Tag: adobe

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Nov 2026)

Scene from the film gravity - Astronaut blown into space high above the earth
Scene from the film gravity – Astronaut blown into space high above the earth

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the AI reskins, hearing how AlJazeera was hacked with a zero click attack and reading about cognitive atrophy

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 fining Microsoft’s adfirm for using Grindr data, Proton making clear where those flock camera are and thank you Ondřej Surý and many more for their time working on PHP

Does AI make closed source, open?

Ian thinks: There has been a lot of talk about Photocraft which is allegedly a whole recreation of adobe’s suite of tools written in Rust. However the important part is the ethical aspects and could this mean all closed source could become exist? Also worth watching the 404 media video about this all and a related keynote from Anil Dash, which mentions proprietary platforms are like ice cubes..

Services without servers

Ian thinks: The freenet project is one of those projects you heard about decades ago and forget about. In the background they have been working hard using modern technology to build out decentralised systems which suit modern times. I am interested how this interop’s with open social networks. Love to see bridges on to Matrix and other networks.

The environmental impact of data centres in the UK

Ian thinks: It’s so good to hear Matha Dark from Foxglove talking about the state of data centres in the UK and the ramifications for future data centres in other countries in the Europe and who knows where next? I was truly open mouthed that data centrers can make claims and are never held accountable to them. Unbelievable. I would also recommend Paris Marx talking on better offline, as he’s book Hyperscale just hit the shelves.

What are AT proto spaces?

Ian thinks: This is a keynote via the Fediforum, which explains the new feature a lot of people have been asking for in the AT/skies ecosystem. Private social spaces which isn’t readable in the AT fire-hose of conversations. Its going to be very useful for many people, and answers some of the questions of companies and scrapers using conversations. It doesn’t quite go as far as I would have liked but its good to see progress.

Team human is done?

Ian thinks: When I heard about Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon on stage at the pro-human AI event calling for team human. I wanted to understand how Rushkoff thought about this movement, which he coined and shepherded. Rushkoff reflects back on many years of this and where things sit now. Its worth listening

Trust me, this is not your muse

Ian thinks: Meta’s Muse AI IOT device is unlikely to make it to the UK or Europe, thankfully. The muse is aimed at adults but looks like something for kids, I honestly think this is highly and morally irresponsible. But its not like Meta are not known for this type of behavior. Good reminder to check out the social reckoning before it disappears.

Drinks made for the internet only?

Ian thinks: I have been following the culture of things made to share online for a long while. However this video shows the real impact of private/venturer capital on the culture of sharing online, this is well worth focusing on. But even the idea of a drink which has enough sugar and calories for the average human is insane.

Are you human or a bot?

Ian thinks: I found the identity part very interesting as there is mention of community identity. The idea of using this to combat the onslaught of AI bots is a interesting one because it can help create a verifiable proof of humanity alongside privacy preserving verification,

Ian thinks: Deep down I said no but this video shows a more positive view that it can be done due to the strong legal framework of Europe. I wonder how long it may take and will the Kessier syndrome will come into effect sooner?

Why do they do it? Profit!

Ian thinks: Jess Asato’s story and courtcase against X/AI’s Grok is incredible and a reminder of how deeply troubling for everyone but mainly women; how AI systems can be used to weaponise harm against people.

Like this newsletter? Find the original here and the monthly archive here

Is the BBC’s iplayer changes, pushing developers towards the dark net?

XBMC media centre

So to remind everyone, this is my blog and not the view of my employer (the BBC). If you’ve not seen the outbreak about the iplayer stream changes then I can recommend the BBC Backstage post and the internet blog post. You will see they both link to the register piece which highlighted the problems people are having.

Here’s the Register’s summary of the whole thing.

The BBC has quietly updated its hugely popular iPlayer with a verification layer that closes the door on open source implementations of RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streaming, The Register has learned.

The Beeb applied the update to its online video catch-up service on 18 February, just four days after Adobe Systems penned a corporate blog post about its “content protection offerings”.

The tweak means that free RTMP plugins offered by the likes of the XBMC community – whose code is based on the GNU General Public Licence (sic) v2* – can no longer stream iPlayer content. The latest iteration of XBMC’s plugin was created in May last year and was being used by UK viewers to play TV and radio catch-up content from the BBC’s iPlayer service.

XBMC.org adds to this…

While we understand the BBC’s reasoning for the decision, we surely don’t agree with it. Add to that, a publicly funded media organization has far more obligations than a typical private one.

XBMC could easily be modified in a way that would allow playback of the streams, though it could never be included in the official binaries due to the wretched DMCA.

We hope that news of this change spreads quickly. Feel free to submit this story as well as the one from The Register to your favorite news sites. If anyone from the BBC would like to engage in a public discussion, we would very much welcome it; see our contact page for details. Also, be sure to take their online survey and tell them how you feel. Remember, this change affects far more than an XBMC plugin… all open-source BBC playback implementations are at stake.

*librtmp, the library used to access these streams, uses the lgpl license.

So to be clear, I also understand the reasoning but disagree with the need for this change. This change is easily fixable/hackable/reversed but doing so would break the DMCA or EUCD. So this is a very difficult position to be in because the change is forcing the hand of the developers to do something illegal. Now most of the developers don’t and won’t do it but there are those who don’t give a flying monkey for the law and will easily reverse whatever Adobe creates in the form of DRM. This is why there is such a outrage by most people who understand the situation fully. Verification layer protection is a joke, but a really bad joke which you can’t get rid off by simply shuffling it out the front door. Cory always says…

DRM only affects people who buy media honestly, rather those who nick, borrow or cheat their way to it. In turn that means that the people who ultimately bear the inconvenience, cost and insult of DRM are the paying customers, not the pirates.

And he’s right. The people who are most effected by Verification Layer are those who are the fans watching iplayer streams on their XBMC boxes at home with there friends and family. Worst still they are already license fee payers and early adopters who the BBC really should be spending more time with instead of marking them down as a irrelevant group. This group are very vocal and have the ability to really make the BBC’s future a living hell if its not very careful.

I’ve already seen evidence of a application which strips iplayer of all its content in a slightly questionable way being pushed as a replacement for XBMC’s iplayer script. Its worth noting this application which I won’t link to worked before the change and still works after the change, in actual fact there was no interruption to its service! And if you think thats questionable, I’m sure the usage of BBC content in Bit Torrent, Rapidshare, usenet, etc went flying through the roof as people scrambled back to the dark net to watch there shows. I do wish there was a way to prove this in numbers, just to show how much streaming from the BBC was having an affect on the dark net.

So where do we go from here?

Will the BBC ever turn off Verification layer? Honestly I doubt it and as Adobe creates even more technical hurdles they will also be added. Its a real shame because as we’ve already explored they only effect those who care enough to get there content from the BBC iplayer. Adobe’s measures have no ground in the dark net.

The Trust survey is very important, as that has a massive effect on what the BBC can and cannot do. So its very important that everyone takes part in the survey. Its also worth writing blog entries and telling more people about the issue. This doesn’t only effect xbmc but also all those mobile clients and other media centres. There’s been a lot of comments at the register, iplayer forums, internetblog, backstage forum and backstage blog but not nearly enough posts and twitters.

Finally the BBC needs to talk openly about this stuff, if it was announced this was coming and explained then I honestly I think the BBC wouldn’t get the kickback there getting now. Look at the iplayer forum, who on earth blamed the iplayer RSS terms and conditions for this problem? Yes I’ve been talking to the guys at XBMC and other projects, the BBC needs to build bridges with these communities and at least have a conversation about this stuff. No promises just conversation.