Friday picks: the end of an era, identity theft, and the need for free public spaces

Here are some brief thoughts to wrap up a strange week along with links to a few things you might find interesting.

The 20th century slips away

The Queen died yesterday. Many people are sad. Others are angry – or even gleeful. Whatever the reaction, there’s no doubting that it’s a significant moment. And even saying “I couldn’t care less” signals that, in fact, you sort of do.

Personally – and I do mean personally, this isn’t the official line of any organisation I work with or for – there is a sense of melancholy that comes from the loss of a key landmark of life in 20th century Britain.

I was born in the late 1970s and the foundations of my mental map of the world were formed in the early 1980s. On TV, on currency, on stamps, on record sleeves, or driving through town in a limousine every now and then, the Queen was literally an icon.

Nostalgia isn’t healthy, I know, but I often find myself soaking in the warm bath of books, TV and films from the middle of the last century. I get nostalgic for bold post-war buildings knocked down and replaced by ever-blander blocks of flats. Faded family photos are a sort of comfort food.

In 2017 I co-wrote a book called 20th Century Pub about the history of drinking in Britain over the past 120 years. There’s a story in there about the Queen opening a brand-new pub in Stevenage new town in 1959 which captures something, I think: a breaking down of class barriers; optimism for the future; big ideas and big plans.

Even within a system which is essentially conservative you hope for progress, don’t you? For each monarch to oversee a more open, freer society than the last. I guess all we can do now is wait and see, as we lose our grip on the past and float off into the deep end of the 21st century.

How bad design facilitates identity theft

When a Twitter user called Charlotte reported that her phone had been stolen from a gym locker and her bank accounts emptied many of us had the same question: how did they do it?

The BBC has a great article setting out how this form of fraud works :

“Phones, of course, can be made inaccessible with the use of passwords and face or fingerprint unlocking. And bank cards can be stopped… But the thief has a method which circumnavigates those basic safety protocols… Once they have the phone and the card, they register the card on the relevant bank's app on their own phone or computer. Since it is the first time that card will have been used on the new device, a one-off security passcode is demanded… That verification passcode is sent by the bank to the stolen phone. The code flashes up on the locked screen of the stolen phone, leaving the thief to tap it into their own device.”?

That ‘message flashing’ is enabled by default on many phones is shocking.

This underlines that it’s always worth testing any product or system while roleplaying as a bad actor.

If you want to break it, or use it to commit fraud, how might you go about it?

(If you get too cold, cold) I'll tax the heat?

For New Statesman Amelia Tait has written about how our public spaces could be improved :

“If I had a billion pounds, I’d open up a building on every British high street that was simply called “Space”. Inside, there would be comfy sofas, plenty of toilets, a tap to fill your water bottle, free wi-fi, an army of plug sockets, and tables and chairs. You could go there to tie your shoes and put down your heavy shopping bags. You could change your baby’s nappy and clean her face. You could pop in with your lunch box to avoid eating at your desk. You could charge your phone while figuring out directions or waiting for friends. Feel free to go to the toilet without buying a flapjack or an orange juice – at Space, you don’t need to spend any money at all.”

There’s more nostalgia here, of course, for the world I mentioned above – public libraries, public toilets, community centres… Things we used to take for granted.

There’s a clear user need articulated here. But what incentive is there for any business to meet it?

As it happens, the other day, while wandering through London, I felt the need for a sit down and wandered into a local library. I found a comfortable chair, charged my phone, and skimmed some local history books. I did not take it for granted.

A book to read

A journalist friend recommended Robert Hutton’s Romps, Tots and Boffins: the strange language of news from 2013. It’s a brief, witty reference guide to help you understand (and avoid) clichés such as ‘the mercury peaked at…’ or ‘shock new poll’.

Something to listen to

Curious about what defines the accent of the American Midwest I dug around and found this episode of Midwesternish from 2018 fascinating. The fact that many Midwesterners pronounce ‘merry’, ‘marry’ and ‘Mary’ exactly the same is a kind of key.