mozilla – Cubicgarden.com…

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Aug 2020)

Dark estonia — Photo by Kevin Lehtla on Unsplash

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed watching the twitter hack fall out and the cult like increase in conspiracies theories.

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 happening with the new Estonian digital nomad visa and a steady drive of transparency questions levelled at Facebook.

Protocols, Not Platforms

Ian thinks: This paper really sets out the problems of the current mainstream internet. Platform building opposed to open protocols which everybody can use. Its well thought out and substantial in its arguments.

The growing changes in robot technology, iot and 3D printing

Ian thinks: I am impressed with the bio-mimicry in some of the robots. Its certainly the way to go, learning from nature. If only we could save it too.

Estonia launches a new type of visa for digital nomads

Ian thinks: Estonia was the first country with e-residency and they have flatten the world one more time with a new type of visa, allowing people to work for a remote company for up to 90 days.

If I earn a bitcoin everytime some asked me about the darkweb…

Ian thinks: Although the speaker doesn’t do himself any favours with a blurred out face, he crushes a lot of the typical questions I have been asked about the darkweb

Insight into the dark world of shadow brokers

Ian thinks: Its fascinating to hear about the unsolved puzzle of shadow brokers who sold NSA surveillance tools on the open market. Another reason why government encryption back-doors are such a bad idea.

What are the applications using blockchain technology right now?

Ian thinks: There is a lot of scepticism about crypto technology but I found this video from Crypto startup school, useful looking at the direction and focus of the actual applications which currently exist. The questions are pretty intruding too.

An atlas of surveillance

Ian thinks: Ok this is mainly American but its quite a unique database of different types of surveillance, how they are used and for what purpose. Good work by the EFF.

Emerging tech overview with Node

Ian thinks: Starting with drone delivery and ending with human assisted tech. Node is a great place for summaries on emerging open tech advancements.

Mozilla wants your advice on how to make the internet healther

Ian thinks: If you had only one question for Mozilla, what would it be? Well here is your chance to think and submit that one question.

Find the archive here

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (June 2020)

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by re-reading Anil Dash’s the web we lost essay and hearing doteveryone is closing up after 5 years.

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 happening with Luxembourg becoming the first country to provide free public transport.

The way Covid19 is changing how we use the internet

Ian thinks: Seeing the charts on how Covid-19 has changed our use of the internet is quite telling and could be a forecast for the post Covid-19 future? I’d like to see different countries than just America of course.

Mozilla puts $75000 into Fixing the Internet

Ian thinks: Mozilla works by actively doing, and their new Incubator programme targeting the toxic venture capital problem of new startups chasing the unicorn dream.

Malcolm Gladwell’s thoughts on how people adapt to radical disruption

Ian thinks: Channel4 news piece with Malcolm Gladwell has some good news how people react and adapt to radical disruption like a pandemic.

Genuine world changing ideas

Ian thinks: Its impressive to see genuine smart and sustainable world changing ideas all lined up together (here is 2019). They deserve so much more attention than some of the junk some other CEOs tweet.

How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World?

Ian thinks: Thoughtful conversation about where western culture made the wrong steps. Another good episode of team human.

China’s proposal for a new internet explored by American security expert

Ian thinks: Didn’t get around to reading the China proposal for the redesign of the internet in last months newsletter? Let American security expert Steve Gibson talk you through the main points in 20mins instead.

Cory Doctorow foreshadows his next book?

Ian thinks: Hearing Cory talk about corruption, monopoly in the midsts of the covid19 pandemic; sounds like the perfect start for his next science fiction book. Or maybe like Charlie Brooker said about Black Mirrror, its all just too real right now.

Could a state run Airbnb actually work?

Ian thinks: There are many startups which grow to a point they could be better off state/public owned. If France do go ahead with their own Airbnb, it could be a blueprint of what or not to do for the future. Silicon Valley will make a point of saying this is why Europe isn’t financially competitive of course.

What is the optimum ethical public media stack?

Ian thinks: Matt and many others have been talking about an ethical guide for public service media for a while. Now its launched theres a lot to learn and like about the approach taken. Really interesting timing with doteveryone closing its doors.

