The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

Dateline: Woking, 13th March 2025.Apple, boldly proclaiming that it believes privacy is a fundamental human right, has announced the use of “homomorphic encryption” in its products. This means that a client device (eg, an iPhone) encrypts a query before sending it to a server (eg, Apple), then the server operates on the encrypted query and generates an encrypted response, which the client then decrypts. The server does not decrypt the query or even have access to the decryption key, so the client data remains private throughout the process.ShareWitchcraft Or Math?I realise that to a lot of people, including regulators and legislators, that must sound like witchcraft but it is actually a tried and tested cryptographic method that has many applications and a crucial role to play in the future online economy. So let’s get into it. Read moreIt’s Not Witchcraft It’s Maths

In a world of billionare-owned social media, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wants to send a clear message. Decentralized open-source platforms, like the one she runs, prioritize user control over corporate interests. And what better way to say that than with a T-shirt that calls out Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg?Speaking at SXSW 2025, Graber wore a shirt that read Mundus sine Caesaribus (“A world without Caesars” in Latin). It used the same design as the one Zuckerberg wore at Meta Connect 2024, a now infamous shirt that read Aut Zuck aut nihil (“Zuck or nothing”). “If a billionaire tried to ruin things,” Graber said of Bluesky, “users could just leave — without losing their identity or data.” Bluesky’s open protocol gives users the ability to “fork off” the network if needed, Graber added.Bluesky, originally spun out of Twitter, has grown to over 32 million users. Its AT Protocol allows users to own their identities and their experience on the platform without Bluesky’s permission. “The key to what we’re doing is shifting power back to users and developers,” Graber said. Bluesky isn’t just another social media app, she emphasized — it’s a whole structural alternative to bigger platforms. Graber drew a bright line between Bluesky and billionaire-owned social media in another key area: content moderation. Bluesky’s opt-in approach lets users install third-party moderation services, filtering content to fit their preferences. “Moderation is governance,” Graber said. “It’s about choosing how you want your digital space to be governed.” The Bluesky ecosystem includes apps…Bluesky CEO: imagine a world without Caesars

A new bill filed in the North Carolina House of Representatives aims to ban children under 14 from social media and age-verify some sites — but not like other age-verification laws.HB 301, called the Social Media Protections for Minors Act, was introduced last Wednesday and passed its first reading, according to North Carolina station WFMY News 2. It’ll now go to a committee for further review. SEE ALSO: Do age-verification laws work? Not according to this study. Similar to Australia’s social media ban for children under 16, this bill would prohibit anyone under 14 from creating an account on social platforms that meet certain criteria (like having 10 percent daily active users under 16 and “addictive” features like infinite scrolling). Children aged 14 to 15 would need parents’ permission to make an account, though it doesn’t detail how this consent would be handled.Additionally, HB 301 calls for “anonymous” or standard age verification when viewing a site with a substantial portion (over a third) of content deemed “harmful to minors.” The phrase “harmful to minors” harkens back to a Supreme Court case, Ginsberg v. New York, which concluded that content that isn’t obscene (thus protected by the First Amendment) can still be “harmful to minors.” Typically, in age-verification laws, this means explicit content. This part is in line with other such laws, which require some form of age verification (such as a digital ID or facial scan) in order to visit porn sites. Unlike other age-verification laws that have passed in…New NC bill would ban minors from social media

Dateline: Woking, 7th March 2024.I went to the Singapore Fintech Festival last year to see what was going in the dynamic Asian market and I was not disappointed. There were plenty of interesting fintechs showing off new products and services, but to be honest what interested most at the event was the nation’s new initiative on fraud. In a couple of weeks’ time, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) are going implement the new Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) for dealing with the victims of phishing scams.Subscribe nowUnder the SRF, MAS and IMDA have established specific duties for FIs, PSPs and telcos, designed to directly combat phishing scams. This interests me because it is what banks are calling for in other jurisdictions (including the UK) where the banks quite rightly object to being forced to compensate customers who have fallen prey to scammers when other market participants, particularly social media platforms, do nothing to prevent these activities (in fact, it can be argued that they facilitate them).In the UK consumers lost nearly half a billion pounds to authorised push payment (APP) fraud last year, according to trade body UK Finance, more than two-thirds of which involved goods that were ordered online by consumers but did not arrive. Most purchase fraud comes from false adverts on social media platforms including Facebook Marketplace, according to Lloyds Banking Group and TSB. Some four-fifths of all TSB fraud cases involving some kind of manipulation or coercion (they refer…The Costs Of Fraud Should Be Shared

A new immigration policy could mandate prospective citizens give up their social media profiles for review, adding to President Donald Trump’s push for stronger border policy and a bottleneck on legal migrant entry.U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has opened a 60-day comment period on the proposed change, which would add a request for social media handles to immigration benefit applications for those already residing in the U.S. The requirement would affect those applying for green cards and naturalization, asylum-seekers, refugees, and the relatives of people who have been granted asylum or refugee status, the Verge reported. According to the USCIS, the change would affect approximately 3.5 million people. SEE ALSO: Report: Thousands of harmful AI chatbots threaten minor safety The State Department already has a policy in place that requires the disclosure of five years of social media history for foreign nationals applying for visas before they enter the U.S., but the new policy would apply to current U.S. residents who are only seeking to update or change their status. “These are people who could have been residing in the U.S. for 30, 40 years, as a Green Card holder who are seeking citizenship, or people who are residing on other types of visas who are seeking a Green Card,” Saira Hussain, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Newsweek. “It really creates a massive chilling effect about people who could be vetted for their online speech, who have every right to be here in this country…U.S. immigration services wants to review potential citizens social media

The world’s most popular artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are infected with Russian disinformation, according to a study published Thursday.  The research done by the news monitoring service NewsGuard found that the Moscow-based disinformation network dubbed Pravda — which is Russian for “truth” — has been spreading falsehoods on the internet, including attempts to influence AI chatbots and the results they spell out to users.  “By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how large language models process and present news and information,” NewsGuard said in the lengthy report, adding it results in massive “amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda.”  The world’s leading AI chatbots have repeated false narratives trafficked by the Pravda network 33 percent of the time, NewsGuard said in its audit.  NewsGuard stated it tested 10 prominent AI chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini. It sampled 15 false narratives that have been pushed by a network of 150 “pro-Kremlin Pravda websites” from April 2022 through last month.  The news rating service said its findings confirmed the American Sunlight Project’s February 2025 report, which warned that Pravda was set up to “flood large-language models with pro-Kremlin content.”  “The long-term risks–political, social, and technological–associated with potential LLM [large-language model] grooming within this network are high. The larger a set of pro-Russia narratives is, the more likely it is to…AI chatbots infected with Russian disinformation: Study

It finally happened.After over two decades of being a “good guy,” or “babyface” in wrestling lingo, WWE Superstar and Hollywood actor John Cena turned “heel,” or became the “bad guy.” Tweet may have been deleted Cena is currently on his pro wrestling retirement tour. The 13-time WWE champion and former face of the company announced last year that 2025 would be his final year of actively performing in-ring.It doesn’t seem like any WWE fan assumed that the near-lifelong babyface would turn bad in his final year of wrestling. But he did last night, attacking his now-former friend Cody Rhodes.The internet erupted with shock, excitement, and, of course, memes. Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted At WWE Elimination Chamber on Saturday night, Cena had just won the six-man cage match to determine who would face WWE Champion Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. Rhodes is the current face of the company and the top “good guy.” Cena and Rhodes are supposedly friends. Rhodes came out at the end of the show to congratulate Cena on winning the match, signifying a friendly competitive matchup was in store at the main event of WrestleMania. Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted However, The Rock, who is currently a bad guy in the WWE and has been feuding with Cody Rhodes, interrupted. Rhodes and The Rock exchanged words. And then Cena turned on Rhodes, attacking him multiple times while…John Cena finally turns heel and the internet reacts

