Pluralistic: 28 Jul 2022

Today's links

Your computer is tormented by a wicked god: Bootkits are why we can't have nice things.
Peter Thiel's evil, but he's not an "evil genius": How to criticize self-mythologizing villains.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2007, 2012, 2017, 2021
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

James Bridle's "Ways of Being": Dispatches from the more than human world.
Fake Christian health insurance and other big cons: If you have to trick people into hearing your message, you are in a cult.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2002, 2012, 2017, 2021
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Imperfections in your Bluetooth beacons allow for unstoppable tracking: Fingerprinting BLE with minor material variations in radio hardware.
This day in history: 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Machine learning's crumbling foundations: Doing 'data science' with bad data.
Hench: The madcap rage of life under vigilante rule.
This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

What would a live concert album sound like with all the songs taken out?: Gavin Edwards' "Having Fun On Stage With Everybody."
The infosec apocalypse is nigh: Ed Snowden on the NSO's malware.
This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

AT&T will lay off thousands more: After promising that Trump's $20B tax-break would create jobs.
Cuba is a vaccine powerhouse: A vaccine for the Global South.
Sacklers to use Purdue bankruptcy to escape justice: Crime pays.
AI has a GIGO problem: Bias-laundering at mass scale.
This day in history: 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Descartes' God has failed and Thompson's Satan rules our computers: Computers, trust, and the knowability of the universe.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

In Search Of A Flat Earth: From Flat Earth to Qanon, the rise of murderous cults.
A cryptographic mystery solved: How a Cuban numbers station's decade-long opsec fail blew Russian spies' cover.
Youtube's war on algorithmic radicalization: Selective rabbit-hole elimination is HARD.
The Hardware Lottery: Chip architecture is the secret legislator of machine learning.
This day in history: 2015
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Rewarding CEOs for failure: Heads they win, tails we lose.
DIY giant chalk: Tempura paint, plaster of paris, and water.
Fairness and machine learning: Open access computer science textbook.
Facebook overrules its own fact-checkers: The far right works the refs.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Ukrainian steampunk masks: The gorgeous work of Dmitriy and Aleksandra Bragin.
OTF spared (for now): Trump's administrative incompetence saves the US Agency for Global Media from becoming Global Breitbart.
Insurers are secret, powerful police reformers: Money talks, bullshit walks.
Ohio GOP leadership arrested for racketeering: Largest corruption scandal in Ohio history.
Little Brother as a role-playing game: Notes from the Fiction & RPG Podcast.
Anti-facial recognition tool: Fawkes will alter your images in ways that are invisible to humans but confounding for algorithms.
Kentucky AG sues top GOP donors: Kentucky's Republican lawmaker is the best kind of class-traitor.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading