I want to start this edition with a little apology. Last week, on Tuesday, you would have received an email from the newsletter list that I have been running on and off for a few years now in a different format than I have been doing previously. This was a test to see how the newsletter platform would operate and also to get something more regularly out of the drafts folder and into mailboxes. I hope you don’t mind.

For various reasons that I don’t want to get into here, writing long articles about one subject has become increasingly difficult. Suffice it to say that I haven’t been able to give the newsletter the time and attention it needs to write those articles, so I tried something different to get a regular newsletter out there.

However, for just over a year, I’ve regularly written a shorter version of the newsletter idea and posted it on a new blog I set up for professional purposes. (Quick plug: you can find it at matthewcowen.org) Each blog post is about 500 words or so, and each week, I write about what I’ve been working on, my thoughts and other things that I think would be relevant or helpful for people to know. That’s all in a small first section, and then there’s a section dedicated to what I have been reading. Often, it is relevant and useful articles about tech and tech-adjacent stuff. I sometimes contain a few words on the books I’m reading, but I don’t generally do book reviews. I’ll leave that to Amazon comments. If you want to see what books I am reading, take a look at this page. It is up-to-date… don’t ask me for my “want to read” list, as it is too long 😱

As always, thanks for reading and please reach out for feedback. I have absolutely no problem discussing something I write or say on a podcast. I invite debate, as long as it is civil, as I feel we both learn something like that. PS: I’m toying with inline comments through Mastodon or something, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Last week, I mentioned an article about the lack of regulation and laws in Latin America surrounding online scraping and data usage to train AI and other systems. Well, I’ve been trying to get a project off the ground for a couple of years now that, sadly, hasn’t got past an initial phase. With things changing for me regarding stability, I am (we are) trying to reboot the project over the coming months. I’ll let you know more about it in the future. Still, the project will provide information like that discussed in the above article, tailored to the Caribbean and in a more practical format for consumption and use by businesses and individuals. I look forward to speaking more about it here. I’ll profit by extending the research section of the blog to include a lot of background information, backchannel, and other internal discussions that I hope will add value for you. More later.

Reading

A little while ago, I took advantage of a sale of a book that I’d had on my reading list and purchased it. The book Number Go Up by Zeke Faux is about the crypto, blockchain, and web3 industry and spends a lot of time discussing the goings on at FTX. I’m about halfway through, and I can confirm that this book makes me hate these crooks even more. In an interview that was largely glossed over at the time, SBF admitted that the whole industry is run like a Ponzi scheme. He blathers on about a box, and people putting stuff in a box and that box is worthless, but the fact that others are convinced that the stuff in the box ‘might’ be worth something starts a bubble and a Ponzi. When this is pointed out to him, he replies, “I think there’s like a sort of depressing amount of validity …” before cutting short his response.

From the minute I heard of crypto, I felt it was too good to be true. The problem is convincing those neck-deep in it with investments that are, admittedly, currently earning money, which is a tough prospect. They are wilfully blind to their part in the collective theft that is being committed because it makes them some money. Not to mention the disastrous effects on the climate.

I will no doubt repeat this exercise when we dissect the Generative AI industry.

Other than that, I’ve been following the ongoing discussions on Internet governance and the Global Digital Compact (GDC). Things are getting very fishy at the UN, and it appears like a power grab is in process. The risk is a very worrying outcome of a centralisation of power around the UN and some of its more influential members in how the Internet will be governed in the future. AI has been one of the influences that accelerated this process. Internet governance has decades of historical work and outcomes that help defend against this attack on governance. AI, unfortunately, doesn’t, and as a result, it has left an opening for this power grab.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week.

It would be an understatement to say that last week was a quiet news week. I’m not going to get political here, although I do have my views that I would be happy to discuss on a one-to-one basis, but I will say that I’m especially interested in the tech angle and how tech is a much bigger part of political and social discourse. And being a bigger part of that automatically means that it has a much bigger responsibility. Not that the current crop of tech bros would have you believe, they’re still childishly trying “move fast and break things”. A most immature method of actually innovating and effecting positive change. Their philosophy pays absolutely no mind or weights the risk of what actually “break things” means. We have observed that it can absolutely mean, genocide, murder, rape (virtual and irl), CSAM and the very possibility of a breakdown in democracy. Now you might think I’m being hyperbolic and that’s fine. But there are very real symptoms, incidents, factual evidence that points to this conclusion. The links above only hint at the amount of research, news related to these subjects. It is clear that a lot of it is as a result of the now infamous “Big Tech” world playing fast and loose with the world. I don’t have answers or solutions to this, as the wealth amassed by this crop of people is beyond anything we have seen before, and used skilfully that wealth will absolutely corrupt almost all but the very strong-willed with morals of Graphene.

Back to a more pedestrian subject, I’ve hoping to kickstart a project that I’ve had in the idea phase for a couple of years and haven’t been able to get it off the ground. Now I have stabilised my revenue and working lifestyle, I’m hoping that it allows me the space to devote the time needed to get it up and running. The idea is called Caribbean Digital Compass, and I have definitely talked about it before somewhere. I’m hoping to have more news soon.

