Category Archives: policy

The Onus is on Scientists – Shame on the AAAS

Posted on November 2, 2012 by ben

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 AAAS has failed its duty as promoters of Good Science. The … Continue reading →

Posted in health, medical, policy | 4 Comments

an ode to lessig’s optimism, taking on gigantic challenges… and a quibble

Posted on October 26, 2011 by ben

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 13 years now. The way he sets up his … Continue reading →

Posted in policy | 2 Comments

with great power…

Posted on June 12, 2011 by ben

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 but No Responsibility, is … Continue reading →

Posted in policy, privacy | 7 Comments

intelligently designing trust

Posted on March 30, 2011 by ben

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, this crisis provides a rare opportunity. … Continue reading →

Posted in crypto, policy, security, web | 3 Comments

i changed my mind on nuclear power

Posted on March 16, 2011 by ben

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 electricity comes from nuclear power and there has … Continue reading →

Posted in policy | 11 Comments

Wikileaks — not ideal, but a force for good in the end

Posted on December 4, 2010 by ben

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 failing miserably in its role of investigating and … Continue reading →

Posted in policy | 7 Comments

devices, payload data, and why Kim is (in part) right.

Posted on June 1, 2010 by ben

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 of data. Kim Cameron responded, and … Continue reading →

Posted in data, policy, privacy | 5 Comments

Privacy Advocacy Theater

Posted on May 27, 2010 by ben

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 theater” description of US airport security, may have been introduced … Continue reading →

Posted in policy, privacy | 8 Comments

if you’re outraged by accidental breaches, you’d better sit down

Posted on May 14, 2010 by ben

A few days ago, a security bug was discovered on Facebook, whereby users could see the chat transcripts of their friends talking to other friends. Then, another security hole was discovered where a problem at Yelp revealed email addresses of … Continue reading →

Posted in policy, security | 2 Comments

“It’s a tradeoff” and other uni-dimensional thinking

Posted on April 3, 2010 by ben

Many folks, like John Gruber, are responding to criticisms of the iPad’s closed ecosystem with the “it’s a tradeoff” idea: to have such a great computer, you need to lock it down. Some use the argument that Linux has never … Continue reading →

Posted in autonomy, policy | 4 Comments