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Back from the beautiful Sierra Nevada, it’s clear the world has gone mad
(This post is a week late) My son, his friend and I spent a few days in Yosemite recently, mostly so I could do a practice hike up Mount Dana to get ready for next week’s attempt at Mount Whitney. We camped in Toulumne Meadows, which is way up in the mountains above 8000ft altitude.…
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Help me articulate the value of user-centricity, privacy etc
Even after all these years working on user-centric identity, privacy-protecting technologies, open source, code in the hands of the user instead of the overlord … I’m still struggling with articulating the value succinctly. Case in point. I’m going through the strategic marketing exercise of describing for whom these kinds of products/technologies/services are, and what unmet…
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In other news, Dezinformatsiya has been democratized
Many of the countless mesmerizing stories in the Mitrokhin Archive deals with the KGB’s disinformation campaigns, mostly to sway public opinion in various European countries. We, in the West with upper-case Freedom-of-the-Press were outraged to learn that the press sometimes was printing deliberately falsified information, planted, for money or otherwise, by the KGB. How Could…
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So 23andme is selling my and my minor kid’s genetic data and won’t stop
Due to recent press coverage, I sent the following to 23andme’s help desk: Recent press reports suggest that you are selling my genetic data, and the genetic data of my minor son, to drug companies. Is this true? If so, I ask you 1) to stop immediately 2) give me a full list of all…
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How I learned about the 4th of July
It was a warm summer evening. I was studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Erlangen in my native country, Germany. As usual, I worked on homework that evening. I sublet a small room on the third floor under the roof, and I had the window open because it was so warm. All of a…