‘Our lives are a string of experiences. Experiences with people and experiences with things. And we, as designers — as the people who craft experiences — have a profound responsibility to make every experience as beautiful, as comfortable, as painless, as empowering, and as delightful as possible.’
I’m an activist, designer, and software developer.
I’m one third of Ind.ie, a tiny social enterprise working for social justice in the digital age. We use ethical design to create post-cloud technology for a democratic, just, and egalitarian future.
We just released our first app, Better, a tracker blocker (traditionally referred to as an ad blocker or content blocker) for Safari on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You can buy it on the App Store or download it for free from our source code repository.
Beyond The Clouds
PS. You’re watching this without getting tracked thanks to the Universal Video Player.
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- The Nature of the Self in the Digital Age This is the original English version of an op-ed I wrote for Zeit Online.
- Why I’m not speaking at CPDP (Hint: it’s the privacy-washing, stupid!) The revolution will not be sponsored by those we are revolting against and I, for one, will not play in their gilded sandboxes.
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish Following the election of a Tory government with a mandate to further mass surveillance, we’re leaving the UK to avoid the possibility of having to add backdoors to our products at Ind.ie.
- The Orwellian doublethink of ‘open data’: when closed is open. Proprietary platforms that call themselves ‘open’ create the illusion of choice, lead to apathy, and have ramifications for privacy, human rights, and the health of the commons. It’s time to call them out on it.
- Europe, we need to talk about institutional corruption. The “multi-stakeholder model” is nothing more than a fancy name for the institutionalisation of corporate influence on public policy.
- Apple vs Google on privacy: a tale of absolute competitive advantage Isn’t Apple just spyware, like Google?
- On iteration At Ind.ie, we appreciate your support but we will never pander to it.
- Islam is Privilege. You cannot both purport to support social justice and attempt to protect privilege from criticism.
- The Camera Panopticon Multi-billion-dollar Silicon Valley companies and their long tail of startups are gathering huge amounts of data about the world and about us. It’s time we began to understand why they’re doing it and what exactly is at stake.
- Alternatives Not everyone who works at a spyware company agrees with the business model. Can we blame them unless we build alternative independent organisations they can work at?
- Why? Is wanting to make the world that you live in better an altruistic pursuit or simply a manifestation of selfishness?
- Spyware vs Spyware. Using the status quo against the interests of the status quo is essential pragmatism for those building alternatives.
- Shakespeare and the Apple Pen (or why we are setting Swift free with Phoenix) Programming languages, like natural languages, are a means of self expression. What does it mean when a means of self-expression is limited to the boundaries of a corporation?
- A Nancy Writes Back (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Digital Imperialism). Is Europe making mistakes in technology or simply avoiding the societal mistakes of Silicon Valley?
- Ello, Goodbye. Ello, it’s been brief but I’m leaving you for your own good.
- What is the ind.ie/manifesto? A quick guide to the ind.ie/manifesto as a series of questions and answers.
- Privacy as Innovation. Last week, I was in Istanbul to take part in the UN-organised Internet Governance Forum (IGF) where I took part in a panel on Privacy as Innovation. In this initial article, I want to introduce my thoughts on the subject.
- My question to Vint Cerf on Network Neutrality. Is Google becoming the new AOL? Does this raise concerns on network neutrality and, if so, do Google employees have a conflict of interest here that they should be disclosing?
- Off to Istanbul for the Internet Governance (and Ungovernance) Forums. I’m off to Istanbul on Monday to take part at a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum and attend the Internet Ungovernance Forum.
- On design and diversity. Further thoughts on design and diversity from the ind.ie/summit.
- Design: the ‘d’ is for diversity. Why diversity is core to meaningful design.
- Spyware 2.0 It’s time we evolved the meaning of a familiar term from the personal computer era to tackle the challenges of the Internet era.
- Be Democracy. I’m the guest editor for the Nobel Peace Center’s Be Democracy exhibit this week. Follow along at @BeDemocracy.
- How Web 2.0 killed the Internet. We were told that Open APIs from companies like Facebook and Twitter would make the web a better, more open place. They’ve had the opposite effect. Find out why that’s not a surprising outcome given that they were never created for that purpose to begin with.
- Indie Tech Manifesto Independent Technologies are beautiful and easy-to-use consumer products that are free & open. They help protect our privacy and other fundamental freedoms.
- Towards an Indie Tech Manifesto On the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, these are some of my longform thoughts as I work towards formulating a manifesto for Indie Technology. Indie Technology is the heir to both the free software and open source movements. It is the antidote for the erosion of our fundamental freedoms in the post-Snowden era by companies like Google and Facebook that espouse the business model of corporate surveillance. (15 minute read.)
- RightsCon or a right con? Are folks in Silicon Valley genuinely ignorant of the relationship between corporate surveillance and government surveillance? Or is it wilful ignorance? Or is this just a textbook example of institutional corruption at work? Are the organisers of RightsCon actively supporting the whitewashing of a business model (monetising data/corporate surveillance) that is directly responsible for the dragnet government surveillance that we’ve been alerted to by Edward Snowden? Corporations like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are painting themselves as the victims when they are every bit the perpetrators and it appears that some of us are buying into their story hook, line, and sinker. (9 minute read.)
- Let’s build a care.data that actually cares about your data. NHS England’s care.data programme can be implemented in a way that respects privacy and the right of people to own their own data. In this article, written in response to Ben Goldacre’s piece in The Guardian, I outline three indie data principles that any such implementation must satisfy. (5 minute read.)
- 2014: The Rise of Indie Tech The post-Snowden world is not necessarily all doom-and-gloom as people around the world — including myself — are working to redecentralise the web and create a new breed of independent technologies. (7 minute read.)
- The missing quadrant of consumer technology. Experience‐driven Open (XO) is the missing quadrant of consumer technology. It is essential that we start building products that fall under this category of technology if we want to craft a future society where individuals own their digital selves. (1 minute read.)
- Trickle‐down technology and why it doesn’t work. Just as the unprecedented global wealth gap between the super rich and everyone else proves that trickle‐down economics doesn’t work, the glaring lack of open source adoption in the consumer space indicates that trickle‐down technology isn’t working either. (7 minute read.)
- Indie Data is a movement to create, support, and popularise products that empower you to own digital self; your data, tools, & profile. (4 minute read.)
- Beware of geeks bearing gifts. First Google, and now Facebook, want to connect the world to the Internet. Surely, this can only be a good thing, right? (3 minute read.)
- Schnail Mail Introducing our latest startup which offers you free unlimited real mail for life. (Also: German translation by Sebastian Gingter.)
- On owning your own data. Owning your own data is like owning your own home. Unfortunately, we live in a world where our only option is to rent from companies that snoop on us. Prometheus aims to change that. (4 minute read.)
- Codename Prometheus is a new initiative to create an open platform that competes on user experience in the consumer space. (10 minute read.)
- Mobile considerations in user experience design (45 minute read.)
Also see: other notes, quick scribbles, and the historic blog archive