CRISPR: the movie

Ian thinks: I haven’t seen a better way of explaining how important the Crispr revolution is and ultimately the concept of programmable genes. (here is nature review ) if you can’t access it elsewhere.

Find an archive of previous public service internet notes here.

Mozilla Festival is moving to Amsterdam

Last Mozfest in London

The word is out… MozfeLast is officially moving to Amsterdam.

The decision to move locations after 9 years in London wasn’t taken lightly. London opened its arms to us in 2011, and we loved its multicultural diversity and entrepreneurial spirit. But it was expensive, and harder to get visas for our guests each year.

During many conversations with the community in Amsterdam, we were consistently impressed with the alignment in values between Amsterdam and Mozilla, as well as the enthusiasm they brought to the proposal process. Amsterdam has publicly-stated principles around protecting data transparency, privacy, and internet access for citizens. And, it is home to a robust and eclectic community of creative thinkers. Our common goals for progressive, radical change in areas of AI, digital rights and literacy, with community inclusion at the fore, will make us great partners in executing a festival that will be a convening force for supporting a more open and healthy internet for all.

Lets say I had a sneaky thought this might be the case when it was first announced that Mozilla was moving the festival.

The bigger surprise is the date change….

Moving to Amsterdam is not our only news. We have also decided to wait until March of 2021 to host our next MozFest. The extra time allows us to critically assess our design to ensure that what we build is robust and accessible and it allows us to embed ourselves in Amsterdam to get to know the local open advocates and activists.

March 2021, is likely a good idea with the Cornoavirus on the rampage right now to be fair.

Mozilla have a couple of Ask Me Anything sessions planned for Wednesday 18th in their Slack group.

Session 1: 9am-10am GMT/5-6am ET
Session 2: 5:30-6:30pm GMT/1:30-2:30pm ET

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Dec 2019)

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking at the next UK general election or at the endless denial about explainable algorithms.

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 happening with the 2019 turner prize cooperatively shared between different 4 artists.

Meet the real Mr Robot

Ian thinks: Listening to Elliot, you can’t help but be quietly impressed with where his curiosity takes him. Which came first Mr Robot or Elliot?

Lancaster University’s Gogglebox of the future

Ian thinks: Lancaster University’s take of the living room of the future is quite something. Really getting into the meat of the smart home data ethics conversation in a fun, accessible but critical way. Look out for their next research

A more generous world?

Ian thinks: Heard Yancey talk a few times, wasn’t convinced but he making the right noises about values. However still not convinced about Bentoism.

Mozilla explains the possibilities of facial recognition

Ian thinks: stealingurfeelin.gs is in a similar vein to do not track, Mozilla expose the effects of facial recognition which the big corps hide in their EULA’s. One reason why I’ve never willingly used snap chat ever.

Are we all to blame for the state we are in?

Ian thinks: I quite like rushkoff’s post-rationalisation, but more importantly his call for us to be adults and make things right.

Roar for the public-interest technologists to unite

Ian thinks: Technologies for the public benefit against asymmetrical power systems that lead to the weaponisation of technologies against vulnerable communities.

What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good?

Ian thinks: If we are talking about the mainstream ones, then its got to be a big fat zero. How many state their principles and actually back it up with yearly accountability and transparent reports?

Password patterns

Ian thinks: Our passwords say so much about ourselves and its time we stopped using them when possible. Time for the alternatives.

Where the human race needs to be

Ian thinks: Umair’s thoughts about turning money back into life is spot on, as he points at the problems in the metrics we have regarded highly for so long.

Mozfest10: A sad moment for the last Mozfest in the UK

There was a point while DJing at the last Mozilla festival in the UK, when I looked up and it hit me.

There will be no more going to Ravensbourne. A place with a million stairs and incredible spaces. Its also my previous university so I always bump into someone I knew. On top of that its just down the road from the last place I lived in South East London, so its always interesting to take a bus east and see whats changed. That bloody big Tesco in Woolwich is awful, but I completely missed the IKEA!

Back to Mozfest however…

Its been 10 years and I have been to 8 of them. I missed the first one due to being elsewhere during the drumbeat festival. Then the second one due to being slightly busy with my brush with death. After that I went every single year getting more and more involved. I still remember when the whole festival was around Learning, Freedom and the Web, heck I still have the book on my shelf.

