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Explainers

Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds

Email icon opening with an alert message inside

Email is ubiquitous. If you want to function in modern society, you pretty much have to have an email address. What was originally just a simple protocol to send messages between machines has morphed beyond what it was originally intended for into the de facto authentication, identity, and "secure" communication channel for almost all technology users today. It's been updated many times to fix security issues and there are more updates to come, but is it worth trying to fix a decades-old protocol, or should we scrap it all and start over?

Real-Name Policies: The War Against Pseudonymity

Filtered photo of a "Hello my name is" name-tag sticker on a street post. Over the space for the name is a black graffiti tag.

Real-name policies have existed for well over a decade already, and the problems they cause aren't new. But these problems have become exponentially harmful in today's world, where real-name policies are coupled with monopolistic platforms, increased mass surveillance, AI technologies, and facial recognition capabilities. It's time to fight back against this unsafe and discriminatory privacy-invasive practice.

What is Multi-Party Computation?

An image of a lock and multiple keys going toward it to unlock it

We know how to secure data in storage using E2EE, but is it possible to ensure data privacy even while processing it server-side? This is the first in a series of articles I'll be writing covering the privacy-enhancing technologies being rolled out.

Privacy and Security on Mastodon

The Mastodon name and logo over a dark purple background with a large purple padlock icon under it.

Mastodon is an open-source and decentralized social network that has been growing in popularity for the past few years.

While most social media rely on commercial models harvesting users' data to sell to advertisers, Mastodon offers a human-centric alternative that doesn't seek profits from your data and attention. This means better social connections, better controls, and better privacy.

In Praise of Tor: Why You Should Support and Use Tor

The Tor Project logo over a series of Tor icons on a purple background.

You might have heard of Tor in the news a few times, yet never dared to try it yourself. Despite being around for decades, Tor is still a tool too few people know about.

Today, Tor is easy to use for anyone. It helps not only journalists and activists, but anybody who seeks greater privacy online or access to information regardless of location. But what is Tor exactly? How can Tor help you? And why is it such an important tool?

Privacy Pass: The New Protocol for Private Authentication

Cover photo of the Privacy Pass logo over a yellow background

Services that require authentication can correlate your activity on that service with your account, and that account is normally linked with payment information that could potentially link back to your real identity. With the Privacy Pass protocol, it doesn't have to be that way.

Privacy is Also Protecting the Data of Others

Illustration from a photo of two children standing in a grass field. The taller child holds a yellow umbrella protecting the smaller child.

In privacy, we talk a lot about how to protect our own data, but what about our responsibility to protect the data of others?

If you care about privacy rights, you must also care for the data of the people around you. To make privacy work, we need to develop a culture that normalizes caring for everyone's data, not just our own. Privacy cannot solely be a personal responsibility, data privacy is team work.

Toward a Passwordless Future

Article cover showing a rusted, broken lock on a door latch

Passwords are annoying, vulnerable to attack, and prone to human error. The multitude of issues with passwords has cost millions of dollars and forced terrible band-aid solutions in how we handle signing up for, logging in to, and securing online accounts. I'd like to break down some of these design paradigms that have entrenched themselves in our lives and how passkeys can lead to more secure and private online accounts.

Biometrics Explained

Glowing fingerprint on glass

Biometrics are a convenient and secure way to authenticate our devices. Many of us use and trust the biometrics of our devices without much thought, but are they really secure? With so many options, which ones are the best?