AI Impacts on Escalation Paths to Nuclear Conflicts
This is an excerpt from the Foresight 2019 AGI Cooperation Report. At the workshop, I led a session on the impact of AI on nuclear escalation paths. Here I s...
Security and the Future
Welcome to my home page. The picture above is one I took in Black Rock City, one of several important places that has influenced how I see the world. To me it represents people getting together and making meaning. Hacking cool stuff together and sharing it. Humans exploring the boundaries of what's possible, and all the failures and complexities that involves.
I spend a lot of my time thinking about security and the future. Not just cybersecurity, but also security at the level of civilizational systems. What would happen to us if there was a nuclear war? What are the risks and rewards posed by advances in biotechnology and machine learning? I also spend a lot of time thinking about how people work. I'm curious about new and old ways of working together to build good communities, governance systems, and ultimately a thriving and robust civilization.
You'll find a collection of my work here: guides to securing your online accounts and personal devices, write-ups on risks from emerging technologies, book and article reviews, and some information about me. If you're interested in the motivation for my work, and how I think we got here, read this post.
If you would like to follow my writing, please join my mailing list
Recent Posts
Does the US nuclear policy still target cities?
Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine brought my attention to a horrifying fact about early US nuclear targeting policy. In 1961, the US had only one nuclea...
Video: Civilization Collapse - Scenarios, Prevention, Response
At this Salon hosted by the Foresight Institute, David Denkenberger and I talk about the risks of civilizational collapse and how we can mitigate them.
Letting Go Without Giving Up Permalink
I wrote this for the 2018 bay area solstice celebration. A recording is available here.
Schelling Network Oracles are Vulnerable to Manipulation Permalink
Schelling oracles should be abandoned in favor of better systems. It’s better to have a small group of verified & trusted reporters than a trivially gama...
How to use Yubikeys for your Gmail second factor
Created by Landfish This tutorial explains how to configure your account with two security keys and an authenticator app. This is the highest form of Gmail ...
How to set up Signal Messenger
Android How to: Use Signal for Android iOS How to: Use Signal on iOS Desktop - Mac or Windows How do I install Signal Desktop? – Support ...
Security Checklist
Instructions for using this checklist Go through each section of the checklist. I recommend setting aside at least an hour to go through all of these thin...
Setting up 2FA and a Password Manager
This document describes the basic steps to setting up a password manager, generating secure passwords, and setting up 2FA on your accounts. 1. Install a Pas...
Smart contracts will make ransomware more profitable part 2 Permalink
Following post 1, I explain a flaw in the simplified model, and how a more complex key exchange model could facilitate ransomware key exchange. I also explai...