Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (June 2026)

Hands surround a white man's head while one of his own hands cover part of his saden face

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the problems with single sign on, Google chrome forcefully downloading 4gig of a LLM and why on earth is meta smart glasses selling so well, despite privacy worries?

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.“

You are seeing aspects of this with the dailyshow solve a male loneliness battle, Kindle owners jail breaking their devices and Flickr.org proving death is not a edge case.

The fed up partners of AI workers

Ian thinks: Although the piece about the wives of AI skilled workers Wired magazine makes clear the wider sad effect of everything centring around AI, is causing huge problems for partners, friendships and families. The domination of AI in every conversation is something I have noticed more and more. Sad times indeed.

Wrapped in optimistic from Doctorow?

Ian thinks: This piece titled comrade trump sums up a lot of the points have made about the Trump effect. Of course, its all side effects of some of the worst political policy’s in decades (it can be argued). But Cory and others are right, this disruption to the order does provide a green light for public value alternatives. Also worth watching Cory from Republica this year which touches on these these themes.

AI likely won’t cure cancer any time soon

Ian thinks: One of the biggest claims about AI is it will solve cancer. This episode breaks down the claims and puts everything in perspective. The idea of AI solving cancer gets thrown around a lot and its not just a lie but also takes resources away from existing efforts which shocked me.

The Fediverse built a bigger tent

Ian thinks: I didn’t get much time to be involved in this years Fediforum but Laurens, covered the event and pulls some good ties between it and 2mr.social. The interesting point is how its become a bigger tent for much more than the technology of the activitypub. Having the green party give a keynote and even larger conversations about sovereignty from American traditional social media; is a clear sign of maturity.

Ai psychosis one of many stories

Ian thinks: This is one so many true stories of the ongoing problem of AI psychosis. Its unreal but so dangerous. The analysis afterwards is good but doesn’t go into enough depth. You might look at it and shrug but the recent research isnt looking good either, with AI frying our brains in other ways.

The market certainly will not solve everything

Ian thinks: With the insanity of predication markets comes a crypto driven site called Dare market. Its exactly like Black Mirror’s common people. But comes from the madness of the memecoin era when people would do outrageous things to convince people to buy their memecoins. A time of corruption, foolishness and rug pulls.

Are you paying attention to the words coming out of my mouth?

Ian thinks: 404 interview the highly rated Natasha Dow Schüll, who’s excellent book Addicted by design, I quote a lot. Its great to see how relevant her book is during social media addiction then and now prediction markets. If you haven’t read her book go do it! I also noticed a lot uptick in this space with Mozilla, tech wont save us and even Jon Oliver talking about prediction markets (not available outside the USA, so here is a reaction video).

Jumping on the European sovereignty bandwagon

Ian thinks: When W Social jumped into the limelight and claimed to be the only European social network to fill a void. Many of us couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Elena’s uncovering post cuts the cord on the whole shambles which is W Social and is a clear reminder to work together not alone in darkness.

Designing for after the feed

Ian thinks: The New_public live events are always worth watching even before I started working for them. Tackling the AI monster with human and public thoughts is a good start for a conversation about a future most of us would rather make happen.

How I Became an Apocaloptimist?

Ian thinks: I recently watched the full titled  AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. Watching with my partner and friends raised an interesting discussion. The AI doc really tears down the binary wall of AI boosters and doomers, with some practical suggestions we can all do.

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We really need to talk sensibly about intimacy and AI

I didn’t see this session live because it was originally in German and it clashes with another session I wanted to see.

There is so much in this session but it was a good reminder of why I was keen to setup making the familiar strange podcast. The nuance of intimacy and the sessions final point is something which comes up in the AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.

Under a solar republica sky mix

An AI altered view of Berlin's spa (liquiddrome) With 2 people sitting on a bench looking at the unique sky

I spent a good amount of time in Berlin, Germany recently for the fantastic Republica conference.

This was recorded on a Ryanair flight (I luckily booked my flights over 3 months ago) using a number of even newer tunes. I had to do quite a bit of editing from the different times when my arm was knocked but it turned out pretty well.

I tried to recreate it on the way back but honestly, the first one was better although I did prefer some of the second mix tunes but it didn’t flow as much. I especially love the mix from Remember the future – Ripsaw!

All recorded on my ageing Pacemaker device, but the drift DJ alpha testing is getting better everyday. So look out, a whole mix might be coming soon.

The Drift DJ Zero sat on a Ryan Air seat rest

The cover art comes from a shot I took of Liquidrome, near the hotel I was at. There was a football game happening and so I used Gemini to remove the football match then touched up the colours, etc myself. It was hot in Berlin all week and it was great to have the long bright nights.

The playlist is…

00:00:00 Voices In My Head x Insomnia (Stephani B Mashup) – Faithless
00:01:34 Mandy (extended mix) – 2nd Phase
00:04:38 Dare me – Hayley Parsons
00:08:54 Extortion (Extended mix) – Everlight
00:15:07 Remember The Future (Extended Mix) – Ferry Tayle & TonKs pres. Mirage
00:19:17 Never (H3rtz Bootleg Rework) – The Roc Project Feat. Tina Arena
00:24:02 Seven cities (V-one’s living cities mix) – Solar Stone
00:30:11 Ripsaw – Everlight
00:34:09 La Verità (Extended Mix) – Alex Merk & U-Mount
00:38:14 Catch Me (Aumak Extended Remix) – Ormus
00:42:57 Rise Again (Extended Mix) – Adam Lumina
00:46:02 Stresstest (John Askew Remix) – John O’callaghan
00:52:34 Adagio In G Minor (Extended Mix) – DIM3NSION

Anyway enjoy the mix on peertube either on my own mixgarden or on rankett at a lower quality.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (May 2026)

Beach with a oil like container on its side written on the side is Facebook, where it would usually say toxic. The sea in the background

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed hearing how Tesla robotaxis being remotely driven, seeing Linkedin spying and fingerprinting job hunters and the absolute madding thoughts of Palantir CEO Alex Karp, translated for us lay people?

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.“

You are seeing aspects of this with few people posting on social media, a new plan to bring plugin solar to the UK and the EFF leaving X because its just too much!

On being a glasshole?

Ian thinks: What’s it like to walk the streets and live your life with the Meta smartglasses? Well you don’t need to put down the money yourself because Ella has described in a lot of detail her experiences. I find the privacy recommendations at the end useful but will meta learn and act? Not likely…

AI is a insecurity wonderland

Ian thinks: When are we going to take the well established practice of the separations of concerns seriously. It seems most people have forgotten, never run commands you don’t understand and certainly don’t provide access to sensitive data. This is why Google’s AI will never have explicit consent to my drives and data.

Imagine consumer technology had recall warnings?

Ian thinks: Its quite a serious question and In this podcast, about a Android streaming box, which is pretty much a Trojan horse. The question becomes a lot more serious, especially when thinking about national security and the endless IOT junk found and shipped from many shopping sites. Does your coffee cup really need to be connected and what is it up to on your network?

How can age verification actually work and be private?

Ian thinks: Age verification and stopping harms from young people is always in the news I found Proton’s summary of the alternatives quite useful for anyone being told this is a binary choice. The CEO’s blog is also worth reading too.

We have to talk about prediction markets

Ian thinks: At the start of April I gave a talk to European broadcasters about the future of social. At the very end I mentioned prediction markets, and the impact of a number of trends; being crypto, gamestop and economic reality of today. It was a surprise for many but a reality worth understanding. I was pleased to see Last week tonight’s John Oliver’s segment about the exact thing a week ago too.

Traditional Social media did it to themselves

Ian thinks: This report from OFCOM, highlights how less people are posting on traditional social media. There are many reasons for this but when I saw the report, it was a clear call back to the future of social report where we described people migrating to smaller private networks. Like it or not, companies like Meta did this to themselves with their emphasis on algorithms, enshitification and so much more.

