle app di comunicazione. Il timore è che l'azienda possa sfruttare questo vantaggio per eliminare la concorrenza nel nascente settore degli assistenti AI. Bloccando i rivali su WhatsApp, Meta potrebbe infatti consolidare il proprio monopolio. Questo impedirebbe ad altre aziende di competere ad armi pari. Un rischio concreto per l'innovazione e per la libertà di scelta degli utenti.
Il futuro dell’indagine antitrust WhatsApp AI
È importante sottolineare che la decisione attuale è solo una misura provvisoria. L'indagine antitrust WhatsApp AI prosegue e non ha una scadenza definita. Potrebbero servire mesi, o persino anni, per raggiungere una sentenza finale. Nel frattempo, però, le regole del gioco sono state ripristinate per garantire un mercato aperto a tutti.
L'ordine della commissione: cosa deve fare Meta (e in fretta)
L'ordine di Bruxelles è chiaro e perentorio. Meta deve ripristinare la situazione precedente al 15 ottobre 2025. Questo significa garantire di nuovo l'accesso gratuito a WhatsApp per tutti gli assistenti AI concorrenti. L'azienda deve agire immediatamente: ha solo cinque giorni lavorativi di tempo per conformarsi. Le sanzioni in caso di inadempienza sono severe. Si parla di multe fino al 10% del fatturato annuo globale, oltre a penali giornaliere. È un segnale forte che dimostra la determinazione dell'Europa.
Un contesto più ampio: la guerra digitale tra Big Tech e UE
Questa vicenda non è un caso isolato, ma si inserisce in un contesto di tensioni crescenti. Le grandi piattaforme tecnologiche e le autorità europee sono spesso in conflitto. Basti pensare al recente blocco di alcune funzioni di Apple Intelligence a causa del Digital Markets Act (DMA). O alle accuse contro Google per aver favorito il suo assistente Gemini su Android.
La corsa all'intelligenza artificiale è diventata un campo di battaglia normativo. Il caso antitrust WhatsApp AI dimostra che l'Europa è pronta a usare ogni strumento per difendere la concorrenza leale. L'obiettivo è proteggere i mercati emergenti. La partita è solo all'inizio, ma il mercato degli assistenti AI torna a essere, per ora, un campo di gioco aperto.
PWNED Welcome, once again, to PWNED, the weekly screed where we highlight those who did not do the deed of securing their systems. If someone left their passwords or their access exposed, we will be writing about them here. Have a story about someone leaving a gaping hole in their network? Share it with us at pwned@sitpub.com. Anonymity is available upon request. This week’s terrifying tale of poor security hygiene comes courtesy of Luke Irwin, CEO and principal consultant at Aegis Cybersecurity. He’s been in the industry for more than a quarter of a century and he knows where the bits are buried. At one point, Irwin consulted for a company that was a large national facility services organization, a 2,000-employee firm that provided cleaning, security guards, industrial abseiling (cleaning the facade), and other things that other large businesses need to keep their physical plants running smoothly. The CEO had one very peculiar idea about how to keep his own house in order: he wanted to have access to every one of his employees’ login credentials. The chief executive had an Excel spreadsheet sitting right on his desktop with a complete list of all the employee usernames and passwords. Let that sink in for a second. One person had all the keys to the castle in a single, easily accessible file. In any decent security setup, no one in the company has access to anyone else’s password. Even the head of the IT department should not know another employee’s password. I say this as someone who used to work for a company where the IT department would ask you to DM them your password if you had computer problems. But this company’s CEO wanted the usernames and passwords for reasons I’m sure any of his employees would appreciate: so he could go into their email accounts! He had an experience where one colleague had sent secret information to the entire company via email and he had spent the evening logging into every single account and deleting the message before anyone could see it. Just in case other messages were sent in error in the future, the CEO wanted the ability to log into all the relevant accounts and delete them himself. Perhaps for the same reason, he would not allow MFA (multi-factor authentication), because that would have kept him out of people’s inboxes. He was adamant even though the company had been the victim of a ransomware incident previously. “Despite repeated advice, he held that position for around four months, until we were able to demonstrate that the IT team could remove messages centrally using fairly simple administrative commands, without needing everyone’s password,” Irwin said. Even after getting rid of the Excel sheet of shame, the boss still refused to turn on MFA and the company subsequently suffered two data breaches involving sensitive client data. Unfortunately, this company wasn’t the only one that Irwin worked with where the management had something against MFA. Another client, this one in the medical sector, was opposed to multi-factor authentication because it “made things just a little too hard” for the external consultants they were using to access their systems. During the time that Irwin worked with that company, they got lucky and no one breached them. But since then, he’s seen signs that their data was available on the dark web. No word on whether they ever switched MFA on. There’s plenty to learn from Irwin’s two clients, but it’s all pretty obvious. First, don’t let anyone, even administrators or CEOs, have other people’s passwords. If someone has to get into another person’s email account, have IT use administrative access. Second, always enable MFA, preferably MFA with passkeys. ®
Current Peertube version: 8.1.8, trying to update to 8.2.0
Current NodeJS version at /usr/local/bin/node:
# node
Welcome to Node.js v24.16.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
>
This is the version that is executed when running node on command line. There is still an outdated version located at /etc/alternatives
# /etc/alternatives/nodejs
Welcome to Node.js v20.20.2.
Type ".help" for more information.
Most likely the old NodeJS was installed with apt. A later version is not available in the standard repository:
# apt upgrade nodejs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
nodejs is already the newest version (20.20.2-1nodesource1).
The later version was installed by running npm install n -g and
cd /var/www/peertube/peertube-latest/scripts && sudo -H -u peertube ./upgrade.sh
and restarted Peertube with systemctl restart peertube. Regrettably Peertube refuses to start up complaining about an outdated NodeJS version.
Jun 11 04:46:46 peertube systemd[1]: Started PeerTube daemon.
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: [bla:443] 2026-06-11 04:46:49.512 error: Error in NodeJS check. {
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: "err": {
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: "stack": "Error: Your NodeJS version v20.20.2 is not supported. Please upgrade to NodeJS 22 or NodeJS 24\n at checkNodeVersion (file:///var
/www/peertube/versions/peertube-v8.2.0/dist/core/initializers/checker-before-init.js:317:15)\n at file:///var/www/peertube/versions/peertube-v8.2.0/dist/server.js:20:5",
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: "message": "Your NodeJS version v20.20.2 is not supported. Please upgrade to NodeJS 22 or NodeJS 24"
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: }
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube peertube[3959624]: }
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: peertube.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: peertube.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: peertube.service: Consumed 4.379s CPU time.
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: peertube.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 24.
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: Stopped PeerTube daemon.
Jun 11 04:46:49 peertube systemd[1]: peertube.service: Consum
Apparently the old NodeJS version number is still registered somewhere, but how can I fix this?
GitHub has announced what it said are "breaking changes" coming to npm version 12, one of which turns off install scripts by default to combat software supply chain threats.
The changes aim to combat attack techniques that abuse the "npm install" command to trigger the execution of malicious code using npm lifecycle hooks. "Npm install" is used to download and install all the necessary
Multiple reports indicate that Chinese operatives continue using every tech tool at their disposal – including American AI – to amass data on and manipulate everyone from security-clearance holders to everyday US citizens. And they’re trying to influence public opinion on building datacenters for AI, albeit without success so far. One of these reports found a “significant resurgence” of a botnet linked to Chinese government-backed goons, including Volt Typhoon, which previously used a covert network of connected devices to burrow deep into critical US networks and preposition for future destructive attacks. In January 2024, the FBI said it killed Volt’s KV-botnet, comprised of hundreds of end-of-life routers and other internet-connected devices. At the time, KV-botnet consisted of four clusters, with the KV cluster primarily being used as a covert data transfer network, and the JDY cluster used for scanning and reconnaissance. In a Wednesday report, Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs said that while the KV cluster became largely defunct after the law enforcement takedown, the JDY cluster remains an active threat, and has since surged to more than 1,500 compromised routers and IoT devices. “Analysis of this activity shows a clear focus on identifying vulnerable infrastructure shortly after public vulnerability disclosures, suggesting that reconnaissance output is rapidly operationalized by China-nexus advanced persistent threat (APT) actors,” the threat intel team wrote. “This targeted focus has been observed across a range of sectors, with the US military and associated entities as the most prominent.” While the botnet resurgence poses the most pressing threat, and the security shop recommends all enterprises implement CISA and NCSC guidance for mitigating Volt Typhoon activity and defending against China-nexus covert networks of compromised devices, another report indicates that China’s attempts at influence operations haven’t died down, either. Using American AI for covert ops about … American AI OpenAI in a Wednesday report said it banned ChatGPT accounts likely originating from China after they used the American AI company’s models to generate content for covert operations about – wait for it – American AI. While neither of the two clusters seemed to have much success in sowing chaos or swaying opinions, the fact that they tried at all is significant, according to Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s Intelligence and Investigations team. “Neither campaign appears to have gained much authentic engagement,” Nimmo told reporters. “They're important for what they reveal about the intentions of influence operators from China and the narratives they're testing and seeking to amplify.” The first cluster used ChatGPT to generate social media content and images for an operation claiming datacenters and AI applications are increasing electricity demand and causing higher costs for ordinary Americans. “For example, they asked for comic strips about a power grid operator’s capacity auction prices based on reporting from a legitimate regional paper,” the report says. “They asked ChatGPT to focus the comments on rising capacity prices as a consequence of peak electricity demand, framing the new demand as coming from data centers and AI applications and argued that these costs were ultimately passed to ordinary households.” The operators then posted these comments and images on X, likely using fake accounts, with links to real news stories about datacenters. OpenAI suspects the operators are part of a social-media team at a private Chinese tech company that provides services for Chinese provincial-level government clients. “This was not a case of an influence operation creating a debate,” Nimmo said. “The debate existed already. This was an influence operation from China trying to interfere in it. We didn't see any signs that they succeeded.” The second cluster of banned ChatGPT accounts also likely originated in China and used OpenAI’s models to write comments and draw political cartoons criticizing US tech policies and tariffs. “Interestingly, the operators specified in their prompts that the content should not include cartoons of Xi Jinping in the output and should only include President Trump,” Nimmo said. These accounts, all writing prompts in simplified Chinese and using VPNs to access the AI systems, also used ChatGPT to edit work reports and help design social media monitoring systems. “This isn't the first time that we've seen actors in China trying to come up with ideas for social media monitoring,” Nimmo said. In February, OpenAI said it banned ChatGPT accounts believed to be linked to Chinese government entities attempting to use AI models to surveil individuals and social media accounts. If AI doesn't work, bribery might? If Chinese agents can’t use AI systems to unearth sensitive information, there are always fake websites and job offers promising cash for state secrets. We’ve seen Beijing-linked government snoops use these tactics in the past, and according to the US Justice Department, they’re still using this scam (because it works). On Wednesday, the feds said they obtained a warrant for and seized 13 fake consulting company websites used to target US persons, including current and former security clearance holders with access to classified and sensitive government information. The domains include centrikglobalconsulting.com, rightinfoconsult.com, finnaclevesperconsulting.com, cydfconsulting.com, pulsewaveglobal.com, catalystglobalsolutions.com, thehorizzen.com, geoindopacific.com, gpf-ina.org, safesec-group.com, thetruthinfo.com, Vandercons.com, and gulfpeace.org. Since November 2023, these websites and associated job postings on social media, LinkedIn, and other hiring platforms advertised “consulting” jobs, including “Senior Analyst” and “International Affairs Consultant” positions. Suspected PRC operatives used the sites and job listings to recruit applicants and bribe them for sensitive information, DOJ alleges. “The conspirators have encouraged applicants and recruits to share confidential and sensitive information in violation of their official duties and of particular interest to the People's Republic of China (PRC) government,” according to the court documents. “The recruiters pressured candidates to share confidential information and reports from ‘insider sources' in violation of their official duties.” The court documents allege the conspirators then paid the recruits for these reports using online accounts in the names of fictitious individuals, and cryptocurrency to hide their identities and the source of the payments. ®
AI companies have touted context retention (memory) and the availability of personal details (personalization) as mechanisms for improving AI model interaction. Both have value to help keep models from losing the thread of a conversation. But they raise the potential for sycophancy, where models will say what they predict you want to hear, which may not be the most accurate response. Researchers at Writer, an enterprise AI vendor, have conducted two studies of model memory and personalization that show these capabilities increase sycophancy for enterprise AI tasks. The Price of Agreement looks at agentic financial applications. And Recalling Too Well explores how model memory amplifies sycophancy with regard to scientific, medical, and moral reasoning. The papers' authors argue that preference-induced sycophancy is particularly problematic when AI answers are being applied to consequential problems. "In high-stakes domains like finance and healthcare, a model that silently defers to a user’s prior assumptions rather than acknowledging or correcting them poses a significant reliability and trustworthiness risk," the Writer team explains. For the first paper, the research team tested eight frontier models – GPT-5-Nano, GPT-5.2, Claude-Sonnet-4.5, Claude-Opus-4.5, Gemini-3-Pro, GLM-4.7, Kimi-k2-thinking, and DeepSeek-V3.2 – on two financial benchmarks, FinanceBench and FinanceAgent. The former evaluates agentic data extraction and reasoning using 10-K and 10-Q filings. The latter is a more comprehensive challenge designed to test real finance workflows, including ERP data retrieval and financial analysis involving multiple entities. The researchers' method involved applying synthetically generated preference information – such as a financial analyst's personal profile or a workspace note that contradicts the benchmark reference answer – to the benchmark questions. They undertook three different approaches. The first involved the user rebutting the model's answer; the second involved a user proposing an alternative answer; and the third involved adversarially injecting personal or contextual information into the prompt or making it available through a tool call. The third approach often resulted in greater sycophancy. As noted in The Price of Agreement paper, "Most models demonstrate significantly stronger sycophancy when the bias information is presented as implicit personalization of the user. No model displayed robustness against such behavior." Open-source models tended to be more sycophantic across the board. Models from OpenAI meanwhile tended to resist direct sycophancy inducers (such as when the user included personal biases in a prompt). And Anthropic models tended to resist implicit sycophancy inducers (such as when it pulled in a profile of the user that incorporated biases seen in previous interactions). The second paper involves an assessment of three memory systems (Mem0, MemOS, and Zep) and five model families (GPT-5.2, Sonnet 4.6, Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, and MiniMax 2.5). The authors conclude, "memory amplifies sycophantic behavior across all conditions, with up to 25x higher sycophancy rates than in-context baselines." The reason for this, the authors claim, is that the lossy compression used to store conversation data in memory preserves user misconceptions while tossing clarifying context. The researchers suggest two mitigation strategies that reduce sycophancy. One involves assistant role inclusion (capturing AI assistant interactions alongside user interactions) and the other involves summarization of contextual information before it gets committed to memory. They argue that those deploying AI need to assess whether models acknowledge interaction conflicts, and that those working on AI memory systems need to check what's being extracted and injected back into the model context as a defense against sycophancy. ®
North Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) has grown, in part because of the nation's state-sponsored cybercrime groups, which target financial firms and other businesses.
I love Star Trek so much. I’ve watched most Trek series multiple times over the decades, and was shocked when, on my most recent watch of The Next Generation, I noticed something: High definition upscaling makes the show look way worse. Old-school 4:3 CRT television screens with their low resolution hid a lot of stuff, like tape on the Enterprise set doors that hid whatever names were stenciled on them for prior episodes, which are glaringly present on modern editions of the show. I’ve always been on the lookout for a way to capture the classic Trek feeling, and one … ahem … enterprising developer has done just that. Anthony Caccese, a principal product lead for enterprise platforms at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by day and a Raspberry Pi tinkerer by night, recently published an open-source project called 240-MP on GitHub. It’s a simple concept: Text-based menus that look like an old-school VCR interface, but with modern functionality and, most importantly, the ability to play local media files and Plex libraries on an old-school CRT TV. 240-MP runs on a Raspberry Pi, is based on the command-line media player MPV, and can play local files (either on the Pi itself, a USB drive, an external hard disk, or even a network share) or media from a Plex server, as Caccese built modules for both local and Plex-based playback. If you don’t happen to have an old CRT TV or monitor lying around, or the necessary Pi-compatible composite cable to connect your SBC to said TV, 240-MP will also work with a modern screen and an HDMI connection, too. One note on the composite vs. HDMI option, as noted in the setup instructions: You will need to update the config.txt file to support one or the other, so have your output chosen ahead of time. Once the system is installed, you can navigate around 240-MP with either a remote control or a keyboard, where you’ll see text menus for navigating around to different folders, choosing episodes or playlists, switching audio and subtitle tracks, looping playback, and the like. It might look like an old-school VCR interface, but with a lot more capabilities. Caccese has only tested 240-MP on a Raspberry Pi 4B, 3B+, and 3B, noting that he’s not sure it’ll work on other devices and has no plans to test other hardware, either. What will be coming in the future, Caccese said in an accompanying YouTube video, is modules to support other media playback software, like Jellyfin (a popular Plex alternative in light of that massive price hike), and RetroArch, a frontend for emulators designed to play old-school video games. “Please feel free to fork this repo, update any aspects and tailor things to your own use case; that's why the source is fully open and available,” Caccese noted on GitHub. Now if I could only find a working CRT TV to pair with my old Raspberry Pi, I could go on a hardcore 90s nostalgia trip and feel just like I did watching VHS tapes of Star Trek episodes I recorded from the TV when I was a kid. After all, streaming high-def remasters just isn’t the same. ®
UPDATED Anthropic's newly released Claude Fable 5 generative AI model is trying so hard to be safe that it's hurting its own userbase. Customers attempting to use the AI knowledge regurgitator are reporting that the model is refusing to answer harmless questions, an issue that has annoyed security researchers following past model releases. Anthropic warned that it had tuned Fable 5's guardrails conservatively: "they’ll sometimes catch harmless requests, though they trigger, on average, in less than five percent of sessions," the company said, promising to "reduce false positives as quickly as we can." The company did not immediately respond to a request to quantify model refusals. So it's unclear whether the actual false positive rate is greater or less than five percent. But with an estimated 18 to 30 million users worldwide, even a small percentage of thwarted users makes a racket. Mike Famulare, principal research scientist at the Institute for Disease Modeling, part of the Global Health Division of the Gates Foundation, reports (#66657) that Claude Fable 5 balks at inputs like "Hello." "In Claude Code, Fable 5's input safety classifier emits a model_refusal_fallback (silent switch to Opus 4.8) on the first turn of essentially every session on my account — including a session whose only user input is the word hello!. No repo content, no tool calls, and no file reads are in context when it fires." He is not the only frustrated customer. Many other bug reports have been filed in Anthropic's Claude Code GitHub repo since Fable 5 debuted. These include: [Bug] Fable 5 model safety filters causing false positives on benign messages #66587; Fable 5 refuses to assist with 'Application Security Architect resume' editing #66655; and [Feature Request] Allow Fable 5 usage for non-research lab management systems #67062, among others. On social outrage site X.com, Derya Unutmaz, an immunologist and professor at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, notes, "The word 'cancer' is flagged as a biosecurity risk by Claude Fable 5!" Similar complaints show up in Reddit threads. Fable 5 is unusual because Anthropic has chosen to conceal safety interventions that try to block rival frontier model development. The classifiers designed to catch cybersecurity, biology and chemistry, and distillation attempts fall back on the latest Claude Opus model and the user gets notified. But the counter-competition surveillance, per the company's system card [PDF], "will limit effectiveness through methods such as prompt modification, steering vectors, or parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT)." "Prompt modification" without notice is functionally a man-in-the-middle attack, though one that Anthropic estimates "will impact ~0.03 percent of traffic, concentrated in fewer than 0.1 percent of organizations." As developer Clay Merritt fumes, "Anthropic’s Fable 5 silently sabotages its answers when it detects AI/ML work. No refusal. No notice. Purposeful degradation invisible to the user." Anthropic expects cyber defenders and critical infrastructure providers to use its Claude Mythos 5 model, which shares the underlying model of Fable 5 but without the same safeguards. Doing so, however, requires participating in the company's Project Glasswing program or the trusted access program that's being rolled out for select biology researchers. Devon (last name withheld by request), founder of Abliteration.ai, a service that assists with model abliteration (guardrail removal), told The Register in a phone interview that while there's some degree of fearmongering and marketing hype coming from the big AI labs, it's also fair to say that there are legitimate concerns about how frontier models get used. "Anthropic's making a big bet on their brand that people will trust their brand so much they'll just deal with [refusals]," he said. "But in the long term, people are not just going to accept these companies that centralize control over their lives and what they can have information about." ® Update: In a statement provided to The Register on Wednesday evening, an Anthropic spokesperson acknowledged that the company had made its safeguards too stringent and said it was also working to reduce false positives for biological research "We’re changing Fable 5’s safeguards for frontier LLM development to make them visible. "Starting this week, flagged requests will visibly fall back to Opus 4.8. On the API, any flagged requests will return a reason for their refusal. You will see this every time it happens. "In practice, our current set of safeguards covers a handful of narrow tasks like frontier-scale LLM data pipelines and kernel development for certain non-standard chips. These safeguards prevent foreign adversaries from using our most capable models in ways that pose severe safety risks. The US and its allies hold an edge in frontier chips and the highly optimized software that runs them at full potential. These safeguards ensure Claude isn’t used to erode that advantage—by optimizing chips developed by those adversaries, for example. They also help uphold our terms of service, which prohibit using our models to develop competing AI systems—a standard restriction across major AI providers. They do not affect the vast majority of coding and ML work. "In deciding whether to make them visible or invisible we faced a choice. A hidden safeguard is harder to probe and work around. This means the safeguards can be targeted much more narrowly. Current usage shows that the classifier triggers on about 0.05% of tasks, affecting less than 0.05% of organizations. A visible safeguard needs to cast a wider net to be more robust, resulting in more requests being incorrectly flagged. "We made the wrong tradeoff and we apologize for not getting the balance right. Building these safeguards is a complex technical challenge: users may experience more false positives as we refine these classifiers to respond to new threats. We are working to reduce these as fast as possible."
As companies adopt AI, many insurance firms are explicitly excluding AI risks, while others are forging ahead to create the right framework. What risks can firms reasonably manage?
admin d’un framadate classique pour mon association, je viens de tester la version Beta. Cela fonctionne au top, bel effort
ma question est si cette version beta est jugee fiable? Si je partage le lien du sondage à mes utilisateurs, le lien fonctionnera toujours après la phase beta?
They are angry at Redmond and will have their revenge. Nightmare Eclipse, the prolific bug hunter and possibly disgruntled ex-Microsoft employee, disclosed another zero-day vulnerability just hours after Redmond issued a record-breaking number of CVEs and fixes for June Patch Tuesday. The latest zero-day, RoguePlanet, targets Microsoft Defender and works against fully patched Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems, according to the researcher, who also released proof-of-concept exploit code for the security flaw. Assuming the attacker can win a race condition, this bug allows local privilege escalation and leads to SYSTEM-level control over an affected machine. Nightmare Eclipse (aka Chaotic Eclipse) is a disgruntled bug hunter with a deep understanding of Windows and an even deeper grudge against Microsoft. They claim to be an ex-employee, and accuse Redmond of ignoring vulnerability reports and refusing to communicate with them. "When I actively asked you to communicate with me, you refused, humiliated me and made sure to insult me in front of people," they wrote in an earlier blog post that also promised a “bone shattering” drop on July 14. "You defame me in public with your CVE-2026-45585 advisory even though you literally deleted the Microsoft account I used to report bugs to you with and I got zero pennies from doing so and I still happily did like an idiot," the post continued. Possibly as an outlet for this anger, and reportedly in response to Redmond's lack of action, Nightmare began releasing their findings to the public. RoguePlanet marks the seventh Microsoft zero-day that they found and disclosed - accompanied by either a PoC exploit or technical details - before Redmond issued a fix. Microsoft's initial response to those disclosures was widely interpreted as a threat of legal action, prompting massive outrage from the broader infosec community before Redmond sought to calm the backlash by stating it had "no intention to pursue action against individuals conducting or publishing security research." As of Tuesday, the previous six zero-days all have patches. Three of them, RedSun, UnDefend, and BlueHammer, came under attack soon after Nightmare published working exploit code for each and before Microsoft released security updates to address the flaws. The other three, YellowKey, GreenPlasma, and MiniPlasma, all have been fixed as of June’s Patch Tuesday. YellowKey (aka CVE-2026-45585) is a security feature bypass bug in Windows BitLocker. An attacker with physical access to the vulnerable system could bypass the BitLocker Device Encryption feature and gain access to the device's encrypted data. GreenPlasma (aka CVE-2026-45586) and MiniPlasma (aka CVE-2020-17103) are both privilege escalation flaws in the Collaborative Translation Framework (CTFMON) and the Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver that can be abused by an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally and gain SYSTEM access. When asked about RoguePlanet, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Register that the Windows giant is “aware of the reported vulnerability and is actively investigating the validity and potential applicability of these claims." The spokesperson continued: "Microsoft is committed to investigating security issues and updating impacted products to protect customers as soon as possible. Importantly, we support coordinated vulnerability disclosure, an industry standard that protects customers and supports the research community by ensuring their findings are thoroughly investigated and addressed before being made public." Soon after Nightmare published a PoC for RoguePlanet, the ThreatLocker threat intelligence team validated the exploit code and said that they were “actively assessing impact, affected systems, and additional mitigations,” promising to share more findings “as they become available.” Tharros Labs senior vulnerability analyst and long-time respected security sleuth Will Dormann said he tested the exploit code, too. “It's reportedly not 100% reliable, but it worked on the first attempt for me,” Dormann wrote. Nightmare, for their part, rolled back the promise of a “bone shattering” drop on July 14. “(Un)fortunately I will be unable to mass disclose zerodays in July 14th, RoguePlanet took way more time than expected and truly drained me,” the researcher said on Tuesday. “I might take a break but I can't say for sure what I will be doing for next month, maybe it's nothing, maybe it's smtg. But the big thing is not happening. I did not intend to spread a mass panic with that post and I apologize for doing so.”®
The lure of datacenter dollars is a strong one for America’s mega corporations - so strong that even automobile giant General Motors is getting in on the game by turning its battery research efforts toward stationary grid-scale energy storage. GM announced a partnership with energy storage firm Peak Energy on Tuesday that will see the Big Three automaker develop next-generation sodium-ion battery cells designed for grid-scale energy storage. GM will manufacture the cells and Peak will deploy them as part of its own proprietary energy storage systems, Peak said in its version of the partnership announcement. Oh, and GM will be making an investment in Peak too, though the amount wasn't disclosed. For those unfamiliar with sodium-ion batteries, there’s a good deal of chemical similarity between them and the lithium-ion batteries that have come to dominate the world’s portable rechargeable electronics, from massive electric vehicle cells to the tiny batteries in wireless earbuds and hearing aids. Rechargeability and chemical similarities are where many of the comparisons end, though. GM and Peak argue sodium-ion systems can be made simpler, and can operate across a wider temperature range than conventional lithium-ion batteries, potentially reducing the need for the costly, energy-intensive cooling systems often used in grid-scale Li-ion storage deployments. Score one for Na-ions, but while sodium might be stable and abundant, it also doesn’t have nearly the energy density of lithium. If one wants to build a sodium battery able to hold as much energy as a Li-ion one, be prepared to build a larger, heavier pack. That’s not a problem as far as GM is concerned in this case, though: Weight doesn’t matter if the batteries aren’t mobile. “When you’re talking to a utility, a hyperscaler, or other power providers in need of energy storage solutions, their priority is not maximizing range or minimizing weight,” GM VP of battery and sustainability Kurt Kelty said in the company’s announcement. “It is delivering reliable, affordable power over long periods of time in real-world conditions.” Kelty said that GM is perfectly positioned to develop next-generation Na-ion batteries due to “important architectural similarities” with Li-ion cells, meaning “the battery expertise GM has built in cell design, prototyping, and industrialization” is a perfect fit for grid-scale sodium cells. “We believe sodium-ion can become a defining chemistry for grid-scale energy storage in the years ahead,” Kelty added. Peak has already developed its own passively-cooled sodium-ion energy storage systems, which it says can reduce energy storage costs by 20 percent compared to conventional Li-ion systems. According to the company’s own analysis, the US could avoid around 2 terawatt hours of wasted energy per year if everyone were to dump lithium iron phosphate energy storage systems in favor of its passively-cooled Na-ion systems. Sodium-ion batteries aren’t without their own challenges, though. GM mentions that advanced Na-ion cells can handle more charge cycles than their lithium-ion cousins, but sodium-ion batteries have historically come with tradeoffs of their own, most notably lower energy density and a far less established manufacturing ecosystem. Researchers have been working to address that, and others claim that their sodium cell designs have already surpassed Li-ion units. Despite those claims, lithium-ion batteries still dominate the energy storage space, both on and off the grid. China is home to the vast majority of sodium-ion battery factories, and it’s not clear whether GM’s ambitions will turn into scalable competition for overseas battery tech development. We reached out to the automaker with questions about its sodium-ion plans, as well as a timeline for the project, but didn’t hear back. ®
Energy consumed by datacenters is set to grow 26 percent this year thanks to AI, and grid supply may be unable to keep pace with demand by 2030, Gartner warns. The research giant expects global datacenter electricity consumption to reach 565 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2026, as power demand rises from 104 GW in 2025 to 132 GW this year. This is higher than the 500 TWh per year Gartner estimated two years ago that AI-optimized servers would consume by 2027. And as everyone knows by now, the culprit is the ballooning requirement for compute power to drive AI workloads, as fear of missing out (FOMO) drives otherwise sensible companies to throw money at AI projects, despite seldom seeing much of any return on their investment. In fact, Gartner notes that AI-optimized servers are what continue to fuel the increase in datacenter power consumption. This has been reported before, with hyperscalers and other buyers funneling much of their server budgets into heavily configured systems to meet the requirements of AI processing. Now, the firm estimates that AI-optimized servers will account for 31 percent of all datacenter power consumption this year, and that, by next year, their combined power consumption will surpass that of all conventional servers in operation. This matches up with earlier forecasts that AI was on track to overtake all other server workloads – such as databases and analytics – and become the top workload by server deployment by 2027. But this continued expansion points to a worrying forecast. Total datacenter electricity consumption is estimated by Gartner to pass 1,200 TWh by 2030, and it says that grid supply may be insufficient to support additional datacenter capacity. There have been earlier warnings about the bit barn energy demands outpacing the capacity of the grid to deliver. Goldman Sachs estimated that their combined energy use would more than double by the end of the decade, but if Gartner’s figures are correct, demand is already higher than where that report estimated it would be for 2027. Energy infrastructure biz Schneider Electric also published four scenarios for future electricity consumption by AI datacenters at the start of last year, but Gartner’s latest estimate for total datacenter electricity demand in 2030 surpasses even Schneider's most aggressive forecast. Power grid operators and datacenter developers in the US in particular are in a bind, as The Register reported recently, and energy analysts can't see an easy way out. “Surging demand for compute-intensive AI workloads is driving unprecedented datacenter power growth, while AI capacity is now constrained by power availability, making datacenter power security the new battle ground for scaling and protecting margins in the global AI race,” commented Gartner director analyst Linglan Wang. But can anything be done to mitigate this coming power apocalypse? “Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders must prioritize efficiency upgrades and secure grid access. They also need to invest in high-efficiency cooling systems and edge computing to mitigate power constraints and ensure sustainable, scalable growth,” Wang said, helpfully. ®
Le 28 mai dernier, Framasoft était interviewée par l'association Data For Good On a évoqué beaucoup de sujets : l'histoire de Framasoft, son positionnement, LaSuite numérique, les communs, l'IA, etc. (et même quelques teasers et spoilers 🤫)
Merci à Paul et à toute l'équipe D4G de nous avoir permis de partager tout cela avec leurs bénéficiaires 😊
The disgruntled researcher released yet another PoC for a Windows Defender bug that allows for system takeover, showing no signs of abandoning their ongoing feud with Microsoft.
Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a "resurgence and expansion" of JDY, a covert network associated with China-nexus state-sponsored threat actors.
"The JDY botnet comprises over 1,500 SOHO [small office and home office] and IoT devices and operates as a centrally controlled, high-performance scanner used to discover, fingerprint, and continuously map exposed services at scale," Lumen's
macOS 27 may have dealt a blow to Intel Macs, but it has also caused headaches for Linux on Apple Silicon, according to the Asahi Linux team. Apple's next operating system debuted at WWDC this week and promptly landed as a beta, but the Asahi developers say the update has "changed how the boot picker and Startup Disk application detect valid OS boot volumes." The upshot is that the Asahi partition is no longer visible, which means no Linux booting on Apple Silicon for the time being. The advice for Asahi Linux users is not to upgrade to macOS 27 until the issue is resolved. The team added: "If you insist on trying out macOS 27 as soon as possible, please ensure you install a secondary copy of macOS 26 first, or install macOS 27 itself on a secondary volume." They've also updated the installer to prevent installs from running on macOS 27 for now. For anyone who ignored all of the above, "we will not support users who have installed the macOS 27 beta without ensuring at least one stable version of macOS is installed." Considering macOS 27 is in beta, the issue may be accidental rather than an attempt by Apple to block Linux on its hardware. The Asahi team said it has filed bug report. The good news for anyone who pulled the trigger on installing the macOS 27 beta is that although the partition might not be visible, it hasn't gone anywhere. The Asahi team wrote: "If you have already upgraded to the beta and noticed that your Asahi partition has disappeared, do not stress. Your Asahi partition is still there, and you have not lost any data." Asahi Linux has come a long way on Apple Silicon despite some turbulence, including a leadership shake-up earlier this year. The project released Fedora Asahi Remix 44 in April and remains the leading option for Linux on Apple hardware. This is a bump in the road, not a dead end. And to anyone who installed a beta OS without backups or a fallback plan... well. You know. ®
Fortinet, Ivanti, and SAP have released security updates to address multiple critical security vulnerabilities that could result in arbitrary code execution and information disclosure.
The security flaw patched by Fortinet relates to a command injection vulnerability in FortiSandbox, FortiSandbox Cloud, and FortiSandbox PaaS WEB UI. It's tracked as CVE-2026-25089 (CVSS score: 9.1).
"An
A high-severity security flaw in Langflow, an open-source low-code platform to build artificial intelligence (AI) applications, has come under active exploitation in the wild, according to findings from VulnCheck.
The vulnerability in question is CVE-2026-5027 (CVSS score: 8.8), a case of path traversal that could allow an attacker to write files to arbitrary locations.
"The 'POST /api/v2/
Rilevate molteplici vulnerabilità in MongoDB Server di cui 12 con gravità “alta”. Tali vulnerabilità potrebbero consentire l’accesso a informazioni sensibili, l’alterazione dei dati, l’elusione dei meccanismi di sicurezza e/o la compromissione della disponibilità del servizio sui sistemi interessati.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added three new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports of active exploitation.
The list of vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2026-20245 (CVSS score: 7.8) - An improper encoding or escaping of output vulnerability in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager that could allow an
A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues pointing to a real life identity for the administrator of The Gentlemen ransomware group.
A graphic created and shared by The Gentlemen ransomware group administrator Hastalamuerte on Breachforums in May 2026. Credit: ke-la.com.
Experts at the security firm Check Point Software have been closely covering exploits of The Gentlemen, a so-called “ransomware-as-a-service” (RaaS) offering that pays affiliates handsomely to help spread the group’s malware.
“A 90/10 affiliate revenue split — compared to the industry standard 80/20 — is accelerating the group’s growth by attracting experienced operators from competing programs,” the researchers wrote in April.
Check Point found The Gentlemen are the second most active ransomware group by victim count so far this year, claiming at least 332 published victims since the group’s inception in mid-2025 and more than 240 in 2026 alone.
According to Check Point, the group targets Internet-facing devices (VPNs, firewalls) as their entry point, and once inside moves quickly to encrypt entire networks within hours.
Check Point says the administrator and primary operator of the ransomware group uses the nickname Zeta88 on the Russian-language cybercrime forums, and that this individual was previously known under the moniker Hastalamuerte. Check Point noted that a breach of the group’s backend infrastructure made it clear that Hastalamuerte/Zeta88 is the person who assembles the locker and RaaS panel, manages payments, and is essentially the administrator of the entire program who receives 10 percent of all ransoms.
WHO IS HASTALAMUERTE?
The cyber intelligence firm Intel 471 shows that the user Hastalamuerte is a Russian and English speaking person who registered on almost a dozen cybercrime forums between 2019 and the present day, including Exploit, Breachforums, Ramp_V2, BHF, Raidforums, and Nulled.
Intel 471 reveals that Hastalamuerte registered on Breachforums in January 2025 from an Internet address in Izhevsk, the capital city of Russia’s Udmurt Republic. Likewise, the user Zeta88 signed up at the English-language cybercrime forum Breached in August 2022 from a different Internet address in Izhevsk.
Intel 471 finds Hastalamuerte registered on Raidforums in 2020 using the email address hastalamuerte1488@protonmail.com (1488 is a common combination of two numeric symbols associated with white supremacy). A lookup on this address at the open source intelligence service Epieos shows it is connected to an account at Apple and to a phone number ending in 04.
Epieos says that Protonmail address is also linked to a GitHub account under the username SantaMuerte. That account is marked private, but a history of this user’s activity shows they are watching and developing a number of malware tools and exploits.
In April 2020, Hastalamuerte said on the crime forum Nulled that they could be contacted at the Telegram instant messenger name @hastalamuerte18, and the threat intelligence company Flashpoint finds this username is assigned the unique Telegram ID number 30907522 [full disclosure: Flashpoint is an advertiser on this blog].
The breach tracking service Constella Intelligence reports that Hastalamuerte’s Telegram ID is connected to another username — “bu4vs” — and to the Russian phone number 79127650004. Pivoting on this phone number in Constella fetches multiple records from hacked Russian government databases showing it is assigned to one Alexander Andreevich Yapaev, a 36-year-old from Izhevsk.
Constella reveals that phone number was used to create an account at the Russian social media platform Pikabu under the name “4apai18,” and shows Mr. Yapaev has signed up at a number of websites using the common surname Ivanov, or else “Chapaev” (the numeral 4 is often used as shorthand for a “ch” sound in Russian).
A search in Intel 471 for cybercrime forum members with the nickname SantaMuerte unearths an account by the same name created in 2020 on the Russian hacking forum Codeby. Intel 471 shows this user originally registered on Codeby with the not-so-subtle nickname Alexandr 4apaev.
Constella finds Mr. Yapaev regularly used the email address bu4vs@mail.ru. Meanwhile, Epieos shows this address is connected to a LinkedIn account for Alexander Yapaev, who lists himself as the head of B2B marketing at the company Uralenergo Udmurtia, one of Russia’s largest suppliers of electrotechnical and lighting products.
Mr. Yapaev did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Nearly every time we publish one of these Breadcrumbs stories, readers are curious to know why it seems like so many cybercriminals from Russia apparently do little to hide their real life identities. The truth is that — Russian or not — most didn’t exactly set out to be arch criminals, but instead got drawn into the scene gradually over several years as their skills broadened and sharpened.
Another important dynamic is that the Russian government generally either co-opts or ignores cybercriminal activity within its borders so long as the hackers do not steal from or attack Russian businesses and citizens. As a result, successful cybercriminals in Russia are usually insulated from prosecution and arrest by foreign law enforcement agencies provided they occasionally pay off the right people and do not travel abroad. And cybercriminals who intend to strictly adhere to those unwritten rules may (at least initially) be less concerned about covering their tracks online.
But the simplest explanation is that cybercriminals of all nationalities tend to make a number of basic operational security mistakes early in their careers, when they are less savvy and have far less to lose by their carelessness. A review of Hastalamuerte’s early posts on the crime forums (circa 2019-2020) shows a relatively unsophisticated and low-skilled hacker still trying to learn the ropes and earn a positive reputation on these communities.
For example, in June 2020 Hastalamuerte’s Telegram account joined a multi-month training program (@pntst) to learn how to use popular penetration testing tools, and their candid posts to this hacker training camp show Hastalamuerte struggling to use these tools effectively. A Google-translated record of Hastalmuerte’s posts to @pntst is here.
Update, June 11, 10:23 a.m. ET: The threat research group PRODAFT has released a detailed writeup on the history and current operations of The Gentlemen. PRODAFT said its findings match the same persona with “high confidence,” and found the administrator (Zeta88/Hastalamuerte) supplies affiliates with initial access directly, primarily Fortinet SSL-VPN credentials obtained through brute-force attacks or sourced from the group’s own leak database. They also discovered the administrator is using AI to develop and maintain the ransomware and associated tooling, as well as to assist with post-exploitation activity.
Rilevata nuova vulnerabilità con gravità “alta” nel modulo “bz2” incluso in CPython, in particolare nella componente “bz2.BZ2Decompressor”. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire a un utente malintenzionato di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio dei sistemi target.
Rilevata una vulnerabilità di sicurezza con gravità “alta” in componenti UEFI shim utilizzati da diversi prodotti software e ambienti di avvio, firmati tramite la catena di certificazione Microsoft UEFI. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di eludere i meccanismi di protezione Secure Boot ed eseguire codice arbitrario nella fase di avvio dei sistemi interessati.
Rilevate nuove vulnerabilità in prodotti Fortinet, di cui una con gravità “critica” in FortiSandbox. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato remoto l’esecuzione di codice arbitrario sui sistemi target, tramite richieste HTTP opportunamente predisposte.
Rilasciati aggiornamenti di sicurezza che sanano tre vulnerabilità, di cui una con gravità “alta”, in prodotti Dahua. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire a un utente malintenzionato di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio sul dispositivo interessato.
Rilasciati aggiornamenti di sicurezza per sanare diverse vulnerabilità di sicurezza, di cui una con gravità “critica“ e 5 con gravità “alta”, che interessano OpenSSL, nota libreria per l’implementazione degli standard crittografici e i protocolli TLS/SSL.
AI-generated content threatens credibility in cybersecurity. This "Ask the Expert" column explores why human oversight matters and how to maintain authentic narratives.
Aggiornamenti di sicurezza risolvono diverse vulnerabilità nell’hypervisor open source Xen (Xen Project), motore di virtualizzazione fondamentale alla base di piattaforme come XenServer, XCP-ng e vari servizi cloud.
Your pentest report looks clean. That might be the problem.
Run automated pentesting long enough, and the new findings start to dry up. By the third or fourth run, fewer issues appear. The report looks stable. Leadership reads "stable" as "secure." It usually isn't. The work slows down. The risk does not.
That gap is what a The Hacker News webinar with Picus Security sets out to close.
Autumn
Microsoft on Tuesday released fixes for a record 206 security vulnerabilities impacting its software portfolio, including three flaws that have been publicly disclosed at the time of release.
Of the 206 flaws, 39 are rated Critical, and 167 are rated Important in severity. This includes 63 privilege escalation, 56 remote code execution, 30 information disclosure, 27 spoofing, 20 security
Rilasciati gli aggiornamenti di sicurezza di giugno che risolvono 4 nuove vulnerabilità, di cui due con gravità “critica” e due con gravità “alta”, in diversi prodotti Ivanti. Tra queste, si evidenzia la CVE-2026-10520, per la quale risulta disponibile un Proof of Concept (PoC) in rete.
Non è possibile sostituire Carola Frediani, fondatrice, anima e colonna portante di Guerre di Rete. Allo stesso tempo, sappiamo per certo che l’ultima cosa che Carola avrebbe voluto è che questo progetto terminasse.
Carola ha sempre voluto ampliare e far crescere Guerre di Rete. Non c’era nulla che le desse più soddisfazione che individuare nuovi collaboratori e collaboratrici, allargare la squadra della redazione, trasformare ciò che era nato come una newsletter personale in un progetto collettivo.
È per questo che Guerre di Rete va avanti, in memoria di Carola e d’accordo con la sua famiglia.
Guerre di Rete prosegue mantenendo inalterato il patto con il lettore. Il nostro continuerà a essere un giornalismo rigoroso, approfondito, autonomo e indipendente.
I nostri lettori e le nostre lettrici sono coloro che ci permettono di andare avanti, finanziando un progetto che quindi solo a loro vuole e deve rispondere.
Il lavoro di Carola Frediani è la nostra bussola. L’affetto e la stima che proviamo per lei è la ragione per cui vogliamo portare avanti la sua missione.
Mindan Ocon poses for a photo with her daughter, Angelise Ocon, 3, at their family home in Portland, Oregon, on March 9. Protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility have turned the street outside Ocon’s affordable housing complex into a battlefield of stinging smoke and pepper spray. Ocon has relied on air purifiers and taking her daughter into the bathroom to hide from tear gas, and she’s prepared to use gas masks given to her by community members if it gets worse. Leah Nash for ProPublica
In city after city, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has been met by protests and rallies from members of the local community opposed to the White House’s deportation policies. Federal agents from the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have repeatedly attempted to break up and drive back these crowds through the use of airborne irritants like tear gas and pepper spray, which can cause an array of immediate reactions — from eye pain to shortness of breath to nausea and vomiting — intended to temporarily disable their targets.
DHS has defended its use of these weapons on crowds and said that it “does NOT target children,” but after reviewing news accounts, lawsuits and officer-worn body camera footage, as well as verifying incidents by interviewing more than 40 victims or witnesses, ProPublica recently identified more than six dozen instances in which children had been harmed by tear gas and pepper spray.
Here are five things you should know about how these airborne weapons have been used during Trump’s immigration crackdown and how their use has particularly harmed children.
Dozens of children have been harmed by tear gas deployed by immigration agents.
So-called less lethal weapons like tear gas and pepper spray were developed to inflict severe pain and debilitate adult combatants and rioters, but ProPublica identified 79 children across the country since 2025 who have been harmed by these chemicals after they were deployed by federal immigration officers. Our tally is nearly four times the number cited in a recent congressional report, yet it is likely still a vast undercount.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended its agents’ use of the chemicals and claimed the blame lies with “agitators” in the crowds and parents who put their children in harm’s way. Many children harmed by tear gas and pepper spray were in their cars, at home or walking to school when they came into contact with the airborne weapons.
What It’s Like When Officers Deploy Tear Gas
Tear gas and pepper spray are especially toxic to children.
There is no one such thing as “tear gas.” It’s a catch-all term for various chemical irritants that exist as a fine powder and trigger nerve endings to feel as if they’re on fire. The chemicals sear your lungs and throat, inflaming your airways until it feels like you’re breathing through a straw, while snot and tears stream down your face. They can cause vomiting, rashes and coughs that last for weeks. Pepper spray is made from compounds found in hot peppers and causes similar effects.
Because children breathe more rapidly and can pull in more contaminated air than adults relative to their body weight, these weapons are particularly dangerous to the young. Children are also more vulnerable because they have narrower airways and they are closer to the ground, where tear gas tends to pool after being deployed. The Trump administration’s use of tear gas has been so extraordinary that no one yet knows what long-term harm may result from children who’ve come into contact with these chemicals — some of them multiple times.
Courts have found that agents’ use of tear gas is excessive, but their power is limited.
In November 2025, a federal judge in Illinois ruled that ICE and CBP officers had deployed these chemicals “without justification, often without warning” against people who didn’t pose a physical threat. This constituted an illegal use of excessive force, said the judge, ordering the agencies to stop. But her injunction covered only the areas mentioned in the complaint. Agents were unfettered to continue using the weapons elsewhere.
After federal agents in Portland, Oregon, responded to a Jan. 31 rally by firing various less-lethals into the crowd — including Triple Chaser grenades that each separated into three tear gas canisters; dozens of pepper ball projectiles filled with chemical munitions; and “rubber ball grenades” that released stinging pellets, bright lights, and loud sounds — a judge there issued a temporary restraining order that forbade federal agents from using chemical munitions unless targeted at someone who posed “an imminent threat of physical harm.”
However, appellate courts have subsequently vacated the Illinois judge’s ruling and multiple rulings from judges in Portland seeking to enjoin the use of these weapons.
Once deployed, these weapons are difficult to contain.
Though the Trump administration has defended agents’ training and said ICE officers are taught to use “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations,” not only can tear gas canisters launched into a crowd bounce and roll unpredictably, but the toxic chemicals can travel through the air, sometimes for blocks. In Minneapolis, ProPublica found that tear gas had traveled at least a quarter mile before seeping into a McDonald’s.
Derrick Nash and his family live a block and a half east of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Even from that distance, they felt the effects inside their homes when officers tear-gassed protesters. Each time the tear gas seeped in, the kids — ages 6 to 17 — coughed, and their throats often burned. The eldest, a high school senior with asthma, would hide out in his second-floor bedroom. One evening, his face turned red as he coughed uncontrollably and sucked on his inhaler without relief.
“He was wigging out, saying, ‘I can’t breathe,’” Nash recalled. The family considered calling an ambulance, but the street was closed.
No national standard for use of tear gas exists.
Law enforcement policies governing the use of tear gas and pepper spray differ widely by location, and no federal standard exists. The DHS policy on force says officers must use tactics that “minimize the risk of unintended injury” and should be guided by “respect for human life.” The CBP’s policy says officers “should not use” pepper spray or “less-lethal” chemical munitions against “small children.” ICE’s policy says “the presence of other officers, subjects, or bystanders” are a factor in determining whether an officers’ use of force is reasonable.
Compare that with tear gas policies in two cities that have experienced Trump’s immigration crackdown firsthand. In Portland, police officers who consider using tear gas must take into account their proximity to homes. Meanwhile, Minneapolis forbids officers from using chemical munitions for crowd control unless authorized by the police chief — even when officers fear they will be physically harmed.
Requiring all law enforcement agencies to adopt uniform policies and training methods would go a long way, experts told ProPublica. At the same time, they acknowledge that this would likely require Congress to pass a bill mandating that federal law enforcement entities adopt stricter practices and incentivize local police departments to do the same.
Bills that seek to strengthen use-of-force training on such a wide scale and legislation that targets DHS and its use of these weapons have thus far failed to even make it to a vote in Congress. Following ProPublica’s investigation, U.S. lawmakers have begun demanding reforms to immigration officers’ use of these weapons.
Risolte molteplici vulnerabilità, di cui 4 con gravità “alta”, in alcuni prodotti Schneider Electric. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire a un utente malintenzionato l’accesso a informazioni sensibili sui sistemi interessati.
Adobe ha rilasciato aggiornamenti di sicurezza per risolvere molteplici vulnerabilità, di cui 4 con gravità “critica” e 44 con gravità “alta”, nei prodotti Acrobat, Campaign Classic, ColdFusion, Content Credentials SDK, Dreamweaver, Experience Manager, Format Plugins, InCopy, InDesign e Substance 3D Sampler.
On June 9, Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, the most capable model it has ever made, generally available. It also did something unusual: it shipped one model as two products, split not by capability but by a layer of safety classifiers.
Fable 5 goes to the public. Its twin, Claude Mythos 5, the same underlying model with the cyber safeguards lifted, stays locked to a vetted group of cyber
Microsoft today released software updates to plug nearly 200 security holes across its Windows operating systems and supported software, a record number of fixes for the company’s monthly Patch Tuesday cycle. Nearly three dozen of those bugs earned Microsoft’s most dire “critical” rating, and exploit code for at least three of the weaknesses is now publicly available.
The software giant said in a blog post last month that both its engineers and the security community are increasing using artificial intelligence tools to find bugs, meaning this month’s heavy Patch Tuesday may start to become the norm, said Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable.
“Some surveys put AI usage among security professionals generally at 90%, so it’s unsurprising that this volume of patches may be the norm,” Narang said. “Pandora’s proverbial box has been opened, and as more advanced AI models become available, we expect the norm to continue upward across the board, not just for Patch Tuesday.”
June’s zero-day bugs include CVE-2026-49160, a denial of service vulnerability affecting a range of web servers, including Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). Microsoft says the flaw was reported by OpenAI’s Codex.
Two of the zero-days addressed this month appear to stem from recent vulnerability disclosures by Nightmare Eclipse, the nickname chosen by a security researcher who has been dropping exploits for various Windows flaws. One of those, dubbed “GreenPlasma,” leverages an elevation of privilege weakness in the Windows Collaborative Translation Framework, the same framework patched today in CVE-2026-45586.
Nightmare Eclipse also last month released “YellowKey,” an exploit for a Windows BitLocker vulnerability that allows an attacker with physical access to view encrypted data, and CVE-2026-50507 is a patch for an elevation of privilege bug in BitLocker.
Microsoft received heavy blowback on social media last month after it said in a blog post that it was considering taking legal action against the security researcher. The company later clarified on Twitter/X that while it has no intention of pursuing legal actions against researchers, it would report them to authorities if they break the law. The advisories for CVE-2026-49160 and CVE-2026-50507 do not credit any researchers in the acknowledgement section, saying only that “Microsoft recognizes the efforts of those in the security community who help us protect customers through coordinated vulnerability disclosure.”
Nightmare Eclipse claims to be a former employee of Microsoft, although Microsoft has not responded to questions about this claim. Rapid7 notes that a recent blog post by Nightmare Eclipse included an image of Albert Wesker, a character from the Resident Evil video game series who formerly worked as a researcher for a technology company before going rogue.
Nightmare Eclipse has pledged to release even more zero-day exploits for Windows in what they called a “bone shattering” drop planned for July 14 (the same day as next month’s Patch Tuesday). Immediately following the release of Microsoft patches today, the researcher published an exploit for what they claimed was a zero-day bug in Windows Defender.
While 200 vulnerabilities may be a record for Patch Tuesday, the actual number of security flaws Microsoft addressed this month is far higher, said Rapid7’s Adam Barnett.
“So far this month, Microsoft has provided patches to address 360 browser vulnerabilities, which is an order of magnitude more than has been typical in any given month over the past few years,” Barnett wrote. “As usual, browser [flaws] are not included in the Patch Tuesday count above. Indeed, the vast, and presumably sustained, uptick in the number of browser vulnerabilities has led to Microsoft no longer enumerating Chromium CVEs in the Security Update Guide.”
Microsoft also patched a zero-day vulnerability in Visual Studio Code that allows attackers to steal GitHub tokens with a single click. The company was forced to push a stopgap fix for the flaw on June 3, after a researcher published instructions showing how to exploit it. The researcher said they opted not to work with Microsoft because of a recent experience wherein Redmond silently patched a flaw they reported without offering credit or recognition.
Microsoft battled its own internal zero-day emergencies last week, after at least 72 of the company’s public code repositories were infected with a variant of the Shai-Hulud worm. Researchers found that all of the affected packages were connected to Microsoft official Azure Durable Task SDK, which got hit by the same Shai-Hulud worm in May.
Other major software makers are also shipping outsized update bundles this month. Adobe has released updates to fix a massive number of critical vulnerabilities across a range of products, including Adobe Experience Manager, Acrobat Reader and Cold Fusion. On June 3, Google resolved a whopping 429 vulnerabilities in its latest Chrome browser update (Chrome automatically downloads updates but installing them usually requires a complete restart of the browser).
As ever, please consider backing up your data before applying operating system updates, and drop a note in the comments if you run into any problems with this month’s patches.
“Ghost-Sender" is the result of a widespread misconfiguration, according to researchers, and evidence indicates it's being actively abused in the wild.
Two separate campaigns target CVE-2025-8088, fixed last July, to conduct data theft and cyberespionage against military and government targets in Ukraine.
Veeam ha rilasciato aggiornamenti di sicurezza per risolvere una nuova vulnerabilità con gravità “critica” nel prodotto “Backup & Replication”, soluzione di backup, ripristino e replica dati per ambienti virtuali, fisici e cloud.
Je lis ces Khryspresso chaque semaine depuis des années, il était temps de prendre quelques secondes pour vous remercier de cet énorme travail de veille.
[Edit] ma question ne semble plus pertinente: je me suis rendu compte qu’en choisissant d’aller sur la page du sondage (et non celle d’admin), je peux voir les résultats des votes groupés.
Par contre n’est-ce pas la page que verront aussi les votants (ce n’est pas souhaité qu’ils voient les résultats….) ?
____________
Utilisateur de longue date, j’ai créé un sondage classique avec Framadate Beta et j’ai modifié les réglages afin que seul l’administrateur puisse voir les votes.
Je m’attendais à pouvoir voir tous les votes d’un coup, comme sur un sondage dont les résultats sont accessibles aux votants. Cependant je ne vois que la liste des personnes ayant déjà voté et je suis obligé d’ouvrir chaque vote en cliquant sur “modifier” afin de voir chaque résultat ….
N’est-il pas possible dans ce cas (seul l’admin peut voir les votes) de voir un tableau avec tous les votes sans devoir les ouvrir un après l’autre, ce qui est laborieux?
Matériel: iPad Pro et iPhone avec dernières mises à jour
Security is not a point-in-time exercise. It’s a cycle of testing, fixing, and starting over. Organisations that treat it as anything less quickly fall behind.
In the last decade, we’ve seen how offensive security practices such as penetration testing, combined with follow-up patching and mitigation strategies, have significantly strengthened defences. For instance, Active Directory hardening, EDR solutions, and endpoint security have evolved considerably thanks to insights from attack simulations.
Repeated internal testing followed by corrective actions will help reduce misconfigurations, close or reduce privilege gaps, and ultimately shrink the overall attack surface. A positive outcome of defensive maturity is that attackers often now have to spend more effort to execute a successful attack.
Modern Attackers Have an Easy Entry
Many significant attacks in 2025 didn’t rely on basic exploit methods alone to reach their end goal. Multiple techniques, including social engineering, MFA fatigue, misconfigured cloud services, token abuse, and trusted third-party access were also used to enable lateral movement.
For instance, Salesforce suffered a breach related to SalesLoft-Drift SaaS, now considered the largest SaaS supply chain breach in history. ShinyHunters/UNC6395, started with the exploitation of a vulnerability in an integration point between Drift and Salesforce. Once inside, attackers were able to get oAuth tokens and refresh tokens for hundreds of companies globally.
And, an attack against Marks & Spencer was one of a number of attacks on major UK retail outlets. The attack happened when malefactors used social engineering tactics and compromised third-party access to trick the retailer’s service desk employees into resetting their own user ID and password for the company’s internal systems.
As attackers evolve to incorporate varying techniques to reach their end goal, the security industry must continue to do the same.
Real Attackers Don’t Respect Security Silos
Whether mass exploitation or a targeted attack, the bad guys are often patient, taking their time to understand the victim’s environment before trying to break in. Stronger defences have the ability to delay or even thwart these attempts, many of which exist because offensive security exposed where defences were weakest, pointing out how attackers might get in, where their controls could fail, and how small issues together can add up to major risks.
Because offensive security is an ecosystem rather than a single activity, network, cloud, identity, and email attack paths all intersect. If you only test one of these environments in isolation, then you are missing how real attacks happen. A mature offensive security programme reflects this reality by using tooling and expertise to test across environmental and stage-level attacks.
As a result, an organisation’s offensive security suite should consist of a full-scale array of tools and services that help companies conduct proactive assessments of their defensive posture. This is tested using several methods including penetration testing, Red Team engagements, and Adversary Simulation to identify vulnerabilities, verify controls, and enhance an entity’s security posture.
We also now have tools and techniques to simulate AI-assisted attacks, targeted cloud abuse, and advanced phishing scenarios that conventional defences cannot stop. These capabilities extend and augment penetration testing and red teaming by helping teams test situations that were onerous or time-consuming to recreate a few years ago.
Change as the Main Goal of Testing
Offensive security is often misunderstood as purely a vulnerability-finding exercise. In practice, its value lies in context.
Penetration testing and adversary simulation provide real-world evidence of how vulnerabilities can impact a company’s overall resilience by showing whether segmentation can prevent an attacker from moving around the network, whether endpoint controls will slow them down, and whether or not the alerts will get to the right person at the right time. The insights from these tests can directly influence changes to network architectures, configurations for endpoints, and identity strategies.
Testing is only valuable as offensive security though if the results are used to create actionable recommendations that result in actual change. These fixes must, in turn, be tested to ensure they are effective. This very feedback loop converts testing into a resilient process.
A Human – Machine Balance
Today’s adversaries use a combination of automation and human insight. Examples of this include using AI to create phishing content, automated scanning and reconnaissance techniques, as well as scripted methods to exploit vulnerabilities. All of these are coordinated and controlled by a person who can assess and adjust the course if one method fails.
This is why defenders must operate similarly.
Most modern attacks are successful due to human factors. A hasty decision, a missed configuration change, or a patch applied too late. Offensive security has strengthened technical controls to the point that people are now the simplest way into a business.
This means there needs to be a balance between automation and human intelligence. Automation can provide rapid scale and consistency, while human expertise provides intuitive reasoning, creative problem solving, and a level of critical thinking and judgment.
Effective offensive security programmes will always use automation to rapidly evaluate large volumes of data and identify potential vulnerabilities and areas of risk and will use human expertise to analyse and understand the results from these evaluations, examine the edge cases, and see through the eyes of a bad actor.
Closing the Loop
Offensive security doesn’t work on its own. It should be part of the defence-in-depth strategy together with security awareness and detection and response.
Threat intelligence proves priority. Knowing that a vulnerability has been identified is helpful, but realising it’s being exploited changes priority. Training employees limits repeated exposures to common attack vectors, while an automated response facilitates immediate actions when required.
Organisations that use offensive security demonstrate maturity and improve their overall security posture by integrating these solutions into their broader security operations and shifting from being reactive to continuously improving.
So, Is Offensive Security Keeping Pace?
Yes, but again, not all by itself.
Offensive security has matured substantially. Threat actors are using more sophisticated and realistic tactics, tools have improved in capability, and the insights these solutions provide are more actionable than ever.
Properly implemented, it can keep pace with attackers as they hone their craft. There is no silver bullet, so the solutions that gain your trust will be those that can be incorporated into a disciplined process of testing, learning, and adapting.
Offensive security is most effective when used from the outset, as a catalyst that leads to better decision-making, more effective controls, and quicker responses.
Mark McAfee, CEO and founder of Raw Farm Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
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A white Ford pickup truck broke through a thick curtain of fog one morning in February, winding its way down a muddy farm road in California’s Central Valley. From it emerged a 64-year-old dairyman, burly and tan, who left the engine running as he lumbered toward me with open arms.
“You must be Mark,” I said, warning him I wasn’t one for hugging.
“I’m a hugger,” he said, pulling me in anyway. “I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime.”
I had spent the past couple of weeks corresponding with Raw Farm founder Mark McAfee, who’d filled my inbox with messages and PowerPoints extolling the virtues of his most important, and controversial, product:
It is delicious.
It makes you feel good (the gut-brain serotonin and dopamine cycle).
It’s great for asthma and literally saves lives.
He was talking about raw milk, which, if you trust 150 years of bedrock science, offers little reason to consume. By definition, it has not been pasteurized, the simple process of heating milk to kill off harmful bacteria. Before the practice was widely adopted a century ago, thousands of babies died each year from illnesses linked to contaminated dairy. Today, most scientists and health experts agree that raw milk has no significant, proven nutritional benefits over its sanitized counterpart, cannot treat or cure disease and subjects its consumers to over 100 times the risk of foodborne illness, which can be especially dangerous for young children.
And yet, McAfee’s farm, the largest raw-milk dairy in the country, is pulling in about $30 million a year, meeting a growing demand from customers who say they want food that hasn’t been robbed of health benefits by industrial processing. Once drawing a fringe crowd, raw milk has been thrust into the mainstream in recent years by a potent mix of politics, wellness culture and a wave of suspicion that health institutions have been compromised by Big Pharma and Big Food. Its proponents have turned it into a symbol of freedom and defiance. More than 10 million Americans now drink it; national weekly sales rose by 65% from 2023 to 2024 alone.
Raw milk’s success confounded me: How had it gained such a foothold in this country, despite regular outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli, and even the discovery of bird flu in Raw Farm’s milk? More pressing still, what was the government doing to protect the public amid demands for products that scientists warn are risky, even deadly? Speaking with McAfee seemed like a good place to start; federal and state regulators had linked his business to more than a dozen recalls and outbreaks that had left hundreds of people ill.
“I’ve put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered,” McAfee acknowledged before my visit. “But here’s the thing: I’m a pioneer. And I’m going against the grain here. I’m climbing a mountain they say you can’t climb.”
Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
McAfee isn’t any ordinary farmer. He is a raw-milk zealot who has escaped serious sanctions despite two decades of skirmishes with the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, which have repeatedly accused him of breaking federal laws and regulations. The Biden administration was on the verge of a crackdown against his farm when President Donald Trump assumed office and turned over leadership of the nation’s health agencies to one of McAfee’s most notable customers.
The year before he was confirmed as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president, using his campaign platform to decry the government’s “aggressive suppression” of raw milk. In his new role, he said he was “advocating” for it and celebrated the release of a federal report to Make America Healthy Again with a toast of raw-milk shooters in the White House.
For his part, McAfee isn’t just selling Kennedy’s favored milk. He is selling the notion that his dairy products are safe and healthy — for you, your kids, your grandparents — because his farm thoroughly screens its milk for bacteria.
“They think we’re some kind of a fringe, weird trend, and we are dead serious here,” McAfee said after he greeted me at his farm, which he runs with his adult son and daughter, 20 miles southwest of Fresno. “And you’ll see that in what we’re doing today.”
He led me into a cream-colored bungalow he called his pathogen laboratory, where two workers in lab coats prepared milk samples.
The farm screens each batch for four types of bacteria: salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter and listeria, all of which thrive in the intestines of cattle and can contaminate milk through microscopic flecks of infected feces. The microbes can cause a constellation of symptoms in humans, from vomiting and diarrhea to sepsis, kidney failure and even death.
“We catch these things and divert the milk immediately,” McAfee said of the pathogens.
I assumed that after diverting batches, the farm discarded them.
Later that day, I learned otherwise.
“We have a red-flag system here, where if there’s anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn’t go to anything but cheese,” McAfee told me. “Because, you know, cheese is resistant to pathogens.”
Research has shown that raw cheese is not, in fact, resistant to pathogens; while aging can mitigate some risk, harmful bacteria can still survive the usual 60-day maturation process.
Hearing about the practice took me by surprise — the farm did what with that milk? — so I asked about it again.
McAfee confirmed that milk with pathogens was used to make cheese, except for batches with salmonella, which he said were dumped or sent out for pasteurization. (I later learned the FDA knew he was doing this and had told him to stop two years ago. But no one had alerted the public.)
“Our cheese is just wildly successful across America,” McAfee said, noting it was sold in hundreds of stores from natural food shops to chains like Sprouts Farmers Market. “H-E-B down in Texas sells 50,000 bucks a week.”
I wondered how long it might take for the cheese to be linked to another outbreak.
Unbeknownst to me, one was already underway.
A laboratory technician prepares broth to test for pathogens inside a lab at Raw Farm.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Chapter 1: The Pioneer
In the early 2000s, McAfee was producing pasteurized milk for the dairy group Organic Valley when a raw-milk enthusiast named James Stewart made an unusual request.
Stewart had founded a private food club in Venice, Los Angeles. Its members included movie stars, “crystal worshippers” and other “fanatical people,” McAfee recalled. They were looking for a steady source of raw milk at a time when consumers were waking up to the risks of food contaminated by additives, fertilizers and pesticides.
“How fast can you drive down here with as much milk as you can?” McAfee recalled Stewart asking.
McAfee, not fully grasping why people would want to drink milk that was unpasteurized, nonetheless went to his silo, filled half-gallon containers and packed them in ice chests. Then, with his wife, he made the long drive south to the L.A. coast.
Dozens of people were waiting for them, McAfee said, launching into a scene that unfolded with a Hollywood sheen. “I couldn’t even get out of the car,” he said. “They’re beating on the windows and opening up the back. … Just mayhem, cheering, excitement, crying.”
As their $20 bills started flying at him, so did their stories, about how raw milk had healed their health issues, including asthma. The moment transformed him, he said: He realized that he was selling more than just milk — it was “food as medicine.”
Twenty-odd years later, Stewart, too, recalls the moment. “I saw the light go off in his head,” Stewart told me. “He was looking for a way to expand what he was doing and not just be a commercial, pasteurized, homogenized milk provider.”
McAfee, a third-generation California farmer, was born into a family that had charted an unconventional course. His father, whom McAfee described as both a humanitarian and a rebel, founded multiple farm cooperatives and made national news in 1972, when he helped post bail for activist Angela Davis by putting his land up as collateral.
McAfee didn’t initially follow in his father’s footsteps. He worked for 16 years as a paramedic before taking the helm of family farmland that his grandparents left behind. The farm grew apples, almonds and alfalfa, and, by 2001, McAfee had expanded into commercial dairy. But his days of producing milk for pasteurization were short-lived; within a few months of meeting Stewart, McAfee converted his dairy to sell only raw milk.
He entered a market on the verge of extraordinary growth.
California had always permitted raw milk to be sold in stores, but Los Angeles County’s more stringent rules had, in effect, curbed its retail sales. In 2001, food-freedom advocates, including Stewart, successfully petitioned the county to weaken regulations, providing McAfee access to a new pool of customers. That would happen again and again, in state and local governments across America, as the internet, and then social media influencers, drew exponentially more people to the cause.
Around the time McAfee converted his dairy to raw milk, only 27 states allowed its sale.
In one way or another, nearly all of them ultimately would.
Many States Allow the Sale of Raw Milk
A consumer could buy raw milk:
Raw milk is available in Michigan only through “herd share” programs, where consumers receive milk after purchasing a partial share of an animal. Other herd-share programs are not shown in this map. Raw goat milk can be purchased in Rhode Island with a doctor’s prescription.Map and research by Alyssa Fowers, special to ProPublica
One thing stood between McAfee and all of that business: a federal regulation restricting the sale of raw milk from one state to another. The 1987 ban had the effect of keeping outbreaks contained, making it easier for local officials to address them.
But there was a loophole: Raw milk could be sold across state lines if labeled as pet food.
McAfee saw an opportunity, and he wasn’t subtle about it on the website for his farm, which at the time was called Organic Pastures. The farm “creatively labeled its products for sale outside of California in such a way that it is not illegal,” the site said, and it assured people they could still consume them. Justifying the strategy to an Oregon newspaper, McAfee said in 2005, “I am a revolutionist in this, and I won’t overlook any loophole that will get the milk out there.”
As his raw dairy grew, McAfee portrayed himself as an underdog waging a war against industrialized food. “The giants of the marketplace have processed our food to death to extend shelf life and expand distribution,” he said in a 2006 interview. “The raw milk revolution grows right out of this disorder.”
Two decades later, he still talks about raw milk with the passion of a convert. He answered even simple questions with lengthy explanations, speaking in a quick, torrential style and snapping his fingers or pinching the air for emphasis. Only later did I realize that much of what sounded spontaneous was a pitch he had been refining in years of promotional interviews and farm tours.
McAfee has professed the benefits of unpasteurized milk in publiclibraries and chiropractoroffices. Raw dairy, his farm has claimed, could cure, treat or prevent myriad diseases and ailments, from diabetes and ear infections to allergies, eczema and arthritis. The farm developed the website icanbreathe.org to promote the so-called Milk Cure for asthma. “Only raw milk works in this natural treatment,” the dairy stated. “Pasteurizing milk kills or changes the natural enzymes, antibodies, and fatty acids that are critical to the physiology of how this works in your body.”
McAfee founded a nonprofit, Raw Milk Institute, in 2011, broadcasting similar claims alongside studies he said support them. While a few European studies he cited observed a correlation between drinking raw milk and lower rates of asthma and allergies, they did not prove raw milk directly led to reduced illness, nor did they recommend its consumption due to pathogenic risk. Experts have suggested the association could likely be explained by the “farm effect,” in which children growing up around animals and agriculture have been shown to have stronger immune systems.
Exhaustive reviews of the published science on raw milk have broadly been unable to substantiate claims of its benefits, and most experts agree that it is neither healthy nor safe to consume. But McAfee said his customers know better. To him, the stories of families who believe raw milk has transformed their health are their own form of evidence, revealing truths that institutions have failed to capture. “If raw milk was a fad or a lie, then why would people repeatedly buy raw milk and then tell the world how they love it,” he said. “Our consumers read their gut and watch their kids thrive.”
He also said the government hasn’t invested enough in research to assess its benefits.
“I’m begging you to say: ‘This is not anti-science, this is extremely pro-science,’” he told me. “It’s using science that is not conveniently accepted yet.”
And for many health-conscious people, this possibility that raw milk may help them — or their loved ones — is often enough for them to try it.
Raw-dairy products are sold at Raw Farm.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Chapter 2: The First
Mary McGonigle-Martin was shopping in a Southern California grocery store in 2006 when she spotted ads suggesting McAfee’s milk could treat allergies and digestive problems. She thought of her 7-year-old son, Chris, who she suspected was dealing with dairy sensitivity, and later visited McAfee’s website to learn more. She knew the risks of forgoing pasteurization, but the site eased her concerns: It said the farm tested its milk and had never found a single pathogen.
So she started buying it, and her son started drinking it. And about a month later, he fell gravely ill. What began as a trip to the nearest hospital for bloody diarrhea turned into a race to save his life as his kidneys started to fail. Airlifted to a children’s hospital in Loma Linda, Chris was put in a medically induced coma. He spent nine days on a ventilator and 18 days on dialysis, during which time doctors gave him blood, platelet and plasma transfusions. “He was on the verge of death,” Martin told me. “I had flashes of him being in a casket and being at his funeral.”
Chris had a dangerous strain of E. coli, known as O157:H7, which led to hemolytic uremic syndrome. This rare condition, which mostly impacts children, occurs when bacterial toxins spread throughout the body and damage red blood cells, causing clots in the organs, primarily the kidneys. With quick intervention, most people survive. But it can cause lifelong complications.
While sitting in the intensive care unit, Martin overheard another mother mention her daughter had the same condition. It turned out the young girl had also drank milk from McAfee’s farm. Hoping to intervene before others got sick, the families reported the illnesses to the dairy and the state, which quickly issued a recall and quarantine order, suspending distribution of the farm’s products.
McAfee told me that when he learned of the two sick children, he “wanted to know the truth.” So he took his wife’s Volvo and drove four hours to the hospital. Then, somehow, he found a way into the ICU. “I knew how to get back past security,” he said. “A paramedic can get anywhere, and I sucked up to the nurses.”
Martin told me she was surprised when McAfee introduced himself in the waiting area, but nonetheless she shared details of her son’s ordeal. “I listened to her as compassionately as I could,” McAfee told me. But in his recollection, he observed that Martin’s son was not as critically ill as he’d been led to believe. “He’s eating McDonald’s, watching cartoons, doing just great, and they’re telling the story to the world that he’s ready to die,” claimed McAfee. “I was really upset about that.”
McAfee’s version of events was impossible, Martin told me: When he appeared at the hospital, Chris had just been taken off the ventilator and still struggled to breathe on his own; reams of her contemporaneous notes confirm this. Even after being extubated, he couldn’t have solid food for weeks due to severe pancreatitis. “I was so hungry,” Chris told me. “I started crying because I couldn’t eat.”
When I asked Martin why she thought McAfee gave such a different account of their meeting, her response was simple: “Mark is the master of spin.” (McAfee maintained that his recollection was accurate: “This is not spinning; this is simple truth.”)
Mary McGonigle-Martin looks through old articles and documents she has saved. Nearly 20 years ago, her son, Chris, contracted an E. coli infection after consuming unpasteurized milk.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Six people contracted E. coli during the first outbreak connected to McAfee’s farm, according to federal regulators; their median age was 8. While the outbreak’s specific strain of E. coli was not found in the products, some samples taken by investigators had high bacterial counts, indicating contamination.
Chris suffered permanent kidney damage. Now 27, he can’t drink alcohol and will spend the rest of his life under a nephrologist’s care because of his elevated risk of chronic kidney disease.
The illness lingered in other ways, too. “I would have random flashbacks and panic attacks from anything,” he told me. The smell of hospital soap. The sticky feeling of Band-Aids or tape on his skin. His mother found him a trauma counselor, which was “life-changing,” he said, except he still held onto a knot of resentment. Not toward his parents; he views them as victims like him. “Just so much anger towards Mark,” he recently told me. When he later saw McAfee’s milk being sold at a Sprouts, “I wanted to take a bat and smash the entire aisle.”
Martin couldn’t let go either. She hired Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in food safety litigation. Alongside the family she met in the hospital, she sued McAfee’s farm in 2008, and the dairy settled for an undisclosed sum. “They couldn’t find the pathogen in our milk,” McAfee told me. “She claims she had it in her milk with her child, and that’s what the insurance company took to settle, and we weren’t going to litigate it.”
Emboldened, Martin, who was a high school guidance counselor, found her second calling as a food safety advocate, testifying against raw-milk-access bills across the country.
Following the settlement, McAfee wrote to Martin to apologize, but also begged her to move on.
“Mary, please appreciate that so many children thrive and grow very strong on raw milk,” he wrote. “The very remote theoretical risk of illness from tested, retail, approved raw milk is far outweighed by the health and recovery from the illness that children that drink raw milk enjoy.”
Martin appreciated the note, but recognized that even in his seemingly heartfelt apology, McAfee could not adapt his belief system to fit her experience. “He really believed this was like a fluke. It’s not going to happen again,” she said.
Tony Martin, left; Chris Martin; and Mary McGonigle-Martin, at their home in Murrieta, California, on March 26Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Chapter 3: The Pathogens
Eager to keep showing me his farm’s serious approach to pathogens, McAfee ushered me into his truck to see the milking of his cows. Raw Farm keeps about 1,400 of them, which produce up to 8,000 gallons a day, each priced at $19. The smell of sweet milk hung in the air, mixed with the earthy musk of manure.
“We’ll see what kind of music they’re playing this morning up in the milk barn,” he mused.
“You play music for the milking?” I asked.
“Mexican music,” he said, as he got behind the wheel. “It’s very Pavlovian. … You start seeing milk coming out of their teats.”
In the open-sided barn, workers sprayed a small herd of cows with a fire hose, removing flies and flecks of manure from their bellies, which were then inspected, coated with iodine and wiped with a towel. The steady pulsing of milking machines mingled with a thumping musical beat as McAfee marched down the rows, pointing to their light pink udders. “Super clean,” he said with pride.
Hygiene appeared to be a clear priority everywhere we went, from the thick binders of safety plans — “not one of those documents collects dust,” he told me — to the sterile, full-body moon suits workers wear to package milk.
McAfee said the 2006 outbreak opened his eyes to the risk of his product and was part of the reason he developed standards for unpasteurized dairies.
But more awareness and better practices didn’t stop McAfee’s customers from continuing to get sick — in 2007, and 2011, and 2012, and 2016 — and the farm had to issue recalls more than half a dozen times after pathogens were found in its products.
And then between 2023 and 2024, regulators linked the farm to one of the largest publicly known raw-dairy outbreaks in decades, with more than 170 people falling ill from salmonella. McAfee disputed his farm’s connection to many of the outbreaks, including this one.
“I call complete crap,” McAfee said, claiming that his farm was not responsible for all the cases. “It was 25, maybe 30.” He also disagreed that the majority of patients were children, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had detailed in a report published last year. “I challenge that data at the fundamental level.”
It was a typical McAfee defense. Throughout our conversation, he never lost his composure, even when discussing outbreaks. Instead, he calmly dismissed the government’s methodology, explaining that it was counting cases of “standard diarrhea,” which he said have “no claims for illness,” as they could be managed with “good hydration and plenty of good bone broths and electrolytes and stuff.”
He also seized on instances when the government could not identify an outbreak strain in his products, but instead found it in samples of farm water and cow feces or drew ties to his farm using genetic sequencing or interviews with patients — practices epidemiologists routinely rely upon. McAfee held that none of this was smoking-gun proof that his farm directly caused outbreaks. Instead, such episodes seemed to reinforce his perception that he was climbing a mountain alone, battling institutions that were already biased against raw milk before hearing his case.
When mandated quarantines ended, he would declare victory.
After his dairy reopened following an outbreak that sickened five children in 2011, he revealed how much people were suffering without his product in a celebratory video. McAfee shook the hand of a young man who was wearing a sideways cap. “This guy came all the way from Alaska to get raw milk!” McAfee said. The young man described a kind of withdrawal: “My immune system broke down. I lost a lot of lean body mass.” When a gray-haired woman said she was driving four half-gallons to her grandbabies in Texas — “that’s how desperate I am for them to be healthy” — McAfee kissed her on the head and called her a “raw-milk freedom rider.”
At least 233 people have been sickened in eight outbreaks that federal and state regulators have connected to McAfee’s farm since 2006, and at least 40 of them have been hospitalized.
The tally is almost certainly an undercount, experts and regulators told me. Many recover at home from foodborne illness and do not seek out testing.
McAfee’s Dairy Has Sickened Hundreds of People Over the Years, According to Regulators
Federal and state regulators have linked 233 outbreak cases to Organic Pastures or Raw Farm. The true number of cases is likely higher.
Source: CDC, FDA, California Department of Food and Agriculture, California Department of Public Health, Food Safety NewsGraphic by Alyssa Fowers, special to ProPublica
The outbreaks raised an obvious question: Why hadn’t regulators shut down the farm? America’s food safety system aims to balance public health with people’s freedom to eat foods that can harm them, like raw oysters and sushi. Regulators expect some will inevitably get sick, and so they focus on ensuring consumers, at the very least, are aware of the risk.
State regulators are responsible for overseeing raw milk sold legally within their borders. In California, they require it to be sampled and tested monthly for pathogens. Raw Farm is in good standing, according to the Department of Food and Agriculture, consistently meeting standards for sanitation and cow health. But spokespeople for that agency and the state Department of Public Health emphasized that the best way to prevent illness is to drink milk that has been pasteurized. Otherwise, they wrote in an email, “there will always be some risk of contamination.”
Many people who turn to raw milk don’t have a full understanding of that risk, John Lucey told me. A professor of food science who directs the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lucey grew up on a farm and has studied dairy products for three decades. “Cows poop all the time,” he said. “Farms are just a reservoir of bacteria: The soil has got bacteria, the walls have got bacteria, the cows are carrying bacteria.”
One of the draws of raw milk is a deeper connection to its source; by knowing a farmer personally, people assume their food will be more safe, Lucey said. But what raw-milk consumers often don’t realize is that many dairy farmers are in a relentless battle to produce clean milk.
“Sometimes you lose because the cow kicked off the milking machine. Something just happens,” he said. “Farmers do the best they can and they are super hardworking people, but just because Daisy is a nice cow and the farmer is a nice guy doesn’t guarantee that things are sanitary and that they can prevent things 100% of the time.”
Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Over the past two years alone, nine states have experienced outbreaks that regulators linked to raw dairy, not including those connected to McAfee’s farm. In Washington state, about 10 people fell ill with E. coli connected to raw-cheese consumption, and in Florida, where raw milk can be sold only as pet food, about 20 people got sick. Among them was a pregnant mother whose toddler was hospitalized; she said she caught his bacterial infection and had a miscarriage at 20 weeks. (The Florida farm said its products had not tested positive for pathogens and that it informed customers its raw milk was not for human consumption; the Washington creamery voluntarily recalled its cheese.)
Just last week, Idaho’s health officials announced that nearly 60 people had become ill after consuming raw milk.
Discussing the risk of raw milk with McAfee was a challenge.
As we rode in his truck to the next stop on the tour, I brought up the prevalence of pathogens, as well as his farm’s pattern of outbreaks. He acknowledged that some risk exists, but stressed that it was “very, very, very small” and was “fantastically” outweighed by raw milk’s therapeutic value. And then, he insisted one should disentangle the benefits from the risk, as if that’s even possible.
“Show me the criticism of raw milk if it’s safe,” he told me, one hand on the wheel, the other punctuating his points in the air. “None.”
“Well, the critics would argue that there’s risk—”
“No, if it’s safe,” he said, cutting me off. “If it’s safe, how could you criticize it?”
“But they would argue that it’s not safe,” I said.
“Show me the risk,” he repeated. “I’ve yet to see it. We found it. We immediately diverted it.”
Employees hook up cows to milking machines at Raw Farm.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Chapter 4: The Art of War
We’d seen nearly every stage of production — from “grass to glass,” as McAfee called it — when he parked his truck next to the hangar that houses his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller plane. Next to it, steps from his hacienda-style home, is a bungalow he uses as an office.
He showed me his replica medieval broadsword, his podcasting setup and one of his favored books, Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” He said the ancient Chinese military treatise had informed his longstanding feud with the federal government.
Two decades ago, his use of the pet food loophole to ship across state lines attracted scrutiny almost immediately. In 2005, an undercover investigator from the FDA called the farm and was told the milk was safe for human consumption. Two years later, according to court records, the farm sent an email to consumers saying, “Raw milk can be shipped via UPS to all US states,” and “Tell everyone who has asthma that they will be cured by raw milk.”
In 2008, the DOJ pursued criminal charges and a civil suit. McAfee resolved the charges, promising that the farm wouldn’t sell raw milk across state lines again. But prosecutors wanted a court order that would force McAfee and the farm to comply, citing their “unabashed efforts to manipulate the law.”
To illustrate McAfee’s ongoing defiance, the government pointed to statements he had made online that year and the next. In one post on a blog, he said, “If we ever get raided it will be grand theater. … There will probably be some riots.” In another, he said he would not use guns “until the tipping point” and mentioned “another Wounded Knee, Ruby Ridge or Waco.” Prosecutors argued his conduct demonstrated a “cognizable danger” that he would violate the law again.
In 2010, the judge granted a permanent injunction, requiring, among other things, that the farm stop selling raw milk beyond California and take down any statements promoting its health benefits. McAfee told me the directive was an attack on his right to free speech. “I deeply and passionately believe in the truth, and they were telling me I could not speak the truth,” he said. “I’ve had to have therapy over that, you know. I didn’t want to do something stupid.”
A violation of the order could have led to an enforcement action, but in the years that followed, officials pulled their punches. (McAfee insisted they had no punches to throw.)
The FDA and the DOJ kept finding evidence of violations, in 2016, and 2019, and 2021, according to court records. Though federal prosecutors initially pushed for strong penalties, including holding Raw Farm and McAfee in contempt, they agreed to a consent decree in 2023, which required the farm to undergo independent audits to ensure it was complying with the law.
Then, in early 2024, FDA inspectors discovered the farm had a “standard practice” of producing cheese from milk suspected or known to contain pathogens, according to court documents; lab records showed its cheese had also tested positive even after the mandated aging period.
That February, federal regulators publicly linked Raw Farm’s cheese to a monthslong E. coli outbreak. Nearly a dozen people across five states fell ill.
Among them was Paul Panelli, who went to his grocery store in Newport Beach, California, looking for Tillamook cheese to make tacos. Finding it was sold out, he reached for Raw Farm’s cheddar, drawn in by packaging that made it seem organic and all-natural. He told me he didn’t realize the cheese was made with unpasteurized milk.
Both Panelli and his wife, Julie, came down with food poisoning. She was diagnosed with an E. coli infection that left her needing several kidney surgeries. “She literally is afraid to eat things,” her husband told me. The family’s lawsuit against Raw Farm is ongoing; in court records, the farm denied responsibility for their illnesses.
Raw Farm pushed back against the government, maintaining that it followed federal regulations by aging its cheese and claiming to have tested all of it before sale, so no contaminated product reached the market, according to court records. Federal law allows the interstate sale of unpasteurized cheese as long as it’s aged for at least 60 days, though this doesn’t fully eliminate the risk — or account for a farm using pathogenic milk to make it. The FDA told the farm to destroy any cheese made with contaminated milk, arguing that it was violating the law, according to court documents. The farm’s lawyer said it was in compliance, and insisted there was no “bad cheese” to throw out.
To force the farm to follow the government’s orders, it needed a judge’s ruling, but a backlog in the under-resourced Eastern District of California left the case on pause well into 2025. The arrival of the Trump administration that year created a political opening for McAfee.
By the time Kennedy took the helm of the health department, McAfee had already developed close ties to his inner circle. “I go way back with him,” McAfee told me. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, had made a stop at Raw Farm during his presidential campaign, creating multiplevideos featuring McAfee. (She did not respond to my emailed questions.) He was even asked to become an adviser to the FDA, McAfee told me. The position never materialized, but McAfee still benefited from the change in administration.
Without publicly stating a reason, this past January the government dropped its efforts to take action against the farm. A former federal employee with knowledge of the suit told me that cases involving raw milk were deprioritized in the new administration because of Kennedy’s stance on it.
Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, didn’t respond to my questions about the decision, but said in an email that the administration will “always be concerned about risks to public health and will continue to take enforcement action as appropriate to protect American consumers.” The health department and the FDA did not respond to my attempts to seek comment. Kennedy, through his department, also did not respond to my questions.
McAfee called the withdrawal a “big win.” Drawing on Sun Tzu’s teachings, he told me that he had learned not to engage in “their war,” but his own.
“You win the war they don’t expect you to fight,” he said. While officials were gathering evidence, he was focused on the “education” of consumers. He once delivered his message to dozens at a time. Now online influencers spread it to audiences of millions. “They have the guns and the money,” he said of the government. “I got the truth and the moms.”
His work could soon pay off. A month after I shook McAfee’s hand and left his farm, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, reintroduced the Interstate Milk Freedom Act, which would prohibit “federal interference” with the interstate sale of raw dairy in states where raw milk is already legal.
Massie, who served raw milk at his recent wedding, has a farm with 50 cattle, and Pingree, a former dairy farmer and the only Democratic sponsor of the bill, raises her own grass-fed beef. “The Interstate Milk Freedom Act would make it easier for families to buy the milk of their choice,” Massie said when he announced the bill, “by reversing the criminalization of specific dairy farmers.”
When asked if she was concerned the bill may increase access to a product that puts people at risk, Pingree told me that the bill was not about marketing raw milk or making any health claims. “I trust state departments of agriculture and health to monitor compliance, assess health risks, and enforce the rules in place to protect consumers,” she said in an emailed statement. Massie did not respond to my questions.
McAfee exits the hangar where his airplane is stored at Raw Farm.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
Chapter 5: The Devoted
Six weeks after I left Raw Farm, it happened.
On March 15, federal regulators publicly linked its cheese to yet another E. coli outbreak.
Nine people were infected across three states; more than half were younger than 5. Of the three people who had to be hospitalized, according to regulators, one developed the same severe kidney condition that Martin’s son had battled two decades earlier.
Initially, federal health agencies didn’t urge the public to avoid the cheese or throw it away, as they had under previous administrations. Instead, a CDC notice said consumers should “consider” not eating it; the FDA gave no consumption guidance at all. Three federal health employees later told me political appointees had watered down the original language. (The agencies’ advisories have since been updated. Neither the CDC nor the FDA responded to my questions.)
The fact that the agency was under Kennedy’s leadership didn’t make Raw Farm any more compliant when regulators asked it to recall its products. It refused. “If there was ever a question about whether there was a pathogen in our products,” McAfee later told me, “I’d be the first one to recall immediately, voluntarily.”
He said he texted Kennedy to “call off the dogs,” but got no response.
When FDA inspectors showed up unannounced at the farm, it complied with an investigation. And when the agency threatened to force a recall, the company reluctantly issued its own, 18 days after the outbreak was announced.
The farm appended several unusual statements to its April 2 advisory:
This Voluntary Recall is being performed under protest.
This Voluntary Recall is performed as a path forward.
The farm retracted those statements five days later, but continued to dispute the cause of the outbreak and contest the agency’s findings. It had tested its products, found no pathogens and wasn’t at fault, McAfee said.
However, during its investigation, the FDA also sampled and tested the company’s cheese. While it didn’t find the recent outbreak strain, one sample tested positive for E. coli. In their inspection, agency officials also found the farm’s cheese had recently tested presumptively positive for pathogens even after 60 days, showing the limitations of its aging process. The farm destroyed these contaminated batches.
I reached out to McAfee and asked him whether the illnesses might be connected to his practice of using problematic milk to make cheese. But now, he told a different story.
“We would in the past divert to cheesemaking,” he told me. “We no longer do.” He didn’t pinpoint exactly when the farm made the change, throwing out dates from two years ago to last summer. “It’s been quite some time.”
I brought up the fact that he’d made similardisclosures in podcasts in the last year and to me just weeks earlier. But he doubled down.
“I think you have caught me in something where there’s an issue between practice and what I’m saying,” he said. “If I said it, I believed that at the time to be true, but I do know that now we do not use any questionable milk.”
In almost the same breath, McAfee noted that his farm would not have violated any laws if it had done so. “It’s not illegal,” he said. “That’s why the FDA dropped their thing.” (California regulators told me such a practice was “concerning.” The FDA refused to respond to questions about it.)
Speaking to a congressional subcommittee on April 16 about the outbreak, Kennedy noted that companies usually comply with recalls right away. “But there was foot-dragging,” he said. “This company was intransigent.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., asked Kennedy whether in the face of these new, serious illnesses, it wasn’t time for a shift in his messaging: “You are the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Is there not some moral responsibility or compunction to say, ‘Don’t drink raw milk’?”
“Every product can contain contaminants,” Kennedy replied. “What we do is inform the public, and we let people make the choice.”
On April 30, the FDA closed its investigation without taking any enforcement action. McAfee told me his raw-cheese products were back in stores. Sprouts and H-E-B, two major retail chains that have carried his cheese, did not respond to my emailed questions about the outbreak.
“We don’t feel bad at all,” McAfee told me about the entire episode. “Our sales are highest they’ve ever been, and feedback online with influencers is: If the FDA says something, do the opposite. It’s safer. They don’t trust them at all.”
Proponents of raw milk and supporters of Raw Farm attend its Camping With the Cows event. First image: Matt James, 34, of Jupiter, Florida. James starred on “The Bachelor.” Second image: Jaime Espinoza, 31, left, and Lindsay Espinoza, 34, of Bakersfield, with their 2-year-old son, Isaac. Third image: Alyssa Wolfer, 42, of Bakersfield. Fourth image: Melanie Copeland, 58, of Huntington Beach.Sarahbeth Maney for ProPublica
On a sunny weekend in early May, hundreds congregated at Raw Farm for its annual Camping With the Cows event. Blue skies extended to the horizon, and a small colony of tents, camper vans and motorhomes sprawled out across the lush alfalfa fields. Influencers in cowboy hats chugged cartons of milk. Matt James, the leading man on Season 25 of “The Bachelor,” ambled around with his mother in a T-shirt that read, “Raw Milk Club.”
Many attendees were unbothered by the recent illnesses. They said they consumed raw dairy because they wanted to reduce their inflammation, and avoid additives, and prevent lactose intolerance, and clear their skin, and bring their hormones into balance. They wanted nutrients that didn’t exist in “boiled to death” milk. They wanted to drink it “the natural way.”
Alyssa Wolfer, a 42-year-old mother of two from Bakersfield, viewed raw milk as a symbol of “true American freedom,” she said. “I very much lean on the side of freedom of people to choose what they consume and less regulation.”
“I’m seven months pregnant, and I drink raw milk because that’s how God has created it to be,” said Lindsay Espinoza, 34, reclining on a bale of hay with her husband and young son. “There’s so much fear behind raw milk, but it makes sense to us.”
Some, like 58-year-old Melanie Copeland from Huntington Beach, questioned whether the outbreak had occurred at all. “The odds of it being true are slim to none,” she said, “and people need to do their research.”
McAfee mingled among his flock. Some stopped him for pictures as he beamed down the camera and flashed a thumbs-up.
Filigran has unveiled XTM One, an AI-native orchestration layer designed to automate Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) workflows, as organisations struggle to keep pace with growing volumes of threat intelligence, vulnerabilities and attack data.
The launch reflects a broader challenge facing security teams. While many organisations have invested heavily in threat intelligence, attack surface management and security validation tools, turning that information into meaningful action remains difficult. Security teams are often left moving manually between platforms to understand which threats matter, whether they are exploitable, and what remediation steps should be prioritised.
CTEM has emerged as one of the industry’s preferred frameworks for addressing that problem. Rather than relying on periodic assessments, CTEM aims to create a continuous cycle of discovery, prioritisation, validation and remediation that adapts as threats evolve. Filigran has been positioning its OpenCTI and OpenAEV platforms as key components of that approach, arguing that organisations need to move beyond simply identifying vulnerabilities and focus on understanding which exposures present genuine business risk.
XTM One sits above those platforms as an orchestration layer, coordinating AI agents across the CTEM lifecycle. The company says this allows security teams to automate tasks such as intelligence enrichment, threat reporting, attack scenario generation and remediation planning without constantly switching between tools.
“The volume of CVEs, threat actors, and attack campaigns has reached a scale no human team can process manually,” said Julien Richard, co-founder of Filigran. “XTM One is not AI as a feature. It is AI as the operating system for threat management. Security teams deserve automation that works the way they work.”
The announcement highlights how security vendors are increasingly moving beyond AI assistants and copilots towards more autonomous agent-based systems. Rather than helping analysts complete individual tasks, agentic approaches seek to coordinate entire workflows across multiple products and data sources.
According to Filigran, early users of its broader XTM Platform have achieved up to 70% faster threat detection and response cycles and reduced preparation time for offensive security testing by up to 80%.
Industry analysts suggest this kind of automation may become increasingly necessary as organisations adopt CTEM programmes at scale.
“As the scale of threats outpaces human capacity to respond to alerts, security teams are hitting a wall when they need to optimize remediation to mitigate security risk. The shift toward an agentic AI orchestration layer is needed for CTEM to help security teams scale,” says Melinda Marks, Cybersecurity Practice Director at Omdia. “By leveraging an open-source foundation to automate utilizing needed context for threat intelligence and remediation, Filigran is enabling the speed, transparency, and evidence-based risk reduction required to scale defenses at the pace of the adversary.”
A key aspect of the launch is flexibility around AI deployment. Organisations can use Filigran’s models or bring their own large language models through BYOLLM support, while on-premises deployment options are intended to address data sovereignty requirements in regulated industries and government environments.
The company also believes AI could help address one of the long-standing barriers to threat intelligence adoption: usability.
“The biggest barrier to threat intelligence adoption has always been complexity,” said Jean-Philippe Salles, VP of Product Management at Filigran. “XTM One makes advanced threat management accessible to more teams through natural language interaction. Junior analysts can become productive faster, while experienced practitioners gain automation that removes repetitive work.”
The launch comes as investors increasingly view CTEM and threat exposure management as one of cybersecurity’s next major growth categories, particularly as organisations seek more evidence-based ways to prioritise cyber risk.
“Filigran is redefining how organisations operationalise threat intelligence at scale,” says Karine Peters, Managing Director at T.Capital. “Their AI-native approach to extended threat management, combined with one of the strongest open-source communities in cybersecurity, positions them to lead a category that legacy vendors have struggled to modernise. That conviction is why we invested.”
Whether agentic AI becomes the catalyst that finally makes CTEM achievable for security teams remains to be seen. What is clear is that as threat volumes continue to rise, organisations are increasingly looking for ways to automate the journey from intelligence gathering to validated defensive action, rather than simply collecting more data.
Collage by Alex Bandoni/ProPublica. Source images: Westend6, JHVEPhoto, Jean Catuffe and Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.
In late November in Jamnagar, India, the scions of two of the most powerful families in the world stood face-to-face. On one side was 30-year-old Anant Ambani, son of one of the richest men in Asia. On the other was Donald Trump Jr. For months, the Trump administration had been on the offensive against the sprawling Ambani energy empire, placing it at the center of an escalating tariff campaign against India. But after Trump Jr. touched down, the two men toured the Ambanis’ private zoo, and at night they performed a Gujarati folk dance, grinning as they moved together to the music.
Four months later, an obscure Texas startup called America First Refining announced that it had received a nine-figure investment from the Ambanis’ company. The deal puzzled numerous energy investors familiar with the project, which aims to build the first major new oil refinery in the U.S. in about 50 years. The company is run by a serial entrepreneur with a history of bankruptcy and lawsuits alleging fraud. After more than a decade of failed attempts to raise money, blown deadlines and rebrands, it had been floundering.
America First Refining’s unexpected breakthrough came after it forged a previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr., who secretly acquired a stake in the startup, according to records and seven people familiar with the company. The new details reveal the role the president’s son has played in a theme of Trump’s second term: overseas investors with interests before the administration putting money into the Trump family’s business interests.
Over the past year and a half, Trump Jr. has amassed a fortune from stakes in companies ranging from crypto startups to a drone business to a firearms retailer. Some firms tied to the president’s son have received contracts or other support from the federal government, part of what critics describe as a run of Trump family self-dealing. In December, Forbes estimated that Trump Jr.’s net worth had rocketed from roughly $50 million to $300 million since the election. But the Forbes figures were based on the investments that have been publicly disclosed. The America First Refining episode suggests there is much about the family business that remains secret.
The size of Trump Jr.’s stake in America First Refining and what he paid for it remain unclear. Top executives at the startup have also said that they speak regularly with Trump Jr., according to a person close to the company. And after the Ambani investment was announced, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer took credit on social media for playing a part in the deal.
America First Refining has flexed its Trump Jr. connections during pitch meetings with foreign officials. Early last year, Trump Jr. joined the company’s leadership for a meeting in South Florida with potential investors from Saudi Arabia, according to two people familiar with the matter. Another foreign government official pitched on the project told ProPublica that the company’s team emphasized they had backing from the Trump family and suggested that an investment would help with White House access.
The Ambanis’ investment coincided with the family’s securing major U.S. policy wins that their company, Reliance Industries, had been lobbying for. “Reliance Goes From Trump Foe to Friend With Refinery Pledge,” ran the Bloomberg headline after the deal was announced. Reliance’s intent with the deal was to “smooth out” tensions between the U.S. and India, the outlet reported.
A Trump Jr. spokesperson said that Trump Jr. “has no operational involvement in AFR and is simply a passive minority investor in an American company that aligns with his worldview.”
“The entire premise of this story relating to Don is false,” the spokesperson said, adding, “Don does not interface with the Federal Government on behalf of any company that he invests in or advises.” ProPublica did not find evidence Trump Jr. was aware of refinery executives’ suggesting that an investment would help with White House access.
In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for America First Refining said, “The claims in this story are false,” but declined to specify what they were referring to. The company’s CEO previously denied wrongdoing in the lawsuits against him reviewed by ProPublica, and the suits were either settled or dropped.
The Ambani family had long been cultivating its relationship with the Trumps. Reliance paid $10 million to the Trump Organization in 2024 as a “development fee” for a project in Mumbai, according to the president’s financial disclosure. (Despite the payment, Reliance has not yet announced a Trump project. Reliance told ProPublica that “the real estate project is real” and “remains under development.”) Ivanka Trump attended Anant Ambani’s wedding party in India that year, where guests were treated to a Rihanna concert. Anant’s father, Mukesh — who is worth an estimated $90 billion and lives in a 27-story home — came to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s second inauguration, posing with the president at a private reception.
At the Private Reception in Washington, Mrs. Nita and Mr. Mukesh Ambani extended their congratulations to President-Elect Mr. Donald Trump ahead of his inauguration.
With a shared optimism for deeper India-US relations, they wished him a transformative term of leadership, paving… pic.twitter.com/XXm2Sj74vX
But by the summer of 2025, the family was under attack from the White House. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Reliance had reportedly made billions in profits by purchasing vast quantities of Russian oil at a discount. In August, as Trump grew frustrated with his administration’s struggles to bring the war to an end, the president doubled his tariffs on India to 50%. The move was explicitly designed to force companies like Reliance to stop buying Russian oil. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly assailed “India’s politically connected energy titans” for “funding Putin’s war machine,” widely read as a reference to the Ambanis.
Amid this tension, Trump Jr. visited Anant Ambani on his November trip to India. At the end of the trip, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer commented at a business conference in Miami: “I had a nice closing this morning with Don Trump Jr., who’s flying back from India today.” (The following week, the Texas startup — then called Element Fuels — filed paperwork to create America First Refining LLC. In an email, the attorney, John Willding, told ProPublica that there was “no transaction in India or with an Indian company that I was ever involved with.”)
Anant Ambani, who helps run Reliance’s energy business, personally worked on the Texas refinery deal for months before it was announced, a major Indian newspaper later reported.
As the Ambanis quietly finalized their deal with America First Refining, U.S.-Indian relations appeared to warm. In February, the Trump administration struck a trade deal with India, dramatically lowering tariffs, and also reportedly gave Reliance a license to buy Venezuelan oil. When the Iran war broke out and rocked global energy markets, the U.S. gave India a sanctions waiver to buy Russian crude. (The waiver was later expanded to all countries.)
In response to ProPublica’s questions, the White House said that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Reliance did not answer ProPublica’s questions about Trump Jr.’s and Anant Ambani’s roles in the investment deal, but said in a statement that the company did not receive “any unique or preferential treatment” from the U.S. government.
“There is no connection between Reliance’s investment in AFR and any unique measures associated with general U.S. trade, tariff, sanctions or licensing outcomes,” Reliance said. “The investment was evaluated and approved on its commercial merits, strategic fit and long-term value creation potential.”
In March, President Trump personally announced Reliance’s deal with the Texas startup on Truth Social, thanking the Ambani company for its “tremendous Investment.”
After the announcement, Willding, the Trump Jr. lawyer, shared the news on LinkedIn: “Just so proud to have been part of this one.”
Willding rowed back his claim in an email to ProPublica. “I have never worked for or advised AFR and had zero involvement in their deal with Reliance Energy,” he said. “I simply saw the press release and was excited for them.” America First Refining’s spokesperson called Willding’s comment “moronic and false.”
In June 2025, Willding registered a new entity in Wyoming called TX Fuels, LLC, listing the company’s address as Trump Jr.’s mansion in Jupiter, Florida. In his email, Willding said his “only involvement in AFR was handling the legal paperwork” for the Trump Jr. LLC’s investment in the startup.
Trump Jr. first hired Willding in May 2021, according tointerviews the lawyer has given. A corporate deal lawyer in Dallas, Willding has referred to himself as “outside business counsel to the Trump family” and has said he talks to Trump Jr. or Eric Trump almost daily. A former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama voter who fell hard for MAGA, the attorney has installed a portrait of President Trump over the mantel in his living room.
Willding’s practice has boomed during the second Trump administration, bringing the lawyer to Argentina, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. “Everybody in the world wants to do business with the United States right now,” Willding said at a conference in June 2025. “Every company wants to do business with the Trump family.”
There are other fingerprints of the Trump world on the refinery deal.
Howard Lutnick’s firm Cantor Fitzgerald — which his sons took over when Lutnick became Trump’s commerce secretary — is working as the financial adviser to America First Refining, including on the Ambani investment deal, Cantor Fitzgerald announced. (Cantor Fitzgerald declined to comment.)
And the Trump administration played a direct role helping America First Refining find potential foreign investors, according to public comments from the company’s CEO, John Calce. “We have received support from the White House,” he told a local news outlet. The National Energy Dominance Council, led by the interior and energy secretaries, has “helped us with, candidly, introducing us and helping us meet some of these people overseas,” Calce said on an industry podcast.
America First Refining has recently explored going public, according to three people close to the company. That could allow its current investors to start cashing out even if the refinery never gets built — a milestone many energy industry insiders still view as a long shot. Reliance made its investment in the startup at a valuation of at least $1 billion, according to America First Refining’s announcement.
Building a refinery at the Port of Brownsville on the Gulf Coast has been Calce’s mission for a decade. A former Yale offensive lineman, he started his career as a high school football coach after an unsuccessful attempt to make the NFL and now describes himself as a “lifelong entrepreneur.”
The project has been serially delayed, out of money, rebranded and trailed by angry former business partners. At one point, Calce’s companies were being sued simultaneously by eight other firms. In 2022, during bankruptcy proceedings for an earlier iteration of the project, the trustee appointed to impartially oversee the case sued Calce too. The trustee alleged that Calce and other insiders had improperly siphoned away cash and other assets. (Calce denied wrongdoing. The case was ultimately settled.)
During the Biden administration, as the company sought financial support from the Department of Energy, it pitched itself as a climate-friendly green project that would also help “people of underrepresented social demographics” in Brownsville, according to records from that period. The company failed to get enough money from outside investors, and the planned construction was delayed.
By the company’s own estimate, building the refinery will take years and cost $3 billion to $4 billion. Even if it’s built, profitability could be hard to achieve. Many energy investors told ProPublica there’s a reason the U.S. hasn’t seen a major new refinery in decades. “Refineries cost a lot of money and essentially make pennies on the dollar,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist in Houston. “Wall Street is not going to finance a new refinery.”
Even after the start of the second Trump administration, the company was in jeopardy, according to interviews and documents. It laid off workers last year, and, by late 2025, with delays continuing to plague the refinery, officials at the Port of Brownsville believed the project looked to be dead, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.
That has not stopped Calce and his team from making grandiose claims to the public. Earlier this year,a website went live for another Calce company called Brownsville Energy Storage Terminals. It claims to have a far-flung network of oil storage terminals in places like the Netherlands and Singapore, more than 850 employees and a C-suite of experienced energy executives. But ProPublica could find no evidence that the executives are real people or that the storage terminals actually exist. The phone numbers on the website are also currently listed online as the contacts for a Houston baklava caterer, a Dallas-area taxi service and an OB-GYN office. The numbers are dead.
America First Refining’s political ties, though, may have boosted its standing with Texas state regulators. In February, shortly before the Ambani investment became public, the company sought an extension on its permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Inside the state agency, emails obtained by ProPublica show, officials scrambled to approve the request.
“Need to get this one logged and processed asap,” wrote one official.
“You are going to have to do this one. I will explain why in person in a few,” wrote another. “You can guess if you check out the name.”
America First Refining got its approval the next day. A spokesperson for the Texas agency did not address questions about the emails. “This request was processed quickly due to the quality of information provided,” the spokesperson said.
Aggiornamenti di sicurezza risolvono diverse vulnerabilità in Gogs, un popolare servizio Git self-hosted, tra queste si evidenzia una vulnerabilità zero-day per la quale risulta disponibile un Proof of Concept (PoC).
Broadcom ha rilasciato aggiornamenti di sicurezza per risolvere tre vulnerabilità, con gravità “alta”. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati.
Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Records obtained by ProPublica, USDA Forest Service photo by Andrew Avitt.
A little over a year ago, Sen. Tim Sheehy floated an audacious proposal to reshape the way the federal government fights wildfires. It called for expanding the use of private planes and helicopters to quickly attack blazes while also eliminating the U.S. Forest Service’s rigorous airworthiness inspections for those aircraft.
The idea stood to benefit Sheehy, a Montana Republican, personally. Before running for Congress, he founded and ran an aerial firefighting company called Bridger Aerospace, which is known for its scoopers, aircraft built to retrieve water from lakes or oceans and drop it onto fires. Since 2021, the Forest Service has paid Bridger more than $235 million for use of its scoopers, according to public records.
Sheehy’s ownership of Bridger is well known, but what hasn’t been reported is that the same month the proposal leaked, a Forest Service inspector had discovered a crack in a wing of an aircraft Bridger had presented as ready for service. The scooper had failed the very inspection Sheehy sought to eliminate.
Forest Service inspectors have flagged problems with Bridger’s scoopers for years, according to sources and documents obtained by ProPublica under the Freedom of Information Act. The records were heavily redacted by the agency, including the problem that the inspector discovered last April. But a former government official with direct knowledge of the inspection told ProPublica it had revealed a crack in a wing. “It was a big crack,” the official said. Other experts said that kind of finding is rare and could have proved catastrophic.
“Very seldom do you find a crack in a major component,” said Paul Markowitz, a former national aviation maintenance manager for the Forest Service. Detecting such problems is the reason the Forest Service operates an airworthiness program, he added: “It’s to keep people alive.”
Veteran fire officials noted that Sheehy’s proposals would eliminate costly oversight of the company he founded and others like it while increasing spending on aerial firefighting. At the time the document leaked, he owned Bridger stock worth between $13 million and $15 million.
Within the Forest Service, the company was known to resist oversight, officials told ProPublica. Five current and former Forest Service officials say Bridger Aerospace has chafed at the agency’s rigorous inspections, even as records and sources indicate the company has presented aircraft in need of maintenance and repairs as ready to fight fires. The sources asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
Bridger did not answer questions about the failed inspection but said in a statement, “Safety is the bedrock of our company, and we spare no expense.” It added, “Our investment in maintenance and training runs into the tens of millions annually and reflects the high safety standard we believe this work demands.”
Bridger’s aircraft have never been involved in a crash, according to records maintained by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Sheehy’s office did not respond to interview requests. But he has been open about his frustration with the Forest Service’s inspections and contended that Bridger’s scoopers, because they are built to fight fire, require less oversight than other firefighting aircraft that were originally designed for other purposes.
In response to detailed questions about Sheehy’s role in reshaping the fire service, a spokesperson for the senator said he stands by his efforts to eliminate Forest Service inspections. The process is “a relic of a bygone era and has become an unnecessary barrier to asset availability,” the spokesperson said in an email. The spokesperson also said that Sheehy has no conflict of interest because he has since moved his assets into blind trusts, adding, “The senator will continue to be adversarial toward anyone protecting a broken status quo that has allowed cities to burn to the ground.”
Former Forest Service officials say it’s common for companies to complain about inspections. What sets Bridger apart is its connection to a senator who is seeking to change how wildfire aviation is managed. A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, did not answer questions about Sheehy’s relationship with the agency.
Last June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to consolidate their wildland fire programs, an idea Sheehy and others have long favored. The order left Forest Service inspections in place. But as fire officials discuss consolidation, an influential industry group that Sheehy helped shape is advocating for ending them.
The United Aerial Firefighters Association was launched in 2022, with Sheehy serving as a founding board member. The group now wants to allow contractors to develop their own inspection standards.
“Industry inspects itself all the time. Industry inspects automobiles. Industry inspects baby formula,” said Tiffany Taylor, UAFA’s senior policy director. “Why can’t we be inspecting ourselves?”
In a U.S. Forest Service inspection document, a Bridger scooper is noted to have had its wing repaired. In a separate inspection, the same aircraft had multiple “fails,” including for an unspecified engine issue.Obtained, highlighted and redacted by ProPublica
Contractors like Bridger own the vast majority of aircraft that the federal government uses to fight wildfires. In 2022, the last year for which data is available, only 5% of the Forest Service’s flight hours for firefighting came from aircraft it owns. Regardless of their ownership, aircraft must be inspected before flying. That job falls to about 25 aviation safety inspectors, most of whom work for the Forest Service.
The Federal Aviation Administration certifies aircraft but does not conduct regular inspections. The agency instead relies on companies to ensure their planes and helicopters are airworthy. Even when the FAA performs inspections, fire officials and contractors say, they do not account for the stresses inflicted by steering aircraft through wildfires. “The Forest Service is way more in-depth,” said Britt Coulson, president of Coulson Aviation, a prominent air tanker contractor.
Forest Service officials often say the agency’s rules governing aviation are written in blood. A pair of shocking crashes in 2002 ignited the push for more rigorous inspections. That June, an air tanker was dropping retardant in California when its wings folded upward, like a bird in flight, and detached. The plane burst into flames and fell to the ground. The harrowing moment was caught on video. Three people onboard were killed, and the NTSB later attributed the accident to undetected cracks in one of the plane’s wings. One month later, in Colorado, another tanker contracted by the Forest Service crashed after a wing separated from the fuselage. Two pilots were killed. Once again, the NTSB said the accident was caused by unidentified wing cracking.
Since 2010, when the Forest Service implemented its current airworthiness program, the accident rate for aircraft it owns or contracts has plummeted. Between 1993 and 2010, it reported 85 accidents that killed 63 people — an average of nearly four deaths per year. Between 2011 and 2023, the last year for which data is available, the agency reported just 17 accidents and seven fatalities.
Inspectors examine everything from the fuselage to the altimeter. When they find problems, they require the contractor to make changes before they issue a certifying document known as a card. In a separate procedure, inspectors issue cards to contractors’ pilots.
By 2018, Bridger had a modest fleet of surveillance aircraft, but Sheehy had bigger ambitions. According to Sheehy’s 2023 book, “Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting,” his brother, Matt, a Bridger co-founder, helped connect the company to the Blackstone Group, which invested a reported $150 million. Bridger used the funds to buy six scoopers from Viking Air. Sheehy wrote that the day of the first aircraft’s arrival in 2020 was “among the proudest of my life.”
In his book, he described that aircraft as a “brand new” model CL-415 but according to FAA records and aviation experts, this was inaccurate. The records show Bridger’s first scooper was built in 1985 and that it is in fact a precursor to the CL-415 model. Viking Air is now part of a larger company called De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited. A De Havilland spokesperson declined to comment about the aircraft’s age.
Records also show that Bridger’s first scooper had undergone extensive repairs before the company bought it. The skin of the fuselage had cracked from stress, and both wings had been repaired. One repair, done in 2012, fixed a crack in the left spar — a load-bearing beam extending outward from the fuselage. Experts say any repair to a wing spar is significant. “A spar is what’s holding the damn thing together,” said Markowitz.
According to Sheehy’s account, in 2020, the Forest Service’s airworthiness chief at the time, John Nelson, insisted that Bridger’s scoopers meet an updated standard of maintenance and inspection. Sheehy was extremely upset. “Unfortunately, the relationship between industry and the USFS Airworthiness Branch is at an all-time low,” he wrote in his book. (Nelson did not respond to questions about Sheehy’s characterization.)
The next year, Bridger’s first scoopers received cards, allowing the government to pay for their use.
By 2023, the company had six contracted scoopers. Inspectors soon found more problems with the aircraft, according to the records. In January 2024, Bridger presented its first scooper as ready for service, only to have a Forest Service inspector find issues with the engine and electronics. The problems and reasons for the failed inspection were redacted in documents obtained by ProPublica. The scooper received its card the next month.
According to experts who examined the Bridger inspection records at ProPublica’s request, these issues are common in the aerial firefighting fleet. But they said it’s extraordinary for inspectors to find a problem like the one identified last spring.
In early April 2025, Bridger presented two scoopers for carding, saying they were ready for service. During one of these assessments, a Forest Service inspector found a crack in a wing.
The Forest Service records show that Bridger completed a repair in Montana by April 18. Within a week, both aircraft had been cleared for flight.
Bridger did not answer specific questions about the repair. In a statement, the company said, “For a 30,000-pound aircraft that skims bodies of water repeatedly at 100 mph to scoop 11,700 pounds of water in 12 seconds, regular maintenance and periodic repairs are an inherent part of the job.” The company added, “We welcome the rigorous certification process.”
But the relatively quick repair was not a reflection of the severity of the issue. Gil Elmy, a former Forest Service official who wrote the agency’s aircraft inspector guide, said such a finding “should not happen.” Markowitz said the finding evoked an uncomfortable historical echo. The 2002 crash, which was caught on camera and precipitated the Forest Service’s reckoning and its modern airworthiness program, was caused by unidentified wing cracking.
As Bridger’s scooper was being repaired, officials in the wildland fire community were responding to a proposal from the senator’s office that would have ended the airworthiness program. In March 2025, Sheehy asked Brooke Rollins, the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, to stop the inspections, and in mid-April, a draft executive order that proposed eliminating them leaked from his Senate office. Metadata showed the draft had been edited by one of Sheehy’s policy advisers at the time as well as a lobbyist for Bridger. The United Aerial Firefighting Association also shaped the draft.
“Senator Sheehy’s office circulated a living, breathing document to members of congress, outside policy experts, and industry stakeholders on ways to improve the way we fight fire in this country,” wrote Sheehy’s spokesperson.
When Sheehy resigned from Bridger in July 2024 to run for the Senate, he owned 21% of the company, making him its largest individual shareholder. Four months after taking office, in May 2025, he moved most of his stock into two revocable blind trusts, claiming they eliminated any conflict of interest he might have.
But the trusts appear to be managed by executives at Tallgrass, an energy infrastructure company that until March was run by Sheehy’s brother, Matt, who was also a significant early investor in Bridger. Neither Matt Sheehy nor representatives for Tallgrass responded to questions about the trusts. In an email, a spokesperson for the senator did not dispute the Tallgrass executives’ stewardship but pointed out that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics had vetted the trusts. The spokesperson wrote, “Senator Sheehy’s blind trusts are completely independent — he has no control over them.”
According to Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a decision to entrust stock to such close associates undermines the purpose of a blind trust, which is to ensure that a lawmaker’s investments are independently managed. In an email, Brown said, “Selecting a family member’s company appears to do that exact thing that the rules mean to prohibit.”
Since last spring, Sheehy has said little about airworthiness inspections. But he has pushed other policies that would increase business opportunities for aviation companies, such as requiring a response within 30 minutes to all wildfires on federal land. At the same time, he has driven an agenda that could debilitate his longtime foe, the Forest Service.
In statements, on podcasts and in the New York Times opinion section, he has advocated for a single national fire service. And at almost every turn — including in proposed legislation — he has insisted that the Forest Service’s vast wildfire apparatus be moved within the Department of the Interior’s smaller operation. It would hollow out the Forest Service, which draws more than half its budget from fire operations. “It would be a fatal wound,” said Doug Crandall, the agency’s former legislative affairs director.
There are inefficiencies in a fire aviation system spread between agencies. The rush for a couple dozen inspectors to certify hundreds of planes and helicopters before wildfire season can cause delays, temporarily grounding aircraft and cutting into contractors’ revenues. And the agencies have sometimes required duplicative inspections.
But even officials and firefighting labor advocates who support consolidation, which requires congressional approval, have questioned why Interior should absorb the Forest Service’s fire program. Some liken it to forcing a minnow to swallow a whale. The Forest Service employs about twice as many full-time wildland firefighters as the Interior Department, and it spends at least three times more on aviation contracting. It is also responsible for the vast majority of inspections. According to a recent organizational chart reviewed by ProPublica, only five aviation safety inspectors currently work for the Interior Department.
Bridger carries significant debt and in 2024 warned shareholders that it had “substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.” But last year, the company reported a profit for the first time since going public. It also purchased two more scoopers and predicted that efforts to unify fire agencies “could increase contracting opportunities for private aerial providers.” In another recent filing, Bridger said, “the legislative and policy environment has never been more aligned with our mission.”
Last year, six Forest Service aviation safety inspectors resigned or retired, according to the agency. The recent organizational chart reviewed by ProPublica shows the same number of positions remain unfilled, representing more than 20% of Forest Service aviation safety inspector jobs. It’s unclear what would happen to the rest of the inspectors if the Interior Department were to absorb the Forest Service’s fire operations. In an emailed statement, Adam Mendonca, the Forest Service’s deputy director of fire and aviation management, said the agency “has no intention to change our aircraft inspection standards,” adding that it was “working closely with the Department of the Interior to streamline aviation operations.”
In late March, the Forest Service announced a dramatic reorganization that will move its headquarters to Salt Lake City. The Department of Agriculture reiterated the administration’s desire to fold the Forest Service’s fire operations into the Interior Department.
By that point, blazes had ignited in the Midwest. With the arrival of fire season, the Forest Service’s airworthiness inspectors performed their close examinations. At hangars across the country, they looked for cracks.
Facebook Plus abbonamento è ormai realtà: Meta ha ufficialmente avviato il rollout dei piani premium per le sue principali piattaforme. Facebook, Instagram e WhatsApp entrano nell'era delle sottoscrizioni a pagamento, introducendo funzioni esclusive riservate a chi decide di mettere mano al portafoglio. Ma vale davvero la pena pagare?
Quanto costa Facebook Plus e gli altri abbonamenti Meta
I prezzi sono stati fissati con una logica chiara. Facebook Plus e Instagram Plus costano 3,99 dollari al mese ciascuno. WhatsApp Plus, invece, è leggermente più economico: 2,99 dollari mensili. Per il mercato europeo, le cifre sembrano destinate a restare simili, con Facebook Plus atteso intorno ai 2,99 euro al mese in Italia.
Tutti questi piani confluiscono sotto un nuovo marchio ombrello chiamato Meta One, che raccoglie e gestisce l'intera offerta in abbonamento del gruppo. Chi vuole ancora di più può guardare ai livelli superiori: Meta One Plus a 7,99 dollari e Meta One Premium a 19,99 dollari al mese, pensati soprattutto per creator e aziende con accesso avanzato all'intelligenza artificiale.
Cosa include Facebook Plus: le funzioni esclusive
Le novità per gli abbonati di Facebook e Instagram ruotano soprattutto attorno alle Storie. Gli utenti Plus possono estendere la durata oltre le canoniche 24 ore, creare contenuti in evidenza e consultare statistiche dettagliate sul pubblico. È anche possibile pubblicare contenuti senza mostrarli nel feed dei propri follower, una funzione particolarmente utile per chi gestisce una community.
Durante i test erano emerse ulteriori funzionalità: le cosiddette spotlight Stories, nuove reazioni speciali chiamate super heart e la possibilità di guardare le Storie altrui senza comparire nell'elenco delle visualizzazioni.
WhatsApp Plus segue un percorso diverso. Le novità riguardano la personalizzazione dell'interfaccia: temi grafici, suonerie esclusive, adesivi premium e la possibilità di fissare in alto un numero maggiore di conversazioni rispetto alla versione gratuita.
Meta AI a pagamento: il futuro è freemium
La svolta non riguarda solo i social. Meta sta sperimentando un modello freemium anche per la propria intelligenza artificiale. Funzioni avanzate come la modalità Thinking, il ragionamento esteso e la generazione di immagini e video saranno soggette a limiti per gli utenti gratuiti. Chi vuole accedervi senza restrizioni dovrà sottoscrivere uno dei piani Meta One.
Una strategia che riflette una tendenza ormai consolidata nel settore tech: rendere le funzioni più potenti accessibili solo a pagamento, mantenendo però una versione base gratuita per non perdere utenti.
La versione gratuita rimane: nessuno è obbligato a pagare
È importante chiarirlo: Facebook, Instagram e WhatsApp restano gratuiti. Gli abbonamenti Plus non sostituiscono l'accesso base alle piattaforme, ma aggiungono un livello superiore di funzionalità per chi lo desidera. Meta ha anche precisato che questi piani sono separati da Meta Verified, il servizio dedicato alla verifica degli account.
La domanda che in molti si pongono è legittima: ha senso pagare per funzioni che fino a ieri erano considerate standard? La risposta dipende molto da come si usa la piattaforma. Per un utente occasionale probabilmente no. Per un creator o un professionista del digitale, qualche euro al mese potrebbe fare la differenza.
Rilevato sfruttamento attivo in rete della CVE-2026-50751– già sanata dal vendor – presente in prodotti Check Point. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di eludere i sistemi di autenticazione.
Nell’ambito del Security Patch Day di giugno, SAP rilascia aggiornamenti di sicurezza per risolvere molteplici nuove vulnerabilità, di cui tre con gravità “critica” e una con gravità “alta”.
Aggiornamenti di sicurezza sanano diverse vulnerabilità presenti in Apache HTTP Server, di cui 2 con gravità “critica” e 3 con gravità “alta”. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire a un utente malintenzionato remoto di eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati e comprometterne la disponibilità.
Google ha rilasciato un aggiornamento per il browser Chrome al fine di correggere 74 vulnerabilità di sicurezza, di cui 17 con gravità “critica”. Tra queste si evidenzia la CVE-2026-11645, di tipo “Out of bounds read” che potrebbe permettere l’esecuzione di codice arbitrario sulle istanze interessate.
An extension of the Geneva Conventions could impose restrictions on cyberwarfare under ceasefire conditions and close a major loophole in international conflict.
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia Shuran Huang/The New York Times/Redux
Trump administration officials earlier this year killed a federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia and a close ally of the president’s.
The investigation examined potential criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the multistate mining operations largely run by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
The criminal probe was a significant escalation in the yearslong effort to police serial pollution offenses by Virginia-based Southern Coal and dozens of affiliated mining operations controlled by the family. In the past decade, Southern Coal and other Justice corporations have racked up tens of thousands of allegedviolations of the Clean Water Act and have been sued repeatedly by state and federal prosecutors over their failure to properly follow environmental laws at their mining sites.
The investigation shuttered by the Trump administration was a joint effort by prosecutors and investigators with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Virginia to probe whether the incessant violations of antipollution laws had risen to the level of criminal behavior, people familiar with the matter said.
People familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that prosecutors believed they had a strong case. They initially had the blessing of Robert Tracci, President Donald Trump’s top official in the Western District of Virginia, to move forward.
But in recent months, as prosecutors battled the Justice companies in court over subpoenas for records, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General shut down the probe. At the time, Todd Blanche still headed the office, before assuming the role of acting attorney general in April.
“They were told ‘pencils down,’” a person familiar with the investigation said.
That prosecutors were even conducting a criminal investigation is noteworthy, people said, because the DOJ only charges a dozen or so criminal Clean Water Act cases each year. It is rare for top DOJ officials to derail a criminal investigation initiated by career officials at such an early stage, people familiar with the case said.
“I’ve never heard of that happening before,” said former federal prosecutor Rick Mountcastle, speaking generally about DOJ protocols. Mountcastle spent 24 years as a prosecutor in the Western District of Virginia. “There shouldn’t be some sort of untouchables list of people who are immune from enforcement.”
We’re still reporting. If you know more about this case or other instances of the Trump administration shutting down criminal investigations, please contact our reporting team.
Molly Redden
Send me tips or documents about lawyers getting special access to the Trump administration, the DOJ rewarding Trump’s supporters and pursuing his enemies, the administration’s legal strategy, and the White House’s judicial appointments.
Steven Ruby, an attorney for the Justice companies, said they became aware of the criminal investigation earlier this year.
“Ultimately the finding of the inquiry by the government was that there wasn’t any evidence to pursue criminal charges,” Ruby said. “There’s never been any intentional wrongdoing by the companies.”
While objecting to the subpoenas in court, the company simultaneously convinced the DOJ to drop the case, he said.
“The Justice companies — because Sen. Justice has been governor and because he’s now a senator — are singled out and put under a microscope, and there’s news coverage of violations and consent decrees and compliance actions,” Ruby said. “But the fact of the matter is that those kinds of issues exist throughout the industry.”
Current and former government officials familiar with the companies’ environmental record called them routine bad actors.
Spokespeople for the EPA and the Western District of Virginia referred questions to the DOJ. Justice’s senate office did not respond to questions.
“There is no case to be made here for a criminal investigation,” Emily Covington, a DOJ spokeswoman, said in an email. “Any career prosecutor who would paint a criminal case as strong is simply a deep state prosecutor continuing to push the priorities of the Biden administration.”
The deputy attorney general’s office is routinely involved with reviewing cases, she added. The office determined that this case was not consistent with the Trump administration’s priorities, she continued, and it was more appropriate to resolve it through the less punitive civil process. “The bottom line is that this was a politically motivated prosecution for a case that can and should be resolved civilly,” she wrote.
The Justice family runs a sprawling coal mining enterprise that extends across the South. Estimates of its fortune fluctuate. Forbes tallied Jim Justice’s net worth to be as much as $1.9 billion until 2021; more recently, it declared him “broke” and facing $1 billion in debt. But environmental groups have accused his companies of misrepresenting their assets to avoid paying environmental penalties.
Ruby said company finances seesaw because coal is a “boom and bust” industry.
Justice, who was first elected governor of West Virginia as a Democrat, announced he had become a Republican at a Trump rally in 2017. Trump backed Justice’s bid for Senate in 2023, amid a contested GOP primary. Justice went on to win the seat, helping Trump clinch a GOP majority in the Senate.
Coal mines often leach dangerous chemicals like arsenic into waterways and are required to strictly monitor pollution discharge and keep it under certain limits. The family’s companies have settled many accusations of environmental violations by agreeing to pay fines and invest in better pollution prevention without admitting or denying culpability.
In recent years, however, the company has repeatedly flouted regulators and the legal process. Jay Justice has been a no-show at court hearings involving Clean Water Act violations in the past, and in 2024 a judge in Alabama issued a civil contempt order against him for his repeated failure to respond to those lawsuits. Ruby, the Justice companies’ lawyer, attributed the violations in that case to surrounding facilities the family does not own. The case is now in mediation.
A number of recent legal proceedings have laid bare the extent to which the Justice companies may have knowingly violated environmental laws, a key threshold for bringing a criminal matter.
Such allegations surfaced in a 2023 civil case brought by the Justice companies’ former chief of environmental compliance Robert Fowler. In the suit, Fowler claimed that Jay Justice blocked him from spending the money necessary to comply with environmental laws, including making court-ordered payments and repairing equipment. As a result, according to emails disclosed in the lawsuit there were at times complaints of near-daily violations of permit water requirements.
In a resignation letter and in subsequent court filings, Fowler said he was concerned the circumstances exposed him to “potential civil and criminal liability.” Fowler declined to comment.
The Justice companies denied Fowler’s accusations. The Justice companies believe the government’s criminal investigation was based primarily on Fowler’s claims, which Ruby dismissed as the allegations of a “disgruntled” former employee.
Last month, a jury in Alabama found that the Justice companies had made false representations to Fowler about his role, but it did not award him the millions of dollars in damages he demanded in his lawsuit. The judge has yet to enter his final ruling.
In the DOJ’s aborted investigation of Southern Coal, prosecutors and federal agents had begun to gather evidence, scrutinizing testimony in the Justices’ various civil trials, and had approached former employees seeking information. Government attorneys also sent subpoenas seeking further documentation, said those familiar with the probe, a move that was opposed by the company’s lawyers.
People familiar with the case said Justice Department attorneys were ready to fight the Justices’ lawyers over the subpoenas.
But before they could move forward, Blanche’s office shut it down.
After creating an event, when I click on the participants link (xxx/participations URL), screen remains blank, although I know participants have registered as the link says 8/10 participants.
This is on mobilizon.fr instance and I have tested that both with Chrome Version 148.0.7778.168 (Build officiel) (64 bits) and librewolf 136.0.1-1
Rilevata una vulnerabilità di sicurezza con gravità “alta” in strongSwan, noto software open-source per la realizzazione di connessioni VPN. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente remoto malintenzionato di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio e, in taluni casi, eseguire codice arbitrario sui sistemi interessati.
Aggiornamenti di sicurezza risolvono due nuove vulnerabilità con gravità “alta”, in Micrometer per Spring, libreria di raccolta metriche utilizzata dall’omonimo framework open-source Java.
Proseguono le campagne di compromissione che interessano le supply chain, prendendo di mira in questo contesto JDownloader, noto software per la gestione e l’automazione dei download. L’obiettivo dell’attacco consiste nella distribuzione di una versione malevola dei pacchetti attraverso i canali ufficiali e nella conseguente installazione di un Remote Access Trojan (RAT) sui sistemi interessati. L’incidente si inserisce nel contesto delle recenti compromissioni delle supply chain.
Rilevate diverse vulnerabilità, di cui tre con gravità “alta”, in prodotti Gl.iNet. Tali vulnerabilità qualora sfruttate potrebbero consentire ad un utente remoto malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario.
Disponibili Proof of Concept (PoC) per lo sfruttamento della vulnerabilità CVE-2026-49975 - denominata “HTTP/2 Bomb” - che riguarda l’implementazione del protocollo HTTP/2 e che potrebbe consentire attacchi di tipo “Denial of Service”.
Aggiornamenti di sicurezza sanano 6 vulnerabilità, di cui due con gravità “alta”, nel prodotto TP-Link Tapo C520WS v2. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio o di eludere i meccanismi di sicurezza sui sistemi interessati.
Rilevate 9 nuove vulnerabilità, di cui 7 con gravità “alta”, nei componenti X.Org X server e Xwayland, appartenenti all’infrastruttura grafica dei sistemi Unix-like. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire la compromissione della disponibilità del servizio o l’elevazione dei privilegi sui sistemi interessati.
Avec des amies on voulait faire un framacalc mais apparemment, elles n’arrivent pas à modifier le tableau en question… Je voulais savoir s’il y avait des choses à cocher ou à modifier dans le tableur pour mettre l’édition en mode “public” ?
Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica. Source image: Julio Cortez/AP Photo.
American children lined up for the world’s first measles shots in the early 1960s, but it took nearly 40 years of shoring up immunization programs before the infamous contagion had been so thoroughly controlled that a panel of experts declared in 2000 that the United States had eliminated measles within its borders.
For a quarter century, the U.S. only saw outbreaks when infected travelers brought the virus in from abroad. The resulting waves of measles didn’t last more than a year.
Those days are gone.
Measles began tearing through the dusty plains of West Texas in January last year, and since then, all but a handful of states have seen cases. Two unvaccinated Texas girls and an adult across the border in New Mexico died before the West Texas outbreak seemed to burn out last July.
By then, measles was popping up in Utah, and state health officials couldn’t tell where the earliest patients had caught the virus. Infections in that state took off that fall and winter and continued into May of this year.
The Texas and Utah cases now sit at the center of an unusually technical — and politically fraught — question: whether the United States will lose its measles-free distinction.
Countries aren’t penalized for losing the status, but it’s an indication of cracks in a nation’s once rock-solid immunization programs, a loss of faith in vaccines among its people — or both.
To have any chance of keeping the designation, the U.S. will need to make a strong case that measles didn’t spread endemically — from person to person in a continuous chain within the country for more than a year. If the Texas virus, for example, made its way across the Southwest to Utah and continued infecting people there, that would be a problem. But if cases in Utah were instead sparked by a patient who caught measles abroad, that would be a new chain, restarting the clock.
For clues, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing the full genetic code of measles viruses that infected patients. Last November, the CDC’s leader at the time said preliminary genomic analysis suggested the Utah cases were not directly linked to those in Texas. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told ProPublica that the work was done by the state laboratories and the CDC is conducting a more comprehensive investigation.
ProPublica embarked on its own analysis, reviewing over 1,800 whole genome sequences, including those released as recently as last month, to compare the genetic fingerprints of measles viruses circulating in the U.S. and Canada. This showed that the measles virus still spreading in Utah as of this May is very closely related to the one that sickened Texans over a year ago.
ProPublica’s analysis isn’t a smoking gun that proves endemic spread. It’s impossible to tell from this information whether the virus spread from state to state or if it at some point left the country and was brought back by a sick traveler.
But given how similar the viruses are in the sequences ProPublica identified, it’s going to be difficult for the U.S. to prove measles isn’t endemic — “unless CDC has something up their sleeves,” said Dr. Alberto Severini, a retired molecular virologist and measles expert who spent two decades at Canada’s Public Health Agency.
This is a small portion of the genetic code from a sample of measles virus collected in Utah in May 2026. Each letter represents one of the four molecules that encode the unique instructions for how the virus is built and operates.
ProPublica compared it to the sequence from a virus collected during the first days of the Texas outbreak in January 2025.
The two sequences are nearly identical. But when you look closely, mutations — tiny changes in the virus’s genetic code — begin to appear. These mutations form a distinct fingerprint.
Out of the nearly 16,000 genetic letters in each sequence, only 12 differ between the original Texas virus and the Utah virus sampled more than a year later. The mutations did not appear all at once.
As the virus spread in Texas, tiny copying errors appeared in its genetic code. One of these cropped up weeks into the outbreak: a G molecule turned into an A.
Over the following months, this branch of the outbreak continued spreading — and continued mutating. By May 2025, a virus collected from a Texas patient bore five distinct mutations.
Then those same five mutations appeared in Utah. A virus carrying this distinctive genetic pattern was found there in June 2025.
Soon, measles cases surged in Utah. Many viruses collected there carried the same five mutations, along with additional new ones. Related viruses continued infecting Utah residents as recently as this May.
The unique fingerprint of mutations hasn’t been limited to these states. The five mutations observed in Texas and Utah were also present in sequences the CDC published of viruses that infected patients last May and June in Iowa, North Dakota, Minnesota and Alaska.
But it’s not clear that the genetic fingerprint is only in the U.S.: No whole genome sequencing has been made public from cases in either Mexico or the Canadian province of Ontario, where measles has also raged.
That matters because whether the virus was spreading continuously in the United States for more than a year — rather than circulating abroad and being brought back into the country by travelers — is a key question facing a panel of experts convened by the Pan American Health Organization.
Daniel Salas, a PAHO official, said the kind of thorough analysis that CDC is doing “takes time.”
“What the U.S. is trying to do with this whole genome sequencing is trying to find some patterns that could eventually say, for example, this mutation of the virus occurred in a different country, in a different place to the current outbreak that they’re trying to analyze, so that eventually, that might be taken into consideration to somehow replace the epidemiological information that is missing,” he said. “There’s no country that has done this before.”
One of the biggest questions is how the virus got into Utah. Health officials determined that the first confirmed patient there, identified last June, couldn’t have been exposed to measles in another country or even another state. Utah State Epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen said she and her team reviewed the places the patient had been and the people they had been around, but still couldn’t figure out where they caught the virus.
Clues suggested measles had been quietly spreading in the region. A CDC disease detective investigating subsequent cases that spanned the Utah-Arizona border said there had been reports of community members with rashes last June, but the patients declined measles testing and families were often reluctant to answer questions.
Throughout the outbreak, no interviews suggested any patient was exposed in another country, Nolen said, but she and her team cannot rule out the possibility.
ProPublica asked the CDC whether its epidemiologists had linked any of Utah’s measles cases to an international outbreak, but the agency wouldn’t say, nor would it directly comment on genetic similarities ProPublica found between viruses in Texas and Utah. In a written statement, a spokesperson said, “Sequencing alone cannot determine whether transmission has been continuous or sustained.”
While genomic analysis can provide clues, the spokesperson wrote, “These findings must be interpreted alongside epidemiological data, including travel history, exposure information, and known outbreak connections.”
The CDC is still working on “a comprehensive analysis of potential linkages among cases and outbreaks” and has gathered additional epidemiological data, the spokesperson said, but did not elaborate on what that shows.
With the midterm elections approaching, the spread of measles has become a political liability for President Donald Trump, who picked the founder of an antivaccine organization to be his health secretary. Since Trump’s inauguration last year, there have been more than 4,300 U.S. cases, a high not seen in three decades.
Eliminating the endemic spread of measles is the public health equivalent of slaying a dragon. The disease is among the most contagious humans have ever encountered. Patients are infectious even before the telltale rash appears, and the contagion can linger in a room for two hours after they leave.
Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. haven’t followed that playbook. Both have fueled doubts about the safety of the MMR shot, which guards against measles, mumps and rubella.
Researchers around the world have found the vaccine does not cause autism. Nevertheless, at a press conference on autism last fall, Trump said he had heard for years that there was a problem with the combination vaccine and urged parents to insist on separate shots for their kids — even though standalone shots don’t exist in the U.S.
Kennedy has said the vaccine offers protection from measles, but he also has repeatedly made the shot sound scarier than the disease.
“There are adverse events from the vaccine,” he told Sean Hannity on Fox News last year. “It does cause deaths every year.”
On a podcast, Kennedy said that when he got the virus as a kid, he got to watch television for a week. “I got chicken soup and vitamin A, which nobody can patent,” he said.
Measles kills 1 to 3 out of every 1,000 people infected and can cause deafness, intellectual disability and brain swelling. In a “know the facts” post, the Infectious Diseases Society of America said there have been no deaths shown to be related to the shot in healthy people. “There have been rare cases of deaths from vaccine side effects among children who are immune compromised, which is why it is recommended that they don’t get the vaccine,” the medical society explained. “That’s why it is so important that everyone who can get vaccinated does so, to protect those who can’t.”
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in an email that Kennedy “believes Americans deserve clear information about both the benefits and risks of medical products so they can make informed healthcare decisions in consultation with their healthcare providers.”
Nixon said “heavy-handed mandates” contributed to the significant loss of trust in health institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Secretary maintains that public health agencies rebuild trust through honesty, transparency, and respect for individual choice — not coercion,” Nixon wrote.
Kennedy has tried to distance himself and the administration from the measles resurgence. He said the U.S. has done a better job of limiting the spread than any other country and pointed to the far higher number of cases in Canada and Mexico, whose populations are much smaller.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai told ProPublica, “Fake News reporters should be spending more time examining why the Trump administration’s efforts to contain America’s measles outbreak has been so much more successful than those of Canada and Mexico instead of regurgitating the same, tired narratives.”
Kennedy has also reminded lawmakers that the Texas outbreak began before he became health secretary.
“We have a global pandemic,” he told senators in April. “It has nothing to do with me.”
Kennedy has been among the most prominent voices in the antivaccine movement for more than a decade.
Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease physician who wrote a book about measles, said Kennedy has done “everything in his power to undermine confidence in vaccines in the U.S.”
During a measles outbreak in New York City that began in 2018, Ratner treated at least five unvaccinated kids who were hospitalized, including a couple who needed intensive care, so he knows that not every child escapes the disease with nothing more than memories of screen time and soup.
While most parents still support immunizations, Ratner worries that the country no longer has the stomach for the kinds of policies that once stopped endemic spread. Rather than making school vaccine requirements stricter, some states are working to do away with them altogether in the name of medical freedom.
“You need a highly vaccinated population to control the spread,” he said. “In the absence of that, I think that we will have ongoing spread, and we’ll have tragedies like the ones that we saw in West Texas with the two kids who died.”
The U.S. may very well find the international travelers it needs to prove that the country is still measles free. But if all remains the same, experts said, it will only be delaying the inevitable.
“It doesn’t change the fact that there’s been transmission of measles in the United States for over a year,” Severini said. “If people don’t vaccinate, measles is going to be endemic.”
Rilevata una vulnerabilità con gravità “alta” in Comodo Internet Security. Tale vulnerabilità residente nel driver Inspect.sys ,delegato alla gestione del firewall di Comodo, qualora sfruttata potrebbe consentire ad un utente remoto malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario.
Illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Jesse Costa/WBUR, Alyssa Sieb via Nappy, PatrickRich via Flickr.
On the day 5-year-old Lens Joseph was killed by a Boston Public Schools bus last year, the driver had already struck a postal truck, ignored a stop sign and missed several stops, prosecutors said. When he got to Lens’ house, he dropped him off on the wrong side of the street and then ran over the kindergartner as he crossed in front of the bus.
Transdev, a multinational company that has been the city’s sole bus contractor since 2013, hired and trained the driver of the bus that killed Lens. Yet a federal safety database shows no sign that the company was involved in the April 2025 crash. WBUR and ProPublica found at least 60 fatal Transdev crashes in the last decade, but the federal database shows only 18 under the company’s name. That means 42 fatal crashes are not identified as Transdev’s.
This missing information is important because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees commercial motor vehicles, relies on it to pinpoint unsafe companies.
But the process the agency uses to collect information is faulty: It identifies only a fraction of a company’s fatal crashes.
As a result, the full safety record of Transdev, one of the largest private operators of public transit in the U.S., remains a secret to regulators, the public and the local government agencies that might award it a contract.
“That is a serious, serious gap in safety,” said Peter Kurdock, general counsel with Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a nonprofit that promotes transportation safety and has pushed for improvements in crash data for years. “And it’s a serious, serious shortcoming when it comes to the regulation of these carriers by FMCSA.”
Help Further Our Reporting on Bus Crashes
If you are a current or former FMCSA employee, or someone in the industry with information about the agency or the safety of school buses, transit buses or motor coaches, our team wants to hear from you. Willoughby Mariano can be reached by phone at 617-358-0802, Signal at willoughbymariano.55 and email at wmariano@bu.edu.
The deadly crashes associated with Transdev span at least 16 states and involve pedestrians, at least two bicyclists and other vehicles. Lens’ death and at least two others have resulted in criminal charges against the bus drivers. Transdev did not provide comment on any specific crash.
The crash data feeds into FMCSA’s online Safety Measurement System, which makes safety records public for bus companies nationwide. Instead of listing Transdev, that data often lists collisions under the government agency that hired Transdev or the name of a company it acquired. Also, when crashes are listed under other names, companies that oversee the buses involved are not required to claim the collisions. The agency’s instructions for how to determine the motor carrier involved in a crash are interpreted differently by police who respond to the scene, the news organizations found.
Based in France, Transdev has vast U.S. operations. It says it holds contracts in busing, light rail and other forms of public transit in 46 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The multibillion-dollar company employs more than 30,000 people nationally. Transdev’s only school bus contract is with Boston Public Schools.
Esaie Joseph wipes away tears as he talks about the April 2025 death of his son, Lens Joseph, 5, who was run over by a Boston school bus operated by Transdev. “The first thing I hope is justice for him,” Joseph said.Jesse Costa/WBUR
Transdev U.S. CEO Laura Hendricks declined an interview. In a written statement, Transdev said it complies with “federally mandated reporting standards.”
“Transparency and continuous improvement are central to our safety approach, and we work closely with oversight agencies and our clients to ensure our practices meet or exceed expectations,” the statement said.
The statement did not respond to questions about why Transdev did not ensure crashes the company was involved in were logged as part of its safety record. It did stress that reporting crashes is the responsibility of law enforcement.
At the publications’ request, Transdev reviewed lists of the crashes that reporters tied to the company. Transdev confirmed that most of them matched with collisions in their records but did not have records for all of them.
The FMCSA did not respond to requests to interview Derek Barrs, the head of the agency, or emails with a list of questions.
Other than the federal database, there are few ways to connect crashes to particular bus companies. A different database, run by the Federal Transit Administration, records transit crashes but doesn’t connect them to contractors. Separately, FMCSA requires all bus companies to keep an internal register of how many serious crashes take place during their operations. However, those records are not open to the public, and companies are not obligated to submit the information to regulators unless they ask for it. Transdev declined the publications’ request for its register.
So while Transdev may know about its own collisions, federal agencies and the public often don’t.
Darin Jones, a former FMCSA Midwest field administrator, spent more than 35 years in federal transportation safety and often oversaw investigations. He said investigators are supposed to consider a company’s serious crashes as part of their assessment. If many are logged inconsistently, they cannot determine whether Transdev or any other company is operating safely.
“ The knowledge of this motor carrier’s operation, any motor carrier’s operation, is critical,” said Jones. “If you don’t have the full picture of an operation, how do you truly know what’s going on?”
At least in Boston, Transdev appears to have had no serious school bus crashes over 10 years. But that’s not true. WBUR and ProPublica uncovered at least 71 serious crashes involving the company that weren’t under its name.
Kurdock says the FMCSA needs to fix its safety data, especially in Boston.
“The agency needs to be much more proactive in ensuring that the data they do have is accurate, even more so when you’re talking about a carrier that is operating a transportation service for schoolchildren,” Kurdock said. “If there is one bipartisan issue left here in Washington, D.C., it’s that schoolchildren should have a safe ride.”
Transdev Crashes Across the Country Were Recorded Under Different Names
Since 2016, about two-thirds of Transdev’s 60 fatal crashes have appeared in federal safety data under the names of a company it acquired or agencies that contracted with them. Click a state to see more details about the Transdev crashes we found there and how they were recorded in the federal database.
Note: includes crashes from 2016 through 2025.
Nurse, Cyclist Among Those Killed
When a crash happens, local law enforcement fill out accident reports that document the location, identities of the drivers and companies involved. This information becomes part of the federal safety database and helps regulators connect a crash to a particular company.
But the news organizations found multiple examples where that system masked the company running the bus lines. For most of these crashes, the database is also unclear on whether the drivers violated traffic laws.
In Lens’ case, the motor carrier is listed as “CITY OF BOSTON MVMB,” an abbreviation for the city’s Motor Vehicle Management Bureau, which acquires and manages municipal vehicles. There is no mention of the school district or Transdev being involved.
Another crash killed registered nurse Renée Shea in southern Massachusetts in 2017. It appears under the name of the Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority, not Transdev, the agency’s contractor at the time. A bus made a left-hand turn into the path of the Jeep SUV she was driving, according to a police report. The bus company’s driver, Margaret Correia, may have been distracted because she began to take off her jacket before she made her turn, the report found. She could not be reached for comment.
Correia pleaded guilty to misdemeanor negligent operation of a motor vehicle, court records show. A GATRA spokeswoman said Shea’s family received $1 million from the area transit agency’s insurer.
Charlie Shea said his ex-wife was a generous mother who had taken custody of her granddaughter.
A 2006 photo of Charlie Shea and then-wife Renée Shea, who was killed by a transit bus. He wants her death included as part of Transdev’s safety record. “It’d make them more accountable,” he said.Courtesy of Charlie Shea
As a former MBTA bus driver, Charlie Shea said he continues to be shocked by the bus driver’s actions.
Driving and taking your jacket off “ain’t a bright idea for anybody,” he said.
He said his ex-wife’s death, like all crashes, needs to be part of Transdev’s safety record.
“It’d make them more accountable,” Shea said. “They would have to use their safety records to get contracts from the state or the counties or from schools.”
Outside Massachusetts, there are dozens of other fatal Transdev crashes in the database with no mention of the company.
In a November 2023 Las Vegas crash, federal records list the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada as the motor carrier of a transit bus that killed bicyclist David Ortiz in a crosswalk. Court records state driver Johnelle Johnson, a Transdev employee, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge. A lawsuit by Ortiz’s family against Transdev and the driver was settled for an undisclosed sum.
Transdev has operated the Las Vegas-area bus system since 2023, when it acquired First Transit, which originally held the contract, the commission’s records show.
Although First Transit is now part of Transdev, at least five fatal crashes across the United States are still recorded under First Transit’s name after the acquisition.
Beyond the fatal crashes, WBUR and ProPublica also took a close look at all of Transdev’s serious, but nonfatal, crashes with Boston Public Schools. Those include crashes where any person was transported to a hospital or a vehicle was towed.
In a December 2024 crash, a bus lurched onto a sidewalk outside Curley K-8 School in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The bus struck an 8-year-old boy with autism and his school aide before smashing into two fences, a police report states. The crash sent both victims to the hospital with long-term injuries, their civil lawsuits against Transdev allege.
A bus camera showed that Transdev driver Vitony Laguerre’s eyes were closed and his head was back before he pressed the accelerator, police stated. He pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of negligent operation of a motor vehicle.
In December 2024, an 8-year-old boy and his school aide were struck by a school bus outside Curley K-8 School in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Dashcam video shows the driver, Vitony Laguerre, had his eyes closed seconds before he drove up the sidewalk and through fences.Courtesy of Sweeney Merrigan law firm
The federal record lists the city of Boston, not Transdev, as the carrier.
Attorneys for Laguerre and both crash victims did not comment for this story. Laguerre and Transdev denied they were negligent in the crash, according to records in an ongoing civil case.
Boston Public Schools Superintendent Mary Skipper declined an interview request. A spokesperson did not answer a list of questions, but in a written statement said that the district follows established safety protocols and has worked with Transdev over several years to improve accountability and performance.
“We will continue to work with our transportation partner to monitor performance, address issues as they arise, and ensure every student gets to and from school safely,” the statement said.
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Local Law Enforcement Takes Over
The current system of collecting and publishing bus crash data began as part of a federal push for safer roads. In the early days of this work, in the 1970s and 1980s, rules put the burden on bus and truck companies to self-report serious crashes to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Each operator had to report its fatal bus crashes in person or by telephone “as soon as possible”; crashes that resulted in injuries or serious vehicle damage had to be reported in writing, and in triplicate.
But both companies and federal safety investigators complained the process was burdensome and inadequate. For one thing, investigators could not tell whether companies failed to report their accidents, said Jones, the former FMCSA regional administrator.
Regulators and traffic safety researchers thought they could do better. At the time, many states were already collecting crash information electronically from local police departments.
“Why burden the industry with reporting?” Jones said. “We had a more accurate record from the states.”
So in 1993, the federal Department of Transportation decided to end self-reporting by carriers. Today, local law enforcement agencies send their bus and truck crash information to state agencies, which submit it to FMCSA.
After investigating, a local officer must fill out a form that asks for the name of the bus company, or “carrier,” that is involved in the crash and the company’s U.S. Department of Transportation identifier. FMCSA training material recommends the officer determine which company should be included in the form by figuring out which entity “controls” or “directs” the bus.
For transit and school buses, this decision can be surprisingly complicated. Transdev employees may be behind the wheel, and the company may manage the daily operations of the buses, but the transit agencies or a school district may choose the routes. So who is in charge? In these cases, Transdev’s role often disappears in the data.
Transportation experts and former FMCSA officials said bus companies can voluntarily inform the agency that crashes under other names belong to them.
But Alex Scott, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville transportation expert, said companies rarely update the federal record, according to research he published in 2021. “There’s not really an incentive for them to account for all of their crashes,” Scott said. “If a company could just magically make them go away, of course they would.”
Boston City Councilor Erin Murphy, a former teacher for the district where Lens attended school, has become a vocal critic of how Transdev operates its buses. She was shocked when she learned from a reporter that the company is not required to take steps to ensure all its crashes are part of its federal safety record.
“Horrifying,” she said. “Why would they be able to not report accidents — one that was a fatal accident? There’s nothing worse than a fatal accident.”
“There’s not really an incentive for them to account for all of their crashes. … If a company could just magically make them go away, of course they would.”
Alex Scott, a transportation expert at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
After several passenger bus crashes with multiple fatalities, Congress passed legislation in 2012 that gave FMCSA powers to conduct more comprehensive inspections into the safety operations of bus companies.
When Transdev underwent one of these reviews in 2016, investigators uncovered what they described as “numerous crashes” that were not listed as part of the contractor’s safety record, according to the inspection report. There were enough crashes that the FMCSA planned to give Transdev a “conditional” safety rating, which would mean the company had insufficient safety procedures.
Because local police departments may not “be aware or equipped” to report crashes to the FMCSA, the carrier should report them, the report stated.
“This self reporting is required for accurate evaluation by FMCSA and the accurate safety record of the carrier,” it added.
The company successfully appealed the decision to lower its safety rating by arguing its drivers could not have prevented many of the crashes investigators uncovered.
FMCSA investigators urged Transdev to report to the agency when its role in a crash is not reflected in safety data, yet the company’s name continues to be absent from many of them. Transdev did not comment on this recommendation.
A Father Seeks “Justice”
Lens’ death last year became a local flashpoint, shedding new light on Transdev’s safety procedures and raising questions about its ability to keep the city’s children safe.
The driver of the school bus that killed Lens should not have been behind the wheel that day, and the bus never should have been on the road, according to information from city officials and prosecutors.
Driver Jean Charles became ineligible to operate a school bus in December 2024 after a required driving credential expired, according to a statement from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office last year. But the company did not take him off the road then. In the weeks before Lens died, Charles had two minor collisions and underwent remedial training, it said, and soon returned to work.
On the day of Lens’ death, Charles began his shift without conducting a required pretrip inspection, prosecutors alleged. One of the bus’s four rear tires was flat, and a safety crossing bar was broken. Transdev is also in charge of maintenance, but it’s unclear how long the bus had these problems.
Had Charles followed procedures, the bus would have been sent for repairs, prosecutors said. And yet Charles set off on his route to UP Academy Dorchester, where Lens climbed aboard.
At 2:42 p.m., Charles dropped off Lens and his 11-year-old-cousin on the wrong side of their street. To get home, they would have to cross in front of the bus.
Transdev school bus driver Jean Charles arrives at his arraignment hearing on felony involuntary vehicular homicide in March. Charles drove the bus that ran over and killed kindergartner Lens Joseph.Robin Lubbock/WBUR
Neighbor Carolyn Tomlinson was inside her home cleaning windows when the cries of a child brought her outside. She followed the sound to the corner of Glenwood Avenue and Washington Street, where she saw the cousin screaming. Lens was on the ground.
“I’m looking at Lens, just lying there,” Tomlinson said. “And as a mom it broke my heart.”
Tomlinson said she dialed 911 and held the cousin in her arms to comfort her.
“I was praying with her, saying, ‘It’s going to be OK. God’s got us,’” Tomlinson said.
Lens’ father, Esaie Joseph, had parked his truck in North Carolina after a day on the road as a long-haul trucker when his brother told him about the crash in a phone call. Hours later, he got word that his boy was dead.
Lens was Joseph’s only son, and he was self-assured beyond his years, his father said in an interview with WBUR. His nickname was “smart guy.”
Every time Lens asked Joseph for a new toy, he’d begin with, “Dad, you know I’m a smart guy?” the father recalled.
Joseph has kept his son’s soccer ball and toy cars, and he smiled as he sorted through them on a recent evening: a police car, because Lens wanted to be an officer. A Spider-Man-themed car because he loved the superhero.
Esaie Joseph, Lens’ father, looks through his son’s favorite toys, which he kept after the boy’s death. He said he is suing Transdev because he wants the company to improve safety.Jesse Costa/WBUR
After he lost Lens, Joseph stopped driving trucks and moved with his relatives to a new neighborhood, away from the scene of the crash. He now is a driver for a city of Boston van service for seniors.
He and his family are suing Transdev and Charles, who resigned from Transdev soon after the crash. Joseph said he wants some good to come from Lens’ death, and for Transdev to operate safely.
“The first thing I hope is justice for him,” he said. “They have to care for safety so something like this will not happen again.”
Charles pleaded not guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter and other charges in March. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Transdev did not comment about the crash and said the company had discussed its safety measures publicly during a Boston City Council meeting last August. The company and Charles denied in civil court filings that they were negligent or reckless.
Transdev is in the third year of its five-year, $651 million contract with Boston Public Schools and transports about 19,000 of the district’s students every school day. It is currently looking to expand in Boston, where it is one of three finalists for a multibillion-dollar commuter rail contract.
To this day, the federal record does not show that Transdev was the operator of the bus that killed Lens. Neighbor Tomlinson wants it to be part of Transdev’s safety record so regulators can hold them accountable, and agencies and school systems can understand the companies they are hiring.
“It should be visible to the ones that need it, so we can see it and keep our babies safe,” Tomlinson said.
A Boston Public Schools bus drives past a memorial where Lens Joseph was run over in April 2025 by his own school bus.Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Rilevato sfruttamento attivo in rete della CVE-2026-28318 – già sanata dal vendor – presente nel prodotto Serv-U di SolarWinds. Tale vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttata, potrebbe consentire ad un utente malintenzionato di compromettere la disponibilità del servizio sui sistemi interessati.
La WWDC 2026 si preannuncia come un evento cruciale per l'intelligenza artificiale di Apple. Dopo le difficoltà del 2024, l'attenzione è tutta su Cupertino e sulla sua capacità di ridefinire l'interazione tra uomo e macchina. Non si tratta di un semplice aggiornamento, ma di un momento decisivo che potrebbe rappresentare l'eredità di Tim Cook al suo ultimo keynote.
Un'eredità pesante: perché l'ia è il futuro di apple
Questa WWDC ha un sapore diverso. Non è solo una presentazione di nuovi sistemi operativi, ma un vero passaggio di consegne. Per Tim Cook, l'intelligenza artificiale rappresenta ciò che l'iPhone fu per Steve Jobs: un'eredità fondamentale per il prossimo decennio.
Il futuro dell'azienda dipende da questa svolta. Prodotti innovativi come occhiali smart, auricolari intelligenti e nuovi dispositivi per la casa richiedono un'IA potente, contestuale e affidabile. L'intelligenza artificiale non è più un'opzione, ma la base su cui costruire ogni nuova esperienza utente.
Il passo falso del 2024: cosa non ha funzionato?
Ricordiamo le promesse di "Apple Intelligence" alla WWDC 2024. L'idea di una Siri capace di comprendere il contesto e agire tra le app come agente personale era ambiziosa, forse troppo per i tempi. Il risultato fu un disastro comunicativo: le funzioni mostrate non erano pronte e le promesse non furono mantenute. Apple fu costretta a ritirare alcuni spot e ad affrontare le critiche degli utenti. La verità è che, due anni fa, nessuno era pronto per agenti IA così evoluti su smartphone. L'azienda aveva promesso troppo, troppo presto, in un settore ancora acerbo.
La rivincita tecnologica: perché oggi è il momento giusto
Cosa è cambiato in questi due anni? La risposta si trova in una combinazione di hardware vincente e tecnologie software che, nel 2024, non erano ancora mature.
L'hardware giusto al momento giusto: il vantaggio di apple silicon
Apple si è trovata con l'hardware perfetto per l'IA locale quasi per caso. La memoria unificata di Apple Silicon, creata per ottimizzare le prestazioni grafiche, si è rivelata la soluzione ideale per eseguire modelli di intelligenza artificiale direttamente sul dispositivo. Questo ha eliminato i colli di bottiglia tipici dei PC, rendendo i Mac una piattaforma di riferimento per sviluppatori e ricercatori.
I "mattoni" mancanti: le tecnologie che hanno cambiato tutto
Nel 2024 mancavano gli strumenti software per realizzare quella visione. Oggi, Apple ha a disposizione tutto ciò che serve: Architettura MoE (Mixture of Experts): I modelli attuali attivano solo gli "esperti" necessari per un compito specifico, rendendoli molto più efficienti. Quantizzazione Spinta: Tecniche avanzate comprimono modelli enormi per adattarli a uno smartphone, senza perdite significative di qualità. MLX Framework: Un framework open source di Apple che ha dato alla community gli strumenti per ottimizzare qualsiasi modello AI per l'hardware Apple Silicon. In sintesi, oggi la tecnologia è finalmente pronta per realizzare ciò che nel 2024 era solo un'idea.
Ia apple wwdc 2026: cosa ci aspetta davvero?
Lo slogan dell'evento, "All Systems Glow", suggerisce un'IA integrata visivamente in tutto il sistema con un'estetica riconoscibile. Ma le novità andranno ben oltre l'aspetto grafico.
Siri diventa grande: un agente intelligente, non solo un assistente
La più grande rivoluzione riguarderà Siri. Non sarà più un semplice assistente vocale, ma un agente proattivo con un'app dedicata e una cronologia sincronizzata via iCloud. Sarà in grado di comprendere il contesto e utilizzare funzioni come: Personal Context: Potrà accedere a email, messaggi e file per rispondere a domande come "Mostrami i documenti inviati da Marco la scorsa settimana". On-screen Awareness: L'assistente vedrà ciò che è presente sullo schermo. Se un amico invia un indirizzo, si potrà chiedere a Siri di salvarlo nei contatti senza dover fare copia-incolla. Cross-app Actions: Eseguirà compiti complessi che coinvolgono più app, come "Prendi l'allegato di questa email e salvalo nella cartella Progetti".
Oltre siri: ia diffusa in tutto l'ecosistema
L'intelligenza artificiale sarà integrata in molte altre aree del sistema operativo per migliorare la vita digitale quotidiana:
Fotocamera Potenziata: Arriveranno strumenti di fotoritocco generativo, come una "gomma magica" evoluta e la capacità di ricostruire parti di un'immagine.
Strumenti di Scrittura: Correzione intelligente della sintassi e suggerimenti di stile saranno integrati direttamente nel sistema.
Creazione Semplificata: Nasceranno i Genmoji e la possibilità di creare sfondi unici. Sarà possibile generare Comandi Rapidi complessi usando il linguaggio naturale.
Un nuovo inizio per apple?
Questa WWDC non è un semplice aggiornamento, ma un punto di svolta. Apple sembra aver imparato dai propri errori, attendendo la maturità della tecnologia.
Ora ha l'opportunità di offrire un'esperienza IA davvero integrata, utile e rispettosa della privacy. Se le promesse saranno mantenute, potremmo assistere non a un inseguimento della concorrenza, ma alla definizione di un nuovo standard per l'interazione con i nostri dispositivi. Potrebbe essere l'alba di una nuova era per Apple.
La fuga di segreti AI nel CI/CD è un rischio sempre più concreto. La rapida adozione di strumenti di coding basati sull'intelligenza artificiale, infatti, sta rivoluzionando lo sviluppo software. Tuttavia, apre anche nuove e inaspettate porte per gli aggressori. Ti sei mai chiesto cosa succederebbe se un'AI potesse essere manipolata con un semplice commento?
Una recente scoperta di Microsoft ha acceso i riflettori proprio su questo pericolo. I ricercatori hanno identificato una vulnerabilità critica in una GitHub Action molto utilizzata, quella di Claude Code di Anthropic. Il risultato? Un agente AI che poteva essere ingannato per leggere file sensibili e far trapelare credenziali direttamente dal workflow di integrazione e deployment continuo.
Come funzionava l'attacco? il rischio del "prompt injection"
L'attacco si basa su una tecnica nota come "prompt injection". In pratica, un malintenzionato inserisce istruzioni nascoste all'interno di un input di testo apparentemente innocuo, come un commento a una issue o la descrizione di una pull request. Mentre un revisore umano vedrebbe solo del testo normale, il modello AI lo interpreta come un comando da eseguire. Nel caso specifico di Claude Code, i ricercatori di Microsoft Threat Intelligence hanno scoperto una falla significativa nel modo in cui l'agente gestiva l'accesso ai file. Ecco i dettagli:
Due strumenti, una sola sicurezza: L'agente AI utilizzava uno strumento Bash che operava in una sandbox sicura, privando l'ambiente delle variabili sensibili. Tuttavia, un altro strumento, chiamato Read, non seguiva le stesse regole.
La porta di accesso: Questa incoerenza creava un percorso diretto per un aggressore. Manipolando l'agente con un prompt ben congegnato, era possibile costringerlo a usare lo strumento Read per accedere al file /proc/self/environ nella memoria del processo.
Bypassare le difese: L'attacco era astuto. La richiesta malevola veniva mascherata da "revisione di conformità" per eludere i filtri di sicurezza di Claude, che bloccano richieste ovvie come "stampa la chiave API".
In questo modo, l'aggressore otteneva la chiave ANTHROPIC_API_KEY e altre credenziali senza essere scoperto. Il tutto senza richiedere accessi speciali: bastava la possibilità di aprire una issue o inviare una pull request.
Le conseguenze: cosa rischia chi usa workflow automatizzati?
Le implicazioni di una simile vulnerabilità sono estremamente serie per qualsiasi team che si affidi a workflow AI automatizzati. Una chiave API o una credenziale esfiltrata può diventare un vero e proprio passe-partout per un aggressore. Pensa alle possibili conseguenze:
Furto di identità del workflow: Un attaccante potrebbe impersonare il processo automatizzato per eseguire azioni non autorizzate.
Consumo di risorse: L'aggressore potrebbe utilizzare le tue risorse cloud, con conseguenti danni economici.
Accesso a sistemi interconnessi: La credenziale rubata potrebbe essere la chiave per penetrare più a fondo nell'infrastruttura aziendale.
Fortunatamente, la falla è stata segnalata responsabilmente ad Anthropic, che ha prontamente rilasciato una patch. Questo evento, però, resta un campanello d'allarme per l'intero settore.
Fuga di segreti AI CI/CD: come difendersi secondo Microsoft
Come possiamo proteggere i nostri workflow CI/CD potenziati dall'intelligenza artificiale? Microsoft ha fornito alcune linee guida pratiche e fondamentali, introducendo un principio chiave: la "Regola dei Due Agenti". Un workflow AI non dovrebbe mai combinare contemporaneamente tutti e tre i seguenti elementi: Elaborare input non attendibili (es. commenti pubblici). Accedere a segreti e credenziali sensibili. Eseguire azioni esterne o modificare lo stato del sistema. Limitando il workflow a un massimo di due di queste capacità, si riduce drasticamente la superficie di attacco.
Applicare il principio del minimo privilegio
Non è una novità, ma nel contesto dell'AI diventa ancora più cruciale. Ogni token e chiave API inserita in un workflow deve avere i permessi minimi indispensabili per svolgere il suo compito. Limita lo scope di ogni credenziale solo a ciò che è strettamente necessario. Inoltre, è fondamentale monitorare l'utilizzo delle chiavi, impostando alert per attività anomale, come chiamate da nuovi IP o verso endpoint inaspettati.
Rafforzare il system prompt dell'AI
Il modo in cui "istruisci" l'AI fa la differenza. Microsoft raccomanda di "rafforzare" il system prompt, ovvero le istruzioni di base che governano il comportamento dell'agente. Devi definire chiaramente cosa è un "dato" da analizzare e cosa è un'"istruzione" da eseguire. Specificando che i contenuti da fonti esterne non sono attendibili, si crea una barriera concettuale che l'AI è meno incline a superare.
L'IA è un alleato, non una minaccia: ma la sicurezza prima di tutto
L'intelligenza artificiale nei processi di sviluppo non è il nemico. È uno strumento potente che può aumentare la produttività e la qualità del software. Tuttavia, come ogni nuova tecnologia, introduce sfide di sicurezza inedite. L'episodio di Claude Code ci insegna che non possiamo dare per scontata la sicurezza dei nostri workflow. È nostro compito adottare un approccio proattivo, applicando principi consolidati e sviluppandone di nuovi, pensati per la specificità degli agenti AI. I tuoi workflow sono davvero al sicuro?
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Un rapport de l’agence de l’ONU dédiée à l’alimentation et l’agriculture dévoile que la consommation de viande à l’échelle mondiale est passée de 25 kg par personne en 1961 à 47 kg par personne en 2022. Les émissions de l’agro-industrie devraient, elles, augmenter de 7,6 % au cours de la prochaine décennie.
Hours after launching a marketing campaign called “Tank Day” for its new “Tank” coffee tumbler range on 18 May, Starbucks Korea found itself at the centre of a cultural storm that would force a billionaire chairman to apologise on national television, and see a chief executive sacked. The controversy reverberated all the way to the South Korean president’s office. […] Marketers chose the slogan after consulting an AI tool, looking for suggestions, Shinsegae Group said. It turned out some managers who approved the campaign never opened the email attachments showing the marketing material.
Alors que la politique d’austérité laisse encore des traces sociales inquiétantes en Grèce, le fonctionnement des institutions et des contre-pouvoirs apparaît aussi modifié en profondeur. Le gouvernement de Kyriákos Mitsotákis, au pouvoir depuis 2019, est de plus en plus pointé du doigt et accusé de dérive autoritaire.
Ce samedi a marqué l’entrée en vigueur de la loi cantonale qui interdit le port du burkini, mais aussi des maillots de bains couvrants anti-UV très prisés par les familles.
L’augmentation constante des températures due au réchauffement climatique a permis aux tiques, qui n’aiment pas le froid mais se régalent quand il fait bon et humide, d’étendre considérablement leur aire de répartition géographique.
Le président des États-Unis a annoncé, jeudi 4 juin, un investissement colossal de 700 millions de dollars pour relancer la production de charbon dans 13 États. L’élu républicain tente ainsi de contourner la fermeture du détroit d’Ormuz par l’Iran, mais aussi de poursuivre sa croisade contre la lutte pour le climat.
Une enquête menée auprès de plus de 500 Américains blancs suivis dans le temps montre que l’audience de Fox News est associée à une adhésion accrue à la théorie complotiste du « grand remplacement ». Un résultat qui éclaire le rôle des médias dans la diffusion de certaines croyances politiques.
« Nous allons vous proposer le plus grand meeting de tous les temps », a écrit le président américain sur son réseau Truth Social. « Nous ne voulons pas de chanteurs sans talent, avec des cachets énormes qui vous endorment, nous leur avons tous dit de rester chez eux », a ajouté le républicain, visiblement encore marqué par une amère déception.
We spent six years contemplating a fascist takeover of a galaxy far, far away. Six years thinking about what happens to ordinary beings when an authoritarian, insane, unchecked regime comes into the deal, and the show is really kind of what we learned. If you’re not willing to fight for the things that you love — your family, community, your culture, your planet, your truth, freedom — there’s an asshole ready to come in and take it away. We learned that bravery and sacrifice and resistance comes in all shapes and sizes, and we learned that courage is contagious. There’s so much is happening, it’s a fire hose of crap that you just can’t get through. And here we are. There isn’t a new cycle that goes by right now that doesn’t contain a variety of outrages that in any other time in our history in America wouldn’t be grounds for treason. Please do not stop. Please do not turn out the lights until we can kill this nightmare. And fuck the Empire !
Le milliardaire américain, dont la fortune pourrait dépasser les 1 000 milliards de dollars dans les prochaines semaines, a accumulé en 30 ans l’équivalent de 11 millions d’années de travail d’un Américain percevant le revenu médian.
“Horrifically, ChatGPT has aided and abetted in more than one multiple murder in the State of Florida,” Uthmeier’s complaint said. “The 2026 deaths of University of South Florida graduate students Nahida Bristy and Zamil Limon were also plotted using ChatGPT, which advised Hisham Abugharbieh on how to dispose of bodies, change VIN numbers on a car, and whether cars were checked at the crime scene.”
S’il n’y a pas de solution, le ballon ne roulera pas” : le slogan du mouvement de grève des enseignant·es donne le ton. […] Iels réclament entre autres le retour à un système de retraite public, mutualisé, solidaire et intergénérationnel ; et dénoncent une précarisation insupportable.
Amazon vient de fermer discrètement son classement interne KiroRank qui mesurait l’usage des outils IA par ses employé·es. Officiellement, l’objectif d’adoption était atteint. Officieusement, les employé·es trichaient massivement pour grimper dans le classement, certain·es après avoir été réprimandé·es pour un usage insuffisant de l’IA.
L’assistance IA mise en place par Meta pour la gestion des comptes Instagram a autorisé pendant plusieurs semaines n’importe qui d’assez malin à changer l’adresse e-mail associée à un compte. Les propriétaires légitimes se retrouvaient donc « enfermé·es dehors », incapables de se connecter à leur compte et de reprendre la main.
Une vidéo montrant des centaines de migrants franchissant une clôture à la frontière espagnole, datée au 30 mai 2026, est devenue virale. Sur X, des internautes, Elon Musk en tête, demandent à Grok, l’IA de la plateforme, de la vérifier. Mais le chatbot confirme à tort sa date : ces images, sorties de leur contexte, datent en réalité de 2022.
L’essor de l’intelligence artificielle générative risque de renforcer le pouvoir sur nos vies d’une poignée d’entrepreneurs « technofascistes » alertent Lou Welgryn et Théo Alves Da Costa, spécialistes de l’informatique et animateurs de l’association Data for good.
The injured teenage survivor of a January 2025 shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee high school recently sued the manufacturer of an “AI gun detection” system that failed to detect the handgun that left two dead, including the shooter.
This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research. It is the result of a community initiative and is endorsed by the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
Un rapport de l’Université des Nations unies chiffre pour la première fois l’empreinte carbone, hydrique et foncière de l’intelligence artificielle. Les chiffres donnent le vertige : 945 TWh d’électricité projetés en 2030, 9 300 milliards de litres d’eau, 14 500 km² de terres. Et chaque prompt que vous envoyez y contribue.
Face à l’aggravation de la crise économique en Syrie, le travail à la maison s’est imposé comme une stratégie de survie pour les femmes. Elles transforment ainsi des savoir-faire traditionnels tels que la cuisine, le crochet et la pâtisserie en sources de revenus.
Cela faisait quinze ans qu’elle se battait, et elle a enfin obtenu gain de cause. Le cinéaste Wim Wenders a (enfin) accédé à la requête de l’actrice allemande Nastassja Kinski, qui réclamait le retrait des circuits de diffusion de Faux Mouvement, sorti en 1975. En cause ? Une scène du film où elle apparaît en culotte et seins nus, alors qu’elle n’est âgée que de 13 ans. Nastassja Kinski affirme qu’elle n’avait pas été préparée à devoir se déshabiller et que sa mère, absente à ce moment du tournage, n’avait pas donné son consentement à cette scène de nudité.
“Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” they said in a statement sent to AFP.
Les deux Français participeront à des missions différentes, l’une en direction de la Station spatiale internationale (ISS) et l’autre à destination de la station spatiale commerciale Haven-1, fondée par le milliardaire des cryptomonnaies Jed McCaleb.
« On avait réussi à établir un rapport de force via notre capacité à réglementer, donc affaiblir nos normes aujourd’hui revient à nous affaiblir nous-mêmes sur le plan géopolitique. » […] Demeure toutefois un obstacle de taille : de LFI au RN, les parlementaires eux-mêmes ont recours aux data brokers pour se faire (ré)élire.
Le principe des mythes est d’avoir la vie dure. Celui des demandeureuses d’emploi qui profitent de leur indemnisation et attendent la dernière minute avant de se remettre à chercher un boulot est particulièrement inoxydable. Et tant pis si, d’études en études, les chiffres prouvent le contraire.
Pour renverser le récit du « grand remplacement » distillé par l’extrême droite, le fondateur de La France insoumise a insisté sur la nécessité « d’incarner la nouvelle France, celle du grand remplacement, celle de la génération qui remplace l’autre ».
Les député·es ont adopté le 3 juin une proposition de loi réduisant progressivement la teneur en cadmium dans les aliments. Ce minerai toxique est massivement présent dans les sols et l’alimentation.
La proposition de loi prévoit d’abaisser dès 2027 les seuils de la teneur en cadmium dans les engrais phosphatés, avec une réduction progressive : un seuil à ne pas dépasser de 40 mg/kg d’anhydride phosphorique (P₂O₅) dès le 1er janvier 2027 et un seuil de 20 mg/kg dès le 1er janvier 2030.
Un siècle après l’âge d’or minier vendéen, le sous-sol du département intéresse de nouveau l’industrie […] l’État vient de retenir une entreprise pour un projet de recherche d’antimoine, un métalloïde très utilisé dans l’électronique. Mais de nombreuses étapes restent à franchir avant une éventuelle exploitation, à 50 kilomètres au sud-est de Nantes.
Maux de tête, nausées… Les émanations de gaz liées aux échouements d’algues puantes en Martinique et en Guadeloupe poussent les écoles à fermer ou à aménager leurs cours. Le problème, récurrent, s’enlise.
La France, comme une partie de l’Europe, connaît fin mai 2026 une vague de forte chaleur. Mais cet épisode est minimisé dans des publications foisonnant sur les réseaux sociaux, dont les auteurs affirment qu’il n’a rien d’exceptionnel et que des phénomènes similaires auraient déjà eu lieu, notamment en 1922, 1945 ou bien encore 1947. Certains vont jusqu’à dénoncer une “manipulation” de la part des médias, qui dramatiseraient la situation. Mais la vague de chaleur actuelle est bien inédite, de par sa précocité, sa durée et son intensité, soulignent les spécialistes.
Depuis 2024, les sages-femmes sont autorisées à pratiquer des IVG par aspiration à l’hôpital. Dans un cadre souvent misogyne, elles doivent se battre pour leur place tout en maintenant la qualité de la relation avec leurs patientes.
55 000 euros d’amende ! Après avoir critiqué l’arbitrage d’Ana Carvalho, estimant que « ce genre de match doit être arbitré par un homme », le tennisman Adolfo Daniel Vallejo a été sanctionné par la Fédération française de tennis et Roland-Garros. Il a présenté ses excuses.
C’est un sketch. À quel moment tu es tellement insecure dans ta vie que tu estimes que toutes les filles en couple qui vont à la salle de sport avec un legging ne sont pas fidèles ? »
Parce que plaire et se taire fait partie des attendus de la beauté, qui est à la fois une façon de mesurer sa valeur (éphémère) sur le marché et un motif permanent d’anxiété. Une idée propre à la culture du viol veut que derrière un non se cache toujours un oui. C’est une dissonance cognitive au plus haut niveau, comme les publicités qui façonnent nos esprits pour qu’on désire ce qui nous fait du mal.
Des membres du collectif #NousToutes ont manifesté devant le théâtre Edouard VII à Paris, juste avant une représentation de la pièce « Deuxième partie » qui a finalement été annulée.
La France est mise en cause devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme par une femme victime de diffusion de captations vidéo de son viol. Face à la Cour, elle dénonce la décision de la Justice française ne pas qualifier les faits de « traite des êtres humains » et interroge la manière dont l’État a évalué le consentement.
Le profil du principal suspect dans la mort de la collégienne retrouvée morte jeudi, aurait pu attirer l’attention des autorités judiciaires. Il avait fait l’objet deux plaintes en 2022 et 2025 pour viol sur des mineures – la première classée sans suite sur une enfant de 7 ans et la seconde toujours « en cours ». À ces plaintes s’ajoutent un signalement en 2017 pour une « relation » avec une mineure de 17 ans, une procédure de licenciement en 2020 après une « relation inappropriée avec une lycéenne » et, plus récemment, un signalement en mars dernier pour des agressions sexuelles sur mineures
Après l’enlèvement et le meurtre de Lyhanna, 11 ans, un homme, déjà mis en cause par trois plaintes pour viols sur mineurs, mais jamais condamné, est suspecté.
Deux journalistes de France 24, Nina Masson et Yong Chim, ont été victimes d’une tentative d’intimidation et de censure après une question posée à un acteur sur la tribune anti-Bolloré, qui a agité le festival de Cannes cette année. La direction et la société des journalistes de France 24 dénoncent des faits d’une “gravité inédite”.
aux yeux de l’exécutif, les défaillances, et donc les responsabilités face à ce drame, sont plutôt individuelles. Surtout pas politiques. Avant même les sorties de Gérald Darmanin, le président Emmanuel Macron avait déjà balayé la question des moyens accordés à la justice, en expliquant vouloir « entendre aucun argument » en ce sens.
Pour préparer la présidentielle 2027, le PS lance « Noûs », un think tank destiné à « réarmer intellectuellement » la gauche sociale-démocrate face à l’extrême droite. L’initiative est cependant entachée d’un paradoxe : sa coprésidente, Julie Martinez, est une ancienne cadre de Palantir, géant américain de la surveillance de masse.
Spécial recul des droits et libertés, violences policières, montée de l’extrême-droite…
Le Rassemblement national peaufine son propre ChatGPT, un robot conversationnel nourri aux discours, programme et éléments de langage du parti d’extrême droite.
Malgré une interdiction à Paris, les néofascistes du Comité du 9-Mai (C9M) ont fait leur grand rassemblement à Verrières-le-Buisson, en Essonne, sans être appréhendés. Des témoins ont vu des saluts nazis.
Première femme issue de l’immigration élue en France, Régine Komokoli vit et milite à Rennes, dans le quartier populaire de Villejean. Ancienne sans-papiers, survivante de violences conjugales, mère isolée devenue élue locale, elle subit depuis les dernières municipales une vague d’intimidations racistes, sexistes et négrophobes alimentée par l’extrême droite.
À chaque épisode de violences urbaines, le même réflexe : transformer une partie de la jeunesse française en problème collectif. Les commentaires indignés sur les célébrations du PSG dessinent une stigmatisation récurrente des jeunes des quartiers populaires : un racisme qui ne dit pas son nom.
L’intervention disproportionnée de la Ertzaintza lors de l’arrivée des membres de la flottille Global Sumud qui revenaient d’Israël a choqué. Les faits posent encore une fois l’épineuse question du maintien de l’ordre dans la Communauté autonome basque.
un policier qui n’était pas en service a été condamné ce mardi 2 juin à deux ans de prison, dont quatorze mois ferme avec mandat de dépôt, après avoir braqué des automobilistes avec son arme de service près du Pont-Neuf.[…] Ivre au moment des faits, il a expliqué ne plus se souvenir précisément du déroulement de la scène.
Un adolescent de 14 ans a été interpellé non loin de République. Selon sa famille, il aurait été plaqué contre un mur, menotté, insulté et blessé au nez avant d’être placé en garde à vue, puis de passer une nuit au dépôt. Il affirme également avoir subi des pressions après avoir souhaité porter plainte contre les policiers.
À l’appel du syndicat Sud Éducation 93, un rassemblement était organisé ce mardi à Saint-Denis pour dénoncer « l’impunité », selon des professeurs du département, qui protègerait les auteurs de propos ou d’agressions racistes ou sexuels à l’école.
Dénonçant la « pression disproportionnée » que subissent les agriculteurices bénéficiaires du RSA dans le Finistère, la Confédération Paysanne s’est associée à la procédure judiciaire intentée par la CGT contre le président du département. L’organisation pointe des contrôles abusifs qui dissuadent les paysan·nes de recourir à leurs droits.
Le Smic augmente de 2,41 % ce 1er juin. Pourquoi n’est-ce pas le cas de tous les salaires ? À cause de la fable de la « spirale prix-salaires », qui, comme les monstres sous le lit des enfants, fait très peur mais n’existe pas.
Face aux coupes budgétaires, à la montée de l’extrême droite et à la concentration industrielle, des artistes et travailleur·ses de la musique s’organisent. Un appel à faire de la culture un front de résistance politique et collective.
380 artistes, technicien.ne.s, acteurs et actrices culturel.le.s se mobilisent pour défendre le théâtre de Vanves, menacé d’une année blanche et d’un changement radical de politique culturelle de la municipalité.
Le jeudi 18 juin, les syndicats SNJ, SNJ-CGT, CFDT-Journalistes, le SGJ-FO, la Filpac-CGT, le SNPEP-FO, Info’Com-CGT appellent l’ensemble des salariés des médias à rejoindre ce cortège et à se mobiliser collectivement pour combattre les dangers qui menacent l’information, pour refuser les plans sociaux et défendre une information de qualité.
Une première audience aura lieu à Nanterre le 2 juillet, huit ans après la plainte déposée par Halte à l’obsolescence programmée (HOP). L’association reproche notamment au constructeur de réduire à dessein la durée de vie de ses cartouches d’encre.
À partir de combien est-on trop riche ? La chercheuse belgo-néerlandaise Ingrid Robeyns pose la question dans son essai Limitarianism : The Case Against Extreme Wealth (Allen Lane, 2024). La philosophe et économiste y forge un concept inédit : le limitarisme. Son principe ? Limiter les fortunes individuelles à 10 millions d’euros pour bâtir un monde sans super-riches et combattre les inégalités extrêmes politiquement et moralement insoutenables.
upgrading to Fedora 43 and the newer Dovecot 2.4 mail server unexpectedly exposed what could be an ancient Microsoft Outlook security problem involving unencrypted POP3 connections. If true, some Outlook users may have believed their email sessions were protected by SSL/TLS while the client silently continued using insecure plaintext connections instead.
Palantir, qui réalise l’essentiel de son chiffre d’affaires aux États-Unis, cherche à gagner de nouveaux clients en Europe, du côté des entreprises comme des gouvernements. Avec souvent le même opératoire : la multinationale profite des situations de crise pour offrir ses services gratuitement, puis enchaîne avec des contrats très lucratifs dont il est de plus en plus difficile de sortir.
On peut tourner et retourner le dilemme dans tous les sens, le plus raisonnable se réduit en une affirmation : l’urgence est celle d’une gauche rassemblée le plus largement possible, autour d’un projet le plus avancé possible, donnant crédibilité au projet d’une rupture avec les choix qui, depuis 1982, l’ont conduite au désastre.
Did you know that the first time terrorists used planes to attack Americans wasn’t on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbor ? It was during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 when white supremacists flew “a dozen planes to drop turpentine or nitroglycerin bombs & men shot from planes.”
En Corée du Sud, les salariés de Samsung menaçaient d’une grève si les bénéfices de l’IA n’étaient pas mieux répartis. Aux États-Unis, ce sont les étudiants qui manifestent leurs craintes face à la concurrence déloyale de l’IA, et rejettent le modèle de société prôné par les patrons de la tech.
À Nantes, une association arpente le Web pour créer du lien avec les travailleuses du sexe qui rencontrent leurs clients par l’intermédiaire d’Internet. Un travail social de longue haleine, en butte aux lois régissant la prostitution.
Après des mois d’une guerre de tranchées juridique, la direction de l’École polytechnique a officiellement capitulé en suspendant son projet de migration vers Microsoft 365. Attaquée par le Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL), la prestigieuse école de Palaiseau a dû reculer.
Des scientifiques ont découvert une mégacolonie d’abeilles sauvages dont l’existence remonte à plus d’un siècle. Avec plusieurs millions d’individus recensés, cette population hors norme éclaire le rôle discret mais essentiel des espaces urbains préservés.
Dans les eaux chaudes des rivières du Mexique et du sud du Texas nage une espèce de poissons argentés qui ne devrait pas exister. Dans ces eaux, les femelles Poecilia formosa se reproduisent avec des partenaires appartenant à d’autres espèces pas trop différentes d’elles, avant de se débarrasser aussitôt de l’ADN du mâle : sa progéniture ne sera que femelle.
Retrouvez les revues de web précédentes dans la catégorie Libre Veille du Framablog.
Les articles, commentaires et autres images qui composent ces « Khrys’presso » n’engagent que moi (Khrys).
Dans une logique de dégafamisation de ma vie numérique, je me suis lancé avec très très peu de connaissances dans la mise en place d’un serveur à la maison à partir de matériaux de récupération.
J’ai donc installé UnRaid sur un vieux MacMini que j’ai réparé. Jusqu’ici, j’ai pu virer Google Drive en mettant en place un serveur Seafile mais maintenant j’aurai besoin de remplacer Google Forms que j’utilise beaucoup pour ma gestion administrative familiale et mon suivi de santé.
En farfouillant, je vois qu’on peut installer Yakforms sur un serveur personnel mais comme je suis très débutant et que je découvre UnRaid, j’aimerai savoir si des personnes ici savent si on peut installer Yakforms sans avoir de version docker, ou comment en créer une pour pouvoir l’installer sur mon serveur ?
J’utilise KDE Connect (sous Windows), mais je ne le trouve pas intuitif. J’ai installé Wammu pour le re-tester. il y a quelques années je l’avais testé mais mon tel n’était pas compatible. Depuis j’ai changé. Mais dans les réglages il n’est pas possible de passer par le wifi. Aurais-je raté quelque chose ou c’est vraiment pas possible ??
En plus je n’ai pas vu qu’il faille installé une appli sur le tel, comme avec KDE Connect. Comment Wammu peut se connecter au tel ??
By enabling digitized production design, this digital software is freeing up businesses and individuals across numerous industries to work smarter, not harder.
To design a new product or tool is often a lengthy, labor-intensive process. Even the most successful and streamlined physical design process is intensive and iterative by nature; it is the process of taking something that begins as little more than an idea and turning it into reality. Inherently, that is going to take a great deal of translation, as well as trial and error. When working with real-world, physical elements, this also makes for a costly endeavor, as each new trial effort may prove essential to the long-term success of the design, but still has adverse financial effects. Dassault Systèmes offers CAD software to help businesses stay on top of advancements in their industries.
Before digital design software became widely adopted, engineers and designers often relied heavily on hand-drawn technical sketches and manual drafting methods during product development. Revising a design could require redrawing entire sections of a project, making the process both time-consuming and resource-intensive. Modern digital design systems have significantly changed these workflows by allowing teams to make rapid adjustments, automate calculations, and store detailed design information within a single platform. This shift has contributed to the broader adoption of digital tools across industries seeking more streamlined development processes.
Fortunately, though, in this new world of ever-advancing technological tools, the design process doesn’t have to be fraught with issues and obstacles anymore, thanks to systems such as CAD software. This new software is now enabling businesses to design smarter, faster, and more accurately by digitizing product development processes and improving collaboration across engineering and manufacturing teams.
Digital Design as the Foundation of Innovation
Digital software allows engineers to create precise digital models that can then serve as the foundation for product development. Compare this to the physical alternative, which has long been a well-thought-out sketch of the product in question. Even the most comprehensive of sketches is only going to be dealing with two dimensions, and is likely to leave room for confusion or error based on the interpretation of the subjective rendering.
Logos of organizations under the Addiction Recovery Care umbrella are on display at ARC’s career services office in Louisa, Kentucky. Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader
Timmy G. Robinson Jr., founder and owner of what was once Kentucky’s largest drug addiction treatment company, was criminally indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.
The indictment, filed in the Eastern District of Kentucky, charges Robinson with fraudulently selling millions of dollars of the same IRS tax credit to two companies. Robinson “devised a scheme” to “unlawfully enrich himself” by selling those tax credits to two parties, the indictment says. Robinson is also charged with two counts of money laundering for spending the proceeds of the fraudulent sale.
Robinson has resigned as CEO of ARC, company spokesperson Vanessa Keeton said Thursday. Robinson, 50, founded the company in 2012 after becoming sober and telling people he felt called by God to help people in the state with addiction.
ARC, which at one point operated more than 40 drug treatment centers around the state, has been under FBI investigation for Medicaid fraud since July 2024. That investigation is ongoing, the FBI confirmed on Friday. The Lexington Herald-Leader, in partnership with ProPublica, reported in April firsthand accounts from former ARC employees and clients who said they were told by ARC to falsely bill Medicaid, or witnessed others billing for services that were not actually provided. The company said at the time that it “has never knowingly or fraudulently billed Medicaid for services, and there is no evidence that the organization encouraged employees to falsify group notes for billing purposes.”
Robinson’s attorney, Kent Wicker, said he and his client were surprised to learn an indictment had been placed over a “dispute with some investors that is now pending in a civil courtroom.”
That dispute escalated earlier this year, when ARC was sued by two companies to which Robinson had sold IRS credits, including the Bahamas-based Angelica Capital Trust. But both companies allege that when ARC received the IRS credits, it illegally kept more than $8 million the companies were owed. They allege ARC was refusing to repay the money in part so it could pay a preliminary $28 million settlement with the Department of Justice over alleged Medicaid fraud. Robinson has said he would make payments to creditors upon the sale of the company, which he described in January as imminent.
“To be clear, Mr. Robinson did not defraud anyone, did not gain anything from the transaction at issue, and he has done nothing but deliver high quality care for over a decade to thousands of Kentuckians,” Wicker said in an emailed statement to the Herald-Leader and ProPublica. “We look forward to defending this case in court.”
Starting in 2023, ARC applied for two COVID-19-related tax credits, totalling nearly $7 million.
In July 2025, Robinson sold the rights to the first tax credit to a loan company, the indictment says. Under the agreement, the purchaser would pay ARC $2.7 million in exchange for a future repayment of the tax credit once the IRS funds arrived. Robinson signed that agreement, and later that month the buyer wired ARC the agreed amount.
Soon after, the indictment says, Robinson “devised a scheme” to sell that same credit amount to a second company and in doing so “falsely represented” that the $2.7 million in initial tax credit was available to purchase. “Robinson concealed the prior transactions” to the new buyer, according to the indictment.
In November, Robinson signed an agreement with the second buyer, who sent a wire transfer that included $2.7 million for the twice-sold tax credit.
In December, when the IRS paid ARC the COVID-19 tax refunds, “at Robinson’s direction, ARC spent the ERC [Employee Retention Credit] funds on other operational costs and debt obligations,” the indictment reads.
Keeton declined to comment further on the case, citing pending litigation. However, she said ARC continues to operate normally.
