The third episode of our privacy podcast, No Place to Hide, goes right to a pretty dark place. When they take away our privacy, what are they really taking away? Our humanity. Menny Barzily, CTO of the Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center at Tel-Aviv University, offered the most profound analysis. He [Keep reading]
Peer-to-peer payment app Venmo has long told users not to use the service to pay strangers for goods or services. That appears to be changing. The service has quietly added a feature it’s calling the “Venmo Purchase Program.” For a hefty, optional 3% non-refundable fee, which can be added on [Keep reading]
Erin and her son Noah think they’ve finally found a safe place to live, in a quiet Ohio town, invisible to Erin’s abusive ex-husband. But that life is shattered by a disturbing voice mail after a single photo of Noah accidentally appears on a school website. The call sends [Keep reading]
Erin and Noah, on the run from Erin’s abusive ex-husband, make their way from Ohio to Missouri as they search for a safe place to spend the night after a near-disaster that morning at Noah’s school. Even simple tasks like shutting off Internet service are dangerous and mind-numbingly frustrating. That’s [Keep reading]
This weekend, a million Australians downloaded a smartphone app called CovidSAFE that is designed to warn citizens if they’ve spent time near someone who has tested positive for the Covid-19. Voluntarily. That would have been an unthinkable breach of privacy just a couple on months ago. Nations around the world [Keep reading]
If you’re waiting for a widely-available Covid-19 vaccine to leave your house, you’re going to have to wait a couple of years. But if you have hope of life returning somewhat to normal any time before 2022, then you are rooting for clinical treatments for the disease — something that [Keep reading]
Images of voters crowded together on long lines at ballot places in Wisconsin this week had a lot of Americans wondering about alternative, safe election procedures. Some states, such as Washington State, have embraced mail-in voting during recent elections. Might that be a safer way to exercise our democratic rights [Keep reading]
The unusual should seem normal right now, and so I’m doing something unusual. Our “So, Bob” podcast about the unintended consequences of technology is usually heavy on outrage and dark topics like privacy and election hacking. But ever since co-host Alia Tavakolian and I have been stuck at home because [Keep reading]
In the first season of No Place to Hide, Duke students Carter Forinash and Jake Satisky cyberstalked Spoke Media founder Keith Reynolds — with his permission. The results of their research are sprinkled through episodes 1, 2 and 3. In this postscript, we talk with Carter and Jake about their [Keep reading]
Regular readers know that Harri Hursti, founder of Nordic Innovation Labs and internationally-famous cybersecurity expert, is a long-time source and friend. Harri has spent the past several years working on a documentary about U.S. elections called “Kill Chain,” which was released last month. Any educated American who cares about democracy [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan