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Arvind Narayanan @random_walker
, 5 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
For six years, I've led a research team focused on revealing how we’re tracked by hidden third parties online. I've been waiting for tracking protection to become a competitive feature of web browsers. That's happening now. Here are some thoughts. [Thread] nytimes.com/2018/06/20/tec…
If you switched to Firefox for privacy, you’re not protected by default. Go to Options, search for “privacy”, and turn the “Tracking Protection” setting to “Always”.
Safari and Brave enable tracking protection by default. I hope Firefox gets there as well. After all, it is advertised as a privacy-friendly browser. By choosing Firefox, users are already expressing their preference for privacy protection. Shouldn’t require a further setting.
I have great respect for @laparisa and the rest of the Chrome security team, and I’m awed by their work on security. But this is a non-answer. Can Chrome provide meaningful tracking protection despite the obvious conflict? That remains to be seen.
The big question is: can the market for privacy work? At least three browser makers are furiously innovating on tracking protection; will that put a dent in the surveillance economy? Combined with GDPR, I'm cautiously optimistic. I won't be letting up my research and advocacy.
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More from @random_walker see all

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In 2018 the blockchain/decentralization story fell apart. For example, a study of 43 use cases found a 0% success rate. theregister.co.uk/2018/11/30/blo…
Let's talk about some mistaken assumptions about decentralization that led to the blockchain hype, and what we can learn from them.
(For context, I think the technology is sound, interesting and important from a CS perspective. That’s why I’ve been researching and teaching it since 2013. bitcoinbook.cs.princeton.edu But I’ve also been speaking/writing about the pitfalls of decentralization for ~10 years.)
Blockchain proponents have a vision of _society_ in which centralized entities are weakened/eliminated. But blockchain tech is a way to build _software_ without centralized servers. Why would the latter enable the former? It’s a leap of logic that’s left unexplained.
Read 14 tweets
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Less than 5% of cryptographers work on creating/breaking encryption algorithms. Encryption isn't the most important or most fundamental cryptographic construction. It's also mostly a solved problem. Attackers rarely even try to break encryption; they just exploit software bugs.
Here are a few of the cool things that modern cryptographers work on.
1. Secure Multiparty Computation: a powerful & broad set of techniques that enables (e.g.) 2 hospitals to do a genetic study on their combined patient records—without either sending its records to the other.
2. Theory of cryptography: how do questions about computational complexity (such as P vs NP) relate to which cryptographic algorithms are or aren’t secure? This is best understood as a quest to reveal the computational laws of nature and isn't directly motivated by applications.
Read 6 tweets
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The online ad tech industry has created an extraordinarily invasive surveillance infrastructure that threatens our democracy. But the most tragic thing is how little has been gained—how poorly ad tech works despite all the data.
Even if rampant ad fraud is curbed, there's a deeper reason why ad tech doesn't work: measuring the returns to advertising is a statistical problem that's near impossible even with perfect tracking. This neat paper shows why and deserves to be better known justinmrao.com/lewis_rao_near…
One reason why print/TV ads work—by conspicuously spending money, the firm signals to consumers that it is big & will stick around, is invested in its reputation, and has products worth advertising. Online ads don't achieve this. The more targeted the ad, the *weaker* the signal.
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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Symphony of Six Million
imdb.com/title/tt002354…
#six #magic #cabala
1919 The Crucifixion of 6 million Jews Must Stop!
1945 An Open Letter To Prime Minister Atlee
"It was our very unhappy conviction all along that the responsibility for the extinction of 6 million Jews in Europe was not Hitler's alone. THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN WORLD SHARES THAT RESPONSIBILITY."
Read 20 tweets
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Some thoughts on my new essay (w/ Andrew Langan) for the "women in economics" symposium coming soon in JEP

scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/…

Thread below 👇
It's well known that few (~32%) of PhD students in economics are women

We investigate variation around this mean:
High of 50% 😃
Low of 10% 😡

(These are decadal averages!)
What's more: we find that some PhD programs have excellent relative outcomes for women (first placement, publication, promotion).... and some don't

"relative outcome" = women's outcomes compared to men in same program
Read 14 tweets
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Third Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms Landmark Cyberstalking Resulting in Death Conviction in Matusiewicz Case

@drawandstrike @ThomasWictor @HNIJohnMiller @catesduane @rising_serpent @_ImperatorRex_ @Debradelai @GodlessNZ @almostjingo @TheChillum

justice.gov/usao-de/pr/thi…
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Read 18 tweets
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Some great research here by @TheSpeaker2018 on the Polaris Project, CGI & CF. Doing some digging I found more connections.

Joel Charney is on the BOD of Polaris Project.

Prior to joining NRC USA in March 2016, Mr. Charny was the Vice President for Humanitarian Policy and Practice at InterAction, the alliance of U.S.-based relief and development organizations.
He was responsible for leading InterAction’s work on humanitarian response, which involved engaging with the U.S. government, the United Nations.

Ties to the UN. Don't forget all the pedo scandals coming from these UN members.
polarisproject.org/profile/joel-r…
Read 32 tweets
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Revealing eight buildings across the US, hidden in plain sight, that documents & sources indicate are central to one of NSA's largest & most controversial internet surveillance programs: theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att…
The eight buildings are involved in an NSA program called FAIRVIEW, which has collected communications from AT&T's networks since 1985.
In 2003, the agency launched an internet surveillance initiative under FAIRVIEW & had within a few months swept up some 400 billion records about people’s online communications. AT&T sent millions of emails weekly to an NSA “keyword selection system.”
Read 45 tweets
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1/ Remember the Russian company that was indicted by Mueller and hired a big U.S. law firm to engage in aggressive legal maneuvers against him? Now Mueller has sought a protective order to make sure that lawyers for the Russian company don't distribute secret information.
2/ Protective orders are common in criminal cases involving sensitive information, even when the cases merely involve a U.S. financial crime. When they involve a foreign adversary and classified information about sources and methods of gathering intelligence, they are important.
3/ Protective orders are orders entered by the judge that control how the defendants and defense counsel use documents that were produced in discovery by the government. Usually protective orders are focused on ensuring that discovery isn't shared with third parties.
Read 11 tweets

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