Politicians Jumping On-Line to Surf the Information Super Highway

Insert naff cyber stock image here

I repeat, yet again, my call for the internet companies who terrorists have again used to communicate to be held legally liable for content.

— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) June 4, 2017

The above UK Labour MP’s Tweet is a great example of everything wrong with most of our elected officials’ understanding of the internet. As remarkable as the internet is on a technical level, it is no longer remarkable in daily use, yet for many of our politicians, it remains a novelty worthy of its own romantic comedy (Now Showing: You’ve Got Hate Mail).

“The Internet” needs capitalisation because, to these taxpayer-funded dullards, it is a new frontier where criminals, paedophiles, and — terror of terrors — Muslim extremists wait in prey for their next victims. It isn’t just another piece of critical infrastructure in need of investment and protection, like highways or the power grid, it is a niche curiosity. It is the Information Superhighway. It is Cyberspace. It is the animated shooting stars of Netscape 3.0. It is best viewed at 640x480.

This is what makes the current push by some politicians to allow the state access to encrypted services, at best, silly and at worst, incredibly dangerous.

Encryption is vital to the functioning of our information-based society. Without it — and I’m not exaggerating here — society falls apart. It isn’t some optional extra beloved of terrorists to plan their nefarious deeds in the dark, it is what keeps our online banking safe, our personal data secure, our private conversations private. It’s what gives business the confidence to do business without the worry of proprietary data ending up in the hands of competitors. Of course, no system is completely secure, but without encryption, you’d may as well tattoo your bank PIN on your forehead for all to see.

Without trust that the everyday transactions we make (financial or otherwise) are free from illegitimate interference or interception, the very systems which underpin modern society collapse.

Ultimately, attempts to make systems less secure for the evil few ultimately make systems less secure for all. The tools used by the "good" guys to access the "bad" guys ultimately end up being used by the "bad" guys against everyone. This is not a theory, it was recently borne out by the WannaCry ransomware attack which was based on Windows vulnerabilities hoarded by the NSA, but reportedly not shared with Microsoft until they were leaked to the public.

Our pluralistic societies are regressing. The United States is joining Syria and Nicaragua on axis of inaction on climate change; the United Kingdom seeks to join China, Iran and North Korea and other autocratic states in controlling the internet. The worst part is of all this is that there's no evidence such controls will make ordinary people safer, in fact only the opposite.

Worst of all, no evidence has been presented that encrypted message services played a role in the latest atrocity in London, but even if these services did, they bear no more culpability than the manufacturers of the knives they carried, or the maker of the van they drove, or the operator of the roads on which they travelled.

In the vast majority of terrorist incidents in the West, the perpetrators have been known to the authorities. How will access to WhatsApp or iMessage or Signal help agencies when they fail to act on the information they already have?

Alas, even those politicians who should know better are pushing to undermine the foundations of our information society. The man who "practically invented the internet in Australia", Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declared war on encryption — and the apps he himself has admitted using instead of secured government comms — saying of encrypted messaging apps, "security services need to get access to them".

It's sad that the tech literacy of our parliamentarians hasn't progressed much since the Commonwealth Minister for Communications —ya know, the guy in charge of teh Interwebs — stated that broadband was primarily for consuming porn and gambling, and that Mr and Mrs Average would never want such a service (and that the state had little role in ensuring reasonable access to decent internet). Or who can forget the Attorney-General's misadventures in the land of metadata ("well...well...well...the web address")? It would not be an issue if these dunces had responsibility for, I don't know, tiny lapel pin flags, or garbage collection, but they claim to make laws that affect millions of people and billions of dollars without the slightest hint of curiosity.

With democratic leaders sounding every bit the autocrat these days, there has never been a more exciting time to be innovative, agile...and encrypted.

Free Trade? You've VOD to be Kidding

© Magnolia Pictures

Alex Gibney, the noted documentary maker whose impressive oeuvre includes Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, has a new movie out today.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine takes what senior Apple executive Eddy Cue called an "inaccurate and mean-spirited" approach to its subject, eschewing the usual hagiographic tendencies of recent book and film profiles of Jobs. In short, it takes a "genius and jerk" view of Steve Jobs that has been only hinted at so far, providing some much-needed critical balance to the available accounts of his life

Impressively, Gibney and the film's producer, Magnolia Pictures, have opted for a same-day cinema and Video On Demand release, meaning viewers have the choice to watch at the cinema, or rent and download in the comfort of your own home. That is, unless, you're outside of the United States. If you're unlucky enough to exist outside the reality distortion field that is the USA, you will likely be presented with this should you wish to purchase the film:

iTunes

YouTube

Amazon.com

Magnolia Pictures VOD

In a regression to the physical world, corporate entities still insist on imposing geographic blocks on content that is downloaded as a bit-for-bit identical copy no matter its physical location. While our politicians hurriedly conclude free trade agreements that claim to have benefits for our farmers and physical exporters, they seem to neglect the trade in data; of discriminatory pricing and access limitations imposed on Australian consumers for digital goods for no good (or defensible) reason. The digital economy, which our pollies love to say "is Australia's future", seems strangely neglected by them when it comes to putting their rhetoric into action.