At some point during 2014, I became a spacewrangler for 4 years [2014][2015][2016][2017]. I have to say Jon Rogers had something to do with this for sure.

Its been quite a amazing time and people always ask me, why?

Classic moment in Mozfest history — Never again!

I can now point people at the Mozfest book which charts the history and some of the unique stories from the people who make up Mozfest.

Honestly its the people and community which make it all worth it. As Greshake-Tzovaras said

“Even when coming to MozFest for the first time it felt like coming back to family, in the best possible sense. People are so welcoming and friendly!”

Its like an extended family and one of the best communities to be a part of. There are people I have met through Mozfest which have become incredible friends, collaborators and business partners. I have had critical time with people working at the very edge, people with great ideas/tech/plans. I have visited their homes, met their partners, spent endless nights plotting and shared the highs and lows. My contact book is not just full of contacts but full of people with authentic strong connections from around the world.

Mozfest 2015

Its all about the people and community of Mozilla!

Jons explaining why we need another 500 cardboard boxes?

Then in the words of Sarah, because one weekend isn’t enough…

There was Mozhouse and lets not forget Mozretreat (which I originally thought was Moztreat) which marks the officially first drum of the festival. I can’t tell you how much has come out of both of those too.

Where ever it goes next (my money is on Amsterdam), I will be making a very good case why I should be involved in some way or another. On to bigger and even better things…

To the future of internet health at Moz://a Festival…

Mozfest10: 3D’s: Dating, Deception and Data-Portability (GDPR edition)

3D’s: Dating, Deception and Data Portability | Mozfest 2019 from Ian Forrester

There are a number of blog posts I need to write about the last Mozilla Festival in the UK and I have already written about the dyslexic advantage previously. So its time for my workshop session the 3D’s Dating, Deception and Data-portability in the openness space. I added GDPR edition to the workshop, as I did submit it last year but did so before I actually got my GDPR data back from the dating sites. I assume the lack of clarity about having the data made it tricky for privacy & security to accept it last year?

I was looking forward to this one but on the week of Mozfest, my Dell XPS laptop woke me up in the middle of the night with a bright screen. I thought it was odd to have it on, as its usually a sleep. On closer inspection I found I couldn’t do much, so rebooted it. On the reboot I was able to login but not launch almost anything, so I rebooted again. To find I dumped into a GRUB recovery console. Its a long story what happened next but ultimately my plans to host the dating JSON files on my local machine with a nicer interface was never going to happen.

With all this in mind I changed the presentation (google slides are my friend) and scope of the workshop. Luckily I had redacted enough of the data in advance, and I kept a hold of my data instead of letting people rummage through like I had planned.

I focused the presentation into the 3 areas, dating, deception and data-portability. My slides are all online here.

The people who came were quite vocal and engaged with everything. There were many questions about the dating and deception part, which made think I could have done a whole bit similar to my TEDx talk a few years ago. But I really wanted to get into the meat of the workshop, beyond requesting your data, actually getting it but now what?

This is exactly what I posed as a question to people.

The replies were quite different from what I was thinking…

A group said if you could get a number of data dumps over time, you coul mine the data on your profile to look at positive & negative changes over a longer time scale. This would work great especially on the OKcupid questions, which you can change at anytime and I have.
Another group suggested something similar to Cambridge Analytica using OKcupid questions. I did suggest its highly likely they (Okcupid) are already doing this and its reflected in the people you are shown rather than your vote and news you see. I wasn’t making light of it, just sadly saying everything is there and yes it could be turned into a personality profile easily enough
There was a interesting thought to tally up messages and changes in profile data with historic weather, moon, quantified self data and other data. To see if there is a link. I think this one might include the person who asked why I redacted the star sign data?
The idea of creating a dating bot of yourself was quite shocking, but the thought was with enough of my chat transcripts you could easily train a bot to answer people in the future like I would. There was a discussion about ethics of doing so and what happens when a bot meets another bot pretending to be human
Finally group suggested visualisations to help make tangible choices and things I wrote. This was good in the face of what was missing and how to inform the dirty little tricks dating companies do for profit. Its always clear how powerful visualisation can be, you only have to look at my twitter gender data visualisation from openhumans.

