Ahmet Alphan Sabancı's Blog, page 2

Formulated Criticism and Flattened Futures

There’s a trend I’ve been watching for some time about how the critical approach to technology is changing, and becoming more and more boring and formulated as the time passes. I started to write a short blog post about that one but things started to connect in my head in an unexpected way and realized that this is not only about technology but also about how people are looking at future in general.

I’ve decided to write about this topic when I first saw Eve’s Mastodon post:

If you are familiar with the names like Theorizing the Web, Haunted Machines, Real Life, you probably know what I mean. Many of the influential works and people I know online are from this circle. Most of them are still doing things that’s important and I still enjoy following what they’re doing and learn from them.

But this kind of critical approach is getting harder to find. What’s replacing it is mostly boring, bureaucratic, and dry criticism; centered in the US, and even though diverse in their approach in the US society sense, completely ignores the rest of the world.

There are two main things I find problematic in this new kind of mainstream tech criticism. First one is the way they’re strictly formulated and limited in their critical approaches. Most of the arguments and solution proposals are based on the same perspective and it’s applied to everything they come across. There are certain tech critics I can guess what they’re going to say about the next tech news, almost word by word. Their critical approach is based on minimum effort and maximum word-count.

Second problem is the way they limit all the discourse in certain parties and not leaving any space for anything else. Whether it’s a more nuanced perspective, contribution from someone outside the select countries, or someone who doesn’t fit their formulated camps. This ends up sucking all the potential and creativity out of the air and leaves a really boring and dry discussion.

All of this is not to say these critics are not creating anything useful. They do, when used in the right place and context. But the way this way of criticism going mainstream makes it less and less useful. It’s partially because it has become an easy-to-use formula. When something supposed to be critical experiences this transformation, you can see its usefulness degrade quickly1.

Why it bothers me this much is mainly about how it influences the people’s understanding of the future. Whether we like it or not, many people thinks tech and future is strongly related for a good reason. When they end up with two manufactured camps discussing tech and one side is throwing all of the positive sci-fi scenarios out there while the other side brings out all the dystopic visions they can think of. Sure, both gets everyone’s attention but it drowns out everything else and I’m not sure how useful it is.

“Exclusively positive images of the future fuel hope and industriousness, while exclusively negative images of the future fuel fear and discontent towards the status quo. Both are guaranteed to receive more attention than a careful, balanced (and likely more boring) analysis of multiple scenarios.”

Why Public Intellectuals Promote an Overly Simplistic Future, August Liljenberg

I highly recommend reading the whole article but this is why I think this kind of criticism is dangerous. It may sound like you’re warning people about potential risks and dangers but most of the time it only ends up being a formulated scenario, doing nothing but flattening the future for everyone exposed to it. When your criticism is not nuanced or open to other potentials, it’s not that different from what the side you’re arguing says.

Going back to the beginning of this article, you might see why I feel the need for more critical examples like the Haunted Machines and TtW. Work coming out of these were not one-sided, social-media adjusted criticism but provocative and creative ones. That kind of criticism actually gives people tools to think about the future in a more nuanced way, helps them to consider multiple futures. That kind of criticism doesn’t force people to become passive consumers of the criticism and leave them with the only option: choosing a side.

In addition to the risks this trend has, I also wanted to write about these kind of things online so that I can work on my approach to futures and how I want to work in this field. Since I decided to take my work in this area to more professional level, one thing I’ve been working in the background is to develop my personal approach and my way of futuring. This process also made me more sensitive to the ways I DON’T want to work or think as well.

In the end, one of the reasons this kind of criticism gets my attention because this is the kind of critical approach I want to avoid as much as possible. I want to help others to understand and discover the possibilities and nuances futures has, instead of taking all of that away. I’d much prefer to become a toolmaker for others to find their ways, instead of packaging up formulated and boring future visions for them. Because that kind of works and people working with this way of thinking inspired me, not the easy-to-use formulas.2

I also wanted to talk about how “social media way of criticism” also plays a role in this but that’s for another deep dive. ︎And if you feel the same way and looking for someone to talk or work with, feel free to reach out. ︎

Twitter’ın Hâli ve Yaklaşan Seçimler

Geçtiğimiz yılın sonlarına doğru Elon Musk’ın Twitter’ı satın almasıyla birlikte platformun mevcut sorunlarının giderek katlanacağını ve Musk’ın “dehasıyla” Twitter’ın giderek daha da kullanılamaz hâle geleceğini öngörmüştüm. Bu ihtimallere ve yaşananlara NewsLabTurkey’de yazdığım bültende birkaç kez yer verdim, ayrıca uzman olarak davet edildiğim farklı yayınlarda da bundan bahsettim.

Elon Musk’ın Twitter’ına hoş geldiniz

2023 öngörüleri

Twitter artık tehlikeli bir yer

Bütün bahsettiklerim ve çok daha fazlası ile Twitter kişisel olarak faydasını ve değerini yitiren bir platform olmaya başladı. Bundan sonra da sadece daha kötüye gideceğini öngördüğüm için olabildiğince minimum seviyede kullanmaya ve alternatif platformları (özellikle Mastodon) daha aktif bir şekilde kullanmaya özen gösteriyorum.

Buna rağmen ülkemizdeki seçim atmosferi bir gözümün Twitter üzerinde olmasını gerektiriyor. Hem siyaset için hâlâ aktif bir alan olması hem de propaganda ve sosyal medya kampanyalarının odağındaki adreslerden birisi olması, orada olan bitenleri takip etmeye mecbur bıraktı diyebilirim.

Bu seçimlerde (Elon Musk’ın da yardımlarıyla) bot hesapların ve propaganda taktiklerinin Twitter’da çok daha aktif bir şekilde ve bir engele maruz kalmadan uygulanabildiğini görüyoruz. Özellikle Twitter Blue felaketinin getirdiği yeni manipülasyon taktikleri bu işi daha da kolaylaştırıyor. Konuya dair Gazete Oksijen’den Baran Can Sayın bu haftanın gazetesinde açıklayıcı bir haber yazdı. Ben de görüşlerimle habere katkıda bulundum.

