Benlog

I’m at the Creative Commons Tech Summit today, where I gave a talk about the Creative Commons Rights Expression Language. Fun group, good stuff, and a bright future for Creative Commons. The CC Interns live-blogged my talk, among others.
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I’ve written about how it’s a really bad idea to have web sites asking for your gmail password, “just to load your contacts!” I like the name Jeremy Keith gave it: the Password Anti-Pattern. Sure, Facebook likely isn’t going to do naughty things with your data, but once you’re used to giving sites your gmail [...]

I presented BeamAuth at CCS 2007 near Washington, DC, last week. I’ve posted the slides, and I’m trying out Slideshare so you can quickly check it out. Feedback is always welcome!

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I’m a big fan of Apple. However, they just announced a new offering that, although small in scope, seems to be a big departure from their usual approach, and it worries me. They announced that, for an extra 99 cents, you can take a song and turn it into a ringtone for the Apple iPhone. [...]

It turns out, there is a gene that predisposes to left-handedness. Fascinating stuff. But this is the kind of article where you wish you could ask more questions:

Australian research published last year found left-handed people can think quicker when carrying out tasks such as playing computer games or playing sport.

interesting!

And French researchers concluded that being [...]

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has just started a blog. I’m impressed and, given my interest in health technology, I didn’t hesitate long to add this blog to my newsreader. This should be fascinating. That said, my first comment is a bit tangential to Paul’s post regarding a Medtronic [...]

For some reason, I’m fascinated by a story I’ve been following for a few months: bananas as we know them may disappear in 10 years:

Two fungal diseases, Panama disease and black Sigatoka, are cutting a swath through banana plantations, just as blight once devastated potato crops. But unlike the potato, and other crops where disease-resistant [...]

For the past few days, and today more so than before, I’ve been in complete disbelief over the detainees bill pushed by President Bush. I can’t believe McCain caved. I can’t believe Democrats are thinking of not standing up to this.
This bill would allow the President to detain someone without proof, torture them, and convict [...]

My PhD thesis is complete (250 pages of crypto voting goodness). It’s been one crazy month of August!
In the process, I’ve updated my publications and presentations pages to reflect new work:

thesis defense slides,
Scratch & Vote final version,
presentation slides on Privacy at the Media Lab’s Simplicity conference,
How to Shuffle in Public, the [...]

Zidane

Originally uploaded by Kaptain Kobold.

I am truly stunned by Zidane’s headbutt in today’s World Cup final, just a few minutes ago. One of the most shocking moments of bad sportsmanship I’ve ever seen. As a frenchman, I was enjoying the game until then, hoping for [...]