Its clear the Plenty of Fish data was less interesting to people and it would be trivial to move from OKCupid to POF based on the dataset. Other way would require a lot user input.

Massive thanks to Fred Erse for keeping me on time and collecting the ideas together.

IMG_20191102_185108

So what happens next?

Jupyter notebook from openhumans demo

Well I’m keen to put either the actual data or the redacted data into openhumans and try the Jupyter notebook thing. Maybe I can achieve the final groups ideas with some fascinating visualisations.

Mozfest10: The advantages of dyslexia?

There are a number of blog posts I need to write about the last Mozilla Festival in the UK but I wanted to start with this one about my art piece in the all new neurodiversity space.

I started a physical mindmap on Saturday morning in the neurosiversity space and hung up information from the dyslexic advantage book, something I have written a lot about. I then invited the public to read and write on postage tags what they thought the advantages of dyslexia look like. These were hung up for others to read and explore.

Here is the document I wrote if you want to read the MIND strengths in more detail.

I left it over the weekend and let people just add more and more. I also had some great conversations with different people about the advantages. One lady didn’t know there were advantages and lived with dyslexia all her life. As a whole lots people were correctly diagnosed at University and College, which is the norm as the book says. I think I met about 4 people who were diagnosed in School.

I have some great photos and when Mozfest finished I took them with me. Reading them in full it was quite amazing to read.

All the thoughts over the weekend

Here’s the almost complete list (I couldn’t read some of them and I removed the duplicates)…

Right maths, wrong numbers!
Creative
Sequencing
Non-reading information sensitivity
Interconnected thinking
Spatial thinking
Network of thoughts
Advantages?
Telling stories
Attention to details
Improvising & Creativity
Pattern recognition / Recognition pattern
Ability to tell stories
Link themes
Empathy to others
Empathy
Lateral thinking
Concept formation
Storytelling
Crasy?
Mapping strengths
Roles can lead to success
Future prediction
Understanding

Glad I did it and the conversations were amazing, shame I couldn’t be around in the ND space all weekend. Massive thanks to the Spacewranglers of neurodiversity for accepting my session and helping out.

Mozilla festival’s 10th anniversary, get your ticket before they are gone!

The word is out… its very likely the last Mozilla festival in London and the UK. Although sad to see, it will go on to be even bigger

After 10 incredible years, 9 of which were in London, MozFest is asking Where to next?

As a community, we have so much to celebrate for this 10th festival. As we reflect on all we have learnt and built together, we invite you to join us in imagining what the next 10 years of growth and experiences for the MozFest community could be — in a new location.

But wait!

Its not over yet! The next Mozilla Festival for 2019 is on for the week of Monday 20th October – Sunday 27th October. Yes a whole week of celebrations for the festival which set the conversation involving tech, policy, law, design and media. It was 2010 when Mozilla created the book Mozilla Learning, Freedom and the Web, which lead the way to the yearly Internet heath report.

For the week of the Mozilla Festival you are going to want to block out your schedule for some great events in the RSA London during the week (especially the Public spaces / private data event). By the end of the week you will be fired up for the start of the last Mozilla festival in London. Then get stuck in for 2 days of incredible sessions given by people from all over the world. The diversity of the talks will blow you away but all based around Mozilla’s internet health report. Quick plug for my two sessions you don’t want to miss… 3D’s – Dating, Deception and Dataportability (GDPR edition) and The Dyslexic advantage

Of course there’s amazing parties every evening and I expect each one will be incredible being the 10th Mozfest and the last one in the UK. After the success of last years werewolf, I’ll be running another space for those who fancy a break free for the full moon. By Sunday who knows I might even get a chance to throw some tunes down on the pacemaker device?

Its a full on week but well worth it and you can like the organisers relaxed on Monday afternoon.

Get your tickets now, and notice 10 pound discount if you attend one of the free Mozhouse events.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Aug 2019)

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking at the state of democracy around the world and closer to home. 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.”

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

You are seeing more people thinking more critically about the power of public services to transform society again.

Don’t forget if you find this useful, you will find “Public Spaces, Private Data: can we build a better internet?” at the RSA London on 21st October 2019, right up your street.

