Tag: digitalid

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Jan 2026)

ChatGPT psychosis? This scientist predicted AI-induced delusions — two years later it appears he was right This scientist predicted AI-induced delusions…

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed reading Arduino’s new terms of service, reading the awful story of the man behind evil twin wifis on airplanes and please stop using AI browsers.

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 Apple working with the EU’s DMA, E-petition digital ID debate now on youtube and UK flat owners could have a legal right to fibre.

France turns hostile to privacy and encryption?

Ian thinks: Worrying that the stance on open Android apps outside the play-store is undecided, but even worst to see the crack down on encryption comes to the likes of privacy centred Graphene OS.

Remember the pipe dream of the metaverse?

Ian thinks: Travel back a few years when Facebook become Meta, Horizon worlds was on the tip of lots of tongues. But for the wrong reasons as this video makes super clear. Even I was shocked to see an average of 900 people using it along side #4.4 billion in loss income while Zuck’s glaze is elsewhere.

Remember Facebook dating?

Ian thinks: Talking about Meta, surprisingly Facebook dating its doing very well, although not promoted or talked about at all. There’s a plan to do more in 2026, I expect the changes at Hinge will have an influence to reflect Zuckerberg’s plans for more AI bots?

Dating coaching with Chat GPT?

Ian thinks: We all know people who are using AI for different aspects of life but as a dating coach is on the up-tick  The notable part is this has been published in the female fashion magazine Elle, and indicates a worrying trend of AI mingling with human intimacy.

The enshittification of Airbnb and so much more…

Ian thinks: As a Airbnb host myself, I can agree about the enshittification of the platform Airbnb. I personally have had to fight against the decay of the platform from AI pricing, scramble for superhost status and so much more.

The everyday problems of privacy

Ian thinks: This video explains just a few of the problems with being private on the internet today. I recently did similar and found it painful, emailing back and forth to confirm everything, in the end I just gave up.

Talking LLM bias in detail

Ian thinks: AI bias was heavily talked about for years, then things went quiet. I found this detailed conversation with Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji, perfectly timed in the face of the rise of LLMs. I found the API vs chat interface differences really powerful.

AI psychosis? What could be done?

Ian thinks: You likely have heard of it but its when AI echos and encourages paranoia and delusions. There are many real examples, but this well watched video although curated for performance shows how things can accelerate downwards ever so quickly. The big question is what can be done?

The authoritarian pipeline made visible

Ian thinks: Francesca Bria and others clearly highlight the huge problems with the current tech setup in the states. In this interactive mapping, its insane how interwoven everything is, but hardly surprising. What this means for Europe is a big question and the key point.

The next 10 years of public service in the UK?

Ian thinks: Every 11 years the UK government puts out a green paper for the future of the BBC public charter. As a public consultation, there is a call for feedback and thoughts on the future of public service and the BBC. Highly recommend spending the time on this, and its open to all

Like this newsletter? Find the monthly archive here

Estonia’s Digital Nomad Visa, very tempting

Tallinn, Estonia
About 3 years ago I signed myself up for Estonia’s e-residency programme.I have used a few times for ID and sending state backed emails, but ever since Brexit became a reality I have thought imagine if it could be used to spend more time in Europe? This is why I was so impressed when the digital nomad visa became a reality.

Because of this, I have been looking much more deeply into the idea of actually going back to Tallinn for 6 months when/if the current pandemic is more under real control. I have been pretty clear about trying to live in Europe at least for a short while. Originally the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden were hot my list but I’d like to just give it a try. The digital nomad visa looks perfect for this.My Estonian e-residency ID

I like to think of myself as a digital nomad, so maybe its time to test the logic? I know one thing for sure… Its been over 6 months since I was last in work. Besides my Ubuntu SSD issue (long story, but its something I can’t fix myself without wiping out the existing work settings) everything workwise has been fine.

Between a lot of cloud applications like Zoom, Slack, Google drive, Dropbox, etc. Its very clear I could do this from almost anywhere with a good internet connection. Of course with my personal cloud applications running on my server such as Plex, a number of docker apps, etc. I was recently checking out cryptpad.

I did notice thanks to the e-residency newsletter than Tallinn and Estonia featured recently in a episode of Netflix’s new science show called connected.

Tallinn

Estonia features in an episode of a new science series now available on streaming service Netflix, where the country is highlighted for its trail-blazing digital development.

“Connected”, a U.S. show hosted by science journalist Latif Nasser, looks at the various ways people are connected to each other and the world around them.

Episode 5 of the series, “Clouds”, visits Estonia and sees first-hand the country’s cloud-based digital infrastructure, as well as taking a turn in a smoke sauna.

The show has already received rave reviews, with the New York times listing it as their recommended show to watch Sunday, or at any time.

Presenter Latif Nasser notes that it is difficult not to get jealous of Estonians.

“Imagine you can vote in the sauna, register your company in the hot tub or declare taxes in the toilet,” he says.

Estonia's ID system

Estonia to implement a digital nomad Visa

My Estonian e-residency ID

How on earth did i miss this!?

The Estonian parliament on 3 June adopted amendments to the current laws to create a digital nomad visa that would allow people to come to Estonia as a tourist and at the same time continue working for a foreign employer or as a freelancer independent of location.

This is the step I’ve been dreaming about… Digital ID becomes useful for physical ID

Would I work in another country while doing my current job? You darn right I would. The last few months have made it super clear that I could work completely remotely quite well. A tourist visa is about 90 days within a 6 month period, I just spent 3 months mainly in my flat!

This is very doable and heck if I can also wonder across into other parts of Europe?! Now that would be incredible..!

 

Teretulemast klubisse: Estonia e-Residency

My Estonian e-residency ID
Its really mine, no matter what my thumb is hiding

Finally while in London, I got to pick up my e-residency pack.

It was a bit of rush to get to the Embassy of Estonia as they are are only open certain times of the day. But once I got there, answered a few questions with my passport, gave up a few fingerprints and waited a bit; I was presented with my pack which included the digital identity card, USB reader, instructions and secure pin and puk numbers.

USB reader for Digital ID card

It was pretty painless and the lady behind the glass was pleasant enough on a hot sticky day.

Of course because I’m using Ubuntu, it was never going to be as straight forward as plugging it in. In the FAQ’s theres instructions to get it working on Ubuntu.

digital id card in USB reader
Of course I hid the important info, but thats the card in the USB on my Dell XPS 13.

As it was late, I decided to do it tomorrow night, as I was tired even with the espresso I had late night.

Many people have asked what I’ll do with it now I got it?

Digital signing is certainly one of my things I’ll be doing more of. I have other plans to use it for authentication, as its backed by the state of Estonia. I’m still unsure what .ee domain I should buy too. Will I setup a bank account? We shall see… Its a very interesting time to have loose ties to the EU.

Microformating ID

Doc Searls posted a entry about Jeremy Miller's MicroID proposal. Its a Microformat as such which allows anyone to claim verifiable ownership of content they generate. You simply hash a communication ID like a email and then hash a URI of where the content will be published. Then hash the two together to generate your unique MicroID. Don't worry theres a generator on the MicroID site.

MicroID = sha1_hex( sha1_hex( “mailto:user@email.com” ) + sha1_hex( “http://website.com” ) );

The important thing to remember is that MicroID is just a way to claim ownership not a authentication. Its also very simple to add anywhere. One of the examples is to put the MicroID in your meta, which I have just done. You can also stick the Microid in a div tag using the class attribute. I'm not so keen on this method, I think semanticly it would be better if it was attached in the id attribute. But I guess it would break if you had more than piece of content from the same author in the page.

I do like the idea of generating a MicroID for every comment which gets published to a blog. Maybe this is one for the Blojsom groups.

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