It might be a short one today, as I am currently writing this amid a fairly heavy tropical wave passing over us. Heavy rains, lots of thunder and lightning, a breaker tripping every few minutes, oh, and a UPS battery failure are making my morning a little more difficult than it normally is. Itāll pass, but in the meantime, I will try to get this written and out the door before the end of the day. Bear with me. If youāre reading this email on Tuesday, I guess I got it done. š
Nothing particularly exciting happened last week, although tech news was primarily dominated by events with Xās (ex-Twitter) shutdown in Brazil after it failed to comply with local laws, and Elon Musk thinking he could bully an entire country, found out that that was not the case. The issue went as far as his Starlink company outright refusing a government order to block access to X through its services, again, only to find out that it had to back down after the government froze assets. This elicited a bunch of interesting conversations I had on a local social media group about the merits of government interference in cases like this, all with a particularly technical implication. For example, many people felt it would be difficult to block satellite services in a country by the nature of their technology, only to quickly discover that it is not that difficult but is still quite challenging. The IEEE has an interesting article on the topic, highlighting the pertinence of the subject during the ongoing aggression of Ukraine by Russia. It talks of a lack of encryption in the hardware and the possible increased attack surface due to the nature of the frequent handovers required in LEOs. If you want to know more about LEOs and how they work, this primer document from the Internet Protocol Journal is a very good resource: (pdf link): https://ipj.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/262-ipj.pdf
Now, this was an interesting thought experiment because I didnāt (and donāt) believe that things will get that far, and the latest climbdowns tend āBrazil rolled back the threat to fine users using a VPN to access Xā to support that point of view. What it does illustrate is that we are currently working through some uncomfortable truths about the internet, such as how it works technically and how it will be regulated in the future. And it will likely be a lottery about where you live in the world that determines your experience on the internet rather than any technical capacity or innovation. The average Chinese user sees a very different internet to the one you probably see. And much of this is going to be hotly contested in the years to come, whether or not the Global Digital Compact is adopted at the UN. As an example, take a look at what Pakistanās government is allegedly doing. Activists and tech users are accusing the government of installing an all-encompassing firewall Ć la that of China. Internet speeds have plummeted around 40% recently, and despite the governmentās insistence on it being undersea cable issues āof which there is a distinct lack of proofā or that there is an āoveruseā of VPNs causing the slowdowns (a technically silly argument) what most in the technical community observe, is that this is the first phase of a much tighter control of the Internet through the technical means pioneered by the Chinese state. We should also remember that Pakistan had tried āand no one is sure if it didnāt succeedā to centralise the DNS of Pakistan, making it a one-stop-shop to control who sees what. Moves like these are very concerning and bode for a much more fractious relationship with the internet over the coming years. Even I, living in a relatively free society āand France is not beyond shutting down access to internet appsā I refuse to use my ISPās DNS servers until they make that illegalā¦ cold dead hands, etc.
Lastly, I wanted to let you know that I have been selected for a second fellowship with ARIN. Iām very much looking forward to contributing more to this important aspect of Internet governance (see above about why). Iāll have another announcement to make in the coming days, too, but thatāll have to wait.
Reading
Facebook keeps insisting that it has to be a bad Internet citizen. The perverse nature of Internet incentives and economics continue to contribute to its destruction.
In other Facebook news, the use of their (and Raybanās) glasses is starting to cause consternation about privacy and security at the highest levels of government. TLDR; Captured video and images are all sent through Facebookās infrastructure leaving sensitive and/or secret areas exposed to security risks.
Talking of incentives, Kenyan Uber, Bolt and Faras drivers have had enough of being ripped off and are ignoring the prices set by those platforms. In a demonstration that you donāt have to use or go along with these services.
I wanted to share the following article entitled āRacism, misogony, lies. How did X become so full of hatred, and is it ethical to keep using it? ā¦ but the Grauniad has pulled it! Original link. š¤·āāļø EDIT: Now it’s back. Typical š¤£
Last week, I linked to a piece in The Continent magazine about Bill Gatesās farming disruption (trashing food production in some areas, potentially causing/enhancing starvation on a massive scale). Well, Forbes has an article on the topic now.
Right, Iām off to curl up in a warm, cosy place with a nice drink while I wait for the storm to pass. Have a great week.
