Lessons

Biology and Computer Science:

The Singularity is Near. Ray Kurzweil published this seminal book in 2005 capturing the attention of technologists for his predictions and even philosophers contending with what this meant for the human condition. In 2006, the tech-talk across the industry was of the coming Web 3.0. We were fixated on the internet, but Kurzweil went far

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The Faustian Bargain And Its Shameless Effect On Privacy

In 2009, I wrote a book published by Wiley. It was a collaborative effort with colleagues from the then famous Bell Labs, where I was working at the time. We called it Security in a Web 2.0+ World, A Standards Based Approach. The book starts out by posing a few  fanciful questions: What if we

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From FBI Executive To White House CIO, A Security Expert Speaks Out

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality…” These words were written by Martin Luther King Jr. from his jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. Although he was referring to our mutual dependency as people, he could just have easily been writing about the internet. Of course, the internet did not exist back in 1963—but

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Why Your Privacy Is Now The Sacrificial Lamb Of The Modern World

Americans have a strange and complicated relationship with privacy. While they love nothing more than “flexing” on social media—toes in the sand, vacations, nice dinners, proud family moments, half-nude selfies—they are also quick to complain when outside entities become too intrusive on their personal space. They love to “see and be seen,”  just as long

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The Truth About Government Surveillance Will Make You Sick

Shut the door, close the blinds, pull the covers over your head—it doesn’t really matter—because you’re never completely protected from the digital eyes around you. If this assertion sound outlandish or downright impossible, just consider the Internet of Things (IoT) and how it has changed the ongoing state of our privacy. As you sit in

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