Sharon Bradford Franklin and Andi Wilson Thompson writing for Lawfare:

Last fall, Lawfare published a piece by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson of GCHQ entitled Principles for a More Informed Exceptional Access Debate. Our organization, the Open Technology Institute, has worked alongside other people and organizations to coordinate a response from an international coalition of 47 signatories, including 23 civil society organizations that work to protect civil liberties, human rights and innovation online; seven tech companies and trade associations, including providers that offer leading encrypted messaging services; and 17 individual experts in digital security and policy. Our coalition letter outlines our concerns that the GCHQ proposal poses serious threats to cybersecurity and fundamental human rights including privacy and free expression. We shared our letter with GCHQ officials on May 22, and we are now releasing it to the public as an Open Letter to GCHQ.

In the open letter, which is notably backed by Apple, Microsoft, Google, WhatsApp, and others, explains how the “Ghost Protocol” would work, the consequences, and also the recommend to abandon the idea completely.

Lawfare and the letter explain the Ghost Protocol quite well, but in essence it means every message and conversation would also be sent to a hidden recipient. Similar to how BCC works with email.

It’s pretty serious stuff. And I sincerely hope it’s abandoned. However, institutions like GCHQ seem to always have another idea up their sleeves to try and bypass your personal privacy.

Here’s one section from the paper I found interesting about the risks it creates in regard to cybersecurity, and threats to human rights:

The GCHQ’s ghost proposal creates serious threats to digital security: if implemented, it will undermine the authentication process that enables users to verify that they are communicating with the right people, introduce potential unintentional vulnerabilities, and increase risks that communications systems could be abused or misused. These cybersecurity risks mean that users cannot trust that their communications are secure, as users would no longer be able to trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, thereby posing threats to fundamental human rights, including privacy and free expression. Further, systems would be subject to new potential vulnerabilities and risks of abuse.

Read the Open Letter to GCHQ

Today was meant to be the day that Arsenal finally won the Europa League trophy. However, after a promising first half, we crumbled in the second. The end result was a 4-1 loss.

It wasn’t the best evening of my life. But I watched some Big Bang Theory with my girlfriend, and ate some of the cheesecake she made me.

I’ve been trying to collect my wishes for iOS 13 for quite some time, however the list never grew that long. So, today I published my short list of iOS 13 wishes.

In the non-work part of my day, I spent my time food shopping, and watching The Big Bang Theory with my girlfriend. We’ve gone back to the start of season 10, and already watched 4 episodes tonight. Hopefully it’s not long before we get to the latest season, I haven’t seen any of that yet!

I was going to try and write a big long post about my wishes for iOS 13, but my list sadly never passed 6 items. So seeing as WWDC is just around the corner, I’ll publish what I’ve got.

Dark Mode

I’ve wanted this for quite some time, and it looks like we’re going to be getting it. So I think this is a near-guaranteed part of iOS 13.

Shortcuts API

I want apps to have a much deeper integration with Shortcuts. Mainly the ability to add native actions into the Shortcuts app. But also parameter support, so apps like my Text Case won’t need to interact solely with the clipboard.

Home Screen Widgets

We’ve been waiting for a refresh of the home screen for a while, and I think the ability to add “widgets” would be a good fit.

Picture-in-Picture on iPhone

This is a feature that I don’t hold much hope of being implemented. However, there are scenarios where I want to watch a video while quickly doing something else on my iPhone. So Picture-in-Picture would
Be very handy. Although sporadically used.

More Widgets on the iPad

I’m not sure why this ever changed. But on the iPad you used to be able to see two columns of widgets, and now it’s restricted to just one. I want the whole screen to be filled with them!

Do Not Disturb while Using a Device

One last annoyance that has turned into a feature request, a Do Not Disturb setting that still applies when you’re using the device. If I’m watching a video with my girlfriend during dinner, I really don’t need to see notifications. Especially as it usually pushes what we’re watching momentarily.

Today was very much a continuation of the weekend, in that we basically did a bit of housework, but mainly lounged around the house watching television.

Late afternoon we did have some of my family round for coffee and cake, so we weren’t completely shut away from the outside world.

In the evening, I very much benefitted from my girlfriend being ill, as I managed to (partially) make her watch Harry Potter. We watched Order of the Phoenix, so maybe I’ll try another one soon.

I wont bore everyone too much in this post, so I’ll skip over the various small things I did today.

However, I will point out that I have become fully domesticated, and spent my morning/afternoon doing housework. How I’ve changed.

At dinner we watched a film on Netflix about the Scottish Wildcat, called The Tigers of Scotland. It was pretty fascinating!

And just now, we’ve booked a week trip to Cyprus! A bit last minute, as we’re going in just 20 days, but it’s going to be our first “real” holiday for the year. Not including the trip to Scotland we’re doing in a few days. 😉

Elliot Clowes, writing at I’m Left Handed:

I turned 27 this year. And almost overnight I started to get bad hangovers whenever I drank more than a beer or two. Gone were the years of my next day invincibility. So I’ve been forced to develop a system. It helps me. Maybe it can help you too, my fellow old people.

A bunch of great tips, that I will no doubt not follow and suffer the consequences.

I woke up this morning to an even more ill girlfriend. Which meant we immediately went on a trip to get some flu medicine, and also a fan for the bedroom.

After we were back, I went to a local vegan fair with a friend, where I purchased 4 cupcakes. I haven’t ate them yet, but they do look rather impressive.

After I got back, me and my girlfriend both sat in the living room with various live music videos on the television, while gaming, playing on our phones, etc.

I did also get a new toy to play with today, a Logitech Slim Folio. I’m certainly behind on this one, but I already cant see how I coped without it. It’s far superior to the Smart Keyboard.

On the blog, I linked to an article I read about Hugh Grant’s opinions on the famous dancing scene in Love Actually.

Apart from that, I quickly popped out for a coffee, and we’ve been watching tv and playing with the cat!

Raisa Bruner, writing for Time:

Hugh Grant is one of our most iconic rom-com leads, often playing a dashing — but hapless — British suitor.

In perennial favorite Love Actually, he achieved perhaps the pinnacle of the form, even going so far as to very winningly dance through the halls of his residence at 10 Downing Street (also known as the prime minister’s home) to the tune of the Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love).” The spring in his step is all due to love, of course.

But it turns out that the actor wasn’t actually very keen to get his groove on.

I certainly read some strange articles. But at leat for myself, this was pretty interesting. I’m not embarrassed at all to say that I’ve watched Love Actually quite a lot of times, and this dance is my favourite scene.

It was a slightly productive day at work today. I was pairing with someone while writing some tests in Java, and a I also helped infrastructure/api developers move one of our apis into AWS. It was certainly not as straightforward as it was suggested.

After I got home, I cooked barbecue chicken and potato wedges for dinner. My girlfriend would have cooked, however it appears she’s coming down with a flu. So that was my job.

She did make me a cheesecake though! A very nice one made with malteasers. It’s going to last for quite some time as well.

After we ate, we watched the film Lucy, as it was on television. It’s still absolutely weird. Fascinating though.

My girlfriend is now tired from being ill, and I’m just generally tired. So I’m writing this and then I’ll be going to bed.