Time To Play

 

Apparently the best instrument you own is the one you play.

Currently I am playing my Yamaha PSR-e313 which I bought in a charity shop for £35 about 3 months ago. I have other keyboards but for some reason this one just seems very comfortable to play. It has 100 styles which provide auto accompaniment as you throw chords and melodies at it. This is something I love doing. I usually know when I want to play but not what I want to play so messing around for an hour or so until something sticks is good fun.

I found a style today which made me play differently than I had been for the previous hour. A decent chord progression emerged and before I knew it I had recorded the track for reference and written some lyrics for it. It's far from finished and these little demos are useful references for the future.

While a lot of musicians hate the idea of arranger keyboards I think that if nothing else they are a great starting point. No rigging up loads of gear, no faffing around try to get that 'just right' sound before I start playing and loads of styles that I can try without having to start from scratch.

There's no point powering up the studio when there's nothing to record.

Pure Tripe

It's that time of year again.

The time of year when Santa can be seen shopping in Hillfields. He's been going there for decades. When I was younger and used to live in Hillfields I'd see him in December and say hello. I always got good presents in them days. Now that I don't bump into him anymore I get bugger all.

Right, I'm off to drink my tea until I can think of more rubbish to put up here.

Please don't bother commenting on this post or you'll end up being the odd person out.

Happy Xmas etc etc.

 

One Step Back

 

With governments around the world trying to move encryption solely back into their domain it's time to change the process around retaining our privacy.

As previously mentioned, using what you have is a good start and in most cases will suffice for now. But what about in the future? What if the tools we use are compromised or even banned? What then? What if all we have is email as a communication medium?
The answer to this problem is relatively simple.
You can encrypt your private communications before you press send. There are an abundance of tools out there that will let you do just that. In fact the list is long and the majority of these tools are constantly being updated against threats.

One of the most prevalent ways to achieve communication privacy is to use public key cryptography. This, at it's most basic, is a way of encrypting text with your own personal key. That text can then only be decrypted by someone with your public key. When encrypting a message to someone you use their public key alongside your private key so that only the intended recipient can read what you have written. It's a beautifully simple concept but amazingly secure. Of course I have only outlined this process basically, there is more you can do with your keys such as verify that you are who you say you are and verify other people also.

The biggest problem has been the implementation of this method of encryption. In the past it was a real pain to get it up and running but more recently it's become a lot simpler. It's worth remembering that it only needs to be set up once. From then on integration with software such as email is straightforward. You can also export your keys to some online services.

On Linux I use GNUPG which is an open source and free implementation of the PGP standard. I'm not sure what there is for Mac and Windows but there is software and apps that let you create keys. There are also apps for Android.

It's definitely worth your time doing a bit of research into how to add GPG / PGP to your communications on your platform but it isn't the only way of encrypting messages before sending them. You can choose what is right for you from the plethora of tools available.

The Bleedin' Obvious

 

The first rule of cryptography for personal use is use what you have.

Cryptography can be a deep and complex subject and the very thought of implementing something that complicated into everyday life can seem so daunting that people just don't bother to look at the obvious.
On your phone, tablet or PC there will be something in place already that will get you up and running. Whether that's WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or whatever, you probably have something that offers end-to-end encryption.

While there are arguments for and against using big tech companies apps for something as sensitive as privacy there are ways of strengthening the use of these technologies.
I'll get into that on my next post.

Typewriters Rule

 

On Tuesday of this week the UK government announced that the Online Safety Bill had passed its parliamentary debate and was now set to become law. Regardless of what you think of the reasons behind implementing the OSB or how you think it will affect you the simple fact is that sooner or later the legislation will affect you.

I'm not going to go into the arguments for or against the bill.
I've long thought that there are plenty of ways to circumnavigate such potentially intrusive snooping on the lawful communications of ordinary people. Most of what I know how to do isn't convenient, it's time consuming and for those reasons hasn't been widely adopted by the general public. Having said that it's good to know that your privacy is still able to be controlled by yourself if you put the effort in.

In future blog posts I'm going to share what I know to enable you to take control of what you share and with whom.

If you'd like to read the Online Safety Bill it's here.
The UK governments press release is here.
Meredith Whittaker makes understanding the arguments around the OSB simple to digest. Find here Mastodon account here.