You have probably heard of it, but you likely know nothing about it. Some claim it will be the next technological game-changer, and they are right. It is quantum computing, and its potential rewards and risks are even greater than those of artificial intelligence.  To appreciate what quantum computing is, one must consider the classical computing that we use every day in technologies like laptops and smart phones. Classical computing effectively manages bits — switches that are either on or off, one or zero. Microchips are the foundational electronic devices that allow such bits to be managed. Technologies embedded with microchips use software that enables the functionality that we rely upon.   Both the strength and limitation of classical computing is that every piece of information must be represented using a string (or sequence) of ones and zeros. This allows all information to be digitized (hence the term digital economy). It also restricts the efficiency of systems that use classical computing, which is embedded in every available technology. Think of this as moving within a large city along a grid of streets. It would be more efficient if you could move along the diagonals through buildings, rather than around them on the streets.  Bit string representation of information has its advantages. One is computer security, captured in the field of cryptography. Electronic systems in finance, government, industry and the military can be protected against bad actors because such systems are effectively locked unless one has the cryptographic key to open…Quantum computing will be bigger than AI — so why is no one talking about it? 

It seems like everything you see online these days is a recession indicator. A new White Chicks movie? An addition to the Scary Movie franchise? Blondes going brunette? Screenshots with “fail” stamped on top? According to the internet, these are all recession indicators. But are we actually in a recession? And can an increase in Y2K content predict one? Or are we just doomposting? Tweet may have been deleted Real recession indicatorsThere are actual, measurable recession indicators, of course. According to Morningstar, an investment research and management services firm, these include:InflationStock market declineCredit spreads An inverted yield curveA decrease in real GDPHigh unemploymentA decline in business spendingInvestors flocking to goldDecreased home sales and housing pricesBut then there are the internet-defined recession indicators — things that feel like a throwback to another era of economic distress:Men posting their partners on Valentine’s DayZooey Deschanel with a BumpitThe popularization of content focused on becoming skinnyThat outfitTaylor LautnerGood pop musicAnti-tattoo sentimentThe revival of twee ukulele music Tweet may have been deleted What do these have in common?They all hark back to the early aughts — the last time the U.S. faced a full economic recession. This trend of linking any Y2K revival to a recession makes sense. After all, it’s easier for us to see the connection of Zooey Deschanel with a Bumpit to economic hardship than it is to fully understand how real GDP affects us. These comparisons may seem reminiscent from the so-called lipstick index — the theory that, during an economic…Recession indicators are everywhere online — even if we’re not actually in one

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched a request for information from members of the public whose ability to post or be seen on tech platforms has been limited by said platforms — aka, those who are shadowbanned.Shadowbanning may refer to different things, but usually, it refers to a user’s posts or account having limited visibility. This can range from someone’s posts not being included in followers’ feeds or an app’s “Explore” page to someone’s account not showing up in Search. SEE ALSO: Why pro-Palestinian content is at the center of the TikTok ban Social media platforms typically deny that shadowbanning exists, but it’s a well-documented occurrence. Now, the FTC, the independent agency that investigates unfair business practices, has called it tech censorship and asked people experiencing it to submit a comment. They also encouraged users who have been banned or demonetized from platforms to submit comments, too.Platform governance researcher at Northumbria University’s Center for Digital Citizens, Dr. Carolina Are, believes it’s important for shadowbanned members of the public to submit their comments.”Users are experts of their own experience, and particularly marginalized users that are targeted by censorship could provide responses and examples anonymously,” said Are, who has commented about shadowbanning to Mashable previously.Are believes it’s also important that researchers who have data and proof of how shadowbanning largely affects marginalized communities take part in submitting a comment. Are herself has been shadowbanned before, and has written papers about the subject. She continued that the timing for the request…Are you shadowbanned? The FTC wants to hear from you.