Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (July 2019)

I decided to start a monthly newsletter with some personally fascinating links I’ve been reading/listening/watching; after presenting my view from Republica 2019 and IndieWebCampBerlin.

I have a number of ways I could run the newsletter, from standard email lists like mailchimp, could use a microblog, I could use standardnotes listed, RSS to email, etc, etc. But for now I’ll add to my blog and tag them accordingly.

So with no further ado, heres the first of maybe many.


 

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking down at our feet or at the new Prime Minster. To quote Buckminster FullerYou 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 happening with young people getting out and protesting.

With a focus on new models in business, technology, society, policy, processes, etc. I present the public service internet newsletter.

 

Beyond Black Mirror’s Nosedive, what is China’s Social Credit “System?”

Ian thinks: The Chinese social credit “system” is discussed everywhere especially when talking about the other end of the scale from surveillance capitalism. Republica’s panel discussion about its actual implementation today, debunking some myths and brought everything in sharper focus from a western view.

Into The Fediverse, with Sean Tilley (Steal this show s4e20)

Ian thinks: Jamie King’s podcast with episode with Sean Tilley of We Distribute (and formerly the Diaspora project) about the early days of Diaspora, a open source Facebook alternative which was even talked about by myself. The interview picks up a gear when talking about the Fedverse which is all the rage as a viable alternative for the next generation internet

How to “Defeat” Facebook

Ian thinks: Nice follow on from the interview with Sean Tilley, there is a very detailed document from Chris Hughes one of the founders of Facebook. About the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook as a social network. The document proposes how to “Defeat” Facebook with trust, transparency, controlling broadcasting, eliminating horrors, killing the real names policy, etc.

Privacy is dead?

Ian thinks: You hear it all the time, but this is a nice summary of a lot of the different aspects which leads to the conclusion that our traditional notion of privacy is dead or dying? The important part is the linked datasets and the consistent need to surveil for those companies business model rely on surveillance capitalism.

The hidden costs of automated thinking

Ian thinks: Jonathan Zittrain introduces the term “intellectual debt” to the table while thinking about the accountable of AI. Screams algorithmic literacy supported by more transparency, governance and accountability. Jonathan makes some good comparisons how we didn’t understand how Aspirin worked till 1995 but was commonly prescribed and used.

The far right is forking Mastodon and joining the fediverse

Ian thinks: When you open source anything, there is always the chance someone will do something with it you don’t like, want or could even be illegal.This is the latest example of how the spirit & diversity of open source is being tested. Mastodon’s federated model has ways to deal with this but its not foolproof and still not palatable for its creator and supporters.

A contract to guide the web

Ian thinks: Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s working draft document for the future web is open for review till September 8th. Is the aim is to have one shared contract for governments, companies and citizens realistic? I encourage all to complete the form to feed into the process

The Great Hack

Ian thinks: This well worth watching, as it nicely ties together all the disparate parts of the puzzle and asks critical questions of the big data rush.

User permission opt in or out? Time for HDI!

3 mobiles optin privacy
Is grey opt in or opt out?

I’m one of those people who look at terms when using services or purchasing IOT devices. I also dont accept the cookie warnings unless I’m actually happy to use the service. This does make looking at any Oath/Yahoo site a pain for a while, as they use to have accept or nothing else (this changed).

Very sure a lot of the companies deliberately put up painful cookie notices to mislead their users. If this isn’t a dark pattern it should be?

Recently I noticed this cheeky one from the three mobile app. You can assume the sliders when grey are not active and the purple one on? But there’s no actual clear sign to say what is active/on and whats inactive/not. Its also interesting that the grey ones are the default, which you would assume are active/on in every other example you have experienced of this.

Another clear call for Human Data Interaction (HDI).

The rainy days travelling mix

Rain drops on a window screen
Photo credit to: josephb on flickr

It was a rainy drive down through Birmingham on Sunday but complete with the Pacemaker device and a steady driving from my partner, I was able to do a mix for the whole journey down south. Kind of gutted I didn’t include Travel (Signum mix) by Bulgarian

This time I recorded the whole mix, which was meant to be slightly more chilled as I’m sure it affected the driving speed a bit. I think its worthy of a journey with pacemaker mix and I dedicate it to my lovely partner who drove quote a bit last weekend.