“All facilities, programs, and services remain open and fully operational,” Keeton said in an emailed statement. “Our leadership team, employees, and clinical staff remain committed to delivering high-quality care and support to the individuals and families we serve.”
Robinson faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gain or loss, for the wire fraud count. Each money laundering count carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
We’re taking a closer look at how ARC treated the people who came to the organization seeking help with their sobriety. If you’re a current or former client or employee, we want to hear from you.
The North Carolina legislature, where Democrats recently introduced three bills to reform the state’s courts and protect the separation of powers between its branches of government Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina introduced a trio of constitutional amendments this week aimed at protecting traditional powers of the state’s governor and reforming oversight of its court system.
The effort was prompted in part by ProPublica’s reporting, including an investigation that found that over nearly a decade, Republican lawmakers had pushed through law after law shrinking the powers of North Carolina’s governor, always a Democrat during that time.
At a press conference on Wednesday, the bills’ sponsors readily acknowledged that the initiatives are unlikely to pass, at least in the current legislative session: Republicans hold majorities in North Carolina’s House and Senate.
But in proposing the measures as changes to the state constitution, the group of eight Democrats said their goal was to make them less vulnerable to the persistent partisan warfare that has engulfed the narrowly divided swing state.
Republicans “won’t always be in the majority,” said Rep. Phil Rubin, the primary sponsor of one bill. “And when they’re not, they’re going to suddenly think these are great rules. So let’s do them now.”
Republican leaders in the House, Senate and court system did not respond to requests for comment on the bills.
Experts have long maintained that Republican power grabs have thwarted the will of North Carolina voters, removing the Democratic governor’s control or partial control over numerous boards, entities and executive prerogatives and leaving him the nation’s weakest. (Republican officials have defended the shifts, pointing out that voters also elected a GOP legislative majority.)
Rubin’s measure would bar the legislature from stripping away additional gubernatorial powers, as well as block majority leaders from what he called “government by ambush” — springing major legislation on the minority and public without notice.
“ProPublica’s reporting shows the perils of not having this law,” Rubin said. Voters should have “the opportunity to secure their constitution, demand absolute transparency in lawmaking and ensure that people, not backroom deals, have the final say.”
The two other constitutional amendments unveiled this week target aspects of the judicial system.
The first, authored by House Rep. Marcia Morey, would make disciplinary hearings and sanctions by the courts’ internal watchdog, the Judicial Standards Commission, public.
GOP rules currently cloak the commission’s work in secrecy. Behind closed doors, ProPublica revealed, the majority-Republican state Supreme Court quashed the commission’s recommendations that two Republican judges who’d admitted to committing egregious conduct violations be publicly reprimanded. (Spokespeople for the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Judicial Standards Commission declined to comment or respond to a detailed list of questions about the matter.)
Morey’s bill would also change who appoints the commission’s members, a step she called critical to preventing the “weaponization” of its work.
Currently, Republican legislative leaders and Paul Newby, the state’s conservative chief justice, appoint a majority of the commission’s members. As ProPublica has reported, in 2023 Newby encouraged the commission to investigate a Black Democratic justice who’d criticized his decision to effectively shut down a racial equity commission. (Newby, as well as spokespeople for the court and the Judicial Standards Commission, declined to comment for the story.)
Morey’s measure would divide commission appointments equally among the chief justice, the governor and the North Carolina State Bar. “Who makes decisions about discipline and who appoints the decision-makers,” she said, are critical to making the system “fair and effective.”
The second bill, sponsored by Rep. Deb Butler, would disqualify state Supreme Court justices from hearing cases in which family members are parties. Justice Phil Berger Jr. has caused controversy by ruling in multiple cases in which his father, the leader of the state Senate, is a defendant in his legislative capacity. (Berger referred recusal requests on these cases to the Republican majority on the Supreme Court, which ruled he could participate.)
Butler’s measure would also compel justices to disclose more information about large stock transactions, outside sources of income and sponsored travel. A ProPublica investigation found Newby didn’t disclose a trip to a luxurious Hawaiian resort, paid for by a conservative judicial education program. Newby and court spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment about his decision not to disclose the trip.
Butler described her bill as an effort to restore public trust. “People deserve complete confidence in the integrity of their court,” she said.
In the unlikely event that the bills pass, the public would then have the chance to vote on them in November. If not, the sponsors said, they’d revive them in the next session, by which time even some Republican strategists think that a blue wave may have flipped the North Carolina House.
“We’re committed to following through on these bills to ensure fairness and impartiality in our courts and legislature,” Morey said. “This should be the norm, not the partisan bias we have now.”
Progress Software ha rilasciato aggiornamenti di sicurezza per risolvere diverse vulnerabilità di cui una con gravità “critica”, nel prodotto Progress Kemp LoadMaster.
Je viens de créer un sondage de date avec (la nouvelle mouture de) Framadate.
J’ai utilisé l’option “Appliquer les mêmes horaires à toutes les dates” et j’ai mis des horaires.
Mon sondage se retrouve avec les horaires que j’ai choisi mais aussi avec une option “journée” que je n’ai absolument pas rentrée. Qu’est-ce qui quoi ?
Rilevate tre nuove vulnerabilità, di cui una con con gravità “critica” e due con gravità “alta”, in MariaDB Server. Tali vulnerabilità, residenti nel componente Galera, qualora sfruttate potrebbero consentire ad un utente remoto malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario o di alterare dati, configurazioni o contenuti applicativi del sistema.
AI worms, or "viruses with wings and brains," adapt to new environments, seek out vulnerabilities, and will likely strike within a year, researchers say.
As a society, our reliance on technology has never been greater. From banking and shopping to remote work and healthcare, we have access to information in an instant. As good as technology is at helping us with daily tasks, it also comes with risks.
Cybersecurity is no longer a concern for IT departments in a business. It is a necessity for both businesses and individuals to stay protected online. As our use of technology continues to grow, so too does the sophistication and frequency of cyber threats. From financial fraud and identity theft to large-scale data breaches, the risks are real and becoming more common.
With data breaches and security threats becoming more frequent, sophisticated, and on a larger-scale, building a secure digital defence is a top priority for everyone.
The Rising Tide of Online Threats
Australia faces an unprecedented wave of cyber incidents every day. In the 2024–25 financial year, the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) responded to over 1,200 cybersecurity incidents alone. A staggering 11% increase from the previous financial year. With attackers becoming more organised, better funded, and highly strategic in who they target.
Financially motivated attacks (scams) are the number one cyber-attack, with ransomware and cyber extortion now among the most common cyber incidents responded to by security firms. Industries such as financial services, healthcare, and critical infrastructure are becoming prime targets for hackers.
Now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, AI-powered threats are making it a global issue. Phishing emails generated by AI, deepfakes, and attacks that evolve to evade detection are becoming commonplace.
Your Data is the New Currency Online
Data is one of the most valuable assets in the dark corners of the web, where a single click on a malicious link can compromise entire systems. For businesses, this includes customer information, intellectual property, and financial records. For individuals, it’s personal identity, communications, and digital footprints.
A data breach can have serious consequences, and businesses face legal penalties, regulatory scrutiny, and a loss of customer trust that can take years to rebuild, if at all. In Australia, compliance with privacy laws such as the Privacy Act 1988 means businesses have a legal obligation to protect personal information.
For individuals, compromised data can lead to identity theft, unauthorised transactions, and long-term financial harm. The emotional toll should not be underestimated either. Recovering from cybercrime can take a long time to get over.
Cyber Security as a Business Priority
Business leaders must prioritise cyber security and see it as an investment rather than an added cost. An investment in cybersecurity not only protects data and assets but also increases business credibility and customer confidence.
Many modern businesses are using cloud-based systems, remote work environments, and integrated technologies. While these innovations offer incredible flexibility and efficiency, they also introduce new vulnerabilities. Without proper safeguards in place, these systems can become entry points for attackers.
Implementing cybersecurity into company culture is essential. This includes providing regular staff training, setting up strong access controls, and maintaining up-to-date security systems.
A master of cybersecurity offers advanced knowledge and real-world experience. This course gives qualified staff the skills they need to protect digital assets and keep networks secure.
Steps to Stay Safe Online
Both individuals and business owners can take important steps to strengthen their cybersecurity.
For Individuals:
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) everywhere possible and use authenticator apps over SMS for stronger protection
Keep software and systems updated
Use strong, unique passwords managed by a password manager, and avoid reusing credentials
Regularly back up important data and test recovery processes
Educate family members, particularly the elderly, on recognising phishing, social engineering, and safe online habits
Implement basic technical controls, such as firewalls, endpoint detection tools, and encryption for sensitive information
Develop and test an incident response plan so you can react quickly if something goes wrong
Review privacy settings on social media and be cautious with unsolicited requests for information
For Businesses:
Conduct regular security audits and risk assessments
Train employees to recognise and respond to cyber threats
Implement firewalls, encryption, and endpoint protection
Develop an incident response plan to minimise damage in the event of a breach
By implementing these steps, and being aware of the risks online, you can significantly reduce your chances of falling victim to a cyber-attack.
The Future of Cyber Security
Cybersecurity is no longer the stuff of science fiction; it is an integral part of modern life. As technology evolves, so too does the frequency and sophistication of cyber threats. While developing technologies like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain offer exciting opportunities, they also present new security challenges that individuals and businesses must be prepared to face.
Whether you are running a business or managing your personal online presence, the need for data protection and security systems has never been greater. This makes ongoing education and skill development essential.
Cybersecurity specialists are in high demand, and the industry offers rewarding employment opportunities for those with the necessary skills and qualifications.
Ravi de découvrir une alternative libre à Tricount, que j’utilise depuis quelques années mais dont la dérive commerciale récente ne me plaît guère.
J’ai donc testé Framacount, et me permets les trois souhaits d’amélioration suivants :
1. Dans l’onglet “statistiques”, pouvoir visualiser non seulement mes dépenses (en tant qu’utilisateur actif), mais également celles de tous les participants (afin de pouvoir communiquer à chacun le coût total pour lui de l’activité réalisée). L’idéal serait un tableau donnant le coût pour chacun(e).
2. Permettre de saisir des dépenses réglées par plusieurs personnes. Exemple : un groupe de 10 personnes, nous allons au restaurant, la note s’élève à 532 €. En fonction des espèces dont chacun dispose, 4 personnes mettent chacune 100 €, la cinquième 132 € (indépendamment de la répartition ultérieure, je ne parle ici que du paiement). Actuellement dans Framacount il faut saisir 5 dépenses séparées, fastidieux.
3. Dans les “catégories” de dépenses, il manque le thème “Hébergement” (Hôtel, location d’appart, etc.).
Merci d’avance
Google ha rilasciato un aggiornamento per il browser Chrome al fine di correggere 429 vulnerabilità di sicurezza, di cui 22 con gravità “critica” e 87 con gravità “alta”.
Rilevata nuova vulnerabilità, con gravità “alta”, che riguarda i prodotti Catalyst SD-WAN, nota piattaforma per la gestione centralizzata delle reti WAN aziendali. Tale vulnerabilità risulta essere sfruttata attivamente in rete, e potrebbe consentire ad un utente autenticato malintenzionato di eseguire codice arbitrario e elevare i propri privilegi sui sistemi interessati.
pour favoriser le covoiturage au sein de notre association, nous voulons mettre en place une carte (Framacarte) localisant les membres.
Seulement, pour la simplicité d’usage, la carte comportera l’adresse précise et le numéro de téléphone de chaque membre. Nous voulons évidemment garder ça en privé au sein de l’association (même si on connaît les limites de cet aspect “privé”, mais c’est assumé).
Est-ce possible ?
Si oui, comment cela se passe pour l’accès à la carte ? Un simple mot de passe ?
North Dakota state Rep. Eric Murphy at home planning a day of canvassing in his Grand Forks district. Murphy, an incumbent Republican, faces a contested primary election from conservative challengers after he introduced a bill to expand abortion access last year. Dan Koeck for ProPublica
If Eric Murphy loses his primary election on June 9, he believes he already knows one reason why.
Last year, the North Dakota state representative, a Republican, tried to expand the window of pregnancy in which women could access abortion. The state legislature had banned it for almost everyone from the moment of conception.
Tied up in court, the ban hadn’t yet gone into effect. But Murphy wanted to lock in a less restrictive law, making abortion accessible up to 15 weeks and even later for women whose doctors deemed it a medical necessity.
To convince his fellow legislators, he read out loud from two ProPublica stories about women in Texas who died without lifesaving care. “Physicians felt compelled to follow the law,” he said in a hearing, “and both women died so that an inane law could be followed.”
A conservative colleague had warned him not to file the bill, Murphy told ProPublica, recalling the man’s words: “I can no longer protect you from who’s going to come after you.”
There was some truth to that sentiment.
At least four Republican state lawmakers who challenged severe abortion restrictions lost support from anti-abortion groups and key party allies and went on to lose primary elections, ProPublica found.
The blueprint in those races was remarkably similar. Opponents either embraced stricter abortion policies or avoided the issue altogether. Anti-abortion organizations campaigned against the incumbents, party endorsements shifted to their opponents and activists worked to turn out voters in low-participation primary elections.
In some of the races ProPublica examined, lawmakers who replaced abortion-ban reformers went on to support even stricter abortion legislation. In South Carolina, for instance, two new senators supported a bill to eliminate almost all exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. One provision of the bill would send women convicted of illegally terminating their pregnancies to jail.
Murphy is one of at least two Republican state lawmakers now facing a contested primary after trying to modify their states’ abortion restrictions. Richard Briggs, a state senator from Tennessee, is also fighting to keep his seat. In 2019, Briggs voted for the state’s so-called trigger law — a ban that would snap into place if the federal right to abortion was ever overturned.
But he had second thoughts after that actually happened. A cardiothoracic surgeon, Briggs realized the newly activated law didn’t provide adequate protections for patients having medical complications. “As a medical doctor, I drew the line,” he said in an interview. He introduced bills for a clearer medical exception and protection for doctors who intervened in cases where a fatal fetal anomaly risked the mother’s health.
The latter bill failed and now serves as ammunition for the challenger vying for his seat in the state’s Aug. 6 primary. “My opponent consistently works to weaken Tennessee’s pro life laws,” Kent Morrell says on his campaign website, noting that Tennessee Right to Life had revoked its endorsement of Briggs.
Murphy, who teaches biomedical sciences at the University of North Dakota’s medical school, ultimately did not succeed at reforming the state’s ban. His bill failed 87-6, and the state Supreme Court later reinstated the original ban, which forbids abortion from conception, with exceptions for rape and incest up to six weeks and to save the life of the mother.
Murphy discusses campaign issues with retired teacher Deb Stahlberg at her home in Grand Forks.Dan Koeck for ProPublica
The first time Murphy ran for election, his county’s Republican Party had endorsed him. Not this time. Instead, the party endorsed his two challengers, including Jill Chandler, the executive director of a “crisis pregnancy center” who believes abortion should be banned from conception.
She told ProPublica she happened to be present in the committee room when Murphy made the case for his bill. “To know that he was an endorsed Republican candidate from my district and one that I had voted for because of that endorsement was eye-opening,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘This can never happen again.’”
It was not the first time either Briggs or Murphy had taken positions that aggravated members of their parties in legislatures that have taken sharp turns to the right. Murphy voted against book bans and private school vouchers. Briggs had urged the public to get COVID-19 shots and has said that medical expertise should trump politics in decisions that involve public health.
Briggs expressed confidence in his election chances; he feels that voters agree with the decisions he’s made and noted that his Republican colleague, Sen. Becky Duncan Massey, survived a primary challenge over her support for abortion-ban exceptions.
Murphy believes the “silent majority” supports the intent of his abortion bill, but primary races historically have low turnout. It could come down to a handful of votes, he said.
“I might lose an election over this,” Murphy said, “but would I rather win an election by not doing the right thing?”
The Fallen Reformers
As a Republican state representative in Louisiana, Mary DuBuisson sought legislation that would make sure victims of rape and incest could terminate their pregnancies, and she also sponsored a bill that would have allowed women whose pregnancies were not viable to end them. She ended up losing a primary runoff.Melinda Deslatte/AP Photo
Mary DuBuisson, a former state Republican representative in a suburb outside of New Orleans, considers herself passionately “pro-life.” Like Briggs, she voted for her state’s near-total abortion ban in 2019. Three years later, just before Louisiana’s trigger law was implemented, it came before the legislature again.
Recognizing that women would now have to live under the restriction, DuBuisson wanted to make sure victims of rape and incest could terminate their pregnancies. When her colleagues refused to include those exceptions, she became the only Republican to vote against the ban.
A year later, she caused a stir when she sponsored a bill that would have allowed women whose pregnancies were not viable to end them. “To force a woman to carry to term with zero chance of survival is heartless and cruel,” she said at the time.
She didn’t feel it would be controversial. Other Republican women in the House told her she was doing the right thing. But when it was time to vote, another female Republican state lawmaker made a motion that ultimately succeeded at killing the bill in committee. “I mean, I just couldn’t understand,” she said of all her colleagues. “What if this was you, your daughter or granddaughter?”
When she came up for reelection, her primary opponent latched onto her record. Brian Glorioso was an attorney she had handily defeated in 2018. He called her proposed legislation a leftist attempt to circumvent the state’s abortion ban and said any “pro-abortion” doctor would falsely deem a pregnancy nonviable in records just to perform the procedure.
She beat him in the Oct. 14, 2023, primary by 384 votes — not enough to avoid a runoff.
Then, he got some extra support.
On Oct. 16, Louisiana Right to Life told its followers this runoff was key. Glorioso was expected to have a 100% “pro-life” voting record, while DuBuisson’s was 77%.
On Oct. 27, the state’s new governor-elect, Republican Jeff Landry, endorsed him, citing issues other than abortion; he wouldn’t tell ProPublica whether DuBuisson’s record on it played a role. But Landry, who had defended the state’s ban as attorney general, made clear during his campaign that he was “an unwavering defender of life, especially in the face of adversity,” citing his 100% rating from a national anti-abortion group.
“I think it partially cost me my election,” DuBuisson said of her attempts to reform the ban.
History repeated itself the following year, this time in South Carolina.
Three state senators — all Republicans who consider themselves “pro-life” — worked across party lines to defeat an abortion bill that essentially banned the procedure from conception and eliminated rape and incest exceptions. At the time, the state allowed abortion up to 20 weeks.
Sens. Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson spoke out against limitations on abortion access for victims of rape and incest. Sen. Katrina Shealy, who had the longest tenure for a woman in the state legislature, pushed for making abortion accessible up to 12 weeks and later for exceptions in cases involving rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies. Ultimately, a six-week window with rape, incest and fatal fetal exceptions became law.
South Carolina state Sens. Sandy Senn, left, Katrina Shealy, center, and Penry Gustafson, right, show off model spines they received from Students for Life Action with a message to “get a backbone” and vote to ban abortion at six weeks. The three, nicknamed the “Sister Senators,” ended up losing their reelection bids.Jeffrey Collins/AP Photo
Amid the Statehouse showdown, they were nicknamed the “Sister Senators.” All lost their county GOP’s endorsement to their male opponents.
But the bigger repercussions came from anti-abortion groups that mobilized a multifront grassroots campaign against them. Students for Life Action announced that it generated “37,000 pieces of mail, almost 130,000 personal text messages, more than 51,000 phone calls and thousands of doors knocked” to unseat the trio.
“All three of them got voted out — every single one of them lost because of that decision,” said Dr. Matthew Clark, the executive director of Personhood South Carolina, which believes abortion shouldn’t exist at all and that women who have them should be prosecuted for murder.
Clark, an allergist and Presbyterian pastor, said his group’s desired legislation has a better chance to advance now that the Sister Senators have been replaced.
Matt Leber, who beat Senn, previously co-sponsored a bill as a member of the state House that would make abortion a crime equivalent to homicide. It failed to advance, and Leber withdrew his name as a co-sponsor amid a controversy surrounding it in 2023.
This legislative session, Leber and Carlisle Kennedy, who beat Shealy, supported a bill that carries misdemeanor criminal penalties for women seeking abortions, with jail time up to two years. Senate Bill 1095 passed with supermajority support out of a committee Leber sits on.
The bill died before the session, but watchers of abortion restrictions noticed it got further than any other similarly repressive legislation ever has.
A Fateful Disconnect
Murphy speaks to a voter in Grand Forks.Dan Koeck for ProPublica
The outcomes do not neatly match public polling. Surveys in states such as South Carolina and Louisiana have found that many Republican voters support at least some exceptions to abortion bans, including in cases of rape or threats to a woman’s health.
But primary elections often draw only a small share of eligible voters, giving outsized influence to highly engaged activists and organized interest groups.
DuBuisson’s runoff drew about one-third of registered voters. Participation in the South Carolina primaries was lower still. Some races were decided on tiny margins; Senn lost hers by 33 votes.
North Dakota is one of the few states with a multimember system, where two representatives and one senator govern together in the same district. District 43, which Murphy currently represents, is one of the only purple districts in an otherwise deeply red state. It includes part of Grand Forks, a growing college town home to the University of North Dakota.
Murphy’s fellow representative, Democrat Zac Ista, told ProPublica he hadn’t been able to make a dent in this legislature. He announced he wouldn’t be seeking reelection, opening up an opportunity for a Republican takeover of the district.
Ista said the lack of support rallying around Murphy is due to his position on abortion, as well as culture-war legislation he refused to support. “I think it’s illustrative of that schism, where at this district level, Republicans are really trying to sort of press the most extreme conservative opinions,” Ista said.
Richard Glynn, the GOP county chair in Murphy’s district, had previously supported Murphy’s abortion bill. In written testimony, Glynn shared his experience hearing about young women performing illegal abortions when he was a freshman at the University of South Dakota in 1966. Four young women who were in sororities died from using metal hangers to terminate their pregnancies, he wrote.
“These deaths were viewed as preventable if these girls could have received competent care. Unfortunately, North Dakota is going down the same path with limited access to obstetric care that negatively impacts the health of the woman,” his letter said.
When reached by phone, Glynn said delegates in the county voted and Murphy had the least amount of votes, which is why he did not receive the county’s endorsement.
Glynn declined to answer more questions before hanging up on a reporter.
One of Murphy’s opponents, Mike Holmes, has drawn a lot of excitement — and an endorsement from Gov. Kelly Armstrong — for his expertise in energy technology and industrial development. The governor said Holmes understands “what it takes to keep North Dakota’s economy strong.” Holmes has been silent on abortion and didn’t respond to ProPublica’s requests for an interview.
Chandler, who touted her “respect for life” in a campaign mailer, is favored among anti-abortion groups. “It’s a pretty stark contrast,” said Bridget Turbide, executive director of North Dakota Right to Life, who called Murphy’s proposal “the most extreme pro-choice bill we’ve ever seen.”
A flyer promoting Jill Chandler, one of Murphy’s opponents, was paid for by Citizens Alliance of North Dakota, a conservative group that opposes abortion among other causes.Photo courtesy Eric Murphy
Citizens Alliance of North Dakota, a conservative group that opposes abortion among other causes, paid for a mailer calling Chandler a “champion of family values.” The same group marked Murphy in “bad standing” in an online roster of legislators, questioning his alignment with North Dakota values.
Murphy’s third colleague who also represents District 43, Republican State Sen. Jeff Barta, campaigned alongside him in 2022 as part of a unified Republican ticket when the primary election was uncontested.
Asked about the upcoming race and the candidates, Barta pointed to Murphy’s proposal that would have expanded abortion access in North Dakota.
“Last session, he introduced House Bill 1488, which created a little divide there,” Barta said.
Barta said Murphy has also broken with the party on other issues.
“That probably opened the door for the third candidate to run,” Barta added. Had that not happened, Murphy would have made it to the general election without having to defend his spot on the ballot.
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, lawmakers taking such nuanced stands on abortion bans may not have risked a career death sentence, said abortion historian and law professor Mary Ziegler.
“The kind of incrementalism that Eric Murphy seems to be doing is something from a bygone era, where people were more pragmatic in the movement and not punished for it,” she said.
Ricercatori di sicurezza hanno recentemente rilevato 4 vulnerabilità con gravità “alta” in Parallels Desktop, software di virtualizzazione per sistemi macOS. Tali vulnerabilità, qualora sfruttate, potrebbero consentire a un utente malintenzionato di elevare i propri privilegi sui sistemi target.
Questo CSIRT ha recentemente rilevato una campagna di phishing, veicolata tramite messaggi whatsapp finalizzata a indurre le potenziali vittime a consultare un presunto insoluto relativo al pedaggio autostradale e a inserire i dati della propria carta di pagamento.
I nuovi livelli di pensiero di Gemini sono finalmente disponibili per tutti. Questa è una novità che promette di cambiare il modo in cui interagisci con l'intelligenza artificiale di Google.
Se hai sempre desiderato un maggiore controllo sulla profondità delle risposte, ora puoi scegliere quanto a fondo l'assistente debba elaborare una richiesta prima di fornire una risposta. Ma cosa significa davvero e come puoi sfruttarlo al meglio? Questa funzione, annunciata da Josh Woodward (VP di Gemini) su X, non è più un'esclusiva per pochi utenti. È stata estesa a tutti, compresi quelli con un account gratuito, e funziona su ogni piattaforma: web, Android e iOS. Scopriamo insieme come funziona e quando conviene usare questa potente opzione.
Cosa sono esattamente i livelli di pensiero?
Immagina di poter dire a un esperto: "Prenditi il tuo tempo per questa domanda, voglio una risposta completa" oppure "Dammi una risposta veloce, mi serve solo un dato". I livelli di pensiero di Gemini funzionano proprio così. Ti permettono di scegliere tra diverse modalità di ragionamento, influenzando la profondità e il tempo di elaborazione della risposta. Non si tratta di una semplice modifica estetica. Cambiare il livello di pensiero impatta direttamente sul processo logico che l'IA segue per arrivare a una conclusione. Una scelta che può fare la differenza tra una risposta superficiale e un'analisi dettagliata.
Le modalità di ragionamento a confronto
Nelle impostazioni di Gemini troverai diverse opzioni per calibrare il suo "sforzo mentale". Ogni modalità è pensata per uno scopo preciso.
Standard: la risposta veloce e diretta
Questa è la modalità predefinita, quella che abbiamo usato tutti finora. È ottimizzata per la velocità. Quando poni una domanda in modalità Standard, Gemini cerca di darti la risposta più pertinente nel minor tempo possibile. È perfetta per domande fattuali, richieste semplici e conversazioni rapide.
Esteso: un ragionamento passo-passo
Qui le cose si fanno interessanti. Selezionando la modalità "Esteso", chiedi a Gemini di prendersi più tempo. L'IA attiva un ragionamento più complesso e articolato, valutando la richiesta da più angolazioni prima di formulare una risposta. Questo processo "passo-passo" è ideale per compiti che richiedono: Analisi approfondite Risoluzione di problemi complessi Brainstorming di idee strutturate Creazione di contenuti dettagliati Questa opzione è disponibile per tutti, anche su modelli come Gemini 1.5 Flash.
Deep think: l'esclusiva per gli utenti ultra
Per chi ha sottoscritto un abbonamento AI Ultra, c'è un'ulteriore marcia. La modalità "Deep Think", disponibile su Gemini 1.5 Pro, spinge il ragionamento a un livello ancora superiore. È progettata per le analisi più complesse in assoluto, dove la profondità e l'accuratezza sono critiche.
Il vero dilemma: quando usare il pensiero esteso?
Forse ti starai chiedendo: perché non usare sempre la modalità Estesa per ottenere risposte migliori? La risposta è semplice: implica un consumo maggiore di risorse e, di conseguenza, di crediti del tuo account. Sebbene non ci sia un contatore visibile, ogni richiesta complessa ha un "peso" maggiore rispetto a una standard. In pratica, attivare il ragionamento esteso per chiedere "qual è la capitale della Francia?" è un autentico spreco.
La modalità Standard è più che sufficiente per questo. Il consiglio è di usare questa funzione con strategia: Usa Standard per l'80% delle tue richieste: informazioni rapide, traduzioni, definizioni e domande semplici. Riserva Esteso per il 20% che conta davvero: quando hai bisogno di un'analisi di mercato, di una strategia di contenuti o di aiuto per programmare un codice complesso. In questo modo, ottimizzi le tue risorse senza sacrificarle per compiti banali.
Come attivare i Gemini livelli pensiero: guida pratica
Attivare questa funzione è molto facile. Ti basta accedere alle impostazioni del modello all'interno di Gemini, dove troverai le opzioni legate al ragionamento, presentate come "Standard" ed "Esteso". Non devi fare altro che selezionare quella che preferisci prima di inviare il tuo prompt.
Ricorda solo di riportare l'impostazione su Standard una volta terminato il tuo compito complesso, per evitare consumi inutili. In conclusione, Google ha messo nelle mani di tutti uno strumento potentissimo. Sta a noi imparare a usarlo con intelligenza, scegliendo il giusto livello di "sforzo" per ogni nostra richiesta. Sei pronto a sperimentare con un Gemini più riflessivo e profondo?
Una nuova vulnerabilità nei sistemi Cisco SD-WAN mette a rischio le reti di numerose aziende, poiché è già sfruttata attivamente per eseguire comandi arbitrari con i privilegi più elevati.
La falla di sicurezza, tracciata come CVE-2026-20245, ha ricevuto un punteggio CVSS di 7.8, classificandola come ad alta gravità. Ma cosa significa per la tua infrastruttura? E, soprattutto, come puoi difenderti? Analizziamo insieme i dettagli di questa minaccia, i rischi concreti e le azioni da intraprendere per proteggere la tua organizzazione.
Analisi della vulnerabilità Cisco SD-WAN: CVE-2026-20245
Il problema nasce da una convalida insufficiente degli input nella command-line interface (CLI) del sistema. In parole semplici, il software non controlla in modo adeguato i file che vengono caricati. Un utente malintenzionato autenticato può sfruttare questa falla caricando un file creato appositamente per ingannare il sistema. Una volta caricato, questo file dannoso può innescare una serie di eventi a catena:
Command Injection: l'aggressore riesce a iniettare ed eseguire comandi non autorizzati.
Privilege Escalation: i comandi vengono eseguiti con i privilegi di root, l'utente con il massimo controllo sul sistema.
Ottenere l'accesso come utente root equivale ad avere il massimo controllo sul dispositivo. A quel punto, l'aggressore può gestire completamente il piano di gestione SD-WAN.
Quali sono i rischi reali per la tua azienda?
Ti starai chiedendo: quali sono le conseguenze pratiche di un attacco simile? Un aggressore che ottiene accesso root al tuo Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager può compromettere l'intera rete. Può manipolare le configurazioni, intercettare o reindirizzare il traffico e persino estendere l'attacco ai dispositivi edge connessi. È importante sottolineare che l'attacco richiede privilegi di livello `netadmin`.
Questo significa che un aggressore non può colpire direttamente un sistema dall'esterno senza alcuna autenticazione. Tuttavia, e qui sta il vero pericolo, questa vulnerabilità può essere concatenata con altre. Un aggressore potrebbe sfruttare una falla diversa per ottenere l'accesso iniziale e poi usare la CVE-2026-20245 per scalare i privilegi e prendere il controllo totale. Questo scenario rende il rischio molto più elevato negli ambienti reali.
Come rilevare un attacco e proteggersi
Cisco ha confermato che la falla è già stata sfruttata in attacchi mirati, dove gli aggressori l'hanno usata per inviare modifiche di configurazione non autorizzate ai dispositivi edge. Questa attività suggerisce un'azione post-sfruttamento finalizzata a stabilire meccanismi di persistenza o a muoversi lateralmente all'interno della rete.
Per verificare una potenziale compromissione, gli amministratori devono ispezionare attentamente i log. In particolare, è fondamentale analizzare il file `scripts.log` nel percorso `/var/log/`. Cisco consiglia di cercare voci sospette, come l'esecuzione dello script `/usr/bin/vconfd_script_upload_tenant_list.sh` con percorsi di file anomali. Attenzione, però: voci simili possono apparire anche durante operazioni legittime, quindi è cruciale un'analisi approfondita per evitare falsi positivi.
Prima di aggiornare: salva le prove forensi
Un consiglio fondamentale di Cisco è raccogliere i dati forensi *prima* di applicare qualsiasi aggiornamento. Utilizzando il comando `request admin-tech`, puoi preservare prove critiche che potrebbero essere essenziali per capire l'entità della compromissione e le azioni compiute dall'aggressore.
Soluzioni e mitigazione: cosa fare adesso?
Al momento della scoperta, Cisco non aveva ancora rilasciato una patch specifica. La raccomandazione ufficiale è di aggiornare il software a una versione fissa precedentemente rilasciata, facendo riferimento a un avviso di sicurezza di maggio 2026. Tuttavia, è essenziale capire un punto chiave: aggiornare non è sufficiente se il sistema è già stato violato. Se identifichi indicatori di compromissione, la sola patch non risolverà il problema. L'aggressore potrebbe aver già installato backdoor o altre forme di accesso persistente.
In questi casi, è indispensabile contattare il supporto tecnico di Cisco (TAC) per una bonifica guidata. La sicurezza non è un traguardo, ma un processo continuo di vigilanza e adattamento. Data la natura di questa minaccia, è fondamentale dare priorità al monitoraggio dei log, al controllo degli accessi e all'analisi costante della configurazione di rete.
The GNOME project continues refining one of its most frequently used applications: GNOME Files (formerly known as Nautilus). Recent development efforts have focused heavily on improving the file manager’s search capabilities, making it easier to locate documents, media files, and folders across increasingly large storage volumes.
For many Linux users, file search has become one of the most important daily workflows. As personal data collections grow and SSDs make local storage faster than ever, GNOME developers are investing in tools that help users find information more quickly and efficiently. GNOME Files already relies on indexing technologies such as Tracker (now GNOME LocalSearch) to deliver fast results, and recent improvements are building on that foundation.
A Redesigned Search Experience
One of the most noticeable improvements is a redesigned search interface that makes searching feel more integrated into the overall file management experience.
Recent GNOME development previews introduced:
A cleaner search popover
Inline result previews
Improved keyboard navigation
Faster access to search filters
Better visibility of search options within the file manager interface
These refinements reduce the number of clicks required to narrow down results and help users locate files without leaving their current workflow.
Smarter Filtering Options
Search filters have become increasingly important as users store larger collections of documents, images, videos, and audio files.
GNOME Files has been expanding its filtering capabilities, allowing users to narrow searches more effectively based on:
File type
Media category
Search location
Recent activity
Indexed metadata
Earlier updates expanded support for additional audio and video file formats, making it easier to locate multimedia content directly from the search interface. This is particularly useful for users managing large media libraries.
Improved Search Performance
Fast search results are just as important as accurate ones.
GNOME Files continues leveraging the GNOME indexing framework to provide near-instant search results while minimizing system overhead. The file manager works closely with the LocalSearch indexing service to locate files quickly without repeatedly scanning entire drives.
This approach provides several benefits:
Faster file discovery
Reduced CPU usage during searches
Better scalability on large storage volumes
More responsive user experience
For desktop users who frequently work with thousands of files, these performance gains can significantly improve productivity.
Organizations are growing serious about which nation's rules apply to their data. Experts point to geopolitical tensions as a main contributing factor.
Ateliers d'écriture #Solarpunk à l'UTC de Compiègne : imaginer un monde #LowTech en 2042 autour du projet #UPLOAD (Université Populaire Libre, Ouverte, Accessible et Décentralisée).
Dans ce cadre, #Framasoft participe à la conférence #Archipel (6-9 juil. à Compiègne) pour y co-animer un atelier d’écriture solarpunk.
Depuis 2024, Framasoft participe à l’animation d’ateliers d’écriture solarpunk à l’Université de Technologie de Compiègne pour imaginer un monde low-tech en 2042 autour de la future UPLOAD de Compiègne.
L’action se déroule sur le territoire de la Commune Libre de Compiègne, et plus précisément dans le cadre de l’Upload, l’Université Populaire Libre Ouverte Accessible et Décentralisée, une fédération internationale de lieux autonomes, destinés à la formation et à la recherche, confrontés aux défis d’un monde en effondrement économique et technologique, soumis à des crises écologiques et des conflits internationaux, mais ouverts à l’invention de nouveaux modes de vivre ensemble et de nouveaux rapports aux autres vivants et non-vivants. (voir notre annonce en 2024).
Pendant une semaine, des élèves ingénieurs s’adonnent à l’écriture de fiction pour penser un autre rapport à la technologie, avec des pratiques pédagogiques originales pour elleux dans leur formation, issues de l’éducation populaire, comme le débat mouvant ou l’arpentage (proposé autour de pizzas ou de lasagnes pour les appâter). Ils finissent par faire lecture d’un extrait de leur travail en direct à la radio Graf’hit.
Contenu de la semaine de cours sous licence libre CC BY SA sur librecours.net
Une partie des textes est retravaillé chemin faisant / a posteriori et est publié sur https://punkardie.fr/upload/ également sous licence CC BY SA.
Un premier recueil de textes basé sur ces productions (placées sous licence libre) est d’ailleurs en préparation en partenariat avec C&F édition, nous vous en reparlerons prochainement.
Et Archipel dans tout ça ?
Aller écouter l’annonce enregistrée et diffusée sur la radio Graf’Hitt
Et ce mois de juillet, toujours dans le cadre du partenariat avec l’UTC, Framasoft participera à la conférence Archipel à Compiègne, à l’UTC, du 6 au 9 juillet.
Archipel est une communauté de recherche francophone transdisciplinaire sur les enjeux de l’Anthropocène (limites planétaires, risques systémiques, leviers d’action) au sein de laquelle des rencontres et conférences sont organisées accueillant symposiums de recherche et ateliers. SI le programme vous semble impressionnant, il s’agit néanmoins d’un événement ouvert à toutes et tous, absolument pas réservé aux universitaires, chercheurs ou chercheuses.
Dans ce cadre, Framasoft, participera à un atelier autour de l’économie sociale et solidaire le mercredi 8 et co-animera un atelier d’écriture solarpunk le jeudi 9 juillet, qui présentera le genre solarpunk et l’univers UPLOAD. Comme les étudiants et étudiantes, les participants seront invité·es à plancher à leur tour sur des contributions afin d’imaginer un futur désirable, autour de thématiques proposées.
A rural area off Highway 14 just north of the small town of Moorcroft, in eastern Wyoming
They were pillars of their church, congregants in a little-known denomination that sets itself apart from the world and teaches that even the most unconscionable acts can be wiped away — not just forgiven, but forgotten and never spoken of again.
So it went in a rural Wyoming church, where a man was accused of sexually abusing young girls hundreds of times in the pews during Sunday services. Though the preacher knew of the abuse, he never reported it to police, local prosecutors said. Instead, he told the man to seek therapy.
In Minnesota, a man from the same faith admitted that he began entering the bedrooms of his daughter and son at night around the time each of them turned 12. He and his siblings grew up in the church and were sexually abused themselves, and then he repeated the abuse with his own children.
And in Washington state, preachers knew a member of their congregation had sexually abused several young boys. Instead of reporting him to police, they allowed him to ask for forgiveness, according to a family member, and he continued to sexually abuse children. He was later found guilty of raping the 9-year-old son of a church member and sentenced to life in prison.
The abusers and victims all belonged to the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or the OALC, a Scandinavian-rooted revivalist church that teaches its followers that heaven is reserved just for them. To get there, according to current and former members, they must follow a strict doctrine, which emphasizes asking for forgiveness for their sins and says that being forgiven by a fellow church member washes away those sins.
What’s more, the church teaches that once a perpetrator is forgiven, anyone who speaks about the wrongdoing — including the victim — can be accused of harboring an unforgiving heart. Those who have left the church, as well as some who are still with it, say this means the burden of sin shifts from the person who committed the act to the person who refuses to let the matter rest.
Sexual abuse survivors say these rituals have created a culture where allegations of abuse are resolved outside of the criminal justice system and the victims must bear their pain alone or risk going to hell. In some families, sexual abuse stretches across generations, ensnaring a parent, child and grandchild.
“This is what I would call institutionalism of abuse of young women and children,” said DaNece Day, the prosecuting attorney for Crook County in Wyoming, whose office has charged two OALC members in the past two years.
In Wyoming, Crook County Attorney DaNece Day’s office has brought charges against members of the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church.
Day and other prosecutors said one of the biggest obstacles to breaking the cycle is the way church members move among congregations spread across the U.S. and Canada, often hundreds of miles apart but tightly bound by large, multigenerational family networks.
Last fall, ProPublica and the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that preachers in Minnesota had known for years about allegations that one of its members, a man named Clint Massie, had sexually abused young girls in the congregation. But instead of reporting it to police, church leaders urged some of the victims to take part in sessions where they were brought face-to-face with Massie and encouraged to forgive the abuse.
Now, new reporting by the two news organizations shows how the sexual abuse of children in the OALC, as well as the failure by church leaders to report it to authorities, is a persistent and national problem.
Some current and former OALC members are calling on elders from what the church regards as its mother congregation in Sweden — where the church originated — to intervene. In fact, those elders, who don’t have authority over the American church but wield considerable influence, are coming to the U.S. and Canada this summer to meet with congregations. What they’ll find are a growing number of criminal cases against church members and increasing legal scrutiny of leaders for failing to report allegations of sexual abuse to police.
In a statement, representatives from the Swedish church said the cases are isolated incidents and they didn’t “observe any pattern” among the tens of thousands of members in 34 OALC congregations in the U.S. and Canada. They said sexual abuse should be reported to authorities and that it was possible “some matters have been handled improperly or without sufficient knowledge.” And they acknowledged that church guidelines “are being reviewed with the American missionary pastors in order to ensure compliance.”
Representatives of the OALC in the U.S. and Canada said in an email that they also “do not perceive there to be a general pattern of behavior,” describing sexual abuse as a serious and persistent problem across society. They acknowledged that bringing a victim to face their abuser, as a pastor for the OALC church did with Massie, can be traumatic. But they defended the church’s doctrine of forgiveness, saying it was not a means to conceal wrongdoing or to shield offenders from legal consequences, and no one is coerced to forgive or to ask for forgiveness. If those teachings had been misapplied or misunderstood in some cases, they said, it “does not reflect an error in our doctrine.”
ProPublica and the Star Tribune interviewed 20 people who said they were sexually abused, almost all as children, in OALC communities, along with parents of victims as young as 3. Reporters also traveled to OALC churches around the country and reviewed court and police documents from at least eight cases, along with victims’ statements to local authorities.
Their abusers were family members, other children or men who were trusted to be alone with children because they are part of the same insular faith community. Some victims spoke anonymously for fear of retribution from the church or their own families. Others identified themselves as well as their abusers publicly, unafraid of the repercussions.
Many of those victims said church leaders pressured them to keep quiet. In Minnesota, police records describe a woman telling a young girl that her abuse, which began when she was around 5 or 6 years old, was not a big deal and she “needed to get over it.” In Washington state, a police report notes a woman told law enforcement that her preacher had, for “spiritual reasons,” discouraged her from contacting authorities after her daughter told her she’d been raped by three men from church.
“We’re always told that what the preachers tell us, that’s coming from God,” explained one woman, who said she, too, was told not to speak of her abuse. “Who’s going to argue with that?”
The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Moorcroft
Sexual abuse in the OALC has sometimes been a legacy passed from one generation to the next — hidden, quietly endured, repeated. Lorie Peldo was sexually abused for eight years by her older brother, starting when she was only 2, she said in an interview. A quarter century later, after the memories began to resurface during therapy, Peldo’s mother told her that she’d known about the abuse. But on the advice of her preacher in Battle Ground, Washington, her parents didn’t report the crimes to the police. Instead, they took her brother to a doctor, she said.
Peldo said she eventually confronted her brother, who said that it had haunted him his entire life. She tried to forgive him, she said, but the weight of what he’d done did not lift. She fell into such deep despair that she tried to commit suicide. She said she ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Her brother later died; her parents are also deceased.
It didn’t stop there. On a church road trip, Clint Massie — who was sentenced for child abuse in Duluth, Minnesota, last year — sexually abused Peldo’s daughter, Tonya, when she was 11 and he was a teenager, according to Tonya Peldo’s statements to law enforcement. Peldo’s case was included in the police file involving Massie, but it wasn’t charged criminally, according to a prosecutor, because the statute of limitations had run out. Massie has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Tonya Peldo told investigators from the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office in Duluth that she didn’t see Massie again until some two decades later, after she moved to the city and recognized him passing out candy to kids at the church.
She said she told the pastors about what he’d done to her, yet one of the preachers told her to ask Massie for forgiveness, as if she had wronged him. “I was like, ‘No. No!’” she said in an interview. It would be more than a decade before Massie was charged with sexual abuse crimes.
In 2019, Tonya’s daughter was also sexually abused, making her the third generation of Peldo girls to be victims. The daughter was 14 when a 25-year-old relative, Blake Nelson, bought her a pack of cigarettes and then invited her into his trailer in Clark County, Washington, so that he could teach her how to give a massage, according to court records.
Tonya Peldo, her mother and her daughter all say they were abused by members of the OALC.
Nelson pleaded guilty to charges of communication with a minor for immoral purposes and fourth-degree assault in the case involving Tonya Peldo’s daughter. At his sentencing, Tonya told the judge how church leaders had tried to keep her daughter from reporting the abuse to police. Nelson’s own lawyer, Michele Michalek, said the pastors repeatedly called her law office to insist the case should be handled internally.
“They think that law enforcement shouldn’t be involved,” Michalek said.
A judge in Minnesota commented on the cyclical nature of abuse in 2023, when a man from an OALC family turned himself in to police after repeatedly abusing his son and daughter. At his sentencing, the judge took into account that the man and his siblings, who grew up in the church, had also been victims of child sexual abuse. She said she found it “almost incomprehensible” that the adults in his life didn’t know about the abuse he and his siblings had suffered as children.
“All I can see are the ripples of consequences for you and all of your siblings, who were abused or abusers, and then for your children,” the judge said.
A clipping from a 1951 newspaper showing Eija Marttinen, seen second from right and then called Tanninen, and her family after arriving in Nova Scotia from Finland, shortly before her father started the first OALC church in Canada.Courtesy of the Marttinen/Tanninen family
The OALC church is a branch of a broader faith called Laestadianism, a conservative Christian revival movement that began in the mid-1800s in northern Scandinavia. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, as millions of Scandinavians migrated to the U.S., some followers of the Laestadian movement brought with them more than language, traditions and religious devotion.
Alongside the faith came a deeply insular church culture shaped by strict obedience and a doctrine of forgiveness that critics and former members say enabled the concealment of wrongdoing.
One of them was Eija Marttinen. A photo in a newspaper in 1951 shows Marttinen as a little girl wearing a Finnish sailor suit and braids, standing alongside 14 family members and several large suitcases. Her family had just arrived in Nova Scotia from Finland, and they would soon launch Canada’s first Old Apostolic Lutheran Church. In the photo, Marttinen is smiling brightly toward the horizon, as if spellbound by the endless possibilities of a new world.
But even then, at age 9, Marttinen harbored a secret that would be the source of a lifetime of emotional pain. Now 84 and living in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, she said in an interview that her older brother sexually assaulted her starting when she was 5. Another brother soon started abusing her, too, she said. Both brothers are now dead.
Years later, Marttinen said she came to learn that there were other predators in the church. She kept silent about her abuse for most of her life, fearing she would be forced to forgive and still live with the stigma if she came forward. She only told her own daughter about the extent of the abuse in recent months, after reading the ProPublica and Star Tribune stories.
“They can do whatever they want and you have to forgive them. That’s not right. But you go along because you were brought up in it.
“I wish I wasn’t,” she added.
The Laestadian churches in Scandinavia have faced their own reckonings. From 2009 to 2011, a Finnish child welfare scholar, Johanna Hurtig, documented widespread sexual abuse cases among Finnish church members and found that the concept of forgiveness of sins had been warped into a tool to silence victims.
At first, church leaders were defensive, according to news reports. But they later acknowledged “serious mistakes” in how the church handled sexual abuse, including pressuring victims to forgive offenders instead of reporting them. They urged members to report abuse to police and child welfare authorities.
Several men were convicted in Finnish courts and sentenced to long prison terms.
In 2017, Norwegian police documented 151 cases of rape and abuse, many with child victims, in a remote northern village of some 2,000 people. Following a newspaper investigation, the police said they tied many of the cases to members of Laestadianism, with some incidents dating to 1953. The police found the practice of forgiving and forgetting often led to abuse being considered “settled” internally, effectively silencing victims and protecting perpetrators.
Moorcroft is small but home to a thriving OALC congregation.
The church’s emphasis on large families has created booms in places like Minnesota, Wyoming and southern Washington. Families rely heavily on one another socially, financially and spiritually while keeping their distance from what members often call “the world” — outsiders and secular influences viewed as dangerous or corrupting. Even ordinary activities like watching TV and dancing are treated as transgressions that must be confessed. One abuse victim said she felt anxious every time she turned on her car radio, fearing that if she listened to a pop song and died in a crash before asking forgiveness, she could go to hell.
Some church members hope the Swedish elders address sexual abuse during their visit, including the mother of a 15-year-old girl who revealed in May 2025 that her father had been abusing her for years. It happened both in Minnesota and after they moved to Washington, according to court records. The mother, according to child protection services reports, said she told her preacher about the abuse.
Authorities did not learn of the allegations until August, when her daughter saw a therapist after weeks of her mother trying to get help through church channels, according to the reports. That visit triggered an investigation by child protection authorities in Washington, who substantiated the complaint. Prosecutors in Minnesota charged the father with criminal sexual conduct, but he hasn’t been charged in Washington. The father has asked the court for a public defender and has not yet entered a plea. He did not respond to voice and text messages seeking comment.
Asked why church officials did not immediately contact law enforcement, a spokesperson for the church declined to answer, saying the case was “complex” and in authorities’ hands. However, he said that, in general, spiritual advisers need to use counselors and other professionals “to determine if there is a reasonable cause to report as dictated by law.”
But the mother said it was she — not the church — who set up the therapy session.
“Their job is to pick up the phone and say, ‘Hi, I’ve got some confusing, conflicting information but I’m concerned for the safety of this person,’” she said. “They don’t have to be investigators, all they need to do is tell somebody.”
The mother said she plans to raise the church’s failure to notify police with elders when they visit this summer. Nonetheless, she plans to remain in the church. Asked why, she said, “Because I want to go to heaven.”
An Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Brush Prairie, Washington
Last summer, in the rural expanse of eastern Wyoming, Moorcroft police drove up the long dirt road leading to the OALC church, a large brick building on the edge of town with a white cross emblazoned under the eaves.
The investigators were looking for records that could verify the membership of a man who several children said had abused them during services. His name was Charles Massie — the brother of Clint Massie, who had pleaded guilty to similar crimes in Minnesota months earlier.
Over 10 years, authorities alleged, Charles Massie had sexually abused at least seven girls. Some of the abuse occurred at his house and some at his businesses, where young girls worked part time. But the vast majority of the abuse occurred at church, according to court documents. Investigators tallied 832 incidents where Massie sat near the girls’ parents, allegedly fondling the girls’ genitals and breasts. One victim, who told the police she was 5 or 6 years old when she was abused by Massie, said that he “raped me with his fingers.”
Wyoming has charged Charles Massie with nine counts of sexual abuse and sexual battery. He is being held in jail in Nebraska, where prosecutors also have charged him in connection with sexual assaults. He has pleaded not guilty in both states. He could not be reached for comment.
When investigators in Moorcroft contacted families of the victims, they learned that the families already knew about the abuse. One had learned of it three years earlier, according to charges. But according to court records, none of them had told the police. Instead, the charges say, the father of some of the victims had told their preacher, David Lindberg, about the abuse in 2024. Charles Massie would later turn himself in, but not for another year.
Day, the top prosecutor in Crook County, Wyoming, said there was “no support” for victims and the church did nothing to punish Charles Massie. “There are no consequences for him,” she said. “He’s allowed to sit in church with them every Sunday, even after they’ve come forward and said, ‘This man has been hurting us.’” She said Charles Massie turned himself in to the Moorcroft police after he admitted to a mental health provider that he had abused children; the provider told him that they would report Massie if he didn’t go to police.
Lindberg disputed the characterization that he did not act when Charles Massie confessed to him. “All I can say is, when I first heard about it, he came to me and he had a problem, so I told him he needs to go get therapy and turn himself in to the police,” Lindberg said. “And he did.”
He referred additional questions to a church spokesperson, Troy Massie, who is a relative of Charles and Clint Massie. In written responses, Troy Massie said the church told Charles to stop attending services after he confessed to Lindberg, though he could listen to services on the phone.
“We continue to improve our efforts as needed to protect all children,” he wrote.
OALC Member Speaks During His Sentencing for Rape
During his sentencing hearing in 2017, Carsie Tikka, who had been convicted of raping a child, lashed out at his lawyer, the judge and his accusers.Obtained by ProPublica and the Minnesota Star Tribune
The Wyoming church isn’t the only one to face accusations that it failed to report abusers. In southwestern Washington in 2017, a jury convicted church member Carsie Tikka of raping a 9-year-old boy. But one woman, who was a member of the church at the time, said that years before he was charged, Tikka had assaulted her stepchildren and the leaders had done nothing to stop him. Instead, Tikka asked her family for forgiveness.
After Tikka was convicted at trial, a court-ordered psychiatrist wrote in a report that Tikka had “a history of offending 29 males,” an allegation that Tikka denied in court. At his sentencing, Tikka said his conscience was clean. He said he had already “received the testimony of sins forgiven” by one of God’s disciples.
“You clearly by your statement here are not remorseful,” the judge remarked before sentencing him to life in prison without parole. “You put the blame on everyone else.”
Then Tikka illustrated the central problem facing prosecutors and victims alike — a powerful religious culture that prioritizes spiritual absolution over secular justice — with his final, defiant words:
“My sins have been forgiven,” Tikka told the judge. “Have yours?”
New research by Mitel has revealed a widening gap between AI adoption and enablement, with limited support and low confidence contributing to the rise of Shadow AI and unapproved AI usage. The State of Workforce Communication report found that while workplace communication is mission-critical, tools are misaligned with how teams execute, forcing employees to quietly compensate at measurable cost to productivity, security and service quality.
The global survey of 2,000 IT decision-makers (ITDMs) and desk and frontline employees across diverse industries, including healthcare, public sector, retail, manufacturing, financial services and hospitality, found that nearly two-thirds (63%) of workers feel pressured to “make it work” with systems that are not designed for their needs. This situation creates friction in productivity and service delivery while increasing operational and financial risks associated with limited control over data custody, performance, and business continuity.
In parallel, 93% of ITDMs consider communication tools integral to everyday business operations, yet only 34% of workers say those tools are highly effective. This highlights a gap between how communication tools are deployed and how employees actually work.
Eric Hanson, CMO at Mitel, said: “Organisations are making significant investments in AI, communication infrastructure, and modernisation. Yet more than half of employees report that these tools fall short at the moments that matter most. The challenge is not a lack of technology, but a lack of alignment with the realities of work. In fast-moving, high-pressure, and increasingly mobile environments, communication must be immediate, reliable and context-appropriate – or it risks breaking down precisely when it is needed most.”
While 93% of IT leaders consider communication tools strategically critical, Mitel’s report highlights the complexity of delivering consistent, effective communication across a distributed, mobile, and frontline-driven workforce. 89% of IT leaders acknowledge that some parts of the workforce are better served by communication tools than others. This points to a gap between intention and reality that is reflected in the day-to-day experience of desk and frontline workers. Over six in ten (63%) feel pressured to “make it work” when communication systems are not designed for their needs, reaching 71% for frontline workers.
The research found that teams are relying on an average of seven disconnected tools to complete even routine tasks, potentially leading to ‘tool overload’ and fatigue.
Over half of workers say they waste time switching between communication tools and half of frontline workers feel increased pressure during busy or critical moments.
These inefficiencies extend beyond internal workflows, directly affecting service delivery, operational consistency, and, in some cases, safety. The burden is highest for frontline workers, where communication failures carry greater consequences. 54% of these workers report delays in completing tasks or responding to situations, 46% say that it impacts quality of service, and 35% even report that it creates safety risks for customers, patients, or staff.
These workarounds also introduce significant security risks to organisations. The report reveals that when faced with communication issues, workers are finding their own ways to keep work moving. Over three-quarters (76%) use non-approved communication channels for work-related purposes, increasing risks such as data exposure, compliance breaches, cybersecurity threats and a loss of visibility and control, according to 90% of ITDMs. This behaviour is even more pronounced among frontline workers, who are over twice as likely to use non-approved tools often to respond to their customers and patients quickly and effectively when sanctioned tools fall short.
While business leaders are prioritising AI investments to improve efficiency and modernise operations, adoption across the workforce remains uneven, and many workers feel unsupported. The report highlights that 52% of workers regularly use AI tools, but only 33% feel very comfortable using them in their day-to-day work. At the same time, 66% consider their organisation does not adequately support AI use, introducing a new emerging risk: Shadow AI.
It is evidenced by the fact that half of workers turn to non-approved AI tools, outpacing their organisations as they move to drive functional productivity and operational velocity. In the meantime, IT leaders indicate growing concerns around incorrect or misleading outputs (76%), whether AI use meets regulatory or compliance requirements (75%), and how data is stored, used and protected (75%).
As Sam Soares, CRO of CultureAI, previously told the Guru: “One of the biggest risks facing organisations today is the use of undocumented or unapproved AI tools – or shadow AI – operating on company networks or using company data. These tools are used by employees without organisational oversight, introducing significant security, compliance and operational risks. As the number of AI apps proliferates, it’s an increasingly common occurrence.”
AI is not yet delivering consistent value for the workforce, and managing its pace and risks remains a shared challenge for both IT leaders and workers. Clear guidance, integration, and alignment with existing workflows are needed to reduce complexity and risk rather than add to them.
Messaging platforms remain the preferred choice for everyday collaboration, but voice becomes the most trusted and effective channel in urgent or high-stakes situations, across generations.
Nearly eight in ten workers (79%) rely on voice communication when rapid action and immediate alignment are required, highlighting the enduring value of real-time human interaction in critical moments. The trend is particularly pronounced among healthcare professionals, where communication speed can directly influence operational outcomes and patient care, with 56% adopting a voice-first approach during urgent situations. However, this can create issues as deepfakes and productivity platform based attacks arise.
To address these challenges and close the gap between investment and employee experience, organisations must reconcile two priorities: offering employees the flexibility to choose the communication tools and channels best suited to each situation while ensuring strong standards for security and compliance.
In this context, hybrid infrastructure became the operating reality: 87% of ITDMs already rely on it for their communication tools and 93% confirm that it provides the flexibility and control needed, without unmanageable complexities. This model allows organisations to modernise communication systems while maintaining oversight and stability across increasingly complex environments.
“While there is broad alignment between IT leaders and employees on the need to evolve workforce communication, this research underscores how far most organisations remain from achieving that objective. They must address foundational challenges while navigating increasing technical complexity, heightened security requirements and ongoing modernisation efforts. These dynamics highlight the need for more practical, user-centred approaches, particularly solutions that are seamlessly integrated into everyday workflows across roles and work environments to ultimately drive performance and business outcomes,” said Luiz Domingos, CTO of Mitel.
Je suis un utilisateur récent de Framagenda.
Je fonctionne beaucoup avec un code couleur pour repérer en un coup d’oeil les types de RDV dans ma journée.
Depuis la MAJ, ces couleurs sont toutes passées en transparence par défaut (donc couleurs fades et parfois indiférenciables). De plus, mes évenements passés sont encore plus transparents (quasi blanc). Y a t il un paramètre dans mon appli à modifier que je n’aurais pas trouvé afin de repasser cela comme avant ?
Sinon, si je n’ai pas la main sur cela, comment le remonter aux dev ?
I was a new reporter at KQED in 2021 when former elementary teacher Joseph Brian Houg was sentenced to more than three decades in prison for sexually abusing 10 students. He’d taught at the same San Francisco Bay Area school for more than two decades. Were there warning signs?
I soon discovered parents on social media saying they had complained to school administrators for years about Houg. I also knew that schools could release such complaints if they were substantiated or if teachers were disciplined. So I filed public records requests with Houg’s school — something anyone can do.
I received 43 pages of records within a few months showing that parents had reported Houg to the principal at least four times since 2009. They complained about him for asking students to strip down to their underwear in his classroom in order to try on costumes for a play he was directing, and for coming into their changing room. They also complained about his touching boys’ chests or stomachs and tapping one boy on the butt. I learned that the principal had twice warned Houg to stop touching students. But he was allowed to keep teaching. (The principal said in a deposition that while Houg’s actions crossed professional boundaries, they were not reported to her as sexual.)
Over the next two years, I reported on similar cases of teachers remaining in the classroom after complaints of unwanted touching. Another Bay Area elementary school, in Benicia, reported a teacher to the state’s licensing body after he resigned due to accusations of misconduct. He was hired by another school, and his educator license remained in good standing until he was criminally charged. (He is currently fighting those charges.)
This raised a whole different set of questions for me: Should these teachers have been allowed to keep teaching in new schools? How much about a teacher’s disciplinary history did potential employers know? And what was the state’s responsibility for acting on, and sharing, the information it had about these teachers?
After I entered journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley in 2023, I wanted to investigate how common it was for teachers to continue working with kids after schools found that they had committed misconduct. California law bars the teacher licensing agency from releasing disciplinary records to the public, so my classmate and I requested records from the 300 largest school districts in California. We asked for complaints of teacher sexual misconduct made to schools in the five previous years. We also asked for any reports sent by schools to the state’s teacher licensing agency, which are required to be filed when public school educators are fired or resign due to alleged misconduct.
Dozens of districts responded within two months. We began building a spreadsheet of teachers against whom complaints were raised. Getting the records was slow: California requires public agencies to determine whether they have records to disclose within 10 days, and to release them promptly, but most dragged their feet. Whenever schools stopped responding, I copied school board members and attorneys on my emails, citing the law. By the time I graduated more than a year after filing the records requests, I had received more than 350 complaints, which I used in my recent investigation with KQED and ProPublica.
To this day, Los Angeles Unified, the largest school district in California, still has not released any records pertaining to teacher misconduct cases that it reported to the state. Instead, the district said it would charge me $8,000 ($100 an hour for 80 hours of work) for it to “investigate approximately 2,500 potentially responsive personnel files.” The First Amendment Coalition, a California nonprofit that advocates for free speech and government transparency, is representing me in a lawsuit filed in May. We argue that the Los Angeles school district is violating public records laws with its failure to release documents pertaining to alleged educator misconduct. A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told me in a written statement this week that its policies balance the public’s right to access records with “responsible stewardship of public resources” and the law.
Districts slow-walking their responses isn’t the only obstacle to getting records from schools. Districts typically notify teachers before releasing complaints to give them the opportunity to block the documents’ release. The former Benicia teacher who was criminally charged with sexually abusing students in 2024 sued to block the release of complaints made against him at two school districts. The First Amendment Coalition represented me in that case, too, and we won. It took nine months to get the records. In another case in which I had requested records, the court granted an injunction preventing release of the teacher’s records, but the legal filings contained the details of the allegations against him, so the nature of the complaint became public anyway.
At least four teachers have called or emailed me directly to ask why I’m requesting their disciplinary records. They wanted to share their side of the story, which I was more than happy to hear, and some argued that their cases were not worth my time. One asked me to retract my request. (I did not.) Another sent a 1,700-word email saying that the allegations were only partially true and lamented that he did not have the money to defend himself.
While I appreciated the complexity of individual cases, I believed that those misconduct complaints might contain important truths. Undeterred by school districts’ recalcitrance, I followed the public record-seekers’ mantra: If you can’t get records from one agency, the answers you’re looking for may exist somewhere else.
Records of state disciplinary hearings are presumed public when teachers object to their dismissals by school districts or appeal the suspension or revocation of their licenses. And those records reside in the Department of General Services, a state agency that houses another agency responsible for convening administrative hearings of public employees.
This agency proved helpful with the case of Jason Agan, a San Francisco Bay Area math teacher who KQED and ProPublica reported on last month. Agan had been fired for sexually harassing high school students but went on to teach at two more schools, even after an independent panel convened by the Office of Administrative Hearings deemed him “unfit to teach.” Because he had asked for an outside hearing after the district moved to fire him, I requested those records.
I got them the next day. The documents contained summaries of testimony from students, administrators and Agan himself at his dismissal hearing. Agan, who has not been accused of a crime, admitted to touching students’ shoulders but denied any sexual motivation, stating during his dismissal hearing that he did so to offer them support and encouragement. He maintained his teaching license.
Getting a response from the Department of General Services was like discovering a secret portal to obtaining records quickly and easily.
So I requested five years’ worth of decisions about other teachers by independent panels from this agency, in search of further insights into how the state’s teacher disciplinary system works and where it falls short. I obtained a gold mine of documents in less than a week.
I had learned some important lessons: What seems to be secret isn’t always so. Sometimes you just need to know who to ask, and for what.
L'allarme sul rischio phishing legato a Burger King sta mettendo in guardia migliaia di clienti in Italia. La causa è una notizia su una potenziale e massiccia fuga di dati.
Si tratterebbe di circa 5 milioni di record del programma fedeltà, un tesoro di informazioni che potrebbe finire nelle mani sbagliate. Anche se al momento mancano conferme ufficiali da parte dell'azienda, la prudenza è fondamentale. Ma cosa sta succedendo esattamente? E, soprattutto, come puoi proteggere i tuoi dati personali da possibili truffe? Vediamolo nel dettaglio.
Cosa sappiamo sulla presunta fuga di dati?
La notizia che sta circolando è chiara: un furto di dati avrebbe colpito il database del programma fedeltà di Burger King Italia. Parliamo di un numero impressionante di record, circa 5 milioni. Se confermata, questa violazione esporrebbe un'enorme quantità di informazioni sensibili. Pensa ai dati che fornisci per una carta fedeltà: nome, cognome, indirizzo email e numero di telefono. A volte, persino le tue abitudini di acquisto sono registrate.
Questo è un pacchetto di informazioni estremamente prezioso per i cybercriminali, che possono usarlo per orchestrare truffe mirate e molto credibili. È fondamentale sottolineare, però, che per ora si tratta di una segnalazione. Non c'è stata nessuna conferma ufficiale da parte della catena di fast food. Questo non significa abbassare la guardia, anzi: è il momento giusto per agire con prevenzione.
Il vero pericolo: il rischio phishing spiegato in modo semplice
Quando senti parlare di furto di dati, il pericolo più concreto per te ha un nome preciso: phishing. Di cosa si tratta? Immagina di ricevere un'email o un SMS che sembra provenire da Burger King. Il messaggio è allettante: ti promette punti extra, un panino gratis o uno sconto esclusivo. L'obiettivo di questi messaggi è uno solo: convincerti a cliccare su un link. Quel collegamento, però, non ti porterà al sito ufficiale, ma a una pagina web fasulla, creata per assomigliare a quella vera.
Lì, ti verrà chiesto di inserire le tue credenziali, come la password del tuo account. Una volta fornite, i truffatori le avranno in pugno. Ecco perché la presunta fuga di dati è un campanello d'allarme. Con le tue informazioni, i criminali possono creare comunicazioni personalizzate e molto più difficili da riconoscere come false.
Come riconoscere e sventare le truffe
La buona notizia è che difendersi è possibile. Basta seguire alcune semplici ma efficaci regole. Non serve essere esperti di informatica, solo un po' più attenti e consapevoli.
Non cliccare: la regola numero uno
Se ricevi un messaggio sospetto che promette vantaggi incredibili, la prima cosa da fare è non fare nulla. Non cliccare su alcun link e non scaricare allegati. Le aziende serie non chiedono mai dati personali o password tramite email o SMS. Controlla sempre l'indirizzo del mittente: spesso contiene errori di battitura o nomi strani.
Verifica sempre sui canali ufficiali
Hai un dubbio su una promozione? La soluzione migliore è verificare direttamente. Apri l'app ufficiale di Burger King, visita il loro sito web o controlla le pagine social verificate. Se l'offerta è reale, la troverai sicuramente lì. Non fidarti mai di una comunicazione arrivata all'improvviso.
La tua password è la tua fortezza
Un'altra mossa intelligente è proteggere i tuoi account. Se usi la stessa password dell'app di Burger King anche per altri servizi, una pratica altamente sconsigliata, cambiala subito. In questo modo, anche se i tuoi dati fossero stati rubati, i criminali non potrebbero accedere ad altri profili. Valuta anche di attivare, dove possibile, l'autenticazione a due fattori (2FA). Si tratta di un ulteriore livello di sicurezza che richiede un codice temporaneo, di solito inviato sul tuo telefono, per completare l'accesso. Questo rende la vita dei truffatori molto più difficile.
In attesa di conferme: cosa fare ora?
In conclusione, mentre attendiamo comunicazioni ufficiali da Burger King, la parola d'ordine è cautela. Diffida di ogni messaggio che ti chiede di agire con urgenza o che ti offre regali troppo belli per essere veri. La tua sicurezza digitale dipende prima di tutto dalle tue abitudini. Pochi secondi di attenzione in più possono fare tutta la differenza e tenerti al riparo da spiacevoli sorprese.
J’ai rencontré des personnes de framasoft à ow2con hier et on a essayé de trouver des opportunités de collaboration.
Je suis mainteneur d’un viewer 3d universelle (F3D) et on s’est demandé de la pertinence d’un héberger une version sur Framalab.
China-linked espionage groups have attacked at least a dozen nations in the region, gathering information on maritime shipping, oil production, and other geopolitical interests.
A disabled security setting meant to protect authentication across Android versions of key apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel paved the way for attackers to steal logins and data.
A prompt injection flaw in Google Gemini's voice assistant let attackers hide malicious commands in notifications, enabling social engineering and more.
A threat actor got a near-continuous view into an influential finance executive's email inbox, thanks to clever use of legitimate, native Windows tools.
Newly appointed Beaumont ISD Superintendent Sandi Massey speaks during a school board meeting in Beaumont, Texas. Danielle Villasana for ProPublica
No state has taken over as many local public school districts as Texas. Just since 2020, the Texas Education Agency has installed its own hand-picked leaders in eight districts. Four of those came this spring. At least another 10 are at risk of takeover, including, as of last week, the Austin Independent School District.
And to lead some of these districts, Texas is turning to a cadre of officials with ties to Mike Miles, the man the education agency chose in 2023 to oversee the Houston school district, the state’s largest. Miles is also a close ally of Mike Morath, Texas’ powerfuleducation commissioner.
Already, at least two of these new district leaders have started to adopt policies similar to the contentious reforms Miles has pursued in Houston. He has touted improved test scores under his charge. Houston ISD had no F-rated campuses and fewer D-rated campuses in the state’s latest ratings compared with previous years. But Miles has also sparked widespread protests in response to the district’s rigid adherence to scripted lessons and repetitive testing, the firing of principals and teachers, mass school closures, and the conversion of schools into charters.
Miles did not respond to requests for comment from the Texas Observer. Houston ISD officials, in a statement to the Observer, said the district did not achieve better ratings by maintaining the status quo but “made difficult decisions” to improve academic performance, noting the majority of its campuses are now rated A or B.
These school districts whose new leaders have connections to Miles should prepare for “upheaval and chaos,” warned an elected Houston school board member.
“If anything doesn’t align with improving test scores, it will be taken away,” said Maria Benzon, who was elected in November to the Houston ISD board but is not permitted to serve under the ongoing state takeover. Under Miles, for example, Houston ISD eliminated librarian positions and turned some libraries into what Benzon called “detention centers,” because they are being used, in part, for students with behavioral issues. Morath, the TEA commissioner, has said the centers are used for more than just punishment.
Texas law allows the TEA to take control of districts with multiple failing school ratings or governance issues and to replace their superintendent and elected boards.
The recent takeovers include Beaumont, Lake Worth and Connally independent school districts, whose new superintendents worked under Miles when he was superintendent in Dallas ISD; two of them also worked for him in Houston. In Fort Worth ISD, one of the state’s largest districts, the new state-appointed superintendent chose Daniel Soliz as his second-in-command, another person who worked under Miles in Houston ISD. Soliz did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath attends a meeting at Harmony Hills Elementary School in San Antonio in 2025.The pace of state school district takeovers has increased during Morath’s time as commissioner.Scott Stephen Ball for The Texas Tribune
At least two of the state’s new superintendent appointees — Sandi Massey, who now helms Beaumont ISD in southeast Texas, and Ena Meyers, TEA’s appointee for Lake Worth ISD, a small district near Fort Worth — also worked for the controversial Colorado-based charter network Third Future Schools, which Miles led prior to becoming superintendent in Houston. In April, the Observer revealed that Miles had an ongoing $120,000 annual consulting contract with the charter network, an arrangement that likely violated a new statewide ban on public school administrators’ moonlighting. After questions from the news organization, Miles canceled the contract. The district said Miles “remains fully focused on leading Houston ISD and delivering results for students.”
Third Future’s charter network is expanding around the state as districts turn campuses over to the nonprofit’s Texas subsidiary, often as a means to delay possible state takeover. The nonprofit did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment.
School district takeovers often involve layoffs, school closures and an increase in charter schools, as has happened in Houston, said Domingo Morel, an associate professor of political science and public service at New York University, who found Texas has had more district takeovers than any other state since 1989.
What’s unique to Texas, Morel said, is that the low bar required to take control has led to more takeovers. Since 2015, five consecutive failing state ratings at just one school can trigger a takeover, as occurred in Houston, which has 273 campuses.
Texas has also made it harder for districts to appeal these seizures. The Legislature passed a law in 2021 that barred districts from using public funds to challenge the education commissioner’s “final and unappealable” decision to take them over. The threshold that defines a failing school was also lowered. Then, in 2025, the state passed another law restricting districts from using public funds to sue the state when challenging its accountability ratings.
The state “is the player, the referee, the coach, the scorekeeper,” when it comes to rating schools and deciding when to seize control, said Steven Nelson, an associate professor of education policy and leadership at the University of Nevada who’s been studying school takeovers for more than a decade. He said he suspects the TEA-appointed leaders connected to Miles will also focus on standardized testing, which will result in “a narrow curriculum when all is said and done.”
The acceleration of takeovers,and the state’s increasingly stringent rating system, comes just as Texas rolls out a school voucher program that will, in most cases, award parents $10,000 in state funds to send their children to private schools. State accountability standards do not apply to private schools, where students don’t have to take the standardized tests required in Texas public schools.
TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said the agency does not expect the four school districts that have recently been taken over to adopt the same reforms that Miles implemented in Houston. “During an intervention, state law requires the agency to appoint a new superintendent and a board of managers. All other staffing and operational decisions are made locally by the district,” Kobersky said.
But last August, Morath told lawmakers other districts “should be copying the changes that we see in Houston.”
Massey, the new superintendent in Beaumont, has also cited the changes in Houston ISD as a blueprint.
“The model that we are implementing here is a very similar model to Houston. And why? Because of the success that Houston has had,” Massey said at a May 21 board meeting, referring to her time working with Miles at Houston ISD, where he selected her to be chief of schools.
A speaker addresses the school board in Beaumont.Danielle Villasana for ProPublicaPeople clap as Massey speaks during a school board meeting.Danielle Villasana for ProPublica
Under Massey, the newly appointed board of managers voted at their first meeting to temporarily suspend a number of policies related to governance and hiring practices, including employees’ rights to present grievances to the board and principals’ ability to approve new hires without district permission. Board of managers member Jeff Wheeler said at the meeting, “We are requesting that they be suspended until the board can move, can more fully evaluate our local policies.”
The board has taken other steps that mirror what happened in Houston after the takeover there: On May 14, the district announced it was cutting 34 positions that support student mental health, and on May 21, it announced a high school would close.
Massey did not respond to the Observer’s requests for comment about whether she’s following the Houston playbook. Jackie Simien, a spokesperson for Beaumont ISD said, “Massey has worked alongside successful educational leaders with demonstrated results in improving systems, instruction, and student performance.”
Students protest against the state’s takeover of Houston ISD in 2023.Douglas Sweet Jr. for The Texas TribuneThe late Sylvester Turner, then mayor of Houston, speaks about the takeover of Houston ISD during a press conference in 2023.Joseph Bui for The Texas Tribune
Benzon, the elected Houston ISD board member, said Miles is sidelining parent and teacher voices in her district, and they are leaving in droves as a result. “They are trying to escape the New Education System and Miles’ bad policies,” Benzon added, referring to a program Miles transplanted from his former charter school network that is characterized by scripted lessons and repetitive testing. The Houston Chronicle reported the district “is losing students at an accelerated pace” under the takeover, spurring the district to shutter 12 schools ahead of the next school year.
In its statement to the Observer, Houston ISD cited a survey of families reporting a “favorable perception” of the district and said it retained many exemplary teachers.
Nelson and Morel said they believe the ultimate objective of any takeover is to disenfranchise local communities. Black and Hispanic students make up the majority of the population at all four of the districts now headed by Miles’ associates.
“It all begins at the school board level to then completely disempower the community,” Morel said.
On April 23, Houston ISD moved to fire a veteran teacher and president of the Houston Education Association teachers union after she protested requirements to comply with Miles’ New Education System.
Meyers, the new Lake Worth superintendent who at the time was Houston ISD’s deputy chief of strategic initiatives, testified in favor of the teacher’s termination.
“We do not allow our staff to make decisions about curriculum in a New Education System school or in Houston ISD,” Meyers said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “If they are not following expectations, we would not allow them to stay in HISD as an employee.”
Since taking over in Lake Worth, Meyers and the board of managers have temporarily suspended board policies related to governance procedures, hiring and employee assignments and schedules, similar to what Massey and her board did in Beaumont.
In response to the Observer’s inquiries about replicating Houston ISD’s reforms in her new role, Meyers wrote in an email that “Lake Worth ISD is very different from Houston ISD. We are a district of five schools serving a much smaller community, so our approach must reflect the unique needs of our students, staff, and families.”
Her email continued, “I believe educators should learn from successful practices wherever they exist.”
As in Beaumont and Lake Worth, the takeover in Fort Worth ISD has been characterized by swift changes. After less than a month under the new leadership, the 68,000-student district has suspended local board governance and hiring policies and has cut dozens of staff positions, including those supporting English-language learners.
Parent organizer Zach Leonard said a new instructional model Fort Worth ISD is rolling out in 19 schools, called “Elevate,” is essentially the same as what Miles has done in Houston, an assertion district spokesperson Tierney Tinnin refuted.
Leonard, along with other parents with his organization, notes the similarities between the programs: “scripted slide-by-slide lessons, rigid timed instruction, and ‘demonstrations of learning’ reduced to data points.”
“This isn’t education reform,” Leonard said, referring to Miles’ model of learning being transported to Fort Worth. “It’s a franchise being handed to our children without a vote.”
A group of lawmakers demanded answers from the White House this week following a ProPublica investigation revealing that a top aide to the president intervened to secure a $620 million Pentagon loan to a startup linked to the president’s eldest son.
ProPublica’s reporting “reveals a staggering level of corruption and influence peddling that superseded this process, enriching the President’s son at the expense of U.S. national security and taxpayer dollars,” wrote the group of Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii as well as Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado and Mike Levin of California.
Last year, the Pentagon announced the loan to Vulcan Elements, a small North Carolina startup, about three months after Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm took a stake of undisclosed size in the rare-earth magnet company.
Interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to lend to the firm was made by Peter Navarro, who serves as the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing and is a friend of Trump Jr.’s.
Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly told ProPublica.
After defense officials got the White House request, they asked Pentagon staff to move at an unusually rapid pace, said another person who was involved in the deal at the Pentagon but not authorized to speak about it.
“The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” the person said.
In their letter, addressed to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the lawmakers asked a series of questions about Navarro’s involvement in the deal, including whether he intervened at someone else’s direction, if the president was aware or involved, and who Navarro communicated with at the Pentagon.
They also asked more broadly about whether White House officials have communicated with federal agency officials about other companies linked to the Trump family.
“The American public — and service members that are in harm’s way — expect that the DoD contracting process is fair, unbiased, and competitive to ensure that only the best companies, providing only the best products, receive taxpayer dollars,” the lawmakers wrote.
Navarro, who served as trade adviser in the president’s first term, and Trump Jr. have formed a close bond in recent years. The president’s son visited Navarro in prison while he served time for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump Jr. was one of the small group of people Navarro dedicated his latest book to for having “my back when it was against the wall.” And a week before the Vulcan deal was announced, Trump Jr. hosted Navarro on his streaming show, encouraging his nearly 2 million subscribers to buy Navarro’s book. That interview was not long after word came down from Navarro to Pentagon staff to make the massive loan to Vulcan, one of the defense officials involved in the deal said.
Asked to respond to the lawmakers’ allegations and ProPublica’s reporting, Navarro in a text message wrote “Staggering level of hyperbole. More fake news” but did not elaborate. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Navarro did not respond to questions from ProPublica sent to him directly before the initial article was published. But in a post on X afterward, he called the story “fake news on steroids.”
Vulcan has not commented. A White House spokesperson had said in a statement that the administration is working “in the best interest of the American people,” adding, “The President’s entire team, including Senior Counselor Navarro and officials at the Department of War, is working together and with private industry to secure America’s critical mineral supply chain at Trump Speed.” Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said last week that the president’s son does not discuss companies he has invested in with federal government officials and did not speak to Navarro about Vulcan. He “has no knowledge about how this deal came together,” the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, said it also played no role in Vulcan getting the loan and did not learn about the deal before it was public.
“No company receives preferential treatment,” a Pentagon spokesperson said. “Outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”
The loan was part of the Pentagon’s effort to fund companies that could help the U.S. reduce dependence on China’s critical mineral supply chains. It represented a big win for Vulcan and its investors. Estimates of the company’s valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced.
The deal is one of many actions by the administration of President Donald Trump that have helped companies in which his family holds stakes. Government contracts and other benefits have gone to various Trump-linked companies. But ProPublica’s reporting on the Vulcan loan represented the first time the awarding of a contract from a federal agency was directly linked to White House intervention.
A number of other lawmakers also criticized the Vulcan deal following ProPublica’s investigation.
Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, called it “corruption to the highest degree,” alleging on X: “They are looting this country. Dismantling it, selling it for parts, and lining their own pockets.”
Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, called for a congressional investigation. “It’s just nonstop corruption from this White House, and Republicans in Congress are content to twiddle their thumbs and look right in the other direction,” she posted on X. “Congress should be investigating and putting a stop to this kind of crooked self-dealing—not enabling it.”
Illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images via IRS and Flickr.
On any given night, thousands of people sleep on the streets in Portland, Oregon. They seek shelter in tents, bushes and overpasses in a city that has struggled with one of the worst housing crises in the country.
Portland, like many cities, has raced to increase its supply of affordable housing by turning to a federal program that’s existed since the 1980s: the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. It provides up to $15 billion worth of tax credits a year nationally to help developers build apartments. Portland supplemented the federal construction money with local dollars, creating incentives that were hard to turn down.
But to meet the affordability requirements, all the developers needed to do in most cases was put rents within reach of someone earning 60% of median income, an earnings threshold that equates to about $75,000 annually for a family of four. It turns out that this amount of rent is now close to what the typical Portland landlord charges without any subsidy.
The result of the federal tax credit has been a glut of apartments costing renters on the order of about $1,400 a month for a one-bedroom. That’s a manageable outlay for a family making $75,000 but nearly half the monthly income of someone who earns $35,000 at the local minimum wage.
Economists and other academic researchers have been warning for decades that this was precisely the sort of problem that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit was likely to create.
Studies have concluded that the program, which currently supports nine out of every 10 subsidized units built in America, is an expensive and ineffective way to house people who can’t afford it. Researchers have said it doesn’t subsidize housing deeply enough to reach truly low-income renters, so it produces housing in markets and at income levels that already have a surplus instead of filling a shortage.
Independent researchers have found little evidence it’s expanded the overall housing supply beyond what the market would have produced without it. Its complexity has birthed an industry of affordable-housing-focused developers, investors, lawyers and accounting specialists who profit off the tax credit. Between 1991 and 2024, a dozen studies concluded that many more people could benefit if the money were spent on rental vouchers, which let consumers, rather than the government, decide which landlords get tax subsidies. Estimates went as high as twice the impact for the dollar.
“The evidence is telling us this program is lacking its reason to exist,” said Kirk McClure, an emeritus professor of urban planning at the University of Kansas and a leading critic of the tax credit. “We should reform the program to make it work better.”
McClure and others have brought their concerns to Congress. He recommended diverting the money into rental vouchers for tenants, or else changing the tax credit’s rules to reward only developers who build units in genuinely short supply: those affordable to people at the very bottom of the income ladder.
The ideas never went anywhere. Instead, money for the tax credit has grown at a much faster rate than rental assistance vouchers since 2000, data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Treasury shows. Rock-solid support from industries that benefit from the tax credit and both parties in Congress has made it the linchpin of U.S. housing policy.
“The program leverages housing market forces, entrepreneurial innovation and private accountability to increase housing supply,” former HUD Secretary Ben Carson told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2025.
Among the tax credit’s other prominent backers are two Northwest Democrats on the Senate Committee on Finance, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Maria Cantwell of Washington. Cantwell has introduced bills to increase funding for the existing tax credit, and Wyden has proposed expanding the target of the credits to benefit not just low-income families, but also middle-income households — the opposite of what McClure says needs to happen.
Both Wyden and Cantwell say Congress should hold more hearings to ensure the program is run efficiently, but they also defended it in written statements to Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica.
“There isn’t any silver bullet to the housing crisis in Oregon and around the country,” Wyden’s statement said, “but the low-income housing tax credit has been the most successful federal housing construction program on the books for decades and is the only housing program Republicans haven’t tried to gut.”
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has proposed expanding the target of the credits to benefit not just low-income families, but also middle-income households — the opposite of experts’ advice.Francis Chung/Politico via AP Images
Indeed, President Donald Trump has sought to cut housing programs such as rent assistance. But as part of his spending package last year, Congress approved the biggest expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit in decades.
“That’s a mistake,” McClure said.
It won’t alleviate homelessness or the housing shortage for people at the lowest incomes, he said. It will just create more buildings that compete with the market and with one another for the same pool of renters.
McClure recounted seeing a brand-new affordable housing complex near his home in Kansas not long ago with a sign enticing tenants of another government-backed complex down the street, promoting newer units at the same price.
“So the taxpayers of the United States subsidized the creation of this new property to help bankrupt another federally subsidized property,” he said. “That is stupidity 101. We have got to be better stewards of the American taxpayer’s dollar.”
Subsidized Vacancies
Oregon’s affordable housing production has skyrocketed in recent years. So have rents and homelessness.
Over the past decade, Oregon lawmakers doubled funding for the state’s affordable housing tax credit and started offering low-interest and deferred loans for construction.
Voters in the Portland area, meanwhile, passed housing bonds totaling more than $900 million. Developers can use that money to secure federal housing tax credits. The state went from building about 1,800 affordable units a year pre-pandemic to nearly 5,000 last year.
Industries that benefit from the tax credit say it’s the engine that makes that kind of building boom possible.
The Affordable Housing Tax Credit Coalition, representing lenders, developers and others in the industry, has called the program “the most effective tool we have to meet the affordable housing needs in rural, suburban, and urban areas.”
Jennifer Schwartz, director of tax and housing advocacy for the National Council of State Housing Agencies, which advocates for the tax credit and other housing programs administered by states, said the housing market by itself won’t produce a big enough supply of housing within reach for low-income renters. That goes for even those who receive federal rent vouchers, she said.
“It costs too much to build housing to turn around and rent it to households who are low-income households,” Schwartz said, “unless you have some sort of incentive like the housing credit.”
But in Portland, all that new construction hasn’t made a dent in the city’s affordability crisis. A report from the Portland Housing Bureau in 2025 found that rent and home sale prices were growing faster than incomes, even as the city’s vacancy rate was also rising.
The vacancy rate was roughly 7.6% as of May, according to Aaron Kirk Douglas, director of market intelligence at the Portland-based brokerage HFO Investment Real Estate. Vacancies are even higher for ostensibly affordable units: 11%, leaving nearly 2,000 units unused. Housing industry experts consider 5% vacancy to be a baseline for ordinary turnover.
The time it takes to verify that a tenant’s income meets the tax credit’s requirements and prep units for move-in played a role in the struggle to fill vacant units built with the federal subsidy. But housing advocates say the biggest barrier is price.
The gap between market-rate rents and affordable housing rents has shrunk, and not just in Portland.
By one industry estimate, in more than a dozen U.S. cities at least 40% of affordable housing was competing with market-rate buildings rates in 2025.
In the Portland suburb of Gresham, federal rules cap a two-bedroom apartment built with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit at $1,675 a month. Zillow puts the equivalent market-rate apartment at $1,525.
Operators of a new $53.8 million development in northeast Portland, built with the tax credit and the local housing bond, had trouble filling studio and one-bedroom apartments whose affordable rents were near market rate. They began offering a month of free rent for new tenants, according to a March report from the committee that oversees the region’s housing bond.
Affordable housing providers, which in Portland are predominantly nonprofit organizations, are also increasing their marketing budgets to attract renters away from market-rate buildings.
“The idea that we’re competing with the market would have been unfathomable a few years ago,” said Margaret Salazar, CEO of Reach Community Development Corporation, one of Portland’s largest affordable housing providers.
Salazar, who led Oregon’s state housing agency during the COVID-19 pandemic and later worked as a regional director for HUD, is a longtime proponent of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. But she said the people who can afford to rent apartments the tax credit has produced would rather move into a market-rate apartment for similar money and with fewer rules and restrictions.
“It’s becoming a slimmer and slimmer slice of residents” that Reach can serve, she said. “Suddenly we’re competing for this little slice of people.”
Meanwhile, a substantial group of Portland-area residents remain priced out.
HUD data shows more than 90,000 households in Multnomah County earn less than the 60% of median income that a family would typically need to afford a federally subsidized unit. (The precise number of families who can’t afford “affordable” units is unclear because it depends on variations in household size, actual rent levels and other subsidies that might reduce rents further.)
Salazar said that right now Reach can rent to people at lower income levels only if it can find additional subsidies such as housing vouchers — and funding for vouchers is so limited that only 1 in 4 people who qualify are able to get them.
Despite the convergence of rent levels in market-rate and subsidized housing, supporters of the tax credit say it remains valuable because the units it subsidizes are constrained from raising rents faster than incomes — and there’s no guarantee market-rate rents will remain at this level in the future.
But Steve Rudman, who ran the local housing authority in the Portland area for more than a decade, said the fact that the tax credit is now delivering market-rate housing rather than housing for the poorest households raises an existential question for the federal program.
“What is this thing really doing?” Rudman said. “What is the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit?”
A Stopgap Takes Off
Criticism of the federal construction credit has been a near constant since it began.
In the Reagan era, housing experts began to worry rents would become unaffordable amid deep cuts to housing programs and the drafting of the Tax Reform Act, which eliminated several tax shelters for real estate.
McClure, an economist for the city of Boston at the time, worked with others to design a tax credit that would reward affordable housing production.
“It was meant to be a three-year stopgap until we came up with something better,” he said.
The idea was to incorporate low-income housing into market-rate housing construction that was already taking place. Developers could receive a tax credit if they capped rents for a certain portion of the apartments in their building, and they could continue to rent the rest at any amount they chose.
McClure crafted letters for Boston’s mayor to send Congress in support of the idea. His analysis helped decide the subsidy amount. Developers could offset 70% of the cost of new builds or 30% of the cost of a rehab. Congress signed off in 1986.
Almost immediately, the program diverged from the outcomes McClure had envisioned.
Kirk McClure, one of the drafters of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. For decades, he’s been calling for reforms to the policy.Arin Yoon for ProPublica
He and other drafters of the tax credit had thought developers would use it to offer deep discounts on a small number of units, allowing them to charge market rate on the rest. But developers found it more profitable to subsidize 100% of their units at the smallest allowable discount, a rent affordable to households at 60% of median income.
In 1992, as lawmakers considered making the 6-year-old Low-Income Housing Tax Credit permanent, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office declared the program “unlikely to substantially increase the supply of affordable housing” and “more suited to the needs of investors than poor renters.”
For one, the tax credits cost a lot to administer, congressional economists said. They also pointed to evidence that subsidized housing production dampened market-rate construction.
Congress was preparing to give developers $3 billion through the tax credit as of 1992. Putting that money into housing vouchers instead, the CBO concluded, would help 550,000 households, more than twice as many as would benefit from the construction tax credit. The numbers echoed findings from an earlier HUD evaluation of tax credits vs. vouchers.
Congress made the tax credit permanent a year later.
As time wore on, McClure’s emerging doubts about a program he originally expected to be temporary only deepened.
When the Fannie Mae Foundation hired him in 1997 to analyze how the tax credit was doing, he concluded it was a “very inefficient subsidy delivery mechanism” that didn’t produce as much housing as it should have.
Other studies came to similar conclusions as McClure, HUD and the Congressional Budget Office. At least five found the tax credit does little to increase the overall housing supply.
The Government Accountability Office noted problems with the program in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, finding it lacked basic oversight to show the federal funds worked as intended. A 2017 investigation by NPR and Frontline documented numerous examples of waste and fraud, including one developer pocketing tax credits without building the required housing.
“Given the available evidence on program performance, we should certainly not expand the tax credit program,” Edgar Olsen, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Virginia, wrote in a 2017 article for the American Enterprise Institute. “The existing evidence argues for terminating it.”
There are some critics within Congress. Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Republican from Wisconsin, introduced a bill to kill the program last year, calling it a “cash grab for developers and banks.” But the bill went nowhere.
Olsen, like McClure, remains adamant today about what he considers the tax program’s uselessness. In a recent interview, he told OPB and ProPublica that he’s urged policymakers, in academic articles and in testimony, to re-examine whether the program has any value at all.
“How often do they talk to people like me or like Kirk McClure? The answer is almost never,” Olsen said. “What they hear from are people who represent the financial interest of the industry, and so they want more money to be spent on this.”
Depuis la mise à jour de Framagenda de ce matin, je vois que les “Notes” ont disparu. Ça me mets en grande difficultés, puisque je les utilise beaucoup, y compris en mode partagé avec d’autres user.
Zoom CISO Sandra McLeod discusses the challenges of securing a global communication platform, the promise of AI-driven security workflows, and her advice for aspiring cybersecurity leaders.
Once targeting just Microsoft 365, the phishing-as-a-service platform now aims at AWS, Okta, and Russian platforms, while relying on device code phishing.
A sneaky, wide-scale IAB operation uses a malicious traffic distribution system (TDS) to redirect visitors of trusted websites to ones that deliver malware.
High-autonomy agents with broad permissions and unfettered access are a recipe for disaster, and enterprises need to act now before they become the next horror story.
Je viens de créer un formulaire pour que les associations puissent faire un diagnostic de leur santé sociale et je voudrais qu’elles puissent accéder à leur résultat. Malheureusement, quand elles cliquent sur le lien reçu par mail pour y accéder, le message “accès refusé” apparaît. Est-ce qu’il faut avoir un compte framasoft pour pouvoir y accéder ? Ou bien y a-t-il un paramétrage que je dois modifier quelque part, pour qu’elles puissent y accéder librement ?
J’espère de tout cœur que c’est la 2ème option …
D’avance, merci à toutes et tous pour votre aide et vos réponses,
Twenty years after Dark Reading launched, we're looking ahead at what's next for enterprise security. Spoiler: It's hyper-segmented, AI-orchestrated, and way more sophisticated than your dad's firewall.
Collage by Mauricio Rodriguez Pons/ProPublica. Source images: Katie Campbell/ProPublica.
Kara Meredith can tell you the exact day her life turned upside down: Aug. 23, 2025.
She was at her home in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, caring for her 5-week-old son, when one of her daughters ran to tell her there was water all over the bathroom floor. Her husband, Mitch Meredith, wasn’t worried — until he saw the dark liquid bubbling up around the base of the bathtub. Mitch and his relatives worked all night trying to contain it. It was near dawn when his uncle said, “This is oil.”
The United States is the largest oil and gas producer in the world. All of that drilling produces hundreds of billions of gallons of toxic wastewater each year. For decades, energy companies have disposed of that briny fluid by shooting it back underground using high-pressure injection wells. But across Oklahoma, the fluid is spreading uncontrollably belowground, blasting out of old, unplugged wells, polluting land and contaminating drinking water.
In a new documentary from The Frontier and ProPublica, reporter Nick Bowlin investigates a scourge of oil field wastewater seeping into the lives of Oklahomans, about half of whom live within a mile of an oil and gas operation.
His reporting takes him to the headquarters of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state agency tasked with regulating oil and gas. The agency told Bowlin that it is committed to “doing the right thing, holding operators accountable, protecting Oklahoma and its resources, and providing fair and balanced regulation.” But as Bowlin continues to dig, he discovers he is far from the first one to raise the alarm about what’s happening in Oklahoma.
We’ve reported on oil and gas pollution contaminating drinking water, killing cattle and damaging property. We need your help to show how this affects people across the state.
Community leaders and civil rights advocates say that one year into Louisville, Kentucky's attempts at police reform, the efforts have yielded mixed results. Jon Cherry for ProPublica
Last May, as President Donald Trump settled into his second term, the Justice Department walked away from federal efforts to reform troubled police departments across the country.
Officials announced their decision to not only drop lawsuits against two cities for unconstitutional policing but also retract findings of abuse in a half dozen other places.
Some of those jurisdictions celebrated the news. But not Louisville, Kentucky, a blue city in a red state whose elected leaders used the occasion to make their own announcement.
After the federal withdrawal, Mayor Craig Greenberg said Louisville would be “moving ahead rapidly” with reforms to its police department, which had been found to have a pattern of unconstitutional policing. In fact, the city would be adopting a version of the reform agreement Louisville had previously negotiated with the Biden administration and hiring an outside monitor to oversee its progress.
“I made a promise to our community,” the mayor said, “and we are keeping that promise.”
There was much to do. In 2023, federal investigators had found that the city’s police routinely discriminated against Black residents, inappropriately used police dogs against people, and failed to properly respond to people facing mental health challenges.
The mayor said the local reform plan would allow city leaders to correct these problems and accomplish key goals, perhaps even faster than he outlined.
But police records obtained by ProPublica show just how entrenched the issues were. Two years after the DOJ revealed its initial findings, while the Greenberg administration was charting its path to reform in early 2025, officers were still engaging in the problematic policing practices called out by federal investigators, according to the records. Most notably, police officials were failing to thoroughly review officers’ use of force.
Today, one year into the city’s reform effort, community leaders and civil rights advocates say the results have been mixed.
For example, the city has expanded a pilot program to direct some mental health calls away from police and send them instead to mental health specialists. Yet a panel created to review the department’s mental health practices overall only met for the first time in March, almost a year after it was announced, and it isn’t scheduled to issue recommendations for another year.
“What we do as a city, we make things look good on paper, but then in the application of it, it plays out so differently,” said Shameka Parrish-Wright, a Louisville city council member and a candidate for mayor looking to unseat Greenberg later this year. “And what plays out on the ground in day-to-day interactions is different.”
Underscoring the stakes for Louisville residents is the March fatal shooting of a 28-year-old woman named Katelyn Hall, who was experiencing a mental health crisis when police gunned her down in her own apartment.
Experts in mental health told ProPublica that the incident is emblematic of practices flagged by the Justice Department more than three years ago. Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Paul Humphrey, however, said the department should not be judged by one shooting given that it responded to 3,200 mental health calls last year and “only about eight resulted in any injury to anyone.” The incident is still under investigation.
Louisville police killed 28-year-old Katelyn Hall after responding to a call at her apartment, where she was experiencing a mental health crisis.Louisville Metro Police Department
In the aftermath of the killing, Greenberg’s office is exploring ways to pair mental health professionals with police in such situations — an idea that, critics note, was explicitly recommended in 2023 by the Justice Department. Today, the city sends either mental health professionals or police to calls, but does not have them respond together on critical incidents, including when a weapon is present.
Greenberg declined multiple requests for interviews, but his press secretary, Matt Mudd, defended the reform work, which he said was now being overseen by an independent monitor. “The Louisville Metro Police Department is in a much better place than it was three years ago,” he told ProPublica in an email. “That work is ongoing, and we are partnering closely with the community to ensure progress continues.”
Humphrey, the police chief, noted that police reform can often take years to achieve under federal oversight. By comparison, Humphrey told ProPublica, “I think we’re going at a really good clip.”
Today, the city stands as a test case for how effectively a community can implement police reform without a court order and the accountability that comes with federal intervention.
“There’s no enforceability by law,” said Ed Harness, Louisville’s first-ever inspector general. He is charged with investigating misconduct in the police department. “Now whether reform can happen voluntarily, with compliance and supervision by elected leaders, kind of is the question that will be answered in Louisville.”
Louisville’s inspector general, Ed Harness, is charged with investigating misconduct in the police department.Jon Cherry for ProPublica
The Path to Reform
Policing in Louisville has been under a national microscope since March 2020, when plainclothes officers broke down the door of Breonna Taylor’s apartment serving a no-knock search warrant. Her boyfriend thought they were robbers and fired a single shot at them. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black medical worker, was killed as police returned fire. Her case, along with that of George Floyd in Minneapolis, helped spark a national reckoning over race and policing, and attracted the scrutiny of the Justice Department.
In 2023, just months after Greenberg took office, the DOJ published a scathing report on the police department’s pattern of misconduct and constitutional violations. By December 2024, the city and the DOJ announced the details of a court agreement, known as a consent decree, that would set requirements for improvements and be overseen by an outside monitor and a judge. Greenberg touted the city’s commitment to “aggressively implement police reform.”
In the following months, however, the questionable police behavior continued. Police records first obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and later by ProPublica through a public records request detail nearly 50 use-of-force incidents from December 2024 through April 2025. In more than half of them, officers engaged in actions that the Justice Department had noted in 2023 were either violations of people’s rights, like using choke holds and allowing police dogs to continue biting people who no longer posed a threat, or otherwise needed improvement, like how supervisors reviewed such incidents.
In one case, a suspect spit on an officer, who then performed a “takedown” of the man while he was already in handcuffs. In another, multiple witnesses said an officer put his knee on a man’s back while he lay on the ground, a tactic that has been widely condemned since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck in 2020. In both those instances, as well as others, the department’s internal review unit found the uses of force to be appropriate. According to the records, the review unit failed to discuss alternative approaches or completely review all uses of force by the officers involved.
Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, the deputy project director for the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, said her team requested the records in Louisville and six other jurisdictions to assess whether they corrected the problems flagged by the DOJ in its investigations.
In Louisville, she said her organization expected oversight to be extra diligent given the DOJ’s criticism of what it called “biased” internal investigations.
“We were troubled by a review process that seemed more concerned with protecting the agency from liability than with protecting the public from further abuse,” she said.
The Louisville police department did not respond to ProPublica’s inquiry about the records and the use-of-force review process.
Last May, just five months after the consent decree was signed, Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, announced the department was dropping the case against Louisville, ending what she called the “failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees.”
The Hall of Justice in LouisvilleJon Cherry for ProPublica
Questions Over City’s Commitment
The same day, Greenberg unveiled his administration’s reform plan, dubbed the Community Commitment, and pledged to hire an independent monitor to oversee the police department’s progress. The document carried over much of the federal reform plan, but civil rights advocates and community leaders noticed it differed in key ways. Most notably, it had no mechanism for enforcement in the event of a disagreement between the monitor and the police department. Under a federal consent decree, a federal judge makes the final decisions on such disputes and can force departments to implement corrective actions. Louisville’s plan simply calls for the parties to have continued talks.
That makes the policy initiative vulnerable to the vagaries of politics or local budgeting, critics say.
“That’s the biggest risk here, that it will just prove to be too difficult, too expensive, not politically advantageous for this or subsequent administrations to continue this effort,” said Christy Lopez, a professor at Georgetown Law who spent years investigating police misconduct for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “That is one advantage that consent decrees offer, that they have the oversight and threat of a federal judge, who can make contempt findings if people are not doing what they said they would do. You don’t have that here.”
Because of that, several community leaders want to enshrine key parts of the agreement in local law. “We need an ordinance that makes sure the reforms from the consent decree are done regardless of administration,” said Kungu Njuguna, a lifelong resident of Louisville and a policy strategist for the Kentucky ACLU.
Louisville resident and Kentucky ACLU policy strategist Kungu Njuguna believes the city needs an ordinance to enshrine police reforms.Jon Cherry for ProPublica
Ericka Seward, a community activist who has been campaigning for police accountability since Taylor’s killing in 2020, said the current reform plan requires residents to trust the police to make change — a difficult task, she said, given the department’s history of discriminatory policing.
Seward, who is Black, said she watched officers manhandle her 21-year-old son in the parking lot of his apartment complex in 2022. He had called her during a traffic stop for what police said was erratic driving, and she drove to the location. After patting him down, officers were about to let him go with a warning when he argued that the stop was dubious and told the officers he would be complaining to members of the department’s leadership who his mother knew through her work as an activist, Seward said. The officers then physically pulled him back to their car and told him they were now going to issue him tickets, she said. Her son was cited for careless driving and failure to signal.
“It was scary to me, it was scary to him,” Seward said. “Because we know what they’re capable of.”
Seward filed a complaint with the city inspector general’s office. According to its report, the lead officer defended his actions, telling investigators that, because Seward’s son was accusing him of not having a valid reason for the stop, he “became concerned and wanted to document the stop to show that he did have probable cause.”
While Harness’ office found no wrongdoing on that count, it did note that the officer couldn’t say how fast Seward’s son was driving. It also found that the department did not have a policy prohibiting retaliation and recommended that one be adopted, according to records. The department has since done so, though that too has drawn criticism from Harness’ office, which said its recommendation was “largely ignored.” The revised policy only applies to retaliation after a complaint has been filed, the inspector general’s report said, meaning it does not cover retaliatory policing in response to “citizens’ words, actions or demeanor.”
In its 2023 investigation, the Justice Department found that Louisville police officers had “threatened and retaliated against civilian complainants.” It also found that Black drivers were nearly twice as likely as white drivers to be cited by police for minor violations — part of a pattern of discriminatory policing that investigators said often led to unnecessary and tense interactions between police and the public, sometimes resulting in arrest. The DOJ noted racial disparities in enforcement for loitering, littering and having dark window tinting.
The federal consent decree dictated that those kinds of offenses receive warnings unless an officer could articulate why that approach was “insufficient” to deal with the issue. That change, however, is not in the city’s reform plan.
Humphrey said that leaders determined the measure wasn’t in the best interest of the city or its officers. He also said police are trained on how to best determine the right course of action on those low-level infractions.
Rebecca Hall, mother of Katelyn Hall, who was killed by police, with Dash, Katelyn’s emotional support dogJon Cherry for ProPublica
A Mental Health Crisis, a Deadly Encounter
The city did incorporate into its plan many of the DOJ’s recommendations for handling people with mental health issues. Such incidents made up nearly a quarter of the use-of-force cases investigators reviewed, according to the federal report, “and a large share of those incidents involved at least one unreasonable use of force.”
The city’s plan included a number of measures, starting with the formation of a behavioral health council to review incidents and recommend changes to policies and practices with the goal of “reducing the number of police encounters with people with behavioral health disabilities involving unnecessary use of force and reducing the severity of the force when force is required.”
The council, however, didn’t have its first meeting until March — about 10 months after the mayor’s announcement. Police officials told ProPublica that city leaders decided to first hire the independent monitor and develop an implementation plan before putting the behavioral council to work.
Four days after the group had its first meeting, Louisville police responded to a 911 call about Katelyn Hall, the 28-year-old woman in mental health crisis. She had locked herself in the bathroom and, according to her roommate, had cut her wrists and ingested cleaning fluids, and was behaving erratically. She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had previously attempted suicide.
Within 13 minutes of their arrival, police shot and killed her.
Rebecca Hall shows the last text messages she received from her daughter before Katelyn was killed by Louisville police.Jon Cherry for ProPublica
“No one wants to see an outcome like this,” Humphrey said in early April during a press conference. “We have already begun to use this incident to work on improving how we handle these situations. We owe that to everyone involved and to the city.”
But mental health and law enforcement experts who reviewed police body camera footage of the incident told ProPublica that officers demonstrated some of the same problematic behaviors first identified by the Justice Department more than three years ago.
The federal investigators found Louisville officers “frequently fail to give people experiencing crisis time or space” and “do not engage in verbal de-escalation for enough time to be successful.” In fact, officers often made the situation more tense and confrontational, which would lead to “increased safety risks to themselves and the person in crisis and increased the likelihood of the use of force.”
In Hall’s case, the officers started out asking questions like, “What’s going on?” and, “Can you talk to me?” while Hall screamed at them to let her die.
Police spent about six minutes talking with her before a member of the Emergency Medical Services unit, worried that Hall had cut her wrists, suggested forcing the door open. The team spent the next three minutes breaking the door’s lock and popping one of its hinges, during which time the officers pushed themselves against the door attempting to get into the bathroom.
Sharon Gandarilla-Javier, an assistant professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, called it a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, but stressed that the six minutes of discussion wasn’t enough time and the police should have considered alternatives to forcing the door open.
For example, Hall’s mother, Rebecca, was on scene and identified herself to first responders, assuming they would ask her to help talk with her daughter. They never did.
Mariela Ruiz-Angel, the director of alternative response initiatives for Georgetown Law’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety, said Hall’s mother could have been a “game changer.”
“We’ve used that tactic multiple times to try to find the loved one that makes the most sense, to be like, ‘Hey, I’m here, Mama’s here,’” she said.
At one point, an officer tells Hall, “I want you to live,” and that her friends and family are worried about her.
The responders designated which officers would use their hands, a Taser and a firearm in preparation for Hall’s exit from the locked room. But Gandarilla-Javier, who spent more than 10 years as a New York Police Department officer and teaches classes on trauma-informed policing and crisis intervention, told ProPublica that the plan overheard on the video needed to be more detailed, with an explicit discussion about how to safely subdue Hall if she were to advance on them.
When Hall ultimately opened the door and walked toward the officers, she was holding a broken piece of toilet. Within five seconds, she was shot by two officers, including the one who minutes before had told her he wanted her to live. Had the officers planned better, the outcome may have been different, Gandarilla-Javier said.
Louisville Metro Police Deputy Chief Emily McKinley told reporters in April that “each encounter poses a unique and often chaotic challenge,” and that in the Hall case, “If you look at the porcelain, I think it could be an extremely lethal situation” for the officers. Asked whether officers could have instead tackled Hall, she declined to answer, saying such questions would be part of the investigation into the shooting.
Hall’s mother said police could have done more.
“My daughter deserved more than eight minutes of their time,” Rebecca Hall said through tears in an interview. “She needed kindness and she needed somebody back there” to let her know that they cared. Hall continued: “She didn’t get that in that moment. I know she definitely didn’t need bullets. … She just needed help.”
Mental health advocates like Khalilah Collins have been pushing for years for the department to allow mental health professionals to lead the response to such calls. In fact, she was part of a group of professionals who, at the city’s request, researched alternative responses in 2021. The study was part of the reforms that the city pledged to undertake in a lawsuit settlement after Taylor’s killing, but a nonpolice response failed to win the support of city leaders and wasn’t adopted.
“We refuse to build what we need for people,” Collins said. “We don’t want the police there. The police don’t want to be there. They’re not trained to be there, but we refuse to do anything else.”
To be sure, the department did create a program to divert some calls to mental health professionals, but that did not happen in this case because police determined Hall was “armed with glass.” Louisville police policy dictates that if a weapon is present, mental health professionals cannot respond to the calls.
In the wake of Hall’s death, though, Greenberg and Humphrey say they are now exploring whether police and mental health professionals should be allowed to respond together. According to Mudd, the mayor’s spokesperson, one option being discussed involves using “new technology, like cameras, to add behavioral health providers to situations that require their expertise without potentially sacrificing their safety.”
When ProPublica asked Mudd if there was a timeline for making a decision, he said only that the city and the police department were “moving with urgency.”
After a disgruntled security researcher published several zero-day exploits in recent weeks, Microsoft seemingly indicated criminal charges were in order.
The European security agency's entry to Project Glasswing is the result of "strong bilateral cooperation" between the European Commission and Anthropic.
The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages over the weekend, after instructions began circulating on Telegram showing how to trick Meta’s “AI support assistant” bot into resetting account passwords.
A screenshot from a video released on Telegram claiming to show how Meta’s AI customer support bot could be tricked into resetting a target’s password.
On May 31, word began to spread on several Telegram instant message channels that Meta’s AI bot would happily add an email address to an existing account as part of the bot’s standard password reset flow.
A video released on Telegram by pro-Iran hackers claimed to document a remarkably simple exploit that appears to have involved using a VPN connection with an IP address that is in or near the target’s usual hometown, requesting a password reset for the account, and then choosing to chat with Meta’s AI support assistant. From there, the video shows the attacker told the bot to link the account in question to a new email address, after which the bot dutifully sent that address a one-time code that allowed a password reset.
The Telegram account that posted the video also linked to screenshots of pro-Iran images, videos and messages that defaced the hacked Instagram accounts, saying hackers had used the exploit to hijack a number of valuable (read: short) Instagram account names that allegedly have a resale value of more than a half million dollars.
Meta has not responded to requests for comment on the video’s claims, but Meta’s Andy Stone said on Twitter/X that the issue had been resolved and that they were securing impacted accounts. The security blog thecybersecguru.com reports that Meta pushed an emergency patch over the weekend, and clarified that no back end database was breached.
“Instagram has notoriously poor human support infrastructure,” Cybersecguru wrote. “Recovering a locked account – especially a high-value one can take weeks of back-and-forth with an automated ticketing system. Meta’s solution was to deploy a conversational AI layer to handle common recovery workflows: relinking a lost email address, triggering a password reset, verifying account ownership. The assistant, presumably, was supposed to reduce friction for legitimate users stuck in account-access hell.”
Ian Goldin, a threat researcher at Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, said we’re entering unchartered security territory as more large online platforms start allowing AI chatbots to handle sensitive account recovery requests. Just like human customer support employees can be social engineered into providing unauthorized access to someone’s account, AI bots are equally eager to help and vulnerable to persuasion and trickery, he said.
“AI chatbots create interesting new attack surface, and we’re likely going to see a lot more of these kinds of attacks,” Goldin said.
Securing your various online accounts means taking full advantage of the most secure form of multi-factor authentication (MFA) offered (such as a passkey or security key). In this case, even using the least robust form of MFA that Instagram offers — a one-time code sent via SMS — likely would have blocked the exploit: The hackers who released the video on Telegram said their exploit failed to work against any accounts that had MFA enabled.
With Infosecurity Europe kicking off tomorrow, many of us will be fine tuning our schedules and prepping for the festivities to kick off. The Gurus have been busy collecting a selection of unmissable events to help you plan your trip and ensure you get the most out of your visit.
Here’s a selection of ones we think you’ll enjoy:
Tuesday Talks
Joanna Mendez, Former CIA Chief of Disguise and author
This keynote explores how the principles of espionage, deception and psychological manipulation underpin many of today’s most effective cyber-attacks. Drawing on her experience as the CIA’s former Chief of Disguise, Jonna Mendez shares compelling real-world lessons on trust, influence and human vulnerability, offering security leaders a fresh perspective on social engineering risks and organisational resilience.
Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-Founder, Keeper Security:
This session explores the growing security risks posed by AI agents as they become increasingly autonomous within enterprise environments. You’ll learn why traditional identity and access controls are no longer sufficient, and gain practical guidance on securing AI agents through least-privilege access, continuous monitoring and governance frameworks that support emerging UK and EU regulations.
Nico Hulkenberg, F1 Driver, Audi Revolut F1 Team and Lisa Forte, Partner at Red Goat Cyber Security
With around 250 Grand Prix races in his career, Nico Hülkenberg is one of the most experienced drivers in the industry. In cyber security we often draw parallels with the Formula 1 world, as both operate with speed, data, risk and teamwork at extremely high stakes. Join Lisa Forte and Nico as they take to the stage, for this racy unmissable conversation.
This session examines how organisations can improve resilience in increasingly automated, machine-to-machine environments where service failures are often difficult to detect. You’ll learn how to identify modern monitoring blind spots across APIs and third-party services, and how continuous external verification can help spot issues early before they affect customers or business operations.
This session focuses on how organisations can prepare their vulnerability management and AppSec processes for the Cyber Resilience Act’s strict reporting requirements. Attendees will gain practical insights into the operational, technical and workflow changes needed to detect, verify and report actively exploited vulnerabilities quickly, while improving cross-team collaboration, automation and compliance readiness.
Tim Ward, CEO and Co-founder, Redflags, and Daniela Waugh, Head of Information Security, S&W Group:
This case study session explores how organisations can drive meaningful, long-term security behaviour change by understanding and influencing how people make decisions in the workplace. You’ll learn practical approaches to reducing human risk, fostering a stronger security culture, and using insights from employee interactions with AI tools to identify emerging risks and shape effective governance strategies.
This session explores how organisations can make cyber threat intelligence more effective by breaking down security silos and improving the quality of threat data. Through a real-world case study from Centrica, you’ll learn how AI-enhanced intelligence workflows and automated feedback mechanisms can help prioritise threats more effectively, reduce noise, and create a more proactive, intelligence-led security operation.
This session explores the personal and professional challenges many people face when building a career in cybersecurity, including imposter syndrome, burnout and fear of failure. Through insights gained from mentoring hundreds of cyber professionals, attendees will learn why community, authenticity and support are critical to building confidence, resilience and long-term success in the industry.
Rik Ferguson, Vice President Security Intelligence, Forescout
This session explains why post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is a migration challenge that organisations need to address today, rather than a future problem to worry about when quantum computers arrive. You’ll learn how long technology refresh cycles can create hidden risks, what steps should be taken now to avoid crypto-agility issues, and how leading industries are preparing for the transition to quantum-safe security.
This session introduces the Resiliency Quad, a framework for building sustainable performance through a balanced approach to physical, emotional, technological and developmental resilience. Attendees will gain practical insights into how strengthening these interconnected areas can improve wellbeing, adaptability and long-term effectiveness in both personal and professional settings.
Women in Cyber 10 Year Celebrations!
This year Infosec marks a decade of the Women in Cybersecurity programme with sessions designed to inspire, empower and drive real change. The sessions will explore how women are redefining success in their cybersecurity careers and what’s shifted over the past 10 years. They’ll also highlight how allyship and diverse teams now play a crucial role in strengthening cyber operations. With practical insights, forward looking discussion and a special keynote speaker, this milestone year offers a powerful look at how far the industry has come and what’s next.
Cyber House Party is the industry’s biggest fundraising bash, plus you get to hear colleagues, peers, connections show off their DJing skills. Always a blast! AND they’re raising money for the NSPCC.
This keynote explores how cybersecurity professionals can overcome self-doubt by reframing imposter syndrome as the Imposter Monster. Attendees will learn a practical framework for building confidence, managing uncertainty and developing a healthier mindset for personal and professional growth.
This session explores the often-overlooked link between human performance and cyber resilience, highlighting how stress, burnout, poor sleep and uncertainty can directly affect the effectiveness of security operations. Attendees will learn how to treat workforce wellbeing as an operational risk factor, using measurable performance data and governance frameworks to strengthen decision-making, improve resilience and maintain the long-term effectiveness of cyber defence teams.
This session cuts through the hype around Zero Trust, explaining why it is a security strategy rather than a product. You’ll gain a clearer understanding of the core principles behind Zero Trust, how they address modern security challenges, and what organisations should focus on when building a practical Zero Trust architecture based on continuous verification and least-privilege access.
This session shares the career journey and insights of an award-winning NHS Cyber Security Manager who progressed from volunteer to leading security across multiple NHS Trusts. Attendees will gain perspectives on building positive security cultures, making cybersecurity more accessible and inclusive, and balancing technical expertise with the human side of security.
That’s our take on the hottest line up at Infosec this year, if you do see us at any of the above, say hello!
Exploiting the PAN-OS GlobalProtect VPN vulnerability requires certain conditions, but adversaries have done so in two attack waves that started in mid-May.
Avec ces températures, vous transpirez à grosses gouttes ? Ce n'est pas une excuse pour oublier le #KhrysPresso de @Khrys (ni pour oublier de le publier ! 😱 )
The rapid adoption of AI coding assistants is creating a new governance challenge for enterprise security teams, according to research released by Salt Security, which found that nine in ten security leaders are concerned about the security risks associated with AI-generated code. The research, AI Coding Assistants and the New Security Challenge, surveyed 100 IT security leaders across the UK and US and highlights the growing tension between software development speed and security oversight.
According to the study, 67% of organisations now report widespread adoption of AI coding assistants across development teams, reflecting how deeply AI has become embedded in modern software engineering practices. However, governance frameworks have struggled to keep pace. While organisations increasingly rely on AI to accelerate development, 38% still depend primarily on manual reviews to assess AI-generated code, a process many security leaders believe is becoming unsustainable.
Among respondents, 29% identified insecure coding patterns as the biggest risk introduced by AI assistants, while 15% cited concerns about generated code failing to align with internal security policies.
The findings mirror wider industry concerns about the quality and security of machine-generated software. According to figures cited by Salt Security, AI coding assistants now generate nearly half of all code written on platforms such as GitHub, while independent research has found that a significant proportion of AI-generated code contains known vulnerabilities.
“AI coding assistants are fundamentally changing how software is built, but governance has not kept pace,” said Roey Eliyahu, CEO and co-founder of Salt Security.
“Most organisations recognise the risks, but many are still trying to manage AI-generated code using security processes designed for a pre-AI world. That approach does not scale. Security leaders need visibility, consistency and embedded governance across the AI-assisted development lifecycle before code volumes become unmanageable.”
The research also revealed that larger enterprises face greater operational complexity as AI adoption grows. Organisations with more than 500 employees were significantly more likely to report challenges around governance consistency, developer overreliance on AI-generated outputs and policy enforcement across distributed development teams.
The findings coincide with the launch of Salt Code, a new addition to the company’s Agentic Security Platform designed to enforce security policies directly within AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI and Codex. Salt Code is designed to move security controls earlier in the software development lifecycle. Rather than relying solely on traditional security testing tools after code has been written, Salt Code applies organisational security policies during code generation itself.
At the heart of the platform is Salt’s Posture Governance Engine, which allows organisations to define security and compliance requirements once and enforce them consistently across code creation, deployment and runtime environments. The platform includes pre-built policy packs covering frameworks such as the OWASP API Top 10, MCP Security Top 10, LLM Security Top 10 and OpenAPI/Swagger compliance.
According to Salt Security, the approach is intended to address what it describes as “security drift”, or the gradual divergence between organisational policies and actual development practices that can occur as AI-generated code volumes increase.
“AI is writing code faster than organisations can govern it, whether that AI is Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or the next tool a developer downloads tomorrow,” Eliyahu said.
“For the first time, security policy travels with the code itself, from the first prompt through every stage of the pipeline and into runtime. Organisations no longer have to choose between the speed AI enables and the security their business requires.”
Industry analysts have argued that governance will become increasingly important as AI-generated code forms a growing share of enterprise software. Salt’s research suggests that organisations are already recognising the challenge, with security leaders expressing concerns that manual review processes are struggling to scale alongside AI-assisted development.
“I regularly point organisations toward Salt because the full Agentic Security Graph is genuinely differentiating. Salt Code is the piece that ties it together,” said Christopher M. Steffen, CISSP, CISA, CCZ, VP of Research, Information Security, Risk and Compliance Management, Enterprise Management Associates. “With code-level context layered onto runtime behaviour, Salt is building a multi-dimensional defence for agentic systems rather than another single-point tool. That is the direction this market needs to move.”
The company is encouraging organisations to focus on improving visibility into AI-generated code, reducing dependence on manual review, standardising secure development practices and treating AI coding assistants as part of the wider software supply chain.
As enterprises continue to embrace AI-assisted development, the findings suggest that the next phase of adoption may be defined less by productivity gains and more by how effectively organisations can govern and secure the code these systems produce.
Avec mon association, nous souhaitons mettre une pétition en ligne. Nous avons fait un “test” en signant nous-même une fois mais, une fois que nous avons cliqué sur le bouton “signer”, une page d’erreur 500 s’affiche et, dans la finalité, la signature n’est pas comptabilisée.
J’ai cru comprendre que cette erreur est déjà arrivée et je voulais savoir comment les autres internautes l’ont résolue ?
Si jamais il y a besoin de changer de site, quelle alternative conseillez-vous ?
Collage by Alex Bandoni/ProPublica. Source images: Bloomberg/Getty Images, Firearm Transaction Record Form via U.S. Department of Justice and Alec MacGillis/ProPublica.
Marianna Mitchem grew up in the Denver suburbs, where she played high school soccer. One day in April 1999, her team faced off against a nearby rival, Columbine High. The next day, two teenagers went on a shooting rampage at Columbine, killing more than a dozen people.
The massacre left an imprint on Mitchem. After graduating from Providence College, she joined the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Fearing for my friends and watching what was happening — you don’t forget things like that,” she told me. “I wanted to make a difference.”
She started in the ATF’s Denver office as an industry operations investigator, the bureau’s term for inspectors who ensure that firearms dealers are conducting the required background checks on buyers and maintaining sales records. When the bureau found discrepancies, it tended to settle for reprimands and improvement plans, rarely going so far as to revoke a dealer’s license.
In 2021, things started to change. The country was experiencing a surge of deadly violence, with homicides up more than a third since 2019, and the administration of President Joe Biden was desperate to reverse the trend. For years, data had shown that a large share of guns used in shootings came from a small fraction of dealers, and that guns that were trafficked — sold by stores to straw purchasers (people other than the intended users) or resold on the street — were far more likely to be used in shootings.
Acting on this data, the administration in June 2021 announced what became known as “zero tolerance”: Dealers found to be willfully violating the law would lose their licenses, period. Revocations spiked, from fewer than 50 in 2019, 2020 and 2021 to a record 181 in 2023.
Also in 2021, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, started urging federal prosecutors to prioritize gun violence. A year later, Congress passed a law that added a firearms trafficking conspiracy charge to the federal criminal code, a crucial new tool for prosecutors.
After 2021, the homicide rate started falling, which criminologists attributed to several factors, including repair of the social fabric since the coronavirus pandemic and a closing of the breach in police-community relations that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd. One other factor got less attention: the clampdown on the illegal flow of firearms.
The Biden administration struggled to broadcast its gains on public safety, and Donald Trump won the election in 2024 partly by vowing to restore order. By the time Trump reentered the White House, Mitchem had risen to associate assistant director for industry operations, overseeing inspectors across the country. “We were making incredible progress on trafficking, on violent crime,” she said late last year.
But the Trump administration, driven both by gun-lobby advocacy and its own political priorities, quickly set about undoing much of its predecessor’s moves to combat gun violence. It repealed the zero-tolerance policy, going so far as to invite revoked dealers to reapply for new licenses. It shifted hundreds of ATF agents to immigration work. And it scaled back on prosecutions for gun trafficking. The White House declined to comment, referring questions to the ATF and the Department of Justice.
The homicide rate fell further last year, but criminologists warn against complacency, because the illicit gun trade is a classic pipeline problem: The harm can take a while to make itself felt. Research has found that the typical “time to crime” for trafficked firearms ranges up to about three years, which means that any positive lag of the anti-trafficking efforts of the Biden years would still be in effect now, with any negative effects of the Trump pullback lying in the years to come.
Among those now sounding the alarm is Mitchem. Dismayed at the policy reversal, she left the ATF last spring, after 21 years, and joined Everytown, the gun-safety group founded by Michael Bloomberg.
“Just because no one is watching the trafficking pipelines right now doesn’t mean guns aren’t flowing through it. It just means they’re not being intercepted,” she told me.
“And as you walk away from that, and you don’t have your focus on that anymore,” she added, “that pipeline is going to be flowing, and we are going to start to see the violent crime impact from that over time.”
Estimates put the number of guns in the United States at close to 400 million, but the odds that any of them will be put to ill use rise exponentially if they are obtained illegally. Of the 2.3 million firearms traced from crime scenes between 2017 and 2023, half were bought less than three years earlier and 87% were recovered in possession of someone other than the original, legally authorized buyer. Over that period, stores sold almost 1.3 million guns to traffickers that were subsequently recovered in a crime, according to an Everytown analysis of ATF statistics.
This is why the laws governing gun sales carry such high stakes for public safety. But enforcement of these laws has long occupied an unusual no-man’s-land in this country, scrambling the standard political lines around criminal justice. Conservatives favoring tough-on-crime rhetoric are frequently torn when it comes to firearms trafficking: On the one hand, traffickers are helping fuel the violent crime that conservatives decry; on the other, prosecution of gun laws brushes against tenets that conservatives hold sacrosanct. It is liberals who are more likely to push for tougher enforcement, though they can be conflicted, too, as their belief in stricter gun laws runs up against a general preference for a less punitive approach to lawbreaking.
Marooned in this no-man’s-land for decades now has been the agency assigned the task of enforcing federal gun laws, the ATF. Going back to an episode at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, where an ATF investigation of illegal gun dealing led to federal agents killing the wife and son of a white separatist, the ATF has been viewed with scorn by people who otherwise might side with armed government authorities. “ATF IS GAY” read the T-shirt worn by one attendee of a big gun show I attended earlier this year in Manassas, Virginia.
The agency’s radioactivity with the gun-rights lobby has left it on shaky political ground. It went seven years without a Senate-confirmed director. Its budget has not enjoyed the same expansion as that of other federal law enforcement agencies. And stringent laws constrain any ATF capabilities viewed as potentially threatening the rights of gun owners. To comply with a 1986 law preventing the creation of a federal gun registry, for example, the ATF uses software with some features disabled. Steve Dettelbach, who served as director under Biden, joked in a 2024 congressional hearing that the ATF might be “the only customer of Adobe Acrobat that pays money to remove search function.”
Despite these constraints, the ATF has developed its investigative capability. In the 1990s, the agency started sharing with local law enforcement agencies its National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, which collects the unique marks on bullet casings found at shooting scenes. The system has become much more potent as it became easier to share large numbers of images from crime scenes rapidly and compare them against the NIBIN database. The work was boosted further by the creation, starting in 2016, of 25 crime gun intelligence centers to process the data.
Given that a tiny share of the nation’s guns are used in shootings, with many of those used multiple times, the leads produced by the technology can have an outsized impact, said Daryl McCormick, who retired last year as special agent in charge of Ohio and southern Indiana. “It’s crazy how it might spiderweb out,” he told me, “because you have a gun that’s used in three shootings, but in one of those three shootings, there’s a guy that’s linked to three more shootings.”
Starting in the spring of 2020, that technology was put to the test. As homicides rose sharply, so did sales at dealerships. By one estimate, there were 3 million more guns sold between that March and July than would have been expected. Many soon turned up in shootings; the number of guns recovered at crime scenes that had been bought from a dealership less than a year earlier, an especially strong indicator of firearms trafficking, jumped by nearly a third from 2019 to 2021.
Meanwhile, many shootings involved ghost guns assembled from kits, which had begun proliferating a few years prior. Amid other factors driving the killing, the sheer plenitude of weaponry on the streets was pivotal, said Daniel Webster, a gun-violence researcher at Johns Hopkins University. “We know,” he told me, “that a small number of dealers can create a substantial amount of harm, and traffickers as well.”
In the spring of 2021, a 25-year-old man was summoned to help a friend in a confrontation at a low-income housing development in Middletown, Connecticut. It was a petty beef arising from disrespectful comments made to someone’s girlfriend, but Tylon Hardy responded anyway. “He was one of the guys who wanted to protect his community,” his sister, Tianna Hardy, told me later. “He showed up to protect his friend.” After he arrived, Tylon was fatally shot in the back.
A photo of Tylon Hardy in his sister’s house. He was fatally shot in Middletown, Connecticut.Jarod Lew for ProPublica
Guns are tightly regulated in Connecticut, where buyers must first obtain a permit. But this gun had not been sold by a Connecticut store. It had been purchased six days earlier at Smokin’ Barrel Guns and Ammo in Raleigh, North Carolina, more than 600 miles away.
It was a particularly rapid movement up the Iron Pipeline, the name for the trafficking channel from southern states with lax gun laws to northern states with stricter ones. And it turned into a clear example of why trafficking enforcement matters. Investigators obtained camera footage from the shop showing a young man emerging after buying the gun, a Taurus 9 mm pistol, to make a call on his cellphone.
The following spring, the Biden-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Michael Easley Jr., produced indictments in the case that started with the camera: Four people were charged with having engaged in a conspiracy to traffic dozens of guns from shops in eastern and central North Carolina. All told, the ringleader had bought more than 100 guns from straw purchasers in North Carolina; 10 of the guns surfaced at crime scenes in Connecticut and New Jersey. The ringleader ended up pleading guilty and being sentenced to more than 10 years in prison; the other three received sentences ranging from 18 months to five years.
Tianna Hardy’s brother, Tylon, was shot with a trafficked gun from North Carolina.Jarod Lew for ProPublica
Easley kept pursuing trafficking cases, poring over spreadsheets full of NIBIN data showing information for every gun traced from shootings in his district. His office would zero in on guns with a short “time to crime” from the initial sale and see if investigators could build leads from purchase records. His team made its interest in trafficking plain to the local ATF division, motivating agents to build cases. “Prosecutors have the ability to send a demand signal to the marketplace of agents, that we have an interest in these and if you bring us the cases, we will push them over the end zone and get convictions,” he told me.
Prosecutors kept getting more encouragement from Washington. In April 2022, the ATF issued a rule decreeing that ghost guns had to conform to the same regulations as regular firearms, including carrying serial numbers and requiring background checks.
Two months later, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which got crucial Republican backing from North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. In addition to the new trafficking conspiracy charge, the law included a new straw-purchasing charge, expanded background checks for buyers under 21 and funding for states with red-flag laws permitting gun confiscations from those judged dangerous. And a month after that, the Senate confirmed Dettelbach, giving the ATF its first confirmed director since 2015, one who had prosecuted gun crimes as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
Across the country, federal prosecutors took on trafficking cases with gusto. Over the remainder of Biden’s term, they charged more than 500 defendants using the new trafficking statutes; others brought cases using laws already on the books.
In Ohio, McCormick and his ATF colleagues took on a sprawling case that started with a shooting with a machine gun in Avondale, outside Cincinnati, and led to a six-year prison sentence for a 24-year-old man who had made and sold over 80 machine-gun conversion devices; two other men who trafficked the devices to Cincinnati gangs were sentenced to nine and 11 years. As in North Carolina, the Ohio agents were getting encouragement from prosecutors, including Kenneth Parker, the then-U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. “I made it clear, through my edicts, my announcements to them that we wanted those cases involving violence, that they know how seriously we were taking them,” he told me.
In February, I drove to Raleigh to meet with Easley and visit Smokin’ Barrel — or what used to be Smokin’ Barrel. The shop closed after the ATF revoked its license in early 2023, not for having sold the gun in the Connecticut case, but for an earlier incident, in which the owner sold a gun to an 18-year-old woman, in violation of North Carolina’s 21-year age minimum for buying a handgun. The shop, a small outbuilding adjacent to a used car lot, now sat empty; its fading sign still stood roadside.
Not far away, I found the former owner, Richard Humphries, at his home. He told me how upset he still was over the revocation, especially since, he said, he had self-reported the improper sale.
When I asked him about the Taurus that ended up being used six days later in the Connecticut killing, he initially had trouble recalling it, confusing it with another case in which a man had used a gun bought at the store to kill his wife. What was it like to learn about shootings with the guns he sold? “I hate it,” he said. “I hate that I sold it and he might have used it, but there’s nothing I can, you know …” He trailed off.
I pointed out that in the Connecticut case, investigators had been able to uncover the trafficking ring after tracing the gun to his shop. Was that a good use of resources? “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, they need to be able to do that. But they just, you know, they need to pay more attention to the crooks than people trying to make an honest living.”
I heard similar complaints from other dealers who had their licenses revoked during Biden’s term for transgressions they insisted were mere clerical mistakes. One in Indiana told me that his violations included a mix-up involving an Amish customer’s name; one in South Carolina told me his violations included filling out forms on behalf of elderly customers with shaky handwriting. “If it had been six months earlier, they would have given us a slap on the hand,” he said.
Even some within the ATF had misgivings, worrying that the policy would strain the agency’s relations with law-abiding dealers and make them less likely to offer alerts on suspicious behavior by buyers. “The industry is probably one of the best ways we get information about trafficking,” McCormick, the retired Ohio agent, told me. “But if there’s friction between us and the industry, they’re less likely to report it.”
Gun-safety advocates discounted that risk, saying the policy had both shut down many lawless stores and encouraged countless other sellers to make sure they were complying with the law. “It’s not only targeting bad dealers but sending a message to the entire industry: button up,” Josh Scharff, general counsel of Brady United, told me.
In 2024, revocations rose yet further, to 183. This represented a mere sliver of dealers — only 2% of those inspected that year — but it provoked new ire, not only from traditional lobby groups such as the National Shooting Sports Foundation and National Rifle Association but from ascendant groups of gun owners with even more aggressively anti-regulation stances.
Some dealers challenged their revocations in federal court. In 2023, the ATF revoked the license of a shop in the Phoenix suburbs, Chambered Group, after four inspections in five years turned up a host of violations. The business sought unsuccessfully to block the revocation in court, with a federal judge, Steven Logan, finding that the business had “purposefully disregarded [federal] regulations by repeatedly violating the same regulations despite being given multiple opportunities to cure its mistakes.” In 2024, one of the shop’s co-owners tried to get a new license under a slightly different name, Chambered Custom Firearms, and the ATF blocked him, noting his past role with the revoked store. (A lawyer for the shop declined to comment.)
But after Trump returned to the White House, his administration announced an end to the zero-tolerance policy, urged revoked dealers to reapply and started settling the court cases, one after another. In April 2025, the DOJ informed the court that it had started settlement talks in the Arizona case and a month later alerted it that Chambered Custom had submitted a new application “which ATF will expeditiously process.” It issued the license in July.
In Oregon, a dealer had gone to federal court to challenge the ATF’s 2024 denial of his license renewal for South Valley Firearms in the town of Monroe due to his past conviction for domestic violence. Trump’s DOJ initially contested the dealer’s bid, but early this year, the department notified his attorney out of the blue that his client would be getting his license, after all. “They didn’t give any explanation as to why,” said the lawyer, Leonard Williamson. “They just said, ‘Have him resubmit his application and we’ll give it to him.’”
The end of zero-tolerance was, on its own, hardly a surprise for an administration elected with the strong support of gun-rights and gun-industry groups. What has differed from the first Trump term has been the wholesale shift of resources away from the enforcement of gun trafficking laws and toward the immigration crackdown, both at the ATF and DOJ.
Last spring, the administration began shifting large numbers of ATF agents to a new assignment: assisting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions against undocumented immigrants. ICE records obtained by the libertarian Cato Institute in September showed that nearly 1,800 of ATF’s roughly 2,500 agents had taken part in enforcement and removal operations.
While ATF agents were shifted to immigration operations, criminal referrals fell. ATF referrals for common trafficking-related charges, including the two added in the 2022 law, decreased 15% in 2025 from 2024, according to a ProPublica analysis. Asked about the drop, ATF spokesperson Tanya Roman pointed at DOJ prosecutors. “Not every ATF referral is accepted by the [United States Attorney’s Office] for prosecution,” she said in a written response to questions.
Eventually, the shift toward immigration enforcement reached even beyond ATF’s agents to the industry operations investigators who inspect dealers. Terrence Robinson had served in that role for six years, based in Baltimore. He took pride in the work, but soon after Trump’s second term began, Robinson realized it would be a turbulent year for his agency. As part of the push by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to shrink the government, the ATF offered early retirement to many of its 800-odd inspectors. In the end, some 125 took the offer, threatening to overburden a corps already struggling to inspect even a sliver of the nation’s 130,000 licensed firearms dealers. “ATF does not comment on personnel matters,” Roman said.
Around the same time, Robinson went to inspect the location of an applicant for a dealership license in Baltimore. The city, long wracked by gun violence, has come to have virtually no licensed dealers within its boundaries; those that remain are mostly in the suburbs. Robinson was startled to discover that this applicant intended to sell guns from his apartment in a building downtown, a few blocks from Camden Yards. Robinson voiced his concerns to his supervisor, who told him that he had to approve it. “According to our rules and regulations now, he passed a criminal background check, and he’s a citizen, so …,” Robinson said. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Most upsetting, though, was the directive that he and other industry operations investigators received in late summer to start spending at least six hours per week on immigration-related work. It was hard to understand what this even meant — their job was to inspect firearms dealers. To comply, he began scouring dealers’ sales records looking for buyers with foreign-sounding names, which were then relayed to the Department of Homeland Security. This struck him as a monumental misuse of resources.
This was what pushed him over the edge and made him decide to take early retirement, too, in September. “I didn’t sign up to be an immigration person,” he said. “I’m just not that.”
Asked about such orders, the ATF’s Roman said: “In support of President Trump’s whole of government approach to combat illegal immigration, ATF is assisting the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement partners with their immigration enforcement efforts. To ensure operational security and the safety of our agents and partners, ATF does not disclose details or specific numbers of personnel deployments or enforcement activities.”
Now that Robinson was gone, his former team was down from 10 to six, with a temporary supervisor. He worried what the changes at ATF meant for public safety. “I’m not saying I can see the future, but I don’t see things getting better,” he said. “I see things getting worse.”
Terrence Robinson served as an inspector at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for six years in Baltimore. The directive that he and other industry operations investigators received in late summer was to start spending at least six hours per week on immigration-related work. This was what pushed him over the edge and made him decide to take early retirement. “I didn’t sign up to be an immigration person,” he said. “I’m just not that.”KT Kanazawich for ProPublica
“Everyone’s been in a little bit of shock about what’s going on,” Marianna Mitchem said last December, speaking from the stage of a conference on gun violence at the Center for American Progress, the center-left think tank in Washington. She described what the ATF had accomplished in recent years, then she laid bare the extent of the pullback now underway.
Mitchem told the advocates that they would have to look to officials in their home states and cities to try to fill the void left by the Trump administration. “It’s up to the states to start tackling this trafficking problem, because unfortunately, you’re not going to have the support of the ATF,” she said.
This has already started happening in a few places. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, a city that suffered one of the worst pandemic-era homicide spikes but has since experienced dramatic improvement, county sheriffs have started doing more inspections of dealers to make up for the decline in ATF enforcement. A member of the conference audience asked Mitchem what else states could be doing to respond. Her answer suggested she wasn’t sure.
“ATF wasn’t always the most widely known agency. I think we sort of liked it that way. We did really, really good work and kept our head down,” she said. “And so now, you’re trying to let everybody know, unfortunately, there are still good people there, but they’ve been redirected.”
In February, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, Robert Cekada, downplayed that redirection at his confirmation hearing. Cekada is a 20-year ATF veteran, a fact in which gun-safety advocates have tried to take some reassurance. Cekada testified that the agency was continuing to “do dealer inspections uninhibited.”
But ATF has made it much harder for researchers and the public to track that work. It took the administration more than 15 months to release a tally of how many dealer licenses it had revoked: 56 in 2025, down 69% from the year before. Cekada also challenged a report last fall that 80% of the ATF’s agents had been reassigned to immigration enforcement. The reassignment had never amounted to more than 100 agents at a given time, Cekada said. “ATF in those operations has been focused on offenders that were illegally armed with firearms,” he told senators.
But as the former federal prosecutors and ATF agents I spoke with noted, the key question when it comes to the fight against trafficking is whether prosecutors are seeking out cases. After all, the ATF investigates cases, but U.S. attorneys prosecute them. And here the evidence suggests a pullback. A ProPublica analysis shows that in the first year of the Trump administration, the DOJ declined 30% more referrals from the ATF for the main trafficking-related charges than it had the year prior.
Despite the high rate of declinations for ATF referrals, the DOJ last year ended up prosecuting nearly as many gun-trafficking cases from all sources as it had in 2024. But a growing share of the cases, roughly 30%, were under the new trafficking conspiracy charges included in the 2022 law, which since its inception has proven especially useful in cases involving gun trafficking across the Mexican border: About a fifth of all people charged under that law over the course of 2024 and 2025 are in a single district, western Texas. Asked about the rise in declinations of ATF referrals and the shift toward border-related cases, DOJ spokesperson Katie Kenlein said, “The department declines to comment on prosecutorial strategy.”
Webster, the Johns Hopkins researcher, said numbers leave little doubt as to the shift away from general anti-trafficking enforcement. “Everything is diverted,” he said. “It’s all about immigrants.”
On April 29, right after being confirmed as ATF director, Cekada announced 34 proposed rule changes, including requiring dealers to hold records for only 20 or 30 years, not indefinitely, and limiting ATF scrutiny of the state-issued permits that can replace background checks for buyers. “We are proposing to remove unnecessary hurdles that were standing in the way of law-abiding citizens and businesses,” he said, flanked by leaders of the NRA and National Shooting Sports Foundation.
One crucial Biden-era reform has persisted: the clampdown on ghost guns. The 2022 ATF regulation survived a Supreme Court challenge last year, and lawsuits by several cities helped drive the leading producer of ghost guns out of business. Webster and other criminologists note that the reduced flow of ghost guns correlates with a sharply lower rate of shootings by teenagers, who had been heavy users of the guns during the 2020-21 homicide surge.
Even that progress seemed as if it might be at risk. In early April, a joint status report issued to the federal court in Texas where the case originated stated that “ATF has advised that it plans to take agency action to amend the challenged rule” (even though the rule has been upheld by the Supreme Court). A day later, the White House’s 2027 budget called for reversing “the imposition of excessive restrictions on homemade firearms.” But five days after that, the DOJ notified the court in the Texas case that “the government has decided to maintain the definition” that underlies the ghost gun rule. Asked for clarification, the ATF’s Roman said last week: “ATF is still conducting legal reviews for other, more technically challenging rules. If changes are needed following the review, a proposal will be published.” For now, one key valve in the pipeline remains closed.
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Plus de 200 personnes seraient décédées des suites d’Ebola en République démocratique du Congo et en Ouganda. Les médias indépendants internationaux parlent d’« une des épidémies les plus importantes de l’histoire récente », empirée par les décisions des États-Unis de Donald Trump.
Alors que le nombre de victimes du virus Ebola ne cesse d’augmenter, le conflit en cours dans l’est du pays ne fait qu’aggraver la situation. Manque de personnels soignants, déplacements des équipes médicales entravés, camps de déplacés… La situation pourrait devenir incontrôlable si les belligérants ne s’entendaient pas pour mettre en place les mesures nécessaires.
En parallèle, Moscou est accusée par l’Ukraine de s’être attaquée à un cargo truc, tandis que trois autres bateaux ont aussi été touchés sans que l’opération ne soit revendiquée.
C’est dans le massif des Alpes que la hausse des températures est aujourd’hui parmi les plus visibles en Europe. À 10h du matin aujourd’hui, jeudi 28 mai, le thermomètre a atteint les 10°C sur la pointe Helbronner, un sommet du massif du Mont-Blanc parmi les plus élevés du continent, à 3 466 mètres d’altitude.
Le gouvernement néerlandais vient de bloquer le rachat de la société numérique Solvinity par l’acteur états-unien Kyndryl. En cause : des préoccupations en matière de souveraineté.
underneath the rhetoric of efficiency, modernisation, and citizen empowerment lies a more troubling reality. It is not a mere technical upgrade of public services, but a political choice, long in the making, to forego care and rights of individuals in favour of normalising surveillance, control and exclusion of the most marginalised.
Commercial spyware in Europe has recently made headlines with the now notorious names of Pegasus and Graphite, the expensive, exploitation-driven products at the top end of the market. Much less known is the wide underworld ecosystem of low-cost spyware vendors, often targeting citizens via their smartphones. EDRi member Osservatorio Nessuno has investigated and analysed two separate products, Spyrtacus and Morpheus.
La seconde édition du « Remigration Summit », un évènement identitaire organisé par d’ex-néonazis, a lieu ce 30 mai à Porto. De nombreux partis politiques européens y prônent la déportation des immigrés dans leur pays d’origine.
Britain has created a new breed of political prisoners through the systematic incarceration of people acting to prevent climate breakdown and the annihilation of Gaza
L’enlèvement de Nicolás Maduro et de son épouse Cilia Flores par les forces spéciales américaines a marqué le début d’une nouvelle ère au Venezuela : celle d’un protectorat de facto dans lequel Washington gère le pétrole, les finances et le commerce extérieur.
Creating perfect randomness is surprisingly difficult. Even modern random number generators never generate completely ideal random numbers : small systematic errors can result in some numbers appearing slightly more frequently than others. For many applications, this does not matter. In cryptography, however, even the tiniest deviations can be problematic.
La NASA a dévoilé mardi un plan d’investissement massif pour établir, à moyen terme, une base habitable sur la Lune prévue pour les années 2030. L’agence spatiale a fait appel aux géants de la tech que sont Space X et Blue Origin appartenant respectivement aux milliardaires Elon Musk et Jeff Bezos pour mettre en œuvre cette opération gigantesque.
En quelques années, les entreprises qui ambitionnent de faire décoller les usines dans l’espace se sont multipliées. En promettant de révolutionner la production de médicaments et de dépolluer l’industrie, elles attirent les financements privés comme publics. Pourtant, l’intérêt de ces projets ne fait pas l’unanimité.
Millions of AI agents and tools around the world have been imperiled by a critical vulnerability that can allow hackers to breach the servers running them and make off with sensitive data and credentials to third-party accounts […]The vulnerability is present in Starlette, an open source framework that its developer says receives 325 million downloads per week.
Instead of links, Google is looking to push users down an AI chatbot rabbit hole. That’s despite the tech’s glaring shortcomings, which the company has yet to meaningfully address, with the company’s flagship AI Overview feature still suffering from a staggering number of hallucinations. Even something as simple as googling the word “disregard” sent the feature into a spiral, forcing the company to jump in after a wave of mockery.
It’s no secret there’s a war going on inside the open source community, with people adopting “AI” on one side, and those that want nothing to do with it on the other. While the former are, by nature, using destructive tactics like mass website scraping, license washing, taking people’s creative works without permission, taking all the RAM and GPUs, and oh, destroying the planet, the latter have mostly stuck to fairly benign things like policies banning “AI” use, “AI” bot blockers, and the occasional honey pot mazes to trap “AI” crawlers. No more. Things are escalating
“CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis because they’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with AI”[…]these top-level executives aren’t the people who have to review code, discover bugs, and identify calls to hallucinated libraries before software is deployed.
Artificial intelligence (AI) companies influence policy and regulation using similar techniques to Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and Big Oil, according to a new study.
The earliest arrests under the Take It Down Act (TIDA) suggest that cops don’t have to work too hard to identify people illegally posting and selling nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes of women online.
Le pape va jusqu’à dénoncer « les nouvelles formes d’esclavage », nées des besoins d’extraction de ressources nécessaires à l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle (IA), comme les microprocesseurs.
With the co-founder of Anthropic at his side today in Rome, Pope Leo XIV released a major new encyclical—his first—called “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”). It calls for AI to be “disarmed” in service of the common good.
Les États-Unis ont réinstauré les sanctions prises à l’encontre de Francesca Albanese, une experte de l’ONU spécialiste des territoires palestiniens ayant vivement critiqué Israël, seulement quelques jours après leur levée.
The seizure order, near Jenin refugee camp, is the latest move aimed at expanding military and settler presence in the north of the occupied territory.
A woman whose husband drugged, raped and filmed himself abusing her for years is speaking out about her experience in a bid to help other victims of similar crimes.
Chaque année, le 22 mai en Martinique et le 27 mai en Guadeloupe, les Antillais·es commémorent l’abolition de l’esclavage dans leurs territoires. Distinctes du 10 mai retenu par l’État français, ces dates hautement symboliques pour les communautés antillaises rappellent la résistance des personnes mises en esclavage.
L’Assemblée nationale abroge définitivement le Code noirLes député·es ont voté à l’unanimité ce jeudi 28 mai pour l’abrogation du Code noir et l’ensemble des textes ayant réglementé l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises aux XVIIᵉ et XVIIIᵉ siècles. Bien que sans effet juridique depuis longtemps, ces textes n’avaient jamais formellement été abrogés après l’abolition définitive de l’esclavage en 1848.
Patrick Balkany, âgé de 77 ans, a été condamné à 15 mois de prison ferme et à trois ans ferme, mais sans mandat de dépôt. Il n’ira donc pas immédiatement derrière les barreaux.
C’est le maire de la capitale, Emmanuel Grégoire, qui a pris cette décision, en lien avec le président de la République, Emmanuel Macron. […] « J’ai souhaité que l’édition 2026 ait lieu le lundi 13 juillet, afin de permettre le respect nécessaire pour le temps national de commémoration des dix ans de l’attentat de Nice »
De nouveaux travaux affinent le profil des personnes qui ne demandent pas le RSA alors qu’elles y ont droit. Et montrent l’impact qu’aurait le recours à la prestation sociale sur le taux de pauvreté.
Saisie par Google et RTE, la Commission nationale du débat public (CNDP) va organiser une concertation autour du projet de datacenter géant de la multinationale américaine à Ozans, près de Châteauroux – et ce bien qu’officiellement, Google n’ait toujours pas pris sa décision.
La France avait trois ans pour transposer la directive européenne sur la transparence salariale, favorable à l’égalité professionnelle. Le gouvernement repousse désormais ses obligations, invoquant une mésentente entre partenaires sociaux.Qui aurait pu prédire ?
une masseuse bénévole du Paléo avait dénoncé le « comportement inadmissible » du chanteur en 2019. L’affaire s’était conclue par « un accord entre les parties incluant une clause de confidentialité ».
Des militantes du collectif Nous Toutes s’étaient placées dans le public de la pièce « Deuxième partie », dans laquelle joue Patrick Bruel au théâtre Édouard VII.
L’étau se resserre autour du chanteur accusé de nombreuses agressions sexuelles. Une trentaine de femmes ont témoigné contre lui. Rappel des faits alors qu’il vient d’annuler ses dates prévues jusqu’à l’automne.
Considéré comme le dernier grand intellectuel français, Edgar Morin est décédé ce 29 mai […] Philosophe et sociologue, directeur de recherche émérite au CNRS, l’auteur de Le paradigme perdu et d’une soixantaine d’autres ouvrages laisse derrière lui une œuvre transdisciplinaire, abondamment commentée et traduite, au service d’une pensée toujours libre et critique de son temps.
« Le Monde » a révélé la présence de la ministre à un déjeuner visant à structurer un think thank, fondé par Bolloré, pour promouvoir ses idées conservatrices en vue de 2027.
Le pilier de la presse régionale va mal, et sa direction engage un énième plan d’économie. Suggestion proposée par le syndicat SNJ : arrêter de « trouver des excuses » et sortir des informations.
Kévin Floury a pris la parole lors de la matinale de la chaîne d’info en continu pour défendre les cartes météo jugées trop « rouges » par les climatosceptiques.
Spécial emmerdeurs irresponsables gérant comme des pieds (et à la néolibérale)
Tout le week-end, des internautes se sont étonnés d’être abonnés au compte « Attal président » sans jamais l’avoir demandé […] le compte dispose déjà de 35 000 abonnés sur Instagram et de plus de 50 000 sur X […] Sans rien dire à personne, Gabriel Attal a mis la main sur les comptes de soutien du candidat… Emmanuel Macron en 2022 »
Deux sénateurs de droite dressent un bilan critique de la libéralisation du rail : coûteuse pour les finances publiques, elle fait courir le risque d’une « balkanisation » du réseau et de l’abandon des petites dessertes.
Véritable atteinte démocratique, les préfets pourront permettre aux agriculteurs de continuer à pomper l’eau pendant deux ans, même lorsqu’une mégabassine aura été rendue illégale par la justice !
La vidéosurveillance algorithmique se déploie en France non seulement dans l’espace public, avec la loi JO, mais aussi dans les commerces, sans le cadre juridique nécessaire. Des startups comme Veesion ont lancé une campagne de lobbying de longue haleine pour obtenir la légalisation de ces pratiques, avec le soutien des géants de la distribution et de députés.
« Il est apparu clairement que nous n’étions plus alignés sur des questions essentielles de valeurs et de conception du rôle d’une organisation comme le WWF dans la société contemporaine […] Ce désaccord est devenu explicite après ma participation, à titre strictement personnel, à un rassemblement transpartisan contre le racisme à Saint-Denis »
De la mise en examen de Sophie Binet après ses prises de position sur les Pfas aux attaques des municipalités du RN contre les syndicats, une même logique est à l’œuvre : affaiblir la démocratie sociale.
À Grenoble, les tensions au sein de l’inspection du travail se sont accentuées à l’approche du 1er mai. Selon les syndicats, des courriers destinés à rappeler aux employeurs la réglementation applicable ce jour-là ont d’abord été bloqués par la direction.
Menacées d’expulsion dans plusieurs villes de droite et RN, comme à Carcassonne, les Bourses du travail sont des lieux essentiels pour l’accès aux droits des salariés et pour leur organisation collective.
Dans les communes dirigées par le Rassemblement national, les attaques contre les syndicats se multiplient. L’extrême droite veut affaiblir les contre-pouvoirs du monde du travail et imposer un ordre réactionnaire au service des politiques antisociales et racistes.
C’est un élément majeur qu’ont identifié Mediapart et Libération. Au bout de plusieurs mois d’analyses de plus de 150 heures d’images produites par les gendarmes et des journalistes, les deux médias ont révélé le 26 mai précisément l’origine du tir de grenade qui a grièvement blessé Serge Duteuil-Graziani le 25 mars 2023 lors de la mobilisation à Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres).
Les militaires n’ont été sanctionnés que pour « propos inadaptés ». Pour ce qui est des tirs tendus filmés sur place, le ministère de l’Intérieur s’en remet à la justice.
À l’appel de la CGT Spectacle, acteurs du monde de la culture, syndicats et partis politiques de gauche se sont rassemblés devant la salle de spectacle détenue par le milliardaire d’extrême droite ce samedi 30 mai, pour appeler à lutter contre la bataille culturelle menée par Bolloré.
L’interprète de « Djadja » a répondu à sa manière aux militants identitaires du groupe Les Natifs, condamnés pour avoir déployé une pancarte raciste à son encontre
Pour les membres du « collectif Némésis », trouver un café ou un estaminet accueillant est devenu un chemin de croix. Contraintes de venir dans la capitale comtoise à cause d’un énième calendrier judiciaire, les militantes d’extrême droite pourront désormais ajouter un nouveau lieu où elles sont « persona non grata ».
Des enseignants-chercheurs et des étudiants multiplient les mobilisations contre les frais différenciés imposés aux étudiants étrangers hors UE. Le gouvernement fait pression pour généraliser, par décret, cette mesure.
La Cour d’appel de Grenoble a rendu, ce 27 mai 2026, un arrêt confirmant la responsabilité d’EDF et de Cédrick Hausseguy dans les fuites de tritium survenues en novembre 2021 à la centrale nucléaire de Tricastin (Drôme). Cette décision fait suite à une procédure engagée par le Réseau “Sortir du nucléaire” (RSDN) dès octobre 2022, après la découverte d’une contamination des eaux souterraines par 900 litres d’effluents radioactifs.
Dix ans après la loi pénalisant les clients, la sénatrice écolo Anne Souyris propose de décriminaliser le travail du sexe. Un texte co-écrit avec les concernées, qui pourrait bousculer un Parlement tenté par de nouvelles lois coercitives.
Du 30 mai au 13 juin, le mouvement des free parties organise des « manifestives » aux quatre coins du pays pour s’opposer à deux textes législatifs en cours de discussion, et jugés extrêmement répressifs.
Basta ! prépare un nouvel outil de visualisation de sa base de données sur les interventions policières létales. Une manière de faire entrer durablement dans le débat public le sujet des violences policières, lorsque celles-ci sont illégitimes.
À l’heure où les médias télévisés ne relatent que des discours et des opinions, nous voulions remettre les faits au centre des décisions de chacun-e et montrer à toutes et tous que le RN n’agit pas dans votre intérêt. Le RN vote contre notre santé, contre les femmes, contre les personnes précaires, contre les personnes non blanches, contre les travailleurs et travailleuses, contre les demandeurs et demandeuses d’emploi, contre les personnes LGBT+, contre les malades, contre les agriculteurs et agricultrices, contre le vivant, contre l’écologie et contre la démocratie.
Un programmeur américain a créé un système qui analyse l’activité des avions privés et attribue un « niveau d’urgence » global. Une œuvre à mi-chemin entre art, satire politique et surveillance technologique.
En conditions normales, le système de navigation européen Galileo offre des performances deux à trois fois supérieures au GPS américain. Imaginez qu’avec son service haute précision, il peut descendre sous les 25 centimètres. Le tout gratuit et ouvert à tous. Pourtant sur votre téléphone, vos données de déplacement transitent par les serveurs de Google ou d’Apple. Et l’IGN, que l’État français finance à hauteur d’une centaine de millions d’euros par an, reste absent de la majorité des services numériques publics.
After a security researcher published a series of unpatched bugs in Microsoft products, along with code to exploit them, the company is now threatening to take legal action and call the cops on them. Microsoft’s veiled threat reignites a long-running argument over what responsibility, if any, security researchers have to disclose vulnerabilities affecting large and wealthy tech giants.
The bugs, broken apps, and nightmare customer-service bots we can’t escape, presented as a blessed and sacred addendum to Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on AI
Comment les discours de l’extrême droite sur la protection des femmes réactivent-ils des imaginaires coloniaux hérités de la campagne raciste allemande de la « Honte noire » ?
Une étude alerte sur une explosion des épisodes de grêle extrême d’ici 2100. Aux États-Unis comme en Europe, le réchauffement climatique pourrait favoriser des tempêtes capables de produire des grêlons records, et des dégâts considérables.
Le marais de Taligny, en Indre-et-Loire, absorbe les nitrates, freine les crues, soutient les nappes phréatiques et stocke le carbone. Ces fonctions, longtemps ignorées, ont justifié une restauration complète engagée depuis les années 2000. Une réserve naturelle régionale qui rend, silencieusement, des services que l’agriculture industrielle et l’urbanisme continuent de détruire ailleurs.
des chercheurs lillois travaillent actuellement sur un stérilet masculin implantable et réversible. Une innovation qui pourrait complètement changer la contraception dans les prochaines années.
Retrouvez les revues de web précédentes dans la catégorie Libre Veille du Framablog.
Les articles, commentaires et autres images qui composent ces « Khrys’presso » n’engagent que moi (Khrys).
I’m developing an application that interfaces with Mobilizon, in the same way as the various importers, and I’d like to know whether it is possible — rather, safe — to test this kind of application during development on production Mobilizon instances such as https://keskonfai.fr. I should clarify that the application I’m developing is intended to be read-only, with no write operations.
Merci pour votre article qui change des postes linkedin de fournisseur de logiciel qui crie comme des putois parce qu’ils ont pas eu leur précieuse commande publique
Inspecting with psql the peertube_prod db instance, I noticed the number of channels (~1300) and videos (~42K) is huge and does not equal to the numbers of local channels (~8) and local videos (~5300).
I guess it’s because of the Federation enabled in the instance (https://video.triplea.fr). Due to administration small time and policy of avoiding to mix curated contents with complotist videos, Federation was disabled. Is is possible and safe to clean manually the un-local channels and videos in the postgresql tables?
Even if the Federation feature is disabled, I had a lot to clean in /admin/overview/comments/list (curiously positive and worthless, seeming like slop). Curious to have local comments to admin for videos that are not.
Hello!
I’ve been using PeerTube for quite a while now and haven’t had any major issues so far.
Now I’m facing a problem that I can’t quite explain myself.
I can’t subscribe to some channels on other instances.
For example, when I search for the following channels on my own instance: heise_ct_videos@ peertube. heise. de hakendran_videos@ peertube. heise. de ct_uplink_videos@ peertube. heise. de ct_3003@peertube. heise. de medienecho@ digitalcourage. video
I can find it and click “Subscribe”.
The website itself tells me that I’ll now be notified when new videos are posted.
Everything seems normal.
But when I reload the PeerTube page, I can click “Subscribe” again.
So it didn’t save the subscription.
When I search the PeerTube log on the server for information, I don’t find anything unusual.
After searching for the channel, the log shows that the current video information is being retrieved.
As soon as I click Subscribe, the log only shows that it appears to have worked so far.
But apparently, it didn’t.
I’ve tried this several times on different days.
I’ve also tried it with the latest versions of PeerTube to rule out a bug in the software.
May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: [``peertube.hoerli.net:443``] 2026-05-30 10:52:35.299 info: Processing ActivityPub follow in job 79. May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: [``peertube.hoerli.net:443``] 2026-05-30 10:52:35.321 info: Creating job to send follow request to heise_ct_videos - Videos von heise online. May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: [``peertube.hoerli.net:443``] 2026-05-30 10:52:35.324 info: Processing ActivityPub unicast in job 9951. May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: [``peertube.hoerli.net:443``] 2026-05-30 10:52:35.417 info: Updating 1 good actor follows and 0 bad actor follows scores in cache. { May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: « badInboxes »: May 30 10:52:35 VM-PeerTube peertube[489]: }
Where could the problem be?
Other channels on other platforms work without any issues.
Salut à tous, je suis un jeune de Madagascar qui veut proposer mes services pour la communauté surtout dans les pays comme le notre, je ne suis pas dans la codage ou design mais j’ai de l’expérience dans la communication et je suis très efficace sur terrain, discuter directement, se déplacer dans des zones difficiles d’accès même sans internet et réseau téléphonique. J’espère que mes compétences sont utiles et merci pour l’accueil
The NixOS project has officially released NixOS 26.05, codenamed “Yarara,” continuing the distribution’s unique approach to Linux system management through declarative configuration, atomic upgrades, and reproducible deployments. The release introduces several important platform-level changes, modernized infrastructure components, and continued refinement of the Nix ecosystem.
As one of the most distinctive Linux distributions available today, NixOS continues attracting developers, DevOps engineers, and advanced Linux users who value predictable system behavior and highly reproducible environments.
What Makes NixOS Different?
Unlike traditional Linux distributions that install packages directly into shared system locations, NixOS is built around the Nix package manager, which stores software in isolated, versioned paths and generates complete system configurations declaratively.
This architecture provides several advantages:
Atomic system upgrades
Reliable rollback capabilities
Reproducible environments
Easier infrastructure automation
Reduced dependency conflicts
These features have helped NixOS gain popularity among developers managing complex systems and cloud infrastructure.
Systemd-Based Initrd Becomes the Default
One of the most significant changes in NixOS 26.05 is the move to a systemd-based Stage 1 initrd by default. The older scripted implementation is now deprecated and scheduled for removal in NixOS 26.11.
The initrd (initial RAM disk) is responsible for preparing the system during early boot before the main operating system loads.
According to the release notes:
Systemd now handles Stage 1 initialization by default
The previous scripted implementation remains temporarily available
Users can still revert using boot.initrd.systemd.enable = false
Long-term migration toward the systemd-based approach is encouraged
This change is expected to improve consistency and simplify maintenance across modern NixOS deployments.
Continuing the Twice-Yearly Release Cycle
NixOS continues its established release cadence of publishing stable versions twice per year—typically around May and November. The 26.05 “Yarara” release follows the previous 25.11 “Xantusia” release and continues the project's steady development rhythm.
The 26.05 development cycle involved extensive staging, package testing, and release management work coordinated through the NixOS community.
Large-Scale Package and Infrastructure Updates
Like previous NixOS releases, 26.05 includes a massive collection of package updates across the software ecosystem.
The GNOME Project has officially opened the development cycle for GNOME 51, the next major release of one of Linux’s most widely used desktop environments. Following the recent launch of GNOME 50 “Tokyo,” developers are already shifting focus toward the next chapter of the desktop’s evolution, which will carry the codename “A Coruña.”
While it’s still very early in the process, the release schedule is now taking shape, giving Linux users and developers an early look at what to expect over the coming months.
GNOME 51 “A Coruña” Is Now in Development
The new release is named A Coruña, after the Spanish city that will host GUADEC 2026, the annual GNOME Users and Developers European Conference. The event serves as one of the most important gatherings for GNOME contributors, where future desktop plans, technologies, and development priorities are discussed.
As soon as GNOME 50 was finalized, development work for GNOME 51 officially began, continuing GNOME’s well-established six-month release cadence.
Release Schedule Already Published
The GNOME team has outlined the preliminary roadmap for the GNOME 51 cycle.
Current milestone dates include:
GNOME 51 Alpha: June 27, 2026
GNOME 51 Beta: August 1, 2026
GNOME 51 Release Candidate (RC): August 29, 2026
GNOME 51 Final Release: September 16, 2026
These milestones provide time for:
Feature integration
Public testing
Bug fixing
Performance optimization
Final stabilization before release
As always, dates may shift slightly depending on development progress.
Still Too Early for Major Feature Announcements
Because the development cycle has only just started, GNOME developers have not yet revealed a finalized feature list. Most major design discussions and merge requests are still in their early stages.
However, several areas are already attracting attention.
Wayland Improvements Are Likely a Major Focus
One of the biggest transitions in recent GNOME history happened with GNOME 50, which completed the project’s move away from X11 by removing remaining X.Org support from the desktop environment.
Because GNOME is now fully committed to Wayland, many observers expect GNOME 51 to focus heavily on:
As part of Dark Reading's 20th anniversary package, we asked readers for a cybersecurity-related caption that captures their thoughts about the industry's last two decades.
Researchers discover an exploit chain combining over-permissioned roles, secrets discovery, and non-human identities that could have compromised a popular automation service.
Your organization's security failures have consequences for everyone else as well since this criminal gang uses its cyber winnings to support more violent and widespread crimes.
Acumen Cyber has announced a strategic partnership with AttackIQ to help organizations continuously validate their cyber defenses against real-world threats and reduce exposure to modern attacks.
The partnership combines Acumen Cyber’s engineering-led security operations expertise with AttackIQ’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) platform. Together, the companies aim to help organizations identify exploitable attack paths, validate security controls, and prioritize remediation efforts based on actual risk rather than theoretical vulnerabilities.
Moving beyond traditional vulnerability management
As cybercriminals increasingly leverage artificial intelligence and automation, organizations are struggling to keep pace with the growing volume of vulnerabilities and security alerts.
According to Acumen Cyber and AttackIQ, traditional approaches centered on vulnerability counts, severity ratings, and periodic assessments are no longer enough. Security teams need continuous visibility into how attackers could move through their environments and whether existing controls are capable of stopping them.
The partnership is designed to help organizations continuously test defensive effectiveness, validate security investments, and focus resources on the attack paths that present the greatest risk.
Carl Wright, Chief Commercial Officer at AttackIQ, said many organizations are overwhelmed by security findings but still lack clarity about where they are truly vulnerable.
“Threat Debt changes the conversation from managing lists of vulnerabilities to understanding and reducing accumulated adversary opportunity,” Wright said.
Continuous validation becomes a priority
As part of the partnership, Acumen Cyber’s engineers will emulate real-world adversary techniques mapped to frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK. This will allow organizations to test whether their preventive and detective controls can successfully stop modern attack methods.
The companies say the approach helps uncover where vulnerabilities, identity exposures, misconfigurations, and control gaps combine to create viable attack paths to critical assets.
Mark Robertson, CEO of Acumen Cyber, said organizations need to focus less on activity metrics and more on measurable security outcomes.
“Most organizations still operate security programs built around activity metrics instead of validated outcomes,” Robertson said. “The reality is that adversaries exploit paths, not isolated findings.”
He added that the partnership will enable customers to continuously identify attacker opportunities and systematically reduce what AttackIQ calls “Threat Debt” before those weaknesses can be exploited.
Measuring exposure through Threat Debt
A key component of the partnership is the AttackIQ Threat Debt Index, which provides organizations with a framework for measuring accumulated adversary opportunity across their environments.
The index is designed to track how attack paths change over time, identify where new exposure has emerged, and show where security controls are successfully reducing risk. This gives organizations a way to measure cyber resilience based on validated outcomes rather than simply reporting on security activities.
As organizations continue to face increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, Acumen Cyber and AttackIQ believe continuous validation and threat-informed defense will play a growing role in helping security teams stay ahead of attackers.
Framadate: Il semblerait qu’un bug existe sur le remplissage des commentaires. Il n’est plus possibles sur un sondage récent d’envoyer de commentaires. J’ai créé un sondage test et je rencontre le même problème. la case existe mais le texte ne part pas et ne s’affiche pas ensuite sous le sondage , que ce soit en lien publique ou lien administrateur
Saviez-vous que vous pouvez utiliser des éléments de la syntaxe Markdown dans différents champs de texte de #PeerTube (dans les descriptions, les commentaires, etc.) ?
Vous pouvez accéder à la syntaxe accessible en cliquant sur le bouton d'aide du champ.
Check Point Software has launched Agentic Exposure Validation (AEV), a new AI-driven capability within its Exposure Management platform that uses autonomous agents to reason like attackers and provide security teams with hard evidence of what is genuinely exploitable in their environment, before adversaries can act on it.
The launch comes as the threat landscape undergoes a fundamental shift. Frontier AI models are now capable of autonomously identifying and weaponising vulnerabilities at machine speed, compressing the mean time from CVE disclosure to confirmed exploitation from 2.3 years in 2018 to roughly 10 hours in 2026. At the same time, 72.7% of exploited CVEs in 2026 are hitting as zero-days, up from just 16.1% eight years ago.
Beyond Severity Scores
Traditional vulnerability management has long relied on static severity scores, leaving security teams to sift through thousands of flagged issues without knowing which represent a real, reachable risk. AEV takes a materially different approach: rather than assigning a score and moving on, it deploys AI agents that work through each potential exposure using logic that mirrors attacker reasoning.
The agents correlate exposure data with asset context, live threat intelligence, existing control coverage, and known exploit research to determine whether a path to compromise actually exists. When a route is blocked by an existing control, AEV pivots to an alternative attack path. If no viable path exists, the threat is discarded. If exploitation is feasible, the system produces direct evidence, giving security teams the confidence to prioritise and act.
Early customer engagements have already shown the capability of generating novel exploits for dozens of vulnerabilities that had no previously published exploit code, illustrating the analytical depth of the agents.
Closing the AI Arms Race Gap
Yochai Corem, General Manager of Exposure Management at Check Point, said the product addresses a problem that has become existential for enterprise security teams: “The era of autonomous, AI-driven exploitation is here. Frontier AI models are attacking critical vulnerabilities at scale, without human steering. Security teams are already inundated and cannot effectively address that emerging threat.”
Corem added that AEV is designed to put defenders on equal footing: “Agentic Exposure Validation is our answer: AI agents that reason like attackers reviewing your organisation’s digital surface from the outside with our unique threat intelligence context, and prove what is actually exploitable, providing security teams the evidence and the remediation to act smartly and effectively before attackers do.”
A Critical Piece of CTEM
Check Point positions AEV as a validation layer within Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) programmes, moving organisations from discovery and prioritisation into evidence-based exposure reduction. The validation step has historically been manual, slow, and resource-intensive. AEV’s safe proving loop, analysing assets and CVEs, enriching findings with live Check Point threat intelligence, verifying whether existing controls already block the path, and building targeted validation without disruptive techniques, is designed to make that step autonomous and continuous.
Agentic Exposure Validation is available now as part of Check Point Exposure Management. Organisations can request a complimentary AEV scan to see what an agentic attacker would uncover on their external attack surface.
In this latest installment of the Reporters' Notebook video series, we discuss how cyber insurance is forcing organizations to quantify risk, what's covered (and what's not), and why this could be the best thing to happen to cybersecurity.
Swiss privacy company Proton has rolled out a significant update to Proton Mail that allows users to connect their Gmail accounts directly to the platform. The feature, announced on 28 May 2026, enables Gmail messages to be imported into Proton Mail and allows users to send and receive emails from their Gmail address, all without toggling between separate inboxes.
The integration is aimed at users looking to transition away from Google’s ecosystem but who face the practical challenge of updating contacts and switching services one by one. Rather than forcing an abrupt departure, Proton is offering a bridge: a managed migration path where Gmail activity is gradually absorbed into Proton Mail.
What the Feature Does, and What It Does Not
When a user activates the Gmail connection via Proton’s Easy Switch tool, their most recent Gmail messages are imported into Proton Mail. Going forward, new emails arriving in Gmail will continue to appear automatically in the Proton inbox. Crucially, Proton says the connection is strictly one-directional in terms of access: connecting Gmail does not grant Google any visibility into the user’s Proton Mail inbox.
From a security standpoint, this is a meaningful distinction. Proton positions the feature as a transitional tool rather than a permanent hybrid solution. The company acknowledges that Google continues to read emails received by a Gmail account, including any sensitive communications. The feature is designed to shrink that exposure over time, not eliminate it overnight.
Privacy Protections Applied to Gmail Traffic
Proton says it applies its standard email protections to Gmail content viewed through the Proton Mail interface. That includes tracker removal, ad stripping, and spam filtering. Unlike Gmail, which the company describes as fundamentally built around advertising, Proton does not scan email content, build advertising profiles, or use user data for AI training purposes.
Proton also highlights an encryption benefit: when both parties in a conversation use Proton Mail, messages exchanged between connected Gmail addresses become end-to-end encrypted, meaning Google cannot read those communications. This incentivises users to encourage their contacts to make the same switch.
A Gradual Exit Strategy from Big Tech
Proton is explicit that the feature is not a long-term solution. The company frames it as part of a broader, gradual transition away from Google, designed to make the process manageable. The recommended approach is for users to update all their important accounts to their Proton address, after which Gmail receives only low-priority mail. Users can then disconnect Gmail entirely from Proton Mail and, if they choose, delete their Google account altogether.
The feature is rolling out gradually, meaning not all users will see it immediately. Setup is straightforward: users open the Easy Switch section in their Proton Mail settings and connect their Gmail account. In addition to Gmail, Proton supports email imports from Outlook, Yahoo, and Apple Mail via the same Easy Switch tool or a standalone import utility.
Wider Context: Google’s Data Practices Under Scrutiny
The launch arrives against a backdrop of sustained criticism of Google’s data harvesting practices. Google uses Gmail activity, including which emails are opened and interacted with, to build user profiles that feed its advertising ecosystem. The company also uses approximate location data derived from email activity to personalise ads. By routing Gmail through Proton’s interface rather than Google’s own apps, users can reduce their exposure to this data collection, even while maintaining their Gmail address.
For IT and security teams advising organisations or individuals on reducing Big Tech data exposure, Proton’s new approach represents a pragmatic middle ground: it acknowledges that cold-turkey Gmail abandonment is impractical for many users and provides a structured, privacy-improving alternative.
Créateur et gestionnaire privilégié de framalistes dans lesquelles j’ai donné des droits de gestionnaires privilégié.es à des membres dirigeants, je désire leur supprimer ces droits car ils ne font plus partie de telle ou telle liste. J’ai beau cocher leurs identités en tant que gestionnaires privilégié.es et cliquer sur la case en haut (dernière colonne), rien ne se passe . Ai-je loupé une étape ou cela est-il tout simplement impossible ?
Qui a déjà été dans ce cas et comment a-t-il été résolu ?
As with most cyber threats, AI has created a fundamental shift in the phishing threat landscape. It has become a precision operation powered by AI systems that research, build, deliver, and adapt campaigns autonomously. AI acts as a force multiplier: it scales targeted techniques that previously required experience and time, while simultaneously lowering the barrier to entry once again. To understand the scope of this shift, consider that AI can now generate a convincing spear-phishing email, without obvious grammatical errors and in many languages, in under 5 minutes. This article maps the technical shifts driving this new era, from vibe-coded criminal infrastructure and AitM authentication attacks to 24/7 autonomous agents and AI-powered interactive scams.
Vibe Coding and Asian PhaaS
“Vibe coding” – the practice of prompting LLMs with natural language to generate functional code without writing a single line manually – has drastically boosted the Phishing-as-a-Service ecosystem. Threat actors now describe desired functionality, like for example “build a reverse proxy that strips CSP headers and logs POST bodies”, and iterate on output until operational. This has turbocharged the PhaaS market, particularly within the Asian threat actor ecosystems where subscription model platforms like Darcula and Lucid have gained a lot of popularity.
Operators use LLMs to rapidly build and test modular kits, credential harvesters, OTP relay panels, and bulletproof hosting deployment scripts, all generated and refined through conversational prompting. Phishing kits can now even automatically check against commercial email security solutions before deployment, and LLMs then iterate the obfuscation layer until the evasion score meets a threshold. All with minimal expertise from buyers.
Of course cyber criminal already had access to rent fully managed campaign infrastructure before, complete with analytics dashboards, victim management, and Telegram bot alerts for real-time credential notifications, the eco system is now just growing even faster.
Modern MFA Defeat Mechanisms
The adaption of Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) has started a slow shift away from simple password stealing phishing websites. Attacker-in-the-Middle frameworks like Evilginx & Co. remain popular to neutralize MFA. They operate as reverse proxies that sit between the victim’s browser and the legitimate service, transparently relaying traffic while intercepting session cookies and JWTs in real time. A more recent escalation is the weaponization of the OAuth2 device authorization grant flow against Microsoft Entra ID and M365 environments – so-called Device Code phishing. In a Device Code attack, the threat actor initiates a legitimate authentication flow, generating a device code, then socially engineers the victim into entering it at microsoft.com. The victim authenticates normally. No malicious link is clicked, no credential is typed into a fake page – the entire interaction happens on legitimate Microsoft infrastructure, rendering URL reputation tools blind. The use of residential proxies and ORB networks makes it hard to reply on IP reputation alone for conditional access policies. The window between token theft and first malicious action has collapsed from hours to seconds – all through automation scripts.
In May 2026, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) reported the first case of a cybercriminal using an AI-generated zero-day in the wild. The exploit was a bypass for a 2FA system used by various companies. This demonstrates that MFA, and even phishing-resistant methods such as passkeys, will face more pressure from AI-powered vulnerability research if their implementation is flawed.
24/7 Agentic Campaign Automation
The operational model has shifted from campaigns run by humans to campaigns run for humans by autonomous agents operating continuously. The reconnaissance phase is now fully automated: agents scrape LinkedIn for organizational hierarchy, cross-reference data broker records, and query breach dumps to build rich target profiles. This context is fed into an LLM that generates unique, persona-aware email lures – a CFO receives a lure referencing her CFO peer by name, a specific pending acquisition, and a plausible internal process. Traditional signature-based Email security gateways see clean, unique text with no pattern to match.
These agents also handle the entire infrastructure lifecycle. Domain registration, DNS configuration, TLS certificate provisioning, and continuous proxy rotation are orchestrated automatically, with domains being spun up and burned on a cycle that outpaces most threat intelligence feeds. Critically, modern agentic systems maintain persistent memory across victim interactions: if an initial lure goes unclicked, the agent notes the failure, adjusts the pretext, and schedules a follow-up via a different vector – SMS, Teams, calendar invite, or LinkedIn message – referencing prior interactions to build false familiarity. The campaign never sleeps, never forgets, and never gets frustrated.
Multi-Channel and Cross-Vector Chains
Email-based phishing is still the most common attack vector, but depending on the target we have seen an increase in multi-vector delivery. Agentic architectures can coordinate attacks across channels within a single campaign. A target profiled via LinkedIn is first primed with a text message to their mobile phone or a vishing call using a cloned voice of their IT helpdesk. That call references a “security incident” and tells the target to expect an email. Alternatively, the attackers execute a subscription bombing attack, flooding the inbox with legitimate newsletters to create an IT incident.
Minutes later, the phishing email arrives – and because the target was primed, it feels more legitimate. The AI orchestrates timing, channel selection, and persona consistency across email, voice, and SMS, creating a social engineering chain that is qualitatively harder to recognize as an attack than any single-vector lure.
Full deepfake multi-persona video calls are still rare, but probably because other methods remain successful. A 10-second voice sample scraped from a public earnings call or conference recording is sufficient to clone a CEO’s voice for a fraudulent wire transfer authorization call. The asymmetry matters: one successful deepfake BEC attack generating a $25M fraudulent transfer more than justifies the investment, which is why the technique’s rarity should not be confused with low risk. From a technology standpoint, attackers have long learned how to create convincing attacks that require video authenticity tools like Pindrop & Co. to detect.
Interactive Scams and Dynamic LLMs
Once a victim engages – replies to an email, fills a form, or initiates a chat – a second AI system activates. Victim replies are routed via API into an LLM configured with a detailed persona and objective. The model reads prior conversation history, parses the victim’s emotional state and objections, and generates contextual, persuasive responses in real time. For advance-fee fraud and romance scam operations, this means a single threat actor can maintain simultaneous “relationships” with hundreds of victims indefinitely, with each conversation feeling personal and continuous.
The financial ROI is striking. What previously required a team of human operators running shifts is replaced by an API call costing fractions of a cent per response. The model never breaks character, never makes timezone errors, and never gets impatient, consistent failure modes that human operators exhibit and that trained victims sometimes catch.
Evasion and Living Off the Land
Defenders have adapted to detect malicious infrastructure – so attackers increasingly operate from trusted infrastructure. Hosting on hyperscalers, hiding behind Cloudflare’s anti-bot Turnstile protection, or even abusing new agentic AI email services. Google Drawings, SharePoint, Canva, and QR codes are abused to host redirect chains that pass URL reputation checks because the initial link is genuinely legitimate. Calendar invite phishing exploits auto-add behavior in Google Calendar to plant lures that arrive outside the classic email flow entirely.
Weaponizing Offensive AI Research and the Defender Gap
With the number of AI systems deployed in production growing, we expect phishing will soon exploit these attack surfaces as well. Prompt injection, context manipulation, and tool-call hijacking can all be used by cybercriminals to achieve their goal of sending emails and having users follow malicious links. For example, a prompt injection targeting enterprise AI assistants via a malicious document or email containing hidden instructions can manipulate a victim’s Copilot or email summarizer into suppressing security warnings, exfiltrating content, or generating deceptive summaries of legitimate alerts.
Defenders are not keeping pace. Most CISOs don’t even know how well their current email security stack blocks modern attacks, and purely hope that user awareness training prevents an impact. That blind spot is growing rapidly.
Attackers now operate at machine speed across identity, email, and endpoint simultaneously – but most SOC detection pipelines still process these as siloed signals. Closing the gap requires deploying AI detection systems with the same cross-channel memory and correlation capabilities that attackers already exploit. The organizations that will survive this shift are those that recognize the threat is no longer a human criminal using AI as a tool – it is an autonomous system running a persistent, adaptive campaign. Against that, purely human-speed defense is no longer enough.
La version 8.2.0 de #PeerTube est désormais disponible ! 🥳
Cette version apporte la possibilité de : ⏯️ mettre en pause et visualiser un direct en différé ; 👥 transférer une chaîne à un·e autre utilisateurice ; ✂️ supprimer des sections de vidéo dans le studio ;
De plus, de nombreuses améliorations ont été apportées à l'expérience utilisateurice.
Immagine in evidenza rielaborata con intelligenza artificiale (ChatGPT)
L’applicazione dell’intelligenza artificiale nella cybersicurezza genera, da sempre, sentimenti contrastanti. Le potenzialità dell’AI rappresentano, da una parte, un’opportunità per migliorare il livello di automazione nelle attività di rilevamento e risposta agli attacchi dei criminali informatici. L’altra faccia della medaglia è rappresentata dalla possibilità che gli stessi cybercriminali ne sfruttino le capacità per aumentare l’efficacia degli attacchi.
È qualcosa che sta già accadendo e che viene messo nero su bianco, per esempio, nel Global Threat Report 2026 di CrowdStrike. Stando ai dati pubblicati dalla società di cybersecurity, gli attacchi portati utilizzando l’AI sarebbero aumentati dell’89% anno su anno.
Ma l’impatto dell’AI non si esaurisce negli attacchi veri e propri. La stessa tecnologia che li accelera sta mettendo sotto pressione, in particolare, l’ecosistema che fino a oggi ha garantito l’attività di identificazione e analisi delle vulnerabilità software. In altre parole, l’AI sta rompendo gli equilibri che per anni hanno permesso di mitigare il rischio di attacchi informatici.
Come funziona la vulnerability discovery
Per comprendere l’impatto dell’AI in questo particolarissimo settore è indispensabile comprenderne i meccanismi. La vulnerability discovery è infatti una macchina complicata, in cui si intrecciano interessi diversi e convivono varie contraddizioni.
Il concetto alla base del sistema è quello di individuare eventuali falle di sicurezza di software e sistemi operativi prima che questi vengano scovati dai cyber criminali. Un’attività che vede impegnate centinaia (migliaia) di aziende e ricercatori indipendenti, spesso all’interno dei cosiddetti programmi di bug bounty, cioè processi controllati attraverso i quali gli sviluppatori ricompensano economicamente chi segnala una nuova vulnerabilità potenzialmente pericolosa, permettendo loro di correggerla attraverso patch di aggiornamento.
L’importanza del fattore tempo emerge proprio nella fase finale del processo di responsible disclosure, quando vengono rilasciati l’aggiornamento e i dettagli della vulnerabilità. È in questo momento che si apre una finestra temporale particolarmente delicata: quella in cui un cybercriminale può sfruttare la vulnerabilità creando un exploit (la tecnica che permette di portare un attacco) in grado di “bucare” i sistemi non aggiornati.
Fino a oggi, il tempo necessario per realizzare il codice che sfrutta una falla di sicurezza per portare un attacco era, nella maggior parte dei casi, di settimane o al massimo di qualche giorno. Un margine sufficiente perché gli aggiornamenti venissero distribuiti. Di conseguenza, il rischio che qualcuno rimanesse “scoperto” era relativamente basso.
A causa degli strumenti basati su intelligenza artificiale generativa, però, le cose sono cambiate. Utilizzando l’AI è possibile realizzare un exploit con una velocità prima impensabile. Secondo i ricercatori di sicurezza Efi Weiss e Nahman Khayet, autori di un progetto dedicato, per creare un exploit con l’AI partendo da una vulnerabilità nota sarebbero sufficienti anche solo 15 minuti.
Un’ondata di segnalazioni
Lo scorso 7 aprile, un comunicato ufficiale di Anthropic ha scosso il settore della cybersecurity. Oggetto dell’annuncio era il nuovo large language model Claude Mythos Preview, che gli sviluppatori dell’azienda californiana hanno sostanzialmente classificato come uno strumento troppo pericoloso per essere distribuito pubblicamente. Il motivo? Il nuovo LLM sarebbe in grado di individuare vulnerabilità all’interno dei software con un’efficacia senza precedenti. Rilasciarlo pubblicamente, di conseguenza, sarebbe troppo rischioso.
L’azienda ha quindi deciso di avviare un progetto, battezzato con il nome di Project Glasswing, che coinvolge un numero limitato di soggetti come Microsoft, Apple, Google, AWS, Cisco, Nvidia e Linux Foundation. Qualche controindicazione, però, è emersa quasi subito. Lo stesso giorno dell’annuncio, il 7 aprile, un gruppo riunito in un forum Discord privato è riuscito ad accedere a Mythos — non con un attacco sofisticato, ma combinando le credenziali del dipendente di un fornitore terzo con un’ipotesi azzeccata sull’URL del modello. La vicenda è emersa pubblicamente circa due settimane dopo, grazie a un’inchiesta di Bloomberg. Considerato che Mythos era stato tratteggiato come una sorta di “arma fine di mondo”, con accesso soggetto a strettissime restrizioni, non si tratta proprio di un esordio rassicurante.
Al netto del sensazionalismo dell’annuncio, che secondo molti rappresenta un marchio di fabbrica del marketing di Anthropic, la vicenda di Claude Mythos Preview si inserisce in un fenomeno più ampio, che gli esperti di sicurezza informatica stanno segnalando da tempo come estremamente problematico: la crescita esponenziale del numero di vulnerabilità segnalate.
In sintesi, il problema non è tanto la possibilità che i gruppi dediti al cyber crimine riescano a sfruttare gli LLM avanzati per individuare nuove vulnerabilità zero-day (falle di sicurezza ancora sconosciute), quanto il fatto che l’implementazione di strumenti automatizzati per l’analisi dei software sta generando troppe segnalazioni rispetto a quelle che gli sviluppatori sono in grado di gestire.
Una cosa, infatti, è individuare una falla. Un’altra è correggere il codice per eliminare il rischio che la vulnerabilità venga sfruttata per portare un attacco. Qualsiasi aggiornamento di un software o – a maggior ragione – di un sistema operativo richiede infatti una serie di verifiche e test per validarne l’efficacia e, non ultimo, escludere eventuali conflitti o “effetti collaterali” indesiderati nel suo funzionamento. Insomma: rimediare a una vulnerabilità richiede più impegno e più tempo rispetto a sfruttarla per scopi malevoli.
Il fattore tempo
A livello intuitivo, si potrebbe pensare che questo squilibrio tra il numero di segnalazioni e la capacità di elaborarne il contenuto possa avere come conseguenza un semplice rallentamento delle operazioni. Non è così.
Per prassi consolidata, infatti, il processo di responsible disclosure prevede che al destinatario della segnalazione sia concesso un termine – solitamente di 60-90 giorni – entro il quale deve rilasciare l’aggiornamento. Trascorso il termine, chi ha inviato la segnalazione è autorizzato a rendere pubblici i dettagli della vulnerabilità.
Si tratta di un accorgimento che ha un duplice obiettivo. Il primo è quello di evitare che lo sviluppatore possa “snobbare” la segnalazione, anche solo per negare il meritato compenso del ricercatore che l’ha effettuata. La seconda è quella di ridurre il rischio che qualcun altro scopra la falla o che questa diventi pubblica per un qualsiasi motivo prima che l’aggiornamento sia disponibile.
Anche se piuttosto rari, in passato si sono verificati casi in cui gli sviluppatori non sono riusciti a rispettare la scadenza e si sono trovati di fronte a una pubblicazione dei dettagli di una vulnerabilità quando non avevano ancora preso le dovute contromisure. Nel nuovo scenario, in cui le segnalazioni piovono a una velocità impressionante, rispettare le scadenze rischia di diventare molto più difficile.
I primi scricchiolii
La cronaca recente conferma tutti i timori legati al massiccio impiego dell’AI nell’individuazione delle vulnerabilità. La società di cybersecurity HackerOne ha sospeso il suo programma Internet Bug Bounty (IBB), attività finanziata in crowdfunding che gestisce dal 2013. Il motivo? L’eccessivo numero di segnalazioni stava mettendo in difficoltà chi ha il compito di correggere il codice del software. E questo soprattutto in ambito open source, dove la gestione dei progetti è spesso affidata a programmatori che prestano la loro opera a titolo volontario.
La pagina web di HackerOne è un perfetto riassunto dei problemi che vive il settore. Nelle sue policy, spiega che ricompenserà solo quelle vulnerabilità che “siano state segnalate in modo responsabile, riconosciute, analizzate (triage), risolte e divulgate tramite un Security Advisory o una CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, un sistema di catalogazione pubblico e standardizzato delle vulnerabilità di sicurezza informatica note – ndR). Se una vulnerabilità viene segnalata da più persone ed è riconosciuta all’interno del security advisory, solo il primo segnalatore (come identificato dai maintainer del progetto) avrà diritto alla ricompensa”.
In questo passaggio si leggono tutte le criticità legate a un ecosistema che è ormai andato fuori controllo. Traducendo dal “politically correct” adottato nelle policy, HackerOne ammette di trovarsi in una situazione in cui vengono segnalate vulnerabilità che non sono state sufficientemente approfondite, che in molti casi vengono scovate da più soggetti e per le quali non viene fornita una soluzione. Insomma: si trova ad avere a che fare con troppo “pattume” generato dall’AI. Motivazioni simili hanno indotto la piattaforma Bugcrowd a introdurre una serie di regole e restrizioni per contrastare il fenomeno che hanno battezzato come “sloptimism” (segnalazioni basate su AI inviate con troppa fiducia e poca verifica).
L’AI trova vere vulnerabilità?
Guardando più nel dettaglio il fenomeno, emerge anche un altro dato. A gennaio 2026 i volontari che gestiscono cURL – software open source che gestisce lo scambio di dati con Internet e che, pur sconosciuto al grande pubblico, è installato in miliardi di dispositivi (telefoni, automobili, TV) – hanno annunciato che dal mese successivo avrebbero smesso di accettare segnalazioni tramite HackerOne. In un aggiornamento pubblicato ad aprile, il creatore Daniel Stenberg ha diffuso un grafico da cui emerge una tendenza abbastanza chiara: nonostante da febbraio non sia stata accettata alcuna segnalazione, il totale del 2026 era già arrivato a 87.
Al di là della crescita esponenziale di segnalazioni, spicca il fatto che nel 2025 sono stati registrati numerosi report classificati come “likely AI slop” (probabile pattume AI), cioè vulnerabilità di bassissimo impatto o inventate dall’intelligenza artificiale. Il loro numero, però, è diminuito percentualmente nel corso dell’anno successivo.
Prima di considerare questi dati come confortanti, è però opportuno considerare un altro aspetto: non tutte le vulnerabilità validate rappresentano un reale rischio di sicurezza. Come spiega Naz Bozdemir in un post sul blog di HackerOne, delle 22 vulnerabilità individuate da Claude Opus 4.6 nel codice di Mozilla Firefox – 14 delle quali ad alta gravità – soltanto due si sono rivelate effettivamente sfruttabili per costruire un exploit. In altre parole: erano tutte difetti reali, ma solo due rappresentavano un rischio imminente e concreto.
L’idea che una maggiore efficienza porti automaticamente a più sicurezza, alla fine, si sta rivelando un’illusione. L’uso intensivo dell’AI sta dimostrando esattamente il contrario: senza la capacità di selezionare, comprendere e intervenire, rischia di generare semplicemente caos.
@Nathalie Hernandez : je ne connaissais pas Qwice, mais lire la petite fenêtre qui a surgi en visitant le site a suffi à me rebuter. Quant à Piaille, il s’agit d’une instance de Mastodon, donc ça ferait un peu redondant, il me semble.
Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested the co-owners of two related Internet hosting companies for operating IT infrastructure used by Russia to carry out cyberattacks, influence operations and disinformation campaigns inside the European Union. The two men were the focus of a 2025 KrebsOnSecurity story about how their hosting companies had assumed control over the technical infrastructure of Stark Industries Solutions, an Internet service provider sanctioned last year by the EU as a frequent staging ground for cyber mischief from Russia’s intelligence agencies.
An investigator with the Tax Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD), the Dutch financial crimes agency, during the raid. Image: FIOD.
The Dutch daily news outlet de Volkskrantreports that the Dutch financial crime agency FIOD on May 18 arrested a 57-year-old from Amsterdam and a 39-year-old from The Hague, charging them with violating sanctions law by directly or indirectly making economic resources available to EU-sanctioned entities.
The Dutch investigation focuses on Stark Industries, a sprawling hosting provider that materialized just two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. As detailed in this May 2024 deep-dive, Stark quickly became the source of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against European targets, and emerged as a top supplier of proxy and anonymity services that showed up time and again in cyberattacks linked to Russia-backed hacking groups.
That report identified two Moldovan brothers — Ivan and Yuri Neculiti and their company PQHosting — who were providing one of Stark’s two main conduits to the larger Internet. In May 2025, the EU sanctioned PQHosting and the Neculiti brothers for aiding Russia’s hybrid warfare efforts. But as KrebsOnSecurity observed in September 2025, those sanctions failed to target Stark’s remaining connection to the Internet — an Internet service provider based in the Netherlands called MIRhosting.
MIRhosting is operated by Andrey Nesterenko, a 39-year-old Russian native who runs the business out of the Netherlands. News that PQHosting and the Neculiti brothers were about to be sanctioned by the EU leaked in the media nearly two weeks before the sanctions were announced last year. During that time, the Stark network assets were transferred from PQHosting to a new entity called the[.]hosting, under the control of the Dutch entity WorkTitans BV.
And as our September 2025 report showed, WorkTitans was controlled by Nesterenko and a 57-year-old from Amsterdam named Youssef Zinad. On top of that, WorkTitans was getting connectivity to the larger Internet solely through MIRhosting, where Zinad had worked previously.
On May 18, Dutch financial crime investigators arrested Nesterenko and Zinad, and searched three businesses in Enschede and Almere and two data centers in Dronten and Schiphol-Rijk. A statement from the Dutch authorities said they also seized laptops, telephones and more than 800 servers.
A message to the-hosting customers immediately after 800 of its servers were seized by Dutch authorities. The message says that unfortunately data stored on the server has been lost and cannot be recovered.
De Volkskrant said it reviewed data showing WorkTitans and MIRhosting were the most-used networks in pro-Russian attacks on Danish government bodies between November 13 and 19, 2025, the week of Denmark’s municipal elections.
The publication wrote that prior to Nesterenko’s arrest, the MIRhosting founder denied that he knew his servers had been misused by pro-Russian cybercriminals. “He said he had ended all services with the Neculiti brothers when the EU sanctions came into force in May 2025,” and the he “reserved all rights to take action against ‘harmful and incorrect publications,” de Volkskrant wrote.
MIRhosting released a statement saying it has initiated an internal investigation into the alleged facts concerning the elections in Denmark, and that it has temporarily paused services to WorkTitans as a precautionary measure while the matter is being reviewed further.
“Based on our preliminary findings, there are no indications that the services over which we exercise control were actually used to influence the Danish elections,” the statement reads. “No anomalies or spikes were observed in our network traffic during the period mentioned in the publication; had large-scale DDoS attacks occurred, such activity would have been evident. Furthermore, prior to the media publication, we had not received any complaints, abuse reports, or official requests regarding suspicious activities or misuse of our network. Meanwhile, our regular operational activities continue, and our service to our other clients remains fully intact.”
Born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, Mr. Nesterenko grew up as a piano prodigy who performed publicly at a young age. In 2004, Nesterenko founded MIRhosting’s parent Innovation IT Solutions Corp., which has the notable distinction of being the company responsible for hosting stopgeorgia[.]ru, a hacktivist website for organizing cyberattacks against Georgia that appeared at the same time Russian forces invaded the former Soviet nation in 2008. That conflict was thought to be the first war ever fought in which a notable cyberattack and an actual military engagement happened simultaneously.
Responding to questions shared via email, Nesterenko said MIRhosting does not support cybercrime, sanctions evasion, or illegal activity, and that the allegations and arrest by Dutch authorities have been extremely harmful to him and his company.
“The transition to the.hosting was not intended to evade sanctions,” Nesterenko wrote. “The hardware and customer portfolio had already been transferred to WorkTitans before the sanctions appeared. Closing or damaging a legitimate Dutch infrastructure company will not stop cybercrime, but it will harm many people who have done nothing wrong.”
Far less is public about the 57-year-old Zinad, who reportedly has been keeping a low profile since our story last year. De Volkskrant reported that Zinad blocked access to his LinkedIn account, had gone months without responding to emails, WhatsApp messages and phone calls, and told a colleague that illness was forcing him to lead a somewhat more reclusive life.
Mr. Zinad’s now-defunct LinkedIn profile. It was full of posts for MIRhosting’s services.
Mr. Nesterenko claims Zinad was never an employee of MIRhosting.
“He helped me and MIRhosting with certain business tasks under a normal business-to-business arrangement between companies,” Nesterenko explained.
However, in previous emails to KrebsOnSecurity, Nesterenko carbon copied Mr. Zinad (who had a @mirhosting.com email), explaining that he was part of the company’s legal team. Also, the Dutch website stagemarkt[.]nl lists Youssef Zinad as an official contact for MIRhosting’s offices in Almere.
Mr. Zinad has never responded to requests for comment. Nor did de Volkskrant have any luck tracking him down. The publication said it repeatedly asked Mr. Zinad (referred to here as simply “Z”), but he reportedly avoided every form of contact.
“‘I am unavailable but will respond to your message as soon as possible,’ reads an automated reply on WhatsApp on 2 October 2025,” de Volkskrant reported. “It is the only response de Volkskrant would receive in months. He did not pick up his phone and did not call back. When an acquaintance asked him via LinkedIn to contact the reporter, he blocked access to his LinkedIn page. At an address in Almere where Z.’s personal limited company is registered, no one was present in April. The corner house’s blinds were drawn, and a pile of rubbish bags lay outside next to a container, as if someone had recently left. A neighbour said he knew the man but did not know where he was staying. Z. was later arrested at a residence in Amsterdam.”
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Les chercheureuses estiment qu’elles sont l’animal marin le plus dangereux pour l’être humain. Leurs piqûres, transmises par des cellules spéciales appelées nématocystes et situées sur leurs tentacules, sont assez puissantes pour tuer une personne et ce n’est pas tout : la bestiole serait capable de repérer une proie et de nager vers elle.
An American infected with Ebola is being treated in Berlin, while another exposed to the deadly virus is being sent to Prague after the White House reportedly resisted allowing citizens to return to the US for care and monitoring.
Les héritier·es d’un collectionneur juif réclament un tableau attribué au peintre Rubens. L’expert mandaté pour régler le litige affirme que tout se joue sur un détail : une vache effacée.
L’agence chargée des spectacles à Québec invoque un « contexte actuel » incompatible avec la promotion des représentations prévues en décembre prochain.
NHS leaders privately told that “clunky” £330m platform built by Trump donor Peter Thiel’s firm is “slow” and has “poor user experience”, new documents show
When Fisker Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024, it left roughly 11,000 Ocean SUV owners holding the keys to vehicles that cost them anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 — and that were rapidly losing the software brains that made them work. No more over-the-air updates. No more connected services. No more warranty. The manufacturer was dead. What happened next is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the electric vehicle industry. Instead of accepting that their cars would become rolling paperweights, Fisker Ocean owners organized, reverse-engineered their vehicles’ proprietary software, hacked into CAN bus networks, built open-source tools on GitHub, and effectively stood up a volunteer-run open-sourced car company from the ashes of Fisker.
At Google I/O this week, the company announced the biggest change to Search in 25 years. The ten blue links ? Gone. Instead, you get — first at times ? soon always ? — “generative UI”, an “intelligent search box” with custom interactive widgets, built on the fly by Gemini. You get “information agents” that monitor the web for you around the clock. You get mini-apps you can build right inside the search box, using natural language. And with Gemini Spark, you get a personal AI agent that runs 24/7, connected to your Gmail, your Drive, your calendar, your photos, and soon your local files and third-party services.
Eric Schmidt était présent le 15 mai dernier à Tucson pour la cérémonie de remise des diplômes de la faculté mais les étudiant·es l’ont hué à plusieurs reprises lors de sa prise de parole. […] Un discours centré sur l’intelligence artificielle alors qu’une part croissante des jeunes étatsunien·nes s’inquiètent des répercussions de son utilisation
La stratégie de « rationalisation » des processus annoncée par l’établissement britannique mardi 19 mai menace près de 8 000 emplois dans les « fonctions supports ».
Firms today are pushing employees to use as much AI as possible to squeeze out the technology’s productivity gains. But that pressure is leading to cracks, and those cracks may be irreparable.
Every AI lab is losing money serving your company right now. They know it. And they are doing it on purpose. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and the rest are running an industry-wide loss-leader program at a scale that has no precedent. They are selling enterprises filet mignon at gas station hot dog prices and calling it a business model. The gap between what your company pays for AI subscriptions and what it actually costs to serve those seats is not a rounding error. It is a gulf. And every organization that has built workflows, products, or entire business units on top of these subsidized prices is standing right on the edge of it. This should be front of mind for every CTO, CFO, and head of operations reading this. Because when the pricing corrects, and it will, the companies that treated AI as a permanently cheap utility are going to wake up to bills that make their current SaaS spend look quaint.
Samsung makes about a third of the world’s DRAM—the memory inside virtually every phone, laptop, server, and data center on the planet. Together with its Korean rival SK Hynix, it controls roughly two-thirds of the global DRAM market and an even larger share of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the specialized chips that AI systems cannot run without. Samsung and SK Hynix are two of only three companies that make HBM at all ; the third being American semiconductor company Micron.
Les États-Unis abritent plus de 4000 centres de données, indispensables au développement de l’IA. Mais à travers le pays, des habitants s’opposent à ces projets, qui provoquent des pollutions et risquent de détruire les ressources en eau.
Depuis des mois, d’ancien·nes détenu·es palestinien·nes décrivent des viols, humiliations sexuelles et menaces commis en prison ou lors d’interrogatoires. Des récits appuyés par plusieurs rapports d’ONG et d’organisations internationales.
It is easy for the “Manara man” to play the hero when the target is a lone, exposed, and vulnerable woman. Suddenly, his sense of “honor” awakens, his moral muscles begin to flex, and he appoints himself protector of society against the danger of a woman standing by the sea. A naked woman ? That is when the moral watchdog instantly comes alive. […] The man who hit the woman was not defending morality, but his own sense of power. What he did was closer to a declaration of ownership : this space belongs to us, and these bodies must submit to our rules. […] In the Manara video, there was not only a man assaulting a woman, but an entire audience participating in the construction of the scene. Some shouted. Others continued filming even during the assault itself. This is not neutrality. Filming here was not separate from the violence ; it was part of it. When a camera is raised in the face of a vulnerable person instead of being used to protect them, it becomes a tool of dehumanization.
Britain’s self-appointed “protect our women” brigade has confirmed that women absolutely deserve protection and respect, right up until the precise moment they do something mildly inconvenient or make a decision they don’t like.
Reconnue à deux reprises coupable de viol et condamnée par la justice française, la star de la pop arabe Saad Lamjarred ne change rien à son agenda et continue de bénéficier du soutien de ses pairs et de l’industrie musicale. Un système qui pourrait se fissurer sous les coups de boutoir de la contestation qui enfle.
Fascination pour l’argent, phénomène de cour, fréquentation du père de Ghislaine Maxwell… Jean-Pierre Colin, ancien proche de l’ex-ministre de la Culture, n’a pas attendu l’affaire Epstein pour dénoncer, dès 1994, les dérives du couple Lang.
À propos de : Julie Fette, Gender by the Book. 21st-Century French Children’s Literature. Malgré la diversité des textes du corpus et les différences entre les institutions prises en considération, les résultats de l’analyse sont dans l’ensemble assez consternants […] De nombreux stéréotypes persistent, dans la plupart des cas défavorables aux femmes et aux filles
« Vous avez été à l’avant-garde du combat des femmes et de leur place dans le cinéma, vous avez été une fervente défense des droits des personnes LGTBTQ +, vous avez aussi manifesté une solidarité constante envers les minorités religieuses, ethniques, sexuelles »
“Et cette richesse, c’est avant tout un très grand pouvoir. C’est un pouvoir économique d’abord : le pouvoir de racheter des concurrents, d’influencer les marchés. C’est aussi un grand pouvoir politique : un pouvoir d’influencer les politiques publiques.”
Importés des États-Unis, les plans de retour à la performance, déclinés sous les acronymes PIP, PRPA ou encore PAP, se multiplient dans les entreprises du numérique. L’outil est détourné de son objectif affiché pour mieux se débarrasser de salarié·es.
La plateforme de prise de rendez-vous médicaux en ligne Doctolib et la Fondation Jean-Jaurès ont publié la seconde édition de leurs « Cartes de France de l’accès aux soins ». Cet état des lieux offre une photographie inédite pour saisir l’évolution de l’offre de soin sur notre territoire, mais avec une vision par le prisme de l’outil numérique qui “questionne”.
mercredi 20 mai 2026, à la veille du 25e anniversaire de la loi Taubira reconnaissant la traite et l’esclavage comme crime contre l’humanité, les députés de la commission des lois ont voté à l’unanimité l’abrogation du “Code noir”, jamais formellement abrogé […] le texte laisse toutefois de côté la sensible question des réparations régulièrement réclamées dans les territoires ultramarins.
La guerre au Liban, à Gaza, en Ukraine et les dérives autoritaires étaient sur toutes les lèvres à la cérémonie de clôture. De Virginie Efira à Andreï Zviaguintsev, les artistes ont appelé à résister.
« Personnellement je ne veux juger personne, mais il me semble que l’artiste doit parler du monde dans lequel il vit, de la société dans laquelle il vit. Pour moi c’est un devoir moral. Je ne juge pas ceux qui ne le font pas mais le silence n’est que la traduction de la peur »
Le député continue d’être critiqué pour sa BD « Picardie Splendor » jugée maladroite, paternaliste voire raciste. L’un des protagonistes du livre vient en plus contredire sa version.
L’enquête ouverte après des signalements dans plusieurs écoles parisiennes a conduit à la garde à vue de 16 personnes et à l’audition de dizaines d’enfants.
« Violez-la » conseillait le pédiatre Aldo Naouri à un homme se plaignant de la baisse des relations sexuelles après la naissance de son bébé. Sans grande indignation dans les médias qui formataient des esprits sexistes et rendent hommage aujourd’hui à celui qui vient de s’éteindre.
Depuis sa création il y a 14 ans, le concours Zéro Cliché, organisé par le CLEMI, pousse les élèves, de la primaire au lycée, à voir au-delà des stéréotypes sexistes. Cette année encore, le palmarès ouvre une fenêtre sur les questionnements et les prises de conscience des filles et des garçons.
« On le sait depuis des années… Qu’il aille se faire soigner ! Il faut lui apprendre à rentrer son sexe, je suis désolée, il a un problème », a-t-elle déclaré à propos du chanteur, désormais visé par quatre enquêtes pour viols en France et une enquête en Belgique pour agression sexuelle. Et pour Lio, pas question de « faire la différence entre l’homme et l’artiste ».
L’animatrice, qui accuse le chanteur de viol et a porté plainte contre lui, dénonce au micro de RTL les « mensonges » dont font l’objet les victimes en vue de les « faire taire ».
Au Festival de Cannes, la cinéaste estime que les traumatismes liés aux violences sexuelles peuvent mettre des décennies avant d’être compris et exprimés.
Entre 2021 et 2024, celui qui se surnomme le « chanteur à midinettes » a même écopé d’une interdiction d’« apparitions ou de représentations publiques dans le cadre de son activité d’artiste », et toute activité « impliquant un contact avec des mineurs ». Une procédure qui relève de sa mise en examen en 2021 pour des faits de viol et agressions sexuelles de deux adolescentes de 16 et 17 ans
Au dernier du procès de Guillaume B. pour pour viols aggravés, actes de torture et de barbarie et proxénétisme, Laetitia a décrit sept années de sévices.
Dans le box, l’ex directeur de banque aux cheveux grisonnants et à la fine moustache a assuré que son procès a été « un accélérateur de prise de conscience ». L’avocat de Laëtitia R., reconnue handicapée entre 50 et 80 %, avait dit que sa cliente avait souhaité des débats publics, inspirée par le courage de Gisèle Pélicot
Lors des questions au gouvernement le 19 mai, la députée écologiste Marie-Charlotte Garin a mis en cause l’exécutif après six féminicides en neuf jours et dix ans de grande cause du quinquennat. L’examen de la proposition de loi cadre contre les violences n’est toujours pas à l’ordre du jour.
Le phénomène de concentration capitalistique des médias vire au monopole dans certains secteurs de l’information. Concernant le journalisme économique, un constat suffit à mesurer l’ampleur du désastre : la quasi-totalité de la presse économique est aujourd’hui détenue par le milliardaire Bernard Arnault et son groupe LVMH.
La cour d’appel de Versailles a « entériné l’omerta Bolloré » dénonce Jean-Baptiste Rivoire. Ce 20 mai, l’ex-journaliste de Canal+ a de nouveau été reconnu coupable d’avoir rompu sa « clause de silence », lui interdisant de critiquer son ancien employeur jusqu’à la fin de sa vie.
Javier Bardem, Ken Loach, Mark Ruffalo, Aki Kaurismaki et Yorgos Lanthimos ont rejoint les signataires de la tribune s’inquiétant de la mainmise de Vincent Bolloré sur le cinéma. Presque 3 500 professionnel·les du septième art ont désormais signé cette tribune.
L’effet produit est pour l’instant l’inverse de celui espéré. Après les propos de Maxime Saada en marge du 79e Festival de Cannes appelant Canal+ à « ne plus travailler » avec les signataires d’une tribune critique envers Vincent Bolloré, le collectif Zapper Bolloré affirme avoir enregistré une vague massive de nouveaux soutiens.
Une association de policier·es monte au créneau pour défendre la liberté de la presse. Police Républicaine et citoyenneté (PRC), fondée il y a un an par Jean-Louis Arajol, ancien secrétaire général du Syndicat général de la police à l’aube des années 2000, dénonce ouvertement les violences et les obstacles que subissent les journalistes lorsqu’iels couvrent des manifestations.
Spécial emmerdeurs irresponsables gérant comme des pieds (et à la néolibérale)
La question de l’ouverture de ce corps électoral avait été l’étincelle des émeutes qui ont ravagé le Caillou il y a deux ans, faisant 14 morts et deux milliards d’euros de dégâts.
Réservation obligatoire, trains bondés, refus à quai : vos week-ends vélo depuis Paris vers la Normandie, la Loire, la Picardie ou la Champagne deviennent plus compliqués à organiser. Derrière les difficultés signalées par nos lecteurs, un décret de février 2026 a fait sauter le dernier garde-fou national.
Spécial recul des droits et libertés, violences policières, montée de l’extrême-droite…
Avec le projet de loi « SURE » adopté le 15 avril au Sénat, vos données génétiques, et les millions d’autres récupérées et stockées par les entreprises privées réalisant les tests ADN, majoritairement situées aux États-Unis, pourront être exploitées par la police française à votre insu.
La Ligue des droits de l’Homme, Alternatiba, ANV Cop-21, France nature environnement, Greenpeace, le Syndicat des avocats de France, le Syndicat de la Magistrature, la CGT, la Fédération Syndicale Unitaire et Solidaires dénoncent la création d’un « état d’alerte à la sécurité nationale » dans le cadre du Projet de loi de programmation militaire.
Déporter des millions de personnes non blanches de l’Europe vers leurs pays d’origine supposés : dans les milieux d’extrême droite, cette idée néo-nazie a le vent en poupe et contamine une partie de la sphère médiatique et politique, en France comme ailleurs.
Annoncé comme le plus gros centre de données d’Europe, le Campus IA, voulu par l’Élysée, doit être construit dans un village de Seine-et-Marne. Installé sur des terres agricoles, il suscite la contestation d’associations écologistes.
Autrice de « Désarmer le béton », l’architecte Léa Hobson aimerait voir advenir une « voix collective » pour s’opposer à ce matériau néfaste, symbole du capitalisme extractif contemporain. D’autant que des alternatives existent.
La préfecture de Paris a régularisé ce 19 mai neuf des travailleuses du boulevard Saint-Denis en lutte, depuis début mars, contre leur direction. Une victoire, alors que le gérant du salon de coiffure usait de leur vulnérabilité pour les racketter.
In 2025, Meta sold over seven million pairs of camera-equipped glasses that look like regular Ray-Bans. The person wearing them looks like anyone else. But these people are now products, as is everyone they interact with.
GitHub, the popular developer platform owned by Microsoft, confirmed it was hacked and attackers had stolen data from around 3,800 internal code repositories.
La survenue d’une crise financière du format de celle qui s’annonce n’appelle pas des actes de gestion mais de faire de la politique. La finance néolibérale est une structure tellement puissante, tellement asservissante que lorsqu’elle nous fait la grâce de s’abattre toute seule, on ne la loupe pas. On fait de la politique – transformatrice. Cette crise, dont tous les éléments sont en place, n’est pas encore ouverte. Ça viendra.
La désinformation médicale est devenu un tel danger que le gouvernement vient de lancer une vaste campagne pour la limiter. Derrière les fausses informations qui circulent sur les réseaux sociaux, c’est une crise plus profonde qui apparaît : celle de la confiance envers les institutions sanitaires, du recul du service public et de la fragmentation du rapport au savoir.
La carte n’a jamais été un outil neutre. L’exposition « Cartes imaginaires. Inventer des mondes » à la BnF le sait et l’assume, rassemblant quelque 200 œuvres du parchemin médiéval au jeu vidéo. Riche de pièces exceptionnelles et solidement adossée à une réflexion savante, elle bute néanmoins sur un tabou : la violence que les cartes ont toujours aussi portée.
Richard Francis Burtoni a traduit le texte en anglais en 1883. Cette « traduction » n’était toutefois pas fidèle, mais plutôt une interprétation élaborée à travers un prisme résolument étroit et centré sur le plaisir masculin.
Dans le petit quartier de l’Arbousset à Espaly-Saint-Marcel en Haute-Loire, un homme a tiré à la carabine sur des enfants tout en proférant des insultes racistes. Quelques jours après, les habitant·es sont encore sous le choc…
Si la souveraineté numérique européenne ressemble de plus en plus à un vœu pieux face à l’hégémonie des hyperscalers américains, un séisme de gouvernance vient de se produire… en Suisse. Boris Siegenthaler, le fondateur historique d’Infomaniak, a annoncé le transfert irrévocable de la majorité des droits de vote de l’entreprise à une entité d’un genre nouveau : la Fondation Infomaniak.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) reports (fsf.org)
that its global call for free software supporters to organize LibreLocals this May resulted in free software supporters organizing forty-six LibreLocal events on six continents thus far. New dates and locations are being added daily.
À la différence de l’association Terre de liens, plus connue, le projet Kazel-ha-Kazel [une foncière citoyenne et territoriale, dont le nom breton se traduit par « bras dessus, bras dessous » en français] s’ancre dans le pays de Douarnenez, avec une gouvernance et des coopérateurices locales.
Retrouvez les revues de web précédentes dans la catégorie Libre Veille du Framablog.
Les articles, commentaires et autres images qui composent ces « Khrys’presso » n’engagent que moi (Khrys).
Alpine Linux, one of the most recognizable non-systemd Linux distributions, is reportedly experimenting with an optional systemd compatibility layer, a move that has sparked intense discussion across the Linux community.
For years, Alpine has stood apart from mainstream Linux distributions by avoiding both glibc and systemd, instead relying on:
musl libc
BusyBox
OpenRC as its init system
Now, growing software compatibility pressures, especially around desktop applications, containers, and enterprise tooling, appear to be pushing Alpine developers to explore new approaches.
Why Alpine Linux Avoided Systemd for So Long
Alpine Linux built its reputation around simplicity, security, and minimalism. Unlike many mainstream distributions, Alpine intentionally avoided systemd in favor of the lighter and more modular OpenRC init system.
This design philosophy made Alpine extremely popular for:
Containers and Docker images
Embedded systems
Lightweight virtual machines
Security-focused deployments
Its tiny footprint and reduced dependency chain became major advantages in cloud and container environments.
The Compatibility Problem Is Growing
Despite Alpine’s popularity, avoiding systemd has increasingly created compatibility challenges.
Many modern Linux applications now assume the presence of:
libsystemd
systemd APIs
glibc-specific behaviors
This has become particularly problematic for:
Desktop software
Proprietary enterprise applications
Monitoring agents
Certain gaming and multimedia tools
AI and container orchestration software
Historically, Alpine users often relied on:
Compatibility layers like gcompat
Flatpak containers
Docker workarounds
Manually patched packages
The growing complexity of those workarounds appears to be one reason compatibility discussions are intensifying.
What the Experimental Compatibility Layer Actually Means
Importantly, Alpine Linux is not replacing OpenRC with systemd.
Instead, the project appears to be exploring:
Optional compatibility packages
libsystemd support
Improved API compatibility for software expecting systemd components
Experimental efforts already exist in the broader ecosystem. For example, unofficial projects have packaged portions of systemd, particularly libsystemd, for Alpine systems specifically to satisfy software dependencies without running full systemd services.
The Debian project has begun exploring AI-assisted bug triage workflows, joining a broader movement across the open-source world to manage the rapidly increasing volume of software bug reports and vulnerability submissions.
While Debian developers are approaching the idea cautiously, the effort reflects a growing reality for large open-source projects: modern software ecosystems are producing more bugs, duplicate reports, and security findings than human maintainers can efficiently process alone.
The discussion arrives during a period of intense debate within Linux and open-source communities about how artificial intelligence should be integrated into software development and maintenance.
Why Debian Is Looking at AI-Assisted Triage
Debian is one of the largest and most complex Linux distributions in existence, maintaining tens of thousands of software packages across multiple architectures and release branches. Managing bug reports at that scale has always been challenging.
Now, AI-assisted vulnerability scanning and automated testing tools are dramatically increasing report volumes across open-source projects. Maintainers are increasingly facing:
Duplicate vulnerability reports
Low-quality automated submissions
Massive triage backlogs
Security mailing list overload
Increasing maintainer burnout
AI-assisted bug triage systems are being explored as a way to help organize, prioritize, and categorize incoming reports before human maintainers review them.
What AI-Assisted Bug Triage Actually Means
Importantly, Debian is not handing software maintenance over to AI systems.
Instead, AI-assisted triage generally focuses on repetitive administrative tasks such as:
Detecting duplicate bug reports
Categorizing issues by severity
Routing bugs to appropriate maintainers
Summarizing lengthy reports
Identifying missing reproduction details
Prioritizing security-related submissions
The goal is to reduce the amount of manual sorting work maintainers must perform before actual debugging begins.
The Open-Source Community Is Divided
Debian’s experiments come during an ongoing debate about AI’s role in open-source development.
Some maintainers view AI-assisted tooling as necessary because software complexity has outpaced human review capacity. Others worry about:
Low-quality AI-generated reports
Maintainer overload
False positives
Loss of contributor accountability
“Drive-by” AI contributions with little human understanding
The Debian community itself has spent months discussing how AI-assisted contributions should be handled, but no final project-wide policy has yet been adopted.
Lawmakers in both houses of Congress are demanding answers from the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after KrebsOnSecurity reported this week that a CISA contractor intentionally published AWS GovCloud keys and a vast trove of other agency secrets on a public GitHub account. The inquiry comes as CISA is still struggling to contain the breach and invalidate the leaked credentials.
On May 18, KrebsOnSecurity reported that a CISA contractor with administrative access to the agency’s code development platform had created a public GitHub profile called “Private-CISA” that included plaintext credentials to dozens of internal CISA systems. Experts who reviewed the exposed secrets said the commit logs for the code repository showed the CISA contractor disabled GitHub’s built-in protection against publishing sensitive credentials in public repos.
CISA acknowledged the leak but has not responded to questions about the duration of the data exposure. However, experts who reviewed the now-defunct Private-CISA archive said it was originally created in November 2025, and that it exhibits a pattern consistent with an individual operator using the repository as a working scratchpad or synchronization mechanism rather than a curated project repository.
In a written statement, CISA said “there is no indication that any sensitive data was compromised as a result of the incident.” But in a May 19 a letter (PDF) to CISA’s Acting Director Nick Andersen, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) said the credential leak raises serious questions about how such a security lapse could occur at the very agency charged with helping to prevent cyber breaches.
“This reporting raises serious concerns regarding CISA’s internal policies and procedures at a time of significant cybersecurity threats against U.S. critical infrastructure,” Sen. Hassan wrote.
A May 19 letter from Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-NH) to the acting director of CISA demanded answers to a dozen questions about the breach.
Sen. Hassan noted that the incident occurred against the backdrop of major disruptions internally at CISA, which lost more than a third of it workforce and almost all of its senior leaders after the Trump administration forced a series of early retirements, buyouts, and resignations across the agency’s various divisions.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, echoed the senator’s concerns.
“We are concerned that this incident reflects a diminished security culture and/or an inability for CISA to adequately manage its contract support,” Thompson wrote in a May 19 letter to the acting CISA chief that was co-signed by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill), the ranking member of the panel’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. “It’s no secret that our adversaries — like China, Russia, and Iran — seek to gain access to and persistence on federal networks. The files contained in the ‘Private-CISA’ repository provided the information, access, and roadmap to do just that.”
KrebsOnSecurity has learned that more a week after CISA was first notified of the data leak by the security firm GitGuardian, the agency is still working to invalidate and replace many of the exposed keys and secrets.
On May 20, KrebsOnSecurity heard from Dylan Ayrey, the creator of TruffleHog, an open-source tool for discovering private keys and other secrets buried in code hosted at GitHub and other public platforms. Ayrey said CISA still hadn’t invalidated an RSA private key exposed in the Private-CISA repo that granted access to a GitHub app which is owned by the CISA enterprise account and installed on the CISA-IT GitHub organization with full access to all code repositories.
“An attacker with this key can read source code from every repository in the CISA-IT organization, including private repos, register rogue self-hosted runners to hijack CI/CD pipelines and access repository secrets, and modify repository admin settings including branch protection rules, webhooks, and deploy keys,” Ayrey told KrebsOnSecurity. CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, and it refers to a set of practices used to automate the building, testing and deployment of software.
KrebsOnSecurity notified CISA about Ayrey’s findings on May 20. Ayrey said CISA appears to have invalidated the exposed RSA private key sometime after that notification. But he noted that CISA still hasn’t rotated leaked credentials tied to other critical security technologies that are deployed across the agency’s technology portfolio (KrebsOnSecurity is not naming those technologies publicly for the time being).
CISA responded with a brief written statement in response to questions about Ayrey’s findings, saying “CISA is actively responding and coordinating with the appropriate parties and vendors to ensure any identified leaked credentials are rotated and rendered invalid and will continue to take appropriate steps to protect the security of our systems.”
Ayrey said his company Truffle Security monitors GitHub and a number of other code platforms for exposed keys, and attempts to alert affected accounts to the sensitive data exposure(s). They can do this easily on GitHub because the platform publishes a live feed which includes a record of all commits and changes to public code repositories. But he said cybercriminal actors also monitor these public feeds, and are often quick to pounce on API or SSH keys that get inadvertently published in code commits.
The Private-CISA GitHub repo exposed dozens of plaintext credentials to important CISA GovCloud resources.
In practical terms, it is likely that cybercrime groups or foreign adversaries also noticed the publication of these CISA secrets, the most egregious of which appears to have happened in late April 2026, Ayrey said.
“We monitor that firehose of data for keys, and we have tools to try to figure out whose they are,” he said. “We have evidence attackers monitor that firehose as well. Anyone monitoring GitHub events could be sitting on this information.”
James Wilson, the enterprise technology editor for the Risky Business security podcast, said organizations using GitHub to manage code projects can set top-down policies that prevent employees from disabling GitHub’s protections against publishing secret keys and credentials. But Wilson’s co-host Adam Boileau said it’s not clear that any technology could stop employees from opening their own personal GitHub account and using it to store sensitive and proprietary information.
“Ultimately, this is a thing you can’t solve with a technical control,” Boileau said on this week’s podcast. “This is a human problem where you’ve hired a contractor to do this work and they have decided of their own volition to use GitHub to synchronize content from a work machine to a home machine. I don’t know what technical controls you could put in place given that this is being done presumably outside of anything CISA managed or even had visibility on.”
Update, 3:05 p.m. ET: Added statement from CISA. Corrected a date in the story (Truffle Security said it found the repo gained some of its most sensitive secrets in late April 2026, not 2025).
Canadian authorities on Wednesday arrested a 23-year-old Ottawa man on suspicion of building and operating Kimwolf, a fast spreading Internet-of-Things botnet that enslaved millions of devices for use in a series of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks over the past six months. KrebsOnSecurity publicly named the suspect in February 2026 after the accused launched a volley of DDoS, doxing and swatting campaigns against this author and a security researcher. He now faces criminal hacking charges in both Canada and the United States.
A criminal complaint unsealed today in an Alaska district court charges Jacob Butler, a.k.a. “Dort,” of Ottawa, Canada with operating the Kimwolf DDoS botnet. A statement from the Department of Justice says the complaint against Butler was unsealed following the defendant’s arrest in Canada by the Ontario Provincial Police pursuant to a U.S. extradition warrant. Butler is currently in Canadian custody awaiting an initial court hearing scheduled for early next week.
The government said Kimwolf targeted infected devices which were traditionally “firewalled” from the rest of the internet, such as digital photo frames and web cameras. The infected systems were then rented to other cybercriminals, or forced to participate in record-smashing DDoS attacks, as well as assaults that affected Internet address ranges for the Department of Defense. Consequently, the DoD’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the case, with assistance from the FBI field office in Anchorage.
“KimWolf was tied to DDoS attacks which were measured at nearly 30 Terabits per second, a record in recorded DDoS attack volume,” the Justice Department statement reads. “These attacks resulted in financial losses which, for some victims, exceeded one million dollars. The KimWolf botnet is alleged to have issued over 25,000 attack commands.”
On March 19, U.S. authorities joined international law enforcement partners in seizing the technical infrastructure for Kimwolf and three other large DDoS botnets — named Aisuru, JackSkid and Mossad — that were all competing for the same pool of vulnerable devices.
On February 28, KrebsOnSecurity identified Butler as the Kimwolf botmaster after digging through his various email addresses, registrations on the cybercrime forums, and posts to public Telegram and Discord servers. However, Dort continued to threaten and harass researchers who helped track down his real-life identity and dramatically slow the spread of his botnet.
Dort claimed responsibility for at least two swatting attacks targeting the founder of Synthient, a security startup that helped to secure a widespread critical security weakness that Kimwolf was using to spread faster and more effectively than any other IoT botnet out there. Synthient was among many technology companies thanked by the Justice Department today, and Synthient’s founder Ben Brundage told KrebsOnSecurity he’s relieved Butler is in custody.
“Hopefully this will end the harassment,” Brundage said.
An excerpt from the criminal complaint against Butler, detailing how he ordered a swatting attack against Ben Brundage, the founder of the security firm Synthient.
The government says investigators connected Butler to the administration of the KimWolf botnet through IP address, online account information, transaction records, and online messaging application records obtained through the issuance of legal process. The criminal complaint against Butler (PDF) shows he did little to separate his real-life and cybercriminal identities (something we demonstrated in our February unmasking of Dort).
In April, the Justice Department joined authorities across Europe in seizing domain names tied to nearly four-dozen DDoS-for-hire services, although because of a bureaucratic mix-up the list of seized domains has remain sealed until today. The DOJ said at least one of those services collaborated with Butler’s Kimwolf botnet.
A statement from the Ontario Provincial Police said a search warrant was executed on March 19 at Butler’s address in Ottawa, where they seized multiple devices. As a result of that investigation, Butler was arrested and charged this week with unauthorized user of computer; possession of device to obtain unauthorized use of computer system or to commit mischief; and mischief in relation to computer data. He is scheduled to remain in custody until a hearing on May 26.
In the United States, Butler is facing one count of aiding and abetting computer intrusion. If extradited, tried and convicted in a U.S. court, Butler could face up to 10 years in prison, although that maximum sentence would likely be heavily tempered by considerations in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which make allowances for mitigating factors such as youth, lack of criminal history and level of cooperation with investigators.
Nous venons de publier la version 8.1.6 de #PeerTube pour corriger plusieurs problèmes de sécurité. Si vous gérez l'administration d'une plateforme PeerTube, merci de mettre à jour dès que possible.
I governi e la società civile di tutto il mondo sembrano avere un obiettivo comune: proteggere bambini e giovani dai pericoli della navigazione sul web, dall’uso non supervisionato dei social media, da contenuti pornografici, violenti o pericolosi. La virata globale verso un Internet dove è necessario verificare la propria età ha però una serie di criticità, legate alle soluzioni che si stanno adottando e ai problemi che esse pongono in termini di privacy e sorveglianza.
Alcune misure sono arrivate tramite leggi statali, come nel caso dell’Australia e del Regno Unito. Altre sono iniziative delle stesse piattaforme, come nel caso di Discord, che ha annunciato e poi ritirato una policy nota come teen by default (cioè che dà per scontato che tutti gli utenti siano minorenni). Nonostante il quadro frammentato, è chiaro che ci si stia spostando verso un modello di Internet in cui sarà sempre più spesso richiesto di identificarsi per dimostrare di essere adulti. Questo potrebbe radicalmente cambiare il modo in cui vivremo la rete in futuro.
I metodi tecnici di verifica dell’età
Esistono diversi approcci tecnologici per verificare l’età di un utente nel momento in cui entra o si iscrive a una piattaforma. Il primo è la stima dell’età sulla base di dati biometrici. Un software analizza un video o un selfie, dando un’indicazione di un’età presumibile. Un altro metodo prevede il confronto automatico tra una foto scattata live e la foto di un documento ufficiale. I siti possono inoltre richiedere una verifica dei dati bancari, o una piccola transazione da una carta di credito, per verificare che la persona intestataria sia maggiorenne. I controlli possono essere effettuati anche tramite l’operatore della rete mobile, che certifica che il numero da cui si sta effettuando una connessione sia associato a una persona adulta.
I metodi biometrici e quelli che richiedono di caricare le foto dei documenti presentano però evidenti problemi di privacy, dal momento che richiedono agli utenti di condividere informazioni estremamente sensibili con aziende private.
I problemi di discriminazione
Gli attivisti per i diritti digitali nutrono grande scetticismo nei confronti di queste soluzioni. Martin Sas e Jan Tobias Mühlberg, due ricercatori belga autori di un paper commissionato dai Verdi Europei, hanno scritto: “Questo requisito [di provare la propria età, ndr], oltre a costituire un’ingerenza nella privacy delle persone, può potenzialmente limitare la loro capacità di esprimersi liberamente e di interagire con gli altri, a meno che non forniscano i propri dati personali e siano in grado di completare una procedura di verifica dell’età”.
Secondo l’Electronic Frontier Foundation, gli obblighi di verifica dell’età comportano una serie di possibili discriminazioni nei confronti di alcune categorie di persone già marginalizzate. Chi per esempio non dispone di documenti governativi validi e riconosciuti, come è il caso di alcune persone migranti, potrebbe trovarsi tagliato fuori da una buona fetta di servizi online. Negli Stati Uniti, riporta l’EFF, anche tanti adulti, soprattutto neri e ispanici, non hanno a disposizione documenti aggiornati con il nome o l’indirizzo corretto. La stessa cosa vale per le persone che stanno intraprendendo percorsi di affermazione o transizione di genere, che hanno meno probabilità di avere documenti aggiornati o foto ufficiali che corrispondono ai loro tratti somatici.
L’analisi dell’EFF è incentrata sugli Stati Uniti, ma è indicativa di un problema più ampio: “Il 43% degli americani transgender non dispone di documenti d’identità che riflettano correttamente il nome o genere. Per loro, la verifica dell’età pone una scelta impossibile: fornire documenti con nomi precedenti e indicatori di genere errati, rischiando così di essere costretti a un coming out, oppure perdere del tutto l’accesso alle piattaforme online”. Il metodo del riconoscimento facciale espone invece ai consueti bias algoritmici: i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale sono testati e funzionano soprattutto su persone bianche, sono però meno efficaci in caso di minoranze razziali ed etniche (ma anche, per esempio, di persone con disabilità).
Le alternative privacy first
Esistono però alternative più solide dal punto di vista della privacy. In Germania, per esempio, è in vigore un sistema di identità digitale che permette lo scambio di informazioni tra il server di un sito e un microprocessore contenuto nella carta d’identità elettronica nazionale. Tramite una chiave crittografica, il microprocessore dimostra di appartenere a una eID (una carta d’identità elettronica) rilasciata dal governo tramite una chiave crittografica, condivisa con altre 9.999 eID. “Ciò significa che l’unica informazione che la piattaforma ottiene è che una persona su 10mila si è registrata” hanno scritto Marten Risius e Johannes Sedlmeir su The Conversation.
Successivamente, il servizio e il microprocessore si scambiano la data corrente e l’età minima richiesta, mentre il microprocessore invia la data di nascita dell’utente. A quel punto, l’autenticazione avviene esclusivamente sulla base di queste informazioni, senza che ulteriori dati siano condivisi con il sito web. Altri sistemi, come l’European Digital Identity Wallet (di cui parleremo più avanti) o il Google o Apple Wallet (che da qualche anno permettono di custodire documenti d’identità digitali sul telefono e di utilizzarli come prova dell’età), funzionano in modo leggermente diverso: non si basano su microprocessori integrati in carte fisiche, bensì su componenti hardware presenti nei telefoni cellulari.
Queste soluzioni si avvalgono di un sistema crittografico che comunica alla piattaforma che una persona è in possesso di un documento digitale che attesta la sua maggiore età, senza tuttavia rivelare ulteriori dettagli. Il principio tecnico sottostante a entrambi questi esempi è la selective disclosure. Sempre Risius e Sedlmeir concludono: “Com’è evidente, i sistemi di verifica dell’età possono essere progettati ponendo al centro il principio della non tracciabilità. Ciò significa che né l’autorità né la piattaforma possono monitorare le attività di un utente, pur essendo in grado di verificare con precisione l’età”.
Le leggi statali
Una delle leggi più solide tra quelle in vigore è l’Online Safety Act del Regno Unito, che di fatto obbliga le piattaforme, i siti pornografici e i grandi motori di ricerca a impedire ai minori l’accesso a contenuti dannosi. Questi comprendono anche l’istigazione al suicidio, all’autolesionismo e la celebrazione dei disordini alimentari. Le regole sono in vigore dal luglio 2025. “In qualità di autorità di regolamentazione, non valuteremo i singoli contenuti né chiederemo ai servizi online di rimuovere materiale legale” si legge sul sito dell’Ofcom, l’autorità delle comunicazioni britannica (l’equivalente della nostra AGCOM) “Il nostro ruolo non è quello di impedire agli adulti di accedere a materiale pornografico legale, ma a partire dal 25 luglio saranno necessari controlli più rigorosi e, cosa fondamentale, non sarà più sufficiente spuntare una casella per dichiarare di avere più di 18 anni”. La legge, è fondamentale specificarlo, non obbliga tutte le piattaforme a verificare in modo diretto l’età di un utente, ma solo quelle che pubblicano materiale pornografico. Tutti gli altri siti devono comunque sottostare all’obbligo generale di impedire che i minori vengano in contatto con contenuti non appropriati.
In Unione Europea molti paesi stanno considerando di adottare legislazioni per il controllo dell’età, che si concretizzano in particolare nel divieto per le persone al di sotto di un’età specifica di iscriversi e utilizzare piattaforme social. Nelle ultime settimane, la Grecia ha annunciato che dal 2027 proibirà l’accesso alle piattaforme social ai minori di 15 anni. In Germania il partito di governo ha dichiarato che proporrà un divieto per i minori di 14 anni. In Danimarca si è raggiunto un accordo politico per impedire l’accesso sotto i 15 anni. E poi c’è la Francia, dove all’inizio di aprile il Senato ha approvato un disegno di legge che prevede un sistema a due livelli: alcune piattaforme saranno del tutto proibite ai minori, mentre altre richiederanno l’approvazione di almeno un genitore per l’iscrizione. La legge deve ora tornare in discussione alla Camera, ma vale la pena segnalare come il presidente della Repubblica Emmanuel Macron sia un grande sostenitore del social media ban.
Nel resto del mondo il dibattito segue direttrici simili. In Australia una legge considerata “storica” ha imposto alle principali piattaforme social di impedire l’accesso ai minori di 16 anni a partire da dicembre 2025, con sanzioni anche milionarie. In Brasile una legge entrata in vigore lo scorso marzo fa sì che i minorenni possano iscriversi alle piattaforme social solo se il loro account è collegato a quello di un supervisore adulto.
Il quadro nel diritto dell’Unione Europea
La legge di riferimento in Europa è invece il Digital Services Act (DSA). Il DSA non impone esplicitamente la verifica dell’età come requisito per operare sul territorio dell’Unione. Per le piattaforme online con più di 45 milioni di utenti mensili (VLOP, acronimo di very large online platforms), la Commissione si aspetta però che vengano adottate misure concrete per mitigare i rischi sistemici, ovvero i rischi che gli ecosistemi online pongono al resto della società. La tutela dei minori assume quindi un ruolo di primo piano.
“La questione della competenza in materia di verifica dell’età nei servizi digitali si colloca in una zona di intersezione tra il diritto dell’Unione e le prerogative nazionali, e può essere compresa correttamente solo se si abbandona una logica dicotomica per adottare una prospettiva di competenza mista, nella quale, tuttavia, il ruolo operativo degli Stati membri resta oggi decisivo”, spiega a Guerre di Rete Giovanni Ziccardi, professore di Informatica Giuridica presso l’Università di Milano.
Il Digital Services Act adotta infatti un modello “risk based”, basato cioè sulla valutazione dei rischi, lasciando aperto un ventaglio di soluzioni adottabili. L’obbligo non è quello di adottare una soluzione unica, ma di dimostrare che il sistema scelto protegge effettivamente i minori dai rischi per la loro sicurezza e incolumità. “Questa impostazione, tuttavia, apre uno spazio normativo significativo per l’intervento degli Stati membri. In assenza di una armonizzazione piena a livello europeo, infatti, sono gli ordinamenti nazionali a mantenere la competenza sulle modalità concrete attraverso cui tale obiettivo deve essere perseguito. Ciò riguarda, in primo luogo, la definizione delle tecniche di verifica dell’età – che possono spaziare da sistemi documentali a soluzioni basate su intermediari certificati o su modelli di anonimizzazione – e, in secondo luogo, la determinazione dei limiti di accesso a determinati contenuti, soprattutto quando si tratta di materiali sensibili come quelli pornografici”, prosegue Ziccardi.
Le autorità europee hanno recentemente fatto alcuni passi per attuare nel concreto le indicazioni del DSA. Dopo un’investigazione, terminata lo scorso marzo, è stato concluso che quattro siti pornografici (PornHub, Stripchat, XNXX e XVideos) non stanno mettendo in atto le protezioni sufficienti per evitare che i minorenni entrino in contatto con i loro contenuti (che sono, ovviamente, a sfondo sessuale). “La Commissione ha constatato, in via preliminare, che Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX e XVideos non hanno adottato misure efficaci per impedire ai minori di accedere ai propri servizi, venendo così meno al proprio dovere di tutelare i diritti e il benessere dei minori. Sebbene nei loro Termini di servizio sia specificato che i servizi sono riservati esclusivamente agli adulti, tutte e quattro le piattaforme consentono ai minori di accedervi con un semplice clic, con cui confermano di avere più di 18 anni”, si legge nel comunicato stampa ufficiale. Un clic per confermare l’età non può più bastare. Se le conclusioni della Commissione dovessero essere confermate, le società rischiano sanzioni fino al 6% del loro fatturato annuo globale.
Le soluzioni tecniche proposte dall’Europa
“Accanto alla dimensione dell’enforcement si sviluppa, in parallelo, una seconda direttrice di natura tecnico-infrastrutturale, che riguarda la costruzione di standard europei comuni. L’Unione sta infatti lavorando alla definizione di soluzioni interoperabili di verifica dell’età, anche attraverso progetti pilota basati su applicazioni dedicate e, soprattutto, in prospettiva, mediante l’integrazione con il EU Digital Identity Wallet. L’obiettivo è duplice: da un lato, evitare la frammentazione derivante dalla proliferazione di modelli nazionali eterogenei; dall’altro, garantire che i sistemi adottati rispettino principi fondamentali, come la protezione dei dati personali e la minimizzazione delle informazioni trattate”, prosegue Ziccardi.
Il regolamento quadro che introduce l’EU Digital Identity Wallet è entrato in vigore nel maggio del 2024 e gli stati membri saranno obbligati ad adottare la tecnologia entro la fine del 2026. “In questo contesto, assume particolare rilievo il paradigma della privacy by design, che si traduce nella ricerca di soluzioni capaci di attestare un requisito (per esempio, il superamento di una soglia di età) senza rivelare l’identità dell’utente”, prosegue Ziccardi. “Alcuni modelli già sperimentati, come quello della cosiddetta ‘doppia anonimizzazione’, prevedono la separazione tra il soggetto che verifica l’età e il servizio che eroga il contenuto, in modo da evitare la concentrazione di informazioni sensibili in un unico punto del sistema. Si tratta di un terreno nel quale diritto e tecnologia si influenzano reciprocamente: le esigenze di tutela giuridica orientano le soluzioni tecniche, mentre queste ultime ridefiniscono le possibilità concrete di regolazione”. La soluzione proposta dall’Europa si inserisce nel filone delle soluzioni privacy first e decentralizzate, che potrebbero costituire una modalità sicura e rispettosa della riservatezza per verificare l’età.
Nel 2025, l’AGCOM ha imposto ai siti per adulti di controllare che gli utenti siano maggiorenni. L’applicazione della direttiva è stata frammentata e ben presto il TAR del Lazio ha messo un freno alle disposizioni. Il problema principale risiede nella natura transfrontaliera dei servizi digitali. “Una parte significativa dei siti interessati, infatti, è stabilita in altri Stati membri dell’Unione, con la conseguente applicazione del principio del paese d’origine, che costituisce uno degli assi portanti del Digital Services Act. Questo principio limita fortemente la possibilità per un’autorità nazionale di imporre direttamente obblighi a operatori stabiliti altrove, imponendo invece il ricorso a meccanismi di cooperazione tra autorità competenti” spiega Giovanni Ziccardi. Il caso italiano rappresenta bene la frizione che può crearsi in un contesto di governance a più livelli (statale e sovranazionale).
I rischi che permangono e le prospettive future
Rimane uno scarto tra le questioni tecniche e la realtà sociale del problema. Le soluzioni come l’identità digitale europea o il Google Wallet sono create per limitare la quantità di informazioni che il sito può raccogliere sull’utente. Ma non prendono in considerazione lo scenario più banale: quello di un minore che utilizza il telefono, le credenziali o il documento di un adulto. In altre parole, il sistema può anche contribuire a non esporre una quantità significativa di dati personali, ma non elimina del tutto il rischio di un raggiro.
Lo scorso aprile, l’esperto di cybersicurezza Paul Moore ha affermato di essere riuscito a bypassare la crittografia del portafoglio digitale europeo in soli due minuti. Altri esperti hanno fatto eco a queste preoccupazioni: “Più dati raccolgono questi sistemi, più diventano appetibili per gli hacker”, ha dichiarato Hanna Bözakov, fondatrice del servizio di crittografia Tuta. Se si guarda infine al mercato delle VPN, si nota come siano diventate molto popolari nei contesti in cui si è introdotto l’obbligo di verifica dell’età.
Le direttrici di rischio sono diverse. Oltre ai dubbi tecnici, emergono anche alcune questioni politiche e culturali sulla natura della rete. Molti sostengono, per esempio, che d’ora in poi sarà impossibile navigare sul web in modo anonimo. C’è anche chi ritiene che gli obblighi tecnici e legali di verifica siano un modo per sollevare le Big Tech dalle proprie responsabilità rispetto alla moderazione dei contenuti. Tra quest’ultimi c’è Eva Simon, direttrice del programma su Tecnologia e Diritti della Civil Liberties Union in Europa: “Ci stiamo concentrando sull’accesso, ma il vero problema è il modo in cui le piattaforme catturano l’attenzione e promuovono i contenuti. È da lì che derivano i danni”.
Ma la verifica dell’età è ormai un orizzonte concreto, in Europa e nel mondo. “In questa cornice, la chiave interpretativa più convincente è forse quella che coglie una tensione tra forma e sostanza”, conclude Ziccardi. “L’obbligo di verifica dell’età non è ancora formalizzato in modo uniforme a livello europeo, ma si sta progressivamente imponendo come necessità sistemica. Il DSA richiede una protezione effettiva dei minori e, allo stato delle tecnologie e dei modelli organizzativi disponibili, la verifica dell’età rappresenta lo strumento più credibile per realizzarla. La questione centrale non riguarda più, dunque, la presenza o meno dell’obbligo, ma il modo in cui lo si impone: chi è legittimato a imporlo, attraverso quali strumenti tecnici deve essere attuato e, soprattutto, con quali garanzie in termini di tutela dei diritti fondamentali e della riservatezza degli utenti”.
Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history.
On May 15, KrebsOnSecurity heard from Guillaume Valadon, a researcher with the security firm GitGuardian. Valadon’s company constantly scans public code repositories at GitHub and elsewhere for exposed secrets, automatically alerting the offending accounts of any apparent sensitive data exposures. Valadon said he reached out because the owner in this case wasn’t responding and the information exposed was highly sensitive.
A redacted screenshot of the now-defunct “Private CISA” repository maintained by a CISA contractor.
The GitHub repository that Valadon flagged was named “Private-CISA,” and it harbored a vast number of internal CISA/DHS credentials and files, including cloud keys, tokens, plaintext passwords, logs and other sensitive CISA assets.
Valadon said the exposed CISA credentials represent a textbook example of poor security hygiene, noting that the commit logs in the offending GitHub account show that the CISA administrator disabled the default setting in GitHub that blocks users from publishing SSH keys or other secrets in public code repositories.
“Passwords stored in plain text in a csv, backups in git, explicit commands to disable GitHub secrets detection feature,” Valadon wrote in an email. “I honestly believed that it was all fake before analyzing the content deeper. This is indeed the worst leak that I’ve witnessed in my career. It is obviously an individual’s mistake, but I believe that it might reveal internal practices.”
One of the exposed files, titled “importantAWStokens,” included the administrative credentials to three Amazon AWS GovCloud servers. Another file exposed in their public GitHub repository — “AWS-Workspace-Firefox-Passwords.csv” — listed plaintext usernames and passwords for dozens of internal CISA systems. According to Caturegli, those systems included one called “LZ-DSO,” which appears short for “Landing Zone DevSecOps,” the agency’s secure code development environment.
Philippe Caturegli, founder of the security consultancy Seralys, said he tested the AWS keys only to see whether they were still valid and to determine which internal systems the exposed accounts could access. Caturegli said the GitHub account that exposed the CISA secrets exhibits a pattern consistent with an individual operator using the repository as a working scratchpad or synchronization mechanism rather than a curated project repository.
“The use of both a CISA-associated email address and a personal email address suggests the repository may have been used across differently configured environments,” Caturegli observed. “The available Git metadata alone does not prove which endpoint or device was used.”
The Private CISA GitHub repo exposed dozens of plaintext credentials for important CISA GovCloud resources.
Caturegli said he validated that the exposed credentials could authenticate to three AWS GovCloud accounts at a high privilege level. He said the archive also includes plain text credentials to CISA’s internal “artifactory” — essentially a repository of all the code packages they are using to build software — and that this would represent a juicy target for malicious attackers looking for ways to maintain a persistent foothold in CISA systems.
“That would be a prime place to move laterally,” he said. “Backdoor in some software packages, and every time they build something new they deploy your backdoor left and right.”
In response to questions, a spokesperson for CISA said the agency is aware of the reported exposure and is continuing to investigate the situation.
“Currently, there is no indication that any sensitive data was compromised as a result of this incident,” the CISA spokesperson wrote. “While we hold our team members to the highest standards of integrity and operational awareness, we are working to ensure additional safeguards are implemented to prevent future occurrences.”
A review of the GitHub account and its exposed passwords show the “Private CISA” repository was maintained by an employee of Nightwing, a government contractor based in Dulles, Va. Nightwing declined to comment, directing inquiries to CISA.
CISA has not responded to questions about the potential duration of the data exposure, but Caturegli said the Private CISA repository was created on November 13, 2025. The contractor’s GitHub account was created back in September 2018.
The GitHub account that included the Private CISA repo was taken offline shortly after both KrebsOnSecurity and Seralys notified CISA about the exposure. But Caturegli said the exposed AWS keys inexplicably continued to remain valid for another 48 hours.
CISA is currently operating with only a fraction of its normal budget and staffing levels. The agency has lost nearly a third of its workforce since the beginning of the second Trump administration, which forced a series of early retirements, buyouts, and resignations across the agency’s various divisions.
The now-defunct Private CISA repo showed the contractor also used easily-guessed passwords for a number of internal resources; for example, many of the credentials used a password consisting of each platform’s name followed by the current year. Caturegli said such practices would constitute a serious security threat for any organization even if those credentials were never exposed externally, noting that threat actors often use key credentials exposed on the internal network to expand their reach after establishing initial access to a targeted system.
“What I suspect happened is [the CISA contractor] was using this GitHub to synchronize files between a work laptop and a home computer, because he has regularly committed to this repo since November 2025,” Caturegli said. “This would be an embarrassing leak for any company, but it’s even more so in this case because it’s CISA.”
Mais enfin, vous n’avez pas lu tous les messages ? ? Vous demandez quels soucis nous rencontrons ? C’est IMPOSSIBLE de MODIFIER son vote. Nous utilisions l’ancienne version. Maintenant c’est fini, c’est inutilisable. Effectivement, beaucoup de gens vont abandonner framadate.
💻 Framasoft recrute une nouvelle personne en administration système pour renforcer son équipe technique ! Spécificité à noter : besoin d'expérience forte dans la gestion du mail.
Linux users have long faced a frustrating limitation with wireless earbuds: basic Bluetooth audio usually works, but advanced features often remain locked behind proprietary mobile apps. A new open-source project called BudsLink is trying to change that.
Designed specifically for Linux desktops, BudsLink adds support for battery monitoring, Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) controls, ambient sound modes, gesture customization, and other premium earbud features that are typically unavailable outside Android or iOS ecosystems.
For Linux users who rely on devices like AirPods, Sony earbuds, Samsung Galaxy Buds, or Nothing earbuds, this is a significant quality-of-life improvement.
What Is BudsLink?
BudsLink is an independent open-source application that communicates directly with supported Bluetooth earbuds using Linux Bluetooth protocols such as L2CAP and RFCOMM sockets. Instead of treating earbuds as simple audio devices, the application exposes many of the advanced controls usually hidden behind vendor apps.
The project currently supports multiple device families, including:
Apple AirPods and Beats
Sony audio wearables
Samsung Galaxy Buds
Nothing and CMF earbuds
The application is available through Flatpak and can run across multiple Linux distributions.
Features Linux Users Normally Don’t Get
Traditionally, Linux Bluetooth support has focused mainly on audio playback and microphone functionality. BudsLink goes much further by exposing premium earbud features directly within Linux.
Current capabilities include:
Monitoring earbud battery levels
Viewing charging case battery status
Switching between ANC and ambient sound modes
Conversation awareness support on compatible devices
Automatic volume reduction during conversations
In-ear detection for automatic pause/resume
Gesture and stem control configuration
Customizable icons and appearance settings
For many Linux users, these are features they’ve never had access to outside mobile apps.
Closing a Long-Standing Linux Gap
Bluetooth earbuds have become increasingly dependent on proprietary ecosystems. Features like adaptive audio, transparency modes, or touch controls often require vendor-specific mobile applications that are unavailable on Linux.
That has created a frustrating situation where:
The earbuds technically work on Linux
But users lose many of the features they paid for
BudsLink aims to bridge that gap by reverse-engineering communication protocols and exposing those controls natively on Linux desktops.
Canonical has officially kicked off development planning for Ubuntu 26.10, the next interim release of the popular Linux distribution. Codenamed “Stonking Stingray,” the release is scheduled to arrive on October 15, 2026, continuing Ubuntu’s predictable six-month development cycle.
Although Ubuntu 26.10 is still in the early planning stages, the release roadmap already offers hints about what users can expect from the next generation of Ubuntu.
A New Interim Release After Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Ubuntu 26.10 follows the recently released Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “Resolute Raccoon”, which introduced major platform changes including Linux 7.0, GNOME 50, Wayland-only sessions, and expanded TPM-backed security features.
Unlike the LTS release, Ubuntu 26.10 will be a short-term support release, receiving updates for nine months instead of the five years offered by LTS editions.
These interim releases are typically used to introduce newer technologies and prepare the groundwork for future long-term Ubuntu versions.
The “Stonking Stingray” Codename
Canonical confirmed that Ubuntu 26.10 will carry the codename “Stonking Stingray.”
As with previous Ubuntu releases, the codename follows the project’s long-running naming convention using:
An adjective
An animal beginning with the same letter
The playful naming tradition remains one of Ubuntu’s most recognizable characteristics.
Development Schedule Already Published
Canonical has already published the preliminary roadmap for Ubuntu 26.10 development. Major milestones currently include:
Feature Freeze: August 20, 2026
Beta Release: September 24, 2026
Kernel Freeze: October 1, 2026
Final Release: October 15, 2026
The toolchain upload process reportedly began in late April, officially opening the development cycle.
Expected Technologies in Ubuntu 26.10
While Canonical has not yet finalized the complete feature set, several components are widely expected based on current development schedules.
GNOME 51
Ubuntu 26.10 is likely to ship with GNOME 51, which is expected to be released roughly one month before Ubuntu 26.10 itself.
This would continue Ubuntu’s strategy of tracking recent GNOME desktop releases in interim versions.
YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok: sono le piattaforme social più utilizzate dagli italiani. Social media, e non social network, visto che – come sottolinea Kenobit nel suo nuovo saggio “Assalto alle piattaforme” (Agenzia X) – l’obiettivo è tenerci agganciati a consumare passivamente contenuti multimediali, invece che mobilitarci per creare rete.
App come queste sono infatti caratterizzate dall’apparente gratuità e da un algoritmo esplicitamente progettato per generare dipendenza, stimolando uno scrolling destinato a non finire mai. Lo stesso Aza Raskin, il designer che nel 2006 ha ideato lo scrolling infinito (cioè il caricamento continuo e automatico di nuovi contenuti durante lo scorrimento, senza un punto di arresto naturale), a distanza di 20 anni si è dichiarato pentito della sua invenzione. Inoltre queste piattaforme intrappolano gli utenti in modo che non clicchino su link che rimandano a siti esterni, inibendo così l’uscita dalle piattaforme.
“Il gioco è sempre lo stesso”, scrive Kenobit. “Visto che il profitto delle piattaforme è direttamente proporzionale al tempo che gli dedichiamo, i loro meccanismi sono studiati scientificamente per aumentarlo il più possibile. Produciamo valore quando creiamo contenuti, ma anche quando li consumiamo”.
Per un utente che non cerca altro che intrattenimento, luoghi del genere sembrano l’Eldorado. E invece si tratta, antropologicamente parlando, di veri e propri non luoghi: spazi in cui non si creano connessioni, ma che si attraversano di passaggio per andare da un contenuto a un altro senza che resti all’utente alcun valore aggiunto.
“Se non stai pagando per il prodotto, il prodotto sei tu”, verrebbe da dire, riprendendo le parole rese celebri dal film “The social dilemma”. Ed ecco una delle frasi che Kenobit punta a decostruire nel suo saggio: su queste piattaforme persino chi paga – le aziende e le attività che versano una quota per occupare spazi pubblicitari – è a sua volta un prodotto, perché genera ulteriori dati che le piattaforme raccolgono e sfruttano per arricchirsi vendendoli.
Ma cosa – o meglio chi – sono queste piattaforme? Tra quelle citate, si possono raggruppare Facebook e Instagram (e WhatsApp), del gruppo Meta fondato da Mark Zuckerberg. C’è poi YouTube, proprietà come Google della holding Alphabet Inc., di cui i fondatori di Google, Larry Page e Sergey Brin, sono ancora i maggiori azionisti e membri del consiglio di amministrazione, detenendo di fatto il controllo dell’azienda, pur non essendo più amministratori delegati.
Meta ha registrato un fatturato di 164,5 miliardi di dollari per l’intero anno 2024, segnando una crescita del 22% rispetto al 2023. Alphabet Inc. ha registrato ricavi annuali record, superando i 400 miliardi di dollari nel 2025, grazie alla crescita della pubblicità. C’è di più: entrambi i colossi hanno espliciti legami con il presidente degli Stati Uniti Donald Trump, e sono nella lista BDS (Boicottaggio, Disinvestimento e Sanzioni) per il loro coinvolgimento nel genocidio in Palestina.
Ma se sono così poco etiche perché è tanto difficile abbandonare queste piattaforme? Probabilmente, perché non tutto ciò che avviene sui social è nocivo. Quante amicizie, progetti, idee, iniziative non sarebbero nate o diventate così note se non fosse stato per i social? Kenobit fa l’esempio delle mobilitazioni per la Palestina realizzate dal 7 ottobre 2023 in poi, in cui i social, nonostante le varie dinamiche di shadow ban – cioè di oscuramento della tematica, costringendo talvolta a utilizzare caratteri speciali per parlarne (per esempio scrivendo G4z4 invece di Gaza) – hanno avuto un ruolo fondamentale. Il ruolo dei social è stato centrale anche nella formazione di grandi movimenti di protesta come Fridays For Future, con la nascita di nuclei di attivisti in ogni parte del mondo, o Black Lives Matter, con la condivisione di massa del video della morte di George Floyd e la propagazione delle sue ultime parole “I can’t breathe”.
Il problema è che, sui social, in breve tempo si passa oltre: nuovi contenuti, nuovi trend, nuove cose a cui prestare attenzione, togliendo forza al desiderio e all’urgenza di convergenza e di organizzazione. Tra i limiti dell’attivismo online c’è infatti la necessità di sottostare alle logiche algoritmiche delle piattaforme, con Meta che al contempo blocca la possibilità di promuovere post dal contenuto a sfondo politico o sociale e ne limita anche la diffusione organica, tramite l’impostazione che permette di non visualizzare contenuti politici tra quelli suggeriti nel proprio feed.
Fare attivismo sui social significa inoltre rischiare di scivolare, talvolta senza rendersene nemmeno conto, in quello che viene definito slacktivism, o attivismo da poltrona, cioè un tipo di attivismo che si limita alla condivisione di contenuti sui propri canali, senza che questo gesto si concretizzi in nulla di più radicale o d’impatto.
Inoltre, perché il proprio attivismo cambi le cose, l’obiettivo dev’essere quello di costruire comunità. Appoggiarsi alle piattaforme mainstream significa invece, come scrive Kenobit, “costruire a casa d’altri”, lasciando in mano loro il destino del nostro attivismo ed esponendosi al rischio che post, profili e gruppi vengano cancellati in qualsiasi momento, quasi senza possibilità di replica. “Queste piattaforme non sono democratiche”, scrive sempre Kenobit. Chi crea contenuti rischia, tra l’altro, di diventare schiavo dei numeri, piegandosi a trattare di temi non controversi o divisivi in modo da raggiungere il maggior numero di persone possibili – talvolta finendo per capitalizzare le lotte sponsorizzando prodotti che con queste hanno qualche punto di contatto (magliette, tote bag o oggetti figli, per esempio, del greenwashing). Così facendo, l’attivismo diventa un lavoro da influencer più che da potenziali leader politici.
È possibile cambiare piattaforme?
“Abbiamo davanti una lotta impari, contro un nemico ben fortificato, con risorse economiche e tecnologiche senza precedenti nella storia dell’umanità”, prosegue Kenobit nel saggio. “Non lo prenderemo mai per sfinimento, né possiamo sperare di batterlo sul suo stesso terreno. Le piattaforme possiedono tutto, incluso il campo di battaglia, e se anche riuscissimo a metterle in difficoltà in casa loro potrebbero semplicemente cambiare le regole del gioco. Per lo stesso motivo, anche se usare alcuni dei loro strumenti può avere dei meriti strategici, non possiamo sperare di cambiarle dall’interno. Non può esserci riformismo in una dittatura. La disparità è evidente anche sul fronte della comunicazione, perché le piattaforme, controllando la dimensione digitale, proiettano un’influenza tangibile sul reale”.
Nonostante questa posizione, Kenobit è abilissimo nel fornire alternative valide a ciascuno dei problemi legati alle piattaforme, spiegando con parole comprensibili a tutti che cosa si può fare e perché dovremmo farlo. Per esempio, la proposta di passare al Fediverso come alternativa ai social media mainstream è legata all’eticità dell’utilizzo di un software open source, ovvero il cui codice è consultabile e utilizzabile praticamente da chiunque, invece che chiuso, proprietario e i cui meccanismi sono noti solo a pochi eletti.
Il software libero si basa su una filosofia completamente diversa. Come suggerisce il nome, è pensato per tutelare la nostra libertà. Nello specifico, quattro libertà:
la libertà di eseguire il programma per qualsiasi scopo;
la libertà di studiare come funziona il programma e di modificarlo in base alle proprie necessità;
la libertà di ridistribuire copie del programma in modo da aiutare il prossimo;
la libertà di migliorare il programma e di distribuirne pubblicamente i miglioramenti, in modo tale che tutta la comunità ne tragga beneficio.
Kenobit elenca molti motivi per cui preferire i social del Fediverso a quelli ancora mainstream: tra questi, l’assenza di un algoritmo che determina che cosa mostrare a chi a favore di un feed che rispetta l’ordine cronologico delle pubblicazioni, garantendo a tutti di non perdersi nulla e di dare a ogni contenuto la giusta dignità e diffusione. “L’assenza di pubblicità vanifica la necessità di un algoritmo che seleziona al posto nostro cosa mostrarci”.
Va da sé che è impossibile che il passaggio dai social mainstream al Fediverso sia rapido e collettivo. Per questo, una valida soluzione intermedia consiste nel mantenere i propri profili sui social tradizionali, ma smettendo gradualmente di postare contenuti e utilizzandoli soprattutto, come da tempo fa Kenobit, per sponsorizzare il passaggio ad altre piattaforme.
Più cooperazione e meno competizione
Il controllo che Big Tech può esercitare va però ben oltre le singole piattaforme. Durante una presentazione del libro che si è svolta a Torino, a Radio Blackout, l’11 febbraio 2026, è nato un dibattito sul possesso delle dorsali internet (backbone): infrastrutture fisiche ad altissima capacità, composte da cavi sottomarini in fibra ottica posati sui fondali oceanici. Trasportano oltre il 99% del traffico dati mondiale tra continenti, connettendo reti locali e garantendo la velocità della connessione web.
Già questo aspetto pone un importante problema, perché, anche utilizzando piattaforme alternative a quelle mainstream, ci si continuerebbe ad appoggiare a questo sistema, che resta in buona parte in mano a colossi privati. Le dorsali sono infatti gestite da un consorzio di grandi aziende di telecomunicazioni internazionali, colossi tecnologici (Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft) e, in parte, da governi.
In risposta a questa osservazione, Kenobit ha suggerito di cercare il sito di Antennine, che punta a costruire reti comunitarie. Citando il loro blog, “le reti comunitarie sono infrastrutture locali di telecomunicazione create da gruppi di persone (una comunità) per connettersi a Internet e fornire servizi di comunicazione digitale. Sono costruite e gestite come un bene comune, cioè una risorsa prodotta e mantenuta collettivamente, piuttosto che detenuta privatamente, come alternativa alle grandi reti commerciali o statali e ai fornitori di servizi Internet”. Sul sito di Antennine sono presenti le istruzioni per contattare gli organizzatori del progetto e unirsi alla rete. È solo un inizio, che rappresenta però un baluardo di resistenza per ricordarsi che costruire delle alternative è possibile.
Altri esempi internazionali di gestione comunitaria e democratica dell’accesso a internet sono Guifi.net, nata in Catalogna nel 2004 e che punta a costruire una rete dal basso in modo da connettere aree rurali portando la connessione internet laddove non arrivano gli operatori commerciali tradizionali, e Freifunk, nata a Berlino, che ha come obiettivo quello di fornire una rete internet libera e accessibile a tutti.
Un altro tema critico riguarda le conoscenze necessarie per poter usare – o anche solo entrare in contatto – con le piattaforme alternative. È necessaria in primis un’alfabetizzazione digitale, non scontata in un contesto in cui solo il 46% degli italiani possiede competenze di base in quest’ambito, ma anche una coscienza politica tale da problematizzare le piattaforme, oltre a contatti che tramite il passaparola permettano di accedere ad alternative come il Fediverso.
Per fare effettivamente la differenza, c’è insomma prima di tutto bisogno di fare massa critica, scegliere che direzione prendere e costruirla insieme. Come scrive Kenobit, “abbiamo un’occasione imperdibile per rivendicare una dimensione digitale fondata sulla cooperazione invece che sulla competizione”.
Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers — including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Oracle — fixing near record volumes of security bugs, and/or quickening the tempo of their patch releases.
As it does on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft today released software updates to address at least 118 security vulnerabilities in its various Windows operating systems and other products. Remarkably, this is the first Patch Tuesday in nearly two years that Microsoft is not shipping any fixes to deal with emergency zero-day flaws that are already being exploited. Nor have any of the flaws fixed today been previously disclosed (potentially giving attackers a heads up in how to exploit the weakness).
Sixteen of the vulnerabilities earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” label, meaning malware or miscreants could abuse these bugs to seize remote control over a vulnerable Windows device with little or no help from the user. Rapid7 has done much of the heavy lifting in identifying some of the more concerning critical weaknesses this month, including:
CVE-2026-41089: A critical stack-based buffer overflow in Windows Netlogon that offers an attacker SYSTEM privileges on the domain controller. No privileges or user interaction are required, and attack complexity is low. Patches are available for all versions of Windows Server from 2012 onwards.
CVE-2026-41096: A critical RCE in the Windows DNS client implementation worthy of attention despite Microsoft assessing exploitation as less likely.
CVE-2026-41103: A critical elevation of privilege vulnerability that allows an unauthorized attacker to impersonate an existing user by presenting forged credentials, thus bypassing Entra ID. Microsoft expects that exploitation is more likely.
May’s Patch Tuesday is a welcome respite from April, which saw Microsoft fix a near-record 167 security flaws. Microsoft was among a few dozen tech giants given access to a “Project Glasswing,” a much-hyped AI capability developed by Anthropic that appears quite effective at unearthing security vulnerabilities in code.
Apple, another early participant in Project Glasswing, typically fixes an average of 20 vulnerabilities each time it ships a security update for iOS devices, said Chris Goettl, vice president of product management at Ivanti. On May 11, Apple shipped updates to address at least 52 vulnerabilities and backported the changes all the way to iPhone 6s and iOS 15.
Last month, Mozilla released Firefox 150, which resolved a whopping 271 vulnerabilities that were reportedly discovered during the Glasswing evaluation.
“Since Firefox 150.0.0 released, they have been on a more aggressive weekly cadence for security updates including the release of Firefox 150.0.3 on May Patch Tuesday resolving between three to five CVEs in each release,” Goettl said.
The software giant Oracle likewise recently increased its patch pace in response to their work with Glasswing. In its most recent quarterly patch update, Oracle addressed at least 450 flaws, including more than 300 fixes for remotely exploitable, unauthenticated flaws. But at the end of April, Oracle announced it was switching to a monthly update cycle for critical security issues.
On May 8, Google started rolling out updates to its Chrome browser that fixed an astonishing 127 security flaws (up from just 30 the previous month). Chrome automagically downloads available security updates, but installing them requires fully restarting the browser.
If you encounter any weirdness applying the updates from Microsoft or any other vendor mentioned here, feel free to sound off in the comments below. Meantime, if you haven’t backed up your data and/or drive lately, doing that before updating is generally sound advice. For a more granular look at the Microsoft updates released today, checkout this inventory by the SANS Internet Storm Center.
An ongoing data extortion attack targeting the widely-used education technology platform Canvas disrupted classes and coursework at school districts and universities across the United States today, after a cybercrime group defaced the service’s login page with a ransom demand that threatened to leak data from 275 million students and faculty across nearly 9,000 educational institutions.
A screenshot shared by a reader showing the extortion message that was shown on the Canvas login page today.
Canvas parent firm Instructure responded to today’s defacement attacks by disabling the platform, which is used by thousands of schools, universities and businesses to manage coursework and assignments, and to communicate with students.
Instructure acknowledged a data breach earlier this week, after the cybercrime group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility and said they would leak data on tens of millions of students and faculty unless paid a ransom. The stated deadline for payment was initially set at May 6, but it was later pushed back to May 12.
In a statement on May 6, Instructure said the investigation so far shows the stolen information includes “certain identifying information of users at affected institutions, such as names, email addresses, and student ID numbers, as well as as messages among users.” The company said it found no evidence the breached data included more sensitive information, such as passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers or financial information.
The May 6 update stated that Canvas was fully operational, and that Instructure was not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity on their platform. “At this stage, we believe the incident has been contained,” Instructure wrote.
However, by mid-day on Thursday, May 7, students and faculty at dozens of schools and universities were flooding social media sites with comments saying that a ransom demand from ShinyHunters had replaced the usual Canvas login page. Instructure responded by pulling Canvas offline and replacing the portal with the message, “Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Check back soon.”
“We anticipate being up soon, and will provide updates as soon as possible,” reads the current message on Instructure’s status page.
While the data stolen by ShinyHunters may or may not contain particularly sensitive information (ShinyHunters claims it includes several billion private messages among students and teachers, as well as names, phone numbers and email addresses), this attack could hardly have come at a worse time for Instructure: Many of the affected schools and universities are in the middle of final exams, and a prolonged outage could be highly damaging for the company.
The extortion message that greeted countless Canvas users today advised the affected schools to negotiate their own ransom payments to prevent the publication of their data — regardless of whether Instructure decides to pay.
“ShinyHunters has breached Instructure (again),” the extortion message read. “Instead of contacting us to resolve it they ignored us and did some ‘security patches.'”
A source close to the investigation who was not authorized to speak to the press told KrebsOnSecurity that a number of universities have already approached the cybercrime group about paying. The same source also pointed out that the ShinyHunters data leak blog no longer lists Instructure among its current extortion victims, and that the samples of data stolen from Canvas customers were removed as well. Data extortion groups like ShinyHunters will typically only remove victims from their leak sites after receiving an extortion payment or after a victim agrees to negotiate.
Dipan Mann, founder and CEO of the security firm Cloudskope, slammed Instructure for referring to today’s outage as a “scheduled maintenance” event on its status page. Mann said Shiny Hunters first demonstrated they’d breached Instructure on May 1, prompting Instructure’s Chief Information Security Officer Steve Proud to declare the following day that the incident had been contained. But Mann said today’s attack is at least the third time in the past eight months that Instructure has been breached by ShinyHunters.
In a blog post today, Mann noted that in September 2025, ShinyHunters released thousands of internal University of Pennsylvania files — donor records, internal memos, and other confidential materials — through what the Daily Pennsylvanian and other outlets later determined was, in part, a Canvas/Instructure-mediated access path.
“Penn was the named victim,” Mann wrote. “Instructure was the mechanism. The incident was treated as a Penn-specific story by most of the national press and quietly handled by Instructure as a customer-specific matter. That framing was wrong then. It is dramatically more wrong in light of the May 2026 events, which now look like the planned escalation of an attack pattern that ShinyHunters had been working against Instructure’s environment for at least eight months prior. The September 2025 Penn breach was the proof of concept. The May 1, 2026 incident was the production run. The May 7, 2026 recompromise was ShinyHunters demonstrating publicly that the May 2 ‘containment’ did not happen.”
In February, a ShinyHunters spokesperson told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn failed to pay a $1 million ransom demand. On March 5, ShinyHunters published 461 megabytes worth of data stolen from Penn, including thousands of files such as donor records and internal memos.
ShinyHunters is a prolific and fluid cybercriminal group that specializes in data theft and extortion. They typically gain access to companies through voice phishing and social engineering attacks that often involve impersonating IT personnel or other trusted members of a targeted organization.
Last month, ShinyHunters relieved the home security giant ADT of personal information on 5.5 million customers. The extortion group told BleepingComputer they breached the company by compromising an employee’s Okta single sign-on account in a voice phishing attack that enabled access to ADT’s Salesforce instance. BleepingComputer says ShinyHunters recently has taken credit for a number of extortion attacks against high-profile organizations, including Medtronic, Rockstar Games, McGraw Hill, 7-Eleven and the cruise line operator Carnival.
The attack on Canvas customers is just one of several major cybercrime campaigns being launched by ShinyHunters at the moment, said Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at the Google-owned Mandiant Consulting. Carmakal declined to comment specifically on the Canvas breach, but said “there are multiple concurrent and discrete ShinyHunters intrusion and extortion campaigns happening right now.”
Cloudskope’s Mann said what happens next depends largely on whether Instructure’s customers — the universities, K-12 districts, and education ministries paying for Canvas — choose to apply pressure or absorb the breach quietly.
“The history of education-vendor incidents suggests the path of least resistance is the second one,” he concluded.
Update, May 8, 11:05 a.m. ET: Instructure has published an incident update page that includes more information about the breach. Instructure said its Canvas portal is functioning normally again, and that the hackers exploited an issue related to Free-for-Teacher accounts.
“This is the same issue that led to the unauthorized access the prior week,” Instructure wrote. “As a result, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily shut down Free-for-Teacher accounts. These accounts have been a core part of our platform, and we’re committed to resolving the issues with these accounts.”
Instructure said affected organizations were notified on May 6.
“If your organization is affected, Instructure will contact your organization’s primary contacts directly,” the update states. “Please don’t rely on third-party lists or social media posts naming potentially affected organizations as those lists aren’t verified. Instructure will confirm validated information through direct outreach to all affected organizations.”
Update, May 11, 10:16 p.m. ET: Instructure posted an update saying they paid their extortionists in exchange for a promise to destroy the stolen data. “The data was returned to us,” the update reads. “We received digital confirmation of data destruction (shred logs). We have been informed that no Instructure customers will be extorted as a result of this incident, publicly or otherwise.”
“Hai ancora 90 minuti per aggiornare la notizia falsa. Se lo fai, risolverai in un attimo il problema più grave che ti sei creato in vita tua. E tra una settimana non ti ricorderai più di me”. Questo il messaggio che, secondo quanto riportato dal Washington Post, il corrispondente di guerra del The Times of Israel Emanuel Fabian ha ricevuto su WhatsApp cinque giorni dopo aver pubblicato un articolo in cui raccontava che un missile iraniano aveva colpito, senza ferire nessuno, un’area boschiva poco fuori la città di Beit Shemesh, alle porte di Gerusalemme. Una notizia piuttosto marginale che, però, ha reso il giornalista l’obiettivo di minacce e ritorsioni da parte di ignoti.
Come raccontato da lui stesso, nelle ore successive alla pubblicazione Fabian ha cominciato a ricevere via email messaggi in ebraico che gli intimavano di modificare l’articolo, suggerendo che l’incidente fosse stato provocato da un missile intercettato “i cui rottami e frammenti erano caduti nel luogo dell’impatto”. Con il passare dei giorni, i messaggi si sono intensificati e le lamentele hanno raggiunto anche X, dove alcuni utenti hanno commentato la notizia condivisa dal giornalista, chiedendo se davvero si fosse trattato di un missile o meno. Ed è stato solo allora che, a quanto pare, Fabian ha compreso le ragioni del clamore sollevato dalla notizia pubblicata giorni prima: gli account X che avevano avanzato la richiesta di precisazioni erano collegati a Polymarket, la più grande piattaforma di prediction market al mondo, dove gli utenti avevano puntato più di 14 milioni di dollari sulla possibilità che un attacco missilistico iraniano colpisse Israele il 10 marzo.
“Questa scommessa sarà vincente se l’Iran lancerà un attacco con droni, missili o aerei sul territorio israeliano nella data indicata, secondo l’ora di Israele. In caso contrario, la scommessa sarà perdente”, si legge chiaramente su Polymarket. Tuttavia, “i missili o i droni che vengono intercettati non saranno considerati sufficienti per una risoluzione ‘Sì’, indipendentemente dal fatto che atterrino sul territorio israeliano o causino danni”. Una clausola che spiega bene perché il giornalista del The Times of Israel abbia ricevuto tante richieste di modificare l’articolo pubblicato: se Fabian avesse precisato che l’incidente era stato provocato da un missile intercettato, infatti, chiunque avesse puntato sul “no” avrebbe riscosso una vincita considerevole.
Ma il giornalista non ha ceduto alle minacce e ha messo a rischio la propria sicurezza pur di riportare la verità. “Il tentativo di questi giocatori d’azzardo di farmi pressione affinché modificassi i miei articoli per fargli vincere la scommessa non ha avuto successo e non lo avrà”, ha dichiarato. “Tuttavia, temo che altri giornalisti potrebbero non comportarsi in modo altrettanto etico, se venisse loro promessa una parte delle vincite”. Nonostante il “lieto fine”, la storia di Emanuel Fabian ha contribuito ad accendere i riflettori su Polymarket, il mercato predittivo che si sta dimostrando particolarmente abile nell’anticipare gli eventi geopolitici più emblematici della nostra epoca. Ma come può una piattaforma digitale prevedere quali saranno le decisioni dei governi più potenti al mondo? Chi sono gli investitori che sostengono il progetto e traggono profitto dalle sue scommesse milionarie?
Polymarket, il mercato predittivo più grande al mondo
La storia di Polymarket comincia come buona parte delle vicende delle aziende tech più note al mondo: solo che al posto di un garage, ci troviamo in un appartamento nel cuore di New York. Qui, nel pieno della pandemia di Covid-19, il giovanissimo Shayne Coplan, appassionato di tecnologia e criptovalute, in soli tre mesi crea una piattaforma che risponda ad alcuni dei quesiti che lo attanagliano durante il lockdown: “Quando finirà tutto questo? Quando sarà pronto il vaccino? Quando finiranno le misure di restrizione?”.
E così nel 2020, ispirandosi ai mercati predittivi Augur e Gnosis, Coplan ha lanciato Polymarket, con l’obiettivo di fornire agli utenti una “fonte di informazione affidabile” contro la “disinformazione dilagante”. In quel momento, non sapeva che la sua piattaforma sarebbe diventata il mercato predittivo per eccellenza, e che gli avrebbe regalato il titolo di più giovane miliardario self-made al mondo. La strada per arrivare a questo risultato, come si può immaginare, è stata parecchio accidentata.
Nel gennaio del 2022 la Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ha imposto a Polymarket il pagamento di una multa da 1,4 milioni di dollari e il blocco degli utenti statunitensi, per aver operato senza aver richiesto l’approvazione delle autorità di regolamentazione, come previsto dalla legge. Una sanzione che non ha fermato l’ascesa della piattaforma che, appena un paio di anni dopo, ha raggiunto i 3,6 miliardi di dollari di scommesse sulla corsa presidenziale tra Trump e Biden. Un successo breve, ma intenso. Appena otto giorni dopo l’elezione di Donald Trump, l’FBI ha infatti fatto irruzione nell’appartamento newyorkese di Sheyn Coplan e ne ha sequestrato tutti i dispositivi elettronici, nell’ambito di un’indagine volta a verificare – ancora una volta – se Polymarket consentisse agli utenti americani di piazzare scommesse senza licenza.
Dopo meno di un anno, la CFTC e il Dipartimento di Giustizia statunitensi hanno archiviato le indagini sul giovanissimo imprenditore, lasciandolo libero di godersi la sua ascesa. A luglio 2025, la piattaforma ha annunciato pubblicamente l’acquisizione da 112 milioni di dollari di QCX e QCXE, la holding di una borsa di derivati e una stanza di compensazione (l’infrastruttura che garantisce e regola le transazioni concluse sul mercato) autorizzate dalla Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “Ora, con l’acquisizione di QCEX, stiamo gettando le basi per riportare Polymarket a casa, rientrando negli Stati Uniti come piattaforma pienamente regolamentata e conforme che consentirà agli americani di scambiare le proprie opinioni”, ha commentato Coplan in quell’occasione, rassicurando (finalmente) gli utenti sulla legalità del suo mercato predittivo.
Una mossa strategica apprezzata dalla CFTC, che a settembre 2025 ha approvato ufficialmente l’attività di Polymarket nel mercato statunitense, proprio pochi giorni dopo l’ingresso di Donald Trump Jr. nel comitato consultivo della compagnia, in cui ha investito circa 10 milioni di dollari.
Nonostante questo percorso burrascoso, il progetto del giovane imprenditore di New York non ha mai modificato la sua natura. Sin dal lancio, Polymarket è una piattaforma in cui gli utenti possono scommettere su qualunque evento futuro – dall’elezione del presidente degli Stati Uniti alla data del matrimonio di Taylor Swift, dal ritorno di Gesù al prossimo conflitto geopolitico – semplicemente rispondendo sì o no ad alcune domande, accanto alle quali sono segnalate le probabilità di vincita, che variano mano a mano che gli utenti scommettono. “Si vince se si indovina. Si perde se si sbaglia”, ha chiosato Coplan in un’intervista a CBS News, spiegando il funzionamento semplice e intuitivo di Polymarket, che ha permesso agli utenti di guadagnare milioni di dollari nel corso degli anni.
Ma non sono soltanto i soldi a interessare l’imprenditore, quanto la possibilità di offrire alle persone uno strumento di informazione che sia il più chiaro possibile. Secondo Coplan, i mercati predittivi sono “lo strumento più accurato di cui disponiamo attualmente come esseri umani, almeno finché qualcuno non inventerà una sorta di sfera di cristallo superpotente”. L’idea è che – viste le ingenti somme di denaro in gioco – le persone siano incentivate a esprimere previsioni ponderate e informate, più di quanto farebbero in un tradizionale sondaggio. Una lettura che sembra trovare riscontro concreto nel successo del progetto.
Il caso Maduro: la previsione dell’attacco al Venezuela
Nella notte tra il 2 e il 3 gennaio 2026 gli Stati Uniti hanno attaccato il Venezuela, colpendo obiettivi militari e civili a Caracas e dintorni, e catturato il presidente Nicolás Maduro, accusato di narcotraffico e commercio illegale di armi. Appena cinque ore prima che le esplosioni scuotessero la capitale, su Polymarket un trader sconosciuto ha raddoppiato le puntate sull’invasione del Venezuela da parte degli Stati Uniti e sulla destituzione del presidente Maduro entro il 31 gennaio 2026, arrivando a guadagnare oltre 400mila dollari, con un ritorno sull’investimento pari a 12 volte la somma puntata.
Una vincita che ha attirato subito l’attenzione, alimentando i sospetti che il trader potesse aver ottenuto segretamente informazioni sull’operazione militare statunitense. Stando alla ricostruzione del Washington Post, l’account del trader è stato creato a dicembre 2025, e ha cominciato a scommettere su un probabile attacco degli Stati Uniti al Venezuela già nel corso del mese, quando ancora non c’erano notizie sul tema.
A destare sospetti, però, è il fatto che l’utente abbia puntato oltre 20mila dollari sull’ipotesi di un imminente attacco degli Stati Uniti al Venezuela lo stesso 2 gennaio, tra le 20.38 e le 21.58. Alle 22.46 dello stesso giorno, meno di un’ora dopo, Donald Trump ha autorizzato le operazioni militari statunitensi. Intorno all’una del 3 gennaio, i bombardamenti hanno cominciato a colpire Caracas, distruggendo indistintamente edifici governativi e quartieri residenziali. Alle 8.41 del mattino, il trader ha iniziato a incassare parte della sua vincita, pari a 410mila dollari. “È probabile che si tratti di un informatore interno. È una somma considerevole da investire, senza che ci siano molte notizie sul tema”, ha commentato Tre Upshaw, fondatore di Polysights, una startup che fornisce strumenti di analisi per i trader di Polymarket, inclusa una funzione per segnalare potenziali attività di insider trading.
A confermare questa ipotesi è un’indagine del Wall Street Journal, secondo cui l’amministrazione Trump avrebbe tenuto segreta l’operazione venezuelana, limitando la condivisione di informazioni a una ristretta cerchia di consiglieri di alto livello, per preservarne l’effetto sorpresa. Le notizie su un probabile attacco, quindi, potrebbero essere arrivate solo e soltanto dalle persone più vicine al presidente degli Stati Uniti. Non a caso, a seguito della notizia della scommessa di Polymarket relativa al caso Maduro, il deputato democratico Ritchie Torres ha presentato un disegno di legge per vietare ai funzionari governativi di piazzare scommesse sulla piattaforma di prediction market, sfruttando a proprio vantaggio informazioni che non sono di dominio pubblico. Una proposta ancora in attesa di approvazione, che alimenta i sospetti sul coinvolgimento dei membri dell’amministrazione Trump nel giro dei mercati predittivi.
Il caso Iran: la previsione delle operazioni statunitensi
L’attacco al Venezuela e la destituzione di Maduro non sono i soli eventi geopolitici a essere stati anticipati da Polymarket, instillando nei ricercatori e negli esperti di sicurezza il dubbio che qualcuno vicino al presidente Donald Trump possa aver utilizzato informazioni riservate per piazzare scommesse sulla piattaforma. Anche la guerra in Iran, infatti, è stata un tema centrale per le previsioni di Polymarket. Secondo quanto riferito dalla società di analisi Bubblemaps SA, sei account di trader anonimi hanno guadagnato 1,2 milioni di dollari scommettendo su un attacco statunitense all’Iran entro la fine di febbraio, e mettendo così in evidenza uno schema ricorrente tra gli investitori della piattaforma.
Proprio come accaduto nel caso di Maduro, anche questa volta gli account in questione sono stati creati nei giorni precedenti la scommessa, e hanno piazzato le loro puntate poche ore prima che i bombardamenti colpissero Teheran, guadagnando cifre da capogiro all’indomani dell’attacco statunitense. La questione, proprio come accaduto con il Venezuela, ha suscitato subito scalpore e indignazione, anche nella classe politica americana. “È assurdo che ciò sia legale”, ha commentato in un post su Bluesky il senatore Chris Murphy. “Le persone vicine a Trump stanno traendo profitto dalla guerra e dalla morte”.
E non finisce qui. Nelle ultime settimane di marzo, gli account di ben otto trader – tutti creati attorno al 21 marzo – hanno scommesso un totale di 70mila dollari su una possibile tregua tra Stati Uniti e Iran, che sarebbe valsa loro la vincita di ben 820mila dollari. A suscitare sospetti sulle puntate, come ha riferito l’ex ricercatore di CoinTelegraph Ben Yorke, è stato il fatto che i suddetti account sembrassero “decisamente appartenere a qualcuno in possesso di informazioni confidenziali”.
Inoltre, da un’analisi più approfondita è risultato che alcuni di questi account potessero appartenere a un unico investitore anonimo, che avrebbe preferito utilizzare portafogli digitali diversi per le sue scommesse sulla piattaforma. “In genere, quando si è in presenza di una frammentazione dei portafogli e di tentativi deliberati di occultare l’identità, si possono ipotizzare due scenari diversi”, ha commentato Yorke. “O è un investitore importante che cerca di proteggere la propria posizione dall’impatto del mercato, oppure è insider trading”. A rendere più che plausibile quest’ultima ipotesi c’è stato l’aumento evidente della probabilità di una tregua tra USA e Iran prima del 31 marzo, la cui valutazione su Polymarket è passata dal 6% del 21 marzo al 24% del 23 marzo.
Eppure, nonostante i segnali evidenti, la piattaforma di Coplan ha sempre cercato di mantenere il focus sull’obiettivo informativo. “La promessa dei mercati predittivi è quella di sfruttare la conoscenza collettiva per creare previsioni accurate e imparziali sugli eventi più importanti per la società”, si legge nella nota che accompagna tutte le scommesse relative all’Iran presenti su Polymarket . “Questa capacità è particolarmente preziosa in tempi strazianti come quelli odierni. Dopo aver discusso con le persone direttamente colpite dagli attacchi, che avevano decine di domande, ci siamo resi conto che i mercati predittivi potevano dare loro le risposte di cui avevano bisogno, in un modo in cui i telegiornali e X non potevano fare”. Un’affermazione decisamente conveniente, che permette alla piattaforma di continuare a trarre profitto dalle guerre e dalla morte di migliaia di persone. E ai trader più informati di scommetterci.
Le accuse di insider trading e lo zampino di Trump
La destituzione di Maduro, l’attacco all’Iran e le anticipazioni di tanti degli eventi che hanno segnato gli ultimi mesi hanno messo in allerta esponenti della politica ed esperti di sicurezza, convincendoli che i mercati predittivi possano essere terreno fertile per l’insider trading. A ulteriore conferma di questa ipotesi arriva uno studio elaborato da un gruppo di ricercatori dell’Università di Harvard, che hanno stimato vittorie pari a 143 milioni di dollari per i trader che hanno scommesso cifre notevoli su Polymarket perché in possesso di informazioni riservate su un’ampia varietà di eventi, dal fidanzamento di Taylor Swift al vincitore del Premio Nobel per la Pace.
Non stupisce, quindi, che di recente il deputato democratico Ritchie Torres abbia inviato una comunicazione alla Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) per chiedere di indagare sulle scommesse fatte dagli investitori a pochi minuti dall’inizio degli eventi. “Questo schema solleva serie preoccupazioni sul fatto che alcuni operatori di mercato possano aver avuto accesso a informazioni rilevanti e non di dominio pubblico, relative a un evento geopolitico in grado di influenzare il mercato”, ha scritto Torres nella lettera condivisa con l’Associated Press, chiedendo pubblicamente: “Qual è la probabilità statistica che qualcuno che non sia un insider trader piazzi una scommessa vincente 12 minuti prima di un annuncio presidenziale in grado di influenzare i mercati?”.
A preoccupare, però, non è soltanto il fenomeno dell’insider trading. Giorno dopo giorno, ora dopo ora, Polymarket si riempie di informazioni predittive sulle operazioni dei governi più potenti al mondo, rappresentando un’enorme minaccia alla loro sicurezza. “Polymarket è diventato un mercato illecito per vendere e speculare su segreti di sicurezza nazionale senza precedenti nella storia e, di conseguenza, una potenziale fonte di informazioni per i servizi di intelligence stranieri che tengono d’occhio quelle stesse scommesse sospette”, ha commentato il senatore democratico Richard Blumenthal, seguito dal deputato repubblicano Blake Moore, che ha dichiarato di non voler neppure “immaginare un mondo in cui gli avversari dell’America utilizzino i mercati predittivi per anticipare la nostra prossima mossa”.
La preoccupazione per la sicurezza del paese, quindi, sembra accomunare democratici e repubblicani, anche se non si può certo dire lo stesso dell’insider trading. Su quest’ultimo fronte, infatti, sono soprattutto i democratici a essersi esposti, avanzando proposte di legge che vietino ai funzionari governativi di scommettere su eventi di cui conoscono dettagli altamente riservati. Normative che, molto probabilmente, non saranno approvate, considerando il forte legame tra l’amministrazione Trump e i mercativi predittivi. Come anticipato, Donald Trump Jr. è investitore e consulente di Polymarket, oltre che uno dei consulenti del suo diretto competitor di settore, Kalshi. E lo stesso presidente degli Stati Uniti sembra avere un interesse per i mercati predittivi, come dimostrato dal progetto annunciato dall’agenzia mediatica di famiglia, di cui Donald Trump Jr. è amministratore: il mercato predittivo Truth Predictive.
“Donald Trump e la sua famiglia sono completamente coinvolti e guadagnano da Kalshi e Polymarket”, ha commentato il senatore democratico Chris Murphy, confermando il forte legame tra il governo statunitense e le piattaforme. Eppure, secondo quanto riferito dal Wall Street Journal, mentre le operazioni in Iran erano ancora in corso la Casa Bianca ha inviato un’email a tutti i funzionari governativi, invitandoli a non utilizzare le informazioni in loro possesso per piazzare scommesse nei mercati predittivi.
Una mossa che, a detta di alcuni, potrebbe essere servita a nascondere la predilezione del presidente per Polymarket e Kalshi, indissolubilmente legate al suo figlio maggiore, che in più di un’occasione ha preso le distanze dalle accuse di corruzione mosse contro di lui. Anche Andrew Surabian, portavoce di Donald Trump Jr., ha ribadito che il suo unico coinvolgimento nei mercati di previsione consiste nel fornire consulenza a Kalshi e Polymarket sulle strategie di marketing, e nel sostenere finanziariamente Polymarket, aggiungendo che non entra mai in contatto con il governo federale per conto delle società in cui ha investito o di cui è consulente. Ma nessuna di queste affermazioni, a quanto pare, è riuscita a placare le perplessità sulle puntate di investitori anonimi sugli eventi geopolitici che, fino a ora, hanno contraddistinto l’amministrazione Trump.
A Brazilian tech firm that specializes in protecting networks from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks has been enabling a botnet responsible for an extended campaign of massive DDoS attacks against other network operators in Brazil, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The firm’s chief executive says the malicious activity resulted from a security breach and was likely the work of a competitor trying to tarnish his company’s public image.
An Archer AX21 router from TP-Link. Image: tp-link.com.
For the past several years, security experts have tracked a series of massive DDoS attacks originating from Brazil and solely targeting Brazilian ISPs. Until recently, it was less than clear who or what was behind these digital sieges. That changed earlier this month when a trusted source who asked to remain anonymous shared a curious file archive that was exposed in an open directory online.
The exposed archive contained several Portuguese-language malicious programs written in Python. It also included the private SSH authentication keys belonging to the CEO of Huge Networks, a Brazilian ISP that primarily offers DDoS protection to other Brazilian network operators.
Founded in Miami, Fla. in 2014, Huge Networks’s operations are centered in Brazil. The company originated from protecting game servers against DDoS attacks and evolved into an ISP-focused DDoS mitigation provider. It does not appear in any public abuse complaints and is not associated with any known DDoS-for-hire services.
Nevertheless, the exposed archive shows that a Brazil-based threat actor maintained root access to Huge Networks infrastructure and built a powerful DDoS botnet by routinely mass-scanning the Internet for insecure Internet routers and unmanaged domain name system (DNS) servers on the Web that could be enlisted in attacks.
DNS is what allows Internet users to reach websites by typing familiar domain names instead of the associated IP addresses. Ideally, DNS servers only provide answers to machines within a trusted domain. But so-called “DNS reflection” attacks rely on DNS servers that are (mis)configured to accept queries from anywhere on the Web. Attackers can send spoofed DNS queries to these servers so that the request appears to come from the target’s network. That way, when the DNS servers respond, they reply to the spoofed (targeted) address.
By taking advantage of an extension to the DNS protocol that enables large DNS messages, botmasters can dramatically boost the size and impact of a reflection attack — crafting DNS queries so that the responses are much bigger than the requests. For example, an attacker could compose a DNS request of less than 100 bytes, prompting a response that is 60-70 times as large. This amplification effect is especially pronounced when the perpetrators can query many DNS servers with these spoofed requests from tens of thousands of compromised devices simultaneously.
A DNS amplification and reflection attack, illustrated. Image: veracara.digicert.com.
The exposed file archive includes a command-line history showing exactly how this attacker built and maintained a powerful botnet by scouring the Internet for TP-Link Archer AX21 routers. Specifically, the botnet seeks out TP-Link devices that remain vulnerable to CVE-2023-1389, an unauthenticated command injection vulnerability that was patched back in April 2023.
Malicious domains in the exposed Python attack scripts included DNS lookups for hikylover[.]st, and c.loyaltyservices[.]lol, both domains that have been flagged in the past year as control servers for an Internet of Things (IoT) botnet powered by a Mirai malware variant.
The leaked archive shows the botmaster coordinated their scanning from a Digital Ocean server that has been flagged for abusive activity hundreds of times in the past year. The Python scripts invoke multiple Internet addresses assigned to Huge Networks that were used to identify targets and execute DDoS campaigns. The attacks were strictly limited to Brazilian IP address ranges, and the scripts show that each selected IP address prefix was attacked for 10-60 seconds with four parallel processes per host before the botnet moved on to the next target.
The archive also shows these malicious Python scripts relied on private SSH keys belonging to Huge Networks’s CEO, Erick Nascimento. Reached for comment about the files, Mr. Nascimento said he did not write the attack programs and that he didn’t realize the extent of the DDoS campaigns until contacted by KrebsOnSecurity.
“We received and notified many Tier 1 upstreams regarding very very large DDoS attacks against small ISPs,” Nascimento said. “We didn’t dig deep enough at the time, and what you sent makes that clear.”
Nascimento said the unauthorized activity is likely related to a digital intrusion first detected in January 2026 that compromised two of the company’s development servers, as well as his personal SSH keys. But he said there’s no evidence those keys were used after January.
“We notified the team in writing the same day, wiped the boxes, and rotated keys,” Nascimento said, sharing a screenshot of a January 11 notification from Digital Ocean. “All documented internally.”
Mr. Nascimento said Huge Networks has since engaged a third-party network forensics firm to investigate further.
“Our working assessment so far is that this all started with a single internal compromise — one pivot point that gave the attacker downstream access to some resources, including a legacy personal droplet of mine,” he wrote.
“The compromise happened through a bastion/jump server that several people had access to,” Nascimento continued. “Digital Ocean flagged the droplet on January 11 — compromised due to a leaked SSH key, in their wording — I was traveling at the time and addressed it on return. That droplet was deprecated and destroyed, and it was never part of Huge Networks infrastructure.”
The malicious software that powers the botnet of TP-Link devices used in the DDoS attacks on Brazilian ISPs is based on Mirai, a malware strain that made its public debut in September 2016 by launching a then record-smashing DDoS attack that kept this website offline for four days. In January 2017, KrebsOnSecurity identified the Mirai authors as the co-owners of a DDoS mitigation firm that was using the botnet to attack gaming servers and scare up new clients.
In May 2025, KrebsOnSecurity was hit by another Mirai-based DDoS that Google called the largest attack it had ever mitigated. That report implicated a 20-something Brazilian man who was running a DDoS mitigation company as well as several DDoS-for-hire services that have since been seized by the FBI.
Nascimento flatly denied being involved in DDoS attacks against Brazilian operators to generate business for his company’s services.
“We don’t run DDoS attacks against Brazilian operators to sell protection,” Nascimento wrote in response to questions. “Our sales model is mostly inbound and through channel integrator, distributors, partners — not active prospecting based on market incidents. The targets in the scripts you received are small regional providers, the vast majority of which are neither in our customer base nor in our commercial pipeline — a fact verifiable through public sources like QRator.”
Nascimento maintains he has “strong evidence stored on the blockchain” that this was all done by a competitor. As for who that competitor might be, the CEO wouldn’t say.
“I would love to share this with you, but it could not be published as it would lose the surprise factor against my dishonest competitor,” he explained. “Coincidentally or not, your contact happened a week before an important event – one that this competitor has NEVER participated in (and it’s a traditional event in the sector). And this year, they will be participating. Strange, isn’t it?”
La guerra in Iran ci ha ricordato quanto il mare sia cruciale per il funzionamento dell’economia globale. Era già accaduto due anni fa con il blocco di Suez e, ancor prima, con l’incidente della Ever Given nello stesso canale. Eventi diversi, ma accomunati dalla capacità di farci toccare con mano l’importanza delle rotte marittime.
Esiste tuttavia un’altra logistica marittima fondamentale, che scorre non sulla superficie degli oceani ma sui fondali. È una logistica per natura invisibile, fatta di cavi per la trasmissione di dati e di tubature per il trasporto di energia, ma essenziale quanto le rotte della logistica di superficie.
La cosa più sorprendente è però quanto poco ancora si sappia del luogo in cui questa rete si dipana. I fondali oceanici restano infatti uno degli ambienti meno osservati e compresi del pianeta. Per dare un’idea di quanto sia scarsa questa conoscenza, basti dire che, ancora nel pieno del XXI secolo, non è raro che vengano individuate montagne sottomarine in aree che si ritenevano già mappate.
La ragione della “nube di ignoranza” che ricopre tutto ciò che si trova al di sotto di una certa profondità delle acque è in primo luogo tecnologica. I sistemi che utilizziamo per osservare la superficie terrestre si basano sulla luce, che però penetra nell’acqua solo per poche centinaia di metri. Al di sotto di questa soglia – e considerando che le profondità oceaniche possono superare i 10mila metri – è necessario ricorrere ad altri strumenti. Il principale di questi è il sonar, che utilizza onde sonore per ricostruire la forma del fondale. Un metodo efficace, ma lento, costoso, legato alla presenza fisica di navi o piattaforme di rilevamento. Questo vincolo si riflette nei dati disponibili: ancora oggi, una parte significativa dei fondali non è stata mappata con standard moderni. E anche laddove i dati esistono, sono spesso frammentari e soprattutto non integrati tra loro.
Arrivati a questo punto ci si potrebbe porre una domanda: è davvero così importante sapere cosa si trova a migliaia di chilometri sotto il mare? La risposta è: sì, è sempre più importante per svariate ragioni. I motivi sono in primo luogo economici.
Il fondale marino, come detto, è una piattaforma su cui poggiano infrastrutture critiche globali. I cavi sottomarini trasportano oltre il 95% del traffico internet intercontinentale; le pipeline collegano giacimenti offshore ai sistemi energetici nazionali; nuove reti elettriche iniziano a connettere parchi eolici marini alla terraferma. Tutte queste infrastrutture devono essere progettate, installate e mantenute in ambienti complessi, dove la morfologia del fondale, la composizione dei sedimenti e le correnti possono fare la differenza tra stabilità e vulnerabilità.
L’elemento strategico e militare
C’è però un secondo livello, meno evidente ma ancora più strategico. Conoscere un fondale significa infatti comprendere come si comporta il suono sott’acqua. E questo, a sua volta, è un elemento cruciale per la guerra sottomarina. I sottomarini – per definizione progettati per risultare invisibili – dipendono dalla capacità di sfruttare le caratteristiche dell’ambiente per nascondersi o per individuare altri mezzi. Temperatura, salinità, correnti e conformazione del terreno influenzano la propagazione delle onde sonore e quindi l’efficacia dei sistemi sonar.
In altre parole, conoscere come è fatto un fondale significa poter operare meglio al suo interno, sia per attaccare sia per difendersi. Una volta che si comprende questo fatto fondamentale, si capisce anche perché la mappatura degli abissi sia recentemente diventata un ennesimo campo di competizione tra le due principali potenze della nostra epoca: Cina e Stati Uniti.
Come raccontato lo scorso marzo da un ampio e ben documentato articolo della Reuters, la più attiva in questo ambito, negli ultimi anni, è stata la Cina. A partire dal 2020, Pechino ha avviato un’attività di mappatura e monitoraggio dei fondali su una scala difficilmente comparabile con quella di altri attori. Navi da ricerca, istituti universitari e agenzie statali operano in modo coordinato in diverse aree del globo: Pacifico occidentale, Oceano Indiano, fino ad arrivare alle rotte artiche.
Formalmente, queste operazioni sono giustificate da obiettivi scientifici ed economici: studio dei fondali, ricerca di risorse, analisi climatica. In pratica, tuttavia, le attività di ricerca hanno caratteristiche che suggeriscono un uso duale dei dati ottenuti. Le traiettorie seguite dalle navi impiegate nella ricerca – spesso caratterizzate da movimenti ripetitivi e sistematici – sono infatti tipiche delle operazioni di mappatura ad alta risoluzione, il tipo di dato utile alle industrie della difesa.
Il progetto più ambizioso in questo ambito è definito “Transparent Ocean”: una rete di sensori e piattaforme in grado di fornire una visione il più possibile completa delle condizioni del mare in aree selezionate. L’obiettivo dichiarato è scientifico, ma le applicazioni militari sono evidenti. Per la Cina, la conoscenza del dominio sottomarino risponde infatti a una duplice esigenza strategica. Da un lato, migliorare l’impiego dei propri sottomarini, sfruttando le caratteristiche dell’ambiente per aumentare furtività ed efficacia. Dall’altro, sviluppare strumenti per individuare e tracciare quelli altrui, in particolare nelle aree considerate più sensibili, come la famigerata “prima catena di isole” (la fascia di arcipelaghi tra Giappone, Taiwan e Filippine che delimita l’accesso della Cina al Pacifico).
In questo senso, la mappatura dei fondali non è un’attività accessoria, ma una parte integrante dell’infrastruttura informativa della difesa marittima. Più che accumulare dati, si tratta di costruire un vantaggio conoscitivo che possa essere utilizzato in caso di crisi o conflitto. La scala e la continuità di questo sforzo suggeriscono che Pechino consideri il dominio sottomarino non come uno spazio da esplorare, ma come uno spazio da integrare stabilmente nella propria architettura strategica.
Confusione americana
Sull’altro versante strategico e geografico del Pacifico troviamo gli Stati Uniti. Per decenni gli USA hanno beneficiato di un vantaggio significativo nella conoscenza degli oceani, costruito attraverso una combinazione di ricerca scientifica, capacità militari e infrastrutture tecnologiche. Questo vantaggio si è tradotto, tra le altre cose, in una superiorità nelle operazioni sottomarine che si è rivelata utile in diversi frangenti della Guerra Fredda.
Negli ultimi anni, tuttavia, questo quadro si è fatto più complesso. Da un lato, Washington ha lanciato iniziative ambiziose come la strategia NOMEC, con l’obiettivo di mappare le proprie acque entro il 2030-2040. Dall’altro, deve fare i conti con dati che mostrano come una parte rilevante (tra il 40 e il 50%) dei fondali statunitensi resti ancora poco conosciuta o mappata con tecnologie non aggiornate.
Il problema americano, a detta di un report del governo in merito, non è tanto la scarsità di dati o la capacità di generarli, quanto la loro frammentazione e la difficoltà di integrarli. Le informazioni “oceaniche” americane sono raccolte da attori diversi – agenzie civili, istituzioni scientifiche, marina militare – con finalità e standard differenti. Questo rende più difficile costruire un quadro unitario e aggiornato del dominio sottomarino nazionale.
Nuove minacce e nuove soluzioni
Le ragioni per cui sia Cina che USA hanno iniziato a essere così preoccupate dalla loro scarsa conoscenza dei fondali è che, di recente, è cresciuta tanto l’importanza dei fondali quanto il numero delle minacce che operano in questo ambiente. Proprio come accade nel cielo, in fondo al mare oggi non si muovono solo colossi tecnologici da miliardi di dollari – come i sottomarini – ma anche droni subacquei a basso costo: piccoli dispositivi in grado di interferire con il regolare funzionamento di cavi o pipeline, e attraverso i quali vengono condotte operazioni di guerra ibrida di difficile attribuzione, soprattutto in assenza di un monitoraggio aggiornato e capillare.
È per questo che, a detta degli esperti, serve un ulteriore balzo tecnologico, non tanto nella capacità di raccogliere dati, quanto in quella di interpretarli e integrarli. Ed è qui che entra in gioco l’intelligenza artificiale. Gli algoritmi di deep learning possono riconoscere pattern nei segnali sonar, distinguere tra anomalie naturali e oggetti artificiali, aggiornare mappe quasi in tempo reale integrando dati raccolti da fonti diverse. In prospettiva, possono anche contribuire a prevedere comportamenti: come si muovono le correnti, come cambia la propagazione del suono, dove è più probabile che un oggetto non identificato stia operando.
In altre parole, le AI possono accelerare il passaggio in corso da una logica di “mappatura” dei fondali a una logica di “monitoraggio continuo”. Si tratta di un cambiamento che ha implicazioni profonde. Per esempio significa che la superiorità nel dominio strategico sottomarino non dipenderà più solo dal numero di navi o dalla qualità dei sottomarini, ma dalla capacità di costruire e gestire reti informative complesse. Significa anche che il confine tra ambito civile e militare diventa ancora più sfumato: gli stessi dati utilizzati per studiare gli ecosistemi marini o per progettare infrastrutture energetiche possono essere impiegati per finalità di sorveglianza e difesa.
E soprattutto significa che il mare, da spazio opaco per definizione, diventa progressivamente più “trasparente”. Non nel senso di completamente visibile – obiettivo probabilmente impossibile da raggiungere – ma nel senso di sempre più leggibile per chi dispone di strumenti adeguati.
In questo senso, il parallelo più evidente per ciò che sta accadendo sotto il pelo dell’acqua non è con la geografia o la cartografia tradizionali, ma con altri domini in cui l’informazione è la vera posta in gioco: il cyberspazio, lo spazio orbitale, persino il campo elettromagnetico. Anche lì, la competizione si gioca non solo sulla capacità di identificare gli oggetti fisici, ma su quella di costruire rappresentazioni affidabili e aggiornate dell’ambiente in cui si trovano immersi. Perché in un ambiente dove tutto è difficile da vedere, quello che più conta è capire cosa si sta guardando.
Quanto è difficile parlare di cybersicurezza con le aziende. E ciò vale anche per quelle dei trasporti: un settore in apparenza lontano dagli attacchi dei cracker, ma che mostra invece parecchie vulnerabilità oltre a un ampio potenziale di rischio. Provare ad affrontare il tema della sicurezza informatica con alcune delle più grandi realtà del paese produce come minimo un irrigidimento; nel peggiore dei casi, il silenzio. Mail senza risposta, telefoni che squillano a vuoto, repliche vaghe: quasi nessuno si presta a rispondere alle domande del cronista, e molti si eclissano dopo un primo contatto di prammatica.
La cybersicurezza delle autostrade italiane
Prendiamo Autostrade per l’Italia (ASPI), la stessa società che qualche anno fa (non molti: era il 2018) finì sotto la lente di ingrandimento per il caso del ponte Morandi, crollato a Genova a metà agosto. Un disastro che aveva sollevato interrogativi profondi sui sistemi di controllo e sulla cultura della sicurezza del gruppo. Ci si aspetterebbe che queste procedure, fisiche e cyber, siano diventate il fiore all’occhiello del gruppo. E che – stando così le cose – non sia un problema comunicarlo all’esterno. Sbagliato. Svariati tentativi di contatto via email sono caduti nel vuoto. Non va meglio al telefono, con l’apparecchio dell’ufficio stampa che squilla senza che nessuno risponda. Quando si attiva la segreteria, lo fa solo per rimandare al medesimo indirizzo di posta elettronica, che rimane muto.
La società Movyon si definisce il “centro di eccellenza per la ricerca e innovazione del gruppo ASPI” e offre “soluzioni tecnologiche end-to-end per gestori di infrastrutture stradali e autostradali, pubbliche amministrazioni e service provider, supportandoli nella creazione di una mobilità più intelligente, accessibile, sostenibile e sicura a favore della comunità”. Il logo si trova, per esempio, sulle sbarre che si alzano e si abbassano ai caselli.
Sembra la porta giusta a cui bussare per parlare di cybersicurezza con ASPI. Del resto, la stessa Movyon sviluppa applicazioni tecnologicamente avanzate come quelle per il monitoraggio delle merci pericolose in viaggio sulla rete, il cosiddetto V2X (vehicle to everything): un sistema che, si legge nella presentazione, “monitora in tempo reale i veicoli che trasportano materiali pericolosi e avvisa i conducenti di eventuali situazioni di pericolo, come la presenza di altri veicoli con merci pericolose nelle vicinanze o situazioni anomale lungo la strada”. Il sistema non si limita al minimo indispensabile, ma, viene spiegato, arricchisce i messaggi con informazioni aggiuntive rispetto agli standard di settore. Lecito chiedersi: cosa succederebbe se venisse attaccato?
Estendendo il discorso, ci sono altre domande da porsi. Cosa accadrebbe se qualcuno tentasse di azzerare tutti i pedaggi, rubare i dati delle carte di credito degli automobilisti, o cambiare i messaggi nei cartelli a led che puntellano la rete, magari consigliando di effettuare deviazioni non necessarie al solo scopo di creare il caos? È già accaduto in passato? Quali misure sono state prese? Chi è il responsabile della sicurezza? Domande la cui risposta possiamo soltanto immaginare, perché neanche Movyon ha risposto alla nostra richiesta di contatto.
Le Ferrovie dello Stato
Anche il trasporto ferroviario non è esente da rischi cyber. Che possono riguardare gli apparati di gestione elettronica della rete e dei convogli, ma anche il sistema dei pagamenti. Nel mese di novembre 2025 un attore malevolo ha rubato e diffuso online 2,3 terabyte di dati di Almaviva (un provider di servizi web) e Ferrovie dello Stato, che a esso si appoggiava.
L’attacco è stato confermato dalla stessa Almaviva in una nota, dopo essere trapelato alla stampa. Secondo la rivendicazione dei cracker, il leak conterrebbe repository aziendali condivisi e documentazione tecnica riservata, inclusi contratti. Ma ci sarebbero anche dati personali dei passeggeri e dei dipendenti di quasi tutte le società del gruppo FS, da Mercitalia a Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, da Trenitalia a Italferr (da poco ribattezzata FS Engineering).
“L’episodio che ci riguarda è riconducibile a un accesso non autorizzato che ha interessato un vecchio data center in dismissione della società Almaviva”, rispondono le Ferrovie dello Stato a una richiesta di informazioni da parte di Guerre di Rete. “L’attenzione è concentrata sull’accertamento tecnico dei fatti, sulla tutela delle informazioni e sulla piena collaborazione con Almaviva, società obiettivo dell’attacco, e le autorità competenti”. Le FS non forniscono ulteriori dettagli “per rispetto delle indagini”, ma aggiungono che sono in corso “attività di verifica tecnica e monitoraggio di tutti i nostri sistemi”. Almaviva, viene spiegato dalle Ferrovie, ha “informato anche gli organismi competenti per la protezione dei dati personali, mentre il Gruppo FS collabora per ciò che riguarda tutti i profili di propria competenza”.
Che provvedimenti sono stati presi? “Appena emersa la vicenda, il Gruppo FS, grazie alla sinergia tra FS Security e FS Technology e in coordinamento con Almaviva e con le autorità, ha attivato tutte le misure di sicurezza e mitigazione necessarie”, risponde la società. “Sono stati predisposti backup alternativi, rafforzate le attività di monitoraggio e continuità operativa e condivise le azioni da intraprendere con le strutture di Security del gruppo e con gli organismi di vigilanza competenti. Parallelamente, prosegue il monitoraggio del web e dei canali specializzati per intercettare tempestivamente eventuali pubblicazioni di materiali riconducibili all’attacco. Anche Almaviva ha dichiarato di aver isolato l’attacco, attivato il proprio team specializzato e garantito la continuità dei servizi critici”.
FS definisce “fondamentale” il presidio dell’intera filiera tecnologica – considerando che tutti i grandi gruppi si avvalgono di fornitori che possono essere “bucati” – e ammette che non è sufficiente monitorare i sistemi interni. “I fornitori e i partner tecnologici sono tenuti a rispettare requisiti stringenti sul piano della sicurezza informatica, della protezione dei dati, della continuità operativa e della gestione degli incidenti. Tali presidi sono definiti nell’ambito dei rapporti contrattuali, dei processi di qualifica e delle verifiche periodiche, con livelli di attenzione coerenti con la criticità dei servizi affidati”. L’errore è sempre possibile, ed è in queste lunghe catene di fornitura che provano a infilarsi i cattivi della rete.
Il trasporto aereo
Già, il problema delle filiere. Sempre più complesse, e, per questo, sempre più vulnerabili. Pensare a un attacco al sistema ferroviario può spaventare, ma immaginare che sia il sistema di controllo di un aeroplano a essere bucato scatena il terrore. Guerre di Rete ha provato a contattare Ita Airways, compagnia di bandiera (o forse non più: dipende dai punti di vista) italiana. Alla nostra richiesta di intervista, gli uffici hanno opposto un no-comment. Non è stato possibile, dunque, parlare con il CISO (chief internet security officer, cioè il capo della sicurezza informatica) né domandare che tipo di procedure di sicurezza, almeno a livello basilare, siano prese a tutela dei viaggiatori.
Ma perché questa paura di parlare, quando si tratta di cybersecurity? A rispondere è l’ENAC, l’Ente nazionale per l’aviazione civile, che fa capo al governo ed è l’autorità che fissa le regole del settore in Italia basandosi su normative europee (come la NIS2) e nazionali. “La sicurezza, in generale, sta alle spalle dei processi operativi: per questo è prassi comune che non se ne parli, e che le misure prese non vengano condivise”, riflette l’ingegnere Sebastiano Veccia, a capo della sicurezza dell’ENAC. Nella sua interpretazione, “non è ritrosia, ma una forma di cultura di sicurezza: si fa, ma non si dice”.
Resta il fatto che il pubblico ha domande sul rischio di volare, soprattutto in tempi di guerre asimmetriche che coinvolgono obiettivi non militari. Chiediamo se è possibile far cadere un aereo per mezzo di un attacco informatico. “Mi sento di escluderlo”, risponde Veccia. “Certo, un caso molto diverso come quello dell’11 settembre insegna che tutto è possibile, ma si tratta di una probabilità estremamente bassa”. È possibile invece inserirsi nei sistemi di comunicazione con i piloti? “I sistemi di comunicazione tra l’aeromobile e la torre di controllo sono avanti anni luce”, risponde il dirigente.
E se invece qualcuno riuscisse a infiltrarsi nelle ditte che producono gli aeroplani, e quindi anche il software che li governa, per inserire codice malevolo? In fondo gli incidenti del Boeing 737 Max paiono legati a sensori difettosi e software. “È il problema ben noto dei cosiddetti insider nell’industria. In Italia e in Europa, per le figure che entrano a contatto con aree e attività sensibili, viene richiesto alle forze di polizia un controllo dei precedenti penali del soggetto. Per ruoli di particolare criticità si richiede, in aggiunta, un background check rafforzato, che non si limita ai precedenti penali, ma guarda anche agli ambienti e alle compagnie che la persona frequenta”. Indagini di intelligence che servono a capire se il soggetto è radicalizzato, o vicino ad aree politiche pericolose. “La prevenzione si fa a monte, e lo stesso approccio degli aeroporti vale anche per i costruttori aeronautici e chi fa manutenzione degli aeromobili. Anche per chi è incaricato di caricare i dati sui pc di bordo c’è una procedura blindata”.
Veccia è consapevole che la sicurezza è un gioco tra guardie e ladri: l’inseguimento è costante. Si prova a isolare i dispositivi critici dal mondo esterno. “Le chiavette di manutenzione vengono controllate, sterilizzate e infine distrutte. Non solo: in aviazione le stesse attività di controllo si espletano in loco e non, come spesso accade oggi, da remoto. La programmazione degli interventi di sicurezza è importante, così come lo è preparare una matrice dei rischi: perché il 90% delle emergenze è dovuto a cattiva pianificazione. Faccio comunque notare che energia nucleare e aeronautica sono sempre stati i due settori più controllati”.
La visione di Veccia è confermata da una nostra fonte interna al settore. Che, al tavolo di un ristorante, racconta come “negli ultimi trent’anni non ci sono mai stati due incidenti aeronautici per lo stesso motivo, e questo perché ogni volta che ne accade uno lo si analizza nei dettagli e si corre ai ripari. Questo, in altri settori dove le procedure sono molto più lasse, viene preso per eccesso di pignoleria”. Un esempio è quello dei trasporti marittimi, con i porti che rappresentano la via di ingresso privilegiata per le merci che finiscono sugli scaffali, per il petrolio, ma anche per molto altro.
La sicurezza informatica dei porti
Sarebbe sbagliato sottovalutare l’importanza della cybersicurezza nei porti: quantità enormi di merci viaggiano via mare. Ma ci sono anche droga, armi, materiale illegale. E persone. Si comincia dai controlli all’ingresso per camion e autoveicoli. Entrare liberamente nell’area portuale significa avere una sorta di lasciapassare, utilissimo se si sa dove mettere le mani. Sistemi di controllo esistono, certo. Ma, come racconta la nostra fonte, le maglie sono larghe: “Quando si fanno le gare di appalto, per esempio per le telecamere da installare, solitamente si sceglie il prodotto che ha il prezzo più basso, che di norma è cinese. Queste telecamere possono avere delle backdoor, delle porte software nascoste che sono in grado di esfiltrare i dati e che cambiano a ogni aggiornamento. In sostanza, non controllando la tecnologia che usiamo potremmo offrire a un paese straniero la possibilità di fare intelligence sulle nostre informazioni”. Pechino è la principale indagata.
Ma c’è di più. L’andirivieni di un porto è basato su un sistema di riconoscimento delle targhe automobilistiche: camion di autotrasportatori noti trovano porte aperte e sbarre alzate ai varchi. I controlli sono a campione. Facile capire come, con un attacco mirato, sia facile far entrare anche chi non sarebbe autorizzato. Basta inserire una targa in più nel gestionale e il gioco è fatto. Le procedure manuali sarebbero più efficaci, ma sono troppo lente per i volumi di traffico dei grandi hub. Senza considerare che gli spazi sulle banchine sono affittati e gestiti tramite un software gestionale estremamente complesso, che sa esattamente chi e dove farà cosa con mesi di anticipo: anche in questo caso, un cybercriminale che riuscisse a entrare nel sistema potrebbe creare il caos operativo, paralizzando le attività. Guerre di Rete ha contattato il porto di Gioia Tauro, principale scalo merci italiano: nessuna risposta, neanche dopo svariati tentativi telefonici e via mail. Ha risposto, invece, l’autorità portuale di Genova.
“In merito alla richiesta pervenutaci, siamo nella necessità di non poter aderire all’iniziativa proposta”, afferma la replica pervenuta tramite posta elettronica. “La cybersecurity costituisce un ambito di particolare sensibilità per le infrastrutture critiche nazionali, categoria alla quale i sistemi portuali appartengono a pieno titolo. La normativa vigente in materia, unitamente alle linee guida emanate dall’Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale (ACN), raccomanda la massima prudenza nella comunicazione pubblica relativa a sistemi, procedure e strategie di protezione informatica. La policy dell’Ente prevede pertanto di non rilasciare interviste su tali tematiche al di fuori dei canali istituzionali preposti”. Insomma, nulla da dichiarare.
Tutto bene?
Il breve viaggio intrapreso offre un quadro allarmante. E le contromisure non possono essere solo tecniche. Veccia, dirigente dell’ENAC, sottolinea quanto la cultura aziendale giochi un ruolo centrale: “La formazione del personale è importante. C’è ancora chi lascia le proprie password attaccate al PC con dei post-it. Per questo va ribadito: anche se fare corsi può sembrare noioso ai dipendenti, quest’attività si rivela utile quando ci si trova di fronte a un caso sospetto, e si torna con la mente alle lezioni in aula per sapere come reagire”.
Ci sono anche altre questioni, più difficili da affrontare. Come spiega la nostra fonte, “molte delle soluzioni di cybersecurity nel nostro paese vengono vendute dallo stesso gruppo di persone, poche decine di soggetti che si conoscono tra loro e che possono essere avvicinati senza grossi problemi da chi è dotato di argomenti convincenti, e di una certa disponibilità economica”. Accade di continuo, spiega. Ma questo è un tema per un altro giorno.
A fine marzo, l’azienda cinese AgiBot ha annunciato di aver prodotto in serie il suo robot umanoide numero diecimila. La startup con sede a Shanghai, fondata da alcuni ex ingegneri di Huawei, è nata nel 2023 con l’obiettivo di sviluppare humanoid robots per applicazioni industriali e di servizio. Dopo una prima fase di ricerca e prototipazione, nel 2024 ha avviato la produzione di massa dei primi modelli operativi, avviando una rapida scalata industriale che l’ha portata a raggiungere le cinquemila unità prodotte nel 2025 e poi al traguardo delle 10mila macchine: tutto nell’arco di tre anni.
Qualche settimana prima di questo traguardo, sul palco del Gala del Capodanno lunare – lo show televisivo più seguito in Cina – una schiera di robot dalle sembianze antropomorfe si è esibita in perfetta sincronia con ballerini in carne e ossa, eseguendo con naturalezza una coreografia fatta di mosse di kung fu e danza. In questo caso, i “device” erano soprattutto di un’altra azienda concorrente: Unitree Robotics. Dietro la suggestione della performance, tra capriole a mezz’aria e calci acrobatici, si è intravisto un segnale chiaro: la dimostrazione plastica del vantaggio accumulato in una corsa tecnologica che Pechino ambisce a dominare su scala globale. La vera partita legata al mercato dei robot umanoidi, tuttavia, non si gioca sui palchi: si gioca nelle fabbriche e nei centri logistici. In altre parole, nel cuore pulsante dell’economia reale.
Nell’ultimo decennio la Cina ha identificato nella robotica uno dei cardini della propria trasformazione economica. Il settore era già stato inserito tra le priorità nel piano industriale Made in China 2025, anche se in una prima fase l’attenzione si era concentrata prevalentemente sull’automazione industriale tradizionale. Oggi, invece, il focus si sta spostando proprio verso gli humanoid robots: macchine progettate per operare negli stessi contesti degli esseri umani e per svolgere attività che richiedono adattabilità, coordinazione e capacità di interazione con l’ambiente reale.
Prezzi, supply chain e open source
Alla base di questo ambito salto tecnologico c’è, naturalmente, l’intelligenza artificiale. L’integrazione tra sistemi di visione, linguaggio e movimento sta dando forma alla cosiddetta embodied AI: algoritmi che non si limitano a elaborare dati, ma agiscono fisicamente nello spazio attraverso un corpo robotico. In un Paese alle prese con l’invecchiamento della popolazione e con una forza lavoro in progressiva contrazione, questa prospettiva assume un valore strategico. I robot vengono infatti sempre più considerati una possibile risposta alla carenza di manodopera e uno strumento per incrementare la produttività industriale.
I numeri aiutano a mettere in prospettiva il fenomeno. Nel 2025 le spedizioni globali di robot umanoidi si sono fermate poco sopra le 13mila unità, pur registrando una crescita superiore a cinque volte rispetto all’anno precedente. I dati parlano di un business ancora microscopico, ma in fortissima accelerazione: secondo la società di ricerca Omdia, il settore potrebbe crescere rapidamente fino a raggiungere circa 2,6 milioni di unità vendute entro il 2035, mentre UBS stima che la popolazione globale di robot umanoidi potrebbe superare i 300 milioni entro il 2050. Una ricerca di Citigroup si spinge persino oltre, parlando di oltre 600 milioni entro la metà del secolo. In questo scenario, la Repubblica Popolare si è ritagliata una posizione dominante: nel 2024, AgiBot ha spedito oltre 5.000 unità, mentre Unitree Robotics ha superato le 5.500 nel 2025.
La principale leva competitiva dei modelli cinesi sta nel prezzo. Unitree propone modelli entry-level attorno ai seimila dollari, mentre AgiBot offre versioni ridotte dei propri sistemi per circa 14mila dollari. Tesla, con il progetto Optimus, ha indicato un range tra i 20mila e i 30mila dollari senza aver ancora avviato una produzione su larga scala. A gennaio, dal palco del World Economic Forum di Davos, Elon Musk ha indicato la fine del 2027 come orizzonte per il lancio del modello; nel frattempo, l’azienda ha già annunciato l’obiettivo di avviare le linee produttive entro l’anno in vista della commercializzazione. L’esperienza, tuttavia, ci insegna che le tempistiche di Musk tendono a slittare e lui stesso ha più volte riconosciuto una propensione sistematica a promettere scadenze più ambiziose di quanto poi riesca a mantenere. Sul fronte statunitense, anche Figure AI ha iniziato a consegnare i propri modelli (Figure 02) a clienti paganti in scenari industriali, ma senza aver comunicato ancora un listino pubblico e operando solo tramite contratti su misura.
Un altro vantaggio decisivo è la catena di approvvigionamento. Negli ultimi anni la Cina ha dato vita a una supply chain hardware estremamente efficiente, spinta soprattutto dall’exploit del settore dei veicoli elettrici e dell’elettronica di consumo. La produzione di batterie, sensori, attuatori e altri elementi elettronici può avvenire in tempi brevi e con costi contenuti, permettendo alle imprese di sviluppare e testare rapidamente nuovi prototipi e di immetterli sul mercato con una rapidità difficilmente replicabile in altri contesti.
Uno dei fattori chiave spesso dimenticati, invece, è il software. “I cinesi hanno saputo intercettare per tempo un trend che ha dato loro un vantaggio competitivo enorme: l’open source”, spiega Bruno Siciliano, professore ordinario di Automatica e robotica all’Università Federico II, luminare tra i massimi esperti europei del settore, insignito nel 2024 dell’IEEE Ras Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award, tra i più prestigiosi riconoscimenti a livello mondiale. “L’intuizione brillante è stata realizzare piattaforme aperte per la condivisione di dataset per gli algoritmi che controllano il robot”.
In Cina l’adozione dell’open source sta creando da tempo un ecosistema collaborativo e, al tempo stesso, propulsivo. Lo abbiamo imparato con Deepseek: modelli AI aperti e a basso costo sviluppati anche da aziende come Alibaba, Moonshot AI e MiniMax stanno rapidamente scalando le classifiche globali di utilizzo su piattaforme come Hugging Face e OpenRouter. Anche sul fronte della robotica, startup come RoboParty hanno aperto l’intero stack – dall’hardware al software fino ai dataset – dei propri robot umanoidi, favorendo la nascita di una comunità di sviluppatori sempre più gremita e interconnessa.
Un fenomeno, quest’ultimo, che rappresenta “l’unico vero modo di competere con gli Stati Uniti”. Bruno Siciliano dirige il Prisma Lab, laboratorio dell’Università di Napoli specializzato in robotica industriale, meccatronica e automazione, che ha in dotazione “un robot umanoide di Unitree Robotics, con cui stiamo sviluppando tecniche di controllo per la deambulazione e, soprattutto, per l’esecuzione di operazioni di contatto in cooperazione con esseri umani. Stiamo lavorando su approcci avanzati di model predictive control che integrano algoritmi di intelligenza artificiale open source. Possiamo farlo proprio perché abbiamo acquistato una piattaforma dedicata open source, dal costo comunque significativo: circa 100mila euro”.
Il problema delle mani
Dal punto di vista prettamente tecnico, la difficoltà di introdurre dei robot umanoidi nella dimensione industriale riguarda soprattutto il tatto. È quello che Elon Musk ha definito “the hands problem”: senza mani realmente versatili, un robot resta limitato e l’utilizzo universale in ambienti sconosciuti resta una chimera. Replicare la mano umana significa integrare controllo di precisione e percezione distribuito: alcuni dei prototipi statunitensi più avanzati, come quelli sviluppati alla Northwestern University, utilizzano sensori nei polpastrelli che misurano variazioni elettriche per inferire il contatto. Ma la complessità tecnologica resta, e afferrare una penna richiede di ricevere feedback attraverso varie parti delle dita, non solo sulla punta.
“La vera sfida dei robot umanoidi, è sviluppare entità che possano interagire con gli umani in totale sicurezza”, prosegue Siciliano. “Quando vediamo i video spettacolari dei robot che ballano durante lo spettacolo del capodanno cinese, ci impressioniamo. Ma quelle macchine non stanno interagendo con le persone. Nel momento in cui c’è un contatto, cambia tutto. Il vero ostacolo è il tatto: un conto è fare movimenti ‘in freestyle’, un altro è fare una qualunque operazione robotica, come un montaggio, in cui c’è uno scambio di forze”.
Verso la killer app
Eppure, nonostante tutte le difficoltà, molti colossi sembrano già aver imboccato questa direzione. Un segnale concreto arriva dall’automotive, dove i robot umanoidi stanno entrando nelle fabbriche. Renault prevede di introdurre circa 350 unità entro il 2027, già testate nello stabilimento francese di Douai con il robot Calvin per la movimentazione di componenti, con l’obiettivo dichiarato di ridurre del 30% le ore necessarie per produrre un veicolo. Le stesse case automobilistiche cinesi, come Byd, Nio e Zeekr – marchio del gruppo Geely – stanno testando robot umanoidi sviluppati da UBTech all’interno delle proprie fabbriche. Questi vengono impiegati per la movimentazione dei materiali, l’ispezione dei componenti e il supporto agli operai nelle attività più ripetitive. In uno stabilimento Zeekr a Ningbo, per esempio, alcuni robot del modello Walker di UBTech vengono utilizzati per trasportare scatole e parti tra diverse linee di assemblaggio.
Anche in Europa diversi grandi gruppi industriali stanno esplorando soluzioni simili: Mercedes-Benz, per esempio, ha avviato test con robot umanoidi realizzati dalla startup americana Apptronik nei propri impianti, mentre BMW ha sperimentato i robot di Figure AI nello stabilimento di Spartanburg, negli Stati Uniti, per operazioni come la movimentazione di componenti metallici. Hyundai Motor Group, invece, punta a introdurre migliaia di robot del modello Atlas, sviluppati da Boston Dynamics, società acquisita dal gruppo nel 2021.
Proprio il colosso coreano dell’automotive vuole inserirsi a gamba tesa in uno scenario competitivo che, almeno sulla carta, sembra delineare un duopolio sempre più serrato tra Cina e Stati Uniti. L’annuncio al CES di Las Vegas di quest’anno potrebbe segnare una svolta dirompente. Boston Dynamics ha infatti siglato un accordo strategico con DeepMind (il laboratorio di Google che ha dato vita a Gemini) per potenziare Atlas, attraverso l’integrazione dei modelli Gemini Robotics. L’obiettivo è rafforzarne le capacità cognitive, migliorando al contempo l’interazione con l’ambiente e l’autonomia operativa.
“Quello di gennaio è un annuncio importantissimo”, sottolinea Siciliano. “Questi grossi investimenti, ovviamente, fanno da traino per tutti gli altri, innescando una dinamica di mercato che potrebbe accelerare l’individuazione della prima vera applicazione industriale su larga scala”, la cosiddetta killer application capace di cambiare gli equilibri del settore. Perché sarà l’azienda capace di sviluppare il primo prodotto di massa, realmente pervasivo, a conquistare un vantaggio decisivo e ad aprire una nuova fase del mercato. Una rivoluzione destinata a toccare anche l’Europa e il nostro Paese: “Oggi è difficile fare delle stime su quando vedremo i robot umanoidi nelle fabbriche italiane. Tuttavia, ragionevolmente, la larga diffusione entro un decennio è verosimile”.
OSM non è semplicemente una mappa online libera e gratuita ma un ricchissimo database geografico attorno al quale ruota un’infinità di progetti, App e iniziative.
Se si parla di mappe nella maggior parte dei casi si pensa alla mappa del navigatore, ad una cartina stradale oppure a un Atlante ma in realtà ci sono mappe di tipo diversissimo: carte nautiche, stradali, da escursionismo, turistiche, quelle che mostrano le caratteristiche fisiche di un territorio, quelle che ne mostrano i confini amministrativi e molte altre ancora. Tanta varietà dipende tal fatto che ognuna di queste mappe è concepita per un certo utilizzo specifico ed ha dunque interesse a evidenziare solo alcuni degli aspetti del territorio che prende in considerazione. Le mappe dei navigatori per automobili ad esempio non mostrano i sentieri su cui non è possibile andare in automobile mentre le mappe da escursionismo, al contrario, non riportano informazioni sui semafori. E’ giusto che sia così: una mappa che mostrasse tutti, ma proprio tutti gli elementi presenti su un dato territorio risulterebbe completamente inutile ed illeggibile: proviamo solo ad immaginare quanto sarebbe difficile pianificare un percorso tra Roma e Firenze su una mappa che indicasse ogni singolo semaforo, cartello stradale, idrante, cancello, sentiero, panchina, fontanella, cartellone pubblicitario, attraversamento pedonale, rivolo d’acqua, spartitraffico, tombino, numero civico, ringhiera, ecc…
Una mappa delle linee ferroviarie italiane.
Anche le mappe solitamente utilizzate dai principali navigatori per automobili, difatti, per quanto ci possano sembrare complete in realtà sono concepite per un utilizzo generalista e riportano solo una selezione di elementi. Difatti sono in grado di calcolare il percorso per raggiungere una città che sta a 200km di distanza ma nella maggior parte dei casi non sanno dirci se nei dintorni c’è una fontanella a cui abbeverarci. O ancora: sulle mappe digitali maggiormente utilizzate, zommando all’indietro per far stare l’intera penisola italiana nello schermo vedremmo comunque ben evidenziate le autostrade, ma a ben vedere se osservassimo davvero l’Italia da quell’altezza, ad esempio dall’ISS, le autostrade non si noterebbero affatto. Si tratta ovviamente di una rappresentazione grafica artificiosa, voluta perché quelle mappe sono state concepite per un uso stradale e dunque è stato scelto di enfatizzare quel dato. Le mappe digitali più note, essendo realizzate dalle big tech americane, sono principalmente interessate a fornire un servizio buono per un uso generico e con una caratterizzazione fortemente commerciale: Google Maps difatti ci può dire a che ora apre un centro commerciale di un’altra città ma non ci sa dire se nei dintorni c’è una panchina. Il carattere commerciale di un servizio di mappe online, dunque, è un elemento determinante nel tipo di informazioni che la mappa stessa riporterà.
Una mappa catastale contiene un sacco di informazioni utili, ma se vuoi recarti di persona sul lotto 582bis ti conviene usare una mappa stradale per orientarti
Che si tratti di mappe commerciali o meno tuttavia appare subito evidente un primo problema: per farsi un’immagine completa di un certo territorio è necessario utilizzare più tipi di mappe, ognuna delle quali ha una propria funzione specifica, una grafica distinta, utilizza simbologie diverse dalle altre, una diversa scala e presentare incompatibilità con le altre. Se si volesse fare un’escursione orientandosi con Google Maps per raggiungere in auto il punto di partenza ed un navigatore escursionistico Garmin per l’escursione a piedi, uno dei due potrebbe segnalare un parcheggio che l’altro non riporta o nomi di vie di campagna non corrispondenti.
L’Istituto Geografico Militare Italiano realizza mappe estremamente precise ma concepite per un tipo d’utilizzo che le rende inadatte ad esser usate come semplice stradario
Vi sono anche infinite esigenze particolari solitamente non considerate da chi realizza mappe commerciali: chi vola in deltaplano, ad esempio, spesso deve barcamenarsi tra mappe escursionistiche che indicano correttamente rilievi ed altitudini e mappe di diverso tipo ove invece è indicata la presenza di pali elettrici e cavi dell’alta tensione (dai quali i deltaplanisti voglion comprensibilmente stare alla larga). Riassumendo: se da un lato ricorriamo costantemente all’uso di mappe, dall’altro il panorama offerto dal ben vasto mondo della cartografia presenta diversi problemi:
Un’unica mappa completissima uguale per chiunque risulterebbe inutile ed illeggibile.
Ricorrere costantemente a mappe differenti può esser problematico ed a volte genera più interrogativi che risposte.
Le mappe commerciali, per loro stessa natura, non sono adatte ad esser impiegate per esigenze specifiche.
OPENSTREETMAP
Ecco dunque arrivare in nostro aiuto OpenStreetMap (abbreviato: OSM), che è qualcosa di estremamente più potente e completo di qualsiasi altra mappa digitale conosciuta. Prima di spiegare cosa la rende tanto unica vediamo velocemente quali sono le origini e la natura del progetto.
Nata nel 2004 da un’idea di Steve Coast, OSM cresce rapidamente per strutturarsi come una fondazione non a scopo di lucro con sede in Inghilterra e che ha come fine la creazione di un gigantesco database di dati geografici liberamente ed accessibili a chiunque gratuitamente. OSM difatti sposa in toto le filosofie del software libero e della libera circolazione delle informazioni (anche il software con cui OSM viene realizzato è a sua volta open source). Il progetto di OSM dunque consiste nel raccogliere ed elaborare costantemente un grandissimo numero di informazioni geografiche possibili facendole analizzare da una vastissima comunità di volontari ed armonizzarli in un unico database aperto. Tutti quegli elementi che, come detto prima, se mostrati tutti assieme renderebbero una mappa illeggibile (i singoli tombini, i tre gradini sul marciapiede, ecc), possono essere inseriti nel database OSM. Sotto molti aspetti il progetto OSM può esser definito come una sorta di “Wikipedia cartografica” anche se però vi sono delle differenze sostanziali: Wikipedia difatti è nota per esser spesso caratterizzata da problemi derivanti dal mito del “punto di vista neutrale” e dal fatto che le regole interne di Wikipedia sono spesso aggirate da gruppi che si organizzano appositamente per imporre le proprie posizioni politiche. OSM, al contrario, trattando dati geografici è molto meno soggetta a questo tipo di problematiche che tuttavia, anche se in forma più circoscritta, non mancano nemmeno qui (pensiamo ad esempio ai confini contesi tra nazioni in conflitto). In linea generale però le divergenze che possono verificarsi all’interno della comunità OSM sono più che altro di tipo tecnico e concettuale.
COME SI FINANZIA? OSM viene finanziata da donazioni da parte dei membri e di diversi enti, università ed aziende che, come vedremo, sono perfettamente conscie dei vantaggi che derivano dal poter utilizzare liberamente un corpus di informazioni geografiche vastissimo e sempre più preciso. Vigili del fuoco, protezione civile, pronto soccorso, associazioni umanitarie, università ma anche aziende come Amazon e Facebook utilizzano i dati di OSM a proprio vantaggio e dunque hanno un forte interesse a collaborare alla sua realizzazione o finanziarla.
DA DOVE OTTIENE I DATI E COME LI GESTISCE? Le fonti da cui OSM pesca i dati sono estremamente variegate: usa le mappe digitali fornite da diversi enti pubblici sparsi sul globo, mappe catastali, si fa consegnare i tracciati dei sentieri dai club alpinistici, raccoglie dati forniti volontariamente dagli utenti di alcune App, ottiene la concessione di dati satellitari e così via.
OSM raccoglie e unifica una moltitudine di dati di natura diversissima spesso provenienti da enti diversi: informazioni sui terreni, sui percorsi d’acqua, strade, segnaletica, numeri civici, informazioni commerciali ecc.
Tutti questi dati di natura e formato diversi vengono costantemente elaborati ed armonizzati nell’immenso database OSM da volontari che ne verificano la correttezza tramite strumenti software ed apportano manualmente correzioni e aggiunte. Si tratta, insomma, di un lavoro continuo e minuzioso estremamente complesso gestito con metodo e costante revisione: volontari esperti verificano la correttezza dei dati aggiunti dai meno esperti, ci sono forum di discussione, workshop periodici ecc.
DATI GEOGRAFICI VS. MAPPE
OSM come si è detto, non è banalmente una mappa bensì un database geografico. Che cosa vuol dire esattamente? Analogamente a quanto già esposto parlando dei Feed RSS e dei Frontend alternativi anche qui è necessario tener bene a mente la differenza tra un DATO e la sua RAPPRESENTAZIONE GRAFICA. Un dato è semplicemente un’informazione cruda, una stringa di testo nel database OSM in cui c’è scritto un valore. Per esempio “fontanella pubblica”. La sua rappresentazione grafica è il modo in cui questo dato viene mostrato sulla mappa. In questo caso l’icona di una fontanella che può essere grande, piccola, blu, rossa ecc. Ebbene, il concetto principale da tenere sempre a mente per capire cos’è OSM è che i dati e la loro rappresentazione grafica sono sempre separati. Che cosa comporta questo? Questa separazione permette di poter prendere esattamente gli stessi identici dati ma selezionarli e rappresentarli in modi diversi e, trattandosi di un database liberamente accessibile, ciò coinvolge innumerevoli siti ed App.
A sinistra i dati puri e a destra uno dei tanti possibili modi di rappresentarli
Facciamo l’esempio di due App o due siti di navigazione altamente specializzati: uno per vigili del fuoco ed uno per persone che si muovono in sedia a rotelle (come Wheelmap). Entrambe possono usufruire del database OSM ma la prima evidenzierà gli idranti, i sentieri, le altezze dei rilievi, le centraline elettriche, mentre la seconda evidenzierà marciapiedi, scalini, ostacoli e così via. Certi elementi presenti su una non verranno nemmeno mostrati nella seconda ed allo stesso modo certi elementi comuni possono esser rappresentati con diversa enfasi: dei gradini invalicabili per chi è in carrozzina potrebbero essere evidenziati con un grosso bollino rosso nella mappa pensata per gli spostamenti in sedia a rotelle ma senza particolare enfasi nella mappa per i vigili del fuoco che invece potrebbe segnalare con un colore diverso viottoli e stradine in cui non è possibile passare con i mezzi in dotazione. In sostanza, grazie al database OSM è possibile realizzare un numero infinito di mappe diversissime ed altamente personalizzate in base alle diverse esigenze ma i dati di tutte queste sarebbero sempre coerenti tra loro: non sarà mai possibile, consultando due mappe aggiornate e basate su OSM, che in una venga mostrata una nuova rotonda stradale appena creata e nell’altra no.
La stessa città vista nelle quattro visualizzazioni offerte da openstreetmap.org. Ognuna evidenzia i vari elementi in modo diverso e riporta informazioni assenti nelle altre
Le maggiori mappe digitali offrono al loro interno la possibilità di essere visualizzate in tre, quattro modalità diverse (anche su openstreetmap.org è possibile visualizzare la mappa in quattro modalità: standard, ciclabile, trasporti ed umanitaria) ma il database OSM permette di fare molto di più e realizzare un numero sconfinato di progetti impensabili per qualsiasi altra mappa esistente. Qualsiasi sito o App che utilizzi mappe commerciali come quelle di Google o di Apple mostrerà sempre e solo quella mappa lì, con quelle due-tre modalità grafiche che permette, coi suoi colori ed il logo sempre in evidenza.
Al contrario, poiché il database di OSM è scollegato dalla grafica usata, le mappe che ne utilizzano i dati hanno una grandissima varietà di aspetti ed è assai probabile che molte persone abbiano usato più volte mappe OSM senza nemmeno mai rendersene conto (in diversi casi si viene a sapere che la mappa è basata sul database OSM solo se si entra nelle preferenze).
Vorresti andare a piedi da Messina a Copenhagen? Waymarkedtrails usa i dati OSM per rendere maggiormente fruibili i percorsi che fanno per te! Nella mappa è mostrato solo l’indispensabile per orientarsi durante i tragitti.
Un ulteriore esempio per far comprender il meccanismo può esser questo: un’associazione interessata a promuovere escursioni di tipo storico può facilmente mettere sul proprio sito una mappa basata su OSM scegliendo di dargli un colore in scala di grigi, mostrare le linee isoipse (quelle che fan capire l’altitudine dei rilievi), far visualizzare i terreni ed i centri abitati rimuovendo le strade asfaltate, mostrare tutti gli edifici di carattere storico con un colore giallo ed i siti archeologici con un colore rosso. Sarebbe una mappa decisamente particolare che per esser realizzata da zero impiegherebbe un certo dispendio di energie ma OSM permette di realizzarla con relativa semplicità: basta selezionare il tipo di dati che interessano e poi decidere come mostrarli.
TheWeatherChannel usa mappe realizzate da MapBox basate sui dati OSM
Ma non finisce qui! Diversi enti ed aziende che realizzano autonomamente mappe proprie, spesso utilizzano parte dei dati di OSM. Le mappe di Apple, ad esempio, si avvalgono di molti dati OSM. Esri, e Mapbox, un importante fornitore di tecnologie cartografiche ed un’azienda che realizza mappe personalizzate, sono donatori OSM che ne utilizzano i dati ed anche per le proprie mappe.
NON C’E’ UNA “MAPPA OSM UFFICIALE”
Poiché solitamente v’è l’abitudine di considerare i dati e la loro rappresentazione come un tutt’uno, anche nel caso delle mappe vien spontaneo considerare il suo aspetto visivo come l’informazione in sè. Di conseguenza un errore comune in cui si può cadere è quello di ritenere che l’aspetto grafico delle mappe presenti su openstreetmap.org siano “LA mappa di OSM” Ma anche la mappa su openstreetmap.org, pur essendo realizzata da OSM stesso, non mostra tutte le informazioni geografiche del suo stesso database (come già detto, una mappa che mostrasse tutto-tutto-tutto sarebbe inguardabile) e pure i colori, le icone e i font che OSM ha scelto di mostrare su openstreetmap.org non sono un qualcosa di “fisso” (dati e rappresentazione sono due cose distinte).
Le diverse App Android che usano mappe basate sul database OSM. Molte di queste usano grafica, colori e icone proprie e diverse mostrano informazioni assenti nelle mappe visibili su openstreetmap.org
Su openstreetmap.org é stato deciso di rappresentare gli edifici con un colore grigio-marroncino, di rendere molto evidenti i binari ferroviari e le strade hanno colori diversi a seconda della tipologia. Ma se si osserva lo stesso territorio dall’App Maps.me, che utilizza a sua volta lo stesso database OSM, la grafica ed i colori son talmente diversi da farci credere che si tratti di tutta un’altra mappa: i binari ferroviari manco si vedono, le aree verdi sono molto marcate,le strade son tutte bianche ad eccezione delle Autostrade, gli edifici appaiono leggermente in 3D. I dati delle due mappe sono gli stessi ma Maps.me ha semplicemente scelto di usare quegli stessi dati in modo diverso, rappresentarli con un’altra grafica e usare informazioni che OSM ha scelto di non mostrare su openstreetmap.org (l’altezza degli edifici). Non c’è nulla di strano nel fatto che vi siano siti ed App che mostrano cose che sulla mappa openstreetmap.org non appaiono e può benissimo essere che si consideri migliore la mappa basata su OSM presente sul sito taldeitali perchè i quattro tipi di mappe visualizzabili su openstreetmap.org non sono “le mappe ufficiali di OSM” ma solo quattro delle migliaia di modi possibili di usare il database OSM. Siamo di fronte ad un concetto ben noto nel mondo del software libero a cui però il software commerciale ha disabituato: mastodon.social, l’Istanza Mastodon creata dall’inventore di Mastodon stesso, non è “l’Istanza ufficiale”; matrix.org non è l’istanza ufficiale di Matrix, non esiste una distribuzione Linux ufficiale e le quattro mappe di openstreetmao.org non sono le mappe ufficiali di OpenStreetMap.
UN GRANDE, RICCHISSIMO DATABASE GEOGRAFICO
A questo punto abbiamo diversi elementi per iniziare a comprendere meglio la ricchezza di OSM: ogni persona, ente o associazione che ha interesse ad avere delle mappe precise, tarate apposta per le proprie esigenze, coerenti con informazioni geografiche di diversa natura ed arricchite da osservazioni di migliaia di altri utenti può trarne vantaggio collaborando al database di OSM aggiungendovi i dati di proprio interesse. Il tutto viene integrato nel database OSM classificando i vari elementi per tipologia e secondo tutta una serie di criteri, andando così a formare diversi livelli gestibili autonomamente. E’ il principio seguito dai GIS (Geographic Information system), sigla con cui si identificano i principali servizi di mappatura digitale.
Manhattan su Google Maps
Manhattan sulla mappa standard di openstreetmaps.org. Appare immediatamente evidente la differenza in termini di ricchezza di informazioni e precisione
Qui Manhattan su Maps.me (App che usa i dati OSM). Maps.me è interessante perché sfrutta la qualità dei dati OSM ma la restituisce con la leggerezza visiva di Google Maps
All’interno del database si può segnalare veramente di tutto: le piazzole per i camper, i distributori pubblici di sacchetti per cani, sentieri non tracciati, WiFi pubblici, cancelli, inferriate, vicoli strettissimi che solitamente non vengono segnalati, i nomi locali delle campagne, tombini, capitelli, muretti diroccati, ruderi, sentieri abbandonati, gabinetti pubblici e mille altre cose ancora. Il tutto senza doversi preoccupare del fatto che tale informazione possa interessare solo a poche persone o che possa appesantire la mappa. Giusto per dare un’idea, qui e qui è possibile vedere alcune statistiche aggiornate sulla quantità di dati che contiene, qui e qui informazioni sull’hardware usato.
Una zona in Vietnam di cui OSM ne conosce solamente la rete stradale ed i fiumi principali.
Ci sono associazioni che inseriscono in OSM la posizione dei singoli alberi nei parchi pubblici, ciclisti che segnalano ogni singola fontanella o sbarra che impedisce il passaggio, c’è chi segnala i luoghi in cui si posizionano i banchetti di cibo da strada o i cantieri apparsi all’improvviso e così via. Il database di conseguenza accumula sempre più dati la cui ricchezza, va però notato, come per tutte le mappe online è distribuita a macchia di leopardo: se le zone più note, frequentate e di maggior interesse possono avere un grado di precisione elevatissimo ce ne sono altre che invece si limitano a mostrare giusto le strade e poco più.
UN ECOSISTEMA
Il database di OSM, essendo liberamente accessibile, è quindi il perno di tutto un ecosistema di App, siti e strumenti diversissimi che collaborano alla sua diffusione ed in alcuni casi anche al suo miglioramento: certe App, ad esempio, permettono a qualsiasi utente anche privo di esperienza di fornire segnalazioni minute come la presenza di un cantiere, o la rimozione di una panchina e così via. Una di queste, molto carina, che si chiama StreetComplete, gestisce questo processo con una forma di gamification sfruttata per una volta in modo positivo: una volta avviata mostra all’utente tutti gli elementi nelle sue vicinanze riguardo ai quali mancano alcuni dati, chiedendogli di completarli con semplici domande: come si chiama questo ristorante? Quanti piani ha questa casa? E così via… Ci sono anche siti ed App indipendenti che offrono servizi basati su mappe generate dal database OSM.
Mapillary offre un servizio simile a quello di GoogleStreetView. Nell’immagine si possono veder evidenziate in verde le strade già coperte
Una di queste, Mapillary, sta creando un database fotografico simile a quello di Google Street View ma prodotto dai singoli utenti che riprendono le strade coi propri smartphone. Queste fotografie non vanno a far parte del database OSM ma vengono tuttavia rilasciate con licenza Creative Commons CC-BY-SA, dando così la possibilità a chiunque di farne libero uso. I progetti autonomi sviluppati attorno ad OSM sono moltissimi: diverse mappe metereologiche e sulla pandemia Covid sono state fatte con le mappe OSM, le usano i dispositivi Garmin, pure le mappe di Apple son state realizzate attingendo al database OSM.
CentralineDalBasso riporta i dati sulla qualità dell’aria su mappe OSM
OSM è usato pure da numerose associazioni umanitarie per vari progetti e iniziative, tanto che esiste pure un team specializzato (HOT – Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team) che coinvolge, da solo, oltre 170 mila partecipanti.
Healthsites usa il database OSM per tracciare una mappa di tutti gli ospedali, ambulatori e centri di cura.
…i progetti sono tantissimi e questi sono solo una selezione fatta al volo!
Su https://osm-analytics.org/ vengono visualizzate le informazioni immesse dall’ Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. In questo caso gli edifici di due villaggi del Mali, del tutto assenti nelle mappe digitali commerciali
LA GESTIONE DEL DATABASE
Come facilmente intuibile il database OSM, ricevendo aggiornamenti ogni minuto, non sta mai fermo. Ciononostante se visualizzi la mappa di una App o un sito basato su OSM non accadono situazioni tipo “Ops! E’comparsa una panchina all’improvviso!” e questo, giustamente, per diverse ragioni. Quando viene inserito un nuovo dato il database ha bisogno di qualche tempo per elaborarlo e verificare che sia una modifica coerente e non una castroneria tipo “Una montagna di 400 metri comparsa all’improvviso davanti al Duomo di Milano”. Dopodichè vengono fatte delle verifiche da parte dei volontari che controllano la sensatezza della modifica ecc. A seconda del tipo di modifica e della zona interessata questo processo può esser più o meno lungo: se si inserisce un “cancello con sbarra” su un sentiero di campagna in una zona poco frequentata questo verrà elaborato molto velocemente, ma se si correggesse ad esempio il tracciato di una strada stadale di grande percorrenza presso una località importante, la verifica ed eventuale discussione sulla correttezza di questa modifica potrebbe durare anche qualche giorno. In ogni caso, una volta accolta la modifica, il primo luogo in cui questa potrebbe esser visibile è ovviamente la mappa di openstreetmap.org (sempre a patto che sia un tipo di dato che tale mappa mostra). Dopodichè vengono gli altri siti ed App. Questi però non pescano subito i dati dal database principale ma hanno metodi e tempi molto diversi fra loro. Alcuni difatti utilizzano dei propri server in cui copiano il database OSM a cadenza periodica (ad esempio settimanale, mensile, trimestrale o come più gli va).
OsmAnd permette di scaricare offline le mappe OSM più aggiornate. Molte App commerciali invece tendono ad essere più lente nel recepire gli ultimi aggiornamenti
Questo gli permette di essere operativi ed avere mappe funzionanti anche nel caso in cui il server di OSM avesse qualche problema. Quando effettuano questa copia sui propri server in realtà non copiano davvero tutto ma solo la porzione di dati che gli interessa. Per esempio, una App per ciclisti britannici copierà solo i dati relativi alla Gran Bretagna che effettivamente usa. Acquisirà dunque gli aggiornamenti sui negozi di biciclette e sulle nuove piste ciclabili ma snobberà quelli su idranti, centraline elettriche, uffici postali, autovelox ed altre cose che tanto, nell’App, non segnala. Allo stesso modo questi siti ed App spesso evitano di copiare le modifiche più recenti seguendo il principio che i dati troppo “freschi” son stati visualizzati e verificati meno rispetto a quelli presenti da più tempo. Il risultato è che se oggi viene inserita una certa modifica, le App che si appoggiano direttamente al server di OSM la riceveranno istantaneamente mentre per le App che effettuano copie periodiche dei dati sui propri server potrebbe volerci addirittura qualche mese. Anche qui è una questione di scelte personali: meglio avere i dati più aggiornati col rischio di qualche incorrettezza o meglio dati meno aggiornati ma più certi?
MAPPE OFFLINE E SICUREZZA
Quando si consultano le mappe digitali di Google ed Apple, le rispettive App dialogano costantemente col server per comunicare istantaneamente la tua posizione e fornendoti la versione più aggiornata delle loro mappe. Pur esistendo la possibilità di salvare sul telefono alcune porzioni di mappa questo meccanismo è inevitabile: non si può usare le App di mappe commerciali se non si comunica la propria posizione e senza dialogare costantemente col server. Alcune App basate su OSM (non tutte) hanno invece un approccio diverso: al loro interno hanno solo una mappa-base del pianeta e lasciano all’utente la possibilità di scaricare sullo smartphone la porzione di mondo di cui vogliono avere la mappa dettagliata.
Alcune App “conoscono” solo le porzioni di territorio che hai scaricato sullo smartphone
In alcuni casi questo processo è manuale e bisogna selezionare la mappa del paese, regione o città che interessa da una lista, mentre in altri casi quest’operazione è semi-automatica (se zoommi sull’Abruzzo parte il download della mappa dell’Abruzzo). In altri casi ancora v’è un sistema misto (le mappe visualizzate sono quelle del server a meno che non le scarichi). In alcune App, ad esempio, si può scaricare una mappa generale dell’Italia che contiene solamente le strade principali e poi scaricarsi la mappa dettagliata di singole regioni o città che interessano. Ad esempio è possibile salvarsi offline la mappa delle strade dell’intera Italia, la mappa dettagliata della Sicilia e quella dettagliata di Roma. Su queste App gli aggiornamenti delle mappe scaricate oggline funzionano allo stesso modo: semi-automatico per alcune, manuale per altre e misto per altre ancora. Poter scaricare le mappe sul proprio dispositivo porta co sè diversi vantaggi, i primi dei quali sono l’essere accessibili anche se non c’è campo e non consumare costantemente banda per ri-scaricare sempre e solo le stesse strade. Poichè lo spazio su smartphone è quello che è non si avrà mai l’intero database OSM salvato, ma le App basate su mappe offline solitamente sanno gestire la cosa a dovere e se per il tuo viaggio hai necessità di salvarti la mappa dell’intera Romania ma non hai più spazio è del tutto indolore liberarne un po cancellando quelle di territori che non ti serve consultare al momento. Tra i vantaggi delle mappe offline v’è anche il fatto che sono solitamente più scattanti e possono essere consultate, navigate, si possono fare ricerche su di essa senza trasmettere mai a nessuno la propria posizione o informazioni su cosa stai cercando (se cerchi “Ascoli” su Google Maps la richiesta viene inviata ai server di Google che innanzitutto registrano che hai “cercato Ascoli alle 17.34” e solo dopo di ciò inviano la posizione di Ascoli al tuo smartphone). Con questo tipo di App invece si possono pure registrare i propri tracciati GPS nella certezza che questi saranno presenti solo e soltanto sul proprio telefono.
La preferenza per soluzioni offline però porta con sè anche qualche piccolo inghippo. Il primo è che gli aggiornamenti delle mappe scaricabili offline non sono sempre automatiche o ben segnalate ed ovviamente è un qualcosa a cui bisogna prestare una certa attenzione.
Il secondo riguarda il tempo che l’App può impiegare a calcolare i percorsi. Se si chiede a Google Maps di calcolare il percorso da Milano a Napoli, fondamentalmente l’App manda la richiesta ai server di Google i quali innanzitutto registrano che hai “cercato il percorso da Milano a Napoli alle 18.42”, poi effettuano il calcolo e restituiscono all’App il percorso consigliato. Il tutto in pochissimi secondi. Al contrario se si usa una App indipendente che fa fare questo calcolo allo smartphone senza comunicare nulla al server, da un lato non si regalano i propri dati in giro ma dall’altro questo ci metterà molto più tempo (il processore di uno smartphone è niente rispetto a quello di un grosso server). Su certe App, ad esempio, calcolare un percorso di 400Km può impiegare anche tre minuti. Anche qui è una questione di scelte: preferire una App scattante ma che comunica le proprie ricerche ad un server cui dobbiamo fidarci o una più solida ma lenta? Bisogna però considerare che una App che sa fare questi calcoli in proprio sarà autonoma anche nel bel mezzo di una grotta in fondo a un burrone in una valle sperduta in cui non c’è campo.
Il terzo inghippo riguarda la funzione “cerca” delle App, ma lo vedremo meglio più avanti.
IL GPS DI PER SE’ NON CI “TRACCIA”
Una domanda comune a questo punto riguarda il sistema GPS a causa di una certa confusione su come funziona questo sistema e vale dunque la pena spendere due parole per spiegare mooooolto grossolanamente come funziona. Il sistema GPS si basa su una trentina di satelliti geostazionari che circondano l’intero globo da una distanza di circa ventimila chilometri dalla superficie terrestre. Per geostazionario si intende un satellite che “staziona”, ossia che sta sempre fisso sopra lo stesso punto della Terra: se un satellite GPS fosse stato posizionato, per esempio, esattamente sopra la verticale di casa tua, questo resterebbe sempre lì, di notte e di giorno. Questi satelliti si trovano ad un’altezza tale che da ogni punto del globo sia sempre possibile “vederne” almeno tre, per esempio, osservando il cielo dall’Italia potresti vedere quello sopra casa tua, uno che sta sopra la casa di un tizio di Mosca ed uno che sta sopra un cinema in Islanda. Questi satelliti trasmettono costantemente dei segnali radio contenenti alcuni dati, i più importanti dei quali sono la sua posizione e l’ora esatta, con una precisione al microsecondo.
Laura, Mario e Andrea all’opera
Quando ti perdi nel bel mezzo della campagna ed apri una App per capire cove cavolo sei, questa riceve i segnali radio trasmessi dai satelliti esattamente come la radiolina da quattro soldi che becca sempre Radio Maria. L’App, quindi, riceve una roba tipo questa:
SATELLITE LAURA “Ciao! Sono Laura! La mia posizione esatta è XYZ e sono le ore 16:04:07…e 6 millisecondi“
SATELLITE MARIO “Ciao! Sono Mario! La mia posizione esatta è XYZ e sono le ore 16:04:07…e 23 millisecondi“
SATELLITE ANDREA “Ciao! Sono Andrea! La mia posizione esatta è XYZ e sono le ore 16:04:07…e 49 millisecondi“
L’App riceve tutti questi segnali contemporaneamente ma… il suo orologio interno indica le 16:04:07… e 52 millisecondi! Questa differenze di orario dipendono dal fatto che il segnale inviato da satelliti tanto lontani ci mette un po ad arrivare allo stesso punto. Non serve molto per capire che più il satellite è lontano e più ci mette. A questo punto l’App calcola molto velocemente la differenza microscopica tra gli orari e capisce di essere molto vicino ad Andrea, un po meno vicino da Mario e molto lontano da Laura. Di conseguenza, conoscendo le loro posizioni esatte (che han trasmesso) e la velocità di trasmissione delle onde radio, riesce a calcolare le proprie coordinate e mostrarle sulla mappa. Si tratta di un processo chiamato triangolazione.
Per chi volesse saperne di più, online ci sono diverse mappe live come questa che mostrano la posizione in orbita di migliaia di satelliti artificiali di tutti i tipi. Su F-Droid è pure possibile scaricare GPStest, una curiosa App che elenca tutti i satelliti che il tuo smartphone sta rilevando in questo momento (e si, quello sopra casa tua lo becca SEMPRE).
Capito il meccanismo appare chiaro che un ricevitore GPS, in questo caso il tuo smartphone, per funzionare non ha bisogno di trasmettere niente a nessuno riguardo alla tua posizione! Quando si parla di localizzare qualcuno tramite il suo GPS non si intende certo che il suo smartphone comunichi la propria posizione ai satelliti (A Laura, Mario ed Andrea non gliene frega una cippa di dove tu sia) ma significa che lo smartphone sta inviando -via Internet- quelle coordinate che ha calcolato grazie ai segnali che ha ricevuto dai satelliti GPS. I navigatori da auto stand-alone tipo i TomTom o i Garmin da escursionismo difatti sono anch’essi ricevitori GPS eppure non si è mai sentito dire che si possa “rilevare la posizione” di un TomTom o di un Garmin. Questo può essere verificato facilmente anche provando ad utilizzare una App che funziona con mappe offline e verificare la propria posizione GPS con la modalità aereo attivata.
MANCANZE e “MEH”
A parte le valutazioni su pregi e difetti delle App che usano mappe e calcoli di percorso offline (che non sono dei difetti ma osservazioni su pro e contro di certe caratteristiche), al’ecosistema stesso di OSM è caratterizzato da alcune mancanze che fanno particolarmente sentire, soprattutto nel fare un paragone con gli strumenti commerciali.
I MODULI DI RICERCA La prima mancanza che si riscontra quella di un ricerca interno efficiente. openstreetmap.org usa un certo software di ricerca e le App basate su OSM ne usano degli altri ma tuttavia il problema è abbastanza comune: è estremamente facile NON trovare quel che si cerca. In linea generale si può dire che più l’App è specializzata (per esempio una App dedicata solo agli spostamenti in automobili) e migliori sono i risultati, ma non è una regola che vale sempre. Giusto per fare due esempi, L’App Maps.me, pensata principalmente per viaggi turistici, ha un modulo di ricerca abbastanza intuitivo e veloce mentre al contrario, OsmAnd, che è una eccezionale App multifuzione opensource, ha un modulo di ricerca che necessita un po di pratica per esser appreso. In nessun caso però si arriva all’immediatezza del modulo di ricerca di Google Maps. Le capacità predittive di Google nel capire che se digiti “Parigi” è più probabile tu stia cercando la capitale francese che non una oscura “via Parigi” di una città vicina, da questo punto di vista è decisamente più efficiente rispetto alle altre soluzioni disponibili.
openstreetmap.org elabora in pochi secondi tragitti intercontinentali, ma se sbagli e scrivi Vladivostock col “ck” finale, è convinto tu voglia visitare uno stagno a qualche km. da Parigi
Le varie App rispondono a questa mancanza con diverse strategie: quelle specialistiche riescono a starci dentro perché gestiscono una quantità di informazioni minori e sono usate per scopi mirati; quelle più complesse, come OsmAnd, dovendo gestire una quantità di informazioni elevata utilizzano dei moduli di ricerca in cui l’utente deve compilare diversi passaggi. Per fare un esempio: su Google Maps, digitando anche malamente “via cavur roma”, il modulo di ricerca comprende comunque che si sta cercando Via Cavour a Roma e lo propone come prima soluzione. Per trovare la stessa via su OsmAnd è necessario:
saltare il modulo di ricerca base
selezionare “indirizzo”
selezionare “prima specifica la città”
digitando correttamente “Roma” le prime soluzioni proposte sono le località più vicine alla propria posizione che contengono “Roma” nel nome (Campagnano di Roma, Casa Roma, Chiarano Roma). La città di Roma, nel mio caso, è in quarta posizione
tornare indietro su “indirizzo”
digitare correttamente “via Cavour”
Dopo un po che ci si fa l’abitudine a fare tutti questi passaggi ci si mette un nonnulla ma resta il fatto che non c’è paragone con la semplicità del modulo di ricerca di Google.
In altre App e siti le ricerche funzionano benissimo a patto che nomi ed indirizzi siano indicati esattamente come vogliono loro (p.es. prima il nome della via, poi una virgola ed invine il nome della città. O il contrario). Insomma: effettuare le ricerche sulle proprie App non è proprio immediato ed è un campo che necessita certamente di miglioramenti.
A questa difficoltà va a sommarsi nuovamente la questione delle mappe offline: se sul tuo smartphone hai scaricato solo la mappa d’Italia e cerchi una via di Londra, l’App magari conoscerà Londra ma non troverà la via se prima non ne scarichi la mappa. Pare scontato, ma se si ha l’abitudine di usare le mappe di Google può non essere così immediato. Tutto ciò può risultare anche abbastanza antipatico perché se si dovesse ad esempio fare una ricerca sulla località chiamata Fauske senza sapere se sta in Svezia, Norvegia, Finlandia o Islanda non si potrebbe ottenere quest’informazione dall’App di mappe, ma bisognerebbe cercarsela sul web e solo dopo aver scoperto che sta in Norvegia si potrà tornare sull’App e scaricare la mappa corretta in modo che l’App stessa la possa trovare.
NIENTE TRAFFICO La seconda mancanza riguarda le indicazioni del traffico live. Semplicemente non ci sono, ne su openstreetmap.org nè sulle App per OSM. Aggiungere questo tipo di dati non è tecnicamente difficile ma l’ostacolo principale è che le informazioni sul traffico perlopiù devono essere acquistate, non sono di libero accesso ed in alcuni casi vengono ottenute dalle big tech anche carpendo dati dalla posizione degli smartphone degli utenti. Insomma: non se ne fa niente.
3D La terza ed ultima mancanza è quella di una mappa in rilievo paragonabile a quella di Google Earth. Il database OSM contiene i dati altimetrici di terreni e rilievi così come le altezze di numerosi edifici, ma solo alcune App proprietarie, al momento, li sfruttano in modo utile. Diversi sviluppatori stan portando avanti progetti collaterali ad OSM per renderne le mappe in 3D e l’argomento è “caldo” ma attualmente non v’è ancora nulla di utilizzabile da semplici utenti.
Uno dei tanti progetti intesi a dare tridimensionalità alle mappe OSM
“MEH” Non proprio un punto debole ma piuttosto un “meh” da rilevare è che le informazioni sugli esercizi commerciali sono tendenzialmente più complete sulle mappe di Google. Non è solitamente un problema ma in alcuni casi può risultar antipatico dover uscire da OSM, fare una ricerca altrove e poi rientrare in OSM. Ovviamente non c’è nulla che impedisca di aggiornare i dati di tutte le attività commerciali su OSM ma poichè il mercato è Google-oriented è lì che i mercanti vanno a parare.
Un secondo, debolissimo “meh” è che in alcuni casi sarebbe apprezzabile veder convergere su openstreetmap.org alcune funzioni offerte dai progetti che gli ruotano attorno. Un esempio tra questi è Mapillary, il servizio simile a Street View. Se si naviga una mappa su openstreetmap.org e si volessero vedere le immagini a livello strada di una certa zona bisogna andare su mapillary.com, tornare nuovamente sulla stessa zona e lì si potrebbero vedere queste immagini. Questa convergenza tuttavia viene ottenuta da alcune App. Sulla già citata OsmAnd, per esempio, basta un comando per visualizzare le foto di Mapillary.
VOGLIO CONTRIBUIRE!
Se a questo punto, ci si sentisse dentro un irrefrenabile impulso di contribuire ad OSM mappando a più non posso è sufficiente iscriversi su openstreetmap.org ed iniziare a frequentarne i forum, leggere la wiki, prendere dimestichezza col suo funzionamento e chiedere consigli alla sua community.
Un editor di OSM
Questo articolo è giusto una panoramica su cos’è OpenStreetMap e sulle sue potenzialità ma per quanto riguarda il lavoro che c’è dietro è decisamente meglio chiedere direttamente a chi si occupa attivamente della sua gestione. L’unico consiglio che si può dare qui, semmai, è di farci un po un giro prima di modificare la mappa di Milano e indicare che è apparsa una montagna davanti al Duomo, ecco.
LE APP BASATE SU OSM
E per finire non si poteva che segnalare le App che usano mappe basate sul database OSM. Ce ne sono diverse decine tra cui scegliere ed alcune sono abbastanza particolari e molto specifiche. Essendoci quindi un po di tutto, prima di pigliare App a caso forse è meglio fare una prima breve riflessione sull’utilizzo che se ne vuol fare e delle situazioni in cui ci capita di aver bisogno di una mappa: spostamenti in auto? Viaggi all’estero? Escursionismo? Ciclismo? Deve poter registrare i tracciati GPS, esportarli ecc? Deve poter permettere di segnalare modifiche ad OSM? Che tipo di dati si preferisce visualizzare? Meglio una App che fa di tutto ma complessa o una che fa poche cose ma che sia chiara e semplice? Può valer la pena usare due App per due tipi di utilizzo distinti? In ogni caso, sia per Android che iOS le due App più note sono le già segnalate OsmAnd e Maps.me
OsmAnd è un vero e proprio coltellino svizzero: fa TUTTO! Navigatore vocale per auto, modalità escursionismo, registra i tracciati con le statistiche altimetriche, integra Mapillary, permette di visualizzate le mappe in innumerevoli modi e tantissime altre cose. Tanta ricchezza ovviamente significa alto grado di complessità e di conseguenza richiede un certo “addestramento” per esser usato al meglio, ma una volta fatto proprio diventa uno strumento insostituibile! E’disponibile anche su F-Droid.
Maps.me è pensata per viaggi turistici. E’molto leggera e le mappe che usa hanno una grafica leggera che ricorda quella di Google Maps ed è adatta a chi ha bisogno di un navigatore facile da usare e senza fronzoli. Su F-Droid è presente un suo fork (una “versione modificata”) chiamata semplicemente Maps.
Navit è concepito puramente come navigatore automobilistico e può essere installato su diversi dispositivi.
OsmAnd e Navit sono software completamente liberi ed open source mentre Maps.me, pur essendo open source, è collegato ad una azienda che si occupa di viaggi. La versione su F-Droid chiamapa Maps invece è “pulita”.
Le altre App, come detto, sono diverse decine e ve n’è di tutti i tipi. Questi due link portano a pagine della wiki di OSM in cui vengono descritte una ad una e confrontate fra loro (in inglese):
OsmAnd ed altre App permettono di fare piccole segnalazioni ad OSM, ad esempio per indicare che una certa strada è stata chiusa, ma se si volesse fare qualcosa di più anche da smartphone esiste Vespucci, una App pensata appositamente per i volontari di OSM. E’però consigliabile usarla solo se si ha già un minimo di esperienza nel modificare i dati OSM da desktop.
Chi volesse dare una mano ad aggiornare i dati OSM ma senza dover imparare a modificare le mappe ed aggiornarle può contrinuire usando StreetComplete! Si tratta di un’App carinissima che, una volta avviata, pone delle semplici domande riguardo alla zona in cui ti trovi e su cui OSM ha informazioni incomplete. E’ un modo molto intelligente ed utile di sfruttare alcuni elementi della gamification per realizzare un progetto da cui ne trae vantaggio il mondo intero!
Accedere a YouTube, Twitter, Instagram o altri siti ancora attraverso App non ufficiali o coi cosiddetti Frontend alternativi permette di avere funzioni aggiuntive e di fruire dei contenuti in forme meno gamificate e stressanti.
Per capire cosa sia un Frontend basta aver ben chiari un paio di concetti, il primo dei quali è la distinzione tra la forma (design) ed il contenuto di un qualsiasi sito, piattaforma o applicazione. Prendiamo l’esempio di YouTube. Sostanzialmente YouTube è un archivio digitale di video ad ognuno dei quali è abbinata una serie di dati accessori (i like ricevuti, il conteggio visualizzazioni), oltre ad una componente social ed alcune funzioni di riproduzione (la barra di avanzamento, i sottotitoli, ecc.). Tutto questo ci viene mostrato con un certo DESIGN a cui siamo comunemente abituati, ossia questo:
Schermata di YouTube
Il suo aspetto ci è tanto familiare che lo identifichiamo immediatamente con il look di YouTube: il pulsante play al centro del video, la barra di scorrimento rossa in basso, i video suggeriti in quella certa posizione dello schermo, i colori bianco rosso e nero… Sono tutte caratteristiche estetiche distintive di YouTube.
Tuttavia, se un domani il team di Google decidesse di apportare piccoli cambiamenti come spostare la barra di scorrimento sulla parte superiore del video o cambiarne il colore dal rosso al blu, nella sostanza YouTube resterebbe YouTube ed il suo ricco archivio video non sarebbe intaccato da questi cambiamenti estetici. YouTube resterebbe tale anche se le modifiche fossero più profonde o se il design venisse completamente ridisegnato: il cambiamento della forma difatti non ha direttamente a che fare coi contenuti. E’ la stessa cosa che avviene in quelle applicazione e piattaforme che permettono di “cambiare il tema” anche se di solito questo cambiamento consiste solo nel passaggio da un certo design in versione chiara allo stesso design in versione scura. Concettualmente tutto ciò non è troppo diverso dal cambiare cover al telefono: l’aspetto cambia ma il telefono ovviamente resta lo stesso. Bisogna però osservare che certi tipi di cover hanno caratteristiche che le rendono qualcosa di più che un mero gingillo estetico: ci sono le cover antiurto, quelle con batteria di supporto incorporata, quelle con scomparto-portafoglio e quelle con lo stand integrato per tenere lo smartphone in verticale. Insomma: un cambio di cover è sempre un cambiamento di design ma alcuni design portano con sè anche funzionalità che cambiano l’approccio al dispositivo stesso.
A seconda del tipo di cover usata, lo smartphone può esser usato in modi diversi
Chi muoveva i propri passi sul web tra la fine degli anni ’90 ed i primi anni ‘2000 ricorderà Winamp, un lettore di file audio paragonabile a VLC che offriva la possibilità di personalizzare in maniera profonda il proprio design proponendo delle “skin” talmente diverse l’una dall’altra da non farla più sembrare la stessa applicazione. Con una skin minimalista si potevano avere a disposizione solo i comandi base lasciando che quelli più avanzati fossero sepolti nei menù interni. Oppure si poteva preferire una skin che metteva in primo piano le funzioni più tecniche come l’equalizzatore, la navigazione tra le tracce e così via.
Quattro diverse skin di Winamp. Design completamente diversi, ma è sempre la stessa applicazione
Quel che risultava maggiormente interessante é che alla modifica di design corrispondeva anche un profondo cambiamento nell’approccio allo strumento stesso da parte di chi lo utilizzava.
Ciononostante, soprattutto per via di scelte commerciali, nelle applicazioni si è sempre più imposto l’utilizzo di design rigidi e non personalizzabili dove tuttalpiù viene concessa la scelta tra tema chiaro e tema scuro di cui si è detto prima. Questa rigidità porta in effetti alcuni vantaggi (un certo pulsante appare a chiunque in quella stessa posizione, quella voce di menù si trova sempre lì e l’applicazione rimane sempre riconoscibile a chiunque indifferentemente dal device utilizzato). Al tempo stesso però questa rigidità impone un unico modo di fruizione dei contenuti stabilito da chi detiene la proprietà della piattaforma stessa. Al tempo stesso questa rigidità contribuisce a impedire che gli utenti possano compiere alcune azioni malviste dalle company che detengono la proprietà del sito.
Per fare qualche esempio: YouTube non permette di scaricare i suoi video e chi volesse farlo dovrà usare strumenti esterni; YouTube ha una funzione che permette di modificare la velocità di riproduzione dei video e che in certi casi può esser molto comoda m il pulsante per regolarla è all’interno del menù Preferenze e questo fa sì che molte persone nemmeno sappiano che esiste. Se il design di YouTube fosse diverso e mettesse più in evidenza questa funzione, questa sarebbe certamente più utilizzata. YouTube impone che prima della visione di un video ci si debba beccare la pubblicità ed impone che il pulsante “salta” appaia solo dopo un certo numero di secondi. Al contrario, se il design di YouTube fosse diverso, il pulsante “salta” potrebbe essere disponibile sempre o, addirittura, si potrebbe accedere direttamente al video che ci interessa senza doversi sorbire la pubblicità (ok, ok, ci sono dietro ragioni economiche, si, ma qui il discorso è puramente tecnico).
Giusto per rimarcare ulteriormente il fatto che i contenuti sono distinti dal design, si può osservare come potrebbe apparire YouTube se fosse “nudo” ossia dati puri senza alcun fronzolo grafico. Apparirebbe più o meno così:
Se si accede a YouTube da Terminale, il suo archivio appare come una enorme ma semplicissima playlist testuale i cui video vanno visti con un player installato sul proprio computer
Sarebbe solo un archivio testuale navigabile da linea di comando a cui si avrebbe un accesso diretto, senza commenti, pubblicità, suggerimenti di Google ecc. Pulito e preciso, si, ma di certo non molto comodo…
Frontend alternativi
Se si volesse accedere ai contenuti di un sito con un’interfaccia diversa da quella standard capace di offrire anche funzioni in più o in meno rispetto al solito (e senza arrivare al punto da accederci da linea di comando), quel che fa per noi è un Frontend alternativo!
I Frontend alternativi non sono altro che delle piattaforme con un design tutto loro che visualizzano e gestiscono i contenuti che stanno su un server/sito/database gestito da qualcun’altro. Si tratta di un qualcosa con cui abbiamo a che fare tutti i giorni: chi usa aggregatori di notizie, ad esempio, riceve contenuti realizzati dai maggiori quotidiani e blog ma su una applicazione che li parifica applicando a tutti lo stesso font, gli stessi sfondi, dimensione dei titoli ecc. Chi usa Media Center come Kodi ha accesso ai contenuti di YouTube ma sul Media Center non vede i commenti, i comandi sono un po diversi ecc. In sostanza tutte le volte in cui si accede a dei contenuti da una piattaforma diversa da quella standard, siamo dinnanzi allo stesso concetto. Tuttavia quando si parla di “Frontend” solitamente si intende un tipo di piattaforma ben precisa ovvero un sito web specializzato nel gestire i dati provenienti da un altro sito web. In pratica: per accedere ai contenuti del [SITO ORIGINALE] si andrà invece sul [SITO FRONTEND] che mostra gli stessi contenuti del [SITO ORIGINALE] ma in forma diversa.
Video visto su YouTube
Lo stesso video di prima visto su Invidious
Frontend alternativi per ogni cosa?
Dunque possono esistere Frontend alternativi per ogni tipo di piattaforma? Frontend per Instagram, Facebook, Skype e così via?
NO
E’possibile realizzare un frontend solo a patto che i contenuti ‘pubblici’ della piattaforma che ci interessa siano veramente pubblici: più il sito originale è aperto ed accessibile e più è facile realizzarne un Frontend. Per questo motivo ci si può scordare di frontend per Facebook, che è una gabbia dorata/drogata ermetica e chiusa perlopiù inaccessibile a chi non accetta di consegnare tutti i propri dati personali. Per alcune piattaforme commerciali invece é possibile creare dei Frontend alternativi che se da un lato offrono alcune funzioni in più, al tempo stesso non possono svolgere tutte le funzioni base. Al contrario è facile elaborare Frontend alternativi per tutte le piattaforme libere, aperte ed open source, allo stesso modo con cui è facile realizzare applicazioni alternative per le stesse.
Giusto per fare due esempi, sia Matrix che Mastodon sono accessibili tramite un certo numero di Frontend alternativi,App e software per PC. Questo tipo di varietà è abbastanza comune tra le piattaforme libere, così come la contaminazione vicendevole, poiché le idee vincenti di un Frontend possono esser poi riprese da un altro ecc. Al contrario, chi utilizza piattaforme commerciali spesso non è nemmeno a conoscenza del fatto che è possibile utilizzare lo stesso ‘motore’ ma con una carrozzeria diversa e con funzioni aggiuntive.
URL e codice
Oltre alla distinzione tra design e contenuto v’è un secondo ed ultimo concetto da aver bene in mente per capire il funzionamento dei Frontend alternativi: la differenza tra URL e codice. Chi va sull’URL www.youtube.com non trova una banale paginetta statica con del testo e delle immagini fisse, ma un sito complesso che FA diverse cose. Sull’URL www.youtube.com difatti è presente del codice che permette di vedere un video, avviarlo, mandarlo avanti, metterlo in pausa, aggiungere i sottotitoli, regolare il volume ecc… Dire ‘codice’, quindi, non è troppo diverso che dire ‘software’.
Aprendo l’URL http://www.youtube.com quel che si carica sono centinaia di righe di codice
Il fatto che una pagina web contenga del codice che fa molte cose è forse scontato, ma proprio per questo troppo spesso si tende a non farci caso. Giusto a termine di paragone, chi ha potuto vedere l’evoluzione del web ricorderà forse che i primissimi video pubblicati online erano perlopiù dei file su una pagina statica che andavano scaricati sul computer e solo a quel punto potevano essere visti, offline, con un mediaplayer. Solo col tempo e l’avvento della banda larga chi realizzava siti web ha potuto inserire nelle pagine stesse il codice che permetteva di vedere il video direttamente nella pagina.
NB: le cose non stanno esattamente così e qui si sta semplificando moooolto grossolanamente giusto per far capire alcuni concetti base sperando che il dio-gattino degli hacker non lanci una delle sue solite maledizioni ;-P
Ogniqualvolta si va su un sito web, dunque, bisogna tenere bene a mente che aprendo un certo URL si caricherà sì una pagina che ha una certa grafica e colore ma anche tanto codice. Un Frontend alternativo, quindi, è un “pacchetto” che include design e codice e che non si limita ad apparire diverso da quello originale e a disporre in modo diverso le sue stesse funzioni ma permette addirittura di gestire i contenuti in modo del tutto diverso aggiungendo funzionalità inedite. Una cosa che i Frontend alternativi potrebbero fare ma non sempre ne sono in grado è porsi da filtro tra te ed il sito originale per limitare la raccolta di metadati della tua navigazione. Per questioni strettamente tecniche questa cosa non è sempre possibile. Se uno dei motivi per cui si ricorre ai Frontend alternativi è quello di limitare la raccolta dati su di sè, in linea generale si consideri che comunque il sito originale qualche dato personale se lo piglia.
Invidious
Di Frontend alternativi ne esistono di diversi tipi e per diverse piattaforme. Qui ne osserveremo dettagliatamente uno che funge abbastanza bene da modello per spiegarli un po tutti. Si tratta di Invidious, che è probabilmente il più noto dei Frontend alternativi per YouTube. Se un Frontend alternativo è un “pacchetto” di design e codice diverso da quello presente sul sito di riferimento, Invidious è un “pacchetto” diverso da quello che troviamo su youtube.com, ma… su che sito possiamo trovarlo?
Su più d’uno!
Invidious difatti è un progetto libero ed open source che viene messo a disposizione di chiunque lo voglia utilizzare per sè, mettere sul proprio sito, modificarlo, migliorarlo ecc. (il “pacchetto” contenente codice e design si trova qui ). Dunque non c’è UN sito Invidious ufficiale, ma diversi siti, ognuno dei quali ha il proprio URL e la propria versione personalizzata del “pacchetto” di Invidious. Ognuno di questi siti può esser definito un’ “Istanza Invidious”
Esistono diverse Istanze Invidious e non esiste un elenco completo. Qui ce n’è uno parziale. La più nota Istanza Invidious è la prima ad esser stata creata https://invidio.us/ , ma attualmente sembra un po lenta. Un’Istanza che risulta decisamente più scattante è invece https://invidious.fdn.fr/Il “pacchetto” di Invidious è liberamente personalizzabile e viene costantemente aggiornato e poichè ogni Istanza è libera di modificarlo è possibile che alcune abbiano rimosso alcune funzioni o che ne abbian sostituito la grafica con una tutta loro. E’anche possibile che un’Istanza usi una versione non aggiornata di Invidious e che certe Istanze siano più veloci e scattanti di altre. Insomma: è un panorama variegato.
Che cosa offre Invidious più di YouTube.com?
Uno dei principali vantaggi di quasi tutti i Frontend ed App alternative è che limitano o addirittura permettono di rimuovere molti elementi gamificanti. Invidious ad esempio permette di rimuovere tutti i commenti ai video e di impedire la riproduzione automatica così come nascondere i video suggeriti da Google. Oltre a questo rimuove tutta la pubblicità, permette di scaricare direttamente i video in diversi formati e qualità (anche .mp3) e permette di mettere in play solo l’audio in modo da poter ascoltare il video come fosse un podcast consumando pure meno banda.
