We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed thinking about the eyeball scanning worldcoin, Tesla’s secret range suppression team and dare I even mention @x.
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 BBC joining the fediverse, all those Firefox tips in one video. and EU plans to force replaceable batteries in smartphones.
UK’s online safety bill breaks encryption
Ian thinks: Its clear the UK government like most governments around the world have a difficult problem with end to end encryption. In my own experience anything which weakens encryption means there is no encryption. Anything which weaken encryption is an open door with a door mat and bright lights saying try here and welcome.
AI everywhere, bias everywhere
Ian thinks: This is a disturbing piece about shop owners using facial recognition to protect their stock in the UK. Face-watch is a worrying trend especially knowing how much AI systems are desperate for more training data.
PublicSpaces 2023: The collective of videos
Ian thinks: All the Publicspaces videos are now on peertube and linked on this page. If you only watch one video, I highly recommend the keynotes from Ruha Benjamin, Levien Nordeman and Eli Parser
Race, class, fame and harm: our current social media
Ian thinks: I didn’t see this live in Mozilla House Amsterdam but had a really good talk with Symeon who convinced me to finally read his amazing book.
Is it time to give up on the global internet?
Ian thinks: I hate to say it but this piece has some really good points and its hard to argue against them. The vision of a global internet has been torn apart by many companies, governments and pure greed.
The Eliza effect is big business
Ian thinks: With all the talk about AI, you can’t help but stumble into the chatbot space. Although its easy to laugh, we already know there is a demand to connect with people and there is a ton of companies willing to supply them with better versions of clippy. But do spare a deep thought of all the data being shared and sold too.
A old form of colonialism in effect?
Ian thinks: It was through the tech won’t save us podcast I came across the paper on Open AI’s whisper and indigenous languages. This isn’t just a cautionary tale, its actually as close to the playbook of colonialism. Glad the author and the community are call it out.
Had enough of Captcha’s?
Ian thinks: Although a emerging technology, privacy pass could bring an end to those captcha’s which are annoying, don’t stop a lot of malicious activity, are basically free labour which is used to sell to others. Could this client-side privacy pass protocol which uses un-linkable cryptographic tokens finally put an end to them for good?
Posting without consent is immoral?
Ian thinks: This is a question which has existed for a long time. Even mentioning a persons name can have dire consequences. Two things which were not mention is the interconnected nature of this all.and the EU laws around the right to be forgotten.
RIP Free Kevin
Ian thinks: When i heard Kevin Mitnick died aged 59, I thought back to all the things I had learned through his books, experiences and the free Kevin movement. Well worth re-reading his books and this piece in the register. Rest in piece Kevin.
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