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Privacy Advocacy Theater
Ed Felten recently used the very nice term Privacy Theater in describing the insanity of 6,000-word privacy agreements that we pretend to understand. The term, inspired by Bruce Schneier’s “security...
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devices, payload data, and why Kim is (in part) right.
A few days ago, I wrote about privacy advocacy theater and lamented how some folks, including EPIC and Kim Cameron, are attacking Google in a needlessly harsh way for what was an accidental collection...
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Wikileaks — not ideal, but a force for good in the end
I’ve found myself quite conflicted over the latest Wikileaks “dump”, specifically the hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the mainstream press is...
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i changed my mind on nuclear power
Until this recent catastrophe in Japan (it’s awful, please consider helping out), I was very pro nuclear-power. I’ve never been afraid of technology, and I was raised in France, where 80% of...
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intelligently designing trust
For the past week, every security expert’s been talking about Comodo-Gate. I find it fascinating: Comodo-Gate goes to the core of how we handle trust and how web architecture evolves. And in the end,...
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with great power…
When Arvind writes something, I tend to wait until I have a quiet moment to read it, because it usually packs a particularly high signal to noise ratio. His latest post In Silicon Valley, Great Power...
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an ode to lessig’s optimism, taking on gigantic challenges… and a quibble
Last night, I went to see Lessig pitch his latest book, Republic, Lost. His latest spiel is fantastic, fine-tuned, gripping, thrilling, inspiring. I’ve been an avid fan of Lessigian story-telling for...
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The Onus is on Scientists – Shame on the AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has just come out against California’s Proposition 37, which would mandate the labeling of genetically-modified foods. In my opinion, the...
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Letter to President Obama on Surveillance and Freedom
Dear President Obama, My name is Ben Adida. I am 36, married, two kids, working in Silicon Valley as a software engineer with a strong background in security. I’ve worked on the security of voting...
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the responsibility we have as software engineers
I had the chance to chat this week with the very awesome Kate Heddleston who mentioned that she’s been thinking a lot about the ethics of being a software engineer, something she just spoke about at...
View ArticleSolving the Gun Crisis: a modest proposal
I’m so impressed and inspired by the Parkland highschoolers fighting the NRA and urging common sense gun regulation. They’ve done so much more in 2 weeks than the rest of us combined in 2 decades. I...
View ArticleDisturbing Apple Trends
I’ve long been an Apple fan. It is somewhat dissonant with my strong attachment to open-source/free software, but I’ve learned to live with it because I am significantly more productive on Mac OS than...
View ArticleDoes CVS provide a CSV?
Over the last two years, I’ve spent most of my time on… not elections believe it or not, but rather the personal control of health data over at Children’s Hospital, Boston, with a fantastic crew. And...
View ArticleWarrantless Wiretapping is not OK, even when Obama does it
I’m a big supporter of Obama, I volunteered for him, and I donated money to his campaign. And I’m proud of just about everything he’s been doing as President so far. But not everything. It seems that...
View ArticleWe do (should) not torture
Major credit goes to Shep Smith of Fox News for this: Fox News is generally right-wing propaganda, but credit is due here, and I completely agree with Shep Smith. It doesn’t matter if it works. We do...
View ArticleOwning Genes
At some point in the history of patents, something went a little nutty: it became possible to patent genes themselves. Not “a method for extracting” a gene. Not “a method for synthesizing” a gene. But...
View ArticleCreative Commons Tech Summit, June 26th
Creative Commons is holding its third technology summit on June 26th. The previous two have been lots of fun, very productive, with a unique mix of policy-oriented tech folks. Plus, it’s in Italy! How...
View ArticleEngaging Data Forum @ MIT in October
I’m on the Program Committee for a new conference being held at MIT in the Fall, the Engaging Data Forum. A number of fascinating topics around the issues of managing personal electronic information....
View ArticleShieber on Open Access
Stuart Shieber, the architect of Harvard’s Open Access policy and a colleague at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society, has started a new blog on open-access academic publishing....
View ArticleEmpowering the Patient vs. Enabling an Artificial Monopoly
Health Information Technology is moving along fairly quickly, with the stimulus money and the rise of Personally Controlled Health Records (Indivo/Dossia, Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault). I’m...
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