Gabe Rocks

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Welcome to the first episode of Cyber Fix a show to provide entertaining and insightful analysis of developments in Cyberspace. This broadcast is for the explicit purpose of supporting the Libre Solutions Network project as a whole.

To Celebrate the launch of this show I’m offering permanent discounts to those who sign up for a limited time.

Premium, But Not Exclusive

As a way of walking the walk I’m experimenting with a bleeding-edge mitra feature that allows for premium subscriptions over the fediverse via monero. If you’d like to participate you can also get the full broadcast by subscribing here.

Music Credits

* Y&V - Lune

* Valcos - A New Light

* Killercats - Kaibu

Links Discussed

* A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back

* Microsoft is reworking Recall after researchers point out its security problems

* This Recall thing is a prime example of how bad we are at understanding when something is a systemic problem.

* Turns out speaking out works.

* Adobe becomes spyware

* Adobe Clarifies Users Retain Copyright of Their Creative Works

* Apple gives Siri an AI makeover

* How Apple Wi-Fi Positioning System can be abused to track people around the globe

* Celebrity TikTok Accounts Compromised Using Zero-Click Attack via DMs

* Data Leak Exposes Business Leaders and Top Celebrity Data

* Pop Culture Passwords Most Likely to Get You Hacked, New Study

* GOG will let you bequeath your game library to someone else as long as you can prove you're actually dead

Updates:

I’m planning on moving future “items of interest” to a new show all together. I will continue publishing monthly recaps to keep people up to date on what I’m up to, but news and interesting links will now be moved to a new show. Future monthly recaps will include clips from recent interviews and any follow-up considerations.

New Show Coming Soon

I’m planning on taking the links I allready compile to track important updates regularly into a (hopefully) entertaining and informative audio broadcast. The hope is that the few items that do require a visual component can be made into their own stand-alone videos. I will be producing the show on a bi-weekly (once every two weeks) basis for paid subscribers.

If you’ve found my assortment of links interesting in the past, or want to give a little to get a little, now is the best time to lock in your support and get access to the upcoming show!

Help me find a name!

I haven’t come up with a name yet, but if somebody can come up with one I like faster than I can I’ll be happy to gift them a free year. I want it to be catchier than “The Libre Solutions Network” that skill synergizes my passion for technology and freedom. This show will include all the same news and interesting links I share regularly.

This is NOT Substack exclusive, but it is premium

If you’re a keener for decentralization and eager to walk the walk the radio show is also going to be available as a Mitra subscription paid in Monero at a substantial discount. If this option gains traction, I’ll consider more supporter only posts on the fediverse.

Recent Items

Items of Interest

* 25 Years of Krita!

I don’t personally use Krita myself, but it’s incredible to see how far this open source painting program has come!

* Federation of Freedom

Fedfree is a website aimed at teaching people how to run their own servers, of various kinds, on libre operating systems e.g. Linux and BSD. It aims to do this, using libre software exclusively, teaching people about the importance of libre software and hardware as it pertains to freedom; the right to use, study, adapt, share. The right to read. Universal access to knowledge… education. Education is the goal.

I’m excited to see this relatively new resource grow!

* Blogging on a budget

This is a good overview of inexpensive ways to start self-publishing immediately.

* Linux TLDR

Another good web resource on Linux, with a bit more content.

* Browser Privacy Tests

More than you ever wanted to know to compare different browsers.

* Introducing 'innernet'

A fascinating project aimed at making private networks (innernets) work well for small communities. I am convinced that tools like this are a vital part overcoming ongoing challenges.

* Review of Reputable, Functional, and Secure Email Service

This is a great overview that lays out the thought process of comparing different mail providers.

I’m a huge fan of ‘Nobody Special’ and this is a must-watch explanation of how much of the AI hype cycle is manufactured. Taking this into consideration explains a lot of bizarre behavior by corporations and ‘influencers’.

* All credit card PIN numbers in the World leaked”

I think to the degree that PINs and passwords exist at all in the future, they need to tolerate large lengths. The security provided by a 4-digit pin is becoming vanishingly small. I would love to see institutions and services adopt different authentication methods that aren’t inherently centralized.

* No, I don’t want to fill out your contact form

A good list of reasons why contact forms are generally a bad solution.

* You Can Now Bridge Fediverse and Bluesky Accounts

I connected my accounts, the fediverse grows! This is excellent because it means that fediverse users can effectively opt-out of Bluesky’s ranking and filtering nonsense.

* Modernizing the AntennaPod Code Structure

The video is worth the watch, such a huge undertaking for one of my favorite apps!

