Category Archives: music

Why is Reed Hastings bent on killing my privacy?

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“I don’t think we will see any impact.” — Reed Hastings, January 19

“The VPN crackdown is meeting fierce resistance from privacy activists and concerned users, with tens of thousands calling upon the streaming service to reverse its broad VPN ban.” — Torrent Freak, Feb 26

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Since Netflix came to Canada in September 2010, I’ve written 51 posts carrying the Netflix tag. I’ve sung the praises of Reed Hastings; objected to the anti-Netflix manipulation of data caps by our incumbents; defended Netflix’s right to operate in Canada over the self-serving protests of our media establishment; and sympathized with Netflix for the archaic treatment meted out to streaming services by the CRTC.

Netflix-6.0-for-iOS-app-icon-smallThe longest pair of posts I’ve ever written (about 6,000 words) was on the attempt by the CRTC and selected media barons to make life as difficult as possible in Canada for Netflix. That was 2011: Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix: Ottawa’s big OTT scam (part 1, June 16; and part 2, June 18).

There was a single exception. I fell off the wagon when Netflix linked arms with Facebook and produced one of the worst privacy policies I’ve ever read: Netflix showing way too much love – for your Facebook data (Oct 2011).

Which brings us to the much bigger privacy problem Netflix has created for itself. Continue reading →

The GOP hack: making Kim answer for Sony’s 10-year online war

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Sony Pictures, the White House and the FBI should get a medal for the greatest political marketing triumph of 2014.

kimjungununiformAfter the horror show following the November 24 hack of Sony Pictures by the Guardians of Peace (GOP), America rallied behind Washington’s theory that Sony was the hapless victim of a Cold War cyberattack. Kim is certainly an easy guy to dislike and no friend of the Americans – no friend of anybody but Kim for that matter. (He comes by it legitimately. His dad and predecessor once had an actor hired to play grandpa Kim Il-sung in a movie role, for which the actor underwent plastic surgery to more closely resemble a Kim; once the shoot was over, the actor was shipped off to a concentration camp.)

The triumph of Cold War marketing over any hint of Sony’s bad behavior is all the more remarkable given the nasty quarrels that have embroiled US stakeholders, press and critics of all stripes. Not to mention the fact that as recently as New Year’s Eve, cryptographer Bruce Schneier and others were still casting doubt on the official claim that the hack was carried out by the Kim regime.

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Lining up for The Interview as an exercise in patriotism

“The fact that they’re showing this movie shows that America still has a backbone regardless of the critics,” said Jay Killion, a golf pro who caught a screening at Tower City Cinemas in Cleveland.

Continue reading →

The Internet in 2025: Pew surveys our online future (2014 edition)

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“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” — Roy Amara (d.2007)

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In January, I participated in the latest edition of the experts survey on the future of the Internet, brainchild of the Pew Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center. Some takeaways from grappling with the latest survey:

  • It’s been increasingly difficult from year to year to think through the tangle of issues associated with online life (I answered only 5 of the 8 questions on this survey);
  • Trying to look ahead a decade made me think a lot more about the present-day than the future.
  • My mood was pessimistic, and the theme that kept coming up was the inevitable fragmentation of the global public Internet.

ElonThe Pew-Elon Survey on the Future of the Internet, now in its sixth edition, collects responses from 900-odd participants around the globe on eight questions (originally 10), focused on the leading controversies of the day. The participants comprise a motley collection of thought leaders, technologists, entrepreneurs, futurists, academics, axe-grinders and experts of many stripes. The first edition of the survey was launched in 2004. Continue reading →

Remembering Jimi

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22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill, London W11, where Jimi Hendrix died on Sept 18, 1970 at the age of 27. The then Samarkand Hotel, the house now bears a plaque reading “Turkish Embassy.” Photo D.E.

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