Lots of new tunes and some old classics, mixed up and played over a car stereo while travelling on the motorways.

Enjoy!

  1. The Blessing – Gui Boratto
  2. Lately (The struggle dub) – Airbiscuit
  3. Suru (Martin Roth Electrance remix) – Super8 & TabArm
  4. Shoreside – Streetcleaner
  5. Rain (Cosmic Gate remix) – Armin Van Buuren feat Cathy Burton
  6. BOOM – MaRlo
  7. The Storm – Eco
  8. Breath (Blake Jarrell remix) – Anna Nalick
  9. Percussive Thinking (meat katie & elite force remix) – Forme
  10. Communication (mas mix) – Mario Piu
  11. Rosegarden 2.0 – JS16
  12. City of lights – LTN
  13. Shnorkel (Dousk Exclusive Gems Remix) – Miki Latvak & Ido Ophir
  14. Cafe Del Mar at Night (Beat Service’s Out of office mashup) – Energy 52 vs Shakedown
  15. Switch (Oliver Klein & Peter Jurgens remix) – Beckers
  16. Mirrors – Trilucid
  17. Z.I.T.A (Markus Schossow remix) – Hiver & Hammer with Funabashi
  18. Daddyrock – Sander Van Doorn
  19. Dance4life (12 inch mix) – Tiesto Feat Maxi Jazz
  20. Anjan – Angelica S
  21. Weather The Storm (Daniel Wanrooy twister remix) – Space RockerZ
  22. Cream (Paul Van Dyk remix) – Blank & Jones

Son of Hibachi portable BBQ is 5 stars

2019-07-15 19.52.40

Its hot and there’s nothing better than some time outside cooking away. I usually use those portable disposable BBQs when away from home but thats about to change…

I bought the Son of Hibachi portable BBQ a while ago but never actually used it till last week. I was impressed before and after using it even more so.

2019-07-15 19.52.36

Easy to clean, sensible way to start the BBQ. Excellent size and just a amazing portable BBQ. Can’t wait to get it on the scooter and on to a beach. Maybe while playing some Volleyball or something.

2019-07-15 19.45.49

Maverick women and the Moon

Moon 50 Festival

Its finally came, the moon50festival to mark our relationship with the moon and the 50 years since we visited the moon for the very first time. I have been involved with the festival from a far and Livia added me as a digital advisor to the festival a while ago. Out of the whole host of different events was the big one, Maverick women and the moon, advertised as A night of talks and performances with a keynote by Margaret Atwood.

The journey for me and my partner to get there was quite trip, but we managed to get to Greenwich University about 5mins before the start.

It was packed full of people which was fantastic to see on a hot evening of a sold out event in London. The best way to describe the evening was eclectic with everything from comedy to opera. The programming was spot on and kept the energy up through-out the whole evening.

Moon 50 Festival

To start with was someone I had not seen in decades. Helen Lederer’s moon monologues: Menzies, Menopause and Mayhem.

She was very funny and was great starter for the evening to come. Along her comedy piece she touched on many subjects including gender diversity in the showbiz world and the effect of the lunar cycle on women.

Next was a talk about how Chinese culture think about the moon by Angela Chan and how does these works of science fiction persist in a global climate? Really interesting thought-provoking stuff.

Moon 50 Festival

This was followed by a screening of a short film called Moxn (pronounced Moon) and Q&A. A beautifully shot video exploring gender and ethnic diversity wrapped up in a poem. Something for the Encounters short film festival I certainly think.

There was a welcomed break giving us enough time to go get some proper hot food, as our trip from Manchester was pretty non-stop and didn’t include a sit down meal. Remembering Greenwich from over 10 years ago, we settled into Noodle time for a meal and discussion about the evening so far.

