James | MrConnectivity

30+ years Telecoms & Domains | Building Mackie Mobile MVNO | Domain Name pioneer |Turning names into assets & brands into revenue via standout engagement & CX

[James | MrConnectivity @MrConnectivity]

@LNER with so many inconsiderate, mindless folk around, why backtrack on your 'Quiet' coaches, rebranding them as 'Quieter', so devaluing the product offering for those who value peace?

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

Compulsory identity verification is designed to give governments and tech companies the ability to monitor everything people read, write and share online, who they communicate with and what political opinions they express. Governments are looking to outlaw online anonymity.

Jonathan Haidt, a prominent American social psychologist is pushing legislation that threatens to make this possible under the pretext of protecting children online.

I’ve challenged Haidt as a technical expert in online child safety, with experience across the entire technology stack and human behaviour. My experience in this field started 30 years ago this year. He’s a social psychologist, not an expert in the technology or technical consequences of the legislation he’s promoting.

Haidt knows that all smartphones today already have extremely effective parental controls that allow parents to restrict apps, websites and services, set time curfews and control what their children can access. Millions of parents and schools already use them.

Instead of encouraging parents to use these controls, he’s pushing legislation that would force people to verify their identity to access online services, threatening privacy and online anonymity. He also argues that parents and teenagers shouldn’t have to face peer pressure.

Compulsory identity verification links everything people read, write and share online, and everyone they communicate with, to their real identity. This enables mass surveillance, tracking across accounts and permanent bans.

When an account is linked to your real identity, or enough personal data to identify you, being banned would mean being banned for life. You can’t simply create another account with a different email address because the service can recognise you and block you again. This gives tech companies and governments the power to permanently exclude people from online services.

The threat of being banned for expressing opinions about specific people, politicians, governments, religions or their actions encourages people to censor themselves out of fear of punishment, suppressing political dissent and creating a culture of fear, obedience and unquestioning loyalty to those in power.

Haidt was also named on the leaked list of Peter Thiel’s secretive, invitation only Dialog network, which brings together powerful figures from politics, military, media, entertainment, psychology, religion, tech, and finance for private discussions. This doesn’t prove bad intent, but his motives deserve to be questioned when a behavioural psychologist spends so much time campaigning for legislation and compulsory technology mandates instead of behavioural solutions that protect children without sacrificing everyone’s privacy.

When I challenged Haidt’s proposals on LinkedIn, his colleagues attacked my motives instead of identifying a single technical flaw in my analysis. If they understand the technology and believe their proposals are sound, they should be able to explain exactly where I’m wrong. Personal attacks don’t answer technical arguments.

I don’t support Meta in any capacity. I believe it’s done more harm than good and has been a net negative for society. Social media should be treated as an adult environment that can be unsafe for children. Instead of trying to make adult services safe for every child, parents should be encouraged to restrict access based on their children’s age, maturity and capabilities.

Opposition to Meta doesn’t justify governments using child safety as an excuse to impose mass surveillance legislation on everyone.

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

This won’t fly because the British government wouldn’t be able to spy on everyone if open source AI was adopted. US tech companies will give them access to whatever they like. That’s the agreement.

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

Meta's Muse AI agent harvests personal, financial, and professional data from people who have never installed or given their consent.

Avoiding Muse doesn't stop Meta from collecting your data. When a contact grants Muse system-level access to their email accounts, contact lists, calendars, and private messaging history, the agent processes and indexes every interaction involving you. Meta receives, analyses, and stores your private communications without your knowledge, consent, or notification.

This secondary data harvesting places non-consenting individuals inside Meta's commercial profiling system. Because Meta stores this indexed information on central servers, your private communications and personal network details become accessible through government disclosure orders and law enforcement requests. A single contact surrendering their account permissions compromises the privacy and digital security of their entire personal and professional network.

My initial technical breakdown below examined Muse's permission structure and core capabilities. The upcoming investigation details the specific data categories Muse accesses and the mechanisms it uses to index unlinked third-party records.

Muse is probably one of the most toxic products to come out of the tech industry in 30 years.

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

A lesson in irony…

You won’t need photo ID to vote … BUT you will need facial scans and biometric ID to discuss it online

End of lesson.

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

Australia's eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, made statements about digital surveillance legislation that are incorrect and disingenuous to technical experts.

I’ve broken down her statements to explain why each one is wrong and designed to misdirect the media and public.

🇦🇺 "The government is listening to all kinds of feedback from stakeholders”

💡 This is untrue. The government listens to organizations that supports its narrative; child safety charities, NGOs, think tanks, parents, and behavioral psychologists. They’re not technical experts in online child safety.

