The 67th Block: What's the view like from up there?
CAPTCHA captures the world from an AI's perspective, but it's still reality, right?
This week…
In light of political unrests back home and elsewhere, and news of a few colleagues and friends facing arrests, I urge once again for everyone to do a privacy checkup and look into other digital security tools.
On reflection, it was not very easy for me to protect my own privacy when I was travelling across several provinces this week. While I did share a photo at every pit stop on my Instagram Stories, I did so only after I was several hours or towns away. But when you’re travelling with others who don’t practise the same precautions, it’s a bust.
In any case, here’s a selection of top stories on my radar, a few personal recommendations, and the chart of the week.
Why CAPTCHA pictures are so unbearably depressing
Clive Thompson for OneZero:
By asking us to identify elements of an image that are sliced into pieces — “Select all squares with traffic lights” — CAPTCHAs turn everyday reality into a puzzle that no normal human would ever think of as a puzzle.
This is what’s so disquieting about the exercise. We’re being asked to parse the world in the visual-scanning style of an AI. Which, in turn, makes you feel like an AI, hunting for meaning in a baffling world.
Looking at the world the way an AI does—realistically depressing.
How private is my VPN?
Alfred Ng for The Markup:
But while VPNs say they do not log people’s activity—meaning their browsing, who they call, which TV shows they watch—that does not mean they’re not siphoning data from their users and even their prospective customers.
To get a sense of exactly what sorts of information VPNs are grabbing, The Markup examined the privacy policies of 14 popular VPN companies.
There is a chart to summarise the findings. Let’s just say, “shocking, not shocking.”
Apple is prying into iPhones to find sexual predators, but privacy activists worry governments could weaponize the feature
I mean, the title says it all. But for context, here’s Reed Albergotti for Washington Post.
What I read, watch and listen to…
I’m reading the IPCC report on climate change.
I’m listening to The S(ex) Tapes by Fletcher. I remembered enjoying it very much when it came out last year, and of the few playlists and albums I downloaded for my road trip this weekend, this one was on loop whenever I had my earbuds on. :)
Chart of the week
From The Markup’s article on VPN privacy: