One evening way back in 1999, after a a long day at work, I made supper and slumped on the couch in front of the TV. I got up again after maybe ninety minutes, during which I had watched utter twaddle. What made it worse utter twaddle was comparing it to Homicide: Life On The Street, which was showing at the time. TV could make interesting, surprising shows, but it mostly didn't. British TV especially was just plain lazy. So I unlugged the aerial and canceled my TV license. From whenever that day was, I have not watched broadcast TV in my home - and when I caught sight of it elsewhere, it didn't look as it it had improved.
(You can have a TV and watch DVD/Blu-Ray, or tape if you have that, and you can watch streaming services (MUBI, Curzon... are there any others?) without a license. What you can't watch is "terrestrial TV at-the-time-of-broadcast" and anything on the BBC iPlayer. That's what I do.)
It makes watching TV more deliberate - nobody just played the first movie off the MUBI menu (though that sounds like an interesting experiment). For a long time that worked well.
Then You Tube came along. Most things on the Internet are a migrated version something we had already. Music streaming is just the radio without ads. Movie and TV streaming is just movies and TV delivered another way. Wikipedia is the Encyclopaedia Brittanica without the books. You Tube is both TV and the magazine rack at the newsagent.
And just like TV and magazines, there are some good channels on You Tube. Veristatium. The B1M. Jago Hazzard and Geoff Marshall. Sabine Hossenfelder. Darko Audio. Justin Taylor. Maths lectures (real ones not recreational math), and some music channels: where else am I going to see SRV duetting with Albert King? There is music on You Tube that is priceless.
There are channels that catch my attention for a while and then don't. Many of those people would, in the pre-Internet age, have been journalists, columnists, commentators and contributors, and we would have read their work in one magazine or another. Others would have been TV production companies - the larger channels have the same staff and roles.
But I'm having that same moment as I had with TV. You Tube is being swamped by AI channels. The same (e.g.) lecture by Feynman on this and that channel , or channels telling me what England was like in the 1960's and 70's (and since I was there, I can spot the mistakes, some of which are not small: one about why we were so slim in the 1960's ignored how much everyone smoked). After a while, I can tell just from the channel name and subject. (If I can do it it at my age, I'm pretty sure their billion-dollar AI can be trained to do the same. They just don't want to.)
I am almost at the point where the effort required to filter the slop is greater than the enjoyment of watching something interesting. The difference between TV in 1999 and You Tube is that TV in 1999 had no redeeming features. It really was pap, from the news to the cooking programmes, and that hasn't stopped it from reaching ever lower depths of tosh. But You Tube does have some channels I find interesting and occasionally eye-opening.
I watch it while preparing and eating lunch or supper, and that feels okay. What doesn't feel okay is scrolling through it for something distracting because I can't focus on reading a novel, watching a movie, practicing guitar, or something else. It gives me a sense of what is going on out there (which is a whole other subject) and that's a feeling I want. Hence the scrolling - looking for the next bulletin from the real world. So I'm going to give myself a break on doing that.
Also, I watch it in the Brave Browser, so I don't get ads. None. I have had people thank me for suggesting Brave. In the UK it has less than 1% market share, which remained unchanged through 2024 and 2025, so I guess Alphabet just ignore it. If I had to watch ads, I would drop You Tube that afternoon (I'm a shameless free-loader) and wonder if it really was worth £12.99 / month. With AI slop, it isn't. With a slop filter, it would be.
Friday, 23 January 2026
Friday, 16 January 2026
Privacy, Secrecy and Creepy Snooping
Privacy and secrecy are different. Secrecy is me not telling you. Security is taking steps to prevent you finding out. Privacy is you not snooping on me to find out, and consideration is you not imposing your presence on me.
If I notice George Clooney at the table next to me, and carry on with my coffee and newspaper, not saying anything, I am being considerate. If you ask for his autograph, you are not. His identity and presence is not a secret, but the low voice in which he and his companion are talking is a simple security measure. If you try to listen, you are invading his privacy, and if I make no such attempt, I am respecting his privacy.
Privacy is defined in by contrast with "public". We have a concept of a public space - roughly as anywhere anyone can go without needing permission from the owner of the space - and the law says that we have no expectation of privacy in a public space. That street photographer can take a photograph of you. The most you can do is ask her not to publish the photograph. We have a concept of public knowledge - which is available from sources that anyone can look at without needing permission from the owner of the source. Newspaper articles, electoral rolls, the registers at Companies House, the Land Registry, documentaries, non-fiction books, plus anything that can be observed about you in the ordinary way. That Sally's hair is blonde is public knowledge, that it is actually mousy brunette, is known only to her hairdresser.
Any knowledge that is not public, is private, and trying to obtain that knowledge without the subject's permission is an "invasion of privacy". In almost every society in history, if I want to know something about even a friend, that is not available from observation in a public space or not available in public records and sources, good manners dictate that I ask them if I may ask them, and not take offence if they do not want to tell me.
I do that for the same reason that I pay my bills, do honest business, respect other people's property, and treat people with courtesy and dignity: it is good for business and makes for a liveable society. Societies in which people refrain from snooping on each other are more pleasant, as are families, marriages, friendships, workplaces, and even Sunday football teams.
We often mix up the ideas of secrecy, security, privacy and consideration. A conversation in a noisy cafe is difficult to overhear, and in ordinary language, we might say we had a private conversation there. But we didn't, we had a secret one. We didn't tell you we were meeting (secrecy) and we took steps to make it difficult to hear what we were talking about (security). A better-mannered colleague than you, passing by the cafe (public space) saw us talking and noting our body language (public knowledge) guessed we were having a meeting we did not want others to know about. However, they carried on (consideration) and made no attempt to find out what we were talking about (privacy).
When privacy activists talk about a "right to privacy", what they mean is "people should not snoop, especially the State". The principle that we are under no obligation to incriminate ourselves is close to a "right to secrecy".
The State rightly regards device and communication encryption as security to preserve secrecy, even if the initial intention was to stop those creeps at Meta from gathering every last thing they can get. When those security measures enable criminality, the State is right to ask on our behalf that something be done to disable the criminality.
One of the State's suggestions is client-side scanning of everyone's internet-connected devices all the time. This is snooping, an invasion of everyone's privacy, without proof of cause. Thus Lord Denning in Anton Piller KG v Manufacturing Processes Limited
Unfortunately, the Internet, cheap data storage and very fast processing, plus the (false) promise of accurate analysis by so-called "AI", removes the constraint of practicality. No-one would suggest gathering and analysing data from 500,000,000 people (online population of the EU) on a daily basis otherwise. What remains is a respect for privacy. The State claims that the detection of CSAM, and terrorist recruitment and propaganda, as more important than everyone's expectation that they will only be investigated if there is a specific charge. Certainly our "rights" sometimes conflict and need to be prioritised, and the way we prioritise those rights is itself a moral and political issue.
Even if we decide that client-side scanning is justified in certain cases under strict conditions, it will be snooping. It might be legal, and it may have good intentions, but it will still be snooping and it will still be creepy. Which will have repercussions on the way people feel about the State.
If I notice George Clooney at the table next to me, and carry on with my coffee and newspaper, not saying anything, I am being considerate. If you ask for his autograph, you are not. His identity and presence is not a secret, but the low voice in which he and his companion are talking is a simple security measure. If you try to listen, you are invading his privacy, and if I make no such attempt, I am respecting his privacy.
Privacy is defined in by contrast with "public". We have a concept of a public space - roughly as anywhere anyone can go without needing permission from the owner of the space - and the law says that we have no expectation of privacy in a public space. That street photographer can take a photograph of you. The most you can do is ask her not to publish the photograph. We have a concept of public knowledge - which is available from sources that anyone can look at without needing permission from the owner of the source. Newspaper articles, electoral rolls, the registers at Companies House, the Land Registry, documentaries, non-fiction books, plus anything that can be observed about you in the ordinary way. That Sally's hair is blonde is public knowledge, that it is actually mousy brunette, is known only to her hairdresser.
