Blog

Card numbers are like nitroglycerine

Not before time, merchants are pushing back on the PCI-DSS regime, with a new law...

An authentication family tree

How do we make best sense of the bewildering array of authenticators on the market?...

Seriously: biometrics replacing passwords?!

I know it’s the season to be jolly but, oh lord, I am so sick...

Science is more than the books it produces

These days it’s common to hear the modest disclaimer that there are some questions science...

Trade PII not privacy

There is an orthodoxy that privacy is willingly traded by people in return for some...

Strippers are better off than Facebook users

Journalist Farhad Manjoo at Slate recently lampooned the privacy interests of Facebook users, quipping sarcastically...

Technocrats’ happy snaps

Once again, technologists confuse being in public with giving up one’s right to privacy. Today’s...

If Facebook were a government, there’d be riots

A repeated refrain of Facebook’s apologists is that privacy is dead. People are supposed to...

The identerati fiddle while Rome burns

I love a bit of philosophy as much as the next engineer does, and I...

Biometrics and false advertising

Use of the word “unique” in biometrics constitutes false advertising. There is little scientific basis...