Benlog

security, privacy, transparency.

Archive for April, 2009

Swine Flu Source Code

Posted: Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 @ 10:39 am in genomic, health | 0 Comments

It blows my mind that, mere days after we discover this new virus, we have its source code.

We do (should) not torture

Posted: Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 @ 12:39 pm in policy | 0 Comments

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 not torture. Well, we should not torture, because it’s fairly clear now that we did, and that is deeply [...]

Personal health record: it’s about the feedback loop

Posted: Monday, April 20th, 2009 @ 12:29 pm in medical | 0 Comments

In my basic electronics college course, the classic lab that always got the teaching assistants laughing was the robotic arm. The task seems simple: build a circuit that measures the amount of weight carried by a small robotic arm and activates its motor to balance out the weight. Inevitably, within minutes, robotic arms throughout the [...]

Helios @ CodeCon

Posted: Friday, April 17th, 2009 @ 5:03 pm in medical, voting | 0 Comments

I’m at CodeCon presenting my Helios voting system in a little bit. But first, there’s a talk on sequencing your own genome at home using basic kitchen equipment. It’s quite rare for me to be at one conference that combines most of my interests in one afternoon! Should be fun.

Warrantless Wiretapping is not OK, even when Obama does it

Posted: Monday, April 13th, 2009 @ 1:14 pm in policy | 0 Comments

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 the Obama administration is angling to continue warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, as per the EFF’s analysis. It also [...]

Does CVS provide a CSV?

Posted: Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 @ 2:11 pm in health, personal, policy | 0 Comments

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 so now it turns out that health data is super cool, what with the Obama recovery plan and the [...]

What Verifying an Election Means

Posted: Monday, April 6th, 2009 @ 1:41 pm in crypto, voting, web | 0 Comments

The election at the Université Catholique de Louvain is over, the winner has been declared.
So, what does it mean that this was, supposedly, a verifiable election?
It means that you can go to the audit web site. There, you’ll find a detailed specification that describes the file formats, encryption mechanisms, and process by which you can [...]