Goodbye Sora and thank goodness

Ian thinks: Good reddens, it was a machine pumping out so much AI slop and misinformation. Of course we know the real reason of Sora closure; the huge costs to Open AI and there already over inflated stock price.

True stories affected by incentives

Ian thinks: We have all heard the stories about AI use, but I found this podcast with Oprah Winfrey and Tristan Harris, quite captivating and a clear reminder of the problem of incentives. This is also a big part of the newly released AI Doc, which I do recommend watching.

The Facebook museum?

Ian thinks: Does Facebook need its own museum, I wonder? But like the recently compiled geocities archive, there was moments of creativity and personal joy we all had. Is this worth celebrating and archiving, is another question?

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Drift DJ alpha testing and mixing

I finally found sometime after working with the Drift Zero team, to install the latest alpha build. Things have been hectic for a while but one night I got some time to play.

It was great, although I didn’t really know all the buttons, so I was just working it out by pressing and playing. Its only today I seen the video explaining it all (although I should have spent more time on the discord group)

Drift DJ quick shot

Anyway with me feeling around, I was able to create a few mixes but found a problem where some of my tunes were cooked/garbled but I had no idea why. This is obviously the bug and should be fixed pretty soon.

Honestly the device is excellent and I’m looking forward to more time with it, especially now I know what the buttons should do and I can use the recorder. I have a flight to Berlin for Republica 2026 and a series of long trains to Amsterdam for PublicSpaces, so plenty of time to really play.

Being optimistic, I also entered a session into EMFCamp 2026 to potentially DJ live using the Zero or Pacemaker Device as a backup. Considered a DJ hackday at EMFCamp but decided maybe next time.

1 year ago I left BBC R&D, what’s happen since?

1 year ago I officially left the BBC after just short of 21 years.
Looking back at the post I wrote about how I had been since August 2024, when I first learned my position was at risk and the one I wrote in March 2025. A heck of a lot has happened in the last year. I now have my own business doing a number of different things, but all still focused on the public space. Although it’s been pretty stressful, especially at the start I have found some moments of joy and pleasure.

One of the simple but simple but hardest things is rethinking my role. I still occasionally use a bio which mentions working at the BBC as the Senior Firestarter. I have been calling myself Founder & Firestarter, which is ok. But thanks to Angie & Jennifer, I now have a better description of what I’m doing.

I’m a Digital futurologist, using data and insight to change people’s lives for the better.

Within the BBC, I was always a bit of an intrapreneur always pushing for new projects and approaches. I tended to bend the rules because they were not fit for purpose, be it forwarding calendar invites to my one and only calendar (separation of work and pleasure was never going to be the same for me). The result of this meant my network was vast and diverse. It was never just work, it was driving to a societal public purpose. I was never going to switch to a capitalist stance, and struggled when going to a few new networking events.

I become an advisor to quite a few different projects/organisations. Starting with the Amplify project (the only media related thing I’m doing now), then for the Open Rights Group (something I couldn’t ever do as a BBC employee) and Johannes asked me if I’d be interested in doing the same for the Fediforum. This was just before the future of social report was finally made public, thanks to existing colleagues (Bill, Antonia, Tristan, Todd and others).

My interest in the future of social connected with where I wanted to go and had pushed hard for the BBC to take a lot more seriously. I’m starting to push a bit harder on the social stuff as I have a big interest in how people meet, date, play and less alone lone generally. Currently I have a podcast series around modern intimacy, ideas/plans around the next generation of social platforms (the fediverse = Activitypub & ATproto) and finally my own book which I likely will self publish along with the dating manifesto.

My main work which actually pays is working with New_Public on the Public Service Incubator. It’s a good position and hope to be doing a lot more with them as the project matures to the open web.

During the year I did have some other roles I was asked about but I turned them down as I felt I moved on from a lot of the media stuff. Although Perceptive and adaptive media stuff is waiting for the right time. to rethink it Likewise, I had a lot of people ask about AI related stuff, which I have spoke about at a few events already. To date AI still doesn’t feature on my CV.

Screen of awardees at Mydata 2025 conference
You can see my face on the 2rd row, 3 from the right

My interest in data is still important with the digital legacy work, especially the machine readable wishes project with the first workshop at MyData 2025. It was also great to be given an award for my impact on Mydata over the years. Another place I have been focusing on more then previously. At FOSDEM 2026, I gave 2 talks. One a workshop on the machine readable wishes and the second one around Human data interaction, its a talk I thought about while at My Data 2025 and participating into their updated constitution.

Ian and Sam talking digital legacy from the FOSDEM social stage
Sam talking alongside myself at FOSDEM 2026

I have also met a few people on the way, a couple of them starting working for me (as such). Sam, was introduced to me by his mother who I knew from BBC World Service. He’s a highly skilled developer and interested in socially important projects which work for people. Hence the machine readable wishes was a ideal connection point. I have been thinking about the setup like a work experience with mentoring. The strange thing is that Sam isn’t the only one…

Ian Forrester talking in London to a crowd
Me talking about AI to the private heathcare industry

Currently I’m at a crossroads because I agreed to myself I would give the business one year… Its been just over a year now. I actually setup the business in mid April.

I like the freedom of running my own business but I don’t like the instability of chasing jobs. I have also made things tricky by working on multiple things. I had some advice from Jennifer who was slight shocked when I said I would give it a year and see (one of the decisions I made with my coaching. just before leaving the BBC) .To be honest the business isn’t doing too bad but I really hoped I would have some lecturing to add to the part time work and startup projects.

Balancing what it would be like to go back into full time work with the interesting life of running my own business is top of mind. I’m also super aware of the difficulty of getting a full time job right now. So many of my older friends are struggling with applying, gong through many rounds of interviews and unrealistic salaries. The tech industry is so full of lay-offs and insatiability. It seems to make sense to take advantage of personality, thoughts and build something for me.

As a whole its amazing where I was a year ago and wouldn’t have imagined I would be where I am now. But I can’t rest, I need to move forward as I have much I want to do, setup and achieve…

Maybe the firestarter is still apart of me… ?

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (April 2026)

Make it s*ity

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing Gran-parents doom-scrolling, seeing Attie launching during the ATmosphere conference and the study showing people prefer sycophantic AI bots.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with Norway taking aim at Enshittification, graphene finally getting its time and the rush for a global human-made/non AI made logo.

Privacy is not negotiable

Ian thinks: Naomi’s points about privacy and how its been watered down year after year is key. I haven’t heard anyone say privacy is dead for a while, but they act like it is gone and not needed any-more.

Avoiding the eyes of the glass-holes?

Ian thinks: Resistance against smart glasses, is fair. Although I do find the Bluetooth signatures fascinating, I guess like MAC addresses sniffing could be used to filter/avoid all types of Bluetooth devices in the present and future?

Federated sharing isn’t easy going

Ian thinks: We are so use to the share this button on legacy social media sites but this careful critique of the new Mastodon share this post button, uncovers the difficulty of sharing with privacy and in a federated way.

Age verification law hits FLOSS

Ian thinks: This blog post from Linux distribution system76 – Pop!OS. Is a excellent read about the problems with age verification. Education is the corner stone of the argument and seems to be sadly forgotten in debates on high.

How are social media bans working out?

Ian thinks: The ban of social media and young people is everywhere right now. I have personal problems with the over reach and wider effects of this, including age verification as in the link above. Like above the call for education is echoed with better alternatives like safety by design and stronger regulation of design and practice.

Piracy is tipping the scale

Piracy never disappeared but is gain some momentum recently due in part to the enshittification of streaming services. What I find interesting about this post is the global look at countries and the concerns such as privacy and security in them.

Lego did the smart thing?

Ian thinks: In this tear down of Lego’s smart book, its clear Lego did a good job making it as simple and smart as possible. There was always a worry it would require a external service or completely locked down. Will it change the way Lego is seen is a bigger question

The weaponisation of psychology

Ian thinks: There is so much off the back of Meta and Google losing the first of many court cases following the landmark court case. I have tried to explain the underlying problems to friends without getting too technical or too fluffy. So I sent this video a few which seems to have worked much better.

Bernie vs Claude

Ian thinks: Bernie asks Claude the questions we should all be asking not just AI companies but each other. Wait for the long awkward pause from Claude AI as it comes back with a more realistic answer.

The AI doc interview

Ian thinks: In this podcast Tristan and friends talk about a new AI documentaries, comparing it to some very thoughtful docs from the past. I agree with the idea, just hope it turns out to be half of what they say it could be.

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Following up from my ULEZ fine – The computer is wrong!

Honda Silverwing in front of a Mountain in Ireland
This scooter hasn’t passed through London in a decade and I can prove it!

I have a follow up to the post about cloning of my scooter licence/number plate.

Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden

Great, just got a ULEZ fine for a Honda car with a cloned number plate in London!

However

I drive a scooter not a car
I can't legally drive a car
I live 200miles away in Manchester
Haven't ridden in London for over 15 years
I was mid air in a plane across the alps when it happened

My scooter was locked up and hasn't moved according to the many locks, multiple trackers and CCTV's in the garage.

But I need prove it wasn't me?
According to…

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3743
wilsons.co.uk/news/what-to-do-

March 11, 2026, 3:46 pm 2 boosts 8 favorites

Its been pretty hellish, with everything falling back to the analogue hole aka writing letters by hand to prove who I am with the DVLA. The MET police called me and after verifying they who they said they were, we had a long conversation.

Ultimately they identified the licence/number plate was incorrectly found using TFL’s (Transport for London) APNR (automatic plate number recognition system). Aka the computer vision was wrong! One character was off and that was enough for me to get the fine and go down the route of trying to prove my innocence. So I had to write to DVLA again, saying my number plate was not cloned but there had been a APNR mess up (I use my words carefully).

With my crime reference in place I wrote again.

The automated number plate camera used to capture the Honda Civic CAR has the wrong number plate. The number plate is actually a *****Y* which leads to a Green Honda Civic CAR. The number plate *****V* is my Honda Silverwing 600 cc SCOOTER/MOTORBIKE which has not been ridden in London for over 12 years and was locked in a garage under multiple CCTV’s during the date and time in question. I personally was on holiday and have many Manchester airport cameras  and passport checks to prove I was not driving either vehicles. I have included pictures of my SCOOTER with the number plate in question. You can even see its the wrong size and SCOOTER don’t have front number plates! When I received this PCN, I thought my number plate was cloned as the SCOOTER has not moved or unlocked while I was on holiday. So I raised it with the DVLA and Police . I personally only have a motorcycle licence and can not legally drive a car or have ever owned a car. I urge you to use common sense and look up a Blue Honda Silvering 600 and see its not even a CAR. Let alone a Honda Civic CAR in Green. I have added the Honda Civic registrations in a simple look up you could.should have done. DVLA are also aware of this issue, alongside the GM & MET police services. This has been very stressful and honestly I’m upset about the amount of time I have had to use to prove my innocence over an automated camera.

So now I wait…

I assume TFL will send a letter saying sorry but this has taken a lot of time and effort on my part. What a waste of public resources too.

This is clearly a screw up and my suspicion of my number plate being cloned was right as there was no other way; although that’s what I thought thinking the camera was correct. Heck I fell for the trust the computer till the conversation with the police.

How many others have gone through this? Those automated number plate cameras are everywhere and honestly it chimes with all the problems with automation, surveillance and no transparency. Heck something simple like a V & Y can cause injustice.