Moon 50 Festival

When we got back there was the main billing/keynote for the evening. Margaret Atwood on the Moon and Magic. The atmosphere was thick with anticipation and Margaret now in her golden years didn’t let disappoint. She was funny, poignant and just magical. It was a absolute pleasure sitting in the 2nd row watching her talk. She was fantastic and received a bit of standing clap at the end. There was a Q&A which followed afterwards but over stretched its time but in her answers, you could tell how super switched on Margaret was and how deeply she thought about the world. She reminded me of Janet Murray who wrote Hamlet on the Holodeck, who happened to see last year at ICIDS in Dublin.

Moon 50 Festival

After Margaret, some music in the form of a Opera to seal the amazing evening. The only shame was people leaving in between rather than staying for closing. But regardless the Opera finished the moon festival event off in fine style.

The event mainly run, created and hosting women was great and well worth travelling from Manchester for. So happy to see all the people at the event and if things work out as well with the other events, I expect next year there will be another moon festival regardless of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Excellent night and well worth attending and experiencing!

Massive thanks to the organisers and everyone behind this event and all the events under the Moon Festival. It was great!

What happens when a country’s entire population is hacked?

Hack the planet

I was reading about how a 20-year-old man was arrested in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Tuesday afternoon and was charged with an unprecedented hack of the country’s tax authority, ending with the theft of sensitive personal records from nearly every adult in Bulgaria.

The question is what happens when a country’s entire adult population is hacked?

The scope of this attack is vast, and the number of unanswered questions remains significant.

The email the hacker sent to journalists with the leaked data came from a Russian email address. No one is quite sure what that means yet, but given the tension between Russia and Europe, especially in cyberspace, it’s a detail that’s attracted immediate attention.

Closer to home, the Bulgarians are looking at their government and wondering what went so badly wrong.

Its quite a thing when someone else (trusted?) loses control of your data like this. But its happening more and more.

More of a reason to be more choosy about who you trust with your personal data but also more of a reason why companies may want to rethink holding the data at all! Zero-knowledge proof, client side processing, etc is all part of this. But asking that question about the value of holding such data and liability of doing so is even more important.

Till we finally get a grip on this, more headlines like this will become more common place.

iPhone XR ad promotes smartphone addiction as a way of life?

Found via Hannah while working away, Latest iPhone XR ad promotes smartphone addiction as a way of life, and that’s bad
I hadn’t seen these Apple adverts but yes this isn’t good and strange for a company who was pushing for time well spent a while ago.

If you are affected by any of this, I would recommend having a look at my guide to take control of your smartphone and likely improve your phone and personal batteries

New diabolo tricks with J-sliding

I’m still working out how to do a vertex as I wrote in my new years resolutions. But while looking for videos to help explain where I might be going wrong, I found a new category of tricks called j-sliding?

J-SLIDING is a new style of juggling with diabolo, 
that enables you to do more tricks.

Its not quite the shift of the vertex before this, or the suicide before that and the grind before that. But interesting move forward regardless.

The backstreets of madrid mix

Backstreets of Madrid

Following the Madrid after the sun drops mix, I was messing around with the Pacemaker on a very hot night so went for a walk to get fizzy water. I came across some… lets say interesting streets… I recorded a mix that night and it was alright but the 2nd half got pretty sketchy, maybe something to do with heat and drink. So I removed the last half and saved the first part for your listening pleasure. Its also lots of tech trance with Sander Van Doorn and Mauro Picotto appearing in the line up.

Enjoy!

  1. Airforce one (igor S mix) – igor s
  2. The Oblivious – Muhamed Sherief & WAAJII
  3. Amino Acids – Tau-Rine
  4. Blood Angels (Chris Liebing mix) – John Startlight
  5. DJ Culture (Joey Beltram remix) – Kevin Saunderson & Joey Beltram
  6. Daisy – Sander Van Doorn
  7. Ninety – Sander Van Doorn
  8. Iguana (Arabesque mix) – Mauro Picotto
  9. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  10. Pulsar (letters mix) – Mauro Picotto
  11. Shnorkel (Dousk Exclusive Gems remix) – Miki Litvak & Ido Ophir
  12. Bubbly – Sebastien Leger
  13. Timeloop – Oliver Klein

Update Backstreets of Madrid hit a high of 92nd in the Tech Trance chart

Backstreets of Madrid in the techtrance chart

Danger in the Hague mix

Danger in the Hauge mix.jpg

About a month ago I went to the Hague for the first time. The journey included a flight to Amsterdam then a train to the Hague. It was a lovely place and of course I had my pacemaker device for the journey.

Quite a interesting mix going very trancy near the end, with some of my favourite tunes.

Enjoy the mix

  1. Super Cool – Tempo Giusto & Jace Headland
  2. Capoeira (Maori remix) – Maori
  3. Rewind (Mikkas remix) – Emma Hewitt
  4. Dalmatia – Estiva
  5. Nitric (Division One remix) – Hybrid system
  6. Running up the hill (Jerome isma-Ae Bootleg) – Placebo
  7. Hidden light – M6 and Klauss Goulart
  8. Drive – Abstract vision
  9. Tears (Protoculture remix) – Markus Schulz presents Dakota
  10. Labyrinth (Paul Keyen remix) – Lee Cassells
  11. Homeward – Ferry Corsten
  12. We are one (instrumental mix) – Dave 202
  13. Carabella (Galen Behr versus Orjan Neilsen remix) – Galen Behr versus Hydroid

Update Danger in the Hague mix has hit 81st in the Tech Trance chart

Danger in the Hague mix 81st in the techtrance chart

Dada says there might be a problem?

Grandpa's Pocket Ledger & My Field Notes

Following on from the great work being done by the databox project team which recently appeared in BBC News, about the work (BBC R&D) have done with it including the living room of the future and BBC Box project. I was impressed to learn about the Dada wiki.

The Defense Against the Dark Artefacts (DADA) project is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, and Imperial, addressing challenges in security and privacy related to smart home devices. These challenges result from the current, widely-adopted approaches in which cloud services underpin home IoT devices, where network infrastructure protection is minimal and little or no isolation is provided between attached devices and the data traffic they carry.

It addresses these challenges by:

  1. designing and implementing mechanisms for device traffic monitoring with a precise look at packet traces and device profiles;
  2. applying learning technologies to detect devices’ abnormal behavior;
  3. introducing techniques for dealing with traffic anomalies and restoring home network operability;
  4. putting the homeowner in the center of management by informing them of possible security threats and offering a choice of defences.

This although I used the wrong technology, this was what I was pointing towards in my blog titled your home needs a blockchain. All the things in Human Data Interaction – Legibility, Agency and Negotiatability all apply if Dada was a databox application.

Interestingly Dada isn’t the only one in this field. Recently Princeton released IOT inspector to do something similar.

Today, we release Princeton IoT Inspector, a open-source tool that lets you inspect IoT traffic in your home network right from the browser. With a one-click install process, you can watch how your IoT devices watch you within minutes of setup.

However IOT inspector is a tool for inpection, while Dada is a tool and place to upload data for analysis to benefit the research community. Of course you don’t have to upload the data and maybe do the analysis locally (this would fit the Databox model perfectly). There is a privacy policy of course, but I expect this will be expanded in the near future.

We understand that any uploaded device trace might contain personal application data. While we need to analyse the uploaded traces to extract IoT features in order to form ML training datasets, we do not aim to analyse nor store your personal data. Therefore, the processed traces are anonymised and all sensitive application payload is removed before the actual analysis starts.

After analysis is done, our servers store the anonymised trace and the extracted features such as packet headers, addresses, ports and payload size (but not the payload itself).

Of course uploading the data for research purposes could be incredible useful. For example imagine you bought a device which is already in the Dada database. You check the device and it seems to be sending a lot of traffic odd places. You check the version number, firmware, etc but its consuming a lot of traffic which is odd. Maybe it was hacked/hijacked? With a public database, its possible to check. Even better with a databox application, it could be done automaticlly if the user(s) allow it.

Some of you maybe thinking this is insane stuff but can I remind you of the house that spied on me and the follow up which armed people with tools.

Even Mozilla went as far as to create a buyers guide to help people choose IOT devices with more information that whats usually available to you in the shop or without proper research. Now theres loads of stories about IOT hijacking by hackers (hummmm possible) and more likely from the companies who make the hardware to bring new features… 

96656cc2-6c28-4100-a783-f1006f53c102_text_hi.gif

Madrid after the sun drops mix

Another one of those travel with pacemaker device mixes, this time while in Madrid during the heatwave. The hottest heatwave in European history, and with a heat at night topping 33c all types of fun was unleashed including a protest. I was hoping water cannons might be used, maybe others were hoping for similar?

This mix was done during the night and signals a slightly darker side of Madrid with some tech trance – but still equally cool.

Enjoy!

  1. Concrete Angel (K Theory remix) – Gareth Emery featuring Christina Novelli
  2. Shifter – Timo Maas
  3. Suru (Martin Roth Electrance remix) – Super8 & Tab
  4. Wrist Block (Joey Beltram remix) – Side Four
  5. Running up the hill (Jerome Isma-Ae Bootleg) – Placebo
  6. Eclipse – Neo
  7. Surveillance – Jordon Suckley
  8. Mass Noise 2015 – Fred Baker & Seb B
  9. Rewind (Mikkas Remix) – Emma Hewitt
  10. Daddyrock – Sander Van Doorn
  11. Opulence – Simon Patterson
  12. Intruder – Armin vs MIKE
  13. Opium – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
  14. Higher State – Genix

Update… Thursday 11th July

Madrid after the sun drops mix is now 90th in the global Tech Trance chart.

Madrid after the sun drops mix is now 90th in the global Tech Trance chart

Everyone needs a little self-care time

IMG_20190625_161128-EFFECTS
Nothing better than a little self-care, by indudging my love of rollercoasters

Its a lesson I’ve learned after many mistakes from a previous life (before my brush with death). Taking some time for myself to chill out a little, especially after one of those busy weeks that I sometimes post.

A while ago during my sabbatical after my brush with death, I did read (listen) to a lot of things, this is also when I decided to get hypnotherapy for my fear of needles. Another thing I picked up was the idea of self-care.

Selfcare is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good selfcare is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety.

I tie it directly to the conscious living lifestyle which is simple in concept again but being mindful is more tricky that it first seems. For example one of the things I do is plan in self-care time in my calendar, especially when I identify a potentially stressful period coming up. It could be a great time away for work but flights are always full of stressful moments and finding hotels etc. For example last week, I flew to Madrid to talk at the xR fest. It was great but the weather temperature hit a maximum of 41c and my flights were via Brussels. I knew the connection was tight with 55mins between landing and the connecting flight leaving.

Express connection ticketOf course we didn’t actually get into the air for 45mins from Manchester, giving me no time to run across the airport through passport control with the express connection ticket and luckily catch my flight as it was also delayed and they couldn’t quite close the gate with people arriving from previous flights. Trust me it was a close call!

This is all the stuff I thought about while resting in the hot tub at the Hilton Hotel Manchester Monday July 1st. I had planned in a day off and took advantage of a treatment some kind friend had bought me for my 40th birthday.

While listening to The Nod recently I was impressed with the discussion about Self-Care. There were two aspects I liked quite a lot (wish I could transcribe it). In summary the conversation was about getting men (especially black men, being a black culture podcast) to consider self-care as part of being masculine. The discussion reminded me of a discussion I had a long while ago about the game being a self-help book for men who usually avoided self-help books.

Self-care is clearly important but its equally important to find what works for you. The example of a yoga retreat just doesn’t work for me although it might work for others. My kind of self-care is certainly spas and rollercoaster parks

Maybe your more a sleep in long hours type person or rearrange and clean the house hygge person. What ever it truly is (and I mean truly deeep down) then a little self-care when things get tough is really a life savor!

Seinfeld is 30 years old today

55L82Jyp59C9jzsaL1gBECrop37 I can’t believe Seinfeld is 30 years old

Found via Vox

Seinfeld, one of the most successful TV shows ever made, turns 30 on July 5, 2019. Its pilot, “The Seinfeld Chronicles,” aired that evening in 1989, but the show wouldn’t return for nearly a full year

One of the classic episodes is (of course) the Soup Nazi