Seçim yaklaştıkça Twitter’da faaliyete geçen bot hesaplar gündeme geliyor. NewsLab Turkey seçime doğru Twitter’da binlerce bot’un devreye girdiğini söylüyor. Her yıl dijital dünyaya dair küresel raporlar hazırlayan We Are Social’ın 2023 raporuna göre Türkiye’de 18 milyon 550 bin Twitter kullanıcısı var. Yani Twitter kamuoyunu yönlendirmek çok kolay.
Baran Can Sayın https://gazeteoksijen.com/turkiye/14-mayis-yaklastikca-bot-hesaplar-cogaliyor-175102

Şu aşamada yapılabilecek en iyi şeylerden birisi Twitter’a hakettiğinden daha fazla önem vermeyi bırakmak ve insanların da bu platformun getirdiği sorunları ve riskleri daha iyi görmesini sağlamak. Buna rağmen seçime bu kadar az zaman kalmışken bu tür propaganda taktiklerinin sebep olduğu zararın ne kadarı telafi edilebilir hiç emin değilim. İlk işaretleri görüp de insanları uyarmak istediğimde insanlar “daha önemli sorunlarımız var” diye düşünmek yerine biraz ciddiye alınsaydı, şu anda bu sorun bu kadar büyümezdi.

Kişisel olarak Twitter’ı giderek daha az ve neredeyse tamamen profesyonel konularda kullanma yolunu tercih etmeye başlıyorum. Dediğim gibi her geçen gün bana faydası ve katkısı giderek azalıyor, orada takip etmeye değer bulduğum birçok insanı da başka yerlerde bulabiliyorum. Önümüzdeki dönemde internetteki varlığımı giderek blog ve newsletter merkezine taşımak ana planım. Eğer burası dışında sosyal medya platformlarında beni bulmak istiyorsanız kullandıklarımın hepsini sitenin en altında veya bu sayfada bulabilirsiniz.

It’s People All the Way Down

Once again, we’re talking about moving from one major social media platform to other alternatives. This time, it’s because Elon Musk, one of the main villains of the comic book we live in, bought Twitter and everyone is pretty much sure that things will only get worse from here on. I agree with this observation and guessing I’ll add another dead social media platform on my belt soon (RIP Friendfeed). But I have problems with the discussion people are having about leaving Twitter.

Techno-Solutionism is Back, Again

Both Elon Musk and his fanbase, and a good majority of the people who talks about leaving Twitter instantly falls back to techno-solutionism as the silver bullet that’ll fix all of the problems they see around them. We already know Musk’s mindset, he thinks that the solution to every problem in the world is a technology he can make profit from it. That’s why he thought asking Twitter developers to print their code to inspect was a brilliant idea.

But the other side also falls into the same trap and thinks that a platform developed better or has better tools and technologies inside would solve all of the problems with Twitter and social media. Yes, it might seem that we have all of these problems because of Twitter’s technology but that’s only because we’re primed to see things like that. This is basically the premise of techno-solutionism, every problem can be solvable with technology one way or another. When you start looking at every problem with this mindset, you’ll start thinking that throwing more developers will solve everything. But in real life, throwing developers to the problems will only cause them pain, especially if you’re doing it literally.

You Can’t Be Social Without People

Real problem when it comes to social media platforms, and to be honest most of the communication and information technologies, is they are not mainly about technology but about people. Most of the time, people choose certain tools and platforms only because that’s where the people are, not because it’s a better tool.

That’s because these are social tools, and we’re social creatures. Take messaging apps as an example. I can say that I’m only using Signal and deleting everything else from my phone if I want. But when I take that action, I’ll lose my connection with hundreds of people who are my friends, family, and people I work with. There is no way I can move all my connections and archives from WhatsApp, Twitter DMs or other apps into Signal. And there is no way I can message a WhatsApp user from Signal. It doesn’t matter how Signal is technologically much better than all of the others, if I don’t have all of the people I want to stay in touch.

This is what is called switching cost. Cory Doctorow explains this beautifully in this article.

When we talk about social media monopolies, we focus too much on network effects, and not enough on switching costs. Yes, it’s true that all your friends are already stuck in a Big Tech silo that doesn’t talk to any of the other Big Tech silos. It needn’t be that way: interoperable platforms have existed since the first two Arpanet nodes came online. You can phone anyone with a phone number and email anyone with an email address.

But this is not the case anymore. Almost all of the tools and platforms we’re using keep taking further steps to make sure this switching cost is as high as possible. In the early days, you could use any XMPP messaging account to message someone with a Facebook account or build a perfect crossposting between Facebook and Twitter etc. But when these platforms started to feel like they have gathered enough users to create a network effect, they closed it all down to raise the switching costs.

This is why telling people just use another platform or move to Mastodon doesn’t really makes too much sense if the switching cost is too high for them. When that platform have your friends, and people you have valuable conversations with or it’s an important information source for you, you don’t really care about whether the other one has better options or it’s owner is not a comic book villain. When Facebook bought and shut down Friendfeed, no matter how much people tried, most of the community I was part of lost touch and never got back together. 

Moving Online is Not Simple

People usually think that when they start campaigning for this kind of social media migration, everyone will just come to the new place and they’ll continue where they were left off. I wish this was the reality.

One of the most important issue is that moving from one to another usually means that you’ll lose some or all communication with the old platform and people still using it. Since there isn’t a full interoperability between them, you’re left with two choices: either completely abandon the old one or try to manage both at the same time. Since we generally have an archive, list of connections and habits build up at the old one, people don’t want to abandon the old place. This story usually ends up people returning to old one at some point in the future.

This is a good time to share this article from @doctorow again. https://t.co/t8UnXhEGsX

Unless we have a solution to this problem one way or another, e.g. building adversarial interoperability into the alternatives to minimize switching costs, I'm not expecting much to change. https://t.co/pAneV0R7IC

— Ahmet Alphan Sabancı (@ahmetasabanci) October 29, 2022

We should also not forget the dynamics playing in the background which we don’t usually pay attention. People assume that they only need their friends to move with them and they don’t need anything else. But the way these platforms work and how we’re actually benefitting from them actually plays a more important role when we decide where to use. 

For example, one of the major differences between Mastodon and Twitter is their understanding of the word social. In the case of Mastodon, even though you can use tags or the local and federated timelines, social usually means that your own community and circle. It can definitely work for certain people and communities but there are many cases it will just bring an unwanted friction.

That’s because another important part of being social online is serendipity. Just like Jay Owens said in the tweet below, thinking in public and being able to connect with complete strangers is an important factor for many people, including myself.

A bunch of us are where we are right now because we spent our 20s & early 30s thinking in public.

I am doubtful of the merits of returning to cliques and closed doors.

Of course you need smaller communities too. But serendipity requires strangers, strangers who become friends.

— Jay Owens (@hautepop) October 28, 2022

This dynamic of connecting with people from completely different backgrounds, who has different experiences and knowledge actually what makes certain platforms more useful for me. Meeting with people like that, learning from them even just by lurking, and having conversations about many things is an important thing to have.