Well-being the real metric which matters

Ian thinks: Sturgeon is part of a growing momentum, rethinking what’s important and coming to the conclusion; in the internet age our adoption of attention is very badly broken.
Found via Lianne

The Technology of Better Humans from the founder of the hashtag

Ian thinks: Chris Messina is always a good thinker and the idea of emotional technology by emotional intelligent entrepreneurs is very timely.

Facebook Libra deep dive with someone who knows what they are talking about

Ian thinks: After the dust has settled, a detailed look at Libra from the point of view of someone who understands Libra isn’t a cryptocurrency, no matter what others have said.

The founder of Scruff on breaking up with Google

Ian thinks: Eric gives a compelling rational why he stopped using Google ads; siding with his users against short term profit growth in favour of safety and the support of his users.

Black Hat & Defcon hacking conferences in 12-15 minutes

Ian thinks: Its fascinating to see the diversity of hacks and vulnerabilities in everything from security doors, printers, voting machines, cars and even canon DSLR cameras.

Why we need to think public transport even more in the age of driverless cars

Ian thinks: There is so much focus on individuals in driverless cars, however its public transport and last mile transport which can make the difference to peoples lives in our future cities.

You only need 1000 true fans?

Ian thinks: I have been revisiting alternative business models and was intrigued to re-read Kevin Kelly’s thoughts in the light of recent concerns over attention. Still holds weight I feel.

From Pixels to DNA, biotech needs a careful hand

Ian thinks: One place I certainly don’t want to see the “Move fast and break things” ideology is with genetic engineering.
Whole interview with Bryan Walsh

Have you ever thought about the people who moderation that other content?

Ian thinks: This slow moving documentary opens your eyes to the reality of content moderation and the absolutely awful side of the modern web we all use without too much thought.

The Mozilla Festival is finally moving out of London

Ian thinks: Mozfest moving out of London a few days before Brexit is ominous, however the strategy of moving location every few years is a good idea for all including Mozilla.
Learn more and get involved

Public Spaces, Private Data: can we build a better internet?

Last year BBC R&D worked with Mozilla on a event during London Mozilla fest week titled A open space for public service and internet health. The event was great and lots of conversations got taken into Mozfest on the weekend.

This year we are back with another event with even more partners and more topics of interest. Public Spaces, Private Data: can we build a better internet?

On Monday October 21st 2019 between 9am-5pm, At the RSA, John Adam St, London

The internet has enormous potential to be a force for public good, with many initiatives working to create an open, inclusive and trustworthy network. PublicSpaces.net and BBC Research and Development have worked together to organise this one day conference at MozFest House during Mozilla Foundation’s week-long open internet festival. It will explore ways in which we could make a new internet that strengthens the public domain and deliver public value online, in line with PublicSpaces commitment to providing a digital social platform that serves the common interest and does not seek profit.

Our topics for the day include

Public-Controlled Data (presented by BBC R&D)

Equal Access for Everyone (tba)

Healthy Digital Public Sphere (presented by Mozilla)

Public Service Networking (presented by PublicSpaces.net)

Book a ticket or register your interest, before they disappear…

Going to Indieweb Camp Berlin 2019?

Ian Forrester:
RSVP yes
to Indieweb Camp Berlin

I am!

Just RSVP’ed (did it via this post and via a webform) to IndieWebCamp Berlin. Its the first one I’ve been to and I have massive professional and personal interest in Indieweb technologies. Its such a big thing I added it to my new years resolutions.

Explore the future of decentralised and distributed systems
This one is a combination of 2 of my previous resolutions. Exploring the future of online dating with decentralise more. So more mastodon and more exploring Indie web technologies like Bridgy and Kinds. I’ve been really interested in these things for a long while.

Theres a whole bunch of interesting technologies I’ve been keeping an eye on, but never really had the time to spend really looking in-depth.

A spy under the tree for the holidays?

Quite enjoyed Guardian’s piece about the raff of home iot devices coming to the home these holidays.

If you’ve so far withstood the temptation to install a smart speaker in your home, worried about the potential privacy pitfalls and a bit embarrassed about the notion of chatting aimlessly to an inanimate object, brace yourselves. This Christmas, the world’s biggest tech giants, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, are making another bid for your living room, announcing a range of new devices that resemble tablets you can talk to.