Frontend ed App suggerite
I Frontend alternativi, ormai si sarà ben capito, non sono poi molto diversi da una App non ufficiale. Qui di seguito si segnalano sia Frontend che App cui vale la pena dare un’occhiata. Non sono tutte quelle disponibili ma una selezione di quelle più note e interessanti. Altre App possono esser trovate su F-Droid. Qui quelle per Instagram, quelle per Twitter e quelle per YouTube.
Per quanto riguarda altri Frontend alternativi la cosa è un po più complessa perché non sempre vengono chiamati in questo modo e per cercarli bisogna utilizzare termini alternativi come “hook”, “alternative url”, “web viewer”, “web client”. Per Instagram ad esempio ce ne sono tantissimi ma spesso si tratta di siti zeppi di pubblicità e che a differenza di quelli qui segnalati, non sono Istanze che utilizzano codice open source, per cui è meglio evitarli.
– Download dei contenuti in diversi formati e qualità
– Rimozione pubblicità
– Rimozione commenti
– Rimozione autoplay
– Rimozione suggerimenti di Google
– Possibile riprodurre anche solo l’audio
– Download dei contenuti appoggiandosi a siti terzi
– Rimozione pubblicità
– Di default i commenti non son mostrati
– Rimozione autoplay
– Rimozione suggerimenti di Google
– E’un player fighetto ancora in fase di sviluppo. E’ un po pesante ma ha il pregio di mostrare solamente i video senza commenti, voti, suggerimenti ecc.
– E’forse la più nota App open per YouTube
– Download dei contenuti in diversi formati e qualità
– Rimozione pubblicità
– Rimozione commenti
– Rimozione autoplay
– Possibile riprodurre anche solo l’audio
– Rimuove la pubblicità
– Non usa JavaScript ed impedisce a twitter.com di registrare i tuoi dati di navigazione
– E’molto più leggero e scattante di twitter.com
– Permette di usare Twitter con diversi temi, ad esempio quello di Mastodon
– Permette di salvare immagini, video e .gif
– Può generare il feed RSS di ogni account
– Permette anche a chi non ha un account di accedere a profili e post Instagram
– E’ più veloce di Instagram
– Permette di scaricare le immagini
– Rimuove la pubblicità
– Può generare il feed RSS di ogni account
– Accesso ai contenuti tramite nome account o URL di un post
La magia di Nitter: il design è quello di Mastodon ma è un account Twitter
UN “TRUCCHETTO”
Un semplice “trucchetto”. Di solito i Frontend alternativi usano gli stessi percorsi di dominio dei siti originali.
Per intenderci, se l’URL di un certo video di YouTube è:
La stessa cosa si dovrebbe ripetere anche per gli URL di Twitter ed Instagram nei relativi Frontend alternativi, sia che si parli dell’URL di un post che di quello di un account utente.
INTERAGIRE CON CHI SVILUPPA QUESTI FRONTEND
Chi avesse interesse ad interagire con chi si occupa dello sviluppo di alcuni di questi Frontend alternativi, sono disponibili alcune stanze Matrixdi discussione:
Lockdown: il mondo s’è fermato! Han premuto il tasto “Pausa”. Ma a ben vedere c’è lockdown e lockdown e non sono mica tutti uguali. Se osservato bene, il modo in cui ogni paese applica, gestisce e narra il modo in cui gestisce l’emergenza rivela molte più cose di quanto sembri a prima vista.
Pure quello che ci riguarda, il lockdown all’italiana, è una lente di ingrandimento che amplifica problemi, storture, rapporti di potere, arretratezze, bagaglio culturale, opinioni diffuse, tipicità, errori ricorrenti, tic narrativi e possibili errori futuri del Belpaese. Ecco perchè vale la pena osservarlo a trecentosessanta gradi.
Siamo nel bel mezzo di una pandemia globale gestita con modalità assai diverse a seconda della nazione o regione coinvolta. Modalità in molti casi caratterizzate da approcci impacciati e contraddittori se non addirittura criminosi ma che nella maggioranza dei casi rivelano la debolezza sistemica di diversi paesi che si son trovati improvvisamente a dover subire gli effetti dei propri problemi strutturali. Problemi che, nel loro insieme, stan contribuendo a rendere quest’emergenza assai peggiore di quanto potrebbe essere se gestita in modo piò oculato e se certe cose fossero state già risolte.
A grandi linee questi elementi possono essere riassunti in:
– Mala gestione di chi inizialmente non ha saputo valutare o addirittura ha tentato di negare la gravità della situazione.
– Il mancato ascolto di chi, nei decenni passati, ha più volte avvertito del possibile pericolo di diffusione su scala globale di pandemie e della necessità di prepararsi all’evenienza. Mancato ascolto che non ha fatto sufficiente tesoro dell’esperienza maturata nel corso di episodi simili come ad esempio la diffusione di SARS e MERS, dell’aviaria, della febbre suina e di quella bovina, giusto per citare i più recenti. Ciò ha fatto sì che gran parte dei paesi industrializzati s’è dovuta rendere improvvisamente conto di non avere piani di contenimento sufficienti né procedure adeguate da seguire; di non avere né scorte di materiale indispensabile né sistemi autonomi per produrlo. Il tutto si è così tradotto in gestioni improvvisate ed emergenziali fatte spesso un tanto al chilo, come ad esempio le iniziali disposizioni di lockdown regionali in cui si son viste chiudere le scuole ma non i centri commerciali o le restrizioni all’uso di tamponi e mascherine emesse perché non c’e n’erano abbastanza.
– La mancata presa di coscienza della catena di correlazioni che unisce con un filo rosso la distruzione di interi ecosistemi, le condizioni igieniche spaventose dell’industria dell’allevamento e la diffusione di pandemie, così come il costante peggioramento della qualità dell’aria, da più parti indicato come molto probabilmente correlato all’incidenza del contagio.
– Una politica economico-finanziaria che in occidente ha indebolito la sanità pubblica, l’istruzione (medica e non) e l’istituzione di sistemi di prevenzione per emergenze aperiodiche mentre nei paesi più poveri ha impedito lo sviluppo di sistema sanitari adeguati. Le disuguaglianze derivanti dagli attuali sistemi di produzione ora verranno pagati a carissimo prezzo a livello planetario rivelando ancor di più la necessità di ridurre tali disuguaglianze: i paesi più poveri ora rischiano di diventare degli immensi focolai a scapito delle persone più deboli facendo tra l’altro anche saltare la produzione di quei beni su cui è fondato il sistema di produzione stesso.
– Comparti economici che hanno lavorato attivamente contro ogni forma di contenimento e prevenzione anteponendo il proprio interesse speculativo ad ogni altra cosa, al costo di negare l’epidemia. Il caso della mancata zonizzazione della Val Seriana per salvaguardare le sue industrie e manifatture ne è un esempio evidente.
– Media mainstream eccessivamente dipendenti da interessi economici che, senza soluzione di continuità, inseguono e cavalcano notizie che alimentano il panico ma al tempo stesso diffondono messaggi tranquillizzanti, aumentando a dismisura quella schizofrenia delle notizie che immancabilmente si ripete nelle situazioni. Panico e allarme che oggi trovano nei media mainstream commerciali un terreno perfetto per la loro diffusione.
– La scarsa coordinazione internazionale per problemi di ordine globale. Ciò che avviene con la pandemia del SARS-CoV-2 ripropone in scala accelerata ciò che avviene da decenni riguardo all’emergenza climatica, ossia la mancata applicazione del concetto che in un mondo globalizzato, i problemi e le cattive condotte di UN paese sono un problema drammatico per TUTTI i paesi. Mancata coordinazione che il mondo scientifico s’è immediatamente adoperato per superare mentre al contrario diversi governi si ostinano a rifiutare, chiudendosi a riccio e cogliendo l’occasione per imporre agende nazionaliste.
Documento del 22 dicembre 2010 in vui veniva valutata la gestione della pandemia del virus H1N1 nella regione Lombardia rilevando già in quella data numerosi problemi (LINK a file PDF)
Il risultato è sotto gli occhi di tutti: paesi e regioni che eseguono test a tappeto, altri eseguono test mirati ed altri ancora che faticano a procurarsi il materiale per eseguire i tamponi; criteri di conteggio differenti che non possono essere paragonati tra loro sballando rilevazioni e statistiche; quotidiani e politici che hanno alternato allarmi eccessivi a pericolose e immotivate banalizzazioni; morti che vengono celate o fatte passare per non attinenti al coronavirus; regioni ricchissime ridotte al collasso da sistemi sanitari perlopiù privati o semi-privati che vengono aiutati da ONG e paesi decisamente più poveri ma che hanno sistemi sanitari pubblici; medici ed infermieri che cercano di fare quel che possono con quel poco che hanno (mancanza di personale, dispositivi di protezione, posti letto, ospedali da campo…) e che quindi si contagiano e muoiono; amministratori locali impanicati che per reazione strafanno optando per soluzioni militari eccessive coadiuvate da forze di polizia che applicano divieti privi di valenza medica, contraddittori e/o completamente assurdi. Big tech, Grande Distribuzione Organizzata e comparti della logistica e del delivery che sfruttano l’occasione per lucrare grazie alle proprie posizioni dominanti e che aumentano il proprio campo d’azione ed ingerenza su economia e politica (Google, Twitter ed Apple hanno già annunciato che inizieranno iniziative volte a facilitare il tracciamento degli utenti).
L’industria della sorveglianza che coglie la palla al balzo per far testare sui civili tecnologie di controllo con l’entusiastica partecipazione delle forze di polizia e movimenti politici destrorsi che premono affinché i governi implementino soluzioni di sorveglianza digitale nonostante si siano rivelate di dubbia utilità in quanto le prassi applicate nei paesi che meglio han saputo rispondere all’emergenza erano valide anche a prescindere dei tracciamenti digitali.
Come osi?
Capiamoci, una pandemia globale è un evento imponente e drammatico che per forza di cose genera allarme e problemi di diverso tipo portando immancabilmente a restrizioni, limitazioni e grossi problemi di varia natura indifferentemente dal tipo di sistema politico/economico/sanitario/organizzativo che ci si è dati.
Detto ciò bisogna però ribadire che il modo in cui un’emergenza viene gestita può fare una grandissima differenza: una gestione sensata e ben organizzata dell’emergenza è certamente più efficace di una gestione improvvisata ed eccessiva. Pur non esistendo formule magiche né sistemi perfetti che avrebbero certamente evitato tutto ciò con equanime consenso di medici, economisti, lavoratori, politici, movimenti per i diritti civili e quant’altro, osservare quello che in questo momento non sta funzionando a dovere è un passo indispensabile per poter fare meglio ed evitare di proseguire su strade che causano infiniti danni collaterali di ordine sociale, psicologico, economico e politico.
Un “criticone”
Non v’è alcuna alternativa: il miglioramento dell’esistente può iniziare solo da una critica dello stesso. L’importante è che questa critica sia ragionata ed aperta alla confutazione. Senza critica, insomma, si accetta che storture ed errori proseguano anche in futuro così come sono o, peggio, se ne avalla pure l’enfatizzazione.
Ciò che differenzia una sana critica da indignazione, sfogo e vuota polemica risiede nella qualità dell’analisi: una critica durissima ma sensata, logica, precisa e documentata è certamente un qualcosa di più utile e rispettoso di qualsiasi forma di supporto acritico e tolleranza di facciata. Criticare la gestione dell’emergenza comporta necessariamente anche la messa in discussione delle sue premesse, ossia di quegli elementi preesistenti che hanno impedito fin dall’inizio di mettere in campo una gestione migliore. Non solo: la critica non può esimersi nemmeno dall’evidenziare quegli elementi dell’attualità che preannunciano inquietanti sviluppi che si potrebbero manifestare in futuro.
C’era una volta un virus
C’è molto da dire sul modo in cui questa pandemia è stata narrata dai grandi media mainstream. Concentrandoci sull’Italia, dopo un iniziale spaesamento in cui abbiamo visto quotidiani, politici e associazioni industriali alternare confusamente urla di panico ed appelli alla normalità, nell’arco di qualche settimana la narrazione mainstream della pandemia s’è andata più o meno assestando su alcuni punti e formule fisse (ma non va dimenticato che le narrazioni non smettono mai davvero di evolvere).
Con un video pubblicato il 28 febbraio, la Confcommercio di Bergamo lanciava questo hashtag e la relativa campagna mediatica
Sulla costruzione di questa narrazione dominante sono necessarie numerosissime osservazioni perché al suo interno confluisce un po di tutto: dalle premesse sul sistema economico ai tic ricorrenti della narrazione nazionale italiana, dalle contraddizioni sistemiche ai format discorsivi sul decoro ecc.
Osservazioni su tutti questi aspetti non son certo mancate in queste settimane: articoli, discussioni online, podcast e trasmissioni radio estremamente puntuali capaci di cogliere ed esporre questi diversi elementi e le loro sfacettature, mettendone a nudo contraddizioni, storture e non-detti. Osservazioni che purtroppo non sorprende abbiano trovato poco o nessuno spazio sui media mainstream, troppo dipendenti da quegli stessi interessi economici e politici dominanti interessati a confermare lo status quo.
Ma se i media mainstream non danno troppo spazio a queste argomentazioni possiamo almeno farlo qui, segnalando giusto alcuni articoli consigliabili::
L’unico elemento che al momento pare non esser stato trattato con troppo interesse, forse perché dato per acquisito dalla maggior parte dei commentatori, è l’impatto che ha avuto negli anni passati la diffusione nel discorso pubblico delle idee NoVax, che hanno preso in ostaggio delle giuste critiche sulle storture di un’industria farmaceutica in mano alle multinazionali, facendone però il tramite per timori antiscientifici privi di fondamento.
Timori cavalcati e sfruttati da politici poco lungimirantigiusto per questioni di bassa strategia e che han contribuito a diffonderli trasversalmente nel discorso pubblico influenzando di conseguenza l’intero mondo politico rendendolo così meno propenso ad tener in considerazione le richieste del mondo scientifico.
Il mondo è a colori: non in bianco e nero nè in scala di grigi
Va aggiunta un’ulteriore postilla che purtroppo non è così scontata, specie tra chi solitamente non è propenso all’analisi critica e metodica della realtà: la critica in sè non corrisponde necessariamente alla negazione dell’oggetto preso in considerazione. Purtroppo il livello discorsivo diffuso tende ad appiattire e banalizzare la critica dello status quo per rifiutarla in toto e non affrontarla.
Detto in soldoni: criticare il lockdown non equivale a dire “tana libera tutti: comportiamoci come se la pandemia non esistesse” allo stesso modo per cui essere contrari alla violenza non equivale necessariamente a rifiutarsi di tirare un cazzotto in faccia a qualcuno che minaccia di ucciderci.
La realtà è complessa, ambigua, contraddittoria e densa di sfumature. Rifiutae ciò e banalizzarla in un ritratto in bianco e nero (“o stai con le misure imposte dal governo o sei uno scellerato”), è il modo migliore per non vederla così com’è e, di conseguenza, non esser mai in grado di migliorare alcunchè.
Allo stesso modo è svilente e deviante l’uso del “ricatto della soluzione”, ossia il rifiuto della critica attuato imponendo a chi osserva un malfunzionamento di fornire allo stesso tempo anche soluzioni immediate. Insomma: non sono un meccanico ma se mi accorgo che i freni della macchina non funzionano e dico a gran voce, non ha molto senso zittirmi con “troppo facile criticare i freni se non sai ripararli!!11!!1!!1”.
Colpisci il capro! Colpiscilo! Ancora, ancora!
Nelle situazioni di panico e pericolo, la ricerca di un capro espiatorio è una ricorrenza tristemente consueta, tanto più quando il pericolo è generalizzato ed impalpabile. Il bisogno di scaricare la propria rabbia e frustrazione contro una figura definita e tangibile sulla quale poter appiccicare la colpa per eventi che in realtà hanno cause molto complesse e ramificate nasce da impulsi emotivi antichi e profondi che nel corso dei millenni si son manifestati nelle forme più varie.
Dopo gli attentati dell’11 settembre, ad esempio, l’impossibilità di correlare rabbia e timori tanto immensi contro uno sparuto numero di terroristi o verso le entità politiche che hanno sfruttato tali eventi per portar avanti la propria agenda imponendo una narrativa incentrata su patriottismo e militarismo, la reazione è stata quella demonizzare in modo generalizzato l’intero mondo arabo e/o islamico.
I media mainstream, che si attengono alle regole del mercato ed alle linee editoriali imposte dalla proprietà più che che all’analisi critica del mondo, non fanno altro che cavalcare questa generalizzazione gettando benzina sul fuoco ed alimentando queste reazioni insensate.
Insensate ma utili all’agenda politica degli editori e della proprietà dei grandi media, attentissima a “dare il La” alle discussioni da social decidendo gli argomenti di cui far parlare la popolazione e/o impostando la chiave con cui leggere gli eventi.
Ciò può esser osservato anche nel modo in cui i maggiori media italiani cavalcano, alimentano ed indirizzano il sentimento anti-migranti in funzione di interessi politici e non per reale interesse nei confronti di queste persone.
Tutto ciò genera un circuito chiuso in cui media, social network e politica si alimentano e confermano a vicenda senza lasciar spazio a critica alcuna, consolidando lo status quo.
Liberarsi dalla narrazione mainstream quindi è un’impresa assai impegnativa, sia per la difficoltà di affrontare analisi complesse ed imparare ad informarsi in modo preciso e metodico che per il fatto che la narrazione mainstream non è necessariamente fatta di notizie false ma si caratterizza soprattutto per la sproporzione data ad elementi del reale. In sostanza i grandi media, più che a raccontare menzogne tout court tendono ad alterare la realtà dando grandissimo peso ad alcuni fatti reali selezionati, “inquadrandoli” in un certo modo o, soprattutto, per semplificazione, ossia fornendo informazioni reali parziali e scontornate dal quadro generale, in modo da poterle usare in un quadro completamente diverso.
Per capirci basterà citare l’esempio dei dati sulla criminalità in Italia che pur essendo costantemente in calo da decennivengono narrati dando enorme peso solo a quella parte di dati che, estrapolati dal loro contesto, possono essere enfatizzati per dipingere un quadro opposto alla realtà: il leggero aumento temporaneo di un certo tipo di reato, presentato dai quotidiani come “record di furti” impone con tre parole una falsificazione percettiva della realtà attraverso dati reali decontestualizzati. Smontare tale narrazione è sempre possibile ma richiede necessariamente un gran sbattimento per poter reinserire quel dato nel contesto originario e si scontrerà con un’opinione pubblica che quel dato già lo conosce e quindi ciò che andrà decostruito non è il dato in sé ma l’intero contesto in cui è inserito.
Il temibile e temerario babau giallo che ha tenuto in scacco il Veneto… semplicemente saltando un posto di blocco.
Poiché è dai margini che il centro diventa più evidente, nell’osservazione di vicende secondarie e marginali questi meccanismi risultano ancor più espliciti e facili da studiare e questo vale anche nella costruzione di capri espiatori. Notevole a questo proposito l’epopea di Igor il russo o l’assurda vicenda dell’Audi Gialla; episodi in cui, soprattutto a distanza di tempo, risultano particolarmente evidenti le forzature con cui i protagonisti di queste narrazioni son stati eletti a puri e semplici feticci su cui convogliare pulsioni, paure, paranoie, fantasie e pregiudizi inespressi.
In tutti questi casi il capro-feticcio diviene una figura a sé, separata ma sovrapposta al suo rappresentante reale: nel caso del post 11 settembre un americano di terza generazione di origine libanese e di religione cristiana poteva esser narrato come uno pseudo-jihadista saudita che simpatizza per i tagliateste e che segretamente anela a circondarsi di spose bambine e distruggere l’occidente; nel caso dei migranti l’ingegnere nigeriano di fede pentecostale figlio di famiglia borghese che fugge dall’impoverimento diviene un allevatore di capre troglodita ignorante che pratica il voodoo in una capanna di sterco e fango che viene qui a rubarci le donne e il lavoro pur essendo troppo scansafatiche per lavorare e inoltre… scandalo dello scandalo… è addirittura colpevolmente possessore di uno smartphone!
Il criminale serbo Norbert Fehler diviene Igor il russo, una sorta di supercattivo dei fumetti a metà tra James Bond e Rambo, imprendibile e capace di tenere in scacco oltre duemila carabinieri, avvistato ovunque ma introvabile come Bigfoot, cattivissimo ed abilissimo, geniale e scaltrissimo; un’automobile gialla che salta un posto di blocco diviene l’imprendibile Audi Gialla guidata da criminali dell’est e che scorrazza a tutta velocità per il Veneto per dimostrare con un gesto di spregio che le genti slave possono fare ciò che vogliono “a casa nostra”.
Tale meccanismo è particolarmente presente nella cultura di coloro cui son affidati compiti di controllo sulla popolazione in quanto definire un nemico tangibile permette di agire attivamente ed in forme materiali, visive e quindi spettacolari (l’inseguimento del corridore solitario sulla spiaggia o l’esibizione dei droni a scansione termica sono intrinsecamente degli atti teatrali). Anche qui non si tratta di un meccanismo necessariamente voluto: se in alcuni casi capro espiatorio e spettacolarità sono ricercati a tavolino, nella maggioranza dei casi sono un effetto complementare di un modo di vedere le cose altamente interiorizzato. A questo proposito basta citare alcuni commenti provenienti da gruppi Facebook di forze dell’ordine in cui per osservare l’insensata acredine immediatamente maturata dopo l’imposizione del lockdown per quelli che vanno in giro con il cane, visti come dei “furbetti” che usavano i propri animali da compagnia come passepartout per aggirare la legge e l’immediata nascita di leggende metropolitane su cani diventati magrissimi perché obbligati a camminare per ore.
#ConfinatiInCasa a causa di un sistema emergenziale inadatto
La diffusione del SARS-CoV-2 è un problema innanzitutto sanitario e dunque la prima cosa da tenere a mente per qualsiasi ragionamento sono proprio le indicazioni sanitarie su come effettuare il suo contenimento. Indicazioni che possono essere riassunte in:
Riduzione dei contatti fisici (distanziamento fisico / limitazione degli spostamenti / isolamento / uso di dispositivi di protezione)
Sanificazione (disinfezione ambienti / potenziamento delle prassi igieniche)
Monitoraggio (tamponi / verifica della catena di trasmissione)
Le modalità di applicazione di queste indicazioni possono variare molto e non sono esenti da discussioni tra medici e preoccupazioni di varia natura: il distanziamento fisico comporta la cessazione di numerose attività economiche indispensabili e non; l’isolamento applicato in forma preventiva è causa di numerosissimi problemi; i dispositivi di protezione sono utili solo se usati correttamente, altrimenti possono contribuire a diffondere il virus; la disinfezione degli ambienti richiede una certa preparazione; mancano materiali; la verifica della catena di trasmissione se fatta con mezzi informatici può avere dei risvolti catastrofici sulla privacy ecc.
Il tutto é ulteriormente complicato dal fatto che le problematiche pregresse (sistema sanitario indebolito da decenni di tagli e privatizzazioni, mancanza di personale medico, mancanza di un piano di contenimento già preventivato, dotazioni non sufficienti ecc.) han portato a compensare tali mancanze con un intervento meramente poliziesco tradottosi infine nel lockdown generale, nel #restiamoacasa, e nel teatrino dei decreti e delle autocertificazioni emesse in serie.
La riduzione dei contatti fisici attraverso limitazioni di mobilità ed assembramento è il metodo più drastico per contenere la diffusione del contagio (anche se diversi studi suggeriscono che i lockdown hanno efficacia diversa a seconda dei luoghi e delle modalità con cui viene effettuato e che, addirittura, in determinati casi si rivela controproducente) e può essere attuata in diversi modi, ossia limitando la mobilità tra aree diverse (a livello di nazione, regione, provincia, area, comune, quartiere) ed impedendo qualsiasi attività che preveda la compresenza ravvicinata di più persone. Ciò può essere effettuato in modo selettivo con la creazione di cordoni sanitari mirati (come isolare molto duramente una certa area ma applicare limitazioni meno stringenti in un’altra oppure presidiare i luoghi ad alto rischio concentrando gli sforzi sui potenziali focolai ed imporre solo norme di distanziamento nei luoghi a basso rischio). In generale il mondo medico suggerisce l’interruzione degli spostamenti a grande distanza, degli assembramenti di massa, mantenere un costante distanziamento fisico e buone prassi di disinfezione, ma non parla mai di confinamento totale e preventivo nelle abitazioni.
E’solo nel peggiore dei casi che questo viene applicato in maniera generalizzata, ossia il lockdown totale in cui viene bloccata ogni attività ed impedito ogni spostamento sul territorio.
Ricorrere al lockdown generale è una soluzione estrema sintomatica di una situazione oggettivamente fuori controllo oppure, più semplicemente, di una situazione non si è stati capaci di gestire. In altre parole è il risultato del fallimento delle misure preventive e di contenimento iniziale. Una grossa presa di coscienza della propria impreparazione, insomma.
Ma la gestione dell’emergenza come s’è detto varia notevolmente da paese in paese e le differenze di approccio derivano da fattori politici, sistemici, economici e territoriali di cui bisogna tenere ben conto quando si effettuano paragoni. Quando si parla del lockdown in Nuova Zelanda, per esempio, si parla di due isole grandi come l’Italia ma una popolazione di soli 5 milioni di abitanti. Nel caso di Cuba si parla di un’isola grande un terzo dell’Italia ma con un sesto dei suoi abitanti e che vanta non solo il miglior sistema sanitario dell’America latina ma pure il maggior numero di medici pro capite nel mondo. Hong Kong e Singapore sono sostanzialmente delle città-stato ad altissima densità abitativa. Insomma: è una banalità far notare che gestire la pandemia a Hong Kong è diverso che gestirla nelle campagne del Marlborough neozelandese ma a quanto pare questa banalità sembra sfuggire a gran parte dei media nostrani, che insistono soprattutto sulla questione dei test fatti a tapeto sull’intera popolazione in Corea del sud e sul tracciamento digitale delle persone, promuovendolo come inevitabile.
Se da un lato i nostri media insistono su test e tracciamento, dall’altro si son però rivelati assai imprecisi nel descrivere l’applicazione del lockdown negli altri paesi, per la gran parte molto meno restrittivi dell’Italia.
L’ostracismo dei comparti economici bergamaschi che hanno impedito il lockdown della Val Seriana e l’impreparazione generalizzata del governo italiano e delle amministrazioni locali che ha contribuito a posticipare oltre il dovuto l’applicazione di procedure emergenziali mirate, sono indubbiamente i principali responsabili del tracollo che ha portato all’imposizione di un lockdown durissimo che sulla penisola è stato applicato con un tono del tutto peculiare caratterizzato da una forma di militarizzazione che fatta eccezione per alcuni regimi dittatoriali trova forse dei paralleli solamente in Spagna.
Tutto chiuso e tutti al chiuso. L’ordine generale si è tradotto di fatto in un contenimento di massa che ha confinato l’intera popolazione agli arresti domiciliari nella speranza di riuscir a rallentare la diffusione del contagio affinché prosegua entro livelli gestibili dal sistema sanitario nazionale e questo nonostante il parere contrario di diversi medici che non mancano di far notare che la presenza prolungata in ambienti ristretti comporti molti più rischi che starsene all’aria aperta.
L’equazione è semplice: minore è la capacità del servizio sanitario nazionale di rispondere all’emergenza e maggiori sono le restrizioni imposte. Detta brutalmente: non avendo un sistema emergenziale efficace né un sistema sanitario tarato sulle reali esigenze della popolazione, adesso è la popolazione stessa a dover tarare le proprie vite per far in modo che sia il contagio ad adattarsi ai ritmi che questo sistema sanitario prosciugato da decenni di tagli può sostenere.
Italian Lockdown
Osservare l’ordine temporale con cui si è giunti al lockdown in Italia rivela molte cose: tra novembre e dicembre 2019 i medici cinesi iniziano a rilevare morti sospette e interrogarsi; il 31 dicembre viene avvertita l’OMS e la TV pubblica cinese avverte la popolazione della presenza di un virus ancora sconosciuto. Nei primi giorni di gennaio diversi paesi iniziano ad effettuare verifiche negli aeroporti sulle persone provenienti da Wuhan. A metà gennaio il virus viene identificato ed al contempo giunge la conferma della sua presenza anche al di fuori dalla Cina: a Taiwan, in Corea del sud e negli USA. Il 23 gennaio viene attuato il lockdown di Wuhan mentre i casi in Cina aumentano vertiginosamente. Nel giro di pochi giorni arrivano conferme della presenza del virus da sempre più paesi sparsi sul globo ed il 31 gennaio 2020 l’OMS dichiara che v’è il pericolo che si sviluppi una pandemia globale.
Nello stesso giorno vengono sospesi i voli dalla Cina all’Italia. A Roma due turisti cinesi risultano positivi al virus. In questo momento i grandi media italiani trattano la notizia perlopiù come un qualcosa di marginale che riguarda solo la Cina ed i suoi abitanti ed a livello politico/gestionale non vengono intraprese particolari procedure di contenimento al di là della verifica delle persone provenienti dalla Cina. Questo fino al 21 febbraio quando irrompe la notizia dei primi morti italiani per coronavirus a Codogno (Lombardia) e, a breve giro, a Vò Euganeo (Veneto). I media italiani a questo punto lanciano allarmi di panico. Nel giro di pochi giorni alcuni dei comuni coinvolti vengono dichiarati zona rossa (ma non tutti) e le regioni colpite iniziano ad emettere ordinanze atte a limitare assembramenti per attività ritenute non indispensabili (scuole, centri sportivi, sagre, manifestazioni), permettendo tuttavia gli assembramenti per attività lavorative, nei centri commerciali, mezzi di trasporto pubblico ecc. Le contraddizioni insite in queste ordinanze le rendono, di fatto, inutili.
Campagna a favore della diffusione del contagio del 26 febbraio 2020
Verso fine febbraio i comparti economici, spaventati dall’allarme mediatico e dal contraccolpo economico che stava causando, attraverso i propri responsabili media lanciano campagne tranquillizzatrici come #MilanoNonSiFerma e #BergamoIsRunning che, coinvolgendo diversi media, influencer, social e personaggi politici a loro affini, tentano di negare e minimizzare la realtà dei fatti attraverso una campagna stampa prontamente e acriticamente rilanciata sui social commerciali da una schiera di utili idioti. Al contempo pure alcuni quotidiani pubblicano articoli atti a minimizzare l’emergenza.
In questa immagine i titoli di sinistra vanno dal 22 al 25 febbraio mentre quello di destra è del 27
Il numero dei contagi tuttavia aumenta e con due decreti in rapidissima successione, tra l’8 ed il 9 marzo il governo italiano dichiara l’intero paese zona rossa impedendo alla popolazione di uscire dalla propria regione di residenza ma permettendo ancora l’apertura dei negozi ed il lavoro nelle fabbriche. A seguito dell’annuncio diverse migliaia di persone si è allontanano dalla città, perlopiù per tornare nelle proprie regioni di origine (o verso seconde case, con enorme fastidio della gente del posto). Le stime più alte parlano di trenta o quarantamila persone. Queste partenze improvvise vengono narrate dai media con discreto allarme generando diverse polemiche.
Consigli utili soprattutto a diffondere il contagio
L’11 marzo il governo impone una nuova stretta con la chiusura di tutti i negozi tranne supermarket, banche, farmacie, edicole e poche altre tipologie ed il divieto per la popolazione di lasciare il proprio comune. Le forze di polizia applicano le disposizioni dandogli una lettura particolarmente restrittiva impedendo, di fatto, ogni tipo di attività all’aperto anche se solitaria e svolta in sicurezza. L’autoisolamento in casa, già attuato preventivamente da milioni di persone s’inaspriva rendendo di fatto illegale uscire dalla propria abitazione.
Non controlli sanitari ma solo di polizia
Tra polemiche, gogne social verso chi “non si attiene alla legge” e concessioni minimali, si assesta una applicazione del lockdown in cui il diritto ad una circolazione limitata è concesso non in base a criteri di sicurezza sanitaria ma in base al principio della “giusta motivazione”: andare a far la spesa al supermercato più vicino o a lavorare in fabbrica è concesso, passeggiare no. Nel frattempo vengono preparati alcuni ospedali provvisori. Le fabbriche tuttavia restano attive, pur costituendo i maggiori focolai.
Solo il 21 marzo vengono chiuse anche le fabbriche, fatta eccezione per quelle ritenute “essenziali” (tra cui l’industria bellica). Nel corso delle settimane successive diverse aziende riescono comunque ad ottenere il permesso di tornare a produrre e Confindustria preme affinché venga concessa una riapertura di quasi tutte le attività. Già nella seconda settimana di aprile, nonostante non vi sia alcun segno di un calo dei contagi, numerose fabbriche iniziano a riaprire, il governatore del Veneto Zaia dichiara che di fatto il 60% delle aziende della regione sono attive ed in tutt’Italia le aziende riaprono autocertificandosi come essenziali, spesso con motivazioni del tutto inconsistenti. Due terzi degli italiani, in un modo o nell’altro, continua a lavorare.
Questa è a grandissime linee la cronologia dell’imposizione del lockdown nel Belpaese fino a questo momento, da cui risulta particolarmente evidente il ruolo di primo piano che ha giocato il comparto economico nel remare contro l’applicazione delle misure sanitarie di contenimento, l’indecisione della politica e la schizofrenia con cui i media han trattato il tutto.
Chinese Lockdown
A termine di paragone è interessante osservare le tempistiche del lockdown a Wuhan, in quanto, pur tenendo in considerazione le differenze sociali/ambientali/politiche/economiche, il lockdown di Wuhan si differenzia da tutti gli altri per via della sua eccezionalità (trattandosi dell’epicentro del contagio) ed il modo in cui è stato applicato evidenzia differenze d’approccio molto forti rispetto ai lockdown occidentali, tra cui quello italiano.
Il 23 gennaio viene annunciato il divieto di uscire dalla città di Wuhan e che il trasporto pubblico sarebbe stato interrotto entro poche ore, causando un esodo di massa nelle ore antecedenti alla sua interruzione (si calcola che solamente via treno furono circa 300.000 le persone che abbandonarono Wuhan). Vengono chiuse anche le autostrade. Il giorno dopo le stesse imposizioni sono state applicate in comuni limitrofi. Si iniziano subito ad applicare le misure di contenimento (che vedremo meglio dopo). Il 13 febbraio vengono chiuse tutte le fabbriche non essenziali. Il 20 febbraio vengono chiuse anche le scuole. A partire dal 13 marzo, a scaglioni si inizia a permettere nuovamente lo spostamento all’interno dei comuni ed a riaprire alcune fabbriche. L’8 aprile termina il lockdown di Wuhan ma proseguono le norme di distanziamento fisico e sicurezza.
Checkpoint all’ingresso di un blocco residenziale di Wuhan
Le tempistiche rivelano con chiarezza come l’approccio cinese sia stato fin da subito più deciso e netto mentre quello italiano (e di molti altri paesi occidentali), ma il tutto risulta ancor più interessante osservando le caratteristiche applicative del contenimento di Wuhan, da cui si possono evincere le enormi differenze strutturali e organizzative e rispetto all’Italia Innanzitutto va osservato che le chiusure sono state fatte principalmente per comunità: paesi, villaggi, aree urbane son stati chiusi al contatto esterno imponendo spesso un unico accesso controllato con checkpoint, con livelli di rigidità proporzionali al livello di contagi all’interno della comunità stessa. La spesa nei mercati era permessa a giorni alterni. Per realizzare queste compartimentazioni fra zone molte strade sono state bloccate.
All’interno delle comunità isolate ci si è organizzati per offrire servizi all’interno della comunità in forme sicure.
Circa quarantamila medici da ogni zona del paese sono giunti rapidamente a Wuhan e nelle città limitrofe per dare manforte al personale locale ed evitare il collasso della struttura sanitaria locale. Allo stesso tempo sono stati realizzati in tempi rapidissimi due nuovi ospedali specifici per i pazienti più gravi e dieci ospedali temporanei all’interno di centri fieristici e sportivi per curare i pazienti meno gravi. I medici delle singole comunità hanno fatto materialmente il giro di ogni singola abitazione per verificare la presenza di sospetti malati, le situazioni a rischio, stabilire se imporre la quarantena alle persone che vivevano assieme a chi era stato ricoverato, decidere se ci fossero casi da monitorare ed effettuare tamponi mirati.
Le persone che si sospettava potessero esser state contagiate sono state sistemate in alloggi isolati (ad esempio in camere d’albergo) e tenute sotto osservazione per almeno due settimane
Oltre a questo sono stati istituiti centinaia di ricoveri temporanei per separare le persone a rischio e far trascorrere due settimane o più in quarantena (spesso in isolamento) e osservazione a chi era stato dimesso o fosse stato a contatto con persone contagiate. Il governo ha fornito cibo e servizi base alle persone in quarantena tramite l’esercito.
Ciò che ha caratterizzato il lockdown di Wuhan è stato innanzitutto un livello di compartimentazione estremamente capillare e metodico grazie ad un’organizzazione basata sul principio delle comunità, sull’utilizzo delle reti locali e utilizzando l’esercito in funzione delle esigenze del personale medico: se all’interno di un complesso abitativo vi era un contagiato, l’intero complesso poteva esser messo sotto quarantena impedendo ai suoi inquilini di uscire ma se dopo un certo lasso di tempo (minimo due settimane) veniva rilevato che i soli contagiati erano quelli di un determinato appartamento, le limitazioni ai residenti degli altri appartamenti potevano esser rivedute. All’interno di comunità prive di contagi la restrizione di movimento era applicata solo al di fuori dell’area della comunità stessa (quartiere, villaggio) ma non vi era necessariamente il divieto di uscire al di fuori di essa.
Non va però dimenticato che la gestione ha presentato tratti anche assai feroci, con esercito ed amministrazioni che han agito con estrema durezza per far applicare la quarantena, spesso imponendola, ad esempio minacciando di staccare la corrente a chi non collaborava.
E’dunque necessario un esercizio di separazione: il lockdown effettuato a Wuhan è stato indubbiamente gestito in maniera militarista e totalitaria e in questo può solo esser rifiutato, ma (qui la separazione) va osservato che il tutto è stato fatto ponendo al centro di ogni ragionamento le esigenze mediche.
Niente distribuzioni di pseudo-mascherine nè aperture furbette di fabbriche o mancati lockdown a causa delle pressioni dell’industria locale.
Altro aspetto Interessante è che l’utilizzo di tecnologie di tracciamento pare esser stato decisamente molto meno utile e centrale rispetto a quanto vien riportato dai grandi media occidentali; piuttosto sembra esser stata usata soprattutto per intimidire la popolazione facendole percepire la presenza costante dello sguardo delle forze di controllo sui propri movimenti attraverdo app di tracciamento e micacciosissimi droni con altoparlante.
Stendere il virus con multa e manganello
In Italia il lockdown si è imposto come un divieto generalizzato di effettuare qualsiasi attività “non giustificata” all’aperto e nell’esperienza comune di ogni cittadino il rapporto con il governo non comprende medici che vengono a verificare la situazione casa per casa né membri dell’esercito agli ordini dei medici ma solamente forze dell’ordine che controllano che chi sia in giro abbia una “giusta motivazione”. Questo perchè qui s’è imposto il puro e semplice #RestiamoInCasa generalizzato (anche se, come altri han notato, #RestiamoDistanziati, #MinimoDueMetri o altre formule del genere sarebbero certamente state più oneste, utili e sane) per compensare l’incapacità di concepire una gestione più ragionata dell’emergenza.
La forma con cui sono state applicate le restrizioni in Italia è tra l’altro anche un segno tangibile della sproporzione tra spesa militare e spesa sanitaria del paese: non è un caso se militarizzare le strade sia risultato più semplice che attuare protocolli sanitari d’emergenza sul territorio perché notoriamente l’Italia investe più nell’esercitoe nelle forze di polizia (vedi anche qui e qui) che sulla salute della popolazione. L’Italia è pure il paese europeo col maggior numero di effettivi nelle forze di polizia, dato che risulta ancor più impressionante se rapportato al numero di abitanti ed alla superficie del territorio.
Anche riguardo all’istruzione la situazione è simile e si rileva che l’Italia è tra gli ultimi paesi in Europa per spesa nell’istruzione eanche a livello internazionale non siamo messi bene (superati ad esempio da Benin, Malawi, Afghanistan, Mongolia e Sierra Leone). Cuba, per esempio, investe oltre tre volte più dell’Italia nell’Istruzione. Non è un casoi se ci mandano i medici, ecco.
Non stupisce dunque che diversi gli indicatori riportino un drammatico calo delle capacità degli studenti italiani. Non è un caso, dunque, se scarseggiano medici ed infermieri ma le forze dell’ordine non mancano mai.
Giusto per fare un esempio sulle differenze di spesa, non è mancato chi ha fatto notare che i soldi impiegati per acquistare un solo F-35 sarebbero stati meglio investiti nella realizzazione di 1350 posti letto per cura intensiva.
Non importa solo quanto spendi, ma anche il come
Insomma, in un paese con grandi apparati militari e polizieschi ma apparati sanitari e scolastici sottodimensionati era tristemente prevedibile che la gestione di un’emergenza sanitaria in Italia sarebbe stata trattata soprattutto come un generico problema poliziesco.
Va osservato che questo forte sbilanciamento a favore degli apparati di controllo influisce su diversi piani e moltissimo anche a livello culturale: quando le amministrazioni locali hanno iniziato a capire che la questione del virus fosse un problema serio, queste, anche se in maniera spesso pasticciata, vi si sono approcciate pensandolo proprio in ottica poliziesca, partorendo difatti ordinanze e divieti che non avevano alcun senso dal punto di vista sanitario e che han toccato solo e soltanto quelle forme di assembramento tipicamente più soggette all’intervento poliziesco (manifestazioni, scioperi, eventi di piazza, scuole, centri sociali) senza toccare le forme di assembramento che riguardavano i luoghi destinati a produzione, commercio e tradizione (centri commerciali, fabbriche, chiese, case di riposo). Solo successivamente a queste disposizioni poliziesche hanno iniziato a fornire informazioni sanitarie basate più o meno su indicazioni mediche.
Anziché un problema sanitario gestito con l’ausilio della forze di polizia, il lockdown italiano é stato caratterizzato fin da subito come un problema di polizia motivato da questioni sanitarie. Una differenza non da poco.
Il virus circola, la polizia vuole #TuttiAlChiuso
Il risultato si è tradotto nell’affermazione di una serie di attività di controllo (di dubbia costituzionalità) sulla popolazione che non hanno alcuna giustificazione di tipo sanitario e che colpiscono persone intente in attività che in nessun modo potrebbero essere ritenute veicoli di contagio. Attività di controllo subito fatte proprie dal circuito mediatico-politico, felicissimo di potersi affrancare dalle proprie responsabilità e scaricare le colpe su anonimi signor nessuno. Ecco che, fin da subito, media e politica hanno alimentato una caccia all’untore dai tratti paradossali.
9 aprile 2020: sulla spiaggia di Pescara, un finanziare rincorre un temibile “untore” rossovestito in una spiaggia deserta. Nessun pericolo di contagio, è chiaro, ma é vietato… perchè è vietato (VIDEO)
Dall’imposizione del lockdown si son iniziate ad attaccare mediaticamente e sui social persone a passeggio da sole in luoghi isolati e senza la benché minima possibilità di contatto con altre; si sono inaugurate le cacce al runner anche con pestaggio e tramite droni a scansione termica; a coppie che vivono assieme è stato intimato di non tenersi mano nella mano; si son contestate le persone che han fatto spese poco sostanziose perché ciò comporta un ritorno frequente al supermercato (ma s’è pure contestato chi faceva spese troppo grosse perché toglieva il cibo di bocca d’altri); son state lanciate accuse di assembramento a tre-quattro persone che si recavano al lavoro a piedi stando a due metri di distanza l’una dall’altra.
Tamponi no, visite mediche no, controlli dei casi sospetti no, ma… controllo della popolazione coi droni si, quello sì LINK
In questa caccia all’untore il circuito media-politica-social si è dimostrato particolarmente stretto, alimentandosi a vicenda nel mantenere al centro del discorso l’azione di controllo poliziesca: persone allarmate dai media han espresso allarmi sui social che sono stati amplificati dai media ed han indirizzato le decisioni politiche; l’interpretazione eccessivamente restrittiva da parte delle forze di polizia plaudita da utenti reazionari sancendone mediaticamente la validità
Il governatore della Toscana emette ordinanze non in base a dati reali nè in base a pareri medici ma per via di articoli di giornale (che in molti casi han solo preso ed amplificato delle gogne da social) LINK
Il circuito è tanto stretto da render difficile osservarlo separando nettamente i confini tra i suoi componenti: la denuncia di un tizio che ha acquistato delle bottiglie di vino (bene ritenuto non indispensabile e quindi privo di “giusta motivazione”) diviene subito notizia ricevendo risalto dalla gogna social, influendo sull’interpretazione delle restrizioni da parte delle forze di polizia che a quel punto si sentono autorizzate a riprendere i cittadini per cosa hanno acquistato.
Schizofrenia mediatica
Alcune giravolte mediatiche viste in queste settimane sono state non da poco. Non solo il passaggio repentino dal panico allo “stiamo calmi” di fine febbraio: fin dai primi giorni di lockdown son circolate un gran numero di foto che ritraevano città spettrali e deserte ma poi, per un certo numero di giorni, sui media son comparse strane immagini di strade affollatissime di gente tutta ammassata. Su queste immagini torneremo più avanti ma qui, ciò che importa, è osservare la contradditorietà delle informazioni passate dai media mainstream.
10 marzo 2020. Repubblica pubblica video di una Roma deserta e spettrale LINK
Altro esempio: all’inizio i media han insistito sulle foto di scaffali dei supermercati vuoti ma poi queste immagini son cessate di colpo, probabilmente per non generare situazioni di panico oppure perché era molto facile osservare che queste immagini erano state realizzate tutte all’orario di chiusura e solo in alcuni supermercati di grandi centri urbani in cui erano effettivamente state fatte delle spese molto consistenti, ma non si erano certo verificati assalti al supermercato nè risse (tranne in un unico caso, prontamente mediatizzato). Nell’esperienza comune chiunque ha sempre potuto osservare che i supermercati han continuato ad essere sempre riforniti (fatta forse eccezione per farina e lievito, cosa che ha generato una certa ilarità su un paese che si dedica alla panificazione).
21 marzo 2020: Repubblica pubblica un video di una Napoli spettrale e deserta molto simile alla Roma mostrata pochi giorni prima, solo che qui la telecamera si concentra sulle poche persone in strada per “dimostrare” che c’è troppa gente in giro LINK
Nei primi tempi, insomma, i grandi media ancora impreparati sul come trattare questa situazione, hanno fornito molte immagini e informazioni contraddittorie. Nell’arco di qualche settimana la narrazione è andata delineandosi, pur non rinunciando mai ad altalenare tra allarme e rassicurazione e riproponendo a volte alcune formule prima scartate: a inizio marzo gli appelli di Confindustria a far finta di niente son stati smorzati a favore delle direttive governative che hanno confermato ed inasprito le restrizioni poliziesche del lockdown su scala nazionale, per poi ripresentarsi pian piano in forme meno evidenti, puntando sul “buonsenso” e sul bisogno di “salvare l’economia”, insistendo sulla riapertura delle fabbriche.
Sicurezza sanitaria o giusta motivazione?
Dunque, ricapitolando: nelle prime ordinanze emesse dai governi locali i principi alla base delle restrizioni non erano di tipo sanitario ma erano grossolanamente tesi ad evitare gli assembramenti ritenuti non indispensabili. Sono state chiuse scuole ed istituti sportivi, vietate sagre, manifestazioni e scioperi. Al tempo stesso però sono state mantenuti aperte fabbriche e centri commerciali, non si è provveduto a trovare una soluzione al pericoloso sovraffollamento delle carceri (dando vita a proteste mai viste prima in questa proporzione) nè di altre situazioni a rischio come i campi rom ed in alcuni casi addirittura si è provveduto a ridurre il numero di corse dei mezzi pubblici impedendo alle persone obbligate ad andare al lavoro per la mancata chiusura delle fabbriche di poter mantenere le distanze di sicurezza.
Contenimento pandemia alla cinese: verifiche sanitarie
Lo stesso concetto di zonizzazione è stato inteso ed imposto fin da subito come una rigida chiusura generale effettuata senza tener conto delle singole realtà né della letteratura scientifica che evidenzia come una mobilità controllata da regioni con forte diffusione del contagio, se gestita da personale sanitario con quarantene mirate, osservazione da parte di personale medico e ponendo livelli di isolamento differenziati (come nel modello del lockdown di Wuhan), controintuitivamente permette di ridurre il carico sui sistemi sanitari della regione in difficoltà. Una forma di monitoraggio e contenimento, insomma, avrebbe contribuito ad alleggerire il sovraccarico sull’inefficiente sistema sanitario lombardo ora al collasso.
Contenimento pandemia all’italiana: controllo autocertificazioni
Una volta passati dalle regioni “zona rossa” al lockdown nazionale non si è fatto altro che inasprire i principi di natura poliziesca delle ordinanze regionali riassumendole nel principio della “giusta motivazione” limitando la mobilità all’interno del proprio comune*. E’la motivazione, dunque, ad aver valenza prioritaria nell’Italian Lockdown. La sicurezza sanitaria vien dopo.
[* Più o meno: poichè nei fatti chi si rifornisce in supermercato/negozio/edicola che non sia quello più vicino alla propria residenza viene contestato]
Avendola impostata solo in questi termini (giustificato/non giustificato ossia legale/illegale), la questione delle restrizioni viene immediatamente caratterizzata da un frame discorsivo deviante perchè impostato sulla legalità e non su principi scientifici, che porta, appunto, a giustificare la prosecuzione del lavoro in condizioni di totale insicurezza per attività ritenute “indispensabili”, giustificare il divieto di sciopero degli operai preoccupati per la propria salute e al tempo stesso ad additare come untore chi scende un attimo al parco per fumarsi una sigaretta in solitudine.
E’evidente che in quest’emergenza i concetti di “legale” e “illegale” sono particolarmente disgiunti da quelli di giusto o sbagliato.
Agli osservatori più attenti non può sfuggire il fatto che tale tipo di meccanismo è sostanzialmente una versione estremamente amplificata di quello in atto nell’ideologia del decoro secondo il quale non si caccia il senzatetto steso sulla panchina perché stia facendo qualcosa di male ma semplicemente perché “non ci si può stendere sulle panchine”, in base alla presunzione ideologica che il senzatetto che veste male e si stende sulle panchine sia indecoroso e dunque pericoloso (un uomo in giacca e cravatta steso sulla panchina non genererebbe la stessa reazione), motivo per cui viene vietato a tutti di stendersi sulle panchine (anche all’uomo in giacca e cravatta).
Dunque una presunzione di pericolosità (contagiosità) stabilita non in base a criteri sanitari ma per legge. Un tizio che volesse sfuggire la monotonia del confinamento facendosi semplicemente un giro in bici con guanti e mascherina nelle campagne del proprio comune senza mai scendere dal proprio mezzo nè avvicinarsi a nessuno non corre alcun rischio di contagiarsi né di contagiare nessuno, ma se gira senza “giusta motivazione” per legge si presumepreventivamente possa forse diventare un potenziale rischio.
La chiusura degli ambienti chiusi ad alta capienza, l’obbligo di mantenere le distanze, quello di indossare i dispositivi di protezione in determinate situazioni (spesa al supermercato), così come un certo grado di limitazione degli spostamenti nelle aree ad alto rischio, sono restrizioni giustificabili con la necessità di limitare la trasmissione del contagio entro livelli gestibili, ma è ben più difficile trovare giustificazione per restrizioni che contraddicono le stesse linee guida di sicurezza: che senso ha denunciare una persona che se ne cammina da sola, senza entrare in contatto con nessuno, quandole indicazioni dell’OMS dicono chiaramente che mantenendo la distanza minima di un metro con le altre persone le possibilità di contagio sono praticamente nulle? Altresì non ha alcuna motivazione medica l’imporre di mantenere tale distanza in pubblico a due persone che coabitano.
Estremizzando, se si uscisse di casa indossando una tuta hazmat disinfettata seguendo tutte le prassi anticontagio applicate nei laboratori di virologia per andare a fare due passi in un parco completamente deserto si rischierebbe una denuncia mentre, al contrario, se si uscisse senza alcuna accortezza per andare a lavorare al chiuso a strettissimo contatto con altre venti persone non ci sarebbe alcun problema perché è la motivazione che conta, non il rispetto delle misure di sicurezza.
Passeggiare è comunque vietato. Anche se in totale sicurezza.
Se prevenzione ci dev’essere, quella in atto in questa forma è prevenzione di cosa?
Non sfugge un altro parallelismo: quello con le paranoie antiterroristiche. Parallelismo che torna spesso nei commenti social e nell’atteggiamento di forze di polizia e certi amministratori che additano a “terroristi” i presunti untori. A quasi vent’anni dagli attentati dell’11 settembre le norme antiterrorismo e le operazioni come “strade sicure” più che produrre vere azioni antiterrorismo hanno soprattutto aumentato il livello d’insicurezza percepita, comportato diverse morti per suicidio tra i membri dell’esercito ed espulso numerose persone dall’Italiain via preventiva e con motivazioni non sempre solide.
Tuttavia sono pratiche ancora attive, normalizzate nel nostro quotidiano che ha assimilato il concetto di lotta al terrorismo permanente. Allo stesso modo, quante delle pratiche messe in moto nel lockdown rimarranno anche dopo la sua conclusione contraddistinguendo i prossimi vent’anni da come quelli della “prevenzione permanente”?
Poichè, come visto, le prassi in atto sono solo secondariamente basate sulla prevenzione del contagio, vien naturale chiedersi cosa si vorrà davvero prevenire nei prossimi anni. Soprattutto vien da chiedersi che scenari potrebbe elaborare una mente reazionaria dopo aver visto quanto è stato facile confinare l’intera popolazione mondiale nelle proprie celle.
Italiani incontrollabili?
Uno dei mantra con cui viene giustificata la durezza delle restrizioni dell’Italian Lockdown è “se lo facessero tutti…” Mantra solitamente riportato così, senza aggiungere altro dopo i puntini di sospensione, suggerendo la presenza di un nesso logico tra una causa nota e… non si sa bene cosa, lasciando che tale vuoto venga riempito dalla fantasia di chi ascolta.
“Non posso neanche passeggiare in sicurezza tenendomi a distanza da tutti rispettando appieno le prassi anticontagio?”
“Certo che no! Se lo facessero tutti…”
“In effetti: che potrebbe succedere se le persone che rispettano distanze di sicurezza e prassi anticontagio andassero tutte a passeggio?”
-silenzio-
Il punto è che questoquesitonon va fatto. Non va nemmeno preso in considerazione. Vien dato per scontato a prescindere che non sia possibile applicarlo: l’idea stessa che la maggior parte delle persone possa rispettare delle prassi sociali sanitarie come tenersi ad un paio di metri di distanza, lavarsi le mani con frequenza ed imparare ad usare i dispositivi di sicurezza nel modo corretto viene rifiutato a prescindere.
Ordinatissime fila… di “indisciplinati”?
Presa di posizione che appare alquanto ridicola considerando che per esperienza comune in questi giorni nei supermercati e per strada si sta tutti distanziati, da ogni parte c’è gente che ti richiama e ti filma se anche solo sospetta tu sia in giro senza “giusta motivazione” o troppo vicino alla tua compagna, insomma: la realtà è che siamo tutti sufficientemente allarmati e che la stragrande maggioranza delle persone si attiene alle prassi di distanziamento fisico.
Anche osservando le realtà straniere appare evidente che gli italiani non risultano essere meno più o meno diligenti rispetto al resto del mondo. Piuttosto quel che si evince è che riguardo al virus “tutto il mondo è paese” ancor più del solito: in ogni parte del globo la gente si attiene spontaneamente a prassi anticontagio ed ovunque c’è solamente una frazione meno che infinitesimale di persone che non lo fanno; frazione che per via dei media sembra molti più sostanziosa di quanto sia in realtà.
Va però ricordato che molti atteggiamenti che in Italia non sono tollerati nella maggior parte dei paesi invece lo sono (come allenarsi, andare in giro in due, ecc.) col risultato che da noi potrebbero risultare più “furbetti” proprio a causa della presenza di norme più restrittive. E’un primo caso di profezia autoavverante: siccome si teme vi siano tanti “furbetti” si creano norme restrittive esagerate che per forza di cose tante persone non potranno rispettare e quindi le tante multe/denunce emesse “dimostreranno” che effettivamente c’è tanta gente incivile.
L’idea alla base dei principi polizieschi che caratterizzano l’applicazione del lockdown in Italia, é difatti proprio l’idea che la popolazione italiana sia composta perlopiù da scellerati menefreghisti inaffidabili da cui non ci si può aspettare alcuna collaborazione*.
[*ironico osservare che si tratta di un non-detto presente soprattutto in chi si riempie la bocca di motti patriottardi ed elogi allo spirito italico, che al tempo stesso sono gli stessi che invocano con più enfasi la diffusione delle armi in stile americano, pene corporali per i detenuti e l’instaurazione di regimi di polizia, a dimostrazione di quanto essi stessi siano coloro che meno si fidano di quei compatrioti che decantano]
Vittimista puccioso
Ciò non suona affatto nuovo, essendo una autorappresentazione radicatissima della mentalità nazionale e basata sui principi del vittimismo e del familismo amorale che, immancabilmente, portano a percepire l’altro essenzialmente come un potenziale approfittatore, un “furbo” incapace di curarsi del bene comune.
Il melodrammatico vittimismo del Canto degli italiani (“Noi siamo da secoli calpesti, derisi”) è un esempio abbastanza eclatante di quanto tale atteggiamento mentale sia tra i caratteri fondanti della mentalità del Belpaese
Rappresentazione dell’altro che ha come diretta conseguenza quella di giustificare la propria furbizia approfittatrice a favore dei propri interessi, intendendola come mezzo necessario di autodifesa dagli altri che si comporterebbero così -per primi-.
“Non sono un ladro ma devo rubare perché son tutti gli altri ad esser ladri”
Questa autorappresentazione giustificazionista è pure connessa al falso mito degli “italiani brava gente”, nato per celare nefandezze che in nessun modo potrebbero rientrare nell’idea vittimista degli italiani che possono fare del male solo per autodifesa.
Autorappresentazione dunque talmente radicata nella mentalità nazionale da esser presente ovunque e venir quindi cooptata anche dal circuito media-politica-social che le incoraggia ed alimenta, facendone però un uso mirato. Se in alcuni casi l’applicazione di questa mentalità viene giustificata, in altri, invece, viene condannata.
In queste settimane questa autorappresentazione è tornata nuovamente utile per distogliere le attenzioni dalle responsabilità politiche di chi ha gestito in maniera tanto pessima il contenimento del contagio.
Il topos dei “soliti furbetti” risulta particolarmente utile per non muovere accuse verso chi ha davvero grosse responsabilitò
Confindustria ed il mondo politico responsabile della malagestione dell’emergenza, dopo un primo momento di confusione, dall’imposizione del lockdown hanno iniziato ad indirizzare i propri canali mediatici sul tasto degli anonimi untori, spostando la colpevolizzazione su persone da etichettare come “furbetti”.
Gli untori solitari
Complice il teatrino delle ordinanze succedutesi in ordine rapidissimo e le indicazioni spesso assai vaghe che han lasciato libertà di interpretazione alle forze di polizia le quali spesso le han applicate in modo assai restrittivo, nel corso delle ultime settimane abbiam visto succedersi su media e social una vera e propria giostra di personaggi topici su cui scagliare l’accusa di esser untori: i runner, quelli che portano in giro i cani, quelli che non vanno a fare la spesa al supermercato più vicino, quelli che fanno spese da pochi euro solo per uscire, quelli senza mascherina, quelli che passeggiano per ore, quelli con la casa in montagna. Inutile far notare che nessuna delle figure qui elencate sia intrinsecamente un vettore di contagio ed altrettanto inutile far notare che i focolai sono principalmente fabbriche, ospedali, prigioni e case di riposo.
L’acquisto di tre bottiglie di vino porta a una denuncia. L’acquisto di farina per fare sculture di pasta invece? LINK
Il circo di bizzarri untori è stato rapidamente preso di mira dalla gogna social la quale al contempo non ha potuto fare a meno di cogliere l’ironica assurdità insita in questa rappresentazione secondo cui il Mario Rossi che attraversava mezza città per andare al lavoro era a posto mentre quello che si faceva una passeggiata per i fatti suoi era un untore, generando una caterva di battute e meme.
Alla periferia di una Faenza spettrale, giocare a tennis anche se tra coinquilini non è ammesso LINK
Gli untori di massa
La demonizzazione degli untori solitari è stata però utile a rafforzare l’accusa più generica e allargata che ci fosse “ancora troppa gente in giro”. Dall’applicazione del lockdown TG e giornali per un certo periodo hanno dipinto il paese come percorso da una sorta di festa in strada permanente con migliaia di persone accalcate che se ne fregavano delle disposizioni.
La popolazione si è adattata subito al rispetto delle distanze di sicurezza
C’era solo un piccolo problema: a tutti gli effetti, in giro, non si vedeva quasi nessuno. I giornali hanno pubblicizzato con grande enfasi le cifre ufficiali di controlli effettuati e denunce emesse descrivendoli come numeri abnormi, solo che, a ben vedere, quegli stessi numeri rivelavano una situazione molto diversa. A fine marzo difatti veniva sbandierata la strabiliante cifra di “novantaseimila denunciati” che, a ben vedere, rappresenta lo 0,15% della popolazione. Sostanzialmente si tratta di una percentuale fisiologica all’interno della quale solo una sotto-frazione ancor minore teneva comportamenti effettivamente a rischio contagio. Ben poca cosa, considerando che l’Italia conta sessanta milioni e mezzo di abitanti.
L’esperienza di chiunque è quella di città spettrali
Il fatto che media e social al tempo stesso mostrassero città vuote, file ordinate e queste notizie su masse di disobbedienti non ha fatto altro che alimentare ulteriormente il tasso di schizofrenia informativa e portare, immancabilmente, a far radicare nell’opinione pubblica l’ipotesi peggiore. Strade deserte ma al tempo stesso assembrate, gente ordinata e rispettosa ma al contempo “furbetta”: nel dubbio meglio pensar male.
Al netto di grandi media e social commerciali, la realtà osservata tra esperienza personale, testimonianze dirette di conoscenti sparsi sull’intero territorio e analisi dei dati su controlli e denunce emesse dipinge in realtà una popolazione preoccupata che si attiene stoicamente ai mantra sullo #StareACasa e sull’ #IndossareLaMascherina minimizzando ogni attività all’aperto e mettendo alla gogna chi, anche solo apparentemente, non fa altrettanto.
La caccia all’untore è stata imposta come elemento principale su cui far riversare rabbia e risentimento
Ma quindi, se sia le esperienze dirette che i dati ufficiali delle forze di polizia fotografano una situazione in cui praticamente non v’è nessuno in giro, da dove saltano fuori questi fantomatici assembramenti di untori, questa “troppa gente in giro” denunciata dai grandi media e dai social network?
Per capirlo è necessario ricordare che comunque una minima quantità di persone in giro c’è sempre: chi va a fare la spesa, a comprar le sigarette, giornali o quant’altro, chi va a lavorare e chi va portare a spasso il cane. Sono queste le persone accusate di fare assembramenti: persone che nella gran maggioranza dei casi sono in giro per “giusta motivazione”. In sostanza siamo noi stessi.
Quando la legge si fa dura, rabbia e frustrazione fanno il delatore
Le pochissime testimonianze dirette su “troppa gente in giro” provengono perlopiù da accuse via social di utenti che evidentemente prendono per oro colato gli allarmi lanciati sui canali mainstream ove la realtà è dipinta come si è visto. Questi utenti dunque vedono “assembramenti” in banali gruppetti di 3-4 persone che camminano distanziate tra loro, in famiglie che mangiano sul balcone, o migranti che vivono assieme seduti sull’uscio di casa. Tutte persone che questi utenti riprendono dalla finestra di casa postandone le foto sui social con commenti indignati. Il tutto senza nessuna attenzione alla privacy e generando anche situazioni drammatiche e che ha portato forze di polizia e quotidiani a chiedere di smetterla di inviare segnalazioni inutili e dannose.
Le pratiche della delazione, dello sfogo indignato sui social e dell’attacco verso il vicinato, esattamente come il lockdown su base della “giusta motivazione”, solo apparentemente sono basate sul problema del contagio: attaccare il corridore solitario in realtà ha più a che fare con un meccanismo del tipo “se io non lo faccio non devi farlo nemmeno tu” giustificato su base legale.
Una delle tante foto postate sui social da “sceriffi da balcone” accompagnate da commenti velenosissimi su questo “assembramento” che in realtà mostra delle persone che camminano mantenendosi a regolare distanza fra loro
Sembra, insomma, di essere di fronte a quelle fotografie sfocate ritraenti macchie e riflessi in cui i rispettivi autori vedono invece la prova dell’esistenza degli UFO. In questo caso la sfocatura non è nell’immagine ma solo nella testa di chi, anzichè osservare per davvero. vi vede solo quel che vuol vedere.
Altra foto postata da “sceriffi da balcone” e postata sui social. L’assembramento, anche qui, è solo nella testa di chi ha scattato la foto
Ennesimo “assembramento” denunciato sui social che in realtà mostra persone che camminano distanziate
Ma tra le numerose foto ne sono però apparse anche alcune in cui non vediamo poche persone che se ne stanno ben distanziate o in fila, bensì orde di gente ammassata in strette stradine. Si tratta di strane foto iniziate ad apparire tra fine marzo ed inizio aprile. Foto strane, perchè non mostrano assembramenti ma dei #Teleassembramenti.
I Teleassembramenti
Una grandissima parte delle persone non ha alcuna dimestichezza con le basi della fotografia, il che sotto certi aspetti è un po buffo, data l’estrema importanza e diffusione nella cultura e nelle società moderne di questa tecnologia con cui si ha a che fare da oltre un secolo e mezzo. Nel corso della nostra vita difatti vediamo milioni e milioni di immagini fotografiche e migliaia di ore tra film, Tv e riprese video eppure ignoriamo completamente le caratteristiche base dell’immagine fotografica (NB: non si parla necessariamente di tecnica ma banalmente della lettura dell’immagine fotografica). E’un po come se fossimo navigatori che non ne capiscono niente di barche, insomma.
Per imparare a leggere le immagini di teleassembramenti, quindi, è necessario riassumere brevemente un paio di principi base di fotografia, cominciando dalle caratteristiche delle immagini riprese con teleobiettivo.
Teleobiettivo
Gli obiettivi fotografici sono apparecchi che “vedono” in maniera diversa rispetto all’occhio umano e quindi ognuno di essi “altera” ciò che riprende in un proprio modo specifico.
Il teleobiettivo (o “obiettivo a focale lunga”) è un tipo di obiettivo usato per riprendere soggetti molto distanti. Più questi sono distanti e più il teleobiettivo li ingrandisce e ciò modifica fortemente la percezione delle distanze tra gli oggetti che stanno davanti da quelli che stanno dietro, appiattendole (iu termini tecnici si parla di “profondità di campo”). Lo stesso effetto può essere ottenuto anche con l’uso di zoom ottici.
Alcuni esempi di un soggetto ripreso con obiettivi differenti. Maggiore è la focale usata (espressa in mm) e più lo sfondo risulta vicino e piatto
Si noti come nella foto con la focale maggiore (200mm) gli oggetti sullo sfondo appaiano molto più grandi e vicini rispetto alle foto con focali inferiori
Le ipotesi sono due: o si tratta di immagini scattate con teleobiettivo o la luna in realtà è tanto vicina da poterla toccare
L’effetto finale è abbastanza noto agli appassionati di sport: è osservabile ad esempio nelle moviole di calcio quando si osserva che in alcune riprese con teleobiettivo due calciatori sembrano praticamente toccarsi mentre la stessa scena ripresa con un diverso obiettivo o da una differente angolazione rivela che invece stavano a diversi metri di distanza.
In un’immagine bidimensionale, osservare le linee prospettiche è indispensabile per comprendere la profondità di campo e tentar di capire le distanze reali
L’uso dell’angolazione difatti è il secondo principio da tenere a mente e di questo possiamo fare esperienza anche ad occhio nudo: se si mettono in fila degli oggetti ad una certa distanza l’uno dall’altro e si osservano di lato o dall’alto li si vedrebbe uno accanto all’altro capendo perfettamente la distanza a cui si trovano, ma se invece li si osservasse da una posizione più frontale, questi apparirebbero uno dietro l’altro e si avrebbe una certa difficoltà a capire le distanze.
Per meglio comprendere la cosa è possibile osservarne gli effetti in questa serie di foto realizzate da Naivespeaker:
FOTO 1: una fila di pupazzi posti a distanza regolare. Fotografati di lato e dall’alto le distanze appaiono chiare
FOTO 2: Sempre dall’alto ma da una diversa angolazione si può osservare che i pupazzi più lontani appaiono decisamente più ravvicinati tra loro rispetto a quelli più vicini Eppure sappiamo che le distanze sono uguali
FOTO 3: Un dettaglio zoommato della foto precedente. Mostra solo i pupazzi più lontani. Sembrano quasi toccarsi
FOTO 4: Con la giusta combinazione di angolazione ed obiettivo (o zoom) i pupazzi sembrano schiacciati l’uno sull’altro senza alcuna distanza tra loro. Una fila lunga due metri qui pare compressa in venti centimetri. Eccolo il teleassembramento
Un’immagine di “assembramento” girata sui social. La rassomiglianza con la foto precedente è particolarmente evidente)
Ricapitolando: riprese con focale lunga e tipo di angolatura dei soggetti ripresi contribuiscono ad alterare la percezione delle distanze, appiattendole.
Ebbene, gli “assembramenti” mostrati su giornali, social e TG che cos’hanno in comune tra loro? L’essere tutti ripresi con teleobiettivo o zoom ed usare angolazioni frontali. Dei #teleassembramenti appunto: assembramenti creati col teleobiettivo (Qui un video che mostra chiaramente come si “costruisce” un teleassembramento)
Uno dei tanti #teleassembramenti denunciati dai giornali. L’effetto “schiacciamento” è particolarmente evidente e tutte le persone presenti in una via di diverse decine, se non centinaia di metri, appaiono come fossero vicinissime
In pratica quelle che vengono riprese sono delle persone che si trovano in uno stesso luogo, preferibilmente stretto e lungo (come una via dritta o una fila di bancarelle del mercato) e che camminano stando ad uno, due, tre, dieci metri di distanza tra loro ma poiché vengono riprese da lontano con un teleobiettivo e con un’angolatura specifica, sembra che queste stiano a pochi centimetri di distanza gli uni dagli altri, ammassati come sardine.
Lo stesso effetto visto con i pupazzi in fila, qui si ripete tale e quale ma poichè in questi casi la gente non è disposta in file regolari, l’effetto finale è quello di un ammasso ancor più consistente. É come se avessimo più file affiancate che, fotografate come s’è detto, appaiono come un muro fatto di persone
Su La Repubblica viene mostrata questa foto per dimostrare l’affollamento nella zona del Quadrilatero a Bologna
La stessa via, ripresa dall’alto, mostra che in realtà le persone si distanziano spontaneamente tra loro
Sui social, la gente che risiede nelle zone fotografate ha immancabilmente fatto notare che qualcosa non andava in quelle immagini di teleassembramento, producendo documentazione fotografica alternativa che mostrava realtà ben più in linea con l’esperienza comune, ossia poca gente in giro sempre ben distanziata.
Un breve filmato che mostra persone sui Navigli di Milano è stato quello maggiormente citato sui social a dimostrazione che c’è #TroppaGenteInGiro. Anche qui, in realtà, un banalissimo schiacciamento da teleobiettivo
Sono stati mostrati anche alcuni teleassembramenti video, ad esempio a Napoli ed a Milano. Il filmato di Milano, in particolare, è stato quello che più di tutti ha contribuito a diffondere e consolidare l’idea che le strade italiane fossero cortissime e piene di gente che se ne fregava delle distanze di sicurezza.
Anche qui banale schiacciamento da teleobiettivo
Mercati e strade commerciali sono le ambientazioni preferite da chi realizza teleassembramenti fotografici perchè abbinano una certa quantità di gente in ambienti lunghi e stretti, perfetti per massimizzare l’effetto schiacciamento dei teleobiettivi.
Sia Repubblica che l’Huffington Post han pubblicato foto e video di una Napoli affollatissima, sempre con teleobiettivo in vie lunghe e strette
Le caratteristiche dei teleassembramenti si ripetono costantemente: una volta imparato a distinguere le immagini realizzate con teleobiettivo ed a “leggere” l’alterazione delle distanze queste appaiono immediatamente visibili e la continua ricorrenza a mercati e vie molto lunghe non fanno che riconfermare il tutto.
Verificare le effettive misure dei luoghi in cui sono stati ritratti teleassembramenti dimostra in modo definitivo l’inconsistenza degli stessi
Oltre i teleassembramenti
La stagione dei teleassembramenti é durata ben pochi giorni, giusto quel tanto perché il concetto che c’è #TroppaGenteInGiro si diffondesse e radicasse a sufficienza. Fin da subito difatti sono circolate controprove da parte di chi abita nei luoghi fotografati e polemiche locali, come nel caso del teleassembramento di Sestri in Liguria. Cittadinanza locale che non ci sta ad esser presa in giro ed amministrazioni comunali che non voglion esser tacciate di inefficienza han contribuito a far smorzare l’uso di teleassembramenti sui media commerciali ma ciononostante, una volta diffuso il concetto, nei giorni successivi è stato sufficiente pubblicare articoli in cui il teleassembramento veniva dichiarato ma non mostrato, anche se spesso ciò ha portato ad esiti abbastanza ridicoli: articoli e servizi TG che dovevano comunque mostrare delle immagini hanno denunciato la presenza di #TroppaGenteInGiro mostrando foto di strade deserte in cui l’unica presenza era quella della polizia o uno sparuto numero di persone.
Così tanta gente in gir… si vedono solo due poliziotti!
…ancora poliziotti
Troppa gente in giro: una giornalista e dei piccioni…
L’ennesimo cortocircuito si è poi verificato tra la prima e seconda settimana di aprile con la riapertura di diverse aziende che ha portato ad un aumento di persone in giro per “giusta motivazione” prontamente denunciata come un criminoso aumento di “furbetti” anche da quelle stesse persone che hanno invocato la riapertura delle attività produttive.
Una volta consolidato il refain, la macchina ha potuto proseguire per inerzia. Oggi è sufficiente una notizia su una singola persona che se ne stava in giro senza “giustificato motivo” per riavvivare la gogna social e riconfermare mediaticamente la presenza di #TroppaGenteInGiro
I pochissimi casi in cui effettivamente le distanze tra persone non son state rispettate ovviamente son state sommate al calderone, in una giostra ove questi pochissimi casi indiscutibili son serviti solo a confermare l’autenticità dei numerosissimi teleassembramenti posticci facendo credere che il fenomeno fosse enormemente più diffuso di quanto fosse in realtà.
Profezie autoavveranti
La paura degli assembramenti genera assembramenti… che diffondono l’indignazione contro gli assembramenti!
E’il caso dei blocchi stradali “antifurbetti” attuati dalle forze di polizia perchè convinte che troppa gente non stia rispettando la legge. In questi blocchi vengono controllate uno ad uno i veicoli su un determinato tratto stradale causando un blocco del traffico che, anche con poche auto in giro, ovviamente genera code (specie se ciò avviene nei pressi di grandi centri urbani).
In pratica è il blocco stesso a generare le code che, fotografate, vengono raccontate dai media come “esodo di furbetti”, diffondendo così ulteriormente la convinzione che vi siano masse abnormi di persone in strada e perdipiù senza “giusta motivazione”.
Fantastica serie di post de La Repubblica che dopo aver lanciato un allarme-fuffa viene costretto a rettifiche continue a causa delle numerose controprove e testimonianze dirette
Anche in questo caso, però si rileva che i numeri coinvolti riguardano una percentuale infinitesimale della popolazione urbana e, di questa, solo una frazione minima (grossomodo tra l’1,5% ed il 3% dei fermati) risulta essere priva di “giusta motivazione” (il che, ribadiamo, non vuol necessariamente dire contagioso)
Aria, Asfalto, Asintomatici, Mascherine
Runner e pisciatori di cani sono pur sempre dei personaggi-feticcio ben identificabili ed i teleassembramenti un qualcosa di distante dal percepito quotidiano. Ma, si sa, se si vuol scatenare una paura profonda, indiscutibile e capace di far dire a tutti spontaneamente #RestiamoAlChiuso bisogna ricorrere ad un orrore lovecraftiano, un orrore che ci circonda ovunque e che è intrinseco alla realtà stessa. Anche questa strada è stata battuta: non sono mancati difatti articoli che, pur contraddicendo tutto quel che vien riferito dall’OMS, han sostenuto che il virus potesse circolare per diverse ore nell’aria e resistere per giorni nell’asfalto o in altri materiali comuni. Il virus nell’aria e nei materiali comuni significherebbe sostanzialmente che tutto è contagioso! Tutto al di fuori di quella minima porzione che controlliamo direttamente, ossia la casa.
Moltiplicare e generalizzare le possibili fonti di contagio non fa che aumentare i livelli di paranoia e spostare ulteriormente l’attenzione dalle problematiche reali e sistemiche: l’inquinamento della val Padana (una delle zone più inquinate d’Europa), le polveri sottili e gli allevamenti intensivi, da più parti sospettati di essere correlati all’incidenza del contagio, spariscono dal discorso pubblico a favore di runner, materiali vari e contagio nell’aria. E dunque #RestiamoAlChiusoInCasa: il terrore è ovunque! Nell’aria, nei materiali di costruzione, magari anche nell’acqua, nei fili d’erba e nei canarini che cantano!
La paura per un qualcosa di impalpabile e presente ovunque, come già visto, porta irrimediabilmente alla creazione di capri espiatori e feticci e se questa paura riguarda l’intera materialità del mondo, la feticizzazione avviene… su ciò che ci difende da questa materialità! Ecco che fin da subito si è provveduto a pratiche come la disinfezione del manto stradale nonostante lo stesso ministero della salute dica che non vi sono prove scientifiche che possa servire a qualcosa (oltre ad inquinare il terreno), o l’insensata disinfezione delle zampe degli animali.
Se la paura per l’aria e per le superfici rischia di essere troppo totalizzante e sconnessa dalla realtà scientifica, è nella figura dell’asintomatico che invece si riscontra il mix perfetto attraverso il quale mantenere viva la paura.
La figura dell’asintomatico ripropone il topos cinematografico dell’appestato invisibile: “sembra come noi, parla come noi… ma è il male”. Come nel film La Cosa o ne L’invasione degli ultracorpi, il terrore verso un orrore invisibile che si nasconde nell’altro è totale. Chiunque rappresenta presumibilmente un pericolo potenziale ed è dunque per il semplice fatto che gli asintomatici esistano che si giustificano misure marziali. Come ogni arabo-islamico post 11 settembre è stato considerato una potenziale minaccia, oggi ogni persona che non mostra alcun segno di malattia vien considerata una potenziale minaccia.
L’idea di una pandemia globale è già molto radicata nell’immaginario collettivo (a sinistra The Walking Dead, a destra The Coronavirus)
E’interessante osservare che nel dopo 11 settembre il mondo del cinema e della letteratura fantastica ha esplorato con un certo interesse l’idea di pandemia globale. Da Contagion a 28 giorni dopo, The Walking Dead, il remake de L’alba dei morti viventi, Stake land e La terra dei morti viventi solo per citare alcuni tra i più noti, si osserva che il terreno maggiormente esplorato è quello dell’apocalisse zombi, ossia di un mondo post-pandemia completamente stravolto, in cui la paura invisibile del terrore globale e di massa è esorcizzata facendosi orrore manifesto: gli zombi sono riconoscibili a differenza degli ultracorpi e per quanto terribile, saper riconoscere con chiarezza il male è comunque un qualcosa di rassicurante. Tuttavia l’inquietudine permane su un altro livello e si sposta all’interno di una società allo sfascio in cui ognuno pensa solo a sé stesso. Il vero male, nelle opere di apocalisse zombi, è una società residuale che fa male a sè stessa. Pandemia e zombi, terrorismo e paura dell’altro, legati in modo indissolubile.
La figura dell’asintomatico, rappresenta dunque una paura ancora da esorcizzare, un qualcosa da cui proteggersi e che a sua volta deve proteggere gli altri da sé stesso, da segregare e tener lontano da noi attraverso…qualsiasi cosa. E così come la paura dell’asfalto contagioso è stata esorcizzata col feticcio della disinfezione del manto stradale, la paura dell’asintomatico viene adesso esorcizzata con la feticizzazione delle mascherine.
Gli operatori sanitari sono chiari in proposito: le mascherine sono utili se usate adeguatamente, in determinate condizioni e se abbinate a corrette prassi di igienizzazione delle mani. Se usate in maniera incorretta, al contrario, rischiano addirittura di diventare una fonte di contagio.
Quella che si sta imponendo invece è una narrazione feticistica della mascherina, descritta come una sorta di oggetto-talismano che secondo alcuni governatori locali bisognerebbe utilizzare addirittura sempre quando si sta all’aperto (nonostante il ministero della salute ribadisca chiaramente il contrario) e che viene distribuita senza sufficienti indicazioni su tutte le prassi da seguire per il suo utilizzo corretto.
Con una mossa ben poco avveduta, il governatore del Veneto ha distribuito mascherine del tutto inadatte al loro scopo. L’operazione riflette appieno l’idea di feticizzazione della mascherina-talismano LINK
Mascherina o no, probabilmente nei prossimi tempi osserveremo un assestamento della narrazione sulla figura degli asintomatici con tutto ciò che questo potrebbe comportare a livello di spettacolarizzazione politica, ossia l’uso obbligatorio delle mascherine nei luoghi pubblici, impossibilità di fare il tampone a tutti, la possibilità che i guariti contraggano di nuovo il virus ma senza presentare sintomi, ecc.
Già oggi diversi indicatori come i dubbi sull’effettività degli anticorpi lasciano intendere che le misure di prevenzione potrebbero dover essere applicate a lungo e ciò potrebbe dunque portare anche all’estensione del lockdown generalizzato. Al tempo stesso si assistono a diversi tira-e-molla dovuti al variare degli interessi in gioco: se all’inizio è stato osservato che il virus colpiva quasi esclusivamente persone molto anziane e/o già indebolite da altri fattori, successivamente l’ondata di panico mediatico ha enfatizzato il fatto che il virus colpisse persone di tutte le età. A metà aprile 2020, con le pressioni per la riapertura delle aziende, molti quotidiani hanno improvvisamente ridotto le informazioni su decessi tra persone giovani e di mezz’età.
Il punto anche qui è lo stesso: una cosa sono le misure di contenimento per evitare la diffusione del contagio, ma tutt’altra cosa è usare la paura nei confronti degli asintomatici per imporre forme di controllo di tutt’altra natura con la scusa della prevenzione. Forme di controllo che non rallenteranno la diffucìsione del virus con cui rischiamo di dover convivere per decenni.
The day after
Un contenimento anche molto rigido ma gestito globalmente in base a criteri medici e con un’attenzione particolare sulle prassi sanitarie anticontagio permetterebbe forse di giungere in tempi relativamente rapidi ad una situazione di normalità. Di certo, un contenimento incentrato su meri principi legalitari, peraltro disgiunti da criteri medico-scientifici, per forza di cose non potrà che prolungare la durata dell’emergenza.
Di certo, in ogni caso, quello che si prospetta è il passaggio ad un “dopo” che avverrà a scaglioni/ondate.
Ma di che razza di “dopo” stiamo parlando? Come ogni momento di crisi, anche la pandemia globale ha messo a nudo numerose debolezze sistemiche e contraddizioni globali ed in molti si augurano che ciò faccia aprire gli occhi a sufficienza perché nel “dopo” queste siano risolte e superate. Dal superamento del PIL come metro del benessere ai redditi di cittadinanza, dalla creazione e miglioramento di un sistema sanitario pubblico globale ad un senso di collaborazione internazionale più forte, passando per forme di produzione rispettose dell’ecosistema, sono numerose le richieste e speranze che circolano.
È però necessario fare tesoro delle esperienze passate e cogliere i segnali che giungono quotidianamente da più parti: anche al termine dello sconvolgimento della Grande Guerra, la prima guerra globale della storia, serpeggiavano speranze di un futuro senza più conflitti (concetto che in qualche modo potrebbe aver pure aiutato lo scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale). Forse si tratta, almeno in parte, di una risposta umana dinnanzi a crisi profonde.
Prospettare un futuro migliore e lavorare per esso è doveroso, ma guai a confondere l’ideale con l’illusorio.
Ciò si riflette anche nelle parole di Evgeny Morozov che ricorda che nonostante le prospettive migliorative siano tutte realizzabili e sensate, la resilienza del sistema attuale è talmente forte e pervasiva che il rischio è che molto probabilmente il “dopo” virus significherà essere catapultati solamente in una fase più avanzata del tardo capitalismo caratterizata da quello che definisce il “soluzionismo” ossia una sorta di T.I.N.A. thatcheriano alla massima potenza in cui le peggiori imposizioni verranno da governi totalmente demandati a logiche aziendali che faranno di tutto per dissuadere sviluppatori, hacker, attivisti e altri dall’usare le loro capacità e le risorse esistenti per sperimentare forme alternative di organizzazione sociale e che al tempo stesso vorranno incasssare una parte dei profitti che derivano dalla sorveglianza. Il tutto imponendo nella società l’idea che
“[…] si possa evitare di affrontare le cause di un problema, concentrandosi invece sull’“adeguare” i comportamenti individuali alla crudele, ma immutabile, realtà.
Oggi siamo tutti soluzionisti: il covid-19 sta allo stato soluzionista come l’11 settembre sta allo stato di sorveglianza. Tuttavia le minacce che (il soluzionismo) pone alla democrazia sono più sottili, e quindi più insidiose.”
[…] il mondo tecnologico in cui viviamo oggi è stato progettato per garantire che non possa emergere alcuna alternativa a un ordine globale basato sulle logiche di mercato.”
Il mondo del “dopo” virus rischia appunto di veder affermare una realtà in cui il pensiero dominante normalizzerà l’idea che ‘le cose stanno così, quella che propone il governo è l’unica soluzione e ti conviene accettarla perchè non ci sono alternative e se la critichi non sei dei nostri ma sei uno degli altri’. Una visione in cui
“[…] i corpi e le istituzioni intermedie scompaiono […] esistono (solo) cittadini-consumatori, aziende e governi. In mezzo non c’è molto altro: né sindacati, né associazioni di cittadini, né movimenti sociali, né istituzioni collettive tenute insieme da sentimenti di solidarietà.
Non è un caso, difatti, se le attuali piattaforme commerciali di comunicazione e socializzazione sono incentrate principalmente su intrattenimento e spettacolarità rivolte al singolo individuo anzichè su dibattito costruttivo, collaborazione e socializzazione e questo fa sì che all’interno di esse non sarà mai possibile costruire nulla di valido perchè
“Sarà, nel migliore dei casi, l’ennesimo parco giochi per soluzionisti. Nel peggiore, una società totalitaria fondata su controllo e sorveglianza diffusi”
Questo è il mondo che andava lentamente prospettandosi prima del Coronavirus ed è questo il mondo in cui probabilmente ci troveremo catapultati nel “dopo” emergenza.
Per la maggioranza delle persone leggere le news su Internet significa due cose: apprenderle sui social o saltare di sito in sito per legger cosa v’é scritto. Nel primo caso l’approccio alla notizia é legato a doppio filo a commenti, boost e strategie social mentre nel secondo caso si tratta di un modo valido ma spesso altamente inefficiente perché ci si riduce a leggere uno o due siti di fiducia e poi basta.
Eppure da oltre vent’anni, esiste uno strumento presente in quasi tutti i siti che permette di ricevere sempre gli aggiornamenti dalle proprie fonti preferite in modo estremamente efficiente: i FEED RSS!
CONTENUTI ED ASPETTO SON COSE SEPARATE
Un sito di news, un blog o un profilo social sono fondamentalmente delle pagine web all’interno dei quali vengono pubblicati dei post.
A seconda della piattaforma questi post possono essere composti da materiali molto diversi: in un social come PixelFed ed Instagram un post contiene solo un’immagine; in PeerTube e YouTubeun post equivale a un video; in Mastodon e Twitter un testo breve. In un sito di news o in un blog ogni post é invece composto da una quantità di testo ed immagini che può essere anche molto corposa.
Quello che qui c’interessa però é il fatto che in tutti questi casi, ogni post é un elemento indipendente che può essere gestito singolarmente.
Non ci facciamo tanto caso, ma ogni singolo giorno facciamo esperienza di questo poter gestire indipendentemente i singoli post: se si vuol condividere un certo post non dici ai tuoi contatti di andare su un certo sito/profilo e cercarselo, ma gli dai il link diretto a quel post.
Ogni post, insomma, ha un suo indirizzo unico: un proprio link diretto.
Ma non c’é solo il link. Ogni singolo post può esser composto da più elementi (non necessariamente tutti):
1) Il proprio link
2) Data e ora della pubblicazione
3) Un titolo
4) Una breve introduzione o degli hashtag
5) Il contenuto testuale
6) Il contenuto multimediale (immagini, filmati, file audio)
Qui é necessario fare un piccolo sforzo per comprendere un concetto non proprio immediato, ossia che gli elementi che compongono il post sono indipendenti dal modo in cui vengono mostrati.
Cosa vuol dire?
Facciamo un esempio: se pubblichi un post su Mastodon o qualsiasi altro social, chi lo legge dal suo PC vedrà il post scritto con un certo tipo di caratteri bianchi su uno sfondo nero, all’interno di una celletta con sotto i pulsanti per rispondere, sopra ad un certo altro post e sotto a un altro ecc.
Chi invece lo leggesse da uno smartphone con una App magari lo vedrebbe con tutto un altro tipo di carattere, con dei pulsanti un pò più piccoli e diversi, con altri colori ecc. Magari nel post avevi pure aggiunto una foto ma chi lo legge da PC la vedrà sopra il testo mentre su certe App si vedrà sotto di esso!
Eppure il tuo testo é sempre lo stesso e tu non hai specificato né che caratteri dovesse apparire né la posizione della foto!
Una notizia del Sole24Ore così come si presenta nel suo feed
La stessa notizia dell’immagine precedente così come viene mostrata sul sito del Sole 24 Ore
Ciò avviene perché la piattaforma a cui hai inviato il post (in questo esempio un’Istanza Mastodon) non si limita a prendere il tuo post e mostrarlo sul proprio sito con quella grafica, quei caratteri, quell’impaginazione ma ne trasmette pure il contenuto “puro”, così com’é, solo testo e a parte i file multimediali, permettendo ad altri strumenti (App, browser) di ricevere quel che tu hai inviato e personalizzare a loro volta il modo in cui mostrarlo.
Questo permette di far sì che un articolo che sul tuo PC appare di 30 lunghissime righe, sul piccolo schermo verticale del tuo smartphone venga automaticamente reimpaginato in 80 righe molto più corte, che le immagini vengano riposizionate, ecc.
Dunque, se si é ben compreso che il contenuto é scollegato dall’aspetto con cui viene mostrato possiamo entrare nel vivo di questo post e parlare di quella tecnologia fantastica che é l’ RSS!!!
I FEED RSS
Come abbiamo detto, le piattaforme TRASMETTONO i contenuti. I modi e le tecnologie per farlo sono diversi (per esempio, le reti libere che compongono il Fediverso utilizzano una tecnologia di trasmissione chiamata ActivityPub) ma di fatto la quasi totalità dei siti web d’informazione utilizza uno standard chiamato RSS.
Logo RSS
Di fatto si tratta di un collegamento (può apparire come link, pulsante o file) in cui appaiono tutti i singoli contenuti di quel sito/blog/profilo, ma senza fronzoli né grafica, in un unico flusso di dati detto FEED.
Quasi ogni sito utilizza gli RSS ma non sempre lo dice con chiarezza. In alcuni siti é presente da qualche parte l’Icona RSS, oppure tra i menù é indicata la voce RSS o FEED. Alcuni siti d’informazione hanno delle intere pagine in cui forniscono decine e decine di feed (un buon esempio in questo senso é il Sole 24 Ore: il quotidiano presenta in una pagina specifica tantissimi contenuti diversi fra loro e dunque permette di pescare feed contenenti gli articoli specifici su un certo argomento). In altri casi il feed é proprio nascosto e bisognerà utilizzare diversi trucchi per scoprirlo. Certi browser mostrano nella barra dell’indirizzo l’icona RSS se rilevano un FEED, ma non li individuano sempre. Ogni browser comunque permette di installare al suo interno dei Plugin/AddOn/Estensioni (Qui quelli per Firefox) che eseguono questa ricerca in modo più approfondito.
Esistono decine e decine di Addon per gestire RSS su Firefox: molti servono per trovare i feed all’interno di un sito e molti altri servono ad usare lo stesso Firefox com un aggregatore (vedi sotto)
I FEED RSS messi a disposizione del pubblico a volte sono completi e contengono tutto il contenuto dei post, ma in molti casi, specie quando si parla di quotidiani, contengono tutto tranne il testo completo.
Qui però sorge spontanea una domanda: ma una volta che si é trovato ‘sto FEED uno che se ne fa?
Beh, con un FEED RSS si possono fare tantissime cose, in particolare inserirli in un Aggregatore RSS!
I FEED READERS: GLI AGGREGATORI DI NOTIZIE PERSONALIZZABILI
Un Aggregatore RSS (in inglese “RSS Reader”) é un programma dedicato alla gestione di questi flussi. All’interno di un Aggregatore ad esempio puoi inserire i FEED di tutti i blog che ritieni interessanti, ma anche dei quotidiani, siti, profili social, podcast ecc, suddividendoli in cartelle nel modo che ti pare più consono ed ogni volta che in uno di questi FEED apparirà un nuovo post, l’Aggregatore te lo notificherà.
In questo modo riceverai sempre tutti gli aggiornamenti diretti dai canali che t’interessano senza dover saltare da una piattaforma all’altra, passare di sito in sito…
Con un click puoi passare da un quotidiano all’altro e tutto ti verrà mostrato con uno stile unitario e senza i commenti, i likes e le stelline in modo da poter leggere i contenuti senza distrazioni o ansie social.
La tipica impostazione di un Aggregatore riprende quella dei client email: a sinistra (colonna grigia) i singoli feed suddivisi in cartelle, al centro l’elenco dei post del Feed selezionato ed a destra il contenuto del singolo post
Ogni Aggregatore ha stile e funzionalità proprie: alcuni permettono di salvarti i post preferiti, postarli direttamente dall’Aggregatore ai tuoi profili social ecc. Certi sono dei software da installare ed altri funzionano come servizi cloud. Certi possono esser fatti sincronizzare su più dispositivi. Certi trattano i feed come se fossero delle email, salvandoli tutti per la lettura offline, mentre altri li presentano come post di un social. Certi hanno al proprio interno dei motori di ricerca per andare a ritrovare quella certa notizia memtre altri non hanno alcun motore. Certi hanno già al loro interno i feed dei canali d’informazione più importanti. Certi si aggiornano di continuo e certi solo quando gli si dice di farlo.
Di Aggregatori, insomma, ne esistono dei più disparati! Qui di seguito un elenco di quelli più noti, in ordine sparso. NB: La maggior parte di queste applicazioni NON sono state testate da chi scrive e le descrizioni spesso riassumono solo quel che vien riportato da altre fonti.
Il tuo client email può gestire anche gli RSS. Qui Thunderbird
SU LINUX
FeedReader
Applicazione open source esteticamente piacevolissima con diversi collegamenti a Wallabag, Instapaper ed altri servizi di Bookmarking, ma soprattutto é perfettamente compatibile con altri Aggregatori per estendere le proprie funzioni.
Thunderbird
Poiché gli aggregatori gestiscono i FEED RSS come fossero email é naturale che i client email sappiano gestirli, no?
Akregator
E’un potente aggregatore open source per KDE che contiene al proprio interno un browser e dunque anche nel caso in cui di feed che non contengono il testo completo di un post, anziché esser mandati dall’Aggregatore al proprio browser, si potrà leggere tutto su Akregator
Liferea
Open source e web-based. E’considerato uno dei migliori e più utilizzati aggregatori su Ubuntu. Ha un’impostazione vecchio stile tipo email ma supporta podcast, lettura dei post offline ed altro ancora.
Selfoss
Aggregatore open source molto leggero e minimale ma dotato di diverse funzioni
TinyTinyRSS
TinyTiny é un aggregatore web-based open source. In pratica non é solamente una App ma un vero e proprio piccolo serverRSS installabile sul proprio PC o server. Un pò come per SearX ci sono diversi siti che mettono a disposizione il proprio servizio TinyTinyRSS
FreshRSS
Altro aggregatore open source web-based come TinyTinyRSS, con diverse estensioni disponibili.
OpenTICKR
A differenza degli altri aggregatori, OpenTICKR si presenta come una banda di news che scorrono sullo schermo un pò come quelle che spesso si vedono sotto la pancia dei conduttori nei telegiornali.
Sui device portatili molti Aggregatori cercano di offrire un’esperienza di lettura più “pulita” e uniforme rispetto a social e siti di news
SU ANDROID
(Su F-Droid sono tantissimi gli aggregatori disponibili! Perlopiù si tratta di versioni differenti di client per TinyTiny.
TinyTinyRSS
Client TinyTiny
TinyTinyRSS Reader
Altro client TinyTiny
Tiny Tiny Feed
Altro client TinyTiny
TTRSS-Reader
Altro client TinyTiny
NextCloud News
Interesante Aggregatore che si connette al proprio server NextCloud
OCReader
Altro aggregatore che si connette a NextCloud
Feeder
Aggregatore molto snello ed elegante ma con funzioni basiche
Sparse RSS
spaRSS DecSync
Equipe RSS
FreshRSS
Handy News RSS
NewsBlur
Reader for Selfoss
Another-RSS
Munch
MULTIPIATTAFORMA
Feedly
Aggregatore Freemium su cloud proprietario (i servizi base sono gratuiti e quelli avanzati a pagamento) che già nella versione gratis si presenta molto completo.
QuiteRSS
Altro aggregatore open source molto solido e dotato di diverse funzioni, tra cui browser interno, modulo di ricerca, possibilità di mostrare o nascondere sempre le immagini, adblocker.
CREARE BOT
I più smanettoni possono anche prendere un FEED RSS ed utilizzarlo per creare un BOT, ossia un account social che pubblica automaticamente i contenuti di quel FEED. Su Matrix ad esempio é semplicissimo: ogni utente può creare un BOT utilizzando un Widget fornito dalla piattaforma stessa!.
Logo OPML
ALTRE INFO UTILI SUI FEED RSS
ESISTONO PIU’ VERSIONI DI RSS
L’RSS é uno standard composto da diversi “dialetti” (ben nove!). Questo significa che a volte un sito potrebbe utilizzare un tipo di RSS che il proprio Aggregatore non interpreta bene, ad esempio potrebbe credere che la data ed ora di pubblicazione del post siano il titolo o altri errori simili. In realtà la maggior parte degli Aggregatori riescono a distinguere e gestire questi dialetti ma ogni tanto qualche errore lo si incontra ancora
ATOM
Altra cosa da conoscere é ATOM, che può essere descritto come uno dei “dialetti” dell’RSS che però si é evoluto molto. Anche per quanto riguarda Atom la maggior parte degli Aggregatori sa gestirlo senza problemi.
XML
Nota tecnica: RSS ed ATOM si basano entrambi su un’altro standard chiamato XML. Ecco perché spesso si incontrano FEED il cui indirizzo termina per .xml
OPML
Inserire tanti FEED uno ad uno in un aggregatore può essere un lavoraccio! Ciò comporta che se un bel giorno volessi cambiare aggregatore dovresti rifare tutto daccapo? No: per fortuna sulla maggior parte degli Aggregatori é possibile esportare ed importare diversi feed in un unico file. L’OPML é di fatto il formato standard con cui questa operazione viene svolta. Per questo motivo é sempre bene assicurarsi che l’Aggregatore che si sta adottando sia in grado di gestire questo tipo di files.
IN CONCLUSIONE
Un Aggregatore RSS ben organizzato e con diverse fonti si rivela uno strumento efficacissimo per riuscire a navigare nel flusso oceanico di notizie tagliando fuori tutto ciò che non é necessario, dai fronzoli grafici ai commenti social, permettendo di confrontare rapidamente diverse fonti su una stessa notizia e di approcciarsi ad essa senza aver addosso tutto il “rumore” generato dai social. L’importante é trovare l’aggregatore più adatto a sé e, soprattutto all’inizio, impostarlo con feed diversi provenienti da fonti diverse.
Mastodon continua a crescere. Alle soglie dei 3 milioni e mezzo di utenti si aggiungono continuamente nuove Istanze le quali, connettendosi o meno tra loro, contribuiscono a creare reti sempre più articolate all’interno del Fediverso. Le nuove Istanze (ossia server Mastodon indipendenti, ognuno dei quali con le proprie regole, caratteristiche e policy) sono per forza di cose diversissime tra loro ed hanno esigenze, approcci e idee su “come dovrebbe essere un social” spesso assai distanti tra loro, per non parlare dei temi che trattano. Di questi “nuovi arrivi” su Mastodon, due in particolare hanno fatto discutere molto negli ultimi mesi.
Il secondo, più serio, riguarda invece Gab, sul quale é necessario spendere qualche parola. Gab é un social network per nazifascisti nato negli Stati Uniti nel 2016 e che fin dalla nascita é stato raggiungibile oltre che dal proprio sito web anche da apposite App per iOS ed Android. Data la sua natura, i contenuti che diffonde, il suo utilizzo da parte degli organizzatori di Charlottesville ed altri disgustosi personaggi, Gab é stato fin da subito al centro di diverse polemiche che si son protratte fino al punto che qualche mese fa le sue App sono state rimosse dal Play Store e dall’App Store ed é stato rescisso unilateralmente il contratto che Gab aveva col suo fornitore di hosting (colui che affittava il server che reggeva il social).
Gli amministratori del social neonazista, dunque, lasciati a piedi e banditi da ogni piattaforma, si son trovati in condizione di dover trovare una soluzione alternativa che li rendesse indipendenti dai ban dei provider tecnologici. Ed hanno adottato Mastodon.
GAB E’ORA UN’ISTANZA MASTODON
Questa scelta, dal punto di vista degli amministratori del social neonazista, presenta soprattutto due enormi vantaggi:
1: anziché dover creare, aggiornare ed ottimizzare un proprio software da zero, gli admin di Gab possono avvantaggiarsi del lavoro open source degli sviluppatori e contributors di Mastodon. Questo perché essendo software aperto é liberamente utilizzabile e modificabile da chiunque.
2: invece di dover sviluppare e far approvare delle App specifiche per il proprio social, possono appoggiarsi a diverse altre App per Mastodon già esistenti e presenti negli App Store. App che non vengono bannate perché non specifiche per Gab: bannarle sarebbe come bannare un browser perché ti permette di accedere a siti neonazisti.
Al solito, come abituale strategia dei nazifascisti, il tutto é avvenuto negando la loro natura di nazifascisti e mascherando il loro desiderio di seminare odio e falsità invocando “libertà d’espressione”.
La nuova Istanza Gab é grossa; i suoi amministratori affermano addirittura di avere già oltre un milione di account anche se esiste il forte sospetto che molti di questi possano essere account fasulli creati per far apparire il network molto più grande di quanto effettivamente sia. Ma veri o falsi che siano i suoi account, in ogni caso Gab resta un’Istanza di dimensioni considerevoli.
Va pure ricordato che non si tratta della prima istanza neonazista che ha adottato Mastodon ma di certo é la più grossa, nota ed aggressiva.
GRIDI D’ALLARME
L’arrivo di Gab su Mastodon non poteva che generare scompiglio e curiosità: Mastodon si é caratterizzato fin da subito come uno strumento utile a creare ambienti molto favorevoli alle comunità LGBT, anarchiche e libertarie, per cui l’arrivo di Gab é stato visto soprattutto dal di fuori del Fediverso un po come una sorta di “fine dei giochi” per il progetto Mastodon (il che é un po’una costante: é da quando Mastodon esiste che alcuni commentatori colgono ogni occasione per dire che il progetto “é finito” nonostante in realtà continui a crescere costantemente)
In effetti, sapere che una certa piattaforma social é usata da un gran numero di nazifascisti suona decisamente allarmante e se non sai come funziona una rete federata il primo pensiero che viene a chiunque é star lontano da quel social. Da questo punto di vista la notizia dell’arrivo dei nazisti su ha portato indubbiamente cattiva pubblicità a Mastodon.
C’é però qualcosa che non torna in questo grido d’allarme (e chi già sa come funzionano Mastodon ed il Fediverso lo sa bene): giusto per fare un esempio, chi scrive, pur utilizzando Mastodon su base quotidiana, di Gab ed i suoi contenuti non ha mai visto manco l’ombra.
Per capire come ciò sia possibile é necessario fare un passo indietro.
NON ESISTE -UN- SOCIAL CHIAMATO MASTODON: CI SONO TANTE ISTANZE MASTODON CHE INTERAGISCONO FRA LORO
Qui bisogna ricordare nuovamente un concetto base su come Mastodon é strutturato e funziona:
Ogni Istanza Mastodon é un social network indipendente che funziona indifferentemente dalle altre Istanze: é installato su un proprio server, ha i suoi admin, i suoi utenti e le sue regole e potrebbe benissimo funzionare anche se tutte le altre Istanze del mondo non esistessero.
Dopodiché, ognuna di queste Istanze, se lo vuole, é in grado di dialogare con le altre ma é altrettanto libera di bloccare o limitare i contatti con le Istanze che non gli son gradite.
Per fare un esempio: non ne abbiamo la certezza, ma possiamo scommettere un nichelino che rcsocial.net, un’Istanza Mastodon che si propone come spazio di discussione per utenti cattolici, abbia bloccato le Istanze porno-erotiche citate sopra. Questo vuol dire che gli utenti di rcsocial.net potranno interagire tra loro e magari con utenti di altre Istanze Mastodon ma non entreranno mai in contatto con gli utenti ed i contenuti erotici di sinblr.com o humblr.social.
Il punto é che:
“Mastodon” non é un social network ma una tecnologia condivisa da diversi social autonomi e indipendenti chiamati “Istanze” che possono essere in contatto a vicenda o meno.
Parlare di “Mastodon” come di un’unica entità é assurdo così come descrivere la tecnologia chiamata “email” come se fosse un social network.
DIVERSI LIVELLI DI INTERAZIONE E BLOCCO
Il modo migliore per capire come funziona Mastodon é ragionare sempre partendo dal punto di vista della tua Istanza (quella che hai scelto o che hai creato personalmente). Nel caso più comune tu sei un utente che si é iscritto ad una Istanza di tuo gradimento, le cui policy (regole) sono sostanzialmente in linea con quelle che ti saresti dato tu.
Nei confronti delle altre Istanze con cui c’é un rapporto paritario ed amichevole, la connessione con la tua Istanza é bilaterale: utenti e contenuti delle due Istanze possono interagire liberamente tra loro.
Ci sono però anche delle Istanze che la tua Istanza ritiene inaccettabili, vuoi perché spammano o sono popolate da troll, perché sono Istanze nazistoidi che diffondono contenuti d’odio o contenuti contrari alle policy che la tua Istanza s’é data. In questo caso gli admin della tua Istanza la possono bloccare cosicché nessuno degli utenti della tua Istanza entrerà mai in contatto con utenti e contenuti dell’Istanza inaccettabile.
C’é poi il caso delle Istanze discutibili: quelle i cui contenuti non sono ben visti/tollerati dalla tua Istanza, ma non sono tanto gravi da necessitare di un vero e proprio blocco. In questo caso gli admin possono silenziarle, ossia impostarne l’interazione in modo tale tu utente possa tranquillamente interagire con utenti e contenuti di queste Istanze discutibili, ma tali interazioni non saranno visibili agli altri utenti della tua Istanza. Per intenderci: se rispondi o boosti (“retwitti” / “riposti” / “condividi” ) contenuti di queste Istanze, questi non saranno visibili da tutti i membri della tua Istanza ma solo da quelli che già seguono chi hai boostato.
Con le Istanze amiche c’é interazione bidirezionale pura; le Istanze discutibili possono essere silenziate in modo da non dare visibilità condivisa all’interazione ma senza impedirla; le Istanze discutibili possono essere bloccate in modo tale che per gli utenti della tua Istanza é come se non esistezzero più
Non solo: ogni singolo utente é libero di decidere di bloccare solo per sé singoli utenti o intere Istanze. C’é un’Istanza che gli admin della tua Istanza ritengono amica ma che tu non sopporti? Puoi tranquillamente bloccarla e non vederne mai più alcun contenuto!
L’unica cosa che tu come utente non puoi decidere autonomamente fare é interagire con Istanze che gli admin della tua Istanza hanno bloccato.
OGNI ISTANZA CREA LA PROPRIA RETE CON CHI VUOLE E LASCIA FUORI CHI NON VUOLE.
Il risultato é che se sei utente di un’Istanza come sinblr.com, probabilmente avrai tantissime interazioni con altre Istanze in cui viene pubblicato materiale erotico-pornografico, con le quali interagirai bilateralmente senza problemi, mentre al contrario se sei membro di un’Istanza di ultracattolici tradizionalisti avrai rapporti con diverse altre Istanze ma coi contenuti di sinblr.com non avrai alcun contatto. Ogni Istanza, dunque, crea una propria rete personalizzata lasciando fuori coloro con cui proprio non vuole entrare in contatto.
Questo vuol dire che potrebbe perfettamente esserci una rete Mastodon di Istanze incentrate sul porno che non ha alcun contatto con una seconda rete di Istanze Mastodon di stampo tradizionalista. La logica conseguenza di questo meccanismo é che non esiste necessariamente UNA rete Mastodon:
Possono esistere molte reti Mastodon separate che non hanno alcuna interazione fra loro
Su Bida (mastodon.bida.im) i contenuti erotici-pornografici di per sé non sono vietati a patto che vengano postati con la maschera CW (“Content Warning”: avviso sul contenuto).
Toot con immagine coperta da maschera CW ed il messaggio d’avviso “Materiale sensibile”
In pratica i contenuti sensibili vengono postati con una “maschera” che oscura le immagini in questione e per vederle l’utente deve cliccarci appositamente sopra. Se un utente di Bida postasse ripetutamente contenuti senza maschera CW verrebbe ripreso dalla comunità, dagli admin ed in caso estremo bannato. Se un utente di Bida venisse in contatto con una diversa Istanza Mastodon in cui questo tipo di contenuti vengono postati senza alcuna maschera CW, con una segnalazione agli admin di Bida questa verrebbe bloccata.
Questo é il tipo di approccio che ha Bida con contenuti sensibili ma altre Istanze potrebbero avere approcci assai diversi. Per esempio una certa Istanza potrebbe pretendere il CW su immagini porno ma non su semplici nudi né su disegni erotici, mente un’altra Istanza potrebbe avere come regola quella di bannare pure i quadri rinascimentali che mostrano nudi.
Ecco perché é di fondamentale importanza scegliere la propria Istanza (o Istanze) di riferimento: a seconda che ci si iscriva ad un’Istanza o un’altra ci si può trovare con reti, contatti ed approcci lontanissimi tra loro perché, come ribadito sopra, ogni Istanza é sostanzialmente un social network diverso ed a seconda di quale vien scelto ci si può ritrovare in una rete assai ristretta in cui non c’é alcuna apertura e tolleranza verso posizioni distanti oppure in una rete indifferenziata ed indifferente alla presenza di contenuti odio, troll e spam o invece in una rete che si é ritagliata un mix di apertura e chiusura abbastanza vicina alle proprie esigenze.
Gab not Welcome
TORNIAMO A GAB
Ricapitolato il meccanismo su cui é basato Mastodon é ora facile intuire che peso possa avere Gab sulle altre Istanze/community di Mastodon che non vogliono entrare in contatto con i nazifascisti: quasi zero. Praticamente tutte le Istanze antifasciste hanno fin da subito bloccato Gab così come già avevano bloccato altre Istanze dai contenuti simili. Anche gli admin di Bida (mastodon.bida.im) hanno bloccato Gab nonappena si é saputo del suo arrivo su Mastodon e così facendo, su Bida, i contenuti neonazisti di Gab non si son praticamente mai visti. Inoltre diversi utenti si sono mobilitati per presidiare le proprie Istanze da eventuali utenti provocatori di Gab e segnalare eventuali micro-Istanze create solo per diffondere per vie traverse i contenuti di Gab. Le istanze amiche che condividono principi etici comuni si scambiano informazioni sulle Istanze che diffondono messaggi d’odio o materiali sensibili privi di maschere CW, tenendosi sempre aggiornate sull’ecosistema umano delle proprie reti.
In sostanza le reti Mastodon antifasciste hanno retto benissimo alla presenza di nazisti e provocatori, molto meglio di social commerciali e centralizzati come Facebook o Twitter.
Allarmarsi perché dei nazifascisti hanno creato un server social usando Mastodon non é troppo diverso dall’allarmarsi perché un gruppo di neonazisti ha messo su un server mail, IRC, XMPP, o un sito web utilizzando strumenti open source.
Insomma: di per sé non é possibile impedire che si crei una rete Mastodon nera. La si può magari isolare, mettere in un angolo e complicargli la vita in diversi modi (che adesso vedremo) ma impedirne del tutto l’esistenza é impossibile: se fosse possibile impedire l’esistenza di una rete nera attraverso strumenti tecnici, quegli stessi strumenti potrebbero essere altresì usati per impedire l’esistenza di qualsiasi rete o bloccare l’accesso a diversi contenuti che a programmatori o host non sono graditi.
Non ha senso criminalizzare di per sé l’email, il telefono, la stampa o altri sistemi di comunicazione liberi perché sono tecnicamente utilizzabili anche dai nazifascisti e dunque non ha senso criminalizzare la piattaforma tecnologica Mastodon perché viene utilizzata da questi.
Tuttavia seppur questi strumenti tecnologici non sono colpevolizzabili di per sé é anche vero che, volendo, é pur sempre possibile far in modo che quegli stessi strumenti non siano comodamente usufruibili per certi utilizzi, ma la cosa genera diversi problemi di ordine pratico ed etico.
Logo di Fedilab, client Mastodon al centro di polemiche perché non ha bloccato l’accesso a Gab
LA POSIZIONE DELLE APP
Uno strumento software open source é sostanzialmente un attrezzo che chiunque può utilizzare e modificare a piacimento e questo vale sia per il software di Mastodon che per quello di diverse App per utilizzare Mastodon su smartphone.
(NB: queste App sono chiamate in gergo client, termine che identifica applicazioni il cui scopo é quello di mettere l’utente in contatto con un server sul quale stanno effettivamente i contenuti)
Come già visto, le App per accedere a Gab erano state rimosse da App Store di iOS e Play Store di Android, ma si trattava di App specifiche per quel social e quello solamente. Al contrario le principali App per Mastodon non sono specifiche per una certa Istanza, ma sono utilizzabili per accedere a qualsiasi le Istanze che uno vuole, così come un browser può accedere anche a siti neonazisti ed un client Mail può essere usato per accedere ad un mailserver neofascista.
Questo crea un effetto non voluto: dopo che Apple e Google hanno bannato Gab in quanto bubbone seminatore di odio pestilenziale, proprio le le tecnologie open di Mastodon hanno permesso a a Gab di continuare ad essere alla portata di click su qualsiasi smartphone.
Se criminalizzare Mastodon in quanto strumento non ha senso, più discutibile é la posizione delle App. Non esistono App “ufficiali” di Mastodon per Smartphone, bensì diverse App realizzate da programmatori e software house indipendenti tra cui scegliere.
Qui sorge una domanda: é eticamente corretto che i programmatori di una App (magari open source) atta a connettersi ad una piattaforma social (questa certamente sì open source), possano decidere di impedire all’App di connettersi con certe Istanze? Può un browser impedirti di visitare un certo sito? O un software di mail impedirti di scambiarti le mail con certi indirizzi?
La questione é complessa e sul Fediverso, da diversi mesi si susseguono discussioni su questo argomento.
Le posizioni vanno dal “No: lo strumento deve essere liberamente aperto ed utilizzabile” al “E’ perfettamente legittimo che un programmatore crei software open al cui interno vi siano dei blocchi a contenuti fascisti: proprio perché é uno strumento open, se i fascisti vogliono utilizzarlo sono liberi di crearsi il proprio fork(*)”
(*) il fork é la versione modificata di un software.
Quest’ultima posizione é quella che all’atto pratico meglio potrebbe rispondere all’esigenza di isolare contenuti velenosi (o perlomeno renderne un po’ più complicata la diffusione) ma al tempo stesso potrebbe fungere da pericoloso precedente (in base alla stessa logica potrebbe essere realizzato un browser che non accede a siti il cui contenuto non é gradito ai programmatori).
Il fatto é che blocchi di questo tipo già esistono per quanto riguarda contenuti tecnici nocivi: un browser può avere dei filtri che gli impediscono d’accedere a siti che contengono codice malevolo (o perlomeno mostrano una serie di avvisi molto espliciti). Può aver senso applicare questa stessa logica a contenuti tossici?
Il punto é che la logica del blocco (o avviso di sicurezza) può essere applicata solo (1) riconoscendo l’eccezionalità dei contenuti fascisti nel loro non essere “opinione” ma totale negazione del dialogo e con i quali, dunque, non é possibile avere alcuna interazione sana; (2) esponendo con chiarezza le caratteristiche che definiscono i contenuti di questo tipo.
Il contenuto d’odio, insomma, potrebbe essere trattato come un contenuto criminale tout court (ad esempio come i siti per pedofili) o un malware (come per i siti affetti da virus e codice malevolo), magari con filtri a più livelli (finestre d’avviso per i casi discutibili e via via fino al blocco per i casi più gravi)?
In ogni caso va ribadito che l’idea di poter impedire la diffusione di messaggi d’odio solamente grazie a soluzioni software é pura illusione. Tuttalpiù questi possono servire per impedire a tali contenuti di esser diffusi con troppa semplicità.
QUINDI?
Se la gestione di contenuti da parte delle Istanze é intrinsecamente risolta dalla stessa struttura di Mastodon, la questione dei client genera ancora moltissima discussione esponendo approcci legittimi ma spesso contrastanti e che non verranno certo districate da questo post. Quel che però é certo é che su Mastodon, se non vuoi incontrare i nazisti, non ne incontrerai (giusto qualcuno magari, ma a malapena per il tempo necessario a bloccarlo e con lui l’intera Istanza che gli ha permesso di pubblicare i suoi contenuti tossici
Hai dei file a cui vuoi poter accedere facilmente da qualsiasi device? Li puoi caricare su NextCloud! Devi scrivere un testo assieme ad un’altra persona che vive lontano? C’é Etherpad! Vuoi inviare un file in modo riservato? Puoi usare Lufi! Ti serve una mappa online? Ma c’é OpenStreetMap! Vuoi condividere uno status ma solo con alcuni amici intimi? Puoi farlo con Friendica! Devi cercare qualcosa sul web? C’é SearX!
Insomma: chi te lo fa fare di usare servizi centralizzati il cui solo scopo é carpire informazioni su di te, se ci sono provider online che mettono a disposizione i migliori software open source?
SIAM PASSATI DALL’ESSER PERSONE CHE UTILIZZANO STRUMENTI AD ESSER CLIENTI DI SERVIZI CHE CI USANO
La maggior parte degli utenti possiede dei device (smartphone, tablet, computer fisso o portatile…) ma non ha in casa un proprio server personale con cui gestisce ed archivia i propri contenuti. Questo perché esistono dei fornitori commerciali di servizi online (provider come Google, Apple o Facebook) che mettono comodamente e spesso “gratuitamente” a disposizione tutta quella serie di servizi che altrimenti bisognerebbe installare/impostare/aggiornare/riparare da sé. Affidarsi a provider esterni, dunque, a primo acchito risulta comodo perché libera dall’onere di imparare a gestire gli strumenti su cui si regge la propria vita digitale.
E’soprattutto nella seconda metà degli anni 2000 che si affermano i principali provider di servizi online. É in quel momento che si sviluppano aziende e strumenti come Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google Docs, iCloud, Twitter, Whatsapp, YouTube ecc. Nel giro di pochi anni però, tramite acquisizioni e battaglie commerciali, la situazione che si é venuta a creare é che i principali servizi online sono proprietà di soli cinque colossi americani: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft.
Cinque aziende commerciali che hanno nelle proprie mani la vita digitale di ogni individuo del pianeta, alcune delle quali sono state fondate con l’esplicito scopo di raccogliere, analizzare e vendere tutte le informazioni che possono sui propri utenti.
Non tutti ci han fatto caso, ma mentre questi provider nascevano e si facevano ogni giorno più forti é avvenuto nelle nostre vite un importantissimo doppio cambio di paradigma. Il tutto é avvenuto in maniera esplicita, alla luce del sole e nient’affatto misteriosa, solo che é avvenuto tanto in fretta e con un tale hype nei confronti della “tecnologia del futuro” che la maggior parte delle persone non se n’é curata: 1) si é passati dallo “strumento come strumento” allo “strumento come servizio” ed alla 2) cessione volontaria dei propri dati sensibili in cambio dell’utilizzo di tali servizi.
Il concetto, insomma, é che si é passati dal “possiedo carta e penna su cui scrivo quel che mi pare e poi se voglio lo tengo chiuso in un cassetto oppure lo consegno a chi mi pare ma sempre senza dover render conto a nessuno della mia scelta” al “Posso usare la fantastica penna di lusso e la fantastica carta della ditta X per scrivere tutto quel che mi pare, alla sola condizione che la ditta X leggerà tutto ciò che scrivo e ne farà quel che vorrà”.
Tu, utente, non “hai” Whatsapp. Quando dici che “hai Whatsapp” stai dicendo una stronzata.
Non hai idea di quali informazioni su di te il software di Whatsapp trasmette ai server di Facebook(i millisecondi che sei stato fermo su una foto? se ne hai allargato un dettaglio? se l’hai salvata? se hai salvato una schermata con quella porzione di chat? quanti errori grammaticali fai? in quali ore dormi? quali sono le persone di cui cancelli le chat?).
Non sai in che modo questi dati vengono interpretati (il numero di emoji usati in relazione alle volte in cui usi certe parole? quali sono le parole che usi solo con certe persone? i tuoi riferimenti culturali più comuni in relazione con la mappa dei tuoi spostamenti? le opinioni che hanno su di te i tuoi “amici” e che si scambiano nei messaggi privati?).
Non sai in che modo Whatsapp ti profila (ha intuito che forse tra te e una certa persona c’é una tresca in base all’analisi dei vostri tracciati GPS ed ai messaggi fasulli che avete inviato? ha dedotto le tue debolezze emotive utilizzabili come grimaldello propagandistico da una forza politica che avversi per confonderti le idee?)
L’ultimo punto probabilmente é il più importante. Si sa, che spesso il problema non é in chi trasmette informazioni (tu), ma in chi le legge (Facebook). Se Facebook interpretasse dalla tua attività online che sei potenzialmente una minaccia per il governo in carica e questa informazione fosse venduta proprio a qualcuno che lavora per il governo in carica beh, a seconda della natura di tale governo potresti passare decisamente dei brutti momenti.
LA SOLUZIONE IDEALE É AVERE IL PROPRIO SERVER A CASA
Possiamo girarci attorno finché si vuole, ma la verità é che l’unico software su cui puoi avere la massima fiducia é software FLOSS installato da te su un tuo device di proprietà, a cui solo tu hai accesso.
Idealmente, dunque, un web veramente libero dovrebbe essere composto da innumerevoli device e server personali su cui sono installati gli strumenti software che ognuno preferisce e per far sì che questo non porti ad una eccessiva frammentazione delle piattaforme, idealmente e pur mantenendo la propria indipendenza, queste dovrebbero comunque possedere un certo grado di interoperabilità (ad essempio costituendo una rete federata). Si tratta di uno scenario tecnicamente realistico, molto vicino a quello delle prime reti BBS all’alba di Internet e che qualcuno sta effettivamente cercando di far prender nuovamente piede. Gli strumenti ci sono e funzionano già a dovere. Quel che gli manca é solamente un’adozione massiccia.
Certo é pur vero che l’idea di fare self-hosting (ossia il possedere un proprio server personalizzato) può spaventare molte persone, nonostante gli strumenti per realizzarlo siano sempre più alla portata di chiunque (come ad esempio YuNoHost un sistema operativo pensato proprio per server casalinghi gestiti da un utente inesperto, già predisposto per ospitare un’Istanza Nextcloud, Matrix, Mastodon, XMPP, WordPress, SearX, Tiny Tiny RSS, Wallabag e praticamente tutto quel che riguarda la vita digitale di ognuno).
Capiamoci: siamo nel 2019; i computer esistono ormai da eoni, ma anche a voler restare stretti e concentrarci solo sul periodo in cui questi sono entrati in massa nelle case, stiam parlando comunque di 25-30 annima la conoscenza media di questi strumenti é perlopiù limitata all’utilizzo più superficiale. La situazione può essere paragonata allo scenario in cui milioni di automobilisti che, pur sapendo guidare, ignorassero totalmente cosa siano il motore, le pastiglie dei freni o la batteria, ma si accontentassero di sapere che girare il volante a sinistra fa girare a sinistra anche le ruote, credendo così di sapere come funziona un’automobile.
Il fatto é che, come già detto, siamo nel 2019: non si pretende certo che tutti diventino dei provetti meccanici-hacker, ma almeno che si diffonda una conoscenza generale giusto un minimo più accorta. Insomma: basterebbe che si sapesse che sotto il cofano c’é una cosa chiamata motore e più o meno in base a quali princìpi funziona.
La cosa ancor più drammatica é che le conoscenze base per potersi muovere in campo informatico (una spolverata di teoria, imparare ad installare un sistema operativo, compiere operazioni di maintenance, usare motori di ricerca come si deve ed alcuni concetto-base di sicurezza informatica) possono essere apprese con un corso di sette giorni, meno che per la patente, ma nonostante l’utilizzo dei device informatici sia una costante su base quotidiana per milioni di persone, ancora troppo poche hanno “fatto il corso di sette giorni”.
STRUMENTI FLOSS
Come già esposto in altri articoli, esistono da anni diversi strumenti FLOSS (ossia software aperto, gratuito e liberamente utilizzabile) che non hanno nulla da invidiare ai loro corrispettivi commerciali. Anzi, in molti casi gli strumenti FLOSS sono pure tecnicamente più avanzati delle loro controparti, tanto che moltissimo software che utilizziamo quotidianamente (come Chrome o Whatsapp) non é che una versione modificata di software FLOSS. L’unica pecca del software FLOSS, semmai, deriva dal fatto che essendo utilizzao da meno utenti, spesso ha una quantità minore di contenuti: la quantità di roba che vien pubblicata sui social open durante una giornata equivale forse a quella che su Facebook vien pubblicato in un minuto. Di conseguenza vi é anche minor spinta a venir incontro agli interessi di un pubblico che si trova altrove. Si tratta della classica situazione del gatto che cerca di mordersi la coda: gli utenti non adottano un sistema se non ci son gran quantità di contenuti, ma non possono esserci gran quantità di contenuti se non ci sono utenti.
Per dirla in altro modo, tornando alla metafora automobilistica: finché tutti continueranno a voler usare ruote di legno, quel tizio strano che ha avuto l’idea di fare ruote di gomma resterà confinato nella sua bottega a fare le ruote di gomma una-ad-una per i suoi clienti affezionati, ma non riuscirà mai a metter su una fabbrica per produrle in serie. Questo a meno che non ci sia una forte spinta ad adottare in massa tali ruote di gomma, ma si tratta di una spinta che non verrà mai dalle grandi aziende produttrici di ruote di legno.
Una selezione di strumenti e piattaforme commerciali libere e la loro controparte commerciale
SERVIZI VISIBILI vs. VANTAGGI INVISIBILI
Una delle difficoltà maggiori riguardanti il software FLOSS é il riuscir a far capire il loro valore ad una popolazione che, come già detto, ha giusto delle vaghe conoscenze informatiche. Spiegare i vantaggi degli strumenti FLOSS a chi é privo di ogni base informatica spesso suona difficile come cercar di spiegare com’é possibile che gli aerei si librino nell’aria ad una popolazione vive nel terrore che la Luna caschi dal cielo.
Per esempio: quando si parla di privacy e protezione dei dati personali sul web, solitamente l’immagine che viene evocata dall’utente comune é quella del tizio parte-hacker-parte-007-parte-esattore-di-Equitalia che traffica sul web per carpire informazioni piccanti o spiacevoli sulla tua persona, ossia uno scenario da film complottista che, pur non essendo impossibile, nella maggior parte dei casi risulta alquanto improbabile: a chi mai interessa cosa faccia nella vita privata il signor Gino del quinto piano? Certo però che quelle stesse informazioni diventano estremamente interessanti se acquisibili in massa assieme a quelle di milioni di altre persone…
In realtà ciò che avviene nella maggior parte dei casi é che le informazioni dettagliatissime che hai fornito su di te vengono utilizzate all’interno dei cosiddetti big data per impostare argomentazioni politiche, saggiare il terreno su certi argomenti senza tener conto dello scarto fra vita reale e vita sul web e soprattutto, per modificare il discorso pubblico prevalente su determinate questioni.
Il tuo profilo, il tuo singolo profilo utente, di per sé ha scarso valore (a meno che tu non sia un VIP o un noto criminale). Ma se il tuo profilo fa parte di un bouquet di milioni di profili allora la cosa cambia!
Quel che avviene é che i committenti hanno modo di influenzare quali e quante informazioni riceverai, facendo sì che sui social certe notizie appaiano nella tua Timeline ma non in quella del tuo vicino o che ti venga suggerito si seguire certi contatti e non altri. Le informazioni che hai fornito su di te sono uno strumento impagabile affinché queste modifiche riescano ad essere cucite proprio apposta per te.
Non é un caso se milioni di persone vengono portate a credere a cose del tutto false o a consolidare idee che, se non ci fosse controllo sui contenuti che ricevono, non sarebbero difese con tanta irrazionalità. Chi manipola quel ti vien detto, non fa altro che indirizzare il tuo modo di pensare.
In poche parole, scegliere di utilizzare le grosse piattaforme centralizzate del data-mining (letteralmente “estrazione dati”, ossia ciò che fanno Facebook, Google ecc) equivale a buttarsi nel mare in cui viene effettuata la più imponente e specialistica pesca a strascico del mondo: una pesca a strascico smart che se da un lato coinvolge tutti i pesci nel mare, nessuno escluso, dall’altro non uccide i pesci, ma li lascia in acqua, studiandoli tanto a fondo da capire come fare a far sì che ogni singolo pesce poi nuoti nella direzione che il pescatore desidera.
In sostanza più informazioni personali forniamo alle grandi compagnie di data mining e più aiutiamo chi manipola le informazioni sui media mainstream; più aiutiamo chi vuole seminare odio in maniera mirata; più aiutiamo le società di marketing a renderci dipendenti dai loro prodotti. Un esempio su tutti? In Italia, da anni, il numero di crimini violenti é in calo costante. Non é una novità: ogni anno i quotidiani pubblicano i nuovi dati e da anni, appunto, si annuncia che sono calati rispetto all’anno prima. Eppure la percezione diffusa é che invece siano in aumento. Stessa cosa per il numero di stranieri residenti in Italia: oltre il 73% degli italiani ne sovrastima il numero. Certo, la percezione pubblica non viene modificata dai soli social, anche i media hanno un ruolo fondamentale in questo, ma é innegabile che oggi il grosso di questo lavoro avvenga proprio sui social.
I recenti scandali legati a Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, la Brexit,il Russiagate ed i sospetti di intervento esterno sui social durante diverse campagne elettorali non sono che l’aspetto più macroscopico e noto dell’intreccio fra big data, politica e manipolazione dell’opinione pubblica.
Ecco, tutto questo fa parte di ciò che l’utente medio fa fatica a vedere e tra un’app per mandare immagini di gattini con musichette carine ed un’app che fa lo stesso ma meno pubblicizzata e usata da meno utenti, sceglierà la prima, anche se la seconda ha caratteristiche migliori ed é più adatta a proteggerne le informazioni personali.
Socialità quantitativa e strumenti che necessitano apprendimento raso-zero sono, purtroppo, i fattori determinanti per la scelta delle piattaforme da utilizzare. Restando all’esempio automobilistico, é come dire che il mondo preferisce le auto senza specchietti, frecce, cinture di sicurezza ed altri dispositivi di protezione “perché é roba da nerd maniaci” e si é adattato a ritenere che beh, é normale che ogni automobilisca faccia qualche incidente e perda qualche arto.
PROVIDER OPEN SOURCE
Se proprio non si ha modo o voglia di self-hostare i propri strumenti software, un buon compromesso fra self-hosting ed il ricorso ai provider di servizi commerciali come Facebook o Google é quello di rivolgersi a dei provider online di software open source. In pratica, se Google mette a disposizione i suoi strumenti (Google Calendari, Contatti, Drive, Mail, Ricerca, Documenti, Fogli, Presentazioni, ecc…) ed anche Apple fa altrettanto con i propri (iCloud, Contatti, Pages, Numbers, ecc…), così come fa Facebook (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp) e tutti quei provider che mettono a disposizione il proprio unico strumento (L’azienda Evernote mette a disposizione lo strumento Evernote, l’azienda Twitter mette a disposizione lo strumento Twitter ecc.) esistono anche diversi provider che invece mettono a disposizione applicazioni FLOSS che, se l’utente volesse, potrebbe tranquillamente scaricarsi e installare su un tuo server personale, essendo tutto software aperto e liberamente scaricabile (quindi, chiunque abbia le necessarie competenze tecniche, può verificare cosa fa davvero il software “sotto il cofano” e come).
La comodità di questa soluzione é indubbia: hai un server sempre attivo accessibile 24/24 che viene mantenuto efficiente, aggiornato e riparato da qualcun’altro cosicché tu possa accedervi senza problemi.
L’idea alla base dei provider di applicazioni FLOSS é che anziché esserci solo 4 o 5 colossali provider cui si rivolgono tutti, possano invece esserci centinaia, migliaia, milioni di server che offrono una vastità di strumenti che però siano compatibili tra loro o addirittura federati.
Una piccola digressione: Framasoft é un provider che fornisce una propria Istanza Mastodon, mentre Bida é un altro provider che fa altrettanto. Pur essendo due provider distinti (sotto un certo punto di vista é come dire Apple e Facebook) entrambi mettono a disposizione lo stesso strumento, Mastodon, che ha la peculiarità di essere federato. Ciò significa che gli utenti che usano l’Istanza Mastodon di Framasoft e quelli che usano l’Istanza Mastodon di Bida potranno interagire fra loro come se fossero su un’unica grande chat. Volendo fare un paragone, sia iChat che Whatsapp, i software di chat di Apple e Facebook, sono stati entrambisviluppati in base ad XMPP, che é software FLOSS. Questo vuol dire che tecnicamente sarebbe semplicissimo far dialogare tra loro Whatsapp ed iMessage, ma ciò non avviene puramente a causa di bagarre commerciali.
A questo punto però sorge spontanea una domanda: perché non fidarsi di Facebook e Google ma fidarsi di un provider open source? Si tratta pur sempre di dover riporre fiducia in qualcuno che (presumibilmente) non si conosce ed a cui si affidano i propri dati personali. L’osservazione é in effetti corretta e l’unica risposta sensata é che così come non ci si può fidare dell’uno non ci si dovrebbe fidare nemmeno dell’altro.
Ma ci sono dei “ma”.
Innanzitutto i maggiori provider di servizi commerciali come Facebook e Google sono ESPLICITAMENTE basati sulla lettura, analisi e compravendita dei contenuti che noi forniamo. Da cosa guadagnano Facebook e Google? Qualcosina sì dalla pubblicità, ma il grosso dei guadagni, quello che ha rende Mark Zuckerberg uno degli uomini più ricchi del mondo, é la vendita delle informazioni degli utenti.
ETICA DICHIARATA: Dall’altra, la maggior parte dei provider open source é realizzata e mantenuta da persone, comunità e collettivi che esplicitamente combattono l’utilizzo a fini commerciali delle informazioni degli utenti. Ci si può fidare o meno, ma rivolgersi ai big equivale alla certezza che la vendita dei propri dati avvenga.
SOFTWARE NON TRACCIANTE: Il software utilizzato é caratterizzato dal fatto di chiedere solo i dati strettamente necessari per funzionare (talvolta non chiedono proprio nulla) in modo da ridurre al minimo le possibilità di profilazione dell’utente. Certo, un provider potrebbe aver modificato il software sul suo server senza dichiararlo, ma come vedremo nei prossimi punti, potrebbe essere un’opzione poco interessante per il provider stesso.
FRAMMENTAZIONE INTERNA: I vari servizi offerti dai provider di software open source sono spesso scollegati fra loro. Questo significa che di solito non c’é un’unico nome utente e password per tutti i servizi. In questo modo se anche usassi in contemporanea l’Istanza Mastodon ed i fogli di calcolo dello stesso provider, lui potrebbe credere che ciò venga fatto da due utenti diversi.
FRAMMENTAZIONE PERSONALE: Nulla t’impedisce di rivolgerti a più provider contemporaneamente, frammentando le tue informazioni personali un pò qua ed un po là. Se due o più profider forniscono gli stessi software (per esempio NextCloud), usare l’uno o l’altro non comporterà alcuna difficoltà di apprendimento. Ad esempio puoi usare l’Istanza Mastodon del provider A, il server Matrix del provider B e gli strumenti office del provider C e gestirli come se fossero di tre utenti differenti, in modo che nessuno di questi abbia la totalità delle informazioni sul tuo conto.
FRAMMENTAZIONE GLOBALE: Se le informazioni di tutti stanno su Facebook e Google, é sufficiente acquistare informazioni da quei due provider per avere un database su milioni di persone. Se invece questi milioni di utenti fossero sparpagliati su migliaia di server interconnessi da poche migliaia di utenti l’uno, chi volesse farsi un database altrettanto massiccio dovrebbe contattare (o hackerare) uno-ad-uno migliaia di server. Lo sforzo sarebbe di per sé immane. Se poi si considera che, come visto, le informazioni che si troverebbero in mano sarebbero molto meno dettagliate ed interessanti di quelle fornite da Facebook, é chiaro che i server di servizi FLOSS risultano strutturalmente poco utili per chi vuol commerciare informazioni personali.
CHE STRUMENTI VENGONO MESSI A DISPOSIZIONE?
Gli strumenti messi a disposizione dai provider sono un’infinità e spaziano dagli strumenti per ufficio (scrittura collaborativa, fogli di calcolo, mappe mentali), web hosting (tipo Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive ecc.), social, chat personali, strumenti per programmatori… Per farla breve: pensa ad un servizio online che usi comunemente ed e sappi che ne esiste anche la versione libera e aperta, fatta eccezione giusto per i fornitori di media mainstream coperti da copyright come Spotify o Netflix e iTunes, ecco, ma se pensi a Evernote, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, Gmail, Whatsapp, le ricerche su Google, iWork e tutti quegli strumenti che usi quotidianamente online beh, ognuno di questi ha la sua controparte libera!
Alcuni di questi strumenti sono parzialmente sovrapponibili; un esempio é l’applicazione Turtl che é sia un gestore appunti (Notebook) che uno strumento per archiviare link interessanti (Bookmark manager) che fa dunque un pò quello che fa Evernote ed un pò quello che fa Pocket. Questo per dire che in alcuni casi la definizione usata per classificare questi strumenti può essere poco esaustiva.
Altra cosa interessare é che uno stesso provider può mettere a disposizione più strumenti che fanno la stessa cosa (ad esempio due diversi tipi di calendario o di strumenti di scrittura). La cosa può confondere un attimo chi non é abituato a dover scegliere tra opzioni diverse con uno stesso provider, ma va tutta a favore della personalizzazione (ti trovi scomodo ad usare EtherPad? Nessun problema: abbiamo anche PadLand!)
Certi strumenti software sono molto popolari e vengono messi a disposizione da diversi provider (per esempio, chi offre un servizio di data hosting nel 99% dei casi utilizza NextCloud), che però ne personalizzano un pò l’estetica, a volte alcune funzioni e spesso anche il nome (per esempio, il server Nextcloud messo a disposizione da Framapiaf viene chiamato “Framadrive”). Altri invece, sono più rari.
ELENCO PROVIDER OPEN SOURCE
Questo post non é incentrato sulle funzionalità dei singoli strumenti software e qui si vuol solo elencare una serie di provider di strumenti FLOSS che, volendo, un utente potrebbe anche installarsi su un proprio server. Pertanto l’elenco non comprende siti che mettono a disposizione un unico strumento software (tipo mastodon.social che mette a disposizione solamente la propria Istanza Mastodon) e/o strumenti software non hostabili privatamente (tipo DuckDuckgo)
A/I é il principale riferimento italiano per quanto riguarda collettivi antagonisti e anticapitalisti impegnati per i diritti digitali. Offre tutta una serie di strumenti con un fortissimo occhio di riguardo a sicurezza e protezione dati.
Disroot é un’organizzazione di hacktivisti di impronta libertaria impegnata a far conoscere le tecnologie aperte ed a diffondere una maggior cultura della privacy informatica.
Framasoft é un’importante associazione francese il cui scopo é quello di diffondere l’uso di tecnologia FLOSS. Framasoft organizza incontri, corsi ed un gran numero di attività diverse. In particolare sta portando avanti il progetto di de-googleizzare il web, facendo conoscere tutti gli strumenti già esistenti ed utilizzabili anche senza dover per forza rivolgersi alle big company dell’informatica. Gli strumenti che offre Framasoft sono davvero tantissimi e non sarà possibile elencarli tutti, ma ci si prova. Una caratteristica particolare é che Framasoft ribattezza gran parte degli strumenti offerti “Frama(qualcosa)”. Il sito é in francese ma gran parte é tradotto in inglese e sempre più pagine sono tradotte anche in italiano.
Librem é il marchio dei prodotti e servizi open dell’azienda Purism. Purism produce computer desktop e smartphone di alta fascia che promettono una alta attenzione al rispetto della privacy e della sicurezza informatica. I servizi della linea Librem derivano da strumenti FLOSS che però vengono fortemente personalizzati e rinominati “Librem(qualcosa)”; per esempio, il server Mastodon offerto da Framasoft si chiama FramaPiaf.
Nixnet é creato e gestito apparentemente da una sola persona, Amolith, che mette a disposizione gli stessi strumenti che lui utilizza. Molto servizi sono utilizzabili anche attraverso TOR e c’é forte attenzione su sicurezza e criptatura dei messaggi.
RiseUp é un collettivo di Seattle ma con membri sparsi in tutto il mondo. É attivo dal 1999 e si adopera per una società libera ed una lete altrettanto libera.
Tu scrivi “A che ora ci vediamo?” su Riot. Il messaggio arriva su Telegram, dove l’altra persona scrive “Facciamo per le cinque?” e la risposta la leggi tranquillamente stando sempre su Riot. Non male, vero? Ed é ancora più interessante sapendo che potenzialmente si può far la stessa cosa con TUTTE le piattaforme di chat esistenti: Whatsapp, Skype, Mastodon, iMessage…
Ma intanto limitiamoci a Telegram e vediamo una guida passo-passo su come far interagire Matrix e Telegram in pochi, semplici passaggi.
In una serie di articoli precedenti abbiamo già illustrato:
L’ultimo post, quello sui sui bridge, é una panoramica che illustra una caratteristica interessantissima di Matrix, ovvero la sua capacità di connettere e far dialogare piattaforme di comunicazione diverse. In pratica con Matrix é possibile creare una stanza (un gruppo di discussione in chat) in cui far interagire utenti che usano Matrix con utenti che usano Whatsapp, utenti che usano Telegram, utenti che usano iMessage, IRC, XMPP, Slack, Discord, Facebook o quant’altro, tutti nella stessa chat. Per fare questo Matrix utilizza dei “programmi aggiuntivi” chiamati appunto bridge.
In sostanza: Matrix é il sistema base, i bridge sono dei componenti aggiuntivi ognuno dei quali permette a Matrix di interagire con una piattaforma di comunicazione diversa (ci sono bridge per Whatsapp, Mastodon, Telegram, ecc.).
In realtà questi bridge sono ancora in via di sviluppo e non sono del tutto pronti per un uso da parte dall’utente comune. In particolare, attualmente, uno dei più grossi scogli é che nella maggioranza dei casi i bridge vanno installati su un proprio server Matrix personale e quindi se non si possiede un server proprio non si ha modo di adoperarli.
Alcuni però si possono già utilizzare.
La maggior parte dei server Matrix di solito offre già alcuni bridge: quello per Slack, (un social molto utilizzato fuori dall’Italia, perlopiù in ambito lavorativo)Discord(social utilizzato soprattutto tra i gamers) e per alcuni dei principali server IRC(sistema di comunicazione nato nel 1988 ed ancora utilizzatissimo soprattutto tra programmatori e hacker).
Ma esiste anche t2bot.io, un server che offre alcuni strumenti aggiuntivi per Matrix tra cui, soprattutto, un bridge Telegram.
Questo bridge Telegram é una versione semplificata del bridge Mautrix, che non é l’unico bridge per Telegram ma é quello attualmente più utilizzato (ricordiamo ancora che i bridge sono ancora in via di sviluppo, per cui é normale che possano esistere più bridge che fanno le stesse cose).
Poiché t2bot.io offre una versione semplificata del bridge, alcune sue funzioni, come vedremo, sono limitate ma per la parte che ci interessa fa il suo dovere!
Le istruzioni su come usare il bridge erano già state illustrate nel precedente post sul bridging ma qui vogliamo andare un po più in dettaglio con una vera e propria guida passo-passo.
ISTRUZIONI PASSO-PASSO
L’idea é quella di creare un gruppo Telegram ed una stanza Matrix e metterli in comunicazione fra loro. La procedura che segue può essere effettuata anche con gruppi/stanze già esistenti (il gruppo Telegram “Passeggiate in campagna” e la stanza Matrix “Fotografia all’aria aperta” possono così diventare un’unica grande chat anche se poi, dargli lo stesso nome, sicuramente aiuterebbe a rendere il tutto più chiaro). L’operazione che stiamo facendo in inglese si chiama bridging e la connessione che si stabilisce tra le due piattaforme é chiamata portal.
SU TELEGRAM
1) Dalla schermata principale premiamo l’icona in alto a destra per creare una nuova conversazione
2) Selezioniamo New Group (nuovo gruppo)
3) Invitiamo nel gruppo l’utente @matrix_t2bot Si tratta di un bot (un programma che agisce come fosse un utente Telegram) che si occuperà di tutte le operazioni di bridging. Una volta che Telegram l’ha trovato, selezioniamolo.
4) Proseguiamo cliccando su Next (Potremo aggiungere i nostri contatti in seguito)
5) Diamo un nome al gruppo e confermiamo premendo Create
6) A questo punto il gruppo Telegram é creato e tra i suoi membri c’é il bot @matrix_t2bot!
7)Scriviamo /id nella chat e premiamo invio. Si tratta di un comando per il bot in cui gli chiediamo qual’é il codice ID (identificativo) di questo gruppo.
8) Dopo qualche secondo (a volte può volerci mezzo minuto!) il bot ci risponderà dicendo il codice ID di questo gruppo. Si tratta di un numero di nove cifre preceduto dal segno meno (“-“). Segnamoci il codice ID da qualche parte.
SU RIOT
1) Dalla schermata principale, premiamo il tasto “+” per creare una nuova conversazione
2) Selezioniamo Create room (“Crea stanza”)
3) A questo punto abbiamo creato una stanza ancora priva di utenti e di un nome. Premiamo sul tasto “>” per impostarla.
4) Selezioniamo Settings
5) Diamo un nome alla stanza (per semplicità usiamo lo stesso nome dato alla stanza Telegram) e confermiamo premendo Done
6) Premiamo nuovamente il tasto “>” per tornare nei dettagli della stanza
7) E poi premiamo il tasto col logo di “invita utenti”
8) Invitiamo nella stanza l’utente @telegram:t2bot.ioSi tratta del bot gemello di quello invitato nel gruppo Telegram. I due bot lavoreranno in tandem per connettere le due piattaforme: sono loro che si occuperanno di trasmettere i messaggi da una piattaforma all’altra! Una volta che Matrix l’ha trovato, invitiamolo nella stanza premendo il tasto “+”
9) Matrix ci chiede una conferma. Premiamo Invite
10) Ora che il bot é stato aggiunto alla stanza possiamo tornare alla chat vera e propria premendo il tasto “<“
11) Scriviamo nella chat il comando !tg bridge seguito dal codice ID del gruppo Telegram (il numero di nove cifre preceduto dal segno meno “-” che ci eravamo segnati!) e premiamo Send. Per esempio: [ !tg bridge -123456789 ] Questo é il comando più importante: quello che dice al bot di creare il bridge.
12) A questo punto il bot ci informa che in questa stanza non esiste ancora alcun portale con il gruppo Telegram indicato e ci chiede di dare un comando per attivarlo.
13) Scriviamo nella chat il comando !tg continue e premiamo Send
14) Dopo qualche secondo il bot ci informa che il bridging é completo e che la sincronizzazione delle chat comincerà a momenti. Ancora qualche secondo (può volerci un minuto) ed appaiono le notifiche di iscrizione: il bot ha aggiunto alla stanza Matrix gli utenti del gruppo Telegram!
15) FATTA!
TELEGRAM & MATRIX
A questo punto tutto ciò che vien scritto nel gruppo Telegram appare nella stanza Matrix e viceversa. La consegna dei messaggi può forse impiegare qualche secondo ma funziona a dovere. Possiamo quindi fare alcune osservazioni:
IL BOT SU TELEGRAM E’ -TUTTI GLI UTENTI MATRIX-
Telegram vuole avere solo utenti registrati con numero di telefono ma gli utenti Matrix non sono registrati su Telegram. Quel che succede é che Telegram non vede i singoli utenti Matrix ma solo il bot @matrix_t2bot.io. In pratica, se in una stanza/gruppo ci fossero quattrocento utenti Matrix e cinque utenti Telegram, guardando l’elenco utenti su Telegram ne vedremmo solo sei: i cinque utenti Telegram più il bot, che fa da portavoce per tutti gli utenti Matrix.
Su Telegram dunque non vedremo gli utenti Matrix chiamati Giulia, Filippo, Roberta. Al posto loro vedremo solo l’utente “Matrix Telegram Bridge” che in pratica posta messaggi del tipo “Giulia ha detto…”, “Filippo ha detto…”.
Difatti quando il bot pubblica un messaggio, prima del testo c’é il nome dell’utente Matrix che l’ha scritto.
Al contrario, Matrix non ha problemi sulle registrazioni e quindi crea per ogni utente Telegram un utente “gemello” su Matrix. Restando all’esempio appena fatto, guardando l’elenco utenti su Matrix ne vedremmo tutti e 407: i quattrocento utenti Matrix, i cinque utenti Telegram ed i due bot. Su Matrix, insomma, la gestione degli utenti é decisamente più “pulita”.
CHAT NON SICURA
la comunicazione tramite bridge, al momento, non permette la crittografia del testo inviato e ricevuto e pertanto i messaggi vengono trasmessi in chiaro.
STICKER ED EFFETTI SPECIALI
Telegram può inviare sticker a Matrix ma questi non sono visualizzabili dalla versione per smartphone di Riot (nella versione desktop invece si vedono). Al contrario, Riot non può proprio mandare sticker verso Telegram.
LOGIN
La procedura che abbiamo eseguito passo-passo ha permesso di creare un portale tra una stanza Matrix ed un gruppo Telegram. Tuttavia il bridge utilizzato, Mautrix, permetterebbe anche di sincronizzare un singolo account Matrix con un singoloaccount Telegram. Questo significa che se un utente Matrix avesse anche un vero e proprio account Telegram (ossia registrato con numero di telefono), grazie al bot tutto ciò che scrivesse su Matrix col suo account Matrix, apparirebbe su Telegram come scritto dal suo account Telegram. In sostanza gli utenti Telegram potrebbero interagire con lui senza mai sapere che in realtà sta scrivendo da Matrix. In realtà questa funzione é solo parzialmente disponibile nella versione del bridge Mautrix presente su t2bot.io (che, come detto, é una versione semplificata). La procedura di login é possibile ed ha alcuni vantaggi (una volta fatto il login, se si crea un nuovo gruppo su Telegram, il bot ne crea in automatico il gruppo gemello su Matrix; i gruppi a cui ci si unisce su Telegram, appaiono immediatamente anche su Matrix) ma al momento non ci pare funzionare benissimo e quindi lo tratteremo in un post successivo.
NOTIFICHE DI LETTURA
Il bridge non trasmette notifiche di lettura tra le due piattaforme. Gli utenti Telegram vedranno le notifiche di lettura degli altri utenti Telegram e gi utenti Matrix vedranno le notifiche di lettura degli altri utenti Matrix.
NOME UTENTE E FOTO PROFILO
Su Matrix l’utente Telegram appare col suo nome utente e con la sua foto profilo. Se su Telegram questi cambiano, cambieranno anche su Matrix (anche se a volte può metterci diversi minuti a ricevere la modifica). Al contrario Telegram vede solo il bot e riporta solo l’account di chi scrive senza mai mostrare la foto profilo.
INVIO FOTO, VIDEO, PDF
Per l’invio di foto e video non c’é alcun problema in entrambe le direzioni. I messaggi vocali di Telegram vengono inviati a Matrix ma la versione per smartphone di Riot non é in grado di ascoltarli (la versione per Desktop invece non ha problemi): nella chat di Riot appare un file audio e cliccandoci verrà chiesto con che applicazione aprirla. Un qualsiasi lettore audio, ad esempio VLC, riprodurrà il file senza problemi. Anche per i pdf e file di testo di diversi formati (txt, rtf) non c’é nessun problema.
Un elemento di confusione é dato dal fatto che quando un utente Matrix posta un file, il bot lo su Telegram lo trasmette ma senza dire quale utente Matrix l’abbia postato!
CHIAMATE AUDIO E VIDEO
Impossibili perché Telegram non le gestisce.
GEOLOCALIZZAZIONE
Telegram può inviare la propria posizione geolocalizzata a Matrix ma questa non la riconoscerà perché Matrix non gestisce dati di geolocalizzazione e quindi mostrerà un messaggio di “invalid attachment” (allegato non valido). Per poter trasmettere dati GPS il modo corretto é possibile utilizzare una applicazione apposita, ad esempio un’app di OpenStreetMaps, e da questa inviare attraverso l’applicazione di comunicazione (sia esso Riot o Telegram) le sole e semplici coordinate GPS in formato testuale.
GRUPPI, CANALI ECC.
Il bridge funziona con i gruppi Telegram ma non sui canali né con le “Chat segrete”. In teoria il bot può essere aggiunto a qualsiasi gruppo ma a patto che si abbia il permesso di invitare nuovi membri e bot. In sostanza: se volessimo portare su Matrix dei gruppi Telegram pubblici di cui siamo semplici membri, dovremmo chiedere ai loro admin se vogliono aggiungere i bot e fare il bridging.
UN MILIONE DI BRIDGE!!!
Una stanza Matrix può essere sincronizzata con un solo gruppo Telegram. Tuttavia nulla vieta di aggiungere alla stanza altri bridge che la colleghino a piattaforme diverse (beninteso che, come ricordato all’inizio, questa cosa al momento la si può fare solo se si possiede un proprio server Matrix). Oltre al bridge per Telegram si potrebbe aggiungere alla stanza un bridge per Whatsapp, uno per IRC, uno per XMPP ecc. Il risultato é che non solo l’utente Matrix sarebbe in contatto con gli utenti di tutte le altre piattaforme, ma anche gli utenti delle altre piattaforme potranno comunicare fra loro grazie al bridge di Matrix!
Matrix dunque si trova nella situazione di poter fungere da anello di congiunzione ed asse portante fra tutte le piattaforme di comunicazione esistenti: se Luca é su Whatsapp ma Sara é su Telegram, i due ovviamente non possono comunicare tra di loro, ma se un terzo utente li collega entrambi tramite bridging, ecco che anche un utente Whatsapp può comunicare con un utente Telegram!
Lo scenario che si prospetta in una stanza Matrix con diversi bridge attivi é una cosa di questo tipo:
Appare forse adesso più chiaro il modo in cui il protocollo Matrix si prefigge di avere un ruolo assolutamente centrale nel panorama della comunicazione digitale: una sorta di passepartout, un adattatore universale, un centro di smistamento… Insomma: una rete universale che si pone al centro di tutte le altre reti, mettendole in comunicazione fra loro!
Per maggiori informazioni sul bridge Telegram é possibile contattare direttamente l’admin di t2bot.io nella stanza Matrix #help:t2bot.io
Grazie ad Anna, Anxma, Leodurruti e Maupao per l’aiuto nel testare bridge, stanze ecc.
Una domanda necessaria: perchè, tra tutte le piattaforme di comunicazioni disponibili, qualcuno dovrebbe sceglierne una piuttosto banale, fornita da un’azienda di data mining (ossia raccolta, elaborazione e vendita di informazioni personali) potente e pericolosa come Facebook?
I software di chat esistono da prima che Whatsapp esistesse ed hanno offerto praticamente gli stessi servizi se non addirittura di più, ma quest’ultimo si é imposto grazie a due soli motivi: una fortissima campagna promozionale (già nei primi cinque anni e soprattutto dopo che é stato acquistato da Facebook nel 2014) ed il fatto che fosse utilizzabile immediatamente senza dover creare alcun account, cosa che ne ha permesso l’adozione da parte di chiunque senza dover pensare a cose come nome utente, password, ecc.
Non solo esistono decine di strumenti di chat che offrono infinitamente più sicurezza di Whatsapp e che non diffondono le tue informazioni in modo da poter alterare più efficacemente l’opinione pubblica, ma negli ultimi tempi é stata pure sviluppata Matrix, una piattaforma che presenta caratteristiche notevoli sotto diversi punti di vista e si presta perfettamente a diventare il software di riferimento tra quelli alternativi a Whatsapp.
Ma Matrix non si limita a possedere delle caratteristiche diverse da Whatsapp: é strutturalmente tutta un’altra cosa! La natura stessa della piattaforma Matrix, come si vedrà in questo post, é talmente diversa da Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, Wire o qualsiasi altra piattaforma commerciale centralizzata da far sì che nessuna di queste potrà mai fornire tutto ciò che Matrix permette (e promette) di fare (e anche NON fare). In questo post vengono descritte per sommi capi proprio queste caratteristiche di Matrix con cui Whatsapp non potrà mai, per sua natura, competere.
Software F.L.O.S.S.
1. SOFTWARE APERTO E VERIFICABILE
Il software utilizzato dai server Matrix é F.L.O.S.S. ossia aperto, libero e verificabile da chiunque. Qualsiasi persona capace di programmare può verificare ciò che il software Matrix fa, esattamente come un meccanico che può aprire un cofano, vedere il motore, trovarne i difetti, metterci le mani e migliorarlo. Whatsapp al contrario usa software proprietario e ciò che avviene sui suoi server é un segreto industriale.
2. NON VENDE LE MIE INFORMAZIONI PERSONALI
Il software Matrix non monitora tutto quel genere di informazioni che invece vengono registrare da Whatsapp o da piattaforme sociali correlate come Instagram o Facebook: non calcola chi secondo lui potrebbe diventar mio amico/a. Non registra i millisecondi su cui mi soffermo su un’immagine, gli errori di battitura, i like, il tasso di engagement o il tipo di relazione che intercorre tra me ed un altro utente, quale sia il mio lavoro, i luoghi che visito o i miei spostamenti. Sappiamo che non monitora nulla di tutto ciò proprio perché é software F.L.O.S.S. Come vedremo, Matrix manco mi chiede come mi chiamo e non mi obbliga nemmanco a comunicargli tutti i numeri nella mia Rubrica. Inoltre, come vedremo, puoi far sì che non sia in grado di leggere quel che tu scrivi. Il software Matrix, insomma, raccoglie giusto le informazioni tecniche necessarie a funzionare. [*A FINE ARTICOLO C’É UNA NOTA IMPORTANTE SU QUESTO PUNTO!].Whatsapp é parte di Facebook, il cui modello di business ruota intorno a profilazione degli utenti e commercializzazione dei loro dati a fini di propaganda commerciale e/o politica. La quantità di informazioni che vengono trasmesse ai server di Facebook per essere analizzate é eccezionalmente superiore a ciò che gli utenti medi solitamente concepiscono.
3. POSSO CAMBIARE SERVER
Se creo un account Matrix sul server “A” e poi scoprissi che é inaffidabile, applica delle policy con cui non mi trovo d’accordo o sospettassi che vende informazioni a terzi, posso tranquillamente passare al server “B”senza perdere alcuno dei miei contatti. E’un pò come mollare hotmail o gmail per passare a Protonmail. Whatsapp invece é una bolla chiusa e se esci da Whatsapp perdi tutti i tuoi contatti Whatsapp.
4. POSSO ADDIRITTURA FARMI IL MIO SERVER MATRIX PERSONALE
Chi ha un server proprio può installarci Matrix ed avere così il proprio server chat personale, un pò come si può avere una mail aziendale, in modo da avere il controllo totale sui propri dati. Non ti fidi di nessun server pubblico che non sia gestito da te? Basta un server da qualche centinaio d’euro per essere totalmente indipendente! Whatsapp é invece utilizzabile solo attraverso i server di Facebook.
5. POSSO CAMBIARE APP
Attualmente per usare la propria chat Matrix da smartphone si usa quasi esclusivamente l’app Riot.im. Alcuni provider Matrix tuttavia hanno realizzato la propria versione dell’app Riot personalizzandone alcune caratteristiche. Alcuni esempi sono l’app Librem (per i possessori di un device Purism), SMIchat o Tchap (la piattaforma Matrix realizzata dal governo francese per il dialogo interno tra personale amministrativo). Su computer fisso invece oltre ad utilizzare Riot da browser o l’app Riot, si possono già utilizzare Wheechat, o Quaternion, Nheko o Fractal. Applicazioni diverse con caratteristiche, funzioni, vantaggi e svantaggi diversi applicati allo stesso servizio. Un pò come scegliere se usare Thunderbird o Outlook per la propria casella email. Al momento Riot é l’applicazione standard migliore per l’utente comune, essendo le altre più “specialistiche”. Tuttavia nulla impedisce che possano essere realizzate nuove versioni alternative di Riot o app del tutto diverse per utilizzare Matrix. Al contrario per usare Whatsapp sono obbligato ad utilizzare il software ufficiale di Whatsapp che, ovviamente, é sempre software chiuso. Qualche applicazione “alternativa” per Whatsapp esiste, ma data la natura chiusa del software di Whatsapp e la limitatezza delle sue funzioni, queste app alternative non potranno mai offrire granché di diverso rispetto a quella ufficiale.
6. POSSO AVERE PIÙ ACCOUNT CONTEMPORANEAMENTE
Su Matrix nulla t’impedisce di avere account multipli. Puoi dunque differenziarli, ad esempio usare un account pubblico, uno per pochi intimi ed un’altro solo per lavoro, magari pure registrandoli su server diversi. Al momento attuale la versione per smartphone di Riot.im non supporta ancora gli account multipli, ma si tratta di una funzionalità che si prevede di rendere disponibile a breve. Su browser invece puoi già usare diversi account Matrix contemporaneamente. Whatsapp invece ti obbliga ad avere un unico account legato al tuo telefono ed alla tua persona.
7. POSSO USARLO ANCHE SENZA TELEFONO
Matrix non é legato a doppio filo al tuo telefono, per cui puoi accederci anche se il telefono l’avessi perso o distrutto. In effetti si può benissimo usare Matrix senza nemmeno averlo mai avuto un telefono. No telefono = no Whatsapp.
8. NON SONO OBBLIGATO A DARE IN GIRO IL MIO NUMERO DI TELEFONO PRIVATO
Il fatto che Matrix non sia legato alla tua identità, al tuo device o al tuo telefono fa sì che tu possa avere un account Matrix pubblico senza dover necessariamente comunicare il numero di telefono dello smartphone da cui lo utilizzi. Puoi dunque usare un account Matrix aziendale anche sul telefono privato, oppure fare l’esatto contrario. Puoi continuare ad accedere al tuo account anche se avessi perso o distrutto tutti i tuoi device. É dunque possibile fare conversazioni audio o videochiamate con qualcuno tramite Riot/Matrix senza essere obbligati a fornirgli il proprio numero personale. Whatsapp invece non permette di avere un account scollegato dal proprio numero di telefono.
9. DIALOGO TRA PIATTAFORME
Matrix é pensato per poter interagire con altre piattaforme e seppur si tratti di un qualcosa ancora in via di sviluppo, già é possibile con qualche sforzo chattare tra Matrix, IRC, Slack, Gitter, Discord, Telegram ed altre piattaforme ancora. La cosa non funziona ancora del tutto ma il progetto é quello di permettere ad ogni utente di dialogare con Matrix restando sulla piattaforma che preferisce. Con un pò di sforzo é già possibile un’unica stanza chat in cui possono interagire utenti che stanno su diverse piattaforme: Scrive Marta da Telegram, gli rispondono Sara da Slack e Luigi da Matrix; poi intervengono Anna da IRC e Michele da Rocketchat mentre Nicoletta posta una domanda da Discord e Bruno le risponde da XMPP e Riccardo fa altrettanto da Mastodon. Una volta reso più immediato e funzionale il dialogo tra Matrix e Mastodon si potrà inoltre avere un’unica, grande meta-rete federata in cui decine di piattaforme social potranno dialogare tra loro e con Matrix. Seguono invece una filosofia del tutto opposta sia Whatsapp che tutti i software di comunicazione commerciali, che tendono a far di tutto perché tu non utilizzi software diverso dal proprio.
10. POSSO USARE MATRIX… SENZA AVERE MATRIX
É una conseguenza del punto precedente: il fatto che Matrix dialoghi con altre piattaforme fa sì che, ad esempio, io possa accedere ad una chat Matrix ed interagire con i suoi membri utilizzando le App per IRC, XMPP, Telegram, Discord ecc. Volendo é possibile anche far interagire Matrix con l’email e gli sms. Di conseguenza tutto il “parco macchine” delle piattaforme che dialogano con Matrix (i diversi client/app, ecc) possono essere utilizzati per interagire con utenti Matrix. Non é cosa da poco! Hai una email? Puoi comunicare con Matrix. Hai un account XMPP? Puoi comunicare con Matrix. Sul telefono hai un’app per IRC? Puoi comunicare con Matrix! É pure possibile creare stanze Matrix pubbliche leggibili online da chi non utilizza nemmeno una sola delle piattaforme che interagiscono con Matrix. Come detto sopra, invece, Whatsapp non fa che obbligare gli utenti a legarsi ai propri servizi e solo a quelli.
La stanza resta viva fintanto che almeno un server attivo ne ospiti una copia su di sé.
11. FUNZIONA SEMPRE
Essendo Matrix una rete decentralizzata di server indipendenti e non un’unica piattaforma centralizzata, se il server a cui mi appoggio avesse dei problemi io potrei accedere alla chat semplicemente scegliendo un server diverso. Perché ciò sia possibile é necessaria una minima accortezza da parte di almeno un utente della chat ma é piuttosto banale e realizzabile da chiunque. Il fatto é che il contenuto é slegato dal singolo server e può dunque essere replicato all’infinito, rimanendo eterno. Quando c’é un #WhatsAppDown invece non puoi far altro che aspettare che venga ripristinato. Se Whatsapp avesse un problema al server e perdesse i tuoi dati, non avresti modo di recuperarli.
12. POSSO CRIPTARE I MIEI MESSAGGI PER DAVVERO
Con Matrix posso criptare i miei messaggi in modo tale che siano leggibili solo da me e dalla persona con cui mi scrivo, usando un sistema di cifratura End-to-End molto potente ed efficace che scavalca lo stesso server ospitante. I software commerciali invece di solito non permettono una vera cifratura e quando lo fanno… considerano sé stessi come destinatari, perché devono leggere quel che scrivi, a chi ecc.
13. NESSUNA PUBBLICITA’
Per come é stata realizzata, Matrix é una piattaforma del tutto inadatta all’uso pubblicitario. Questo a causa della sua struttura decentrata, della mancata raccolta di informazioni sugli utenti, del software aperto e delle capacità di cifratura. Se invece Facebook decidesse di introdurre pubblicità in Whatsapp, i suoi utenti non potrebbero far altro che subirla.
14. IMPOSTAZIONI DETTAGLIATE
Accedendo a Matrix da un client desktop si ha modo di impostare tutta una serie di settaggi e preferenze molto minuziose. É ad esempio possibile far si che un certo membro della stanza possa solo leggere senza intervenire o nominare diversi “amministratori” ma con livelli di potere e compiti assai differenziati fra loro. Si possono aggiungere Widget alle stanze, bot ed altre funzioni. Matrix dunque può essere personalizzato in modo molto specifico. Whatsapp invece, puntando ad un utilizzo ipersemplificato, ingabbia l’utente in una serie assai limitata di opzioni.
15. NON SONO OBBLIGATO A FORNIRE LA MIA IDENTITÀ
Quando crei un account Matrix non c’é alcun obbligo a collegarlo al proprio nome, alla propria email o al proprio numero di telefono. Gli account Whatsapp invece sono legati a dei numeri di telefono. Siccome quando ti iscrivi a Whatsapp gli consegni tutta la tua rubrica, Facebook sa con che nome, cognome e soprannome hanno registrato in rubrica il tuo numero i tuoi conoscenti ed essendo tutto integrato nei database di Facebook la tua identità gli é nota anche se tu non gliel’hai mai fornita direttamente. In sostanza: se sei su Whatsapp regali a Facebook informazioni non solo su di te, ma anche sui contatti che hai salvato.
16. ESTENSIONI, MODIFICHE, MIGLIORAMENTI
Essendo software F.L.O.S.S. qualsiasi programmatore può facilmente sviluppare estensioni, strumenti aggiuntivi, bot, modifiche e miglioramenti alle app esistenti. Questo fa si che attorno a Matrix si sviluppi un intero ecosistema con numerosi elementi aggiuntivi capaci di personalizzare ulteriormente la chat alle tue esigenze. Già esistono dei widget capaci di inserire in una stanza matrix funzionalità di Wikipedia, pad di scrittura collaborativa, grafici, immagini stock, feed RSS e non é difficile immaginare per il futuro personalizzazioni di skin, applicazioni per backup selettivi, bot di ogni genere, traduttori automatici. Anche attorno a Whatsapp in effetti si é sviluppato un ecosistema di applicazioni di supporto, ma data la natura chiusa del software usato e la non-volontà di Facebook di cedere troppo facilmente le informazioni che ha raccolto sui suoi utenti, le app aggiuntive sono ben poca cosa: perlopiù addon di gif e sticker.
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NOTA FINALE: POCHISSIMI CAPISCONO DAVVERO LE IMPLICAZIONI DEL NON CEDERE I PROPRI DATI PERSONALI
Quando si parla di privacy e vendita di dati, di solito il pensiero comune va a due soli scenari: la commercializzazione pubblicitaria e l’indagine poliziesca mirata su di sé. Nel primo caso viene ritenuta tuttalpiù un fastidio mentre la seconda, dato i sempre più onnipresenti dispositivi di monitoraggio e controllo, viene ritenuta come scontatamente inevitabile.
In realtà sfugge che gli utilizzi dei propri dati personali sono molto più variegati di questi due scenari estremi. Estremi perché il primo rappresenta il grado minimo mentre il secondo il grado massimo di utilizzo dati personali, tralasciando la profilazione politica a fini propagandistici.
Facebook, Google, Youtube ed Instagram ad esempio insistono nel mostrarti con più frequenza certi profili, certe notizie, certi video e lo fanno in modo nient’affatto casuale. Se la profilazione social su di te ha mostrato paura o debolezza emotiva verso certi tipi di notizie, questo dato può essere usato da chi vuole propagandare determinate politiche affinché tu, e solo tu tra tutta la tua cerchia di amici, legga un certo tipo di articoli.
Se utilizzi le piattaforme sociali commerciali sappi che quel che ti passa davanti agli occhi é stato personalizzato su di te, per colpirti maggiormente e “venderti” meglio una certa idea da parte di chi ha comprato i servizi di profilazione. E ciò é possibile perché sei proprio tu a fornire informazioni utili a profilarti e targhetizzarti meglio.
Sei un pò razzista? Facebook può essere usato (e viene usato!) per consolidare il tuo razzismo. Sei più moderato? Facebook é in grado di selezionare un mix di fonti ambigue per alimentare dubbi sugli stranieri e virare i tuoi riferimenti sempre più a destra attraverso una selezione mirata di post adatti a colpire le tue paure più accentuate.
Sei sensibile alle violenze sugli animali? Ti verranno messi sotto gli occhi diversi articoli con stranieri che fanno male ad animali. Hai paura delle malattie? Vedrai post sui migranti che portano la peste medievale.
Sei sgrammaticato e non metti alcun like a fonti culturali? Vuol dire che hai una bassa istruzione e nella tue Timeline verranno fatti scorrere contenuti falsi ma dal linguaggio semplice.
Hai una preparazione scolastica media-buona ma non sei quel che si chiama un “divoratore di libri”? Ti piacciono il calcio ed i film di supereroi? Non vedrai molti post ignoranti ma invece tanta roba giustificazionista e qualunquista del tipo “eh, ma in fondo Salvini non ha tutti i torti”.
I noti avvenimenti di Facebook nello scandalo Cambrydge Analytica; l’influenza di Facebook nella Brexit e nell’elezione di Trump hanno reso evidente che le campagne politiche mirate e targhetizzate al singolo utente sono una realtà molto più pervasiva e difficile da monitorare di quanto il grosso della popolazione sospetti. Il ruolo di Facebook nella Brexit, per esempio, é stato tutt’altro che secondario e questo é stato possibile perché chi ha voluto diffondere sul social network delle informazioni false l’ha potuto fare in modo estremamente mirato.
“Se uno vuole monitorarti può farlo anche su Matrix”. A parte il fatto che non é affatto così immediato come spiare un profilo Facebook (basta che la persona su cui indagare abbia un account segreto diverso da quello conosciuto e delle stanze matrix criptate per rendere quasi impossibile ogni ricerca); quel che va ribadito é che nell’utilizzare una piattaforma libera non si cerca solo e soltanto uno strumento di comunicazione sicura, ma anche uno strumento che permetta all’utente di non alimentare quei meccanismi che influenzano con più efficienza l’utente stesso.
Basta fare un breve esperimento ed osservare come grazie all’utilizzo di reti sociali libere, metamotori di ricerca indipendenti, ed un paio d’accortezze nel browser come l’utilizzo di alcuni Ad-Blocker e plugin, fa sì che la propria esperienza online ed i contenuti-fuffa propagandistici possano ridursi drasticamente.
Nel momento in cui Facebook e Google non sanno più chi sei e cosa pensare di te, non sono più in grado di personalizzare il loro contenuto e la qualità dell’informazione a cui sei esposto aumenta molto velocemente.
Detto in altro modo:
Più sono le informazioni personali che fornisci ai big del data mining, più sono le chiavi che gli consegni affinché possano modificare la tua percezione del mondo.
VUOI SAPERNE DI PIÙ?
Se l’articolo ha attirato la tua curiosità, é possibile saperne maggiormente leggendo anche altri articoli di questo blog:
Cos’é Matrix.(Il post espone in dettaglio cos’é la piattaforma Matrix e la sua enorme differenza da tutte le altre piattaforme di comunicazione esistenti)
Matrix – Chattare anche se il server é esploso.(Le chat Matrix non sono necessariamente legate ad un solo server e quindi se anche uno smettesse di funzionare… basta usarne un’altro senza perdere contatti e messaggi)
Matrix bridge: connettersi a tutti i social da una sola App. (Sono in via di sviluppo dei bridge Matrix che permettono di avere un’unica chat in cui può dialogare contemporaneamente gente da Matrix, Telegram, IRC ed altre piattaforme ancora)
Primi passi con Riot/Matrix.(Una semplice guida passo-passo su come creare un account Matrix da Riot ed iniziare ad usarlo)
VUOI GIÀ CREARTI UN ACCOUNT MATRIX?
Per creare un account Matrix é necessario scegliere un server Matrix pubblico (o crearsene uno proprio, ma in quel caso si presume tu ne capisca già di informatica/programmazione/sistemistica).
Scegliere il server Matrix é come scegliere se farsi l’email su Gmail, Hotmail o Protonmail: son tutti più o meno simili ma hanno a loro volta delle caratteristiche un pò diverse.
Il server più utilizzato é matrix.org, che é quello dei creatori originali della piattaforma Matrix. Tuttavia é preferibile che gli utenti non si appoggino tutti solo e soltanto su quell’unico, grosso server perché se questo avvenisse, verrebbe meno proprio il senso della decentralizzazione della rete.
Alcuni server che possono essere utilizzati sono i seguenti:
La struttura decentrata del protocollo Matrix permette di creare delle chat virtualmente eterne, capaci di essere utilizzabili anche se il server é sotto attacco hacker, va offline o viene fatto esplodere in mille pezzi con una bomba termonucleare!
RETE DECENTRALIZZATA
Innanzitutto va ricordato che Matrix é una piattaforma decentralizzata (o, se si preferisce, “federata”). Ciò significa che non esiste UN server Matrix ufficiale come sulle piattaforme centralizzate tipo Twitter o Whatsapp ma ci sono diversi server che interagiscono fra loro (un po come l’email: non ci si “iscrive all’email”, ma si crea un account su ProtonMail o Gmail o Hotmail o al server di posta della propria azienda/scuola ben sapendo che da ognuno di questi si può ricevere ed inviare messaggi agli altri).
I server Matrix sono diversi ed interagiscono tutti fra di loro, andando a formare un’unica grande rete
Sono già diversi i server Matrix attivi. Alcuni hanno una certa dimensione e sono gestiti da un ente, un’associazione o un’azienda commerciale mentre altri sono molto piccoli, essendo praticamente dei server casalinghi pensati per essere usati tra un ristretto numero di persone. Alcuni sono aperti al pubblico, ossia é possibile registrarcisi (così come ci si registra a Gmail per l’email), mentre altri sono privati (come il server di posta della tua azienda). Il più noto server Matrix attualmente é matrix.org, ossia quello dei creatori originari di Matrix. Una lista incompleta di server Matrix pubblici é disponibile qui.
SU MATRIX, TUTTO E’ UNA “STANZA”
Matrix organizza tutto in stanze: quelli che su Whatsapp sono chiamati gruppi e su IRC son chiamati canali, su Matrix vengono chiamate stanze, con la particolarità che su Matrix… tutto é una stanza!
Quando Tizio chatta direttamente con Caio ed in quella discussione non c’é e non può entrare nessun altro, semplicemente Tizio e Caio stanno in una stanza con due soli utenti! Questa, quindi, può essere amministrata e gestita allo stesso modo di una stanza con migliaia di utenti diversi, assegnando regole, ruoli, permessi speciali ecc.
LE STANZE MATRIX SONO UBIQUE
Se si crea una stanza in cui interagiscono solo utenti registrati sullo stesso server, quella stanza materialmente si troverà solamente su quel server. Questa é la situazione che si verifica su OGNI piattaforma centralizzata: un gruppo Whatsapp si trova materialmente sui server Whatsapp così come i suoi utenti. I gruppi Facebook pure.
Osserviamo il disegno qui sotto e facciamo un paragone: é come se matrix.blu fosse Whatsapp e matrix.giallo fosse Telegram. Tra i due non v’é alcun contatto e se uno dei due avesse un problema, l’altro, essendo una piattaforma del tutto diversa, avrebbe gruppi diversi, utenti diversi ecc.
Due utenti, entrambi registrati su matrix.blu, interagiscono fra loro in una stanza
Ma con Matrix le cose funzionano diversamente ed i diversi server, parlando la stessa lingua (il protocollo Matrix), sono fatti proprio per interagire fra loro! Alla stanza che abbiamo creato può dunque partecipare anche un utente che é registrato su un server diverso. Quando ciò avviene, la stanza viene di fatto clonata su quest’altro server. Ciò significa che di quella stanza ci saranno due copie identiche costantemente sincronizzate fra loro.
Due utenti di matrix.giallo vengono invitati nella stanza dagli utenti di matrix.blu. Materialmente, il server matrix.giallo clona su di sé la stanza e la sincronizza con quella su matrix.blu.
[Per una spiegazione più dettagliata di come avviene la trasmissione dei dati tra server diversi, c’é la chiara animazione (in inglese) in questa pagina di matrix.org. Basta premere su NEXT perché la spiegazione avanzi mostrando passo-passo cosa avviene quando si spedisce un messaggio, una risposta, ecc…]
Nel momento in cui il proprio server fosse irraggiungibile, i suoi utenti non avrebbero alcun modo né di accedere alla stanza né di recuperare i messaggi scritti in precedenza, così come non potrebbero interagire fra loro. Tuttavia la stanza continuerebbe ad essere raggiungibile e funzionante sull’altro server (come dire: se Whatsapp non funziona, il tuo gruppo é comunque accessibile da Telegram).
Il server matrix.blu ha un problema e la stanza é inaccessibile ai suoi utenti. Resta però accessibile agli utenti di matrix.giallo.
Basterà dunque accedere (temporaneamente o definitivamente che sia) al server ancora funzionante per recuperare stanze, messaggi, media e contatti inaccessibili dal server su cui si era inizialmente.
Iscrivendosi al server matrix.giallo, gli (ex)utenti di matrix.blu ritrovano la stanza, i messaggi ed i contatti ormai irraggiungibili dal (defunto? hackerato?) matrix.blu.
STANZE UBIQUE = VIRTUALMENTE INDISTRUTTIBILI
Se Mastodon, Whatsapp, Facebook o Twitter sono irraggiungibili non c’é nulla da fare: bisognerà aspettare che tornino utilizzabili e nel frattempo spostarsi su piattaforme diverse… a lamentarsi che la piattaforma é irraggiungibile! Al contrario, su Matrix, il contenuto può essere ubiquo e sopravvivare anche alla caduta del server su cui é stato realizzato. Metti caso che in una stanza vi siano 60 utenti di matrix.blu ed 1 di matrix.giallo. Ebbene, quell’unico utente, solo per il fatto di essere registrato su un server diverso, svolge un ruolo importantissimo, permettendo ai contenuti dei 60 utenti di matrix.blu, di avere una copia di sicurezza anche su matrix.giallo. Appare chiaro che più é differenziato il numero di server da cui si accede ad una stanza, più questa ha probabilità di sopravvivere ad eventuali inefficienze di uno dei suoi server. Si tratta dunque di una struttura estremamente resiliente.
La stanza resta viva fintanto che almeno un server attivo ne ospiti una copia su di sé.
Su Matrix esistono stanze molto grandi, cui partecipano diverse centinaia o migliaia di utenti e queste solitamente hanno diverse decine di indirizzi locali diversi (cosa siano gli indirizzi locali lo vediamo tra un attimo). Anche se si accedesse su un server Matrix che non ha alcuna copia locale di una stanza (nell’immagine qui sopra: uno dei due server in cui non c’é la stanza) conoscendone gli indirizzi é comunque sempre possibile entrarci. Dunque non é indispensabile registrarsi proprio su uno dei server in cui c’é una copia della stanza, ma ci si potrà accedere da un qualsiasi server Matrix!
Le stanze Matrix, dunque, possono essere quasi condiserate una sorta di portale di comunicazione fra più mondi/server, trovandosi contemporaneamente su ognuno di questi.
Parte degli indirizzi locali di MatrixHQ, una delle più grosse stanze della rete Matrix
Questo concetto, inoltre, é espandibile in qualche modo anche ai bridge di Matrix. Un server Matrix, difatti, può sincronizzare le proprie stanze non solo con altri server Matrix, ma addirittura con altre piattaforme (Telegram, IRC, Whatsapp, Slack e molte altre ancora). Qui la cosa in realtà é un pò più complicata e cambia molto sia da piattaforma a piattaforma che da bridge a bridge. Risulta tutto più chiaro leggendo l’articolo appena linkato, ma in soldoni la faccenda può esser spiegata così: i server Matrix, tra di loro, fanno una copia esatta della stanza, ma quando si collega Matrix ad una piattaforma diversa, vuoi per le caratteristiche della piattaforma, vuoi per il modo in cui questo collegamento viene gestito, le versioni delle stanze che stanno su queste piattaforme non sono sempre una copia esatta di quella che si vede su Matrix. Per esempio: collegando una stanza Matrix ad una piattaforma social che permette messaggi di al massimo 500 caratteri, tutti i messaggi più lunghi verrebbero trattati in modo particolare, ad esempio con dei link al server Matrix da cui si erano generati (server che, potrebbe non esserci più).
MIRRORING
Una pratica di sicurezza può ad esempio essere quella di creare per sé un secondo account su un server Matrix diverso da quello solitamente utilizzato esplicitamente con lo scopo di generare una copia “di backup” delle proprie stanze più importanti. Questo secondo account potrebbe essere fatto entrare in quelle stanze cui si vuol esser certi di poter accedere sempre e comunque, magari concedendo a tale nuovo utente i permessi di amministratore, in modo tale da avere più possibilità di accedere e gestire la stanza, avendo cura di farvi accedere anche gli altri membri con degli account di riserva.
La pratica di clonare la stanza su più server si chiama mirroring (ovvero “specchiare”). La procedura per effettuarlo é abbastanza semplice, ma può cambiare a seconda del modo in cui si accede a Matrix, del software e device usato.
TUTORIAL
Il seguente tutorial é pensato per chi accede a Matrix utilizzando Riot da browser e presupponendo il seguente scenario: ho già un account sul server A su cui v’é una stanza privata (accessibile solo ai membri) che vorrei mirrorare per sicurezza. Prima di cominciare può essere utile ripassare la breve guida sui primi passi con Matrix / Riot.
1. ASSEGNARE UN INDIRIZZO ALLA STANZA
Alla stanza va innanzitutto assegnato un indirizzo locale che dovrà seguire questo formato: #nomestanza:nomeserver e va fatto nelle impostazioni della stanza stessa.
2. CREARE UN ACCOUNT SU ALTRO SERVER
Bisogna dunque scegliere un server Matrix diverso da quello che si usa abitualmente (ad esempio uno tra quelli in questa lista) e creare un nuovo account. Sul browser é possibile aprire due schede distinte loggandosi contemporaneamente ai due diversi server (che é un pò come avere due diversi profili Facebook aperti contemporaneamente).
3. INVITARE IL NUOVO ACCOUNT NELLA STANZA
A questo punto si torna all’account principale, si entra nella stanza in questione e si invita il nuovo account. Volendo, una volta inviato l’invito, si può già selezionare il nome dalla lista degli invitati e da lì impostarlo come amministratore della stanza.
4. ACCETTARE L’INVITO
Tornare quindi al nuovo account e da qui accettare l’invito alla stanza:
5. AGGIUNGERE UN SECONDO INDIRIZZO ALLA STANZA
A questo punto bisogna ripetere il primo punto, aggiungendo un nuovo indirizzo alla stanza, sempre con lo stesso formato #nomestanza:nomeserver
In questo modo la stanza si troverà ad avere due indirizzi (volendo anche più di due: non c’é un limite agli indirizzi assegnabili):
#nomestanza:nomeserver1
#nomestanza:nomeserver2
In realtà ogni server assegna già in automatico l’indirizzo alla stanza, ma si tratta di una stringa tipo “!isobjBnFgqYHjqJMF1b:nomeserver“. Quello é il vero indirizzo della stanza ma ovviamente é abbastanza ingestibile perché… vattelo a ricordare! Gli indirizzi inseriti nel punto 1 e 5 sono in realtà degli alias, ossia degli indirizzi “virtuali” che poi il server penserà a collegare a quello vero che gli ha assegnato. Creare gli alias servirà più avanti per gestire con più facilità la stanza e permettere ad altri di chiedere d’entrarci.
Fatto! Adesso la stanza é presente e sincronizzata su entrambi i server!
A questo punto, anche cascasse il server usato di solito, é comunque possibile chattare nella stanza accedendo con il nuovo account. Se anche gli altri utenti creassero un account di riserva, l’eventuale lavoro di gruppo svolto in una stanza potrebbe continuare anche nel caso di guasti, hackeraggi… o bombardamenti nucleari!
[NB: la natura delle stanze, svincolata dai server ma anche dagli account utente, può avere anche un altro tipo di utilizzo: un utente che perdesse le credenziali del proprio account, potrebbe essere re-invitato in una stanza/conversazione con un account differente, senza perdere tutti i propri vecchi messaggi]
PS: Se però, si preferisse avere una stanza su un solo server ed impedire che vi accedano utenti registrati su server differenti, evitando così che la propria stanza venga clonata altrove, é sempre possibile creare stanze “non federate”. In questo modo le stanze non federate su matrix.blu saranno accessibili solo agli utenti di matrix.blu, e le stanze non federate di matrix.giallo saranno accessibili solo dagli utenti di matrix.giallo.
Google é indiscutibilmente il principale motore di ricerca online, tanto che l’atto di cercare qualcosa sul web viene espresso col suo nome (“non sai nulla di questo argomento? Googolalo!”).
Uno dei motivi del successo di Google é che si tratta di un ottimo motore di ricerca, effettivamente capace di trovare quel che cerchi nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi.
D’altro canto Google é anche un’azienda imponente e ramificata che vive di raccolta e vendita dati, che si ricorda cos’hai cercato, quando e quante volte e che collega queste informazioni ad altre che ha raccolto su di te attraverso una miriade di servizi che affiancano quello di ricerca web. E questo é un grosso problema! Un grosso problema che é sotto gli occhi di chiunque ma che al tempo stesso viene raramente affrontato.
Ciò che é poco noto, invece, é che la maggior parte dei suoi servizi può benissimo esser sostituita con altri meno invasivi, compreso il motore di ricerca.
Google é utilizzato per oltre il 90% delle ricerche online
Sostituire il motore di ricerca di Google é certamente un passo importante per arginare il pericolo di avere un’unica azienda a controllo di tutti i dati che forniamo ogni volta che facciamo una ricerca online. Dati che vengono spiati, raccolti, classificati e venduti.
Oltre a Google difatti esistono diversi motori di ricerca validi. Parte di questi in realtà sono assai specifici ed utilizzabili solo per ricerche assai specifiche (ad esempio TinEye per il reverse search di immagini), ma la maggior parte consente di fare ricerche generiche e funziona in modo molto simile Google.
Per proseguire é però necessario comprendere alcuni concetti base su cui si poggia un motore di ricerca. Uno dei componenti base di un motore é il suo CRAWLER(può essere reso con “ispezionatore”), ossia un programma che naviga in automatico nel web, saltando di link in link e registrando nei database del motore di ricerca ogni parola, immagine, file che trova (creando quella che viene chiamata “copia CACHE”). Una volta che il crawler ha scoperto e registrato i contenuti, il motore di ricerca classifica ogni contenuto attraverso un proprio ALGORITMO.
Un buon crawler idealmente trova il 100% dei contenuti di un sito ed un buon algoritmo é in grado di classificare come si deve ogni contenuto. Al contrario un cattivo crawler potrebbe non scoprire mai l’esistenza del tuo sito o scoprirne solo una parte ed un cattivo algoritmo, quando cerchi informazioni su “spaghetti” potrebbe mettere nei primi risultati pagine che non parlano della pastasciutta ma i post di un tizio che si firma “Mr. Spaghetti” (chi si ricorda i primi motori di ricerca degli anni ’90 conosce bene questo tipo di situazioni). Ogni motore di ricerca usa un proprio crawler ed un proprio algoritmo, diversi da quelli degli altri motori.
Non va poi sottovalutato l’intervento umano: é per scelta degli amministratori di Google ad esempio che certi siti compaiono sempre in testa ai risultati (come Wikipedia quando si cerca il nome di una persona nota o Booking quando si cercano località turistiche). É sempre per una scelta voluta che i suggerimenti di ricerca di Google non contengano mai termini volgari o riferimenti a contenuti per adulti.
PRINCIPALI DIFFERENZE CON GOOGLE
Chi utilizza per la prima volta un motore di ricerca diverso dal onnipresente Google non può non notare che questi restituiscono risultati diversi.
SERP DIFFERENTI: Ognuno di questi motori genera per ogni ricerca dei risultati un pò diversi (tecnicamente S.E.R.P.: Search Engine Results Page): quello che per Google é il primo risultato, per un altro motore di ricerca può essere il decimo. Questo può dipendere da principalmente dal crawler e dall’algoritmo usati.
IMMAGINI, NEWS ECC: Molti motori di ricerca sono focalizzati sulla ricerca di pagine web e dunque peccano dal lato di ricerca news e immagini
RICERCA AVANZATA: Google offre diversi strumenti di ricerca avanzata che spesso mancano agli altri motori di ricerca, per esempio Google Trends o la possibilità di visionare la pagina cache.
Un paio di motori di ricerca alternativi a Google sono ad esempio:
É più o meno riconosciuto come il principale motore alternativo a Google. I risultati di ricerca sono ottimi, anche per la ricerca immagini, ma pecca riguardo alle news. L’azienda proprietaria, statunitense, si pubblicizza come molto focalizzata su privacy e sicurezza e parte del software é open source. Si finanzia pubblicando inserzioni pubblicitarie e tramite affiliazioni.
Motore di ricerca realizzato in Francia. Anch’esso si promuove come fortemente incentrato sulla privacy degli utenti. I risultati sono molto buoni anche per quanto riguarda immagini e news. Si finanzia in parte ricevendo commissioni da alcuni grossi portali a cui indirizza il traffico e in parte tramite finanziamenti pubblici.
L’elenco completo sarebbe lunghissimo e includerebbe Bing, Yahoo, Lycos, WebCrawler e molti altri (un elenco dettagliato é disponibile in questa pagina Wikipedia). Quel che però appare già evidente é un che motore di ricerca per esistere ha necessità di molti fondi per poter reggere economicamente (basta solo vedere le dimensioni delle serverfarm di Google per rendersi conto dei costi spaventosi che genera) e ciò causa immancabilmente una situazione da gatto che si morde la coda, con i motori di ricerca che alterano i propri risultati per favorire gli sponsor e vendono i dati di navigazione dei propri utenti (data mining) per poter garantire a quegli stessi utenti un servizio costante e sempre aggiornato.
Inoltre ognuno di questi motori di ricerca appartiene sempre ad una sola azienda, la quale si trova dunque sempre in condizione di poter manipolare i risultati. Insomma, non se ne esce fuori: per quanto possano esser buone le intenzioni e le persone che li gestiscono, i comuni motori di ricerca sono strutturati in modo tale da lasciare in mano ai loro gestori un potere considerevole nei confronti degli utenti. Come se ne esce?
METAMOTORI DI RICERCA
Una prima soluzione é quella di usare un metamotore di ricerca, ossia un motore che non si sbatte a ispezionare il web e classificarne i contenuti (ergo: non fa crawling), ma trasmette la tua ricerca a motori di ricerca veri e propri e ne assembla i risultati. Si tratta, in poche parole, di un “motore di motori di ricerca”.
Un metamotore di ricerca non fa altro che assemblare i risultati di altri motori di ricerca.
Se cerchi “spaghetti” su un metamotore di ricerca (ad esempio SearX), questo cercherà “spaghetti” su dei motori di ricerca veri e propri, come Google, DuckDuckGo e Qwant, e poi restituirà una S.E.R.P. ottenuta assemblando quello che i motori han trovato.
In questo modo, per capirci, tutti gli utenti che utilizzano il metamotore di ricerca, verranno intesi da Google come un unico, gigantesco utente che fa un numero talmente elevato e variegato di ricerche da divenir inclassificabile. Il metamotore di ricerca, tuttavia, potrebbe sempre tener traccia di quel che fai tu. É già qualcosa.
MOTORI COLLABORATIVI (P2P ETC.)
Una seconda soluzione é quella di utilizzare una soluzione collaborativa tra server e/o utenti diversi in modo da formare assieme un grande motore di ricerca. Qui incontriamo nuovamente il concetto di reti decentralizzate e distribuite già descritte nei post sul Fediverso e su Mastodon.
Riassumendo: una rete centralizzata (A) é come Google, in cui tutti gli utenti si rivolgono idealmente ad un unico server chiamato Google che detiene il totale controllo dei dati. Una rete decentralizzata (B) é formata da più server che collaborano fra loro, dando la possibilità ad ogni utente può scegliere a quale server connettersi (il quale può avere delle peculiarità diverse rispetto agli altri) e da qui può interagire con gli altri server della rete. Una rete distribuita (C) invece, é una rete in cui ogni singolo utente funge da server di sé stesso e, in maniera del tutto indipendente, può connettersi ad altri utenti con cui interagire.
Come si traducono questi tipi di rete con i motori di ricerca? Prendiamo ad esempio una rete decentrata ed immaginiamoci l’esistenza di diversi server, su ognuno dei quali é stato installato lo stesso software di motore di ricerca. Ognuno di questi server ha il suo crawler che ispeziona il web e si crea il proprio database con le informazioni sulla porzione di Internet che ha ispezionato (“porzione” perché si parte dal presupposto che ognuno di questi server sia di per sé troppo piccolo perché possa ispezionarlo tutto). Ognuno di essi é un piccolo motore di ricerca che magari conosce perfettamente una certa parte del web (ad esempio, solo i siti in italiano). Ma qui viene il bello: in una rete decentralizzata diversi server possono interagire fra loro, in modo tale che, messi assieme, formino una sorta di mega-motore di ricerca diffuso su scala globale.