Any knowledge that is not public, is private, and trying to obtain that knowledge without the subject's permission is an "invasion of privacy". In almost every society in history, if I want to know something about even a friend, that is not available from observation in a public space or not available in public records and sources, good manners dictate that I ask them if I may ask them, and not take offence if they do not want to tell me.
I do that for the same reason that I pay my bills, do honest business, respect other people's property, and treat people with courtesy and dignity: it is good for business and makes for a liveable society. Societies in which people refrain from snooping on each other are more pleasant, as are families, marriages, friendships, workplaces, and even Sunday football teams.
We often mix up the ideas of secrecy, security, privacy and consideration. A conversation in a noisy cafe is difficult to overhear, and in ordinary language, we might say we had a private conversation there. But we didn't, we had a secret one. We didn't tell you we were meeting (secrecy) and we took steps to make it difficult to hear what we were talking about (security). A better-mannered colleague than you, passing by the cafe (public space) saw us talking and noting our body language (public knowledge) guessed we were having a meeting we did not want others to know about. However, they carried on (consideration) and made no attempt to find out what we were talking about (privacy).
When privacy activists talk about a "right to privacy", what they mean is "people should not snoop, especially the State". The principle that we are under no obligation to incriminate ourselves is close to a "right to secrecy".
The State rightly regards device and communication encryption as security to preserve secrecy, even if the initial intention was to stop those creeps at Meta from gathering every last thing they can get. When those security measures enable criminality, the State is right to ask on our behalf that something be done to disable the criminality.
One of the State's suggestions is client-side scanning of everyone's internet-connected devices all the time. This is snooping, an invasion of everyone's privacy, without proof of cause. Thus Lord Denning in Anton Piller KG v Manufacturing Processes Limited
Let me say at once that no court in this land has any power to issue a search warrant to enter a man's house so as to see if there are papers or documents there which are of an incriminating nature, whether libels or infringements of copyright or anything else of the kind. No constable or bailiff can knock at the door and demand entry so as to inspect papers or documents. The householder can shut the door in his face and say, "Get out."Denning was re-stating the doctrine that "fishing expeditions" - the speculative gathering of information and looking for evidence of something criminal in it - are unacceptable. English Law prefers the Police to have a specific charge and a specific complaint, and can only gather evidence related to it. This has roots in practicality as well as respect for privacy.
Unfortunately, the Internet, cheap data storage and very fast processing, plus the (false) promise of accurate analysis by so-called "AI", removes the constraint of practicality. No-one would suggest gathering and analysing data from 500,000,000 people (online population of the EU) on a daily basis otherwise. What remains is a respect for privacy. The State claims that the detection of CSAM, and terrorist recruitment and propaganda, as more important than everyone's expectation that they will only be investigated if there is a specific charge. Certainly our "rights" sometimes conflict and need to be prioritised, and the way we prioritise those rights is itself a moral and political issue.
Even if we decide that client-side scanning is justified in certain cases under strict conditions, it will be snooping. It might be legal, and it may have good intentions, but it will still be snooping and it will still be creepy. Which will have repercussions on the way people feel about the State.
Friday, 9 January 2026
Client-Side Scanning Of Your Mobile Phone and Other Devices
For more than a decade, there has been as much internet security as anyone would want. HTTPS means anyone wanting to read your traffic has to de-crypt it, which is expensive, though they will know where it is going. VPNs removed that last bit of information. Client-side scanning is any way of looking at your device content before it is encrypted (on the send side) or after it is decrypted (on the receive side).
Let's assume that the privacy lobby's worst fears about mission creep come true, and that by, say 2030, all our devices have client-side scanning for all file types. See this paper for an example of the way the discussion is going.
Whatever we look at, type, write, read, say or hear will be sent to Government servers and scanned by AI, for evidence of an ever-increasing number of offences. (Yes there will be mediators, but they will not be English lawyers versed in the nuances of Western culture. They will be low-paid, off-shore workers in a non-European country.)
Client-side scanning will need Parliamentary approval. Everyone will be able to see it coming from a mile away and prepare for it.
The majority of users, who are well-mannered and law-abiding citizens, will not change their behaviour, as why should they? At the other extreme, Serious People doing Something Very Bad who want to go on doing it will have plenty of time to organise and convert to off-line ways of doing it. Their online behaviour will look utterly law-abiding. People who have been opportunistically doing Something Very Bad because modern devices made it easy and encryption made it reasonably un-identifiable, will either join the Serious People, or stop doing it. Lawyers and corporate executives will ask "do I want the Regulator / prosecution / HMRC / whoever else to see this?" and if the answer is NO, they will arrange an in-person meeting to communicate it.
The introduction of client-side scanning will, in other words, sanitise the Internet, remove some of the easy-come easy-go misbehaviour, but otherwise leave the real world unchanged. Cyber-bullying will stop, but old-fashioned bullying in-person will carry on. Conspiracies against the State will be discussed as before in quiet corners of noisy restaurants. Prices will be fixed by managers in queues for popular take-aways. People will need to work a little harder to conspire.
After a year or so, when the hot-heads have cooled down and the privacy activists have been imprisoned, scanning will be an expensive deterrent that does stop casual, opportunist law-breaking and activism, but does not stop the serious people. Universal cradle-to-grave client-side scanning will be the end of the Wild West of the Internet. That's probably a Good Thing.
Well, until we look at the practicalities.
First, scanning and subsequent identification by AI or other means will generate false positives: innocent images, voice calls, texts or e-mails that get classified as Bad. Liberal activists don't care about that - eggs and omelettes and all that - but the grown-ups at Apple do, which is why they abandoned their iCloud scanning development at the end of 2022.
Second, it will be easy for a malicious person to mess with your life. All they need to do is send you Bad Content, which the client-side scanner on your device will identify and report you as having. Before you even know it is there. We don't think about this now because we can delete the dodgy stuff if it ever reaches us. It does not even need to be malicious. All sorts of stuff gets returned by a Google search that we never see and didn't ask for. Apple et al will need to build in the facility to block images and files being sent to mail, messaging and other apps on their devices, while still allowing e.g. music streams and videos.
Third, remember the farce that was the Covid app? Billions of the taxpayers' money spent on a program with more flaws than a cheap diamond? What makes you think Government-specified client-side scanning will be any better? Scanning software needs to operate at a very deep level (the "kernel") of the device's operating system. Nobody outside Apple (for iOS), Google (for Android) and Microsoft (for Windows) has the detailed kernel-level knowledge required to write it well. If previous projects are a guide, the scanning software will be developed by low-bid sub-contractors who will scatter to the four winds a month after they are paid. That's how Government IT contracts work. So our phones, tablets and even maybe laptops will freeze until re-boot, brick themselves beyond re-boot, stutter, lock us out, fail to run apps at random and otherwise misbehave. Not a few devices once a year, but every device every month.
Client-side scanning is a terrific deterrent. Shame it will create way more problems than it will solve. But then, you know, it is better that ten innocent people are wrongly found guilty than one guilty person is wrongly found innocent. At least, I think that was the quote.
Let's assume that the privacy lobby's worst fears about mission creep come true, and that by, say 2030, all our devices have client-side scanning for all file types. See this paper for an example of the way the discussion is going.
Whatever we look at, type, write, read, say or hear will be sent to Government servers and scanned by AI, for evidence of an ever-increasing number of offences. (Yes there will be mediators, but they will not be English lawyers versed in the nuances of Western culture. They will be low-paid, off-shore workers in a non-European country.)
Client-side scanning will need Parliamentary approval. Everyone will be able to see it coming from a mile away and prepare for it.