It was a real welcome surprise to read/hear Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino too. Her new book Smarter Homes: How Technology Will Change Your Home Life is pretty much on the money.

“It’s very clear what they’re trying to do: sell you more stuff through third-party use of your own information,”

The fear about whether or not such devices are actually always on causes some users to relegate their smart speakers to corridors. “Think about where in the home you want to use these things, particularly if you think they might be listening all the time,”

I had the joy of capturing some of Alexandra’s early thoughts while putting together the ethics of personal data video interviews back in 2015.

I think the only thing missing from the article is a link to Mozilla’s buyers guide, which charts in a friendly consumer fashion whats actually going on underneath the surface of the iot devices we may get over the holiday period.

Its all go at Mozilla Festival 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mozfest/24140492258/

Usually I’m busy at this time getting things ready for Mozilla festival, but this year I stepped down as a spacewrangler. Its always good to have new people try their hand at it all. Of course I’m still involved in Mozfest, as I submitted a few sessions for the festival and a couple were accepted including why is there a need for a public service internet; which follows a private event during the Mozhouse week.

This year, ideas from Mozilla’s first full-length Internet Health Report — a deep look at how the Internet and human life intersect — are at the heart of the festival. At MozFest 2018, we’ll strategize our next moves in global campaigns for net neutrality, data privacy, and online freedom. We’ll advance thinking on topics like ethical AI and common-sense tech policy. We’ll collaborate on code, on art and practical ideas, creating seeds for the next great open-source products.

Tickets are live for the festival and the schedule went live today.

Multi-account containers for your multiple colourful identities?

Silicon Valley's lost its humanity — Mark Zuckerberg is “deluded” by his own faith in Facebook’s ability to be a force for good in the world.

I never got the chance to write about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica due to being on holiday and to be fair I wrote about them so much before.

Generally I personally think Zuckerberg’s response is just rubbish and far far too late.

Regardless, as expected GDPR was going to force their hand anyway, so they have implicated some of the changes needed to comply.

Regardless, its clear there needs to be changes we use these services if at all!

This is why I found Firefox Multi-Account Containers an interesting idea.

Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs that preserve your privacy. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple identities or accounts simultaneously.

Its the reason I have 4 different browsers on my laptop and 3 on my smartphone. I don’t expect it to catch on but using the paradigm of containers could be quite good for those looking to separate things out a little. However profiles never seem to catch on, but the colour thing could make it much similar.

The realm of third-party trackers on Android

I was excited to learn about Lumen Privacy Monitor, as I’ve always wondered about the apps I have installed even when I have restricted the permissions wanted from the installed app.

New research co-authored by Mozilla Fellow Rishab Nithyanand explores just this: The opaque realm of third-party trackers and what they know about us. The research is titled “Apps, Trackers, Privacy, and Regulators: A Global Study of the Mobile Tracking Ecosystem,” and is authored by researchers at Stony Brook University, Data & Society, IMDEA Networks, ICSI, Princeton University, Corelight, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“This is the start of a long project to uncover all the hidden data collection and data dissemination practices on the internet,” Nithyanand explains.

“There’s a huge lack of transparency around how mobile applications behave,” adds Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, a co-author and researcher at ICSI. “People install software, but don’t know what that software is doing.”

The paper’s introduction lays out a troubling scenario: “Third-party services inherit the set of application permissions requested by the host app, allowing them access to a wealth of valuable user data, often beyond what they need to provide the expected service.”

To study this scenario, the researchers used Lumen Privacy Monitor, an Android app they built themselves over a two-year period.

So I installed it just to see what was going on with my Android devices. But there is a problem… Best summed up in this comment from Wcat.

Not open source? TLS interception? Before you install this stop and think about TLS interception. “Those who would trade privacy for security deserve neither.”

Luman asks for permissions to install its own root certificate, and this deeply worries me. TLS inception isn’t a trivial thing to be honest, I know its needed but it had me questioning how I really want to monitor the apps? Also if I remove the app, will the certificate be removed too/how would I know?

Right now, I’m keeping an eye on the app but haven’t installed the root cert yet.