Qui la cosa si può già fare molto interessante: i diversi server potrebbero sì condividere e scambiarsi informazioni andando a formare assieme un unico database comune da cui attingere informazioni e tuttavia essere personalizzati per presentare S.E.R.P. personalizzate. Potresti dunque scegliere di fare la stessa ricerca su diversi server specializzati in modo differente. Per esempio, un certo server potrebbe essere impostato per mostrare solamente contenuti adatti ai bambini, un altro potrebbe dare la precedenza ai contenuti più nuovi e un altro ancora potrebbe organizzare i risultati escludendo fonti ritenute inattendibili.
Oltre a tale personalizzazione dei risultati, i server potrebbero scambiarsi anche diverse informazioni tecniche aiutandosi vicendevolmente a mappare meglio porzioni di web e classificarne i contenuti.
A questo punto é facile capire che una rete distribuita funzionarebbe allo stesso modo, ma in questo caso non sarebbero solo i diversi server a partecipare a questo lavoro collaborativo, ma pure i singoli computer dei singoli utenti. Per capirci: su ogni computer si avrebbe installato del software che si occupa di ispezionare il web comunicando al database diffuso quel che ha scoperto ed archiviando una porzione di esso sul proprio disco fisso. Ogni utente inoltre potrebbe personalizzare a proprio piacimento personale il modo ed ordine in cui comparirebbero i risultati di ricerca.
SearX é un metamotore di ricerca open source. Il suo software é liberamente scaricabile, modificabile ed installabile da chiunque sul proprio computer o su un server che può esser anche reso pubblico. In effetti sono già oltre un centinaio i server SearX pubblici noti e molti di questi presentano delle caratteristiche proprie. É un pò come dire che ci sono cento versioni diverse di Google. SearX non é un motore collaborativo e quindi ogni singola macchina con installato SearX funziona in maniera del tutto scollegata dalle altre.
Tra i tanti server SearX pubblici, possiamo ad esempio osservare e fare un paragone tra https://search.disroot.org/, ovvero la versione di SearX installata sui server dell’organizzazione Disroot, e https://framabee.org/, la versione di SearX installata sui server dell’associazione FramaSoft. Oltre alle diversa veste grafica, basta fare una semplice prova per osservare quanto cambino i risultati (PS: search.disroot é impostata decisamente meglio).
Inoltre SearX permette ad ogni utente di personalizzare diversi fattori, anche molto tecnici. Ad esempio é possibile selezionare su quali motori di ricerca deve basarsi SearX, differenziandoli a seconda che si tratti di ricerche generali, di immagini, news, o documenti. Si possono impostare diverse preferenze riguardanti il tracciamento e la modalità di organizzazione dei risultati. Ogni server SearX dunque fornisce risultati diversi a seconda di come é stato impostato e può permettere un certo grado di personalizzazione all’utente. Una caratteristica interessante di SearX é che utilizza come cache i salvataggi pagina su archive.org.
Per quanto riguarda la qualità dei risultati, dunque, molto dipende dal server SearX scelto. La S.E.R.P. principale di https://search.disroot.org/ non é affatto male, tranne che per immagini e notizie, ma questo sembra essere una mancanza dello stesso software SearX e non una caratteristica del server specifico. Oltre alla minor qualità dei risultati su immagini e news mancano diverse comode funzioni presenti in Google: non c’é la ricerca per colore e non é presente alcun aggregatore di notizie.
Yacy invece é un motore di ricerca distribuito e collaborativo basato su P2P. Si tratta di un progetto molto piccolo e, allo stato attuale, troppo complesso per poter esser davvero proposto come alternativa ai più comuni motori di ricerca disponibili online. A livello di usabilità risulta ancora abbastanza macchinoso, in quanto sono più le occasioni in cui non restituisce alcun risultato di quelle in cui trova qualcosa, come é possibile verificare in questa pagina demo.
Tuttavia va segnalato anche a chi non é interessato ad uno strumento ancora in via di sviluppo perché già allo stato attuale permette di far capire come funziona una rete collaborativa che costruisce assieme un database comune distribuito.
Ipoteticamente, una rete distribuita é quasi indistruttibile: in uno scenario in cui tutti i computer del pianeta facessero parte della rete Yacy, anche se la maggior parte di questi fosse improvvisamente tagliata fuori o distrutta da un colossale meteorite, é sufficiente che solo una minima parte resti attiva perché tutto il database comune resti attivo. Progetto interessantissimo dunque, ma che dovrebbe essere reso molto più user-friendly per sperare in una adozione di massa. Chi volesse provare ad installarselo e smanettarci lo trova qui.
IN CONCLUSIONE
Esistono diverse alternative al motore di ricerca di Google, alcune molto valide come DuckDuckGo ed altre meno, ma gli strumenti già disponibili permettono a di poter fare tranquillamente a meno delle ricerche su Google.
Anche la prassi di utilizzare diversi motori di ricerca per ricerche di diverso tipo può essere un modo per non diffondere su una sola piattaforma tutte le informazioni che solitamente vengono messe in mano a Google. Esistono poi strumenti come SearX che, nonostante alcuni limiti, possono contribuire ulteriormente a creare una maggior distanza tra sé e le compagnie di data mining come Google e, potenzialmente, qualsiasi grosso motore di ricerca centralizzato. Gettando lo sguardo ancora più avanti, poi, osserviamo strumenti come Yacy che, idealmente, potrebbero davvero contribuire a riportare in mano alle persone il controllo dei propri dati ma questo, a patto che ci sia al tempo stesso uno sforzo da parte degli sviluppatori di semplificare tali strumenti ed uno sforzo da parte degli utenti per imparare a districarsi meglio nelle complessità dell’informatica.
Non sarebbe male arrivare un giorno ad avere un motore di ricerca collaborativo distribuito, magari pure ibridato con un metamotore di ricerca capace di confrontare la propria S.E.R.P. con quella fornita da altri motori che non fanno parte della rete condivisa. Una sorta di fusione tra SearX e Yacy in cui possano partecipare sia server dedicati che i singoli utenti, andando a formare reti federate di ricerca.
Per quanto riguarda le funzioni base, Mastodon si comporta in modo molto simile a Twitter: commentare un post, boostarlo, seguirne l’autore, silenziarlo ecc.
La ricerca e scoperta di altri utenti in apparenza é abbastanza simile: se vuoi seguire un utente basta cliccare su “+” o “follow” e per cercare altri utenti basta digitare nel campo di ricerca.
C’é però un limite: le Timeline di Mastodon mostreranno sempre e solo account che la tua Istanza già conosce.
Come funziona dunque la ricerca ed aggiunta di utenti su Istanze diverse?
RETI SOCIALI PERSONALIZZATE
Qui é necessario ripassare un concetto già esposto nei post in cui é illustrato cos’é Mastodon e cos’é il Fediverso: ogni Istanza conosce solamente i propri utenti e gli utenti di altre Istanze con cui é venuta in contatto.
Le diverse Istanze, per poter interagire fra loro, devono essere a conoscenza l’una dell’altra
Per questo motivo, Mastodon (ma lo stesso vale per tutto il Fediverso) non é un’unica rete sociale indifferenziata ma, al contrario, ogni singola Istanza costruisce la propria rete sociale e questo in base a quali sono le altre Istanze con cui viene in contatto, quelle che blocca ecc.
La cosa poi diventa ancora più complessa perché lo stesso schema si ripete a livello di singoli utenti: se siamo sull’Istanza A ed entriamo in contatto con un utente dell’Istanza B di nome Laura, che però non ci presenta mai gli altri membri della sua Istanza (ossia: non boosta i loro post, non linka i loro messaggi, non li cita nei suoi Toot), dell’Istanza B conosceremo solo Laura.
Da questo punto di vista, Mastodon premia le Istanze i cui utenti interagiscono maggiormente: una piccola Istanza con utenti che interagiscono molto fra loro, aumenta le possibilità di tessere un maggior numero di contatti con altre Istanze, attraverso il meccanismo dell’amico che presenta un amico.
AGGANCIARE ALTRE RETI
Questa cosa però ha un limite: non permette di entrare in contatto con utenti che non siano già conosciuti da chi già conosco. Nella prima immagine precedente, ad esempio, le Istanze sulla rete a sinistra (quella coi collegamenti rossi), non han modo di entrare in contatto con le Istanze della rete a destra (quella coi collegamenti azzurri), né quelle della rete in basso (quella coi collegamenti verdi).
É questo il punto su cui si innestano diversi discorsi inerenti alle filter bubble, ai pericoli delle reti chiuse ecc. Non é del tutto sbagliato: chi sta su una certa rete e non cerca confronti, voci dissonanti e idee diverse dalle proprie, resterà confinato nella propria cerchia e al tempo stesso non farà uscire le proprie idee. Chi invece si muove in senso opposto, stabilirà contatti con Istanze le cui comunità sono molto diverse dalla propria. Detto altrimenti: Mastodon non ti obbliga a convivere con chi non vuoi, ma se vuoi differenziare la tua cerchia di contatti puoi farlo, a costo di un minimo sforzo.
Ciò si traduce in un meccanismo che é in effetti un pò macchinoso e che sarebbe decisamente necessario rendere più pratico. Tuttavia il Fediverso é strutturato in modo tale che, probabilmente, una minima dose di macchinosità in questo passaggio sarà sempre presente (ci arriviamo…)
Un aspetto interessante da notare é che la connessione con utenti ed Istanze prima sconosciuti é un qualcosa che può fare ogni singolo utente ma che influirà sull’intera Istanza: se decidi di seguire un utente dell’ Istanza B, i suoi toot compariranno nella TL federata della tua Istanza; in questo modo anche i membri della tua Istanza potranno entrare in contatto con i membri dell’Istanza B che l’account che hai aggiunto boosterà ecc. Più contatti “sconosciuti” porterai nella tua Istanza, più questa crescerà.
Sta dunque alla maturità degli utenti scegliere come e quanto differenziare i propri contatti. Se sei su un’Istanza che non tollera determinati argomenti riguardo ai quali vorresti avere qualche confronto, forse l’Istanza su cui ti trovi non é quella più adatta a te e potrebbe essere il caso di aprire un secondo account su un’Istanza differente.
(Non é raro aprire un primo account Mastodon su un’Istanza per poi capire che preferisci stare su un’Istanza diversa. Per questo motivo esistono funzioni di import/export per trasferirti su Istanze diverse).
MA COME LI TROVO?
Si, ma, insomma… COME e DOVE li dovrei trovare questi utenti e Istanze sconosciuti sia a me che ai contatti che ho già?
Per capire la procedura “tecnica” (ci arriviamo, ci arriviamo…) é necessario capire prima il concetto che v’é alla base e che mostra ancora una volta come il Fediverso sia strutturato in modo molto più simile alle reti sociali umane di quanto non lo siano i social centralizzati: nella tua vita reale, quella di tutti i giorni, con te in carne ed ossa, come trovi persone nuove che nessuno dei tuoi amici e conoscenti conosce già?
Fondamentalmente uscendo dai tuoi giri andando in luoghi nuovi. Questi “luoghi” possono essere anche eventi, manifestazioni o orari (provare a fare la camminata del mattino in ore serali, ad esempio). Più questi “luoghi” sono diversi e lontani dai propri, maggiore sarà probabilmente il tasso di differenziazione cui si andrà incontro (la tua vita ruota intorno a manga, filosofia greca e corsi da sommelier? Se vuoi conoscere davvero persone, realtà ed idee diverse dalle tue, anziché girare per fumetterie ed enoteche prova ad uscire dai soliti giri e, ad esempio, collaborare per qualche tempo con i responsabili di un centro di accoglienza per senzatetto e migranti…).
Ecco, nel Fediverso la cosa funziona esattamente allo stesso modo: per conoscere contatti “sconosciuti” bisogna uscire dalla propria rete e provarne una diversa per poi rientrare, portando dentro alla propria Istanza i contatti che interessano.
Questo uscire si traduce materialmente in due modi:
usare altri account su Istanze o piattaforme federate diverse
cercare al di fuori del Fediverso stesso
IN & OUT
Questo uscire e rientrare dalla propria rete é proprio ciò che maggiormente differenzia una rete federata come il Fediverso dalle reti centralizzate cui si é solitamente abituati. Ne é al tempo stesso la grande forza e debolezza: forza perché permette che si sviluppino reti locali differenziate, ognuna con una propria comunità e cultura specifica, anziché appiattire tutti gli utenti ad un’unica macro-comunità (vedi Twitter) e debolezza perché l’idea di dover continuamente uscire e rientrare dalla propria rete risulta ostica ad una gran parte delle persone.
Come già visto, ogni nuovo account che segui, diventa automaticamente contattabile da tutti i membri della tua Istanza. All’interno di una Istanza bastano pochi utenti “esploratori” perché questa abbia una serie di contatti ben differenziati, più o meno come quando nella vita reale conosci una persona, vi scambiate i contatti e la aggiungi ad un gruppo Matrix (o Whatsapp) in cui ci sono altri tuoi amici.
Puoi venire a conoscenza di nuovi contatti e Istanze praticamente ovunque! Su un blog che segui, su siti vari, forum, articoli vari, reti sociali non federate o altri canali ancora. Puoi cercarle appositamente (ad esempio su Instances.social, Joinmastodon o Distsn).
A più fonti attingerai, più possibilità ci sono di trovare contatti distanti dalla tua rete.
Fare account multipli, esplorare altre Istanze/comunità dal loro interno, interagire con persone diverse senza il bagaglio derivante dalle relazioni già maturate, é un qualcosa di ampiamente promosso nel Fediverso. Le principali App per accedere al Fediverso da dispositivi mobili supportano difatti account multipli. Non é un obbligo avere più account così come non c’é alcun obbligo a mantenere lo stesso nome utente o chissà che altro: ognuno può gestire i propri account come preferisce. Vuoi usare un solo account e non doverti sbattere a cercare alcunché al di fuori delle cerchie condivise dalla tua Istanza? Va bene. Vuoi avere diversi account scollegati fra loro? Ok. Preferisci avere un account principale ed altri solo d’esplorazione? Va bene anche quello.
Una bella immagine riguardante gli account multipli é collegata alla figura già vista dei luoghi differenti: così come hai una cerchia di conoscenze di lavoro, un’altra per via del tuo hobby, un’altra ancora fatta di amici stretti e un’altra ancora fatta di persone che hai conosciuto in una vacanza, ogni account può esser visto come il tuo “io” di ogni diversa cerchia. Puoi tenerle separate (multi-account), metterle assieme (account unico), portare solo alcuni membri di una cerchia in contatto con quelli di un’altra…
OK, MA POI, TECNICAMENTE…
Tecnicamente, quando si incontra un utente mentre si é al di fuori della propria rete, vuoi perché loggati in un’Istanza o piattaforma diversa, oppure perché ci si trova proprio fuori dal Fediverso, i modi per followare questo contatto possono essere diversi. Va però detto (e qui un punto dolente) che tutti questi metodi risultano decisamente più praticabili da Desktop che non da dispositivi portatili.
COPIA/INCOLLA DELL’URL
Il primo metodo, il più comune, consiste nel copiare l’URL della pagina del profilo dell’utente in questione o l’URL di un suo post ed incollarlo nel box di ricerca di Mastodon. Dopo aver dato invio, il box di ricerca restituirà l’icona del profilo ed il pulsante “+” per followarlo (NB: se l’Istanza “non é federata come si deve” il pulsante potrebbe non apparire, mostrare una clessidra o altro)
URL copiata su Friendica…
…e incollata su Mastodon
Il meccanismo del copia/incolla dell’URL funziona con tutte le piattaforme federate e, come dicevamo, funziona sia con l’URL dell’utente che con l’URL di un suo post/contenuto.
L’URL di un video su Peertube…
…su Mastodon restituisce il post del video ed il profilo dell’utente che l’ha postato.
TASTO “SEGUI”
Un altro metodo per followare un utente Mastodon trovato al di fuori del Fediverso é quello di premere sul pulsante “segui” sul suo profilo. Questo metodo però funziona solo per seguire su Mastodon altri utenti Mastodon. Basta premere il pulsante “segui” e loggarsi.
DAL NOME UTENTE ALL’URL
L’ultimo, invece, é il caso più antipatico che può capitare:
Se, all’esterno del Fediverso, si viene a conoscenza dell’account federato di un utente (@NomeUtente@NomeIstanza), il modo più immediato per followarlo é copia/incollarlo nel box di ricerca della propria Istanza Mastodon, ma se l’Istanza non conosce già questo utente, non restituirà alcun risultato. Bisognerà allora ottenere l’URL del profilo utente partendo dall’account.
Innanzitutto, conoscendo il nome dell’Istanza risaliamo all’URL dell’Istanza stessa scrivendone il nome nella barra di ricerca del browser. Cerchiamo ad esempio un utente su mastodon.gamedev.place
Il metodo più rapido per capire come sono composte le URL su una data Istanza é cliccare sul profilo dell’admin (che é quasi sempre presente sulla home dell’Istanza) e sostituire nell’url il nome dell’admin con quello desiderato.
DA ISTANZA A ISTANZA
Una situazione in cui ci si può trovare é quella di essere loggati nell’ Istanza B e venire in contatto con uno o più utenti che si vorrebbe seguire dall’Istanza A.
É possibile aprire le pagine profilo di ogni singolo utente (click su Vedi profilo completo), sloggarsi, entrare nell’Istanza A e da qui followarli nei modi che abbiamo appena visto.
IN CONCLUSIONE
Seguire utenti esterni alla propria rete é dunque un’operazione basata principalmente su copia/incolla, il che, se su Desktop é tutto sommato ancora gestibile, sui dispositivi mobili é qualcosa di improponibile ad un grande pubblico.
Si sente decisamente la mancanza di un qualche plugin/widget/pulsante tipo “segui da…” in cui specificare l’Istanza e/o piattaforma da cui si vuole seguire tale utente.
Se da un lato non va dimenticato che il Fediverso é un network estremamente variegato ed in via di costruzione, in cui sono diversi gli elementi da tenere in considerazione ed armonizzare perché il dialogo fra piattaforme diverse funzioni, dall’altro l’attuale macchinosità che s’incontra nel connettere utenti di reti diverse, é decisamente una grossa pecca: agli utenti di social centralizzati viene già chiesto lo sforzo culturale di capire cosa sia e come funziona una rete federata (sforzo che già é di per sé una debolezza) ma finché proprio la pratica di connessione che é alla base della federazione rimarrà così ostica é comprensibile che la maggior parte degli utenti, questo doppio sforzo, non lo vorrà nemmeno tentare.
Sbrigativamente si può dire che Mastodon é un’alternativa a Twitter, ma utilizzare l’uno non significa affatto dover abbandonare l’altro: anzi!
In modo molto semplice é possibile far convivere i due strumenti ottenendo vantaggi da entrambi!
Abbiamo già visto cos’é Mastodon e che dialoga con diverse piattaforme molto diverse fra loro (solo per citarne alcune: Peertube, Pixelfed, Friendica, Hubzilla, Nextcloud, che sono a loro volta paragonabili a YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox e iCloud), le quali, assieme, formano una sorta di mega-rete chiamata Fediverso.
Numeri ottimi, ma molto distanti da quelli dei social commerciali. Twitter ad esempio ha circa 335 milioni di utenti attivi (a luglio 2018).
Non é un mistero che chi utilizza una certa piattaforma può decidere di passare ad un altra se solo questa presenta caratteristiche migliori o assenti in quella che già conosce.
UN DIVERSO PARADIGMA
Qui incontriamo una difficoltà: Mastodon presenta sì delle caratteristiche che su Twitter sono inedite (il livello di privacy dei messaggi, il Content Warning) ma presenta soprattutto un cambio di paradigma nel rapporto coi social che spesso spiazza chi vi si approccia.
Capire che Mastodon non é UN social, ma un conglomerato di comunità diversissime che decidono volontariamente se interagire tra di loro e come, é un concetto talmente distante dall’immagine di social a cui si é abituati da non esser facilmente capito.
Altro concetto che risulta di non immediata comprensione sono ad esempio le potenzialità di poter creare il proprio server Mastodon con le proprie regole(vorresti un social su cui é vietato parlare di politica e religione? Nessun problema: si può creare un’Istanza Mastodon che abbia questo divieto tra le sue policy e raccogliere utenti che hanno lo stesso approccio)
Si ha difficoltà a capire che un’Istanza é sia un server che una comunità.
Di altrettanta difficile comprensione é che possono crearsi delle reti di Istanze Mastodon completamente scollegate fra loro (Ci sono Istanze piene di nazisti che dialogano solamente fra di loro e che non hanno alcun contatto con Istanze antifasciste).
Non si tratta di cose difficili da capire di per sé, ma risultano difficili a chi conosce solo i più noti social network commerciali centralizzati e non é mai stato esposto all’idea di reti dal funzionamento del tutto diverso. E’un po come il caso della persona che fa sempre lo stesso tragitto e dopo anni gli vien rivelato che a breve distanza esiste un percorso alternativo di cui non aveva mai nemmeno sospettato l’esistenza.
A volte si descrive Mastodon come uno strumento atto a creare comunità chiuse nelle loro filter bubble, senza capire che un’Istanza può avere diversi livelli di apertura e chiusura alle altre: una Istanza/comunità sana, interessata a comunicare apertamente con chiunque che ha tra i suoi princìpi anche dei “no” come ad esempio razzismo e sessismo é cosa diversa da chi vive in una filter bubble.
Al tempo stesso, vi sono alcuni meccanismi di Mastodon che in parte necessitano oggettivamente di qualche miglioramento ed in parte ha senso che risultino un po’ macchinosi, proprio in base alle sue peculiarità (ad esempio la ricerca di utenti su Istanze diverse o l’assenza di trend topic).
UN’INTERAZIONE PIÚ UMANA
Queste differenze di approccio ai rapporti via social sono certamente interessanti: le caratteristiche di Mastodon tendono a premiare le interazioni umane (l’argomento più discusso su un’Istanza é quello di cui messaggiano tutti e non quello che appare su una classifica di trend topic gonfiata da bot e troll; l’ordine dei messaggi é quello cronologico reale e non viene alterato da algoritmi; si interagisce dialogando; la gamification é ridotta in modo drammatico) pur introducendo alcuni strumenti tipici della comunicazione elettronica (stelline, retweet/boost ecc.).
Si può invece notare che chi proviene da piattaforme commerciali tende spesso a sentire come una mancanza proprio le caratteristiche che rendono la comunicazione meno umana (rincorsa all’hashtag, trend topic, contatori, retweet con commento ecc.)
É sempre illuminante osservare come spesso sulla propria Istanza Mastodon nessuno abbia alcun interesse verso un argomento frivolo che, su Twitter, occupa magari tutti i tweet della giornata.
Qui la cosa può farsi straniante: chi si approccia a Mastodon continuando a ragionare in termini di gamification (ottenere tanti like! centinaia di retweet! inventare una battuta di successo!) probabilmente non ne trarrà molto gradimento perché come abbiam visto su Mastodon tutto é studiato per minimizzare questo tipo di interazione “meccanica”.
Tutto dipende dalla qualità della comunità/Istanza: più gli utenti collaborano a “creare comunità” sulla propria Istanza e meglio questa funziona. Se l’Istanza/comunità é solo un punto d’incontro casuale tra utenti privi di un progetto/idea/interesse comune, allora Mastodon sarà solo un “Twitter un pò diverso”, ma se al contrario v’é un approccio propositivo e di comunità, ecco che le caratteristiche strutturali di Mastodon riveleranno immediatamente tutte le loro potenzialità.
Per esempio, un’Istanza comunitaria può decidere assieme le policy, chi bannare o semplicemente silenziare, come finanziare il server, le attività in comune, quali strumenti aggiungere/personalizzare, come gestire la moderazione…
“MA SONO TUTTI DALL’ALTRA PARTE”
Una difficoltà che tocca diversi strumenti informatici alternativi a quelli più diffusi e commerciali é quello dell’omnipresenza di questi ultimi. Se sei su Twitter, insomma, ci pensi due volte a passare ad una piattaforma in cui non troverai i tuoi contatti/follower/amici. Al di là del fatto che ci sono ottimi motivi per mollare a piè pari le piattaforme delle Big Tech Companies, é comprensibile che non tutti siano disposti a fare di punto in bianco un “grande salto”, vuoi per timore, vuoi per oggettiva riduzione dei contatti.
Esistono tuttavia diversi strumenti per far convivere Mastodon e Twitter ottenendo il meglio da entrambi e permettendo una transazione soft!
CROSSPOST CON MASTO.DONTE
Masto.donte é un crossposter, ossia uno strumento che permette di sincronizzare il proprio account Twitter col proprio account Mastodon.
Il funzionamento é semplice: ci si logga con entrambi gli account e lo si imposta come si preferisce! Le opzioni a disposizione sono diverse, ad esempio lo si può impostare perché i post su Mastodon vengano replicati su Twitter ma non da Twitter verso Mastodon, o il contrario, oppure ancora lo si può impostare perché funzioni in entrambi i sensi. Qui ognuno é libero di sperimentare la formula che preferisce.
Ci sono alcuni limiti (le risposte ad altri utenti non possono essere crosspostate ed i boost su Mastodon non vengono twittati) ma i propri post originali possono viaggiare sempre in entrambe le direzioni.
Ci sono anche alcuny bypass: é possibile far sì che messaggi contenenti una certa parola (o un certo hashtag) non vengano mai crosspostati.
IFTTT contiene diversi Applet in grado di crosspostare messaggi da una piattaforma all’altra. Gli Applet sono diversi e conviene provarli direttamente.
ACTIVITYPUB.ACTOR
ActivityPub.Actor é uno strumento ancora in lavorazione (questo il profilo del suo sviluppatore) che si propone di sincronizzare gli account di diverse piattaforme commerciali centralizzate con ActivityPub, il protocollo di comunicazione condiviso dalle piattaforme del Fediverso e dunque anche da Mastodon.
La piattaforma su cui maggiormente viene sperimentato é proprio Twitter, ma tra quelle che gli sviluppatori dicono di voler considerare in futuro vediamo anche Facebook, Instagram, Reddit ecc.
In sostanza ActivityPub.Actor porterebbe i contenuti di questi social nel Fediverso e viceversa, fungendo grossomodo come uno dei bridge già osservati riguardo a Matrix.
Pur essendo uno strumento non ancora funzionante ha già fatto discutere un po’ all’interno del Fediverso, riguardo l’opportunità di accogliere potenzialmente una valanga di contenuti non originali con i quali probabilmente non sarebbe possibile interagire.
I VANTAGGI DEL CROSSPOSTING
Uno dei primi vantaggi del crossposting ce l’ha ben presente chi, per un motivo o per l’altro, é stato silenziato/sospeso/bannato da Twitter.
BYPASSARE I BAN DI TWITTER Crosspostando con Mastodon, nel caso di una sospensione si può continuare a comunicare su Mastodon e la propria pagina pubblica di Mastodon con tutti i propri messaggi, rimarrà comunque visibile. Volendo, puoi collegare temporaneamente il tuo account Mastodon ad un account temporaneo di Twitter.
500 CARATTERI Scrivendo su Mastodon puoi avere fino a 500 caratteri (alcune Istanze anche di più). Crosspostando, Twitter mosterà i primi 280 caratteri e per leggere il resto aggiunge il link web al post Mastodon.
THREAD MULTIPLI Un post crosspostato può generare una discussione su Twitter con un certo tono ed una discussione enormemente diversa su Mastodon. A volte il risultato può essere stupefacente!
BACKUP Avere i tuoi post archiviati su un diverso server può essere un modo di backuparli!
Il crossposting può essere visto male nel Fediverso se viene usato in modo unidirezionale e senza interazione. Per intenderci: se stai sempre su Twitter, crossposti su Mastodon ma poi su Mastodon non vieni mai, non interagisci, non rispondi, beh, la cosa é vista molto male perché anche se sei una persona in carne e ossa, così facendo nel Fediverso ti comporteresti come un BOT e certe Istanze potrebbero silenziarti o bannarti.
Tieni conto che per etichetta, nel Fediverso, i BOT si dichiarano per quel che sono. Un account che funge da BOT per un sito postando in automatico i suoi contenuti può svolgere un servizio comodo ma é giusto che gli utenti sappiano che si tratta di un “utente meccanico” cosicché possano agire di conseguenza.
Account di utenti reali che però agiscono solo come BOT sono invece un qualcosa di assai irritante, anche perché spesso collegati ad operazioni di trolling. Se vuoi solo che i tuoi contenuti girino nel Fediverso senza interagire non c’é problema, a patto che ciò sia detto esplicitamente. Nelle preferenze del tuo account Mastodon c’é una casella da spuntare in cui indichi che il tuo account é un BOT e, per maggior chiarezza, non sarebbe male lo segnalassi anche nel nome utente e/o nella bio. Volendo, esiste anche un’Istanza apposita: https://botsin.space/creata proprio per ospitare solamente account BOT. Così come ogni cosa nel Fediverso, ogni Istanza sceglie come rapportarsi con Botsin Space: chi la blocca, chi la silenzia e chi interagisce senza problemi.
CERCHI CHE SI ALLARGANO
Le prime comunità su una piattaforma digitale sono solitamente le comunità degli sviluppatori. Hacker, programmatori e appassionati di tecnologia che si divertono a smanettare su strumenti nuovi, migliorarli, ecc.
In una seconda fase la piattaforma si popola delle prime comunità per cui la piattaforma é stata pensata. Mastodon però da un lato non é pensato per una qualche comunità specifica (per fare un esempio: il social Gab ha delle policy che permettono alle comunità neonaziste di utilizzarla liberamente e dunque si é popolata proprio di neonazisti, alt/right ecc) e dall’altro il suo sviluppatore ha imposto una chiara policy antifascista sul suo server, mastodon.social. Di conseguenza le prime comunità ad aver popolato Mastodon e creato le proprie Istanze hanno avuto una forte componente antifascista.
Una grossa fetta di utenti ed Istanze poi é andata a formarsi grazie agli esuli di Twitter: chi non poteva o voleva interagire rispettandone le policy (utenti giapponesi, appassionati di anime e manga che, per differenze culturali, non potevano interagire su Twitter) comunità che su sui social generalisti perdono più tempo a difendersi da molestie e trollaggio e che han creato le proprie Istanze Mastodon dove han trovato casa (comunità LGBTQ, Furry, ecc).
Col tempo poi sono arrivati anche i nazi ed i fondamentalisti cristiani, che si son fatti le proprie Istanze indipendenti, così come sono arrivati appassionati di erotismo e pornografia transfughi da Tumblr. Ci sono pure Istanze sex-work friendly.
La struttura stessa di Mastodon fa sì che ogni utente e comunità possa scegliere se e come interagire con le altre. Mastodon dunque non é UN social di antifascisti, furry, nazi, sex-worker, anarchici e tecnoilluminati ma un calderone pieno di comunità diversissime che interagiscono o s’ignorano in modi assai variegati, creando reti complesse adatte alle singole comunità.
In questo momento stanno nascendo diverse Istanze dedicate a mestieri specifici come Istanze per avvocati ed educatori. Al tempo stesso stanno nascendo Istanze specifiche per una certa regione.
MASTODON IN ITALIA
In Italia le Istanze stanno nascendo nell’ambito di collettivi autonomi, circoli anarchici e centri sociali legati alle città d’origine:
Non mancano alcune Istanze personali (cioé create solo per ospitare il loro proprietario o poco più) ed un’Istanza generalista attualmente popolata solo da bot commerciali.
Molti utenti italiani tuttavia sono registrati su mastodon.social o in altre Istanze, perlopiù tedesche o francesi, come ad esempio l’assai cosmopolita mastodon.partecipa.
PRIMI PASSI E CONVIVENZA CON TWITTER
Cresce dunque l’interesse per lo strumento ed al tempo stesso si affronta la titubanza di chi s’approccia a Mastodon avendo alle spalle solo l’esperienza dei social commerciali ed ha dunque bisogno di un’introduzione ed un avvicinamento lento. Far convivere le due piattaforme con l’uso di un crossposter é probabilmente una formula che in questo senso può aiutare.
Riassumendo molto brevemente: Matrix é un protocollo di comunicazione aperto e liberamente utilizzabile da chiunque (ognuno puà farsi il suo server Matrix) creando una rete di chat potenzialmente infinita, le cui caratteristiche di sicurezza ed espansione permettono e promettono di fare un sacco di cose. Insomma: si tratta di uno strumento estremamente interessante.
Una delle caratteristiche più interessanti é la capacità di Matrix di dialogare con altre piattaforme. Detto in soldoni: con Matrix si può creare un “gruppo” in cui possono dialogare utenti Matrix, utenti Whatsapp, Telegram, IRC ecc. lasciando che ognuno usi l’App che preferisce. Questo é il “bridging”
(Una nota: questo articolo vuole solamente spiegare il concetto di “bridge” dando giusto un accenno terra-terra a come funziona e non vuol certo essere un manuale sull’utilizzo dei bridge)
Chi ha già letto gli articoli precedenti sa che Matrix non é un servizio di chat come Twitter ma é un protocollo, come l’email: Gmail, ProtonMail, Hotmail sono tutti servizi che usano i protocolli email, ognuno coi propri server e con caratteristiche personali che però, interagiscono fra loro (da Gmail puoi mandare una email a Hotmail, giusto?).
Non ti “registri all’email” ma “crei un account su ProtonMail”. Non ti “registri a Matrix”, ma “crei un account su un server Matrix”.
Prendiamo dunque ad esempio il server Matrix di Feneas: https://chat.feneas.org, Una volta registrati si può dialogare con qualsiasi utente registrato su qualsiasi server Matrix (ancora una volta: se ti registri su Yahoo puoi scambiarti le email con chiunque abbia un indirizzo email, indifferentemente dal server a cui si é registrato).
In Matrix ogni conversazione avviene in “stanze”. Sono sostanzialmente come i gruppi di Whatsapp, solo che qui anche la chat tra te ed una sola altra persona avviene in una stanza.
Qui incontriamo dunque i “bridge”, ossia quegli strumenti che permettono di collegare una stanza Matrix con il proprio corrispettivo su altre piattaforme.
Un “bridge” (letteralmente “ponte”) é sostanzialmente un programma che si occupa di sincronizzare Matrix con una certa piattaforma in modo da farli comunicare assieme.
Per ogni piattaforma dunque servità un bridge apposito. Dunque ce ne sono diversi. Non solo: per certe piattaforme esiste più di un bridge che magari adottano soluzioni e caratteristiche diverse. Bisogna tener conto che tutto il processo di bridging tra Matrix e le altre piattaforme é ancora un work in progress: alcuni bridge funzionano bene, altri così-così, ed insomma, la “scena” del bridging é ancora molto attiva. Alcune piattaforme sono fatte in modo da poter essere, almeno sulla carta, facilmente collegabili con un bridge mentre altre sono decisamente più ostiche.
Il funzionamento ideale di una stanza Matrix “bridged” (da qui in poi renderò “bridged” con “sincronizzata”) con una piattaforma diversa, ad esempio Telegram, dovrebbe essere abbastanza banale: io che ho un account Matrix entro nella stanza e chatto normalmente, da Matrix, mentre un’altra persona che ha Telegram vedrà quel che ho scritto nella stanza, a cui però accede attraverso Telegram.
Un esempio lo si può vedere nella stanza pubblica Telegram-FOSS. La stanza é sincronizzata con Telegram ed IRC, pertanto gli utenti che vi partecipano lo fanno da tutte e tre le piattaforme.
Questa é la stanza pubblica Telegram-FOSS così come viene visualizzata online. Sono visibili le interazioni fra utenti Telegram (segnalati tra parentesi) ed IRC (privi di indicazione tra parentesi perché la stanza nasce come stanza IRC e dunque sono gli altri account a dover specificare la loro piattaforma)
Si, ma, in soldoni, come funzionano questi bridge? Come si installano e come si attivano?
Dunque, ogni bridge é un programma che va a dialogare con Matrix: non é parte integrante di Matrix! Questo vuol dire che se creo un account su un server Matrix non é scontato che questo abbia anche dei bridge e se ne ha, non é detto che li abbia tutti!
La maggior parte dei server Matrix offre perlopiù il solo bridge ad alcuni server IRC (Freenode e pochi altri ancora).
Come dicevamo, la “scena” riguardante la realizzazione dei bridge é ancora un work in progress e dunque é probabile che nel giro di qualche tempo sempre più server avranno di default un numero maggiore di bridge.
Come si fa allora ad usare un bridge se i server Matrix non li offrono di default? La prima soluzione possibile é quella di farsi il proprio server Matrix installandoci tutti i bridge che si desiderano, ma ovviamente per fare ciò é necessario avere un server e saperci mettere le mani.
Ma esiste un altro modo: un bridge, dicevamo, é un programma che sincronizza una stanza Matrix con l’equivalente di una diversa piattaforma (canale IRC, gruppo Whatsapp ecc…), ma non é indispensabile che il bridge si trovi sullo stesso server Matrix che deve sincronizzare.
Potenzialmente, dunque, un bridge potrebbe essere installato sui server di Whatsapp per offrire ai propri utenti la possibilità di interagire con gli utenti Matrix (ok, Facebook aborre un’idea del genere e dunque non succederà mai, ma tecnicamente la cosa sarebbe possibile).
Ma il bridge può anche essere installato su un server che non c’entra nulla con gli altri due. Un esempio é t2bot.io, che offre alcuni bridge per Matrix.
i bridge offerti da t2bot.io
Si, ma, materialmente, per fare questa sincronizzazione, dal lato utente come funziona? Cosa clicco? Dove devo digitare?
Beh, qui la cosa cambia da bridge a bridge: ognuno ha un approccio diverso così come caratteristiche e funzionamento. Due diversi bridge per Whatsapp possono funzionare in modo molto diverso, per intenderci.
Ma giusto per dare un’idea vediamo un esempio di sincronizzazione con Telegram usando il bridge messo a disposizione di t2bot.io
SU TELEGRAM
Creare un canale Telegram
Invitare il bot @matrix_t2bot nel canale (basta digitare @matrix_t2bot nella casella di ricerca per trovatlo)
Nel gruppo, digitare il comando /id Il Bot fornirà un <codice>
SU MATRIX
Creare una stanza Matrix (la stanza deve essere accessibile da chiunque ed avere un indirizzo locale)
Invitare il bot @telegram:t2bot.io nella stanza
Nella stanza, digitare il comando !tg bridge <codice>
Il bot chiederà una conferma. Digitare !tg continue
Fatta! Adesso in quel canale potranno dialogare sia utenti Telegram che utenti Matrix. (Maggiori dettagli qui: https://t2bot.io/telegram )
A questo punto quel che vien scritto in quella stanza Matrix apparirà nella stanza Telegram e viceversa. Tuttavia i messaggi provenienti dall’ “altra piattaforma” appariranno come se fossero pubblicati dal bot e non dalla persona che li ha scritti (Telegram Bot ha scritto: “ciao!”). Per far si che i messaggi vengano attribuiti all’utente che li ha effettivamente scritti, ora che si son sincronizzate le stanze vanno sincronizzati gli account!
SU MATRIX
Aprire una chat privata con l’utente @telegram:t2bot.io
Digitare il comando !tg login ed attendere un pò
Dopo una certa attesa il bot fornirà delle istruzioni da seguire; solitamente contenenti un link ad una pagina in cui bisognerà scrivere il numero di telefono del proprio account Telegram (+39 12 34567890) ed il proprio account Matrix (@nomeutente:nomeserver)
A questo punto il bot sincronizzerà i due account ed inviterà a sincronizzare anche altre stanze/gruppi. Questo, va ricordato, é UN bridge Matrix/Telegram e nulla toglie che ne possano essere sviluppati degli altri che funzionino in modo più semplice ed intuitivo.
Idealmente in una stanza Matrix con tutti i bridge immaginabili, si potrebbe far dialogare assieme utenti Mastodon, Whatsapp, IRC, XMPP, Matrix, Telegram, Slack, Discord, iMessage, Skype. Ma potrebbero intervenire anche utenti via SMS ed Email.
Con il bridge Mastodon o un eventuale bridge ActivityPub inoltre Matrix verrebbe definitivamente a far parte del Fediverso e l’abbinata Matrix-ActivityPub potrebbe in effetti fungere da vero nodo collettore tra innumerevoli piattaforme decentralizzate, federandole.
Una teoria del complotto Non é altro che una narrazione diversiva, che parte da almeno una frustrazione non manifestabile e ne elabora un’interpretazione distorta che attacca capri espiatori mantenendo le cose così come sono.
Le narrazioni possono essere di tipo diversissimo: si spazia da quella che é poco più che una leggenda urbana alle grandi teorie del complotto. Ognuna di queste però presenta più o meno queste caratteristiche (non sempre tutte contemporaneamente):
Propone sempre una “visione altra” della realtà, basata sulla meraviglia e fascinazione della “verità rivelata”.
Fornisce ai suoi eroi una griglia concettuale con cui interpretare un mondo che non capisce.
Riduce la dissonanza cognitiva tra la realtà così com’é e la realtà così come la concepiscono.
Attribuisce colpe sistemiche a colpevoli materiali.
Ruota sempre attorno ad un perno indiscutibile.
Ha uno scopo di enorme portata.
Ha una durata indefinita.
Ha un numero indefinito di partecipanti.
Consiste in piani complessissimi, intricati ma coerentissimi e perfetti nel loro svolgimento.
Prosegue anche se diventato nota.
Può riferirsi ad una mitica “età dell’oro” passata
I suoi organizzatori (i “Grandi”) sono una sorta di entità divine, come Dei capaci di muovere ogni cosa e persona.
L’EROE COMPLOTTISTA
La teoria del complotto ha sempre un eroe in colui che la afferma: chi crede in una teoria del complotto é un “eroe in lotta” tanto quanto i sostenitori più noti e famosi di quella stessa teoria. Anche l’ “eroe” é identificabile da dei tratti ricorrenti:
Si considera costantemente come vittima.
Si percepisce come sempre sotto attacco.
Si concepisce come contropotere, anche se é al potere.
É costantemente alla ricerca di una catarsi, palingenesi, rinascita.
Attribuisce alla nemesi i propri impulsi bestiali repressi.
Se crede che una certa cosa possa esser vera, la considererà tale.
É impossibile stabilire con certezza se crede o finge di credere in ciò che dice.
Se attaccato alzerà il tiro (dinnanzi a prove dell’inconsistenza delle sue affermazioni, le sparerà ancor più grandi)
Considera ogni briciola (elemento da lui utilizzabile) un tesoro, fintanto che può ingerirla, anche se é merda.
Accoglie ogni collegamento mentale possibile, per quanto arbitrario.
I VERI EFFETTI DI OGNI TEORIA DEL COMPLOTTO
Giustificare il sistema.
Spostare la frustrazione su capri espiatori.
Mantenere lo status quo attraverso finte rivoluzioni.
Per assurdo che sembri, l’ “eroe” che più si straccia le vesti contro un certo nemico é proprio colui che maggiormente lo alimenta. Chi si affida alle medicine alternative perché non si fida delle aziende farmaceutiche, per esempio, acquista prodotti omeopatici che sono a tutti gli effetti solo acqua e zucchero vendute ad un prezzo esorbitante: tutto guadagno per le aziende che li producono.
I NUCLEI DI FRUSTRAZIONE
La frustrazione non manifestabile e che prende corpo nella teoria del complotto é sempre un qualcosa che l’eroe considera troppo vago o complesso. Qualcosa che sente dentro ma che non trova appiglio materiale per scaricare la frustrazione su di esso. Questo nucleo può essere una verità intangibile così come una paura basata su fantasie ma per l’ “eroe” é sempre una verità indiscutibile.
Il lunacomplottista non crede a nessuna “fonte ufficiale” a prescindere e per lui dimostrare che l’uomo non é giunto sulla Luna é un modo per riaffermare questa sua sfiducia.
Qualche esempio:
TERRAPIATTISMO “Non mi fido di ciò che dice la scienza”
COMPLOTTI LUNARI “Non mi fido di ciò che dice il governo”
SCIE CHIMICHE “Il cambiamento climatico é opera dei Grandi ed io non posso farci nulla”
9/11 “Non mi fido di ciò che dice il governo”
RETTILIANI “Il mondo finanziario é inumano”
UCCISIONE JFK “Non mi fido di ciò che dice il governo” “Ogni speranza di cambiamento é vana”
STRAGI PARTIGIANE “Il comunismo é inumano”
MEDICINE ALTERNATIVE “Non mi fido di ciò che dicono le aziende” “Non mi fido di ciò che dice la scienza”
UFO “Non siamo soli al mondo” “Non mi fido di ciò che dice il governo” “Il mondo é comandato dai Grandi ed io non posso farci nulla”
COMPLOTTO MASSONICO E/O GIUDAICO “Il mondo é comandato dai Grandi ed io non posso farci nulla”
“TEORIA DEL GENDER “I cambiamenti sociali sono opera dei Grandi”
SOSTITUZIONE ETNICA “I cambiamenti del mondo sono opera dei Grandi” “Il cambiamento climatico é opera dei Grandi”
CREDERE E COMBATTERE
L’ “eroe” é una persona che crede e già il solo credere significa, nel suo piccolo, combattere. Ci vuole poco ad osservare che si é dinnanzi ad una forma mentis più religiosa che logica, ma va fatta una certa distinzione: si tratta dello stesso processo mentale ma viene applicato su oggetti diversi. Ci sono complottisti atei e complottisti religiosissimi, così come ci sono persone religiose che coltivano uno scetticismo logico e persone religiose che credono a complotti di ogni sorta.
Il tratto comune qui trattato é l’atteggiamento religioso verso il “credere”, ossia il rapportarsi ad un’idea partendo dal presupposto che sia vera a prescindere da qualsiasi evidenza. Si tratta di un atteggiamento mentale che indubbiamente accomuna diverse realtà anche apparentemente distanti fra loro.
Sarebbe interessante osservare tutte queste realtà tralasciando le classificazioni abituali ma suddividendole in base al paradigma della forma mentis che sta alla loro base.
Per chi non avesse letto gli altri post, qui basterà ricordate solo una cosa: Matrix é il nome della piattaforma, Riot é l’applicazione che ci accede e matrix.org é il più noto fornitore della piattaform.
Per fare un paragone:
Matrix – La piattaforma; come dire l’email
matrix.org – Uno dei server della piattaforma Matrix; come dire email.it o gmail.com
Riot – é come dire Outlook Express o Thunderbird o Apple Mail.
Il paragone con l’email spiega bene le diverse soluzioni possibili con Matrix: così come puoi decidere il server mail che preferisci e registrarti a tua scelta su Hotmail, Libero o Protonmail sapendo che in ogni caso potrai scambiare mail con persone registrate anche su altri server, su Matrix ti registri al server che preferisci e da lì chatti con persone che possono anche essere registrate su server diversi dal tuo, essendo tutti utilizzatori della piattaforma “email”.
Una volta che ci si é registrati al server email che si é scelto, ad esempio Gmail, si può decidere se accederci dal browser su gmail.com, o scaricando l’app chiamata Gmail o impostando Outlook Express. Allo stesso modo, con Matrix, una volta scelto il server, ci si può accedere da browser o usando l’app Riot o un’altra delle diverse Applicazioni disponibili (ce ne sono diverse, ma questo tutorial tratterà solo la più comune, Riot)
CREARE L’ACCOUNT
1) Da computer fisso, andare su https://riot.im/app/ (A dire il vero l’account si può creare benissimo direttamente da smartphone, ma per qualche oscuro motivo a me inspiegabile, ho riscontrato che molte persone si perdono in questo passaggio e quindi opto per indicare la soluzione che va meglio per tutti)
NOTA IMPORTANTE: Per usare Matrix, come già spiegato, basta registrarsi ad uno qualsiasi dei suoi server pubblici. Questo tutorial ed i link che contiene, si riferiscono al server matrix.org, attualmente il più usato. Tuttavia é possibile che matrix.org limiti le registrazioni. In questo caso basterà scegliere un altro server.
Un elenco incompleto di server pubblici utilizzabili é disponibile suhello-matrix.net
Due di questi server che possono essere vivamente consigliati, sono i seguenti:
Opencloud (Lussemburgo) https://riot.opencloud.lu/#/welcome (NB: il server é in Lussemburgo ma gli admin sono italiani, il che può aiutare in caso doveste chiedere informazioni o aiuto)
2) Apparirà questa schermata. Clicca su [CREATE ACCOUNT]
3) Scegliere uno [USERNAME] ed una [PASSWORD]. Scegli una password seria! Mi raccomando che contenga lettere, numeri, simboli, maiuscole e minuscole! E segnatela da qualche parte! Non é obbligatorio ma é meglio inserire anche il proprio indirizzo [EMAIL].
4) A questo punto va risolto il Captcha [NON SONO UN ROBOT]
5) Accettare [TERMINI E CONDIZIONI]
6) FATTA: L’ACCOUNT É STATO CREATO! La sua forma, senza gli spazi, é questa:
@ nomeutente : matrix . org
7) In questo momento stai usando la versione web di Riot, ma volendo puoi scaricare la sua Applicazione per PC Windows, Mac, o Linux da quihttps://about.riot.im/downloads/ Puoi anche scaricare l’App Riot.im per Android da Google Play e da F-Droid o per iOS dall’ App Store.
8) Riot in versione web (o Applicazione) da per computer fisso permette di fare molte più cose della versione per smartphone. In questa guida iniziale però viene spiegato solo il funzionamento da smartphone.
9) L’App di Android e quella di iOS hanno delle leggere differenze fra loro, perciò le schermate ed i menù di Riot sul tuo telefono potrebbero non essere del tutto uguali a quelle descritte qui.
10) Scarica l’App sullo smartphone
11) Dal momento che hai creato il tuo account aspetta almeno 2 o 3 minuti e poi puoi accedere all’App con il nome utente e password che hai creato.
12) Se hai dato il tuo indirizzo mail ti sarà arrivata una email di verifica. Se non la vedi controlla nell’antispam.
USARE RIOT
A questo punto ci si può loggare da smartphone. Banalmente, basta inserire il nome utente e la password. Non serve mettere il nome utente completo di formattazione (invece che scrivere @:mionomeutente:nomeserver.org basterà scrivere mionomeutente)
Se si é scelto un server diverso da matrix.org, questo va indicato nella schermata di Login
L’app per smartphone Riot.im, di default intende che tu abbia un account su matrix.org. Se così non fosse bisognerà selezionare “Custom server” ed inserire il suo dominio. (Se il l’account é su Opencloud bisognerà scrivere https://riot.opencloud.lu)
Una volta loggato nell’App ti ritroverai una schermata come questa:
Schermata iniziale al primo utilizzo
Non appare granché perché devi ancora aggiungere i tuoi contatti. A questo punto, se non l’hai ancora fatto, sarebbe bene leggere il post Cos’é Matrix per comprendere i concetti base di come funzionano le cose da queste parti. É facile, ma se finora hai usato solo App tipo Whatsapp, Facebook, Telegram e Viber, che sono iper-semplificate ed estremamente simili fra loro, molto probabilmente hai bisogno di ripassarti due-tre concetti su sicurezza e comunicazione digitale che le App che hai usato finora tendono a eliminare.
OGNI CHAT É UNA STANZA
La cosa principale da ricordare é che su Riot si comunica a STANZE. Hai presente un gruppo Whatsapp? Beh, qui su Riot un “gruppo” é chiamato stanza e funziona più o meno allo stesso modo. Ma su Riot anche la comunicazione tra te ed un’altra persona deve avvenire in una stanza!
Se Andrea chatta con Sabrina non é semplicemente una comunicazione diretta tra Andrea e Sabrina ma é una comunicazione che avviene in una stanza che ha come membri… solo Andrea e Sabrina!
Riot permette di dividere le stanze in quattro tipi: FAVOURITES, PEOPLE, ROOMS e LOW PRIORITY. Questa cosa all’inizio può confondere: si tratta sempre di stanze! Non importa se tu classifichi una stanza “people” o “room”: resta sempre e solo una stanza! Io, per esempio, trovo comodo classificare “people” le stanze con solo me ed un’altra persona, “room” quelle con 3 o più persone, “favourite” le preferite e “low priority” quelle con persone o gruppi con cui non mi sento spesso.
Quando premi il pulsante [+] ti vengono fornite tre opzioni. [START CHAT] e [CREATE ROOM] sono fondamentalmente la stessa cosa! Solamente, funzionano in modo un pò diverso: “Start chat” é più veloce, selezioni subito le persone con cui chattare ed appena l’hai fatto inizi la conversazione in una stanza senza nome. “Create room” invece ti chiede prima di impostare la stanza, dargli un nome, selezionare diverse opzioni e solo quando hai fatto tutto puoi invitare chi vuoi nella stanza.
Altra grossa differenza: con “Start chat” tu e le altre persone nella discussione siete tutte parimenti amministratrici della stanza di discussione. Con “Create room” tu amministri e gli altri utenti no.
La terza opzione, [JOIN ROOM] serve ad entrare in stanze create da altri. Ma questa opzione non viene trattata in questa guida
PRIMO IMPATTO
Come quando si indossa un nuovo paio di scarpe o si guida una nuova moto, all’inizio bisognerà prendere confidenza con certe funzioni basilari: quello che su un altra App sai fare a occhi chiusi, qui devi un po’ re-impararlo: é normale! Fai qualche prova, gira qua e là tra i menù, esplora. E non farti problemi a sperimentare: che vuoi che succeda di così grave?
Impara a disabilitare le notifiche, trova le impostazioni generali e quelle di ogni singola stanza, creare stanze, unirti a stanze già esistenti ed abbandonarle…
ACCOUNT E RUBRICA
Se hai già letto il post Cos’é Matrix sai che l’intero sistema Riot/Matrix é estremamente attento a privacy e sicurezza. Qui tutto é pensato perché non vengano diffuse informazioni su di te. Per questo quando hai creato il tuo account Matrix non era obbligatorio mettere la tua email o il numero di cellulare: qui nessuno ti obbliga a collegare il tuo account alla tua identità reale. Nelle istruzioni sulla creazione dell’account ho suggerito di inserire comunque un indirizzo email perché nel caso perdessi la tua password, con un’email puoi ancora riuscire ad entrare in Riot mentre senza, ahimé, non avresti alcun modo di recuperarla.
Se entri nelle preferenze di Riot però vedrai che ci sono i campi per inserire i tuoi dati personali: il nome visualizzato, il numero di telefono ed appunto, una o due email. Puoi scegliere tu se metterli o meno: se li inserisci, chi conosce il tuo vero nome, email o numero di telefono, riuscirà a trovarti facilmente qui su Riot; se invece non li inserisci, qui su Riot verrai contattato solo da chi conosce il tuo account esatto.
Logo “Impostazioni”
Sempre nelle impostazioni ti verrà chiesto se vuoi che Riot possa accedere alla Rubrica del tuo telefono per vedere se ci sono, appunto, indirizzi email o numeri di telefono di qualcuno che li ha abbinati al suo account Riot.
LISTA CONTATTI DI RIOT
Su Riot, se hai notato, non hai una tua lista dei contatti Matrix. Questa é la seconda cosa che risulta un pò spiazzante per chi viene da Whatsapp ed altre App simili ma che ti appare chiara se hai letto il post Cos’é Matrix. Si tratta difatti di una scelta voluta per un fatto di sicurezza: Riot non vuole memorizzare i dati dei tuoi contatti. Al contrario, quando ti iscrivi a WhatsApp, tu fai sapere a Facebook tutti i numeri di telefono ed indirizzi email che hai memorizzato sul tuo telefono.
Il concetto base é che i tuoi contatti devono stare solo sulla tua Rubrica del telefono mentre le chat devono stare solo sull’app di chat (in questo caso Riot)
Ti chiederai “Ma allora, quell’impostazione per permettere a Riot di accedere ai miei contatti?”. Beh, qui é una questione di fiducia: ti fidi a dare accesso a Matrix.org alla tua Rubrica e leggere tutti i numeri di telefono, le email ed i nomi collegati? Anche qui, hai la possibilità di scegliere.
Se scegli di NON permettere a Riot di accedere alla Rubrica, i tuoi contatti potranno essere recuperati solo all’interno delle stanze in cui avete dialogato.
Se scegli di permettere a Riot di accedere alla Rubrica, l’App mostrerà al suo interno i tuoi contatti, ma identificherà solo quelli già iscritti a Riot e che hanno fornito l’email o il numero di telefono che hai sulla tua Rubrica.
Questo sistema ha una mancanza: se un utente che ha un account Matrix, NON ha fornito il suo numero di telefono o email, Riot non lo “conoscerà”. Se qualcuno ti da il suo indirizzo Matrix, il modo migliore per archiviarlo é dunque segnarselo manualmente in Rubrica! Così facendo, quando cercherai il suo nome da Riot, vedrai il suo numero di telefono, l’email… e l’account Matrix!
LE RUBRICHE DEL TELEFONO
Bisogna spendere due parole sulle Rubriche del telefono e sul loro modo di gestire i contatti. Banalmente: esiste una sorta di “standard” che però nessuno rispetta veramente e dunque i “Contatti” su iOS sono gestiti in modo diverso che su Android e lo stesso vale per PC, Mac, LInux.
Questo vuol dire che ogni telefono ha un modo un pò suo di gestire la cosa.
Per esempio, su iOS, l’indirizzo Matrix va inserito tra le email e non tra i contatti social.
Detto altrimenti: potresti dover fare un paio di tentativi per capire qual’é il modo migliore per segnarti gli indirizzi Matrix in Rubrica.
LE FUNZIONI AVANZATE DI RIOT/MATRIX
Questo articolo serve giusto per spiegare i primissimi passi con Riot/Matrix. Le funzioni speciali, la differenza tra l’App per smartphone e quella per computer fisso, la crittografia end-to-end sono invece ciò che rende Matrix speciale e possono essere affrontate solo dopo aver compiuto questi primi passi. Una cosa però é chiara: per poter capire le funzioni avanzate é indispensabile aver letto Cos’é Matrix ed aver appreso i concetti fondamentali su cui si regge.
Dunque: spieghiamo innanzitutto la differenza tra Riot e Matrix:
Matrix é un sistema di comunicazione (tecnicamente “protocollo”) mentre Riot é un’applicazione per usare Matrix. Così come dici “uso Outlook per l’email” puoi dire “Uso Riot per Matrix”.
Negli ultimi tempi Matrix sta destando un sacco d’attenzione per diversi motivi che lo rendono estremamente interessante.
É una tecnologia F.L.O.S.S.
Si basa su una rete decentrata di server indipendenti
Permette cifratura end-to-end
Può comunicare con protocolli differenti
Se hai capito cosa c’é scritto in questi quattro punti probabilmente adesso sarai già MOLTO interessato a saperne di più. SE invece i punti esposti ti suonano oscuri non c’é alcun problema: questo articolo é qui apposta!
TECNOLOGIA F.L.O.S.S.
Software F.L.O.S.S.
La sigla sta per Free Libre Open Source Software; in italiano lo si può malamente tradurre con “Software Aperto, Gratuito e Liberamente Accessibile” ed é un tipo di software che é in netto contrasto con il software commerciale cui solitamente si é abituati. Per capire di cosa si tratta si può ricorrere ad un esempio automobilistico: il software F.L.O.S.S. é come un’automobile cui basta alzare il cofano per accedere al motore: chiunque ne capisca di meccanica può vedere come é fatto questo motore, i suoi componenti, i suoi pregi e difetti e, se vuole, può modificarlo, migliorarlo, personalizzarlo o anche solo comunicare a chi l’ha realizzato i difetti che ha riscontrato.
Software Proprietario Chiuso
Al contrario, il software commerciale é solitamente chiuso, ossia ha un cofano ermetico che non permette di accedere liberamente al motore. Questo significa che chi usa software chiuso non ha modo di sapere per davvero COSA stia succedendo sotto il cofano.
Per fare invece un paragone alimentare, il software chiuso é come un cibo confezionato che non riporta né gli ingredienti né i valori nutrizionali, mentre il software aperto non solo te li fornisce, ma ti mette pure a disposizione la ricetta completa! Di quale dei due ti fideresti di più?
Se non sei uno smanettone la cosa potrebbe sembrarti di poco conto perché anche dinnanzi a del software aperto probabilmente non capiresti nulla di codici e programmazione, ma sappi che esiste una enorme comunità di programmatori che non fa altro che creare/testare/verificare/riparare/modificare/sperimentare software, attentissima a verifiche e controlli di sicurezza. Hai presente quando devi aggiornare il software? Ebbene: dietro a quell’aggiornamento c’é un lavoro molto complesso fatto di miglioramenti, correzioni e nuove funzionalità, solo che nel caso di software aperto il lavoro si é svolto sotto gli occhi di una intera comunità e sarà verificabile anche a posteriori, mentre nel caso di software chiuso il lavoro si é svolto solo all’interno dell’azienda produttrice da dipendenti che non possono rivelarne i segreti e chi lo userà dovrà fidarsi a scatola chiusa.
Restando sempre nell’esempio automobilistico: nel caso di software aperto, anche se non ne capisci niente ci può sempre essere un amico o meccanico di fiducia che é aggiornato ed in contatto con gli altri meccanici e che ti consiglia quali strumenti usare e come, perché li ha potuti aprire e studiare personalmente nei minimi dettagli. Nel caso di software chiuso il meccanico di fiducia non ha modo di fare lo stesso e quindi può solo scegliere se fidarsi o no di quel che c’é scritto sul catalogo.
Come si traduce questa cosa in termini pratici? Metti caso che del software F.L.O.S.S. avesse un difetto di sicurezza: essendo tutto pubblico le possibilità che venga subito identificato sono altissime ed al tempo stesso é facile che la stessa comunità che ha identificato la falla vi ponga rimedio in tempi rapidi. Al contrario le falle dei software chiusi, non essendo sotto gli occhi di tutti, richiedono molto tempo e lavoro per essere anche solo identificate e ciò non può essere fatto da informatici comuni ma da quelli più abili a “scassinare le serrature” e che di solito, quando trovano una falla, anziché comunicarla al mondo la usano per scopi illeciti. Di conseguenza é estremamente facile che la falla di un software chiuso rimanga aperta per un bel pò prima che venga riparata.
Inoltre il software F.L.O.S.S. é gratuito.
Perché? Beh, chi lo realizza condivide i princìpi secondo cui uno strumento é veramente utile alla comunità solo se questa é libera di usarlo, copiarlo, modificarlo e migliorarlo senza limitazioni di sorta. Pensa ad esempio alla ricetta della pasta al ragù: tu sei libero di modificarla come più t’aggrada senza che nessuno venga a reclamare alcun diritto di copyright. Se fosse software chiuso, oltre a non sapere esattamente quali sono gli ingredienti ed il metodo di preparazione, ti verrebbe pure impedito di aggiungere il sale o cambiare tipo di macinato.
Chi ci guadagna a fare software F.L.O.S.S.?
Innanzitutto siamo tutti noi a guadagnarci nell’avere uno strumento che funziona bene, solido, ispezionabile e slegato da interessi commerciali. Chi lavora per realizzarlo e migliorarlo spesso lo fa per passione e puro spirito di volontariato. Tuttavia nessuno campa di belle parole: molte realtà commerciali che sviluppano software F.L.O.S.S. ci guadagnano, ma per scelta tale guadagno deriva dai servizi connessi e non dal prodotto in sé. Per fare un paragone é come parlare di un gruppo musicale che distribuisce la propria musica gratis su Internet ma che si fa pagare per i concerti dal vivo.
Chi sviluppa software F.L.O.S.S. guadagna da donazioni ed investimenti da parte di privati che hanno interesse nello sviluppo di questo software oppure dal lavoro correlato, come ad esempio corsi di programmazione o personalizzazione del proprio software. Questo il caso di Matrix.org, come si può anche leggere sulla loro pagina: https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq
L’idea che il software debba essere aperto ed accessibile a chiunque ha una lunghissima tradizione nata con l’informatica stessa e negli anni si sono sviluppate diverse associazioni ed enti atte a diffondere questa idea, come la Free Software Foundation o Framasoft.
Ma perché qualcuno dovrebbe investire tempo e denaro in un prodotto da cui non c’é alcun guadagno diretto? Perché chiunque sia del mestiere sa benissimo che il software F.L.O.S.S. é strutturalmente più sicuro e solido rispetto a soluzioni commerciali e dunque investire 10 per uno strumento F.L.O.S.S. che poi potrebbe essere implementato anche in realtà commerciali senza costi aggiuntivi é più vantaggioso che spendere 100 in un prodotto chiuso su cui poi bisognerà pagare i diritti di utilizzo.
Investire una piccola cifra in un software di comunicazione sicuro, solido, personalizzabile e che viene continuamente analizzato, testato e migliorato a costo zero da migliaia di volontari di ogni tipo, passando una serie di vagli infiniti, contro all’investire nel lavoro di una software house con una trentina di programmatori che fan tutto da sé?
Le aziende e le comunità che ruotano attorno al software aperto sono numerose e spesso esistono soluzioni ibride. Un esempio é il caso del PDF, inizialmente un formato di proprietà di Adobe ma che da quando é stato reso aperto e gratuito é diventato uno standard de facto per i documenti digitali.
Un altro esempio é il browser Chrome (quello di Google). Chrome é software proprietario ma Google é ben conscio della maggior validità del software aperto e, per farla breve, il suo sviluppo é scisso in due parti: da un lato c’é il progetto Chromium.org che sviluppa il browser Chromium, di tipo F.L.O.S.S. e dall’altra c’é Google che sviluppa Chrome che, pur essendo basato sullo stesso software aperto ha una parte chiusa e dunque non può essere definito F.L.O.S.S. I due browser sono sostanzialmente identici ma Chromium é privo di tutti quei collegamenti a Google che si trovano in Chrome. Per dirla altrimenti: Chromium é il software “pulito” mentre Chrome é la sua versione modificata apposta per Google
Matrix é appunto software F.L.O.S.S. e per chi volesse partecipare al suo sviluppo, conoscerne i progressi, leggere le discussioni della comunità che collabora al suo costante miglioramento o anche solo avere un’anticipazione di cosa uscirà nei prossimi aggiornamenti non c’é alcun problema: é tutto pubblico ed accessibile: https://github.com/matrix-org
STANDARD DIFFUSI
Il software F.L.O.S.S. tende più facilmente a divenire uno standard diffuso proprio grazie al suo essere aperto. Quando si ha a che fare con aziende commerciali il cui scopo é guadagnare dall’adozione altrui dei propri strumenti, ci ritroviamo immancabilmente in una guerra commerciale in cui ognuni azienda tenta di imporsi non necessariamente per merito ma per interesse. Alcuni esempi si trovano nei diversi tipi di presa elettrica o, fino a qualche tempo fa, nei diversi tipi di caricatori per cellulari. Oggi lo vediamo ad esempio nei formati di ebook incompatibili su e-reader diversi, o su certe stampanti multifunzione che non sono del tutto compatibili con ogni sistema operativo: tutte queste incompatibilità tra strumenti fondamentalmente identici sono legate più che altro a bagarre commerciali.
Al contrario il software F.L.O.S.S. proprio in base alla sua natura é portato a divenire standard de facto. Qui si potrebbe elencare tutta una serie di tecnologie aperte che spesso usiamo senza rendercene conto. La maggior parte dei server, ossia i computer più importanti su cui si regge lo stesso Internet, non usa Windows o OSX, ma sistemi GNU-Linux o simili! Una buona fetta del sistema operativo Android é di tipo F.L.O.S.S. ed é stato sviluppato dalla comunità che ha creato Linux. La stessa cosa vale per OSX, il sistema operativo dei computer Apple. Presente i file audio? Possono essere codificati in molti formati proprietari, ma é il formato MP3 quello che ha avuto maggior fortuna, proprio perché standard aperto. Altro esempio é lo standard ePub per gli ebook, o l’HTML, il formato con cui si realizzano le pagine web. In alcuni casi ci sono degli enti che stabiliscono che un certo tipo di formato o tecnologia é una sorta di standard ufficiale.
In altri casi i formati aperti spesso diventano degli standard senza alcuna decisione ufficiale, ma di fatto. Ad esempio il protocollo di comunicazione XMPP, che é aperto ed esiste dal 1999, é alla base di Jabber, uno dei sistemi di comunicazione più diffusi su Linux ma, in versioni modificate, é anche alla base di iMessage e WhatsApp. Questo vuol dire che iMessage, Whatsapp e Jabber potrebbero tranquillamente comunicare tra di loro, ma sono Facebook ed Apple a non volerlo e per questo hanno modificato e chiuso le proprie versioni per impedirlo.
Matrix é uno protocollo che nasce aperto e mira a diventare un nuovo standard di comunicazione capace di dialogare con altri protocolli aperti, come il già citato XMPP ed altri, ad esempio IRC (ricordi IRC? É un sistema di chat nato negli anni ’90 che anche se soppiantato per moda con altri sistemi non é affatto scomparso, perché ha delle caratteristiche che nessuna piattaforma di chat moderna riesce ad eguagliare).
RETE DECENTRATA
Quando comunichi con una persona usando WhatsApp, Facebook, iMessage, Twitter o altre piattaforme di comunicazione, non stai comunicando direttamente con l’altra persona, ma passate entrambi dal server di Facebook, Apple o Twitter. Questa é quella che si chiama una rete centralizzata, ossia una struttura in cui tutti gli utenti fanno capo ad una entità centrale che detiene l’unico accesso alla propria rete. Se vuoi comunicare con una persona che é su Facebook, dunque, devi per forza registrarti anche tu su Facebook ecc.
Questa cosa però presenta diversi rischi:
Si é così soggetti alla volontà di un solo ed unico soggetto (l’azienda Facebook) che decide i termini di utilizzo e le policy cui gli utenti sono soggetti (cosa puoi pubblicare e cosa no, quali sono gli atteggiamenti sconvenienti e quali no).
Quando ci si affida ad un server si sta SEMPRE dando fiducia ai suoi gestori: chi gestisce il server ha materialmente in mano i nostri dati ed ha quindi un grosso potere su di noi. Se ci si affida tutti ad un unico grande server, il potere che gli si affida é un qualcosa di fantasmagorico
Se il gestore del server usasse i nostri dati in modi che disapproviamo, la nostra unica risposta possibile sarebbe cancellarci da tale server, ma essendo questo unico, ciò vorrebbe dire perdere l’unico strumento di contatto con tutti i nostri contatti (questo é ciò che già si verifica: Facebook é nato per vendere i nostri dati personali ma nonostante ciò é diventato talmente enorme che i suoi iscritti, oramai legati, non hanno il coraggio di abbandonarlo)
Al contrario le reti decentrate non sono soggette a questi problemi e garantiscono maggior stabilità e libertà di scelta. Un esempio può essere l’email: tu puoi creare la tua email dove vuoi, su Gmail, su Hotmail, Yahoo, ProtonMail o sul server della tua azienda e qualunque sia il server che tu abbia scelto (nell’email é la parte che viene dopo la “@”), potrai scambiare email anche con chi ha scelto server diversi.
Se l’email non fosse uno standard aperto basato su una rete decentrata, per comunicare con chi é su Gmail dovresti farti un account Gmail, per chi é su Yahoo dovresti farti un account Yahoo e così via. É quello che succede oggi con le app di messaggistica.
Matrix é appunto una rete decentrata. I suoi sviluppatori hanno sì un proprio server Matrix chiamato matrix.org (é come dire che l’inventore dell’email ha un suo server mail chiamato email.org) ed essendo il protocollo tanto nuovo la maggior parte delle persone tende a iscriversi proprio a matrix.org ma i server tra cui scegliere sono in realtà diversi (alcuni sono elencati qui) e continuano ad aumentare.
I vantaggi di una rete decentrata sono numerosi: se un domani matrix.org avesse dei problemi o facesse delle scelte che non ti vanno giù, tu potresti spostarti su un altro server e mantenere comunque tutti i tuoi contatti. Il paragone con l’email spiega bene questa cosa: se Gmail non ti andasse più bene tu potresti passare a ProtonMail senza perdere nessun contatto con gli altri utenti che sono rimasti su Gmail. Al contrario, se Facebook non ti va più bene sei costretto a restarci perché altrimenti perderesti tutti i contatti con gli utenti che sono su Facebook.
Ma Matrix non é solo una rete decentrata: é pure F.L.O.S.S. e questo significa che chiunque sappia e voglia può installare il proprio server Matrix in casa senza alcun problema di licenze, costi o permessi. Presente l’email aziendale? Stessa cosa, ma in questo caso si tratterebbe di una chat aziendale! Così come puoi avere un account mail ilmionome@lamiaazienda.com puoi avere un account Matrix @ilmionome:lamiaazienda.com
Si, ma a questo punto potresti fare giustamente un’osservazione: “Ok, ma se passo a Matrix, anche se questo é formato da diversi server, si tratta comunque di server Matrix e così taglierei comunque fuori i miei contatti sulle altre piattaforme”. Le cose però non stanno proprio così…
UN SOLO GRANDE NETWORK
Matrix si prefigge il compito di essere non solo una rete decentrata ma di fungere da connettore tra diverse reti (lo stesso nome “Matrix” – matrice, é stato scelto per indicarne il ruolo centrale che si prefigge di assumere nell’ambito delle comunicazioni). Qui il funzionamento previsto non é dissimile da quello descritto riguardo al Fediverso : letto l’articolo e capito come funziona il Fediverso, capirai immediatamente come si prefigge di funzionare Matrix nel connettere reti diverse.
Per chi non ha letto l’articolo si può grossolanamente descrivere Matrix come un sistema che vuole “dialogare al tempo stesso con Skype, iMessage, email, sms, Mastodon, Jabber, IRC e chi più ne ha più ne metta”. Il tutto con una tecnologia aperta e gestibile da chiunque, senza un’unica centrale operativa o “stanza dei bottoni”.
Questa parte é tecnicamente complessa ed é ancora in via di sviluppo. In gergo si chiama “bridging” ovvero “creazione di ponti”. Al momento si stanno sviluppando diversi bridge per Whatsapp, Telegram, Mastodon ecc. ma si tratta di funzioni ancora sperimentali e che possono essere consigliate perlopiù solo a chi ha voglia di smanettare un pò sulle App. Al momento su Riot sono già presenti alcuni bridge con IRC e poco altro. Considera i bridge con le piattaforme più note come un qualcosa che sarà disponibile in futuro.
Quando scambi messaggi con qualcuno via sms o altri tipi di chat di solito questi viaggiano “in chiaro”. Questo vuol dire che tutti coloro che sono fra te e l’altra persona (Telecom, Facebook, Wind, ecc) possono leggere e salvare tutto quel che vi scrivete. Questa cosa ovviamente non va bene.
Questo non va affatto bene e chi si occupa di informatica lo sa benissimo ma, soprattutto dai primi anni 2000, le maggiori aziende del web hanno convinto il pubblico che questa cosa sia la normalità e lo hanno fatto fondamentalmente in due modi:
Creando prodotti estremamente semplificati che si imparano ad usare in pochissimi minuti
Pubblicizzando all’inverosimile i loro prodotti
WhatsApp é l’esempio perfetto: lo scarichi, non richiede password, é collegato alla tua rubrica del telefono e funziona subito. Ma così facendo il software é legato materialmente al tuo telefono ed alla tua identità e consegni a WhatsApp tutti i numeri di telefono nella tua rubrica ed i relativi nomi. Inoltre l’assenza di impostazioni di sicurezza fa sì che chi lo usa si abitui ad usare un software insicuro.
WhatsApp, se fosse una macchina.
É un pò come dire che tutti sono stati abituati ad usare automobili senza specchietti, frecce, cinture di sicurezza e portiere che si chiudono. In queste condizioni, con la maggior parte delle persone abituate a questo livello di semplicità ed insicurezza, vien considerato normale che ci siano continuamente tamponamenti, urti e incidenti.
Chi invece propone di usare “frecce, specchietti, cinture di sicurezza e portiere che si chiudono a chiave” si sente rispondere cose del tipo “eh, che palle!”. La cosa é amplificata dal fatto che tamponament e furti si vedono e si sentono ma in campo informatico le cose non sono così immediate.
“Facebook controlla quello che scrivo” – “Vabbé, siamo tutti controllati”
“Ho perso le gambe in un incidente” – “Vabbé siamo tutti incidentati”
(L’accettazione passiva dello status quo)
CRITTOGRAFIA E MESSAGGI SICURI
Per risolvere questa debolezza sono state proposte diverse soluzioni ma ce n’é solamente UNA che funziona per davvero: la cosiddetta cifratura end-to-end.
“Cifratura end-to-end” vuol dire che i messaggi tra te e l’altro utente viaggiano in codice e quindi solo i destinatari del messaggio possono leggere cosa c’é scritto, mentre tutti quelli che stanno nel mezzo, al massimo possono sapere che vi siete scritti, ma anziché leggere “voglio vederti stasera” leggeranno una roba lunghissima e incomprensibile tipo “M87gé+8y|%$$&/(%uogukr6r6ukglihlufykhvr8y6++;.if6jtgg43t4t”.
Fico, no? Beh, più o meno… il primo problema é che la crittografia end-to-end fornita solitamente dalle piattaforme social commerciali centralizzate é fatta in modo tale che a te risulti invisibile e tu non hai modo né di verificarla né di intervenire sulla stessa (WhatsApp ad esempio usa crittografia end-to-end ma probabilmente non te n’eri mai accorto e non sai nemmeno quale sia la password che WhatsApp ha deciso per te)
Ma il vero problema é che queste aziende, spiegandola in modo un pò grossolano, considerano come destinatari del messaggio te, l’altra persona… e sé stesse! (vedi la figura 1a dell’immagine qui sopra).
É naturale che sia così: il loro intero business consiste nel leggere le cose che scrivi!
E allora, come si fa ad impedire che chi ha in mano l’infrastruttura legga tutto? Beh, ci sono due modi: il primo é non usare un server (figura 1c dell’immagine qui sopra), ma questo richiede un sacco di smanettamenti e non é sempre possibile. Il secondo é codificare i messaggi autonomamente dal server!
Il concetto base é che tu e l’altro utente abbiate ognuno una “password di crittazione” su ogni dispositivo, che ve le scambiate anche senza passare dal provider stesso (quando vi vedete di persona, per email, per lettera, legata ad un piccione viaggiatore…). Una volta scambiate ogni vostro dialogo risulterà del tutto oscuro allo stesso server che vi ospita.
Questa cosa, sommata al fatto che gli account non sono necessariamente legati alla vostra identità e che possono trovarsi su server diversi, fornisce un bel ritratto del livello di privacy che si ha su Matrix!
Per contro se si chatta su WhatsApp, Facebook (proprietaria di WhatsApp) sa chi siete, cosa vi siete scritti, quando, conosce i vostri numeri di telefono e quelli dei vostri amici ed il suo business é proprio raccogliere queste informazioni, analizzarle e venderle. E si sa, il problema non é cosa pubblichi: il problema é chi lo legge.
La “password di crittazione” NON é la password per accedere a Riot, ma proprio un’altra password, specifica per tutti i messaggi tra i tuoi dispositivi e quelli della persona con cui scambi messaggi.
Qui la cosa in teoria si fa molto tecnica, ma Riot offre una modalità che rende ‘sta cosa molto semplice. Il concetto é che sia tu che l’altra persona dovete verificare che il telefono/computer/tablet con cui stai dialogando sia effettivamente quello della persona con cui volete parlare.
Se selezioni un utente vedrai nella sua scheda l’elenco dei dispositivi da cui si é connesso ed un codice per ognuno di essi. Qui tu puoi dire a Riot se hai verificato questi codici. Se entrambi vi siete verificati a vicenda, la comunicazione sarà criptata
Per gli smanettoni su ‘questo passaggio ci sarebbero poi moltissime altre cose da dire ma qui ci limitiamo a questo. Tieni conto che se d’un tratto la persona con cui chatti inizia a messaggiarti da un device che non aveva mai usato prima, ad esempio un nuovo telefono, tu lo saprai e potrai controllare se lui é veramente lui (ad esempio pretendendo che ti risponda dal cellulare).
MATRIX E RIOT
Dunque:
MATRIX – é il protocollo
MATRIX.ORG – é attualmente il più famoso server Matrix. Appartiene agli sviluppatori del protocollo Matrix. Non é l’unico server e si é liberi di scegliere quello che si preferisce o installare il proprio.
RIOT.IM – é la più famosa applicazione per utilizzare Matrix. É a sua volta realizzata dagli sviluppatori del protocollo Matrix. Non é la sola App per usare Matrix ma attualmente é quella usata dal 99% di chi usa Matrix. C’é già chi sta sviluppando altre App che adottano approcci e stile differenti
É impossibile essere in Asia senza metter piede in un paese asiatico, ma se si é in un paese asiatico allora si é in Asia. E’impossibile essere su Mastodon senza essere iscritti ad un’Istanza, ma se si é iscritti ad un’Istanza allora si é su Mastodon!
Non ci si “iscrive all’email”: ci si iscrive a un provider email (Gmail, Protonmail, Autistici.org, RiseUp.net, HushMail.com).Non ci si “iscrive a Mastodon”: ci si iscrive ad un’Istanza Mastodon (Bida, Partecipa, Cisti).
La grossa differenza però é che se gli email provider si differenziano solamente per la qualità dei servizi, le Istanze sono anche delle comunità di persone che hanno regole e caratteristiche peculiari. Se ti iscrivi a Gmail te ne frega ben poco di chi siano gli altri che usano Gmail e la tua esperienza con il provider sarà solamente tecnica. Al contrario, a seconda dell’Istanza da cui accedi alla rete Mastodon, le cose possono cambiare notevolmente.
In un articolo precedente si era già discusso di cos’é Mastodon ed in un secondo articolo si era discusso di cos’é il Fediverso, ossia la “rete allargata” di cui la rete Mastodon é solo una parte. In questo terzo articolo si vuole invece puntare maggiormente l’attenzione sulla centralità delle Istanze.
Un’Istanza, materialmente, é un server, un computer sempre acceso su cui gira il software di Mastodon. Per poter accedere alla rete Mastodon bisogna scegliersi una tra le migliaia di Istanze già esistenti. Su questo server dunque saranno registrati diversi utenti (ci sono Istanze da 1 solo utente ed Istanze da centinaia di migliaia di utenti, ma a naso la maggior parte delle Istanze ha all’incirca tra i 100 ed i 3000 utenti). Questi utenti formano la comunità locale. Quando ti iscrivi ad un’Istanza hai dunque accesso immediato a tutti i messaggi pubblici postati dai membri di quella stessa Istanza, anche se non li segui. E’la cosiddetta Timeline locale. Ogni Istanza é indipendente dalle altre e decide da sé come finanziarsi, come moderarsi e in base a quali princìpi, in che modo la comunità e gli amministrazioni si rapportano. Dunque deciderà pure quali altre Istanze bloccare, quali argomenti o atteggiamenti vietare ecc. Inoltre ogni singola Istanza ha la possibilità di modificare il proprio software in modo da abilitare funzioni, disabilitarne o aggiungerne di nuove (il tutto ovviamente entro la necessaria compatibilità con i protocolli della rete Mastodon)
Sempre più spesso comunità impossibilitate ad esprimersi liberamente sui social sociali commerciali si son create dei propri spazi da sé mettendo su Istanze Mastodon personalizzate. Altre comunità invece rifuggono i social commerciali perché preoccupati per la propria privacy o per altri motivi ancora. Tali comunità sono spesso diversissime fra loro: ci sono numerose Istanze caratterizzate da hacktivismo correlato a movimenti LGBT+, Istanze generaliste, Istanze nazistoidi ecc.
Il bello dell’ecosistema di Mastodon é che essendo tutte indipendenti possono molto facilmente evitare di rompersi le scatole a vicenda scegliendo di silenziare o addirittura “oscurare” (bannare) le Istanze con cui non vi é alcuna possibilità di dialogo reciproco.
DECENTRALIZZAZIONE, OSSIA PERSONALIZZAZIONE
L’idea di fondo di tale ecosistema é che un’Istanza piccola ma tecnicamente solida e con un’identità ben definita, sia preferibile a Istanze enormi e indefinite in cui l’utente si perde. Un’Istanza con meno di 5000 utenti, con una policy assai specifica su certi argomenti e con un rapporto diretto tra utente ed amministratore vuol dire un tipo di servizio che nessun social commerciale con milioni di utenti potrà mai dare ai propri membri.
La personalizzazione e la vicinanza agli admin fanno sì che nella scelta dell’Istanza , l’utente presenti una serie di quesiti che non era abituato a porsi (si considera sempre l’esempio dell’utente di social commerciale non avvezzo a piattaforme decentrate e federate). Scegliere un’Istanza che ha maggiore solidità tecnica o una in cui si parla la mia lingua? Iscriversi ad un’Istanza locale o ad una che sottostà a leggi di un paese che offre maggiori garanzie di privacy?
Se sono una persona che ama discutere di diversi temi ma non sopporta le azioni di disturbo di un certo tipo di commentatori-provocatori potrei preferire un’Istanza caratterizzata da forte moderazione ed una bassa tolleranza per i molestatori online. Al contrario, se fossi una persona più interessata a far un pò di caciara con un’ironia spesso estrema e non apprezzata dalla maggioranza delle persone, potrei preferire un’Istanza più aperta a tali comportamenti. Oppure potrei preferire un’Istanza che ha rimosso stelle e contatori dei post per alimentare un approccio più umano ai contenuti.
Per fare un paragone grossolano per descrivere la funzione delle diverse Istanze all’interno dell’ecosistema di Mastodon, immaginiamo l’esistenza di un social disponibile in più versioni, ad esempio Twitter: Twitter Green, Twitter Yellow, Twitter Orange, Twitter Pink, Twitter Red e Twitter Purple. Sono tutti Twitter fondamentalmente simili tra loro e possono ancheinteragire ma ognuno ha caratteristiche proprie che ne alterano la natura. Ad esempio Twitter Green accetta solo contenuti adatti ai bambini, Twitter Yellow accetta anche contenuti per adulti ma non i bot, Twitter Orange accetta i bot ma non i contenuti per adulti, Twitter Pink non permette di rispondere ai post ma solo di stellinarli e retwittarli, Twitter Red accoglie tutti i contenuti tranne quelli visibili su Twitter Green, mentre Twitter Purple non ha regole ma non può interagire con gli altri Twitter)
La scelta dell’Istanza é dunque una scelta FON-DA-MEN-TA-LE nel determinare il tipo di esperienza online.
PROMUOVERE LE ISTANZE PER DIFFONDERE MASTODON
Chi scrive ritiene che al momento l’attuale di Mastodon pecchi nella promozione delle Istanze. La comunicazione attuale é incentrata sul far “passare a Mastodon” gli utenti. Un esempio é il sito stesso di Mastodon, https://joinmastodon.org che pur spiegando chiaramente all’utente appena arrivato che “l’unica cosa da fare é scegliere un server”, lo mette subito dinnanzi alla necessità di una scelta tra migliaia e migliaia di Istanze caratterizzate solo da pochissime informazioni: nome, logo, numero di utenti ed una riga di descrizione. Cliccando su ognuna delle Istanze dell’elenco si aprirà la relativa pagina. Qui l’utente potrebbe trovare una pagina ricca di informazioni così come una scarna paginetta dalla quale non traspare nulla sull’identità dell’Istanza stessa.
L’utente, dunque, é chiamato a fare una scelta di cui non ha ancora ben chiare le implicazioni e si trova a dover compiere una scelta fondamentale avendo a disposizione ben pochi mezzi.
Non c’é da stupirsi se l’utente, dopo aver scelto un’Istanza che non gli si confà, abbandoni del tutto Mastodon ritenendo che l’esperienza di quell’Istanza corrisponda all’esperienza dell’intero Mastodon! E’cosa nota che gran parte dei nuovi iscritti a Mastodon scelga, nel dubbio, di iscriversi a mastodon.social, l’Istanza gestita dal creatore di Mastodon. Pur non essendo una scelta in sé sbagliata, é indice di una certa diffidenza col concetto di Istanze federate e di incapacità di scelta.
Alla luce di queste osservazioni é’forse necessario far sì che:
Le singole Istanze descrivano meglio sé stesse
Le Istanze promuovano sé stesse in quanto provider Mastodon
LE ISTANZE DESCRIVANO MEGLIO SÉ STESSE
Ciò che differenzia un’Istanza da tutte le altre é ciò che la rende unica, sia che si tratti di aspetti culturali che tecnici. In primo luogo va ricordato che quando si parla di Istanze si parla spesso di piccole realtà portate avanti grazie a lavoro volontario e dunque anche certe informazioni tecniche che sono date per scontate quando si parla di grandi social commerciali, qui scontate non sono. L’hardware é buono o é un vecchio PC recuperato che gira per miracolo in una cantina umida? Ci sono dei backup? In quanti si occupano della manutenzione? Che versione di Mastodon viene usata? Sono state apportate modifiche? Poco esportare i miei dati?
Poi va ricordato che l’utente ha spesso la necessità di conoscere in modo chiaro alcuni dettagli sul tipo di moderazione che troverà: l’Istanza accetta contenuti NSFW? L’Istanza tollera contenuti razzisti o fascisti? E i Bot? Ci sono temi preponderanti sull’Istanza? O lingue maggiormente usate? Posso sapere se l’Istanza ha bloccato o é stata bloccata da altre Istanze? Quali? Posso sapere come funzionano le decisioni interne all’amministrazione dell’Istanza?
Nella maggior parte dei casi sono informazioni che possono essere facilmente codificate/taggate e comunicate anche in forma riassuntiva e stringata.
La presenza di policy e di un regolamento pubblico é un altro tassello fondamentale nel caratterizzare l’Istanza. (NB: non sarebbe male avere per le diverse Istanze delle policy di riferimento; una cosa simile alle licenze CC. Ad esempio, poter sapere che un’Istanza usa la policy n°5 anziché la n°3 (che permette contenuti razzisti) sarebbe un modo efficiente per capire come relazionarcisi)
Altro elemento importante é la preview della TL locale: il fatto che l’utente abbia modo di farsi un’idea dei contenuti che girano su una certa Istanza é un modo assai pratico per farsi un’idea di “come siano le cose da quelle parti”.
Se un’Istanza non sa comunicare la propria unicità é solo una fra le tante: sostituibile e priva d’interesse. Scegliere un’Istanza senza conoscerne le caratteristiche é come scegliere un’automobile conoscendone solo il nome. Al contrario, un’Istanza che abbia e comunichi le proprie peculiarità stimola un rapporto più forte con i propri (futuri) membri: se m’iscrivo ad un’Istanza magari anche piccola ma che porta avanti progetti e idee che m’interessano e con cui condivido principi etici e politici, il legame con i membri di tale Istanza sarà certo molto più sentito che non con i membri di una grossa Istanza generalista.
LE ISTANZE PROMUOVANO SÉ STESSE IN QUANTO PROVIDER MASTODON
Oggi la promozione di Mastodon é una cosa del tipo “Iscriviti all’Email!” a cui segue uno scarno “adesso scegli tra Gmail, Autistici.org, ecc”. Si promuove Mastodon per poi far scegliere all’utente un’Istanza. É forse necessario spostare maggiormente l’attenzione sulle Istanze affinché promuovano sé stesse in base alle proprie caratteristiche specifiche, ossia una comunicazione del tipo “Per le tue comunicazioni social passa a mastodon.bida.im : un’Istanza Mastodon anarchica e autogestita! Bida é un punto d’incontro per…”.
Ovviamente allo stato attuale la diffusione ancora minoritaria di Mastodon fa sì che sia necessario promuovere al tempo stesso l’Istanza e Mastodon stesso, ma al contrario della promozione generica di Mastodon, così facendo l’utente non viene lasciato in balìa di sé stesso a dover poi cercarsi un’Istanza a caso, ma gli viene indicato fin da subito una “piazza” molto specifica su cui appoggiarsi (in articoli precedenti le Istanze son state paragonate a pianeti di un sistema solare o club di una rete di locali). Inoltre, la promozione Istanza per Istanza ha il pregio di trasmettere immediatamente l’idea che le Istanze sono sì realtà indipendenti e diverse le une dalle altre, ma pure tutte uguali nel loro potersi interfacciare le une alle altre. Promuovendo l’Istanza, a latere, si promuove anche la piattaforma.
Un esempio sono le distro Linux: con l’utente inesperto che ne capisce poco di informatica funziona poco il generico “passa a Linux” che lascia l’utente da solo di fronte alla scelta della distribuzione da installare. Al contrario un “Installa Mint Cinnamon: per te é l’ideale” é molto meglio.
E’ la differenza tra colui che vuol andare in vacanza “in Asia” finendo in Mongolia pensando confusamente di trovarci pagode thailandesi, sushi e lottatori di kung-fu, e colui che sceglie di andare specificamente in Corea per una scelta informata.
Pagina d’accesso di mastodon.partecipa.digital
La principale fonte di informazioni su di una Istanza é la sua pagina d’accesso. Se la pagina é ben fatta lì vi si troverà una descrizione dell’Istanza, il suo scopo, le sue policy, una serie di informazioni tecniche, la lista delle istanze bloccate e così via. Spesso la pagina offre la possibilità di scorrere la Timeline locale senza la necessità di essere iscritti. Ma per arrivare alla pagina delle singole Istanze, attualmente ci sono questi strumenti:
Joinmastodon.org É IL sito di Mastodon. Creato dall’autore del software, é il principale punto d’accesso a ciò che é Mastodon. Di ogni Istanza mostra solo nome e logo, una riga di descrizione, il numero di utenti iscritti e lo status delle iscrizioni (aperte o chiuse). Chi si affaccia a Mastodon solitamente viene su questo sito e da qui sceglie su che Istanza iscriversi.
the-federation.info E’ un sito che si prefigge di mostrare uno strumento che scopre tutte le Istanze che formano il Fediverso. Delle singole Istanze offre solo info tecniche come il numero di utenti, il numero di utenti attivi ed il numero di post.
https://instances.socialE’un sito che permette una ricerca molto specifica delle Istanze: é possibile filtrare la ricerca in base alle lingue usate sull’Istanza, il numero di utenti ed una serie di policy sui contenuti. Dopodiché il sito offre diverse informazioni tecniche che permettono una valutazione sull’affidabilità materiale dell’Istanza. Il design é crudo e le informazioni sulle istanze non sono sempre affidabili, ma ciononostante é al momento lo strumento più completo per cercare Istanze di ogni genere: dall’Istanza dei cristiani messianici a quella dei metallari tedeschi.
ALCUNE ISTANZE
Qui di seguito sono elencate alcune Istanze Mastodon. Si tratta di una selezione casuale, fornita giusto per dare un’idea della varietà di scelta disponibile. Non si tratta né di Istanze consigliate né di Istanze particolarmente rappresentative: l’elenco va inteso solo a titolo di esempio.
LEGENDA:
DESCRIZIONI
Le brevi descrizioni inserite tra parentesi vanno spesso intese giusto come una traccia generica: ogni Istanza é una realtà a sé che spesso non é riassumibile in poche parole e due Istanze formalmente simili possono avere in realtà stili ed atmosfere interne assai diverse.
UTENTI
Il numero di utenti é spesso arrotondato e serve giusto a dare un’idea delle dimensioni della comunità dell’Istanza.
POLICY PUBBLICA
Per “Policy pubblica” qui si intendono genericamente regole interne e di moderazione, impostazioni generali di condotta o di etica: può essere esser solo un elenco di norme legali di moderazione, una linea generale riassunta in poche righe, un regolamento dettagliato o un vero e proprio atto d’intenti dell’Istanza. Ciò che conta é che dia un’idea chiara dell’indirizzo (o non-indirizzo) dell’Istanza e dei principi etici a cui si attiene. Una policy poco definita potrebbe causare fraintendimenti e malumori, mentre una policy pubblica molto definita può far sì che un’Istanza generalista si concentri su temi assai specifici, rendendola di fatto un’Istanza tematica (non c’é una divisione netta su cosa sia un’Istanza generica ed un’Istanza tematica: si tratta giusto di una distinzione di massima). In ogni caso, un rapporto aperto e trasparente tra amministratori dell’Istanza ed utenti é sempre preferibile. Il fatto che un’Istanza sia priva di policy pubblica non significa che questa sia priva di regole: significa solo che queste non sono state definite e messe per iscritto e rese pubbliche dagli amministratori. Un’Istanza priva di policy pubblica, tuttavia moderata con criterio, può essere un ambiente migliore di un’Istanza con una bella policy che però non viene osservata dalla sua comunità.
NSFW
Ogni utente ed Istanza ha un approccio personale coi contenuti per adulti. In generale, qui, si considera che un’Istanza che tolleri contenuti per adulti privi di Content Warning sia di fatto un’Istanza NSFW. Allo stesso tempo, un’Istanza i cui contenuti, di fatto, siano solo in minima parte NSFW ed abbiano il CW, oppure trattino temi affini a contenuti NSFW ma perlopiù senza la necessità di ricorrere al CW, non é considerata un’Istanza NSFW.
MASTODON.SOCIAL
mastodon.social é l’Istanza gestita da Eugen Rochko, il programmatore che ha creato Mastodon. Chi si approccia a Mastodon spesso lo fa aprendo un account proprio su mastodon.social e proprio per questo motivo é una delle Istanze più grandi. Per molti utenti che si affacciano a Mastodon, mastodon.social É Mastodon stesso. Lo stesso Rochko cerca di promuovere l’iscrizione ad Istanze diverse, tuttavia vi é qualche difficoltà a far comprendere il concetto (da qui la ragione di questo post)
Il numero di Istanze Mastodon italiane si conta su una mano ed a farla da padrone é Bida, ma la comunità che la anima é attiva ed interessata allo sviluppo e promozione della piattaforma, ossia si muove attivamente nel far sì che altre Istanze possano nascere nei prossimi tempi
BIDA
(Istanza bolognese creata e gestita dal collettivo Bida)
Utenti: 1.6k
Policy pubblica: si https://mastodon.bida.im
PARTECIPA
(IT, Open Source, Linux. L’Istanza é gestita da un admin italiano, ma in realtà ha un’utenza assai cosmopolita)
Utenti: 250
Policy pubblica: no https://mastodon.partecipa.digital/about
Le Istanze generaliste non nascono con l’idea di discutere su argomenti specifici o rivolgersi a comunità specifiche. Tuttavia i membri della comunità che ospita, possono far sì che col tempo una singola Istanza generalista sviluppi di fatto una propria cultura interna. Alcune Istanze sono legate a blog o associazioni specifiche di cui seguono le policy, tuttavia, se queste policy non sono chiaramente segnalate o linkate nella pagina di registrazione all’Istanza, viene indicato che questa non ha una sua policy pubblica. Le Istanze generaliste possono essere molto diverse fra loro. Questo dipende principalmente dalle policy che adottano, dalla comunità che ospita e dalla moderazione. Per intenderci: una certa Istanza generalista può avere norme molto severe atte a minimizzare i conflitti mentre un’altra può limitarsi a bannare solo i contenuti strettamente illegali.
SOCIAL WIUWIU DE
(Istanza tedesca che promette che il server é alimentato da energia pulita)
Utenti: 200
Policy pubblica: no https://social.wiuwiu.de/about
FRAMAPIAF
(É l’Istanza creata e gestita dll’associazione francese Framasoft)
Utenti: 7k
Policy pubblica: no https://framapiaf.org/about
MAMOT
(Istanza dell’associazione francese La Quadrature du Net)
Utenti: 11k
Policy pubblica: no https://mamot.fr/about
SCIFI!
(Il nome farebbe supporre un’Istanza incentrata sulla fantascienza ma in realtà non si direbbe)
Utenti: 1.5k
Policy pubblica: no https://scifi.fyi/about
HOSTUX SOCIAL
(Istanza generalista perlopiù francese)
Utenti: 3k
Policy pubblica: no https://hostux.social
KNZK.ME
(Istanza con utenti che parlano inglese e giapponese. Promette alta affidabilità dal punto di vista tecnico)
Utenti: 2.7k
Policy pubblica: no https://knzk.me/about
TEMATICHE
Un’Istanza tematica si caratterizza dal fatto di nascere con l’intento di essere un punto d’incontro e dialogo gravitanti attorno a dei temi specifici. La policy dell’Istanza contribuisce molto nel determinare la natura di questi temi. A volte un’Istanza nata con intenti specifici diventa di fatto un’Istanza generalista. A volte il “tema” é assai generico mentre a volte é decisamente molto specifico. Certi temi lasciano presagire il tipo di policy che l’Istanza adotta, tuttavia, se la policy non é stata pubblicata esplicitamente, é indicata come assente.
MASTODON ART
(all kind of art)
Utenti: 7k
Policy pubblica: si https://mastodon.art
MASTODON SCHOLAR
(Studi, ricerca scolastica ed accademica)
Utenti: 2.5k
Policy pubblica: si https://scholar.social/about
RUBY SOCIAL
(Ruby – Istanza “gemellata” con Toot café di cui utilizza l’elenco Istanze bloccate e sospese)
Utenti: 900
Policy pubblica: si https://ruby.social/about
TOOT CAT
(Gatti – Non ha una vera Policy pubblica ma comunica i propri log tecnici e l’elenco delle Istanze bloccate)
Utenti: 1.2k
Policy pubblica: no https://toot.cat/about
Le Istanze elencate qui si caratterizzano per avere una grossa fetta dei propri contenuti di tipo NSFW. Alcune delle Istanze elencate qui sono esplicitamente incentrate su questi contenuti NSFW mentre altre lo sono di fatto.
A breve distanza dalla prima panoramica su Mastodon é già possibile aggiungere alcune nuove osservazioni.
In primo luogo va notato che diverse persone, già ben avvezze all’uso dei maggiori social network commerciali (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…) siano inizialmente spaesate dal concetto di “decentralizzazione” e di “network federato”.
Questo perché l’idea diffusa e radicata di social network é quella di un luogo unitario, indifferenziato, monolitico, con regole e meccanismi rigidamente uguali per tutti. In sostanza il fatto stesso di poter concepire un universo di Istanze separate e indipendenti é per molti un cambio di paradigma di non immediata comprensione.
[l’articolo é stato aggiornato dopo la pubblicazione iniziale]
Nell’articolo precedente in cui si era descritto il social network Mastodon, il concetto di Istanze federate era stato paragonato ad una rete di club/circoli privati associati fra loro.
Alcuni aspetti esposti nell’articolo é forse necessario chiarirli ulteriormente a chi si avvicina al concetto di network federato:
Non ci si iscrive “a Mastodon”, ma ci si iscrive ad una Istanza Mastodon!Qui torna comodo il paragone con i club/circoli: l’iscrizione ad un circolo permette di entrare in contatto con tutti gli altri che fanno parte della stessa rete: non ci si iscrive alla piattaforma, ma ci si iscrive ad uno dei club della piattaforma e che assieme agli altri club ne forma la rete. La piattaforma é software, é un qualcosa che esiste solo virtualmente mentre un’Istanza che usa tale piattaforma é il suo aspetto reale, materiale. É un server che si trova fisicamente da qualche parte, gestito da persone in carne ed ossa che lo gestiscono ed amministrano. Dunque ci si registra ad una Istanza e poi, da questa, si entra in contatto con le altre.
Le diverse istanze hanno la possibilità tecnica di entrare in contatto fra loro ma non é detto che lo facciano.Metti caso ci sia un’istanza composta da 500 utenti italiani appassionati di letteratura chiamata mastodon.letteratura: questi utenti si conoscono fra loro proprio perché sono membri della stessa istanza ed ognuno riceve i post pubblici degli altri altri membri. Ecco, ognuno di loro avrà probabilmente anche altri contatti tra utenti registrati su Istanze diverse (abbiamo tutti degli amici che esulano dal nostro “solito giro”, no?). Se ognuno dei 500 utenti di mastodon.letteratura seguisse ad esempio 10 membri di altre Istanze, l’Istanza mastodon.letteratura avrebbe sì una rete locale di 500 utenti, ma anche una rete federata di ben 5000 utenti! Bene. mettiamo che tra questi 5000 non ci sia nemmeno un solo membro dell’Istanza giapponese incentrata sulla fisica nucleare japan.nuclear.physics: quest’altra istanza potrebbe avere magari 800 membri ed avere una rete federata di ben 8000, ma se tra la rete “italiana” e quella “giapponese” non vi fosse nemmeno un amico in comune, queste potrebbero teoricamente non venire mai a contatto l’una con l’altra. In realtà, per la legge dei grandi numeri, é abbastanza raro che Istanze di una certa dimensione non entrino mai in contatto fra loro, ma l’esempio serve a far capire i meccanismi su cui si regge un network federato (che anzi, proprio basandosi sulla legge dei grandi numeri e sui principi dei gradi di separazione, conferma il presupposto che più la rete é grande e meno saranno isolati utenti ed Istanze).
Ogni singola Istanza può decidere volontariamente di non entrare in contatto con un’altra, in base a proprie scelte, regole e policy interne.Questo punto é evidentemente poco capito dai diversi commentatori che non riescono ad uscire dall’idea del “social monolitico”. Se su Mastodon vi fosse un’alta concentrazione di suprematisti bianchi orfani di Gab, o blogger porno orfani di Tumblr, ciò non significa che l’intero social network chiamato Mastodon diventerebbe un “social network per suprematisti bianchi e porno”, ma solo alcune Istanze che probabilmente non entreranno mai in contatto con Istanze antifasciste o ultrareligiose. Le difficoltà di far comprendere tale concetto rendono di conseguenza difficile far capire anche le potenzialità di una struttura di questo tipo. In un network federato, una volta data la possibilità tecnica di interagire tra Istanze e utenti, ognuno di questi può poi regolarsi in maniera del tutto indipendente sul come utilizzarla. Possiamo supporre ad esempio: ISTANZA ECOLOGISTA, creata, mantenuta e supportata economicamente da un gruppo di appassionati che vuol avere un luogo per discutere di natura ed ecologia, stabilisce che sull’Istanza non si postano link esterni né immagini pornografiche;ISTANZA COMMERCIALE, creata da una piccola azienda che ha un buon server ed una capacità di banda pazzesca ed a cui ci si iscrive a pagamento e le cui regole le ha stabilite già in precedenza l’azienda; ISTANZA SOCIALE, creata da un centro sociale i cui utenti sono perlopiù i frequentatori del centro stesso e che si conoscono anche di persona; ISTANZA VIDEOGIOCHI, nata come Istanza interna dei dipendenti di un’azienda tecnologica ma di fatto aperta a chiunque si interessi di videogiochi. In questo scenario a quattro Istanze già é possibile descrivere alcune interazioni interessanti: l’Istanza ecologista potrebbe consultare i propri utenti e decidere di bannare l’istanza commerciale perché al suo interno é ampiamente diffusa una cultura contraria all’ecologismo, mentre l’Istanza sociale potrebbe invece mantenere i contatti con l’Istanza commerciale ma scegliere di silenziarla preventivamente sulla propria timeline, lasciando ai suoi singoli membri la scelta personale di entrare in contatto con i suoi utenti o meno. Sempre l’Istanza sociale potrebbe però bannare l’istanza videogiochi perché forte serbatoio di mentalità reazionaria. In sostanza, i contatti “insostenibili/inaccettabili” vengono spontaneamente limitati dalle singole Istanze in base alle proprie policy. Qui il quadro d’insieme inizia a diventare molto complesso, ma basta osservarlo da una sola Istanza, la propria, per capirne i vantaggi: le Istanze che ospitano troll, disturbatori e gente con cui proprio non si riesce a discutere le abbiamo bannate, mentre quelle con cui non c’é molta affinità ma neanche motivi di astio, le abbiamo silenziate, in modo che se uno di noi le vuol segue non c’é problema ma sarò una sua scelta personale
Ogni utente può decidere di silenziare altri utenti ma pure intere Istanze.Se hai particolare interesse ad evitare i contenuti diffusi dagli utenti di una certa Istanza che però non viene bannata dall’Istanza che ti ospita (metti caso che la tua Istanza non chiuda le porte ad un’Istanza chiamata meme.videogamez.lulz la cui comunità tollera comportamenti molto sopra le righe ed in aria di trolling pesante che però alcuni trovano divertente), tu sei comunque libero di silenziarla per te soltanto. Sostanzialmente, in presenza di gruppi di utenti a te non graditi provenienti da una stessa Istanza/comunità, é possibile bloccarne in un colpo solo diverse decine o centinaia bloccando (per te) l’intera Istanza. Se la tua Istanza non avesse un accordo unanime su come comportarsi nei confronti di un’altra Istanza, si potrebbe facilmente lasciare la scelta agli iscritti dato che hanno comunque questo potente strumento. Un’Istanza potrebbe anche scegliere di moderare solo i propri utenti o non moderare affatto alcunché, lasciando ogni utente completamente libero di silenziare o bannare chi gli pare e piace senza mai interferire o imporre una propria etica.
Il Fediverso
Logo del Fediverso
Messi meglio a fuoco questi aspetti, possiamo ora affrontare il passo successivo. Come già anticipato nel post precedente, Mastodon é parte di un qualcosa di più ampio chiamato Fediverso (Federazione + Universo).
In sostanza, Mastodon é una rete federata che usa alcuni strumenti di comunicazione (si tratta di diversi protocolli ma i principali sono chiamati ActivityPub, Ostatus e Diaspora, ognuno dei quali ha i propri vantaggi, svantaggi, sostenitori e detrattori) utilizzati anche da altre realtà federate (social network, piattaforme di blogging ecc) che le mette in contatto l’una con l’altra a formare un’unico grande universo di reti federate.
Per dare un’idea, é come se Mastodon fosse un sistema planetario che ruota attorno ad una certa stella (la stella é Mastodon ed i pianeti sono le singole Istanze), ma questo sistema planetario fa parte di un universo in cui esistono numerosi sistemi planetari tutti diversi ma in comunicazione gli uni con gli altri.
Tutti i pianeti di un dato sistema planetario (le Istanze, i “club”) ruotano attorno ad un sole comune (la piattaforma software). L’utente può scegliersi il pianeta che preferisce ma non può certo stare sul sole (“non ci si iscrive alla piattaforma, ma ci si iscrive ad uno dei club della piattaforma che assieme agli altri club ne forma la rete”).
All’interno di questo universo, Mastodon é semplicemente il “sistema planetario” più grosso (é quello di maggior successo e col maggior numero di utenti) ma non é detto che sarà sempre così: altri “sistemi planetari” si stanno irrobustendo ed ingrandendo.
[NB: ogni singola piattaforma qui discussa usa nomi propri per definire i Server indipendenti su cui é ospitata. Mastodon li chiama Istanze, Hubzilla li chiama Hub e Diaspora li chiama Pod. Tuttavia, per semplicità e linearità con l’articolo precedente, nell’articolo si userà solo il termine “Istanza” per tutti].
La struttura dell’intero Fediverso
Su Kum.io é possibile trovare una rappresentazione interattiva del Fediverso così come appare al momento. Ogni “ciuffo” rappresenta una rete diversa (o “sistema planetario”). Sono le diverse piattaforme che compongono la federazione. Mastodon é solo una di questi, quella più grossa, in basso.
Le interazioni di Mastodon con le altre reti
Selezionando Mastodon é possibile vedere con quali altri network/sistemi del Fediverso é in grado di interagire. Come si può osservare, interagisce con gran parte degli altri network ma non proprio con tutti.
Le interazioni di GNU Social con le altre reti
Selezionando invece un’altro social network, GNU Social, si osserverà che questo ha interazioni diverse: condivide il grosso delle interazioni di Mastodon ma ne ha alcune in più ed altre in meno.
Questo dipende principalmente dal tipo di strumenti di comunicazione (protocolli) che ogni singola rete utilizza. Una rete può utilizzare anche più di un protocollo per avere il massimo numero di interazioni, ma ovviamente ciò li rende più complessi da gestire. Questa ad esempio é la strada scelta da Friendica e GNU Social.
A causa dei diversi protocolli utilizzati, dunque, alcuni network non possono interagire proprio con tutti gli altri. Il caso più importante é Diaspora, che utilizza un proprio protocollo (chiamato a sua volta Diaspora), che può interagire solo con Friendica e Gnu Social ma non con le reti basate su ActivityPub come Mastodon.
Le cose all’interno del Fediverso sono però in costante evoluzione e la fotografia appena mostrata potrebbe dover essere aggiornata già a breve. Al momento la maggior parte dei network sembrerebbe si stia indirizzando verso l’adozione di ActivityPub come strumento unico. Non sarebbe affatto male avere un protocollo di comunicazione unico che permettesse davvero ogni tipo di connessione!
Torniamo però un attimo all’immagine dei sistemi planetari. Kum.io mostra le connessionitecnicamentepossibili tra ogni diverso “sistema planetario” e per farlo collega genericamente i diversi soli. Ma come abbiamo ben visto le connessioni reali avvengono tra i pianeti e non tra i soli! Una mappa stellare che mostrasse le connessioni reali dovrebbe mostrare per ogni singolo pianeta (ossia ogni singolo “baffo” dei ciuffi di Kum.io), decine o centinaia di linee di connessione con altrettanti pianeti/baffi, sia tra le Istanze della propria piattaforma che tra Istanze di piattaforme diverse! La quantità e complessità delle connessioni, come ben immaginabile, formerebbe un groviglio da mal di testa e graficamente illeggibile. Solo immaginarlo rende l’idea della quantità e complessità delle connessioni possibili.
E non finisce qui: ogni singolo pianeta può stabilire o interrompere i contatti con gli altri pianeti del proprio sistema solare (ossia, l’Istanza Mastodon A può decidere di non aver contatti con l’Istanza Mastodon B), ed allo stesso modo può stabilire o interrompere i contatti con i pianeti di sistemi solari differenti (l’Istanza Mastodon A può entrare in contatto o interrompere i contatti con l’Istanza Pleroma B)! Per fare un’esempio drastico si può ipotizzare di avere dei cugini stronzi, ma stronzi davvero, che abbiamo cacciato dal nostro pianeta (mastodon.terra) e allora se ne sono costruito uno proprio (mastodon.saturno) stando comunque nelle nostre vicinanze perché boh, si trovano bene col nostro sole “Mastodon”. Fin da subito decidiamo di ignorarci a vicenda. Questi cugini però sono davvero tanto stronzi, tanto che anche i nostri parenti ed amici vicini dei pianeti vicini (mastodon.giove, mastodon.venere ecc.) ignorano i cugini stronzi di mastodon.saturno. Nessun pianeta del sistema Mastodon se li caga. I cugini però non sono del tutto privi di rapporti ed anzi, hanno tanti contatti con pianeti di sistemi solari diversi. Ad esempio sono in contatto con alcuni pianeti del sistema Peertube peertube.10287, peertube.gattini, peertube.cartoni, ma anche con pleroma.pizza del sistema Pleroma e friendica.giardinaggio del sistema Friendica. Di fatto ai cugini stronzi sta bene vivere sul loro pianetino nel sistema Mastodon ma preferiscono avere contatti con pianeti di sistemi diversi.
Dei loro pianeti amici, a noi di mastodon.terra, non ce ne può fregar di meno: sono stronzi tanto quanto i nostri cugini ed abbiamo bloccato pure loro. Tranne uno. Su pleroma.pizza ci sono degli utenti nostri amici che sono contemporaneamente anche amici di alcuni dei cugini stronzi di mastodon.saturno. Ma non é un problema: eccheccavolo! Abbiamo collegamenti interstellari e ci dovremmo preoccupare di una cosa così? Nientaffatto! Il blocco che abbiamo attivato su mastodon.saturno é tipo una barriera energetica che funziona in tuuuutto l’universo! Se fossimo coinvolti in una conversazione in cui partecipano sia un amico di pleroma.pizza che un cugino stronzo di mastodon.saturno, semplicemente, il cugino stronzo non sentirebbe quel che esce dalla nostra bocca e noi non sentiremmo quel che esce dalla sua. Ognuno dei due saprà che l’altro é lì, ma nessuno dei due potrà mai vedere l’altro né sentirlo. Certo, potremmo dedurre qualcosa da ciò che dirà il nostro amico comune di pleroma.pizza ma vabbé, più di così che cosa si può pretendere?
Quest’immagine, può fornire un’idea del modo in cui le Istanze (pianeti) si connettono tra loro. Se poi si considera che le Istanze del Fediverso conosciute sono migliaia, la complessità del quadro é ben immaginabile. Un aspetto interessante é proprio il fatto che le connessioni tra Istanza e Istanza non dipendono dalla piattaforma usata. Osserviamo nell’immagine l’Istanza mastodon.mercurio: é un’istanza piuttosto isolata rispetto alla rete di Istanze Mastodon, i cui unici contatti sono mastodon.nettuno, peertube.gattini e pleroma.pizza. Nulla vieta che mastodon.mercurio venga a conoscenza di tutte le altre Istanze Mastodon non attraverso scambi di messaggi con mastodon.nettuno, ma attraverso i commenti ai video di peertube.gattini. Anzi, é addirittura più probabile perché mastodon.nettuno é in contatto solamente con altre tre Istanze Mastodon ma peertube.gattini é in contatto con tutte le Istanze Mastodon. Cercar dì immaginare le vie attraverso cui possano venire in contatto le diverse Istanze di quest’immagine che “non si conoscono” permette di farsi un’ulteriore idea del livello di complessità che si può raggiungere. In un sistema abbastanza grande, dotato di un vasto numero di utenti ed Istanze, isolarne una parte non comprometterà in alcun modo la ricchezza di connessioni possibili. Una volta create tutte le connessioni possibili é anche possibile fare un’esperimento diverso, ossia immaginare connessioni che s’interrompono fino a formare due o più reti perfettamente separate, contenenti ognuna delle Istanze Mastodon, Pleroma e Peertube.
E per aggiungere complessità alla complessità, possiamo fare un’esperimento ulteriore, ragionando non più a livello di Istanze ma a livello di singoli utenti delle Istanze (ipotizzare 5 utenti per Istanza potrebbe bastare a rendere le diverse casistiche). Alcuni casi ipotizzabili: 1) siamo su un’Istanza Mastodon e l’utente Anna ha appena scoperto attraverso il commento ad un video su Peertube l’esistenza di una nuova Istanza Pleroma, quindi adesso lei ne conosce l’esistenza ma, scegliendo di non seguire tale Istanza, di fatto non rende nota la scoperta agli altri membri della sua Istanza; 2) sulla stessa Istanza Mastodon l’utente Luca blocca l’unica Istanza Pleroma conosciuta. Così facendo, se quest’Istanza Pleroma facesse conoscere altre Istanze Pleroma con cui é in contatto, Luca dovrebbe aspettare che un’altro membro della sua Istanza gliele facesse conoscere perché si é precluso la possibilità di essere tra i primi dell’Istanza a venirne a conoscenza. 3) In realtà, il primo utente dell’Istanza ad entrare in contatto con le altre Istanze Pleroma é Mario. Ma non le viene a conoscere dall’Istanza Pleroma con cui sono già in contatto (quella che Luca ha bloccato), ma attraverso il suo unico contatto su GNU Social.
Sembra complesso ma in realtà non é altro che una replica di meccanismi umani cui siamo tanto abituati da darli per scontati: potremmo tradurre i diversi esempi appena esposti: 1) La nostra amica Anna, habitué del nostro bar, va in piazza ed incontra una persona che gli dice di essere habitué di un nuovo bar di una città poco distante. Anna però non si scambia il numero di telefono col tizio e quindi non saprà dare informazioni agli amici del suo bar riguardo al nuovo bar dell’altra città. 2) Nel solito bar, Luca di Milano evita Lara di Ferrara. Quando Lara porta nel bar le altre sue amiche ferraresi Mara e Sara, non le presenta a Luca. Solo più avanti, gli amici del bar che hanno stretto amicizia con Mara e Sara, potranno poi presentarle a Luca indipendentemente da Lara. 3) In realtà Mario aveva già conosciuto Mara e Sara, ma non grazie a Lara, bensì attraverso Filippo, il suo unico amico di Rovigo.
Per avere un’idea dell’ampiezza del Fediverso, si può dare un’occhiata a diversi siti che cercano di fornirne una fotografia completa. Oltre al già citato Kum.io, che cerca di rappresentarlo con una elegante veste grafica che ne evidenzia le interazioni, c’é anche Fediverse.network che tenta di elencare ogni singola Istanza esistente indicando per ognuna di esse i protocolli usati e lo stato del servizio, o Fediverse.party, che é un vero e proprio portale da cui partire per scegliere quale piattaforma usare e registrarcisi. Anche Switching.social, una pagina che illustra tutte le alternative libere ai social e sistemi di comunicazione proprietari, indica alcune reti federate tra le alternative a Twitter e Facebook.
(Per completezza: inizialmente si tendeva a dividere tutta questa megarete in tre “universi” sovrapposti: chiamati “Federazione” quello per le reti basate sul protocollo di Diaspora, “Fediverso” per quelle che usavano Ostatus e “ActivityPub” quelle che usavano… ActivityPub. Oggi invece sono considerati tutti parte del Fediverso anche se a volte lo si chiama pure Federazione)
Tanti Network…
Vediamo dunque le principali piattaforme/network e cos’hanno di diverso tra loro. Giusto un paio di premesse: alcuni di queste piattaforme sono pienamente attive mentre altre sono in via di sviluppo più o meno avanzato. Per questo motivo in alcuni casi l’interazione tra le diverse reti non é ancora pienamente funzionante. Inoltre, data la natura open e indipendente dei diversi network, é possibile che singole Istanze apportino modifiche e personalizzazioni “non standard” (un esempio é la lunghezza caratteri su Mastodon: lo standard é di 500 caratteri ma un’Istanza può decidere di impostare il limite che vuole; un’altro é l’uso di stelline e retweet, che un’Istanza può permettere e l’altra vietare). In questo paragrafo, di base, non si son tenute in conto queste personalizzazioni ed incompatibilità.
Mastodon (simile a: Twitter)
Mastodon é una piattaforma di microblogging molto simile a Twitter perché é basato su post molto brevi. E’il più famoso network del Fediverso. E’accessibile da smartphone attraverso un certo numero di App sia per Android che iOS. Uno dei punti di forza é il design ben concepito ed il fatto di avere già un “parco utenti” abbastanza corposo (quasi 2 milioni di utenti nel mondo, di cui alcune migliaia in Italia). Da desktop si mostra come una serie di colonne personalizzabili, ognuna delle quali mostra le diverse Timeline, sulla falsariga di Tweetdeck. Al momento Mastodon é l’unica piattaforma social federata accessibile con applicazioni Android ed iOS.
Pleroma (simile a: Twitter e DeviantArt)
Pleroma é la rete “sorella” di Mastodon: fondamentalmente sono la stessa cosa in due versioni un po diverse. Pleroma offre qualche funzione in più riguardo alla gestione delle immagini e permette di base post più lunghi. A differenza di Mastodon, su desktop Pleroma mostra un’unica colonna con la Timeline selezionata, rendendolo molto più simile a Twitter. Attualmente molte Istanze Pleroma hanno un gran numero di utenti che s’interessano di illustrazione e manga, pertanto come ambiente può ricordare vagamente DeviantArt. Le App di Mastodon per smartphone possono essere usate per accedere anche a Pleroma.
Misskey (simile a: un mix tra Twitter e DeviantArt)
Misskey é una sorta di Twitter che vuol ruotare principalmente attorno alle immagini. Offre un livello di personalizzazione maggiore di Mastodon e Pleroma ed una maggior attenzione alle gallerie immagini. E’una piattaforma che ha ottenuto buon successo in Giappone e tra gli appassionati di manga (e si vede!)
Friendica (simile a: Facebook)
Friendicaé un network estremamente interessante. Riprende grossomodo la struttura grafica di Facebook (con amici, notifiche ecc) ma in più permette l’interazione con diversi network commerciali che non fanno parte del Fediverso. E’dunque possibile connettere il proprio account Friendica a Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress oltre che generare feed RSS ecc. Insomma, Friendica si propone come una sorta di hub di contenuti da diffondere su tutte le reti disponibili, siano esse federate o no. In sostanza Friendica é l’asso-piglia-tutto del Fediverso: un’Istanza Friendica al massimo delle sue funzioni si connette con tutti e dialoga con tutti.
Osada (simile a: un mix tra Twitter e Facebook)
Osada é un’altro network che per impostazione può ricordare una via di mezzo tra Twitter e Facebook. Tra le piattaforme che ricordano Facebook questa é quella dal design più pulito.
GNUsocial (simile a: un mix tra Twitter e Facebook)
GNUsocial é un po’ il “nonno” di tutte le reti sociali qui elencate; in particolare di Friendica ed Osada (di cui é il predecessore).
Aardwolf (simile a: Twitter, forse…)
Aardwolf non é ancora pronto, ma si prospetta come una sorta di alternativa a Mastodon. Stiamo a vedere.
PeerTube (simile a: Youtube)
PeerTube é la rete federata di hosting video molto, ma molto simile a YouTube, Vimeo e altri servizi simili. Con un catalogo in via di costruzione, Peertube appare già un progetto molto solido.
Pixelfed (simile a: Instagram)
Pixelfedé sostanzialmente l’Instagram della Federazione. E’in fase di sviluppo ma pare essere a buon punto. Gli mancano solo delle App per smartphone per poter essere adottato come alternativa. Pixelfed ha il potenziale per diventare un membro molto, ma molto importante della Federazione!
NextCloud (simile a: iCloud, Dropbox, GDrive)
Nextcloud é un servizio di file hosting (nato dal precedente ownCloud) molto simile a Dropbox. Ognuno può far girare NextCloud su un proprio server che offre inoltre servizi di condivisione contatti (CardDAV), calendari (CalDAV), media streaming, bookmarking, backup ed altro. Gira pure su Windows e OSX ed é accessibile da smartphone attraverso App ufficiali. E’parte del Fediverso poiché utilizza ActivityPub per comunicare diverse informazioni ai propri utenti come cambiamenti ai file, attività calendario ecc.
Diaspora (simile a: Facebook e un pò anche Tumblr)
Diaspora é un po il “cugino” del Fediverso. Funziona attraverso un protocollo di comunicazione tutto suo e dialoga con il resto del Fediverso principalmente attraverso GNU social ed all’asso-piglia-tutto Friendica, anche se sembra stia circolando l’idea di far usare a Diaspora (l’applicazione) sia il proprio protocollo che ActivityPub. Si tratta di un gran bel progetto con una solida base di utenti affezionati. Al primo impatto può ricordare una versione estremamente minimalista di Facebook, ma l’attenzione alle immagini ed un interessante sistema di organizzazione dei post per tag permette di paragonarlo in qualche modo anche a Tumblr.
Funkwhale (simile a: SoundCloud e Grooveshark)
Funkwhale assomiglia a SounCloud, Grooveshark o altri servizi simili. Come uno YouTube per l’audio, permette di condividere tracce audio ma su rete federata. Con qualche implementazione potrebbe diventare anche un ottimo servizio di hosting per Podcast audio
Plume, Write Freely e Write.as (piattaforme di blogging)
PlumeWrite freely e Write.as sono piattaforme di blogging molto minimali che fanno parte della Federazione. Non hanno la ricchezza di funzioni, temi e personalizzazioni di WordPress o Blogger ma fanno il proprio dovere in modo leggero.
Hubzilla (simile a: ….TUTTO!!)
Hubzilla é un progetto ricchissimo e complesso che permette di gestire sia social network che data storage, calendari condivisi, web hosting, il tutto in maniera decentrata. Hubzilla insomma si propone di fare in una volta sola quello che fanno diversi dei servizi qui elencati. Come avere un’unica Istanza che ti faccia da Friendica, Peertube e NextCloud. Non male! E’da tenere sott’occhio!
GetTogether (simile a: MeetUp)
GetTogether é una piattaforma utile a pianificare eventi. Simile a MeetUp, serve a far fare rete a persone diverse unite da un’interesse comune e portare tale interesse nel mondo reale. Attualmente GetTogether non é ancora parte del Fediverso, ma sta implementando ActivityPub e quindi a breve sarà dei nostri.
Mobilizon (simile a: MeetUp)
Mobilizon é una nuova piattaforma in via di sviluppo che si propone come alternativa libera a MeetUp ed altri software utili ad organizzare meeting ed incontri di vario genere. Il progetto nasce fin da subito con l’intento di usare ActivityPub e far parte del Fediverso, in linea con i valori di Framasoft, associazione francese nata con lo scopo di diffondere l’uso di software libero e di reti decentrate. Qui la presentazione di Mobilzon in italiano.
Prismo é un’applicazione ancora in fase di sviluppo che si propone di diventare una sorta di versione decentralizzata di Reddit, ossia una rete sociale incentrata sulla condivisione di link ma che potenzialmente potrebbe evolvere in forme simili a Pocket o Evernote. Le funzioni base sono già funzionanti.
Socialhome
Socialhome é un social network che utilizza una visualizzazione a “blocchi”, inserendo i singoli post come in un collage di fotografie di Pinterest. Al momento comunica sono attraverso il protocollo di Diaspora ma dovrebbe implementare a breve ActivityPub
E non solo!
Ci sono ancora altre app e reti sociali che adottano o stanno per adottare ActivityPub, rendendo ancor più strutturato il Fediverso. Alcune sono molto simili a quelle già elencate, mentre altre sono ancora in fase di sviluppo e non sono ancora pronte per essere consigliate come alternativa ai sistemi commerciali più noti. Ci sono pure piattaforme già pronte e funzionanti che potrebbero entrare nel Fediverso implementando ActivityPub: NextCloud ne é un esempio (era già una realtà solida quando ha deciso di entrare nel Fediverso); il plugin di WordPress é a sua volta uno strumento che permette di federare una piattaforma già esistente; GetTogether é un’altra realtà che si sta federando. Piattaforme già consolidate (penso a Gitter, ma é giusto un’esempio tra i tanti) potrebbero trarre vantaggio dal federarsi diventando parte di una grande famiglia allargata). Insomma: c’é movimento dentro ed attorno al Fediverso!
…un solo Grande Network!
Fin qui abbiamo visto tante versioni alternative di strumenti noti che, presi singolarmente possono anche essere interessanti, ma che danno il meglio quando collaborano. Qui viene il bello: il fatto che condividano gli stessi protocolli di comunicazione elimina l’effetto “gabbia dorata” del singolo network!
Ora che sono state descritte le singole piattaforme é possibile fare qualche esempio veramente concreto:
Sono su Mastodon e mi appare il post di una persona che seguo. Nulla di strano, se non fosse che quella persona non é un utente di Mastodon, ma un utente di Peertube! Difatti si tratta di un video di un panorama. Sempre da Mastodon io commento scrivendo “bello” e questa persona vedrà comparire il mio commento sotto il suo video, su Peertube.
Sono su Osada e posto una riflessione aperta un po lunga. Questa riflessione viene letta da una mia amica su Friendica che la boosta ai suoi followers, alcuni dei quali sono su Friendica, ma altri sono su altre piattaforme, ad esempio uno che sta su Pleroma che mi risponde e con cui inizio a dialogare.
Pubblico una foto su Pixelfed e viene vista e commentata da un mio follower su Mastodon.
In sostanza ognuno può mantenere i contatti con i propri amici/followers dal proprio network preferito anche se questi ne frequentano di diversi.
Facendo un paragone con i social commerciali, é come poter ricevere su Facebook i tweet di un amico che sta su Twitter, le immagini postate da un’altra persona su Instagram, i video di un canale YouTube, le tracce audio su SoundCloud ed i nuovi post da diversi blog e siti personali e commentare e interagire con ognuno di essi perché tutti questi network collaborano assieme formando un’unico grande network!
Ognuna di queste reti potrà scegliere il modo in cui vuole gestire queste interazioni (ad esempio, se volessi una vita social monodirezionale potrei scegliere un’Istanza Pixelfed in cui gli altri utenti possono contattarmi solo commentando le foto che io pubblico, oppure potrei scegliere un’Istanza Peertube e pubblicare video che non possono essere commentati ma che potranno girare in tutto il Fediverso, o scegliere un’Istanza Mastodon che obbliga i miei interlocutori a comunicare con me in maniera concisa.
Certi dettagli vanno ancora definiti (per esempio: potrei inviare un messaggio diretto da Mastodon ad una piattaforma che non permette ai suoi utenti di ricevere messaggi diretti, senza esser mai avvertito del fatto che il destinatario manco avrà modo di sapere che gli ho inviato qualcosa). Si tratta di situazioni ben comprensibili all’interno di un ecosistema che deve adattarsi a realtà tanto diverse ma nella maggior parte dei casi si tratta di dettagli di facile gestione. Quel che importa é che le possibilità di interazione sono potenzialmente infinite!
Connettività totale, esposizione dosata
Tutta questa connettività condivisa va osservata tenendo a mente che nonostante i vari network sian stati qui trattati per semplicità come dei network centralizzati, sono in realtà reti di Istanze indipendenti che interagiscono direttamente con le Istanze degli altri network: la mia Istanza Mastodon filtrerà le Istanze Peertube che postano video razzisti ma si connetterà con tutte le Istanze Peertube che ne rispettano la policy; se seguo un certo mio amico su Pixelfed io vedrò solo i suoi post, senza che nessuno mi obblighi a vedere tutte le foto di tramonti e gattini dei suoi amici su quel social!
La combinazione di Istanze autonome, massima interoperabilità tra le stesse e libertà di scelta permette una serie di combinazioni estremamente interessanti che i social commerciali non si possono nemmeno sognare: l’utente é qui membro di un’unica grossa rete in cui può scegliere:
Lo strumento di accesso preferito (Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica)
La comunità in cui più si sente a suo agio (l’Istanza)
La chiusura a comunità indesiderate e l’apertura a comunità che gli interessano
Tutto questo senza però rinunciare ad interconnettersi con utenti che hanno scelto strumenti e comunità diverse. Ad esempio posso scegliere una certa Istanza Pleroma perché mi piace il design, la comunità che ospita, le policy e la sicurezza generale ma da qui, seguire ed interagire principalmente con utenti di una certa Istanza Pixelfed portandone contenuti ed estetica nella mia Istanza.
A questo si aggiunge il fatto che le singole Istanze possono essere letteralmente installate ed amministrate da ogni singolo utente su proprie macchine, permettendo un controllo totale dei contenuti. Minuscole istanze casalinghe e solide Istanze di lavoro, Istanze scolastiche ed Istanze collettive, Istanze con migliaia di utenti ed Istanze da un solo utente, Istanze di quartiere e di condominio, tutte unite a formare una rete complessa e personalizzabile, che permette virtualmente di collegare chiunque ma al tempo stesso di evitare il sovraccarico d’informazioni. E’una sorta di ritorno alle origini di Internet, ma un ritorno maturo, da web 2.0, che si porta dietro l’esperienza dell’esser passati attraverso la centralizzazione della comunicazione nelle mani di pochi grossi attori internazionali che ha rafforzato con ancor più convinzione la certezza che la struttura decentrata é quella umanamente più sana e proficua.
Social network = gioie e dolori. Oramai é evidente a chiunque che i social network sono diventati degli strumenti sempre più odiosi. Devi starci perché sennò ti tagli fuori dal mondo, si; e devi starci anche perché oramai tutte le comunicazioni passano da lì; però si tratta oramai di una vetrina mediatica in cui devi agire con grandissima cautela. Fare un post sbagliato o toccare certi argomenti sensibili può portarti a passare ore ed ore a battagliare con persone che magari nemmeno conosci. Per non parlare delle ripercussioni che il tuo profilo social può causare sul tuo lavoro, del tracciamento dati da parte di Facebook ecc.
[ l’articolo é stato aggiornato dopo la pubblicazione iniziale ]
1.Un’idea semplificata del mondo
Che lo si voglia o meno i social network sono oramai parte della tua vita. Anche se li frequenti pochissimo o se non hai nemmeno un account, sei perfettamente cosciente del fatto che sui social si forma una fetta importantissima del pensiero dominante.
Questo però comporta diversi problemi.
Uno di questi é che i social network (da qui in poi SN) sono strutturati in modo tale da premiare i contenuti più spettacolari e rumorosi. E’esperienza comune il fatto che i SN non sono l’ambiente migliore in cui fare ragionamenti pacati e costruttivi: basta l’intervento di un paio di disturbatori (coloro che fanno rumore) per mandare in vacca ogni discorso serio.
Qui il problema consiste nel fatto che tutti i commenti ricevono egual peso: non importa che tu sia una persona esperta in una determinata cosa ed abbia scritto un post preciso e corretto se a commentarlo negativamente arriva qualcuno che dell’argomento non sa niente ma quel che scrive fa più colpo ed ottiene più likes.
La struttura dei SN insegna ai propri utenti ad esprimersi con un linguaggio più simile a quello pubblicitario che ad instaurare un normale dialogo umano. Per funzionare i Post devono essere brevi e contenere pochi concetti netti ma d’impatto.
SEGUIAMO IL FILO:
(1) L’opinione pubblica si forma sui SN. (2) I SN son strutturati in modo da premiare contenuti semplificati (3). Il mondo in cui viviamo é assai complesso. (4) I SN formano un’opinione pubblica con un’idea semplificata del mondo.
2. Luoghi del non-dialogo?
Blastatore
Persone diverse possono usare i SN in modi molto diversi, ma devono per forza muoversi all’interno delle regole del SN e della sua struttura.
Questo significa che nel dialogare su un certo argomento, la struttura dei SN darà al commento dell’utente ignorante ed al commento dell’utente litigioso lo stesso peso del commento dell’esperto calmo.
Questa cosa rende nei fatti impossibile portare avanti qualunque tipo di dialogo importante: bastano uno o due commenti infuocati per trasformare ogni tuo discorso in litigio e farti passare la voglia di intervenire perché non hai né tempo né voglia di impelagarti in battaglie fatte a colpi di battute, frecciate ed insulti.
Il fatto che i SN siano luogo di non dialogo fa sì che un Post, per essere davvero di successo, oltre ad avere contenuti semplificati, deve essere anche anti-dialogo.
Cosa significa? Significa che avrai più likes con un Post indignato tipo “Ma questi sono dei farabutti che andrebbero gettati in galera a marcire” che con un Post del tipo “Si, hanno sbagliato e bisognerà correre ai ripari, ma credo che gettarli in galera sarebbe un errore”. Questo perché il primo é un post anti-dialogo, é come un pugno che tappa la bocca a chiunque volesse rispondere: puoi solo essere d’accordo e applaudire o tacere. Altrimenti si litiga. Il secondo Post invece é un invito a sedersi e ragionare.
Per permettere dei dialoghi civili, dunque, i SN sono dovuti correre ai ripari. In particolare Facebook, con la creazione dei “gruppi”, permette a degli utenti amministratori di selezionare persone specifiche con cui intrattenere dialoghi su certi argomenti.
I SN dunque ti portano a queste soluzioni: (1) litigare (2) startene zitto (3) formare dei gruppi più o meno chiusi.
3. E’tutto un gioco
Personaggio e le sue caratteristiche
Probabilmente il termine gamification suonerà nuovo a molti. Si tratta però di un concetto con cui abbiamo sempre più a che fare, ossia la trasformazione di tantissimi aspetti della nostra vita in una specie di eterno gioco (Game) che coinvolge premi, punteggi, ricompense virtuali, livelli di difficoltà.
Non é un termine buttato lì a caso: i processi di gamification vengono studiati ed implementati in campi diversissimi per legare il cliente/utente al servizio/prodotto.
In pratica si tratta di meccanismi che ti portano a fare delle cose per ottenere dei “premi” virtuali.
La gamification é quella cosa che ti fa fare la tessera punti di un negozio regalandogli moltissime informazioni su di te in cambio di qualche sconticino. E’quella cosa che ti fa scrivere un commento in cambio di qualche like o stellina.
La gamification é quella cosa che ti obbliga a descriverti sui social mostrando la tua personalità e le tue caratteristiche così come il personaggio di un videogioco: cosa ti piace, chi frequenti, dove vivi, dove lavori, rendendo la tua utenza su Facebook indistinguibile dalla pagina che descrive un personaggio dei Sims.
Ogniqualvolta ci si trova dinnanzi a meccanismi di premio, buoni da usare entro una certa data, lotterie ed estrazioni, ricariche e punti, carte vantaggi, tessere premium che “sbloccano” diverse opportunità prima precluse, siamo di fronte ad applicazioni pratiche di gamification nella vita reale.
E’ facile osservare quanto SN siamo il luogo ideale per la gamification: se fai un Post abbastanza semplificato ed anti-dialogo il SN ti premierà con tanti likes, stelline o punti.
Perché quando scrivi un post su un SN non stai dialogando con nessuno: stai facendo a gara. Stai vendendo la tua opinione in cambio di un riconoscimento virtuale da parte di sconosciuti. Quando invece tu sei colui che dà riconoscimenti virtuali ad altri (dando stelline, cuoricini, “mi piace” ecc.), stai facendo lavoro non pagato per il SN, in quanto gli fornisci informazioni importantissime senza ottenerne nulla in cambio.
In base ai tuoi “mi piace” il SN sa che ti piacciono i gatti ma non i cani, le tue opinioni riguardo determinati argomenti; i tuoi gusti personali, le persone che frequenti, l’opinione dei tuoi amici su di te. Una volta ottenute, il SN può usare tutte queste informazioni per unire i puntini e fare un ritratto della tua persona che arriva a dedurre particolari della tua persona che, direttamente, no hai mai fornito.
4. Minimo comun denominatore
Applaudire o far battaglia
Il gioco a chi scrive il Post di maggior successo si può vincere in un solo modo: dare alla gente quello che di sicuro piace alla maggior parte delle persone, ossia spettacolo e rumore.
Non si vince proponendo cose veramente nuove (le avanguardie culturali vivono ai margini anche dei SN): si vince proponendo rivisitazioni inedite di spettacoli e rumori già visti.
Spettacolo e rumore che però devono essere al tempo stesso semplificati ed anti-dialogo.
Insomma: i SN sono il luogo ideale per far girare roba tipo Striscia la notizia, Le Iene, i blast di questo o quel personaggio tipo Sgarbi, Grillo, Feltri o Mentana: se qualcuno pubblica un Post seguendo le regole che abbiamo appena visto, avendo un certo numero di followers, il tempismo ed il guizzo “giusto” ed una certa dose di fortuna potrebbe vederlo diventare un Post di successo.
Quel che bisogna davvero comprendere é che rumore e spettacolo semplificati ed anti-dialogo non possono mai aver a che fare con progresso e spinte in avanti. Perché tutto ciò che riguarda il progresso richiede dialogo e sforzo.
No, quando si ha a che fare con le battutine acide, il buttare tutto in facile ironia, il blastare un dialogo interrompendolo e tutta quella roba lì, siamo SEMPRE di fronte ad un qualcosa che frena il progresso, che porta indietro, che preferisce confermare ciò in cui crede che metterlo in dubbio e guardare avanti; che preferisce l’illogico al logico, la panza alla testa.
La panza. E’questo il minimo comun denominatore che accontenta sempre tutti. Gli istinti primari e la paura.
C’é una persona che dice che il mondo é rotondo e per spiegarcelo fa tutta una serie di ragionamenti e calcoli difficili? “Hahahahaha! Ma che idiota! “Ma se il mondo fosse tondo gli australiani dovrebbero cadere verso il cielo!” Tié! Blastato e affondato. Cinquecento likes. E chi credeva che il mondo fosse piatto godrà della conferma di quel che crede.
5. Rendere i Social dei luoghi veramente social
Per poter dialogare in maniera costruttiva sui SN abbiamo già visto che la prima cosa da fare é metter da parte gli utenti che minano la bontà del dialogo.
NO ANTIDIALOGO: Tenere fuori dal dialogo tutti coloro che minano a distruggere il dialogo stesso: provocatori, disturbatori e troll.
NO FALSA PREPARAZIONE: Allo stesso modo va limitata la possibilità di intervento di quelle persone che pur non conoscendo gli argomenti in questione vogliono aver lo stesso peso di chi invece ne sa.
La seconda cosa da fare invece é più complessa. Si tratta di ridurre il più possibile quelle caratteristiche strutturali dei SN che rovinano la natura stessa del discutere.
NO VOTI/PREMI: Un primo esempio riguarda l’eliminazione dei voti (likes, mi piace, stelline, contatore condivisioni, cuoricini…). Se togli i voti dal SN, riduci drasticamente il meccanismo di gioco ad inseguire il minimo comun denominatore.
NO TESTI RISTRETTI: Alcuni SN come Twitter permettono di scrivere solo messaggi molto brevi in cui é impossibile esprimere pensieri complessi. Questo non é necessariamente un male, a patto che esista la possibilità di aggirarla qualora il limite fosse troppo castrante (su Twitter, ad esempio, si possono concatenare diversi tweet uno dopo l’altro)
La terza cosa consiste nel permettere di mantenere la vita reale il più possibile separata da quella virtuale.
SI ANONIMATO: Nella vita reale non hai un cartellino con scritto chi sei, i tuoi gusti, chi sono i tuoi amici ed i luoghi che frequenti. Il bello dei social é poter discutere liberamente senza le maschere che indossi nella vita reale. La posizione SI ANONIMATO, assieme alla posizione NO ANTIDIALOGO si rivela una risorsa preziosissima per ogni forma di progresso. Permettere ad uno stesso utente di avere diverse identità, frequentare gruppi diversi ed immedesimarsi nell’altro é una delle più grandi e preziose libertà che Internet permette
Per finire, la quarta cosa riguarda il pericolo dei SN trattati come fonte a sé stante.
SOCIAL APERTI: I SN, per loro stessa natura, tendono a far sì che l’utente si autoconfini nel SN. Un dialogo nato su un SN tendenzialmente si sviluppa e muore sullo stesso SN. Ma un SN, per permettere un dialogo sano, ha bisogno di una maggior interazione tra ambienti di dialogo differenziati. Pensiamo ad esempio ad un dialogo nato su un Forum, che ad un certo punto prosegue su un SN dove prende una piega diversa generando così due discorsi paralleli in due ambienti diversi ed infine confluiscano entrambi in un post su un secondo SN che a sua volta genererà un terzo discorso.
Insomma: i SN funzionano al loro meglio se non dimenticano la loro funzione di ponte tra luoghi di discussione diversi. Quest’ultimo punto però richiede un tipo di attenzione da parte degli utenti, più che soluzioni tecniche da parte del SN in sé.
6. Chi decide cosa e perché?
Chi possiede il Social possiede la tua identità
A questo punto bisogna affrontare una serie di problemi al tempo stesso tecnici ed etici: di chi é il SN in cui interagisci con altre persone? Chi é che decide quali sono le sue regole? Con che criteri?
Nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi quando si pensa ad un SN si pensa a Facebook o Twitter o Instagram: piattaforme commerciali che appartengono ad aziende che guadagnano proprio da questi social.
Va da sé che queste aziende commerciali decideranno di preferire regole che ne massimizzano potere e guadagni.
A Twitter, Facebook etc. importa innanzitutto che i suoi utenti scrivano ed interagiscano molto; interessa riuscire a profilarti, ossia sapere piò cose possibile su di te per vendere queste informazioni ad altre aziende commerciali.
Per esempio: il fatto che nella tua zona tante persone diverse abbiano scritto post contro l’amministrazione comunale é un’informazione vendibile a qualcuno che potrebbe cavalcare quest’onda e gettare benzina sul fuoco per dare l’illusione che l’amministrazione comunale sia ancor peggiore di quanto non sia in realtà.
A Facebook non importa niente della qualità etica di ciò che uno scrive. A Facebook non fa né caldo né freddo se sul suo SN c’é un gruppo di nazisti che si batte per ridurre i diritti civili degli stranieri e dire che la terra e piatta. Non gli importa niente e non li bloccherà finché continueranno a scrivere roba, interagire con altri ed a fornire informazioni per profilarli. Basta giusto-giusto che non scrivano cose illegali.
Ma a Facebook sanno benissimo che questo loro menefreghismo alla lunga può infastidirti e quindi, per difenderti dalla sua mancanza di posizione, ti offre la possibilità di creare una sorta di gruppo chiuso in cui puoi stare alla larga dai nazi-terrapiattisti. In questo modo tu ed i tuoi amici limiterete i contatti con i nazi-terrapiattisti e viceversa. Ma non limiterai Facebook. Facebook continuerà a sapere tutto sia di ognuno di voi che dei nazi-terrapiattisti.
Il gruppo chiuso, insomma, é un contentino che Facebook concede ai propri utenti: convincendoti che devi difenderti dagli altri utenti ti fa dimenticare che dovresti innanzitutto difenderti da Facebook stesso!
Inoltre Facebook potrebbe rivelarsi uno strumento pericolosissimo in paesi con un governo dittatoriale o semi-dittatoriale. Come ti comportesti se salisse al potere un partito che imponesse a Facebook di rivelare i nomi di tutti coloro che lo hanno criticato (tra cui ci sei pure tu) e ciò comportasse perdita di sussidi, assegni familiari, diritti ecc?
Come potresti difenderti da una profilazione arbitraria se, in base ai dati raccolti da Facebook (chi sono i tuoi amici, i tuoi interessi, i tuoi likes), fossi classificato come un potenziale terrorista?
8. Riprendersi i Social Network
Sono tanti, i motivi per voler dei SN diversi. Ma che siano diversi per davvero. Serve dunque un’idea nuova che permetta da un lato di riprenderne il controllo ma al tempo stesso farlo in maniera semplice, che non richieda chissà che razza di sforzi e complicazioni.
Da qui l’idea di una rete sociale decentrata, cioè non basata su di un unica, enorme centrale di controllo, ma di tante piccole realtà separate, ognuna con le proprie regole ma che dialogano fra loro.
A questo punto di solito si dovrebbero dare alcune informazioni tecniche su questo tipo di rete, ma qui gli aspetti tecnici ci interessano relativamente. Basterà sapere che l’idea di servizi internet decentrati non é particolarmente nuova ma negli ultimi anni, essendo sempre più evidenti i pericoli di servizi troppo centralizzati, si sta diffondendo sempre più: social network decentralizzati, servizi di video streaming, motori di ricerca, monete virtuali. Inoltre si tratta di servizi realizzati soprattutto con software libero, ossia privo di un proprietario, liberamente controllabili, verificabili e modificabili da chiunque e per questo tendenzialmente molto più sicuri di software non libero.
Tra i diversi SN decentrati oggi disponibili, quello sicuramente più interessante é Mastodon.
Cos’é e come funziona Mastodon? Innanzitutto lo si può descrivere come un SN strutturato in maniera simile a Twitter, fatto da utenti slegati dall’identità reale e messaggi (chiamati “Toot”) lunghi solitamente al massimo 500 caratteri.
La prima cosa che spiazza quando vuoi creare un account Mastodon sul suo sito principale, Joinmastodon.org é che non lo puoi creare così, genericamente su Mastodon: in realtà devi subito scegliere a quale Istanza Mastodon iscriverti.
Qui può essere utile l’immagine dei circoli privati o club: pensa a Mastodon come una tessera che ti permetta di entrare in un’enorme numero di circoli privati e club. Questa tessera però viene rilasciata singolarmente dai singoli club. O meglio: ognuno di questi circoli privati rilascia la propria tessera Mastodon e questa ti permetterà non solo di entrare nel circolo in cui ti sei iscritto, ma anche di entrare in contatto con gli altri circoli e club associati.
Ognuno di questi circoli o club é chiamato Istanza. Nei fatti é un server gestito da volontari o cooperative, centri sociali o volendo anche da aziende (il che può sembrare una contraddizione con quanto detto sopra ma vedremo sotto che non é così).
Iscriversi ad un’Istanza NON é un matrimonio indissolubile: é abbastanza comune iscriversi ad un’Istanza e dopo un po decidere che ci si trova meglio su un’altra Istanza, così come provare più Istanze contemporaneamente.
Una volta registrati, si può accedere attraverso l’interfaccia web della propria Istanza oppure da smartphone attraverso applicazioni client. Ce ne sono diverse, disponibili sia per Android che iOS. Non esiste un’App “ufficiale” di Mastodon.
9.1 Diverse Istanze, diverse regole.
Cosa cambia tra un’Istanza e un’altra? Beh, può cambiare molto. Come già detto un’Istanza é nei fatti un server ossia un computer sempre attivo, gestito da delle persone che dedicano il proprio tempo perché funzioni tutto correttamente ed amministrarlo.
Ogni Istanza ha dunque le sue regole ed i suoi amministratori. Per esempio tu potresti scegliere un’Istanza che si trova in Italia e che banna al suo interno qualsiasi contenuto fascista, razzista, omofobo e commerciale. Oppure potresti preferire un’Istanza che si trova fisicamente in America che filtra tutti i contenuti pornografici e fascisti ma che permette di avere utenti commerciali. Oppure ancora potresti preferire un’Istanza canadese i cui utenti sono principalmente programmatori con la passione per la fantascienza ma che in realtà non filtra alcun tipo di contenuto. Anche qui può essere utile l’esempio dei circoli privati o club.
I motivi che possono farti preferire questa o quell’istanza dipendono esclusivamente da te. Se sei un razzista che picchia i bambini potrai forse iscriverti ad una Istanza in cui si considera accettabile essere razzisti e picchiare i bambini ma i tuoi contenuti non appariranno mai agli utenti iscritti ad un’Istanza che ha come regola quella di bannare in toto quel genere di contenuti e le Istanze che le tollerano.
Una volta registrato, il tuo nome utente sarà più o meno simile ad una email: utente@istanza
9.2 Bida
Tra le varie Istanze disponibili la mia scelta é caduta su Bida. Qui (mastodon.bida.im) é possibile leggerne le caratteristiche dell’Istanza, le sue regole ed i princìpi a cui si attiene, chi lo amministra ecc. Tutto ciò che segue é basato sull’esperienza fatta su Bida (esperienza che risulta alquanto positiva anche a sentire altri utenti).
9.3 All’interno dell’Istanza: la Timeline locale
Accedendo a Mastodon da browser ci si ritrova dinnanzi ad una struttura divisa in diverse colonne (chi utilizza Tweetdeck si sentirà a casa) che mostrano graficamente le diverse timeline. Accedendo da cellulare invece l’esperienza é più simile alla colonna singola di Twitter o Facebook.
All’interno della tua Istanza puoi vedere i messaggi pubblici degli altri utenti dell’Istanza. Questi compaiono in ordine cronologico nella Timeline Locale. Ovviamente puoi interagire con loro e commentare i Toot. Non serve essere “amici” di questi utenti: la Timeline locale mostra tutti i messaggi pubblici di tutti gli utenti della tua istanza. Puoi “stellinare” un Toot (é tipo cliccare “mi piace” su Facebook), ma non c’é alcuna enfatizzazione di post che hanno ottenuto molte stelline: in questo modo non si genera mai la gara ad “ottenere più like”. Puoi anche “boostare” il Toot di un altro utente (ciò equivale al “retweet” su Twitter o alla “condivisione” su Facebook) e pure qui non v’é alcun contatore pubblico che dica quante volte un Toot é stato boostato. Se proprio volessi sapere quante volte tale messaggio sia stato boostato basterà aprire il messaggio per saperlo, ma anche qui non v’é alcuna enfasi.
Non esistono i “Trending Topics”, ossia non v’é una Classifica/tabella punti sugli argomenti più discussi.
Detto questo il funzionamento non é molto diverso da Twitter e quindi chi già ha esperienza su Twitter non avrà bisogno di grandi spiegazioni. In caso di problemi o dubbi é facilissimo entrare in contatto con gli admin: é uno dei pregi dei circuiti locali che nessuna megastruttura come Facebook avrà mai.
9.4 Relazioni tra Istanze: la Timeline federata
Qui le cose iniziano ad essere molto diverse dagli altri SN e bisogna spendere qualche parola per capire i concetti base della relazione tra istanze e tra utenti di diverse istanze. Per far questo riprendiamo l’esempio dei club privati. Se tu sei iscritto ad un circolo privato e lo frequenti sei a conoscenza delle persone che lo frequentano e dei loro discorsi, anche se non sei propriamente loro amico. Questo é ciò che abbiamo già visto riguardo la Timeline Locale.
Il circolo, però, a meno che non sia del tutto chiuso ai contatti esterni (si é possibile: un Istanza può anche essere del tutto chiusa ai contatti esterni, se vuole), é frequentato anche da amici dei soci provenienti da altre Istanze.
In sostanza, un utente dell’Istanza “Bida” può seguire un’utente di un’altra Istanza “xyz” (qui “seguire” é ciò che Facebook definisce “amicizia”) e quando ciò avviene, tutti gli utenti di Bida vedranno i messaggi pubblici di questo tuo amico di “xyz” sulla Timeline federata della tua Istanza.
La Timeline federata insomma, mostra i messaggi pubblici sia degli utenti della tua Istanza che quelli degli “amici” dei suoi membri.
Tornando all’esempio dei circoli privati: per poter essere presente nel circolo o devi iscrivertici o devi conoscere qualcuno che é già iscritto. In sostanza si tratta di un meccanismo che ricalca quelli che sono le relazioni nella vita reale: se entro in un circolo/bar/pub posso conoscere i frequentatori fissi così come i loro amici, ma non posso conoscere i frequentatori di un altro circolo che sta in un’altra città se non vi entro e se non conosco nessuno dei suoi frequentatori.
Quando si cercano utenti, hashtag o Istanze dal modulo di ricerca della propria Istanza, i risultati che verranno dati riguarderanno sempre e solo utenti, hashtag o Istanze con cui la propria Istanza é già entrata in contatto.
Per intenderci: se sull’Istanza Bida cerchi l’hashtag #startrek e non venisse trovato niente, questo non significa che sull’intera rete di Mastodon non c’é nessuno che parla di #startrek: significa solo che l’Istanza Bida non é in contatto con nessuno che parli di quell’argomento. Potrebbe ad esempio esserci un’intera istanza di appassionati di Star Trek con cui però nessuno di Bida é mai entrato in contatto.
Può sembrare una limitazione che in realtà viene superata dal fatto che le Istanze fanno rete fra loro: più le Istanze e gli utenti interagiscono fra loro mettendosi in contatto reciproco e più sarà facile anche per l’argomento più di nicchia, uscire ed essere disponibile a persone lontane.
9.5 Amici degli amici e gente che non si conosce ancora.
Quando un’utente di un’altra istanza compare sulla Timeline federata si tratta pur sempre di un’utente che “risiede altrove” e conoscere lui non significa conoscere i suoi amici.
Torniamo ancora all’esempio dei circoli privati: sulla tua Istanza c’é Tizio che é amico di Dracula, un utente iscritto su una istanza di vampiri transilvani. Nella tua Istanza nessuno ha alcun contatto con nessun altro vampiro transilvano al di fuori di Dracula, perciò anche se sai che Dracula ha 500 amici all’interno della sua Istanza d’origine, se clicchi sul suo profilo vedrai solo il nome dei contatti che già conosci.
Per conoscere gli altri suoi amici sull’Istanza transilvana o lui li presenta (ad esempio condividendo i loro messaggi) o tu puoi iscriverti sull’istanza transilvana e farti direttamente un giro da quelle parti per conoscerli.
In questo modo, registrandoti su una seconda Istanza, avrai due diversi account Mastodon. Magari poi va a finire che preferirai usare come tua “base regolare” l’Istanza vampiresca ed invitare lì solo alcuni degli utenti dell’Istanza che frequentavi prima.
A questo punto verrebbe da chiedersi come può esser possibile entrare in contatto con utenti registrati su un’Istanza sconosciuta. Torniamo nuovamente all’esempio di #startrek paragonando la situazione a ciò che avviene nella vita reale: se nei giri dei tuoi conoscenti non c’é nessuno-nessuno-nessuno che s’interessa ad una certa cosa, com’é possibile che invece TU te ne interessi? La risposta é che l’unico modo é uscendo al di fuori dei tuoi giri.
In sostanza, le tue frequentazioni indipendenti (siti, blog, forum), che poco o nulla hanno a che fare con le tue solite reti sociali, possono portarti a conoscere altre reti sociali che, se non fosse stato per il tuo uscirne, non sarebbero mai entrate in contatto.
Nulla vieta che tu venga a sapere su un forum web di appassionati di Star Trek che alcuni di essi hanno aperto un’Istanza dedicata.
La tua Istanza di riferimento potrebbe essere in costante contatto con 20, 30 Istanze. La nuova Istanza di Star Trek che hai conosciuto al di fuori di Mastodon potrebbe essere invece in contatto con altre 15, 25 Istanze. Il tuo metterti in contatto con l’Istanza di Star Trek non può che rafforzare la conoscenza reciproca dell’intera rete di Mastodon.
Qui non si può citare la teoria dei sei gradi di separazione, la quale presuppone che una rete di certe dimensioni permetterebbe già al suo interno di connettere ogni utente con qualsiasi altro utente.
9.6 Utenti e Istanze bannate o ammutolite
Se tra le regole fondamentali della tua Istanza c’é il ban totale di utenti razzisti e sessisti e la tua Istanza si accorgesse che l’utente Puffetta, registrata su un’Istanza di puffi, posta proprio contenuti razzisti, questa verrebbe bannata e tu non avresti più modo di seguirla. Non solo: se la tua Istanza si accorgesse che l’intera istanza dei puffi é un covo di utenti razzisti e fascisti, potrebbe bannare l’intera istanza in un colpo solo, impedendogli di entrare in contatto con te e gli altri utenti della tua Istanza.
Ci possono essere anche casi meno drastici. Per esempio, Bida non banna i contenuti commerciali presenti su altre istanze ma si limita a silenziarle sulla Timeline federata. Ciò significa che tu sei libero di seguire l’account commerciali di questa o quella azienda che posta solo pubblicità di magici prodotti per l’allargamento del pene, però questi post non compariranno mai nella Timeline federata di Bida visibile agli altri utenti dell’Istanza.
Nel primo caso insomma, si tratta di utenti che “se stai qui diamo per inteso che non li vuoi vedere nemmanco col binocolo”, mentre nel secondo caso si tratta di utenti che “vabbé, é roba che a te può anche interessare ma non venirci ad intasarci la timeline con quella roba”.
Qui entra in gioco il rapporto di fiducia con gli amministratori dell’Istanza che ti sei scelto, il senso di comunità all’interno della stessa, la condivisione di regole e princìpi, il modo in cui gli amministratori prendono decisioni e le comunicano. Se per stare su Facebook puoi solo scegliere se accettarne o meno le regole, qui hai invece numerosissime possibilità che possono essere piò o meno restrittive e seguire logiche ed interessi diversissimi ed assai personali.
Non sei d’accordo con le policy della tua Istanza? Puoi sceglierne un’altra. Non ti piacciono le Istanze con regole troppo restrittive? Puoi iscriverti ad un’Istanza che non pone alcun filtro e vedere che succede ad aggiungere amici sia da un’Istanza nazista che da un’Istanza antifascista. Vorresti cambiare certe cose della tua Istanza? Se é gestita da un’associazione di cui fai parte puoi far cambiare alcune cose tramite votazioni interne. L’Istanza a cui sei registrato non é d’accordo con la tua apertura agli sciachimisti? Puoi cercare una Istanza che accoglie gli sciachimisti. Puoi anche scegliere di avere diversi account per tener separati i contatti o addirittura metter su un’Istanza tutta tua e decidere in totale indipendenza le tue regole. Puoi pure creare un’Istanza chiusa che non ha contatti con le altre Istanze. E puoi sempre decidere di silenziare _per te stesso_ intere istanze che la tua Istanza approva: ti trovi in accordo con tutte le regole della tua Istanza e sei amico di molti dei suoi frequentatori, ma proprio non sopporti l’apertura a quell’Istanza di foodies in cui postano ogni momento foto di sushi e piatti ricercati? La puoi silenziare per conto tuo pur restando sulla tua Istanza che invece non ha nulla in contrario contro aperitivi e delicatezze regionali. Insomma: le possibilità sono numerosissime.
9.7 il Fediverso
Cercando sempre di evitare il discorso tecnico, bisogna però far notare Mastodon usa delle tecnologie di comunicazione utilizzate anche da altri SN decentrati. Questo vuol dire che su Mastodon si può interagire con utenti di altri SN, alcuni dei quali possono interagire con ancora altri SN formando una rete assai complessa chiamata Fediverso (Federazione+Universo).
Per fare un esempio di fantasia é un po come se tu scrivessi un post su Facebook, ricevessi un commento scritto da Twitter e questo commento generasse una nuova discussione su Tumblr (che interagisce con Twitter ma non con Facebook). Questo aspetto é assai complesso e variegato, pertanto meriterebbe forse un post a parte.
Ci sarebbero poi tante altre caratteristiche specifiche da illustrare, come i diversi permessi di lettura dei post che invii (leggibili solo dagli utenti citati, oppure solo da chi ti segue, o da chiunque o da chiunque ma senza che questo sia pubblicato sulla timeline), oppure la possibilità di “mascherare” il tuo messaggio dietro una bandierina d’avvertimento o ancora le diverse funzioni dei client per smartphone. Tuttavia già quel che é stato descritto dovrebbe bastare per capire l’altissimo potenziale di Mastodon e del Fediverso.
10. Conclusioni
Per concludere non c’é che da aggiungere che al momento Mastodon sembra avere tutte le caratteristiche per diventare la vera alternativa ai SN commerciali grazie ad una struttura completamente differente, un approccio più personalizzabile ed umano ed un grandissimo mix di opzioni che permettono agli utenti di riprendere possesso delle proprie reti sociali, di proteggersi dalle interferenze comunicative organizzate e di rendere più costruttivi questi ambienti di comunicazione.
Nella sera del 20 febbraio 2018 il leader palermitano di Forza Nuova viene aggredito in pieno centro. Nel giro di pochissimi minuti l’aggressione viene rivendicata da qualcuno che ci tiene sia a restare anonimo che ad attribuire le responsabilità agli antifascisti palermitani. Manco il tempo di dirlo che ovviamente scattano perquisizioni, fermi, reazioni esagitate sui social, richieste di condanna ecc.
Certo però che a guardarla bene questa storia é strana. Ma strana proprio…
( post in aggiornamento – ultimo aggiornamento 2018-02-26 21:02)
IL LUOGO E L’ORA
Martedì 20 Febbraio 2018. Palermo centro. Via Dante, tra piazza Lolli e piazza Virgilio. A pochissima distanza dalla sede di FN in via Villa Florio, dalla sede di CasaPound in Cortile Barcellona e dal negozio di tatuaggi in via Marconi appartenente allo stesso Ursino. Siamo dunque in una zona della città che Ursino e gli altri membri di Forza Nuova frequentano abitualmente. Viale principale del quartiere, marciapiedi su ambo i lati. Il luogo dell’aggressione é ad una ventina di metri dalla fermata dell’autobus dove ne passa uno ogni 20 minuti. Ci sono negozi aperti, gente che passa, decine di telecamere in tutta la zona. Una telecamera é proprio sopra al portone davanti al quale si é svolta l’aggressione. Ci sono forze dell’ordine in servizio nella zona. E’una via centrale, trafficata e frequentata: per niente adatta per un’aggressione del genere poiché troppi elementi giocano contro.
MASSIMO URSINO
Massimiliano (“Massimo”) Ursino, quarantenne, é il leader palermitano di Forza Nuova e titolare di un negozio di tatuaggi. E’ di corporatura massiccia, si addestra abitualmente a boxe e negli anni passati ha già dimostrato di essere uno capace a combattere. Nel giugno 2005 assieme ad altri due, aggrediva in via Candelai un uomo originario della Nigeria ed uno originario di Siracusa. Nel 2006 assieme ad altri due militanti di FN ha picchiato due uomini del Bangladesh dopo averli rapinati. Nel 2008 Spedisce a diversi giornali dei pacchi contenenti bambole sporcate con sangue ed interiora di animali per una campagna antiabortista di FN Sembra inoltre sia stato arrestato anche nel 2011 per un aggressione avvenuta nel 2009 in cui 15 persone avrebbero malmenato con dei bastoni cinque ragazzi originari del Pakistan. Successivamente ha preso parte alle “ronde per la difesa popolare“.
ANTEFATTI
Nel 2017 qualcuno ha tentato di dare fuoco alla porta d’ingresso del negozio di tatuaggi di Ursino.
Il 24 febbraio si svolgerà in diverse città italiane la manifestazione Mai più fascismi – Mai più razzismiche segue a brevissima distanza quella di Macerata. Lo stesso giorno sempre a Palermo é atteso in città un comizio di Roberto Fiore, leader di FN. Diverse associazioni antifasciste ne chiedono l’annullamento.
Qualche giorno prima del 20 febbraio qualcuno sembra tenti nuovamente di dar fuoco al negozio di Ursino (?)
Nel pomeriggio del giorno dell’aggressione FN aveva inviato un comunicato in risposta alla richiesta di annullamento del comizio chiesto delle associazioni antifasciste. Nel comunicato FN denuncia un aumento della tensione.
MOVIMENTI FASCISTI ED ANTIFASCISTI A PALERMO ED IN SICILIA
A Palermo i movimenti fascisti sono di fatto minoritari ed hanno uno spazio d’azione limitato perché fortemente contrastato dalle associazioni antifasciste. A riprova di ciò anche la mappa delle aggressioni fasciste redatta da Infoantifa Ecn riporta solo un’unico evento di aggressione fascista, avvenuto ad Enna quattro giorni prima. Le tensioni tra fascisti ed antifascisti di Palermo risultano tutto sommato minime se paragonate con altre realtà italiane.
GLI AGGRESSORI
Desumendo da testimonianze riportate dai giornali ed il video (vedi sotto), gli aggressori erano tra un minimo di cinque ed un massimo di otto, compresa una ragazza che ha filmato almeno parte della scena. Vestiti con abiti scuri (felpe nere?), sciarpe scure attorno al viso, cappelli di lana, jeans e sneakers.
18:5x (?) Ursino viene aggredito all’uscita del supermercato, ancora col sacchetto della spesa in mano.
Una testimone presente durante i fatti ha descritto sette-otto persone di cui due intente a bloccare la testa di Ursino, una a riprendere la scena (la ragazza) e le altre a dargli calci.
Una ragazza presente sul luogo urla contro gli aggressori. La testimone cerca di attirare l’attenzione degli altri passanti suonando il clacson della propria macchina. Negli immediati paraggi c’é una guardia giurata. Con diverse persone che assistono alla scena, gli aggressori si guardano un po in giro e decidono di allontanarsi a passo veloce in direzione del Politeama.
19:xx Ursino si rialza, si siede sul marciapiede e dice alla testimone “mi stavano seguendo da un po”. Alcuni passanti portano dell’acqua. Qualcuno allerta i soccorsi.
19:xx Viene inviata a diversi giornali una mail contenente un breve filmato di una colluttazione ed un testo di rivendicazione
19:26 PalermoToday é la prima testata giornalistica a dare notizia di quanto avvenuto con questo articolo. L’articolo contiene la rivendicazione e dice che Ursino é già stato trasportato all’ospedale Civico.
xx:xx Roberto Fiore é a Roma negli studi Rai per registrare un intervento concordato precedentemente e che andrà in onda in tarda serata a Porta a porta. Il suo intervento si incentra sui fatti di Palermo.
23:30 A Roma una trentina di militanti di FN tenta di irrompere negli studi di La7 per intervenire in diretta.
23:40 Su RaiUno va in onda Porta a porta con l’intervento di Roberto Fiore registrato poche ore prima. (clip parziale)
Insomma: nell’arco di pochissimi minuti Ursino viene immobilizzato, pestato, filmato, soccorso e portato all’ospedale. Sempre nel giro di pochissimi minuti gli assalitori si allontanano, scrivono la rivendicazione (o perlomeno fanno l’ultimo editing su un testo preparato in precedenza), scaricato il video (e, si dovrebbe presumere, controllato per assicurarsi non mostrasse troppo), inviati per mail alle redazioni. Le redazioni, PalermoToday in primis, a loro volta leggono, verificano (anche qui si dovrebbe presumere che perlomeno una telefonata sia stata fatta, giusto per assicurarsi che mail e video fossero effettivamente ciò che dicevano di essere) scrivono e pubblicano gli articoli. Tutto questo poco prima che a Roma Roberto Fiore inizi a registrare il suo intervento per “Porta a porta”. Considerando almeno cinque minuti di pestaggio, tutto quel che ne é seguito, dalla fuga degli assalitori alla pubblicazione del primo articolo, dovrebbe essere avvenuto in meno di 26 minuti. Tempi plausibili ma decisamente stretti.
LE MODALITA’
L’aggressione ha la modalità dell’agguato squadrista organizzato e premeditato: vittima assalita da diverse persone che la malmenano ed umiliano pubblicamente
Dalle cinque alle otto persone devono essersi aggirate per via Dante per avvicinarsi ad Ursino. Se fossero state tutte a viso coperto avrebbero certo destato sospetti e dunque si può presumere che almeno la fase dell’avvicinamento si sia svolta a volto scoperto per cui potrebbero esser riconosciuti da passanti ed immortalati dalle videocamere che si trovano nella via. Allo stesso modo anche nella fase di allontanamento é probabile si siano mossi a volto scoperto.
Va osservato che per agire così in centro città, immobilizzare in pochissimi istanti ed a mani nude una persona robusta ed abituata a lottare come Ursino, picchiarla ed andarsene via certi di non essere visti, ripresi o identificati é necessario un gruppo di persone dal sangue freddo e pronte allo scontro fisico.
Da uno come Ursino ci si aspetterebbe che ad un attacco fisico reagisca tirando calci e pugni ai suoi assalitori e dunque si presume che questi abbiano riportato anch’essi qualche contusione.
Dalle testimonianze non si parla di alcun tipo di arma o oggetto usato nell’aggressione. Se gli assalitori han agito a mani nude ci si può dunque chiedere se almeno alcuni di questi avessero già una qualche esperienza di lotta tale da poter atterrare un tipo corpulento e ben capace di darle di ritorno. Magari persone che frequentano palestre di lotta?
I partecipanti di una simile aggressione organizzata, considerando gli alti rischi dell’operare in pieno centro ed esser riconosciuti, si presuppone abbiano pensato già in fase di pianificazione dell’assalto di procurarsi degli alibi decenti.
Forza Nuova Palermo dichiara “sappiamo chi é stato, adesso guerra sia” e che non farà “nessuna denuncia contro uomini a volto coperto”, il che suona ben strano in quanto la denuncia parte d’ufficio per questo tipo di reato.
Appare assai più curioso curioso se si tien pure conto che il leader di Forza Nuova, Roberto Fiore, non é nuovo a ricevere denuncie per violenza (ben 240 in cinque anni) ed a sua volta non ci pensa su due olte a muoversi legalmente contro chicchessia per ogni qual genere di motivo.
UNA STRANA RIVENDICAZIONE
Il testo viene riportato editato da diverse testate:
“A pochi giorni dall’arrivo in città di Roberto Fiore atteso in città per un comizio in conclusione della campagna elettorale, Massimo Ursino, uomo di spicco e dirigente nazionale del partito Forza Nuova, è stato colpito in modo esemplare mentre passeggiava per le vie del centro. E’ stato bloccato, immobilizzato e legato con del nastro adesivo, poi lasciato a terra senza possibilita’ di fuggire. Chi afferma che esista una “minaccia fascista”, a Palermo come in tutta la Sicilia, dovrà ricredersi”.
“Questi uomini di poco conto appartenenti a formazioni neofasciste, che fanno di razzismo e discriminazioni il loro manifesto politico nonchè la costruzione della loro identità forte e battagliera, si sgretolano in men che non si dica sotto i colpi ben assestati dell’antifascismo. Infatti non sono in grado di difendere se stessi, figuriamoci di attuare il loro programma politico nella nostra città! I fatti avvenuti oggi sono la dimostrazione del fatto che sul territorio palermitano esiste chi ripudia il fascismo e non ha timore di lottare per bloccarlo e schiacciarlo, a partire da questi protagonisti del forzanovismo, guerrieri a parole, violenti nelle immagini che evocano forse, ma incapaci di proteggere la propria incolumità e di conquistare qualsiasi forma di potere politico. Palermo è antifascista nelle pratiche e nella quotidianità di chi la vive. A Palermo non c’è spazio per il fascismo”.
Innanzitutto colpisce la mancanza di una sigla di rivendicazione, il che riporta immediatamente alla memoria altre misteriose azioni violente avvenute in Italia negli anni passati. Dopodiché sono diversi gli elementi che non suonano per niente come espressioni di qualcuno che dovrebbe appartenente al mondo antifascista.
Il tono machista: colpito in modo esemplare / dovrà ricredersi / uomini di poco conto / si sgretolano in men che non si dica / i colpi ben assestati dall’antifascismo /
Le incertezze grammaticali: fare di razzismo e discriminazioni la costruzione dell’identità / che evocano, forse /
Il pensiero guerriero: non sono in grado di difendere se stessi, figuriamoci di attuare il loro programma politico nella nostra città! / fanno di razzismo e discriminazioni il loro manifesto politico nonchè la costruzione della loro identità forte e battagliera /
(Il testo descrive come un male l’uso di razzismo e discriminazioni nella costruzione di un’identità. Si badi bene: non critica il fatto che un’identità venga “costruita” al pari di un “manifesto politico”. In sostanza chi scrive dichiara di considerare normale il costruire artificiosamente un manifesto politico che sia al tempo stesso elemento identitario; semmai critica ciò che é stato usato per costruirlo ma non l’identificazione del manifesto stesso come identità costruita. Non é possibile immaginare un’affermazione maggiormente di destra)
Tic linguistici tipicamente fascisti: protagonisti del forzanovismo / violenti nelle immagini che evocano, forse /
(Forzanovismo é un termine che si usa perlopiù negli ambienti di destra e tra le forze armate, ma é estremamente raro vederlo usato così, in abbinamento a “protagonismo”, in ambienti antifascisti. Il richiamo ad “immagini che evocano” lasciato irrisolto se non per una “violenza” che viene sbeffeggiata con quel “forse” sono entrambi forti indicatori di pensiero di destra.
Alternanza grande/piccolo: “sul territorio palermitano esiste chi ripudia il fascismo e non ha timore / Palermo è antifascista nelle pratiche e nella quotidianità di chi la vive”
(Prima dice che in città c’é QUALCUNO che ha la forza di combattere i fascisti e poi dice che TUTTA la città é antifascista nelle pratiche e nella quotidianità. L’alternanza grande/piccolo é un altro elemento ricorrente nella narrativa fascista)
Il video dura 43 secondi. La risoluzione é estremamente scarsa e le immagini sono assai confuse. Inquadratura mossa, buio serale, abbigliamenti scuri rendono ancor più arduo capire i dettagli (la versione qui proposta é stata leggermente schiarita rispetto all’originale per renderlo più comprensibile). S’intuisce che v’é un uomo a terra circondato da altri che gli sono sopra. L’uomo urla ma dal suono sembra abbia la bocca bloccata da qualcosa (si saprà poi dai giornali trattarsi di nastro adesivo da pacchi).
Una voce femminile, probabilmente appartenente a chi sta filmando, sembra rivolgersi a dei passanti con cui interagisce ma che non udiamo. Dice: “Hehe, Dai che lo conosciamo! Non é successo niente” “A posto, niente, é uno scherzo” come per rassicurarli.
Poi si sente una voce maschile che sembra essere di uno degli aggressori rivolto all’uomo a terra: “Dici che cercavi a’mmé? A’mmé [inintelleggibile. presumibilmente “che mi cercavi”]”
A distanza qualcuno sembra parlare agli aggressori. L’unica voce intelleggibile é una voce femminile che urla con forza “coglioni!”.
Uno degli aggressori dice “Dai, dai, su” rivolto all’aggredito o ai complici.
Dopodiché il filmato termina bruscamente.
Il filmato in sostanza mostra l’immobilizzazione di Ursino ed i suoi lamenti. Per tutta la durata si sente il rumore di nastro adesivo e le urla smorzate dell’uomo a terra. Gli aggressori attivi sembrerebbero essere 5, considerando solo quelli inquadrati, a cui va aggiunto chi filma ed eventuali altri non intenti ad immobilizzare Ursino e dunque non inquadrati.
LE PROVE (?)
Nelle perquisizioni effettuate la sera stessa la polizia dichiara di aver rinvenuto delle mazze (che però non sembra abbiano a che vedere con l’aggressione), degli “indumenti sospetti” (ma non si capisce bene in che senso siano “sospetti”)
Diversi quotidiani hanno riportato che le riprese delle videocamere di sorveglianza sono state fondamentali per identificare gli aggressori. Tuttavia l’avvocato dei ragazzi fermati dirà che i suoi assistiti sono stati “identificati” dal video inviato ai giornali (e ciò risulta alquanto improbabile.) e da riprese delle telecamere di sorveglianza che a loro volta risulterebbero di difficile lettura: “I frame estratti dalla riprese delle videocamere della zona non sono chiari. Sono bui e ripresi dall’alto e non è per nulla chiaro chi ritraggano. Comunque nomineremo un perito per farli visionare”
L’EMAIL
Video e rivendicazione sono stati mandati alle redazioni via email. E’dunque lecito supporre venga svolta un’indagine per identificare il dispositivo da cui é stata inviata.
IL GIORNO SUCCESSIVO
Massimo Ursino viene dimesso in mattinata (se ne da notizia già alle 7:40). I giornali dicono con una prognosi di 20 giorni (solo il giorno dopo sarà reso noto che si tratta di un’esagerazione: in realtà le ferite di Ursino sono talmente lievi che dall’ospedale viene rimandato al medico curante che gli consiglia cinque giorni di riposo).
I media interrogano Giorgio Martinico, portavoce del centro sociale Anomalia, il quale esprime alcuni dubbi e dichiara“Non conosciamo ancora l’esito dei fermi. Pare si voglia pescare un po’ nel mucchio per dare subito delle risposte. Ma vogliamo chiarire fin da subito che chiunque siano i ragazzi fermati avranno il nostro sostegno, anche legale”.
Codraro e Mancuso sono militanti dei centri sociali. Gravitano da anni attorno agli spazi occupati della città: Anomalia, che da cinque anni vive all’interno del quartiere Borgo Vecchio in uno spazio comunale; l’Ex Karcere, in via san Basilio (a metà tra Via Maqueda e via Roma, all’Olivella) in quella che era una scuola abbandonata; lo studentato Malarazza, vale a dire l’ex istituto per sordomuti in via Cavour, proprio a fianco della prefettura. Da ieri le bacheche FB degli attivisti e dei simpatizzanti sono un continuo appello: «Libertà per gli antifascisti. Carlo e Gianmarco liberi».
Carlo è un attivista per la questione abitativa in città mentre Gianmarco fa parte dello studentato occupato Malarazza ed è impegnato nella politica universitaria. Entrambi hanno già precedenti giudiziari. Mancuso è a processo, insieme ad altri 123 attivisti No Muos, per le manifestazioni contro la base militare americana di Niscemi. Mentre Codraro è stato arrestato nel 2015 per una manifestazione contro Casapound che si era tenuta a Cremona. Anche in quel caso era scattata la solidarietà in città, con parecchie scritte sui muri che chiedevano «Gianmarco libero». Codraro è stato poi assolto.
LA NARRAZIONE MEDIATICA
Come già visto i primi articoli arrivano la sera stessa già a pochissimi minuti dal fatto, ma é soprattutto il giorno successivo che esplode la “furia mediatica”. I quotidiani si scatenano fra descrizioni granguignolesche che riprendono il “massacrato sette contro uno” postato da Fiore sulla propria bacheca Facebook. Si va dal “lasciato esanime in un lago di sangue” del Corriere della Sera al “Gli hanno spaccato la testa” di Libero, all’agiografia vittimista di Ursino da parte de Il Giornale, all’isolamento delle opinioni più caute e dubbiose da parte di Repubblica.
I media mainstream si limitano a riportare ciò che viene loro comunicato senza mai porre dubbi sulla narrazione degli eventi; non s’interrogano sulle stranezze dell’aggressione né su quelle della “rivendicazione” priva di sigle e dal testo quantomeno sospetto, ma anzi, come visto ci mettono anche una certa dose di fantasia nell’esagerare le condizioni di Ursino. Pure la “prognosi di 20 giorni” viene riportata subito come un qualcosa di certo. Nessuno s’interroga sull’assenza di foto di Ursino (assenza che permette di descriverne liberamente le condizioni). Non c’é nessuno che fotografi Ursino all’uscita dall’ospedale (ma al contrario, non manca il video che mostra i ragazzi fermati). Nessuno pone questioni sulla rapidità con cui la polizia sarebbe giunta ad identificare le persone fermate e su quali siano le prove a loro carico. Nessuno si chiede perché viene subito annunciato da Forza Nuova che non denuncerà l’aggressione.
Come prevedibile da destra si scatenano accuse generiche contro antifascisti, centri sociali, la Boldrini ecc. A sinistra le reazioni vanno dalla condanna del gesto allo scherno per “il picchiatore che per una volta é nella parte di quello che le prende”.
I politici mediaticamente più noti di qualsiasi schieramento condannano subito l’aggressione senza mai mettere in dubbio la narrazione dei fatti, ossia dando per già confermato che gli aggressori appartengano effettivamente all’area antifascista così come indicato dalla “rivendicazione” e dai fermi di polizia.
Sui grandi media, le affermazioni di chi critica tale narrazione vengono riportate freddamente, isolate, a volte con una vaga vena ironica o di sdegno.
L’attenzione mediatica sul caso é già scemata: la narrazione dei fatti é oramai data e sia media che social si concentrano già su altre notizie.
22 FEBBRAIO La procura fa sapere che disporrà perizie antropometriche per confermare il ruolo dei fermati, così come una perizia fonica per identificare la voce della ragazza che parla nel video.
23 FEBBRAIO L’avvocato Bisagna informa che il referto medico di Ursino non parla di 20 giorni di prognosi, ma bensì di soli 5 giorni di riposo.
23 FEBBRAIO Il procuratore Ennio Petrigni chiede la convalida del fermo di Codraro e Mancuso che, interrogati separatamente, su consiglio dell’avvocato, non rilasciano alcuna dichiarazione. Il gip Roberto Riggio deciderà entro il giorno successivo.
23 FEBBRAIO L’avvocato Bisagna fa leva sul fatto che non vi sono indizi di colpevolezza e sull’accusa di tentato omicidio ritenuta errata.
23 FEBBRAIO Sempre Bisagna contesta l’identificazione di Codraro e Mancuso che sarebbe avvenuta attraverso il video inviato ai quotidiani, il che risulta alquanto improbabile.
23 FEBBRAIO In un documento diffuso alla stampa Forza Nuova comunica che si costituirà parte civile nel processo.
24 FEBBRAIO In mattinata il già convalida il fermo di Codraro e Mancuso. I due lasciano il carcere ma con la misura cautelare dell’obbligo di dimora in provincia di Palermo: dovranno presentarsi alla polizia giudiziaria tre volte a settimana. Il reato viene derubricato da tentato omicidio a lesioni aggravate.
24 FEBBRAIO Nel pomeriggio anche a Palermo si svolgono sia la manifestazione nazionale Mai più fascismi – Mai più razzismi che la conferenza di Roberto Fiore. Se la prima vede una partecipazione stimata tra le duemila e le cinquemila persone, i circa 200 presenti alla conferenza della seconda ripiegano dalla piazza alla sala convegni di un albergo. A differenza di altre piazze in cui la polizia ha caricato i manifestanti, a Palermo non é avvenuto alcunché di eclatante.
24 FEBBRAIO Alla conferenza di Fiore é presente pure Ursino. I giornalisti presenti hanno modo di fotografarlo. Presenta sul viso segni evidenti dell’aggressione.
26 FEBBRAIO In una nota stampa il centro sociale Anomalia informa che tra i propri frequentatori v’é Erik Ursino, figlio di Massimo, dichiarando. A riprova di ciò sono allegate due foto che mostrano Erik Ursino in corteo ad una manifestazione ed in posa assieme ad altri ragazzi del centro sociale, accanto a Mancuso. In giornata Forza Nuova risponde con una propria nota stampa in cui Erik Ursino risponde negando di aver mai militato con centri sociali e specifica di aver avuto contatti con questi solo per essersi esibito all’interno di essi col proprio gruppo musicale, aggiungendo che la foto in corteo riguarda una manifestazione apolitica e quella all’interno del centro é relativa proprio ad una sua esibizione musicale.
26 FEBBRAIO Carlo Mancuso viene intervistato da PalermoToday, in cui dichiara:
“Sono un comunista indipendentista che combatte per l’uguaglianza e la giustizia sociale della Sicilia e del mondo intero, non immaginate che gioia mi regalate nel chiudermi dentro le carceri italiane. Ci vediamo tra qualche giorno all’Anomalia Borgovecchio, tranquilli che tornerò a ripetervelo all’infinito. Aviemu i coirna ruri”
“Come sapete io e Giammarco siamo stati scarcerati e quell’accusa piagnona e surreale è caduta nel baratro delle barzellette in questi anni montate contro di noi. Purtroppo siamo stati messi in isolamento e adesso non ho fratelli in carcere, ospiti dello stato e giovani sotto le grinfie di uno stato straniero da salutare. Però ho gente da ringraziare, gente che non ho potuto incontrare a colloquio in questa passeggiata di tre giorni, gente che però mi ha riscaldato le notti e mi ha dato forza. Come diceva una canzone, in galera il calore delle lotte é arrivato. Per cui ringrazio i miei compagni e le mie compagne per il supporto e per il sostegno, li ringrazio per quello che in questi giorni continuano a fare, per quello che faremo, perché senza di loro cosa sarei?”
“Ringrazio il mio quartiere, il Borgo Vecchio, per il sostegno datomi col coraggio che contraddistingue la comunità borghitana e con l’affetto che un quartiere popolare sa regalare. Non faccio nomi in questi giorni difficili per non fomentare gli infami, vi porto tutti nel cuore. Un ringraziamento da ateo, che in fondo non fa male, ciu fazzu puru a Matri Sant’Anna! Ringrazio i fratelli della Curva Nord Inferiore che nonostante i giorni difficili, mi sono vicini. Siamo ultras, cresciuti nelle tempeste e abituati a navigarci. La repressione non ci ferma, così come non ci impensieriscono le infamie e certi pagliacci di cui Palermo è piena”
Parlando dell’assessore comunale Giuseppe Mattina dice: “Per quello che ha detto su di me e gli prometto che presto lo farò ricredere, magari occupandogli l’assessorato. Purtroppo non potrò seguire alcune iniziative per un paio di settimane, ma t’inquitjamu u stissu Assessò. Ringrazio la mia famiglia per la comprensione, la forza e a tratti l’orgoglio che mi hanno dedicato. Sono un militante politico e non uno scafazzato. Loro lo sanno e niente li convincerà del contrario. Ringrazio pure gli inquirenti vari, chi mi denuncia, la digos, gli sbirri, i magistrati e tutto il circo”.
OSSERVAZIONI LOGICHE E DUBBI
– Ad ogni azione violenta corrisponde l’intervento della polizia.
– Ad ogni azione violenta contro un soggetto fascista, nella maggior parte dei casi l’intervento della polizia sarà automaticamente rivolto all’area antifascista.
– Ad ogni azione violenta contro un soggetto fascista corrisponderà una reazione mediatica di simpatia per la vittima dell’azione.
– Una generica rivendicazione “antifascista” di un’azione violenta contro un soggetto fascista avrà come solo ed unico effetto quello di fornire un solido elemento mediatico ed investigativo per consolidare l’astio contro l’antifascismo tout-court ed escludere dall’intervento della polizia altre possibili strade.
– L’assenza di sigle da una rivendicazione “antifascista” permette maggior libertà di movimento delle indagini all’interno dell’area antifascista stessa così come permette di indirizzare dove si preferisce l’astio mediatico contro gli stessi antifascisti.
Se c’é una cosa che accomuna tutte le aggressioni alla persona di stampo politico e organizzate é l’assoluta attenzione a mantenere le motivazioni politiche separate dall’atto violento.
Quando invece si preme affinché il significato politico venga riconosciuto si tratta di azioni di propaganda atta ad ottenere appoggio e simpatia e per questo é necessario che l’azione mediatica a cui legare il proprio marchio sia positiva.
Ecco che rivendicare politicamente un atto di violenza squadrista che sotto ogni punto di vista risulterà ignobile ed indifendibile in maniera bipartisan risulta assai strano. Che senso ha?
Chi può avere interesse nel compiere un’azione ignobile il cui unico effetto é quello di ritorcersi contro i movimenti antifascisti?
V’é il sospetto é che lelogiche di questa aggressione siano in realtà molto diverse da quelle che i suoi attuatori han voluto fossero narrate e che media e forze dell’ordine han seguito senza riserve.
Uno dei tratti più curiosi del neo-nazifascismo é l’uso bipolare che militanti neri e simpatizzanti più o meno consci hanno nei confronti dei termini nazismo e fascismo.
Da un lato troviamo un utilizzo in positivo in cui al termine fascismo si attribuiscono solo “cose buone”. Addirittura i militanti di movimenti neofascisti non solo definiscono sé stessi fascisti ma ne fanno apertamente un vanto, un motivo d’orgoglio.
Tuttavia in certi frangenti quegli stessi militanti che si definiscono orgogliosamente fascisti, per quanto possa sembrare sorprendente non si fanno problemi ad usare il termine fascista come aggettivo negativo con cui etichettare altri.
Quest’uso in negativo dell’aggettivo fascista da parte degli stessi fascisti avviene quando un dato evento contiene due elementi precisi: (1) una parte in gioco più o meno di sinistra e (2) una manifestazione di forza di questa parte in gioco che i fascisti hanno dovuto subire o perlomeno fronteggiare; nei fatti o anche solo simbolicamente.
Se un evento possiede queste due caratteristiche per i fascisti la strategia più conveniente é narrarlo in chiave vittimistica semplificando cartoonescamente la narrazione in uno scontro buoni contro cattivi.
– Il governo impone una decisione avversa ai fascisti? Entra in gioco la modalità vittimista e si accusa il governo di agire come una dittatura fascista.
La profondità d’analisi di chi parla di “fascismo degli antifascisti” é ben rappresentata qui
In questo processo la sinistra viene narrata perlopiù come una sorta di ammasso diviolenti aggrappati ad una idee aliene, traballanti ed incoerenti basate su ipocrisia di facciata secondo le qualié necessario fingersi buoni e tolleranti per poi agire subdolamente nell’ombra o quando l’occasione é più propizia.
Questa descrizione, che sembra una via di mezzo tra la figura del vampiro e quella del lupo cattivo di Cappuccetto rosso, é estremamente interessante in quanto rivela molte più cose sulla forma mentis fascista che non delle persone di sinistra così descritte (ci arriviamo tra qualche riga). A questo punto, dopo aver mostrificato la parte avversa, i fascisti possono anche non mostrarsi affatto, perché per effetto contrario, attribuendosi un ruolo opposto a quello dei mostri appena descritti, la narrazione li attribuirà automaticamente alla parte altrettanto semplificata dei buoni e giusti.
Ma perché nel tentativo di screditare e mostrificare la parte avversa i fascisti usano proprio il termine fascismo giocando sul filo del rasoio di un cortocircuito di senso così stridente?
Questo alternarsi ambiguo é necessario da un lato a ringalluzzire le proprie fila e dall’altra ad inserirsi all’interno del discorso democratico che almeno formalmente rifiuta il nazifascismo.
Insomma: com’é possibile che qualcuno al mattino si professi orgogliosamente fascista ma alla sera pur di farsi strada nell’arena mediatica non si fa scrupoli a dire di non essere ciò che é e per rafforzare tale debole posizione, spinge sull’acceleratore arrivando addirittura a dire che i fascisti sono altri?
Fascismo bellobellissimo…
…fascismo brutto e cattivo
JECKYLL & HYDE
Il giochino é semplice e vive sulla artificiosa scissione in due dei significati della parola “fascismo”: quando connotato positivamente diventa sinonimo di qualità che militanti e simpatizzanti considerano apprezzabili e ben spendibili all’esterno: benessere, ordine, sicurezza ecc.
Quando invece la stessa parola vien connotata in negativo, i significati che le vengono caricati addosso sono quelli che i militanti sanno essere malviste nel discorso pubblico: imposizione, dittatura, uso della violenza ecc.
Il meccanismo, insomma, non é troppo diverso da quello di certe espressioni alle quali, a seconda di circostanze e modalità, può essere attribuito un significato offensivo o un significato di vicinanza e simpatia. Ad esempio i romaneschi “te possino” e “fijo de’ na mignotta”.
Il fascismo é un fenomeno complesso e multisfacettato, inscindibile dai propri elementi fondativi e visioni del mondo. Scinderlo in due come se una parte potesse esistere senza l’altra é un’operazione artificiosa, come fingere che una combustione possa avvenire solo col comburente in assenza di combustibile.
In sostanza quando i fascisti danno dei “fascisti” alle parti avverse, non stan facendo altro che mentire con forza accusando l’altro (alieno) solo per dipingersi addosso un’immagine falsa (ipocrisia di facciata) di bravi ragazzi (fingersi buoni e tolleranti). Il dover ricorrere alla menzogna per sdognare le proprie idee evidenzia la poca forza delle stesse (idee traballanti) ed il fatto che tale menzogna avvenga proiettando fuori da sé quelle che sono caratteristiche fondanti del proprio pensiero é profondamente rivelatore della forma mentis fascista (incoerente).
A questo punto serve solo aggiungere la mappa delle aggressioni nazifasciste degli ultimi anni che come é ben noto vengono sempresminuite il più possibile tenendo lontani non solo i nomi delle formazioni neofasciste cui i protagonisti delle aggressioni appartengono, ma pure evitando di definire tali aggressioni col termine corretto: fasciste. Detto questo si recupera anche l’immagine dei violenti che agiscono vampirescamente nell’ombra o quando l’occasione é più propizia ed ecco che l’immagine semplificata del vampiro–lupo cattivo con cui i fascisti dipingono la sinistra riacquista in toto la sua natura di proiezione di sé.
Il signore dei ratti. “Nosferatu” (Herzog 1979)
IL FASCISMO CHE ORA C’E’, ORA NON C’E’ PIU’, ORA ERA IERI
Il meccanismo convive con un altro, molto simile ma più semplice, ovvero il giochino di usare il termine “fascismo” riferendosi ora al fascismo storico, quello guidato da Mussolini e terminato nel 1945, ed ora al fascismo in quanto fenomeno, nel senso ben descritto da Umberto Eco ne “Il fascismo eterno”.
Questo secondo meccanismo gioca sul fatto che se da un lato il fascismo storico é cosa del passato, una realtà terminata con la seconda guerra, dall’altra il fascismo in quanto fenomeno é un qualcosa di talmente informe e nebuloso da poterne negare l’esistenza.
Anche qui l’assurdità di chi al mattino sostiene di essere fascista ed alla sera si ostina a dire che il fascismo non c’é più viene mantenuta per dare un colpo al cerchio ed uno alla botte. Mentendo.
(O meglio: ecco come una storia strampalata senza prove, senza testimoni e senza coerenza viene spacciata per verità)
[ATTENZIONE! Questo post contiene immagini particolarmente brutali e violente in linea con gli argomenti trattati]
1.00 PREMESSA – LA STORIA DELLA STORIA DI QUESTA STORIA
Pomeriggio.
Interno giorno.
Fuori piove.
Sto amichevolmente battibeccando per chat con “E”.
Argomento: seconda guerra mondiale; i partigiani.
Nodo del battibecco: “E” sostiene che i partigiani abbiano compiuto crimini peggiori e più numerosi di quelli compiuti dai fascisti.
Io no.
Con “E” capita a volte di scontrarmi su certi argomenti. La conclusione é quasi sempre la stessa: ognuno resta sulle sue posizioni, ci si beve una birra (ahimé non stavolta: i dialoghi via chat sono desolatamente analcolici) e con una sterzata di centottanta gradi si sposta il dialogo su argomenti maggiormente condivisi, che é un bel modo per dire che poi si parla di figa.
Ma una cosa che ha detto mi ha incuriosito e me la son segnata.
“Planina Bala – Se la trovi leggiti la storia di Planina Bala”
Un nome di cui non so nulla.
Alla sera cerco sul web e scopro su numerose pagine online che ne parlano. Planina Bala non é, come pensavo, il nome di una donna. É il nome di un luogo. Un luogo sui monti presso Tarvisio: malga Bala (Planina Bala in sloveno). Una malga legata ad una storia.
Storia che per sommi capi viene narrata così: “Nel 1944, nei monti presso Tarvisio, una banda di partigiani slavi spinti da odio anti italiano rapisce 12 carabinieri. Dopo due giorni di “via crucis” sui monti li portano a Malga Bala e li torturano fino alla morte in modalità da film horror.”
V’é pure “la storia di questa storia”, poiché il ricordo della vicenda non sarebbe emerso che pochi anni fa, sepolto da un fortissimo senso di omertà e paura diffuso tra la gente del posto.
In effetti mi s’accende la curiosità, anche se forse in modo diverso da come credeva “E”.
Innanzitutto mi colpisce la descrizione minuziosa e particolareggiata delle violenze granguignolesche (ganci di metallo infilzati nei talloni, petti squarciati, occhi maciullati, cuori frantumati, foto dei figli dei torturati inserite a forza dentro fori nei loro petti, gole bruciate da soda caustica, genitali tagliati e infilati in bocca, corpi massacrati a picconate). Di fronte a dettagli tanto approfonditi mi vien logico supporre che l’unica fonte plausibile per descrizioni tanto dettagliate possa essere qualcuno che vi ha preso parte. Ma penso pure che sia strano che una storia tanto impattante possa esser stata taciuta per diversi anni.
La terza cosa che mi viene in mente é “ma ha senso?”. Nel bel mezzo del conflitto, con truppe nazifasciste ovunque, scendere a valle con lo scopo di sequestrare dei carabinieri per poi massacrarli con modalità tanto crudeli in un luogo isolato ma fingendo per anni che non sia mai accaduto? La quarta cosa che mi viene in mente é che “confine orientale” e “1944” mal si conciliano con “carabinieri” (ci arrivo tra un po).
Conoscendo già diversi episodi “della seconda” ed avendo una certa idea di come funzionassero determinate cose durante il conflitto, questo episodio mi suona proprio male.
INDICE
1.00 PREMESSA – LA STORIA DELLA STORIA DI QUESTA STORIA
INSERTO STORICO – parte 1 – RIFLESSIONE A CALDO: SHOCK & AWE
INSERTO STORICO – parte 2 – PARTRIGIANI E POPOLAZIONE
INSERTO STORICO – parte 3 – STATO FANTOCCIO TEDESCO
INSERTO STORICO – parte 4 – LEGITTIMITÀ E SCELTE
INSERTO STORICO – parte 5 – RESISTENZA, (POST?)FASCISTI ED ALLEATI
INSERTO STORICO – parte 6 – ITALIA PAESE VITTIMISTA E INVASORE
INSERTO STORICO – parte 7 – IL CONFINE ORIENTALE
INSERTO STORICO – parte 8 – RAPIMENTI PARTIGIANI
INSERTO STORICO – parte 9 – CRIMINI PARTIGIANI E LEGGENDE NERE
1.01 RICERCHE
1.02 UNA VERITÀ OPPRESSA??? MO DAVÈRO?
1.03 LA FONTE UNICA!!!
1.04 DUNQUE:
2.00 PLANINA BALA, DI ANTONIO RUSSO
2.01 STRUTTURA DEL TESTO
2.02 L’INTRODUZIONE STORICA DEL LIBRO
INSERTO STORICO – parte 10 – LE BRIGATE OSOPPO
2.03 STILE
2.04 LA (MALA)ESPOSIZIONE DELLE FONTI
2.05 SELEZIONE
2.06 INTERVISTE, FARI E PANINI
2.07 ATTEGGIAMENTO PREVENUTO
2.08 LE TANTE CONTRADDIZIONI DEL LIBRO
2.09 CONCESSIONI A CARO PREZZO
2.10 AMORE E ODIO
2.11 INFORMAZIONI SUSSURRATE
2.12 FALLACIE LOGICHE
3.00 IL MONDO DI “PLANINA BALA”
3.01 FRANZA O SPAGNA PURCHE’ SE MAGNA
3.02 OMERTA’ A PUFFLANDIA
3.03 PARTIGIANI VS. BRAVA GGGENTE
3.04 I DODICI ANGELI PATRIOTTICI
3.05 I SATANICI DEMONI DELLE MONTAGNE
3.06 JOSKO (Franc Ursic)
3.07 SRECKO (Silvio Gianfrante)
3.08 HROVAT (Lojs Hrovat)
3.09 SOCIAN (Ivan Likar)
3.10 I CUGINI STRONZI DI GERMANIA
3.11 IL CONTAGIOSO VIRUS PARTIGIANO
3.11.01 QUELLI CHE RESISTONO AL VIRUS
3.11.02 QUELLI SU CUI SI SORVOLA
3.11.03 IL REMITTENTE
3.12 LA GUARDIA NAZIONALE REPUBBL…… EHMMM…. CARABINIER….
INSERTO STORICO – parte 11 – LE DIVISE DELLA GNR
3.13 LETTURA RELIGIOSA DEGLI EVENTI
3.14 IL PARALLELO CON LA PASSIONE DEL CRISTO
3.15 LE MOTIVAZIONI DEI PARTIGIANI…PER IL PUBBLICO
3.16 VERSIONE UNIC…..OOOOPS!!!
4.00 LE TORTURE
5.00 GLI EVENTI SUCCESSIVI
5.01 LE RICERCHE NON-RICERCHE
5.02 LE DUE VERSIONI DELLA SCOPERTA
5.03 IL RECUPERO DELLE SALME
5.04 L’INCENDIO DELLA MALGA
5.05 PROPAGANDA
5.06 C.S.I. TARVISIO
5.07 LE CHIACCHERE DEL PAESE
5.08 TESTIMONI IN FAMIGLIA
5.09 IL SILENZIO PARTIGIANO
5.10 LA NON-REAZIONE DEI NAZIFASCISTI
5.11 LO STUPORE DEI PARTIGIANI
5.12 POSTUMI PARTIGIANI
5.13 PRIMO DOPOGUERRA E DIMENTICATOIO
6.00 POTREBBE ANCHE ESSERE ANDATA COSI’
7.00 LE (S)TORTURE
7.01 I TESTIMONI DELL’UCCISIONE
7.02 MA COSA DIAV………. (PARARSI IL CULO)
7.03 CRONOLOGIA EVENTI SECONDO RUSSO
7.04 IL SUPERTESTE MISTERIOSO
7.05 L’AMBIGUO BEPI FLAJS
7.06 SPOSTAMENTI DI DATA
7.07 MYZA KOMAC E GLI ANONIMI
7.08 LE DICHIARAZIONI DI HROVAT
7.09 LE DICHIARAZIONI DI SRECKO
8.00 LA “VERITA'” DI RUSSO
INSERTO STORICO – parte 1 – RIFLESSIONE A CALDO: SHOCK & AWE
Mattanze tanto brutali ed eclatanti, quando non avvengono per scoppi d’ira improvvisi, s’inseriscono nella logica militare dello “Shock & awe” (colpisci e domina) ed avvengono essenzialmente per lanciare un messaggio che trasmetta terrore negli abitanti di una zona ove la forza che esercita tale violenza vuol rimarcare la propria posizione di predominio.
Tomino 27 novembre 1942. Fascisti italiani posano con la testa del partigiano sloveno Jernej Arko (nome di battaglia Črt) (fonte)
Un esempio diretto arriva proprio dal fascismo: le violenze più efferate perpetrate dal fascismo si verificarono inizialmente contro le popolazioni occupate in Jugoslavia, Libia ed Etiopia; solo dopo l’8 settembre 1943, con la drastica caduta di consenso e supporto da parte della popolazione, tali violenze si riscontrano anche a danno di quegli italiani che, osteggiando il fascismo, venivano da questo considerati nemici.
7 luglio 1942 “Prendiamo un cerino e milioni vanno in fiamme…” Capitano Modica (fonte)
Se questa logica funziona per una struttura organizzata come un’esercito occupante o una potente rete criminale che agisce in un territorio in cui può muoversi agevolmente, la cosa cambia quando si tratta di piccoli gruppi armati non ancora ben organizzati (siamo nei primi mesi di attività della resistenza) obbligati a nascondersi e spostarsi continuamente tra le montagne, in ribellione con la forza dominante e la cui esistenza dipende completamente dal supporto umano e logistico di una buona fetta della popolazione locale. Nel caso in cui delitti e barbarie vengano compiute da una forza ribelle é praticamente scontato che queste verrebbero sfruttate dalla propaganda della potenza dominante come atto d’accusa contro gli stessi ribelli.
In queste condizioni terrorizzare la gente del posto con atti di barbarie ingiustificata significherebbe farsi bollare per mostri ed intimorire anche chi si fidava o si sarebbe potuto fidare. Significherebbe denunce, segnalazioni anonime, delazioni e tradimenti. Significherebbe iniziare una spirale di violenze che porterà a dover minacciare prima o poi tutti quelli che prima ti aiutavano spontaneamente. E’una delle spirali che portano spesso molti gruppi criminali a dissolversi. Significherebbe rinunciare alla collaborazione, airifornimenti, alla raccolta di informazioni da parte dei paesani ed a mille diversi tipi di aiuto materiale: non é conveniente per una forza militarmente ed economicamente minoritaria essere in lotta sia con la forza dominante che con la popolazione locale.
Teste di combattenti torturati poste su un tavolo (fonte)
Anche in anni recenti non sono certo mancati esempi di esecuzioni brutali da parte di gruppi armati ed é facile notare come le barbarie dell’ISIS o il caso delle teste mozzate in Guatemala siano difatti entrambi casi di azioni effettuate da strutture ben radicate in un territorio che controllano e sono sempre azioni caratterizzate da estrema spettacolarità ed intento comunicativo che vengono eseguite per affermare il proprio dominio sul territorio. Uccisioni tanto brutali non avvengono laddove chi le effettua non é supportato da una grossa fetta della popolazione o non ha alle spalle una struttura tanto grossa da garantirsi l’impunità.
Queste brutali dimostrazione di forza trovano dunque un loro senso solamente se vengono esibite trasformando gli stessi corpi martoriati in un messaggio.
Stesso discorso vale anche per il valore simbolico-comunicativo di diversi omicidi di mafia italiana (uno su tutti: la decapitazione del criminologo-psichiatra Aldo Semerari, la cui testa venne posta in una bacinella tra i propri piedi). Anche andando un indietro negli anni si osserva come le stesse esecuzioni pubbliche (crocifissione romana) e l’esibizione prolungata dei corpi degli impiccati (qui gli esempi si sprecano) fungesse sempre da monito comunicativo.
Perciò questo caso suona doppiamente strano: pianificare ed eseguire un massacro tanto violento e brutale ha senso solo come messaggio intimidatorio il cui effetto certo sarebbe quello di impaurire la popolazione (prima stranezza, data la condizione dei partigiani di dipendenza dalla popolazione), inoltre viene svolto in un luogo tanto isolato e difficilmente raggiungibile da rendere possibile un rivenimento anche estremamente tardivo dei corpi-messaggio.
Ustascia (fascisti croati anti serbi) decapitano un prigioniero del campo di Jasenovac
INSERTO STORICO – parte 2 – PARTRIGIANI E POPOLAZIONE
Tagliando con l’accetta, perché un gruppo combattente in opposizione alla forza dominante ottenga la collaborazione della popolazione ci possono essere tre sole vie: 1) ottenerne la fiducia 2) pagarla 3) intimorirla. Una stessa forza combattente può arrivare ad utilizzare tutti e tre i metodi, anche se con modalità, intensità, obiettivi, tempistiche e soggetti differenti.
Ma come già osservato, se i partigiani avessero basato la loro strategia sulla terza opzione, ossia terrorizzare le intere popolazioni locali, sarebbero durati ben poco. Questa opzione difatti non porta mai ad una collaborazione vera ed é controproducente se non é seguita da una rapida presa del potere e la creazione di una rete di collaborazione e propaganda.
Se invece i partigiani avessero creato la loro intera rete di supporto principalmente pagando si dovrebbe spiegare e documentare in che modo, come e da dove, senza appoggio di industriali o banchieri, i partigiani avrebbero fatto comparire magicamente dal nulla riserve di denaro almeno pari a quelle della stessa RSI. Al tempo stesso se i partigiani fossero stati supportati da TUTTA la popolazione probabilmente la guerra sarebbe terminata con molti mesi d’anticipo. La realtà é che furono principalmente supportati da un’ampia fetta della popolazione, le intimidazioni erano circoscritte a fascisti e filofascisti ed i pochi casi di corruzione hanno riguardato personaggi senza remore che agivano per mero interesse, come nel caso di funzionari fascisti o milizie confinarie disposti a chiudere un occhio per denaro. L’intimidazione dunque può essere attuata solo a patto che sia limitata e non sfoci mai nel terrore (che é attuabile solo dalla forza dominante) e deve sempre essere controbilanciata da forme di rapporto fiduciario-collaborativo più forte dell’intimidazione stessa.
La realtà, dunque, é molto più complessa ed intrecciata di come spesso si tenta di ridipingere: i gruppi partigiani certamente erano appoggiati da una buona fetta della popolazione, mentre un’altra parte era fascista o afascista. In tale situazione, visto soprattutto la situazione di svantaggio numerico in cui molti gruppi resistenziali si trovavano in quei primi mesi, l’interesse era sia quello di mantenere i rapporti di fiducia della popolazione simpatizzante che non inimicarsi quella dei numerosi afascisti indecisi: terrorizzare la propria rete di supporto già attiva e quella potenziale non avrebbe avuto alcun senso.
Bisogna anche star attenti a non cadere nella facile semplificazione “monoblocco partigiano contro monoblocco fascista”: quando si parla genericamente di partigiani s’intendono gruppi diversissimi per formazione (Brigate Garibaldi, GAP, SAP, Giellisti, ecc.) ed indirizzo politico (cattolici, liberali, democristiani, monarchici, comunisti, anticomunisti, socialisti, cattocomunisti, azionisti, anarchici, repubblicani) che convivevano a volte molto forzatamente tra loro (qui le cose si complicano ancora: una stessa formazione poteva essere composta ad esempio da cattolici e comunisti; formazioni miste si sono divise e fuse tra loro; parti di una formazione potevano confluire in formazioni diverse, ecc.) ed infine collaboratori più o meno attivi, simpatizzanti, staffette, informatori, doppiogiochisti ecc. Molti partigiani erano ex militari che in gioventù furono balilla e credettero nell’illusione fascista; alcuni di essi furono per lungo tempo critici, altri capirono solo all’ultimo cosa fosse veramente il fascismo.
Pure parlare genericamente di “fascisti” può rivelarsi una semplificazione: anche qui c’erano gruppi separati a volte pure in lotta fra loro (squadristi e fascisti della prim’ora, i volontari della RSI convinti, quelli aderenti a gruppi “speciali” come la X^ Mas fedeli a Borghese, i fasciatissimi della Muti, le Brigate nere, la GNR. Inoltre c’erano le SS italiane fedeli a Hitler, le forze dell’ordine rimaste fedeli a Mussolini, gli amministratori e gli imprenditori che avevano fatto affari col fascismo ed una larga fetta di popolazione che plaudeva il fascismo pur senza partecipare attivamente alla scena politica), c’erano forme ideologiche che pur condividendo un “egual sentire” di fondo potevano essere diversissime fra loro (monarchici, repubblicani, cattolici, anticlericali, filogermanici, italocentrici, mussoliniani e non mussoliniani, afascisti). Ma cerano pure gli ex-IMI che preferirono aderire all’RSI solo perché l’alternativa era patire il freddo e la fame dei lager tedeschi (anche se la maggior parte, circa 650.000 preferì patire le pene della fame nei campi d’internamento e lavoro), così come militari allo sbando che temevano di essere “passati per le armi mediante fucilazione nella schiena” come recitato nel bando del maggio 1944 a firma Giorgio Almirante.
Erano fascisti dei criminali violenti che proprio grazie all’avallo del PNF poterono agire senza freno ed erano fascisti anche convintissimi devoti a Mussolini che non commisero personalmente mai alcun delitto, così come “fascisti” furono anche semplici simpatizzanti e persone in posizione più o meno importante che a causa del loro agire o non-agire avevano permesso il mantenimento del regime e/o l’esecuzione di crimini. C’era chi s’era arruolato nella RSI perché convinto e chi per paura di esser fucilato. C’era chi aveva disertato per andare tra le file dei partigiani e chi i partigiani li fucilava perché era imbevuto di vent’anni di propaganda. C’era chi poi s’é pentito delle scelte d’allora, chi se ne é sempre fatto un vanto e chi le ha rinnegate solo per convenienza.
“Abbiamo distrutto tutto da cima a fondo senza risparmiare gli innocenti (…). Uccidiamo famiglie intere, ogni notte, a furia di colpi o con le armi. Se cercano soltanto di muoversi tiriamo senza pietà e chi muore muore”
(Salvatore Seldi descrive alla famiglia l’occupazione dei territori orientali, 1 luglio 1942. Fonte: diecifebbraio)
É più criminale chi ha ucciso ingiustamente un uomo o chi, per non aver preso posizione, ha permesso che se ne condannassero ingiustamente a morte dieci? Non c’é da stupirsi se certe distinzioni che risultano difficili ancor’oggi vennero risolte in maniera sbrigativa durante il conflitto.
Questo per ribadire che quando si osserva in dettaglio una vicenda del periodo ci sono numerose sfumature di cui tener conto per evitare di cadere nella semplificazione. Vanno fatti dunque dei distinguo: se il fascismo e la resistenza in quanto fenomeni sono due realtà chiaramente distinte ognuna con specificità proprie, quando si volge lo sguardo sui singoli eventi ha più senso parlare di resistenzE e fascismI perché a seconda del piano su cui verte il discorso (che cambia drasticamente se le vicende vengono considerate sul piano più ampio dello scontro universale tra fenomeni generali o tra blocchi di potere e umanità o su altri piani intermedi) non sempre si possono mettere draconianamente sullo stesso piano un Rodolfo Graziani e un amministratore comunale che aderì al fascismo essenzialmente per garantirsi un posto di lavoro, così come dall’altro la dirigenza del CLN e un singolo partigiano che magari le distinzioni di cui sopra le risolveva troppo sbrigativamente a pistolettate. Se il fascismO come fenomeno é un fenomeno criminale, la mera adesione o vicinanza morale ad esso é invece un problema culturale. Ne deriva che quando il piano del discorso riguarda Fascismo e Resistenza come fenomeni generali questi andranno giudicati sul piano storico nel loro complesso, mentre nei singoli casi specifici é necessario fare i conti con i numerosissimi distinguo di cui sopra.
Dunque che rapporto intercorreva solitamente tra partigiani e popolazione? Il supporto alla resistenza fu indubbiamente fortissimo ma di certo non unanime né omogeneo: c’era chi appoggiava la resistenza ma non la sua componente comunista, c’era chi parteggiava per la resistenza aiutando materialmente i partigiani di ogni colore e chi tifava resistenza senza però fare alcunché di concreto, c’era chi forniva informazioni e chi portava comunicazioni, così come c’era un’ampia fetta di popolazione che invece tifava per il fascismo e vedeva in ogni azione partigiana una tragedia.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 3 – STATO FANTOCCIO TEDESCO
9 luglio 1943 sbarco in Sicilia degli angloamericani 25 luglio 1943 il Gran consiglio del Fascismo approva l’estromissione di Mussolini. Il Re lo fa imprigionare ed affida il governo a Badoglio. 8 settembre 1943 Badoglio, a capo del governo legittimo, annuncia pubblicamente l’armistizio con le forze anglo-americane. 12 settembre 1943 con un’operazione militare i tedeschi liberano Mussolini e lo trasferiscono in Germania. 18 settembre 1943 via radio, da Monaco di Baviera, Mussolini annuncia creazione di uno stato fascista nel nord Italia. 28 settembre 1943 nel nord dell’Italia viene istituito lo stato fantoccio dell’RSI sotto controllo nazista per proseguire il conflitto. settembre 1943 – marzo 1944 in questi mesi si sviluppa la prima fase della resistenza al nazifascismo, in molti casi spontaneista e non del tutto ben organizzata.
Di fatto dopo l’8 settembre il nord Italia é sotto occupazione tedesca: né più né meno che un territorio coloniale (o protettorato) che dal 28 settembre sarà comandato da un governatore di facciata (un Mussolini oramai del tutto burattino). Come se un Piemonte secessionista fosse posto forzatamente sotto amministrazione della Francia la quale decidesse di mettere a capo delle zone controllate un membro della famiglia Agnelli in lotta contro Roma.
[…] su 73 sospetti non trovar modo di dare neppure un esempio è un po’ troppo […] SI AMMAZZA TROPPO POCO !
(Nota del 4 agosto 1942 del Generale Robotti riguardante la situazione sui Balcani)
Quando si parla di ciò che avvenne in nord Italia dopo l’8 settembre 1943 é necessario che questo punto sia chiaro: il re ed il governo legittimo erano rifugiati in meridione ed i fedeli a Mussolini avevano di fatto appoggiato la scelta di trasformare il nord Italia in una colonia nazista.
Qualunque sia la propria opinione politica é indubbio che dall’unità d’Italia l’unico movimento di massa che abbia mai tentato di sostituirsi al governo in carica imponendosi con la forza bruta é stato il fascismo, così come é indubbio che pur di mantenere il proprio dominio, Mussolini preferì cedere alla Germania proprio quei territori per la cui conquista, costata 1.240.000 vittime lui stesso si era fortemente schierato decenni prima portando l’Italia nella Grande Guerra (Trentino Alto Adige, Friuli ed Istria).
La nascita dell’RSI e la decisione di proseguire il conflitto contro il governo legittimo fu una colpa imputabile esclusivamente ai nazifascisti: senza questa decisione la guerra sarebbe probabilmente terminata con diversi mesi d’anticipo. Sono pertanto ridicole le affermazioni di chi sostiene che il conflitto si protrasse a causa delle azioni dei partigiani, che combattevano una nazione occupante ed i fascisti, connazionali ridottisi a sgherri dei nazisti.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 4 – LEGITTIMITÀ E SCELTE
Tralasciando i casi di mero calcolo, di opportunistico interesse e di scelta forzata é indubbio che molti di coloro che aderirono alla RSI lo fecero con convinzione e per fedeltà a Mussolini, percependosi nel giusto. Non potendo/volendo riassumere in poche righe un discorso complessivo sulle rozze ed illusorie menzogne del fascismo (questo articolo é già abbastanza lungo così), qui ci si limiterà ad evidenziare come l’aderenza all’RSI fosse, di fatto, una ribellione ingiustificata nei confronti del governo legittimo. Se si é oppressi da un potere ingiusto é giusto ribellarsi ed in casi estremi, purtroppo, l’uso della violenza può esser l’unica strada percorribile. Ma non fu questo il caso dei repubblichini:
I repubblichini erano oppressi da un potere ingiusto?No: Mussolini era stato esautorato perché dopo aver trascinato l’Italia in una serie di avventure e collaborazioni belliche disastrose e inutilmente dispendiose (Guerra civile spagnola, l’avventura coloniale in Libia ed in Etiopia, invasione della Francia, invasione dei Balcani e della Grecia, richiesta di partecipare alla campagna di Russia inviando 230.000 soldati italiani sotto comando tedesco) e, aggiungiamo, NON esser nemmeno stato in grado di far arrivare i treni in orario (ossia: essendo stato incapace di portare davvero l’Italia ad un livello socio-economico-tecnologico paragonabile a quello delle altre nazioni centroeuropee, nonostante la propaganda sostenesse diversamente), alleandosi con la Germania e dichiarando guerra a Stati Uniti, Francia, Grecia, Albania, Jugoslavia e Gran Bretagna, aveva trascinato l’Italia in un baratro da cui non sarebbe mai potuta uscire indenne: porre fine a Mussolini ed al movimento da lui guidato era, ancor prima di ogni ideale e considerazione personale, ciò che era necessario per il bene della popolazione italiana. Chi proseguì nel supporto a Mussolini, di fatto, aveva scelto di proseguire su una strada già evidentemente mortale per l’intera penisola.
I repubblichini erano legalmente legittimati? Come visto sopra, no: il governo era rifugiato tra Brindisi e Salerno e l’RSI prendeva ordini dalla Germania.
I repubblichini temevano per la propria incolumità? Molti si: temevano di ricevere la stessa moneta che avevano dispendiato nei vent’anni precedenti. E’la paura che prova l’aguzzino circondato da coloro che in precedenza abusò.
La maggioranza degli italiani era più fedele a Mussolini che al re? Fino al 1939-40 si può facilmente affermare di si, ma considerando la rapidità con cui questa fiducia é crollata quando si son visti la guerra in casa appare evidente che fu una fedeltà che poggiava su basi debolissime. Interessante comunque la domanda in sé in quanto presuppone che la popolazione debba affidarsi a questo o quel potente di turno escludendo alla radice che un “capo” possa esser manifestazione temporanea della volontà popolare.
Sono stati il re e Badoglio a tradire gli italiani? Solo se per “tradimento” s’intende l’aver esautorato colui che aveva portato la nazione in ginocchio e tentato di evitare che sprofondasse ulteriormente.
I repubblichini rappresentavano la volontà della popolazione italiana? No: di fatto agivano per il puro interesse della Germania mediato attraverso la figura di Mussolini.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 5 – RESISTENZA, (POST?)FASCISTI ED ALLEATI
Per farla breve: gli Alleati anglofoni erano decisamente antinazisti ma nient’affatto antifascisti (anche se, a dirla tutta, soprattutto tra l’aristocrazia inglese, non mancavano nemmeno gli estimatori del nazismo). Le simpatie nei confronti del fascismo non mancavano dunque né in USA né in Gran Bretagna. Queste simpatie di lunga data e stabilitesi su più punti di contatto (dai circoli esoterici e teosofici passando per nazionalismo estremo ed antibolscevismo) e che si riscontrano nell’entusiastica relazione italo-statunitense negli anni venti e trenta s’incrinò formalmente con l’invasione italiana dell’Etiopia ma soprattutto a causa dell’avvicinamento al nazismo di Hitler. Nel delinearsi di un mondo diviso fra blocco comunista e blocco capitalista in occidente il fascismo era da molti considerato come uno strumento di difesa antibolscevica.
Non per niente gli Alleati diffidavano delle formazioni partigiane a causa della loro forte componente comunista: basta pensare che il CLNAI ottenne il riconoscimento da parte degli Alleati solo sul finire del 1944. Questa simpatia nei confronti del fascismo, unita poi alla situazione geopolitica post-Yalta, spiega anche perché non vi fu una “Norimberga italiana” e la conseguente continuità lineare nel dopoguerra tra fascismo e post-fascismo nelle istituzioni; spiega la tensione dei rapporti tra movimenti partigiani ed Alleati, la stretta collaborazione nel periodo post-bellico tra americani e (ex?)fascisti in funzione anticomunista (vedi: “strategia della tensione”). Spiega il clima di sospetto che generò tra i partigiani la richiesta da parte alleata di interrompere le azioni offensive durante l’inverno 1944-45, richiesta che ritennero servisse agli Alleati per guadagnare tempo e portare avanti trattative con i fascisti per una resa indolore che avrebbe potuto mantenere il fascismo al potere, magari dandogli giusto una ripulita d’immagine. Di cruciale importanza per comprendere le tensioni del periodo é il fatto che l’arresto di Mussolini nel luglio 1943 e la contemporanea soppressione del Gran consiglio del fascismo, pur portando formalmente alla caduta del fascismo, nella sostanza lasciava gran parte dei funzionari e dirigenti ancora al loro posto.
La vicinanza ideale tra fascisti ed Alleati contribuì ad alimentare la paura (poi rivelatosi in gran parte fondata) che la continuità tra fascismo e post-fascismo avrebbe permesso a numerosi criminali fascisti di restare impuniti nel dopoguerra. Lo si vedrà nel 1946: mentre in Germania, a Norimberga, gli alti ufficiali nazisti venivano processati da un tribunale internazionale, nell’Italia diventata Repubblica da pochissimi giorni, invece, l’amnistia Togliatti assicurava la libertà chiunque si fosse macchiato di reati comuni, reati politici, collaborazionismo con il nemico e reati annessi, compreso il concorso in omicidio (ma l’interpretazione dell’amnistia fu tanto larga da lasciare libero anche chi partecipò direttamente a stragi ed omicidi). La “stranezza” dell’amnistia Togliatti, che scatenò fin da subito feroci polemiche (Togliatti, che non coinvolse alcun collaboratore nel redarre il provvedimento, quando né informò il partito venne aspramente criticato dagli esponenti del PC), aveva però perfettamente senso se osservata all’interno del quadro internazionale stabilito durante la Conferenza di Yaltanel febbraio del 1945, ossia con l’assegnazione dell’Italia all’area di influenza statunitense (Togliatti dunque sottostò direttamente all’imposizione di Mosca che agiva in linea con quanto concordato a Yalta e l’interesse statunitense era quello di ridare stabilità al paese e far restare l’Italia nei ranghi assegnatigli mantenendosi buoni i fascisti che su tale punto ben concordavano ed arano lieti di collaborare). Pochissimi giorni dopo Churchill pronunciò il noto discorso della “cortina di ferro” che indicava l’area d’influenza sovietica come un blocco i cui confini correvano “da Stettino nel Baltico a Trieste”. É in questo momento che i sospetti di una possibile continuità postbellica del fascismo si fecero certezza.
Nei mesi a cavallo del termine del conflitto si riaccesero tutti i contrasti e le divisioni che fino a quel momento erano stati più o meno trattenuti dai diversi gruppi resistenziali e dai relativi partiti politici di riferimento: delusione per quei comunisti che avrebbero preferito vedere un’Italia sotto influenza sovietica, malsopportazione per chi rifiutava esser forzati a far parte di una “sfera d’influenza” imposta, paura per i monarchici che sentivano le sempre più forti pressioni di chi voleva un’Italia postbellica repubblicana, entusiasmo per i filoamericani, smarrimento per i fascisti in cerca di una riabilitazione d’immagine, giusto per citare i più macroscopici.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 6 – ITALIA PAESE VITTIMISTA E INVASORE
Va riconosciuto che nel corso della sua breve storia, dal risorgimento in poi l’Italia é stato più un paese invasore che un paese invaso:
1869 Inizia la presenza italiana in Eritrea.
1889 L’Italia ottiene il controllo della Somalia.
1895 L’Italia attacca l’Etiopia. Al termine del conflitto l’Italia otterrà ufficialmente l’Eritrea.
1900 L’Italia invia un contingente militare in Cina in supporto dei propri alleati contro la rivolta dei Boxer. Al termine degli scontri otterrà la concessione di Tientsin
1911 L’Italia attacca la Libia. Guerra Italo-Turca.
1912 Nel corso della Guerra Italo-Turca l’Italia occupa militarmente alcune isole dell’Egeo
1915 l’Italia attacca i suoi ex-alleati Austria–Ungheria e Germania.
1935 L’Italia invade l’Etiopia.
1936 L’Italia invia truppe in Spagna a sostegno del regime franchista.
1939 L’Italia occupa militarmente l’Albania.
1940 L’Italia invade i Balcani e la Grecia.
1940 L’Italia invade la Francia meridionale.
1940 L’Italia invade l’Egitto.
1941 L’Italia dichiara guerra agli USA
1941 L’Italia occupa militarmente il Montenegro.
1941 L’Italia invia oltre 250.000 uomini in Russia a sostegno della Germania
1942 L’Italia occupa la Corsica.
il progetto coloniale italiano nella sua ipotetica massima realizzazione
Quando é stata l’Italia essere attaccata si é sempre trattato della risposta di Paesi che l’Italia aveva precedentemente invaso o a cui aveva dichiarato guerra. Tranne in un’unica occasione: l’occupazione tedesca.
“Noi siamo da secoli calpesti, derisi
perché non siam popolo, perché siam divisi”
(Inno nazionale italiano)
Vittimismo e autocommiserazione
Ma nonostante l’evidenza storica renda palese l’aggressività coloniale italiana, nel sentir comune l’italiano si dipinge come colui che subisce solamente. Si tratta di una autonarrazione che ha radici lontane, si presta particolarmente bene alla sindrome d’autoassedio ed é ben codificata sia nella cultura nazional-popolare che nella sua narrazione pubblica ufficiale. La tipicità prettamente italiana di questa forma di autocommiserazione consiste in un diffuso atteggiamento alla “chiagni e fotti” applicato ad ogni tipo di situazione che si appoggia a sua volta sul falso mito autoconsolatorio degli “italiani brava gente” (non che altrove i paesi colonialisti siano messi meglio: tutti negano, sminuiscono e fingono di non conoscere i propri crimini. Noi semplicemente lo facciamo con maggior pathos).
INSERTO STORICO – parte 7 – IL CONFINE ORIENTALE
Per meglio capire la situazione dei confini orientali é necessario inquadrarne innanzitutto l’origine storica, che potrebbe essere riassunta nella frase: “quelle zone sono terra di mescolanze e confine da millenni”. Sono passati tutti di qui: veneti, ilari, carni (celti), longobardi, franchi, ungari, bizantini, avari, slavi, romani, unni, quadi (germani), visigoti, francesi, austriaci. Basta una rapida occhiata alla storia del Friuli e della Slovenia per capire il fortissimo legame storico che queste divisioni amministrative condividono.
I confini dell’area nel I* secolo d.C.
Le lingue parlate sul confine orientale nel 1900 erano italiano e sloveno (con qualche punta di tedesco all’attuale confine con l’Austria), con una distribuzione nient’affatto uniforme che cambiava addirittura di valle in valle. Le mappe linguistiche dell’epoca spesso tendevano a dipingere un’uniformità molto lontana dalla situazione reale. Giusto per dare un’idea di quella che é la mescolanza linguistica ed identitaria (che non sempre combaciano) e del modo in cui, a seconda del tipo di criterio usato e del periodo di riferimento, la situazione locale può apparir diversa può essere interessante osservare quattro mappe dell’Istria molto diverse e lontane fra loro, sia nel tempo che nel metodo usato:
Lingue e mescolanze culturali che dunque non é possibile far combaciare con confini netti e che anche negli ultimi secoli son proseguite ed han dovuto convivere con numerosi spostamenti di frontiera (mappe provenienti daQUI):
Dove “finisce” l’Italia? Dove “inizia” la Slovenia? E la Croazia? A differenza di altri luoghi dove i confini culturali sono meglio definiti (penso al Trentino-Sudtirol), sul confine orientale definire una linea di confine che rispecchi lingue, identità e culture della popolazione é sostanzialmente impossibile. Se a ciò aggiungiamo che ogni realtà nazionale ha su questi luoghi anche interessi economici e geopolitici la cosa poi si complica ancor di più.
Ciò che avviene in queste zone durante il secondo conflitto mondiale dunque non é che l’ultimo frutto di una lunga serie di sconvolgimenti che hanno interessato l’area di con fine, i più impattanti dei quali si verificarono dalla Grande Guerra in poi, ossia durante l’apoteosi dell’industria nazionalista novecentesca. Semplificando anche qui al massimo: il confine orientale, multietnico, strappato dall’Italia all’impero austroungarico durante la Grande Guerra, tra i due conflitti subisce un violento processo di fascistizzazione ed italianizzazione forzata: venne imposta la lingua italiana e si fecero arrivare un gran numero di parlanti italiano provenienti da altre regioni (solo nel triennio 1919-1922 la cifra si aggira intorno a 50.000 persone, cui corrispose l’allontanamento di 28-30.000 tra parlanti sloveno e tedesco). Nell’arco di pochissimo tempo territori che furono sempre luogo di mescolanza vengono artificialmente trasformati in una monocultura italiana a scapito della popolazione slava. Non c’é da stupirsi, dunque, se fu proprio in queste zone che il fascismo si consolidò tessendo i primi rapporti di collaborazione con l’esercito e stabilì uno dei suoi zoccoli duri più resistenti. Oltre all’imposizione della lingua e riattribuzione dei terreni vi furono un gran numero di incendi, violenze, e intimidazioni. Il fascismo, dunque, stava pigiando al massimo l’acceleratore su un processo iniziato anni prima con l’accensione dei focolai irredentisti e con la nascita del Regno d’Italia.
Tutto ciò porterà negli anni venti e trenta ad una forzata ridefinizione dei confini culturali a danno delle popolazioni slave. Naturalmente ciò alimentò tra queste un forte sentimento antifascista e rafforzò anche il nazionalismo serbo e croato, che negli anni fra i due conflitti si manifestò attraverso azioni clandestine, ad esempio con organizzazioni come laTIGR.
Dopo l’8 settembre 1943 il confine nord-orientale d’Italia passò sotto amministrazione tedesca e tale rimase anche dopo la nascita della RSI. Il Trentino e il Südtirol divennero la zona d’operazione OZAV (OperationsZone AlpenVorland) mentre il Friuli e l’Istria divennero la zona d’operazione OZAK (OperationsZone Adriatiche Küstenland) divenendo di fatto entrambi protettorati germanici.
“Mussolini (a proposito dei tedeschi ndr) ha detto: Bisogna accettare questo stato di cose perché ogni tentativo di reazione ci farebbe declassare dalla condizione di provincia confederata a quella ben peggiore di colonia. Anche se domani chiedessero Trieste nello spazio vitale germanico, bisognerebbe piegare la testa“
Anche la resistenza jugoslava non era un’entità compatta ed omogenea: si può facilmente parlare di due resistenze in quanto le due forze principali di resistenza, i Cetnici di Mihajlovic (serbi cattolici anticomunisti e nazionalisti che collaboravano con gli Alleati ma erano in lotta coi comunisti Titini) ed iTitini (comunisti che collaboravano anch’essi con gli Alleati pur essendo in lotta coi Cetnici) erano particolarmente distanti fra loro. Sia i Cetnici di Mihajlovic che i Titini furono riconosciuti come Alleati da USA e Gran Bretagna nonostante fossero in lotta tra di loro.
Inoltre v’erano diverse formazioni nazionaliste, pan-serbe e collaborazioniste come i cosiddetti “sloveni bianchi”, ossia Domobranci e Belogradisti (cattolici liberal-monarchici fortemente anticomunisti che collaboravano con i nazifascisti), ed i Cetnici guidati da Nedič (serbi cattolici anticomunisti e nazionalisti che collaboravano con i nazisti).
Insomma: come in Italia anche nei Balcani esisteva una realtà variegata di forze ed entità diverse in cui confluirono e e si stratificarono lotte di classe, etniche, politiche ed ideologiche.
Le due resistenze jugoslave premevano per sconfiggere i nazifascisti spostandosi sempre più ad ovest e ciò intimoriva non poco la popolazione italiana in quanto allarmata dal fatto che le mire pan-serbe avrebbero portato i territori da loro occupati sotto dominio slavo
Una peculiarità propria dei movimenti partigiani italiani delle zone orientali fu che una buona parte di essi aveva un orientamento molto più antislavo che antinazifascista. Ciò portò ad una netta divisione fra un movimento di resistenza “internazionalista” che includeva partigiani comunisti italiani e sloveni, ed un movimento partigiano “nazionalista” più interessato a fermare un’eventuale avanzata jugoslava che a combattere gli occupanti tedeschi e che non disdegnò contatti con repubblichini e nazisti in funzione antislava (quadro entro cui rientra anche l’eccidio di Porzûs). La specularità con la situazione delle due resistenze jugoslave é abbastanza palese.
Il fatto che sul confine orientale si sia verificata una collaborazione tanto peculiare tra nazifascisti e certi gruppi partigiani può essere facilmente compreso se si tiene conto che ciò avvenne tra persone provenienti da zone che da vent’anni erano immerse in un clima di propaganda antislava particolarmente feroce.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 8 – RAPIMENTI PARTIGIANI
Un rapimento di militi fascisti da parte di partigiani poteva avere i seguenti scopi: ottenimento informazioni / tentativo di farli entrare nelle proprie file (ma questo perlopiù solo nei primissimi tempi dopo l’8 settembre)/ scambio di prigionieri / fucilazione. Non esiste caso documentato di sevizie e torture paragonabile a quello che viene narrato riguardo ai fatti di Malga Bala. Gli unici casi vagamente simili sono quelli diffusi da pubblicazioni revisioniste pseudostoriche che non trovano alcun appoggio da parte della storiografia
INSERTO STORICO – parte 9 – CRIMINI PARTIGIANI E LEGGENDE NERE
Durante il conflitto e nelle settimane immediatamente successive, a contorno di numerose operazioni di resistenza legittime, si verificarono anche episodi orrendi tra cui rappresaglie ingiustificate, omicidi per questioni personali, furti “celati” dietro alla bandiera dell’antifascismo. Morirono anche persone colpevoli di poco o nulla.
Non si tratta né di misteri, né di episodi lasciati passare in sordina poiché portarono a inchieste, processi e condanne. Come ad esempio nell’eccidio svoltosi a Codevigo tra il 28 aprile ed il 15 maggio 1945 in cui soldati e partigiani ravennati uccisero di spontanea volontà almeno 136 fascisti, perlopiù loro compaesani, per vendicare fatti gravissimi di cui quegli stessi fascisti si erano macchiati in precedenza nelle zone d’origine. I fatti portarono a numerosi processi ma la difficoltà di valutare ogni singolo caso si concluse in un nulla di fatto.
Il fatto che in casi come quello di Codevigo non si sia giunti a definire una verità processuale ed attribuire delle responsabilità di colpa ha generato rabbia tra i parenti delle vittime ma a conflitto finito ciò é stato utilizzato politicamente per alimentare il mito dell’ ”intoccabilità dei partigiani”.
La realtà é che in questi casi non é facile definire colpe e responsabilità:
Il primo problema é che in diversi di questi episodi il confine tra azione lecita ed illecita é assai labile e difficile da stabilire, sia sul piano giuridico che umano [p.es. fucilare senza processo un membro del PNF che, abusando del proprio potere per anni ed anni ed esercitando violenze e soprusi continui, ha rovinato l’esistenza a intere famiglie meramente per tornaconto personale e che per questioni politiche potrebbe farla franca, dal punto di vista legale é indubbiamente un crimine ma un giudizio umano della vicenda potrebbe essere meno inclemente. Ventitré anni passati tra tribunali speciali, confini, pesanti detenzioni senza regolare processo, assalti squadristi, intimidazioni, abusi di potere, bastonate a morte, leggi razziali, collaborazione al genocidio nazista e casi di corruzione apertamente sfacciata possono essere motivo d’incazzatura, specie nel momento in cui diviene chiaro che tutto ciò resterà impunito. Allo stesso modo l’uccisione di un noto assassino e torturatore fascista, in quei frangenti, se avvenuta per mera scelta personale di un partigiano senza consultazione con i superiori di grado, fino a che punto é da considerarsi un crimine?]
Il secondo problema é che nel caos del periodo molti avvenimenti non si poterono documentare a dovere, impedendo il successivo raggiungimento di una verità processuale certa.
Vi é però anche un terzo problema ancor più importante dei due precedenti, ossia il fatto che molti di questi episodi, pur essendo sufficientemente documentati, sono stati soggetto di narrazioni e ri-narrazioni che esulano dalla realtà documentale ma si sono imposte in quanto utilizzate per la diffusione di leggende nere.
Leggende nere che nascono perlopiù con l’intento di dar contro ai rossi o per autogiustificazione ideologica o famigliare: numerosi sono i casi di persone che raccontano di un parente che ha “ingiustamente” subìto danni dai partigiani, spesso dimenticando che quel parente era un collaboratore del regime o qualcuno che perse dei vantaggi che gli vennero attribuiti per sottomissione al fascismo. Non mancano nemmeno casi di banali incidenti stradali o morti sul lavoro che, a distanza di anni, vengono attribuite ai partigiani e narrate come omicidi mascherati senza che vi sia alcunché per affermare ciò. Leggende nere che iniziarono a nascere proprio sul finire della guerra, mentre i fascisti e le loro famiglie erano intente a mostrarsi sotto una luce più adatta al nuovo corso post-fascista (quale occasione migliore per rispolverare il solito cliché vittimista del “si, ha fatto degli errori ma in fondo é stato una vittima”).
Leggende nere che alimentano la polarizzazione sull’argomento: chi si ritrova a dover controbattere leggende spesso tanto numerose quanto eclatantemente tendenziose e/o basate sul nulla corre il forte rischio di maturare, per reazione, un atteggiamento eccessivamente accondiscendente e giustificante nel confronto dei movimenti partigiani.
La diffusione di leggende nere, spesso alimentate (più o meno consapevolmente) nonostante la loro imprecisione e dubbiosità per tenere alta l’attenzione sull’argomento impedisce il superamento storico del periodo anteponendo al dato documentale una mitopoiesi tecnicizzata e di parte. Ciò avviene a causa di una tendenza fortemente radicata nella cultura di destra, che all’autogiustificazione nell’infierire con mezzi illeciti sull’avversario politico attraverso un processo di demonizzazione circolare abbina spesso un contraddittorio disinteresse nell’appurare la verità storica a causa di una mancata volontà di avanzamento storico, con conseguente perorazione di un eterno ritorno a quello stesso passato che cerca di celare rinarrandoselo in forma autogiustificante e/o autogratificante (quando invece c’é interesse per appurare la verità questo si scontra con la stessa mancanza di volontà di avanzamento storico facendo si che la verità storica accettata sia solo quella che più s’avvicina alla verità interiore).
Il risultato é che pur essendo storicamente noti e documentati sia episodi certi di crimini perpetrati da partigiani che diversi episodi incerti, la vulgata popolare alimentata da destra sta diffondendo un’immagine volutamente stravolta di tali eventi con l’intento (storicamente assurdo) di diffondere la falsa convinzione che questi crimini furono addirittura assai più numerosi e brutali di quelli compiuti dal nazifascismo assai noti e documentati. Esempi noti sono le bufale sulle “foibe” (vedi QUI, QUI e QUI e ancora QUI e poi QUI e anche QUI e QUI. Oppure basta anche solo leggere della mitica “foiba volante” per farsi una chiara idea della situazione), le bufale sull’ “esodo dei friulani”, le incongruenze sulla vicenda di Giuseppina Ghersi o la non-vicenda dell’invisibile film colossal “Foibe“. Tratta comune di queste leggende nere é spesso quello di aggrapparsi a vicende secondarie e poco documentate ove sia possibile una maggior “libertà di manovra” nella riscrittura.
Il meccanismo é sostanzialmente sempre lo stesso: si spara altissimo perché passi almeno il concetto base “tutti i partigiani erano mostri”. Senza alcun ritegno si ricorre a falsificazioni fotografiche racconti basati sul nulla, totale assenza di analisi critica, propaganda antislava ed anticomunista, attribuzioni false e decine di altri mezzi scorretti pur di propagandare una rilettura della storia che aggrada chi la diffonde ma cozza irrimediabilmente con la realtà documentata.
Dopo lo sdoganamento dell’MSI a metà anni novanta avvenuto con il primo cambio di nome in AN e con la vittoria della coalizione del Polo del Buon governo/Polo per le Libertà si é assistito ad un aumento esponenziale di operazioni di revisionismo storico attuate spesso per vie traverse ed accompagnate da forte battage mediatico caratterizzato dall’imposto frame della storia condivisa che pecca per due difetti: non risponde a criteri di storicità e non é affatto condivisa. La storia non é un compromesso tra “favole” narrate da forze politiche opposte: la storia é un processo conoscitivo di ricerca che si basa innanzitutto sulle certezze documentali degli eventi, la cui ricostruzione non può fingere non esistano.
Tratti comuni della narrazione di queste leggende nere sono la banalizzazione del contesto ad uno scontro “italiani vs. comunisti” in cui il nazifascismo fa semplicemente da sfondo; la riduzione dell’intera opera di resistenza ad “azioni comuniste”; l’attribuzione di violenze assolutamente gratuite ad opera di “partigiani comunisti”; banalizzazione delle cause attraverso lettura vittimistica: solitamente variazioni di “ucciso solo perché italiano” o “colpevole di non essere comunista”
Tratti comuni della ricerca su queste leggende é l’essere “avallata” da testimonianze dubbie, falsi fotografici, chiacchere di paese e interpretazioni forzate.
Il mio dubbio quindi é quello di trovarmi dinnanzi all’ennesimo episodio storico gonfiato o costruito per questioni di propaganda politica di cui già esistono numerosi esempi simili, come la già citata magica foiba volante, il ponte pirata del Bus de la Lum, la foiba della Maremma e la leggenda del cane nero mangia anime gettato nelle cavità carsiche.
Continuo a cercare.
1.02 UNA VERITÀ OPPRESSA??? MO DAVÈRO?
La scarna pagina di Wikipedia (eh già, Wikipedia: piaccia o non piaccia ci si passa tutti, anche se é necessario usarla con estrema cautela soprattutto a causa dell’argomento) sull’ “Eccidio di Malga Bala” mi fa sapere che: “Esistono due versioni antitetiche dell’evento: una la considera una strage perpetrata da una formazione di partigiani sloveni, l’altra ritiene che i militi siano rimasti uccisi durante uno scontro a fuoco tra un reparto tedesco e i partigiani che li avevano catturati.”
Cercando con le varie chiavi possibili “Malga Bala”, “Planina Bala”, “Dino Perpignano” (una delle vittime), “Eccidio Bretto” (il comune in cui sono stati catturate le dodici vittime) e così via, trovo una gran quantità di siti, blog, forum e commenti su questa storia. Pian piano ne consulto almeno una quarantina. Riportano TUTTE la versione strage. Decine e decine di pagine riportano la stessa versione, in cui si parla del “capo supremo” dei partigiani Franc Ursic -detto Jozko-, il vice brigadiere Perpignano che, catturato, ha permesso che la porta della caserma venisse aperta ecc. Tutte più o meno uguali.
Torno su Wikipedia. Purtroppo l’unico link sulla versione scontro a fuoco punta al sito dell’ ANPI di Pianoro che non contiene più il testo originario.
Il fatto di dover faticare per trovare un testo completo della versione scontro a fuoco fa sorgere già il secondo dubbio: se questa versione é così difficile da trovare perché tutti coloro che promuovono la versione strage sostengono che che “questa VERITA’” viene tenuta nascosta dall’intellighenzia di sinistra che diffonde una versione falsa della storia?
“Ora – aggiunge – è necessario riparare a queste smascherate storpiature con ogni mezzo ed il conferimento di una doverosa onorificenza a quei carabinieri trucidati rappresenta un passo in avanti verso la verità sulle molte ombre che nascondono le “cosiddette eroiche gesta dei partigiani”, in attesa che anche gli ultimi difensori e militanti dei partiti della sinistra radicale riconoscano, come altri hanno fatto dalla parte opposta, che l’ideologia che ha prodotto i Regimi comunisti è “un male assoluto””. (fonte)
Il tono nei siti consultati é grosso modo sempre questo e risulta alquanto straniante il fatto che si definisca verità negata proprio quella che é la versione in assoluto più nota e diffusa, a scapito di un’altra versione che viene citata solo per sommi capi e si fatica a trovare. Qui scatta un ulteriore campanello d’allarme: che sia un esempio di sindrome d’autoassedio?
Non sono gli italiani ad aver invaso l’Etiopia: sono le tribù anarchiche etiopi a minacciare gli italiani! ( qualcuno ha detto autoassedio da nemici esterni???)
A dirla tutta spesso questi post/articoli/commenti riportano spesso dati confusi (quanti erano i carabinieri: 12, 16, boh?) o sbagliano date (ottobre 1943? marzo 1944? vabbé, poco importa). In alcuni casi aggiungono pure particolari originali, perlopiù insistendo su macabri dettagli inerenti alle torture. In altri casi fanno accompagnare l’articolo/post da foto d’epoca di cadaveri orribilmente sfigurati che al primo reverse image search si scoprono essere relativi a eventi di tutt’altra natura: si va da corpi carbonizzati ad Hiroshima a cadaveri mutilati durante la guerra di Spagna.
Ciò che invece si trova quasi sempre é una descrizione degli eventi caricata con opinioni personali sui pensieri e lo stato d’animo dei carabinieri indifesi nelle mani dei partigiani slavi, la cui descrizione é limitata al descriverne la barbaricità.
(Qui però la “storia di questa storia” viene raccontata in modi meno espliciti che sui siti personali e nei commenti dei social: la veste mainstream e più ufficiale esige che determinate cose vengano solo accennate. Non tanto le truci descrizioni delle sevizie -quelle fan parte di questa storia e non vengono mai censurate, anzi-, quanto le accuse di omertà, occultamento e revisionismo verso i promulgatori dell’ “altra versione”, mai fatte esplicitamente ma sempre accennate in un “lasciato intendere” onnipresente)
Ci sono anche delle interrogazioni parlamentari come quella del senatore Berselli (AN) relative alla richiesta “di una medaglia d’oro al valore militare della memoria a ciascuno dei dodici carabinieri barbaramente trucidati, unicamente perché italiani, mentre operavano nell’esercizio dei loro compiti di istituto”, o l’interrogazione di Publio Fiori (AN) nel 1999, entrambe basate sui lavori di Russo e Pirina.
“Sulla vicenda, da tempo all’attenzione della Difesa, sono state svolte accurate indagini presso la competente Direzione generale per il personale militare ed il Comando generale dell’Arma dei carabinieri, allo scopo di pervenire ad elementi di certezza e chiarezza sul tragico evento. L’esame degli atti non ha consentito, tuttavia, di definire con la dovuta evidenza la circostanza, tenuto conto anche di alcuni elementi discordanti concernenti l’attribuzione delle responsabilita` del massacro. In tale quadro, in mancanza di elementi di certezza in grado di illuminare lo svolgimento dei fatti e di individuare le relative responsabilita`, non sussistono quei presupposti necessari di natura giuridica per l’avvio di alcuna iniziativa nel senso auspicato dal senatore interrogante”
“dodici giovani carabinieri catturati da pseudo-partigiani furono sorpresi nel sonno, avvelenati, torturati ed infine tagliati a pezzi; i carabinieri costituivano un presidio a difesa della centrale idroelettrica di Bretto (Gorizia); il 23 marzo 1944 gli pseudo partigiani slavi presero in ostaggio il vicebrigadiere Dino Perpignano, comandante del presidio che stava rientrando negli alloggiamenti, e sotto la minaccia delle armi lo costrinsero a pronunciare la parola d’ordine e, con facilita`, una volta entrati nel pre- sidio, catturarono tutti i carabinieri gia` in parte addormentati; dopo il saccheggio, i dodici militari furono deportati nella Valle Bausizza e rinchiusi in un fienile ove fu loro servito un pasto nel quale era stata inglobata soda caustica e sale nero. Affamati, inconsapevolmente mangiarono quello che gli era stato servito, ma poco dopo le urla e le implorazioni furono raccapriccianti e tremende; erano stati avvelenati e la loro agonia si potrasse fra atroci dolori e sofferenze varie per ore e ore; tremanti e consumati dalla febbre, Pasquale Ruggiero, Domenico Del Vecchio, Lino Bertogli, Antonio Farro, Adelmino Zilio, Fernando Ferretti, Ridolfo Calzi, Pietro Tognazzo, Michele Castellano, Primo Amenici, Attilio Franzon, quasi tutti ventenni (e mai impiegati nei servizi di pubblica sicurezza o di ordine pubblico, tranne quello a guardia della centrale, cui erano stati sempre preposti) furono costretti a marciare fra inenarrabili sofferenze ed insopportabili sacrifici fino a Malga Bala, ove li attendeva una fine orribile; il vicebrigadiere Dino Perpignano fu preso e spogliato: gli venne conficcato un legno ad uncino nel nervo posteriore del calcagno ed issato a testa in giu`, legato ad una trave; poi furono tutti incaprettati; a quel punto i macellai, pseudo-parti- giani comunisti slavi, cominciarono a colpire tutti con picconi; a qualcuno vennero asportati i genitali e conficcati in bocca, a qualche altro fu aperto a picconate il cuore o frantumati gli occhi; all’Amenici venne conficcata nel cuore la fotografia dei suoi cinque figli mentre il Perpignano fu finito a pedate in faccia ed in testa; la «mattanza» terminava con i corpi dei malcapitati legati col fil di ferro e trascinati, a mo’ di bestie, sotto un grosso masso ed abbandonati, povere vittime innocenti, in aperta campagna, prede di animali randagi; ora le misere spoglie di questi poveri carabinieri martiri/eroi riposano, dimenticati dagli uomini, dalla storia e soprattutto dalle istituzioni, in una torre medievale di Tarvisio”
Siti ministeriali e delle forze dell’ordine? Nomi di strade? Articoli su quotidiani nazionali? Presenza massiccia nei primi risultati di Google? Interrogazioni parlamentari? Mi sembra un po tanto per essere una storia “nascosta”…
É del tutto evidente che delle due versioni quella maggiormente riconosciuta e condivisa é proprio quella della “strage perpetrata da una formazione di partigiani sloveni”, mentre l’ “altra versione” praticamente non viene mai citata se non qua e là e giusto per smentirla: il fatto stesso che esista un’altra versione viene contestualizzato nella “storia di questa storia” come dimostrazione della volontà di occultamento operata dalla sinistra. Un po come sostenere che l’esistenza di una micragnosa società di terrapiattisti é la dimostrazione che la sfericità della terra é una verità scientifica messa a rischio.
1.03 LA FONTE UNICA!!!
C’é però una cosa che condividono tutti, ma proprio tutti gli articoli, post, commenti ed interrogazioni parlamentari che sostengono la versione strage: si basano tutti sul lavoro di un’unica persona. Antonio Russo. In particolare ci si basa su due suoi libri: “Alle porte dell’Inferno” (1993), sull’occupazione tedesca nell’Alto Friuli, e “Planina Bala” che tratta l’episodio in dettaglio ed é stato pubblicato inizialmente nel 2002.
Antonio Russo viene definito uno storico “sui generis” che “si ferma poco negli archivi, consulta poco le tradizionali fonti documentarie”, uno che “preferisce interrogare i testimoni, ricavare la verità scavando nella memoria della gente” (Da “Planina Bala”, di Antonio Russo, Centro Culturale d’Informazione Sociale Voce della Montagna, Ed.2005, pag.12).
Il primo a citare e diffondere il lavoro di Russo é stato lo pseudostorico revisionista Marco Pirina, la cui ben nota scarsa attendibilità, il forte coinvolgimento nell’estrema destra (che lo porterà pure ad essere inquisito per il tentato Golpe Borghese), la documentata falsificazione delle liste di “infoibati” e la condanna per aver diffamato alcuni partigiani in un suo libro, potrebbero bastare a spiegare la diffusione in certi ambienti di alcune delle incongruenze riscontrate negli articoli/post/commenti consultati.
Oltre al lavoro di Russo riassunto in “Planina Bala”…… il vuoto! Niente!
L’unica fonte di riferimento per la versione “strage” é sostanzialmente il libro “Planina Bala” che riassume anche i lavori precedenti di Russo sul caso “malga Bala”. Non vi sono altri testi di riferimento antecedenti alle prime ricerche di Russo che si rivela, dunque, la persona di riferimento della storia di questa storia.
Il libro “Planina Bala” dovrò procurarmelo.
Nel frattempo cerco ancora qualcosa di serio sulla versione “scontro a fuoco”. Fortunatamente nell’Internet Archive trovo una copia del testo originario del sito dell’Anpi di Pianoro datato 2007. Vista la rarità di testi su questa “altra versione” ritengo opportuno riportarlo per intero:
Nell’ambito dei vari “crimini” attribuiti ai partigiani c’è anche la vicenda dell’eccidio di 12 carabinieri a Malga Bala, avvenuto nel marzo del 1944. I carabinieri, comandati dal vice brigadiere Dino Perpignano, erano di stanza al presidio di difesa della centrale idroelettrica di Bretto. Lo pseudostorico Marco Pirina, riprendendo quanto scritto da Antonio Russo in una sua pubblicazione del 1993 (“Alle porte dell’inferno”), così descrive la vicenda. “Il 23 marzo era l’anniversario della fondazione dei fasci di combattimento, una festa odiata dai partigiani operanti nella zona di Plezzo (festa amata invece dai partigiani di altre zone? n.d.r.). Si decise di colpire gli italiani. Per l’occasione si radunarono Fran Ursig “Josko”, il capo supremo della Brg. Partigiana dell’alto Isonzo, Ivan Likar “Socian”, Silvio Giafrate, Fran Della Bianca, Anton Mlecuz (riportiamo i nomi con la grafia errata così come appaiono, n.d.r.) ed altri, in totale 21 uomini. Questi studiarono un piano approfittando delle abitudini del Comandante Perpignano e quando questi ed il Franzan (un altro carabiniere del presidio, n.d.r.) tornavano assieme ad una ragazza li circondarono e li fecero prigionieri. In gruppo si avvicinarono con il Perpignano alla caserma, si fecero aprire (…) catturarono tutti i carabinieri (…) saccheggiata la caserma e costretti i carabinieri a caricarsi vettovaglie e vari sacchi di ogni ben di Dio, dopo aver sistemato due cariche sotto le turbine, si avviarono verso il monte (…)”. Il giorno dopo “si decise la loro eliminazione, ma questa secondo tutti doveva essere particolarmente crudele” e qui Pirina (sempre citando Russo) si lancia nella descrizione della preparazione di un “pastone miscelato con soda caustica e sale nero”, sul quale “i carabinieri si avventarono” e “dopo aver mangiato” le “urla e le implorazioni furono tremende”. Come se ciò non bastasse, all’alba del giorno dopo, “furono fatti marciare per ore sino alla Malga Bala, dove furono di nuovo rinchiusi” ed a questo punto partono le descrizioni delle sevizie con cui i “partigiani” avrebbero ucciso i carabinieri: a Perpignano “venne conficcato un legno ad uncino nel nervo posteriore dietro il calcagno ed issato a testa in giù legato ad una trave, poi furono accapprettati tutti gli altri e a quel punto i partigiani cominciarono a colpire tutti con i picconi. A qualcuno vennero asportati i genitali e conficcati in bocca, a qualcuno aperto a picconate il cuore o frantumati gli occhi (…) alla fine legati i corpi dei malcapitati con del fil di ferro li trascinavano sotto un grosso masso tra la neve (…)”.
Come al solito, quando ci troviamo di fronte a certe descrizioni così particolareggiate di efferate torture, il primo interrogativo che ci poniamo è questo: chi sarebbe il testimone che assistette a tutto questo in modo da poterlo raccontare? Se leggiamo il testo di Russo che Pirina ha riassunto, troviamo anche riportati un paio di articoli dell’epoca: ad esempio Il “Gazzettino” di Padova così scriveva il 7 aprile 1944.
“Macabra scoperta in una grotta di dodici vittime del dovere (…) in questi giorni dei camerati in armi, in una grotta fra Cave del Predil e Bretto di Mezzo hanno fatto una triste e macabra scoperta. In detta caverna infatti essi hanno rinvenuto, accatastati l’uno sull’altro, i cadaveri di dodici militi della polizia repubblicana, morti nell’adempimento del loro dovere. Le vittime sono state identificate per quelle del vicebrigadiere Nino (sic) Perpignano e dei militi (segue l’elenco dei nomi, n.d.r.). Ai poveri scomparsi sono state tributate imponenti esequie”.
Dunque al momento della scoperta dei corpi di Perpignano e dei suoi uomini, la stampa non parlò di sevizie cui essi sarebbero stati sottoposti. È vero che Russo cita anche un altro articolo (senza specificare da dove l’abbia tratto) che parla di “vittime denudate poi uccise bestialmente a colpi di piccone”, ma il resto dei particolari descritti da Russo e ripresi da Pirina non compaiono. Russo accenna al fatto che “tanti” gli avrebbero “confessato tra le lacrime” che era giunto il momento “di far sapere a tutti la verità su Bala”, ma il nome di questi “testimoni” non viene fatto. Chi dunque sapeva tutti questi particolari sulla fine dei carabinieri, e quando li avrebbe resi noti?
Un altro particolare interessante è che il Gazzettino parla di “militi della polizia repubblicana”, non di Carabinieri. In effetti, leggendo attentamente il testo di Russo (brani che Pirina non riporta, detto per inciso), si apprende che “il responsabile della produzione mineraria, Otto Hempel, ingegnere militarizzato tedesco (…) verso la metà di gennaio di quel ’44 chiede e ottiene dal comando generale SS di Camporosso l’autorizzazione a istituire un raggruppamento di carabinieri a difesa stabile della centrale idroelettrica di Bretto di Sotto”. Bisogna spiegare che la centrale idroelettrica di Bretto serviva soprattutto per far funzionare la miniera di Cave del Predil, dalla quale si estraeva piombo, elemento fondamentale per l’approvvigionamento dell’esercito germanico.
Prosegue Russo “viene così deciso di chiudere per sempre la caserma dei carabinieri di Bretto di Mezzo (…) e viene istituito il distaccamento di 16 militari più un sottufficiale (…)” che “il 28 gennaio 1944 prendono servizio presso la nuova casermetta, secondo le direttive del comando tedesco”. Quindi il gruppo di carabinieri agli ordini di Perpignano stava, sostanzialmente, agli ordini dei nazisti a fare la guardia ad un obiettivo militare strategico. Detto questo si può comprendere come l’attacco dei partigiani alla centrale di Bretto non sia stato determinato dall’”odio” per la ricorrenza dei fasci di combattimento, come pretendono Russo e Pirina, quanto per compiere un’importante azione di sabotaggio contro l’occupatore nazista.
A questo punto prendiamo in mano un altro testo, quello di Franc Crnugelj (“Na zahodnih mejah 1944” [“sul confine occidentale 1944” ndr], curiosamente pubblicato anch’esso nel 1993, come il libro di Russo, non tradotto in italiano), che spiega cosa accadde a Cave del Predil il 23 marzo del 1944.
Il gruppo coordinato da Jožko (Franc Ursic, che non era “capo supremo”, qualifica che non esisteva nell’esercito di liberazione popolare, ma comandante di distaccamento), dopo avere sorvegliato per alcuni giorni i movimenti di Perpignano, lo catturarono in una casa dove si era recato a mangiare, lo portarono fino alla centrale, dove, effettivamente, si servirono di lui per farsi aprire con la parola d’ordine, sabotarono la centrale elettrica, prelevarono armi e munizioni e si diedero alla ritirata verso i monti, portando con sé i prigionieri.
Ma nel frattempo i nazisti non erano stati certo a non fare nulla, come pretenderebbe invece Russo (che ha il coraggio di scrivere che “i partigiani, conoscendo bene le abitudini dei tedeschi i quali non amavano muoversi di notte, non si preoccupavano minimamente”): avvisati telefonicamente, si diedero all’inseguimento degli attentatori: quando i tedeschi furono in vista, i carabinieri prigionieri cercarono di darsi alla fuga ed a quel punto iniziarono le sparatorie: i nazisti contro i partigiani, i partigiani contro i prigionieri in fuga e contro i nazisti. Così scrive Crnugelj “i tedeschi spararono contro la colonna partigiana, nella quale si trovavano anche i prigionieri”.
A parere nostro, questa versione dei fatti è molto più credibile di quella diffusa da Russo e Pirina, innanzitutto perché bisogna considerare che l’esercito partigiano non faceva la guerra perché i suoi uomini si divertivano a martirizzare i nemici, ma perché volevano sconfiggere il nazifascismo. Era quindi loro interesse compiere atti di sabotaggio contro il nemico (come l’attentato alla centrale idroelettrica per bloccare la produzione della miniera di Cave del Predil), ed una volta compiuta l’azione, non è minimamente credibile che essi si siano trattenuti per due giorni nei paraggi a rischio di farsi catturare dai nazisti, solo per dare sfogo a degli istinti sadici e torturare fino alla morte i dodici prigionieri. In zona di combattimento, nessuna formazione guerrigliera con un minimo di buon senso e di istinto di sopravvivenza si trattiene con dei prigionieri a portata di mano del nemico: credere una cosa del genere vuol dire non avere la più pallida idea di cosa significhi combattere la guerra di guerriglia, cioè colpire il nemico con azioni rapide e repentine e ritirarsi prima possibile in zona sicura.
Abbiamo quindi due versioni dei fatti, una (a parer nostro, logicamente) credibile ed una no. Di fronte a queste contraddizioni, chiediamo pubblicamente ai ricercatori storici, ma anche alla stessa Arma dei Carabinieri, che nel proprio sito avalla la versione dei fatti di Russo, di voler analizzare la vicenda a fondo prima di decidere che la versione di Russo è quella veritiera, e di voler quindi sospendere, nel ricordo dei dodici caduti, ogni riferimento a circostanze non dimostrate storicamente che rischiano di conseguenza a dare luogo a strumentalizzazioni di parte. “
[Nota 1: L’autore del testo che riporta l’ANPI era Franc Crnugelj, ex partigiano sloveno, poi generale, che in vita pubblicò testi sulla storia del movimento di liberazione jugoslavo
Nota 2: Ho poi scoperto che quest’articolo é perfettamente raggiungibile QUI]
1.04 DUNQUE:
Ci sono due versioni, una redatta da un appassionato italiano e l’altra da un ex partigiano sloveno. La prima riporta una versione dei fatti eclatante, la seconda invece descrive i fatti come un’azione di sabotaggio tra le molte.
La versione strage gode di ampia diffusione in Italia.
Tuttavia chi diffonde la versione strage in Italia lo fa avvolgendola di un senso di “realtà assediata” anche se di assedio culturale non ve n’é nemmeno una minima traccia.
Per contro la versione scontro a fuoco ha scarsissima diffusione in Italia e nonostante il testo di riferimento di quest’altra versione non sia mai stato pubblicato al di fuori della Slovenia viene pure tacciata d’essere una versione che “i comunisti o pseudo tali” imporrebbero per nascondere la verità dei fatti. In Slovenia l’interesse per l’episodio é sostanzialmente nullo, se non tra alcuni storici.
Da quanto mi risulta a supporto della versione strage c’é soltanto il lavoro di un unico appassionato (Antonio Russo) cha successivamente ricevuto l’appoggio di un personaggio noto per le posizioni revisioniste e la falsificazione dei dati (Marco Pirina).
La tesi strage, inoltre, appare totalmente priva di senso ed a forte sospetto “fuffa”.
L’evento del 1944 non ha ricevuto grande interesse fino agli anni ’90-2000, ossia agli anni del boom di testi revisionisti di destra della storia del secondo conflitto mondiale.
La versione strage é stata accolta, rilanciata e promossa anche in eventi ufficiali da enti e figure politicamente ascrivibili a destra.
Ok, la curiosità é definitivamente accesa, ma non é mio modo di fare il bollare per falso un qualcosa solo perché la probabilità che sia fuffa é particolarmente alta. Ritengo opportuno verificare se questa storia, per quanto suoni strana, possa essere fondata su basi certe.
2.00 PLANINA BALA, DI ANTONIO RUSSO
Dunque. Ho potuto leggere Planina Bala di Antonio Russo, ossia il testo di riferimento della versione strage. Nello specifico la seconda edizione, quella del 2005. C’é anche un’edizione del 2011 “rinnovata e ampliata” che, da quanto scritto sul sito dell’autore, si differenzia principalmente per i nuovi interventi di due recuperanti.
Come già detto questo libro é l’unica vera fonte completa cui fa riferimento chi sostiene la versione strage.
La lettura del testo ha PESANTEMENTE confermato i miei dubbi iniziali a causa di diversi fattori: principalmente numerose criticità relative all’uso delle fonti, problemi di logica interna ed evidenti forzature interpretative.
I brani di Antonio Russo provenienti dal libro “Planina Bala” sono quelli in ARANCIONE
Le affermazioni dirette (i “virgolettati”) delle persone intervistate da Russo e riportate in “Planina Bala” sono invece in ROSSO
METTIAMO LE COSE IN CHIARO: ritengo che qualsiasi persona dotata di media intelligenza leggendo questo libro comprenderebbe immediatamente che in questo testo c’é qualcosa che non va. Anzi, che ci sono moltissime cose che non vanno: background vittimista, semplificazioni ridicole, forzature palesi, imprecisioni furbette e “giochini” con l’uso delle testimonianze, affermazioni contraddittorie, totale assenza di imparzialità attenuata da esortazioni al divino, richiami al mito degli “italiani brava gente” e la smetto qui solo per non dilungarmi.
Poiché la versione strage promossa dal libro ha un così ampio seguito ne consegue che chi la promuove non può aver letto il libro, perché se ciò non fosse, ossia se davvero tutti coloro che credono nella versione strage hanno letto “Planina Bala” se ne dovrebbe desumere qualcosa che mi rifiuto di credere, ossia che tutti coloro che diffondono tale versione sarebbero caratterizzati da un’intelletto inferiore alla media. Ritengo quindi più probabile che nella maggior parte dei casi si tratti dunque di persone che credono alla versione strage solo per averla letta da fonti secondarie e che coloro che han letto “Planina Bala” ne diffondono le teorie o per malafede o perché si trattò di una lettura assai superficiale e distratta.
A chi ritiene vera la versione strage posso solo consigliare di leggersi “Planina Bala” per rendersi conto da soli di quanto questa versione sia assolutamente raffazzonata e ridicola. Per chi é in malafede o non riesce a rendersi conto del fatto che questo libro é un’accozzaglia di tanta roba che non sta in piedi, purtroppo non é possibile fare alcunché. Quindi il testo che segue potrà forse essere d’utilità solamente al lettore distratto: colui che ha sfogliato “Planina Bala” in modo superficiale o che ha letto dei fatti di malga Bala in qualche post credendo che la citazione di “Planina Bala” di Antonio Russo fosse il riferimento ad un testo valido ed ineccepibile.
Tutti coloro che han letto il libro e si son perfettamente resi conto di cosa avevano in mano possono invece andare direttamente al capitolo 6.
Prima di affrontare gli eventi narrati ed analizzarne le fonti é però necessario spendere alcune parole sul libro stesso a causa di diverse sue caratteristiche che incidono profondamente sul valore delle ricostruzioni proposte al suo interno e sulla bontà del lavoro effettuato dal suo autore.
Innanzitutto é possibile osservare come nel testo alcuni concetti, termini e posizioni mal (o non) documentati vengono ripetuti o lasciati intendere con frequenza particolarmente elevata come a volerne rimarcare la validità semplicemente per mezzo della ripetizione. É altresì possibile osservare un particolare utilizzo di spezzoni di interviste il cui senso viene orientato attraverso interpretazioni decisamente pregiudiziali non giustificate dai dati che l’autore propone.
Queste caratteristiche sono decisamente gravi in quanto non si sta parlando di un comune testo di commento ad avvenimenti storici noti (in cui sarebbe del tutto lecito che l’autore esprimesse opinioni personali sugli eventi), ma di un testo che vorrebbe esporre una ricerca storica (la cui validità, come vedremo, é altamente discutibile) su un episodio di storia locale (anche se la portata é diventata oramai nazionale) scarsamente documentato e che lo fa muovendo gravissime accuse storiche, umane e politiche basandosi su una selezione di elementi debolissimi basati perlopiù su testimonianze orali consolidate (ma solo in maniera apparente) dall’utilizzo di numerose ma inconsistenti pezze d’appoggio ed interpretazioni personali altrettanto deboli.
Se si muovono accuse gravissime basandosi su di un unico lavoro di ricerca é giusto pretendere che questo sia supportato da prove e testimonianze assolutamente certe e che la ricerca non sia soggetta a vizi di forma.
Poiché si sta trattando un episodio storico poco noto e scarsamente documentato ci si ritrova in una situazione antipatica perché per analizzare la validità del testo, invece di procedere in modo lineare, ossia esponendo in fila i dati certi e poi proporre la lettura più sensata e confrontarla col libro (come nei lavori di debunk effettuati su altro genere di argomenti da Crono911 e Complottilunari), bisognerà procedere nel modo più farraginoso, ossia esponendo una ad una le contraddizioni, gli errori e le forzature del testo facendo emergere le illogicità delle conclusioni e la parzialità delle testimonianze.
E’un procedimento lungo che obbliga a continui spostamenti nel testo (ma come si fa ad affermare questa cosa a pag.XXX se invece a pag.YYY si dice esattamente il contrario?), ripetizioni e de-framing abbastanza noiosi. Per un attimo mi vien voglia di rinunciare.
Alla fine però mi convinco che affrontare questo lavoro ha senso per due ragioni: la prima é che a dirla tutta ciò mi diverte é che le incongruenze che ho riscontrato nel testo sono a dir poco COLOSSALI e non mi capacito che nonostante ciò questa versione venga diffusa da enti ed istituzioni pubbliche che la spacciano come una verità storica documentata e certa. La seconda é che, considerando che siamo circondati da un grande numero di queste riletture storiche politicizzate, forzate, tendenziose e spesso più note e condivise delle realtà storiche documentate, mi illudo che forse, evidenziando i meccanismi con cui é stata costruita UNA di queste, a qualcuno possa accendersi il “radar anti-fuffa” qualora ritrovasse gli stessi meccanismi anche altrove. Mi tiro su le maniche e comincio.
Per meglio esporre le caratteristiche del libro e del mondo che traspare dalle pagine di “Planina Bala” ritengo necessario fornire giusto qualche informazione base sui luoghi in cui si svolge la vicenda, giusto per darsi un’immagine spaziale:
(fonte: Google Earth)
Il grosso degli avvenimenti si svolge lungo la strada che partendo a nord, da Tarvisio, scende passando per Cave del Predil (sede di una importante miniera) e poi, nei pressi del lago di Predil cambia valle e superando la Batteria Sella passa da Bretto (ove si trovava la centrale della miniera di Cave) e per poi arrivare a Plezzo. Ma l’evento principale si svolge in una valle secondaria, la Bausiza, il cui imbocco é nei pressi di Forte Kluze, tra Bretto e Plezzo. In fondo alla val Bausizza partono alcuni sentieri che conducono alle valli vicine (tra cui la Val Trenta). Qui, a 1180 metri d’altitudine troviamo malga Bala [GPS 46°23’07.94″N 13°38’49.25″E], una semplice costruzione in pietra che i contadini della Bausiza usavano per portarvi il bestiame d’estate, soprattutto pecore. A nord di Tarvisio si parla tedesco mentre ad est si parla slavo. A sud e ad ovest si parla friulano. Un po ovunque s’incontrano rare isole linguistiche tedesche. Dall’immagine qui sopra é evidente l’ampiezza delle zone isolate in cui i partigiani avevano possibilità di muoversi.
2.01 STRUTTURA DEL TESTO
Il testo é strutturato in modo tale da fornire una fotografia della vicenda narrata partendo dal quadro nazionale all’epoca dei fatti per poi scendere velocemente nel dettaglio della realtà locale descrivendo per sommi capi alcuni eventi antecedenti a quello in questione, fornendo una descrizione del territorio arricchita da leggende del posto e aneddoti locali fino ad arrivare a singoli eventi della vita quotidiana dei carabinieri (p.es. la descrizione della vita in caserma e della cena a base di gatto, vedi pag.63-67), una descrizione di ciò che avvenne dopo il ritrovamento dei corpi e diverse opinioni personali di testimoni indiretti.
I primi capitoli inquadrano a grandi linee l’argomento trattato e forniscono una descrizione generale degli eventi nazionali ed internazionali che si limita a riassumere gli eventi quel tanto che basta per fornire un quadro d’insieme al lettore, fornendo tuttavia già qui un’interpretazione non proprio bilanciata (vedi sotto).
Dopo un’introduzione in cui l’autore descrive l’esperienza personale della ricerca segue una narrazione cronologica degli eventi in cui vengono inseriti aneddoti locali e spezzoni d’interviste e brani in cui si ritorna all’esperienza diretta dell’autore. Le interviste dunque non vengono riportate per intero ma ne vengono inseriti alcuni spezzoni, perlopiù singole frasi, che vanno ad inserirsi nella narrazione fatta dall’autore. Il testo quindi, pur procedendo principalmente sulla cronologia degli eventi del 1944, offre in parallelo uno spaccato del lavoro di ricerca dell’autore.
2.02 L’INTRODUZIONE STORICA DEL LIBRO
L’introduzione storica con cui si apre dal libro é interessante in quanto permette di capire la griglia concettuale in cui l’autore si muove ed da quale angolatura osservi l’evento che narra.
A pag.35 Russo commenta la caduta del fascismo del 25 luglio 1943 con“finalmente”, specificando che questa sia stata causata dal’“opposizione al Fascismo” e soprattutto dalle “sorti non affatto positive della guerra vera e propria”. L’autore prosegue scrivendo che la caduta di Mussolini aveva portato la guerra“nelle famiglie, casa per casa, contrada per contrada, contrariamente a quando il Fascismo imperava incontrastato”aggiungendo che l’esultanza delle folle all’annuncio della caduta dimostrava“quanto poco seguito avesse ormai sul suolo italiano il regime di Mussolini”.
EHMMM… Innanzitutto bisogna ricordare che Mussolini non fu destituito da oppositori del fascismo ma crollò su sé stesso e fu esautorato dal re. Le sorti della guerra non erano “non affatto positive” ma TRAGICHE e DRAMMATICHE. Poi iniziano le osservazioni interessanti: l’autore comunica che quando c’era LVI le cose andavano meglio poi però il popolo non lo ha amato più più perché aveva fatto male i calcoli riguardo alla guerra ma alla fine é stato esautorato da traditori/oppositori (Il re, Badoglio ecc.). L’introduzione storica rientra appieno nel ben noto mantra giustificazionista fascista riassumibile in “era figo ma poi ha fatto delle cazzate un po troppo grosse”.
Prosegue scrivendo che i tedeschi, che avevano subodorato in anticipo l’esautorazione di Mussolini“avevano cominciato a far affluire in Italia, col consenso dello stesso governo Badoglio, numerose truppe ben equipaggiate e armate di tutto punto”e che con l’armistizio dell’8 settembre“l’Italia praticamente ricominciava la guerra, in casa propria” sotto dominio tedesco”.
EHMMM… Dunque Russo dice che: I cattivi tedeschi erano scaltri e Badoglio una merda lasciando quasi intuire che la prosecuzione della guerra e l’arrivo dei nazisti in Italia furono causa sua.
Il“Re d’Italia e il capo del governo Badoglio con tutto il loro numeroso seguito e le loro famiglie avevano vigliaccamente gettato la spugna e, senza pensare a nient’altro che a salvare la propria pelle, si erano dati alla fuga […]”
EHMMM… Dunque Russo dice che: “Il Re e Badoglio avrebbero dovuto continuare imperterriti la guerra portando l’Italia ad una distruzione ancor più totale: secondo Russo il re e Bagoglio non proseguendo il conflitto hanno vigliaccamente tradito e umiliato la nazione”.
“[…] l’ex alleato tedesco, che s’era subito affrettato a gridare platealmente al tradimento invocando e minacciando vendetta ad alta voce”
EHMMM… Dunque Russo dice che: “Il “tradimento” del Re e Badoglio ha generato un casino ma ci siam pure dovuti sorbire l’umiliante manfrina dei tedeschi! Solo noi abbiamo diritto di dare dei “traditori” ai nostri “traditori””!
Prosegue raccontando di come lo stesso 8 settembre a Tarvisio 300 soldati della Guardia di frontiera, “per difendere l’onore del tricolore” “seppero opporsi con le armi alla tracotanza dei tedeschi che si erano affrettati a chiedere la loro resa” in una violenta battaglia che durò tutta la notte ma infine, sconfitti, ricevettero perlomeno l’onore delle armi dai tedeschi. Immediatamente dopo Russo fa notare che quella“fu il primo vero atto di resistenza in Italia”(grassetto mio), cui seguirono“tantissimi altri splendidi ed eroici atti contro i feroci oppressori”
EHMMM… Dunque Russo dice che: “I tedeschi erano tracotanti ma forti e giusti”. Ma questi 300 spartani si batterono per onor del tricolore o perché erano abbastanza svegli da capire cosa sarebbe loro successo (dopo l’8 settembre i nazisti deportarono circa un milione di soldati italiani che non accettarono di sottomettersi alla Germania/RSI)? É interessante osservare come Russo ammanti di positività la resistenza AI TEDESCHI mentre in tutto il resto del testo ammanterà di negatività la resistenza AGLI ITALIANI CHE HAN CEDUTO IL NORDITALIA AI TEDESCHI.
La liberazione di Mussolini e l’istituzione dell’RSI peggiorò la situazione ma“l’unico(governo ndr) ufficiale era nuovamente quello di Mussolini, voluto e imposto dai tedeschi”.
EHMMM… Quindi Russo considera l’RSI un male, ma un -male necessario- perché perlomeno forniva un minimo di stabilità. Interessante osservare come secondo Russo il Governo Badoglio avallato dal Re e in rapporti con gli americani non fosse degno di esser definito “ufficiale” al contrario di quello di Mussolini, nonostante fosse un mero burattino dei nazisti.
Il“rinato Fascismo”fu un nuovo risveglio soprattutto per fanatici. Fu un periodo di caos ed i nazisti fecero molti soprusi disumani a danno degli italiani. Un ferroviere del posto si oppose ai nazisti e dopo esser stato torturato é morto gridando “Viva l’Italia”.
EHMMM… Anche qui l’RSI viene criticato ma si addossano le colpe solo ai tedeschi ed ai “fanatici”. Poi si cita un caso-esempio di resistente patriottico.
Ma poi, “[…] com’era già accaduto nella vicina terra slava, nacque e si sviluppò la Resistenza all’oppressore con i “volontari della libertà”, meglio conosciuti come “partigiani”, che in Italia subito si divisero in due gruppi ben delineati: da una parte gli”osovani”, di ispirazione democratica, dall’altra i “garibaldini”, di ispirazione comunista”
EHMMM… Qui c’é il primo accenno di quel fenomeno noto come “virus partigiano” (vedi sotto) ossia germi provenienti dall’esterno (“la vicina terra slava”) che contagiano “noi”. Interessante poi la definizione dei due gruppi resistenziali: se effettivamente le Brigate Garibaldi erano legate al partito comunista, definire “democratiche” le Brigate Osoppo é estremamente limitativo e fuorviante.
INSERTO STORICO – parte 10 – LE BRIGATE OSOPPO
Le Brigate Osoppo nascono dal coordinamento di gruppi laici, liberali, socialisti e cattolici caratterizzati da una forte anticomunismo e soprattutto un profondissimo sentimento antislavo. Poiché i partigiani comunisti italiani collaborarono attivamente con i partigiani comunisti slavi si possono facilmente intuire le difficoltà di rapporto che intercorsero tra le Garibaldi e le Osoppo. Pur di contrastare un’eventuale espansione slava in Friuli (paura giustificata cui é interessante osservare la presenza di “proiezione junghiana”: vedi sotto) le Osoppo giunsero ad instaurare rapporti addirittura con i fascisti della X MAS. Le Osoppo, dunque, erano degli strani partigiani che nell’intento di combattere il comunismo fecero da ponte per tutta una serie di personaggi che negli anni a seguire proseguiranno la lotta antislava tra le fila della “O” e successivamente della Gladio e che, attraverso un processo di pacificazione nazionale sperimentato proprio nel “modello friulano” saranno collegati alle stragi della strategia della tensione:
“È un fronte unico che si costituisce in funzione anticomunista, in modo inavvertito dall’opinione pubblica che scambia il Movimento sociale italiano, fondato ufficialmente il 26 dicembre 1946, come espressione dei reduci della Rsi quando, viceversa, lo è dei servizi segreti italiani, americani, del Vaticano, Democrazia cristiana e Confindustria.A dare un contributo determinante alla sua formazione ci saranno, non a caso, gli uomini della divisione di fanteria di Marina “Decima” del principe Junio Valerio Borghese che, in Friuli e nella Venezia Giulia, sono stati all’avanguardia nella ricerca dei rapporti con i partigiani della “Osoppo” in nome dell’italianità.” (fonte: “il modello friulano”, Vincenzo Vinciguerra)
“Nelle pagine della storia italiana si racconta l’uccisione di un gruppo di partigiani della “Osoppo”, a Porzus, nel mese di febbraio del 1945, da parte di una squadra di partigiani garibaldini al comando di Mario Toffanin, “Giacca”.Si tace però che ad Ovaro, il 20 ottobre 1944, il capo del locale Cln, Rinaldo Cioni, conocordò con il commissario germanico, Franz Gnadlinger, l’eliminazione fisica del partigiani comunisti ritenuti più pericolosi, proseguendo “il lavoro intrapreso nel dicembre scorso”. (fonte:“il seme amaro”, Vincenzo Vinciguerra)
“Intanto nella valle del Koritnica ripresero vigore i partigiani di ispirazione comunista aggregati nel nome di Tito che intensificarono le loro azioni di vendetta e di morte”
EHMMM… La prima affermazione specifica sui partigiani “d’ispirazione comunista” (ergo: contagiati dall’esterno” – vedi “virus partigiano” sotto) mette le cose subito in chiaro: a differenza degli altri partigiani (quelli della Osoppo) che “davano battaglia a chi voleva continuare a tenere l’Italia e il suo territorio nella schiavitù e nella prepotenza dell’oppressore”, i comunisti invece no: loro compiono solo azioni di vendetta e morte e vogliono cedere pezzi d’Italia agli slavi.
Chi “era rimasto con l’Italia” aderendo all’RSI era nel mirino dei comunisti.
EHMMM… Dunque Russo sostiene che il protettorato tedesco dell’RSI era “Italia” (al contrario del meridione che con Badoglio e gli americani non era, sempre secondo Russo, “ufficiale”)
“Le truppe tedesche in alcune zone venivano accolte dalla popolazione locale con sollievo in quanto queste davano una certa sicurezza e una garanzia contro le incursioni dei partigiani”
EHMMM… Siamo in un luogo dove v’é strettissimo contatto tra popolazioni di lingue italiane, slave e germaniche. Nello specifico, l’area del tarvisiano fu pure tra quelle che vennero ottenute dal Regno d’Italia con la Grande Guerra, quindi proprio in una delle zone in cui il fascismo portò avanti la fortissima opera di italianizzazione forzata e propaganda antislava. Inoltre siamo in una zona alpina dalla religiosità fortemente radicata che é pure su una zona di passaggio obbligato in cui v’é pure una miniera d’importanza strategica e dove passavano le dorsali delle linee telefoniche che collegavano Roma-Vienna-Berlino. Non stupisce dunque che la zona fosse ampiamente militarizzata, fascistizzata e che quindi, data la grande vicinanza alla cultura germanica vi fossero località più filotedesche che filopartigiane. In particolare, dal testo traspare che Cave del Predil e Tarvisio fossero i due paesi più militarizzati ed in cui erano maggiormente presenti persone di simpatie fasciste, mentre le due Bretto sembra ospitassero diverse famiglie di partigiani (Bretto di Sotto era il paese di Socian che verrà incendiato dai nazisti per rappresaglia, Bretto di Sopra quello dove i nazisti rinvennero tra “la maggioranza di quelle famiglie” (pag.235) scorte di cibo destinati probabilmente ai partigiani )
Per concludere vien narrato di come nel primo dopoguerra vi fu sì, nella zona, italianizzazione forzata, che però non funzionò nella valle della Coritenza e dell’Isonzo, ma essendoci la miniera di Cave che dava lavoro alla comunità Russo non si spiega perché invece tra quelle genti“si stava acuendo giorno dopo giorno un odio impressionante, violento e vendicativo contro gli italiani, a causa soprattutto del sistema fascista italiano che aveva trasformato quella occupazione in una vera e propria oppres-sione politica e militare”
EHMMM… Come a dire: se un bel giorno i thailandesi s’impossessassero con la forza delle valli italiane imponendo a tutti di usare la loro lingua ed i loro costumi MA dessero lavoro a tutti nella loro fabbrica di salsa di soia (che prima faceva conserve di pomodoro), chi non si sottomettesse sarebbe uno stronzo.
2.03 STILE
Il rapporto che intercorre tra “300” ed i reali eventi della battaglia delle Termopili é forse quanto di più simile al rapporto che intercorre tra “Planina Bala” e gli eventi su cui é basato.
Sulla base della struttura e premessa storica appena descritti s’innesta un testo che ibrida elementi e stili diversi amalgamati da una descrizione degli eventi in cui l’autore s’immerge spesso nelle vicende narrate facendosi interprete di sensazioni e pensieri sia propri che di alcuni personaggi, addirittura fino al punto di arrivare a descrivere le sensazioni di orrore provate dagli uccellini del bosco (pag.127) contagiati dal “virus partigiano” (vedi sotto) utilizzando una prosa particolarmente coinvolta che conferisce al racconto aspetti romanzesco-cinematografici anche di un certo lirismo.
Se questa scelta premia in termine di scorrevolezza e coinvolgimento del lettore si rivela però problematica nel momento in cui il testo deve venir utilizzato come fonte di ricerca storica in quanto pone costantemente il lettore dinnanzi ad affermazioni e dettagli anche molto minuziosi di cui però non é ben chiaro quale sia la fonte da cui Russo le abbia attinte né se un determinato passaggio sia frutto di una testimonianza o dell’elaborazione personale dell’autore. Elaborazione peraltro molto evidente nei passaggi descrittivi:
“Nessun rumore, nessun alito di vento. Quei tanti carpini ancora scheletrici, quei faggi, quei noccioli, quei frassini ossuti e immobili! Solo ogni tanto il bramire frettoloso di un cervo, stridulo, quasi cupo, rompeva quel silenzio profondo, con la neve gelata che riluceva sinistra.” pag.122
La vaghezza riguardo a numerosissimi riferimenti, abbinata all’estrema minuziosità del dettaglio su aspetti più che secondari é una costante che si ripete in tutto il testo. Per esempio, quando vien riportato che “Al giovane Boris non era sembrato vero poter dare una mano al suo osannato ispiratore” (pag.97) é impossibile dedurre dal testo se lo stato di eccitazione interiore di Boris sia stato testimoniato da qualcuno o se si tratta dell’opinione dell’autore. Non si é dunque di fronte ad una corretta narrazione storica che risente dell’influenza dell’autore nella lettura degli eventi, bensì di un testo in cui eventi, opinioni e stile dell’autore sono legati a doppio filo in ogni aspetto. Questi tratti dello stile del testo rendono purtroppo impossibile osservare il tipo di lavoro eseguito da Russo senza esporne la prosa, in quanto se il “COSA AFFERMA” é spesso vittima di incongruenze (vedi sotto) é proprio nel “COME LO AFFERMA” che risiedono i meccanismi di tali incongruenze. Ciò implica purtroppo l’impossibilità di rendere noti gli errori di metodo e le incongruenze logiche del libro senza riportare i brani e passaggi che li contengono. Impossibile, ad esempio, comprendere la stranezza di una certa informazione fornita in due righe se non si han ben presenti i toni delle lunghe sviolinate che accompagnano informazioni di natura opposta, così come sarebbe impossibile far emergere la comunicazione implicita e sottintesa senza esporre quella esplicita.
2.04 LA (MALA)ESPOSIZIONE DELLE FONTI
Riguardo alle fonti del libro va fatta una prima chiara distinzione: il testo presenta testimonianze dirette, materiale fotografico d’epoca ed attuale, alcuni documenti dell’epoca, lettere e altro materiale, ma solo una parte di questo materiale é relativo ai fatti veri e propri poiché a causa della struttura del libro parte delle fonti riguarda la descrizione degli ambienti, della vita quotidiana nel 1943-44, aneddoti il cui scopo é fornire un’idea del periodo e del clima sociale, e testimonianze interessanti ma di secondaria importanza (per esempio: le testimonianze numericamente maggiori sono quelle relative alla vista dei cadaveri portati in esposizione dai nazifascisti nelle piazze dei paesi; testimonianze interessanti in quanto perfettamente concordi sullo stato dei corpi, ma che nulla dicono riguardo al modo in cui i corpi siano stati ridotti in quello stato). Sono presenti anche una poesia, foto dei famigliari delle vittime, foto delle autorità militari che presenziano alle onorificenze, ecc.
Le interviste, come già detto, non vengono trascritte nella loro interezza né riportate in calce bensì, nella prosecuzione del racconto, Russo inserisce frasi e spezzoni da esse estrapolate citando il nome dell’intervistato (non sempre a dir il vero) e lasciando spesso intendere che la narrazione che ne segue sia un’elaborazione delle dichiarazioni di quella stessa persona. Per esempio a pag.145 Russo riporta in virgolettato lo sfogo dell’anonimo figlio di un testimone anonimo che dichiara di aver dovuto mantenere per anni il segreto su quanto raccontatigli dal padre, ma al termine dello sfogo tali fatti tenuti segretinon vengono nemmeno narrati: dopo un paio di righe di commento di Russo sullo stato d’animo dell’anonimo figlio del testimone si riassume il tutto nella frase “Scene di odio e di vendetta atroce […]”, frase molto simile a quelle utilizzate immediatamente prima d’introdurre il figlio del testimone, ottenendo dunque un effetto panino (vedi sotto), cui segue una descrizione delle torture avvenute DENTRO la baita nonostante il virgolettato riporta chiaramente che il testimone anonimo si trovasse “nascosto dietro un grosso albero a poche decine di metri da quello scempio”, da che se ne desume che queste dettagliatissime “Scene di odio e di vendetta atroce […]” descritte successivamente a questa frase non possono esser state descritte a Russo dal teste citato.
“Il giovane comandante Perpignano (nella stanzetta principale di malga Bala ndr) intanto era costretto a seguire ogni cosa con gli occhi sbarrati, travolto dal dolore e dalla rabbia, da un terrore spasmodico e violento: perfino delle formiche affamate, attratte dal sangue, avevano cominciato a salirgli tra i capelli” (pag.146)
Può un uomo nascosto dietro a un albero a decine di metri da una malga vedere delle formiche che si arrampicano sulla testa di un uomo che sta all’interno alla malga?
2.05 SELEZIONE
Riguardo alle testimonianze dirette é necessario segnalare un ulteriore dettaglio che fa sorgere notevoli perplessità: é possibile osservare come gli stessi stralci d’intervista a Silvio Gianfrate (Srecko) vengano riportati due volte (pag.19 e pag.192) ma le due versioni differiscono fra loro con variazioni non giustificabili da semplici errori di trascrizione e che lasciano supporre un’intervento correttivo e/o selettivo dell’autore nel riportare le parole dell’intervistato. Nello specifico: nella versione di pag.19 Srecko dichiara che i sequestrati furono uccisi a malga Bala mentre nella versione di pag.192 il riferimento a malga Bala é completamente assente.
Altrettanto interessante é il modo in cui vengono presentati alcuni stralci dell’intervista al partigiano Hrovat. Per esempio: all’inizio del libro, a pag.16, vengono riportate in questo modo una domanda di Russo e la risposta di Hrovat:
[Russo ndr] “Ma perché i 12 carabinieri furono così barbaramente trucidati?” Una delle mie tante domande.
[Hrovat ndr]“E chi dice queste cose? .. lo… io non ero lassù… A colpi di piccone poi… No, no, mai fatto una cosa del genere noi partigiani! Coi picconi poi!… Su, su, dove prendevamo i picconi, i coltelli o le scimitarre? .. Sì e no avevamo qualche temperino… dodici carabinieri poi… Erano sì e no cinque, sei: pum pum, sono stati sparati e tutto è finito lì! Ma perché cercate queste cose ora? Non avete altro da fare in Italia voi giornalisti? Sono passati 50 anni… su mo’, a cosa serve riaprire certe ferite? .. Socian era il comandante militare, io il commissario politico” .
Interessante anche l’uso dei punti di sospensione che dovrebbero indicare una pausa di silenzio tra le singole frasi ma in realtà qui sembrano indicare che le singole frasi siano stata estrapolate da discorsi più ampio (magari in risposta a domande diverse), ossia presenterebbe ellissi che andrebbero invece indicate dai puntini di sospensione fra parentesi quadre ( […] ). Si osservi come con “Una delle mie tante domande” Russo censuri ulteriormente l’intervista impedendo al lettore di capire a che domande stia rispondendo Hrovat! Editata così l’intervista sembra suggerire che tra tante domande, a QUESTA, Hrovat abbia risposto letteralmente così e per chi legge l’impressione é che Hrovat, interpellato in maniera generica sui fatti, sbotti istericamente parlando in maniera impacciata all’intervistatore di colpi di piccone, temperini ecc. Ma confrontando la “risposta” di pag.16 con quella di pag.193 sorge il dubbio che la prima sia in realtà un collage di singole frasi (cherry-picking) provenienti evidentemente dalle risposte date a più domande diverse, estratte dall’intervista nella sua interezza e combinate assieme. Difatti a pag.193 la domanda posta da Russo é diversa ed é proprio Russo a introdurre nel discorso i corpi martoriati coi picconi:
[Russo ndr] “Ma perché infierire sui carabinieri in quel modo, coi picconi…!”
[Hrovat ndr] “Noi non si aveva picconi!… Nessun piccone è stato usato…! Quelle cose non si fanno. I partigiani non facevano quelle cose, non lo hanno fatto perché non lo sapevano fare!”
Negli stralci d’intervista presentati da pag.193 difatti troviamo frasi molto simili a quelle presentate a pag.16, anche qui presentate in successione separata da puntini di sospensione e mancanti delle domande di Russo:
“Ben 12 carabinieri, tenuti in vita per quasi due giorni? .. Su, mo’: dove prendevamo da mangiare per loro per tanto tempo?… Ma perché questo vostro interessamento a questa storia: è passato tanto tempo! Che inte- resse avete a rivangare questa vicenda?”
“Noi partigiani abbiamo sempre rispettato i carabinieri. Chi era coi fasci- sti no, non poteva essere da noi rispettato, ma i carabinieri cosa c’entra- vano? lo non ero su in malga… Ma è passato tanto tempo, come si fa a ricordare?.. E poi… 5 o 6 carabinieri uccisi.. .. 12!?.. No, non erano 12… Voi mi rivelate cose nuove che io non ho mai sentito… Sono cose del tutto nuove per me! … Questa cosa è stata opera di altri, non dei partigia- ni! E’ passato tanto tempo! Come pretendete che uno ricordi ancora que- sti particolari?.. 12 morti e tutti carabinieri?.. E’ assurdo, 5 o 6, non 12 e poi uccisi in quel modo! Mi fate venire i brividi!… Ammazzati poi a colpi di piccone! … No, no, mai fatta noi una cosa del genere. Dov’erano i partigiani non succedevano queste cose. Questa per noi era un’azione militare, non politica e questa è stata un’azione militare!”
In altre azioni i prigionieri venivano liberati o mandati a casa o sparati nell’azione, in questa no, come mai? .. Sono stati gli italiani a ridurre in quello stato i carabinieri o anche i tedeschi e poi hanno dato la colpa a noi. lo non credo sia successo questo che voi dite, noi si sparava ai prigionieri. Non abbiamo mai trucidato nessuno noi… Non avevamo mica coltelli, accette, picconi o scimitarre!… Su, mo’! Noi avevamo mitra, qualche temperino, mica picconi! … Ma dopo cinquant’anni voi cercate ancora queste cose? A chi interessano più?.. Cosa serve andare a riaprire queste ferite…. No, non mi va giù questa storia: nessuno li ha trucidati,glielo garantisco io. La mia parola… boh, dai, almeno al 60%, d’accordo? Con Socian ho sempre baruffato; però come commissario politico .. vincevo sempre io che ero più furbo!” “Ripeto che i carabinieri non erano nostri nemici, i fascisti sì, erano nemici!” “Ma voi giornalisti italiani non avete altro a cui pensare?… Dopo tanti anni tirate fuori ancora questa storia?” “Potevate aspettare ancora qualche anno, no?”
Sorge lecitamente il sospetto che Russo e Rinaldi, i quali non nascondono di aver provato enorme fastidio e sofferenza (pag.16) durante l’intervista a Hrovat a causa della loro antipatia naturale (pag.16) nei suoi confronti, abbiano esercitato particolare insistenza sull’ex-partigiano perché le sue risposte confermassero le storie su picconate e torture e che questi abbia reagito in malomodo (reazione che il testo lascia intendere essere segno di nervosismo da colpevolezza ma che può benissimo essere spiegata come la reazione di una persona irritata dal fatto di esser sfrontatamente accusato di essere un mostro). Non essendo note le domande a cui gli intervistati rispondono é non é possibile capire con esattezza l’andamento dell’intervista ma il tono stizzito di diversi stralci fanno supporre che l’intervistatore abbia pressato l’intervistato dando per scontato che si trattasse del membro di una compagnia di mostri.
Difatti pag.193 Russo scrive: “Ma perché trucidare i carabinieri in quel modo? A ogni mia domanda specifica, come questa, Silvo Gianfrate perdeva il controllo e alzava la voce, con gli occhi improvvisamente violenti”.“Ogni” e “Domanda specifica COME QUESTA” indicano chiaramente che le domande furono diverse e di tono simile a quella indicata, ossia una domanda in cui si da per certo che la brigata di Hrovat fosse composta da assassini spietati.
Ed a pag.194 Russo commenta così le risposte di Hrovat:
“Ci aveva quasi derisi il Hrovat, tentando di mettere tutto in ridicolo e in dubbio, facendo di tutto per confonderci le poche idee precise che in quel momento avevamo, le poche certezze che a ogni sua risposta vacillavano e di punto in bianco io mi ritrovavo a brancolare nel buio e nei misteri più fitti. Sarebbe stato un abile politico il signor Hrovat, almeno in Italia!”
Giusto per fare un esempio altrettanto violento: tu, si , proprio tu che stai leggendo, come reagiresti dinanzi a qualcuno che continua a farti domande specifiche sul modo in cui avresti violentato e fatto a pezzi un bambino dando per scontato che tu sia un mostro che commette atti del genere? Sorridendo pacatamente e offrendo una nuova tazza di the o perdendo il controllo, alzando la voce e fulminando con gli occhi questa persona insistente?
A pag.206 viene affermato che le interviste sono state registrate. Sarebbe interessante ascoltarle per intero per capire esattamente il tono con cui avvennero, che domande vennero poste, l’ordine delle risposte e se vi fu pressione sull’intervistato.
2.06 INTERVISTE, FARI E PANINI
Il modo in cui vengono utilizzati gli spezzoni d’interviste si attiene spesso a due modalità comunicative che qui chiamerò “metodo del faro” e “metodo del panino”.
Il primo consiste nel piazzare all’interno della descrizione degli eventi fatta da Russo un virgolettato che conferisce un falso senso di validità alla narrazione in cui é inserita nonostante gli elementi forniti nel virgolettato siano solitamente meno importanti della narrazione stessa. Un esempio lo si ha a pag.121,122 dove la narrazione del pasto avvelenato con soda caustica, varechina e pepe contiene al suo interno quest’unica frase-faro estrapolata da un’intervista:
“Noi abbiamo fatto da mangiare sia per i partigiani che per i carabinieri” – Ci confermerà in seguito la signora Mafalda, moglie di Lojs Gajger.
Se proprio ci si fosse dovuti limitare ad usare un unico spezzone d’intervista non avrebbe avuto più senso estrapolare la frase in cui vien data testimonianza dell’avvelenamento? O quello sui dolori provati dagli avvelenati? E invece niente: l’unica testimonianza scelta riguardo a questo episodio é la testimonianza della moglie di Gajger in cui dice semplicemente che hanno preparato da mangiare sia per gli uni che per gli altri. Quest’unica frase che non dice assolutamente nulla riguardo al punto nodale dell’episodio, inserita nella narrazione della cena genera nel lettore l’illusione che il racconto in cui é immersa sia la trascrizione delle dichiarazioni della signora Mafalda; cosa che Russo però non afferma affatto.
Esempi simili sono sparsi in tutto il libro ma il più impressionante é certamente quello delle torture. Da pag.137 a pag. 146 vengono descritte le torture eseguite sui dodici. La descrizione delle stesse é molto dettagliata:
Gli venne subito conficcato un legno a uncino, appositamente preparato poco prima, (“come quello che si usava una volta per tenere la padella del latte”) , tra il nervo posteriore dietro il calcagno e l’osso del piede: i due arti anzi furono accavalcati l’uno sull’altro in una morsa di sangue. Fu issato a testa in giù, con la parte terminale dell’uncino legata a una trave di sostegno del tetto della cucina (pag.144)
Tuttavia la narrazione delle torture presenta diversi stralci-faro di interviste che non dicono assolutamente nulla riguardo alle sevizie:
“Era una malga dove tutti d’estate portavano le proprie bestie, soprattutto pecore”. Così Bepi Flajs […] (pag.138)
“Quella volta non tutti potevano permettersi attrezzi in ferro e quindi si usavano pezzi di legno duro, in particolare pino e faggio: da questi pezzi duri si ricavavano accette e soprattutto picconi”. Così Bepi Flajs […] (pag.142)
“come quello che si usava una volta per tenere la padella del latte”(pag.144, non si sa chi sia la fonte di questa frase)
“Finalmente – mi ha confidato con le lacrime agli occhi il figlio di un pastore, il quale, nascosto dietro un grosso albero a poche decine di metri da quello scempio, aveva seguito tutto pietrificato e impotente – finalmente posso liberarmi di questo peso che mi opprime il cuore da tanti, tanti anni! Per quasi cinquant’anni ho dovuto nascondere questa verità, ma era tempo che tutto venisse alla luce! Mi sento finalmente libero, quasi leggero!”
Anche qui, poche frasi che non dicono molto fungono da illusorio faro-verità all’interno di una narrazione di cui non se ne conoscono le fonti: chi ha fornito a Russo certi macabri dettagli?
[…] con filo spinato, con le braccia dietro la schiena, coi polsi delle mani stretti ai piedi! Filo spinato che veniva poi agganciato ai genitali di quei poveri disperati i quali, muovendosi e dimenandosi nel dolore, automaticamente si sventravano (pag.145)
Un carabiniere riuscì a buttarsi per terra implorando con la foto di sua madre in mano e gridando di salvarlo per amor suo, ma quella foto gli fu strappata e conficcata in bocca. Primo Amenici, il papà di quei cinque bambini tutti in tenera età, finito giorni prima a Bretto in sostituzione di un altro carabiniere in licenza, riuscì a tirare fuori dalla giacca, prima che questa gli venisse strappata da dosso, la foto coi suoi cinque bambini e a mostrarla ai suoi assassini. Ma una picconata volante gli sventrò il cuore e quella foto gli fu conficcata nel petto, là dove fino a qualche attimo prima quel cuore aveva vibrato per quei suoi piccoli abbandonati per sempre (pag.145)
Da dove ha appreso Russo queste dettagliatissime descrizioni degli eventi non é dato saperlo, ma il testo si premura d’informarci dettagliatamente riguardo a dettagli di minor conto come il fatto che fu Flajs a raccontare che a malga Bala i contadini ci portavano le pecore d’estate e che non tutti (gli abitanti della Bausiza) avevano attrezzi di ferro. Questa moltiplicazione di frasi-faro provenienti da diversi testi genera nel lettore un “effetto panino” ossia illude il lettore che la somma di diverse testimonianze dia validità alle affermazioni prive di fonte in cui sono inserite.
2.07 ATTEGGIAMENTO PREVENUTO
Una conferma dell’atteggiamento forzatamente pregiudiziale dell’autore lo si può trovare per esempio a pag.196. Dopo che per tutto il testo Socian é stato descritto con affermazioni ed aggettivi come: il piccolo grande terribile dio della Coritenza / un padreterno privo di scrupoli o tentennamenti / colui che capeggia il nugolo di partigiani / un uomo di cui tutti avevano terrore / che porta avanti sconsiderate azioni / Era il diavolo personificato, esperto come nessun altro, padrone assoluto dei sentieri e delle strade, di giorno e soprattutto di notte /, quando Hrovat nell’intervista dichiara che la responsabilità (politica? militare?) dell’azione era di Socian, Russo commenta stizzito:
“porta il discorso su Socian che era morto da qualche mese dando a lui ogni responsabilità, tanto nessuno mai avrebbe più potuto avvicinarlo”
Ciò é assai interessante in quanto evidenzia un atteggiamento di negativizzazione forzata in cui gli archetipi necessitanti di continua riaffermazione: (1) il defunto Socian era il capo dei mostri e (2) tutti i partigiani sono mostri portano alla negativizzazione dell’affermazione di Hrovat che, pur venendo accettata in quanto confermante il primo archetipo, deve essere ammantata di negatività per riconfermare il secondo archetipotutti i partigiani sono mostri. Ecco che, anche se Hrovat fornisce a Russo un’informazione in linea con la sua narrazione degli eventi, l’autore aggiunge a quella stessa informazione una sbavatura di perfidia perché l’affermazione si conformi alla struttura pregiudiziale. Vi si può leggere anche un’elemento di proiezione junghiana in quanto accusare persone che non possono difendersi é esattamente ciò che fa Russo!
2.08 LE TANTE CONTRADDIZIONI DEL LIBRO
Nel testo sono relativamente frequenti anche affermazioni contraddittorie che vengono apparentemente attenuate dal fatto che gli elementi che si contraddicono sono spesso presentati in maniera discorsivamente separata oppure perché su determinati elementi vien posta particolare attenzione mentre gli elementi che li contraddicono vengono appena segnalati senza spenderci sopra nemmeno un commento. Alcuni esempi:
STUPORE PREANNUNCIATO? Si afferma che il sabotaggio alla centrale della miniera fosse inaspettato (pag.70) nonostante si affermi che l’attività principale dei partigiani fosse quella di effettuare sabotaggi soprattutto con lo scopo di interrompere la produzione della miniera e che i militi poi sequestrati fossero stati ingaggiati appositamente per difenderla. ( a questo proposito si veda un elenco dei sabotaggi effettuati da Socian alla miniera nel sottocapitolo 5.11)
VELOCI MA LENTI? Non si tiene nemmeno conto dell’illogicità secondo cui i partigiani riuscirono a fuggire velocemente da Bretto pur con un vantaggio di tempo ristretto (pag.150) attraverso un sentiero particolarmente impervio e rallentati dai dodici prigionieri e da un carico d’armi e vettovaglie (pag.101,102) e poi siano intimoriti dal fatto di poter esser raggiunti dai nazifascisti mentre si trovano in una malga isolata nel bel mezzo dei territori di cui erano signori incontrastati raggiungibile solo attraverso un sentiero impervio in cui nessun tedesco o italiano avrebbe mai pensato di avventurarsi (pag.139) anche perché non erano affatto pratici di quei territori come i partigiani (pag.155)
FURBI MA SCEMI? Con un certo contorsionismo Russo riesce a far passare l’impossibilità di eseguire fucilazioni ed a criticare i partigiani sostenendo a pag.186 che “fossero stati un pochino furbi” avrebbero potuto crivellare i corpi (per celare le torture). Quindi, ricapitolando: Russo sostiene che i partigiani NON potessero sparare perché il rumore avrebbe attirato immediatamente i nazifascisti ma al tempo stesso che i nazisti si muovevano in maniera impacciata (pag.186), che i partigiani spararono con un revolver ad un milite in fuga (pag.146) ma furono così“poco furbi”da non aver crivellato tutti i corpi.
PREOCCUPAZIONI NON PREOCCUPANTI? A pag.186 si sostiene che non fosse possibile eseguire fucilazioni sui monti perché l’eco (pag.139) avrebbe attirato l’attenzione dei nazifascisti ma, dopo aver segnalato a pag. 120 che malga Bala si trovava in una posizione “dove tedeschi e italiani non potevano assolutamente avvicinarsi senza essere precedentemente avvistati da lontano”, a pag.139 che “Nessun tedesco, nessun italiano avrebbe mai pensato di avventurarsi per quei ghiaioni scivolosi, col rischio di perdersi o di venir sorpreso dai nemici facilmente in agguato” perché “non conoscevano neanche l’esistenza” (pag.139) ed a pag. 127 che i tedeschi non sarebbero mai andati neanche fino a Logje“mai e poi mai sia i tedeschi che gli italiani, specie di notte, si sarebbero avventurati in perlustrazioni molto pericolose in quella zona aspra e isolata”, tanto che possono permettersi di far urlare tutta la notte i sequestrati con grida che squarciavano il silenzio e quindi nessuna preoccupazione da parte dei partigiani, a pag.146 si parla di un colpo di revolver sparato alla spalla di un milite della GNR che tentava di fuggire e non si capisce perché, una volta sparato un colpo non se ne fossero potuti sparare altri.
FREQUENTATISSIMO LUOGO ISOLATO? Da un lato sostiene che la scelta cadde su malga Bala in quanto isolata e difficile da raggiungere ma dall’altro sostiene che furono numerosi i pastori che non ebbero alcuna difficoltà a salire non visti per assistere di nascosto alle uccisioni (pag.147), tra cui l’anonimo padre di un amico di Toni Rinaldi che, a quanto sostiene, addirittura seguì quasi passo passo, di nascosto, la “via crucis” dei militi della GNR, la mattanza e la disposizione dei cadaveri (pag.18,109,139,142)
INCONTRASTATI TONTOLONI DEL TERRITORIO? Non solo malga Bala é isolata ma frequentatissima ma i partigiani, incontrastati signori di quei territori che si muovono con circospezione per controllare l’eventuale presenza di nazisti (pag.109) non si accorgono minimamente di essere circondati da diversi contadini che li hanno seguiti!
FIDATO COLLABORATORE POCO COLLABORATIVO? Gli incontrastati signori del territorio non si accorgono della presenza dei contadini ma (forse – vedi sotto) se ne accorge Gajger, “amico fidato” e “protettore devoto” dei partigiani (pag.14) che in qualche modo é conscio della presenza di Bepi Flajs (pag.147) tanto da andarlo a chiamare una volta spariti i fidati compagni partigiani (anche se il passaggio é poco chiaro e sembrerebbe che Bepi Flajs fosse tornato a Logje – vedi sotto).
SEGRETO PUBBLICO? Sostiene che la messinscena delle fucilazioni venne fatta nella certezza che nessuno avrebbe mai potuto sostenere il contrario (pag.197) ma che tutta la comunità viene a sapere fin da subito e nei minimi particolari cosa avvenne (pag.149).
PICCONATE COL TRUCCO? Il testo da un lato riporta le parole di Bepi Flajs secondo cui i partigiani dovevano far credere che i militi della GNR fossero stati semplicemente fucilati (pag.197) ma dall’altro che il massacro doveva essere volutamente violento e impressionante perché gli italiani ricordassero per sempre quella data (pag.121) e non si spiega in che modo un evento possa essere al contempo tenuto segreto e ricordato in eterno. Come si faccia poi a torturare delle persone con dei picconi ma in modo tale da far credere che siano stati fucilati non é dato sapere.
2.09 CONCESSIONI A CARO PREZZO
Il testo potrebbe non manifestare immediatamente il proprio manicheismo a causa di affermazioni critiche nei confronti del nazifascismo. Affermazioni che tuttavia s’innestano su una struttura fortemente di parte (lo si é ben visto osservando l’introduzione storica che apriva il testo) e che vengono fatte pagare a caro prezzo poiché a fronte di un numero estremamente esiguo di fredde critiche ad elementi specifici della storia nazifascista non vien fatta corrispondere una critica altrettanto blanda e limitata delle posizioni dei partigiani, bensì un rifiuto cieco e totale di ogni cosa li riguardi anche solo indirettamente. Alcuni esempi dei concetti espressi nel testo in cui sono ravvisabili concessioni esplicite ed i concetti-pegno impliciti che ne conseguono:
L’introduzione storica é sostanzialmente un “Mussolini ha sbagliato ad allearsi coi tedeschi MA, meglio LVI ed i nazi che Badoglio ed i comunisti”
L’odio antiitaliano dei partigiani nacque dai soprusi che subirono dagli italiani MA i partigiani erano comunisti e quindi in fondo se l’erano cercata.
I tedeschi erano terribili e cattivi MA erano obbligati a comportarsi così. E comunque meglio i tedeschi dei comunisti.
E così via: questo é sostanzialmente il livello delle concessioni fatte ed il modo in cui viene proposto é sempre lo stesso: la critica é esplicita (concessione) ma il concetto che ne vien fatto conseguire (prezzo) é implicito. Più avanti si vedrà meglio cosa vien messo sui piatti della bilancia dei prezzi.
2.10 AMORE E ODIO
Di eccezionale interesse é osservare il modo in cui Russo tratta i personaggi della vicenda e le persone interessate. Esempi specifici li si potrà osservare nel terzo capitolo di questo articolo, ma basti tenere a mente questo: se una persona sta simpatica e/o fornisce affermazioni utili a Russo, questa riceverà una descrizione amorevole e positiva. Al contrario: odio puro o silenzio assoluto. Qualche esempio veloce-veloce giusto per assaggio? Basterebbe già osservare come Socian vien descritto: così cattivo da poter far paura quasi a Satana in persona! Oppure il fatto che di numerosi testimoni indiretti ci vengono forniti i dati biografici ma ciò non avviene per il partigiano Hrovat che non le manda a dire a Russo quando insiste perché “confessi” ! Ma, come anticipato, questa differenza di trattamento verrà illustrata meglio nel prossimo capitolo.
2.11 INFORMAZIONI SUSSURRATE
Se alcune informazioni vengono urlate, commentate e ripetute ve ne sono tuttavia alcune che il testo riporta ma senza alcuna enfasi: vengono “buttate lì” per poi essere immediatamente dimenticate come non esistessero. Se osservate attentamente però é facile notare che hanno tutte una cosa in comune: sono tutte informazioni che potrebbero intaccare e/o smentire le affermazioni di Russo. Sorge quindi un dubbio, ossia: perché mai le avrebbe fornite? I casi sono diversi ma riassumibili a questi gruppi:
Informazioni che Russo era obbligato a riportare, come ad esempio i numerosi tentativi di sabotaggio dei partigiani in cui non viene fatto male a nessun paesano.
Informazioni utili ma a rischio, come la testimonianza del Venturini, che dichiara di esser stato per un po partigiano con la Garibaldi: informazione utile perché fa apparire il teste come una “fonte interna” ai partigiani ma pericolosa perché esce dallo schema “partigiano=demone senza contatti con la brava gente”
Gli esempi sono numerosi e già presenti negli altri sottocapitoli e pertanto eviterò di riproporli anche qui.
2.12 FALLACIE LOGICHE
Le contraddizioni del testo, unite all’atteggiamento pregiudiziale si manifestano attraverso diversi tipi di fallacia logica (maggiori dettagli QUI) e trucchi narrativi. Essendo presenti nell’interezza del testo, elencarli é impresa scarsamente utile in quanto, una volta compresi i meccanismi di queste fallacie, le stesse emergono automaticamente già dalle osservazioni di questo articolo. Per questo motivo mi limiterò ad elencare le tipologie di fallacia chiedendo a chi legge di tenerle a mente durante la prosecuzione della lettura
Straw men / uomo di paglia, ossia rapasentare in maniera infedele un avversario con lo scopo di abbatterlo e infangarlo.
Dissimulazione, ossia presentare dati in modo ambiguo.
Argumentum ad nauseam, ossia ripetere in continuazione determinate affermazioni con l’intento di far percepire all’uditore/lettore queste affermazioni come accettate.
Condanna delle alternative, ossia forzare le interpretazioni affinché convergano su una sola delle ipotesi possibili.
Affermazione del conseguente, ossia dare per scontata una connessione logica che scontata non é, attraverso una relazione causa-effetto semplificata.
Premesse contraddittorie, ossia proporre un ragionamento coerente basato però su premesse che si contraddicono fra loro.
Rimettere l’onere della prova, ossia fornire tesi e informazioni date per vere senza fornirne dimostrazione e fonti.
Eccezione che conferma la regola, ossia appellarsi all’eccezionalità ed unicità di un caso ma al tempo stesso trattandolo come un evento comune.
False premesse, ossia dare per vere delle premesse che non sono tali snaturando alla base ogni ragionamento successivo (simile al “premesse contraddittorie”).
Aneddottica, ossia aggrapparsi essenzialmente su testimonianze aneddotiche anziché inserire quest’ultime in un quadro logico coerente.
Trattamento di favore, ossia favorire le posizioni di una delle classi coinvolte nella narrazione.
Obiezioni insignificanti, ovvero elevare dubbi, anche validi, che riguardano argomenti secondari come se fossero elementi nodali di una teoria/affermazione.
Falsa inversione, ossia l’applicazione errata di [ A=B per cui B=A ] perlopiù in casi di generalizzazione (vedi) basati su dati particolari [Luca é moro e stronzo per cui tutti i mori di nome Luca sono stronzi]
Cherry-picking, (conosciuto anche come “suppressing evidence”) ossia selezionare solo gli elementi che confermano l’ipotesi di partenza.
Card-Stacking, ossia una tecnica tipicamente usata in pubblicità e propaganda che consiste nel porre continue attenzioni solo sugli aspetti che si vogliono trasmettere sorvolando invece su quegli aspetti che potrebbero mettere in discussione la narrazione imbastita
Generalizzazione, ossia attribuire, per semplificazione, a tutti i membri di una certa classe una determinata caratteristica.
Limitazione imposta, ossia introdurre limitazioni arbitrarie come se valessero universalmente.
Entimemi e non-detto, ossia lasciare che i significati profondi del messaggio emergano tra le righe senza mai affermarli direttamente (il “prezzo” fatto pagare dalle “concessioni”)
Falsa precisione, ossia dare supporto alla propria tesi agganciandoci informazioni molto dettagliate che tuttavia esulano dalla logica della tesi stessa.
Di fari e panini si é già parlato in maniera dettagliata in quanto facilmente evidenziabile anche con pochi esempi. I restanti meccanismi sono tutti più o meno presenti nel testo: alcuni con prepotenza (p.es. falsa precisione, generalizzazione, aneddotica), altri meno (falsa inversione); alcuni sono presenti in casi specifici (p.es. la limitazione imposta secondo cui Maria non poteva avere accesso ad un telefono) ed altri sono riscontrabili solo analizzando il testo nella sua interezza (p.es. generalizzazione). Pertanto li si riscontrerà non sempre attraverso punti specifici e affermazioni nette, ma man mano che verranno esposte le caratteristiche del mondo dipinto nel libro. Il lettore, ripeto, é invitato a tenere bene a mente le fallacie logiche qui elencate perché queste si rivelino spontaneamente.
3.00 IL MONDO DI “PLANINA BALA”
É particolarmente evidente che il mondo che traspare dalle pagine di “Planina Bala” noné una rappresentazione fedele e realistica di un territorio delle alpi friulane nel bel mezzo del secondo conflitto mondiale. Il mondo che traspare da “Planina Bala” é una rappresentazione ipersemplificata in cui una comunità omogenea e pacifica che sottostà per amor del quieto vivere al dominio del potente di turno (in questo caso i tedeschi) col quale ha un rapporto sia di timore che di rispetto. L’armonia della comunità però viene perturbata dalla presenza dei partigiani: esseri crudeli che scatenano il lato peggiore di tutti. Le varie caratteristiche del mondo, che ora verranno illustrate nello specifico, sono strettamente interconnesse fra loro (per questo si può parlar di “mondo”) e quindi i prossimi punti presenteranno necessariamente ripetizioni e rimandi circolari.
3.01 FRANZA O SPAGNA PURCHE’ SE MAGNA
La comunità del tarvisiano così come raccontata dal Russo é una comunità uniforme fatta di brava gente devota e rispettosa che sottostà al potere nazifascista per amore del quieto vivere. Uniformità spezzata solo dai partigiani, descritti come entità esterna, come cellula tumorale, come il lupo cattivo delle fiabe.
Il concetti di fondo é che nella comunità omogenea del tarvisiano non v’é lotta, non v’é tensione, non v’é divisione ma solo brava gente che s’adatta al potere dominante indifferentemente da quale sia. Nazisti, fascisti, romani, unni, longobardi, marziani: stessa cosa!
Poco importa ciò che vogliono i nuovi dominatori: imporre una dittatura? Culto della violenza? Sottomissione obbligata all’autorità? Abolire la libertà di stampa? Picchiare, uccidere o mandare al confino chi dissente? Trasformare le elezioni in una farsa? Imporre un regime corporativo totalmente sbilanciato a favore delle classi agiate? Militarismo estremo? Razzismo? Colonialismo? Sterminare brutalmente popolazioni non italiane? Deportare qualche migliaio di ebrei in Germania? VA TUTTO BENE! A patto che non si tocchi lo status quo basato sulla tradizione religiosa (a questo ci arriviamo tra un attimo)!
Poiché a questi continui richiami all’accettazione e sottomissione nei confronti del nazifascismo non segue alcuna apologia esplicita del fascismo stesso, il testo si potrebbe tranquillamente ascrivere alla pubblicistica afascista cattolica (sulla religiosità del testo vedi sotto) anticomunista proprio in quanto l’interesse principale é più rivolto a screditare i partigiani che ad elogiare il fascismo. Tuttavia, come vedremo, definire questo testo semplicemente afascista potrebbe essere limitativo.
Torniamo a noi: per riuscire a dipingere questa comunità omogenea ben disposta a sottomettersi all’autorità dominante per amor del quieto vivere, Russo é però obbligato a minimizzare ogni elemento che possa contrattare quest’immagine.
Difatti quando si trova costretto a citare persone del posto che collaborano coi partigiani evita di commentare (card-stacking inverso), come nel caso degli operai della miniera a pag.53 o l’arganista Krast di pag.214 che li aiuta a effettuare uno dei più imponenti sabotaggi alla miniera in cui lui stesso lavorava, o li descrive come vittime impaurite del terrore causato dal virus partigiano, come nel caso di Bepi Flajs e del contadino anonimo. Ma la forzatura é evidente, soprattutto nel caso delle persone su cui il “virus partigiano” agisce in modo ambiguo. Anche nel caso del Gajger questo meccanismo funziona male: Gajger é descritto ora come un fedele e fidato servitore dei partigiani, ora come un uomo che agisce solo per interesse, ora come un uomo che tenta di far buon viso a cattivo gioco. Il “virus partigiano” però, come già visto, in lui si manifesta in negativo solo a fatti compiuti, nella vecchiaia di Gajger che distrutto dagli eventi passati si autocostringe a vivere in un’abitazione cupa trafitto dai rimorsi, come colui che trovando la fede sceglie la via dell’insolazione eremitica.
Ma i richiami più forti restano quelli al mantenimento dello status quo: il primo pensiero del signor Berlot, che vive vicino della centrale elettrica attaccata dai partigiani, saputo che questa esploderà, é: “Così ora perdiamo anche quel poco di pane che abbiamo!”(pag.150). Il parroco Ivan Hlad raccomanda i paesani di non seguire i partigiani per non subire le ritorsioni tedesche. I carabinieri appena giunti per difendere la centrale elettrica dice siano subito presi in simpatia dalla popolazione. Il testo nel suo insieme sembra gridare “La guerra é altrove, qui non vi sono combattimenti: sono i partigiani a perturbare l’armonia”. Se i nazifascisti massacrano la popolazione per ritorsione contro i partigiani la responsabilità di ciò va data proprio a quest’ultimi: ai cattivi partigiani che hanno osato portare la guerra nella quiete delle pacifiche valli amministrate dai nazisti. Che tipo di comunità é allora quella descritta nel testo? É una comunità perbenista, qualunquista e piagnucolosa, fatta di “brava gente” innocente, poveri lavoratori che si lamentano del male che vien da un “fuori”. Una comunità omogenea unita dal vittimismo che deriva dal dipingersi come ultimi portatori di “sani valori” tradizionali originatisi in un tempo mitizzato in cui l’uomo era più vicino al “vero”.
Il piccolo mondo che fuoriesce dal testo di Russo é più in linea con una narrazione fiabesca che realista (piccola comunità unita ed omogenea, agitazione provocata da elemento perturbante con caratteristiche demoniache e aliene; narrazione semplificata concentrata sugli aspetti emotivi, ecc) atta a trasmettere una lezione morale (i nazisti erano cattivi, i fascisti, nonostante qualche eccesso, accettabili, mentre i comunisti erano e sono demoni che agiscono per il male). Essendo dunque in presenza di un’innesto fiabesco su temporalità storica si può pienamente parlare di mitologia. Nello specifico di una mitologia afascista di matrice cristiana (sulla religiosità del testo ci arriviamo, ci arriviamo…) ed anticomunista che non é interessata a giustificare l’agire dei fedeli di Mussolini ma lo accetta fintantoché questo non vada contro alla sfera religiosa cattolica. Dunque, se proprio bisogna cercare un modello di riferimento della comunità descritta da Russo non é nella storia, ma proprio nelle fiabe che lo si può trovare.
E quale fiaba o racconto per l’infanzia viene in mente quando si parla di una comunità omogenea di brave persone la cui tranquillità viene messa in repentaglio ripetutamente da un unico grande cattivo? A me vengono, vengono in mente… i Puffi!
Tutti diversi ma in fondo tutti uguali (la comunità nel suo insieme), concordi nel riconoscere come loro capo uno di loro (i “carabinieri” erano italiani come noi) cui viene attribuito il titolo di Grande in quanto anziano portatore dei valori tradizionali (la chiesa), che vivono in serena armonia (idem), ma questa tranquillità é continuamente messa a repentaglio da azioni scellerate (idem) portate avanti dal cattivo Gargamella (Socian) e la perfida Birba (i partigiani), che nella sua cattiveria é però anch’essa sottomessa a Gargamella (idem per partigiani con Socian).
Tutti buoni e innocenti. Al limite qualche concessione (c’è quello brontolone, quello vanesio, quello pigro), giusto per autoilludersi di saper rappresentare la molteplicità. Ma a dirla tutta, la comunità descritta in “Planina Bala” ha anche qualcosa in meno rispetto ai puffi: se nel momento del bisogno gli ometti blu sanno essere davvero comunità collaborando fra loro per sgominare il loro nemico, la comunità di “Planina Bala” si descrive come impaurita da tutto e da tutti ed anziché tirarsi su le maniche per combattere aspetta che un bullo si faccia notare più degli altri per poterlo insignire del ruolo di condottiero (i fascisti). É una comunità in cui la codardìa non si limita ad essere una caratteristica umana, ma viene esaltata a dovere morale la cui unica eccezione consiste appunto nel ruolo affidato al bullo, al quale é permesso esercitare violenza inaudita e illimitata, a patto che non tocchi lo status quo (solitamente bigotto e di matrice religiosa).
3.02 OMERTA’ A PUFFLANDIA
Russo insiste più volte nel ricordare che l’intera comunità venne subito a conoscenza dei fatti fin nei minimi particolari (pag.13,14,18,149) ma nessuno ebbe mai il coraggio di parlare. La cosa però suona piuttosto male: perché una comunità concorde nel condannare Socian e i partigiani per qualunque cosa succedesse in zona “anche quando lui non c’entrava niente” (pag.43), che non gli avrebbe nemmeno mai perdonato il fatto di aver “provocato” la rappresaglia tedesca di alcuni mesi prima e che ha nei confronti dei partigiani solo parole di disprezzo avrebbe paura anche a distanza d’anni di parlare di questi fatti?
Il testo lascia intendere che il motivo di tale paura fosse l’efferatezza dei partigiani, sebbene sempre il Russo ricordi che il massacro di una quarantina di partigiani nell’aprile 1943 (quello che sarebbe stato alla base della “vendetta”) avvenne proprio a causa del tradimento ad opera di un locale (pag.120) e che dunque c’era ben chi agiva e parlava contro i partigiani. Chi fu la persona del posto che tradì i quaranta partigiani? Subì forse vendette o ritorsioni da parte loro? Dal testo di Russo non é dato sapere. O meglio: il testo non cita nessun caso specifico di ritorsione partigiana nei confronti della popolazione locale se non accuse generiche (pag.42) che non si traducono mai in un nome, una data, un fatto accertato.
Al contrario vengono solo citate solo azioni di sabotaggio alla centrale, azioni contro gli occupanti tedeschi e per sommi capi anche alcune azioni dei partigiani private di contesto e motivazioni (pag.110). Buffo che l’autore non elenchi nessuna azione dei partigiani contro i civili, considerando l’impegno dell’autore nell’attribuire mostruosità ai partigiani, dato che il livello di approfondimento del testo arriva addirittura a descrivere i pensieri interiori dei militi della GNR negli attimi prima della morte (pag.141).
Il testo cita ad esempio il fatto che il parroco Ivan Hlad rimarcasse pubblicamente la propria posizione antipartigiana dinanzi alla comunità esortandola a non collaborare con loro (pag.51,52,252,265), cosa che lo porterà a nove anni di prigione “nelle mani degli uomini di Tito” (pag.252) eppure il testo specifica che “verrà liberato, ma sarà reso inoffensivo dalla ferrea repressione comunista” (non é chiaro cosa s’intenda con quel “reso inoffensivo”) e che nel dopoguerra potrà continuare ad esprimere la propria avversione verso i partigiani ad esempio portando le classi scolastiche in pellegrinaggio a malga Bala per celebrare una preghiera in ricordo dei militi della GNR (pag.18) e, si può aggiungere, consolidare nelle generazioni che seguirono la sua versione dei fatti.
In realtà quando il testo riporta azioni specifiche dei partigiani si tratta sempre di azioni di sabotaggio o agguati ai nazifascisti. Peraltro sempre descritte con un certo disprezzo e ponendo i nazifascisti come vittime inermi di partigiani vili e pericolosi (pag.52). Per questo motivo é interessante notare la totale assenza di commenti quando vien obbligatoriamente narrato di come durante l’attentato alla centrale elettrica i partigiani, trovandosi di fronte degli operai che vi lavoravano il crudele e spietato Socian… li avverte dell’imminente esplosione (pag.150) permettendogli di mettersi al riparo!
Ciò stride molto con l’impianto generale del testo e non sorprende dunque che gli operai della centrale riceveranno nel testo un trattamento ambiguo (vedi la parte in cui se ne parla relativamente al “virus partigiano”)
Secondo Russo i sentimenti dell’intera comunità nei confronti dei partigiani erano solamente di paura e terrore anche se per forza di cose una buona fetta della popolazione era per forza di cose filopartigiana (ma questa parte della comunità Russo non solo non la mostra ma ne sottace del tutto l’esistenza, tranne in brevi e rari sprazzi in cui non può evitarlo). Il fatto che Russo non sia in grado di documentare questo gran numero di abusi dei partigiani nei confronti dei civili si spiega se si tengono contemporaneamente in considerazione la già osservata illogicità di un eventuale atteggiamento negativo dei partigiani verso la popolazione e le caratteristiche pregiudiziali ed occultanti riscontrate finora nel testo di Russo che difatti si limita a vagheggiare ed alludere.
Russo dunque descrive una comunità compatta nel condannare i partigiani per qualunque cosa ma troppo impaurita anche solo per fare una segnalazione anonima ai nazifascisti nonostante, dice, fosse in buoni rapporti con le forze dell’ordine e con la dirigenza della miniera ed avesse rapidamente maturato rapporti di simpatia con i militi del GNF, nonostante il parroco esorti “privatamente e pubblicamente” (pag.51) la comunità a non appoggiare i partigiani (NB: perché mai avrebbe dovuto raccomandare la comunità in tal senso se questa era già solidamente compatta nel condannare Socian e soci, Russo non lo spiega) e sorvolando sull’importante tradimento del’43 da lui stesso riportato, dipinge invece una società che accetta di dover sottostare ai nazifascisti, dei quali ha si paura ma accetta tanto da non ritenerli nemmeno più di tanto colpevoli anche quando ammazzano civili, bruciano case e lasciano i cadaveri esposti per giorni per fare da monito.
Nonostante il quadro dipinto sia quello qui esposto, con nonchalanche a pag.176 segnala che qualcuno denunciò Maria Berlot accusandola di essere vicina ai partigiani (pag.176). “Stranamente”, nel testo i tradimenti e le segnalazioni dei partigiani vengono semplicemente riportati senza approfondire nonostante, visti i toni, ci si aspetterebbe un lungo panegirico sul coraggio di queste persone nel superare il tremendo ed intimo terrore nei confronti di una vendetta partigiana. Allo stesso modo viene riportato senza alcun commento uno stralcio di un’intervista ad un operaio delle miniere che testimonia di come all’interno della miniera chi accusava i partigiani del massacro lo doveva fare sottovoce “per paura gli uni degli altri” (pag.207) dichiarando anche qui che in realtà non TUTTA la comunità era antipartigiana. Russo però preferisce far passare l’intera ferra di comunità filopartigiana per “spie” e “traditori” infiltrati nella società della “brava gente”.
Sempre con la stessa assenza di commento o analisi, a pag.208 viene rivelato che almeno due-tre partigiani (di cui non viene fatto il nome) lavoravano in miniera assieme agli altri operai. Evidentemente Russo non é intenzionato a porre troppa attenzione su questi fatti che é tuttavia obbligato a segnalare.
Vien da chiedersi perché mai, all’epoca della pubblicazione del libro, un membro di una comunità così unita nel condannare la compagnia di Socian dovrebbe aver timore di qualche vecchio partigiano settanta-ottantenne e che senso possa avere per un contadino della Bausiza, valle che non conta più di venti case, di celarsi dietro all’anonimato. Quanti mai potranno essere i contadini della Bausiza per sperare di “scampare al terrore partigiano” semplicemente celando il nome? Anche perché, come Russo stesso dimostra a pag.235 e pag.239 il fatto che i dodici furono uccisi dai partigiani di Socian era un fatto noto alle forze dell’ordine anche a conflitto finito e non si vede perché una comunità compatta nel condannare Socian avrebbe avuto paura ad accusare Socian a dei carabinieri che già sapevano della colpevolezza di Socian.
Il fatto é che i partigiani vengono descritti, a seconda del tipo di emotività necessaria, ora come sparuti gruppi di elementi alieni alla comunità della brava gente ed ora come una potentissima rete tentacolare di stampo mafioso e questo non é che un tratto tipico della cultura di destra.
Perfetto concentrato di cultura di destra: autoassedio da bacilli corruttori esterni, culto dell’uomo della provvidenza, mito del martirio intenzionale, culto nobilitante della violenza e, non detto, elogio della sottomissione volontaria (fonte)
3.03 PARTIGIANI VS. BRAVA GGGENTE
Come visto il testo insiste molto nel ricordare che l’intera comunità fosse spaventata dai partigiani, ma quando tenta di documentare azioni dei partigiani verso la comunità i casi segnalati sono pochi ed estremamente lacunosi:
A pag.110 Myza Komac testimonia di aver visto “una donna, in cortile, mentre veniva uccisa dai partigiani” (pag.110) ma non viene riferito né chi fosse né quando ciò sarebbe avvenuto né di cosa fosse accusata (era forse una spia nazista?). Tuttavia il testo riporta anche l’opinione di Myza secondo cui “facilmente intendevano uccidere il marito di lei, non lei”. Come e perché sia giunta a tale conclusione non é dato sapere anche perché nemmeno il nome del marito viene rivelato.
A pag.42 si dice che Socian girasse casa per casa “col mitra spianato” ad obbligare gli uomini a seguirlo, specificando che “Chi osava opporsi o contrastarlo aveva finito di vivere in pace”. Non viene però segnalato neanche un caso di persona ammazzata per aver rifiutato di unirsi a Socian.
A pag.205 Francesco Mrakic testimonia: “Socian in quel periodo andava casa per casa, mitra spianato in mano, e costringeva tutti a seguirlo tra i partigiani. Chi rifiutava, finiva di vivere, nel vero senso della parola, perché diversi lui li faceva fuori seduta stante. Molti partigiani che io conosco sono stati costretti da lui a seguirlo solo per le troppe minacce ricevute. Anche con me ha usato lo stesso sistema”. Essendo ancora vivo si suppone che dunque Mrakic sia entrato a far parte della banda di Socian. Era dunque uno dei partecipanti della strage? Era un comunista? O un partigiano cattolico antislavo? Anche qui il testo non dice più nulla.
Un po poco per affermare che i partigiani facessero più paura dei nazifascisti le cui stragi pubbliche sono riportate anche dallo stesso Russo.
Eppure quando Russo deve elencare azioni partigiane le uniche di cui fornisce dati certi sono i sabotaggi (perlopiù alla centrale):
I partigiani compirono numerose azioni tra il 10 ed il 30 settembre 1943 (pag.51); il 10 ottobre 1943 fecero deragliare due treni della miniera (pag.51); pochi giorni dopo assaltano un furgone pieno di ufficiali tedeschi (pag.52); qualche settimana dopo falliscono nel tentativo di far scoppiare un altro trenino della miniera (pag.52); il 19 dicembre, con l’aiuto di alcuni operai, danneggiano parzialmente la centrale termoelettrica della miniera e quella idroelettrica di Plezzut (pag.52); gli scontri tra partigiani e tedeschi erano all’ordine del giorno, sia sulla strada che alla miniera (pag.54); un giorno riescono a far saltare le pompe del quindicesimo livello (pag.55); un’altra volta minarono il “frantoio” della miniera ma alcuni alpini ne impedirono lo scoppio (pag.55). E’proprio a causa di queste numerose azioni che il 4 gennaio 1944 l’ingegnere della miniera, che dava ordini ai soldati tedeschi
Ma nonostante ciò Russo afferma per ben due volte che l’assalto alla centrale elettrica di Bretto fu del tutto inaspettato (pag.77,100)
Interessante notare come proprio nel raccontare una di queste azioni, a pag.54, nel riportare un’azione gestita male dai partigiani é obbligato a rivelare anche che i partigiani sapevano essere magnanimi (lasciando libero l’ostaggio italiano), che anche un altro dei parroci locali era filotedesco, che i tedeschi torturavano i partigiani ed a nascondere la fine che fece il soldato tedesco rapito (forse per non rivelare che NON fu torturato?).
Le azioni partigiane che Russo meglio descrive sono elencate nel sottocapitolo 5.11 e, posso già anticiparlo: sono solo azioni di sabotaggio.
3.04 I DODICI ANGELI PATRIOTTICI
La differenza di trattamento dei vari personaggi di questa storia può esser riassunta da un solo aggettivo: cartoonesco. Il modo in cui ogni singolo personaggio viene introdotto, le osservazioni sulla sua persona, sul suo agire sono elementi particolarmente chiarificatori delle griglie concettuali entro cui l’autore si muove. La descrizione dei dodici é molto dettagliata ed é inserita in un rapporto perfettamente dicotomico con i partigiani. Per ogni carabiniere v’é una breve biografia, la descrizione della famiglia e degli affetti, dellle abitudini quotidiane e la vita di caserma. Sono tutti dipinti come dei bravi ragazzi, sani, onesti, timorosi di Dio e con la testa sulle spalle a cui é capitata una disgrazia terribile. Questi alcuni dei modi in cui vengono descritti:
disgraziate vittime predestinate / poveri, semplici uomini italiani con la divisa di carabiniere addosso / Erano italiani e carabinieri e volevano esserlo fino in fondo / patrioti / devoti / Avevano fatto il proprio dovere, fino all’ultimo / designati a morire per la Patria che non avrebbero potuto dimenticare né tradire / (per i carabinieri) era giusto morire con onore, nel nome dell’Italia che avevano sempre amato e difeso / L’importante era non aver paura, non mostrare loro, ai partigiani, di aver paura. Se dovevano morire, come ormai era chiaro, era giusto morire da eroi. Erano carabinieri, erano italiani e non potevano non morire che da carabinieri e da italiani, a testa alta, guardando in faccia i propri aggressori! / poveri, inermi e incolpevoli / 12 inermi e pacifici carabinieri / 12 figli
La vicinanza ai dodici si esprime anche indirettamente, ad esempio riportando le testimonianze e le foto dei loro parenti e le peripezie di questi per ottenere il trasferimento delle salme, aneddoti come quello della civetta che cantò il 24 marzo (pag.223) o della lana che la signora Koserog doveva usare per fare dei guanti ad uno di loro (pag.70,72,200,245). O con la testimonianza di Nino Mafezzini, che quel giorno sarebbe dovuto essere in caserma e quindi si salvò, o ancora riportando dettagli di contorno, come il nome del falegname che preparò le loro bare (pag.173) e numerose testimonianze di gente del posto che conobbe i militi o che ne vide i corpi martoriati.
L’intento, peraltro esplicito, del testo é quello di riabilitare la figura dei dodici in chiave eroico-nazionalista e martirologica:
“Certamente sono morti da eroi, certamente sono morti da martiri, immolati per la loro fede e il loro essere carabinieri e italiani” (pag.264)
Numerose le esortazioni al lettore a calarsi nei panni dei carabinieri, nel loro stato d’animo e nelle sensazioni da loro provate, fino al punto di descrivere i PENSIERI dei sequestrati. Ciò però avviene solamente per i carabinieri.
3.05 I SATANICI DEMONI DELLE MONTAGNE
Per i partigiani no.
Per i partigiani bastano giusto due dati biografici dei capi e innumerevoli richiami negativi. L’autore non tenta nemmeno di indagare sull’identità dei partigiani che avrebbero partecipato alla strage, se non molto timidamente verso la fine del testo citando solamente i nomi di alcuni partigiani sospettati di poter avuto far parte del gruppo: gli é sufficiente indicare chi fossero i capi che vengono descritti come esseri barbari e spregevolissimi. Nel testo di Russo i partigiani non sono persone: sono semi-umani rappresentati dagli aggettivi di disprezzo che gli vengono attribuiti. I partigiani di Russo non hanno amici né storia. I partigiani non hanno una vita: sono solo strumenti di una follia più grande di loro. I partigiani perturbano l’ordine del mondo con la loro stessa presenza. I partigiani non fanno parte della comunità, ma si nascondono all’interno di essa (pag.162). I partigiani non meritano neanche una foto (in realtà una vecchia foto di Socian é presente a pag.255, ma ai partigiani intervistati non viene riportata manco un’immaginina in formato francobollo e ciò da molto a cui pensare se invece a pag.175 troviamo la foto di un fienile della famiglia proprietaria del terreno in cui furono seppelliti i dodici e a pag.246 la foto della famiglia di un ex milite della GNR che partecipò al recupero dei corpi). Se i Carabinieri giunti in paese da poco si fanno subito benvolere e creano un legame con i locali (pag.95), i partigiani originari del posto invece sono malvisti da ogni paesano fino addirittura all’ex vicino di casa anch’egli ex-partigiano (pag.43) e vengono narrati come un corpo impazzito estraneo alla comunità ed alla socialità della “brava gente” del posto. Nel testo di Russo i partigiani non sono ex-soldati o padri di famiglia, non sono persone che hanno una religione o dei desideri: sono semplicemente “partigiani comunisti” e questo basta.
Nel testo di Russo partigiani sono ora tanti ora pochi, a volte appoggiati da molti ma più spesso da nessuno: questi indici di misura però non cambiano secondo criteri oggettivi ma vengono comunicati in negativo e/o per negazione su base emozionale. Per esempio: quando il testo si concentra sul disprezzo della comunità verso i partigiani questi sono solo la banda di Socian, ma quando il testo deve narrare la paura della comunità per i partigiani questi assumono la forma di una rete criminale dai mille tentacoli.
“Nonostante la presenza asfissiante dei tedeschi, i partigiani erano onnipresenti, ma invisibili come e più di prima” (pag.214)
Siamo qui di fronte ad una forma del noto paradigma dell’ “immigrato pigro-attivo” che é al contempo “troppo fannullone per voler lavorare” e “così attivo da rubarci il lavoro”. I partigiani sono descritti come “uomini di grande fedeltà e di sicura garanzia” per i loro capi ma al contempo si afferma che sono paesani diventati partigiani solo perché obbligati con la forza e le minacce da Socian: costretti con la forza a diventare belve sanguinarie.
Alcuni dei modi in cui sono descritti i partigiani senza nome (Socian e Ursic sono trattati a parte):
subalterni / sottomessi / quasi riverenti / diabolici / come cani da caccia, tenuti a digiuno e alla catena, cui viene concessa di colpo la libertà di azione e si scatenano violentemente e si avventano rumorosamente sulla preda / assetati di sangue e divorati dall’odio e dalla vendetta / feroci / carnefici / furiosi / violenti / ladri / comunisti fanatici e speranzosi oltre che eroi di pura razza (in senso di sberleffo ndr) / “ogni grido disperato di quei poveri malcapitati anzi era per (i partigiani) come un bacio di sollievo e di refrigerio appagante” (pag.127)
Queste descrizioni così estremizzate fan capire fino a che punto in questo testo le persone vengono letteralmente sostituite dai personaggi con cui vengono rappresentate.
Per quanto l’impegno di Russo nel demonizzare i partigiani sia totale, nell’arco dell’intero libro non é in grado di citare un solo caso in cui i partigiani abbiano malmenato/ferito/rapito/ucciso un solo civile ma, essendo obbligato ad elencare almeno alcune cose fatte dai partigiani elenca una serie di azioni di sabotaggio o guerriglia nei confronti dei nazifascisti tentando di porre l’accento negativo dove può, ad esempio quando a pag.52 dove un’imboscata mordi-e-fuggi dei partigiani ad una vettura di ufficiali nazifascisti viene commentata così:
Momenti di terrore indescrivibili coi partigiani che prontamente ed eroicamente guadagnavano la macchia e la popolazione che aveva ascoltato gli spari col cuore più che impazzito!
Quando invece deve descrivere episodi non negativizzabili li segnala freddamente, senza minimamente tentare un’accenno di commento:
Il gruppo di Silvo Gianfrate con un’azione a sorpresa riuscì a circondare ben quattro fortini in mano agli italiani: oltre 100 i prigionieri, lasciati però, subito dopo, liberi di fuggire e di mettersi in salvo. (pag.214)
A questo punto é interessante osservare l’uso dei tre aggettivi strettamente connessi tra loro: “partigiani”, “slavi” e “comunisti”.
Storia di 12 carabinieri barbaramente massacrati da partigiani sloveni comunisti il 25 marzo 1944 a Malga Bala perché italiani
Quando due di questi aggettivi compaiono assieme sono solitamente abbinati a termini negativi come “massacro” (pag.3), “odio e vendetta” “uccisione” (pag.7), “paura” e “minacce” (pag.233), “persecuzioni anche cruente” (pag.39), “uccisione di 12 inermi” (pag.13) “fanatici e speranzosi oltre che eroi di pura razza” (in senso di sberleffo ndr. pag.147), “diabolico piano” (pag.81), “Neanche alle bestie si fanno quelle cose” [NB: panino] (pag.205) “massacrati dagli odiati” (pag.219) “paura” “minacciare” (pag.233) “strage diabolica” (pag.247) “terrore” (pag.177) .
Ciò si ripete anche con negativizzazioni più sottili come quella a pag.74 in cui si parla della madre di uno dei “carabinieri” che era “lontano e tra i partigiani slavi”, ossia dando ai “partigiani slavi” la funzione del lupo cattivo della storia. Ciò avviene anche nelle attribuzioni negative specifiche per i capi partigiani, in particolare Socian.
3.06 JOSKO (Franc Ursic)
Interessante notare l’insistenza con cui Russo continui a chiamare Franc Ursic (Josko) con l’appellativo di “capo (o comandante) supremo” (7 volte), titolo attribuitogli solamente da Russo al posto della reale qualifica di comandante di distaccamento che nel testo viene usata solo una volta (dimostrando che Russo é perfettamente a conoscenza del grado reale di Ursic). Qualifica che Russo dichiara peraltro in maniera molto generica: “I capi del distaccamento però, e cioè Frane Ursic Josko, Silvo Gianfrate Srecko, Ivan Likar Socian e il commissario Lojs Hrovat, sembravano […]” (pag.109)
Fatto interessante perché evidenzia la volontà non trasmettere il dato storico reale, ma di caratterizzare il personaggio solamente attraverso lo status, peraltro dipinto come più elevato di quello reale. Il disinteresse umano e storico nei confronti di una determinata parte dei protagonisti della vicenda, confrontata con la vicinanza umana e spirituale ai carabinieri é particolarmente illuminante. E’altrettanto interessante osservare come se da un lato ad Ursic viene riservato un ruolo tanto importante, dall’altro é trattato come una figura assolutamente assente, che non decide né fa nulla. Ursic non parla né agisce né emana alcun carisma: é solamente una mera presenza.
3.07 SRECKO (Silvio Gianfrante)
Come già visto Srecko era ancora in vita all’epoca della ricerche di Russo e quindi lo ha potuto intervistare. Lo descrive come un uomo “gentile, alla mano, disponibile, da vero gentiluomo” che li accoglie nel suo “cortile di casa, alberato e fresco” e che solo quando Russo insisteva nel far domande “sul perché di quella strage, si faceva prendere dalla rabbia e dai fumi dell’ira” (pag.191). Durante l’intervista Srecko descrive minuziosamente alcuni episodi ma Russo lo incalza con domande sulle torture, sul veleno ed i picconi. Srecko s’innervosisce, perde il controllo, alza la voce e risponde che i dodici furono semplicemente fucilati. Russo conclude commentando che i partigiani ancora viventi mantenevano la linea di “insistere su particolari contrastanti” (pag.194) perché quella era la “parola d’ordine”. Il testo non tenta nemmeno di presentare la persona-Srecko, limitando a fornire la descrizione cortese dei suoi modi galanti, la sua reazione violenta alle domande di Russo e la posizione lapidaria dell’autore che sostanzialmente non gli vuol credere. Russo ci informa però che Srecko nacque il 1922 a Oltresonzia (pag.191)
3.08 HROVAT (Lojs Hrovat)
Come già descritto nel sottocapitolo sulla selezione delle fonti, Russo non nasconde affatto la sua antipatia a pelle per Hrovat. Russo lo descrive come un uomo “sicuro di sé”, di quelli che “tentano di girarti a loro piacimento, per allontanarti dal tuo problema reale” (pag.16). Ma quando Russo e Rinaldi iniziano ad insistere nel far domande che danno per scontata la colpevolezza dei partigiani, Hrovat non si limita a negare come Srecko e risponde per le rime. Ancor peggio che con Srecko, Hrovat non riceve alcun genere d’attenzione: il lettore viene informato che l’intervista avvenne il 19 giugno 1992 (pag.194) ma non viene spesa nemmeno mezza riga di biografia sull’uomo: né data né luogo di nascita.
3.09 SOCIAN (Ivan Likar)
Particolare attenzione viene riservata da Russo a Socian, il capo partigiano locale. Alcune delle frasi ed aggettivi a lui attribuiti sono:
energico / senza scrupoli / un padreterno, un piccolo dio / autoritario e deciso / focoso / scaltro / insopportabile / sanguinario / macellaio / La gente in genere non gli era favorevole / amava la guerra, per sua natura / Era considerato un dio dai suoi tanti ammiratori e sostenitori, il piccolo dio della Coritenza / In pochi anni si era creato una fama terribile in zona, tanto che al suo nome diverse donne si facevano velocemente il segno della croce invocando ripetutamente Dio / Andava casa per casa, da gente amica e sconosciuta, col mitra spianato […] per costringere gli uomini a darsi alla macchia con lui e gli altri partigiani / Chi osava opporsi o contrastarlo aveva finito di vivere in pace / guerriero nato, istintivo, specialista in mille trucchetti di guerra /
Russo insiste nel ricordare come Socian fosse malvisto dall’intera comunità, tanto che nel dopoguerra le madri apostroferanno i figli indisciplinati con lo spauracchio del partigiano urlando “Siete dei Socian!”, ma che all’epoca dei fatti tutti lo riverivano per paura. Così come per i partigiani in generale il testo non riporta nemmeno l’esistenza di una sola persona favorevole a Socian (tranne Boris che però é già descritto come vittima del “virus partigiano”), il che é strano se si considera che é lo stesso Russo a far notare per ben quattro volte che Socian viene celebrato come “eroe nazionale della Jugoslavia” (pag.14,19,215,257). Un eroe nazionale senza nemmeno un sostenitore? Non é che forse Russo ha dipinto l’intera comunità come omogenea alle posizioni di una sola parte evitando di mostrare la parte opposta della comunità rimuovendone le opinioni dal proprio quadro? In effetti vi é una certa linearità nel celare una parte (metà?) della comunità come se non esistesse se si vuol trattare i partigiani, che proprio da quella parte della comunità emergono, come un’entità aliena.
Non bastasse si aggiungono anche alcuni aneddoti melensi utili solo a negativizzare l’immagine di Socian, come l’aneddoto riportato a pag.215 che qui riporto per meglio far comprendere il livello: é il caso di quella che all’epoca era una bambina e che proverà “enorme delusione e una profonda amarezza” nei confronti di Socian in quanto gli promise di regalargli una bambola ma poi se ne dimenticò. (pag.215)
(Socian é ferito nel bosco ma viene accudito da una donna ed una bambina che vivono in una malga nei dintorni. E’ proprio la bambina che si occupa materialmente di portare il cibo al ferito ndr) “In questa occasione Likar riuscì ad accattivarsi la fiducia e l’affetto di quella ragazzina, a cui promise che, a guerra finita, le avrebbe fatto pervenire una bambola quale segno di ringraziamento. Ma poi non manterrà la promessa, anzi, incontrandola, non la riconoscerà neanche e la giovane di Fusine conserverà di lui, nel frattempo riverito eroe nazionale comunista sloveno, una enorme delusione e una profonda amarezza.”
Socian é un demone che si, é nato da queste parti ma non é un membro della comunità: é un mostro che deve solo essere combattuto.
Ma a pag.43 il Luciano Riccardo Aldegheri, vicino di casa dell’ormai defunto Socian, ricorda come a questi venisse data la colpa per qualsiasi cosa succedesse:
“Col tempo, nella zona del Coritenza e dell’Alto Isonzo s’era fatto un nome, come partigiano prima e come capo partigiano poi, tanto che a lui veniva attribuito qualsiasi tipo di azione, sia in bene che in male. Qualsiasi cosa succedeva insomma, la frase era unanime: “E’ stato Socian!” Era il parere di tutti, anche quando lui non c’entrava niente”.
Russo ricorda soprattutto come “l’intera comunità” se la prese con Socian per un caso in particolare, avvenuto nell’ottobre del 1943.
Nell’ottobre del 1943 “circa nove soldati tedeschi furono attaccati presso Passo del Predil vicino allo sbocco della galleria di Bretto. 3 (altre fonti parlano di 4) militari venero uccisi. Il giorno dopo i tedeschi circondarono Bretto, incendiarono tutto il paese e fucilarono tutti gli uomini radunati (il più giovane 16 anni)” (fonte: straginazifasciste)
Il ricordo dell’incendio e delle uccisioni da parte dei nazisti resteranno scolpite nella memoria della comunità locale (pag.43)
NB: Si dia per accettato che quando il testo parla di “comunità locale” intenda un’unica ed armoniosa comunità omogenea, la Pufflandia di Russo. Il rastrellamento venne ordinato da un certo Hempel, commissario tedesco del tarvisiano:
“A Bretto Superiore i soldati tedeschi operanti nella battuta, rinvenuti nelle abitazioni civili materiali di armamento e munizionamento nonché forti quantità di vestiario militare, incendiavano diverse case ed arrestavano alcune persone accusandole di collaborazionismo partigiano”(pag.240).
Anche militi italiani in servizio al passo Predil raggiunsero Bretto per seguire le operazioni.
Dalla testimonianza del carabiniere Brunero Caselli:“ […] i tedeschi rastrellarono tutti gli uomini, per lo più sloveni italianizzati dopo la guerra del 1915/18, e ne fucilarono 17. Quindi raggrupparono tutti i ragazzi che riuscirono a trovare, li misero davanti alla colonna che stavano formando e tutti insieme prendemmo la strada per il Passo. Con quello “scudo umano” i “titini” non osarono attaccare….” (pag.52)
I corpi vennero lasciati esposti per fare da esempio ai passanti finché, giorni dopo, il parroco Ival Hlad ottiene dalle SS il permesso di seppellirli (pag.53,62). Tuttavia, a detta di Russo, “l’intera comunità” non se la prende più di tanto con i nazifascisti per la strage da essi compiuta, e per l’incendio delle case bensì con Socian ed i suoi partigiani, colpevoli di aver provocato i tedeschi (pag.208)!
Qui la cosa si fa davvero eclatante:
I partigiani uccidono 3 o 4 tedeschi. I tedeschi per rappresaglia, anziché dar la caccia ai partigiani uccidono 16/17 civili ed incendiano l’intero paese (uccidendo un’altra persona rimasta in una delle case incendiate). E qual’é il commento di Russo a ciò? NESSUNO. Pagine e pagine a riportare sensazioni e voci di paese riguardo a Socian ma un’evento devastante come questo viene risolto sbrigativamente:
“Non è il caso di soffermarci oltre su questo”. (pag.12)
Ciò che traspare é un’impostazione del tutto accondiscendente verso la rappresaglia tedesca, come se fosse naturale ed accettato che ad un’azione di guerriglia i nazisti rispondessero ammazzando civili inermi. Possibile che delle persone intervistate dal Russo non ve ne fosse nemmeno una che abbia speso qualche parola contro i tedeschi? Possibile che TUTTI abbiano addossato la responsabilità della strage nazista ai partigiani? Quegli stessi partigiani che per il solo fatto di esistere dovevano essere supportati proprio da una parte della comunità che nel testo di Russo non appare mai? Il non detto che emerge da questo testo é strettamente connesso alla narrazione ipersemplificata della comunità dei Puffi: da un lato la brava gente che fa parte di una comunità armoniosa e pacifica (che é però disposta a sottostare “per amor della tranquillità” ai nazifascisti nonostante ne siano intimoriti) e dall’altro i partigiani: sparuti ed isolati bacilli esterni alla comunità che portano solo caos, distruzione, follia e morte in quanto aizzati dal demone-Socian. Qui siamo dinnanzi ad un topos ben noto della mitopoiesi fascista: quello del “tedesco che ci ammazza ma nel giusto”!
Bisogna spendere anche qui qualche parola…
Giusto per capirci: se domani un esercito alieno invadesse la Terra e dicesse ai terrestri “per ogni alieno che ucciderete noi ammazzeremo 300 umani” la soluzione sarebbe non combattere? Ecco, questo é sostanzialmente ciò che sostiene chi, in altri contesti, si fa bandiera di concetti quali onore, dovere, sacrificio, coraggio: l’elevazione della codardia a dovere morale.
Peccato che, come già visto, per far reggere la narrazione del “tedesco che ci ammazza ma nel giusto” Russo é costretto a nascondere l’esistenza di un’intera fetta della popolazione e mettere sbrigativamente in secondo piano episodi come l’uccisione brutale di una quarantina circa di partigiani, a passare l’improbabile tesi che nessuno in paese abbia attribuito la responsabilità della rappresaglia tedesca ai tedeschi stessi, ad usare ogni elemento negativo disponibile (per quanto parziale e strumentale) per demonizzare i partigiani ed agire in maniera specularmente opposta con i dodici sequestrati senza nessun interesse a fornire un quadro più realistico di una comunità divisa in vari gradi fra filocollaborazionisti e filopartigiani. Russo non lesina descrizioni sulla bontà d’animo del dirigente austriaco Krivitsch che tanto s’é fatto amare dalla gente del posto ma poi non osa commentare il fatto che proprio dei paesani lo uccisero nel maggio del 1945 (pag.50).
Nel testo i tedeschi sono una presenza malsopportata ma umana che manifesta violenza sui civili solo per colpa dei partigiani ed a causa della situazione in cui si trovano. I tedeschi sono descritti come un’entità ALTRA (per cui é possibile criticarne le brutalità) ma non ALIENA quanto i partigiani comunisti. Se i partigiani vengono da un’altro pianeta e non sono nemmeno classificabili come umani, i tedeschi sono lo stronzissimo cugino d’oltralpe che fondamentalmente non sarebbe diverso da noi ma, per l’appunto, é stronzissimo e ci stiamo un po sui coglioni a vicenda ma é sempre meglio degli alieni comunisti.
Ecco che i tedeschi possono essere anch’essi antiitaliani (pag.39) e dei criminali che compiono atrocità inenarrabili come gli esperimenti coi gas sui prigionieri del campo di sterminio della Risiera di San Sabba (pag.191,253), ma al tempo stesso il testo gli riconosce la dignità di chi concede l’onore delle armi (pag.36) ed é possibile che i dirigenti tedeschi delle cave si facciano ben volere dalla gente del posto (pag.50). Concessioni “umane” impossibili da trovare nei confronti dei partigiani.
Se [quegli stronzi dei nostri cugini] provano a comandarci li riempiamo di botte, ma se nei paraggi girano [alieni schifosi], con [quegli stronzi dei nostri cugini] ci tocca, ahinoi, far comunella.
Sostituire [quegli stronzi dei nostri cugini] con [i nazisti] e [alieni schifosi] con [partigiani slavi comunisti] ed ecco che il rapporto dell’autore con i tedeschi é bello che spiegato
Detto in altri termini: vittimismo e chiagni e fotti, ossia lamentarsi delle brutalità dei nazisti ma al tempo stesso tenerseli buoni. Tenerseli tanto buoni da… non chiamarli nemmeno “nazisti”!
Innanzitutto vengono raramente definiti tali: ai termini “nazis*” che compare solo 4 volte nel testo, “nazifascis*” (1 volta), “SS” (10 volte), RSI (20 volte), “fascis*” (56 volte) é invece preferito un più neutrale “tedesc*” (oltre 200 volte) e “italian*” (oltre 200 volte).
Una nota va fatta sull’uso di “fascis*”: nelle sue varie designazioni il termine “fascismo”, nel testo, viene usato per indicare il movimento politico mentre “fascist*” é perlopiù usato come aggettivo per caratterizzare entità reali e astratte (era fascista / occupazione fascista) ma quando il testo parla di persone, il termine fascist* viene utilizzato con estrema parsimonia (solo 13 volte, a pag.31,37,39,77,78,97,113,159,196,183,210). Stesso discorso su RSI ed SS.
Invece il fascismo, inteso come “entità ideologica”, é presentato come un qualcosa di limitato a Salò. Il testo é come se dicesse “nelle nostre valli il Fascismo con la “F” maiuscola non c’é; qui c’é solo brava gente che vuol -stare tranquilla- assogettandosi all’occupazione nazifascista per amor del quieto vivere”.
Russo insiste molto nel ricordare quanto l’”odio nei confronti degli italiani” da parte dei partigiani slavi sia nato a causa di anni di persecuzioni fasciste (deportazioni, prigionia, scomparsa e/o morte di parenti) e non indaga tale affermazione più a fondo, come se ciò bastasse a giustificare una mattanza in stile “Hostel”. Ma non é l’unico caso di concessione: quando deve narrare di come
“gli alpini italiani si erano serviti del tradimento e dell’inganno ad opera di un locale e non avevano avuto alcuna pietà per i caduti, ben 38, legati con filo di ferro e trascinati a valle come tronchi di legna, orrendamente deturpati e sfigurati” (pag.120)
Russo non riporta alcuna traccia di odio o ferocia da parte degli alpini. Nessun viaggio interiore nella psiche, nessun incitamento ad immedesimarsi. Eppure la brutalità degli alpini nei confronti dei partigiani é evidente. Il trattamento riservato da Russo alle ben documentate stragi compiute dai nazifascisti consiste nel sorvolare sbrigativamente trattandole come errori, eccessi di giusta brutalità, normale sacrificio di guerra, mentre al contrario il trattamento riservato alla figura dei partigiani é quello della mostrificazione orrorifica e spirituale.
L’errore di fondo che permea tutto il lavoro dell’autore consiste nell’usare le dichiarazioni su specifici eccessi nazifascisti come concessioni (vedi sopra) per poi ritenere che queste semplici concessioni bastino a garantire una presunta equità di trattamento delle due parti coinvolte (partigiani e nazifascisti): in realtà queste concessioni, perlopiù blande, superficiali o limitate a casi particolari, vengono utilizzate come moneta da spendere nella demonizzazione totale dei partigiani.
“E il piatto di quella infuocata bilancia non poté non pendere in maniera drastica e impressionante contro i prigionieri, rei di essere carabinieri e italiani, vittime designate sull’altare dell’odio e della vendetta nazionalistica estrema: bisognava sacrificare loro, come da programma, perché loro, più di ogni altro appartenente alle forze militari e di occupazione, rappresentavano l’Italia e il governo italiano: nessuna pietà quindi per quei carabinieri italiani, nessuno sconto, anzi l’esecuzione doveva essere terribile e tremenda e doveva servire da monito a tutti gli altri”. (pag.121 – grassetti miei)
Non una mezza riga con questi toni é riscontrabile nelle descrizioni compiute dai nazifascisti. Ammettere anche solo parzialmente alcuni errori dei nazifascisti per dare l’impressione di equità é un “costo narrativo” che l’autore fa ripagare con una mostrificazione della figura del partigiano tanto profonda da volerne descrivere addirittura l’anima.
Secondo quanto riportato da pag.150 da una testimonianza riguardo a ciò che avvenne successivamente al sabotaggio della centrale e della casermetta veniamo a sapere che vennero chiamati i paracadutisti tedeschi a presidiare la centrale, ma essendo la caserma distrutta presero possesso dell’adiacente stalla di proprietà di Francesco Kemper e nel far ciò ne ammazzarono tutte le pecore per cibarsene. Kemper dovette sottostare all’imposizione facendo buon viso a cattivo gioco.
FERMI TUTTI!!!! Qui il Russo riporta un evidente abuso dei nazisti e ne descrive la malsopportazione del Kemper senza nessuna demonizzazione, nessun aggettivo spregiativo, nessun richiamo a Dio o stragi di agnelli sacrificali: niente di minimamente paragonabile alla visione demoniaca delle azioni partigiane! I tedeschi sono però rei di compiere il sopruso “senza alcuna cortesia” e di non invitare il padrone di casa o i suoi colleghi a “partecipare al pasto” (!!!) mentre i partigiani, come già visto, trasmettono addirittura un “virus” che corrompe tutto ciò che li circonda.
Nel testo le denunce contro le atrocità naziste sono sempre molto generiche o riguardanti “altri” (slavi): quando violenze e soprusi dei tedeschi riguardano “noi” (gli italiani), viene tutto stemperato, ammorbidito. Da un aneddoto minore come i nazisti sgarbati che si mangiano le pecore altrui senza invitarlo al pasto si passa dunque ai nazisti cattivoni che incendiano un villaggio e ammazzano civili ma la colpa non é loro bensì dei partigiani brutti.
3.11 IL CONTAGIOSO VIRUS PARTIGIANO
I partigiani di Russo possiedono una caratteristica interessante: contagiano col loro male tutti coloro che hanno la sventura di starvi accanto. Chi viene “toccato” dall’aura partigiana s’imbruttisce, si corrode dentro, perde l’anima o é costretto a trascorrere un’esistenza fatta di incubi e tormenti. Nessuno scampa: in “Planina Bala” tutti coloro che vengono in contatto con i partigiani restano contagiati (a dire il vero ci sono alcune eccezioni e, come vedremo, sono INTERESSANTISSIME). A questo proposito é interessante osservare i singoli casi, sia di chi s’é preso il virus partigiano, di chi invece al virus ha resistito e soprattutto alcuni casi ambigui:
A pag.97 Russo evidenzia come Boris, appena tredicenne, sia già stato corrotto dalla figura del partigiano Socian: “Al giovane Boris non era sembrato vero poter dare una mano al suo osannato ispiratore” e si presti ad emularne la follia.
Lo stesso avviene con la giovane lavandaia Mirka che, pur descritta come ragazza “allegra e socievole un po’ con tutti, di facile amicizia e di amena compagnia” (non si capisce bene se ciò vada inteso alla lettera o sia un modo velato d’intendere che fosse una ragazza sessualmente molto disponibile), corrotta anch’essa da Socian, sviluppa un partecipato entusiasmo nel fare da esca per la trappola: “La Mirka non sembrava affatto in imbarazzo, anzi quella sera era più esilarante del solito, perfino più curata fisicamente e con un entusiasmo accattivante e trascinante” (pag.98).
Anche Maria (Myza?) e Mafalda, rispettivamente sorella e moglie del Lojs Kravanja-Gajger, manifestano la loro corruzione nel gioire dei doni materiali ricevuti dai partigiani in pagamento dei loro servigi. Gioia che viene espressa con la totale indifferenza al fatto che i partigiani lì presenti stessero decidendo della vita o della morte dei dodici sequestrati. La corruzione diviene ancor più esplicita quando con gentilezza ed ospitalità più cordiali e generose del solito (pag.119) le donne versano sale e soda caustica nel cibo per i carabinieri “nella ilarità generale” (pag.122). In epoca attuale Mafalda tenterà di “spegnere ogni entusiasmo” e scoraggiare ogni tentativo di ricerca e di approfondimento” del Russo (pag.15), il che é segno del perseverare nel tempo del virus.
Il fatto che l’anonimo “attivista” di Pluzna tradisca il gruppo di Socian poco dopo avergli servito da mangiare é chiaramente un segno della perfidia e corruzione che lo ha contagiato (pag.214)
Anche i sequestrati vengono corrotti dall’aura diabolica dei partigiani che alimenta divisioni e accuse reciproche e frantuma la coesione umana tra loro (pag.113), salvo ricompattarsi al mattino successivo con estremo pathos e lirismo patriott-ero(t)ico nell’affronto della morte (pag.130), ma nonostante ciò alla fine muoiono tutti.
Russo percepisce i segni del male anche direttamente quando incontra di persona Hrovat, verso il quale nutre immediatamente una antipatia naturale (pag.16)
Pure i partigiani stessi, vittime della loro stessa corruzione, sono in contrasto fra loro (pag.119) ma la loro mostruosità ha sempre il sopravvento, soprattutto a causa di Socian che non ha mai nessun tentennamento nel suo agire satanico.
I nazisti sono a loro volta contagiati dal virus partigiano: da quanto traspare dal testo i nazisti non fanno alcunché di male tranne quando perturbati dal virus partigiano. É a causa del virus partigiano che i nazisti sono costretti a bruciare il paese e fucilare 16/17 civili inermi (pag.43,52)
Anche gli uccelli del bosco, percependo (uno “strano sentore”) la corruzione partigiana ammutoliscono all’alba che precede il massacro (pag.127)
Non ultimo il sole nel cielo, che a poche ore del massacro “sembrava faticare quella mattina a farsi strada, quasi voglioso di nascondersi, quasi voglioso di non vedere o di scomparire” (pag.143) “Perfino il sole s’era nascosto tra le nubi, quasi a voler celare al Creatore della vita quella macabra carneficina” (pag.145).
Gli anonimi contadini che secondo quanto riporta Russo assistettero di nascosto agli eventi di cui non vengono forniti né i nomi né le testimonianze, se non dei generici hanno visto, erano lì si presume ne siano terrorizzati proprio in quanto anche a distanza di anni non rivelano i propri nomi per paura. In almeno un caso questo profondo turbamento viene trasmesso dal padre al figlio semplicemente narrandogli quanto visto (pag.145), turbamento tanto profondo da farlo scoppiare in lacrime nel momento in cui racconta a Russo la “verità” ripetutagli dal padre all’inverosimile. Ma l’essersi tolto questo peso dal cuore che dovette nascondere “per quasi cinquant’anni”, oltre a generare un tremore provocato dalla commozione lo fa sentire “finalmente libero, quasi leggero” come un peccatore che si redime nel sacramento della confessione. Vi sono però delle persone sulle quali il virus partigiano non funziona molto bene.
3.11.01 QUELLI CHE RESISTONO AL VIRUS
Ossia persone venute a contatto con i partigiani ma che non sono state toccate dal virus.
MYZA KOMAC“una persona gentile e alla mano oltre che delicata e -gran lavoratrice-“ che ne stava lì “in solitudine, in compagnia del silenzio, della natura verdeggiante e delle sue poche caprette” (pag.17,110) e quando testimonia a Russo con fare “dolce” di aver visto i partigiani camminare sui monti con i sequestrati appresso lo fa con “gli occhi lucidi” (pag.18,110). Una donna che viveva una vita fatta di “campagna, le bestie in casa, i bambini piccoli, d’estate le bestie in Bala”, “che sarebbe potuta scorrere tranquilla se non fosse stato per la guerra e per la presenza continua e minacciosa dei partigiani”. Una donna con cui i partigiani ce l’avevano perché non si era unita a loro ed aveva convinto il marito a fare lo stesso.
VITTORIA FOCHESATO “nonnina gentile, alla mano, vivace e con una memoria di ferro, come si sul dire, molto schietta e di poche parole”
Nipote di uno dei contadini anonimi della Bausiza che assistettero agli eventi inveisce contro Socian, dice che non é vero che siano stati i tedeschi, che tutti sanno come siano andate le cose per davvero, che Gajger all’inizio si vantava di aver partecipato ai fatti ma poi ha cominciato a smettere per paura di ritorsioni. Aggiunge che a guerra finita alcuni di quei partigiani (i nomi non vengono fatti) sarebbe partito per il Belgio NELLA SPERANZA DI DIMENTICARE (ma come faccia ad affermare che la motivazione fu quella e non una motivazione economica come nella maggior parte dei casi d’emigrazione di quegli anni non é dato sapere). Interessante notare che ci venga fornito il nome della nipote ma non del contadino: eppure se ci fosse paura della “vendetta dei partigiani” l’aver nominato la nipote permetterebbe molto facilmente agli ultrasettuagenari ex combattenti del posto capire chi sia lo zio della Signora Fochesato.
MARIA SULIN“vecchietta arzilla e gentilissima, piena di vita e senza mezzi termini”
Impiegata comunale che il 10 ottobre 1943 si trovava sul camion dei tedeschi che venne assaltato dai partigiani (e che faceva sul camion pieno di nazisti? era forse una loro collaboratrice?). Dice di essere informata sui fatti perché ha lavorato molti anni in comune e che Socian “andava casa per casa, mitra spianato in mano, e costringeva tutti a seguirlo tra i partigiani. Chi rifiutava, finiva di vivere, nel vero senso della parola” e che anche con lei “ha usato lo stesso sistema” (quindi le cose sono due: o la signora Sulin é stata partigiana oppure é un fantasma che parla. Hmmm…)
ADA PELLIZZARI “una gentile, sensibile, amorevole signora”
Testimonia che suo fratello Osvaldo Pellizzari, su cui si vocifera facesse parte del gruppo di partigiani di Socian, combatté invece con le forze di Mussolini contro in Francia e Grecia-Albania, dove rimase prigioniero fino a dopo la fine del conflitto.
Aggiunge che nella sua famiglia c’era un partigiano: Vladimir Cernuta (ma non é chiaro se facesse parte del gruppo di Socian e se si, da quando). Infine ricorda la scena orribile dei cadaveri dei militi della GNR esposti.
MARY (sorella di Ursic e moglie di Socian)“una vecchietta gentile, rispettosa, affabile, disponibile”. Racconta di come Ursic venne tradito dai compagni
Cos’hanno in comune queste persone? Sono tutte donne, antipartigiane e che forniscono informazioni utili a supportare la versione dei fatti sostenuta da Russo o perlomeno la sua descrizione del mondo. Interessante osservare come tutte queste donne che forniscono materiale utile vengano descritte con estrema positività da Russo.
3.11.02 QUELLI SU CUI SI SORVOLA
Ossia persone venute a contatto con i partigiani su cui Russo non fa alcun commento che possa indicare se abbiano preso il virus partigiano o ne siano rimaste indenni.
IL PADRE DELL’AMICO DI RINALDI di cui non viene data testimonianza di drammi personali, anche se a dirla tutta non viene nemmeno data testimonianza di cosa avrebbe visto (pag.18), di chi fosse e che ne fu di lui (si presume però sia un contadino della Bausiza). Anzi: a guardar bene dice solo di aver seguito i partigiani ed aver “visto tutto” senza fornire alcun dettaglio. Boh? Forse però potrebbe essere inserito nell’elenco delle vittime del virus perché a quanto pare il figlio, semplicemente sentendo il racconto degli eventi appare sconvolto (pag.145) e quindi possiamo figurarci che anche il padre potesse esserlo altrettanto.
GIOVANNI VUERICH, un operaio delle miniere e compagno di lavoro di Tona Flajs, marito di Myza Komac. Dice che all’inizio tutti dicessero fossero stati i tedeschi a massacrare coi picconi i carabinieri, tra cui due-tre suoi compagni di lavoro che avevano fatto parte di quel gruppo di partigiani.
VIGJ VENTURINI, alpino del Reggimento tagliamento che aveva partecipato al recupero dei cadaveri a malga Bala prosegue la guerra “un po’ con altri gruppi di alpini, un po’ dandosi alla macchia, un po’ coi partigiani della Garibaldi” (pag.250), ossia brigate legate al partito comunista.
FERDINANDO KRAVANJA. Classe 1927. Ex partigiano sloveno compagno di Socian (ma solo verso il termine del conflitto: non all’epoca dei fatti, anche se a Tarvisio si vocifera diversamente) dice che “Socian, non solo con la storia dei carabinieri, ma anche e soprattutto con quella, ha fatto molto male alla causa slovena!”. La dichiarazione può apparire interessante in quanto chi parla é un ex partigiano, tuttavia bisogna tener conto che si tratta sempre dell’opinione di qualcuno che non ha assistito ai fatti (all’epoca aveva diciassette anni e non sappiamo cosa facesse) che potrebbe benissimo essersi convinto della bontà della versione propagandata dai nazifascisti. Aggiunge inoltre che tra i partigiani di Socian vi era anche tal Cirillo Kaska di Cave (oramai deceduto) ma che anche questi vi entrò solo verso la fine del conflitto.
LUCIANO RICCARDO ALDEGHERI Ex partigiano che si unì al gruppo di Socian ma solo ad ottobre del 1944. Parla molto male di Socian mostrando di non averlo in simpatia e lo descrive come un focoso e spavaldo sanguinario. Al tempo stesso fa notare che “qualsiasi cosa succedeva, la frase era unanime: “E’ stato Socian!” Era il parere di tutti, anche quando lui non c’entrava niente” (pag.43). Pure lui attribuisce a Socian la responsabilità della rappresaglia dei nazisti nel 1943 e dice che la popolazione ed i partigiani stessi non gli erano favorevoli. Dice che tutta la comunità sapeva esattamente cosa fosse successo in malga Bala (pag.149) e che l’azione di malga Bala “certamente era sfuggita di mano agli stessi promotori”.
QUALCUNO DEI SUBALTERNI A pag.120 Russo parla di uno o più partigiani del gruppo di Socian che, mesi dopo i fatti, diranno che forse sarebbe stato preferibile liberare gli ostaggi. Chi sono questi subalterni? Con chi parlarono? Anche questo non é dato sapere…
GLI OPERAI DELLA CENTRALE E LA MOGLIE DI UNO DI ESSI che, tuttavia subiranno all’epoca sospetti ed un’accusa di collaborazionismo, così come un atteggiamento un po incerto da parte di Russo, che si mette nei loro panni quando tentano di salvare la centrale (pag.150) ma poi mette in dubbio la possibilità che la Maria Berlot, moglie di uno di questi, possa aver telefonato alla Direzione della miniera (pag.155) nonostante questo dettaglio sia riportato in una lettera di un colonnello della GNR motivando i suoi dubbi “in quanto quella volta il telefono, specie a Bretto di Sotto, doveva essere un qualcosa di estremamente raro e prezioso e non a disposizione della moglie del sorvegliante della centrale”. La donna infine verrà arrestata perché sospettata di collaborare coi partigiani per essere temporaneamente liberata grazie alle pressioni di un “carabiniere” della GNF ed essere successivamente riarrestata. Altro elemento di dubbio sollevato da Russo a pag.177 é che il 24 marzo (il giorno dopo l’assalto alla centrale) la donna si recò in Bausiza per acquistare “un po’ di burro, formaggio e soprattutto latte”, ed in quell’occasione s’accorge del passaggio di partigiani e sequestrati. Tornata a casa racconta quanto visti ai famigliari, la voce circola e viene arrestata (ma se la fonte di queste informazioni non é Maria Berlot stessa bisogna dedurre che sia uno dei parenti che la tradirono?).
Dinnanzi al caso di una persona che Russo non sa bene se inquadrare come collaboratrice dei partigiani o vittima sfortunata del virus partigiano assistiamo ad una totale assenza di commenti: nessuna invocazione mistica né demonizzazione.
BEPI FLAJS ha invece l’onore di essere il caso più interessante tra quelli qui elencati. Nel testo é l’unica persona citata con nome ed entrata in contatto coi partigiani su cui il virus partigiano sembra non aver avuto effetto se non per una generale “paura” nei loro confronti. A differenza di coloro che hanno sconfitto il virus partigiano, Bepi Flajs non mostra alcun segno di redenzione. In effetti, pur essendo il testimone più importante dell’intero libro (vedi sotto) é strano non osservare nemmeno una riga che ci parli della sua persona. O meglio: viene semplicemente descritto come una persona vicinissima a Gajger e Mafalda e che ha dovuto sempre fare buon viso a cattivo gioco coi partigiani in quanto ne era impaurito (pag.147); viene inoltre descritto come un uomo che agisce secondo le disposizioni del Gajger (pag.147). Ma pur avendo queste informazioni base sul ruolo di Bepi Flajs non sappiamo nulla della PERSONA Bepi Flajs. Strano: abbiamo qualche dato biografico e breve descrizione di persone che riportano informazioni di seconda mano ma non ci vien detto nulla della fonte principale del libro? Molto strano.
Cos’hanno in comune queste persone e cosa li distingue da quelle che sono rimaste con certezza indenni dal virus partigiano? Sono tutte persone la cui testimonianza é interessante ma potrebbe far stridere la narrazione portata avanti dal libro:
Vuerich testimonia che alcuni partigiani erano operai della miniera e che vi lavorassero anche nei giorni a ridosso dell’uccisione dei dodici. Poiché dalla sua testimonianza sembra che ciò non fosse un gran segreto tra gli operai (e ciò contraddirebbe non poco l’immagine di “comunità unita” che emerge dal testo), Russo non si sofferma su questa testimonianza e passa avanti preferendo non commentare.
F.Kravanja é un ex partigiano e per questo motivo le uniche cornici in cui lo schema di Russo potrebbe inserirlo sono quelli dell’uomo bestiale (come Hrovat) o dell’uomo condannato a vivere in un incubo (come Gajger). Ma F.Kravanja fa un’affermazione che é al contempo utilizzabile ma pericolosa per l’impianto della tesi sostenuta: F.Kranavja critica Socian ma senza avere elementi di testimonianza diretta. Si é dunque di fronte ad una mera opinione personale che potrebbe sembrar avere un qualche valore in più rispetto alle altre in quanto proveniente da un partigiano. Ciò inoltre potrebbe alimentare qualche ragionamento sui tipi di rapporti che intercorrevano tra i vari gruppi partigiani, sulle diverse posizioni e vedute, smontando l’idea di un “unicum” bolscevico. L’autore dunque preferisce evitare ogni approfondimento lasciando solo i commenti negativi su Socian, facendo intendere che anche qui si sia di fronte ad un caso di virus partigiano che porta i bolscevichi a litigare non solo col mondo ma anche tra di loro senza (mai specificarne il) motivo. A differenza dell’affermazione negativizzata di Hrovat vista al punto 2.05 qui non é possibile effettuare un’operazione simile perché anziché avere due affermazioni di cui una completamente accoglibile ed una neutra, qui ci si trova dinnanzi ad un’unica affermazione che per essere accolta va maneggiata con cura.
Aldegheri fornisce una descrizione di Socian perfettamente in linea con l’immagine che ne dà Russo. Ma anche Aldegheri é un’ex partigiano e ciò, come nel caso di Kravanja si rivela al tempo stesso un’arma a doppio taglio: da un lato appare come una fonte “interna” ma dall’altro potrebbe disgregare l’immagine del “fronte unico partigiano” (domanda: premesso che a quanto ne so Socian poteva benissimo essere un impetuoso e passionale figlio di buona donna antipatico a tutti senza che ciò ne faccia un mostro, non é che Aldegheri fosse un partigiano cattolico che ce l’aveva con Socian, magari perché era comunista o per antipatia “a pelle” come quella di Russo con Hrovat? Purtroppo il testo, che a pag. 174 pubblica la foto del fienile della famiglia proprietaria del terreno su cui sorse il cimitero in cui furono sepolti i dodici, non riserva la stessa meticolosità informativa e ricchezza di dettaglio sulle fonti “interne”)
Il fatto che l’alpino Venturini ad un certo punto decida di entrare in una brigata partigiana non riceve alcun tipo di commento, forse perché obbligherebbe a reinquadrare la resistenza da un “unicum bolscevico” ad una formazione temporanea e variegata.
Del trattamento ambiguo con cui vengono narrati gli operai della centrale si é già detto mentre invece di Bepi Flajs si vedrà in maniera dettagliata più avanti.
3.11.03 IL REMITTENTE
Russo percepisce nuovamente di persona il male quando incontra Lojs Kravanja-Gajger, il postino dei partigiani: che va ad intervistare “in una stanza più che angusta dove da anni s’era condannato a vivere travolto dagli incubi, mi era sembrato di essere a contatto diretto col diavolo in persona: risento ancora oggi la pelle ritirarsi e raggrinzirsi gelata, al ricordo!” (pag.14).
La vita travolta dagli incubi a cui Gajger (sempre descritto come fedele servitore dei partigiani) “s’era condannato”, é il contrappasso necessario affinché espii i propri peccati. A differenza dei partigiani intervistati da Russo che non mostrano alcun segno di pentimento, delle donne che accompagna con parole di cortesia e delle persone su cui evita di esprimere pareri, dal testo traspare che Gajger ora é almeno interiormente conscio del male con cui ha vissuto e ciò é indice di un possibile ravvedimento e salvazione. Il fatto che Gajger viva travolto dagli incubi é quindi segno di uno struggimento derivante dalla presa di coscienza di esser stato nell’errore ed é grazie a questa frattura che s’intravede la possibilità di una rinascita ed avvicinamento al vero; dunque, la sua testimonianza-confessione, per atto di fede, acquisisce credibilità. Vengono anche segnalati alcuni tratti del Gajger pre-remissione, ossia “duro e scontroso, chiuso, solitario” (pag.112) che, se non sono ancora segni del virus sono indici di un qualcosa che non va e che dimostrano la “natura” incline a contrarre il virus del Gajger.
3.12 LA GUARDIA NAZIONALE REPUBBL…… EHMMM…. CARABINIER….
Abbiamo già osservato come il testo preferisca parlare di “tedeschi e italiani” anziché di “nazisti e fascisti” e della mole di aggettivi negativi destinati ai partigiani cui non viene mai riconosciuto alcunché di umano, ma il caso più eclatante é il modo in cui vengono nominati i 12 sequestrati!
INSERTO STORICO – parte 11 – LE DIVISE DELLA GNR
I membri dell’arma dei carabinieri che aderirono alla RSI vennero fatti confluire nella Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana (GNR), forza armata istituita l’8 dicembre 1943 per sostituire ed inglobare i Reali Carabinieri, la MVSN e la Polizia dell’Africa Italiana. I compiti della GNR erano teoricamente quelli propri dei carabinieri anche se in realtà prese parte soprattutto alla repressione contro i partigiani (fonte). La GNR fu una tra le varie formazioni armate repubblichine, definita anche “la quarta forza armata della repubblica” (fonte: Frederick W. Deakin, “Storia della Repubblica di Salò” Torino, Einaudi, 1963; pag.874,875) che agivano con un certo grado di autonomia sia decisionale che di bilancio in un mix di collaborazione e rivalità reciproca. Fu una delle prime milizie istituite dalla RSI e una delle più consistenti per numero di uomini ed armamento per un totale di circa 140-150.000 uomini al momento della sua istituzione.
Il 24 dicembre 1943 la RSI rese noto il decreto istitutivo della GNR che “segnava la cessazione ufficiale dell’Arma dei carabinieri su tutto il territorio della Rsi” (fonte: Giorgio Pisanò, “Gli ultimi in grigioverde. Storia delle forze armate della Repubblica sociale italiana” Milano, Fpe, 1967; pag.1701). Dopo quella data, dunque, nei territori occupati dalla RSI non esiste più il corpo dei carabinieri.
Teoricamente i carabinieri confluiti nella GNR avrebbero dovuto indossare l’uniforma grigioverde da paracadutista mod.42 ma in realtà la fornitura delle nuove divise fu disomogenea e non sempre completa e quindi la stragrande maggioranza dei militi mantenne l’uniforme mod.33 propria dei carabinieri cambiandone però fregi, distintivi e mostrine (fonte QUI e QUI). Non rare le situazioni in cui, per esempio, una divisa nuova veniva abbinata ad un berretto vecchio o il contrario). Il mantenimento delle unità di provenienza, delle caserme e dell’uniforme spiega come all’epoca restasse nell’uso comune il termine “carabinieri” per indicare militi della GNR provenienti dall’arma dei carabinieri.
Caratteristica della GNR che preoccupava non poco Mussolini fu il fatto che “la maggior parte delle classi tra i 20 e i 40 anni era internata in Germania, e benché la nuova Guardia nazionale repubblicana a parole riuscisse a raccogliere, insieme con i suoi vecchi quadri circa 140-150.000 uomini, si trattava per lo più di ragazzi tra i 15 e i 17 anni senza disciplina e senza addestramento militare” (fonte). Non é il caso dei militi a controllo della centrale di Bretto, le cui età al momento dei fatti andavano dai 20 ai 44 anni.
Dunque: nonostante i 12 militi di guardia alla centrale fossero militi della GNR e venissero indicati come “militi della polizia repubblicana” anche nell’articolo del Gazzettino di Padova pubblicato da Russo (che dichiara di aver trovato documenti sugli eventi di malga Bala proprio “Nell’archivio dell’Ufficio Storico del Comando generale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana di Brescia” (pag.153), nel testo i dodici militi di guardia alla centrale elettrica vengono chiamati “carabinieri” oltre 400 volte mentre la loro appartenenza alla GNR viene indicata solo 3 (tre) volte (p.es quando a pag.186 scrive “carabinieri rei di essere italiani e schierati con la Repubblica Sociale Italiana di Mussolini” o la segnalazione a pag.245 che i “carabinieri” della compagnia di Tolmezzo indossavano “tutti e sempre” la “divisa d’appartenenza alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana”).
Perdipiù a pag.176 Russo parla pure di “diverse corrispondenze” tra il “Gruppo dei carabinieri di Udine” e il “Comando Generale della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana di Brescia” creando nel lettore impreparato l’illusione che nell’RSI carabinieri e GNR fossero due entità distinte.
Anche nel notiziario della Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana del 28 marzo 1944 si parla dei dodici militi come “distaccamento G.N.R. ivi di vigilanza” (pagina 31 del notiziario, reperibile QUI)
Il fatto che nel testo l’autore si rivolga ai dodici sequestrati usando oltre 400 (quattrocento) volte il termine “carabinieri” attribuendogli sfuggevolmente solo per tre volte l’appellativo di “guardie repubblicane” rende evidente che si tratti di un tentativo di sfumare la loro aderenza al fascismo concentrandosi su una connotazione più neutra e politicamente spendibile (“dodici carabinieri uccisi” é più spendibile di “dodici repubblichini fascisti della GNR uccisi”). A pag.149 Russo dichiara che tutti i dodici militi furono “aderenti involontari” della RSI senza però aver mai specificato in nessuna parte del testo le posizioni personali dei dodici militi nei confronti dell’RSI e del fascismo e dunque senza giustificare in base a cosa sostenga fossero “involontari”.
Il fatto che lo stesso meccanismo avviene anche utilizzando prepotentemente “italiani” e “tedeschi” al posto di “nazisti” e “fascisti” con l’intento di dipingere una comunità omogenea conferma ulteriormente la volontà di Russo di non fare vera ricerca storica ma di propagandare in una forma “vendibile” la (debole) versione dei fatti che appoggia.
3.13 LETTURA RELIGIOSA DEGLI EVENTI
Come già accennato, la narrazione dei fatti risponde a canoni di mitologia afascista di matrice cristiana. Se l’afascismo si evince dalla premessa storica e dal modo in cui vengono trattati e descritti partigiani e nazifascisti, la cristianità si evince sia dai commenti personali dell’autore che da una lettura degli eventi in chiave martirologica.
Giusto per dare un senso della misura dei richiami alla fede religiosa, il conteggio dei termini usati con tale attinenza religiosa é:
Dio (20 volte), martir* (19 volte) sacrific* (12 volte), infern* (9 volte) diabol* (8 volte), “piccolo dio della Coritenza” [inteso come dispregiativo nei confronti di Socian] (8 volte), tradizion* (7 volte), via Crucis (4 volte), Gesù (4 volte), diavolo (3 volte), Signore (3 volte), Padre (3 volte), Padrone della vita (2 volte), Maria (2 volte), cieli (2 volte), moral* (2 volte), Giudice eterno (1 volta), “furia satanica” (1 volta), Madonna (1 volta), Padreterno (1 volta), sacro (1 volta), spiritualità (1 volta), sovrannaturale (1 volta), Creatore (1 volta)
Si tratta di circa un richiamo ogni due pagine e mezzo: decisamente eccessivo per un testo che si propone di esporre un lavoro di ricerca storico (che dovrebbe limitare il più possibile le interpretazioni personali).
“Certo, solo l’uomo con la sua intelligenza e la sua potenza è capace di gesti così raccapriccianti, di azioni così infamanti e crudeli! Come sarà il loro atteggiamento quando, gioco forza, saranno costretti come tutti gli altri esseri viventi a presentarsi a loro volta in giudizio, davanti al Padrone della vita?” (pag.123)
Ad una lettura attenta non sfuggono nemmeno segnali meno espliciti di religiosità cristiana, come il fatto che a pag.130, narrando della salita dei dodici verso malga Bala (descritta come una “via crucis”), l’autore inserisce alcuni dettagli: la presenza si un maestoso faggio “a tre, enorme, divaricato, quasi impressionante per la sua mole e la sua maestosità” e di uccellini “Ogni tanto vispi pettirossi e gruppetti di cardellini irrequieti saltellavano impazienti mostrando un mondo ormai perso per sempre”. Maestosi alberi trinitari e irrequieti uccellini di un “mondo ormai perso per sempre” non sono elementi casuali: vengono presentati come segni ultraterreni carichi di significava mistica e salvifica.
Gesù invece ha detto: “Amate i vostri nemici e pregate per i vostri persecutori, perché siete tutti figli di uno stesso Padre, il quale fa sorgere il sole sopra i mal- vagi e sopra i buoni e fa piovere sopra i giusti e sopra gli ingiusti. Amatevi dunque tra voi, come lo vi ho amato! E perdonatevi tra di voi, così come chiedete perdono per voi al Padre vostro che è nei cieli!” (pag.265)
La lettura religiosa si lega a doppio filo ad un nazionalismo di fondo che viene evocato sempre attraverso un generico senso d’appartenenza all’essere italiani che si manifesta perlopiù in negativo; in opposizione ai partigiani che non possono far altro che odiare l’Italia:
“Carabinieri rei di essere italiani”, “uccisi perché italiani” ed altre formule simili si ripetono, in maniera esplicita o meno, almeno una ventina di volte.
“Erano carabinieri, erano italiani e non potevano non morire che da carabinieri e da italiani, a testa alta, guardando in faccia i propri aggressori!” (pag.142)
“erano stati designati a morire per la Patria che non avrebbero potuto dimenticare né tradire” (pag.130)
La Patria che emerge dalle parole del Russo é esattamente la “Patria” nel senso primo del termine, ossia terra dei padri, terra del Padre: un concetto di “tradizione” applicato su un territorio e che l’omonima entità-amministrativa che la occupa deve rappresentare. La Patria (nel senso di Nazione-Italia) é dunque un’entità che come un velo deve ricoprire la Patria (nel senso di terra dei padri) con una tale precisione da non esser più distinguibili l’una dall’altra, come una Gerusalemme celeste che combacia perfettamente alla Gerusalemme terrena. E non é la Gerusalemme celeste a doversi adattare a quella terrena bensì il contrario: una volta stabiliti i confini della patria celeste quella terrena deve adattarvisi per rappresentarla materialmente. Italianizzandosi, fascistizzandosi…
3.14 IL PARALLELO CON LA PASSIONE DEL CRISTO
Commenti e richiami religiosi non si limitano ad essere mere note a margine della narrazione ma arrivano a fungere da colonna interpretativa degli eventi, al punto tale che diviene lecito chiedersi fino a che punto determinati dettagli ed episodi abbiano ricevuto (volontariamente o involontariamente) un’attribuzione di peso maggiore o minore affinché meglio rispondessero allo scheletro interpretativo su cui l’autore s’è poggiato. Nello specifico é possibile osservare lo strettissimo parallelismo tra la narrazione del testo con quella della passione di Gesù:
Perpignano che viene obbligato a farsi aprire la caserma come un Giuda obbligato. Il raggiungimento della malga come via Crucis. La vista dell’albero a tre fusti come simbolo trinitario e della danza degli uccellini che mostrano “un mondo perso per sempre” come preannuncio del destino. L’offerta di acqua zuccherata come la spugna intrisa d’acqua e aceto. Il peso dei beni fatti trasportare dai dodici come peso della croce. L’indecisione di alcuni partigiani come parallelo dei processi di Caifa e Pilato (il primo dei quali avviene nel bel mezzo della notte, come la notte tra il 24 ed il 25 passata dai dodici in attesa della fine). Socian che impone la sua volontà sui partigiani come i sacerdoti giudaici che spronarono la folla. Lo sberleffo e le risate delle donne della Bausiza che han ricevuto in dono quanto prelevato dalla caserma come i soldati che si dividono le vesti strappate del Cristo. L’ilarità che continua durante la somministrazione del cibo avvelenato come parallelo dei centurioni che si fanno gioco di Gesù ponendogli la corona di spine (con la variante contro-eucaristica dell’avvelenamento in sostituzione del pane e vino eucaristici durante l’ultima cena dei dodici). L’accettazione eroica del proprio martirio (stavolta non in nome del Padre-Dio bensì in nome del Padre-Nazione: patriottismo). Le torture come flagellazione e messa in croce. Gli sputi dei partigiani come gli sputi dei centurioni. I colpi di piccone e di scarponi chiodati come i chiodi della crocifissione. I contadini che seguono la processione ed osservano impotenti come le donne che assistono da lontano alla crocifissione sul Golgotha dietro ai soldati romani. Il silenzio degli uccelli del bosco ed il sole celato come segnali divini. La sistemazione dei corpi sotto una roccia come deposizione di Gesù. Bepi Flajs che sta dalla parte sbagliata ma (testimoniando i fatti) si converte come Longino; stessa cosa per il ventunesimo partigiano che fugge, come fosse un centurione convertito. Il filo spinato attorno ai corpi come ulteriore parallelo alla corona di spine. I partigiani che prima si vantano del fatto ma poi negano tutto come il triplice rinnegamento di Pietro.
Al termine del massacro, prima che intervenga Gajger a sistemare i corpi, Russo scrive testualmente (grassetti miei):
Erano tutti in silenzio, l’euforia era di colpo svanita e un grosso velo aveva cominciato ad opprimerli in maniera ossessiva: unico loro scopo era ora di allontanarsi in fretta da quell’altare su cui avevano compiuto quel tanto sospirato sacrificio.
E tutto ciò avviene a pochissimi giorni dalla Pasqua (che quell’anno cadeva il 9 aprile)!
Ecco che si esplicita quella che é la motivazione profonda della mattanza così come la trasmette il testo di Russo, ecco che si spiega perché il testo insiste tanto sulla brutalità degli eventi ma vagheggi fumosamente sulle motivazioni che le avrebbero provocate: il significato profondo che ne vuol dare non é né di una strategia di guerriglia (come già visto: non poteva esserlo) né di un evento meramente operativo (troppo brutale e gratuito per esserlo), né di una reazione d’impeto (troppo programmato per esserlo) bensì di un sacrificio rituale, un sacrificio umano!
Ecco che il simbolismo evocato da Russo ed attribuito alle decisioni dei partigiani, che scelgono specificamente i dodici militi non perché casualmente a guardia di un obiettivo strategico, ma perché rappresentanti dei valori che devono esorcizzare ritualmente (l’italianità). Ecco perché opera il ribaltamento dell’azione da sabotaggio con conseguente sequestro a sequestro con sabotaggio di contorno.
Un sacrificio di italiani per rimarcare la propria natura slava e dunque “altra”. E nel testo che tipo di alterità differenzia gli slavi, dai tedeschi e dagli italiani? L’essere comunisti!
Come nelle peggiori fantasie degli inquisitori rinascimentali che condannavano ad orribili dolori (con la tortura) e morti ritualizzate (in piazza) “streghe” colpevoli di provocare dolori (con la magia) e morti ritualizzate (nei sabba), é impossibile non accorgersi del doppio tipo di correlazione cui si é di fronte! Innanzitutto il parallelismo storico:
BENE – MALE
Fede – Stregoneria
Fede – Comunismo
NOI – LORO
Ed in secondo luogo l’esatto ripetersi di quei meccanismi di proiezione (sempre in senso junghiano) che se tra medioevo e rinascimento han fatto si che il potere dominante (la chiesa) potesse dipingersi un nemico che altro non era se non una versione speculare di sé stesso (messe nere come opposto speculare della messa religiosa, crocifissi rovesciati, bacio mistico col demonio ma sull’ano anziché sulla bocca, contro-rituali ecc…), oggi si ripetono tali e quali seppur adattati al nuovo contesto. Il partigiano, dunque, in quanto comunista (ossia lontano da Dio e dunque affine a Satana) e slavo (“altro”) diviene una figura aliena, la rappresentazione totale del male, l’ ALTRO per antonomasia su cui riversare ogni genere di nefandezza e orrore “anche quando [lui] non c’entra(va) niente”: é l’orwelliano Goldstein di 1984 su cui va proiettato tutto l’odio che si porta dentro, é il Babau, il lupo cattivo delle fiabe, Gargamella. I partigiani sono il caos che perturba l’armonia del mondo. Ecco che i partigiani divengono i “satanici demoni delle montagne”; ecco che diffondono il “virus partigiano”; ecco che così come le streghe son colpevoli semplicemente del fatto d’esser streghe, anche i partigiani son colpevoli del solo esser partigiani (la metonimia partigiano = comunista avviene banalmente per generalizzazione); ecco che per dicotomia bisogna rappresentare i dodici come degli esempi di perfezione. Ecco che Russo elogia i partigiani della Osoppo che combattevano contro gli invasori ma accusa i partigiani di Socian che combattono contro i tedeschi usurpatori: tutto parte dal fatto che partendo da una lettura del mondo fondata su materiali mitologici della cultura di destra e cattolica, il “comunista” é l’attante perfetto su cui riversare (proiettare) tutti i propri mali interiori e poco importa se questi attacchi seguono un filo logico.
Prima ancora di una lotta di ideologie, prima ancora di una lotta di classe, questa é una lotta fra modelli di pensiero opposti e inconciliabili.
Ecco emergere la palese contraddizione per cui agli occhi di chi affonda le proprie radici in un mix di cultura di destra il peggior male attribuibile ad un comunista (ateo che rinnega Dio) é ritenere compia atti di violenza ritualizzata fine solo a sé stessa (gesto inutile) e dunque di senso simbolico, ma sempre inteso (anche se non sempre consciamente) in chiave religioso-spirituale. Un sacrificio ateo per un non-Dio, un contro-Dio, Satana. Il comunismo come (cripto) satanismo. E poiché i partigiani, essendo per generalizzazione tutti comunisti, si giunge a:
Partigiano = Satanista
Questa é la chiave con cui il testo interpreta e dà senso alla narrazione della versione strage. La versione conflitto a fuoco viene quindi rifiutata a priori in quanto non leggibile in chiave martirologica poiché non é possibile attribuirle un senso spirituale in quanto NON basata su un gesto inutile.
Per concludere assume significanza anche il valore numerico delle persone coinvolte negli eventi qui trattati: i militi della GNR erano 12 come gli apostoli mentre il numero di 18 partigiani accettato da Russo (pag.147), per lo svolgimento del massacro sale a 21 (pag.127), perfetto contraltare speculare del numero evangelico (12-21). I partigiani come opposto ideale dei militi della GNR.
3.15 LE MOTIVAZIONI DEI PARTIGIANI…PER IL PUBBLICO
Seppur il testo trasmetta prepotentemente l’idea secondo cui l’uccisione dei dodici aveva come scopo la messa in atto di un sacrificio rituale motivato dalla vendetta, questa non viene mai esposta in maniera esplicita in quanto idea indicibile. Questa indicibilità si spiega perfettamente se si tengono conto da un lato le origini di tale idea: non origini fattuali (non esistono prove o casi simili) bensì dalla proiezione (in senso junghiano) di idee senza parole (in senso jesiano) manifestate attraverso una chiave interpretativa cristiana e dall’altro l’atteggiamento dell’autore che, esattamente come cela i militi della GNR sotto l’etichetta di “carabinieri” ed i nazifascisti sotto le generiche identità linguistiche di “tedeschi” ed “italiani”, lima gli aspetti meno vendibili della sua versione affinché risultino accettabili dal pubblico cui si rivolge.
Per questo motivo il testo non riporta:
Dodici fascisti repubblichini militanti nella GNR uccisi da comunisti slavi in un omicidio rituale
ma scrive:
Dodici carabinieri torturati brutalmente dai partigiani perché italiani
e quel che comunica é:
Dodici giusti martiri torturati e uccisi da demoni comunisti alieni e semi-umani in un atto sacrificale esorcizzante simbolicamente il proprio odio contro la legge di Dio
Il testo dunque deve al tempo stesso comunicare questo senso pur scrivendo apertamente altro (a proposito di proiezione junghiana: qui il parallelo con la tesi di Russo secondo cui le torture che dovevano essere al tempo stesso un messaggio forte ma celato può dar moltissimo a cui pensare) e quindi vengono proposte alcune motivazioni terrene che vengono buttate nel testo senza soffermarsi troppo a commentare (e non é certo un caso se certe informazioni vengono fornite quasi con distrazione, senza soffermarcisi sopra)
pag.120 Russo indica nella distruzione della centrale lo scopo principale dell’azione, ma poche righe dopo specifica che Socian insistette perché i suoi uomini non desistessero dal compito prefissato di torturare senza pietà i militi della GNR per vendicare le persecuzioni subite dalle proprie famiglie ed il massacro di una quarantina di partigiani (“martiri” che “gridavano ancora vendetta”) avvenuto il 26 aprile 1943.
Quindi, andiamo con ordine: Russo sostiene che lo scopo principale era sabotare la centrale (pag.120), ma anche vendicare il popolo slavo (pag.77) del massacro di decine di partigiani avvenuto il 26 aprile precedente (pag.120) e vendicare pure i partigiani stessi dei soprusi inflitti dai fascisti a loro (pag.214) ed alle loro famiglie (pag.120) perché i partigiani erano divorati da odio (pag.29) anti italiano, ma anche impossessarsi delle armi della caserma (pag.102). Socian dunque convinse i suoi a rapire una dozzina di “carabinieri” militi della GNR scelti perché simbolo dell’Italia (pag.97) nella data, anch’essa simbolo, del 23 di marzo (solennità civile fascista) affinché gli italiani la ricordassero per sempre (pag.121), per torturarli però due giorni dopo in un luogo inaccessibile ove nessun nazifascista si sarebbe mai recato (pag.139) col forte rischio che la scoperta dei cadaveri avvenisse settimane o mesi dopo.
Eppure nel testo, fin dalla copertina, si ripete numerose volte che i 12 militi della GNR vennero uccisi “solo perché italiani” e nonostante a pag.120 lo scopo principale dell’azione sia indicata nella distruzione della centrale, nell’arco di tutto il testo il mantra che viene continuamente ripetuto é quello dell’ “uccisi solo perché italiani”.
Russo non spiega perché la data scelta non fosse il 26 aprile, come parrebbe logico nel caso di una vendetta per un fatto avvenuto il 26 aprile, né perché un’assassinio pianificato per tingere d’orrore la data simbolica del 23 marzo sarebbe stato eseguito il 25 marzo. L’unica giustificazione che se ne evince é che i dodici militi della GNR servissero per trasportare in montagna armi e beni rubati dalla caserma ma appare alquanto bislacca la combinazione di obiettivi simbolico-comunicativi (la strage) ed obiettivi meramente operativo-logistici (sabotaggio e trasporto armi) non tanto in un’unica operazione tattico-simbolica quanto in un pastiche di quelle che appaiono come due diverse operazioni malcombinate (A e B) con quattro diversi obiettivi: l’idea di sabotare centrale elettrica e relativa casermetta (A.1) sequestrandone gli occupanti (A.2) e utilizzarli per il trasporto dei beni (A.3) é già di per sé operazione complessa e aggiungere a tale schema l’esecuzione di un sacrificio rituale (B.4) da svolgersi due giorni dopo la data-simbolo cozza non poco all’interno del quadro (in realtà, come vedremo, c’é un motivo per cui Russo sposta l’uccisione al 25 marzo, ma non ha nulla a che vedere con strategie militari o simbolismi).
Non viene nemmeno spiegato in base a quale ragionamento solo i militi della GNR / Carabinieri sarebbero assurti al grado di “unici veri rappresentanti dell’Italia e soprattutto della Repubblica Sociale Italiana di Mussolini” quando, di fatto, ogni forza armata fascista era di per sé un rappresentante del fascismo e dell’Italia (pag.149).
Lo stesso Russo ammette che l’attività principale dei partigiani della zona consisteva nel portare avanti continui e ripetuti sabotaggi atti ad interrompere o rallentare le attività della miniera (che alimentava l’industria bellica tedesca e di conseguenza il conflitto) e che quindi l’episodio qui trattato sarebbe un caso unico ed assolutamente eccezionale. L’unico caso in cui Socian ed i suoi uomini, anziché mirare ad un obiettivo puramente strategico avessero deciso di compiere una mattanza simbolica rituale.
Russo tenta di dare credito a questa evidente stranezza nelle pagine 186,187 e 188 sostenendo che i partigiani “si erano “fatti prendere la mano” e che quell’azione “risultò oltraggiosa perfino del nome del partigiano e si trasformò in onta vergognosa per il comunismo nascente di Tito”, onde per cui subiranno un processo interno “per aver deturpato l’immagine del partigiano comunista slavo” che porterà a degradare “più di qualcuno” di essi e “lo stesso Socian vedrà interrotto e per qualche tempo compromesso il proprio prestigio e il proprio potere. Lo stesso Franc Ursic, come stiamo per vedere, verrà isolato, abbandonato e tradito dai suoi stessi uomini, solo perché si era fatto sfuggire di mano l’azione della Bala”. Da dove abbia appreso le informazioni su questi processi non é dato sapere ed in ogni caso ciò cozza decisamente con l’idea di una vendetta rituale pianificata per settimane! Ma come? Pianificano per settimane con il “capo supremo” un’uccisione eccezionalmente brutale per rovinare in eterno la memoria del 23 marzo ma proprio il fatto che le uccisioni furono brutali é ora segno del fatto che si fossero fatti prendere la mano?
Brutalità che non doveva essere brutale? Un’azione spettacolare che deve fungere da messaggio ma nascosto? Fatti del 25 marzo che dovrebbero rovinare la memoria del 23 marzo?
Più volte nel testo Russo insiste sul fatto che la popolazione locale venne a sapere fin da subito cosa avvenne in malga “fin nei minimi particolari” (pag.183) lasciando intendere che la comunità condivideva la versione dei fatti ora riportata nel testo di Russo senza indagare troppo a fondo il fatto che spesso la comunità accusasse Socian “anche quando lui non c’entrava niente” (pag.43). Nel testo vengono riportate anche alcuni interventi di persone che avevano saputo dei fatti per via indiretta e di cui non se ne capisce l’utilità se non il fare da pezza d’appoggio alla strampalata ipotesi di Russo.
Ma improvvisamente a pag.185 si riporta che in realtà non circolasse una, bensì almeno QUATTRO versioni dei fatti molto diverse da quella di Russo!
Versioni che Russo sostiene furono propagandate (ma da chi ed in che modo non lo specifica) nonostante “tutti gli abitanti del territorio sapevano ormai per filo e per segno ogni particolare sulla strage della Bala” anche se non osavano parlare a causa della paura (“anzi il terrore”) dei partigiani. Paura sulla cui assenza di motivazioni già si é detto.
VERSIONE UNO:“La versione più divulgata e accreditata” diceva che i dodici furono uccisi dai tedeschi per farne cadere la responsabilità sui partigiani per aumentare la tensione e inasprire le azioni contro gli slavi. (La versione più diffusa tra la popolazione locale scagiona del tutto i partigiani ed accusa i tedeschi!) [versione citata anche a pag.196,197,205,208,247]
VERSIONE DUE: Diceva che i dodici fossero stati uccisi da altri fascisti italiani per farne cadere la responsabilità sui partigiani, aumentare la tensione e inasprire le azioni contro gli slavi. (Anche la seconda versione che circolava scagiona completamente i partigiani ma stavolta incolpa gli italiani) [versione citata anche a pag.196,197]
VERSIONE TRE: Diceva che i dodici furono uccisi dai partigiani in una normale imboscata e poi i tedeschi, scoperti i corpi, li deturparono dentro la malga (da qui il sangue sulle pareti) per farne cadere la responsabilità sui partigiani per aumentare la tensione e inasprire le azioni contro gli slavi. (La terza versione é sostanzialmente quella proposta anche da Franc Crnugelj ed inserisce le uccisioni in un contesto di guerra ma scagiona i partigiani dalle mostruosità addebitandole ai tedeschi per motivi di propaganda) [versione citata anche a pag.197]
VERSIONE QUATTRO: Diceva che i dodici fossero stati uccisi dai Domobranzi (slavi filonazisti) (Anche la quarta versione scagiona i partigiani accusando un gruppo filonazista slavo) `versione citata anche a pag.193,197,264]
La semplice esistenza di queste versioni la dice molto lunga sulla qualità delle informazioni giunte in paese. Russo sostiene che i contadini che assistettero alla mattanza raccontarono alla comunità del massacro compiuto dai partigiani, tanto che “Tutti sapevano fin nei minimi particolari” (pag.14,18,149,183,205,206,207,208,), ma se ciò corrispondesse a realtà non si spiegherebbe la nascita, in una comunità compatta e omogenea nell’accusare sempre i partigiani (pag.43) ed informata di un terribile crimine commesso da quegli stessi partigiani, di versioni favorevoli…. ai partigiani!
L’esistenza di queste versioni la dice pure lunga sulla considerazione di partigiani, fascisti e nazisti all’interno della comunità: solo nazisti e fascisti vengono ritenuti capaci di portare a termine un tale crimine. Molto interessante se si considera che la comunità descritta da Russo era unanime e compatta nel condannare i partigiani.
E Russo come commenta queste versioni? Russo le scarta in toto ritenendole irrealistiche, preferendo la versione ottenuta combinando le proprie fonti (che tra un attimo vedremo). In particolare, sempre a pag.185 asserisce che “è puerile pensare che si possano scongelare corpi, straziarli a crudo con picconi e altro e riportarli poi nella medesima posizione. Mai visto un corpo congelato spruzzare sangue e lasciare tracce così evidenti e macabre come quelle rinvenute da persone ben identificate all’interno della malga.”
Osservazione strana in quanto lo stesso Russo a pag.161 riporta la testimonianza di Nino Mafezzini (“carabiniere” della GNR che partecipò al recupero delle salme) secondo cui i corpi, a diversi giorni di distanzaerano ancora in grado di sporcare di sangue chi li maneggiava: “[…] siamo tornati a valle, sfiniti e imbrattati di sangue umano, quello dei miei compagni, acqua e neve”. Trattandosi inoltre dello stesso teste che a pag.159 descrive i corpi con le parole “erano come sassi, pezzi congelati e deformi” é lecito chiedersi quanto di queste parole vada inteso come mera descrizione figurativa e quanto vada preso alla lettera, specie relativamente al grado di congelamento dei corpi, anche perché secondo la testimonianza di Nino Mafezzini sembrerebbe che non abbia nevicato granché tra il momento dell’uccisione ed il recupero dei cadaveri dato che i segni di trascinamento dei corpi erano ancora visibili sulla neve stessa (pag.158).
Interessante anche notare il fatto che in questo caso venga rimarcato da Russo che le tracce all’interno della malga sono stare rinvenute da “persone ben identificate”, in quanto, effettivamente, le uniche testimonianze di prima mano chiare e certe che Russo ha a disposizione riguardo a ciò che avvenne nella malga non sono quelle di chi partecipò all’uccisione dei dodici ma di chi partecipò… al recupero e identificazione delle salme (Russo non dà alcuna considerazione ala testimonianza del partigiano Srecko ritenendola menzognera)!
4.00 LE TORTURE
A questo punto bisognerebbe entrare nel vivo della vicenda, ossia analizzare il lavoro eseguito da Russo per giungere alla sua ipotesi su cosa accadde ai dodici dopo che furono sequestrati il 23 marzo 1944. Tuttavia, per meglio poter effettuare questo lavoro, é indispensabile tenere a mente anche ciò che avvenne nei giorni successivi e quindi il capitolo inerente al momento-clou della vicenda é spostato al capitolo 7.
5.00 GLI EVENTI SUCCESSIVI
La storia narrata in “Planina Bala” é profondamente debitrice della “storia di questa storia”, ossia delle convinzioni sull’episodio sedimentatesi negli anni tra la popolazione locale. Prima fra tutte la “segretezza” e la vergogna con cui tale episodio veniva raccontato.
5.01 LE RICERCHE NON-RICERCHE
Riguardo alle ricerche dei dodici il testo fornisce indicazioni diverse che, osservate una ad una, danno l’impressione di una totale mancanza di coordinamento e collaborazione tra le forze su cui però spicca l’azione dei tedeschi:
Le ricerche cominciarono il 24 marzo 1944 (pag.152)
I nazifascisti erano più preoccupati della centrale che della sorte dei dodici (pag.154, 231,)
Le operazioni di ricerca venivano seguite e controllate dai tedeschi, i quali, in gran numero, ispezionavano case e fienili alla ricerca di partigiani (pag.162)
I “tedeschi” effettuarono rastrellamenti nella zona (pag.236)
Le ricerche coinvolsero anche: Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana, Alpini del Reggimento “Tagliamento”, Milizia Confinaria.
Italiani e tedeschi “[…] mai come in quei giorni avevano ispezionato il territorio (pag.156)
I militi italiani, pur intensificando le perlustrazioni, anche dopo diversi giorni non trovarono nulla (pag.153)
I partigiani avrebbero ucciso i dodici senza usare armi da fuoco perché i nazifascisti erano alle loro calcagna e non volevano attirarli col rumore.
Gli alpini del “Tagliamento” intensificano le perlustrazioni ma senza alcun risultato.
I “carabinieri” di Tarvisio della compagnia “Tolmezzo” non partecipano alle ricerche né avevano un’idea chiara di cosa sia successo (pag.219)
La fonte più interessante presentata da Russo riguardo alla situazione post-sabotaggio che ci viene presentata é una lettera inviata il 25 marzo 1944 dal ten.col.Angelo Viticci, comandante del Gruppo di Udine della Legione “Carabinieri” al Comando generale di Trieste di cui vengono riportati alcuni stralci inframmezzati da una trascrizione di Russo del testo (testo che si apre con un riferimento ad una precedente segnalazione della tenenza di Tarvisio numero 4/22 del 23 marzo 1944). La divisione fra testo citato e trascrizione non é chiarissima ma presumendo che gli stralci non virgolettati siano quelli trascritti se ne desume:
“verso le ore 21 del 23 corrente certa Bertolotti Maria ecc. ecc., moglie di Giacomo Koserog, sorvegliante della centrale elettrica di Bretto Inferiore, a mezzo telefono informava la Direzione della Miniera che circa mezz’ora prima i partigiani avevano fatto saltare detta centrale dove doveva trovarsi il marito, del quale non aveva notizie, aggiungendo che nulla sapeva dei carabinieri addetti alla sorveglianza della centrale stessa”.
[IL SEGUENTE PASSO E’ DI RUSSO] Alle ore 23 il sottotenente Squadrelli avvertiva la tenenza di Tarvisio dell’accaduto precissando di aver già informato il comando tedesco, il quale la stessa sera aveva inviato un reparto del Presidio tedesco di Plezzo.
“Nelle prime ore di ieri unitamente al predetto ufficiale, all’ingegner Hempel e a personale della miniera stessa, il comandante la tenenza si è recato per le indagini del caso, a Bretto”
[IL SEGUENTE PASSO E’ DI RUSSO] dove poco dopo è giunto il comandante della compagnia di Tolmezzo, Santo Arbitrio. In occasione di quella ispezione, venne constatato che gli ordigni esplosivi avevano danneggiato una turbina, il fabbricato della centrale e altri accessori elettrici dei quadri, mentre
“la vicina casermetta ove alloggiava il distaccamento dell’Arma”
[IL SEGUENTE PASSO E’ DI RUSSO] era andato completamente distrutta. Segue l’elenco dei carabinieri in servizio,
“della sorte dei quali non è stato possibile raccogliere alcuna notizia”.
[IL SEGUENTE PASSO E’ DI RUSSO] Dall’interrogatorio degli operai Andrea Cuder e Giacomo Koserog il gruppo in visita riuscì a sapere che il pomeriggio precedente il vice brigadiere e due carabinieri, uno dei quali -con biancheria sporca che recava alla lavandaia-, si erano allontanati dalla caserma e che verso le 18 erano stati visti in un bar di Bretto.
“Non è stato assolutamente possibile stabilire come i partigiani siano riusciti ad agire indisturbati né quale sia stato il comportamento dei carabinieri dato che nessuno ha udito colpi d’arma da fuoco da lasciar supporre un conflitto”.
“Gli operai Cuder Andrea, Koserog Giacomo e Komac Giovanni hanno dichiarato di non aver riconosciuto nessuno dei banditi che parteciparono all’azione criminosa e che si presume si trovino accantonati in zona prossima a quella compresa tra la chiusa di Plezzo e Plezzo.”
“Sono in corso i lavori della centrale la quale a quanto si presume potrà essere messa in efficienza fra una decina di giorni”.
Russo fa notare che la lettera é incentrata più sui danni alla centrale che alla sorte dei dodici.
Io faccio notare che le parti non riportate in originale hanno tutte in comune il contenere i riferimenti di grado e compagnia delle persone e degli enti citati, ossia, in originale, potrebbero essere rivelatori della loro appartenenza alla Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana. Faccio pure notare che il sottotenente Quadrelli, saputo del sabotaggio della centrale avverte PRIMA il comando tedesco e solo dopo la tenenza di Tarvisio, il che offre un’immagine molto chiara della gerarchia tra diversi corpi coinvolti.
In sostanza il quadro sembra questo: partirono immediatamente operazioni di ricerca gestite dai “tedeschi” che, in gran numero, controllavano seguivano l’intera operazione di ricerca ispezionando e mettendo a soqquadro case e fienili (pag.162) mentre le diverse milizie italiane, che erano sottoposte agli ordini tedeschi (pag.152), sembra non furono ben informate dei fatti: parrebbe che alla tenenza di Tarvisio della GNR non abbiano avuto un’idea precisa di cosa fosse accaduto ai loro colleghi di Bretto (pag.219) se non ad alcuni giorni di distanza (pag.200) né sapessero bene l’una cosa stesse facendo l’altra (un banale esempio di come funzionassero le relazioni quotidiane tra i diversi corpi é l’aneddoto a pag.200,201) nonostante gli operai della centrale avessero chiaramente indicato il responsabile in Socian (che era noto alle autorità, tanto che ne possedevano anche una foto segnaletica) nessuno della comunità locale che (secondo l’autore) seppe fin da subito e nei minimi particolari cosa avvenne (pag.149) in quei giorni e in quelle settimane si preoccupò di assicurare alla giustizia il tanto temuto e famigerato Socian e far piena luce sugli avvenimenti comunicando ciò che sapeva.
FERMI TUTTI!!! In precedenza Russo afferma che diversi contadini furono in grado di seguire di nascosto partigiani e “carabinieri” fino alla malga senza farsi notare nonostante quei territori fossero territorio incontrastato dei partigiani comunisti (pag.99) e che i partigiani vennero già visti al mattino successivo da diversi contadini e bambini ed ora dice che i nazifascisti brancolarono nel buio per giorni.
Anche qui c’è qualcosa che non torna: Russo sostiene che la popolazione avesse in simpatia i “carabinieri” militi della GNR, che fosse impaurita dagli odiati partigiani (che, come già visto: sono pochi e isolati quando li si odia ma tanti ed appoggiati da una rete tentacolare quando se ne ha paura), che il parroco di Bretto invitasse pubblicamente i concittadini a non parteggiare per i partigiani e che succede? Quando i tanto odiati partigiani rapiscono i tanto amati militi della GNR non v’é una sola persona che fornisce manco una dritta anonima ai nazifascisti, né i nazifascisti tentano di ottenere informazioni da uno dei contadini? Nessuno interrogò mai i contadini della Bausiza? Si parla di ispezioni in case e fienili ma il contrasto tra: [odio per i partigiani+simpatia per i dodici+immediata e precisa conoscenza degli avvenimenti] e [mancata collaborazione con milizie in cerca dei dodici] stride non poco.
“I tarvisiani in quei giorni di Pasqua di quel 1944 non si dimenticarono dei loro carabinieri barbaramente massacrati dagli odiati partigiani slavi e più di qualcuno si portò fino al nuovo cimitero oltre Tarvisio basso, sulla strada per Cave, per una preghiera e un mazzo di fiori” (pag.219)
Per giustificare ciò Russo si appella al terrore della popolazione sia nei confronti di quei partigiani di cui non é stato in grado di documentare nemmeno un solo atto certo di inciviltà verso la comunità locale, sia dei nazisti che quando compiono una strage ed incendiano l’intero paese comunque non ne sono fino in fondo responsabili.
Il perché non avvenga alcun tipo di operazione di rappresaglia contro i partigiani non viene affrontato da Russo nonostante la stranezza della cosa!
Ma come? Cinque mesi prima, per l’uccisione di tre-quattro dei loro, i nazisti compiono una strage ed incendiano un’intero paese ed invece adesso, con dodici militi torturati a morte dopo averli rapiti beffando l’intero apparato di sicurezza non fanno nulla di nulla, ma proprio assolutissimamente nulla e Russo non s’interroga sulla stranezza di ciò?
Ciò che viene rimarcato anche da Russo é il fatto che i nazifascisti fossero più interessati a ripristinare e mettere sotto controllo la centrale che a cercare i dodici (pag.153), ma questo di certo non può giustificare una totale assenza di intervento vista la gravità dell’affronto subito.
Russo sembra sostenere che non vi fu alcuna reazione perché essendo concentrati sul ripristino della centrale, i nazifascisti non avessero interesse a colpire i responsabili di quell’affronto, ma al tempo stesso rimarca come, dal momento della scoperta, per settimane la propaganda utilizzò i corpi martoriati dei dodici militi della GNR proprio per colpire i partigiani dipingendoli come dei mostri. Quei corpi deturpati furono per i nazifascisti un’arma eccezionale da scagliare contro i partigiani.
Dunque quando parliamo di nazifascisti parliamo di pasticcioni disorganizzati e dal pugno di seta? O, forse, stiamo parlando di qualcuno che non é stato in grado di catturare/uccidere i partigiani e, per non tirar troppo la corda nei confronti della popolazione locale che già aveva subito una pesante ritorsione in autunno, decise di agire diversamente ed usare questi cadaveri per fare propaganda antipartigiana tra la gente del posto e che quindi maggiore era lo scempio dei cadaveri e maggiormente sarebbero risultati un’arma potente?
5.02 LE DUE VERSIONI DELLA SCOPERTA
Dopo alcuni giorni (non viene specificato quanti, ma si può presumere ciò sia avvenuto il 30 marzo – vedi pag.162) una pattuglia di tre soldati tedeschi giunse in Bausizia e chiese informazioni agli abitanti della zona su quale sentiero intraprendere per andare da lì fino alla val Trenta (p.155). Chiesero informazioni a Myza Komac, Tona Suler ed il padre Josef. Tutti li sconsigliarono a causa della neve in quota. (NB: si presume che l’unica testimonianza di ciò sia Myza Komac in quanto non vien mai indicato che i Suler siano stati intervistati. Manca invece ogni riferimento temporale sull’evento)
Da qui in poi il racconto prosegue come in altri punti senza citare alcuna fonte ma proponendo due versioni:
VERSIONE UNO: I tre proseguono lo stesso ma sbagliano strada . Dopo diverse ore di marcia vedono malga Bala e vi si avvicinano per chiedere informazioni (NB: avrebbero sbagliato addirittura valle senza accorgersene proseguendo “per diverse ore” stando a nord del Pihavec anziché al sud e ciò implicherebbe una conoscenza della zona praticamente nulla). Qui, “con enorme meraviglia” trovano i cadaveri che spuntano “dalla neve come tronchi accatastati” (pag.156) e ridiscendono a valle per segnalare la cosa. Ma Russo osserva che secondo “Qualcuno degli osservatori postumi ritiene che questo episodio può anche non essere vero, in quanto sembra confezionato ad arte” (grassetto mio) e propone una seconda versione:
VERSIONE DUE: La scoperta dei corpi sarebbe avvenuta su soffiata di qualcuno della Bausiza o per tradimento di un partigiano.
A sostegno della prima versione dunque v’é probabilmente la sola testimonianza di Myza Komac la quale può solo aver riferito di aver dato indicazioni a tre tedeschi senza però sapere, poi, cosa questi abbiano fatto, che strada abbiano percorso o che emozioni abbiano provato alla vista dei corpi. Non si tratta dunque di una prova ma della testimonianza di una donna che un certo giorno diede un’indicazione a dei soldati e poi non vide quel che accadde.
Ma che trattamento offre Russo alla seconda versione dopo aver citato quella da lui ritenuta veritiera solo una testimonianza che dice assai poco? La scarta perché…non ci sono prove! Per dare maggior conferma a questa decisione rimarca che la gente del posto era terrorizzata degli italiani e dei tedeschi che “mai come in quei giorni avevano ispezionato il territorio” (pag.156) ma al tempo stesso riporta che secondo Gajger i tedeschi furono probabilmente informati da “qualche partigiano scappato dal gruppo” (pag.156), ipotesi che Russo scarta sostenendo che se così fosse i corpi si sarebbero ritrovati immediatamente dopo lo scioglimento del gruppo ad azione terminata anziché a diversi giorni di distanza e che questo partigiano sarebbe stato arrestato (ma non considera che l’informazione potrebbe essere stata data alcuni giorni dopo, né che potrebbe esser stata fatta pervenire ai nazisti per vie traverse, né che eventuali spie fra i partigiani avrebbero potuto esser comode anche in futuro, né che l’informazione potrebbe esser stata fornita in maniera generica come “una malga dopo la piana della Bausiza, nella valletta che porta in val Trenta”) ed aggiunge che “Quei tedeschi non stavano affatto cercando i carabinieri; andavano per conto proprio diretti in val Trenta” (pag.157) senza spiegare in base a cosa possa affermare ciò (NB: bisogna anche osservare che in quei giorni in cui si stava battendo il territorio come non mai per cercare i dodici scomparsi, raggiungere la val Trenta passando a piedi sui ripidi sentieri innevati della Bausiza quando la si poteva molto più agevolmente raggiungere con gli automezzi passando da Sonzia e Trenta a rigor di logica sembra più essere un’operazione di ispezione del territorio che una scampagnata “per conto proprio”).
In ogni caso ciò su cui entrambe le versioni concordano é che i cadaveri vennero trovati dai tedeschi.
5.03 IL RECUPERO DELLE SALME
L’ex alpino Vigj Venturini testimonia che:
“Poi una mattina siamo stati chiamati e avviati a piedi dapprima verso il Passo Predil e poi verso la Bausiza: l’ordine era di seguire i carabinieri, i militi della Milizia e i tedeschi al recupero di 12 carabinieri scomparsi da una settimana e rintracciati in alta montagna.“(pag.159)
Una volta giunti sul posto “Nella malga era sangue dappertutto, per terra, sulle pareti, sulle travi soffitto […] C’erano alcuni picconi sporchi di sangue, pale, pezzi di legno…” (pag.160 grassetti miei)
“Nel proseguire, i tedeschi ci precedevano e sembrava che sapessero già tutto. Da qui il pensiero, mio e degli altri, che a uccidere i carabinieri fossero stati proprio loro!“(pag.158)
Mentre l’ex carabiniere e milite della GNR Gino Milanese di stanza ad Udine riporta di esser stato inviato in treno alla tenenza della GNR di Tarvisio dopo che ad Udine giunse la comunicazione del recupero delle salme da parte dei tedeschi.
Quattro salme vengono recuperate il 31 marzo. A causa delle condizioni meteo le altre otto vengono recuperate il 2 aprile (pag.162). I corpi vengono radunati in una fortezza.
Angelo De Guglielmi, “carabiniere” della GNR che partecipò al recupero delle salme testimonia che quando giunse a malga Bala i tedeschi già erano lì (pag.201).
Gino Milanese, “carabiniere” della GNR che partecipò al recupero delle salme testimonia che dei vari militi lì presenti solo i più temerari compirono le operazioni di primo recupero dalla catasta di corpi. Lui personalmente svenne.
Vigj Venturini, “carabiniere” della GNR che partecipò al recupero delle salme testimonia che i tedeschi precedevano i militi italiani (pag.158) e che le operazioni si svolsero in fretta nel timore di esser colti anch’essi da un attacco partigiano e che, messi i corpi in teli fatti a barelle, ognuno sorretto da due-tre uomini li han portati giù per la discesa gelata scivolandovi spesso. A valle caricarono ogni corpo su un mulo e così si avviarono verso la fortezza (pag.159).
Nino Mafezzini, “carabiniere” della GNR che partecipò al recupero delle salme testimonia che le barelle vennero improvvisate con teli militari e rami d’albero, dopodiché, una volta portati in fondo al sentiero, ne caricarono due per mulo (pag.161). Inoltre ricorda che i militi che parteciparono al recupero tornarono a valle sfiniti ed imbrattati di sangue, acqua e neve (pag.162)
Cesare Maria Squadrelli, sottotenente del Reggimento Alpini Tagliamento. Testimonia che uno solo dei corpi aveva una ferita da arma da fuoco, probabilmente ad una spalla. (pag.167)
Mafezzini e De Guglielmi, devono spostare le salme, ma prima debbono tentare di identificare i corpi.
“Erano talmente mal ridotti che era praticamente difficile distinguerli uno dall’altro: erano come sassi, pezzi congelati e deformi: una visione terribile e indimenticabile!” (Nino Mafezzini, pag.159)
5.04 L’INCENDIO DELLA MALGA
A pag. 136 Nella didascalia di una foto attuale dei ruderi della malga, Russo scrive che
“l’incuria, il tempo e mani ignote hanno fatto sì che di “quella” malga rimanessero solo desolazione e lamiere contorte”
A pag.162 Russo scrive che al termine del recupero delle salme qualcuno incendiò la malga sperando di distruggere i segni della violenza.
A pag.257 Russo scrive che la malga fu data alle fiamme dai militi italiani mei primi giorni d’aprile 1944 quando portarono giù i corpi (e che la malga fu successivamente ricostruita)
Si può presumere l’incendio della malga avvenne al termine del recupero delle ultime salme, ossia il 2 aprile ma é lecito domandarsi fino a che punto un atto del genere possa esser motivato, come sostiene Russo, dal voler esorcizzare un orrore e se ciò non possa esser invece inteso anche come metodo per cancellare delle prove.
5.05 PROPAGANDA
Per i nazifascisti quelle dodici salme massacrate sono uno strumento di propaganda antipartigiana potentissimo e difatti le usano per tirare acqua al loro mulino (pag.173)
Il 2 aprile 1944 anche le ultime salme vengono radunate nella fortezza, dopodiché (presumibilmente il 3 aprile) vengono caricate su un camion della miniera che su ordine del capitano Max Vogrin viene mandato a fare uno shock-tour per mostrare i cadaveri alla popolazione “per un richiamo e un monito ufficiale alla popolazione locale tra cui si nascondevano da sempre i partigiani” (pag.162).
Il tour comincia a Plezzo dopodiché il camion si reca a Bretto di Sotto per lo stesso motivo. Successivamente il camion sostò brevemente davanti alla chiesa per poi proseguire verso l’officina meccanica dell’autista del camion (Attilio Cumini), con una pompa dell’acqua ripulì alla meglio le salme. Svolta questa operazione il camion proseguì in direzione di Tarvisio per scaricare i cadaveri nel campo scelto per la sepoltura (che avrebbe “inaugurato” il nuovo cimitero) ma ad operazione già iniziata giunse dai tedeschi l’ordine di portare le salme in piazza anche a Tarvisio e a Cave. Il testo riporta le testimonianze con nome e cognome di numerose persone che all’epoca assistettero al macabro spettacolo (vedi sotto).
I tedeschi appesero sugli alberi della piazza e davanti al municipio manifesti antipartigiani con foto dei macabri dettagli dei corpi martoriati, che furono osservati da numerose persone incuriosite (pag.219), non solo nel tarvisiano, ma in tutto il Friuli (pag.175) e tutti i giornali pubblicarono a ripetizione articoli con foto e particolari agghiaccianti (pag.175).
(i tedeschi stavano) “[…] tirando l’acqua al proprio mulino, cercando di convincere i dubbiosi sulla bontà e sulla necessità di continuare nella loro alleanza per far quadrato comune contro la crudeltà dei partigiani, alleati degli anglo-americani” (pag.173)
“Dalle foto e dalla osservazione diretta dei cadaveri, tutti si erano convinti, pur senza prove dirette, che i carabinieri erano stati barbaramente massacrati coi picconi, pale e spranghe” (pag.219 – grassetto mio)
Il 4 aprile 1944 viene tenuta una cerimonia funebre che si protrasse quasi fino a sera cui partecipano paesani e militi nazifascisti. I nazisti perseverarono nell’utilizzo mediatico dei corpi martoriati per convincere la popolazione dell’inaffidabilità degli slavi e favorire una maggior collaborazione della popolazione (pag.175). Russo riporta tre dei testi che circolarono allora:
Articolo giornalistico dell’aprile 1944” di cui non é specificata né la testata né la data né la firma:
L’opera dei “Liberatori” nella vera luce Metodi comunisti per la conquista del mondo. Questi terrificanti documenti fotografici non richiedono commenti. Sono sufficienti pochi particolari su questa spaventosa strage. Sono i resti mortali di dodici carabinieri, vittime del bestiale odio assassino di una banda di banditi bolscevichi. Le vittime sono state martirizzate il 23 marzo u.s. nelle vicinanze di Cave del Predil. Le vittime denudate sono state poi uccise bestialmente a colpi di piccone. Ecco i sistemi degli alleati dei “liberatori”! Caduta la pelle d’agnello con la quale il lupo bolscevico cerca di ammantarsi, ci appare con quali mezzi e sistemi, che giungono fino all’assassinio consumato nel modo più bestiale, s’intendano realizzare le grandi promesse del comunismo: lavoro, pane e pace. Tutti coloro che si ostinano ancora a credere in un comunismo migliore di quello che finora ha macchiato il mondo di sangue, hanno qui un ulteriore esempio da meditare: questo è il vero comunismo, questi sono i sistemi del bolscevismo bestiale, questi gli alleati di coloro che si dichiarano liberatori del mondo, questi i metodi dei senza Dio. E chi non vuoI sentire e non vuoI capire insulta con la sua incredulità e la sua incoscienza la memoria di migliaia e migliaia di martirizzati dal mostro rosso, mai sazio di sangue. L’altra mattina sono state tributate a Tarvisio, solenni e commoventi onoranze alle salme dei dodici militi, caduti nell’adempi- mento del loro dovere. I dodici feretri erano scortati da reparti armati italiani e tedeschi; corone di fiori freschi avevano inviato il Comando Militare di Tarvisio e quello di Udine, il Comune di Tarvisio, vari Comandi della C.N.E., compreso quello del Gruppo di Udine, diversi enti e civili. Dopo impartita l’assoluzione in Chiesa, le salme sono state accompagnate al cimitero ed ivi pietosamente tumulate, nel mentre una triplice salve di fuciliera – sparata da un reparto tedesco – salutava i caduti rendendo onore alla loro memoria.
Articolo del Gazzettino di Padova del 7 Aprile 1944
Volantino fascista pubblicato in varie zone del Friuli (pag.181):
“FRIULANI”: Con cinismo diabolico, con atrocità che può scaturire soltanto da cervelli asiatici, i prezzolati dei bolscevichi e del “liberatori” hanno commesso ai confini della nostra Provincia, il 23 marzo u.s. un’al- tra afferrata strage, martirizzando e massacrando dodici carabinieri. Questi martiri del dovere, colpevoli solo di compierlo con dedizione al servizio della Patria, vennero trascinati sulla montagna, denudati, torturati nel modo più atroce ed infine uccisi a colpi di piccone. Crivellate di ferite orribili (a taluni vennero perfino strappati gli occhi), le povere vittime con le gambe legate con fili di ferro, vennero trascinate lontano dal luogo del delitto, gettate in un burrone e coperte di neve. Lavoro, pane, pace è la bella menzogna promessa dai cosiddetti “liberatori”. Ma gli atti di bestiale violenza testimoniano che anch’essi sono pari ai bolscevichi nel sadismo e nella crudeltà. Questi fatti esecrandi non aprono gli occhi anche a voi che finora avete creduto ciecamente alle parole malate dei bolscevichi? Per voi che in buona, ma anche spesso in mala fede, sperate ostinatamente in un comunismo migliore di quello che finora, travestito da agnello, ha macchiato il mondo di sangue, sia questo un monito che apra gli occhi e illumini le coscienze. Questo è il vero bolscevismo, questi sono gli alleati degli angloamericani, che dopo aver invaso parte della Patria, dopo averla inumanamente devastata, consegnano ancora i nostri bambini alla Russia comunista, perché colà, secondo l’educazione bolscevica, se ne facciano altrettanti bestiali rinnegatori di Dio, quali essi sono. Questi sono i metodi con i quali i comunisti si sono prefissi di conquistare il mondo. Vorremmo noi italiani assistere alla rovina completa, non solo materiale ma anche morale e spirituale della nostra Patria, paese di antica civiltà della storia gloriosa, senza opporci con tutte le nostre forze a tale tremenda eventualità, in modo da far sì che, in tante immeritate disgrazie che ci hanno colpito, almeno le nostre più sacre tradizioni culturali, religiose e dello spirito siano salve?
E’del tutto evidente che la versione diffusa dai quotidiani e dal volantino di propaganda é ESATTAMENTE quella adottata da Russo.
5.06 C.S.I. TARVISIO
Da quanto riporta il testo non sembra vi fu un’analisi dei corpi e delle mutilazioni, tuttavia:
“Dalle foto e dalla osservazione diretta dei cadaveri, tutti si erano convinti, pur senza prove dirette, che i carabinieri erano stati barbaramente massacrati coi picconi, pale e spranghe” (pag.219 – grassetto mio)
Le numerose testimonianze degli italiani che parteciparono al recupero delle salme o assistettero allo shock-tour dei cadaveri sono sostanzialmente concordi nella descrizione dei particolari più impressionanti delle mutilazioni subite, anche se in alcuni casi non é chiaro se i testi citati da Russo raccontino ciò che hanno visto di persona o ciò che veniva raccontato in paese. Al solito vien dato ampio spazio alle emozioni si orrore e sgomento provato da questi testimoni che all’epoca erano perlopiù bambini.
semidenudati (pag.167)
quasi tutti nudi (pag.167)
qualcuno aveva come stracci addosso (pag.167)
nudi, con addosso alcuni stracci (pag.199)
le salme erano livide (pag.168)
diversi buchi sulla fronte, sul petto, sul collo (pag.167, 173)
un chiaro colpo d’arma da fuoco sulla spalla di uno dei cadaveri (pag.167)
si vedevano i segni dei chiodi degli scarponi (pag.168)
segni dei chiodi delle scarpe ben evidenti in faccia (pag 199)
qualcuno aveva la bocca come cucita con fil di ferro (pag.168)
qualcuno aveva filo spinato attorcigliato attorno ai piedi (pag.167)
qualcuno aveva filo spinato attorcigliato attorno al collo stretto sulla bocca (pag.167)
qualcuno aveva il fil di ferro che stringeva la bocca (pag.199)
qualcuno era senza occhi
qualcuno forse non aveva più gli occhi (pag.168)
i testicoli in bocca (pag.199)
i genitali “congelati” in fronte (pag.199)
genitali strappati (pag.173)
qualcuno aveva il petto squarciato (pag 199)
qualcuno aveva le braccia distorte (pag. 199)
Maggiormente interessanti sono le testimonianze dei recuperanti riguardo i corpi:
NINO MAFEZZINI: Mucchio informe di corpi straziati e seminudi sotto un grande sasso / solo un segno d’arma da fuoco su uno dei corpi / corpi accatastati gli uni sugli altri, di cui quello maggiormente deturpato era in cima, il quale presentava ancora fil di ferro ai piedi / talmente malridotti da risultar difficile distinguere l’uno dall’altro / sangue indurito un po ovunque. Vien da chiedersi in una situazione tale come sia possibile comprendere semplicemente a vista se i corpi presentassero ANCHE ferite d’arma da fuoco.
VIGJ VENTURINI: Corpi accatastati sotto un grande sasso / corpi congelati / pochi stracci inzuppati di sangue addosso / evidenti segni di picconate in tutto il corpo e sul viso / cuore fracassato / occhi sventrati / testicoli strappati / fili di ferro alle caviglie e sulla bocca / maciullati e irriconoscibili / alcuni avevano gambe distorte, facilmente spezzate, contorte e poi congelate / corpi violacei con grosse chiazze giallastre
E le testimonianze dei recuperanti sulle condizioni della malga:
NINO MAFEZZINI: pareti e soffitto del casolare macchiati di sangue / sul soffitto materia cerebrale / sul pavimento un solo piccone senza manico vicino a pezzi di legno macchiati di sangue / segni di trascinamento dalla malga al sasso sulla neve (pag.158)
VIGJ VENTURINI: sangue dappertutto nella malga, sia su pareti che soffitto e travi / alcuni picconi sporchi di sangue, pale e pezzi di legno /
Anche qui sorge qualche perplessità: com’è possibile sperare di poter comprendere a vista se su corpi violacei e giallastri induriti dal freddo, segnati da diverse mutilazioni, amputazioni, segni di scarpate, colpi di piccone, filo spinato, graffi da trascinamento, sangue rappreso (e, a questo punto di decomposizione si può supporre anche la fuoriuscita di liquidi corporali dagli orifizi) ci fossero anche fori di proiettile?
INSERTO MEDICO: Nel momento della morte iniziano i un processi chimici di decomposizione che dopo un iniziale rilassamento del corpo portano invece all’irrigidimento muscolare noto come rigor mortis. Lo stato di rigidità si esaurisce dopo un certo lasso di tempo a causa dell’accelerato decadimento cellulare. Vari fattori influiscono sulla durata dei tali processi, in primo luogo la temperatura: sead una temperatura di 20-25°C la rigidezza dura circa 24-36 ore, a basse temperature il processo può invecedurare diversi giornifino addirittura a fermarsi e bloccare la decomposizione in caso di congelamento e/o assenza d’aria.
Durante il processo di decomposizione uno dei segni più visibili é il cambiamento di colore dell’epidermide, che passa da un iniziale biancore al verde, dopodiché al giallo, fino a giungere al rosso-violaceo ed infine al nero. Come già detto, a seconda delle condizioni e della temperatura cui si trova il corpo, anche queste variazioni di colore possono verificarsi con tempistiche e durate molto diverse. Invece nel caso di cadaveri lasciati immediatamente congelare si passa direttamente da un iniziale bianco bluaceo ad un grigio-giallognolo.
Il colore dei cadaveri dei dodici, descritti dal Venturini come“violacei con grosse chiazze giallastre” (pag.160) indicherebbe (é una mia speculazione) che il decesso risalisse effettivamente a diversi giorni prima e che la temperatura esterna, almeno fino a quel momento era abbastanza bassa da rallentare il processo di decomposizione ma non abbastanza da interromperlo (ossia: faceva freddo ma non tanto da congelare i corpi), forse perché i corpi restarono all’interno della malga o forse perché le giornate immediatamente dopo l’uccisione non furono eccessivamente fredde ed i corpi furono esposti al sole. In effetti l’inverno 1943/1944 risultò forse quello più mite del decennio ’40 tanto che a febbraio si registrò un insolito aumento delle temperature (fonte: utenti di MeteoNetwork), ma bisogna fare queste valutazioni con cautela in quanto la posizione di malga Bala (a quota superiore ai 1100 metri e dunque soggetta a possibili fenomeni d’inversione termica e sita nel bel mezzo di una valle chiusa in cui i depositi nevosi possono divenire molto voluminosi) non permette di determinare le condizioni meteo del luogo semplicemente da una media delle zone circostanti.
I cadaveri erano dunque “congelati” da diversi giorni, in stato di rigor mortis rallentato dal freddo o si erano “congelati” dopo il 30 marzo, ossia dopo il primo ritrovamento dei corpi? Russo c’informa di “bufere improvvise e violente” tra il 31 marzo ed il 1 aprile (pag.162) che rallentarono le operazioni di recupero ma non segnala nessun caso in cui il maltempo rallentò le ricerche a tappeto nei giorni precedenti. E’ forse lecito chiedersi se i cadaveri non furono invece lasciati all’interno della malga, dove il processo di decomposizione risentiva meno delle temperature esterne, oppure esposti sotto il sole di una fine marzo relativamente mite per poi essere trascinati sotto la roccia grande il 30-31 marzo e congelare durante la bufera immediatamente successiva?
INSERTO BALISTICO Non sapendo che armi avesse a disposizione il gruppo che sequestrò i dodici si può solo fare qualche congettura generica: solitamente i partigiani non avevano una grande disponibilità d’armi e perlopiù utilizzavano quelle che riuscivano a rubare ai fascisti. Il fucile più diffuso era il Carcano Mod. 91, che utilizzava diversi calibri e munizioni, su cui spiccava il modello 91/38 (Mod.91 Cal. 6,5) che montava le6,5 x 52mm Mannlicher-Carcano, mentre le pistole più comuni era le semiautomaticheBeretta M34 e M35che utilizzavano proiettili 7,65mm Browning.
Le ferite provocate con questi tipi d’armamento possono essere molto diverse, a seconda che si spari un colpo a distanza con fucile,
Ma i casi più comuni sono simili a questo colpi da distanza intermedia (inferiore a 50 cm) che imprimono sulla pelle il tatuaggio della polvere da sparo:
(Fonte: Di Maio, Gunshot Wounds 2nd edition)
Questo tipo di ferite però a volte può essere confuso con altri tipi di lesioni come ad esempio microemmorraggie sottocutanee o morsi d’insetto:
(Fonte: Di Maio, Gunshot Wounds 2nd edition)
Perché faccio questo appunto su microemmorraggie ed insetti? Beh, a causa di una nota che Russo fa a pag.146 quando narra di Perpignano che, mentre é appeso al testa un giù ad una trave dentro la malga:
“[…] perfino delle formiche affamate, attratte sangue, avevano cominciato a salirgli tra i capelli. I loro morsi saranno poi accertati sulla pelle del povero martire giorni e giorni dopo quell’efferato avvenimento!”
Questa nota merita già un’immediato approfondimento anticipando qualcosa dal capitolo sulle torture: innanzitutto vien da chiedersi che razza di formiche girino in inverno sulle montagne innevate del tarvisiano con un’aggressività tale da farle attaccare un uomo ancora vivo perché attratte dal suo sangue. Ma anche ammesso che una colonia di temibili formiche vampiro del Madagascar si fosse stabilita in Bausiza, da dove ottiene quest’informazione il Russo? Non certo dal Gajger o da Bepi Flajs, né da Hrovat o da Srecko che di formiche non ne parlano affatto. Nemmeno i numerosi intervistati che assistettero allo shock-tour ne parlano (vedi sotto)! Forse non erano formiche ma mosche (a marzo)? O altri insetti insolitamente invernali? A pag.146 si afferma che i corpi vennero esaminati dal medico Francesco Ferrante di Tarvisio e che fu lui a stabilire che solo un “carabiniere” presentava una ferita d’arma da fuoco alla spalla, il che lascia intendere che forse fu sempre lui a stabilire che quei segni fossero morsi di formica:
“I loro morsi saranno poi accertati sulla pelle del povero martire giorni e giorni dopo quell’efferato avvenimento!” (pag.146)
Fu Ferrante a stabilire che si trattassero di morsi di formica? E chi é questo signor Ferrante? Era un fedele servitore dei nazisti? O un buon uomo obbligato a sottostare alle loro imposizioni? Un medico imparziale ed esperto in ferite d’arma da fuoco? Un medico di base che perlopiù curava piccoli malanni? Russo ha in mano la relazione del Ferrante? Come sa che fu questo Ferrante a compiere le osservazioni ed a quali conclusioni giunse? Nulla di tutto ciò é dato sapere: queste domande, nel testo, non vengono nemmeno affrontate! Però da pag.71 a pag.74 Russo ci tiene ad informarci approfonditamente riguardo ad una cena dei “carabinieri” a base di coniglio che però, forse, era gatto.
Quei “morsi di formica” erano forse punture d’insetto avvenute post-mortem o tatuaggi d’arma da fuoco? Non possiamo saperlo, ma certo l’aver evocato un poco probabile assalto di formiche appare sospetto, specie perché fatto in un testo che nega un tipo d’uccisione (con armi da fuoco) caratterizzato proprio dal poter lasciare segni confondibili con morsi d’insetto.
Ricapitolando: lo stato dei corpi ci viene riferito da ex militi della GNR all’epoca di circa vent’anni e che, a quanto ne sappiamo, privi di reale esperienza di guerra e contatto con cadaveri o ferite da arma da fuoco. Altre testimonianze sui corpi giungono da coloro che assistettero, perlopiù giovanissimi, allo shock-tour e dalle osservazioni (non riportate direttamente) fatto da un medico di cui non vien detto nulla. Ma se i cadaveri furono davvero esaminati che bisogno ha Russo di specificare a pag.219 che “[…] tutti si erano convinti, pur senza prove dirette, che i carabinieri erano stati barbaramente massacrati coi picconi, pale e spranghe”?
In ogni caso con dei corpi tanto malmessi sembra abbastanza facile che militi inesperti e civili si siano limitati a notare gli aspetti più vistosi delle ferite interpretandole grossolanamente poiché privi d’esperienza a riguardo.
5.07 LE CHIACCHERE DEL PAESE
Forse il capitolo più divertente del libro é quello relativo alla raccolta di testimonianze sparse di testimoni indiretti. É una raccolta di chiacchere di paese, note di colore, informazioni secondarie e, raramente qualche notizia potenzialmente utile su cui però Russo non si sofferma. In molti casi si tratta semplicemente di testimonianze di chi vide i corpi recuperati e portati dai tedeschi nei vari paesi affinché la popolazione locale si convincesse della brutalità dei partigiani; testimonianze che Russo riporta come a voler confermare la propria versione dei fatti procedendo per accumulo di conferme indirette senza mai tener conto di quanto da lui stesso scritto a pag.219, ossia che “tutti si erano convinti, pur senza prove dirette, che i carabinieri erano stati barbaramente massacrati coi picconi, pale e spranghe”. Le dichiarazioni sono perlopiù accomunate dal fatto che gli intervistati parlano dei partigiani come belve selvatiche, della paura di parlare di questi fatti e v’è a volte una descrizione amichevole che Russo fa delle donne che confermano la sua tesi:
LEOPOLD KOMAC
Operaio (?) della miniera di Cave. Dice che tutti sapevano, che conosceva tutti quei carabinieri e che in miniera la gente non parlava “per paura gli uni degli altri” (quindi non tutti in miniera erano antipartigiani) e che erano tutti impauriti dai partigiani.
GIOVANNI VUERICH
Operaio delle miniere compagno di lavoro di Tona Flajs, marito di Myza Komac. Dice che all’inizio tutti dicessero fossero stati i tedeschi a massacrare coi picconi i carabinieri, tra cui due-tre suoi compagni di lavoro che avevano fatto parte di quel gruppo di partigiani.
VITTORIA FOCHESATO “nonnina gentile, alla mano, vivace e con una memoria di ferro, come si sul dire, molto schietta e di poche parole”
Nipote di uno dei contadini anonimi della Bausiza che assistettero agli eventi inveisce contro Socian, dice che non é vero che siano stati i tedeschi, che tutti sanno come siano andate le cose per davvero, che Gajger all’inizio si vantava di aver partecipato ai fatti ma poi ha cominciato a smettere per paura di ritorsioni. Aggiunge che a guerra finita alcuni di quei partigiani (i nomi non vengono fatti) sarebbe partito per il Belgio NELLA SPERANZA DI DIMENTICARE (ma come faccia ad affermare che la motivazione non fu la stessa motivazione economica che negli stessi anni spinse migliaia di italiani ad andarsene in Belgio non é dato sapere). Interessante notare che ci venga fornito il nome della nipote ma non del contadino: eppure se ci fosse paura della “vendetta dei partigiani” l’aver nominato la nipote permetterebbe molto facilmente agli ultrasettuagenari ex combattenti del posto capire chi sia lo zio della Signora Fochesato.
FRANCESCO MRAKIC
Operaio della miniera di Cave dice che tutti sapevano delle atrocità partigiane e se ne vergognavano. Dalla sua testimonianza ci sembra di capire che sia stato “obbligato da Socian” ad entrare nella sua brigata partigiana, ma il testo non fornisce alcun dettaglio.
BEPI CUDER
Operaio della miniera di Cave inveisce contro Socian che ha iniziato a disprezzare dopo i fatti del 23 marzo e che suo nipote, Karlo Cuder faceva parte di quel gruppo
ANDREA CERNUTA
(Non viene specificato nulla di questo testimone se non che é di Bretto). Dice che tutti sapevano
SIGNORA CUMINI
Moglie di un figlio dell’autista Attilio Cumini che trasportò le salme col camioncino. Dice che tutti sapevano.
ANGELA NOVAK “dalla voce dolce e delicata”
In diverse famiglie, tra cui la sua, si diceva “Siete dei Socian” ai figli indisciplinati
SIGNORA MUSINA E MARITO TONA MARKA
Dopo i fatti del 23 marzo tutti avevano paura di subire un’altra ritorsione nazifascista.
PARROCO SLAVKO CERNIGOJ
Dice che Socian si credeva un piccolo dio.
ADA PELLIZZARI “una gentile, sensibile, amorevole signora”
Testimonia che suo fratello Osvaldo Pellizzari, su cui si vocifera facesse parte del gruppo di partigiani di Socian, combatté invece con le forze di Mussolini contro in Francia e Grecia-Albania, dove rimase prigioniero fino a dopo la fine del conflitto.
Aggiunge che nella sua famiglia c’era un partigiano: Vladimir Cernuta (ma non é chiaro se facesse parte del gruppo di Socian e se si, da quando). Infine ricorda la scena orribile dei cadaveri dei militi della GNR esposti.
ANGELA (ANNA) POHAR KLAVORA ED IL MARITO TONA VALAS
Dicono che tutti sapevano e testimoniano lo stato dei corpi mostrati nello shock-tour e dice che Perpignano frequentava la signora Ida Manganella (che siano la “Iva” figlia di “Anna” parente di Myza Komac di cui Russo parla a pag.17?)
ANNA STRUKELJI “una signora dolce e sofferta che dalla distruzione di Bretto, il suo paese di origine, cioè da quell’l1 ottobre 1943, non ha più avuto -un giorno di sole nella sua vita-”
Operaia della miniera dice che non si faceva che piangere per i danni causati dai partigiani. Che ha visto i cadaveri deturpati portati in esposizione dai nazifascisti
NINO MANGANELLA
Nipote di uno degli operai della centrale. Pensa che tutta la storia fu una bravata mele organizzata che portò vergogna ai partigiani sloveni.
SIGNOR SULIGOI
Studioso di Plezzo. Commenta gli avvenimenti dicendo che a suo avviso questa vicenda fu una “papera” (sic) e che il movimento ufficiale dei partigiani (Ma di che “movimento” parli non é chiaro: il NOV i POJ? Cosa intende con quell’ -ufficiale-?)
DON RUPNIK
Parroco di Caporetto dice che qualcuno gli dichiarò che i militi della GNR avevano “avuto quello che si meritavano” ma molta più gente invece era indignata della vicenda.
SANDI SOSIC
Dice che Socian agiva a nord di Plezzo e Srecko a sud ma si riunivano solo per le azioni più importanti, mentre il capo brigata era Ursic
FLORIANO SOSIC E L’AMICO DINO ZANGRANDI
Dicono che Socian era terribile, che i partigiani non ce l’avevano con l’Italia ma contro i fascisti, che in malga Bala non poterono sparare per non essere sentiti dai fascisti (ma a pag.146 Russo non parlava di un colpo di revolver?). Ah, dicono anche che tutti sapevano.
FERDINANDO KRAVANJA
Classe 1927. Ex partigiano sloveno compagno di Socian (ma solo verso il termine del conflitto: non all’epoca dei fatti, anche se a Tarvisio si vocifera diversamente) dice che “Socian, non solo con la storia dei carabinieri, ma anche e soprattutto con quella, ha fatto molto male alla causa slovena!”. La dichiarazione può apparire interessante in quanto chi parla é un ex partigiano, tuttavia bisogna tener conto che si tratta sempre dell’opinione di qualcuno che non ha assistito ai fatti (all’epoca aveva diciassette anni e non sappiamo cosa facesse) che potrebbe benissimo essersi convinto della bontà della versione propagandata dai nazifascisti. Aggiunge inoltre che tra i partigiani di Socian vi era anche tal Cirillo Kaska di Cave (oramai deceduto) ma che anche questi vi entrò solo verso la fine del conflitto.
ANGELA (DELLA MEA?) E LA MADRE AMELIA DELLA MEA Dicono che si aveva paura dei partigiani e testimoniano lo stato dei corpi visti allo shock-tour
MARIA SULIN “vecchietta arzilla e gentilissima, piena di vita e senza mezzi termini”
Impiegata comunale che il 10 ottobre 1943 si trovava sul camion dei tedeschi che venne assaltato dai partigiani (e che faceva sul camion pieno di nazisti? era forse una loro collaboratrice?). Dice di essere informata sui fatti perché ha lavorato molti anni in comune. (???)
L’elenco di testimoni più corposo e completo del libro (hanno tutti un nome e di molti vien specificato pure dove risiedono) é quello di coloro che testimoniano chiacchere del paese, opinioni personali e poco altro, tutti accusanti i partigiani nonostante “la versione più divulgata e accreditata sosteneva che i carabinieri rinvenuti congelati e orribilmente deturpati in malga Bala fossero stati uccisi dai tedeschi” (p.185). Il sospetto che questo lungo e corposo elenco sia stato inserito nel testo solo per controbilanciare la magrezza delle prove (aneddotica e card-stacking) a favore della versione sostenuta può farsi facilmente certezza.
5.08 TESTIMONI IN FAMIGLIA
Oltre a molti testimoni che partecipano alle interviste con un coniuge/amico/parente con cui condividono le opinioni siamo forse di fronte ad una possibile rete di testimoni vicinissimi fra loro:
Myza Komac Flajs della Bausiza é sposata a Toni Flajs e ha una nipote di Cave chiamata Iva cui é imparentata per via della madre di Iva, Anna. Myza é forse pure parente del testimone Leopold Komac.
Toni Flajs, che si suppone viva in Bausiza con la moglie Myza Komac Flajs, non é forse parente di Bepi Flajs, anch’egli della Bausiza (località di neanche 20 case)? Che siano fratelli o primi cugini?
La signora Iva (pag.17) é forse Iva Manganella moglie del testimone Nino Manganella
Anna (pag.17), figlia di Iva, potrebbe essere Anna Strukelj o, meno probabilmente Anna Pohar Klavora
Ferdinando Kravanja é forse parente di Lojs Kravanja (Gajger)?
Di certo Lojs Kravanja (Gajger) é sposato con Mafalda, di Uccea ed ha una sorella di nome Myza (pag.148).
Komac Giovanni é parente di Myza Komac Flajs?
E’abbastanza comune che in comunità non particolarmente ampie s’incontrano nomi simili e persone strettamente imparentate, per cui ciò NON dovrebbe costituire un elemento a sfavore delle testimonianze. Ciò che invece fa sorgere dei dubbi é il fatto che in un testo in cui é già evidente lo spostamento dell’attenzione (tipo i militi della GNR che vengono chiamati sempre “carabinieri” ed i nazisti ridotti banalmente in “tedeschi”), si citino alcune persone solo per nome oppure persone dallo stesso cognome oppure col nome da nubile e poi da sposata e che abitano praticamente una a ridosso dell’altra evitando ogni chiarimento su chi siano e che relazione intercorra (o non intercorra) fra loro. Tutti questi nomi che ritornano meriterebbero un minimo di chiarimento, soprattutto a causa delle numerose altre incongruenze del libro. Tanta imprecisione grossolana fa sorgere il sospetto che si voglia celare la vicinanza dei vari testimoni per farli apparire maggiormente slegati ed indipendenti gli uni dagli altri.
Se così fosse avremmo ben nove testimoni (in particolare il trio Gajger, Bepi Flajs e Myza Komac) imparentati e/o perlomeno vicinissimi tra loro. Chi sono le “Ida e Anna” di pag. 17? Ferdinando Kravanja é forse il fratello di Lojs Kravanja? Gajger e Bepi Flajs sono cugini o amici per la pelle fin da giovani? Che questa Myza sia Myza Kravanja sposata in prime nozze Komac ed in seconde nozze Flajs? Dubbi che sorgono a causa dell’ambiguità del testo.
5.09 IL SILENZIO PARTIGIANO
Nel discendere da malga Bala, uno dei 21 partigiani, con la scusa di un bisogno corporale fugge (pag.183). Non sappiamo da dove sia giunta quest’informazione, né chi fosse quest’uomo, né che posizioni umane e politiche avesse né dove sia andato né perché (potrebbe essere colui che informò i nazisti? E’un’ipotesi che nel libro non viene nemmeno presa in considerazione) ma sappiamo che a Russo questa semplice informazione basta per considerarla dimostrazione di dissidi interni su quanto avvenne in malga.
I partigiani dunque si disperdono in più gruppetti e tornano autonomi (pag.183)
Russo scrive che l’azione di malga Bala, a differenza di altre non viene “osannata, pubblicizzata, ampliata e glorificata” come le precedenti ma venne fatta cadere velocemente nel dimenticatoio (pag.183) nonostante l’azione fu volutamente violenta e impressionante proprio perché gli italiani ricordassero per sempre quella data (pag.121). E su questa stranezza ho già detto.
5.10 LA NON-REAZIONE DEI NAZIFASCISTI
Socian era ricercato ma “solo sulla carta” poiché “nessuno effettivamente faceva qualcosa per sorprenderlo o arrestarlo, né i carabinieri, né i militi della Milizia, né i finanzieri e neppure gli alpini del Tagliamento; tanto meno i soldati tedeschi […]”. Non v’é nessuna azione, nessuna rappresaglia contro la popolazione, niente di niente. La stessa popolazione si aspettava una “vendetta tedesca” (pag.187) con una rappresaglia come quella di Bretto dell’ottobre precedente (che seguì l’uccisione di tre soli nazisti), ma ciò non accade. L’azione che i nazifascisti effettivamente compirono contro i partigiani fu fare propaganda antipartigiana con le foto dei corpi dei dodici. Nei giorni in cui vennero effettuate le ricerche l’unica cosa che fecero i “tedeschi” fu mettere a soqquadro case e fienili (pag.162), ma non effettuarono alcuna esecuzione “d’esempio”. Perché?
L’ipotesi più probabile a mio avviso é che avendo già tirato molto la corda con la strage di ottobre e consci che un’ulteriore azione del genere avrebbe minato eccessivamente i rapporti con la comunità locale, i nazisti preferirono stavolta volgere la paura della popolazione non verso sé stessi bensì verso quei partigiani che godevano dell’appoggio locale (se la popolazione fosse stata davvero compatta nel condannare i partigiani non sarebbe stato necessario spingere con così tanta forza la propaganda). Ne deriva che i corpi massacrati, nelle mani dei nazisti furono un potentissimo strumento mediatico. Non solo: maggiori erano le mutilazioni e maggiore era la loro forza mediatica.
5.11 LO STUPORE DEI PARTIGIANI
5.12 POSTUMI PARTIGIANI
Russo scrive che dopo l’azione di malga Bala i partigiani si resero conto di averla fatta grossa con quell’esecuzione che “doveva essere terribile e tremenda” per “servire da monito a tutti gli altri” (pag.121) e fu “preparat(a) minuziosamente” (pag.104) per far “morire in maniera atroce” dei carabinieri “a nome di tutti gli italiani”, ma al tempo stesso scrive pure che il fatto che fosse tanto violenta é indice che qualcosa era stato “fatto sfuggire di mano” (pag.187).
L’esecuzione volutamente atroce preparata minuziosamente risultò, dice, oltraggiosa per l’immagine del partigiano comunista sloveno e per il nascente comunismo di Tito (pag.187). Per questo i partigiani di Socian subirono un sommario processo in cui alcuni vennero degradati e Socian “vedrà interrotto e per qualche tempo compromesso il proprio prestigio e il proprio potere” “ma dopo riuscì a riabilitarsi quasi del tutto” (pag.187).
Anche qui ripeto quanto sia strana l’ipotesi di Russo di un piano studiato a tavolino per essere un monito esemplare MA al tempo stesso che “sfuggì di mano”.
Dopodiché Russo elenca alcuni eventi ed azioni che riguardarono i partigiani del gruppo di Socian nelle settimane e mesi successivi, commentando che le azioni si intensificarono anche per far dimenticare gli eventi della Bala:
Due partigiani vennero uccisi nel bar “Golobar”
Russo scrive che seminarono “terrore e morte” nel territorio che va da Saga a Caporetto, dalla resina alla Raccolana, da Plezzo a Lepena, da Sonzia a Oltresonzia fino alla val Natisene, ma non specifica nemmeno un caso in cui dei civili furono uccisi o fatti terrorizzare.
Compirono diversi tentativi di sabotaggio alla linea telefonica che passa da Plezzo e collega Roma a Vienna e Berlino
Compirono un violento attacco al forte della chiusa provocando numerosi morti e feriti.
I nazisti, inseguendo i partigiani, grazie al tradimento di un “attivista” di Pluzna, uccisero Svonko assieme a due ragazze adolescenti che appartenevano al gruppo di Socian
Silvio Gianfrante riuscì a circondare quattro fortini in mano agli italiani, facendo oltre cento prigionieri che però liberò subito (pag.214 qui nessun commento da parte di Russo)
Socian attentò più volte alla miniera
Grazie alla collaborazione dell’operaio Krast, i partigiani di Socian raggiunsero il 15° livello sotterraneo della miniera, catturarono il guardiano Pietro Favaretto “costringendolo al silenzio” (non é chiaro se intenda dire che fu semplicemente minacciato o é un’eufemismo per intendere che fu ucciso) e dopo aver sistemato delle cariche si diedero alla fuga. Le esplosioni fecero scuotere l’intero abitato di Cave ed allagarono tutti i livelli inferiori della miniera, che restarono impraticabili per oltre un anno.
Socian, assieme ad altri 32 partigiani (ossia in 33, come gli anni di Cristo) tentarono un’operazione in Austria che però andò male (Russo commenta che “quei tedeschi erano più preparati di quelli operanti tra Plezzo e Cave” e che i partigiani dovettero fuggire precipitevolissimevolmente)
Nonostante il testo riporti costantemente che i partigiani terrorizzassero la popolazione con continue azioni violente contro la comunità, le uniche azioni che il testo documenta sono operazioni di sabotaggio e guerriglia
Infine Russo sostiene che Ursic fu “isolato, abbandonato e tradito dai suoi stessi uomini solo perché si era fatto sfuggire di mano l’azione della Bala” (pag.187). Pure in questo caso si tratta di un’affermazione che non ha né fonte né spiegazione al di fuori dei pensieri di Russo.
5.13 PRIMO DOPOGUERRA E DIMENTICATOIO
INSERTO STORICO Al termine del conflitto l’Italia si ritrovava divisa e distrutta, lo scenario internazionale era cambiato drasticamente dall’inizio della guerra e gli sforzi per rimettere in sesto le infrastrutture convivevano con tensioni politiche, economiche e sociali ancora altissime. Si iniziò a discutere seriamente del nuovo assetto istituzionale (monarchia o repubblica), i diversi gruppi partigiani continuavano ad esistere nei rispettivi partiti di riferimento. Il confine orientale si ritrovava in una situazione ambigua, contesa fra Italia e Jugoslavia in una lotta di confine che, per interessi strategici, si estendeva fino a Stati Uniti e Russia.
Nel settembre 1943, con la caduta del fascismo, nelle zone del confine orientale che venivano liberate si assistette al periodo delle “foibe istriane“: una serie di linciaggi ed esecuzioni anche molto violenti che si verificarono nell’arco di venti giorni a causa di un momentaneo vuoto di potere causato dall’Armistizio di Cassibile in cui la rabbia della popolazione locale nei confronti degli occupanti fascisti esplose in maniera tanto caotica da esser difficilmente contenuta dal controllo partigiano che riuscì a stento
“[…] a imporre parvenze di processi e disciplina a quella che fu più che altro l’esplosione della rabbia popolare covata in un ventennio di violenze, portate poi al parossismo con l’invasione della Jugoslavia. Questa situazione si tradusse in veri e propri linciaggi, condotti in taluni casi da criminali comuni infiltrati, alcuni dei quali furono poi identificati e condannati a morte dalla stessa giustizia partigiana” (fonte)
Gli episodi di vendetta anche nazionalistica portarono all’uccisione di 200-500 (max 700) tra fascisti e collaborazionisti jugoslavi, cui seguì uno strascico di condanne a morte di alcuni dei colpevoli da parte della giustizia partigiana ed una prima ondata di fughe verso l’Italia di fascisti che temevano di finire in mano degli jugoslavi. A questa prima ondata di fughe, che dopo aver raggiunto l’apice nel 1944 si protrasse fino al termine del conflitto, seguirono altre ondate questa volta composte perlopiù da civili: si trattò in alcuni casi di sfollamenti dovuti ai bombardamenti angloamericani, emigrazioni volontarie dovute dal non voler vivere in terre ora governate da comunisti o dall’aver perso il possesso di beni e terreni ricevuti dal governo fascista che dopo averle strappate alla popolazione slava li aveva ridistribuiti a famiglie italiane e che ora ritornavano in mani jugoslave.
Al termine del conflitto, esattamente come avvenne in diverse parti d’Europa, seguì un periodo di rivalse anche omicide su coloro che in qualche maniera collaborarono coi regimi nazifascisti. Nuovamente la rabbia popolare si riversò in maniera disordinata colpendo il nazifascista “che la farebbe franca”, la spia vera o presunta, il funzionario che permise il mantenimento del regime, l’amante di un soldato tedesco, l’insegnante ed il postino. In tutto ciò s’inserirono ovviamente anche questioni personali che non avevano a che fare direttamente con il conflitto.
Giustizia sommaria, umiliazioni pubbliche, soprusi, percosse, e stupri a danno di donne tedesche si verificheranno un po in tutte le zone colpite da occupazione.
Nel primo dopoguerra verranno istituiti rifugi per gli esuli istriani in diverse città d’Italia ove però l’arrivo di questi profughi fu spesso motivo di tensione in quanto erano unanimemente considerati fascisti o filofascisti (si ricordano a proposito le proteste dei ferrovieri di Bologna e dei portuali di Venezia ed Ancona).
Ci si chiedeva, in quei mesi, come comportarsi con ex fascisti, collaborazionisti e rappresentanti del fascismo che magari non s’erano macchiati direttamente di crimini, ma col cui agire o non-agire avevano permesso il mantenimento del regime. I fascisti, nel frattempo, cercavano di reintegrarsi nella società, sottacendo o rinnegando il proprio passato in cerca di una sorta di nuova verginità, celando, sminuendo e mascherando le proprie responsabilità.
E’ in questo clima che la vicenda di malga Bala viene fatta cadere nel dimenticatoio. Russo lamenta di come le informazioni del periodo sui fatti di malga Bala siano grossolane ed imprecise. Un caso su tutti é un testo presentato a pag.235 datato 5 ottobre 1945 dal vicebrigadiere di Cave Adolfo Ballerino in cui la strage ed incendio di Bretto dell’ottobre 1943 vengono segnalati come avvenuti “In un giorno imprecisato del mese di marzo 1944 e precisamente qualche giorno prima da quello in cui avvenne l’uccisione dei carabinieri”, che i (tre-quattro) tedeschi la cui uccisione scatenò la rappresaglia nazista erano “un numero imprecisato”, il commissario Hempel viene trascritto “Empel”, l’incendio del paese e strage di civili sono ridotti ad un sibillino “rastrellamento con la conseguenza della distruzione immediata della frazione” e che:
“Risulta che pochi giorni dopo della costituzione del Distaccamento, a causa delle rappresaglie compiute da parte dei tedeschi alle famiglie di Bretto, un gruppo di partigiani slavi si presentava al Distaccamento dei Carabinieri col proposito dì chiedere informazioni circa gli atti di rappresaglia compiuti ai danni della popolazione di Bretto Superiore. A tale dichiarazione, i carabinieri, i quali come sempre e dovunque collaborarono con i partigiani, permettevano l’accesso al Distaccamento senza pensare che potevano essere prelevati, condotti altrove per le torture che subirono”
“Non risulta che i carabinieri del Distaccamento sopra accennato abbian preso parte a fatti d’armi o che abbiano partecipato a rastrellamenti“
“E’ da escludere che i carabinieri del Distaccamento di Bretto vennero trucidati dai tedeschi, […]”
(pag.235 – grassetti miei)
Russo commenta amaramente che questi testi siano segno di disinteresse e scarso approfondimento
“E’ difficile per noi oggi decifrare questo linguaggio e cercare di capire le ragioni di tali affermazioni. Possiamo solo tentare di capire il più possibile, ricordandoci che in quel periodo sia a Cave che a Tarvisio si viveva con la paura che alcuni partigiani slavi comunisti potessero varcare il Passo del Predil e minacciare da vicino la popolazione e le autorità competenti. Diversamente non si spiegano certe affermazioni” (pag.232)
Russo spiega il tutto con il terrore dei partigiani. Eppure é assolutamente lampante ciò che il testo rivela di sé: il suo succo é “noi carabinieri siamo buoni, collaboravamo addirittura con i partigiani; i tedeschi hanno fatto solo dei rastrellamenti (la distruzione del paese era un fatto troppo evidente per non esser citato seppur tanto lievemente ndr) ma noi non abbiamo mai collaborato con loro né abbiamo mai sparato un colpo contro nessuno. Ah! i tedeschi non sono neanche responsabili di quel brutto fatto dei dodici uccisi”. L’uso di date generiche o sbagliate potrebbe al tempo stesso essere un errore o una scelta volontaria per complicare il lavoro di chi volesse fare qualche ricerca dettagliata. E se ci fosse qualche dubbio basta far notare che il testo venne redatto ad ottobre del 1945, quando lo status degli ex repubblichini era ancora da definirsi e questi (tra cui i carabinieri) tentavano di ripulire le proprie posizioni.
INSERTO STORICO Sarà solo nel giugno del 1946, con l’amnistia Togliatti che repubblichini e collaboratori potranno sentirsi certi dell’impunità, ma questo nell’ottobre del 1945, all’epoca della redazione dei documenti riportati da Russo, non si poteva ancora sapere. Solo diversi decenni dopo, con la scoperta dell’armadio della vergogna, si avrà la prova certa di ciò che avvenne in maniera sistematica in quei mesi ed anni, ossia l’occultamento volontario da parte di funzionari italiani della documentazione relativa a crimini di guerra atroci permettendo così a centinaia di criminali ed assassini di restare in circolazione impuniti. E se ciò fu possibile per stragi e crimini di guerra e non v’è da stupirsi che lo stesso occultamento avvenne anche su casi meno noti o minori. Ciò che accadde in quegli anni fu un gioco di temporeggiamenti, tensioni, carte bollate, equilibrismi e muri di gomma: l’Italia non si mosse per fare chiarezza sui crimini dei nazifascisti per evitare che al tempo stesso Jugoslavia, Libi, Etiopia ecc. chiedessero a loro volta conto all’Italia dei crimini fascisti ed in questo fu, se non aiutata, perlomeno non ostacolata a livello internazionale dai paesi interessati più al fatto che l’Italia si riprendesse in fretta per contrastare il blocco sovietico, che non alla risoluzione dei crimini che aveva effettuato. In effetti tali richieste arrivarono dalla Jugoslavia quasi immediatamente e la risposta italiana fu quella di temporeggiare, così come con le richieste della Grecia, così come vennero fatte lentamente affossare le richieste etiopi mentre quelle Libiche si risolveranno formalmente solo nel 2008.
Un altro documento, presentato a pag.239 e datato 6 ottobre 1945, segue grosso modo le stesse linee: dice che la zona fosse continuamente assediata dai partigiani, sposta la strage di Bretto da ottobre 1943 a febbraio 1944, parla dell’incendio ma dice solo che vennero arrestate alcune persone, che il colonnello Hemel, per disperazione, istituì il distaccamento della centrale, ma che la mera presenza di questo nucleo fisso di carabinieri “determinava nei patrioti jugoslavi un accresciuto sentimento d’odio verso i nostri militari e la falsa convinzione che i medesimi erano stati colà dislocati per ostacolare l’attività partigiana. Con tale premessa riesce ben comprensibile il bestiale proposito e la carneficina che i partigiani slavi compirono sui dodici carabinieri. Otto giorni dopo il massacro, con un secondo rastrellamento nazifascista, le dodici salme potevano venir rintracciate e recuperate. L’opinione pubblica in merito è unanime nel riconoscere che l’eccidio fu commesso dai partigiani jugoslavi” (pag.240). Dopodiché continua parlando di “LIKER” e di JANKO” parlandone come se si trattasse di due persone diverse.
Se nel primo testo quel’ “Empel” potrebbe suggerire una redazione sotto dettatura ad un dattilografo italiano non germanofono, qui la separazione di Socian in due persone distinte, potrebbe indicare che il testo venne redatto da persone nient’affatto immerse nella realtà locale (non é da escludere anche in questi casi la possibilità che si tratti di errori voluti). Anche qui si sminuisce la brutalità tedesca (evitando perlomeno il ridicolo tentativo di camuffamento dell’incendio visto nella lettera precedente) ma c’é una fortissima componente di odio antislavo. Se nel testo precedente gli slavi erano accusati dei fatti di malga Bala per esclusione (non motivata) dei tedeschi, qui li si accusa esplicitamente ma appoggiandosi al fatto che ciò sia opinione pubblica condivisa. Nonostante il linguaggio più diretto ed una maggiore componente antislava, anche questo testo si premura di far passare i militi della GNR come neutri spettatori di fatti qui descritti.
L’autore rimarca che nel dopoguerra i fatti di malga Bala furono presto dimenticati e che anche tra i militi dell’arma quell’evento rimase nella memoria solamente come una macchia di cui vergognarsi in quanto la convinzione diffusa era che Perpignano si fece fregare (pag.237). Col passare degli anni, poi, le nuove generazioni ne avrebbero saputo sempre meno.
In realtà, leggendo il testo di Russo vedo emergere una motivazione di questo silenzio radicalmente diversa. Come Russo stesso afferma a pag.185 e pag.219 la popolazione era convinta che il massacro fosse stato opera dei tedeschi e che fosse avvenuto con picconi e spranghe ma al tempo stesso la distruzione della centrale elettrica (che ai tedeschi non poteva far certo piacere) dimostrava chiaramente l’intervento partigiano. I militi italiani, invece, erano stati sì coinvolti nel recupero delle salme, ma sempre sotto controllo nazista (vedi sottocapitolo 5.01). La mia impressione dunque é che fin dai primi momenti fu chiaro a tutti che la vicenda dei cadaveri martoriati venne trattata in modo “sporco” dai nazisti ma sia i filofascisti che gli stessi militi repubblichini furono costretti a far buon viso a cattivo gioco. Per questo ritengo che se vi fu questo silenzio sulla vicenda non si trattò di silenzio omertoso dovuto a paura, né silenzio per “vergogna” del comportamento di Perpignano, bensì silenzio riguardo a qualcosa di cui proprio chi non parlava aveva di che vergognarsi, ossia l’aver apertamente sostenuto una versione dei fatti che sapevano falsa.
Se posso permettere un paragone azzardato direi che siamo di fronte a quello stesso meccanismo per cui le centinaia di migliaia di persone che all’epoca dei fatti difesero a spada tratta un certo presidente del consiglio che abusò del proprio potere per proteggere una prostituta minorenne con la quale aveva avuto dei rapporti durante dei festini orgiastici, a distanza di anni parlano di quei fatti a bassissima voce, mormorando fra i denti varie versioni del “Si, in effetti ha sbagliato MA…” cui seguono altrettanto fantasiose varianti del “quando c’era LUI” (LUI, non LVI, che non son proprio la stessa cosa anche se vengon entrambi da quello stesso polverone lì)
6.00 POTREBBE ANCHE ESSERE ANDATA COSI’
A differenza di quanto fa il libro “Planina Bala” ritengo che quanto ora affermerò si tratta di una MIA PERSONALISSIMA IPOTESI NON AVVALORATA DA ALCUNA PROVA OGGETTIVA E SENZA ALCUNA PRETESA DI STORICITÀ’ e che si, qualcuno potrebbe ritenere anche falsata dalle mie impostazioni di fondo che tuttavia non nascondo avendole esplicitate negli inserti storici di questo post.
Basandomi proprio sulle informazioni provenienti da “Planina Bala” (una volta ripulite, ovviamente) ritengo che uno scenario più plausibile sia il seguente:
SABOTAGGIO) I partigiani compiono il sabotaggio alla centrale, forse con la collaborazione di alcuni operai. Sono presenti Ursic, Socian e Srecko. Dopodiché riescono ad introdursi nella casermetta e sequestrano i dodici militi della GNF giunti da pochissimo nel territorio (tutta la menata sulla parola d’ordine é ridicola e trascurabile, nonostante Russo ci insista perché il suo intento é “riabilitare” Perpignano portandolo allo stato di sacra vittima).
MOTIVAZIONE) Il motivo del rapimento é lo stesso di tutti i rapimenti partigiani: scambio di prigionieri (magari compagni di Ursic rinchiusi chissà dove, il che potrebbe fornire un motivo per giustificarne meglio la presenza) e/o offerta della possibilità di passare dalla parte della resistenza. I dodici militi difatti erano arrivati da pochissimo e non stupisce possano aver dato l’idea di essere potenziali avversari del fascismo.
FUGA) Fuggono attraverso il percorso effettivamente indicato e giungono in Bausiza e probabilmente facendo effettivamente trasportare ai sequestrati parte delle scorte della casermetta (ma non una quantità eccessiva: dovevano fuggire di notte ed in fretta su un sentiero molto impervio). Alcuni abitanti della zona vedono la carovana passare ed interagiscono con loro.
NOTTE ?)Da qui in poi il racconto che fornisce Russo é assai inquinato e gli elementi certi che fornisce sono troppo pochi e incerti per farsi un’idea esatta di cosa accade, ma considerando che la storiella della soda caustica é certamente una fregnaccia (che dodici persone assumano contemporaneamente e non forzatamente un piatto di -boh, zuppa?- condito di varechina e soda caustica senza accorgersene dall’odore appare alquanto improbabile), che la dichiarazione di Mafalda riguardo al fatto che fecero da mangiare sia per i partigiani che per i sequestrati non ha nessun indice temporale, che la presenza di Ursic non era certo indispensabile e che (come vedremo) considerare come data delle uccisioni il 25 marzo anziché il 24 é probabilmente una forzatura forse di vero c’é che prima di salire in Bala fecero una sosta a mangiare nascosti nei fienili di Gajger in Logje.
UCCISIONI) Notte da Gajger o meno ci ritroviamo infine a malga Bala dove si possono immaginare quattro scenari:
a1) Scenario ostaggi. Se il sequestro fu inteso per uno scambio di prigionieri si può supporre qualcosa andò storto (p.es: quando Ursic giunge potrebbe aver comunicato che i compagni da liberare erano già stati uccisi) e si decise di fucilare i prigionieri in quanto non più utili come ostaggi ed indisposti a passare da parte dei partigiani.
a2) Scenario scelta. I dodici militi posti dinnanzi alla scelta dello schieramento scelgono l’RSI ed i partigiani li fucilano.
b1) Scenario scontro a fuoco 1: i tedeschi sono alle calcagna dei partigiani e questi decidono di fucilare i militi sequestrati
b2) Scenario scontro a fuoco 2: i tedeschi raggiungono i partigiani ed i dodici militi sequestrati si trovano fra il fuoco incrociato di partigiani e tedeschi (Versione Crnugelj)
Purtroppo Russo non riporta alcunché delle motivazioni espresse dai partigiani che non siano quella da lui proposta, ma a pag.196 v’é questo botta-e-risposta tra Russo e Hrovat che, pur prendendolo con estrema cautela (s’é ben visto quanto siano tagliuzzate le interviste di Russo), se confermata potrebbe far pendere verso gli scenari “a1” e “a2” (che a mio parere sembrano le più plausibili)
Chi ha ammazzato i carabinieri? “Noi!” In “quel” modo? “No, noi li abbiamo sparati!”
In ogni caso, una volta morti i dodici, i partigiani se ne vanno da malga Bala.
GAJGER E FLAJS) Gajger, rimasto sempre a Logje, saputo che i sequestrati erano stati uccisi il 24 marzo, il giorno dopo va a malga Bala per recuperare i beni e le divise dei militi uccisi (di iniziativa propria o su richiesta dei partigiani). Nel caso delle versioni scontro a fuoco ciò potrebbe aver avuto come scopo anche il dare una minima sistemazione ai corpi. Si fa aiutare da Bepi Flajs cui chiede di salire con lui per aiutarlo. Giunti in malga Gajger vede numerosi bossoli a terra (pag.186) [interessante notare come Russo ne parli, dicendo che –Solo Lojs Gajger ci ha dichiarato di aver trovato davanti la porta della malga “un mucchio enorme di bossoli”, segno evidente che i carabinieri erano stati sparati-. Se Gajger fosse stato sul posto durante le uccisioni avrebbe semplicemente visto i bossoli, ma quel trovato fa intendere che si trattò di una scoperta, il che pone la presenza in malga di Gajger solamente dopo i fatti e non durante]
RICERCHE) Nei giorni seguenti si effettuano ricerche ed i tedeschi trovano i corpi il 30 o 31 marzo (nel caso degli scenari scontro a fuoco 1 e 2 se ne dovrebbe dedurre che i militi della GNR passarono diversi giorni assieme ai partigiani oppure che lo scontro avvenne il 24 marzo e la “scoperta” avvenne al 30 o 31 marzo perché vi fu maltempo anche in quei giorni e/o che i nazisti temporeggiarono per decidere che fare con i corpi. Entrambi i casi mi sembrano tuttavia meno probabili dell’escuzione -ammessa da Hrovat- dei dodici seguita a giorni di ricerche infruttuose)
RECUPERO) Sta di fatto che i corpi vengono ritrovati dai nazisti i quali decidono di sfruttarli a loro favore per fare propaganda antipartigiana, in quanto la popolazione già subì un duro colpo ad ottobre e che dopo tale “bastonata” ora conveniva usare un mix di “paura e carote” per non tirar troppo la corda. Pertanto i nazisti decidono di infierire sui corpi per renderli degli atti d’accusa contro la resistenza. Dopodiché trascinano i corpi fuori dalla malga nel modo in cui sapevano farlo: ossia con modi non dissimili da quelli usati dagli alpini sul Golobar. Col filo spinato. Fatto ciò avvertono le milizie italiane che si occupano materialmente al recupero ma sempre sotto l’occhio vigile dei nazisti.
PAESE) In paese tutti capiscono cosa sia successo davvero (“La versione più divulgata e accreditata” era proprio quella che accusava i tedeschi), anche coloro che stanno dalla parte del nazifascismo e della Germania che dunque si trovano a dover difendere e propugnare una versione dei fatti che sanno ben essere falsa.
DOPOGUERRA) Dopo la caduta del nazifascismo i militi delle forze dell’ordine tentano di confondere le carte per allontanare da sé ogni responsabilità di quei fatti. A livello documentale dunque si crea una gran confusione. L’evento però vien presto lasciato dimenticare. Resta dunque un ricordo vago di una vicenda “sporca” che gli ex-fascisti non rivangano perché consci di aver partecipato ad una menzogna scomoda (cui in pochi credettero) e gli ex-partigiani non rivangano perché il fango della propaganda é ancora rimasto attaccato a quei fatti.
RICORDO) Solo diversi decenni dopo, una volta caduto il muro di Berlino, quando la memoria dei fatti si era ridotta al lumicino le mutate condizioni politiche hanno permesso lo sdoganamento degli (ex? neo) fascisti e l’inizio di quel periodo di revisionismo storico iniziato appunto negli anni ’90 ed in cui siamo, purtroppo, ancora immersi e che ha incluso la storia di malga Bala.
E’ impressionante osservare come la versione dei fatti appena proposta (che nonostante i buchi appare decisamente più plausibile e coerente di quella proposta da Russo) possa nascere proprio usando informazioni tratte da “Planina Bala” e questo non certo a causa di completezza del testo (anzi), ma poiché la debolezza delle tesi che il libro afferma obbligano l’autore a cercare di farle sembrar plausibili e lineari consolidandole anche sia con conferme d’opinione che con brandelli di informazioni valide, le quali tuttavia contraddicono proprio ciò che l’autore vorrebbe sorreggessero! Un po come cercare di far sembrare solido un edificio di gelatina aggiungendovi con delicatezza dei vistosi blocchi di metallo in alcuni punti strategici, ma basta un leggero tremore perché questi blocchi inizino a far sentire il proprio peso e distruggere l’edificio dall’interno.
7.00 LE (S)TORTURE
E finalmente arriviamo al clou della vicenda secondo l’interpretazione di Russo. Dunque, cercando di salvare il salvabile si potrebbe a questo punto tentare lo sforzo di mettere una pietra sopra sopra a tutto quanto visto finora nell’idea che si tratti di eccessi, contraddizioni e personalismi di Russo, perdonabili in quanto il nocciolo della vicenda é comunque adamantino. L’impresa é ardua ma tentiamola comunque e concentriamoci quindi sul nocciolo dei noccioli della versione strage, ossia cosa sia avvenuto tra il 23 marzo 1944 ed il 25 marzo 1944 dopo il sabotaggio alla centrale, secondo la versione di Russo. Il racconto di tali eventi, nel libro, va da pag.101 a pag 148. Come per il resto del libro, anche qui la narrazione é inframmezzata da commenti, opinioni personali, aneddoti sulle interviste, frasi estratte dalle interviste, alcune foto della malga attuale ecc. Anche qui non é sempre facile capire chi siano le fonti delle singole informazioni né se una determinata informazione provenga appunto da una fonte o se sia frutto della fantasia descrittiva dell’autore (e le descrizioni degli uccellini saltellanti a pag.131 e la descrizione dei sentimenti del “carabiniere” Franzan a pag.141 sono lì a dimostrare che l’intervento personale nella narrazione é certamente presente).
7.01 I TESTIMONI DELL’UCCISIONE
PARTIGIANI PRESENTI ALLE UCCISIONI
– Silvo Gianfrate (Srecko)
PARTIGIANI NON PRESENTI ALLA STRAGE
– Lojs Hrovat
La posizione dei partigiani é chiara: confermano le uccisioni per fucilazione ma non le torture e manifestano la convinzione che i cadaveri siano stati sfigurati successivamente per fare propaganda antipartigiana.
TESTIMONI CON NOME DELLA PRESENZA DEI PARTIGIANI IN BAUSIZA – Myza Komac
– Qualcuno di quel territorio della Slovenia
Myza Komac testimonia la presenza dei partigiani e dei dodici sequestrati in Bausiza (pag.17,110).
TESTIMONI ANONIMI DELLE UCCISIONI
– L’anonimo figlio di un pastore, amico di Toni Rinaldi (pag.18) che racconta a Russo “quanto suo padre gli aveva ripetuto all’inveroverosimile” tra le lacrime, ma nel testo non vien riportato solo lo sfogo di pianto ma non si fa accenno ad un solo fatto testimoniato: si parla solo di “scene di follia” (pag.145,264)
– “Qualcuno di quel territorio della Slovenia” che ricorda delle “urla agghiaccianti” ma non é dato a sapere dove né quando né chi fosse né dove si trovasse esattamente né perché (pag.127). Potrebbe benissimo essere il figlio del pastore di cui sopra
Questo/i testimone/i anonimo/i in realtà, come vedremo, testimonia/no ben poco. I testimoni anonimi vanno sempre presi in considerazione con estrema cautela in quanto, proprio a causa del non rivelare chi sono, non offrono alcuna garanzia d’affidabilità all’infuori del grado di precisione e coerenza delle loro dichiarazioni che necessiteranno dunque di riscontri maggiori di quelli richiesti ai testimoni identificabili per poter essere credute. In questo caso però siamo di fronte a testimonianze indirette di (un) anonimo/i che si limita(no) a confermare informazioni prive di riscontro fornite (forse) da altri. Un esempio di questa inutilità delle testimonianze anonime lo si può notare a pag.18 in cui l’amico di Rinaldi, parlando del padre dell’amico anonimo racconta che: “[…] aveva seguito quasi passo dopo passo la terribile via crucis dei carabinieri, ben nascosto dietro gli alberi, fin a quando Bepi Flajs di Trenta aveva tentato di coprire i corpi dei carabinieri massacrati con la neve!” in quanto, oltre ad essere testimonianza indiretta ed anonima, sostanzialmente non dice nulla sulle uccisioni, lasciando solo INTUIRE di essere di fronte ad una testimonianza completa di tutti gli eventi che tuttavia non spende nemmeno una sillaba riguardo le uccisioni stesse. (Interessante però osservare come a queste poche righe che ben poco dicono segua un commento entusiastico di Russo a ‘mo di “Eureka!”, cosa che si ripete più volte qualora l’autore narra dell’ottenimento di informazioni corroboranti la sua tesi)
“TESTIMONI” CON NOME DELLE UCCISIONI
– Lojs Kravanja (Gajger), mediata attraverso la moglie Mafalda
– Bepi Flajs
Lo ripeto per chiarezza: la versione strage si fonda su un lavoro di Antonio Russo che presenta notevoli scorrettezze di forma e metodo ed é basato essenzialmente sulle sole dichiarazioni dei due amici Gajger e Flajs.
7.02 MA COSA DIAV………. (PARARSI IL CULO)
Ma prima di apprestarci ad osservare le dichiarazioni di Gajger e Bepi Flajs non si può non riportare queste dichiarazioni che Russo fa a pag.263, praticamente a fine libro:
“E ricordiamoci che nessuno di noi può sapere realmente se alla fin fine essi siano stati totalmente passivi nelle mani dei partigiani per tutte quelle ore di attesa e di duri trasferimenti. Chi ci dice che essi non abbiano tentato la fuga o la ribellione? Chi ci dice che essi non abbiano tentato la rivolta o la difesa o una controffensiva? Chi ci dice che essi non abbiano tenuto testa ai loro carnefici e che non abbiano affrontato la morte gridando il loro profondo affetto per l’Italia, la Bandiera e la divisa del Carabiniere? Chi ci dice che essi non siano morti dimostrando grande fierezza del proprio essere e sentirsi figli dell’Italia che certamente amavano?”
EEEEEEEEHHHHHH????? Ma come? Ma ci sono dei testimoni che forniscono un quadro preciso degli avvenimenti O NO? In tutto il testo viene proposta la versione strage come se si trattasse di una certezza appurata con affermazioni come quella a pag.237 “[…] noi oggi possiamo affermare senza ombra di smentita né di errore che […]” ed a fine libro ci vien rivelato che non possiamo sapere i fatti centrali della vicenda! Se c’erano testimoni che hanno assistito alla mattanza, questi dovrebbero poter rispondere a tali quesiti! O NO? Il fatto stesso che Russo ponga ora queste domande significa che lo stesso autore del libro, nonostante la sicumera con cui ha esposto la sua versione dei fatti, qui si cautela dimostrando la non attendibilità delle sue stesse fonti, lasciando intendere che quanto ha scritto anche riguardo dettagli fondamentali non é basato su informazioni certe.
7.03 CRONOLOGIA EVENTI SECONDO RUSSO
Proviamo ad elencare una ad una le singole informazioni riguardanti gli eventi del 24 e 25 marzo 1944 tentando di capire quale possa essere la fonte da cui Russo le ha attinte, dato che nel testo le fonti vengono semplicemente “lasciate intendere”
24 marzo
A mezzogiorno la comitiva trova riparo in un fienile abbandonato sotto alcuni speroni rocciosi dell’Izgora, sul versante della Bausiza (pag.110) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Durante la sosta, che fu breve, tutti, inclusi i prigionieri, bevvero acqua tiepida zuccherata (pag.110) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Riprendono il cammino. Alcuni partigiani in avanscoperta ed altri in fondo alla comitiva (pag.110) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Un pastore che sta facendo pascolare le pecore vede la comitiva e dice ai partigiani “Ragazzi ricordatevi che sono sempre nostri amici” ma i partigiani non lo ascoltarono. Erano 18 partigiani e 12 sequestrati (pag.110) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA / PASTORE: NON IDENTIFICATO FORSE IL PASTORE ANONIMO PADRE DELL’AMICO DI RINALDI?]
NB: Bepi Flajs certamente non é presente agli eventi successivi e quindi può aver solo saputo quanto riferito da Gajger e sua moglie Mafalda che sono, dunque, gli unici due testimoni possibili delle prossime dichiarazioni.
La comitiva giunge a casa di Gajger (pag.113) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Probabilmente in questo momento i partigiani donano o danno in deposito alla famiglia Gajger i beni presi dalla caserma (pag.119) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
I sequestrati vengono chiusi nel fienile e gli vien portata ancora acqua zuccherata (pag.113) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
I partigiani chiamano più volte Perpignano “traditore fascista” (pag.113) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Nel primo pomeriggio giunge ai “diretti guardiani dei prigionieri” l’ordine di riprendere la marcia verso l’altopiano di Logje (pag.113) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Alcuni partigiani restano a casa di Gajger per attendere Ursic (pag.113) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Mezz’ora dopo la comitiva é a Logje (pag.114)[FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
I sequestrati vengono rinchiusi in una delle stalle di Gajger (pag.114) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Poco dopo i sequestrati vengono spostati in una stalla ove era più difficile scappare. Alcuni partigiani, armati, fanno la guardia (pag.114)[FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Alcuni partigiani si riuniscono “in uno stavolo” di Gajger davanti a un caminetto acceso (pag.119), mentre altri stanno più a valle in avanscoperta [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Arriva Ursic assieme a due suoi compagni ed ai partigiani che erano rimasti a casa di Gajger ad aspettarlo (pag.119) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
I familiari di Gajger (sua madre, la sorella Maria e la moglie Mafalda) preparano da mangiare per tutti (pag.119) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Dopo aver mangiato i partigiani discutono sulla sorte dei prigionieri (pag.119) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
I capi partigiani (Ursic, Srecko, Socian e Hrovat) vogliono uccidere i sequestrati e alla fine hanno la meglio sugli altri partigiani, anonimi e contrari (pag.119) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Confermata la decisione i partigiani si stringono le mani e brindano [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Le donne di casa Gajger apparecchiano la cena e mettono sul pentolone la cena per gli altri partigiani e per i sequestrati. [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
“Nei recipienti destinati ai prigionieri, nella ilarità generale, alla fine furono gettati diversi pugni di sale nero, tipo solfato di magnesio meglio conosciuto come sale inglese, di quello che si dà agli animali quale purgante. Prima di chiudere i recipienti, qualcuno vi versò dentro anche il contenuto di una bottiglia di soda caustica e di varechina, con atteggiamento trionfale di grande vittoria e di enorme soddisfazione, nella compiacenza euforica generale!” (pag.122) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
Alcuni partigiani s’incaricarono di portare il cibo ai sequestrati, altri partigiani andarono a dormire e diversi di loro ridiscesero la via della Bausiza assieme a Mafalda, Maria e alla mamma di Gajger. (pag.122) [FONTE: FORSE MAFALDA GAJGER]
I partigiani che s’erano incaricati di dar da mangiare ai sequestrati gli servono il cibo avvelenato e poi si allontanano dalla stalla ridendo (pag.122) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
I sequestrati si contorcono dal dolore ed urlano. Qualcuno del posto li sente. (pag.127) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA, FORSE FIGLIO DEL PASTORE O BEPI FLAJS]
25 marzo
Dalla Bausiza tornano a Logje i partigiani che avevano dormito nei fienili di Gajger (pag.128) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER]
La comitiva s’incammina verso malga Bala (pag. 128) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
La comitiva, dopo due ore di cammino arriva a malga Bala (pag.131) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
NB: da quanto sostiene Russo, dietro alla comitiva di partigiani e sequestrati ci sono Bepi Flajs, l’anonimo pastore padre dell’amico di Toni Rinaldi ed “altri pastori” che, stando nascosti dietro agli alberi a decine di metri di distanza non possono vedere ciò che accade dentro alla malga. Pertanto l’unico testimone degli eventi interni alla malga può essere solo Gajger.
Appena giunti i sequestrati vengono costretti ad entrare dentro alla malga nella sua stanzetta piccola a destra (pag.139) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Nella stanzetta i sequestrati si buttano a terra col fiatone (pag.141) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Alcuni partigiani dentro la malga bevono un goccio di grappa (pag.141) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Alcuni partigiani, dopo aver bevuto la grappa, escono a fare da guardia all’esterno (pag.141) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Qualcuno prepara un uncino (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Dopo un breve conciliabolo Ursic da il “via” con un cenno del capo (pag.143) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
La porta della stanzetta viene aperta rumorosamente. Perpignano viene brutalmente afferrato e trascinato nella stanzetta principale, la cucina, dove viene spogliato lasciandogli solo maglia e mutandoni. (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
I beni preziosi di Perpignano, come orologio ed anelli, vengono dati a Gajger (pag.144) [FONTE: SCONOSCIUTA]
Perpignano viene costretto a terra e gli viene conficcato un uncinata tallone e piede (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Perpignano viene issato a testa in giù su una trave per mezzo dell’uncino (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Perpignano grida di dolore. I partigiani lo scherniscono e gli danno calci in testa (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Gli altri undici sequestrati vengono tirati fuori dalla stanzetta (uno alla volta?). (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Uno alla volta vengono spogliati e derubati (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Durante quest’operazione Primo Amenci riesce a tenere con sé la foto dei suoi cinque bambini (pag.144) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Gli undici vengono incaprettati con le braccia dietro la schiena usando filo spinato che viene agganciato ai genitali (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
I partigiani prendono i picconi dalle pareti ed uccidono a picconate gli undici sequestrati (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
A qualcuno dei sequestrati vengono asportati i genitali ed infilati in bocca (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
A qualcuno dei sequestrati viene “frantumato il cuore” a picconate (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
A qualcuno dei sequestrati vengono “centrati e sbriciolati gli occhi” (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Un carabiniere riesce a buttarsi a terra implorando con la foto della madre in mano ma la foto gli viene strappata di mano e conficcata in bocca (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Primo ammencii mostra ai partigiani la foto dei suoi cinque figli ma una picconata volante gliela conficca proprio nel cuore (pag.145) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Delle formiche affamate, attratte dal sangue, si arrampicano tra i capelli di Perpignano ed iniziano a mordere (pag.146) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
A Perpignano vengono dati in continuazione calci in faccia, sulla nuca, sulla fronte (pag.146) [FONTE: GAJGER?]
Uno dei sequestrati riesce a sfuggire ed uscire dietro alla malga ma viene fermato da un colpo di revolver alla spalla (pag.146) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER, O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
Man mano che i sequestrati morivano i partigiani li trascinavano i corpi all’aperto per circa 30 metri fino al grande sasso accatastandoli uno accanto all’altro (pag.146) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER, O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
A mezzogiorno era tutto finito (pag.147) [BEPI FLAJS]
I partigiani si ripuliscono alla meglio con la neve con la neve e scendono verso la Bausiza (pag.147) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER, O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
Gajger deve ricoprire i corpi (pag.147) [FONTE:GAJGER?]
Gajger va a cercare Bepi Flajs (che nel frattempo, SEMBREREBBE, fosse tornato a casa sua a Logje) e lo convince a “[…] tornare su in malga per coprire i morti. Ma era neve ghiacciata e quindi non abbiamo potuto far nulla”. (pag.147) [FONTE:BEPI FLAJS]
Nevica forte e la neve é gelata. Bepi Flajs e Gajger ricoprono i corpi alla meglio con delle foglie (pag.147) [FONTE: FORSE GAJGER, O BEPI FLAJS O IL PASTORE ANONIMO]
Le dichiarazioni in cui si deve SUPPORRE la fonte la fanno da padrone
Gajger é costantemente con i partigiani da quando arrivano in Bausiza fino a quando se ne vanno e, poiché Russo non ottiene un’ammissione dagli stessi ed i pastori che avrebbero seguito la carovana rimasero all’esterno della malga senza poter osservare cosa succedeva all’interno, ne deriva che SOLO GAJGER può essere il testimone di ciò che sia successo nella malga, mentre la moglie Mafalda può sapere cosa accadde la sera prima e Bepi Flajs solo ciò che accadde dopo.
Come vedremo, chi POTREBBE aver fatto tali dichiarazioni in realtà non le fa ed al contrario alcune cose pare vengano dette da chi, invece, NON poteva sapere.
7.04 IL SUPERTESTE MISTERIOSO
Dunque, il “superteste” di Russo sarebbe Lojs Kravanja detto Gajger: il “postino” dei partigiani che dopo aver contratto il virus partigiano ha passato il resto della sua vita “travolto dagli incubi” (pag.14). Chi é dunque il superaste, l’UNICA persona che avrebbe visto tutto e che avrebbe testimoniato a Russo?
Il testo lo descrive come un pastore di carattere duro e scontroso, chiuso e solitario nato nel 1920. Viveva in Bausiza con la moglie Mafalda di Uccea, con suo padre, la madre, una sorella di nome Maria (pag.112,113) in una casa isolata, oltre tutte le altre. Ha anche una sorella di nome Myza (pag.148). Possedeva diversi fienili e numerosi animali da cortile, oltre a pecore e capre che d’estate portava a malga Bala con il resto dei pastori della Bausiza.
Gajger viene definito “il postino dei partigiani” (pag.14), “un aiutante, un amico dei partigiani” (pag.193), “il grande amico dei partigiani della valle del Coritenza e dell’alto Isonzo, onnipresente e servizievole nei loro riguardi” (pag.144), “amico fidato” e “protettore silenzioso e devoto”. Uno che conosceva bene ogni parte del territorio (pag.193) e che in cambio dei suoi servigi riceveva doni da parte dei partigiani (pag.14,119). A pag.193 il partigiano Srecko, intervistato da Russo lo descrive così: “Gajger era un aiutante, un amico dei partigiani; era proprietario di diversi fienili in Bausiza e conosceva bene ogni parte del territorio”. Russo lo descrive come “il portaordini che collaborava senza chiedere, eseguiva senza domandarsi mai perché” (pag.112). Nel libro non c’é una sola foro né di Gajger né di sua moglie Mafalda.
I RAPPORTI DI GAJGER COI PARTIGIANI: Gajger fin dall’inizio della guerra offre ospitalità ai partigiani ai quali fa comodo averlo come punto di riferimento per nascondersi e rifornirsi (pag.112). In particolare il suo compito era quello di fare da contatto tra i diversi gruppi partigiani.Gajger si occupava di dare da mangiare ai partigiani nascosti nei suoi fienili ed avvertirli della presenza di pattuglie nazifasciste. Gajger ha un rapporto di fiducia ed amicizia con Socian e fa di tutto per “restare nelle sue grazie”.
Gajger però non sa nemmeno comprendere l’italiano e quindi l’intervista di Russo avviene per tramite della moglie di Gajger, Mafalda. Essendo anch’essa un teste (per quanto riguarderebbe la sera del 24 marzo) le dichiarazioni di entrambi vengono fatte materialmente da Mafalda.
Gli unici virgolettati di Gajger e Mafalda che il testo riporta sono quesi:
“Nessuno potrà mai dirvi più di noi; – ci aveva assicurato la moglie del Gajger, Mafalda – nessuno sa niente… Lassù i partigiani hanno ucciso i carabinieri per vendetta, nient’altro! Tutto qua… Nessuno sa niente. I partigiani erano in tanti, come si fa a conoscere e a ricordare i loro nomi?… Era una cosa normale, sa, di guerra! Vede, si era in guerra e tutti sanno cos’è una guerra!” (pag.15)
“Mio marito è nato nel 1920; quella volta, al tempo della guerra, si viveva in Bausiza. Lui era contadino, aveva le pecore e d’estate si andava tutti in Bala; durante la guerra, al tempo dei partigiani, era lui che portava la posta, i messaggi tra un gruppo di partigiani e l’altro. Lui faceva da mangiare per loro e portava da mangiare a loro quando questi erano nascosti nei vari suoi fienili per sfuggire ai rastrellamenti dei tedeschi e degli italiani. Anche dopo l’attacco ai tedeschi alle porte di Bretto di Sopra, i partigiani giunsero subito da noi e si nascosero a Logje, nei fienili di Lojs… Lojs faceva la spia per i partigiani, li precedeva e li avvertiva della presenza di eventuali pattuglie tedesche o italiane… Noi quella volta si aveva più paura degli italiani che dei tedeschi!” (pag.113)
“Noi abbiamo fatto da mangiare sia per i partigiani che per i carabinieri.” (pag.122)
“Siamo tutti figli di Dio cosa vuole. .. però gli italiani avevano ammazzato i nostri partigiani sul Golobar, trascinandoli per terra come tronchi d’albero…!” (pag.263)
Altre dichiarazioni che il testo attribuisce direttamente a Gajger o a Mafalda sono:
Solo Lojs Gajger ci ha dichiarato di aver trovato davanti la porta della malga “un mucchio enorme di bossoli”, segno evidente che i carabinieri erano stati sparati (pag.186)
Lo stesso Gajger ci ha dichiarato che facilmente a dare l’allarme era stato proprio qualche partigiano scappato dal gruppo, recatosi subito dai tede- schi a dare la notizia (pag.156)
La malga non aveva un proprietario vero e proprio; era di tipo sociale, -ci spiegherà anche la signora Mafalda, moglie di Gajger- a disposizione cioè dei pastori della zona che lì d’estate si ritrovavano e ne facevano un punto di riferimento e di produzione casearia. (pag.112)
E… BASTA. TUTTO QUI. QUESTE SONO TUTTE LE INFORMAZIONI CHE PROVENGONO CON CERTEZZA DAL “SUPERTESTE” LOJS KRAVANJA DETTO GAJGER E DA SUA MOGLIE MAFALDA!
Ma come? L’unico testimone che sarebbe stato dentro alla malga ad assistere a quegli orrori non ha nemmeno una sola mezza frase su tali avvenimenti? Niente di niente? Russo avrebbe per le mani un testimone diretto degli avvenimenti disposto a “confessare” e non é in grado di fornire una sua sola frase, non dico di colpevolezza, ma almeno di testimonianza? Nemmeno UNA (One, ein, ena, një, bar, eden, un, um, UNA???????). Un banale “Ero lì mentre facevano questo e quello”?
Il gancio nel tallone di Perpignano, le picconate, il pasto alla soda caustica, le foto piantate nel cuore, le formiche attratte dal sangue, il fatto stesso che Perpignano fosse appeso a testa in giù dentro alla malga DA DOVE SAREBBERO SALTATI FUORI SE NON LE HA TESTIMONIATE GAJGER?
Dovremmo forse credere che pur avendo per le mani un superteste del genere, Russo preferisce sprecare pagine a raccontarci di una cena a base di gatto (pag.63-67) e non pubblica nemmeno una frase chiara ed univoca di Gajger su cosa avrebbe visto/fatto? Perché Gajger avrebbe dovuto assistere alle uccisioni? Che motivo avrebbe avuto per salire in malga su con loro? Lui avrebbe partecipato o guardato e basta? Hmmm… Inquieta il fatto che in questo libro più un teste é importante e meno se ne parla…
7.05 L’AMBIGUO BEPI FLAJS
In effetti Russo quando parla di Gajger lo fa perlopiù attraverso un’altra persona. Lo fa attraverso Bepi Flajs. Sono numerosi difatti i casi in cui Russo riporta azioni di gajger testimoniate però da Bepi Flajs
Riporto nuovamente la descrizione fatta in 3.11.02: Bepi Flajs ha l’onore di essere il caso più interessante tra quelli su cui Russo sorvola nel descrivere gli effetti del “virus partigiano”. Nel testo é l’unica persona citata con nome e cognome ed entrata in contatto coi partigiani su cui il virus partigiano sembra non aver avuto effetto se non per una generale “paura” nei loro confronti che però é forse più indice di una persona si intimorita ma non affatto vittima del virus: di una persona che é anzi contraria a Socian. A differenza di coloro che hanno sconfitto il virus partigiano, Bepi Flajs non mostra alcun segno di redenzione. Fa parte ciò di quelle pochissime persone entrate in contatto coi partigiani che Russo non descrive né come persone immuni al virus, né come persone che che se lo sono preso. Bepi Flajs non mostra nemmeno i segni di tormento di Gajger e non riceve alcuna delle parole d’apprezzamento che Russo riserva alle donne che gli forniscono materiale utile a supportare la sua tesi. No: Bepi Flajs non mostra proprio un bel niente se non una forma di timore nei confronti dei partigiani. A ben vedere però ci si rende conto che l’unico incontro di Bepi Flajs con i partigiani sarebbe avvenuto mentre, nascosto lontano nella boscaglia, avrebbe osservato non visto cosa accadeva a malga Bala. Bepi Flajs non é un collaboratore dei partigiani: é un vicino di casa di Gajger (con cui forse é in qualche modo imparentato) che ha solo informazioni di seconda mano e per “sentito dire”. Eppure é evidente che il racconto dell’uccisione dei dodici sostenuto da Russo regge solamente grazie alle testimonianze di Bepi Flajs, “condite” con il supporto dell’anonimo amico di Rinaldi, figlio di un anonimo pastore della Bausiza (pag.144) del quale son riportate le lacrime ma non i dettagli della testimonianza.
Pur essendo il testimone più importante dell’intero libro é strano osservare che su Bepi Flajs non v’é nemmeno una riga che ci parli della sua persona. O meglio: viene semplicemente descritto come qualcuno vicinissimo a Gajger e Mafalda (abitano a poche decine di metri di distanza) (pag.114) e che ha dovuto sempre fare buon viso a cattivo gioco coi partigiani in quanto ne era impaurito (pag.147); viene inoltre descritto come un uomo che agisce secondo le disposizioni del Gajger (pag.147). Ma pur avendo queste informazioni base sul ruolo di Bepi Flajs non sappiamo nulla della PERSONA Bepi Flajs. Non c’é nemmeno una sua foto (ma c’é la foto della sua casetta a pag.117). Strano: abbiamo qualche dato biografico e breve descrizione di persone che riportano informazioni di seconda mano ma non della fonte principale della tesi? Molto strano. Bepi Flajs apparentemente non ha genitori né moglie né fratelli né sorelle né cugini né amici (se non Gajger con cui ha un rapporto che nel testo appare di sudditanza). Bepi Flajs non ha età. Sappiamo che fa il pastore (pag.139,142,127,161,197), che possiede una casetta (pag.117) ed alcuni casolari (pag.114) che si trovano all’entrata di Logje (pag.127) e che anni dopo i fatti si trasferì a Trenta (pag.257). All’opposto sappiamo dell’episodio (avvenuto a chilometri e chilometri di distanza dal tarvisiano) della civetta malaugurate vista da Natalia Ferro, sorella minore di uno dei militi uccisi, mentre zappava la terra, la quale aveva, al momento dell’intervista, 71 anni.
I virgolettati che riportano dichiarazioni dirette di Bepi Flajs sono almeno il triplo di quelle provenienti dal Superteste Gajger:
“I partigiani hanno infierito sui carabinieri certi che nessuno un giorno avrebbe potuto dire il contrario; dovevano far credere che erano stati fucilati!” (pag.18,186,197) [OPINIONE PERSONALE]
“La prima notte i prigionieri e i partigiani l’hanno passata in bosco nonostante il freddo; la seconda sono stati a Logje in una stalla di Gajger… L’assemblea dei partigiani sul da farsi s’è tenuta a Logje. In attesa dell’arrivo del capo supremo, Ursic, hanno voluto guadagnar tempo; poi è arrivato Ursic…. I partigiani erano in contrasto tra loro, ma alla è prevalsa la proposta di uccidere i carabinieri”. (pag.120) [INFORMAZIONI CHE BEPI FLAJS NON PUO’AVERE PER ESPERIENZA DIRETTA PERCHE’ NON ERA PRESENTE A NESSUNO DI QUESTI ACCADIMENTI]
“Quei partigiani erano tutti dei nostri, Janko di Bretto era uno dei capi se non il capo in quell’azione: lo sapevano e lo dicevano tutti a Bretto.” (pag.127) [INFORMAZIONE NOTA]
“Lojs era presente. Lui sa più di me!” (pag.19) [AMMISSIONE DEL FATTO CHE BEPI FLAJS NON ERA PRESENTE]
“Il capo del gruppo era Socian; in Bausiza sono venuti attraverso un sentiero di guerra, in montagna” (pag.102) [INFORMAZIONE NOTA + INFORMAZIONE CHE BEPI FLAJS NON PUO’AVERE PER ESPERIENZA DIRETTA PERCHE’ NON ERA PRESENTE ALLA FUGA]
“Lojs è venuto a cercarmi e mi ha convinto a tornare su in malga per coprire i morti. Ma era neve ghiacciata e quindi non abbiamo potuto far nulla” (pag.147) [“CERCARMI” E “TORNARE SU IN MALGA” INDICANO CHE BEPI FLAJS NON ERA IN BALA QUANDO CIO’ AVVENNE]
“Io ho visto Gajger portarsi giù i vestiti e tutto il resto: doveva fare il deposito a casa sua in modo che dopo ogni partigiano avrebbe potuto prendersi qualcosa” (pag.148) [TALE DICHIARAZIONE PUO’ BENISSIMO ESSERE IN LINEA CON ALTRI SCENARI: IL RECUPERO DEGLI ABITI NON IMPLICA COMPRESENZA ALLE UCCISIONI]
“(Lois Gajger) s’era sempre dichiarato contento perché era stata fatta giustizia (con l’uccisione dei carabinieri)“ e “si nascondeva per la paura” (pag.257) [IN MANCANZA DI DICHIARAZIONE PIU’ PRECISA QUESTE VAN RITENUTE OPINIONI PERSONALI]
“I partigiani erano 21, mentre i carabinieri 12” (pag.127) [INFORMAZIONE DIRETTA O DI SECONDA MANO ACQUISIBILE ANCHE SOLO VEDENDOLI PASSARE DA LOGJE]
“I partigiani, prima dell’arrivo di Josko e di alcuni suoi uomini, erano 18, tutti del territorio tra Caporetto e Bretto.” (pag.147) [INFORMAZIONE DIRETTA O DI SECONDA MANO ACQUISIBILE ANCHE SOLO VEDENDOLI PASSARE DA LOGJE]
“Lojs Kravanja non era un partigiano, però quel giorno era con loro e quindi ha visto tutto” (pag.147) [INFORMAZIONE DIRETTA O DI SECONDA MANO?]
“I carabinieri sono stati uccisi tutti prima di mezzogiorno!” (pag.147) [INFORMAZIONE DIRETTA O DI SECONDA MANO?]
“C’erano altri pastori nascosti che hanno visto come me!” (pag.147) [CHE AVREBBERO VISTO COSA: LE UCCISIONI O IL PASSAGGIO DELLA CAROVANA?]
“Era una malga dove tutti d’estate portavano le proprie bestie, soprattutto pecore” (pag.119) [INFORMAZIONE DI SERVIZIO]
“Quella volta non tutti potevano permettersi attrezzi in ferro e quindi si usavano pezzi di legno duro, in particolare pino e faggio: da questi pezzi duri si ricavavano accette e soprattutto picconi”. (pag.142) [INFORMAZIONE GENERICA]
(a proposito del recupero dei cadaveri da parte dei nazifascisti) “prima in barella, poi coi muli, li hanno portati in giù!” (pag.161) [INFORMAZIONE NOTA]
Il pasto alla soda caustica? Il fatto che fu Socian a prendere le redini del gruppo per farlo scegliere? Le torture? Il colpo di revolver? Il filo spinato? Le amputazioni? Le formiche? ANCHE QUI, NIENTE! Il “pezzo forte” sferrato da Russo é un’opinione personale di Bepi Flajs che viene ripetuta tre volte nel testo (quella riferita a pag.18,186,197) come se si trattasse di chissà che, ma é e resta l’opinione di una persona che non dialogava con i partigiani.
A pag.147 c’é un’interessante dichiarazione di Myza Flajs, moglie di Toni Flajs, riguardo a Bepi Flajs:
“Bepi Flajs aveva agito secondo le disposizioni di Gajger”
“Bepi all’inizio aveva creduto che quei corpi fossero sassi gelati”.
E come farebbe a sapere queste cose la signora Flajs? Anche qui si tratta comunque di dichiarazioni in linea con lo scenario del recupero postumo dei beni e non testimonia certo della presenza dei due uomini in Bala durante le uccisioni. Russo poi aggiunge sempre a pag.147 un virgolettato con l’elenco dei beni dei dodici, ma non dichiara chi ne sia la fonte “orologi, anelli, catenine, tutto quanto avevano addosso i carabinieri! “ e prosegue dicendo che i beni vennero nascosti dal Gajger sotto un grosso sasso a poca distanza dalla sua dimora e che ritornò a casa poco dopo mezzogiorno del 25 marzo 1944.
7.06 SPOSTAMENTI DI DATA
A pag.157 lo stesso Russo dichiara che durante le ricerche i nazifascisti passarono anche a casa di Bepi Flajs per chiedere informazioni sul come raggiungere malga Bala e che… sia Bepi Flajs che Gajger tornarono alla malga per “controllare la situazione”. Ma come? Controllare cosa: che dei cadaveri (della cui morte Gajger sarebbe stato felice – pag.257) non si siano mossi? O non siano stati divorati dalle formiche-vampiro? E’tuttavia un’ammissione che Bepi Flajs e Gajger “tornarono su in malga” nei “giorni successivi” per “controllare” i morti. Non é dunque questo che dichiara Bepi Flajs a pag.147 con quella frase che descrive il recupero degli abiti avvenuto, secondo Russo, immediatamente dopo le uccisioni? E’dunque per adattare la vicenda alle dichiarazioni di Bepi Flajs che l’autore sposta le uccisioni al 25 marzo?
Tale spostamento difatti non avrebbe molto senso: Russo lo motiva col bisogno di attendere l’arrivo di Ursic e ciò avrebbe senso solo se il contesto fosse quello del gran sacerdote che deve presenziare al sacrificio rituale, il che appare ovviamente assurdo ed inverosimile, anche perché nel racconto Ursic non ha assolutamente nessun ruolo decisionale (quello é affidato a Socian) se non la mera presenza. Russo inoltre aggiunge a pag.120 il dibattito e ripensamento su un’operazione che era stata pensata per settimane (pag.77), di cui parla solo Bepi Flajs che tuttavia non era nemmeno presente.
Molto più probabilmente la dichiarazione del Bepi Flajs sul recupero degli abiti avvenuto il 25 marzo 1944 ha obbligato a ritenere che pure le uccisioni avvennero lo stesso giorno, in modo da far combaciare la presenza di Bepi Flajs sul luogo del delitto anche al momento del delitto.
7.07 MYZA KOMAC E GLI ANONIMI
A questo punto si dovrebbe osservare in dettaglio quanto affermano Myza Komac ed i testimoni anonimi ma oramai il meccanismo é evidente: frasi estrapolate dalle interviste ed inserite qua e là in modo che sembrino sostenere una tesi illogica che non é basata su nulla di oggettivo. Se nemmeno il superteste Gajger ed il vero teste-chiave di Russo, Bepi Flajs, non hanno dichiarazioni utili a sostenere la tesi del libro, star ad osservare anche quelle di Myza Komac (che non salì in Bala) o dei testimoni anonimi (la cui attendibilità é inferiore a quella che riserverei al Polpo Paul) e dunque, in un insolito atto di pietà nei confronti di chi legge, mi limiterò a riassumere stringatamente:
Myza Komac, della bausiza, sposata con Toni Flajs, testimonia soltanto di aver visto i partigiani passare per Logje (pag.17) e che aveva paura di loro (pag.110). Per il resto Russo ci informa che lei finse di non conoscere i sentieri dinnanzi ai nazisti che ispezionavano il territorio (pag.156)
Il misterioso “Qualcuno di quel territorio della Slovenia”, tra “sgomenti e brividi” racconterà di urla agghiaccianti e l’altrettanto misterioso figlio anonimo del pastore anonimo che avrebbe visto tutto stando nascosto a decine di metri FUORI dalla malga avrebbe raccontato “con le lacrime agli occhi” ciò che a sua volta gli raccontò il padre, ma il testo non riporta alcuna dichiarazione né dell’uno né dell’altro, tanto che é facile ritenere si tratti sempre della stessa persona:
“Finalmente – mi ha confidato con le lacrime agli occhi il figlio di un pastore, il quale, nascosto dietro un grosso albero a poche decine di metri da quello scempio, aveva seguito tutto pietrificato e impotente – final- mente posso liberarmi di questo peso che mi opprime il cuore da tanti, tanti anni! Per quasi cinquant’anni ho dovuto nascondere questa verità, ma era tempo che tutto venisse alla luce! Mi sento finalmente libero, quasi leggero!”
E tremava dalla commozione e dall’orrore quel povero contadino nel contarmi per l’ennesima volta quanto suo padre gli aveva ripetuto all’inverosimile, perché quei fatti non fossero mai dimenticati! (pag.145,146)
Ma, diciamocela tutta, pianti, commozione e lacrime… per una vicenda di mezzo secolo prima che ti é stata solamente raccontata ed in cui non é coinvolto nessuno che conoscessi? Sembra più di star di fronte alla testimonianza di qualcuno che venne traumatizzato da piccolo da un padre che, per spaventarlo, gli ha “ripetuto all’inverosimile” una storia di torture raccapriccianti, più che davanti ad una banale testimonianza secondaria.
7.08 LE DICHIARAZIONI DI HROVAT
L’antipatia dichiarata di Russo per i partigiani, come già visto, é evidente nel racconto delle interviste in cui l’autore non si esime dal commentare negativamente le loro reazioni alle sue insistenze nel tentare di fargli confermare la sua versione dei fatti. Per esempio non manca di riportare una frase di titubanza dell’anziano Hrovat, non abituato né ad attenzioni giornalistiche né parlare al registratore:
“Alla vista del registratore ecco pronta la sua battuta, dopo averci rivelato che si sentiva di colpo importante come mai nella sua vita:“… E se faccio qualche errore?. Posso poi riparare?” (pag.16)
Frase che viene utilizzata a ‘mo di “faro” per introdurre ed avvalorare il commento negativo alla persona di Hrovat che, pur rispondendo alle domande di Russo e Rinaldi, non avvalora la tesi dei due:
E invece di rispondere alle domande, le contorceva a proprio comodo, modificando la voce di volta in volta, come un grande attore, alzando o abbassando di molto il tono, da sillaba a sillaba, facendo finta di scarabocchiare un foglio per prendersi meglio gli appunti su cui informarsi, tracciandoci uno schizzo del territorio, fissando ripetutamente il monte Sleme, lì a due passi, verso la Bausiza, per la sua forma anatomica quasi maschile: atteggiamenti che al mio amico Toni più che a me davano enormemente fastidio e il Toni dovette sudare e soffrire quel giorno più del dovuto nel tenersi la bocca cucita, ricacciando indietro l’antipatia naturale che il signor Hrovat era riuscito a crearsi in noi in poche battute. Girando alla larga, molto alla larga, nelle mie domande, il tempo passava, ma da lui, dal signor Hrovat, non si riusciva a tirar fuori niente di nuovo, tranne cose che già conoscevo sulla vita dei partigiani di Plezzo e in particolare dei carabinieri, della loro cattura, del percorso fino a Planina Bala, a malga Bala. (pag.16)
“Aveva tentato tutto Hrovat per deviare le nostre domande e la nostra attenzione sui carabinieri della BaIa e mai come quel giorno avevo ultimato una intervista con l’amaro in bocca e una delusione cocente e palpabile.Ci aveva quasi derisi il Hrovat, tentando di mettere tutto in ridicolo e in dubbio, facendo di tutto per confonderci le poche idee precise che in quel momento avevamo, le poche certezze che a ogni sua risposta vacil- lavano e di punto in bianco io mi ritrovavo a brancolare nel buio e nei misteri più fitti. Sarebbe stato un abile politico il signor Hrovat, almeno in Italia!” (pag.194)
Nel nostro lungo incontro, Hrovat alza perfino la voce, la camuffa, la sopraeleva per riabbassarla poi di colpo, ci guarda fisso negli occhi per poi deviare il discorso, ribalta le domande cercando di trasformare se stesso in intervistatore e noi in intervistati, finendo però sempre nel riba. dirci che per questa inchiesta bisognava aspettare ancora qualche anno e che proprio non era il caso di riaprire vecchie ferite ormai dimenticate per sempre.Un grande attore, un vero fenomeno! Ricordo che l’amico Toni di Cave si spazientiva spesso e si faceva pren· dere dalla rabbia, dal momento che si sentiva preso in giro. E io, contra· riamente al mio solito, ero costretto a trattenermi nella speranza che alla fine da quell’incontro, tanto atteso e tanto temuto, riuscissi ad ottenere qualche lume, qualche spiraglio di verità. (pag.196)
Russo non considera nemmeno per un momento l’ipotesi che forse Hrovat stia raccontandogli la verità e che la versione strage sia falsa, dando per scontato che se Hrovat non la conferma significa che mente. I più lunghi e dettagliati commenti che l’autore fa su un teste sono fatti con l’intendo di distruggerne e denigrarne l’attendibilità e ciò non in base a contraddizioni o dimostrate menzogne di Hrovat, bensì solamente perché ciò che Hrovat dice smentisce la versione strage che Russo ha fatto propria. Lo stesso Russo che a pag.145 accoglie senza batter ciglio la non-dichiarazione dell’anonimo figlio di un anonimo pastore!
Sempre a pag.16 viene inserito un collage di frasi che, come già visto in 2.05 hanno l’effetto di dare un’impressione di Hrovat molto diverso da quello che ne uscirebbe dall’intervista completa (di cui uno stralcio minimo é presente a pag.193). E’ in questa situazione che si dovrebbe tentare di separare le affermazioni dirette di Hrovat ma, come già mostrato in 2.05 la cosa non é sempre possibile in quanto non é sempre chiaro a che domande corrispondano le dichiarazioni né se una serie di frasi che presentano puntini di sospensione ( … ) siano sempre collage o dichiarazioni in cui l’intervistato effettivamente faceva dei momenti pausa fra una frase e l’altra. Pertanto riporto le singole frasi cercando di mantenerne l’ordine con cui sono state proposte da Russo lasciando a chi legge la libertà di intenderle come frasi separate o unite tra loro.
A pag 16 vengono riportati questi stralci di risposte a “tante domande”. Solo una di queste domande é “Ma perché i 12 carabinieri furono così barbaramente trucidati?”
E chi dice queste cose?
Io… io non ero lassù
A colpi di piccone poi
No, no, mai fatto una cosa del genere noi partigiani! Coi picconi poi!
Su, su, dove prendevamo i picconi, i coltelli o le scimitarre?
Sì e no avevamo qualche temperino
dodici carabinieri poi
Erano sì e no cinque, sei: pum pum, sono stati sparati e tutto è finito lì!
Socian era il comandante militare, io il commissario politico
“Ma chi era il più alto in carica?”
Il secondo… in campo militare Socian; chi comandava veramente era il commissario politico ed ero io il commissario politico!
Socian era terribile, alla tedesca, di poche parole. I preti e le donne che erano coi preti lo odiavano
Io con lui ho sempre baruffato, ma come commissario ero più furbo e quindi vincevo sempre io!
In conclusione cosa volete da me?
Chi ha ammazzato i carabinieri!
“Noi!”
In che modo?
Noi li abbiamo sparati! (pag.17,197)
“Socian era un comandante di grande altezza, di grande livello. E’ stato lui a ordinare questa azione: del resto lui era nativo di Bretto e quindi conosceva ogni angolo di quel territorio!” (pag.78)
“Di notte non c’erano mai tedeschi in giro!” (pag.99)
“E’ stato preso il sentiero che c’è dopo la Pustina, prima della fortezza, a sinistra, prima della roccia: lì c’è un sentiero di guerra ben conosciuto e frequentato dai cacciatori” (pag.102)
“La distruzione di Strmec (Bretto di Sopra) non c’entra niente con la storia dei carabinieri né la battaglia e la strage sul monte Golobar hanno alcun riferimento con quello della Bala” (pag.194)
“lo non ero con quei partigiani. A capo era Franc Ursic, di Caporetto; poi nel comando venivano Socian e Srecko, cioè Gianfrate” (pag.194)
“lo ero il commissario politico!” (pag.195)
Tra il commissario politico e il comandante militare, chi era il più alto in carica?
“In campo militare Socian… Chi comandava veramente era il commissario politico e io ero il commissario politico dell’armata partigiana! “ (pag.195)
“Quest’azione l’aveva ordinata Socian, che era di Bretto e quindi conosceva ogni angolo del territorio” (pag.195)
“Nessun paltigiano aveva lo scopo di ammazzare i carabinieri: i nostri nemici erano Hitler coi tedeschi e Mussolini: cosa c’entravano i carabinieri?” (pag.195)
“La centrale di Bretto di Sotto dava energia alla miniera di Cave che era in mano ai tedeschi: lì si facevano fucili e armamenti militari, dal momento che si produceva piombo e zinco, elementi che servivano per costruire cannoni, fucili e bombe. Il nostro dovere era di eliminare, di distruggere la centrale perché non desse più energia elettrica. Era questo un nostro dovere di partigiani!” (pag.195)
(parlando dell’assalto alla casermetta) “La responsabilità era del vice brigadiere che ha rivelato la parola d’ordine” (pag.195)
“Ben 12 carabinieri, tenuti in vita per quasi due giorni? (pag.195)
Su, mo’: dove prendevamo da mangiare per loro per tanto tempo? (pag.195)
“Noi partigiani abbiamo sempre rispettato i carabinieri. Chi era coi fascisti no, non poteva essere da noi rispettato, ma i carabinieri cosa c’entravano? (pag.195)
Io non ero su in malga (pag.195)
Ma è passato tanto tempo, come si fa a ricordare? (pag.195)
E poi… 5 o 6 carabinieri uccisi.. .. 12!?.. No, non erano 12 (pag.195)
Voi mi rivelate cose nuove che io non ho mai sentito… Sono cose del tutto nuove per me (pag.195)
Questa cosa è stata opera di altri, non dei partigiani! (pag.195)
E’ passato tanto tempo! Come pretendete che uno ricordi ancora questi particolari? (pag.195)
12 morti e tutti carabinieri? (pag.195)
E’ assurdo, 5 o 6, non 12 e poi uccisi in quel modo! (pag.195)
Mi fate venire i brividi! (pag.195)
Ammazzati poi a colpi di piccone! (pag.195)
No, no, mai fatta noi una cosa del genere. Dov’erano i partigiani non succedevano queste cose. Questa per noi era un’azione militare, non politica e questa è stata un’azione militare! (pag.195)
In altre azioni i prigionieri venivano liberati o mandati a casa o sparati nell’azione, in questa no, come mai? (pag.196)
Sono stati gli italiani a ridurre in quello stato i carabinieri o anche i tedeschi e poi hanno dato la colpa a noi. Io non credo sia successo questo che voi dite, noi si sparava ai prigionieri. Non abbiamo mai trucidato nessuno noi (pag.196)
Non avevamo mica coltelli, accette, picconi o scimitarre! (pag.196)
Su, mo’! Noi avevamo mitra, qualche temperino, mica picconi! (pag.196)
Ma dopo cinquant’anni voi cercate ancora queste cose? A chi interessano più? (pag.196)
Cosa serve andare a riaprire queste ferite (pag.196)
No, non mi va giù questa storia: nessuno li ha trucidati, glielo garantisco io (pag.196)
La mia parola… boh, dai, almeno al 60%, d’accordo? (pag.196)
Con Socian ho sempre baruffato; però come commissario politico vincevo sempre io che ero più furbo!” (pag.196)
Ripeto che i carabinieri non erano nostri nemici, i fascisti sì, erano nemici!” (pag.196)
Ma voi giornalisti italiani non avete altro a cui pensare? (pag.196)
Dopo tanti anni tirate fuori ancora questa storia?” (pag.196)
“Potevate aspettare ancora qualche anno, no?” (pag.196)
“Ma non potevate aspettare altri cinquant’anni per le vostre ricerche? .. Se andate da Srecko, a Nova Corica, lui non vi riceverà neanche, lui non parla con nessuno… ma se per caso vi andate, non dite di aver parlato con me” (pag.17)
Hrovat dunque conferma di aver esser stato partigiano e che Socian (con cui baruffava) di grado inferiore, era sottoposto ad Ursic. Ma dice anche di non aver partecipato a quell’operazione che ricorda ma non nei dettagli (non essendo stato presente non può fornirli) e quando Russo gli illustra la modalità in cui sarebbero avvenute le uccisioni Hrovat non gli crede (“Io non credo sia successo questo che voi dite”) e, ritenendo la cosa assurda si pone a garante dell’operato dei suoi ex collaboratori garantendo che cose del genere non possono esser successe, ipotizzando un più probabile intervento dei nazifascisti. Dubita pure del fatto che si siano fatte passare due notti prima di uccidere i dodici e testimonia che il loro interesse primario era sabotare in ogni modo la centrale. Testimonia pure del fatto che l’azione del 23 marzo 1944 non era collegata a fatti precedenti. A contorno di ciò é evidente il fastidio di Hrovat dinnanzi alle insistenze di Russo sulla versione strage.
7.09 LE DICHIARAZIONI DI SRECKO
Silvio Gianfranco (Srecko) é nato nel 1922 e da dopo la guerra abita a Nova Gorica (pag.191). Viene intervistato da Russo giorni dopo l’intervista a Hrovat (pag.19) ed ammette tranquillamente di aver partecipato all’uccisione dei dodici. Russo descrive inizialmente Gianfrate con parole di simpatia “gentile, alla mano, disponibile, da vero gentiluomo” e “ci intrattiene nel suo cortile di casa, alberato e fresco, e ci racconta volentieri tutto sulla nascita del movimento partigiano dell’Alto Isonzo […]“ (pag.191) ma é stizzito dal fatto che quando Gianfrate viene accusato da Russo di aver torturato i dodici come un macellaio da film dell’orrore “si faceva prendere dalla rabbia e dai fumi dell’ira” (pag.191). L’intervista tocca anche gli avvenimenti del Golobar in cui 38 partigiani vennero uccisi, legati col filo spinato e trascinati a valle. Su questo dettaglio Russo commenta “Più o meno come i partigiani hanno poi fatto coi carabinieri… !” (senza considerare un più probabile -era una prassi diffusa tra i nazifascisti di quella zona-). Al commento vien fatta seguire l’affermazione di Srecko “No, no, nessun collegamento tra Golobar e carabinieri della Bala…!”. Anche negli spezzoni d’intervista di Srecko notiamo virgolettati che si ripetono ma senza combaciare e senza presentare sempre tutte le informazioni della versione alternativa, il che porta seriamente a dubitare che i virgolettati che compaiono una sola volta siano una trasposizione fedele e completa delle affermazioni dell’intervistato.
“La distruzione di Strmec (Bretto di Sopra) non c’entra niente con la storia dei carabinieri né la battaglia e la strage sul monte Golobar hanno alcun riferimento con quello della Bala”. (pag.194)
“Sì, facevo parte dei partigiani che hanno ucciso i carabinieri in malga Bala. Anch’io sono stato alla centrale di Bretto a prelevare i carabinieri. Il comandante supremo era Ursic, poi venivamo Socian e io. Socian e Svonko, il Della Bianca, sono andati sulla strada ad aspettare il brigadiere dei carabinieri; tutti gli altri eravamo nascosti in attesa; poi siamo scesi a circondare la caserma… “ (pag.19) [PRIMA VERSIONE]
“Sì, anch’io facevo parte dei partigiani che hanno ucciso i carabinieri: sono stato alla centrale a prelevarli. Quella volta il comandante era Franc Ursic, poi venivo io e Socian. lo ero l’aiutante del comandante. Socian e Svonko, il Della Bianca, erano andati sulla strada ad aspettare il brigadiere; tutti gli altri eravamo nascosti, in attesa. Poi siamo scesi a circondare la caserma. Alcuni di noi hanno minato la centrale, mentre gli altri prendevamo i carabinieri!” (pag.192) [SECONDA VERSIONE]
“L’assalto è avvenuto appena scuro, di sera: abbiamo prelevato le armi e abbiamo deviato sulla montagna dopo la “Pustina”, una vecchia trattoria” (pag.192)
“Ma perché proprio i carabinieri?” (pag.192)
“I carabinieri erano i servi dei tedeschi, loro avevano rovinato tante nostre famiglie; essi erano lo Stato Italiano, in quanto non avevano avuto il coraggio di mettersi contro lo Stato dopo 1’8 settembre. I partigiani erano più che arrabbiati contro di loro, perché ognuno in casa propria aveva avuto i suoi morti e i suoi drammi, con persecuzioni ed esilio. E l’odio era cresciuto contro di loro!” (pag.192) [LA GRANDE RIVELAZIONE DI QUESTO ESTRATTO E’ CHE PARTIGIANI E FASCISTI NON VANNO TANTO D’ACCORDO]
“I nostri papà e le nostre mamme erano stati perseguitati e internati dai carabinieri fedeli allo Stato Fascista, perché i loro figli erano partigiani. Anche mio papà e mia mamma erano stati perseguitati, anche mio fratello. Non erano i tedeschi il nostro obiettivo, ma i carabinieri che erano rimasti fedeli a Mussolini e alla Repubblica Sociale dopo 1’8 settembre del 1943” (pag.19) [PRIMA VERSIONE – LA TESTIMONIANZA INDICA CHE I NAZIFASCISTI FOSSERO PERFETTAMENTE A CONOSCENZA DELL’IDENTITA’ DEI PARTIGIANI]
“Tanti nostri papà e tante nostre mamme sono stati perseguitati e internati dai carabinieri fedeli allo stato fascista, chi a Padova, chi a Savona, chi a Rimini, chi in Sicilia o in Calabria, solo perché avevano figli tra i partigiani. Anche mio papà e mia mamma sono stati perseguitati… anche mio fratello” (pag.192) [SECONDA VERSIONE]
“Il nostro obiettivo non erano i tedeschi, bensì i carabinieri carabinieri che erano rimasti fedeli a Mussolini dopo 1’8 settembre 1943 e che avevano rovinato tante nostre famiglie!” (pag.263) [TERZA VERSIONE – IL FATTO CHE L’OBIETTIVO DEI PARTIGIANI FOSSERO DEGLI ITALIANI E NON DEI TEDESCHI APPARE OVVIO: ERANO GLI ITALIANI A GUARDIA DELLA CENTRALE, COME E’OVVIO CHE SI TRATTASSE DI PERSONE RIMASTE FEDELI A MUSSOLINI: I NAZISTI NON METTEVANO CERTO A GUARDIA DI OBIETTIVI SENSIBILI PERSONE CHE NON ERANO FEDELI A MUSSOLINI]
“Il comandante della nostra brigata era Franc Ursic. Per la storia dei carabinieri aveva deciso lui e per questo era intervenuto proprio lui: una cosa troppo importante” (pag.193) [ATTRIBUISCE LA DECISIONE A URSIC ANZICHE’ A SOCIAN E NE TESTIMONIA LA PRESENZA DURANTE L’AZIONE]
“Non era solo di Socian la responsabilità di quel fatto ma del comandante in capo che era l’unico vero responsabile; nessuno poteva opporsi al comandante che è responsabile di ogni azione dei suoi uomini che devono solo ubbidire. Se lei ha fatto il militare, sa che è così!” (pag.78) [ATTRIBUISCE LA RESPONSABILITA’ A URSIC]
“La guerra…! Brutta cosa la guerra! Chi non l’ha fatta non la può capire!” (pag.193)
“Gajger era un aiutante, un amico dei partigiani; era proprietario di diversi fienili in Bausiza e conosceva bene ogni parte del territorio” (pag.193)
Ma perché infierire sui carabinieri in quel modo, coi picconi…! (pag.193)
“Noi non si aveva picconi!… Nessun piccone è stato usato…! Quelle cose non si fanno. I partigiani non facevano quelle cose, non lo hanno fatto perché non lo sapevano fare!” (pag.193) [NEGA LE TORTURE]
“E poi il veleno!… Ma che veleno e veleno… Non si fanno quelle cose!” [NEGA LE TORTURE]
E continua a scuotere la testa Srecko, guardando altrove, cercando di deviare il discorso. (pag.193)
“Socian li ha portati fuori uno alla volta dalla stanzetta e poi li ha uccisi con la pistola! … No, non si fanno quelle cose!” (pag.193) [DICHIARA CHE LE UCCISIONI AVVENNERO SEMPLICEMENTE CON ARMA DA FUOCO]
Gli mostro alcune foto della malga e riconosce ogni particolare (pag.193)
“Solo due o tre mesi dopo abbiamo saputo che i carabinieri erano stati trovati in quel modo; sarà stata la propaganda contro di noi, forse i Domobranzi, forse i tedeschi pur di infangare il nome dei partigiani!” (pag.193)
Ma perché i carabinieri furono portati fin lassù? Perché non spararli prima? (pag.193)
“Non lo so! So solo che i tedeschi hanno fatto una grande propaganda contro di noi, hanno approfittato di quella situazione”. (pag.193) [PASSAGGIO INTERESSANTE: LA DOMANDA E’PERFETTAMENTE LECITA MA LA RISPOSTA “NON LO SO” E’ TROPPO SBRIGATIVA. TUTTAVIA, VISTI I PRECEDENTI NON SI PUO’ESSER CERTI CHE QUESTE SIANO LE ESATTE PAROLE E L’ESATTO SENSO DELLE AFFERMAZIONI (LA DOMANDA POTREBBE ESSER STATA “MA PERCHE’ PROPRIO A MALGA BALA?” E LA RISPOSTA “NON LO SO, NON C’ERA UN MOTIVO PARTICOLARE PER SCEGLIERE QUELLA MALGA”)
“E’ stata una brutta cosa questa, molto brutta!” (pag.193)
“Per questo fatto e per altri diversi tra i partigiani alcuni sono stati degradati. La responsabilità di quel fatto non era solo di Socian, ma del comandante in capo che era l’unico vero responsabile; nessuno poteva opporsi agli ordini del capo, nessuno; i partigiani dovevano solo ubbidire: chi ha fatto il militare può capirmi” (pag.193) [RIMARCA LA GERARCHIA E PARLA DI PROVVEDIMENTI INTERNI MA NON SE NE CHIARISCE IL MOTIVO: DA COME VIENE POSTA PARE FURONO DEGRADATI PER AVER ESEGUITO GLI ORDINI. NON E’ PIU’PROBABILE CHE VENNERO DEGRADATI PER NON AVER SEPOLTO I CORPI ED AVER DATO MODO AI NAZIFASCISTI DI UTILIZZARLI PER PROPAGANDA ANTIPARTIGIANA?]
“ (i partigiani erano) tutti del territorio di Plezzo, avevano sparato ai carabinieri e che la propaganda e solo la propaganda aveva creato attorno alla storia dei carabinieri tutti quei particolari macabri”. (pag.193)
“Non parlo più di queste cose e non capisco perché insistete tanto, dopo tanti anni!” (pag.193) [SRECKO SI SPAZIENTISCE DELLE INSISTENZE DI RUSSO]
“Anche Lojs Hrovat di Plezzo era con noi: era lui il commissario politico!” (pag.19) [PRIMA VERSIONE – VEDI SOTTO]
“Rivolgetevi a Lojs Hrovat, lui era con noi: era lui il commissario politico!” (pag.193) [SECONDA VERSIONE – ANCHE QUI BISOGNA PORRE UNA CERTA ATTENZIONE: “ERA CON NOI” E’ INTESO COME “ERA A MALGA BALA” O “FACEVA PARTE DELLA NOSTRA BRIGATA”? POICHE’ RUSSO SEMBRA INSISTERE MOLTO SULLE MOTIVAZIONI, SRECKO LO RIMANDA A HROVAT CHE ERA IL CAPO POLITICO E STAVA GERARCHICAMENTE PIU’IN ALTO]
Anche Srecko é irritato dalle domande di Russo ma questi non controbatte con la stessa forza di Hrovat e fornisce diverse dichiarazioni che Russo può utilizzare. Per questo motivo viene ricompensato con una descrizione tutto sommato umana della sua persona (gli vien pur concesso il lusso di avere un luogo e data di nascita, wow!) che però vengono “autobilanciati” dalle mancate conferme alla versione strage che vengono fatte passare per reticenze. Seguendo l’evidente meccanismo “se fornisci elementi utili a confermare la tesi dell’autore sei bravo ma se taci o smentisci sei un bugiardo” Russo può permettersi di spendersi in parole positive per poi negativizzare le mancate conferme.
Parola d’ordine tra quei partigiani ancora viventi era logicamente il continuare a insistere su particolari contrastanti, sostenendo che i carabinieri erano stati fucilati. Cosa del tutto irreale e non avvenuta, fatti alla mano! Nessuna spiegazione plausibile sul massacro, sul perché di quella terribile strage dopo due giorni di peregrinazioni da un casolare all’altro fino a raggiungere la zona impervia e isolata della malga Bala, neanche cinquant’anni dopo quando finalmente l’omertà era stata rotta e numerose testimonianze avevano chiarito il tutto e messo i partigiani con le spalle al muro, a cominciare dai comandanti, due dei quali già morti al momento delle nostre inchieste. (pag.194 – grassetto mio)
Russo basa la sua teoria sul “silenzio partigiano” semplicemente in base al fatto che… i due partigiani con cui ha parlato non confermano la sua versione! Appare inquietantemente ridicolo il fatto che Russo affermi che la morte per fucilazione dei dodici sarebbe “irreale” rispetto ad un sacrificio umano rituale-simbolico effettuato con violenza inenarrabile di cui non é stato in grado di fornire nemmeno un solo elemento a favore.
La realtà era ed è che l’odio, profondo e radicato, aveva avuto il sopravvento su ogni raziocinio umano! (pag.194)
La REALTA’ secondo Russo é quella che lui ritiene tale e che “dimostra” combinando assieme chiacchere di paese, propaganda nazifascista, mezze frasi, spezzoni di intervista selezionati, opinioni personali di persone che non hanno avuto minimamente a che fare con gli eventi in questione, imprecisioni che forse nascondono una qualche volontarietà e “testimoni” che non dichiarano nulla di ciò che lui sostiene, in un poutpourrì contraddittorio da cui traspaiono con evidenza una lettura nazionalistico-mistico-religiosa degli avvenimenti e della realtà nel suo insieme.
Particolarmente inquietante il fatto che Russo commenti queste “dichiarazioni” incomplete, diversamente interpretabili e scontate con parole di gioia, parlandone come di una verità rivelata:
“Come si fa a non ringraziare il buon Dio con più calore ed estrema sincerità nel vedere finalmente ogni componente del puzzle regolarmente al suo posto?” (pag.19)
Russo dunque non ringrazia Dio per avergli fornito una versione completa e coerente della vicenda, ma di avergli fornito materiale utilizzabile per sostenere una versione che a suo avviso DOVEVA essere confermata
8.00 LA “VERITA” DI RUSSO
Il concetto di “verità storica” che traspare da “Planina Bala” é decisamente peculiare e distante da quello diffuso in ambito storico. In “Planina Bala” non v’é nessuna analisi di testi o delle affermazioni degli intervistati, nessun tentativo di distinguere tra storia e memoria, nessun tentativo di inserire gli eventi nella loro complessità storica, nessun tentativo di osservare i fatti in maniera equidistante dai personaggi coinvolti, nessun tentativo di ripulire le affermazioni raccolte dal loro bagaglio emotivo. Questo giusto per citare alcuni dei problemi di fondo senza rivangare nuovamente le problematicità del testo elencate finora. Una ricerca storica corretta mira a proporre una tesi logica basandosi su dati certi:
raccolta dati → ipotesi → verifica → dimostrazione → tesi
Russo invece agisce in modo assai diverso, ossia non parte dalla raccolta dati, bensì da un’idea di verità immutabile precostituita ed attorno ad essa rielabora e riadatta sia i dati che le ipotesi affinché questi avvalorino la verità data ed inamovibile:
Ecco che i dati che non collimano vengono scartati (le parti d’intervista mancanti e le domande non poste), ecco che certe frasi vengono “vendute” in un certo modo ma che forse all’origine avevano un senso diverso, ecco che la complessità viene ridotta fino a renderla una sorta di fiaba horror in cui le persone sono banalizzate in buoni contro cattivi, brava gente contro demoni. Ecco che anche la testimonianza di chi riferisce solo chiacchere di paese diventa “materiale utile”. Ecco che dalla rielaborazione narrativa di testimonianze ed ipotesi omogeneizzate in un’unica marmellata monosapore emergono le strutture culturali e pregiudiziali dell’autore che la tengono assieme dandole l’illusione di solidità.
Riportando alla mente quanto osservato all’inizio di questo articolo appare decisamente inquietante il fatto che la posticcia narrazione dei fatti portata avanti da questo libro venga venduta come verità storica ma la cosa, purtroppo, non stupisce affatto poiché non é certo un mistero come e perché ciò sia avvenuto: se all’inizio di questa catena c’é stato il lavoro di persone a cui non interessa la realtà e proprio per questo son portate a percepirsi come costantemente in stato d’assedio, mentre alla fine della stessa vi son persone ben disposte ad accogliere queste appaganti falsità per i medesimi motivi, nel mezzo v’é chi, in malafede, sfrutta quelle stesse falsità perché é proprio mantenendole vive che prosperano.
Il concetto di fondo però é sempre, sempre lo stesso:
Quelli come me vivon nel giusto
Nessuna differenza fra “io” e “noi”
Il diverso é sbagliato
Il diverso sarà bruciato
(2017/09/30) Segnalo questo pezzo di Laura Matelda Puppini sui fatti di Malga Bala molto ben documentato ed ottimamente esposto. Il succo é ben riassunto in questi passaggi relativi alla vicenda storica:
[…] ho solo capito, fin qui, che vi fu una azione partigiana contro la centrale di Bretto inferiore, inserita in una serie di azioni partigiane, che i carabinieri che presidiavano la stessa non si aspettavano; che essi vennero catturati dai partigiani che li portarono via prima di far saltare la loro casermetta, ma se avessero voluto ucciderli non si sarebbero comportati così, e quindi che vennero uccisi forse dai partigiani, perché tentarono magari la fuga. Santo Arbitrio disse che avevano lottato. I loro corpi vennero ritrovati una decina di giorni dopo in una grotta, non in una malga, e furono sepolti con tutti gli onori del caso. Avevano subito sevizie? Non lo so, non è chiaro, men che meno di che tipo. Attenzione che gravi lesioni non significa che le stesse siano state procurate da torture, perché anche altri fattori possono lesionare corpi rimasti all’aperto in montagna dieci giorni: il freddo, le intemperie, animali presenti, oltre che la decomposizione naturale.
ed alla ricostruzione effettuata da Antonio Russo:
A me lo confesso, dopo aver letto “Planina Bala”, volume che non consiglio ad alcuno, Antonio Russo fa paura, per il suo modo di procedere.
(2018/03/29) Segnalo questo articolo di Claudia Cernigoi che aggiunge alcuni nuovi elementi allo sviluppo della narrazione sui fatti di Malga Bala.
In particolare pone l’attenzione sull’operato di Arrigo Varano, “un carabiniere in congedo di Brescia, che ha tempestato il Comando generale dell’Arma con interrogazioni parlamentari presentate da rappresentanti post-fascisti” e sugli Atti del convegno del 2010 dell’UNMS di Brescia su Malga Bala, in cui si riporta che le milizie tedesche tributarono onore ai militi della GNR «con una triplice salva di fucileria sparata da un reparto tedesco».
L’articolo inoltre analizza alcuni documenti originali della GNR contenuti negli atti in cui viene riportato che:
I partigiani agirono senza colpo ferire, probabilmente cogliendo Perpignano di sorpresa mentre rientrava dall’osteria e facendosi aprire da questi la caserma; che gli operai dissero di non riconoscere nessuno di quelli che vengono supposto essere circa una 20 partigiani; che questi trattarono bene gli operai; che prelevarono una mitragliatrice, due fucili, due moschetti e le armi in dotazione ai militi lasciando sul posto viveri e munizioni; che la turbina della centrale era danneggiata.
Un secondo documento parla di battute di ricerca avvenute il 31 marzo ed il 2 aprile 1944 da parte di militi della 2^ centuria GNR confinaria di Tarvisio, dell’ 8° Reggimento alpini e milizie naziste, e del rinvenimento il 2 Aprile 1944 in una grotta sita in località Dolinza (“tra Monte Bellez, Crste del Cavallo e Monte Plesivizza <?> a 130 Km. a Nord-Est di Udine”) dei cadaveri di tutti i 12 militari che componevano il distretto di Bretto. Per poi continuare con la descrizione dei corpi seviziati da armi bianche e da fuoco: «Tutti, indistintamente, i corpi dei militari erano coperti con le sole mutande e la camicia e presentavano ferite multiple di arma bianca e da fuoco, nonché tracce evidenti di sevizie» . Conclude cdicendo che i corpi son stati trasportati a Tarvisio e comunicando che col comando tedesco é stato disposto che il funerale sarà tenuto martedì 4 alle 11,30
Un terzo documento invece dice che già il giorno 31 in Val Bausizza vennero ritrovati 7 cadaveri dei carabinieri di Brutto da “un reparto di carabinieri e uno di Alpenjaeger”. Stavolta si aggiunge il dettaglio di piedi legati col fil di ferro e si specifica che solo ad una seconda spedizione il 2 Aprile composta da “Confinari, alpini e carabinieri” vennero trovati tutti i corpi “nella stessa località dei primi”. Lo stesso documento riporta pure:
“Con l’occasione informo che la sera del 27 Marzo, una emittente nemica in lingua italiana ha trasmesso che, nella Val Trenta (alle sorgenti dell’Isonzo) un plotone di carabinieri con due sottufficiali abbandonavano le armi e si consegnava ai partigiani delle bande di Tito.
La radio nemica avrà voluto facilmente alludere ai carabinieri di Brutto, esagerando e travisando, secondo il suo costume, la notizia a scopo propagandistico”
Con lo stesso materiale dunque é possibile ipotizzare che: i 12 militi, posti di fronte ad un aut-aut potrebbero essersi effettivamente consegnati ai partigiani (magari lasciandoli temporaneamente disarmati finché non fosse certo non stessero facendo il doppio gioco?) ma il 31 marzo, colti di sorpresa dal reparto di alpini e Kaiserjager, questi hanno avuto la peggio, catturati dai nazisti e torturati perché traditori. Oppure uccisi in scontro a fuoco ed i cadaveri seviziati per spregio o appositamente per essere usati come arma propagandistica contro i partigiani. O ancora: la trasmissione radio poteva effettivamente essere una esagerazione propagandistica, i 12 militi, tenuti ostaggi, vista la presenza di alpini e Kaiserjager potrebbero aver tentato la fuga ed essersi trovati tra il fuoco incrociato.
“Prendiamo ora in considerazione quanto scrive Franc Črnugelj nel suo “Na zahodnih mejah 1944” (pubblicato nel 1993, come il libro di Russo), non tradotto in italiano. Alcuni partigiani coordinati da Franc Ursič Jožko, comandante di distaccamento, dopo avere catturato Perpignano, si servirono di lui per introdursi nella centrale elettrica: la sabotarono, prelevarono armi e munizioni ed iniziarono la ritirata verso i monti, portando con sé i prigionieri. Nel frattempo però i nazisti si erano dati all’inseguimento degli attentatori; ad un certo punto i prigionieri cercarono di darsi alla fuga e ne scaturì uno scontro a fuoco: «i tedeschi spararono contro la colonna partigiana, nella quale si trovavano anche i prigionieri», scrive Črnugelj”
Ma poi arriva la parte più buffa. Cernigoi commenta il fatto che sul ACTA n°94 (ANNO XXXI – N. 3, SETTEMBRE NOVEMBRE 2017), preso atto che il database Onorcaduti riporta che dei 12 militi, 2 siano morti in località sconosciuta e 10 a Dolinza (come riportato nel primo dei documenti qui citati)
2 Dino Perpignano, ma per entrambi luogo Decesso: DOLINZA
Ignorando che Dolinza sia una minuscola località della Bavsica (a volte anche traslitterata Dolince, Dolinzi, Dolica, Dolinka), i redattori di ACTA la confondono con la quasi omonima Dolinza Alm in Austria, sita a 65Km da alla Bavsica. Ma qui arriva la parte interessante: i redattori di ACTA giustificano la stranezza ipotizzando che
«i tedeschi avrebbero tentato estreme cure sanitarie oltreconfine, nell’austriaca e pacifica Dolinza Alm, prima del seppellimento con onori il 4 aprile 1944 a Treviso»
E qui non si può che tornate ai “cugini stronzi di Germania”, che saranno pure stronzi, ma son sempre cugini e dunque fondamentalmente buoni. Tanto buoni da tentare disperatamente di resuscitare dei cadaveri orrendamente maciullati.
Per concludere non si può che osservare il motivo di tanta sicurezza dei redattori di ACTA:
“E’ innegabile che i tedeschi siano stati i primi e forse gli unici ad intervenire sul luogo della strage e a loro resta attribuito, salvo propagandistiche versioni, il ritrovamento dei seviziati.”
Che possiamo tradurre: “E’innegabile che i tedeschi siano stati i primi e forse gli unici ad intervenire sul luogo della strage, dopodiché DOPODICHE’ NON SAPPIAMO COSA ABBIANO FATTO”
Nella notte tra il 31 dicembre 2015 e l’ 1 gennaio 2016 a Colonia, in Germania, sono avvenuti fatti gravissimi. Fatti che nonostante fossero già di per sé estremamente gravi sono stati fin da subito cristallizzati e presi in ostaggio dal frame dello scontro fra civiltà rendendo estremamente difficile leggere gli eventi semplicemente per quel che son stati privandoli dei colori attribuitigli da teorie preconcette capaci solo di provocare reazioni isteriche.
Per meglio tentar di comprendere cosa sia avvenuto quella notte a Colonia é però utile farsi prima un’idea generale del luogo e contesto in cui sono avvenuti.
Ma prima ancora della lettura, un assaggio di “superiorità morale dei giovani occidentali”, giusto per far sbollire un po gli animi ricordando che la realtà non é fatta di monolitici bianchi e neri ma di una serie infinita di colori e sfumature che si fondono e si separano continuamente.
[il post é stato aggiornato dopo la pubblicazione iniziale]
Questo post é organizzato in cinque sezioni:
Premesse sulla città, l’ambiente, il momento ed il clima precedenti alla notte in questione
Descrizione cronologica degli eventi
Descrizione cronologica del modo in cui gli eventi sono stati comunicati dai media
Considerazioni finali
Conclusioni
1.0 COLONIA
1.1 LA CITTA’
Colonia, con il suo milione d’abitanti che quasi raddoppiano considerando l’agglomerato urbano che immediatamente la circonda, é la più grande città della Renania Settentrionale-Westfalia. E’ la quarta città della Germania per dimensioni. Si trova più o meno a metà strada tra Düsseldorf e Bonn, da cui dista rispettivamente 34Km e 24Km circa, con le quali forma la “regione metropolitana Colonia-Bonn“. Colonia, quindi, pur essendo formalmente una città da un milione di abitanti, che diventano quasi due con l’hinterland, é in realtà il centro vitale di una “città estesa” di oltre tre milioni di abitanti.
Sviluppata sui due lati del fiume Reno, il centro città vero e proprio é l’Innenstadt, nel cui cuore si trova la città vecchia divisa in Altstadt-Sud ed in Altstadt-Nord. Quest’ultima rappresenta il centro del centro: é nell’Altstadt-Nord che sorgeva la città romana su cui si é sviluppata la città moderna, che si trovano il Duomo, l’Alter Markt (il mercato vecchio), le principali aree pedonali e la stazione centrale dei treni.
L’Innestadt di Colonia, a forma di mezzaluna, al cui interno troviamo l’Altstadt-Nord (in verde) e l’Altstadt-Sud (in rosso)
1.2 COLONIA, LA GERMANIA E L’IMMIGRAZIONE DAL DOPOGUERRA AL 2001
Come in tutta la Germania, durante il boom economico tedesco degli anni ’60 e primi ’70, Colonia ha visto una fortissima immigrazione di lavoratori chiamati soprattutto dalla Turchia ed in misura minore anche dall’Italia e altri paesi mediterranei. La regione della RenaniaSettentrionale-Westfalia éla più ricca della Germania ed in assoluto una delle regioni più ricche d’Europa. Qui l’industria pesante del carbone e dell’acciaio ha contribuito al miracolo economico tedesco nel secondo dopoguerra e non stupisce che quindi sia stata quella col maggior tasso d’immigrazione. Non stupisce nemmeno che la maggior parte degli immigrati sia giunta proprio dalla Turchia, dato il secolare rapporto tra Turchia e Germania. Giusto per dare un’idea di misura: ad oggi nella regione del Nord Reno-Westphalia vive 1/3 dei tedeschi d’origine turca.
Per i primi trent’anni si può parlare di convivenza più che di vera e propria integrazione: inizialmente i lavoratori giungevano come Gastarbeiter (lavoratore-ospite) con un contratto triennale non estendibile Ma già alla fine degli anni ’60 questo limite venne meno soprattutto per il volere delle aziende cui un turnover triennale stava stretto. Negli anni a cavallo tra i ’60 ed i ’70 si vedono arrivare numerosi mogli e figli degli operai per ricongiungimento famigliare. La popolazione tedesca, non essendo etnicamente molto diversificata, accoglie questi lavoratori temporanei con un certo scetticismo.
I nuovi arrivi provocano qualche brusio di risentimento razziale in tutto il paese. Dopo il colpo di stato in Turchia del 1980si assiste ad una nuova ondata migratoria, stavolta di richiedenti asilo. La tensione razziale sale ed il discorso pubblico vede favorevolmente azioni di contenimento degli arrivi e di aiuti economici a chi decidesse di tornare ai luoghi d’origine ma tali progetti si risolsero in un nulla di fatto: si stava giungendo alla seconda generazione ed i nati in Germania non erano intenzionati a lasciare la Germania per il paese d’origine dei genitori che non avevano mai visto.
Gli anni ’80 vedono rinvigorirsi numerosi focolai neonazisti che organizzano manifestazioni ed atti violenti a sfondo razziale, inclusi incendi ed omicidi che hanno un picco tra il 1990 e ’92, immediatamente dopo il crollo del muro di Berlino, e proseguono durante tutto il decennio della riunificazione delle due Germanie fino ai primissimi anni del 2000.
Tuttavia é proprio durante gli anni ’90 che si vede maturare un netto e costante distanziamento dell’opinione pubblica da queste manifestazioni estremiste.
1.3 QUALCHE NUMERO
Dati del 2011, anno dell’ultimo censimento, relativi alla sola città di Colonia riportano che su poco più di un milione di abitanti, 147.603 é cittadino tedesco ma ha un “background migratorio”, 117.343 sono cittadini provenienti da paesi extraeuropei (metà di questi dalla sola Turchia) e 55.502 sono cittadini provenienti da altri paesi europei
[Purtroppo non abbiamo trovato dati relativi all’agglomerato urbano che circonda immediatamente la città, pur sapendo che é abitato da circa 800.000 persone o dell’intera regione. Partendo però dal presupposto che solitamente chi arriva in Germania dal di fuori dell’Europa ha un tenore economico mediamente basso, così come i turchi-tedeschi, si può supporre che la percentuale di cittadini extraeuropei nell’hinterland di Colonia sia maggiore di quello rilevato al centro]
A marzo 2015 risultavano esserci circa 5500 rifugiati a Colonia, numero oggi sicuramente maggiorato dal drammatico aumento migratorio degli ultimi mesi, considerando che nel solo settembre 2015 sono giunti in Germania tra i 270.000 ed i 280.000 rifugiati: più del totale di arrivi dell’intero 2014. Ci si aspetta circa un milione di nuovi rifugiati durante il 2016.
1.4 COLONIA, LA GERMANIA E L’IMMIGRAZIONE DAL 2001 AD OGGI
Tentando di fare una fotografia della situazione dei turchi-tedeschi tra il 2001 ed il 2010 si potrebbe riassumere così: convivenza sufficiente, integrazione non sufficiente. Proprio la più ampia delle minoranze presenti sul territorio tedesco é quella che presenta il tasso d’integrazione tra i più bassi.
Anche in Germania, dopo il 2001, il sentimento anti immigrati é stato catalizzato dall’anti-islamismo conseguentemente ai fatti dell’ 11 settembre.
Giunti alla terza generazione, nella scena pubblica sono oramai presenti numerosi artisti e sportivi di origine turca, tuttavia il tasso di abbandono scolastico é molto più alto tra i turco-tedeschi e conseguentemente lo status economico che questi raggiungono é mediamente inferiore rispetto alla media nazionale. Per i turco-tedeschi l’accesso al credito é mediamente più difficoltoso ed hanno più probabilità di ottenerlo da banche turche che da banche tedesche.
Come quasi sempre nei casi d’integrazione culturale, anche qui é facile osservare sia una certa resistenza sommessa da parte della popolazione tedesca ad un’integrazione effettivamente compiuta che un rafforzamento del sentimento identitario dei turco-tedeschi, il che non giova a favore di un maggiore avvicinamento culturale.
Negli ultimi quattro-cinque anni vi é stato un rapidissimo sviluppo di questi equilibri: la Germania é uno dei paesi europei in cui si é stabilito un numero elevatissimo di migranti e rifugiati e sia per la quantità che per la rapidità con cui ciò é avvenuto era quasi inevitabile non nascesse del malcontento, soprattutto laddove esisteva già un qualche tipo di disagio (per esempio nell’area dell’ex-DDR, economicamente più arretrata rispetto all’ovest). Come negli anni ’60, la ricchissima area di Colonia é stata ovviamente una delle mete preferite dai migranti.
Nel 2007, all’annuncio della costruzione, hanno protestato associazioni di estrema destra provenienti anche da Austria e Belgio, ma si é trattato di episodi marginali relativi a poche centinaia di persone di chiaro indirizzo neonazista.
(2007) 150 membri di Pro-Köln marciano protestando contro la costruzione della moschea Fonti: Telegraph eSpiegel
Nel 2014 a Dresda (ex DDR) viene fondata Pegida, un movimento politico a puro carattere anti-islamico che conquisterà un certo rapido successo: a gennaio 2015 capeggerà una marcia di 25.000 persone in una manifestazione contro gli attacchi di Parigi ed a giugno otterrà quasi il 10% dei voti alle elezioni municipali di Dresda. Il caso di Pegida, per quanto contenuto, suona però come campanello d’allarme in quanto manifestazione di un sentimento anti-immigrati ed anti-islamico molto più diffuso, trasversale, esplicito e socialmente accettato rispetto a solo pochissimi anni prima.
Ai primi di settembre 2015 un’eccezionale ondata migratoria proveniente principalmente dalla Siria al suo quarto anno di guerra, migliaia di tedeschi s’attivano e manifestanoa favore dell’accoglienza ai rifugiati. Anche a Colonia e Bonn associazioni si organizzano per portare un primo conforto ed appoggio ai rifugiati che giungono coi treni.
Più di recente, il 17 ottobre 2015, il giorno prima del voto alle elezioni comunali la candidata sindaco Henriette Reker (58) é stata pugnalata gravemente al collo da un disoccupato quarantaquattrenne noto per le posizioni vicine all’estrema destra neonazista negli anni ’90 che disapprovava le posizioni liberali della Reker a favore dei rifugiati. 24 ore più tardi il voto eleggerà la Reker a nuovo sindaco, che ne riceverà l’annuncio dall’ospedale.
La Germania insomma ha maturato oltre mezzo secolo di rapporti intensi con comunità di immigrati, soprattutto di religione islamica provenienti dalla Turchia. Tra alti e bassi ha tutto sommato intrapreso una strada che punta attivamente all’integrazione culturale ma oltre a scontrarsi con la resistenza che s’incontra spesso in questo tipo di situazioni, l’attuale crisi dei rifugiati e gli attentati terroristici su territorio europeo, stanno alimentando sempre più sentimenti xenofobi e reazionari che non mancano di manifestarsi in maniera violenta. In Germania la polarizzazione su immigrazione ed islam é decisamente maggiore, più organizzata e manifesta rispetto alla situazione italiana.
Altstadt-Nord. In Rosso é indicata la piazza tra Stazione e Duomo. In giallo la piazza del chiostro e più a sud la Roncalliplatz. La linea verde sul tetto del Duomo indica 100 metri.
La Bahnhofsvorplatz é una piazza pedonale di forma triangolare che, come dice il nome, sorge dinnanzi alla stazione centrale dei treni di Colonia che ne occupa il lato est. Sul lato ovest ci sono un paio di palazzi e l’angolo di una chiesa mentre a sud c’é il maestoso Duomo la cui base é cinque-sei metri più in alto rispetto alla piazza della stazione. Tra la piazza e il Duomo c’é la Trankgasse, una strada percorsa da automobili che però si oltrepassa facilmente con un sovrapassaggio che funge da scalinata del Duomo. Proseguendo verso il centro, proprio attorno al Duomo s’incontrano altre due piazze pedonali: la piazza del chiostro ad ovest e la Roncalliplatz a sud.
La stazione di Colonia é molto grande. Ci passano giornalmente 280.000 persone. Tra i negozi e ristoranti al suo interno si trova sempre tantissima gente.
L’area attorno al Duomo e della stazione é comunemente nota come un luogo di taccheggio e spaccio di Marijuana in cui stazionano regolarmente bande di spacciatori-taccheggiatori prevalentemente di origine nordafricana. Non é un mistero: chiunque abiti a Cologna lo sa ed é pure indicato nelle guide per i turisti. Lo scorso luglio una retata della polizia ha identificato una rete di 40 persone che operavano in quelle piazze.
L’intera area é dunque un’importante zona di passaggio: impossibile andare in centro a Colonia senza passare dalla zona della stazione. Da qui si passa per attraversare l’Hohenzollernbrucke: uno dei tre ponti che collegano il centro all’altra sponda del Reno su cui le coppiette attaccano i lucchetti.
1.7 CAPODANNO A COLONIA
Nella notte di San Silvestro migliaia di persone si recano a Colonia per ammirare i fuochi d’artificio. Il capodanno di Colonia é “IL” capodanno del Reno Settentrionale-Westfalia ed attira anche numerosi turisti stranieri. Famiglie con bambini, compagnie di amici e coppiette in giro dappertutto. Come ad ogni capodanno ci si ritroverà con gli amici, si brinderà assieme con birra e spumante, si faran scoppiare i petardi e così via.
Un tipico capodanno tra amici per le strade di Colonia é più o meno come in questo video del 31 dicembre 2014:
E lo spettacolo di fuochi che ci si aspetta attorno alla mezzanotte é questo:
Come in ogni capodanno, o meglio, come in ogni grande evento di piazza, esattamente come avviene in tantissime città del mondo, si verificano numerosi casi di borseggio e molestie, ci saranno compagnie di ragazzi ubriachi, incidenti coi petardi e pure qualche rissa. (Nell’ultima edizione dell’Oktoberfest sono stati denunciati 40 casi di molestie, nessuna delle quali a carico di “nordafricani o immigrati”)
1.8 I LUOGHI DEL CAPODANNO
I luoghi principali in cui si svolge il capodanno nel centro di Colonia sono grossomodo le aree pedonali dell’Altstadt-Nord che vanno dalla stazione dei treni e l’adiacente duomo alla piazza alberata dell’Heumarkt ed il lungarno. Alla mezzanotte molte persone si spostano sul lungoreno e sui ponti per ammirare lo spettacolo dei fuochi d’artificio.
2.0 CAPODANNO 2015/2016
Nei giorni precedenti erano state diffuse notizie riguardanti possibili attacchi terroristici nelle maggiori città europee per capodanno.
La polizia locale di Colonia chiese rinforzi per la notte di Capodanno ma il ministero li aveva negati.
I fatti qui elencati sono stati ricostruiti in base alle testimonianze e dichiarazioni giunte nei giorni successivi.
L’elenco delle aggressioni é particolarmente corposo. Qui ne sono state selezionate solamente alcune per fornire un’immagine il più completa possibile degli orari di inizio/fine e delle diverse modalità d’esecuzione.
19:00 Una ragazza viene circondata da 5 persone ed afferrata mentre cammina
19:30 Parcheggio della stazione. Una ragazza si trova all’interno della propria macchina ferma. Un uomo le bussa sul finestrino e le indica di guardare le ruote. La ragazza esce dal veicolo e vi gira intorno osservando le ruote. Rientrata nell’abitacolo scopre che la sua borsetta é scomparsa.
eventi tra le 19 e le 21 (dati aggiornati all’ 11/01/16)
20:30 Nella Banhofsvorplatz (la piazza antistante la stazione dei treni, indicata in rosso nell’immagine sopra) inizia a formarsi una folla composta da diverse centinaia di persone, perlopiù di origine nordafricana.
21:00 Nella piazza sono presenti circa 400/500 persone, quasi esclusivamente giovani uomini nordafricani e mediorientali tra i 15 e 35 anni. Alcuni stanno in piedi divisi per gruppetti nella piazza a far esplodere petardi. Altri stanno sulle gradinate del Duomo a guardare la scena. Per terra ci sono bottiglie di birra. Sono molto rumorosi. Si sentono continui fischi dei mazzetti in volo e ogni volta che uno di questi esplode si sentono fischi e “Oooooh”. Una persona viene derubata all’interno della stazione. Decine di cellulari riprendono quel che succede. Alcuni gruppetti lanciano pericolosamente i petardi addosso ad altri gruppetti in un “gioco” decisamente irresponsabile. Alcune delle persone che escono dalla stazione preferiscono aggirare in fretta il centro della piazza piuttosto che passare in mezzo alle esplosioni. Qualcuno si ferma a vedere che succede. C’é un caso di accoltellamento per cui arrivano la polizia ed un’ambulanza ed altre risse.
21:30 Polizia locale, polizia federale e rappresentanti del comune tengono un briefing sulla situazione alla piazza della stazione. Si propone di far intervenire la polizia antisommossa per le 22:00
eventi tra le 21 e le 22 (dati aggiornati all’ 11/1/16)
22:00 La folla davanti alla stazione si é fatta più aggressiva. Chi passa di lì ne é intimorito. Molti di loro sono ubriachi ed “inconsapevoli di dove si trovassero“. Probabilmente molti han consumato anche droghe. Le bottiglie di birra vuote vengono frantumate per terra. Ci sono diverse chiazze di vomito. Lo scoppio continuo di petardi rende il tutto ancor più caotico. Ad ogni passo si calpestano vetri rotti. Due uomini bloccano delle donne vicino alla cattedrale e queste, urlando, tentano di reagire. Ci sono diverse risse nella stazione e la polizia tenta di contenerle ma sono troppe e c’é una difficoltà oggettiva nel focalizzarsi su ogni singola rissa. Si sente una ragazza urlare, piangere e scappare da un uomo che le urla contro puntandole il dito per poi inseguirla assieme ad altri. C’é un secondo briefing tra le polizie ed il Comune. L’intervento della polizia antisommossa é rimandato alle 22:30. Ubriachi lanciano petardi addosso ad altra gente. Iniziano le prime aggressioni: branchi da 2 fino a 20 persone individuano delle vittime, quasi esclusivamente giovani ragazze, le circondano e continuando a camminare al passo delle vittime vi si stringono addosso impedendone la fuga. A questo punto diverse mani iniziano a toccare aggressivamente la vittima da più parti: mani sul sedere, mani sul seno, tra le gambe. Mani che afferrano le braccia e che tirano la giacca. In alcuni casi mani che s’infilano dentro ai pantaloni. Intanto il branco rivolge frasi oscene alle vittime, le chiama “Bitch” o “Schlampfe” (Troia) e gli dice “Ficki, Ficki” (Scopiamo, scopiamo). Una macchina della polizia sosta davanti al Duomo e viene bombardata di petardi.
22:15 Una donna viene assalita e toccata mentre esce dalla stazione. Contemporaneamente c’é un tentativo di rubare la borsa del marito.