* Ottawa wants the power to create secret backdoors in our networks to allow for surveillance

I’ve added this link to cyberfreedom.ca. Every time I see one of these stories I hope that people recognize that there is a coordinated push all over the world to vastly enhance internet censorship and surveillance.

* Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise. Through a shady collaboration between the US and the EU.

* AWS confirms it will launch European ‘sovereign cloud’ in Germany by 2025, plans €7.8B investment over 15 years

* Jeremy Hunt bets on creating a $1tn ‘British Microsoft’

* No One Should Have That Much Power

This is a must-read refutation of the logic behind measures such as introducing back-doors, dragnet surveillance and dragnet surveillance.

* Messenger Wars

Telegram, Signal, Session Oh My! There’s been a lot of back-and-forth about fighting over various messenging apps. I would argue there is no single perfect messenging app. The best solution in my opinion is to use the most secure application with the people you interact with.

* Why I Don't Trust Matrix Developers to Produce a Secure Protocol

This is a technical post raising concerns about matrix’s end-to-end encryption capabilities. In my opinion this is where avoiding hostile cyberspace is paramount, if you host a server with trusted contacts the risk is minized. Of course, I sincerely hope developers in the matrix ecosystem incorporate this feedback to make it even better.

If we want a better technological landscape, we need to fund it ourselves. Brodie does an excellent job raising concerns about how the Linux foundation members choose to spend their money, and makes great suggestions on how to better support the linux desktop.

* Fight for citizen’s right to use the Internet anonymously

Online anonymity is important, and it’s arguably one of the more effective safeguards against online tyranny.

* Rightsholders Want U.S. “Know Your Customer” Proposal to Include Domain Name Services

A concerning escalation regarding hosting providers, effectively making those who provide online services more vulnerable to retaliation from government and vigilantes alike.

* Social media companies have too much political power, 78% of Americans say in Pew survey

It is undeniable that large tech companies have an immense influence over public discussions. Personally, I would prefer we embrace attention democracy, rather than merely wish big tech can be compelled to play nice.

* The Myth of Online Radicalisation

Online radicalization is often used as a pretext for more internet censorship and surveillance. It’s important to really take these problems head-on and take a close look at the details.

* Proton Mail Discloses User Data Leading to Arrest in Spain

I took the liberty of graphing Proton’s requests from governments.

This was a great conversation about digital privacy as a whole. I’m a big fan of Naomi Brockwell and The Hated one has done some fantastic videos on a variety of topics.

* Stack Overflow suspends user for editing posts in OpenAI protest

I’m skeptical that these kind of ‘revolts’ are effective in general, but it’s an excellent example of nominally neutral cyberspace becoming more nefarious.

* Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos

Talk about embarassing! It seems that nothing is really deleted unless you run a drill through it.

* Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag

Is WiFi even worth it? One can start to wonder. Definitely worth keeping in mind.

* Privacy, human rights, and Tornado Cash

Molly White does an excellent job striking at the root of the issue when it comes to privacy, decentralization and finance.

* Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will

Despite having a lot of goodwill from gamers, Steam is still DRM (Digital Rights Management) software that has disappointing terms of service.

Truthstream Media does phenomenal work. I’d highly recommend giving this documentary the time. Despite being made prior to the Covid Crisis, The Minds of Men is a fantastic timeless work.

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Many hands make light work. This is the essence behind the idea of Operation: Beehive which outlines how people can use various software collaboration tools for non-technical uses. Git by it’s nature is an offline-first collaborative tool, this perfectly models what the optimal offline/online balance should be for many activities.

To maintain our digital autonomy, it’s crucial to find ways to collaborate without being locked behind cloud platforms or locked-in services. This requires working in completely different ways than how Big Tech has trained people to collaborate within their digital walls. In scouring the net for research and ideas, I stumbled on Gitnuro which is described as a “A FOSS Git multi-platform client for newbies and pros.”

I hope you find this conversation with me and Abdelilah El Aissaoui illuminating and inspiring. It was a pleasure to discuss not only his project but also his experiences and what people can do to support excellent software like Gitnuro. If we want to change the technological landscape for the better, it requires is to put our money where our needs are and support independent developers and projects ourselves.

Abeliah himself gives some excellent tips on what actions people can take. Even simple things like opening quality issues, donations, or even a written thanks can go a long way to reinvigorate their efforts. I hope that you may consider sponsoring Abdelilah on github, or any other Free Software project that suits you well!

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Join Gabriel & Liam Sturgess in a discussion taking a look at the video Canada Fell Behind on Digital ID by Canadian Civil. The video contrasts Canada’s government log-in systems against Australia’s RealMe single sign-on, making the argument that Canada should make changes. This video, presents an opportunity to learn from advocates for strong Digital ID systems, and to refine our understanding of the merits and pitfalls of that position.

Take the opportunity to watch our response to Canadian Civil’s video. You’ll likely be surprised about how much you can learn by listening to fierce advocates on ’the other side’ on this issue and others. It is far better to be equipped with awareness of your opposition’s arguments, rather than to be disarmed by ignorance. We’ll encounter some of the very strong arguments behind changing the way Canada currently does things, but also our concerns about how that change may take place.

Learn more

I’d highly recommend listening to this excellent podcast by Lily on the ongoing development of Digital Identity systems across the globe.

* Identity is Yours, and Yours Alone - Microjourneys

* Understanding the Risks of Digital IDs (PDF)

* SDG16: Part 2 — Enforcing Digital Identity

* Why Covid-19 is the perfect Privacy by Design case (By Stephan Engberg)

* Alberta Searches for Digital ID Director Even as Premier Denies Program’s Existence

* What is RealMe and why do people hate it so much?

* Ministry of Health position statement on the management of unvaccinated individuals in healthcare settings

* SMART Health Card

* Dig It! #104: Digital ID, Blockchain & Databases

* Episode 415 – The Global Digital ID Prison

* Canada’s Conservatives Realize They Can’t Be Anti Digital ID and Pro Online Age Verification

* Bill S-210 is Just the Beginning: How a Canadian Digital Lobby Group is Promoting a Standard to “Foster Widespread Adoption of Age Verification Technologies in Canada”

Due to many technical issues during recording unfortunately the production quality is not as desired. Some cleanup was done, but my apologies for the overall visual quality.

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I don’t normally tune-in to the Unjected show. It turns out that the same day I published Lessons from Alt-Tech Failures, the same security researcher from 2022 just confirmed that Unjected is still insecure. What moved me to comment on this further is the fact that not only is Unjected an exemplary example of how NOT to run a website, but also how not to respond to a security incident.

My principal concern here is not merely a vulnerable website, but the misleading way in which the hosts of the Unjected Show, including the founder, downplay and dismiss serious concerns in yesterday’s Episode #58. It’s staggering that those running a company arguably within the larger “Freedom Movement” would have the audacity to publicly demonstrate how little they care about their user’s privacy. With deflection and dismissive remarks, It’s frustrating to imagine how this could be taken seriously at all.

I have no desire to be allied with those who don’t seriously recognize the grave top-down threats that individuals face in cyberspace. I can’t tolerate those who arrogantly use the threat of state surveillance as an excuse to absolve potentially disclosing people’s private information to everyone. This has been a long-running frustration I’ve had with people within the so-called “Freedom Movement”. As frustrating it is for a company well-regarded by people within this space acting this way is, it is even more demoralizing that people tolerate it.

Questions for Unjected

* You claim you have done many penetration tests and have a team to resolve such issues, why didn’t you find this issue before?

* Had you found other vulnerabilities before? What went wrong and how did you resolve it?

* How important is protecting your user’s personal information to you?

* What measures have you taken that demonstrate this?

I apologize for the somewhat raw video rant. It’s too frustrating to interact with for too long. It’s tragic to me how little people have learned about personal privacy and security since 2020. In some ways I feel responsible. Maybe I should have spent more time on big tech sites like YouTube/Facebook/Rumble to try to get the word out. I haven’t because my principal goal here has been to walk the walk, and learn the right way forward. It is incredibly disheartening to see people be put at risk due to apathy and opportunism. I hope that if nothing else this can be a warning that not all is right.

Cyberwar Series

Taking Proactive Steps for Individuals

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I had an excellent time talking with Hrvoje Morić on his TNT Radio show. I highly recommend getting caught up with some of his great interviews with a very wide variety of fascinating guests. If you don’t already know of Hrvoje, you’re missing out and should absolutely take a look at Geopolitics & Empire at geopoliticsandempire.com.

Breaking Update

An update from the Geopolitics & Empire telegram channel:

Hrvoje has left the building! I have finally found a guerrilla with enough experience to replace me on TNT Radio. Veteran information warrior Lieutenant General Jason Bermas!

The Ides of March was my last transmission on TNT Radio after 2 straight and grueling years of non-stop live shows without pause or break...broadcasting from Croatia and from around the USA and México.

I am completely frazzled and burned out. I LOVE TNT Radio, they have been amazing to me, they've never censored me or caused me any problems, in fact...they've largely left me alone the entire time. They were basically like: here's a mic, you got 2-3 hours, here's your pay, go!

