A history lesson from Vint Cerf. I can’t help but picture him as The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded.
When Tim Berners-Lee invented and released the World Wide Web (WWW) design in late 1991, he found an open and receptive internet in operation onto which the WWW could be placed. The WWW design, like the design of the internet, was very open and encouraged a growing cadre of self-taught webmasters to develop content and applications.
A clear explanation of the current state of homomorphic encryption.
Speaking as a very lazy person, this really resonated with me.
Overcoming laziness can feel like moving the moon.
I concur completely with Luke’s assessment here. Most password-masking on the web is just security theatre. Displaying password inputs by default (but with an option to hide) should be the norm.
This is quite an astounding piece of writing. Robert Lucky imagines the internet of things mashed up with online social networking …but this was published in 1999!
Thoughts on artificial intelligence, computation and complexity.
An interview with George Dyson, whose next book—Turing’s Cathedral—sounds like it’ll be right up my alley.
A collection of articles on the tricksy art of Futurism from—amongst others—Bruce Sterling, Annalee Newitz, and Matt Novak, creator of the Paleofuture blog.
Andy sounds a cautionary note: the password anti-pattern may be dying, but OAuth permission-granting shouldn’t be blasé. This is why granular permissions are so important.
Possibly the least imaginative concept video ever made, this piece commissioned by Blackberry shows a dystopian near-future ruled by security departments run by people with very, very tired arms.
Dana has put together an excellent grab-bag of data on people’s password habits.
The plan to get Curiosity Rover onto the surface of Mars (ignore the cheesy sound effects in space).
Adrian Hon’s Kickstarter project has already reached its goal. I can’t wait for the podcasting to start.
This may be one of the best pecha kuch— I mean, Ignite presentations I’ve ever seen.
This is the stuff James Bond stories are made of. Except in this case, the fortress exists to store data rather than criminal masterminds.
Metallic ink-printed undershirts and underwear. For Americans who wish to assert their rights without saying a word.
Leonard has some handy tips for protecting yourself against Firesheep and its ilk.
Publishing photos from lost cameras.
An API for Turing test questions.
A nice explanation of the ruby element in HTML5: very handy for marking up phonetic pronunciation.
Mozilla aims to plug the :visited/getComputedStyle bug/feature.
A detailed document from Apple on their products' total carbon footprint.
Another interesting take on assigning a visual clue to password fields.
Here's an interesting idea: generating a sparkline when you input a password ...familiarity with the generated sparkline acts as a visual aid to the user.
Eleven years old and more relevant than ever.
And this, boys and girls, is why the password anti-pattern is bad, m'kay?
A thoughtful post from Ben on how the flow of OAuth, OpenID and Facebook Connect can be improved.
Clever or creepy? You decide.
Twitter's promotion of the password anti-pattern bites them on the ass.
This looks like being an excellent—and free—resource "...meant to provide web application developers, browser engineers, and information security researchers with a one-stop reference to key security properties of contemporary web browsers."
"Facebook has rolled out an identity system — Facebook Connect — with a slick UI that trains a gazillion tech-naïve users to slap their identity credentials into any old website."
The slides from Simon's excellent full-length presentation at the head conference. Every web developer needs to be aware of these issues.
I never thought I'd find myself linking to and agreeing with a post on TechC*nt but it's good to see somebody pointing out Facebook's hypocrisy with using the password anti-pattern.
Fullscreen mode for Flash movies could be used to totally freak people out. Here's how.
An excellent article that explodes the ludicrous myth that terrorists like to go around taking pictures of potential targets so therefore photographers are dangerous.
The Sorted Books project: using book titles to create short narrative pieces.
The importance of good URL design.
A cautionary tale that explains just why the password anti-pattern needs to die. Coding horror indeed: in this case, 1,777 GMail accounts were compromised.
I must remember to allow plenty of time at the airport when I'm leaving San Francisco.
An excellent piece of research that shows how Facebook affiliates' cross-site scripting (Beacon) sends information back to the mothership regardless of whether the user has opted out.
Leisa joins in on the password anti-pattern. As she says, this is a question of ethics. I've already made my position clear to my colleagues and clients. Have you?
The ORG turn a Newsnight interview into hypertext, thereby strengthening the message exponentially.
Yes, you have to be a bit of a database geek to find this funny but if you are, this is very funny indeed.
An interesting product designed to catch the thieves after your Macbook gets stolen.
Little handpainted people left in London to fend for themselves.
Now this is what I call a captcha. You want to know about my mother? I'll tell you about my mother.
A few ideas for security questions that had me laughing out loud.
Hilariously stupid pseudo-science article that takes a scythe to the BBC's credibility. Read on to the last line to get the source of this nonsense.
Me? I'm just pee-shy. From The Meaning of Liff: KETTLENESS (adj.) The quality of not being able to pee while being watched.
Buy a one square foot piece of land (and the Brooklyn Bridge while you're at it). Cute Kerry hoors.
This airtoons like animation demonstrates the correct usage of the magic cone.
This is fascinating in a voyeuristic way - photographs found on peer to peer networks from people who are (perhaps accidentally) sharing their entire home folder.
George Dyson pays a visit to Google and describes it in the context of the history of computing.
I know what I want for Christmas.
Looks like Google is getting into the WiFi game.
This is the plain vanilla look.
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