A reminder to support the Open Rights Group and Big Brother Watch in the UK.

Updated 30th March 2026

The letter I got back from TFL

Its finally over, they admit there was a administrative error and they had charged the wrong vehicle. This for me is a clear case of the computer says no; as mentioned above a worrisome trend of automated surveillance.  The wording peed me off but what did I expect?

Anyway its done now, I can ride my bike without worrying about being pulled over for some stupid automated computer mistake.

Diabolo tricks on the Fediverse

For a long while I have been posting stills from my diabolo sessions on pixelfed. It makes a lot of sense as I was recording at 90 frames/sec making good still images.

However I decided its time to just go with video and as I’m quite a fan of peertube for my mixes on my own selfhosted site and rankett.net tube. I found a good peertube community at Makertube.

Especially since I bought a more up to date camera which can record 4k at 60fps, or as I prefer 1080p at 120fps.

Now you can watch, subscribe and ultimately enjoy the progression of my diabolo skills here.

Dealing with a cloned motorcycle licence plate

Silvering outside Ibis hotel
Would this beautiful scooter break the ULEZ rules?

Today I received a ULEZ fine from Transport for London?

Somehow I had broken the rules of the ultra low emission zone. On the day when I was flying over the alps in Europe on a holiday. My scooter hasn’t been stolen as I have used it since, plus I have a ton of thick chains and trackers on it (although we already know that never stops some people, just slows them down).

My scooter registration number (number plate) had been cloned and I needed to do something about it straight away, or this could really have negative effects.

Ian Forrester | @cubicgarden

Great, just got a ULEZ fine for a Honda car with a cloned number plate in London!

However

I drive a scooter not a car
I can't legally drive a car
I live 200miles away in Manchester
Haven't ridden in London for over 15 years
I was mid air in a plane across the alps when it happened

My scooter was locked up and hasn't moved according to the many locks, multiple trackers and CCTV's in the garage.

But I need prove it wasn't me?
According to…

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3743
wilsons.co.uk/news/what-to-do-

March 11, 2026, 3:46 pm 3 boosts 8 favorites

I thought it would be pretty straight forward but I realised reading around, its much more complex!

Contacting the DVLA and the police is harder than it should have been. None of them have clear paths for cloned number plates (I called the DVLA and maybe should have called the police too). Then I got a sense my insurance and all those many years of no-claims are at risk. But my insurance won’t do anything till I have a crime reference from the police.

The criminals (which they are) could be running up large amount of fines or even committing all types of other things (like robbery or who knows what) under my licence number. Most people don’t even know till the first fine comes in, which in my case is 11 days later.

After reporting it to the police, I had a look through the different number plate look up sites and found most were correct. However a couple gave clues to who had cloned my number plates.

Cloned licence found on a licence look up site

As you can see, my Honda Silvering is not a Honda Civic and certainly not green with a 1600 cc engine! I always wanted a larger scooter but 1600 would be a huge change from 600cc.

Mountain ride

This is bad, because of course its appearing places. However interestingly in the information which is blanked out, I can see the city location, history, etc. I won’t post it because I’m unsure how I feel about this, although with the right registration details you can look it up yourself.

Some resources for anyone who is facing the same. Starting with a BBC news page

Car cloning involves criminals stealing or copying another car’s registration plates, often choosing plates from a similar looking vehicle

The scam involves criminals using another person’s registration plates and running up fines and penalties which then land on their unsuspecting victims, who only realise there is an issue when the fines start arriving

Police say once reported, those affected can then contact the organisation that issued the fine, explain the vehicle has been cloned, that police have been informed, request cancellation and send supporting evidence if available

More practical advice and this quote shows how common it is…

Cloned number plates are very common in the UK, and the number of cases where cloned plates are involved has been increasing. Some of the factors that influenced the increase include the installation of more ANPR cameras, the expansion of London’s ULEZ area, and now more cities are introducing CRZ (Clean Air Zones).

Absolutereg.co.uk