Finally, after a few days of rain, rain, rain, we’re back to no weather alerts for a little respite. The ground is saturated, and any more rain just runs off or causes localised landslides, but so far, nothing too worrying.
Last week, I mentioned that I had been selected for a second time as an ARIN Fellow, although this time, I won’t be travelling; I am attending as a virtual Fellow. I’ve marked my calendar for the two days in October (24th and 25th), and if anyone is interested in Internet Governance, it is a good conference to attend. Even as a visual attendee, ARIN go out of their way to include comments from remote participants.
The other announcement I alluded to is that I am on the ticket for the ARIN Advisory Council (ARIN AC) elections. The AC looks after the Internet numbering policy and assists in policy modifications through the community’s wishes. I’m looking forward to the outcome of these elections. Even if I’m not voted in, I’ll put myself forward in future elections as I feel the need to give something back to the Internet, having made my career from it for over thirty years. I need to sign off and write an election speech as I’ll be recording it early next week, and although I have “concepts of a plan” (🤦‍♂️), I haven’t finished it yet.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the workings of the Internet and the existing vulnerabilities, hypothesising on the amount and scale of damage that could be caused. Luckily, I’m not the only one thinking about this, and there has been some progress in dealing with these weaknesses that largely surround DNS, but it reminded me of this (old) DNS meme:
I recorded a new Innovation, Agilité & Excellence podcast episode with my friend Jean-François Nantel. We talked about DNS and a few other topics, such as cloud deployment and SMBs, AI (of course), and a little discussion on the ongoing events in Brazil over the blocking of X (ex-Twitter). It’s in French, but I suspect a good run-through something like the Whisper model, and then DeepL will give you a good understanding of what we discussed for the non-French speakers among you. I’ll post here once available.
Changing the subject, I’m a firm supporter of certain civil liberties extending to the Internet, like the right to privacy, the right to decide which systems I use and how I use them, fundamental human rights, etc. In this discourse, there is a danger of falling into the trap of the manifesto known as Cyberlibertarianism. I’ve written a little bit about this already. This discourse was related to my views of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. (Hint: I’m not a fan). I wanted to highlight an upcoming book by David Golumbia on this very topic. I’m looking forward to reading it attentively.
Reading
I’ve started reading the IEEE Spectrum blog recently. And to be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t start reading it earlier. I guess I just didn’t chance upon it early enough. Anyway, the blog is very interesting, with many in-depth articles on ICT topics. This article discusses the upcoming IEEE Conference on Digital Platforms and Societal Harms, where they will be discussing misinformation (false information), disinformation (deliberately false) and extremism (and other distasteful behaviours on the Internet) over two days. If I’m able to register remotely, I will try to write up any important discussions.
Staying with the same blog, if you’re an old computer nerd, the article entitled From Punch Cards to Python, is an excellent look into the history of computing —catnip for people like me.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, AI is one of the most prominent subjects of the moment. Many articles are AI hype machines, others AI doomsters, and there is precious little nuanced discussion on the topic. However, we’re starting to see the results of deployments of this technology (I wrote about a Microsoft study that was less than conclusive in the usefulness of generative AI). Worklife published a story —I forgot to link to it in July when it was published— about how generative AI is making workers less productive. I think articles like this are informative and worth your time to help build a more balanced view of the technology. So far, generative AI, like ChatGPT, does seem to be more of a solution looking for a problem.
Another topic I have written about previously is Virtual Reality, specifically its privacy and cybersecurity issues. I’d previously talked about how VR headsets can reveal with surprising accuracy who you are, not from your personal data being logged to a session in one of these devices but by your gait. A paper from 2022 is worth looking through if you’re interested in cybersecurity. A new discussion has been made public by a group of six computer scientists who have determined that it is possible to see precisely what you’re typing in the Apple Vision Pro through exposed eye-tracking data. The exploit requires access to that data for it to be used. But if a compromise of data at this level is successful, as in the test scenario, it is possible to reveal logins, passwords, PIN codes, and any other text typed by your eyes. Not great.
That’s it for this week. I hope you have a great week.