Attorney-General Bookshelves Brandis and "Practical Inventor of the Internet" Malcolm Turnbull have done little to encourage greater access to the world of digital goods, preferring to impose draconian data retention laws and siding with the movie studios – instead of consumers – on issues of "illegal" downloading. As has been repeated ad nauseum by anyone with a tablet and internet account, making content available in a timely and affordable manner does more to prevent piracy than any demonstrably ineffective "three-strikes" policy ever could. As the long-overdue arrival of Netflix et al. to local shores has shown, Australians are willing to pay for a quality service when one is offered.

My international relations lecturer was always fond of saying "there's no such thing as free trade – only slightly freer trade". This is as true now as then. Free trade deals, as negotiated by our governments, only deal with a very limited number of import/export areas where (usually marginal) benefit can be extracted for both parties. While free trade agreements have been effective at removing (some) tariffs for physical goods, digital goods are largely neglected.

This film is just one example of where our digital world, as advanced as it is, lags far behind our expectations of it, with most of our politicians lagging even farther behind still (honourable mentions to Ed Husic and the other members of the IT Pricing Inquiry) I was a willing customer, ready to pay to watch this film. Unlike some, I believe the creators of our content deserve fair and equitable recompense for the labours...but they're making it harder – not easier – to make this possible.

Plus-sized models: A few weeks with the iPhone 6 Plus (zomg unboxing video review)

Not every iPhone is used in a geometrically perfect, sterile white environment

The internet is full of conceited people who write conceited reviews of products and/or services in order to attract people to click on their content. For some, they believe a stinging critique of a particular popular product, like some form of digital tall-poppy syndrome, will render their own abilities (and web address hits) large.

I want to do no such thing. Instead of regurgitation of statistics and superfluous "feels nice in the hand" generalities, I am here to engage in a blitzkrieg of pith and (conceited) wit not for hits, but for my own gratification. Here goes.

The iPhone 6 Plus is rather large.

After owning it for a month, it no longer feels large and everything else feels small.

Its screen is 1920x1080 (or something), but due a deliberate quirk, renders everything at 2208×1242 before scaling down on the fly. Clever, but inelegant. Thus it feels a bit like a stop-gap in search of a higher-resolution screen (iPhone 6 IIs Plus S anyone?)

iOS 8 should more accurately be called iOSHATE for the feelings it engenders in the user community. I don't need to hang out in no support forums to know it's shit. (zomg appl its a knowen fawlt)

Safari crashes more than Mr Magoo on ice. And fuck me sideways, get rid of the fucking transition animations. Whether it's the PowerPoint-esque ICONS FLYING EVERYWHERE WOW, or the SOFT DISSOLVE (which is what happens when you turn off transitions), the phone feels more lethargic than Clive Palmer after walking up a flight of stairs.

iOSHATE is a generally buggy experience that transcends the specific nature of bugs and faults Apple and software engineers need for diagnosis reason. It's just shit.

Sadly, it's the first new iPhone I've owned that doesn't feel snappy. In the past, installing, say iOS 6 on an iPhone 4 meant dealing with frustrating slowness until a new phone came out. Then, whatever the new phone was, felt snappy and responsive. Now, the iPhone 6 Plus and iOSHATE feel slow from the outset.

For all these flaws, it's a great looking phone and the screen is very nice, notwithstanding the scaling workaround implemented by Apple. But enough of pleasant generalisations. Who wants those? Not me.

The National Copper Network?

A laser down an optical fibre – Souce: Timwether (Creative Commons)

(updated 10.8.2013 @ 0857 hrs)

Some initial thoughts on the Coalition's new broadband plan.

All too often, we chide our political leaders for having no "vision". For not being able to implement the big reforms that society needs. But when then-Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Conroy rejected the fibre-to-the-node tenders and announced a fibre-to-the-home National Broadband Network, the sharks started to circle. 

Why? 

Because certain groups and individuals were able to put forward a narrative that painted Labor's technological choice either, confusingly as an outmoded, fifty-year-old technology, or as a type of communications technology that was entirely unnecessary for current and future needs.

Then came the the car analogies...

Thunderbolt and Lightning (not particularly frightening)

A somewhat worn Apple 30-pin dock connector (left) with the new Apple Lightning Cable © 2013

When Apple launched the iPhone 5 in October 2012, they introduced a new interface cable along with it. The Lightning connector replaced the 30-pin dock connector previously seen on all iOS devices since the 3rd generation iPod in 2003 making almost a decade’s worth of iPod and iPhone docking stations and hi-fi accessories instantly obsolete. “Bloody Apple” has been the most common response to it from customers at my place of work, complaining that it is Apple “trying to get you to buy everything again”, but is it really that simple? Things rarely are. I’ll tell you why one of the most valuable companies in the world isn’t trying to expand its bottom line one $30 adaptor at a time.