22:30 Due ragazze vengono assalite all’ingresso della stazione. Gli assalitori le toccano dappertutto, compresi i genitali. (Si tratta dell’episodio più grave e che porterà a due denunce per stupro). Una ragazza passa nel bel mezzo di una folla. Successivamente si accorge di esser stata derubata. Un petardo esplode sulla spalla di una ragazza ustionandola. Un’altra ragazza giunta da Bonn testimonia che scesa dal treno vede in stazione quasi esclusivamente maschi nordafricani. Ubriachi. La folla é tanto densa da potersi a malapena muovere e diverse mani la toccano sul sedere. “non avevano la sensazione di star facendo qualcosa che é vietato”
22:40 Un ragazzo e due ragazze alla stazione. Mentre queste vengono circondate e toccate lui viene derubato.
eventi tra le 22 e le 23 (dati aggiornati all’ 11/1/16)
23:00 Le persone radunate nella Banhofsvorplatz adesso sono circa un migliaio. Secondo alcuni 1.500. Più rumore, più petardi. Più caos. C’é una situazione caotica con gente “completamente disinibita” che urla, fumo di petardi esplosi ovunque. Gran parte delle persone é ubriaca o intossicata. Nessuno si cura più di tanto della presenza della polizia. Si stanno verificando ancora aggressioni all’interno della folla ma la polizia antisommossa non se ne accorge. Passa un’ambulanza e viene bersagliata di petardi. In un angolo della piazza alcuni stanno litigando. Altre risse. Per la maggior parte sono ragazzi e giovani uomini nordafricani o mediorientali. Non é più una situazione tranquilla: raggiungere la stazione dei treni é ora oggettivamente pericoloso per i passanti e le persone in piazza si stanno facendo aggressive. Alcuni ragazzi si sono messi a far scoppiare petardi nel bel mezzo dell’adiacente sottopasso impedendo l’eventuale passaggio delle automobili. Nel frattempo sono giunte diverse macchine e camionette della polizia. Un’altra ragazza testimonia di esser stata toccata nelle parti intime più o meno a quest’ora nel piazzale della stazione.
23:15 Due ragazze vengono circondate e toccate dalla folla. Cade la borsetta. Vengono derubate di cellulare, contanti e gioielleria. La polizia decide di sgomberare la scalinata del Duomo.
23:30 La polizia decide d’intervenire prima che accada qualcosa di grave ed inizia lo sgombero della piazza. Con qualche difficoltà circondano la zona ed iniziano a disperdere le persone presenti allontanandole dalla zona della stazione. La polizia di Colonia informa della situazione la LZPD, l’organo di coordinamento delle polizie del Länder. La LZPD chiede se siano necessari rinforzi ma la polizia di Colonia dichiara di non ritenerlo necessario.
00:20 Vittima testimonia di esser stata “toccata dappertutto”
00:27 Il grosso dei festeggiamenti é finito e da questo momento in poi molte persone dovranno recarsi alla stazione per tornare a casa. La polizia decide di riaprire l’accesso alla piazza e alla scalinata. Sempre la polizia dichiarerà successivamente che da questo momento la situazione in piazza si era “calmata notevolmente”
00:30Madre e figlia vengono assalite. Uno degli assalitori tenta di baciare la ragazza mentre un’altro le tira fuori il portafoglio dalla borsa. Una ragazza viene circondata da 5 uomini che tentano di toccarla sotto alla gonna mentre un’altro le strappa via la borsetta. Tra la mezzanotte e adesso la polizia ha controllato tra le 30 e le 50 persone. Una squadra viene spostatain un’altra zona della città. Alcune donne dichiarano agli agenti di non esser state aiutate dai poliziotti presenti in stazione. C’é il primo arresto per borseggio.
00:45 La polizia dichiarerà successivamente che a quest’ora era stata disperso il grosso della folla presente in piazza. Tuttavia vi sono diverse testimonianze che affermano il contrario. Ad esempio la testimonianza di una ragazza, il fidanzato e due amiche che trovatisi nel piazzale a quest’ora vengono circondati da diversi uomini che iniziano a toccarli dappertutto, anche in zone intime. Dopodiché, ancora in stato di shock, han raggiunto dei poliziotti all’interno della stazione che immediatamente sono scattati nel tentativo di catturare gli aggressori. Aggressioni simili avvengono sia all’interno che al di fuori del piazzale della stazione.
eventi tra le 00 e le 01 (dati aggiornati all’ 11/1/16)
01:00 Amir, un 37enne iraniano residente da 17 anni in Germania, testimonia che a quell’ora é entrato alla stazione con la fidanzata e i suoi genitori per tornare tutti a casa. Un poliziotto cerca di impedirgli l’accesso finché lui non gli dice “Siamo una famiglia e vogliamo tornare a casa”. Entrati nella stazione vedono vomito dappertutto. Giorni dopo testimonierà: “Ho avuto paura” – “E’qualcosa che non avevo mai visto in Germania”. Durante la serata, davanti alla stazione dei treni la polizia ha identificato 70 delle persone presenti. La polizia si apposta all’ingresso della stazione per permettere alle persone di raggiungere i binari in sicurezza. Tre ragazze vengono circondate e toccate dappertutto da un gruppo di nordafricani. C’é un tentativo di rubare una borsetta. Viene rubato un cellulare.
05:05 Vengono rilasciate le prime persone che erano state arrestate e trattenute in cella.
06:40 Ragazzo in bici nei pressi della stazione. Dalla giacca gli vengono rubati cellulare, documenti e carte di credito.
eventi dalle 05 alle 12 (dati aggiornati all’ 11/1/16)
Dopo le 5 la situazione é ritornata quella di una giornata normale.
3.0 I GIORNI SUCCESSIVI
[fra parentesi quadre ed in rosso alcune considerazioni che si é preferito inserire qui anziché nella quarta sezione]
Venerdì 1 Gennaio 2016 POLIZIA NEGA, I SOCIAL NETWORK S’INFERVORANO
Alle 08.57 viene rilasciata una relazione della polizia segnala che “la celebrazione del capodanno é stata perlopiù pacifica” e che all’indomani dei festeggiamenti il clima é “ritranquillo”. Si segnalano 20 casi di danneggiamento (l’anno precedente furono 25), 78 colluttazioni, 80 interventi della polizia, 80 casi di festeggiamenti eccessivamente rumorosi e il fatto che poco prima di mezzanotte si é dovuta sgomberare l’area del Duomo per evitare la formazione di una ressa pericolosa causata da circa 1000 persone intente a far esplodere fuochi pirotecnici.
Sul gruppo Facebook “Nett-Werk Köln” vengono pubblicati dei post sugli assalti ma gli amministratori del gruppo li cancellano in quanto contrarie alle regole contro l’incitamento
Il Köllner Express pubblica un articolo intitolato: “Notte di San Silvestro: giovani donne molestate sessualmente” in cui riporta la testimonianza di una giovane donna (28) che dichiara che nei pressi della stazione alle 00:45 lei, il fidanzato e due amiche sono stati circondati da diversi uomini che hanno iniziato a toccarli dappertutto, anche in zone intime. Dopodiché, ancora in stato di shock, han raggiunto dei poliziotti all’interno della stazione che immediatamente sono scattati nel tentativo di catturare gli aggressori.
Sabato 2 Gennaio 2016 PRIME AMMISSIONI DELLA POLIZIA
La polizia dichiara che una trentina di uomini “di aspetto nordafricano” ha agito assalendo diverse vittime circondandole in gruppi per immobilizzarle e distrarle mentre le derubavano di portafogli e cellulare e che in alcuni casi sono andati oltre toccando le parti intime delle vittime dei furti.
NOTA RIGUARDANTE I DIVERSI CORPI DI POLIZIA TEDESCA
Nel piazzale della stazione di Colonia a capodanno intervenivano due diversi corpi di polizia:
Bundespolizei (polizia federale tedesca, dipendente dal ministero degli interni. Ha il controllo della ferrovia e della stazione dei treni fino ad una distanza di 30 metri da essa, il che include tutta la piazza antistante.)
Kölner Polizei(o Landespolizei Köln, polizia locale di Colonia, dipendente dal proprio Länder di appartenenza. Ha il controllo del territorio)
Inoltre alcune dichiarazioni verranno rilasciate dal leader locale del GdP, ossia il principale sindacato di polizia.
Ciò ha provocato a volte una qualche confusione sui media riguardo le dichiarazioni dei diversi “capi della polizia”.
Domenica 3 Gennaio 2006 A COLONIA NON SI PARLA D’ALTRO
A Colonia non si parla d’altro soprattutto sui social network a causa della scarsa copertura mediatica che già qualcuno indica come voluta.
Il “Köllner Express” pubblica un nuovo articolo in cui riporre più un dettaglio la testimonianza del primo articolo. La giovane donna, che dichiara di essere nativa di Colonia, si chiama Katia L (28) e specifica che l’assalto é avvenuto nei pressi della vecchia sala d’attesa aggiungendo “Quando uscimmo dalla stazione fummo molto sorpresi dal gruppo che incontrammo fuori” – “erano solamente uomini stranieri” („Als wir aus der Bahnhofshalle kamen, waren wir sehr verwundert über die Gruppe, die uns da empfing“ – „Es handelte sich ausschließlich um junge ausländische Männer”), che “sarò stata toccata 100 volte in 200 metri” mentre gli uomini le dicevano “Schlampen” (troie) e “Ficki, Ficki” (scopare, scopare) e che “per fortuna indossava giacca e pantaloni perché una gonna le sarebbe stata sicuramente strappata”. Una delle due amiche racconta che il gruppo era di 40 o forse 100 uomini e che collant e mutande le son state quasi completamente tolte. Tornate alla stazione hanno avvertito subito la polizia ma non son state in grado di dire chi le avesse toccate né dove. Katia L. aggiunge “spero che li catturino o non scenderò in piazza al Carnevale”. L’articolo termina informando che la polizia ha iniziato un’attività di verifica dei fatti e che 35 donne hanno già fatto denuncia ma la cifra é destinata ad aumentare. In totale sono state fatte 60 denunce, il 25% delle quali includeva molestie sessuali.
Lunedì-Martedì 4 -5
Gennaio 2006 LA NOTIZIA FA IL GIRO DEL MONDO
Sull’Huffington Post tedesco si fa notare come i fatti di Colonia incredibilmente non abbiano avuto eco sui media nazionali nonostante la gravità e che le uniche fonti sono, oltre a brevi dichiarazioni su WDR, il “Köllner Express” e “Focus Online“, entrambi di noto indirizzo conservatore e non proprio adatti a fungere da fonte primaria. Si parla di disinformazione, censura ed eccessiva prudenza. Poco dopo la pubblicazione dell’articolo, però, la notizia riceverà una copertura internazionale.
Il ministro della giustizia tedesco Maas parla di attacchi “vili e odiosi”. La cancelliera Merkel chiede una risposta severa della legge. La sindaco di Colonia dichiara misure restrittive per i prossimi eventi pubblici. La polizia dichiara che le denunce sono salite a 90, alcune delle quali per molestia, alcune per furto e alcune per furto con molestia. In un caso v’é una denuncia per stupro. La sindaco Reker dichiara che non v’é alcuna prova che vi fossero rifugiati tra gli assalitori e diffonde alcuni “consigli utili” per evitare in futuro situazioni simili che scatenano ilarità e critiche. Quello che appare subito chiaro é che non ci sono dei veri sospetti e non é chiaro il loro numero ma “Non si é trattato di mille assalitori“, come ripete la stampa, ma di persone che si sono mescolate nella folla.
La notizia viene riportata dai media internazionali che sostanzialmente riprendono quanto scritto sul “Köllner Express” e “Focus Online“. Ciò che passa é sostanzialmente “Nella notte di Capodanno a Colonia mille arabi o nordafricani ubriachi ed aggressivi hanno assalito dalle 60 alle 90 donne”, così come lo riporta la BBC, il DailyMail,
In Italia la notizia giunge così:
[Da una parte i quotidiani di estrema destra parlano di “stupri di massa”, dall’altra alcune incomprensioni diffuse sui termini “molestie”, “attacchi” e “gruppi” e il patatrac é fatto! Da questo momento in Italia si parla di “mille rifugiati mussulmani ubriachi che si sono organizzati in massa per stuprare in branco le nostre donne”]
Una donna di lingua araba informa la polizia che alcuni rifugiati di Duisburg le avrebbero rivelato di esser stati a Colonia per il capodanno. Alcuni cellulari rubati sarebbero stati rinvenuti presso abitazioni di rifugiati o nelle loro vicinanze, ma la polizia non conferma.
[In GERMANIA dapprima si é parlato del ritardo con cui la notizia é giunta ai notiziari nazionali accusando la polizia di aver voluto mantenere in silenzio i fatti, poi ci si é concentrati sul fatto che molti media hanno dato scarso risalto alla nazionalità/origine degli assalitori indicandoli come “probabilmente nordafricani” o “indicativamente di aspetto arabo”; poi si é proseguito con le accuse di incompetenza verso la polizia e allo stesso tempo si son toccate appieno le politiche di accoglienza del governo in carica, passando per il senso di sicurezza generale.
In ITALIA invece il livello del discorso é ben esemplificato qui:
Si é parlato di “stupri organizzati”, “rete internazionale degli stupri di massa”, “attacco organizzato” equiparando i fatti di Colonia ad un atto terroristico.
Come sempre in questi casi sui social network ottengono maggio risalto le voci più estremiste e informazioni vere si legano a bufale di facile presa. Foto risalenti ad altre notizie, falsi palesi, dettagli ingigantiti, voci date per buone ed un video delle aggressioni che poi si scopre esser risalente ai fatti del Cairo del 2012 (NB pur non riferendosi ai fatti di Colonia il video é utile in quanto le modalità delle aggressioni di Colonia é praticamente identica a quella mostrata nel video in questione) . Il tutto ovviamente per dipingere i fatti in modo ancor più drammatico di quanto non siano già.
Ciò che molto velocemente é stato messo in secondo piano sia in Germania che in Italia é la possibile discussione sultrattamento delle donne nei luoghi pubblici. Già a questa data i “fatti di Colonia” sono diventati merce di propaganda politica incentrata sulla tesi dello scontro di civiltà e cioé immigrazione, Islam, Europa, accordi di Schengen ecc. Le vittime dei fatti sono già diventate un mero numero da spendere e l’interesse vige più sulla nazionalità/origine degli aggressori che su ciò che han passato le vittime (Quanti erano rifugiati? Quante molestie? Quante donne? Quanti disoccupati? Quanti?)
Il fatto é decisamente interessante soprattutto se paragonato ad un recente episodio che presenta alcuni particolari analoghi:
Roma, 18-19 febbraio 2015, un migliaio di ultras olandesi del Feyenoord perlopiù ubriachi, tengono in ostaggio diverse zone del centro con risse, danneggiamenti, vandalizzazioni, scontri con la polizia. Vengono danneggiati 15 autobus e la fontana del Bernini in quelle che vengono descritte da più parti “scene di guerriglia“. In quel caso oltre a qualche ovvia critica sull’operato della polizia é interessante osservare in che modo sono stati descritti gli ultras del Feyenoord sulla stampa più critica:
“orda sbronza”, “teppaglia” che forse han dovuto sfogare la loro frustrazione di vivere in una città brutta (Libero)
“bestie completamente ubriache”, “energumeno”, “esaltati” “soliti imbecilli” (Il Fatto Quotidiano)
Qui la tesi dello scontro di civiltà non é scattato. Perché? Non si inneggiato contro la “razza olandese” né contro la “cultura nordica”, né contro la “violenza repressa dei protestanti”: i tifosi ubriachi sono contestati semplicemente per il fatto di essere dei tifosi ubriachi. La loro origine viene considerata solo come appiglio su cui costruire delle immagini colorite (barbari, vandali, lanzichenecchi) ma non é mai elemento centrale della critica. Gli ultras olandesi sono condannati in quanto ultras e non in quanto olandesi. Mai, mai, mai é stata proposta una lettura razziale-culturale di ciò che gli olandesi hanno fatto a Roma. Mai si é accennato alla loro fede protestante. Al contrario, per i fatti di Colonia, i teppisti nordafricani e mediorientali vengono condannati in quanto nordafricani e mediorientali secondo l’equazione “nordafricani e mediorientali = teppisti”. ].
Giovedì 7 Gennaio 2006 NOTIZIE A CATENA
Sull’Huffington Post tedesco si prende atto che moltissima stampa ha abusato dei termini “1000 uomini”, “rifugiati” in quanto a questa data nessun elemento indica che effettivamente vi fossero mille persone implicate, né che vi fossero coinvolti rifugiati ma che oramai la vulgata dell’evento é “mille rifugiati hanno molestato donne tedesche” [se avesse letto i giornali italiani molto probabilmente l’autore avrebbe sostituito “molestato” con “stuprato”] .
Il Consiglio centrale dei mussulmani tedeschi, con sede a Colonia, riceve centinaia di email e 50 telefonate telefonate minatorie. Sono costretti a staccare i telefoni.
Venerdì 8 Gennaio 2006 LICENZIATO IL CAPO DELLA POLIZIA LOCALE
La polizia di Colonia dichiara che 100 detective stanno investigando su 379 denunce, di cui circa il 40% include molestie sessuali e che le indagini sono focalizzate su persone originarie del nordafrica, perlopiù “richiedenti asilo e persone che vivono in Germania illegalmente”
Sulla rete nazionale tedesca i fatti di Capodanno vengono definiti un “campanello d’allarme” che illumina sulle difficoltà che incontra la Germania nell’integrare i nuovi arrivati, ma si dichiara altresì che “non bisogna cedere alle paure” per “non perdere ciò che abbiamo raggiunto”.
Domenica 10 Gennaio 2016 PROSEGUONO LE INDAGINI. AUMENTANO LE DENUNCE
La polizia locale di Colonia dichiara di star indagando su 19 sospetti: 10 richiedenti asilo e 9 presunti clandestini, fra cui alcuni “rifugiati arrivati in Germania negli ultimi mesi“. Quattro di essi sono già in stato di fermo accusati di furto. Nessuno di essi é residente a Colonia. Il direttore generale dell’anticrimine del Reno Settentrionale-Westfalia fa inoltre sapere che “dalle indagini sulla notte di San Silvestro finora non risulta che gli attacchi alle donne a Colonia siano stati “organizzati o guidati” e utilizza il termine “Tarraush gamea, utilizzato nei paesi arabi (ma anche in India e Bangladesh) per indicare le molestie sessuali di gruppo in luoghi pubblici
Le denunce sono salite a 516. La percentuale di denunce che include anche o solo molestie sessuali resta del 40% circa.
Il presidente della polizia federale tedesca Heiko Maas dichiara a proposito delle aggressioni: «deve esserci dietro una qualche forma di organizzazione. Nessuno può venirmi a raccontare che non sia stato preparato o concordato […] Normalmente una cosa del genere viene organizzata sui social network […] non si tratta di criminalità organizzata […] » e che dietro agli assalti «[…] non ci sia nessun tipo di gruppo strutturato». La polizia indaga tra decine di sms, chat ed email. Si continua a parlare di “regia unica” anche sulla stampa ma non c’é alcuna evidenza di ciò e la polizia locale invece smentisce. [1. Heiko Maas parla chiaramente di una sua ferma convinzione non ancora confermata da prove. Molta stampa però trasmette incorrettamente l’informazione “gli attacchi erano organizzati” dandola già per certa. 2.Il sospetto che traspare da diverse dichiarazioni é quello della “grande rete internazionale dei mussulmani organizzati per attaccare l’occidente” e dice molte più cose su chi la sostiene che delle persone sospettate]
Per il momento si indaga su 19 sospetti di cui 10 profughi.
A Lipsia (ex DDR) Pegida sfila in un corteo anti-immigrati. Ci sono scontri, danneggiamenti ed arresti. La notizia trova eco internazionale poiché viene incatenata ai fatti di Colonia.
Rolf Jaeger, ministro del Land del Reno Settentrionale-Westfalia, dichiara: “I testimoni e i rapporti della polizia locale, così come i resoconti della polizia federale, puntano sul fatto che i reati sono stati commessi quasi esclusivamente da persone dell’ambiente dei migranti“, punta il dito contro la polizia locale, affermando che questa non avesse chiesto rinforzi citando anche la nota stampa rilasciata il primo gennaio in cui si dichiarava la situazione “tranquilla” e dichiara che secondo le indagini non risulta che gli attacchi siano stati “organizzati” o “guidati”
Martedì 12 Gennaio 2016 L’ATTENZIONE INIZIA A CALARE
Il procuratore Ulrich Bremer dichiara che le denunce sono salite a 563, che la percentuale di queste che include molestie sessuali é ora del 50% e che i sospettati identificati dalla polizia sono 23. Rolf Jaeger, ministro del Land del Reno Settentrionale-Westfalia, ha rilasciato nella notte un report in cui dichiara quanto che la polizia sapesse della situazione. Vengono resi noti i tempi, gli orari dei briefing, il numero di poliziotti presenti, l’osservazione che le forze fossero in realtà insufficienti e che ciò abbia lasciato ampi margini di manovra agli aggressori, il fatto che la polizia di Colonia non sentì necessario avere rinforzi dal LZPD. Si rende noto che tra le ore 20:00 del 31 dicembre e le ore 07:00 del 1 gennaio sono giunte 1267 chiamate d’emergenza che hanno portato ad eseguire 873 controlli, di cui 53 nell’area della stazione, 12 dei quali riguardavano molestie, furti e/o percosse. Si parla di errori di valutazione, incapacità di adattamento e disorganizzazione (sovraccarico di lavoro per le forze ordinarie.
[Da questo momento i “fatti di Colonia” non trovano più spazio sulle prime pagine internazionali]
4.0 Alcune considerazioni:
4.1 RADUNO SPONTANEO?
Possibile che mille, millecinquecento persone si siano radunate nello stesso luogo senza alcun coordinamento? Finora nulla ha fatto emergere la presenza di un coordinamento generale. Vi sono però diversi elementi che possono spiegare come ciò sia stato possibile:
Nell’area della stazione stazionano sempre piccoli gruppi di nordafricani dediti allo spaccio ed al taccheggio. Altri gruppi di nordafricani sono giunti a Colonia passando proprio dalla stazione. Il punto di ritrovo della piazza é la scalinata del Duomo. E’sulla scalinata che ci si da appuntamento e ci si trova. La scalinata però é involontariamente al tempo stesso anche una perfetta platea: basta che una persona nel piazzale inizi ad attirare l’attenzione che la gente sulla scalinata si trasformi volente o nolente in pubblico e quella sera c’era gente in piazza che tirava razzi e petardi. Non serve molto perché gruppi di persone sulla scalinata inizino ad incitare quelli che tirano i petardi e perché altri gruppi giunti successivamente si fermino lì nel piazzale sommandosi alla folla preesistente. Non va nemmeno dimenticato che molti tedeschi già vedendo i primi assembramenti di nordafricani han preferito non mescolarsi, facendo sì che tale folla mantenesse la propria omogeneità iniziale (giovani maschi di origine tendenzialmente nordafricana).
Che alcuni di questi gruppi si siano dati appuntamento alla stazione non sembra affatto strano, così come non sembra nemmeno strano se alcuni gruppi di assalitori si siano coordinati sul momento via chat (stupisce che nel 2015 vi siano giovani che interloquiscono via chat e social network?)
4.2 LA POLIZIA HA NEGATO L’EVIDENZA?
Ci sono ancora indagini e discussioni in corso é già chiaro che i corpi di polizia di Colonia abbiano gestito malissimo la situazione in piazza sottostimandone il rischio potenziale ed agendo tardivamente con mezzi limitati. Purtroppo capire esattamente perché sia successo richiederebbe approfondimenti sulla situazione, sugli equilibri interni e funzionamento dei corpi di polizia della città che francamente esula dall’interesse di questo post ed a meno che non saltino fuori rivelazioni stravolgenti basterà sapere che c’é stata disorganizzazione da parte della polizia ed all’indomani s’é tentato di sorvolare sull’accaduto.
4.3 ERANO TUTTI NORDAFRICANI?
Tutte le testimonianze concordano nel descrivere la folla in piazza ed in stazione come composta quasi unicamente di nordafricani o mediorientali. Le persone sospettate di aver assalito le ragazze provengono da Algeria, Marocco, Siria, Iran, Iraq, Serbia, Stati Uniti e Germania. Si può dunque già affermare che per la stragrande maggioranza si: si parla di persone la cui origine é ascrivibile al nordafrica ed al medio oriente. Magari salterà fuori che tra gli assalitori c’erano pure dei russi, brasiliani o italiani e ci sarà chi pungolerà sul paese di origine dei genitori di questi russi, brasiliani e italiani ma sono questioni di lana caprina in quanto l’origine delle persone coinvolte non é fondamentale nelle dinamiche di quanto accaduto
4.4 LA VIOLENZA SULLE DONNE E’ UN PROBLEMA DEL MONDO MUSSULMANO?
E’ un problema che coinvolge ANCHE il mondo mussulmano: le aree di provenienza delle persone coinvolte sono caratterizzate da società fortemente maschiliste e patriarcali in cui sono comunemente diffusi stereotipi sessisti sulle donne occidentali. Ciò non toglie che allo stesso tempo anche in Germania (e in Europa e nel cosiddetto “mondo occidentale”) sia ancora fortemente radicata una cultura maschilista e patriarcale. Le differenze tra “mondo occidentale” e “mondo islamico” sul rapporto con il genere femminile, quando ci sono, son soprattutto differenze esteriori relative al grado di accettazione sociale di tale impostazione. Il rapporto disequilibrato fra i generi non é dunque un problema spiccatamente mussulmano: se da una parte v’é una manifestazione più esplicita di una visione maschilista, dall’altra, nel “mondo occidentale”, si finge che tale visione non sia diffusa illudendosi che i pur numerosi segnali contrari siano solo casi isolati o eccezioni.
4.5 DUNQUE, RIASSUMENDO…
Mille, millecinquecento tra ragazzi e giovani uomini accomunati perlopiù dal fatto di essere tutti maschi venire quasi esclusivamente dal nordafrica o dal medio oriente si sono radunati nel piazzale della stazione.
Le persone presenti in piazza sono accomunate dal fatto di appartenere a gruppi sociali perlopiù scarsamente integrati tra la popolazione tedesca.
Anche se alcuni gruppi si erano accordati sull’incontrarsi alla Banhofsvoorplatz, non c’é alcun meta-coordinamento di tutta la folla.
Il piazzale della stazione é un luogo pubblico di grandissimo passaggio: chi giunge a Colonia dal circondario spesso vi giunge in treno e passa obbligatoriamente dalla stazione.
Il piazzale della stazione di Colonia é notoriamente luogo di spaccio e borseggio. Gruppi di spacciatori e borseggiatori perlopiù di origine nordafricana vi s’aggirano costantemente ed é lecito ritenere fossero presenti anche durante gli eventi in questione
Borseggi e furti sono il crimine principale a Colonia.
Durante tutti i grandi eventi di piazza s’assiste ad un notevole aumento de borseggi e molestie, seppur in numero decisamente inferiore rispetto ai fatti di Colonia.
Uno dei metodi noti dei borseggiatori consiste nell’accerchiare la vittima per impedirne ogni reazione. Un secondo metodo consiste nell’urtarla mentre una seconda persona la deruba. Un terzo prevede di distrarla strattonandola.
Le persone presenti in piazza hanno iniziato a “festeggiare” il capodanno in maniera vandalica e l’atmosfera si é scaldata sempre più nell’arco di alcune ore.
La folla non é giunta tutta assieme ma si é formata nell’arco di diverse ore.
C’é stato un forte abuso di alcolici da parte delle persone in piazza ed é lecito ritenere anche l’utilizzo di altre sostanze stupefacenti. Di fatto buona parte delle persone presenti era evidentemente intossicata.
Fino alle 21:30-22:00 la situazione può dirsi tutto sommato normale (si verificano alcuni episodi di borseggio quantitativamente in linea con quanti ne avvengono in una giornata normale) ma é già chiaro che la folla stava aumentando sia in quantità che in aggressività.
Gli assalti in piazza iniziano ad intensificarsi tra le 22 e le 23, aumentano man mano che si avvicina la mezzanotte allargandosi in alcuni casi anche in aree non nelle immediate vicinanze della stazione per poi diminuire nuovamente. Tra le 2 e le 5 si verificano ancora degli episodi sparsi e solo dopo le 5 si ritorna ad una situazione di piena normalità registrando solo alcuni episodi di taccheggio.
Con l’approcciarsi della mezzanotte e l’aumentare delle persone in piazza, non solo le aggressioni, ma anche i “festeggiamenti” delle persone il piazza si son fatti più aggressivi, eccessivamente violenti e pericolosi per il prossimo.
La polizia teneva sotto osservazione la situazione in piazza fin dalle 21:00 ma ha iniziato ad intervenire attivamente in piazza alle 22:30.
Per le 00:45 termina l’azione di dispersione della polizia e la piazza viene sostanzialmente svuotata.
Le azioni di polizia sono state insufficienti, tardive e malgestite.
Le vittime sono state nella stragrande maggioranza dei casi giovani donne. Le vittime di sesso maschile sono state assalite solo se erano da sole oppure se accompagnavano una o più giovani donne.
Ci sono state molestie sessuali nel 50% dei casi denunciati.
Alcuni casi di molestie possono non comprendere il furto semplicemente perché questo non é andato a buon fine.
2 sono le denunce per stupro riguardanti un’unico episodio la cui dinamica é in linea con quella degli altri casi.
La polizia ha inizialmente dichiarato di non aver avuto nessuna percezione del fatto che si stessero verificando violenze tra la folla.
C’erano un sacco di telefoni che riprendevano ciò che accadeva.
Gli assalti sono avvenuti perlopiù nel piazzale dinnanzi alla stazione e nelle immediate vicinanze. Solo dopo le 00:30 s’iniziano a registrare un certo numero di aggressioni in altre aree del centro.
Gli assalti sono stati effettuati da gruppi di persone (composti da minimo 2, massimo 50 membri. Mediamente 20) che accerchiavano compatti le vittime oppure si sono verificate mentre la vittima si trovava all’interno di una folla.
Gli assalti sono stati perlopiù molto rapidi, tanto da non dare il tempo alle vittime di reagire, né di identificare gli assalitori, anche se in qualche caso c’é stata insistenza sulle vittime per lunghi tragitti.
Considerando che in città, come nel resto della Germania, v’è una fortissima polarizzazione sul tema degli immigrati con diverse associazioni coinvolte sull’argomento e vista la natura dei fatti di capodanno, non si può escludere a priori che alcune delle denunce, soprattutto quelle dell’ultimo minuto, possano esser state fatte ad arte per ingigantire mediatamente il caso o per frode assicurativa. Non vi sono elementi per affermarlo e quindi si tratta di un’ipotesi che andrebbe presa in considerazione solamente nel caso in cui si rilevassero incongruenze nelle denunce.
5.0 Conclusioni
L’impressione é che durante i fatti di Colonia si siano intersecati diversi fatti distinti che si sono legati tra loro:
A) CURVA. Il raduno spontaneo di numerosi giovani maschi intossicati d’origine nordafricana che, complici alcool, clima festoso, anonimato della massa ed esibizioni di machismo é rapidamente degenerato in un mix tra la peggior curva da stadio ed una sorta di spring break di soli maschi.
B) GHETTIZZAZIONE. Da un lato le diverse persone e gruppi di nordafricani e mediorientali han preferito stare tra di loro e dall’altro i tedeschi han fin da subito evitato di mescolarsi nella piazza. Per quanto possa esser stata una volontà bidirezionale, ciò ha portato sostanzialmente ad una sorta di ghettizzazione che ha permesso la formazione di un’assembramento omogeneo di giovani maschi.
A+B)Questi due elementi, uniti al fatto che ciò sta avvenendo in un luogo di grande passaggio ove inevitabilmente transitano diversi gruppi di persone, tra cui gruppi di nordafricani e mediorientali, porta a far ingrandire una folla che alimenta un clima da stadio. Molti sfruttano la confusione della folla per palpeggiare le ragazze.
C) TACCHEGGIATORI. Alcune decine di noti taccheggiatori mescolatisi alla folla hanno iniziato ad assalire giovani donne che dovevano obbligatoriamente passare dalla stazione con l’intento di derubarle.
A+B+C) A quanto già detto si aggiungono i taccheggiatori che non agiscono all’interno di una folla normale, ma in una folla infuocata. Questo provoca inevitabilmente effetti a catena con taccheggiatori che vengono imitati da altri maschi ubriachi interessati solo a palpeggiare le ragazze. Le molestie diventano così più aggressive ed esplicite.
D) MALGOVERNO. La polizia ha agito in maniera disorganizzata sottostimando le forze necessarie ed agendo tardivamente. Ciò ha permesso da un lato la formazione di un assembramento eccessivamente ampio ed al tempo stesso ha permesso in questi lo sviluppo di una sensazione d’onnipotenza, alimentandone l’aggressività.
A+B+C+D)Ghettizzazione ed auto-ghettizzazione, atmosfera aggressiva, folla, taccheggiatori all’opera, polizia inefficace e insufficiente, alcool, petardi che scoppiano di continuo, giovani maschi che seguono l’andazzo e colgono l’occasione per allungare le mani, sensazione di forza degli aggressori esaltata dall’ubriachezza e dall’inefficienza delle forze dell’ordine.
Servono altri elementi per spiegare le dinamiche per cui una folla di maschi ubriachi non integrati con un background fortemente maschilista e patriarcale degeneri nei comportamenti visti a Colonia?
Colpisce molto il fatto che l’ipotesi di “situazione degenerata” risulti tanto difficile da applicare a questo caso solamente perché i protagonisti sono considerati innanzitutto in base alla loro origine. Se i protagonisti di questo episodio fossero stati bianchissimi e biondissimi tedeschi figli, nipoti e pronipoti di tedeschi probabilmente ci si sarebbe limitati ad evocare “questa gioventù senza valori” che però é normale e che di solito va a far caciara a Ibiza, a Malta, a Barcellona…
C’é una scena molto inquietante nel film Interstellar. In un futuro prossimo il protagonista, ex pilota NASA, si trova a dover discutere con gli insegnanti della figlia adolescente poiché quest’ultima contraddice (portando testi e foto) la sua insegnante di storia che, coerentemente col programma scolastico ed al libro di testo “ripulito dalla vecchia propaganda governativa”, sostiene che le missioni Apollo furano una montatura realizzata per portare l’Unione Sovietica al fallimento
Sbufalare loschi figuri privi di competenze e credenziali o personaggi dello showbiz impreparati che portano avanti strane teorie indimostrate e prive di fondamento scientifico é già di per sé un’impresa laboriosa, ma cosa accade quando sono proprio le fonti “DI PESO” a diffondere ed alimentare le bufale come i Big dell’industria dell’informazione o enti pubblici (come nella scena di Interstellar)?
Avviene una sorta di ribaltamento in cui il fruitore di giornali, canali televisivi e portali d’informazione d’importanza nazionale guarda con sospetto chi gli propone una lettura dei fatti diversa da quella più comunemente diffusa.
OH, THE IRONY!
Anni ed anni a sbufalare le “teorie alternative” diffuse da blog strampalati per poi accorgersi che nel frattempo i più importanti mezzi d’informazione si son pian piano trasformati in produttori di clickbait su modello di TzeTze e le indagini giornalistiche, i reportage più completi e le inchieste più complesse son sempre più relegate a riviste minori e blog di singoli giornalisti volenterosi.
Per fortuna la situazione non é poi così drammatica ed il mondo attuale non é una (ancora) distopia huxleyana da “noi contro loro” / “informazione autonoma contro disinformazione pubblica”, ma che i grandi mezzi d’informazione stiano viaggiando a braccetto con il modello acchiappaclick non é certo un mistero per nessuno.
Piaccia o meno l’infotainment (Information+entertainment) é il modello che va per la maggiore: alla descrizione dei fatti viene preferito il racconto di storie (e quindi ci dev’esser sempre un buono ed un cattivo), il gossip vien fatto permeare ovunque sia possibile (dalla politica alle questioni ambientali) ed appagare i lettori/spettatori vien ritenuto più importante della completezza ed imparzialità dell’informazione.
I modelli televisivi in stile Le Iene in cui il compito di “spiegare come funzionano le cose” viene affidato a presentatori tv, attori, cantanti ed ex cabarettisti, sostituiscono pian-piano il giornalismo investigativo ed il reportage (quante volte abbiamo sentito che “Si, fanno un po ridere MA DICONO LA VERITA'” ?)
A questo punto si potrebbero citare innumerevoli esempi di bufale (mai rettificate) diffuse dai pezzi grossi dell’informazione ma l’elenco sarebbe inutilmente lungo e noioso (rimando al ben più attivo ed aggiornato Disinformatico) ed é certamente più interessante notare come sempre più spesso capita di dover controbattere ad una notizia incorretta o faziosa diffusa da questi pezzi grossi con informazioni molto più precise e meglio documentate recuperate sul blog personale di qualche giornalista poco conosciuto (a questo proposito basta osservare come diverse fonti presenti nella Cronistoria del Movimento Cinque Stelle siano blog sconosciuti al grande pubblico che però contengono analisi ed informazioni ottimamente documentate ma irreperibili sui big dell’informazione). Ecco che s’avverte un aspetto ironico, ossia quello di trovarsi apparentemente nella stessa posizione del fuffologo (complottista, ufologo, sciachimista, naturopata, agopunturista, vegan, omeopata ecc) che prova a combattere una “verità ufficiale” con informazioni provenienti da fonti che il grande pubblico non ha mai sentito. Per fortuna le cose non stanno proprio così (vedi sotto).
Perché avviene ciò? Perché la buona informazione fatica ad esistere, schiacciata dall’informazione superficiale, faziosa o addirittura dalle bufale? Un primo motivo é forse l’inasprirsi dell’atroce dilemma.
L’ATROCE DILEMMA
I mezzi d’informazione richiedono redazioni e modelli di distribuzione e ciò significa costi. Costi che creano un atroce dilemma:
– Se il mezzo d’informazione ha alle spalle una forza politico/industriale/economica in grado di garantirne la sicurezza economica dovrà sottostare ai suoi diktat e veti (per non parlare dei casi in cui il “mezzo d’informazione” é puramente un megafono-emanazione della forza che lo sostiene)
– Se invece il mezzo d’informazione non ha alle spalle una forza politico/economica in grado di garantirne la sicurezza economica diventa schiavo degli inserzionisti pubblicitari e dovrà generare un elevato numero di visualizzazioni ed ecco quindi che “Rihanna con le tette al vento”, “Premio Nobel afferma di aver visto un UFO” e “I dieci gattini più pucciosi dell’anno” diventano le principali notizie che sorreggono economicamente la redazione (e non quel noioso articolo di otto pagine su una complicata legge pubblicata in fondo alla pagina)
Lo spostamento dell’informazione sul web, l’avvento dei servizi di raccolta di news che diffondono le notizie gratuitamente (o perlomeno i titoli, ossia ciò che il 90% dei lettori si limita a leggere di un’articolo) e la moltiplicazione dei servizi d’informazione hanno causato un notevole calo dei profitti all’industria dell’informazione, rendendola sempre più schiava di questo atroce dilemma (che esiste da quando é nato il giornalismo moderno).
PESCA AL CLICK
Esistono decine di soluzioni-compromesso (penso al Fatto Quotidiano ed a il Giornale, che a volte sono più interessanti ed affidabili negli articoli in secondo piano che in quelli principali), soluzioni miste, esperimenti e modelli in abbonamento che tentano di muoversi tra i paletti di questo atroce dilemma, tuttavia, ovviamente, é il modello più immediato e facile (il clickbait) ad aver avuto il maggior successo.
In poche parole i mezzi d’informazione, se non sono finanziati da forze politico/economiche che devono assecondare, sono talmente impegnate a produrre notizie “che vendono” da relegare la produzione di informazione di qualità alla volontà dei singoli giornalisti.
Si potrebbe qui aprire un’intero capitolo a parte sui mezzi d’informazione “di parte” che hanno tutto l’interesse più a generare climi emotivi che a fornire informazioni corrette, ma per brevità ci si limiterà a far osservare come certi mezzi d’informazione insistano particolarmente su certe notizie riproponendo certi schemi oppure si dimenticano o sminuiscono certe notizie, a volte spostando l’attenzione su altre notizie ed a volte ribaltando completamente il senso di ciò che dicono.
NON C’E’ NESSUN “NOI CONTRO LORO”
In un panorama tanto frammentato, dove la buona informazione si trova a lottare con i gattini pucciosi, le fette della soubrette e le notizie faziose che il caporedattore vuole in prima pagina, proporre una visione manichea del tipo “blogger contro stampa” sarebbe stupido ed infantile.
L’informazione fatta bene c’é ma bisogna saperla cercare e questo costa fatica: le notizie che raggiungono l’utente/lettore/spettatore sono solo voci unidirezionali che vanno verificate, analizzate, confrontate ed incrociate con altre notizie. La prima cosa da capire é che per trovare la buona informazione bisogna ritornare nell’ottica che non sono le notizie a doverci raggiungere ma dobbiamo essere noi ad andarcele a cercare. Ciò costa tempo e fatica ma col tempo permette di costruirsi una propria rete d’informazioni che, anche se incompleta e non infallibile, permette perlomeno di uscire dalla semplice propaganda unidirezionale.
Questa é la grande differenza tra chi attinge a fonti d’informazione disparate ed un fuffologo che millanta teorie che non stanno né in cielo né in terra: una continua ed attenta analisi logica delle informazioni, una critica costante a qualunque fonte con conseguente verifica della stessa ed assenza di totem inconfutabili.
Premesso che: gli agrumi fanno bene per quel che ne sappiamo potrebbero anche avere proprietà che ancora ignoriamo.
TREND NATURALISTA DEL MOMENTO
Una delle mode salutiste del momento attualmente più in voga, (moda che ciclicamente si rinnova con pratiche sempre nuove e sempre uguali come come l’utilizzo sfrenato di Aloe Vera, le diete a base di frullati, le bacche di Goji, il Quigong, il Reiki, il ritorno di fiamma Omeopatico di fine anni ’90, le manie sul tipo di acqua minerale, le bevande detossificanti, la dieta tisanoreica) é la pratica del “curarsi col limone“, venduta come “la doccia interna mattutina”.
La posologia é la seguente: al mattino, appena alzati, a stomaco vuoto, bersi un bel bicchiere di acqua tiepida con succo di limone (possibilmente fresco, Bio, al giusto grado di maturazione), almeno mezz’ora prima di fare colazione. Detto questo diverse fonti citano alcune varianti sui metodi d’assunzione: si va dal mezzo succo di limone in un bel bicchiere d’acqua, sempre, tutti i giorni al variare la quantità di limonenel bicchier d’acqua aumentandolo gradualmente fino a raggiungere la quantità-limite che può andare dai tre ai sette limoni, per poi calare nuovamente fino a ritornare ad un limone singolo. Oppure ci sono le varianti come acqua calda, limone e miele. Tutti i siti che promuovono la cura del limone fanno attenzione a raccomandare di non abusarne, consci del fatto che un’assunzione eccessiva di acido citrico potrebbe essere dannoso.
EFFETTI PROMESSI
Gli effetti che tale metodo promette, sono: rafforzare il sistema immunitario, bilanciare il pH, facilitare la perdita di peso, aiutare la digestione, stimolare l’evacuazione, pulire la pelle, disintossicare l’organismo (AAAARGH! Le fantomatiche “Tossine invisibili”), neutralizzare attacchi di iperacidità, curare cistiti e tumori, Influenze, malattie infettive, anemia, nausea, reumatismo, inappetenza, bronchiti, arteriosclerosi, digestioni difficili, scorbutico, insufficienza epatica, diabete, gotta, ipertiroidismo, calcoli renali, vomito, diarrea e tantissimi altri piccoli e grandi disturbi, anche della pelle, oltre ad essere depurativo, rimineralizzante, vermifugo, cicatrizzante, antipruriginoso, antivelenoso (consigliato contro le punture di insetti), fluidificante del sangue e stimolatore del sistema immunitario.
Basta sfogliare i primi risultati googolando “curarsi con il limone” (link 1, link 2,link 3, link 4 in tutti i casi si tratta di siti di benessere, pro-bio, d’informazione alternativa, portali generalisti, riviste femminili e nemmeno una testata medico-scientifica) per ottenere un elenco quasi infinito di disturbi che la terapia del limone curerebbe, di proprietà energizzanti e capacità stimolanti che il giallo agrume racchiuderebbe.
AH SI?
Chi scorre l’infinito elenco degli effetti promessi si trova dinnanzi alla necessità di assumere una posizione tra due estremi:
A) Millenni di studi per risolvere decine di problemi fisiologici, corsi di laurea, rivoluzioni mediche, avanzamenti scientifici, progressi dei metodi di produzione per scoprire che…. che… bastava un limone? (Pasteur… Fleming…. ci spiace… siete stati degli idioti)
B) Chi ha o crede di avere un problema fisiologico comune é praticamente certo che questi sia già incluso tra quelli che la “cura del limone” promette di “aiutare a risolvere”. C’é trippa per ogni tipo di gatto! Insomma: questa storia del limone sa tanto di pifferaio magico.
In realtà nella maggioranza dei casi avviene una cosa diversa: lavorando sul DUBBIO e sul SENSO DI BISOGNO DI MIGLIORAMENTO, la maggior parte delle persone finisce per l’adottare la linea C, ossia un accoglimento speranzoso: “Non lo so ma, se lo dicono tutti, qualcosa di bene lo farà!”, oppure “Non farà miracoli ma di certo aiuta” che é proprio il tipo di meccanismo che mira ad ottenere chi promuove le mode salutiste del momento.
UNA CONSIDERAZIONE
Assumere liquidi fa bene. Se non sono freddi é meglio. Se contengono principi nutritivi utili (Vitamina C) meglio ancora. In sostanza la “cura del limone” é una pratica tuttalpiù innocua (se non se ne abusa, ovviamente) che può esser praticata senza problemi da chiunque non soffra di gastrite. E’ pur vero che esistono attualmente studi promettentiriguardo l’utilizzo di Vitamina C nel trattamento dei tumori, tuttavia la presenza di determinate proprietà curative degli agrumi o del bere liquidi al mattino non é ciò su cui verte questo articolo: gli argomenti d’interesse sono altri ed esposti qui di seguito.
HEY! QUI PARTE LA NOSTRA STORIA…
Come la maggior parte dei diversi trend naturalisti degli ultimi vent’anni, anche questo non nasce dal nulla ed ha una storia ed origine ben precisa. In questo caso si tratta di un libro:
Ossia un comune e banale libricino di “salute e benessere” dall’apparenza del tutto innocua. Ma al buon intenditore scattano subito ben 3 ( TRE ) campanelli d’allarme. Cominciamo dal secondo punto : il libro é pubblicato dalle “Edizioni Macro“, ossia uno dei gruppi editoriali italiani leader nel settore paranormale (alcuni titoli: Il segreto delle ere, Enoch-il primo libro del mondo, figli di matrix, dominare il mondo, regno di felicità, il progetto segreto della tua anima, il segreto della guarigione quantica // un giro su Macrolibrarsi.it sfogliando il solo elenco delle categorie trattate dalla Casa Editrice dà una buona idea dell’inclinazione della stessa) che pubblica insomma qualsiasi sciocchezza spirituale / complottista / misticheggiante da quattro soldi.
Da qualche anno Macro si é specializzata sempre più nella pubblicazione di libri del filone “salute e benessere” (partecipò anche all’ondata promozionale dell’ “Aloe Vera” dei primi anni 2000), e qui si tocca il primo punto d’allarme, ossia quella spiritualità salutista che é diventata da diversi anni l’ambiente che maggiormente ha accolto ed integrato in sé tutta la fuffa spiritualeggiante che fino a qualche fa era maggiormente legata a movimenti new-age, movimenti spirituali orientaleggianti e medicina alternativa apertamente dichiarata (negli anni ’60 ci si faceva di Lsd tenendo sottobraccio il libro tibetano dei morti, nei ’70 ci s’infervorava per qualche strano movimento religioso, negli anni ’80 ci si gettava nel mito della perfezione fisica attraverso il fitness sfrenato o nei residui del decennio precedente, nei ’90 s’abbracciava il revival New Age e dagli anni 2000 ci si getta a testa bassa nella spiritualità salutista). A prova di ciò basta sfogliare con attenzione alcune riviste salutiste di buona diffusione per rendersi conto di quanto sia inzuppato di fuffa spiritualeggiante l’ambiente del salutismo.
A titolo d’esempio si riporta una copertina in cui son stati evidenziati con un cerchio i titoli puramente magico / paranormale / antiscientifici e con un quadrato titoli neutri che però assumono tutt’altro tono proprio in presenza dei titoli cerchiati.
Partendo quindi da: un’argomento ad alto rischio fuffa (la spiritualità salutista) ed una casa editrice ad alto tasso di buffonaggine, il passo successivo, prima di giungere al terzo punto, é cercare di salvare il salvabile cercando di capire chi sia Simona Oberhammer, l’autrice di “Curarsi con il limone“, e verificare se ha competenze mediche valide.
HEY, MA IL LIMONE SI USAVA PRIMA CHE ARRIVASSE LA OBERHAMMER
Vero, ci sono diversi esempi di utilizzo del limone come ingrediente terapeutico sia in antichità che in tempi recenti. Tuttavia non é difficile osservare come gli utilizzi terapeutici risalenti a tempi antichi scientificamente convalidati vengono utilizzati anche oggigiorno (fonte di vitamina C / blando antibatterico / rimedio antidiarroico ) mentre le “proprietà” prive di evidenza scientifica, siano esse provenienti da usi tradizionali o da naturopati privi di preparazione scientifica, rimangono nell’aura della fuffa salutistico-spirituale proprio perché non v’é alcun indizio che esistano.
Come vedremo più avanti, difatti, il libro della Oberhammer che ha dato slancio all’uso terapeutico del limone, s’inserisce perfettamente in una certa tradizione di spiritualità salutista. In altri Paesi ed in altri anni le pratiche terapeutiche legate al limone sono state propagandate da diversi personaggi con diverse finalità, ma nell’Italia del 2015 é il testo della Oberhammer quello che ha dato maggior slancio alla pratica.
Basta scorrere la bio che pubblica sul suo stesso sito e quella sulla pagina delle edizioni Macro per scoprire che é una naturopata (ossia non ha una preparazione medica riconosciuta ), una ricercatrice indipendente (ossia é una che legge libri, fa cose e vede gente senza che vi sia una verifica scientifica sulla sua attività), nell’ambito delle discipline olistiche ( e qui si entra di brutto nel campo delle “energie vitali”, “fluidi invisibili”, “rapporto mente-corpo-anima”, “flussi di potere”), specializzata in nutrizione e bioterapie (medicine alternative basate su scambio di flussi energetici dai prodotti della natura all’uomo e priva di riscontro scientifico), che ha seguito un percorso (lei non lo scrive esplicitamente ma si tratta ovviamente di un “percorso spirituale”) con una Maestra (anche qui “spirituale”), chiamata Milla Raisse (la “Sorellanza Spirituale”: stavolta é la Oberhammer stessa a specificare “spirituale”), una donna che proveniva da un’antica tradizione di donne (richiamo alla solita fantomatica “antica tradizione” che nessuno conosceva fino a ieri, tipicamente usato per avvalorare una trasmissione maestro-allievo risalente ad un “tempo mitico” che nessuno sa quando fu).
Detto ciò la Oberhammer elenca alcuni “metodi terapeutici” che avrebbe elaborato, creato, ma soprattutto…. registrato con copyright! Tra questi: “la Via femminile ® “, “Naturopetia Oberhammer ®”, “Olosophia ®”, sistema di intervento olistico, “Disintox ®”, “Olofem ®”, programma donna e “Biotipi Olosophici ®”.
Detto ciò la Oberhammer vive organizzando corsi a pagamento e pubblicando libri (pubblicati solo da Macro edizioni da quel che ci risulta), che si alternano tra due estremi: consigli della nonna (“Vitamina A – I Suoi Grandi benefici”, “La carota”) e blanda spiritualità esoterica (“Discriminazione Spirituale femminile”, “Mi sento bloccata: libera la Pelvi”, “Il linguaggio segreto delle Mani”, “I Simboli del Femminile e del Maschile”) ed un mix degli stessi.
Che Simona Oberhamer NON sia un medico ma una persona che naviga esclusivamente negli ambienti delle SPIRITUALITA’ ALTERNATIVE pare abbastanza chiaro. Non é certo la prima persona a parlare/promuovere la “cura del limone” ma attualmente in Italia é quella più conosciuta e meglio identificabile: tutti gli altri promotori della “cura” sono perlopiù redattori poco noti (e soprattutto dalle competenze poco note) di siti di spiritualità salutista.
SPIRITUALITA’ E SUCCHI DI FRUTTA?
L’abbinamento non é per nulla nuovo: seguendo il principio esoterico secondo cui “chi sta in alto deve sparger gocce di luce a chi sta in basso“, non é affatto nuovo per gruppi / movimenti / guru / maestri / giusti farsi conoscere attraverso blande e innocue pratiche caratterizzate però dal possedere in nuce una “goccia” dei princìpi su cui il movimento / maestro si basa.
Se si ragiona un minimo sui collegamenti etico-moral-emotivi tra piccoli disturbi fisiologici, cibo che assumiamo, uccisione di animali, equilibrio interiore e ricerca di calma esistenziale si noterà che non é poi così difficile capire come si possa passare dalla spremuta di ravanelli alla meditazione a digiuno per poi giungere alle energie della mente sul corpo, passando magari attraverso il lodevole suono delle campane tibetane, dalle energie vitali degli abiti colorati, dalle tecniche verbali: tutte pratiche lecite e innocue che però sono spesso usate come via d’accesso a “pensieri altri” che affondano nel puro e semplice paranormale.
Il meccanismo é sempre lo stesso: il gruppo/maestro si promuove attraverso qualcosa di innocuo, semplice ed accattivante (i classici consigli della nonna in fatto di alimentazione, comportamento, regole di vita, oppure attraverso corsi di formazione o test psicologici). Se questo qualcosa apre una breccia in una persona (perché magari ha risolto i problemi di sonno grazie al “metodo X” che consiste nel pianificare meglio le proprie ore di sonno, cambiare materasso e bere una tisana di Eucalipto prima d’andare a dormire) questa magari seguirà più a fondo ciò che il gruppo/maestro diffonde e scoprirà man mano gli aspetti esoterici del meccanismo iniziale (tipo: “L’Eucalipto é la pianta perfetta perché in sintonia con l’universo”).
Detto ciò diviene chiaro come promuovere una banale pratica pulente come l’acqua e limone é facilmente sfruttabile come gradino iniziale di una purificazione del corpo cui debba succedere una purificazione dello spirito. Ciò, va ribadito, non significa certo che “se bevi succo di limone al mattino poi entri in una setta” ma che si tratta di una pratica banale che viene diffusa da persone che applicano a tale pratica princìpi teorici pseudoscientifici cui é bene stare attenti.
PREMESSA (REFRESH)
Premesso che: gli agrumi fanno bene per quel che ne sappiamo potrebbero anche avere proprietà che ancora ignoriamo.
I TRE “PUNTI FORTI”
Pur promettendo che la cura del limone possa risolvere decine e decine di problemi/disturbi, pur sostenendo a volte che sia una terapia, a volte che sia un coadiuvante, a volte che serva a prevenire qualcosa ed a volte che “boh, fa bene”, i cavalli di battaglia del giallo agrume assunto al mattino sarebbero tre: (1) disintossicante, (2) drenante dell’intestino e (3) alcalinizzante dell’organismo.
(1) CHE VUOL DIRE “DISINTOSSICANTE”?
Qui il discorso é lungo ma, stringendo: “disintossicare”, “espellere le tossine” sono termini medici ABUSATI dal marketing salutista ampliando a dismisura un meccanismo corporeo relativamente poco importante e rivendendolo con un’immagine molto più drammatica di quanto risulti dalle conoscenze mediche. Con lo stesso meccanismo l’acne potrebbe esser descritto come grave quanto un tumore.
Le tossine sono sostanze prodotte da un organismo animale, vegetale o microbico che sono dannose per certe specie.
Alcune sostanze assolutamente innocue per l’uomo come determinate molecole apprezzate ed utilizzate per diverse ragioni (per esempio le molecole che caratterizzano determinati sapori del vino) potrebbero esser tossiche per altre specie.
Le tossine più note sono quelle del Colera, della Difterite, della Pertosse, del Botulino, del Tetano, sello Streptococco, dello Stafilococco, le Microtossine dei funghi, quelle dei veleni animali e vegetali, dell’ E.Coli, della Peste, della Scarlattina, di Shiga.
Il marketing salutista alimenta mescola tossine, ossidi(il fatto che ci siano sostanze “ossidanti” e “anti-ossidanti” ma non si parli mai di “ossidi” é illuminante: il termine é opportunamente legato al termine “ossa” e “ruggine” e quindi se utilizzato da solo, “ossido”, può risultare commercialmente poco efficace. Al contrario “tossine” si vende praticamente da solo) e nanopolveri(sulle quali non v’é ancora certezza scientifica, nonostante diversi indizi facciano supporre una loro responsabilità in diversi disagi fisiologici) parlando genericamente di “sostanze chimiche” caratterizzate dall’essere invisibili, omnipresenti, con una particolare attenzione al cibo, che vengono assimilate dall’organismo attraverso diverse vie (respirazione, ingestione, traspirazione, fino a giungere addirittura allo stress) a cui causerebbero disturbi di diversa natura e che vanno espulsi attraverso pratiche di purificazione che solitamente coinvolgono regimi alimentari particolari e successivamente pratiche di meditazione e Yoga.
[Fallacia logica: se le tossine fossero ovunque dovrebbero esser presenti in egual misura anche nella frutta e verdura -Bio- consigliata per la purificazione del corpo. Le risposte possibili all’osservazione rimandano irrimediabilmente al concetto “la frutta bio é naturale > tutto ciò che é naturale é buono”. A quel punto si può invitare il naturopata in questione a bersi una bella Tisana all’Oleandro]
Per contro la maggior parte delle terapie “disintossicanti” comportano tutta una serie di rischi e controindicazioni tra cui (ma guarda un po’) la distruzione della flora batterica intestinale.
TERRA AUSTRALIS, OSSIA: NON GETTAR IL BIMBO CON L’ACQUA SPORCA
Nelle mappe geografiche realizzate tra il XV° ed il XVIII° secolo compariva, nella parte meridionale del Pacifico, la cosiddetta “Terra Australis Incognita“, un colossale continente ipotetico che all’epoca si supponeva dovesse esistere per bilanciare il peso sul Pianeta della massa continentale Eurasiatica.
Nel XVI° e XVII° secolo nell’area in cui si riteneva esistesse questo megacontinente vennero effettivamente scoperte l’Australia, l’Antartide, la Nuova Zelanda e migliaia di altre isole.
Il fatto che siano state veramente trovate enormi masse di terra laddove la teoria delle “terre che si bilanciano tra loro” supponeva ve ne fossero non toglie che tale teoria sia un’enorme sciocchezza.
Allo stesso tempo rifiutare la teoria dei continenti che si controbilanciano non significa certo negare che l’Australia e l’Antartide esistano!
Ecco, le “tossine” che vengono descritte dal marketing salutista non sono altro che una moderna “Terra Australis”: un pentolone di credenze e verità scientifiche mescolati a casaccio in cui se c’é del buono é gettato alla rinfusa tra un sacco di fuffa.
Ciò che vien venduto é un concetto basato sul nulla, ossia la presenza di fantomatiche “tossine invisibili” che ci rendono “sporchi dentro” e quindi vanno “buttate fuori”.
I rimedi per fare ciò sono talmente tanti e variegati (Acque minerali, frutta sbucciata, bacche di Goji, ananas a nastro, correre, sudare, esporsi al sole, ridere, respirare profondamente, meditare, dieta ricca di fibre oppure priva di carne oppure senza manco una fibra o senza solidi, oppure digiunando o assumendo Vitamina A o B o C o D, attraverso medicinali appositi o spremuta di mirtillo, o respirando particolari vapori o usando certe creme) che vien da chiedersi perché a nessuno sorge il dubbio che il corpo di una persona normale che cammina, mangia sano, respira normalmente e prende il sole non espella già da solo queste fantomatiche tossine invisibili senza il bisogno di cure o diete particolari (NB: per quanto riguarda la detossificazione vera da tossine visibili e velenose é tutta un’altra storia e te lo fanno solo in ospedale )
(2) DRENA L’INTESTINO?
Se l’utente finale non é particolarmente colpito dal concetto di “disintossicare l’organismo” potrà forse trovare stuzzicante l’idea che la “cura del limone” aiuti a drenare l’intestino (se il “rimedio-panacea” serve a cose diverse é bene anche che lo faccia attraverso metodi diversi). Peccato che anche questo non sia vero ed anzi, é acclarato che possa invece distruggere la flora batterica intestinale. Un individuo sano non ha bisogno di aiuti esterni per mantenere equilibrati i livelli di flora batterica, intestinale ed elettroliti.
E IL LIMONE?
Il Limone é un frutto che da qualche anno s’incontra spesso tra le cure alternative. Il Limone presenta diverse caratteristiche interessanti sia da un punto di vista pratico che comunicativo/emotivo (ossia: magico) é un frutto ACIDO, profumato, d’uso comune, acquoso, versatile, dissetante, poco calorico, consumabile in piccole quantità, molto vicino all’idea di “acido pulente” (l’acido, assieme all’amaro, sono i due gusti che meglio rispondono nell’effetto placebo: non per niente nei test i placebo “acidi/amari” vengon percepiti come più efficaci). . Proprio a causa di tutte queste sue caratteristiche lo si ritrova spesso abbinato al bicarbonato (altra sostanza “pulente” accettata come “rimedio casalingo” e presente già in testi alchilici – vedi QUI e QUI) e per le cure più disparate, dalla cura di irritazioni cutanee al cancro o come sostituto della chemioterapia (vedi QUI e QUI). Evidentemente l’idea che il Limone abbia proprietà straordinarie deve aver fatto presa, visto che lo si trova citato tanto spesso come “cura alternativa” per qualsiasi cosa, ma mai negli scritti redatti da medici. Tra i precedenti illustri vi sono la Cura Simoncini (ex medico radiato e condannato su denuncia dei suoi pazienti) che curerebbe il cancro col bicarbonato, la cura a base di clisteri di bicarbonato sempre per curare il cancro, la dieta al limone e soprattutto la dieta alcalina, una fantomatica teoria alimentare inventata dalla’ ex medico Robert O. Young, arrestato per abuso della professione medica e truffa e la “Nuova medicina Germanica” del Dottor Hamer (medico radiato dall’albo che pretendeva di curare il cancro con musica, limone e bicarbonato). Diversi siti/riviste che trattano spiritualità salutista propongono da alcuni anniquesta cura del limone, senza però ottenere il successo della Oberhammer (anche questa non é una novità: già in altre occasioni, come ad esempio il boom promozionale dell’Aloe Vera dei primi anni ‘2000, diversi personaggi promuovono una determinata terapia e quando questa ha raggiunto una certa diffusione avviene il botto coinvolgendo magari l’ultimo arrivato tra quelli che ne han voluto cavalcare l’onda, o quello che meglio ha saputo venderla)
Siamo qui al terzo punto d’allarme citato prima: l’utilizzo di frutti di Limone come cura/panacea deve quindi far scattare campanelli d’allarme. Il Limone, insomma, é la Teriaca di questi anni.
UN SACRIFICIO ACIDO E VITALE
L’assunzione mattutina e a digiuno di acqua e limone difatti si presta perfettamente a fungere da strumento per un piccolo sacrificio quotidiano, ossia un rituale che comporti un piccolo sforzo che proprio in quanto tale percepito/vissuto di per sé un’atto di purificazione.
Il sacrificio richiede il superamento di una prova ed uno sforzo di volontà. In questo l’acidità del limone risponde perfettamente a tale esigenza: che effetto farebbe sapere che vi é (per esempio) evidenza scientifica dell’utilità medica di assumere ogni mattino a digiuno un cucchiaio di Nutella? Le caratteristiche della Nutella (dolce, cremosa, piacevole al gusto, grassa-oleosa) si scontra con l’idea della purificazione-sacrificio ed anche se vi fosse evidenza scientifica dell’utilità del suo consumo giornaliero pochi ne accoglierebbero la validità. Questo é il motivo per cui, come anticipato sopra, certi medicinali non vengono resi più gradevoli al gusto nonostante sia tecnicamente possibile: rendendoli troppo piacevoli verrebbe meno l’aspetto sacrificale e sarebbero percepiti come meno efficaci.
Ma se bastasse il solo aspetto sacrificale si potrebbe sostituire il limone con l’aceto di vino: il limone invece possiede diverse caratteristiche che lo rendono al tempo stesso un prodotto sacrificale ma al tempo stesso vitale.
Il suo essere un frutto (natura) giallo (color del sole), fonte di Vitamina C (energetico) dagli innumerevoli utilizzi e proprietà supposte (panacea) lo rende adatto ad essere anche una fonte potenziale di benessere. Non sarà come indossare un Cilicio ma sfrutta principi simili.
L’arancia, ad esempio, essendo più dolce, meno acida e di colore tendente al rosso, risponde meno a queste caratteristiche.
FA CIO’ CHE PROMETTE?
Molto spesso chi incontra queste “terapie” ne viene a conoscere da fonti secondarie o terziarie che ne promuovono la parte che “sentono più loro”. Per esempio: amica credulona e non tanto sveglia legge di una cura miracolosa per millemila malanni tra cui il mal di pancia, la prova riponendovi grandi speranze, si convince di star meglio (effetto placebo sommato al fatto che probabilmente durante la “cura” ha curato un po meglio la propria alimentazione) e ne parla a tutte le sue amiche solamente come di un “rimedio per il mal di pancia” (poco importa che in origine venisse proposto anche come rimedio contro l’acne, l’impotenza, i dolori mestruali e la perdita dei capelli), aggiungendovi la propria aneddotica (“con me ha funzionato”). A questo punto si sviluppa il modello Catena di Sant’Antonio.
Inoltre la promozione di tali terapie-triaca-panacee vi é un’uso costante di termini indefiniti che rimandano genericamente a un qualche aiuto “rivitalizzante, tonificante, rinvigorente, disintossicante” (“aiuta a farti ritrovare vitalità”) sul cui utilizzo non v’é alcun reale controllo (una semplice bottiglietta d’acqua può tranquillamente esser venduta/promossa con slogan del tipo “aiuta a tonificare…” senza il bisogno di alcun avallo medico/scientifico. I termini che posso esser sottoposti a controllo, ad esempio “bevanda energetica” non vengono mai usati.
Vi é poi l’attenta strategia di marketing che sfrutta molto non-detto riempito dalla mente dell’utilizzatore finale (un esempio lampante anche se non c’entra niente: un farmaco chiamato “Eva-Q” riesce a comunicare perfettamente cosa fa senza mai dirlo apertamente. Allo stesso modo può funzionare un eventuale “Bio D-Tox”, che senza usare il termine “detossificante” ne trasmette comunque il senso). In sostanza se una certa terapia vien promossa su una rivista di alimentazione e salute, non verrà scritto nero su bianco che “cura dal cancro” (cosa che invece avverrà sui siti di medicina alternativa dura e pura) ma un blando riferimento a “mali giudicati incurabili”: con target diversi vengono usate strategie diverse ma l’importante é vendere il prodotto o meglio, cavalcare l’onda fintanto che é remunerativa o la moda non sarà passata ad altre “terapie”
L’arco della gradualità delle promesse é talmente ampio (dal “comunque non fa male” all’ “é l’unica cura che funziona”) da coprire anche in questo caso ogni tipologia di utente ed ha il vantaggio tattico di permettere al gruppo/maestro/medico che promuove tale terapia di alternare “sicurezza adamantina” ad estrema vacuità, promettere e non promettere, dire ed accennare.
(NEI MIEI PENSIERI SON MALESSERI VERI – PARTE 1: IL LATTE DI SATANA)
In un occidente sempre più interconnesso la parcellizzazione in tribù etiche é il prezzo da pagare. Senza uscire dall’ambito della spiritualità salutista basterà citare alcuni gruppi vegetariani, pescetariani, fruttariani, vegani, crudisti, macrobiotici (legati spesso a movimenti animalisti / antivivisezionisti*) per poi perdersi in decine di sottogruppi (i fruttariani che non mangiano i cereali, quelli che mangiano solo la frutta cauta naturalmente dall’albero ecc) o in specializzazioni che per diverse ragioni non formano comunità e che quindi non hanno nemmeno un nome riconosciuto, per esempio coloro che si specializzano in un determinato cibo etnico non proprio (cucina giapponese, cinese, araba), oppure coloro che adottano ciclicamente diverse filosofie alimentari (NB: qui si parla di filosofie alimentari e non di regimi alimentari con supporto medico – un conto é seguire per un dato periodo una dieta particolare sotto stretta osservazione medica con lo scopo di ottenere un certo risultato; altro conto é adottare una filosofia di pensiero con risvolti alimentari privi di riscontro scientifico).
Alcune di queste comunità sono particolarmente battagliere nel tentare di convincere il mondo che la loro visione del mondo é quella giusta; negli ultimi tempi, in particolare, si fanno distinguere gli animalisti ed i vegani (che, come sopra accennato, sono movimenti molto interconnessi tra loro, tanto che é scontato che un vegano sia per forza di cose anche un animalista, mentre non é detto che un animalista sia pure vegano).
Una fetta di successo di questa disinformazione riguarda il latte. I vegani accusano il consumo di latte per motivi etici (uccisione e sfruttamento degli animali) e spirituali (i vegetali sono puri mentre la carne e i suoi prodotti sono impuri).
Per giustificare la propria posizione e per convincere il mondo della validità delle proprie idee la maggior parte dei vegani utilizza a sproposito diverse affermazioni (link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4) aventi tutte lo scopo di trasmettere il messaggio:
Il latte va bene per i neonati ma é un pessimo alimento per gli adulti
I siti più “duri e puri” dicono che il latte faccia proprio male, mentre le riviste di benessere di maggior diffusione si limitano a dire che é un’alimento inutile.
Alcune dei informazioni negativie circolanti sul latte consumato dagli adulti sono: il latte é “carne liquida”, causa osteoporosi, provoca carenze di ferro, problemi di digestione, danni alla flora batterica, ha troppe proteine, troppi grassi saturi, provoca putrefazione intestinale, provoca eccessi di calcio, ha proteine animali acide, nessun’altra animale consuma latte di un’altra specie, che “il latte fa bene” é un’invenzione dell’industria del latte, richiede enormi sforzi gastrici per esser digerito, é ricco dei pesticidi che le mucche assorbono dall’erba che mangiano ecc.
In realtà gli studi medici sono di tutt’altro parere e, tra chi lo loda incondizionatamente e chi lo descrive semplicemente come un buon alimento, nessuno arriva ad affermare che sia dannoso:
In sostanza il latte é un alimento valido che può esser consumato con la massima tranquillità a patto di evitare gli eccessi (una dieta troppo ricca di latticini é poco equilibrata e può provocare scompensi) ed rinunciandovi solo in determinati casi (intolleranze o particolari carenze diagnosticate da medici competenti).
L’accanimento vegano contro il latte ha sortito il suo effetto di SEMINARE DUBBI SUL LATTE, diffondendoli e radicalizzandoli in maniera tanto capillare che ai primi segni di mal di pancia una persona su due accusa il latte.
*Interessante notare come il marchio di “Antivivisezionista” venga utilizzato anche se la vivisezione non viene praticata: ciò avviene perché il termine é emozionale e commercialmente valido (si vende da solo)
(NEI MIEI PENSIERI SON MALESSERI VERI – PARTE 2: NESSUNO E’ AL SICURO)Interessare la fallacia logica più diffusa a proposito del latte ossia “probabilmente non fa male ma siccome é un’alimento inutile lo tolgo/riduco dalla mia dieta“, in quanto l’etichetta di “cibo inutile” potrebbe benissimo esser applicata a qualunque alimento, come ad esempio… la lattuga!.
Si potrebbero spendere alcune pagine per evidenziare i motivi per cui l’attacco vegano al latte abbia fatto così ben presa sulla gente (simbolismo del latte, malainformazione, la sua natura di “grasso liquido”, paure materne ecc) e dei motivi per cui nessuno osa muovere accuse contro la lattuga (etica vegana ecc), ma l’aspetto forse più interessante é la diffusa connessione:
disturbo fisiologico > paura/dubbio del momento > trend salutista del momento > disturbo fisiologico (all’infinito)
Il continuo martellamento di messaggi che seminano dubbi su questo o quel prodotto modifica anche la percezione dei piccoli disturbi fisiologici:
Improvvisamente TUTTI hanno una leggera intolleranza al lattosio non diagnosticata.
Fino a ieri TUTTI avevano leggeri problemi di cute non diagnosticati.
Fino all’altro ieri TUTTI avevano qualche problema non diagnosticato inerente le uova.
Anche qui dubbi e insicurezze indotte si mescolano a problemi reali: qualche anno fa la scoperta che alcuni coloranti fossero dannosi per l’uomo causò una piccola caccia alle streghe verso tutti i coloranti (anche quelli naturali). Stessa cosa avvenne per i conservanti, per non parlare dei codici numerici degli additivi alimentari (con gente che si spaventava dinnanzi ad E322 ed E260, che, detto tra noi, sono: lecitina di soia ed acido acetico). Attualmente v’é una certa attenzione nei riguardi dell’olio di palma, ritenuto un alimento poco salutare di cui l’industria alimentare abusa, ed anche in questo caso c’é qualcosa che non torna nella vulgata corrente.
In effetti é difficile non accorgersi di come le accuse nei confronti dell’Olio di Palma siano un vero e proprio atto di demonizzazione. A raccoglier alcune affermazioni sparse risulterebbe che l’Olio di Palma: fa male all’ambiente, la sua assunzione ha conseguenze negative, é un pericoloso ipercolesteromizzante che favorisce la comparsa dell’arteriosclerosi, viene raffinato con processi chimici poco chiari, viene usato solo perché economicamente vantaggioso per le aziende, la sua coltivazione intensiva provoca disboscamenti, fa venire il diabete, é cancerogeno ecc. L’Olio di Palma, insomma, sarebbe il male assoluto che le multinazionali impongono silenziosamente a noi povera #ggente (e se qui non scattano le campanelle d’allarme “storytelling in atto”, “demonizzazione”, “noi contro loro”, c’é qualche problema). In realtà l’Olio di Palma ha le stesse caratteristiche “negative” degli altri grassi saturi, come ad esempio il burro, ma rispetto ai grassi idrogenati, come le margarine, ha invece numerosi elementi positivi ed in effetti viene impiegato proprio perché le alternative all’Olio di Palma sarebbero molto peggiori sia dal punto di vista salutare, economico e, secondo alcuni anche ambientale (ma quest’ultimo punto appare molto dibattuto). L’informazione negativa sull’Olio di Palma ha coinvolto oramai i Big della comunicazione come Panorama, l’Huffington Post e Report (tutti smentiti, vedi QUI e QUI).
Il Boom mediatico italiano inerente all’Olio di Palma é un fenomeno tutto sommato recente, come evidenziato da questo grafico di Google Trends:
La petizione de Il Fatto Alimentare é partita solo poche settimane prima del 13 dicembre 2014, giorno in cui é diventata obbligatoria l’applicazione del nuovo regolamento di etichettatura UE che, sinteticamente, fornisce maggiori informazioni sugli ingredienti del prodotto e meno sul produttore (é il risultato degli accordi avvenuti col TTIP contro cui molto si é battagliato, soprattutto a causa delle minori informazioni sulla provenienza dei cibi ed un venir meno del valore aggiunto alimentare del “made in Italy”).
In sostanza consumare Olio di Palma non é meno salutare che consumare quantità equivalenti di altri olio, burro o margarina, e se la propria dieta é composta unicamente da cibi preconfezionati e creme spalmabili due domande bisognerebbe farsele (esattamente come nel caso del latte)
Anche la vicenda dell’Olio di Palma evidenzia come la malainformazione riesca a toccare qualunque cosa e cheben scavare risulta evidente che questa non avvenga mai in modo del tutto casuale: in qualche maniera risponde sempre ad esigenze (manifeste o meno, consci od inconsce) di determinati gruppi sociali o economici, il cui risultato é sia generare dubbi e insicurezze che offrire facili soluzioni e speranze sfruttando il già citato circuito chiuso:
disturbo fisiologico > paura/dubbio del momento > trend salutista del momento > disturbo fisiologico (all’infinito)
(NEI MIEI PENSIERI SON MALESSERI VERI – PARTE 3: LA VERITA’ VERRA’ RIVELATA DOPO LA PUBBLICITA’)
Importantissimo in questo senso é il ruolo dei Big della comunicazione: finché una teoria strampalata resta confinata all’interno di un circolo ben definito non c’é da preoccuparsi (per ogni idea/teoria/filosofia/credo strampalato ci sarà sempre sempre qualcuno che ci crede). Quando però queste teorie “fanno il salto” e vengono accolte e diffuse attraverso canali mainstream (canali televisivi nazionali, riviste d’ampia tiratura ecc) la cosa si fa preoccupante in quanto ciò porta inevitabilmente ad una diffusione esponenziale della fuffa a discapito della scientificità e dell’oggettività.
Il problema di fondo é una questione etica, ossia la mancata applicazione della regola: più grande é il tuo seguito (lettori, telespettatori, followers su Twitter ecc), più responsabili dovrebbero essere le tue parole ed azioni.
Purtroppo é inutile illudersi che tale equazione venga davvero rispettata: raramente i meccanismi che portano alla notorietà coinvolgono tale senso di responsabilità. Tuttavia é possibile “riportare le cose al loro posto” effettuando una scrematura logica atta a ridimensionare l’autorità malriposta, ossia lo strumento principale della “diffusione mainstream” della fuffa.
Che cosa ne sa di nutrizione un impresario delle pompe funebri? Cosa ne sa di politica estera uno scrittore di romanzi d’amore? Cosa ne sa di medicina una cantante pop? Il fatto d’essere famosi non rende queste persone degli esperti di cose che non sanno. Su questioni mediche bisogna chiedere a medici e su questioni ingegneristiche bisogna chiedere ad ingegneri. Chi ha vinto un Nobel sulle nanoparticelle potrebbe avere difficoltà a comprendere il funzionamento di un motore che un quattordicenne appassionato di scooter saprebbe smontare e rimontare ad occhi chiusi: fama e competenza sono due cose distinte.
Spesso la mancanza di competenza é messa in secondo piano dall’immagine che la persona trasmette di sé. Ad una persona di successo, magari anche attraente, che ha saputo emozionare/divertire attraverso la sua arte e che sa parlare bene, vien naturale attribuire un’autorità che in realtà non si merita. Non importa quanto uno sia bello, figo, ricco, affascinante e se quel che dice suona bene: le stronzate, anche se ben infiocchettate, restano stronzate.
Spesso la mancanza di competenze é ben mascherata: noto é il caso del Dr.Oz, medico chirurgo statunitense, scrittore e e conduttore di trasmissioni televisive in cui dispensa consigli medici su cui non ha competenze specifiche (alimentazione, ortopedia ecc), promuove l’omeopatia ed altre pratiche poco ortodosse (ad esempio promuove le guarigioni miracolose attraverso la preghiera ai defunti). Il fatto che sia un medico chirurgo basta perché il pubblico ritenga validi tutti i suoi consigli medici: sembrare competenti ed essere competenti sono due cose distinte.
Non solo le personalità dello showbiz ma anche i “contenitori” vengono spesso percepiti come dei testimonial cui viene attribuita autorità eccessiva: una notizia riportata dal sito/giornalista di fiducia non é automaticamente vera perché proveniente da questo sito/giornalista, ma é necessario che venga fornita in maniera corretta dando a chi legge/vede/ascolta tutti gli strumenti per analizzarla e verificarla. Se il giornalista X ha sempre dimostrato un alto tasso di affidabilità e correttezza non é detto che non prenderà mai una cantonata. Allo stesso tempo un’informazione diffusa da un’importante portale generalista non va dato per scontato che sia vera: va verificata.
Purtroppo sono molti gli esempi in negativo di informazione mainstream che diffonde notizie ed informazioni sbagliate/inesatte/false/inventate/malinterpretate. Giusto per fare alcuni esempi eclatanti il caso dei Bambini di Satana, descritti come una setta di violenti stupratori nonostante sia risultato evidente che erano dei tizi magari un po strambi, ma innocenti; oppure il caso delle supposte violenze negli asili di Brescia ed a Rignano Flaminio, rivelatisi dei casi di panico morale (in Italia spesso tradotta in “psicosi collettiva”) privi di fondamento; o l’eco dei grandi media riguardo al Metodo di Bella che generò un fermento popolare tanto rumoroso che nel 2003 riuscì a far legiferare il Parlamento affinché ripetesse la sperimentazione del “Metodo” nonostante già dal 1999 si sapeva che non funzionava (impossibile qui non notare i parallelismi con la crociata anti Olio di Palma nel governo francese e le pressioni sul parlamento italiano sul cosiddetto “Metodo Stamina”). In particolare il parallelismo perfetto tra il caso del Metodo Di Bella ed il caso del metodo Stamina evidenzia come il battage mediatico riesca a condizionare l’opinione pubblica agendo sull’emotività anziché sulla corretta informazione: la terapia-truffa “Metodo Stamina” era quasi sconosciuta al grande pubblico finché la trasmissione Le Iene non vi dedicò una serie di servizi in cui parlando del caso di una bimba di nome Sofia viene sostanzialmente fatta una mega-promozione del “Metodo” portato avanti da un medico descritto come il classico genio inascoltato che si scontra con l’assurda burocrazia statale. La trasmissione, dopo aver portato Stamina alla ribalta con il linguaggio unidirezionale che la caratterizza é stata bacchettata da più parti per aver diffuso un’informazione parziale, incorretta, omissiva, basata sull’emotività, unidirezionale e non scientifica. Solo dopo diverse settimane Le Ienerigireranno la frittata con una supercazzola ma senza ammettere realmente i propri sbagli.
Anche in altre occasioni Le Iene hanno accarezzato teorie pseudoscientifiche come il caso della dieta vegan che impedirebbe lo sviluppo di cancro, teoria risalente al “The China study”, testo sbufalato da decenni. L’AIRC (Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro) spiega in maniera chiara come una dieta vegetariana ridurrebbe le possibilità di ammalarsi di cancro del 12% e per alcuni tipi di cancro addirittura del 45%; allo stesso tempo una dieta priva di carne ma che includa pesce aiuterebbe a ridurre la possibilità di contrarre il cancro del 18%. La ricerca comunque fa notare che altri elementi non presi in considerazione potrebbero aver influito in questi risultati: “chi sceglie la dieta vegetariana o decide di eliminare la carne a favore del pesce appartiene di solito a categorie sociali medio-alte, piuttosto colte e molto attente all’igiene e alla salute. È possibile, quindi, che i buoni risultati generali non siano da attribuire esclusivamente alla dieta vegetariana, bensì a stili di vita più salubri in generale, in particolare per quanto riguarda il fumo e l’esercizio fisico”
(A proposito di testimonial ed autorità malriposta: per tutta la vita Steve Jobs ha preferito curarsi con metodi alternativi e seguendo curiose diete perlopiù di stampo vegano e fruttariano ma alla fine il cancro se l’é portato via a 56 anni).
Se la gente non affida il compito di “spiegargli come vanno le cose” a ricercatori e reporter, ma ad attori che si spacciano per giornalisti (si, si, sulla carta sono giornalisti, ma c’é bella differenza tra questo e questo) o a pupazzi che parlano in genovese, interessati più a fare infotainment a tesiche a spiegare come vanno le cose, non ci si deve stupire se poi va a finire che c’é gente che si fa la “doccia interna mattutina” con acqua e limone o con la propria urina .
(3) ALCALINIZZARE IL CORPO?
Veniamo al terzo e ultimo dei grandi cavalli di battaglia della terapia del limone, ossia l’alcalinizzazione dell’organismo (NB: “Alcalino” é sinonimo di “Basico” ed entrambi sono il contrario di “Acido”).
Se l’aspetto “disintossicante” della cura del limone non ha convinto e nemmeno la sua supposta capacità di “drenare l’intestino”, forse é l'”alcalinizzazione dell’organismo” che acchiapperà la mente del cliente finale.
Le supposte “proprietà alcalinizzanti” del limone non sono una novità giunta dal nulla ma un’eredità delle teorie sulla cosiddetta dieta alcalina.
Qui bisogna spendere due parole su questioni fisiologiche abbastanza tecniche. Brevemente: una delle caratteristiche dei liquidi é il loro livello di acidità. Ciò interessa anche l’uomo in quanto il suo organismo é per gran parte composto di liquidi ed i cibi che assume in quanto anch’essi composti perlopiù da liquidi (si, anche i biscotti secchi). Il livello di acidità si misura in pH con una scala che va da 0 (acido) a 14 (basico/alcalino).
Un valore pH7 é detto neutro in quanto acidità e basicità sono in perfetto equilibrio.
Nell’organismo umano il livello di pH varia a seconda della parte del corpo presa in esame: da un minimo di pH1-pH2 (acidi gastrici), pH4,2 (cute delicata), pH5,6 (cute), pH7,35-pH7,45 (sangue arterioso), pH8 (pancreas). Solitamente quando si parla di pH umano si indica quello del sangue arterioso (quando si parla d’alimentazione), oppure quello della pelle (quando si parla di cosmesi e prodotti igienici).
Anche gli alimenti della dieta umana hanno pH molto differenti (ad esempio i limoni con pH2.4 o i funghi con pH5.8).
L’organismo umano neve mantenere dei livelli di pH ben precisi e svolge autonomamente tutta una serie di processi atti amantenere l’equilibrio acido-base principalmente attraverso i reni e la respirazione. Questi processi (detti anche sistemi-tampone perché tamponano certi squilibri riequilibrando l’intero organismo) in un individuo sano funzionano senza autonomamente. Tuttalpiù negli anni posso funzionare con meno efficacia e quindi é necessario provvedere attivamente attraverso un’alimentazione bilanciata.
Detto questo: la maggior parte dei cibi presenti nella dieta umana hanno quasi esclusivamente un pH inferiore a 7 e sono dunque acidi Esistono rare eccezioni come ad esempio le uova, alcuni tipi di formaggi ed alcuni prodotti da forno, ma basta rendersi conto che questi cibi alcalini, una volta ingeriti, vengono a contatto con gli acidissimi succhi gastrici perché la loro alcalinità venga neutralizzata. In realtà spesso vengono definiti “cibi alcalini” quelli che in realtà sono solamente cibi poco acidi.
IN SOSTANZA: IL NOSTRO ORGANISMO PENSA GIA’ A REGOLARE DA SE’ QUESTI LIVELLI
Per quale motivo dunque nel campo della spiritualità salutista viene spesso diffusa l’idea secondo cui bisognerebbe alcalinizzare maggiormente l’organismo?
Anche qui ci si aggrappa ad una vecchia storia che viene solitamente diffusa in questi termini: “Uno scienziato premio nobel tedesco negli anni ’30 ha scoperto che per curare il cancro basta mangiare cibi alcalini, ma le multinazionali lo tengono segreto per vendere i loro farmaci“.
In realtà lo scienziato tedesco Otto Warburg (che vinse il Nobel nel 1931 per studi sugli enzimi respiratori) postulò una teoria sull’origine e prevenzione del Cancro basata su quello che viene definito “Effetto Warburg” ossia la caratteristica, scientificamente dimostrata, delle cellule tumorali di utilizzare la scissione degli zuccheri (glicolisi) e la derivante fermentazione lattica per produrre velocemente molta energia senza consumare molecole d’ossigeno, a differenza delle cellule sane.
La scoperta di Warburg viene diffusa in maniera alterata da alcuni personaggi che ruotano attorno alla spiritualità salutista, tra cui il falso medico Robert O. Young (ha ottenuto una “laurea” online da un’università non riconosciuta in seguito chiusa per truffa) e l’ex medico radiato da decenni Tullio Simoncini (quello che giura di poter curare il cancro col bicarbonato ed é sospettato di aver causato la morte di un ragazzo), aggiungendovi le loro particolari teorie che vivono sull’equazione “organismo alcalino = nemico dei tumori”. Equazione corretta, se non fosse che tale alcalinizzare un’organismo colpito da tumore ucciderebbe sia il tumore che l’organismo ospitante!
La dieta alcalina é pura fuffa pseudoscientifica diffusa da personaggi provenienti dallo spiritualismo salutista che si fanno scudo con ricerche serie di cui però stravolgono il senso..
Chi é invaghito di qualche teoria proveniente dallo spiritualismo salutista, ricorda tuttavia che esistono tuttavia diversi studi che dimostrano come la dieta alcalina aiuti l’organismo, così come vi é una correlazione dimostrata tra l’assunzione di Vitamina C e la decrescita di alcuni tumori, dimenticandosi però di notare che: (1) Non vi sono riscontri scientifici di alcun tipo di effetto preventivo/curativo dell’assunzione orale di Vitamina C e sviluppo tumorale (2) la quantità di Vitamina C che secondo alcuni studi sembrerebbe necessaria a provocare una decrescita del tumore é comunque talmente elevata da non poter essere assunta tramite apparato gastrico-digerente (l’organismo la espelle), ma solo per via endovenosa; (3) la quasi totalità degli studi favorevoli alla “dieta alcalina” analizzano solamente i livelli di pH degli alimenti presi in esame dimenticandosi di tutte le altre proprietà (ad esempio tralasciando il fatto che frutta e verdura siano ricche di potassio e magnesio e lasciando suggerire che eventuali miglioramenti delle prestazioni muscolari del soggetto siano da ricercarsi nell’alcalinità del cibo e non, come già scientificamente appurato, proprio dalla presenza di magnesio e potassio)
MA E’ UN LIMONE BIO…
La differenza tra i “cibi bio” ed i cibi “non bio” sta essenzialmente nel tipo di fertilizzanti ed antiparassitari utilizzati. Perché un cibo possa esser definito “Bio” questi dev’essere coltivato utilizzando solamente con fertilizzanti ed antiparassitari “naturali”, applicando una distinzione non sempre chiara con quelli che vengono definiti “innaturali” (basta ricordare che il “naturale” verderame non é meno tossico del Rotenone) ed é interessante notare come attraverso analisi scientifica non si riesca sempre a distinguere se certi prodotti siano stati coltivati in maniera “Bio” o no, come nel caso del riso, oppure come i limiti di pesticida residuo sui prodotti bio non sono inferiori a quelli previsti per i prodotti non-bio e come sia abbastanza facile vendere per biologico prodotti che non lo sono. Nei casi in cui vi sia un’incombente pericolo il coltivatore “Bio” può utilizzare fitofarmaci non-bio e quando le autorità nazionali impongono la “lotta obbligatoria” a determinati parassiti sono obbligati ad usare fitofarmaci solitamente non ammessi nei protocolli “Bio”. L’etichetta “Bio” insomma offre poche garanzie su come un certo prodotto sia stato coltivato e sul fatto che sia effettivamente più sano del suo omologo “non-bio”.
La presenza di nanoparticelle, qualora fosse scientificamente dimostrata la sua correlazione con la presenza di disturbi fisiologici, essendo presente in maniera equivalente sia nei prodotti “Bio” che in quelli “non-bio”, potrebbe rappresentare uno smacco notevole all’intero marketing dei prodotti biologici (ma bisognerà attendere che vi siano dimostrazioni scientifiche prima di darlo per certo).
(far) VEDERE SOL CIO’ CHE SI VUOL VE(n)DERE
Il marketing “Bio” inoltre gioca spesso sul concetto di essere cibo “disintossicante” o perlomeno “non tossico” senza quasi mai citare questi termini e spesso facendosi forte di dati scientifici oggettivi.
Un esempio: di recente é stata promossa su diversi siti di spiritualità salutista la notiziadi una ricerca che viene riportata in questi termini: una famiglia svedese per alcuni giorni ha mangiato solo cibo Bio ed al termine del periodo d’osservazione “le schifezze” presenti nel loro organismo erano spariti o calati in maniera drammatica.
Insomma, sembrerebbe tutto ok. A ben vedere però le cose non son proprio come sembrano: innanzitutto appare chiaro che il fine ultimo di tutta l’operazione sia il video e non lo studio in sé (che, va ricordato, é stata commissionata da una catena di distribuzione di prodotti bio). A far arricciare qualche naso ci pensa il terzo capitolo dello studio: “Methodology“.
Lo studio ha coinvolto solo 5 persone (non basterebbero nemmeno per uno studio statistico a base regionale); che hanno assunto “cibo convenzionale” per una settimana dopodiché solo “cibo organico” per due settimane (non gli stessi prodotti “non bio” e poi “bio” quindi: diete diverse); nelle due settimane “bio”sono stati sostituiti i prodotti per la pulizia e l’igiene personale(non si sa bene con quali prodotti)ed non hanno potuto indossare indumenti nuovi o usare tovagliato e stoffe appena acquistate (Quindi lo studio non riguardava solo l’alimentazione); al padre, consumatore di tabacco da fiuto, é stato imposto di usare tabacco bio; In maniera un po contraddittoria, dopo aver detto che alla famiglia é stato imposto l’uso di detergenti bio, viene detto che “La famiglia usava già in precedenza prodotti bio per l’igiene personale” (?); Le sostanze ricercate erano quelle la cui presenza in campioni d’urina umana erano già state segnalate da due studi del 2009 e 2011 (vedi capitolo 3.2 “Analysis”)
Facile così: se dopo una settimana a cibo contaminato di PESTICIDA X si passa al cibo contaminato col PESTICIDA Y é incorretto affermare che “Wow, mangiando questi cibi non c’é più traccia di PESTICIDA X” senza nemmeno citare la presenza del PESTICIDA Y. (NB: qui l’elenco FederBio dei prodotti fitosanitari impiegabili in agricoltura biologica)
Anche qui la solita nota esplicativa per chi capisce sol quel che vuol capire: con questo non si afferma che il cibo marchiato “Bio” sia uguale al cibo “non-bio” ma che QUESTO modo di promuoverlo é quantomeno discutibile poiché vive ed alimenta l’emotività su argomenti che richiederebbero approcci più pragmatici.
La malainformazione medica e salutista ha successo per una serie ben nota di motivi-chiave:
Non siamo degli esperti di medicina/salute/alimentazione
Chi diffonde malainformazione é molto più rumoroso degli esperti
La malainformazione medica fa leva sulla nostra emotività, sui nostri preconcetti e sul sentire comune
La malainformazione fa leva sui dubbi e sulle paure che essa stessa alimenta
Non siamo abituati a fare indagini sulle notizie che ci raggiungono
Per natura, nel dubbio, tendiamo a preferire soluzioni precauzionali che troviamo comprensibili ed emozionalmente appaganti
L’ultimo punto é quello più immediatamente riscontrabile: in quante occasione abbiamo sentito, o ci siam detti “Non so se é vero, ma nel dubbio…“. Si tratta di un automatismo precauzionale di natura protettiva (razionalità istintiva) che ha una grandissima utilità per la nostra sicurezza ma é un meccanismo imperfetto che tende a farci dubitare ed a vedere rischi e pericoli anche laddove non ce ne sono. Ciò scatena altri automatismi istintivi che ci portano a cercare soluzioni/risposte non attraverso uno sforzo di analisi logica ma preferendo soluzioni/risposte (anche notevolmente complesse) caratterizzate dall’essere emozionalmente più appaganti.
Soluzioni/risposte che trovano mille forme tutte scientificamente incorrette ma emozionalmente appaganti: ecco che ci si ritrova chi beve la propria urina o la placenta umana, chi danza nudo sotto la luna per assorbirne l’energia, chi mangia solo cibi di certi colori, chi si rifiuta di mangiare determinate cose (ma qui non parliamo dei tabù culturali: quella é un’altra storia) ecc.
MA I MEDICI CHE DICONO?
Riassumendo brevemente: a patto che non si soffra di gastrite e non si abusi del consumo di limone, non vi sono gravi controindicazioni (in caso d’abuso potrebbe danneggiare il cavo orale e lo smalto dei denti), ma in sostanza “curarsi con il limone”:
Non serve a disintossicare
Non serve a drenare l’intestino
Può portare a disturbi come esofagite, reflusso gastro-esofageo, gastriti
Non è indicata nei pazienti affetti da gastrite
Non ha reali proprietà alcalinizzanti.
Può danneggiare lo smalto dei denti
Rimane comunque una buona fonte di vitamina C, anche se non la migliore: le arance ne contengono di più e ancora maggiore è la quantità contenuta nei peperoni. È meglio non prenderla a digiuno e, comunque, conviene riempire lo stomaco con qualcosa di solido.
RICERCA SCIENTIFICA
Come già detto recenti studi dimostrerebbero alcune proprietà antitumorali della Vitamina C per alcuni tipi di cancro.
Senza neanche entrare nel merito di tali studi e fingendo che vi sia una conferma scientifica delle proprietà di PREVENZIONE di DETERMINATI TIPI DI CANCRO degli AGRUMI, nulla toglie che promuovere adesso l’assunzione al MATTINO ed a DIGIUNO di ACQUA TIEPIDA e LIMONE (non pompelmo, arancia, mandarino, clementina, pomelo, bergamotto, combatta, limetta o fortunello: LIMONE) come se fosse una sorta di panacea di ogni male non risponde propriamente a metodo scientifico.
CONCLUSIONI:
1) L’autrice del libro che ha lanciato il trend del “Curarsi col limone” ha una formazione esoterico/spirituale inserita nell’ambito del naturalismo spiritualista-salutista
2) L’editore é noto per pubblicare panzane colossali ed aver già promosso e cavalcato mode simili
3) Il Limone é un frutto usato ed abusato tra le più recenti cure alternative prive di riscontro medico-scientifico
4) Gli effetti promessi dalla “terapia-panacea” coprono in maniera superficiale l’intero spettro dei disturbi fisiologici, tanto che risulterebbe miracoloso qualora fosse vero
5) Gli effetti vengono promessi con un attento uso di termini generici ed indefiniti, tecnica atta a “smarcarsi” ma lasciando all’utente finale la libertà di “riempire” coi propri pensieri/speranze il non detto.
6) Il nocciolo dei benefici promessi dalla terapia-panacea si fonda sul concetto scientificamente inesatto di “disintossicare” l’organismo da fantomatiche “tossine invisibili” e/o sull’idea che “dreni l’intestino” e/o abbia proprietà alcalinizzanti ma in tutti e tre i casi non v’é evidenza scientifica
7) L’assunzione di acqua tiepida ed acido citrico al digiuno appena alzati, non presentando particolari vantaggi né controindicazioni, generalmente non viene né promosso né osteggiato da parte di medici
CHICCA FINALE 1
Giusto per far capire il livello di affidabilità di Macro Edizioni faccio notare che tra le “terapie miracolose” proposte sul loro catalogo online troviamo anche l’assunzione di argento colloidale:
L’uso di argento colloidale é un vecchio rimedio medico oramai abbandonato perché sostituito da farmaci più efficienti e perché l’uso eccessivo causa Argiria, ma che trova ancora grandi estimatori nell’ambiente medico-spirituale legato a principi alchemici (l’assunzione di metalli liquidi che rinforzerebbero lo spirito indebolito ecc, ecc, ecc). Che cos’é l’Argiria? E’ un’alterazione cutanea permanente causata dall’assunzione eccessiva di argento che ti trasforma così:
Non é un trucco e non c’é inganno: l’americano Paul Karason, per risolvere dolori alla schiena, assunse per 10 anni argento colloidale ed é diventato BLU (lo chiamavano “Papa Smurf – Grande Puffo).
Per maggiori informazioni basta cercare Argiria o Paul Karason su Google (ci sono diverse interviste e reportage di telegiornali)
CHICCA FINALE 2
C’é una simpatico poster creato da Sci-Ence.org in cui sono elencati le “bandierine rosse” della fuffa. Se un prodotto/metodo/cura viene presentato attraverso anche uno solo di queste “bandierine rosse” deve scattare un campanello d’allarme.
Nel caso della cura del limone le bandierine rosse sono ben sette e mezzo:
Testimonials (ci sono aneddoti di amici che “l’han provata e stanno meglio” ma nessun dato scientifico)
Helps your Body (la terapia promette “aiuti” generici di benessere)
Buy My Book (i “segreti” della terapia del limone si trovano nei libri commerciali e non in ricerche scientifiche studiate ed analizzate né da osservazioni empiriche riconosciute)
Miracle Cure-All (“hai problemi d’irritazione cutanea, digestione, fiacchezza? Il Limone aiuta sempre!”)
“Doctor” (chi promuove questa “terapia” non é un medico ma perlopiù persone provenienti da circoli spirituali/esoterici che si vendono come “naturopati”)
Natural (“un comunissimo limone ed un bicchier d’acqua sono certo più efficaci di aspirine e medicinali chimici”)
“Toxins” (le fantomatiche tossine immaginarie)
“Ancient Wisdom” Non si son trovate dichiarazioni chiare in proposito, ma il fatto che “bere un bicchier d’acqua e limone al mattino” possa esser visto/venduto come un caro, vecchio rimedio della nonna, avvalora in parte l’idea di una “conoscenza empirica antica”. Inoltre la Oberhammer si dice allieva di una Maestra di una antica via spirituale femminile. Insomma, questo é un punto toccato ma non del tutto centrato, ma poco importa: che sia fuffa é già chiaro.
“Hai visto ieri in il match? X ha steso Y! Lo ha proprio suonato a dovere come si meritava! Viva X!”
Due combattenti, un ring, scontro frontale e chi resta in piedi vince. Scontro fisico puro, un po di strategia e preparazione mentale per determinare chi sa colpire e resistere nel modo più efficace e giù botte! Non é difficile da capire.
Cambio di scena: due o più persone in poltrona, un argomento, ognuno parla e chi ottiene più applausi vince. Anche il “dialogo” mostrato in televisione tra diversi ospiti o tra ospite e conduttore é strutturato come un match, solo che si usano parole e argomenti al posto dei pugni: chi ha argomenti e parole più forti vinc… ehm… ehm… no… piano… un’attimo… QUI C’E’ UN EVIDENTE SALTO LOGICO!!
Da quando lo scopo del dialogo sarebbe quello di abbattere il nemico? O meglio: é normale considerare tutte le persone che non condividono le mie parole dei nemici? Si dialoga dicendo sempre no agli altri dialoganti (pardon: nemici)? E’lo scontro il fine ultimo del dialogo?
NO.L’accostamento dialogo-match é figlio di una visione del tutto riduttiva, semplicistica e parziale di ciò che un dialogo é veramente. Il dialogo é una pratica il cui fine é quello di avvicinarsi ad una verità partendo da molteplici punti di vista, utilizzando diversi processi logici: equiparare il dialogo ad un match significa negargli ogni capacità costruttiva in quanto il processo di analisi logica tra due o più “verità” viene sostituita da un approccio teatrale il cui scopo non é più giungere ad un’approssimazione del vero esterno agli attori coinvolti, bensì l’affermazione per sopraffazione di una delle “verità” rappresentate da questo o quell’attore.
Chi equipara il dialogo a un match compie un’operazione di relativismo puro affermando che ognuno abbia “una SUA verità” valida esattamente quanto la verità di chiunque altro e che non sia possibile avvicinarsi ad una verità unica e condivisa attraverso l’intelletto
(Secondo questo principio relativista l’idea che la Luna sia fatta di formaggio avrebbe lo stesso valore dell’idea che sia un corpo roccioso. Posto dinnanzi a simili esempi di cortocircuiti logici il relativista ha come sola reazione possibile il rifiuto totale da cui ne consegue il suo motto “ognuno ha le proprie idee e van tutte rispettate, ma chi pensa cose che secondo me non son giuste é un pazzo” – evidenziare che tale motto é illogico equivale a farsi tacciare per pazzi)
Così come la boxe, un dialogo può funzionare solo se le parti in gioco rispettano tre condizioni: il terreno di gioco, l’equilibrio e la correttezza tra le parti.
TERRENO DI GIOCO
Perché un dialogo possa portare a qualcosa é indispensabile che le diverse parti condividano lo stesso terreno di gioco ossia la realtà. Se una delle parti elude, piega o rifiuta la realtà accertata nessun dialogo é possibile. Ogni attore che prende parte al dialogo é portatore di una propria verità costruita da idee e opinioni che dovrebbero essersi formati su una conoscenza il più possibile esatta dell’argomento in questione. Chi rifiuta di adattare le proprie idee e opinioni dinnanzi ad una realtà evidente, dimostrata e riconosciuta, sta di fatto rifiutando la realtà stessa, impedendo ogni possibilità di dialogo.
EQUILIBRIO
In Italia il concetto di equilibrio riguardante il dialogo é inquinato dal linguaggio televisivo e dal concetto di “par condicio”, per cui quando si parla di dialogo equilibrato ciò vien solitamente ridotto al semplice concetto di “egual presenza”.
In realtà il concetto di equilibrio nel dialogo é legato al punto di contatto tra i due o più opponenti: persone di opinioni opposte su un dato argomento ma che hanno rispetto reciproco, intesa di linguaggio e sanno accogliere opinioni altrui potranno costruire un dialogo perché in equilibrio tra loro. La presenza di un punto d’equilibrio tra le parti é una condizione imprescindibile perché un dialogo possa cominciare e deve esistere precedentemente al dialogo stesso.
Nel paragone del match l’equilibrio é paragonabile al condividere o meno uno stesso set di regole: non si possono mettere su uno stesso ring il campione dei pesi massimi ed il più grande esperto al mondo di parole crociate, così come non ha senso il dialogo tra un biologo evoluzionista ed un creazionista puro (perché manca un punto di equilibrio tra i due ma anche perché in un eventuale dialogo il creazionista, rifiutando a prescindere le innumerevoli prove scientifiche che dimostrano l’evoluzionismo, rifiuta addirittura di condividere il terreno di gioco)
Mettere sullo stesso piano un affermato ricercatore storico con un complottista autodidatta che non ha alcuna prova a suo favore non può portare a nessun dialogo in quanto non v’é equilibrio culturale e perché il complottista, dando per scontato che il ricercatore “é uno di loro”, elimina pure quel minimo rispetto che può fungere da punto d’incontro minimo tra due parti opposte. Altri esempi possono essere il rimescolaggio dei linguaggi che avviene quando un politico vien messo a confronto con personaggi dello spettacolo che non hanno competenze reali sull’argomento in discussione (come si può dialogare di politiche economiche con pupazzi e soubrette o comprendere equilibri complessi discutendo con qualcuno che mette sullo stesso piano le decisioni strategiche di un ministro con il colore della cravatta che indossa?).
Se tra le parti non v’é un punto d’incontro queste non potranno costruir alcun Dialogo e procederanno solamente attraverso scontri improduttivi. Se una delle parti si rifiuta a prescindere di discutere la verità di chi ha di fronte elude da principio ogni possibilità costruttiva. L’equilibrio é una condizione che deve preesistere al dialogo.
CORRETTEZZA
All’interno di un dialogo la correttezza consiste in tutte quelle pratiche atte a mantenere e rinforzare l’equilibrio stabilito tra le parti (NB: mantenere o rinforzare tale equilibrio non esclude che le opinioni delle due parti divergano anche in maniera sostanziale).
Restando all’esempio pugilistico la correttezza equivale al rispetto dei divieti dello sport che le parti si son accordate di praticare (niente colpi sotto la cintola, niente dita negli occhi ecc.).
La rottura della correttezza causa la caduta di ogni equilibrio preesistente.
Se il dialogo avviene attraverso dei media vi é sempre il rischio che questo venga viziato dalla natura del media stesso (la ricerca dell’applauso in studio, le scenate teatrali e tutti gli strumenti atti ad oltrepassare la quarta parete non per comunicare al pubblico ma per comunicare attraverso il pubblico), andando ad ammazzare ogni equilibrio preesistente. Abusare della mediaticità per zittire un dialogo é di certo un colpo basso: l’esatto opposto della correttezza nel dialogo. Si vince mediaticamente ma non grazie alla bontà dei propri argomenti.
Altri casi sono quelli in cui una delle parti anziché rispondere con frasi di senso compiuto che esprimono concetti coerenti cerca di ottener ragione usando slogan evocativi e giravolte logiche che mascherano la mancanza di coerenza interna delle idee che propone con una coerenza apparente oppure, ancora più frequentemente, evitando di rispondere spostando l’attenzione su altri argomenti o ancora, operando un’azione di censura/filtraggio mentale riducendo problemi complessi in concetti banali e riduttivi.
C’é forse qualcosa di diverso tra un Renzi che parla per #hashtag ed un Salvini che fa da poster umano con le felpe? Come si può portar avanti un dialogo con chi é più interessato a trasmettere i propri slogan/meme/frame impattanti che affrontando le complessità esponendole per quel che sono veramente? Ridurre la complessità delle migrazioni e dei problemi economici del paese a dei banali meme #BastaEuro #SvoltaBuona #StopInvasione é il modo migliore per ammazzare il dialogo impedendo la possibilità di concordare degli obiettivi. (NB: lo slogan ci sta anche; il problema é quando si riduce il dialogo al solo slogan-totem indiscutibile)
Non ci si può nemmeno aspettare esca veramente qualcosa da un finto dialogo in cui domande e risposte sono sostituite da uno scambio di innocue battute che evitano di metter la carne sul fuoco: la paura di rompere i coglioni andando veramente a fondo dei problemi genera solo dialoghi intorpiditi in cui é proprio la teatralità di cui sopra ad accender l’attenzione e non l’esposizione di una verità più completa e comprensibile.
Non ci si può aspettare di veder dialogare chi, come strategia di marketing politico, pensa solo a contraddire sempre e comunque quel che dice il suo nemico facendo no con la testa o interrompendolo col solo scopo di teatralizzare e ridurre a scontro quello che dovrebbe essere un dialogo.
Filtrare attraverso i meccanismi dello showbusiness quello che dovrebbe essere un dialogo d’analisi sociale/economica/politica appiattendo il tutto ad un unico poutpourrì in cui a vincere é il Varietà.
Un poutpourrì imbastito infilandoci: l’argomento del giorno, un’inchiesta, una ragazza immagine, il siparietto comico, una hit parade (vedi sondaggi di Ballarò) e qualche momento di dialogo/polemica condito da colpi di teatro non é in fondo una versione aggiornata di Portobello?
“VINCERE” IL DIALOGO
Un dialogo ha senso se porta a qualcosa: se stabilisce punti d’incontro o di rottura o se evidenzia logicamente la bontà di un’idea o le sue fallacie. Il vincitore di un dialogo sono le sue conclusioni e solo di riflesso le persone che le hanno accettate/promosse. E’un risultato cui si arriva usando solamente strumenti logici e realtà.
VITTORIA TEATRALE vs. VALIDITA’ DELLE AFFERMAZIONI
Un dialogo scorretto e svincolato dalla realtà non porterà mai a nessuna vittoria/risultato/conclusione ma é purtroppo evidente che troppo spesso il sentire comune interpreta la vittoria teatrale come superiorità logica. E’ un vero e proprio caso di sostituzione di senso derivante da pigrizia logica: chi attua questa sostituzione (a meno che non sia in malafede) semplicemente non effettua alcuna analisi di quanto affermato dalle parti, limitandosi ad applaudire (teatralità) all’attore che riesce a sopraffare/zittire/imporsi con maggior teatralità sui suoi opponenti.
Ciò avviene perlopiù attraverso semplici trucchi comunicativi (vittimismo, utilizzo di luoghi comuni, puntare l’attenzione sulle parole anziché sui concetti che esprimono, alzare il tono della voce, lanciare frasi-meme/totem, evitare risposte scomode, identificare un nemico unico e tangibile, dare sempre torto all’altro, esprimere disappunto o sfottò con gesti e mimica facciale, sbeffeggiare il nemico, interrompere il nemico mentre parla, ribaltamento di significato, ecc) atti a coprire fallacie logiche (mancanza di dati a supporto delle proprie tesi, negazione della complessità, contraddizioni interne ecc).
La vittoria teatrale appaga la pancia dello spettatore che per diversi motivi non intraprende un analisi logica delle affermazioni dei diversi attori.
Su Youtube i video in cui qualcuno “distrugge”, “abbatte”, “asfalta” o “massacra” verbalmente qualcun’altro sono quasi un genere a sé: estratti di Talk Show e telegiornali, frasi singole separate dal contesto, interviste “censurate” con decine di migliaia di visualizzazioni e collage video. Tutti ruotanti attorno ad un perno di teatralità in cui il protagonista (l’eroe che sta nel giusto) riesce a sopraffare il nemico (che per contrapposizione é per forza sempre un vile che sta nel torto):
Ovviamente ci troviamo dinnanzi a selezioni partigiane operate da chi li diffonde a favore della parte scelta in cui prevale la suddivisione manichea del noi contro tutti ma che evidenzia un modo semplicistico di affrontare temi complessi.
Tra queste supposte “vittorie” si trova un po di tutto: spesso si rivelano semplici sopraffazioni verbali ottenute con cambi d’argomento e impatto teatrale, botta-e-risposta non argomentati da ambo le parti, “demolizioni” che esistono solo agli occhi di chi diffonde il video e qualche volta ci si trova anche dinnanzi a botta e risposta argomentati che tuttavia risentono dell’impostazione da match: se alla botta argomentata di X c’é una risposta argomentata di Y, anziché addentrarsi in queste argomentazioni, X, come in un match di scherma, di solito cambia argomento nel tentativo di colpire Y su altri fronti.
Matteo Salvini pubblica sul proprio canale Youtube un video con un estratto dalla trasmissione DiMartedì in cui parlano lui e la pedagoga Mariagrazia Contini. Nel video, intitolato -SALVINI ASFALTA PROFESSORESSA “DEMOCRATICA TERZOMONDISTA- si vanta di una propria “vittoria”:
Ora, nell’accogliere questa “vittoria” non possiamo non notare che fin dal titolo vien indicato che Salvini ha vinto lo scontro (definisce il video come appagante per i suoi followers); il suo nemico non é degno di un nome ma viene chiamato -professoressa “democratica” terzomondista- usando le virgolette come sberleffo; l’intervento del nemico viene tagliato quasi per intero (!) lasciandone solo la parte in cui dichiara che Salvini utilizza il senso comune per creare divisione, contrapposizione e nemici; Salvini, quando conscio d’esser mostrato al pubblico mentre il nemico parla, enfatizza espressioni facciali ironiche e fa “no” con la testa (stabilisce uno scontro); come risposta Salvini rigira la frittata ed anziché rispondere si vittimizza (!) dicendo che é il suo nemico che “odia chi non la pensa come lui e insegna da una cattedra” (meme “superiorità morale della sinistra” e meme “insegnanti di sinistra”), che “chi vien da sinistra pensa che il verbo sia solo a sinistra (anti-relativismo) e pensa che non sia come lui sia brutto, cattivo e arrogante (infantilismo) e allora io sono brutto, cattivo e arrogante (frase a effetto)” dopodiché attacca parlando del “nigeriano immigrato regolare che sta nella Lega” (sposta l’attenzione su argomento affine) per poi affondare dicendo che a lui piace l’immigrazione regolata mentre al suo nemico “che purtroppo ha il compito di educare” (di nuovo “insegnanti di sinistra”) piace l’immigrazione irregolare e sregolata (riduzione parziale e fuorviante della realtà) che porta all’anarchia (estremizzazione della riduzione precedente).
In un secondo taglio (!) vediamo solo la coda dell’intervento del nemico, che parlando di alcuni testi leghisti sui concetti di aggressività e razza applicabili ai rom conclude dicendo che é dalla Lega che provengono messaggi di odio. Salvini anche qui continua a gesticolare quando inquadrato e appena gli si da la parola preferisce non rispondere (!) atteggiandosi a moralmente superiore(OH THE IRONY) poiché “la polemica col nemico non gli interessa”.
Se di fronte a centinaia di persone sostenessi che il Sole gira attorno alla Terra verrei deriso e preso per pazzo e tutti mi urlerebbero contro che in realtà é la Terra a girare attorno al Sole.
Se chiedessi però loro di dimostrare quanto sostengono, ovvero che é la Terra a girare attorno al Sole, ben pochi saprebbero come fare. Come si dimostra che la Terra gira attorno al Sole?
L’esperienza pratica (notte/giorno, firmamento che ruota, assenza di venti dovuti ad una eventuale rotazione, ecc.) non offre nessun indizio del fatto che sia la Terra a ruotare attorno al Sole anziché il contrario.
Eppure se affermassi il contrario avrei contro centinaia di persone che pur non sapendo dimostrare la bontà delle loro affermazioni le difenderebbero a spada tratta, arrivando pure a schernirmi violentemente.
Si comporterebbero così perché nella loro comunità vien considerato un dato di fatto che la Terra ruoti attorno al Sole. Perché gli é stato insegnato a scuola. Perché questo é quello che sostengono tutte le persone che gli stanno intorno. Perché gli scienziati concordano su ciò. Perché qualcuno ha lanciato nello spazio strumenti che lo dimostrano. Perché qualcuno ci ha scritto dei libri.
Io avrei dalla mia parte l’inconfutabilità dell’esperienza diretta di chiunque (vediamo il sole che al mattino é a Est ed alla sera é ad Ovest ma non sentiamo alcun giramento, non ci sono spostamenti d’aria derivanti da un’eventuale rotazione del pianeta e tutti i filmati che mostrano la terra ruotare attorno al sole sono animazioni o collage). Loro mi indicherebbero libri, testi, fotografie, filmati e mille altre testimonianze indirette che so già essere di parte, inattendibili e faziose.
Perché loro sbagliano. Sono solo degli arroganti radicali che credono a tutto quello che gli vien raccontato sui libri. Mascherano con la loro paventata cultura un distacco dalle cose reali che invece quelli come me mantengono orgogliosamente. Sono dei poveri boccaloni bastiancontrari che mirano solo a distruggere la cultura e le tradizioni che fanno parte di noi. Lo sanno tutti che il Sole gira intorno alla Terra!
TWITTER. ANNO 1700 D.C.
A: “Lo sanno tutti che il Sole gira intorno alla Terra ma certi stupidi snob han la testa per aria e non vedono la realtà”
B: “Condannato o meno, la teoria che propone, basata sul De revolutionibus orbium coelestium di Copernico, trova sempre più consenso tra i maggiori uomini di scienza come ad esempio Isacco Newton”
A: “Vedi? Vedi? Mi citi sempre e solo questi pomposi dottori con la puzza sotto il naso che pretendono di avere la verità in mano! Che arroganza! Son tutti voli mentali di questa gente che vive più nei libri che nella realtà! Sono solo teorie senza dimostrazione pratica [NB: in effetti solo nel 1851, tramite l’esperimento del Pendolo di Foucault, si poté dimostrare la rotazione della Terra, dando una prima dimostrazione pratica della correttezza del sistema eliocentrico]
B: “Vero: al momento una dimostrazione pratica ancora non c’é ma i modelli matematici danno tutti ragione a Galileo”
A: “Guarda che anche il grande Tolomeo diceva che la terra é immobile e sta al centro dell’Universo! E nessuno lo ha mai potuto contraddire!”
A: “Ma ragioni quando parli? Greci, Indiani, Mussulmani: tutta gente mai sentita e che é contraria a prescindere! Sei il solito arrogantello con la puzza sotto il naso! Ti senti “moralmente superiore” solo perché hai sempre il naso tra i libri ma sei troppo cieco per vedere la realtà! Ciao, ciao: ti blocco e W LA TERRA CHE STA FERMA E IL SOLE CHE GLI RUOTA ATTORNO!!!11!!11!1!!!!!11!!!11!!!!!
Poi però c’é anche chi conosce bene un qualche argomento ma viene schiacciato da chi ne sa molto meno, che solitamente sono la maggioranza delle persone.
Allo stesso tempo é indubbio che nessuno può essere ferrato su qualunque argomento e che prima o poi capiterà sempre di doversi affidare a qualcuno che ne sa più di te.
Saper ammettere le proprie ignoranze é importante tanto quanto saper testare e mettere in dubbio le proprie convinzioni per verificarne l’efficacia.
Non avendo metri di giudizio adeguati per qualunque argomento, l’unica cosa che si può fare quando ci si muove in campi sconosciuti é affidarsi a diverse fonti competenti e riconosciute, criticando e analizzando continuamente la coerenza e l’affidabilità attraverso logica e confronto con altre fonti che a loro volta riceveranno lo stesso trattamento.
Nessuno possiede verità assolute ma idee di realtà (o di parti specifiche di essa) che possono essere più o meno valide.
USCIRE DALLA CORNICE
Il primo, primissimo passo consiste sempre nell’abbattere le “cornici culturali” entro cui si sono relegati interi mondi.
Sono infinite le etichette applicate sbrigativamente o a sproposito, il cui utilizzo limita fortemente dialogo e ragionamento sia di chi le usa che di chi le subisce.
Snob, fascista, comunista, radical chic, populista, zecca, finocchio, terrone, compagno, onore, rispetto, superiorità morale, potere alle masse, obbedienza ai superiori, l’arroganza della sinistra, l’ipocrisia della destra, il numero é potenza, Italia agli italiani, siamo il 99%, basta invasione, non ne possiamo più.
Quello che può nascere come un semplice aggettivo, una descrizione, uno slogan o una battuta, si trasforma facilmente in una gabbia di significato dalla quale é difficilissimo uscire poiché, proprio in quanto struttura chiusa, non vuole essere aperta e modificabile.
Tutti usiamo queste “cornici” (frame) ed é giusto che sia così: sono lo strumento che ci permette di prendere decisioni in tempi rapidi, senza fermarsi a ragionarci per ore.
L’utilizzo dei frame però ha una brutta controindicazione: tende a disabituarci a ragionare sul modo in cui ragioniamo (metapensiero), ossia tende a non farci pensare a quanto l’oggetto su cui stiamo ragionando venga definito dalla cornice che gli abbiamo applicato.
Musicista algerino
Scrittore danese
Militare israeliano
Politico inglese
Marinaio portoghese
Regista tedesco
Giornalista francese
Solo quando si comprendono i limiti di un frame si può osservare il soggetto con occhio non velato.
É tuttavia una situazione da gatto che si mangia la coda: rimuovere il frame fa osservare il soggetto per quel che é, ma é proprio osservarlo per quel che é che permette di rimuovere il frame.
Qualche giorno fa sullo spagnolo Jot Down Magazine é stato pubblicato l’articolo Paninaro: una revolución consumista. che tratta ovviamente dell’omonimo “movimento” italiano anni’80. Articolo perfetto nel raccontarne storia ed estetica, ma forse un po timido nel mettere a nudo il nocciolo della questione. Impossibile trattenersi dal riempire tale vuoto:
– l’articolo é stato aggiornato dopo la pubblicazione iniziale-
[Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish]
Italy here! Just some observations
1) ALL the (ex?) paninari will say that they didn’t have any social/political/ethical idea just because “we were young and only interested about fun and fashion”
2) ALL the (ex?) paninari grown up developing right-wing sympathy
3) The paninari were openly racist against people from southern Italy (calling them “terroni”: southern douchebag), against every kind of left-ish movement (calling them “china”: chinese communist) and people with un-fashioned clothing and lower economic opportunities (calling them “truzzi”: roughs). If you can read italian language you will easily recognize these features in all the paninari-comicbooks [one example here:http://docmanhattan.blogspot.it/2011/03/ledonismo-violento-dei-fumetti-del.html ] where usually a cool, rich and stylish north-italian guy, subdues and humiliates some south-italian Carabiniere or a bunch of un-fashioned socialists (both portrayed as idiotic losers and cheaters) and ends up conquering a beautiful easy girl.
4) The paninaro style came up in couple of posh High-Schools in Milano, but the media seized it immediately, shaping it trough commercial advertising
5) It’s quite impossible to separate the “paninaro” movement/style/fashion from the commercial brands with which is linked. If you remove Moncler, El Charro, Timberland, Burghy and so on, what remains are only class discrimination and racism. The fact that many (ex?) paninaro still refuse to admit it is because of hypocrisy or because they are still unaware of their true nature.
Manca però un sesto punto che parli del cosiddetto “disimpegno” dei paninari. Gli anni ’80 vengono raccontati come un decennio che cercò di scrollarsi di dosso le brutture degli anni di piombo con una “botta di vita” ma é particolarmente evidente come questo “scrollarsi di dosso” (ed i paninari sono un’ottima rappresentazione di QUESTO aspetto di quegli anni) non fu affatto un superamento delle tensioni sociali, economiche ed ideologiche che caratterizzarono il decennio precedente, bensì un generale “volgersi da un’altra parte”.
Ubriacarsi per dimenticare / Ballare per non pensare Se vi fu una condanna del decennio precedente fu meramente una condanna “estetica” e non etica: si condannarono genericamente gli eccessi ma senza affrontare le questioni di base.
Bandiera bianca: ognuno resti nella propria trincea e tiriamo fuori il vino!
QUEGLI anni ’80, gli anni ’80 dei paninari, son stati anni mascherati da day-after party: ai primi accenni di doposbornia dal decennio precedente si é semplicemente voluti passati ad un diverso tipo di ubriacatura che ha mascherato i sintomi esteriori negativi pur continuando ad alimentare ciò che li aveva causati.
RACCONTARSELA che un cambio di stile sia segno di un cambio di natura é il tratto tipico di chi non vuole fare i conti con la storia e vuole/deve celare agli altri (e magari pure a sé stesso) proprio quella natura che non affronta apertamente.
Non disimpegno, quindi, ma ipocrisia e conformismo, (mal)celati attraverso l’originalità di una codificazione estetica che ironicamente si rivela cartina al tornasole dei tratti essenziali (elitismo, classismo, razzismo, snobismo) da cui se ne comprende facilmente l’etica sottostante.
E’inutile avere notizie corrette, informazioni oneste ed imparziali, fonti non schierate e trasparenza delle istituzioni.
E’inutile per colpa TUA.
E’inutile perché TU, per primo, non ti osservi, non ti metti in discussione e non ti accorgi di essere sbilanciato, di parte, male informato e privo di strumenti adatti a valutare la validità di ciò che leggi.
Il risultato é che anche mettendoti sotto gli occhi dati e informazioni corrette ed imparziali, TU premierai sempre e solo quelle fonti che s’allineano al tuo modo di vedere le cose, che spesso ha più a che fare col tuo inconscio, coi tuoi pregiudizi e con la tua ignoranza che non con i fatti veri e propri.
Certo, hai dei “margini d’accettazione” entro cui sei in grado di accogliere idee che non t’appartengono, ma non ti rendi assolutamente conto di quanto questi tuoi margini siano stretti e superficiali. Il solo fatto di averli, questi margini, t’illude d’essere una persona molto più aperta di quanto tu non sia realmente.
Vivere immersi nelle proprie convinzioni non é diverso dal viaggiare in automobile: il tuo “sapere” é lo strumento/mezzo che ti sei costruito per muoverti più velocemente, raggiungere mete e scansare pericoli. Ma ti fidi a viaggiare su un qualcosa che non hai mai messo VERAMENTE alla prova? Sei la cavia di te stesso e se non sottoponi mai le tue convinzioni a dei test di revisione non potrai mai sapere quanto siano valide e sicure.
Qui si parla di test VERI, capaci di mettere in discussione la validità delle fondamenta di quanto credi. Non illuderti d’averlo già fatto: un vero crash-test può arrivare a spezzare il telaio di una macchina, mentre tu, probabilmente ti sei limitato a distruggere la carrozzeria.
Magari ti accorgi di aver viaggiato tutta la vita su un mezzo capace di superare solo certi ostacoli o che va benissimo solo sulle strade che percorri abitualmente ma s’impantana su percorsi leggermente diversi! Al contrario potresti scoprire che questo mezzo é molto più performante di quanto tu immaginassi perché non l’avevi mai sfruttato fino in fondo. Non lo saprai mai a meno che non sia TU a sottoporre le tue stesse convinzione a stress-test sempre più stringenti.
Ciò significa, tra l’altro, che é inutile attaccare le tue fonti d’informazione quando sei TU il primo ad aver paura di ridiscutere le tue convinzioni.
Casomai, qualora proprio-proprio vi fosse qualche brandello di dubbio nelle tue convinzioni, o ti fossi deciso ad una sana opera di “collaudo e revisione” partendo da ciò che leggi, ecco qui, come spunto iniziale un piccolo Vademecum dei principali tratti comuni delle fonti inattendibili: ossia quei segnali che, qualora rilevati, devono far scattare dei campanelli d’allarme
ALLARMISMO EMOTIVO CICLICO
Compito di una fonte d’informazione é soprattutto dar notizia di quel che non funziona. Ciò che caratterizza la fonte inattendibile é il ricorso continuato ad allarmi dalla forte connotazione emotiva che vengono “spinti” per un determinato lasso di tempo per poi passare ad allarmi più “freschi” in un continuum ciclico infinito.
BANALIZZAZIONE
Una notizia può essere comunicata in maniera riassunta, ridotta all’essenziale, asciugata dei dettagli e rimanere tuttavia ancora corretta. La fonte inattendibile però compie questo lavoro di “asciugatura” in maniera incorretta, tralasciando (volutamente/inconsciamente) aspetti importanti, semplificando troppo e banalizzando la notizia stessa.
MANCANZA DI FONTI / FONTI INATTENDIBILI
Una fonte inattendibile solitamente non indica le proprie fonti o si basa su fonti inattendibili. L’argomento é già stato trattato in un’altro post, ma può esser riassunto così: “Se mi dai un’informazione ma non mi dimostri che é vera e non mi dici come l’hai avuta io devo dubitare”
ESIBIZIONE D’INDIPENDENZA/LIBERTA’
E’ironico notare come le fonti più schierate, di parte e chiuse al dialogo siano spesso quelle che mettono più enfasi nell’esibirsi “liberi pensatori, menti aperte, indipendenti, non schierati”. Che sia il nome della fonte, il suo slogan o la sua bio su Twitter, la forzosa esibizione di queste caratteristiche, ironicamente, é quasi sempre garanzia del suo contrario. Esiste anche la variante “rivelo i segreti” ossia l’insistenza sul fatto che le notizie trasmesse siano state “tenute nascoste” o “censurate” (poco importa che siano su Youtube da anni o che vengano vendute regolarmente in edicola)
SIMPATIA AVVALORANTE
Una fonte, perché sia seguita, deve avere maturato un certo grado di affidabilità. Caratteristica delle fonti inattendibili é spesso quella di essere avvalorate più dalla simpatia popolare che dall’effettivo valore delle informazioni/analisi che dispensa. Capita cioè che un personaggio dello showbiz che magari si limita a esprimere opinioni condivisibili ma banali e poco profonde, goda spesso di un’aura di credibilità superiore a quella di chi propone analisi e descrizioni degli eventi molto più attente e valide, ma meno frizzanti.
SBERLEFFO FORZOSO
La fonte inattendibile spesso attua la sua opera di BANALIZZAZIONE attraverso l’utilizzo sistematico dello sberleffo. Spesso utilizzato in maniera sottile (a alcuni casi non lo si nota ad una prima lettura) l’informazione dello sberleffo non si limita ad essere metafora parziale della realtà (compito della satira) ma pretende d’essere una rappresentazione esatta, anche se buffa, della realtà stessa! Con abile raggiro, ironicamente, a volte lo fa proprio dipingendosi da satira!
SCHIERAMENTO MANICHEO
Va da sé che una fonte visibilmente schierata abbia un’attendibilità parziale e vada sempre presa con le pinze. Attraverso BANALIZZAZIONE e SBERLEFFO FORZOSO la fonte inattendibile ricondurrà sempre allo schema amico/nemico > buono/cattivo > bene/male > bianco/nero. La fonte attendibile, al contrario, non rifiuta di mostrare i diversi “gradi di grigio” della realtà anche nei casi in cui ciò andasse contro il proprio schieramento (una fonte può mantenere un buon grado di attendibilità pur essendo apertamente schierata, se vuole).
DEMONIZZAZIONE DEL NEMICO
Una fonte inattendibile sfrutta ogni occasione per demonizzare il proprio nemico ricorrendo perlopiù a SBERLEFFO FORZOSO ed alla diffusione di notizie pure in MANCANZA DI FONTI. La demonizzazione si differenzia dalla critica in primo luogo per i toni, ma soprattutto per il fatto che la critica é uno scontro di idee, mentre la demonizzazione é semplice tirar fango.
AGGRESSIVITA’ LINGUISTICA
Chi non ha argomenti a favore delle proprie affermazioni aggredisce. In presenza di articoli urlati, titoli allarmistici ed esplosioni d’indignazione sappiamo di trovarci dinnanzi ad una probabilissima fonte inattendibile (a meno che non si tratti di un articolo MOLTO ben documentato e lo scandalo in questione sia proporzionato al tono usato). In questi casi una doccia fredda fa sempre bene.
Ci sarebbero poi altri punti come la coerenza interna, la messa in dubbio e la capacità autocritica della fonte, o l’attendibilità pregressa, ma non possono far parte di questo breve vademecum perché la capacità di vederli ed analizzarli vien dopo l’aver imparato a riconoscere e soppesare i punti già elencati: solo smettendo di giustificare le proprie fonti in base alle proprie convinzioni personali e iniziando un lavoro di critica alle stesse, si potrà capire quanto queste risultino valide o meno.
Oggi TUTTO é “notizia”. Un articolo di giornale, un post su un blog, un tweet, una foto su Instagram, una mail virale, un filmato su Youtube, una clip televisiva: sono tutti strumenti che trasmettono continuamente ROBA.
Video buffi, meme, haiku, barzellette, opinioni personali, battute acide o brillanti, storie personali, bufale, esperienze di vita, balle colossali. Tutto viene trattato più o meno allo stesso modo.
Senza grande distinzione tra una uno scandalo internazionale ed una soubrette fotografata senza mutande, a fare le spese di questo livellamento é soprattutto l’informazione popolare (ossia quell’ammasso di ROBA che la gente ha assorbito e che ritiene essere informazione valida) , non solo perché tratta allo stesso modo lo scandalo e la soubrette, ma perché sempre meno capace di distinguere cosa, di tutta questa ROBA sia una notizia e cosa no.
Il comun denominatore di tutto ciò é l’entertainment: l’interesse verso una notizia é dato dalla sua maggior o minor capacità di suscitare emozioni e raccontare una storia interessante, anziché dall’importanza dei fatti descritti.
Colpa del mercato, della tecnologia, dei lettori e dei giornalisti. Il risultato é che nell’ “era dell’informazione” la maggioranza della popolazione non sa distinguere notizie, gossip e propaganda elettorale.
Spesso, poi, chi anche riesce ancora a comprenderne la differenza non é in grado di affermare se la notizia che legge ha valore o meno.
Bisogna innanzitutto capire cosa sia una notizia, quanto sia utile e quanto sia attendibile.
Una notizia può dirsi tale solamente se contiene informazioni attendibili.
L’utilità di una notizia dipende dal contesto e dal suo grado di valore per la comunità in cui viene diffusa.
L’attendibilità di una notizia dipende dalla propria coerenza e dalla verificabilità ed attendibilità delle sue fonti.
La distinzione tra notizie attendibile ed inattendibile é di certo la più importante perché é una distinzione che funge da grimaldello nel dedurne successivamente il grado di verità, neutralità ed utilità.
A) VERIFICABILITA’ DELLE FONTI
Chi diffonde una notizia deve garantire la verificabilità delle fonti, ossia deve mettere il lettore in condizione di poter accedere il più direttamente possibile la fonte originaria delle informazioni su cui la notizia é basata.
Maggiore é la distanza tra il lettore e le fonti originarie dell’informazione (utilizzo di fonti secondarie o terziarie), minore é la sua verificabilità.
Una fonte verificabile non é automaticamente veritiera: il fatto che una fonte sia verificabile la rende aperta al controllo sulla sua veridicità.
Una fonte non verificabile é automaticamente non attendibile. Ciò non significa che sia falsa ma che il lettore non é messo in condizione di controllare SE sia vera.
Qualora la fonte fosse particolarmente nota, diffusa e conosciuta, l’indicazione esplicita della fonte diventa superflua (Se la notizia riguardasse ad esempio un evento importante avvenuto il giorno stesso e disponibile su diverse piattaforme, siti e trasmissioni tv é lecito ritenere che chi legga sappia benissimo di cosa si stia parlando e come accedervi. Se invece la notizia riguardasse un particolare decreto legge da poco approvato, citarne il testo e linkare la versione integrale sarebbe doveroso)
B) ATTENDIBILITA’ DELLE FONTI
Le fonti di una notizia sono considerate più o meno attendibili a seconda del loro grado di autorevolezza, neutralità, molteplicità, diversificazione e coerenza.
Più le fonti rispondono a queste voci, maggiore sarà la loro attendibilità.
Il rapporto di queste voci e la fonte ha diversi gradi d’importanza a seconda del contesto e del soggetto in esame. Da ciò ne deriva che a seconda del contesto e del soggetto in esame, una fonte potrebbe essere ritenuta attendibile anche se rispondesse debolmente a queste voci, così come potrebbe esser ritenuta non attendibile per il fatto di non rispondere anche ad una sola di queste voci.
AUTOREVOLEZZA
L’autorevolezza di una fonte é sempre e solo relativa al soggetto in esame. Nessuna fonte insomma può esser ritenuta autorevole di per sé. (Un eccellente chirurgo non é necessariamente un esperto di dietologia, così come un bravo cantante non é automaticamente un esperto di politica).
Vi sono ovviamente diversi gradi di autorevolezza in relazione al soggetto in esame attribuibile alla fonte in base al grado di competenza riconosciuta e dimostrata.
L’acquisizione della competenza é relativa agli studi ed all’esperienza sul soggetto in questione.
Il riconoscimento della competenza può manifestarsi con titoli di studio, accettazione in peer review (anche in alcuni casi al di fuori dell’ambito scientifico, qualora all’interno di una comunità relativa al soggetto in questione vi fosse ampia convergenza sulla valutazione della competenza della fonte)
La competenza della fonte può anche esser dimostrata, qualora fosse comprovata da prove scientificamente inconfutabili.
Maggiore é la robustezza con cui la competenza della fonte viene dimostrata e riconosciuta, maggiore sarà il suo grado di autorevolezza. Il fatto che la fonte abbia acquisito competenza anche molto alta sul soggetto in esame, non gli dà autorevolezza se questa non é stata riconosciuta e/o dimostrata.
Ciò non esclude che vi siano fonti che abbiano altissima competenza in grado di fornire informazioni migliori, ma se queste fonti non han mai dimostrato e fatto riconoscere la propria competenza non gli si può attribuire autorevolezza.
NEUTRALITA’
Una fonte neutrale é una fonte equilibrata nei confronti del soggetto in esame. (Un inventore che parla della propria invenzione non é una fonte neutrale, così come un politico schierato pro o contro all’immigrazione non é una fonte neutrale quando diffonde dati sull’immigrazione)
Più la fonte é distaccata ed in grado di fornire una descrizione bilanciata dei fatti, maggiore sarà il suo grado di neutralità.
Per descrizione bilanciata dei fatti s’intende una descrizione dei fatti non macchiata da opinioni esterne alla stessa e che mantiene equidistanza dai diversi attori che riguardano la notizia stessa senza favorirne alcuno.
Per fonte distaccata s’intende una fonte che non abbia alcuna forma di vantaggio nella diffusione della notizia in questione.
MOLTEPLICITA’
Più sono le fonti che confermano le informazioni relative alla notizia, maggiore sarà l’attendibilità della notizia. Il valore della molteplicità é strettamente connesso alla sua diversificazione.
DIVERSIFICAZIONE
Le fonti diversificate sono fonti non neutrali tra di loro, ossia fonti che prese singolarmente hanno caratteri di autorevolezza e neutralità ma che per alcuni motivi dipendenti dal contesto non possono esser considerate relativamente neutrali. (Un’informazione confermata da 10 studiosi provenienti dalla stessa scuola di pensiero é meno diversificata di un’informazione avallata da 4 studiosi provenienti da 4 diverse scuole di pensiero in contrasto fra loro)
Il tipo di diversificazione dipende dal contesto.(Intervistare 100 persone diversissime fra loro, ma tutte provenienti da Milano e sostenitrici del partito X, é una diversificazione minore che intervistare 100 adulti maschi di cinquant’anni da tutt’Italia che votano partiti diversi tra loro, se l’argomento é la politica del Paese)
COERENZA
Per coerenza s’intende una collaborazione congrua e non contraddittoria delle diverse informazioni relative ad una data notizia, sia tra di loro che con l’esperienza comune dell’autore e delle fonti.
Maggiore é la coerenza tra le fonti, maggiore é l’attendibilità delle informazioni stesse. (Se le informazioni provenienti da diverse fonti sono incoerenti tra loro non si avrà una notizia attendibile).
UNA NOTIZIA ATTENDIBILE E’ UNA NOTIZIA CHE PERMETTE LA PROPRIA SMENTITA
Una notizia basata su fonti attendibili che indica apertamente é una notizia che fornisce al lettore gli elementi per poterla verificare e volendo anche smentire. In caso contrario, una notizia basata su [non si sa bene che informazioni] che [non si sa da dove provengono] é qualcosa di indistinguibile da una teoria personale o una bufala poiché la sua verifica richiede lo stesso tipo di impegno.
Non significa che per questo sia vera: significa che é stata diffusa in modo corretto, dando la possibilità a chi legge di informarsi il meglio possibile e di correggere e smentire eventuali falsità.
Non significa nemmeno che sia neutrale: l’autore della notizia, pur basandosi su fonti autorevoli e neutrali, potrebbe aver esposto il tutto in una forma non neutrale.
Non significa nemmeno che sia utile: una notizia vera e neutrale redatta come si deve e basata su fonti attendibili e verificabili che riguardasse il nuovo taglio di capelli del cantante del momento, per quanto seguito, forse interesserà i suoi fan e il mondo della moda, ma non il notiziario nazionale.
ALCUNI ESEMPI
Se l’informazione da trasmettere é “c’é una coda sulla A2”, tre persone diverse che si trovano in quella coda e intervistate telefonicamente posso esser ritenute fonti abbastanza attendibili per valutare la situazione in quanto, nonostante non siano responsabili del traffico e siano coinvolti emotivamente nel fatto, relativamente al soggetto in esame il loro grado di attendibilità é più che sufficiente, poiché valutare se c’é o non c’é una coda non richiede grandi livelli di attendibilità.
Al contrario, se l’informazione da verificare é un crimine di guerra avvenuto in zone remote e con pochi testimoni, il grado di attendibilità richiesto sarà altissimo.
In casi in cui mille di persone diversissime e non toccate direttamente dal soggetto in esame, tra cui anche alcuni specialisti sul soggetto in esame, diffondessero diverse informazioni coerenti relative ad una determinata notizia, il fatto che tutte queste fonti siano legate da una comune appartenenza culturale-politico-religiosa non neutrale nei confronti del soggetto in esame, minerebbe alla base l’attendibilità di tutti i mille
Due più due fa cinque. Bisogna accettarlo: E’COSI’ PERCHE’ LO DICONO TUTTI.
Non importa essersi informati, aver seguito centinaia di lezioni, imparato a memoria le tabelline, ottenuto una laurea in matematica: se ti trovi di fronte due o più persone che sostengono che 2+2=5 tu, che sostieni faccia 4, sei un povero sfigato bastiancontrario in minoranza che “non capisce”.
O peggio: se anziché limitarti a sostenere che “due più due fa quattro e non cinque” hai l’ardire di indicare prove materiali a tuo favore (schemi delle tabelline, testi di matematica ecc), con ogni probabilità verrai tacciato d’esser [ noioso / pesante / arrogante / antipatico / stressante / fondamentalista / troppo rigido ].
ATTENZIONE: qui non si parla di divergenze d’opinioni ma di pura e semplice negazione di fatti.
OPINIONI VS. DESCRIZIONI DELLA REALTA’
Se Gianni sostiene che “il Gran Canyon é più bello della muraglia cinese” e Pinotto che “la muraglia cinese é più bella del Gran Canyon” si tratta di una divergenza d’opinioni, ossia considerazioni personali non misurabili e prive di valore oggettivo.
Se Gianni invece sostenesse che “la muraglia cinese divide la Louisiana dall’Arizona” non ci troveremmo più di fronte ad un’opinione personale ma ad una descrizione della realtà che pertanto può esser misurata in gradi di veridicità a seconda della sua maggior o minor capacità di rappresentare coerentemente la realtà conosciuta.
A GIANNI NON INTERESSA LA REALTA’
Se Gianni sostenesse che “la muraglia cinese divide la Louisiana dall’Arizona“, per dimostrare che la muraglia cinese sta in Cina potresti mostrare fotografie, guide di viaggio, atlanti, documentari, testimonianze di amici cinesi, libri di storia. Ma tutto ciò potrebbe essere inutile.
Non per colpa dei tuoi atlanti o delle tue fotografie. Non per colpa del tuo amico cinese o delle tue guide di viaggio. Ma per colpa di Gianni stesso. Si perché fondamentalmente A GIANNI NON INTERESSA LA REALTA’. Non cerca riscontri oggettivi alle proprie credenze. Non mette in discussione le proprie convinzioni.
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
Gianni é talmente abituato a stare nella sua prigione di convinzioni (anche se non é detto ci si trovi poi così comodo) che la difenderà a spada tratta, percependo come un attacco qualunque cosa potesse anche solo potenzialmente intaccarla. Perché Gianni ha paura ad uscire da quella prigione che conosce benissimo ed in cui sa come muoversi. Ecco che quindi Gianni bollerà tutte le prove in grado di distruggere la sua convinzioni come “roba noiosa da leggere, poco interessante, di parte e magari anche falsa”.
Brooks, dopo aver passato l’intera vita in carcere, alla notizia della sua scarcerazione tenta di uccidere un altro detenuto per prolungare la sua stessa prigionia (Le ali della libertà)
UN CRIMINE
Se la stupidità é una condizione sfortunata e pericolosa e l’ignoranza é una condizione risolvibile, la negazione della conoscenza é certamente un crimine.
Negando di affrontare l’evidenza, quindi, Gianni commette un crimine di cui é il solo responsabile.
COLPA DI GIANNI E DI CHI LO NUTRE
Pur non discolpando Gianni é comunque innegabile che la sua negazione della realtà derivi ANCHE all’humus culturale in cui é immerso. Perché vi sono anche molti altri “Gianni” a cui fa comodo che Gianni stesso resti com’é e fanno di tutto per alimentarlo e stimolarlo con cibi adatti a mantenerlo così.
Come un alcolizzato che fin da giovane é stato spinto a preferire i liquori in base al maggior tasso alcolico e non in base ad un gusto addestrato da corsi da sommelier, a Gianni é sempre e solo stato insegnato a descrivere/descriversi grossolanamente la realtà; più con la pancia che attraverso analisi logica e riscontri oggettivi.
A ciò hanno contribuito l’ambiente in cui é cresciuto, la famiglia in cui ha vissuto, gli amici che si é scelto, gli insegnanti che più l’hanno coinvolto, le cose che ha letto e sentito.
Se Gianni non ha una propensione personale a documentarsi e l’ambiente in cui é cresciuto lo ha abituato a leggere poco e/o a leggere male sarà sicuramente molto più a suo agio nella fruizione di testi che rispondono con semplicità alla sua pancia. Si troverà più a suo agio coi brevi servizi di Striscia la Notizia e con gli schiamazzi populisti che con la lettura di OpenData come dati Istat ed Eurostat o con testi troppo articolati e complessi.
Se poi Gianni si trova in un ambiente particolarmente avverso ai valori di precisione, merito, ricerca, dialogo ed analisi come l’Italia attuale (NB: non che all’estero sia tutto meglio, ma qui gli italici modelli di riferimento stan facendo danni a livelli diversissimi e in tutti i campi) una certa colpa va addossata pure all’humus di cultura popolare italiana.
Viste le premesse non stupisce il fatto che il dialogo nazionale vada avanti a colpi di emergenze emotive. Con la spinta degli introiti da grandi numeri e la scusante esteriore della simpatia si é lasciato sempre più spazio ad un tipo di comunicazione eccessiva, semplicistica ed inaccurata.
PROPAGANDA AUTORIGENERANTE
Ogni giorno escono a ritmi frenetici migliaia di articoli, post, commenti, tweet e servizi formanti un flusso mastodontico che investe la persona, la quale ormai si percepisce sempre meno figura che deve cercare le informazioni utili, e più utente raggiunto dalle notizie.
La mole di notizie che investono la persona la obbligano ad impiegare il suo tempo in un’operazione di rapidissima e frenetica scrematura quantitativa dei dati. Per ogni articolo letto per intero sono stati scartati decine e decine di titoli e foto che tuttavia, passando davanti agli occhi della persona vengono letti ed assorbiti.
A causa del gran numero e la rapidità con cui questi brandelli d’informazione passano sotto gli occhi di tutti, DI FATTO l’immaginario popolare viene plasmato più facilmente da immagini come questa che da argomenti che illustrano la realtà scientifica dei fatti (ossia chei migranti che giungono in Italia sono più sani degli italiani stessi):
(bufala priva di fondamento)
Allarmi di questo tipo vengono lanciati continuamente sui social network per esser visualizzati, rigirati, riportati, riscritti, copiati, rilanciati e, qualora ottenessero un certo successo, fatti proprio da blogger, giornalisti e politici che, per ottenere visibilità/visualizzazioni/consenso rilanceranno con maggior forza.
Il nostro Gianni, dopo aver esser stato raggiunto qualche decina o centinaia di volte da notizie simili avrà sicuramente assorbito il meme “gli immigrati portano l’ebola” e non andrà ad informarsi oltre: se ha già pregiudizi verso gli immigrati avrà già fatto sua quest’idea. Poco importa che sia tutta una balla e la realtà sia esattamente l’opposto (ossia che gli immigrati, più che portare malattie si ammalano quando arrivano in Italia).
Oltre alle bufale vere e proprie circolano allo stesso modo mezze verità, letture parziali dei fatti, esagerazioni gargantuesche ed ipersemplificazioni in un deleterio mix in cui un servizio al telegiornale può parlare di uno scambio di tweet tra un politico ed una soubrette a proposito di un’allarme-bufala lanciato da un blog che ha citato una frase falsa attribuita alla moglie del direttore del telegiornale, scatenando schiere di tifosi da smartphone che si lanciano in battaglie a suon di tweet, post e like a favore o contro la notizia. L’informazione diventa intrattenimento-spettacolo e le diverse opinioni vengono irregimentate in tifo da stadio. La natura stessa dei social network tende a premiare proprio quest’ultimo aspetto, livellando i dialoghi al minimo comun denominatore (tu tiri pietra – io lancio sasso) rendendolo DI FATTO il modo moderno di “dialogare”.
TUTTO QUESTO SENZA MAI VERIFICARE LA VERIDICITÀ’ DELLE AFFERMAZIONI LETTE E SOSTENUTE
La mancata distinzione tra informazione ed intrattenimento crea di fatto una forma di propaganda autorigenerante in cui sono le stesse persone suggestionate ad alimentare unilateralmente ciò che li ha suggestionati riproponendolo e rinnovandolo, distruggendo la distinzione fatta ad inizio di questo articolo, tra opinione e descrizione della realtà.
Ecco come negli ultimi anni il chiacchiericcio del momento é stato preso in ostaggio dai diversi Frame (sempre nuovi perché lo storytelling deve sempre essere fresco e affascinante):
“pericolo lavavetri”, “imprenditori suicidi”, “boom stupri”, “mandiamo a casa la casta”, “Berlusconi innocente”, “Toghe rosse”, “scandalo auto blu”, “Corona incarcerato per una foto”, “i clandestini ci stanno invadendo”, “questo governo non é stato votato”, “ridateci i nostri marò”, “L’Europa ci comanda” oltre a decine e decine di “rivelazioni” mai fatte, “ricerche” irreperibili. Il tutto utilizzando perlopiù un linguaggio urlato a volte cartoonesco, ma sempre attento più alla forma accattivante che all’attendibilità del contenuto.
Il risultato é l’aver impantanato ogni dialogo nazionale in uno sciocco chiacchiericcio monopolizzato da meme che sostituiscono la realtà dei fatti e che all’orecchio di chi si é preso la briga di documentarsi suonano assurde come “La muraglia cinese divide la Louisiana dall’Arizona” o “due più due fa cinque”. Ma guai a negarle! Se ci provassi verresti subito tacciato di essere via via noioso / poco interessante / di parte / arrogante / radical chic / il solito sessantottino / uno dei centri sociali / fascista / anarchico / marziano.
Non c’é che adattarsi. Prendere una pastiglia omeopatica, farsi fare un massaggio shiatsu, chattare su Facebook a proposito di quel post letto di sfuggita e mi ha indignato tanto per poi andare in centro (stando ovviamente lontano tutti i negri per non prender malattie) a comprare quel nuovo prodotto “bio” che tutti dicono faccia benissimo. Ma prima dovrò prelevare dei contanti alla mia banca che sarà certo in mano a degli ebrei.
Se tre quarti dei media italiani ripetessero continuamente per mesi che “gli avvocati sono la causa dei mali dell’Italia” possiamo star certi che quest’idea s’intrufolerebbe trasversalmente nei pensieri e nei discorsi fatti tra il più micragnoso bar di provincia e le aule del Parlamento.
Alcuni esempi sono i vari “Invasione di clandestini”, “pericolo lavavetri”, “scandalo auto blu”, “attenzione alla propaganda gay”, “italiani brava gente”, “i terroristi tra noi”, “ridateci i nostri Marò”: basta che il concetto venga ripetuto di continuo, sia semplice e faccia appiglio su sentire comune e mancata conoscenza dell’argomento perché faccia breccia.
Ripetizione continua? Ipersemplificazione? Base pregiudiziale? Stimolo dell’indignazione? Piglio emotivo? Assenza di riferimenti verificati? Ma, oh, guarda, non é mica niente di nuovo: é la nostra solita, vecchia, cara amica PROPAGANDA!
Veniamo a noi: metti insieme un Paese in cui dilaga l’analfabetismo costituzionale, delle rumorosissime opposizioni non nuove all’ indignazione facile fornite di un parco mediatico gigantesco (Forza Italia, Movimento Cinque Stelle, Lega Nord) ed ecco così che anche una bestialità come “Questo governo non é stato votato dal popolo” prende piede nei discorsi della #ggente.
Ecco, questo é il mantra [meme/frame] che i partiti d’opposizione di destra ripetono continuamente a partire dalle dimissioni di Berlusconi e conseguente nomina del governo Monti nel Dicembre 2011.
Ma la nomina del governo italiano é regolata dalla costituzione e dalla legge elettorale:
COSTITUZIONE
La Nomina del Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri é regolata dagli articoli della Costituzione 92, 93, 95, 96.In particolare il 92 dice:
Il Governo della Repubblica è composto del Presidente del Consiglio e dei ministri, che costituiscono insieme il Consiglio dei ministri.
Il Presidente della Repubblica nomina il Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri e, su proposta di questo, i ministri.
La nomina é preceduta dalla prassi di consultazioni con i diversi partiti e che é ben spiegata qui
(PS: potete scaricare la Costituzione gratis da qui, sono una quarantina di paginette scritte in italiano semplice-semplice e leggerla non provoca nessun effetto collaterale nocivo)
LE LEGGI ELETTORALI DAL 1946 AD OGGI
Le leggi elettorali, che come tutte le leggi devono attenersi alle linee della Costituzione, definiscono i meccanismi elettivi: la suddivisione del territorio in seggi, le soglie di sbarramento, la possibilità o meno di indicare preferenze ecc.
– Dal 1993 al 2005 si é votato secondo laLegge Mattarella (soprannominato “Mattarellum” sia come storpiatura del nome dell’autore che come riferimento al fatto che la legge tentasse d’ avvicinarsi agli effetti di un sistema maggioritario pur restando un sistema proporzionale)
– Attualmente si é al lavoro sul nuovo sistema soprannominato “Italicum” il cui funzionamento é spiegato qui
QUINDI, IN SOLDONI
1) Il popolo vota dei partiti in base alla legge elettorale vigente
2) I partiti eleggono il Presidente della Repubblica
3) il Presidente della Repubblica nomina un Presidente del Consiglio, il quale propone i suoi Ministri
4) il Presidente della Repubblica incarica il nuovo Governo
5) Se in un qualche momento, il Parlamento nega la propria fiducia al Governo in carica, il Presidente della Repubblica dovrà nominare un nuovo Presidente del Consiglio e dovrà ripetere i punti 3 e 4. Idem se il governo cade anzitempo (Si, esiste anche la possibilità di indire elezioni anticipate, ma per fortuna vi é un margine di discrezionalità: far seguire ad un’elezione che ha portato a governi instabili un’elezione anticipata che porterà a governi altrettanto instabili non gioverebbe alla popolazione).
ERGO
Dire che “il governo ci é stato imposto” significa [ignorare/negare/fingere di non conoscere] sia l’esistenza della Costituzione che della legge elettorale.
Si possono ridiscutere e riscrivere entrambe, ma non far caciara come se non esistessero.
OH, THE IRONY (MEMORIA CORTA=PROPAGANDA LUNGA)
Non si può non notare con ironia che chi più di tutti si é fatto promotore dal 2011 del meme/frame“il governo ci é stato imposto” son proprio quelle stesse forze politiche (Forza Italia e Lega Nord) che nel 2005 erano a capo del governo (Governo Berlusconi III) ed hanno scritto, approvato e votato la Legge Calderoli, indicata come una delle principali cause della formazione di governi instabili e che non si é mai mossa (come invece propugnava) nel tentativo di trasformare l’Italia in una Repubblica presidenziale (al limite ha agitato la proposta su quotidiani e talk-show). Chi é causa del suo mal…
C’é una casa ad Abzimu, una piccola località ad ovest di Aleppo verso Idlib. E’ la casa del capo del consiglio rivoluzionario locale. Questa casa é il luogo di riferimento di tre italiani giunti ad Aleppo da poche ore: Daniele Raineri, un giornalista de Il Foglio, Greta Ramelli e Vanessa Marzullo, due cooperanti volontarie fondatrici del progetto Horryaty.
-il post é stato aggiornato dopo la pubblicazione iniziale-
DANIELE RAINERI
Daniele é un reporter spesso presente in zone a rischio . Non é la prima volta che entra in Siria da quando sono iniziati i conflitti ed é stato proprio lui a portare le ragazze alla casa del capo del consiglio rivoluzionario. Daniele parla l’arabo ed é in contatto col Free Syrian Army, la principale forza della coalizione anti-Assad che nei suoi articoli appoggia apertamente (tanto che in alcune occasioni ha pubblicato notizie anti-Assad poi rivelatesi infondate).
GRETA RAMELLI E VANESSA MARZULLO
Greta e Vanessa sono due attiviste del volontariato internazionale con qualche esperienza sul campo: Greta studia scienze infermieristiche; é volontaria presso l’”Organizzazione Internazionale di soccorso“ (Croce Rossao Mezzaluna Rossa che dir si voglia); nel 2011 ha passato quattro mesi in Zambia come volontaria tra i malati di AIDS e nel 2012 ha assistito per tre settimane la popolazione degli slum di Calcutta. Vanessa studia mediazione linguistica e culturale, mastica un po l’arabo ed é pure lei volontaria presso l’Organizzazione Internazionale di soccorso.
(L’ASSISTENZA UMANITARIA IN SIRIA)
Prima che scoppiassero i conflitti era presente sul territorio una piccola ma valida rete caritatevole ed alcune organizzazioni dedite allo sviluppo sostenibile che dall’inizio della guerra fatica non poco a restare in piedi. Attualmente sono diverse le organizzazioni umanitarie presenti nelle aree di conflitto e nei Paesi adiacenti (Qui un elencodelle associazioni partnerUNHCR presenti) con volontari di diverse nazionalità non di rado under 25 che danno un aiuto fondamentale nel mantenere salda la comunità siriana. Molte delle ONG italiane presenti aderiscono alla Piattaforma delle Ong Italiane in Medio Oriente e Mediterraneo, il cui proposito é aiutare e migliorare il coordinamento tra diverse associazioni. La Croce Rossa Italiana, in missione dal 2012, ad aprile 2013 aveva ancora chiesto“[…] alla Comunità Internazionale di accendere i riflettori sul mancato rispetto del ruolo dei soccorritori. Dall’inizio del conflitto sono 17 i volontari della Mezzaluna Rossa Siriana uccisi mentre prestavano opera di soccorso. Una violazione inammissibile”.”
Ci si scontra pure con la burocrazia: le organizzazioni umanitarie hanno il permesso teorico del governo siriano di muoversi liberamente, ma per ogni singolo spostamento bisogna richiedere e riuscire ad ottenere permessi (vedi PDF). Permessi che vanno richiesti con giorni d’anticipo fornendo i dati dei viaggiatori, dei mezzi che utilizzeranno. La richiesta viene fatta passare prima dal SARC , poi dal ministero degli affari esteri, poi ritorna al SARC che preparerà i lasciapassare per i checkpoint (vedi PDF). Questo se tutto fila liscio: le richieste burocratiche a volte diventano particolarmente fantasiose. Le difficoltà implicite nel conflitto e gli inghippi burocratici fanno si che nonostante l’impegno di molti siano numerose le aree che non vengono raggiunte dall’assistenza.
IL PRIMO VIAGGIO IN SIRIA, I CONTATTI ED HORRYATY
Per Greta e Vanessa quello del 2014 in cui sono state rapite non é il primo viaggio in Siria. Nel 2012 il loro interesse ed impegno s’era concentrato sul dramma della guerra civile siriana ed avevano maturato l’intenzione di partecipare attivamente agli aiuti sul campo. Si eran messe in contatto con la comunità dei siriani residenti in Italia (link 1link 2link 3) e con l’IPSIA, l’ ONG delle ACLI che si occupa di cooperazione e volontariato all’estero. Prestano aiuto volontario quasi ogni giorno in uno dei primi centri di accoglienza per profughi sirianiin Via Novara a Milano, che raggiungono ogni giorno dai loro paesi in provincia di Bergamo ed é probabile che sia stato proprio qui, ascoltando le testimonianze dei profughi che assistono, che hanno maturato la convinzione di schierarsi contro Assad.
Proprio assieme ad un membro dell’IPSIA, Roberto Andervill, nel marzo 2014 avevano raggiunto per la prima volta la Siria in una Missione di sopralluogo passando attraverso il confine turco (822km di pianura, ma la maggior parte dei volontari,giornalisti e combattenti passa attraverso una fascia ben delimitatalunga poche decine di km).
Non ci vuole molto: aereo per Istanbul, si raggiunge il confine siriano con una macchina a noleggio, in treno o con un secondo volo (da Istanbul a Gaziantep c’é quasi un volo ogni ora, per dire). Arrivati sul posto ci si fa aiutare da qualche contatto conosciuto in precedenza che ti aiuta a passare illegalmente il confine con la Siria (o si trova qualcuno disponibile sul posto che lo fa per poche lire).
Robertosvolge missioni all’estero fin dal 1998(Gaza, Kosovo) e da qualche tempo anche lui era interessato alla Siria. Accompagnati da guardie siriane avevano raggiunto le zone rurali di Idlib dove, “sempre accompagnati e scortati da personale locale, con un alto grado di sicurezza” hanno avuto modo di valutare direttamente la situazione instaurando un primo rapporto con la popolazione locale, stringendo contatti sul posto e rilevando le problematiche presenti in due centri di primo soccorso (personale inadatto e materiali carenti).
Al rientro in Italia Greta, Vanessa e Roberto avevano creato il progetto di assistenza sanitaria Horryaty il cui scopo era portare primo soccorso al Free Syrian Army distribuendo kit di salvataggio destinati ai combattenti anti-Assad e farmaci ai pazienti affetti da malattie croniche. Horriaty non é una ONG o una Onlus ma una semplice associazione di fatto tra tre persone che organizzavano manifestazioni e raccolte fondi.
Scopo del secondo viaggio era organizzare e spedire dalla Turchia alla Siria un container con quei beni di prima necessità e medicinali difficilmente reperibili cui durante il primo viaggio avevano osservato la mancanza nei centri di primo soccorso. Prendono tutti i contatti necessari, scoprono dove e come procurarsi il materiale necessario. Trattano sui prezzi. Chiedono alle aziende di donare qualcosa. Alla fine riescono a riempire e far arrivare in Siria un container con beni di prima necessità come cibo, medicinali comuni, quasi una tonnellata di latte in polvere e i sudati medicinali rari.
(LE COALIZIONI IN LOTTA)
Nel caos siriano é possibile vedere almeno quattro coalizione opposte tra loro ognuna delle quali lotta contro le altre ed é formata da diverse forze e formazioni armate:
REPUBBLICA ARABA DI SIRIA (GOVERNO ASSAD / ALAWITI / SCIITI / NAZIONALISTI / SOCIALISMO ARABO) Composta da: Esercito siriano (laico), Shabiha (volontari alawiti), Forza Nazionale di difesa (laico, multireligioso), Brigate Ba’ath (paramilitari alawiti e sciiti), Jaysh al-Sha’bi (paramilitari alawiti e sciiti), Brigata al’Abbas (paramilitari sciiti), Pasdaran iraniani (sciiti), Khazali (paramilitari sciiti), Hezbollah (nazionalisti sciiti), Resistenza Siriana (marxisti nazionalisti), Jaysh al-Muwahhideen (drusi), FPLP (nazionalisti marxisti palestinesi), Guardia Nazionalista Araba (milizia volontaria nazionalista pan-arabista), altri gruppi filogovernativi. Le forze governative sono supportate da Russia, Iran, Corea del Nord, Iraq. Indirettamente anche da Cina, Venezuela, Bielorussia, Algeria.
COALIZIONE NAZIONALE SIRIANA (RIBELLI / SUNNITI / JIHADISTI) Composta da: Free Syrian Army (laici), fronte al-Nusra (jihadisti sunniti affiliati ad al-Quaeda), Fronte Islamico (jihadisti sunniti finanziati dall’Arabia Saudita), Esercito dei Mujaheddeen (coalizione di diversi gruppi ribelli sunniti, jihadisti e no). La coalizione é supportata da USA, Turchia, Arabia Saudita e Quatar. Indirettamente anche da Regno Unito e Francia.
L’ISIS Lo Stato Islamico (jihadisti sunniti) ha fatto parte della Coalizione Nazionale Siriana fino al 3 gennaio 2014, dopodiché ne é uscito per proseguire un piano di conquista tutto suo.
IL COMITATO SUPREMO CURDO Formato da YPG (esercito curdo di tendenza socialista), Pashmerga (volontari curdi iracheni), PKK (rivoluzionari socialisti / irredentisti curdi), altre formazioni.
(GLI OBIETTIVI DELLE COALIZIONI)
Senza addentrarci troppo nei perché e nei percome di questo conflitto si può solo riassumere in maniera un po sbrigativa che:
I ribelli vogliono abbattere il governo Assad ma non si sa bene con cosa lo sostituirebbero (si teme purtroppo una sorta di ’79 iraniano di stampo sunnita e jihadista)
Le forze governative vogliono riappropriarsi del territorio e mantenere al potere la minoranza allawita-sciita.
I curdi difendono i loro territori storici (pur mirando sempre ad uno stato curdo che unisca il proprio popolo diviso tra Turchia, Siria ed Iraq) .
L’ISIS mira alla formazione di un nuovo califfato indipendente ed autosufficiente che comprende (per il momento) ampie aree di Siria ed Iraq.
(IL FREE SYRIAN ARMY)
Il Free Syrian Army, la forza armata che Greta, Daniele e Vanessa sostengono, é formata dai disertori dell’esercito governativo. Dispone di circa 100.000 uominied é il principale membro della Coalizione nazionale siriana (anti-Assad). Appoggia il Consiglio nazionale siriano in esilio. Viene supportata da USA, Francia, Turchia, Regno Unito, Qatar ed Arabia Saudita. La Lega Araba, così come l’Italiariconosceil Consiglio Nazionale Siriano in esilio anziché Assad e quindi si può quasi dire che di conseguenza si riconosce nelle posizioni del F.S.A. Anche se il Free Syrian Army é una formazione laica, si trova in coalizione con formazioni jihadiste e sono già stati osservati all’interno del Free Syrian Army personalità filo-jihadiste (qualcuno parla di “infiltrati”). I rapporti tra i diversi membri della coalizione sono a dir poco tesi, nonostante facciano fronte comune.
(VOLONTARIATO NON NEUTRALE)
Daniele, Greta e Vanessa, quindi, non sono andati in Siria a portare semplice aiuto umanitario a tutti ma si sono schierati con i ribelli, contro Assad e contro l’ISIS. Il fatto di non essere neutrali né imparziali é una chiara scelta politica cui é possibile muovere diverse critiche ma per fare un esempio opposto Emergency porta le sue cure sia agli aggrediti che agli aggressori ed é a sua volta criticato per il fatto di “aiutare il nemico“. Che si sia schierati o si sia neutrali, insomma, piovono comunque addosso critiche.
IL TERZO VIAGGIO E IL RAPIMENTO
Partite a fine luglio, anche stavolta accompagnate da Daniele. Impiegano i primi giorni a passare il confine turco e raggiungere Aleppo. Prima ancora di mettersi in viaggio, attraverso i loro contatti siriani residenti in Italia ed ai contatti sul territorio conosciuti nel primo viaggio, avevano già programmato di partecipare ad un corso per civili e militari sui componenti del kit di primo soccorso e il loro utilizzo.
31 Luglio. E’la quarta notte dall’arrivo in Siria. Greta e Vanessa sono arrivate oggi ad Aleppo e sono ospitate nella casa del capo del consiglio rivoluzionario locale. Daniele no: passerà la notte in un’altra casa distante 25 chilometri a sud, appartenente ad un ex soldato delle forze speciali di Assad.
Le ragazze sono in casa da poche ore, quando arrivano due macchine con alcuni uomini a volto coperto che le prelevano, le bendano e le portano via. Gli uomini parlano poco. In inglese.
Alle cinque del mattino, nella casa in cui sta Daniele, qualcuno batte dei colpi alla porta. Sono due siriani: “Hanno sequestrato le due italiane. Stanno cercando anche te”. Chi ha rapito Greta e Vanessa ha chiesto informazioni su Daniele. I ribelli organizzano una macchina ed una scorta per Daniele e lo portano di corsa verso il confine turco. Un’ora dopo aver passato il confine chiama la Farnesina per informare dell’accaduto, che gli impone riserbo totale.
LA NOTIZIA
La notizia del rapimento giunge in Italia, ma il silenzio imposto dalla Farnesina ed il mancato legame delle due ragazze alle principali ONG ed Onlus riduce le uniche informazioni immediatamente disponibili alla sola pagina Facebook del progetto Horriaty.
Diverse testate riportano la notizia nei seguenti termini:
1) TAG: #ragazzine #rapite #Siria #volontarie #impreparate
2) FOTO: alcune foto pubblicate sulla pagina Facebook di Horryaty in cui le due ragazze si abbracciano allegramente o sorridono con la bandiera siriana in mano
E’ su questa notizia che si raccoglie l’ *indignazione di tre giorni* del momento, e su cui confluisce il solito circo di voci grosse e indignate
LA PRIGIONIA
Nel frattempo Greta e Vanessa restano in mano dei loro rapitori. Cambiano cinque o sei volte il luogo di prigionia, pur restando sempre nel nord della Siria. Gli spostamenti avvengono in macchina con le ragazze incappucciate. I carcerieri non sono mai gli stessi. Sono sia uomini che donne. Si presentano a volto coperto non rivelando né la propria identità né la fazione d’appartenenza. Greta e Vanessa non subiscono alcuna violenza fisica; quasi non vengono toccate (“solo una volta ci hanno afferrato per un braccio… Dovevamo stare in silenzio…”) Non vengono mai minacciate di morte. Non sentono notizie su altri sequestrati. Ricevono poco cibo e soffrono la fame. Pur non sapendo chi siano i rapitori capiscono che non si tratta dell’ISIS ma non escludono si tratti di al-Quaeda. Uno dei carcerieri farfugliava qualcosa in inglese. Nell’ultimo periodo di prigionia hanno avuto l’impressione che i carcerieri avessero qualche simpatia o vicinanza con al-Nusra
Il 31 dicembre 2014 compare su Youtube un video in cui si vedono Greta e Vanessa abbigliate con chador dinnanzi a un muro bianco. Vanessa regge un foglio con la data “17/12/14 Wednesday” mentre Greta legge un breve messaggio in inglese in cui fa appello allo Stato italiano.
LA LIBERAZIONE
Il 16 gennaio 2015 viene diffusa la notizia della liberazione di Greta e Vanessa. Da un account Twitter ritenuto vicino ai ribelli siriani giunge la notizia che sarebbe stato pagato un riscatto di 12 milioni di dollari.
LE REAZIONI DELL’OPINIONE PUBBLICA
La notizia del pagamento del riscatto rimbalza sui social network e riaccende l’ *indignazione di tre giorni* del momento. La chiacchera sul riscatto é ancor più accesa di quella avvenuta al momento del rapimento ed ha polarizzato le solite posizioni:
– a destra vigono la massima disinformazione ed i peggiori rigurgiti di infamie ed offese impronunciabile verso le due ragazze. L’episodio viene amplificato esfruttato politicamentecome mezzo per attaccare il governo in carica alimentando l’indignazione della SMIF (vedi sotto)
– a sinistra é in atto una difesa a spada tratta delle due ragazze, dipinte come eroiche eroine che si lanciano sprezzantemente in gesti nobiltà (minimizzando sullo scarso supporto organizzativo delle due)
La parte più impressionante del flame generato dalla notizia della liberazione dietro riscatto é al solito la valanga di insulti, bufale, insinuazioni e dichiarazione inique provenienti non solo dalla Solita Massa di Indivanati Forcaioli (SMIF), ma pure da noti esponenti politici (ad esempio Salvini e Gasparri) e giornali (in particolare Libero, Il Giornale e Il Fatto Quotidiano) che hanno pubblicato testi assolutamente vergognosi lanciandosi in rozze e grottesche insinuazioni sulle due ragazze.
Lecito porsi dubbi sull’intenzionalità dell’affondo quando proviene essenzialmente da chi ha tutto l’interesse nello sfruttare qualunque argomento per colpire il governo in carica (guarda caso in questa descrizione rientrano proprio Salvini, Gasparri, Libero, il Giornale e Il Fatto Quotidiano) ma qui non ho granché voglia di perdere tempo a discutere degli interessi di costoro.
Faccio solo un breve appunto a titolo d’esempio su questo articolo in cui Maurizio Belpietro, con la scusa di parlare di #GretaeVanessa: 1) Sfotte il ministro degli esteri, 2) Semina dubbi su TUTTE le ONG, 3) Semina insicurezza “deducendo” da un articolo de Il Fatto Quotidiano che se i Carabinieri intercettano dei siriani residenti in Italia ci deve per forza essere una rete di supporto finanziario ai jihadista (che però chiama genericamente “combattenti islamici” dimenticandosi che molti combattenti islamici combattono proprio contro i jihadisti), 4) Dà per appurato che i rapitori fossero di Al-Nusra (“una banda vicina ad Al Qaeda” – forse é anche vero, ma Belpietro non ha elementi per dichiararlo con certezza), 5) Attacca le ragazze perché aiutavano i combattenti (il che é interessante se detto da Belpietro che ha sempre attaccato Emergency per il fatto di non essere schierato e curare chiunque), 6) Sminuisce la rete di contatti di Greta e Vanessa chiamandoli semplicemente “amici” come se parlasse di scolaretti, 7) Parla esplicitamente di tagliagole senza avere elementi per sapere se i rapitori fossero milizie dell’ISIS o meno, come se desse per scontato il binomio siriano=tagliagole, 8) Semina dubbi sulle capacità dei Carabinieri (senza specificare cosa, secondo lui, avrebbero dovuto fare), 9) Semina insicurezza dando per scontato che siano stati i contatti italiani ad “agevolare” (sic.) il sequestro della “fiorente industria dei rapimenti” (ma senza avere elementi per affermarlo), 10) Semina odio religioso dando per scontato che qualunque miliziano, se mussulmano, é un boia. Per finire attacca nuovamente il governo attraverso la figura del ministro Gentiloni, dipingendo una situazione di insicurezza nazionale “(la gente che aiuta i combattenti l’abbiamo in casa)” ed incapacità economica (i soldi dei contribuenti).
Peccato che l’articolo sia un concentrato di idee pregiudiziali non dimostrate e insinuazioni, il cui unico risultato a lungo termine é diffondere insicurezza e rabbia verso il governo, infischiandosene del fatto che i jihadisti italiani sono pochi, e del fatto che il governo Berlusconi (tanto amato da Belpietro) pagò diversi riscatti durante la guerra in Iraq.
Lungo e penoso elencare tutte le schifezze lette e sentite in questi giorni. Devo però far notare che nel documentarmi per questo post ho faticato non poco nel reperire alcune informazioni dovendo navigare tra decine di articoli e pagine letteralmente sommersi di insulti, infamie, frecciatine e ipotesi non documentate spacciate per fatti conclamati. Sembra di tornare indietro di secoli, quando “giornalai” francesi pubblicavano osceni libercoli che davano sfogo alla rabbia popolare attribuendo alla nobiltà (in particolare modo Maria Antonietta) ogni genere di sconcezza.
DIETRO LE QUINTE
Ben poco é dato sapere su quel che riguarda i “dietro le quinte” del rapimento. Come sempre in questi casi. Forse sapremo tutto tra qualche anno. Forse non lo sapremo mai. Forse sappiamo già tutto quel che c’é da sapere ma non riusciamo a distinguerlo dai depistaggi (voluti) e dalle minchiate sparate da giornalisti/blogger/commentatori/sedicenti esperti/signori nessuno. Personalmente ritengo plausibile che il governo italiano abbia pagato 12 milioni di dollari di riscatto ma bisogna comunque tener conto del fatto che non c’é alcuna conferma né del pagamento, né della cifra, né della natura dei sequestratori. Giacomo Stucchi, presidente del Copasir afferma semplicemente che la liberazione ha richiesto “una contropartita” senza specificare di che natura. Ci sono conferme e ritrattazioni sull’ importo di 12 milioni che per qualcuno sarebbe esagerato e per altri no. A queste condizioni ogni affermazione é pura speculazione.
ALCUNE CONSIDERAZIONI
Erano troppo giovani?
– La giovane età é un non-argomento: sono maggiorenni e libere di prendere le proprie decisioni.
– Gran parte dei volontari presenti in Syria ha meno di 25 anni, esattamente come i foreign fighters
– Se così fosse, perché nessuno dice alcunché sui volontari di età avanzata?
-Ci sono trenta/quarantenni cui non affiderei alcun compito di responsabilità mentre ci sono sedici-diciassettenni con le gambe in spalla decisamente più affidabili.
– Vogliamo elencare le centinaia di migliaia di diciottenni brufolosi che si arruolano negli eserciti di mezzo mondo, giusto per fare un esempio?
– A vent’anni, se puoi essere abbastanza sveglio per sparare a un nemico puoi esserlo anche per fare l’infermiera.
– Greta e Vanessa erano abbastanza mature? Chi le ha conosciute dice di si mentre chi, come me, non le conosce, non ha elementi per discuterne (no: un pugno di foto tratte da Facebook e illazioni di giornali schierati e di propaganda come Libero, il Giornale e Il Fatto Quotidiano non sono elementi utili).
Erano inadatte?
– Avevano abbastanza esperienza per partecipare ad un’azione umanitaria, ma non sufficiente esperienza di zone di guerra
– Non avevano supporto logistico dall’Italia
– Non disponevano di un’assicurazione
– Non si sa quanto fossero affidabili i loro contatti locali.
– Le “inesperte” Greta e Vanessa si trovavano con l’esperto Daniele però che é scampato al rapimento per puro caso. Se avessero rapito pure lui le ragazze sarebbero state comunque etichettate come “inesperte”?
Se la sono andata a cercare?
– Sapevano a cosa andavano incontro.
– Che abbiano avuto coraggio, imprudenza, impeto giovanile o stupidità é solo un fatto loro.
– Se il meccanismo de “se la sono andata a cercare” fosse valido bisognerebbe accusare di “irresponsabile stupidità” anche i vigili del fuoco volontari che si lanciano tra le fiamme per salvare gente imprigionata, tutti coloro che non abbassano la testa di fronte ai soprusi delle mafie e i giornalisti che indagano su argomenti rischiosi.
– “Se la sono andata a cercare” lo dicono i codardi, quelli che non ci mettono mai la faccia e non sanno comprendere lo spirito di sacrificio e l’impegno per valori più alti e umani.
Aiutavano i Jihadisti
– NO: superavano il Free Syrian Army che é laico ma che si trova a dover far fronte comune proprio con i jihadisti. Hanno supportato cioè l’unica forza laica tra quelle che si ribellano ad Assad (con l’eccezione dei curdi che però vivono una situazione a parte)
RISCATTO SI O NO
Eh! Bel dilemma! Umanamente sono contento che siano salve e non m’importa della cifra. Strategicamente non però non si può negare che il pagamento del riscatto sia un tremendo autogol in quanto servirà a finanziare gruppi armati jihadisti e/o criminali generici.
La stagione dei sequestri in Italia é finita anche grazie al blocco dei beni dei sequestrati (anche se non tutti sono d’accordo a riguardo) impedendo di fatto il pagamento del riscatto. Ma se i grandi sequestri italiani sono avvenuti sempre e solo a causa di gruppi criminali interessati un rapido finanziamento, la situazione mediorientale é più complessa.
Il problema dei sequestri in questi contesti é che, anche se la maggior parte avviene per motivi economici, qui possono avvenire anche per motivi politico/ideologici/propagandistici.
A livello mondiale vi sono due approcci al problema: americani e inglesi sono per la linea dura, mentre tutti gli altri, pur non ammettendolo apertamente, pagano sottobanco. APPROCCIO “SI PAGA”
Se sei di un Paese che paga per liberare i suoi cittadini é più probabile che tu venga rapito per motivi economici in quanto vieni visto come una sorta di salvadanaio ambulante. Il rapimento in questo caso é semplicemente una questione di finanziamento mascherata da atto politico. Il problema é che ogni pagamento di riscatto trascina con sé polemiche infinite: i servizi segreti pagano con fondi neri o attraverso manovre atte a “nascondere” il trasferimento di denaro. I governi negano il pagamento e tergiversano sull’argomento della trattativa. La piazza brontola perché le proprie tasse “vanno al nemico”. L’opposizione userà la notizia del pagamento per attaccare il governo. Anche quando un sequestro si risolve tragicamente l’opposizione userà ciò per attaccare il governo.
Il governo può trovarsi in ogni momento nella situazione di dover pagare cifre milionarie per un qualunque signor X che voleva documentare la guerra al fronte e si sia ritrovato in soggiorno forzato in qualche scantinato jihadista.
Anche se il tuo governo paga per i riscatti non é che passare mesi in mano di fondamentalisti islamici sia proprio una vacanza e quindi se sei cittadino di un Paese che paga i riscatti e vuoi recarti in aree a rischio ti devi arrangiare a pararti il culo e sperare che ti vada bene: potresti essere decapitato per propaganda o esser rilasciato per denaro. APPROCCIO “NON SI PAGA”
La storia recente c’insegna che in aree di guerra si rapiscono comunque cittadini inglesi ed americani. Si rapiscono per seminare insicurezza, per propaganda (le decapitazioni), per disperdere le energie che il nemico spenderà nelle ricerche, come arma di ricatto e negoziazione, come merce di scambio e perché spesso alla fine qualcuno che paga c’é sempre (le assicurazioni). Visto che il tuo Paese ha deciso che la strategia vale più della tua esistenza, se sei cittadino di un Paese che non paga i riscatti e vuoi recarti in aree a rischio ti devi arrangiare a pararti il culo e sperare che ti vada bene: potresti esser decapitato per propaganda o usato come merce di scambio.
L’approccio migliore al problema non é tanto discutere in maniera generica o ideologica sul pagare/non pagare perché l’approccio cambia a seconda dei sequestratori e delle loro reali intenzioni. Al momento tutti pagano perché non é umanamente né politicamente accettabile la perdita di una persona in questa maniera. Per quanto duro possa risultare ritengo tuttavia che se applicato in maniera più ampia, l’approccio “non pagare” potrebbe dare alcuni frutti, ma perché ciò avvenga servirebbe (1) una totale coordinazione tra le diverse nazioni (se per ogni Paese che non paga ce ne fosse uno che paga i sequestri non si fermerebbero) e (2) la pubblicazione di quanto osservato dalle forze d’intelligence riguardo la natura dei sequestri già passati ed al successivo utilizzo dei fondi per permettere ad analisti ed opinione pubblica di avere un’idea più chiara di cosa avviene dietro le quinte. Se la prima parte della proposta é difficile (già adesso l’ONU non riconosce il pagamento di riscatti ai terroristi ma aggirare tale regola é facile e nessuno reclama), la seconda é quasi impossibile poiché nessun governo vuole ammettere di aver “calato le braghe”. Non va nemmeno dimenticato che qualunque informazione proveniente dalle intelligence, per sua stessa natura, va analizzata con sospetto. Tuttavia ritengo che solo un approccio più trasparente sulla questione potrebbe permettere un discorso sensato.
Ciò non toglie che i sequestri politici/propagandistici/dimostrativi continuerebbero nonostante tutto.
In questo momento frasi come “il mio Paese non paga” / “il mio Paese paga solo con medicinali e pacchi di cibo” / “il mio Paese ha sborsato millemila miliardi per salvare una persona” hanno il solo valore di chiacchiera che copre il vero lavoro dei servizi.
In sostanza: se si riuscissero a soddisfare i due punti proposti (COOPERAZIONE INTERNAZIONALE e TRASPARENZA), ben venga il “non pagare” anche se ciò non eliminerà tutti i sequestri e le uccisioni. Finché ciò non si realizza la scelta migliore é pagare, pagare e pagare.
“SE NON HANNO PANE, CHE MANGINO BRIOCHES!”
Il lato più preoccupante della vicenda é la conferma di come la discussione pubblica sia ormai sostituita da banali impulsi d’indignazione che impediscono ogni seria riflessione ed analisi su qualunque argomento (vedi il caso Marò: nonostante l’eccezionale lavoro di documentazione di Marco Miavaldi, la SMIF e la propaganda li hanno trasformati immeritatamente in eroi e addirittura vittime).
Pubblico questo post a pochi giorni dalla liberazione delle due ragazze. Il trend #GretaeVanessa si é affievolito. Tra qualche giorno succederà qualcos’altro e la SMIF metterà in atto una nuova tre giorni d’indignazione dimenticandosi pian piano delle due ragazze rapite.
Quel che so per certo é che in questo marasma la “storia” che rimarrà nella memoria della #ggente non sarà quella ricostruita dai fatti documentati ma la versione gretta fatta di bufale, di insulti e di risentimento verso le due ragazze. La storia che resterà attaccata é quella di “due ragazzine svampite che han voluto giocare le crocerossine e si son fatte abbindolare da jihadisti conosciuti su Facebook e ai cortei con cui poi han pure fatto sesso durante la prigionia mentre s’ingozzavano di cibo“.
Impossibile non notare come questo ritratto sia un perfetto condensato di stereotipi ben radicati ed abusati nato da un primo nucleo (femmine che non fanno cose da femmine, femmine che s’interessano di cose da maschi, femmine che dovrebbero pensare a frivolezze perché a quell’età DEVONO essere frivole, ragazzine che non sanno cosa stanno facendo, ragazzine che non capiscono il mondo) il quale, con la molla dell’ indignazione economica (“ci sono costate 12 milioni”) é stato poi ampliato con la pura denigrazione (sono dalla parte dei jihadisti, trasportavano materiale bellico, facevano sesso con i loro rapitori, sono ingrassate durante la prigionia).
Un perfetto concentrato di stereotipi ha sostituito la realtà
Mi é tornato in mente Nerone, che ancora pochi giorni fa qualcuno mi ha descritto semplicemente come “quello dell’incendio”. [Di tutti gli eventi della sua esistenza, l’unico che viene ricordato dalla #ggente é quello che gli attribuisce la colpa dell’incendio di Roma del 64. Non importa sapere che vi furono diversi incendi sia prima che dopo di lui. Non importa sapere che Nerone partecipò in prima persona ai soccorsi organizzandoli efficacemente. Non importa sapere che la storiografia dell’epoca é stata espressa da molti detrattori di Nerone. Non importa sapere che Nerone sfruttò l’incendio per accusare i cristiani e secoli dopo i cristiani insistettero sulla versione opposta. Non importa sapere che gli storici lo assolvono completamente. L’immagine del tiranno pazzo che da fuoco alla sua stessa città e che suona la lira tra le fiamme é talmente forte da sostituire la realtà.]
Poi mi é tornata in mente nuovamente Maria Antonietta: i suoi detrattori le versarono addosso talmente tanto marciume ingiusto che le é rimasto addosso. Tanto che ancora oggi la #ggente é convinta che pronunciò davvero quella stupida frase. Non importa quanto gli si faccia notare chevenne pronunciata ben quattordici anni prima che Maria Antonietta nascesse: Maria Antonietta che suggerisce stizzita alla gente in protesta di ripiegare sulle brioches é un’immagine talmente efficace da sostituire la realtà.
Forse tra qualche tempo bisognerà fare delle scelte prendendo decisioni importanti. Come sempre in questi casi si valuterà attingendo alla propria esperienza e conoscenza del mondo. Quanto saranno valide le decisioni di chi ha una conoscenza del mondo falsata da racconti che hanno sostituito la realtà?
The future of cyber security belongs to organizations that integrate security, compliance and risk management into a seamless, proactive governance model
A new initiative, called "EU OS," has been launched to develop a Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for the public sector organizations of the European Union (EU). This community-driven project aims to address the EU's unique needs and challenges, focusing on fostering digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on external vendors, and building a secure, self-sufficient digital ecosystem.
What Is EU OS?
EU OS is not an entirely novel operating system. Instead, it builds upon a Linux foundation derived from Fedora, with the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It draws inspiration from previous efforts such as France's GendBuntu and Munich's LiMux, which aimed to provide Linux-based systems for public sector use. The goal remains the same: to create a standardized Linux distribution that can be adapted to different regional, national, and sector-specific needs within the EU.
Rather than reinventing the wheel, EU OS focuses on standardization, offering a solid Linux foundation that can be customized according to the unique requirements of various organizations. This approach makes EU OS a practical choice for the public sector, ensuring broad compatibility and ease of implementation across diverse environments.
The Vision Behind EU OS
The guiding principle of EU OS is the concept of "public money – public code," ensuring that taxpayer money is used transparently and effectively. By adopting an open-source model, EU OS eliminates licensing fees, which not only lowers costs but also reduces the dependency on a select group of software vendors. This provides the EU’s public sector organizations with greater flexibility and control over their IT infrastructure, free from the constraints of vendor lock-in.
Additionally, EU OS offers flexibility in terms of software migration and hardware upgrades. Organizations can adapt to new technologies and manage their IT evolution at a manageable cost, both in terms of finances and time.
However, there are some concerns about the choice of Fedora as the base for EU OS. While Fedora is a solid and reliable distribution, it is backed by the United States-based Red Hat. Some argue that using European-backed projects such as openSUSE or KDE's upcoming distribution might have aligned better with the EU's goal of strengthening digital sovereignty.
Conclusion
EU OS marks a significant step towards Europe's digital independence by providing a robust, standardized Linux distribution for the public sector. By reducing reliance on proprietary software and vendors, it paves the way for a more flexible, cost-effective, and secure digital ecosystem. While the choice of Fedora as the base for the project has raised some questions, the overall vision of EU OS offers a promising future for Europe's public sector in the digital age.
Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight
Linux kernel lead developer Linus Torvalds has admitted to forgetting to release version 6.14, attributing the oversight to his own lapse in memory. Torvalds is known for releasing new Linux kernel candidates and final versions on Sunday afternoons, typically accompanied by a post detailing the release. If he is unavailable due to travel or other commitments, he usually informs the community ahead of time, so users don’t worry if there’s a delay.
In his post on March 16, Torvalds gave no indication that the release might be delayed, instead stating, “I expect to release the final 6.14 next weekend unless something very surprising happens.” However, Sunday, March 23rd passed without any announcement.
On March 24th, Torvalds wrote in a follow-up message, “I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon schedule,” adding, “But no. It’s just pure incompetence.” He further explained that while he had been clearing up unrelated tasks, he simply forgot to finalize the release. “D'oh,” he joked.
Despite this minor delay, Torvalds’ track record of successfully managing the Linux kernel’s development process over the years remains strong. A single day’s delay is not critical, especially since most Linux users don't urgently need the very latest version.
The new 6.14 release introduces several important features, including enhanced support for writing drivers in Rust—an ongoing topic of discussion among developers—support for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chip, a fix for the GhostWrite vulnerability in certain RISC-V processors from Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor, and a completed NTSYNC driver update that improves the WINE emulator’s ability to run Windows applications, particularly games, on Linux.
Although the 6.14 release went smoothly aside from the delay, Torvalds expressed that version 6.15 may present more challenges due to the volume of pending pull requests. “Judging by my pending pile of pull requests, 6.15 will be much busier,” he noted.
AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.
This release, while still in alpha, incorporates Linux kernel 6.13.8 and the updated Mesa 25.0.2 graphics stack, alongside tools like LLVM 19.1.7 and Vulkan SDK 1.4.309.0. Additionally, the Moss package manager now integrates os-info to generate more detailed OS metadata via a JSON file.
Future plans for AerynOS include automated package updates, easier rollback management, improved disk handling with Rust, and fractional scaling enabled by default. The installer has also been revamped to support full disk wipes and dynamic partitioning.
Although still considered an alpha release, AerynOS 2025.03 can be downloaded and tested right now from its official website.
Xojo has just rolled out its latest release, Xojo 2025 Release 1, and it’s packed with features that developers have been eagerly waiting for. This major update introduces support for running Xojo on Linux ARM, including Raspberry Pi, brings drag-and-drop functionality to the Web framework, and simplifies app deployment with the ability to directly submit apps to the macOS and iOS App Stores.
Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in Xojo 2025r1:
1. Linux ARM IDE Support
Xojo 2025r1 now allows developers to run the Xojo IDE on Linux ARM devices, including popular platforms like Raspberry Pi. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers who want to create apps for ARM-based devices without the usual complexity. Whether you’re building for a Raspberry Pi or other ARM devices, this update makes it easier than ever to get started.
2. Web Drag and Drop
One of the standout features in this release is the addition of drag-and-drop support for web applications. Now, developers can easily drag and drop visual controls in their web projects, making it simpler to create interactive, user-friendly web applications. Plus, the WebListBox has been enhanced with support for editable cells, checkboxes, and row reordering via dragging. No JavaScript required!
3. Direct App Store Publishing
Xojo has also streamlined the process of publishing apps. With this update, developers can now directly submit macOS and iOS apps to App Store Connect right from the Xojo IDE. This eliminates the need for multiple steps and makes it much easier to get apps into the App Store, saving valuable time during the development process.
4. New Desktop and Mobile Features
This release isn’t just about web and Linux updates. Xojo 2025r1 brings some great improvements for desktop and mobile apps as well. On the desktop side, all projects now include a default window menu for macOS apps. On the mobile side, Xojo has introduced new features for Android and iOS, including support for ColorGroup and Dark Mode on Android, and a new MobileColorPicker for iOS to simplify color selection.
5. Performance and IDE Enhancements
Xojo’s IDE has also been improved in several key areas. There’s now an option to hide toolbar captions, and the toolbar has been made smaller on Windows. The IDE on Windows and Linux now features modern Bootstrap icons, and the Documentation window toolbar is more compact. In the code editor, developers can now quickly navigate to variable declarations with a simple Cmd/Ctrl + Double-click. Plus, performance for complex container layouts in the Layout Editor has been enhanced.
What Does This Mean for Developers?
Xojo 2025r1 brings significant improvements across all the platforms that Xojo supports, from desktop and mobile to web and Linux. The added Linux ARM support opens up new opportunities for Raspberry Pi and ARM-based device development, while the drag-and-drop functionality for web projects will make it easier to create modern, interactive web apps. The ability to publish directly to the App Store is a game-changer for macOS and iOS developers, reducing the friction of app distribution.
How to Get Started
Xojo is free for learning and development, as well as for building apps for Linux and Raspberry Pi. If you’re ready to dive into cross-platform development, paid licenses start at $99 for a single-platform desktop license, and $399 for cross-platform desktop, mobile, or web development. For professional developers who need additional resources and support, Xojo Pro and Pro Plus licenses start at $799. You can also find special pricing for educators and students.
With each new release, Xojo continues to make cross-platform development more accessible and efficient. The 2025r1 release is no exception, delivering key updates that simplify the development process and open up new possibilities for developers working on a variety of platforms. Whether you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast or a mobile app developer, Xojo 2025r1 has something for you.
Expired digital certificates expose businesses to operational outages, confidence erosion and questions about their ability to track and manage security
As regulatory frameworks begin to shape cyber security practices it is imperative that organizations integrate quality assurance measures to mitigate risk
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. Ai-je loupé une étape ou cela est-il tout simplement impossible ?
Ipoteticamente, una rete distribuita é quasi indistruttibile: in uno scenario in cui tutti i computer del pianeta facessero parte della rete Yacy, anche se la maggior parte di questi fosse improvvisamente tagliata fuori o distrutta da un colossale meteorite, é sufficiente che solo una minima parte resti attiva perché tutto il database comune resti attivo. Progetto interessantissimo dunque, ma che dovrebbe essere reso molto più user-friendly per sperare in una adozione di massa. Chi volesse provare ad installarselo e smanettarci lo trova 