The majority of users, who are well-mannered and law-abiding citizens, will not change their behaviour, as why should they? At the other extreme, Serious People doing Something Very Bad who want to go on doing it will have plenty of time to organise and convert to off-line ways of doing it. Their online behaviour will look utterly law-abiding. People who have been opportunistically doing Something Very Bad because modern devices made it easy and encryption made it reasonably un-identifiable, will either join the Serious People, or stop doing it. Lawyers and corporate executives will ask "do I want the Regulator / prosecution / HMRC / whoever else to see this?" and if the answer is NO, they will arrange an in-person meeting to communicate it.
The introduction of client-side scanning will, in other words, sanitise the Internet, remove some of the easy-come easy-go misbehaviour, but otherwise leave the real world unchanged. Cyber-bullying will stop, but old-fashioned bullying in-person will carry on. Conspiracies against the State will be discussed as before in quiet corners of noisy restaurants. Prices will be fixed by managers in queues for popular take-aways. People will need to work a little harder to conspire.
After a year or so, when the hot-heads have cooled down and the privacy activists have been imprisoned, scanning will be an expensive deterrent that does stop casual, opportunist law-breaking and activism, but does not stop the serious people. Universal cradle-to-grave client-side scanning will be the end of the Wild West of the Internet. That's probably a Good Thing.
Well, until we look at the practicalities.
First, scanning and subsequent identification by AI or other means will generate false positives: innocent images, voice calls, texts or e-mails that get classified as Bad. Liberal activists don't care about that - eggs and omelettes and all that - but the grown-ups at Apple do, which is why they abandoned their iCloud scanning development at the end of 2022.
Second, it will be easy for a malicious person to mess with your life. All they need to do is send you Bad Content, which the client-side scanner on your device will identify and report you as having. Before you even know it is there. We don't think about this now because we can delete the dodgy stuff if it ever reaches us. It does not even need to be malicious. All sorts of stuff gets returned by a Google search that we never see and didn't ask for. Apple et al will need to build in the facility to block images and files being sent to mail, messaging and other apps on their devices, while still allowing e.g. music streams and videos.
Third, remember the farce that was the Covid app? Billions of the taxpayers' money spent on a program with more flaws than a cheap diamond? What makes you think Government-specified client-side scanning will be any better? Scanning software needs to operate at a very deep level (the "kernel") of the device's operating system. Nobody outside Apple (for iOS), Google (for Android) and Microsoft (for Windows) has the detailed kernel-level knowledge required to write it well. If previous projects are a guide, the scanning software will be developed by low-bid sub-contractors who will scatter to the four winds a month after they are paid. That's how Government IT contracts work. So our phones, tablets and even maybe laptops will freeze until re-boot, brick themselves beyond re-boot, stutter, lock us out, fail to run apps at random and otherwise misbehave. Not a few devices once a year, but every device every month.
Client-side scanning is a terrific deterrent. Shame it will create way more problems than it will solve. But then, you know, it is better that ten innocent people are wrongly found guilty than one guilty person is wrongly found innocent. At least, I think that was the quote.
Friday, 2 January 2026
A Prosperous 2026 To You
This year I am making no resolutions.
There may be things I need to change, but either I can't figure out what or I know I won't be arsed to do them. Or it could be that while I have physically recovered from The Flu, my brain is not really up for constructive, pro-active thought.
Plus it's sodding cold (anything below 40F is "sodding cold").
I have been meditating on these lyrics from Taylor Swift's Florida
Little did you know
your home's really only
a town you're just a guest in
There you are, thinking you're living somewhere that's home, and then you do something, or you stop following the herd, and suddenly it's just a town, any old town, and they think of you as just some tourist in a hotel room. Tolerated, not accepted; with no rights of residence, so move along now they're tired of you.
At least in Bob Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
If you're lookin' to get silly
You better go back to from where you came
Because the cops don't need you
And, man, they expect the same
we already know we're a tourist there, and can "go back to New York City". In Taylor Swift's song, we lose our home and have to sit out the "shit storm back in Texas" in that mythical land of escape, Florida.
Warning: this is a track that can easily wind up on repeat.
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