Of course I can totally see when people need closed communities, and how it’s a necessity at certain situations. I wrote about that too. And I know that being open to serendipity means that you’ll also have to deal with toxic people time to time and it’s not something anyone wants. Yet, even though I know that whenever I tweet especially in Turkish, there’ll be some people who’ll reply and try to dunk on me just to make themselves feel a little better about their miserable lives, I also know that I’ll have a lot of good conversations with the people I met on this platform and learn a lot from them as well.

What I’m trying to say is that when you decide to move from one place to another online, there are certain costs to pay and certain decisions to make. Of course another option is to compartmentalize between different platforms and use them based on how you feel like they can benefit you the best.

What The Future Holds

When it comes to people, looking for perfect solutions is not a smart idea. You’ll always have edge cases, different communities with different needs, and trying to come up with a perfect solution for everyone online doesn’t make sense.

We first need to change our approach to the problem and stop thinking like this is a technology problem waiting for yet another tool to come up and solve it. That’s never going to be the answer. This is one reason my interest in the Bluesky project died down a little, because they just went ahead and decided to publish yet another protocol like none of them ever heard of this XKCD comic.

Unless we actually see a major shift of preference from the people, I’m not expecting any major changes in the near future. But in the case of Facebook and Twitter, there’s a potential that both Zuckerberg and Musk may bankrupt these companies and force people to find another place as well. Especially Musk has a dangerous potential to make everything much worse in the near to mid-term. 

One term I keep returning in my head is “adversarial interoperability”. Simply making these platforms interoperable with the alternatives so that switching cost would be minimal. Of course none of these platforms would want that right now, this is why people building the alternatives should think about how to make it happen in a most useful way. 

There’s also this video from Cory Doctorow, which is part design fiction part science fiction prototype about how an interoperable Facebook would work. This is a nice goal to have if we don’t want to deal with these problems in the future.

But right now, we’re stuck with what we have and everyone will calculate their switching costs, check their options and make a decision. Some will keep that, some will change their mind later on. Until we either have a people-centric solution or the platforms we’re stuck are gone. The best thing we can do is to think about what really matters for us on the internet and pursue that in our own ways.

All my work published here and on my newsletter is supported by the readers. If you want to become a regular supporter of my work and help me create more, you can visit my Patreon. If you prefer to give me a one-time donation you can do that over my Buy Me A Coffee page. Thanks!

Tehdit Modelinin Dijital Güvenlik Planınızdaki Yeri

Bu yazı ilk olarak 04.11.2020 tarihinde dijitalguvenlik.org adresinde yayınlanmıştır.Tehdit Modellemesi Nedir?

Eğer dijital güvenlik konusunda kendinizi geliştirmek ve başınıza gelebilecek tehlikeleri en aza indirmek istiyorsanız, öncelikle kendinizi ve içinde bulunduğunuz durumu tanımanız gerekiyor. Her kişi ve kurumun koşulları, kullandığı araçlar ve teknolojiyle olan ilişkisi onların farklı risklerle karşı karşıya kalmasına neden olur. Bu yüzden başarılı bir dijital güvenlik planının en önemli aşaması neye ihtiyacınız olduğunu anlayabilmekten geçer.

Bunu yapmak için dijital koşullarınızı tanımanın ve riskleri tespit etmenin farklı yolları mevcut. Ancak bunu kendi başınıza yapmak istiyorsanız, tehdit modellemesi dediğimiz yöntem hem uygulaması kolay hem de oldukça öğretici bir risk tespit aracıdır. Beş temel sorudan oluşan bu yöntemin amacı mevcut güvenlik durumunuzu ve ihtiyaçlarınızı anlamanızı ve koşullarınızı tanıyarak ihtiyacınız olan önlemleri bulmanızı sağlamaktır. Düzenli bir şekilde kullandığınız zaman bu yöntem ile hem başarılı bir dijital güvenlik sistemi kurabilir hem de ihtiyacınız olmayan önlem ve araçlara vaktinizi ve paranızı harcamaktan kaçınabilirsiniz.

Tehdit modellemesinin ve güvenlik planı yapmanın öğrettiği en önemli şeylerden birisi de güvenliğin bir seferde tamamlanacak bir hedef değil, daima gelişen ve değişen bir süreç olduğudur. Dijital güvenlik söz konusu olduğunda kesin çözümler veya mükemmel araçlar diye bir şey asla söz konusu değildir. Her tehditin farklı kişiler için farklı çözümleri olabilir, herkes her güvenlik önlemini uygulayamayabilir. Bu yüzden dijital güvenlik konusunda bir şeyler yapmadan önce kendi modelinizi belirlemeniz ve planınızı buna göre oluşturmanız büyük bir önem taşımaktadır.

Şimdi sırayla tehdit modellemesinin aşamalarını ve bunların neden önemli olduğunu inceleyelim.

Tehdit Modellemesinin Aşamaları

Yukarıda bahsettiğim gibi tehdit modellemesinin temelinde cevaplamanız gereken beş soru bulunmaktadır. Bu soruların her biri sizin güvenlik planınızdaki kilit bir noktayı tanımlamanıza ve buna dair ne yapabileceğinizi daha iyi görmenize yardımcı olmayı amaçlar. Bu yüzden bu soruları cevaplarken olabildiğince kapsayıcı düşünmeniz ve dürüst olmanız büyük bir önem taşımaktadır.

Soru 1: Neyi korumak istiyorum?

Bir dijital güvenlik planı oluştururken hedefinizin ne olduğunu bilmek çok önemlidir. Söz konusu güvenlik olduğunda ise bu hedef belirli verilerin veya cihazların güvende olduğundan ve saldırılara karşı korunduğundan emin olmaktır. Bu yüzden korumak istediğiniz şeyin ne olduğunu bilmek büyük önem taşır. Çünkü planınızın merkezinde bu korumak istediğiniz şey olacak ve geri kalan birçok şey buna göre belirlenecek.

Korumak istediğiniz şeyler oldukça çeşitli olabilir. Bilgisayarınızdaki önemli veriler, çevrimiçi hesaplarınız, dijital iletişiminiz, kurumsal verileriniz veya sunucularınız bunlardan bazıları. Elbette daha detaya girdikçe bu sorunun cevabı daha spesifik olacaktır. Örneğin bir gazeteci için bu bazen riskli bir bölgede yaşayan haber kaynağının kimliği, bir sistem yöneticisi için müşterilerinin sunucu bilgileri, aile içi şiddet gören bir kadın için iletişimini gizli ve güvenli tutmak olabilir.

Bu aşamada kimi zaman birden çok cevabınız olabilir. Eğer cevaplarınız, yani korumak istediğiniz şeyler, birbiriyle ilişkili ise bunlar üzerine ortak bir plan hazırlamak mümkün olabilir. Ama daha bağımsız cevaplar verdiyseniz ikisi için ayrı ayrı devam etmeniz ve en sonda planların nerede ortaklaştığına bakmanız daha iyi olacaktır. Bu sayede iki bağımsız planı zorla birleştirmek ile uğraşıp konuyu kendiniz için zorlaştırmazsınız.

Soru 2: Bunu kimden korumak istiyorum?

Güvenlik planımızın merkezini tespit ettikten sonraki aşama, bu plana ihtiyaç duymamıza sebep olan tehditleri daha iyi anlamak olacaktır. Bunu yapabilmek için tehditin kim veya ne olduğunu belirlememiz gerekiyor.

Korumak istediğimiz şeyin ne olduğunu biliyorsak bunu neden korumak zorunda kaldığımıza dair de bir fikrimiz olacaktır. Ancak bu tehdit kaynağını daha net bir şekilde önümüze koymak planımızın detaylarını belirlememiz için önemli. Kimi zaman dijital güvenliğimiz için riskin nereden geldiğine dair bulanık bir fikrimiz olduğu için yanlış önlemler alabiliyor ve asıl odaklanmamız gereken tehdit kaynaklarını gözardı edebiliyoruz. Bu yüzden korumak istediğimiz şeyi belirledikten sonra gerçekçi bir şekilde tehdit kaynaklarını listelememiz çok önemli.

Elbette bu tehdit kaynakları da oldukça çeşitli ve farklı potansiyellere sahip olacaktır. Burada önemli olan potansiyel tehdit olabilecek kişi ve grupları görebildiğinizden emin olmak. Eğer bu konuda önünüzde net bir resim olursa güvenlik risklerinizi kavramak konusunda avantajınız artacaktır. Ancak sadece tehditin nereden geleceğini bilmek yeterli değil. Planımızı yapabilmek için bu tehditi daha iyi anlamamız gerekiyor.

Soru 3: Eğer planım başarısız olursa sonuçları ne kadar kötü olabilir?

Güvenlik planınızı yaparken başarısızlığı da hesaba katmanız lazım. Eğer neyi korumak istediğinizi biliyorsanız ve kimlerin buna erişmek isteyebileceğini de tespit ettiyseniz, sıra riskin seviyesini belirlemekte.

Bu soruyu cevaplarken önem vermeniz gereken nokta riskin ne kadar büyük olduğunu anlamak. Her güvenlik riskinin sonuçları farklıdır ve kimisi çok daha ciddi sonuçlar doğurabilir. Örneğin sosyal medya hesaplarınızın erişimini kaybetmenizin sonuçları görece daha kontrol edilebilir bir seviyede olsa da, e-posta hesabınızın erişimini kaybetmeniz tüm dijital hayatınızı alt üst etme potansiyelini taşır.

Farklı senaryolarda ve farklı koşullarda bu sonuçları net bir şekilde görmenin planınız için iki büyük faydası olacaktır. İlki planınızın özellikle odaklanması gereken noktaların neler olduğunu ve önceliğinizin nerede olması gerektiğini daha iyi anlamanızı sağlayacaktır. İkincisi ise herhangi bir sebepten dolayı planınız başarısız olur veya yetersiz kalırsa bu sonuçların etkisini minimuma indirmek için neler yapabileceğinizi ve sonrasında tekrar güvenliğinizi sağlamak için nelere ihtiyaç duyacağınızı daha iyi bileceksiniz.

Unutmayın ki dijital güvenlik bir süreçtir ve planınız sürekli evrilen ve gelişen bir şey olacaktır. Bir kez başarısız olduğunuzda her şeyin sonu olarak düşünmemeli, başarısızlık anından sonra ne yapmanız gerektiğini de planınızın bir parçası olarak görmeniz lazım.

Soru 4: Korumak istediğim şeyi korumak zorunda kalma ihtimalim ne kadar yüksek?

Her ne kadar dijital güvenlik üzerine yazılan ve konuşulan konular her tehditi korku filmlerinde köşede bekleyen canavar gibi tasvir etmeyi ve paranoyak bir şekilde sürekli tetikte olmamız gerektiği hissini uyandırsa da çoğu zaman gerçek hayatta durum bu değildir. Bu yüzden planınızı daha gerçekçi bir temele oturtmak için bu tehditlerin gerçekleşme potansiyellerini de hesaba katmamız gerekiyor.

Her dijital güvenlik tehditi aynı sıklığa sahip değildir. Yani dijital güvenlik planına ihtiyaç duymanız her an saldırı altında olduğunuz anlamına gelmez. Kimi hedef gözetmeyen dijital güvenlik tehditleri (hedefsiz oltalama saldırıları, hedefsiz fidye yazılım ve benzeri zararlı yazılım saldırıları gibi) daha sık gerçekleşme potansiyeline sahip olsa da bunlara karşı kendinizi güvende tutmak çok daha kolay ve zahmetsizdir.

Ancak daha büyük sonuçları olabilecek güvenlik tehditleri genellikle daha nadir gerçekleşir ve birçok güvenlik planında hesaba katılması şeylerin başında bunlar gelir. Ancak bunları her an başınıza gelecekmiş gibi düşünmeniz size faydadan çok zarar verecektir. Panik hâlinde yapılan bir güvenlik planı birçok hatayı da beraberinde getirebilir. Bunların gerçekleşme ihtimalini daha gerçekçi bir şekilde ele almak, sizi paniğe kapılmaktan koruyacak ve bu sayede daha sakin ve kapsamlı bir güvenlik planı hayata geçirebileceksiniz.

Ayrıca gerçekleşmesi gerçekten çok çok düşük olan tehditlere karşı korunmaya çalışmak çoğu zaman asıl odaklanmanız gereken riskleri unutmanıza ve onların ihtiyaç duyduğu kaynakları planınıza eklemeyi unutmanıza neden olacaktır. Eğer Edward Snowden gibi bir istihbarat teşkilatından USB bellekler dolusu gizli belgelerle çıkmadıysanız güvenlik planınızın en büyük önceliği devletlerin sizi hacklemeye çalışması olmamalı. (Eğer böyle bir şeyi çoktan yaptıysanız ve güvenlik planı yapmaya bu yazıyla başlıyorsanız, zaten çok geç kalmışsınız demektir.)

Soru 5: Potansiyel sonuçların önüne geçmek için ne kadar zahmete katlanabilirim?

Bu soru belki de en önemli nokta olabilir. Dijital güvenlik planınızı hayata geçirmek için ne kadar imkanınız var? Birçok kişi bu konularda ilk bilgilenmeye başladığı zaman bir hevesle çok büyük projelere girişebiliyor ve bir süre sonra zamanının, elindeki teknolojilerin veya maddi durumunun bunu gerçekleştirmeye yetmeyeceğini farkedip tamamen bırakıyor. Bunun önüne geçmek için kendinizi ve elinizdeki imkanları bilerek bir güvenlik planı hazırlamanız şart.

Örneğin zaman konusunda hâli hazırda sıkışık biriyseniz, günlerce süren bir dijital güvenlik eğitimine ayıracak vaktiniz olmayabilir. Bu durumda çevrimiçi eğitimleri veya yazılı kaynakları tercih edebilirsiniz. İşiniz veya başka ihtiyaçlarınızdan dolayı kullanmak olduğunuz işletim sistemleri ve cihazlar varsa, güvenlik planınız bunların yerine başka cihazlar eklemeye değil onları daha güvenli hâle getirmeye odaklanmalı.

Ekonomik durum ise genellikle bunların içerisinde en büyük etkiye sahip olandır. Dijital güvenlik planınız bazen yeni cihazları veya yazılımları gerektirebilir, fakat bunu sağlamak her zaman mümkün olmayacaktır. Bu durumda kendi imkanlarınızı zorlamak yerine bunu gelecek aşamalardan birisi olarak belirleyip önceliği elinizdekileri daha güvenli hâle getirmek olarak belirlemeniz daha iyi olur.

Bu soruda kendinize dürüst olmanız ve imkanlarınızı açık bir şekilde ortaya koymanız çok önemli. Eğer gerçekçi bir dijital güvenlik planı oluşturmak ve bunu uygulayabilmek istiyorsanız koşullarınızı iyi tanımanız lazım. Olmayan kaynaklar üzerinden bir plan yaparsanız çok kısa sürede bu planın çökmeye başladığını göreceksiniz. Bu da hem güvenlik tehditlerinin başarılı olma ihtimalini arttıracak hem de sizin bu konudaki hevesinizin azalmasına neden olacaktır.

Tehdit Modelinizi Kullanmak

Bu soruları cevapladıktan sonra önünüzde nasıl bir dijital güvenlik planına ihtiyacınız olduğuna dair net bir haritanız olacaktır. Bu beş soru sizin dijital güvenlik konusunda ihtiyacınızın neler olduğunu, nasıl tehditlerle baş etmeniz gerekebileceğini ve bunlara karşı neler yapabileceğinizi size gösterecek.

Tehdit modelinizin en büyük faydasını planınızı uygulamaya başladığınız zaman göreceksiniz. Almanız gereken önlemlerle ilgili araştırma yaparken birçok farklı kaynak ve araçla karşılaşmanız kaçınılmaz. Ancak bir tehdit modeliniz varsa, onu kullanarak ihtiyacınız olmayan ve size doğrudan fayda sağlamayacak olanları kolayca eleyebilir ve planınız için önemli olanlara odaklanabilirsiniz. Böylece kafa karışıklığı veya boşa zaman harcamak gibi ihtimalleri de minimuma indirmiş olacaksınız. Bu sayede dijital güvenlik planınızı çok daha hızlı ve verimli bir şekilde uygulamaya alabileceksiniz.

Artık güvenlik planınızı hazırlamaya ve uygulamaya başlayabilirsiniz. En önemli ve öncelikli olan tehditlerden başlayarak almanız gereken ve alabileceğiniz önlemleri sıralayarak bir uygulama takvimi oluşturmanız en iyisi olacaktır. Asla tüm planınızı tek seferde uygulamaya kalkışmayın. Mümkün olduğunca her aşamayı sırayla tamamlamanız hem zihinsel yükünüzü azaltacaktır hem de daha sağlıklı bir şekilde planınızı uyguladığınızdan emin olmanıza imkan verecektir. Örneğin hesaplarınızın güvenliği için bir plan yaptıysanız parola kasanızın kurulumu ile hesaplarınızı iki aşamalı doğrulamaya geçirmeyi aynı anda yapmaya çalışmayın. Önce birini tamamlayın, ardından diğerini halledersiniz.

Tehdit modeliniz ile birlikte planınızı da uygulamaya alırken bunların esnek olması gerektiğini daima aklınızda bulundurun. Asla adımlarınızı kesin ve değişmez olarak düşünmeyin. Hayatınızın veya işinizin bir döneminde önlem almanız gereken tehdit bir süre sonra ortadan kaybolabilir ya da yeni tehditler doğabilir. Aynı şekilde hayatınızda yaşadığınız başka değişimler tehdit modelinizin veya planınızın da değişmesini gerektirebilir. Eğer bu konuda planlı hareket etmek isterseniz kendinize tehdit modelinizin ve planınızın üzerinden geçmek için düzenli zamanlar —örneğin üç ayda bir— belirleyebilirsiniz.

Dijital güvenlik hayatımızın gereklerinden birisi ve sürekli evrimleşen bir süreç. Eğer bu konuda ihtiyaçlarınızı ve koşullarınızı anladığınız ve buna uyum sağlayabilecek bir planınız ve sisteminiz varsa, bu konuda gözünüzün korkmasına da hiç gerek yok. Dijital güvenlik bireysel ve kurumsal koşullara bağlı olarak değişebilen ve evrilebilen bir kavram. Tehdit modeli gibi bir yöntemle kendinizi ve ihtiyaçlarınızı merkeze koyduğunuz sürece başarılı bir şekilde altından kalkabilirsiniz.

Hazırlayan: Ahmet Alphan Sabancı

What Really Matters Online

Since the early days of July, I’ve been thinking so much about my online experience and the need for some radical changes. There was, and still are, multiple reasons behind this. But a surprising coincidence helped me to clear my head.

On August 7th, I’ve published the 200th issue of the Turkish newsletter about media, internet and journalism I write called “n okuyoruz|”. Which was an important milestone for me, mainly because it turned out one of the most consistent things I created online.

Then, on August 9th, Kai Brach published the 200th issue of Dense Discovery newsletter, which is not just one of my favorite ones out there but the one I also made an appearance thanks to Kai’s kind invitation. It felt like a nice coincidence but things didn’t end with it. On August 13th, Jay Springett published the 200th episode of his podcast Permanently Moved. (I’ve mentioned him and his work multiple times but if you’re still not following his blog and podcast, fix that now.)

Now it was more than a coincidence. All the things I’ve been thinking about creating online, working in public, the situation of the social media platforms started to make even more sense.

For some reason, the mainstream understanding of the online creator generally means accounts with lots of followers on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. There are some obvious reasons for this shift (such as advertisers and platform monopolies) but this also means that almost all of the conversations you see online about being a creator, or simply someone who wants to do things on the internet solely focuses on the analytics, advertisement and algorithms. Meaning that people who wants to create anything online should constantly worry about pleasing the platforms, advertisers and algorithms.

This is the point where you end up with heated discourses forgotten in two days, trends that intoxicate people and posts forgotten in hours until you make a group of internet users really angry. But when you leave this cycle, you can find deep archives you can lose yourself inside, like the ones I mentioned above.

I believe that if you want to create things online in a consistent and sustainable way, you have to stop caring about social media platforms and its demands.

There are several reasons why I believe this is the case.

First of all, making these platforms the center of your creative process means that the things you want to create will not be your priority. Instead, you have to think about what platform and its algorithm demands from you and how you have to make sure that what you create is advertiser friendly. Spending your time and energy to make sure whatever you’re doing is “safe” means that experimenting, following new ideas or expanding your horizon is off the table. You have to follow very strict directions and if it’s not the “new hot trend” on the platform, you have to stick with what you already have.

This is one of the main reasons why we read articles or watch videos like these. Being stuck in this situation is harmful for you in many ways. Unless you have some protective measures —such as platform independent support or additional incomes— ıt’s hard to escape from it.

Another one is that the platform mechanism forces you to give the audience more importance than it deserves. I’m not saying that in an edgy artistic way but more in the sense of how these platforms actually work.

These platforms put numbers on top of everything, especially the follower counts. This simply means that you have to work on finding new ways to gaining more followers and making your content more visible. But this dynamic makes the audience think that you have to do what they say and always create in a way that makes them happy. Because that’s what platforms teaches to them. As a result, you might end up with some really crazy people who thinks that an old item from a video game not returning back is a perfectly good reason to send death threats to the developers.

That’s why the recent Cory Doctorow article “So You’ve Decided to Unfollow Me” is the perfect antidote for this. Because these platforms forces you to put everything into a single profile while giving the followers no way to filter what they want to see. This situation, combined with the audience thinking that you must follow what they say, creates a pressure that’s hard to handle. And if you gave into it, that pressure will crash you.

You have to free yourself from this logic. The best way for that is to openly draw the line that needs to be drawn. Making this distinction open and clear is an important first step both for the people who interacts with you but also for yourself. If you don’t, the pressure will always hang over your head because people will assume otherwise.

That’s why this part of Cory Doctorow’s article has become one of my mottos:

“I relish the freedom of writing exactly what I want to write, and the freedom to read exactly what I want to read. If it’s too much work for you to pick out the stuff of mine that appeals to you, that is one hundred percent fine. I am not required reading. No one is.”

Saying this out loud and making it a part of your approach to the relationship you have with social media platforms is an important first step to break out of this pressure. It’ll not just help you to get back some freedom but can also help with the algorithmic anxiety we all deal with.

Right now, I’m in the process of adjusting myself to this new concept and building the base blocks of it. Alongside with the things I noted earlier, another piece which influenced this stream of thoughts and development of this new personal concept of creating and working online was Jay’s recent podcast episode titled 10 Tips For Creating Online. I highly recommend you to listen and read it.

During this process, one thing I want to achieve is to find my rhythm and start working with it. Since this process is also going in sync with some of my other plans such as Project Lunar Growl, it might take some time. But in the end (hopefully sometime around the next couple months) I’m planning to be in a position in which I’m creating more and working mainly on the things I actually want to.

If you’d like to join the ride, keep an eye around here.

All my work published here and on my newsletter is supported by the readers. If you want to become a regular supporter of my work and help me create more, you can visit my Patreon. If you prefer to give me a one-time donation you can do that over my Buy Me A Coffee page. Thanks!

Bright Futures Generator

Sometimes a small idea you came up with and then follow up just because you’re bored on an evening can turn into something really fun. Recently I had one of those, which ended up as Bright Futures Generator, and I’m kinda surprised how much positive reaction it received.

It all started with me reading a Twitter conversation started by Scott Smith’s this meme post. While reading the replies, I first learned about how there are real people who call themselves “keynote futurists” and then saw this reply from Tim Maughan:

the future of (insert industry here) is bright because of (rolls d20) asteroid mining

— Tim Maughan (@timmaughan) April 22, 2022

At first I replied with “Brb, making a generator for this one.” as a joke. But then the idea of making a real generator got stuck in my head. I don’t know enough coding to call myself a coder or a developer but just enough to find an already written code and edit it to work in the way I want.

Then after looking for different Glitch projects to remix, I found the one I can understand well enough. Then I started collecting terms to fill the generator. I should thank Gartner hype cycles and trend charts for giving me a lot of material for the project.

I think it took about couple hours in total to make everything work good enough. Finally, the Bright Futures Generator was ready for public.

Then I shared it on Twitter and it simply blew up for my Twitter standards. I was surprised mostly by the attention it received from people in or around this field, who I value their opinions and work. Something I made just because I decided to make a fun project mostly because I couldn’t focus on the work I had to do.

So, I made something I call "Bright Futures Generator" for all the keynote futurists out there who's on a deadline. https://t.co/X1c4Duoqdk pic.twitter.com/xhvJ8wu8wG

— Ahmet Alphan Sabancı (@ahmetasabanci) April 23, 2022

Another thing I enjoy about this small project is how useful it actually can be. Yes, it started as a joke and a fun little web tool but it can be quite provocative and useful with its generated sentences at times. Paris Marx’s example is a good one and I’m sure there are many others people coming up with too. I feel like it can be a good practice tool for times when you need some really wild ideas to think about or how far you can take some scenarios you’re working on.

That’s probably why while making this one I also remembered the game/generator Johannes Klingebiel made in 2019, called “Futures of Media Tarot”. Small online tools like these (or physical ones like Superflux’s Instant Archetypes) can be really useful when you need some creative provocations. I hope my Bright Futures Generator will have the same effect.

I’m planning to keep Bright Futures Generator online as long as possible and also want to keep it updated. If you have any ideas or recommendations (about the list, code or the design) feel free to comment to this post, send me an email or reach me out on Twitter.

If you’re curious about the code or want to make a remix of it yourselves, you can find it all in here. Since I made it on Glitch, all the code and materials available for everyone and can be easily modified or copied. Enjoy!

How I’m Using Obsidian – The Setup

Intro

If you know me online or offline, you’ll also know that I have an obsession with productivity and knowledge management stuff. This includes note taking apps, task management apps, different methods and everything related to that. This is partly because of my ADHD and needing a support system for myself but also because how I work in general.

This is why when the new generation of note taking softwares started to appear, I had to test pretty much all of them. For a long time, I was using Roam Research and was generally happy with it. But couple of things pushed me to look for an alternative. These were mainly about security and usability issues, such as Roam being mainly an online service, not having enough security capabilities, the potential of my notes getting stuck in their servers and more. I might’ve not cared about those too much but the atmosphere created around the tool and people gathering around to built a “cult” also made me quite skeptical about the future of Roam.

At this point, I’ve decided to give Obsidian a serious chance and I’m glad that I did. Even though it still has some limitations compared to Roam, those limitations are there because of the things I care about more. Mainly Obsidian making sure that all my notes are available to me in an open format (Markdown) which can be used with any other software that can read Markdown files.

For example, right now I’m writing this post inside Obsidian. When I’m done, I’ll open the file inside iA Writer for final checks and then push it to my blog, which is where you’re reading this right now. This is the kind of usability and interoperability I care more than whether I can move my bullet points more quickly or not.

I can talk about Obsidian for hours but instead, I’ll add couple of recommended reads below and move on to how I’m using it right now.

Obsidian: Understanding its Core Design Principles | by TfTHacker | Feb, 2022 | MediumObsidian RoundupObsidian – HackMDA Guide to Obsidian: Local, Markdown-Powered Networked Notes – SitePointMy Obsidian Setup (as of March 2022)Theme and Design Settings

This is how my Obsidian looks right now:

I’m using Minimal Theme with Nord color scheme. There are lots of beautifully designed themes out there but I’m all for clean and minimal design when it comes to tools I’m using for writing and reading. If this sounds like your thing, Minimal is the way to go. Plus Minimal Theme Settings and Style Settings plugins provide lots of options to adjust the theme for your taste.

If you’re looking for something different, you can check Shimmering Focus, Primary, Yin and Yang, California Coast, Sanctum or ITS to start discovering.

In addition to the theme, I also have couple snippets to enhance my Obsidian setup. One of those snippets are for different types of checkboxes. With that snippet, I can add checklists which looks like this:

Another one is a small snippet which lets me change sidebar tabs to different styles. The ones you see on the screenshot is called wide tabs.

I have also couple of different plugins focused on design and visual usability:

Sliding Panes: Instead of having single window divided into different panes, this one lets me create multiple panes I can slide left and right to see. After trying it for a while it worked great for me.Indentation Guides: To create relationship lines between bullet points.Hider: To hide some of Obsidian UI to create even more minimal look.

On the right sidebar I have two set of menus. Bottom one is only for the backlinks and outgoing links. Since links are quite important for me, I wanted to keep this part clean. Top one usually has Calendar open but Advanced Tables and Breadcrumbs also has menus there.

On the left, top part is the file manager/search part but I also added two tabs underneath. One is to show me all my tags and the other one always shows the outline of the active note. I also used Hider to change how menus above (Notes, Search, Starred) looks.

Enhancement Focused Plugins

Another thing I like about Obsidian is how much you can enhance the Obsidian itself to do even more inside it. There are lots of different plugins I test regularly and there are always new ones coming. (This is why I’m a big fan of Obsidian Roundup.)

There are some plugins I can highly recommend for anyone who wants to get more out of Obsidian. All of these are available at the community plugins list, which you can find it in Settings. (Same goes for the plugins and themes I’ve mentioned above.)

Advanced Tables: You can create basic tables on Markdown but with this plugin you can enhance it even more to use spreadsheet formulas or export to CSV.Calendar: It’s a simple plugin which creates a calendar on the sidebar. Through this calendar you can easily access to your daily notes and see how much you’ve written based on the dots under the dates.Breadcrumbs: It’s a plugin that lets you add relationship data to your notes. It’s useful for organizing notes or creating new relationships in your notes. It takes a little time to learn in the beginning.Dataview: This is a really powerful plugin. With this plugin you can use data in your notes to create lists or tables. And if you use frontmatter (YAML) in your notes, you can also use information on that part too.Auto Link Title: It’s one of those small plugins which makes my notes look much better. Whenever I paste only a link into a note, this plugin gets the title of the page and adds the link with that text.Kanban: If you’re fan of Kanban boards, this is the best option to create Kanban board notes.Charts View: If you need charts in your notes, this will let you create all of the most used types of charts easily.Readwise Official: Thanks to this plugin, I can have all of my Readwise highlights available in my vault. Which is a must for me.Natural Language Dates: If you’re actively using daily notes and want to link dates in other notes to your daily notes, this will help you do this easily.

There are also other plugins for specific purposes such as Advanced Mobile Toolbar for an easier mobile usage, Citations for importing and using BibTex, Outliner for enhanced outlining, DEVONlink if you’re actively using DevonThink and Discord Rich Presence to show off your Obsidian use on Discord.

Closing Notes

I was planning to continue with my organization of notes and folders, what kind of templates I have and other notes but it’s already well over a thousand words so I think sharing those in another post is a good idea. So I’m limiting this one with themes and plugins but I guess my choices has given you some ideas about the second part too.

If you have any questions or things you want me to mention, feel free to send a comment or reach out to me whichever way you prefer.

This is also the start of a new blogchain I call “Generalist’s Toolbox” so expect more posts similar to this about different tools I’m using.

Pens, Scissors, and The Systemic Discrimination by Design

One of the questions I think that isn’t asked enough is “who is missing?” If you’re not asking this question when you’re designing or building something, there’s a good chance your work will exclude some people —whether you want it or not. Of course this question works in many other places too, but I wanted to share three recent examples I’ve personally experienced that all revolve around tools. I think these small stories are the symptoms of something we should be dealing now.

Task Manager Hell

For years, I’ve tried maybe dozens of task and time management app and never managed to settle on one. Until 2020, I always blamed myself for that, and after March 2020, I blamed my ADHD. But for some time, I was thinking about why it’s happening, and Clive Thompson’s article made it all come together.

All these apps have strong opinions about how one should live and work. And it all comes from the personal experiences of the founders and designers and their experiences. They think they’ve found the perfect method for themselves to achieve “peak productivity” and decides to sell that to everyone as the magical solution. The problem: I don’t live like them, at all.

Since my life doesn’t look like theirs and my need for a task manager doesn’t come from my goal to achieve “peak productivity” none of them really works for me. I need a tool that will help me to minimize the negative effects of how my brain works, not one that’ll help me better adjust to the late capitalist work ethics. But since the people who make those apps doesn’t think about who will need these tools and why, their marketing pitches fall flat for me every time.

Left Handed Scissors and Ballpoint Pens

One thing that caused me a lot of headache since my childhood is being left-handed. I still remember the traumatic period during the sixth grade when the teacher who taught Religion class told doing anything with left hand is haram. (That event also made me read religious texts more closely, which turned me into an atheist.)

Although my parents never forced me to change hands, I never had any kind of help to better understand what being left-handed means or what kind of issues that might cause. For example, I kind of knew that some tools were designed mainly for right-handed people and doesn’t work well on the left, but no one told me what those are, or I’ve never really seen the left-handed versions of them.

That’s why a couple of weeks ago, I impulse bought left-handed scissors. For a long time, I always thought I’m not good at things like cutting because I just didn’t have the skills. But when that scissor arrived, it all changed. Forcing myself to use something that isn’t for me was the problem all along.

I had a similar revelation about pens, too. Until recently, most of the pens I’ve tried —especially the ballpoint ones— were always acting out. Never writing correctly, their tips not working, it had ink but wasn’t dispensing… I always thought I’ve wasted my money on a broken pen. Recently, I was only using Uniball Jetstream pens because those never caused any problems to me.

When I was reading about pens and notebooks (which is something I do regularly) I’ve come across a sentence about how Jetstream pens were a left-handed favorite. Then I decided to dig around to find the reason, and I did: it was about how the pen’s mechanism designed.

I’ve learned that most ballpoint pens has a mechanism and ink that favors right-handed people. When you’re writing with your right hand, you pull the pen and the ink flows smoothly. But left-handed people push the pen, and most ballpoint pens are not designed to work well with that. So, you get pens that are not disposing ink properly, got stuck or act like they’re out of ink. Since Jetstream had a different design, it didn’t have any issues with left-handed people and works as expected.

Who is Missing?

These are all small examples compared to systemic problems that results from the same short-sightedness. What we all see as systemic discrimination is most of the time comes from how those systems designed. When people who has the power to decide how things are going to work doesn’t bother asking “who is missing in this scenario”, we’re left with a system that excludes so many people. It doesn’t matter if it’s publishing, media, technology, architecture, city planning or policymaking; the result is always the same.

If you think what I’m saying is an overreach, just think about the parts of your daily life for a moment and how it could turn into a problem if you’re someone else. An example if you’re not sure where to start: does your city accessible for someone blind or on a wheelchair? Can they go anywhere they want just like everyone else?

We face with another problem when we decide to talk about these issues. People who has the power —or the privilege to live in a system that’s designed for people like them— tries to convince everyone these are not critical issues. They say there are more urgent problems that needs their time and attention and people should just “stop making it a big deal”. Since it’s not their problem, it’s not critical enough. This is how we end up normalizing all kinds of discrimination: sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, racism, xenophobia, and the rest becomes the norms of the system because it’s not a big deal for the ideal peoples of the system.

(Also, this has a lot to do with the market logic that runs the world: taking only the people that has enough money/vote/influence seriously. But we’ll talk about it later.)

This problem is not that hard to solve, you just need to listen. People who are left out by design already does everything to make their voices heard, offer solutions to these problems, and make the available solutions more visible and accessible. All people need to do is start asking “who is missing”, start listening and including them in the process. I know this means some people will have to give up the power they have, but that’s precisely the point.

A Weird Summer Zine

One of the things I’m obsessed with is the magazines and the bigger universe of mags, zines, and niche publications in general. I’m always trying to keep up with what kind of new and experimental things are happening and try to get them whenever possible.

My interest goes back to my teen punk years because photocopy zines were the first places I published my writing (alongside the blogs). I even published a zine all by myself, not sure if anyone else still has their copies around. Since then, zines and magazines become something special for me. Reading them always gives me a different kind of joy.

I’m mentioning all of this because recently, I had a chance to get my hands on an excellent zine called “A Weird Summer”; which is written, designed, and published by Johannes Klingebiel. It’s a limited print of 250 and a great example of what people call a passion project. You can see how much Johannes cared about this zine in every detail, and reading it is a joy. Plus, the zine has a playlist to accompany your reading.

One thing that really makes A Weird Summer special for me is the way Johannes designed and printed it. Like I said, I’m coming from the photocopy times, but seeing you can use the zine format for a beautifully designed and printed publication shows the possibilities of the format. It reminds me why I love this format.

This is why I wanted to mention A Weird Summer and let you know that there are still some copies left over at Johannes’s Gumroad. Moreover, because of Johannes, now I’m thinking about publishing a zine myself. Not sure if it’s going to happen anytime soon, but I really want to do it.

Pegasus Project ve Diğer Teknolojik Sorunlar

Temmuz ayı içerisinde hiç beklenmedik şekilde ortaya çıkan iki büyük teknoloji haberi benim için ek medya mesaisi anlamına geldi. İki farklı konu üzerine farklı yayınlarda görüşlerime başvuruldu veya röportaj konuğu oldum.

Bunlardan ilki ve kısa sürede unutulanı 24 Temmuz Cumartesi sabahı birçok iPhone kullanıcısının paniklemesine ya da benim gibi panikle uyanmasına neden olan hatalı acil durum bildirimleriydi. Devlet kurumlarının tıpkı şu anda içerisinde bulunduğumuz ardı arkası kesilmeyen doğal afetlerde halka ulaşabilmesi için kurulan bu sistemde hâlâ sebebinin açıklanmadığı bir hata yüzünden çok sayıda anlamsız bildirime maruz kaldık. Her ne kadar Vodafone kısmen sorumluluk üstlense de tam olarak ne olduğunu hâlâ bilmiyoruz. Olayın yaşandığı gün içerisinde birkaç haber kurumunun bana ulaşması ile ben de o ana kadar bildiklerimiz üzerinden insanların olayı anlamasına yardımcı olmaya çalıştım.

Bugün telefonlarımız neden acı acı öttü Devlet telefonlara nasıl bildirim gönderebiliyor? – Haber GlobaliPhone’lara gönderilen acil durum uyarısı panik yarattı: ‘Test için önceden duyuru yapılması gerekir’ – Gazete Duvar

İkinci ve daha önemli olan konu ise Forbidden Stories ve Amnesty’nin liderliğinde onlarca haber kurumunun birlikte çalıştığı Pegasus Project dosyasıydı. NSO Group isimli İsrail merkezli casus yazılım şirketinin geliştirdiği Pegasus isimli yazılımın nasıl yüzlerce masum insanı, gazetecileri ve aktivistleri takip etmek için kullanıldığını kanıtlayan bu sızıntılar dünya çapında gündem oldu. Hâlâ da konuşulmaya devam ediyor.

NewsLabTurkey için konuyu kapsamlı bir şekilde anlatan yazımın ardından farklı basın kurumlarıyla da konu üzerine konuştuk ve farklı perspektiflerden bakmaya çalıştık. Ayrıca Twitter üzerinden de güncel gelişmeleri takip etmeye devam ediyorum.

https://www.newslabturkey.org/pegasus...

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