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Slides here:

https://hughbarnard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/assembly-slides.pdf

This is my current contribution. I’ll go back to the meetings again when a) there’s some systematic movement on data b) when there’s an actual, continuous project.

https://hughbarnard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/flytipping-next-steps.pdf

Over ten years ago, I wrote a little ‘thing’ for marking and saving records on maps. That was fairly ‘new’ then. For small groups and specific projects, I believe this is still useful, so I’ve revived it and re-written it, using Mojolicious.

There are a number of new features to be added, federation, new languages in the templates and a more general set of parameters.

Meanwhile, the project is here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/datamap/ and the Debian package, tested on Ubuntu 20 AWS and Linux Mint is here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/datamap/files/

I realise that it’ll be less popular, but I’m giving up offering native Windows versions of my software.

This is now available on Sourceforge at https://sourceforge.net/projects/cclite2/

It’s  based on Mojolicious, Postgresql, a native RESTful interface, JWT direct access, SMS and non-app mobile phone HTML reduced interface. Also a simple test suite. Deeper details and a to-do list at Sourceforge. Better documentation to follow.

Currently there’s only English, French and Spanish templates, but, in a month or so when the set is stable, we’ll add the other languages.

Share and enjoy.

I’ve added these from eleven years, they’re doing quite well. Certainly I’d be putting collectors and sensing for Covid at certain wastewater points. This is John Snow all over again.

The question now for sensors is ‘whose sensors’ and ‘whose data’?

two essays

This is unfinished, but in the spirit of release early, release often, I’m publishing. Comments to my email or Twitter, welcome too. I ‘m not opening comments here because of the spam.

After recent adventures with the Covid champions and a couple of other instances of asymmetric coproduction, I may produce a revised version in a while. Meanwhile, I’m working fairly seriously on this: https://sourceforge.net/projects/cclite2/

Very little is known publicly about the ‘new’ app, this: https://github.com/nhsx/COVID-19-app-Android-BETA having been abandoned, I believe.

Here are a couple of straws in the wind from Wired, usually solid tech commentators:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-coronavirus-tracking-app
and very recently: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-covid-19-tracking-app-contact-tracing

Since so little is known, the list of questions is ‘long’:

• How was Newham ‘selected’ and is there a financial arrangement?
• Which company or organisation designed and wrote it? 
  
• Is it open source, if so under what licence?
  
• If open source, what guarantee that the build is in step with published source?
• Is there a clear document with all the T&C’s outside the ‘app’?
  
• What permissions does the app actually request (rather than require): http://skptr.me/list_of_permissions.html?
  
• Does it de-install easily and *completely*?
  
• Does it deal with proximity via Bluetooth, or, if not, what?
  
• Is there a clear description of ‘possible infection’ algorithm?
  
• What data is transferred where and to whom (countries, organisations,systems)
  
• Can the ‘codes’ (you have 200?) be used to de-anonymise?
• Given the April Wired article, specifically is geolocation turned on and processed?
  
• Is there an active centralised system component as with the first app?
  

I’m sure that there are a few more, but that would be a good start.

I wrote this quickly, mainly as a local support tool for the pandemic. One can send a simple SMS, it’s stored in an sqlite database and shown, clustered on a map. Lots of ways of changing the values too. Since it’s Perl, quite a lot can be done with the message parsing.

Also, it’ll work with an SMS dongle now on very low powered systems. It’s available as source code and a Debian package here. 

I’m sure that a few other things are ‘wrong’. But here’s the story, so far.

shape-newham-critique.pdf

This is my Bookchin influenced take on a sociable, resilient ‘forest city’. I’m aware that it’s not a whole solution at the moment. It’s a second attempt to think about a human scale integration of technology and ecology for city landscapes. The ‘best’ bits (if there are any!) are the final section and bibliography. Beware analytic philosophers, it’s not (heavily) in that tradition.

This first attempt was here https://hughbarnard.org/index.php/2018/06/19/noham-a-thought-experiment/

dissertation-final.pdf