But doing 10-15 interviews a week is nuts, personally, for me right now. I desperately need to take a break and slow down. I will re-focus my efforts on Geopolitics & Empire! Stay frosty and stay tuned! 🎙 ✊

P.S. I will be a guest on Jason's show tonight!

It’s been an honor to be part of Hrvoje’s show on TNT Radio, and wish him the best!

Relevant Items

More Discussions with Hrvoje Morić

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In anticipation of publishing a new tools of the technocracy article, I had a chat with Hrvoje on his show to talk about what I had learned watching through The Network State Conference 2023. It’s clear that the entire concept of Network States as published in The Network State and highlighted by the speakers, is at best an attempt to dress up an all-encompassing technocratic terror. At worst, it’s a declaration of a world-wide open bid on human surveillance and control. Sharing some initial thoughts for the discussion, here is the follow-up article:

Watch the entire episode on PodbeanMore episodes: https://tntradio.live/shows/the-hrvoje-moric-show/

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In a special converation you would have a hard time finding elsewhere, Gabriel joins William Maggos to discuss the fediverse, attention economy, and the Culture War. Taking a sober look at the very foundation of our media and online discussions, William Maggos introduces the concept of attention democracy, where we can have a real impact on culture by choosing platforms that put people in charge of helping spread ideas and culture.

Learn more about William Maggos' work at Culture War RadioFollow @[email protected]

Relevant

More talks

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The world wide web is no stranger to government control. The Internet itself was created by the US Military, and governments across the world have subsidized Internet infrastructure in all kinds of ways. Many factors, such as the economies of scale, and sheer workforce size give large organizations an immense advantage when it comes to shaping the future of cyberspace. Just as individuals struggle with troubles relating to digital privacy & security, so do large organizations and governments.

In response, governments across the world are moving fast to address these concerns. With the motive and means to transform the fundamental elements that lay the foundation for our digital lives, a tidal wave of change is taking place and just beginning to accelerate. The winning move isn’t to challenge the whole tsunami directly, but rather to find the right waves that can carry us to where we would like to be. Indifference and apathy will certainly lead us to a similar place it took us all during the big tech era: to dependence and exploitation.

“I am not familiar with the history of how the Internet/tech companies have infiltrated my life– I only know one day the past, the before Internet part of life was like in another galaxy, and I was forcibly acclimated into accepting an intrusive technology if I want to use the Internet or a “smart” phone.”

Written by a friend

If nothing else, this should be a reminder of the dire necessity to be vigilant of how governments and large corporations can shape cyberspace to tilt the balance of power against the public. Many governments like to be permissive in all the ways that don’t impact prioritized policy objectives, then turn brutal the moment public opinion starts to shift against those policies. As the digital world has taken hold over more and more aspects of our lives, now more than ever, we all need take responsibility for shielding ourselves and others from such abuses.

Instead of continuing to let the web be dictated by American Tech Companies, Europe has a bold new strategy to plan, build, and enforce a new vision for cyberspace. The European Union’s Next Generation Internet, or NGI for short, aims to terraform cyberspace to represent the values of their elite. This plan is explicitly aimed at changing the Internet not just for Europeans, but for the entire world as well.

Understanding the “Next Generation Internet”

If you take a look at the brochure, it self-describes the plan as a “Human Internet for a better future”. Despite this, the document starts out making it explicitly clear that many technocratic ideals are directly woven into the plan. Surveillance, censorship, and more digital intrusion into our lives aren’t depicted as problems to be solved, but rather responsibly managed.

The Internet is the engine of digitisation of our society and our economy. As connectivity increases, the boundaries between the real and the digital world are blurring. With the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), multimedia content and social media,the Internet offers an unprecedented access to data and online services.Artificial intelligence helps to extract meaning from this data and to embed autonomy and intelligence into networks, connected objects and services. However, there has been an erosion of trust in the Internet following revelations about the exploitation of personal data, large-scale cybersecurity and data breaches, and growing awareness of online disinformation.

Do you feel the warm and fuzzy human feelings yet? To go further, this is an excellent example of “brokering legitimacy”. Which is when advocates for solving a problem undermine their cause by carving out counter-productive exceptions to their principles. This process uses the very real concerns about privacy and security to justify more control. Effectively binding critics of the plan, because it’s leveraging the unjustifiable aspects of the status quo to dismantle the parts worth preserving.

