Imagine scrolling infinitely through a feed of every image uploaded to a social media platform. With Ludovision, you can click on an image to view a larger version or jump to the uploader’s profile. It’s not complicated, nor is it secretive—it’s just data the platform already makes available. Yet, the experiment revealed a glaring truth: most people don’t understand the digital footprints they leave behind.

A few things struck me while building and using Ludovision:

• is super common. I expected NSFW content, but I didn’t expect to see the sheer quantity of s I have.
• Your brain will thank you if you don’t try to figure out every image. Some things are better left unseen. Scrolling quickly becomes a survival mechanism.
• Everything is public. Every image uploaded, every like, every follow—it’s all part of an enormous digital trail. And this isn’t unique to Bluesky; this applies to nearly every platform.
• No server required. The tool runs entirely client-side (I ran it in Private Browsing mode on Mac), and has no need for external libraries or remote code loading. There’s zero tracking of any kind. Privacy is respected—even in this experiment on the fragility of online privacy.

The experiment wasn’t about voyeurism—it was about understanding how fragile the idea of privacy through obscurity really is. We like to believe our contributions to the internet are small, insignificant, or lost in the noise. But tools like Ludovision expose how easy it is to aggregate that “noise” into something startlingly revealing.

The name Ludovision is a nod to A Clockwork Orange—specifically, the aversion therapy scene where the protagonist is forced to watch disturbing images as part of his “reconditioning.” Scrolling through this unfiltered firehose feels a little like that. It’s a vivid reminder of just how much we throw out into the world, often without realizing anyone can pick it up. See Wikipedia on “The Ludovico Technique.”

What Ludovision Taught Me About Privacy

This experiment drove home an important point: privacy through obscurity is not privacy at all. Just because you assume no one is paying attention doesn’t mean your data is safe. Platforms may feel ephemeral, but the data they generate is anything but.

The fragility of online privacy lies in how easily it can be pierced—not just by sophisticated hackers but by someone with a little curiosity and a bit of code. It’s not difficult to parse public APIs, gather metadata, or build tools like Ludovision to visualize what people are posting.

If you’re reading this, take a moment to think about the last thing you uploaded to the internet. An image, a comment, a like. Ask yourself: Would I be okay with someone aggregating this into a larger picture of me? Because someone can.

A Closing Thought

Ludovision is just one small experiment, but it highlights a much larger issue. We need to move beyond assuming obscurity equals security. Privacy doesn’t happen by accident—it requires intentional choices, both by the platforms we use and by us, the users.

Until we collectively take privacy more seriously, tools like Ludovision will continue to be easy reminders of just how much we’re giving away—one upload at a time.

#Privacy #Experiment #DigitalFootprints

The potential of unencumbered communication between people, real people, was mind blowing. In those days we had “long distance calls” – you had to pay per minute to reach people outside of the arbitrarily placed boundaries (they were intentional, but created as a toll by telcos). This meant you really only called people that weren’t in your city when there was some sense of urgency, or you had business reasons.

Along comes the web, which gave those that cared to learn how, the ability to publish anything we wanted to – for anyone on earth to read. The history of the web is covered well elsewhere so I’ll spare you that rollercoaster. At the time, say 1995, big news media and publishers controlled the narrative, and people were simply one-way consumers – reading magazines, newspapers, and watching TV as the sole sources of information inputs. There were exceptions of course (the BBS, Usenet, FidoNet, Compuserve, AOL, etc.) but most people didn’t know about them.

The sense of wonder and possibility that accompanied this new Information Age has materialized in my world in the form of technology startups. I use the term startup, though it’s not really the best descriptor. It’s more like tests, or more commonly MVPs: I have an idea for a thing, dissect it, build it, then let a few people use it and see what happens. If there’s enough interest, I’ll add a revenue model and test/iterate.

By the way, this is a terrible approach for most founders and will result in a lot of lost sleep and relationships. If you’re looking for the quickest path to MVP, please pick up the Startup Owners Manual and read every page. I do not recommend the “build it and they will come” approach.

I digress. I’ve been reflecting on this ability to make things quickly quite a bit lately. It feels a little like a superpower. I can take something that exists as a simple idea to the computer screen in all of its glory. It may be ugly, but it will work. There’s a term in web development called “full stack” which means front end (browser/client side using HTML/CSS/Javascript etc.) and back end (server side databases/scripting languages, etc.). Today most people are trained (or choose) to specialize in one or the other. There are technical and non-technical founders, single founders in search of co-founders to fill some gap or even help formulate the idea itself.

I’ve been working on a few ideas and will present them here for your scrutiny and feedback. With the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro, one of these ideas has been occupying more time in my brain than it has in a while. It may be the first to materialize… it’s a new take on the web in 3D with no changes required to the web itself. It works with existing websites and infrastructure. More on that soon.

How about you? What’s your superpower?

You’re as likely to find me online at 3:30am as you are at 3:30pm. With today’s reality (nothing is really normal for anyone), you too may have more freedoms than you’re considering.

On with the update:

All social media apps are installed on all of my devices (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and they’re all enabled, none have unread badges, and all notifications are on and read. Yes, I’ve seen “The Social Dilemma” but choose to engage with these providers for various reasons. First being that my hobbies and businesses rely on the technologies these networks provide.

Voicemail zero? Yes, it’s a thing and the list is empty. As it turns out, most voice mail for me are the silence of a machine deciding to hang up. Most people know not to leave voice mail for me.

Inbox zero across all 7 email accounts? How?

• Reply immediately to email that will take less than two minutes.
• If the email will take longer to reply to than that, and it’s not urgent, send it to your task list manager (I use Asana).
• If it’ll take longer than two minutes, and it’s client or team related, take the time to answer.
• File everything. Keep it. That’s me, YMMV.

My inbox is not a task list, and so I don’t feel the pressure of lingering decisions and tasks every time I open my email. Not everyone will feel this, but it’s an enormous help for me. My task list is elsewhere, and managed.

To me, “inbox zero” doesn’t mean I’m in my email every second of every minute is dedicated to email. It simply means that when an email comes in, I have a plan to address it, and do. The time between email checks varies of course, and I do have audio alerts on for new email on my laptop. I know they’re there, but I still set the boundary around when I “get to them.” Most of the time it’s immediate, but I may have other priorities.

I’ve also cleared my stack (literal stack) of offline tasks. The final two items just need a trip to the post office! Being inside my brain would be challenging for most people I think. When I see this stack of stuff that “I’ll get to later,” it weighs on me. I know this every time I look at it, but there it sits. Day after day, it reminds me that there’s shit to do. Well, no more, it’s done. If you look at your desk and there’s anything there that shouldn’t be, take care of it. In case you’re wondering, these were all personal/home related and nothing client or work related.

Choosing to remove the Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn apps is going to be somewhat controversial. I say that with one caveat: I’ll still be on those platforms and engaged, but only through the web browser, and only with certain controls.

One control is the use of the DuckDuckGo browser for iOS/Android. If you don’t know what that is, you do now. Explore it, see if it feels right for you. Read about the ratings feature for each site as it relates to tracking, privacy, and permission.

Another control is the use of the DuckDuckGo plugin/extension for all major browsers. It provides the same features, but for your browser of choice. Mine is now Firefox.

Another goal here to to regain control of my content. Posting on owned media first feels better today than ever before. Long forms, short, photos, all of it will be rooted here – on a site I own and control, where I get to choose privacy and permissions settings.

If this sounds overly complex or “too hard,” here’s something to consider: these changes are all one-time. It’s a matter of changing habits, and that’s a matter of turning priorities into action. To me, especially these days, the reality is that my data is valuable, and I’m nothing more than data points to sell ads against for the platforms I mentioned. Yuck.

If you have thoughts and feedback, let me know. This is going to be a fun experiment. I hope we all learn something from it!

As always, thank you for being here!