Just a quick note on presentation, I decided to try inline links again, after a modification to the theme. I’m hoping this looks OK. The other reason is that this is not an academic paper, it is a blog, and inline links are what the initial idea of the WWW was built on. Plus, it’s easier for me to write. 😉

Reading

This will be a fairly short reading list this time, as I have been spending a lot of that reading time on work-related specific projects that are not that interesting here.

Still, I did have time to read a few bits and pieces:

Speaking of big tech and VCs getting deeper into society and them trying to dictate how things are going to play out, A16z, the VC firm, are going all out to impose their extremist worldview on America. It will not turn out the way they think. That is because an authoritarian is only nice to someone whilst they have something to offer. Once that runs out, they’ll turn faster than the blink of an eye.

Google has been up to its old tricks again. Just like all those years ago when it surveilled Wi-Fi networks and mapped huge amounts of personal data without any consent from the individuals concerned, scanning private Google Drive files is just 🤢.

On the consent front, Facebook is actively training its LLMs on data in countries that it know it can get away with. Much of Latin America doesn’t have robust privacy and copyright laws like I enjoy in the EU. The article discusses this and what the implications are for artists and others’ being wholesale violated.

FFS of the week. Shopify execs said the thing they thought, out loud. I despair.

Anyway, I hope you have a good week, and thanks for reading.

I just completed two full weeks of working with my new employer. I have a great deal of flexibility and responsibility, and I’m quite happy with my current position.

I’ve been deep into SharePoint, working on a project with a client, and despite it being a good platform for some basics that many businesses could really take advantage of, the automation system of Power Automate is a half-baked, Kafkaesque system. It doesn’t seem to follow any norms or programming standards and just makes things up for you to debug. Debugging is worse, as the documentation is shockingly bad and, frankly, an embarrassment to Microsoft. I have an issue, and while I’ll find a solution eventually, basic documentation would have helped me understand “why” things were working the way they were, or even, perhaps if that same documentation was accurate in the first place, I wouldn’t have lost so much time.

The podcast I mentioned last week is now out, and I think it is a good conversation that holds up and is interesting. You can find it here: https://ict-pulse.com/2024/07/ictp-310-the-internet-we-should-want-in-2024-and-beyond-with-matthew-cowen-of-dgtlfutures/

The ARIN nomination list is now official and can be found here: https://www.arin.net/announcements/20240710/ I want to discuss a bit about it in the future.

Lastly, I’ve been trying to review a lot of documents related to the Global Digital Compact (GDC) that I discussed in the podcast I mentioned above. There’s a lot to go through, but I think it is worth it.

Reading

Another of tech’s influential managers has said the thing that he always thought, but now out in the open.¹ Is the entire sect of tech bros going to come out as fascists? Tech has really lost its way. Ed Zitron has been writing about this for quite a while.²

How tech went from free love to pay-per-day is one of those really good articles that comes from The Register now and again. Worth a little of your time.³

I’ll keep it short this week, and have some more links next week.

Enjoy your week.

I had a very full week this week for a couple of reasons:

One, I was asked to take part in a jury to assist in the evaluation of a group of my students in an aural assessment to validate their degree with an organisation that affords a European-wide equivalence. It is such a rewarding thing to see your students grow and develop into adults ready to take the next stage of their lives and careers. I’ve taught this group for three years, and the change in some of the students is remarkable. They will graduate this week, and I will be at the ceremony with them as one of the first to congratulate them!

The second thing that happened, is that I signed a contract of employment with a local firm that I have been consulting with for a couple of months or so. We worked on special projects during the initial contract and mutually agreed to further that relationship. I’m going to be working three days a week with them from now on, giving me two days to pursue other work. I’m going to be concentrating on special projects, not getting involved in the day-to-day workload of their current IT outsourcing work. I’m there to bring analysis, guidance and direction to not only the company but to their clients too. I think one of the things I have seen in small businesses, is that Digital Transformation is very difficult to get started until you have a vision and someone that can execute, starting from the basics. And that’s the important part. Too many try or are scared of what’s required by biting off more than they can chew.

I recorded a new episode of the ICT Pulse Podcast this weekend, and one of the things I discussed there is the need to do the basic things and not get distracted by the new flashy stuff. It’s not sexy, but it works and businesses see progress when doing it this way.

I have an announcement to make!

I have self-nominated to serve on the ARIN Advisory Council. (That’s the only way you can be nominated). The election is later this year, and I have a bit of preparation to do to get ready.

I’ve been more and more interested in Internet Governance since 2019 (a little before but not as concentrated), and I feel that having had an entire career based on and working with the Internet, I can give something back. I was an ARIN 52 Fellow, and I have become more active in the discussions around governance at various levels. I think the time is right for me to add a little and help where I can.

Wish me luck. I’ll write more about it here and on the socials to formally announce, soon.

Reading

As always, I have been reading a lot, so here’s a summary of the things that have caught my attention…

I recently mentioned that France had crossed a line in Internet shutdowns by blocking access to TikTok in New Caledonia, well another development out of France has emerged.¹ This time, it is not the government but a private organisation run by a well-known sympathiser of the extreme right-wing political wing of French politics, Bolloré.² A French court, at the insistence of Canal+ (an Internet provider as well as a media empire), has ordered various public DNS systems in France to deliberately pollute DNS results to try to stem a wave of streaming sites that pirate content like live football matches. Seeing the opportunity, several ISPs jumped on the bandwagon, notably Orange, SFR, and even providers in overseas territories like Outre-Mer Télécom, to try to force this through. It worked, and now Google, Cloudflare and Cisco are compelled to break the fundamental operating contract by providing false results for a DNS query. OpenDNS complied, but not in the way that Canal+ et al. had wanted, and pulled their services from France.³

The Internet is nearing a turning point in its governance structure, or at least, if we let it, the governance structure will not resemble the one we have now. Despite its faults, the current bottom-up structure has worn well. The top-down proposals being snuck into the Global Digital Compact are worrying. Lack of transparency and the preference (of some) for multilateralism is just one aspect of a governance structure that is about to get seriously challenged. This article highlights some of this discussion.⁴

NETMundial+10 was not much better…⁵

FastCompany published an excellent article about the Internet as it used to be. To be exact, in 1994. Well worth your time.⁶

I’ll get back to a normal pace next week. Until then, have a great week.

I’m a little late with this blog for a couple of reasons, one being a massive hurricane passing south of the island on Monday. Whilst not directly affected by the storm, we had a lot of rain, wind, and a few other disturbances. Around 10,000 people were without power on Monday on the island, but they steadily got back connected during the day and after.

The storm, a category 4 hurricane, passed directly over Carriacou Island near Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The videos and stories coming from it and the neighbouring islands are heartbreaking and difficult to accept.

Where does tech fit in all of this?

Of course, without tech, we wouldn’t have witness accounts of lived experiences available for the entire world. We wouldn’t have video evidence of the horrifying nature of a hurricane; however, I refuse to post a link here. Disaster porn is not something I feel I should promote. A quick search on Google’s video platform will lead you down a rabbit hole, where you can see for yourself all the destruction you wish, switch it off, have a coffee, and then move on with your day as indifferently as you usually do, doom scrolling and “liking” on Insta. Or, you can reach out to those in need and see what you can do to help. I know what the world needs now. TLDR; it’s not more “likes”.

But the true enemies and culprits are those willingly contributing to the destruction of the planet in the name of speculative claims of “productivity gains”, “solving cancer”, “going to Mars”, etc. The very same Google, Facebook, and now, shamefully, Apple are literally green-lighting projects that have the power to make the planet inhospitable.

Google’s green ambitions have been thrown out of the window in the name of a largely inaccurate bullshit generator, pushing its energy use to increase by 48% in one year!¹² Microsoft’s energy usage shot up similarly and has now been on the damage-control narrative since. Pledging 10$ billion in “renewable energies”, but looking at the details, much of it is moving numbers in Excel and offsets.³

I guess, ultimately, I’m arguing for a different type of tech —tech that is more respectful of not only the environment but also of us as humans. A tech that hasn’t been hijacked by a group of cynical extremists, racists, and liars. In the current state, tech is moving wealth away from the masses to themselves, contributing to the pollution and destruction of the planet, and un-ironically showing off to the world their riches and their apocalypse bunkers.

You, we, can do something about that, and we should start now. I’ll discuss that another time.

Reading

I continue to be impressed and enjoyed by the quality of the articles published by 404media. I think that many of us hope they are showing the way for small media to work in the face of tech companies’ constant and systematic destruction. This article about Facebook’s losing control of the content published on its site highlights the aforementioned AI problem.⁴ Not only that, they have doubled down on restricting access to researchers and even suing them in the case of a group based Brazil.⁵ 🤢

In a fit of research, I stumbled across a paper from 2019 entitled “The ‘online brain’: how the Internet may be changing our cognition.⁶

Overall, the available evidence indicates that the Internet can produce both acute and sustained alterations in each of these areas of cognition, which may be reflected in changes in the brain.

(Areas of cognition mentioned: a) attentional capacities, b) memory processes, and c) social cognition.)

I am coming to the conclusion that social media in its current state is a net negative for the world and that this experiment on humanity needs to be reeled in and supervised a little differently. It may not be obvious, but my conclusions are not necessarily for the reasons we hear in the press, i.e., that social media is damaging for kids, CSAM, etc. The real culprit is advertising and the malicious incentives generated by a complete free-for-all when it comes to the surveillance and sale of that information, coupled with the entitlement these companies believe they have over us. It has links to Internet Governance, innovation, racism, and Cyber Colonialism.

I’m formulating these arguments and will discuss them here and there over the coming months. Hopefully, if I can rally my brain around to concentrate on them, I can write a big piece on them.

Have a great week.