An interesting article I wrote that appeared on the IAP’s website this week. It explores the use of technology in elections and the vulnerabilities it exposes.

THE VULNERABILITIES OF DEMOCRACY

We were asked by RecurPost to explain our use of their social media product. We were more than pleased with the platform and our working relationship with Ankit and Zameer at RecurPost has helped us moved mountains of social media posts that were literally taking up all our time.

We set up posts days, weeks, months in advance even annually and RecurPost manages them for us. We combine this with AI and image websites like UnSplash to create eyecatching and relevant social media posts.

Here is the link to the RecurPost interview, or if you want to just see the video is below.

The current legal disputes between Automattic (which operates WordPress) and WP Engine highlight deeper shifts within the WordPress ecosystem. The core issue centers on trademark enforcement, with Automattic asserting tighter controls over WordPress-related terms. This has led WP Engine to accuse Automattic of monopolistic behavior and a disregard for open-source values. These conflicts underscore a tension between WordPress’s open-source origins and Automattic’s drive for brand protection, potentially affecting third-party developers, hosting providers, and the broader community by limiting some uses of the WordPress name.

Historically, WordPress has stood as a collaborative, community-driven project with contributions from diverse developers worldwide. However, Automattic’s recent emphasis on trademark protection suggests a pivot toward stricter governance, possibly reducing the flexibility that smaller hosting providers or plugin creators once enjoyed. This shift may impact plugin availability, hosting service choices, and even pricing structures as third-party providers navigate the trademark rules. WordPress users could see effects in several ways:

1. Limited Third-Party Options: Hosting providers and plugin developers may face restrictions on using the WordPress name in their products and services. This could narrow down the field of available options, particularly affecting smaller, independent providers who rely on the “WordPress” label to attract customers.
2. Community Tensions: The WordPress community, which has thrived on openness and collaborative contributions, may experience friction as Automattic enforces trademarks. Developers and service providers accustomed to the community-driven ethos of WordPress could feel alienated by policies that prioritize brand control over open use.
3. Potential Cost Increases: Smaller providers facing legal compliance costs might pass these on to consumers, potentially raising costs for users seeking WordPress-compatible hosting or services.
4. Legal Precedents and Future Conflicts: This situation may set a precedent for other open-source projects that face similar brand protection dilemmas. As WordPress defends its brand, other open-source ecosystems might also consider how to navigate the balance between community use and trademark protection.

What does it mean to the average user today, probably nothing in the short term, with over 20 years of wordpress users out there, it would be foolhardy for either side to kill such a successful system. We have already noticed some plugins being substituted for forked (copied and republished) versions.

Given these developments, users should stay informed about changes to WordPress’s terms of use, especially if relying on third-party providers. While Automattic aims to protect WordPress’s brand integrity, the impacts on accessibility, community collaboration, and user costs will likely unfold as these legal proceedings continue.

Wellis Technologys own plugins should not be affected, but we are watching the space in case we need to make changes and will advise our clients when we need to.

Last week I was fortunate to attend the ADISA 2024 Conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. A conference dedicated to those companies that delete/eradicate/destroy computer storage devices so that the data cannot be retrieved.

There were some great speakers, and one that I enjoyed immensely was was Ben Levin from Meta. He explained quite succinctly the various method clearing a disk

1. Formatting a disc drive

This is a simple format of a hard disc, with Microsoft Windows you do get 2 options, the 1st is a quick format, that just releases the space and the 2nd is a full format, which in theory will wipe the data.

With the right software though the orginal data can be recovered and the files reconstituted, so for the average home user this is probably still a good choice, but for a business that may not be the right choice.

2. Writing random data to a disc drive

This in part is like the above, but after formatting the drive, you then write random data to fill up the drive with rubbish, and then reformat the drive to free up the space.

This is usually a good level of protection, but again, if someone has the right software tools, it may be possible to recover the original data. This takes quite a lot of time and expense, and your average hacker is not likely to have access to these tools. So a good choice for most small and medium businesses.

3. Destruction of the disc drive

This option may seem extreme, and can involved not just the physical disc drive but the electronics on the disc drive as well.

This is probably the best security you can have on your hard disc, you can take a sledge hammer to the drive, at Wellis Technology, we drill through the drive and some companies extract the physical disc from within the casing, and shred it down to micron sized particals, definitely safe (you would think).

The first two ways of destroying the drives may seem secure, but again with the right equipment, data could be recovered, it would probably require a State Actor (Government Agency) to do this, but in the case of some governments, this may be worthwhile. I suspect that micron sized particals would be impossible to put back together, but somewhere, someone is thinking about how to work on the biggest jigsaw puzzle ever.

With the advent of the new drives being produced today, many manufacturers are building their drives with built in encryption, the beauty here, is that rather than having to do any of the above, all you need to do when you want to scap your hard disk, is remove the encryption key file on the hard disc and then it should be secure, a quick ask of ChatGPT and with a Quantum computer, it would take over 30 years to break the encryption.

Having spoken to a colleague recently, he mentioned that some governments are demanding backdoors to this latest evolution of the hard disc, so that even when the key file is destroyed, they could access the drives. It may explain how Israel can access locked out iPhones.

For many years, Wellis Technology has decommisioned clients computing equipment including destruction of the data.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) hav achieved a new record in wireless data transmission, reaching 938 Gbps, roughly 9,000 times faster than current 5G speeds. This advance, merging radio and optical technologies, demonstrates the potential of 6G for ultra-fast internet and more reliable network access in dense environments.

As an example, a standard DVD is about 5GB or 50 Gbps, so we are talking about 20 films a second being able to be downloaded

UCL’s study, published in Journal of Lightwave Technology, emphasizes the potential for transforming wireless networks, here is a link to the full article, which is quite technical https://opg.optica.org/jlt/abstract.cfm?uri=jlt-42-20-7247.