By the end of 2020, China hopes to have a surveillance system fully in place…
My Password Has Been Hacked at Least 27 Times
Do this right away. Go to the website Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com), enter your…
Artificial Intelligence: Will It Be Our Doom?
It must have been humiliating for world chess champion Gary Kasparov to lose to a…
Need Gifts? Go for Gadgets This Holiday Season
“Alexa, what’s the weather?” “I seem to be having trouble connecting to the Internet. Please…
Outsourcing: I Hired A Writer to Pen This Month’s Column
You may think outsourcing is the sole province of corporations wanting to take advantage of…
This is What Modern Cyberwarfare Looks Like
On the morning of June 27, 2017, trucks were arriving as usual at the shipping…
Conspiracy Mongers: A Defense of Truth in the Post-Truth Era
It seems possible to know that a child has lived and died. There’s a birth…
Fish Fraud . . . and How the Blockchain Revolution is Restoring Transparency
If you sit down at a restaurant to eat some wild-caught salmon from Alaska, you’d…
Carmageddon is Coming: Will Gas-Powered Cars Go the Way of the Horse & Carriage?
I’m looking at a photo of a parade on 5th Ave. in New York City…
Some Favorite Things: Internet Conveniences
As I write this, it’s the 25th anniversary of the release of Mosaic—the very first…
Surveillance Capitalism: Does Facebook Know You Better Than Your Friends Do?
It was 2016 and my friend “Matt” was doing some volunteer work for the Rand…
Great Websites for Cheap Products
I’m embarrassed to admit that I got fooled online. I thought I was buying a…
A Hero in the Background: Honoring Fred Rosenberg, Database Administrator
You probably haven’t thought much about what happens when you make a phone call. Neither…
The Cryptocurrency Craze
You may remember the February 2015 column about my failed bitcoin mining experiment. Over the…
Techie Gifts: Deck the Halls with Voice-Controlled Gadgets
It’s that time of year—when I share my technolust. If you’re looking for a gift…