It is naive to believe that the European Union, which very recently pushed to backdoor everyone’s web traffic, is somehow sincerely interested in the privacy or even security of their citizens. I can wholeheartedly believe that European governments are very concerned about their own security from the public, Big Tech, and foreign entities alike. As cyberwars escalate moves are required to innovate not just their own systems, but to make changes to the systems that their citizens use as well. The following quote is from the Next Generation Internet Policy Summit in 2020, I find it exemplary of the kind of spirit that animates the initiative.

In the name of resolving a wide variety of issues created by the US Government and American Tech companies, Europe is working to consolidate information control over the Internet. In hindsight, it appears that the laissez-faire approach governments took with large tech companies was to merely buy time while more sophisticated digital surveillance techniques were built up. Hence the desire for rapid regulatory and technological innovation emphasized in the above quote.

In late 2019 Aral Balkan spoke with the European Parliament. Raising many important points, he pleaded with them to kill ‘surveillance capitalism’. The video is absolutely worth watching to get an understanding of how where we are bridges to where the European Union would like to go.

[Regarding citing Facebook]

If this is the presumption under which you are regulating the Internet, I despair about the future of human rights and about the future of our democracy.

…

You’re going blindly towards a Silicon Valley model, I don’t know why you’re doing this.

In short, Aral seems unconvinced that the EU will actually go far enough to radically support citizen’s digital autonomy and is instead trying to import aspects of the big tech control regime under state control. It’s hard to disagree with that perspective, and he exemplifies what actual opposition to these problems looks like.

As frustrating as some aspects of the Next Generation Internet vision are, it is to the EU’s credit that this is a massive transparent undertaking. Much of it is not only open public knowledge, but features initiatives in which open participation is encouraged. This appears to be the case largely because the concerns around censorship and paternalism seem to be more broadly socially accepted in Europe, a critical sign that social acceptance of censorship is what entrenches it. The way in which the Next Generation Internet is being rolled out is very effective at neutralizing any outright opposition, to the degree it is even possible. It is easy to see how such sweeping and extreme transformations made in other domains would use a similar model.

It is a foolish and dangerous mistake to fall into the trap of thinking governments are entirely comprised of out-of-touch bureaucrats with no understanding of technology. In fact, these reforms are being drawn up by people with an incredibly high level of understanding that is quite difficult to match, independent reformers (if there truly are any) are at a serious disadvantage.

Fully Embracing Open Source

One of the advantages the European Union has, is that they have recognized the immense opportunity of actually leaning into the open source development model. While North America bickers about remote work and commercial office space, the EU is harnessing the power of efficient decentralized work. By taking the “build it and they will come” approach, they are entirely out-maneuvering competitors with a treasure-trove of opportunity that has been laying dormant in people’s apathy and defeatism for over a decade.

The NLnet Foundation funds a wide variety of Open Source projects and tools that fit within the Next Generation Internet vision. This is good in some ways, notably that many of these projects are Free Software, which means that if things do go wrong, at least people can modify the projects for their own needs. One does have to wonder what the exact terms of…

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Thrilled to have had an excellent conversation with Hunter Stabler about digital autonomy and the arts. We spoke about many different topics, ranging from Free Software, community, and the broader impact of social media. It was a pleasure to connect with somebody who’s taken many steps towards reclaiming their digital autonomy, and has such incredible talent.

You can take a look at Hunter’s creations on his Pixelfed.

We share an affinity for Blender Antennapod and XMPP. Hunter has put together a CNC machine and likes to create with Free Software where possible. Adding that we need to all find ways to collaborate and work together to solve problems of education, outreach, and support.

Links Discussed

* The Responsibility of Intellectuals 2.0

* National Citizens Inquiry Testimony

* “Impossible”: OpenAI admits ChatGPT can’t exist without pinching copyrighted work

* Tech companies sign accord to combat AI-generated election trickery

* Air Canada Has to Honor a Refund Policy Its Chatbot Made Up

A Taste of Freedom: Libre Hosters

A very important topic highlighted in this discussion was how somebody without much time or resources can get started with using excellent Free and Open Source Software. One way to become familiar with self-hostable services is to try them out with an online community that provides them.

Of course, since you are a guest on somebody else’s infrastructure it’s important to be a good digital citizen and respect their rules and culture while using their services. Of course, if you’re an experienced self-hoster with spare resources, consider becoming your own libre hoster for others!

Here are some examples:

* Disroot

* LibreOps

* weho.st

Browse others at the libre hosters directory

This conversation took place over the Free Software Foundation’s Jitsi Instance. Consider becoming a member to support Free Software, and gain acess to numerous member’s benefits, including an XMPP account. OBS Studio was used to record the conversation, and cleanup/edits were done in blender and audacity.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gaberocks.substack.com/subscribe