As has been noted here many times, it is not possible to do anything online (and often elsewhere) without being tracked. Nothing is considered to be unquestionably private anymore. Artificial “intelligence” is making the situation worse. I strongly suspect that those who welcome our new computerized overlords will come to regret it.
So it’s been, what, six months since I concocted my homemade television sets. Since then I’ve missed nothing that I would have liked to watch, and have watched much that was not available via the usual, um, channels. And I have maintained my privacy.
Alvin Lee was a rock-and-roll singer, guitarist, and songwriter of some note. Anyone who has seen the “Woodstock” movie surely remembers him and his band, Ten Years After, performing “I’m Going Home.” It didn’t impart the sense that Lee was high in the intellectual hit parade. But he was at least a talented predictor of future events, as I was reminded this week.
If you’ve read my columns over the last few years, you know I’ve been far less pessimistic about Elon Musk’s Twitter (err, “X”) than many, even when he’s made inexplicable decisions. Officially supporting pornographic publishing on X, though, is a line crossed and a good time to consider the best alternative.
The idea of trying to build a privacy-respecting television box took root when I heard of something called Plasma Bigscreen. “Plasma Bigscreen is an open-source user interface for TV's [sic]. Running on top of a Linux distribution, Plasma Bigscreen turns your TV or setup-box into a fully hackable device,” says its website, linked above. “A big launcher giving you easy access to any installed apps and skills. Controllable via voice or TV remote.”
A year ago last week, having taken steps to preserve my privacy, I started an account on the ubiquitous website that at the time was called Twitter. Much has happened since then, as you may have heard.
You probably have never heard of Nick Shabazz. We seldom hear of people who make sense. Our attention is drawn instead to noisy malevolent clowns.
Thanks, Google! You have struck a blow for privacy! Okay, that overstates things slightly, but only slightly. And while the Google Pixel Tablet is anything but private as shipped, the enormous, generally evil company (who knows that you are looking at this article unless you did something to prevent tracking, which you probably didn’t) left the tablet open so people concerned with privacy and security can fix it.
I’ve been spoiled by the cloud. A decade and a half after I first used Dropbox, and years after iCloud made the dream of secure, seamless “login and forget” cloud sync a reality (most of the time), it seems obvious that all of my stuff should be available from every device I have whenever I need it. But what about content too big to keep on the cloud?
Twitter has changed its name to “X.” The way that change reverberated from newsrooms to dining rooms was revealing. It shows how dangerously dependent our society has become on this one, privately owned soapbox.