🇦🇺 “So I think, you know, perhaps things will evolve”

💡 No. The legislation either achieves its stated objective or it doesn’t. Saying the system will evolve provides an excuse for ongoing technical failures.

🇦🇺 “I think there’s been a real misreading and a misinterpretation about what the Digital Duty of Care legislation is meant to do”

💡 This is also untrue. I understand the legislation and other technical experts understand it. Some of us understand the legislation and technical consequences better than the people designing and implementing it.

Disagreement is presented as misunderstanding.

🇦🇺 “It’s meant to put proactive obligations on these technology companies, like we do with car manufacturers or medicines or medical devices”

That analogy fails.

When people can’t argue their point, they fall back on physical world analogies. When that fails, they fall back on ideology because nobody argues against protecting children.

🇦🇺 “I’m sure there will be lots of negotiation, but I think the Digital Duty of Care is the only way we can get ahead of these harms rather than just responding to them after”

💡 There was and still is no negotiation. The Commissioner either intends to ban children from social networks, or she wants companies like Meta to make sites like Facebook safe for them.

Asking Meta to make Facebook safe for kids is like asking Marlboro to make cigarettes safe for children.

Either way, both approaches demand the same technical requirement: verify everyone’s identity so tech companies know who’s a child and who’s an adult.

💡 The Commissioner already acknowledged age estimation isn't robust enough. Once age estimation is rejected, the only fault-proof approach is identity verification or collecting enough personally identifiable information to amount to the same thing.

That means every adult in Australia must be verified before receiving permission to read, write, or share content and opinions online.

💡I demonstrated to the Commissioner that smartphones already contain parental controls letting parents block apps, block websites, restrict content, limit communications, and impose curfews for their children.

💡 If parents already have the ability to protect their children, the government has no legitimate reason to strip their right to choose what’s right for them.

14 years ago, I was interviewed by BBC Newsnight while advising the British government during the first Parliamentary inquiry into online child safety. At the time, I demonstrated how poor parental controls were. Today they are excellent. There is no technical justification for forcing the entire population through identity verification.

💡 The Australian government’s end game is to outlaw online anonymity so people censor themselves. There’s no other plausible reason when looking at all the evidence.

💡 Once every person must connect what they read, write, share, and who they communicate with to their real identity, online anonymity is gone and people will censor themselves.

🇬🇧 In the UK, 30 people are arrested every day for what they say online. The UK government says it’s forcing a national digital identity mandate to protect citizens from identity theft.

🌎 At least 25 countries are coordinating identity verification mandates under the pretext of child safety right now.

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

The EU is asking the public what they think about forcing everyone to verify their identity before they can get permission to read, write and share information online, while outlawing online anonymity.

I will provide formal expert feedback, but I’ll lead with one question.

Why do their online child safety campaigns revolve around images of 4 year old children that every parent should already be able to protect?

Children aged 4 or 5 are not creating social media accounts themselves. If they are, they should probably be on a shortlist to work for NASA.

Smartphones already give parents the controls to block apps, block websites, restrict content and set time limits for their own children.

So why does protecting a 4 year old require every adult to prove who they are before they can communicate online?

If people comment, I’ll gather as many responses as I can for a white paper, alongside data from previous posts that generated more than 1 million impressions and heavy engagement.

It’s time we properly documented what people actually think about identity verification, online anonymity and government surveillance under the guise of do-called “child safety”.

If you comment, please keep it respectful and constructive.

[Silkie Carlo @silkiecarlo]

Just a few years ago, if anyone had suggested the entire British population would need to show a government ID to use the internet, they’d be laughed at and reminded that the UK is not a totalitarian state.

Yet here we are….

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

Technical facts disproving political and tech claims on online child safety:

Protecting children online requires knowing who is a child. Knowing who is a child requires knowing ages. Knowing ages requires knowing everyone's age across all devices, apps, and internet services. That requires age checking services.

Age checking services cannot comply with government mandates to be "robust". "Robust" age checking originated in Australia and is now in US and EU legislation. It means "best endeavours" with specific legal intent.

"Robust" age checking requires proving age beyond doubt. Age estimation services can never be "robust". You cannot have a "robust" service without verifying everyone's identity through government issued ID or extensive personal, financial, or behavioural data. Without enough data, device, app, or service access is denied until official ID is provided.

Verifying every identity destroys privacy. Storing verification data on servers creates instant risk. Identity verification enables governments to monitor citizens and censor speech. As Larry Ellison said, people change behaviour when monitored through digital surveillance.

Parents can already protect children from online harms using existing technology. In 2012, I demonstrated poor parental controls on BBC Newsnight, leading me to build early safety tools for Samsung and Apple. I also built the first Android time curfew capability 14 years ago.

Today, iOS and Android offer built in controls to block unsuitable apps, websites, and content by age rating, alongside granular curfews. Real world risks like bullying exist online, but parents can manage access just as they manage real world exposure.

Exhibit A: If parents can already block access for free on their own phones, why do governments push legislation that forces identity collection, exposing data to cybercriminals and tech companies?

Exhibit B: Why are governments, tech companies, and NGOs not educating parents on existing settings that are free of charge and "robust", even while citing tragic cases to push legislation?

In 2004, I co-founded the W3C standard for Content Labelling and URI Classification, co-inventing account and folder classification to label content based on risk and compliance. I advocated for voluntary account verification to stop impersonation long before people knew it was even possible.

Mandatory identity verification to use a phone or internet service is dystopian control. I would never advocate or support that.

I have advised the US DOJ, NCMEC, CEOP, and IWF on child exploitation detection. EU Chat Control and UK image scanning mandates will not tackle exploitation. They break end to end encryption and VPNs, introducing dangerous spyware, and puts more children at risk.

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

🔥 You know the Digital ID that’s been cancelled (but hasn’t really been cancelled? ) Well… just so you know, it isn’t being designed just for use by the British authorities…. It has been built for “international interoperability”.

The UK has completed onboarding to the WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network, where your health credentials can be verified across borders and UN agencies!(Oh hello, digital vaccine passport, you’re back then)

Your identity and verified attributes are being designed to move between systems, organisations and countries.

And remember… when governments agreed Agenda 2030, SDG 16.9 committed them to providing “legal identity for all” by 2030. It was never cancelled!

Your opinion does not matter! Neither does the fact you have not voted for this 🔥

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

🚨NEWS: The UK Government has announced that all UK Phones will require ID and surveillance software

Your smart devices will be LOCKED unless you comply with the compulsory digital safety checks

The claim is this is for the safety of Children

We all know this is a lie

[Fiona Rose Diamond @CoviLeaks]

"🚨BREAKING: The Government announces all UK phones will require ID and surveillance software

This means that Britons will be left with CHILD-LOCKED devices unless they comply with digital ID checks."

Nothing was scrapped, and it's all connected. Another 'told you so.'

[Nym @nym]

The UK just announced every phone sold in Britain will require ID verification and surveillance software.

Not children's phones.

Every phone.

👁️There's no such thing as "device level controls for children" only digital ID checks for EVERYONE.

[Paul Walsh @Paul__Walsh]

OpenAI could learn from GrapheneOS. Every company is vulnerable to security flaws and incidents. Cybersecurity is about helping people understand their exposure to risk and helping them reduce it. If that means admitting what you can’t do, what failed, or what you didn’t know was possible, disclose it.

The incident itself tells you less than the response. How a company reacts tells you more about its security culture, integrity and priorities.

A company that hides a security incident should be questioned. A company that does it repeatedly shouldn’t be trusted on cybersecurity.

If something only becomes public because someone else exposes it, you also have to question the company’s integrity.

So imagine how I feel about a company that hides security incidents and, when they become public, tries to minimise them by calling them research and "misalignment" instead of cybersecurity incidents.

[David Wolfe @DavidWolfe]

ISN’T IT WEIRD HOW THE INTERNET CANNOT ELIMINATE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, BUT CAN CENSOR CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND FACTS?

[Breanna Morello @BreannaMorello]

🚨WHAT THE FLOCK🚨

A Flock Safety salesperson emailed the City of Sheboygan offering to sell the city five years of traffic-speed and movement data collected by cameras the city already purchased.

The Sheboygan mayor says Flock NEVER informed them the cameras were tracking that form of data.

Sheboygan has since bagged its 15 cameras and is moving to cancel the contract.

That sales pitch followed years of Flock telling customers they own the data and that the company keeps footage only 30 days.

Flock still insists it does not sell the data.

[Orwell Day @OrwellDay]

BREAKING: A Flock salesman tried to sell the city of Sheboygan 5 years' worth of data on traffic speeds and movement captured by the city's Flock cameras, which the city was never told about.

This proves Flock controls and stores data without the city's knowledge and for periods well over 30 days, in contrast to all public statements and promises about how they handle data.