Articles

These are all of my long-form articles. An Atom feed contains their full text. If that has any problems, I also have a legacy RSS feed.

Timestamp format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, as per RFC 3339. Sorted newest to oldest.

1. Stylometric fingerprinting redux

   Posted 2022-07-09 21:49, updated 2022-08-06 16:18

   Avoid de-anonymization through analysis of your writing style. Defend against machine- and human-driven stylometric identification.

   1456 words; a short 7 minute read

2. An experiment to test GitHub Copilot's legality

   Posted 2022-07-01 17:30, updated 2022-07-05 10:15

   A horrible idea to determine the legality of GitHub Copilot, or of re-creating proprietary speech synthesizers: create legal precedent that doesn't exist yet!

   1521 words; a short 8 minute read

3. Two types of privacy

   Posted 2022-06-25 15:25, updated 2022-06-26 01:00

   "Privacy" can mean different things in different contexts. Tracking-reduction and tracking-evasion represent different goals with some conflict and overlap.

   2520 words; a 12 minute read

4. Best practices for inclusive CLIs

   Posted 2022-06-10 19:24, updated 2022-08-23 09:20

   A response to some problematic CLI UX advice, with alternative recommendations for designing more accessible CLI utilities.

   2125 words; a 10 minute read

5. A layered approach to content blocking

   Posted 2022-06-04 22:47, updated 2022-07-07 17:57

   My take on where Manifest V3 fits into the current ad-blocking landscape: it has some benefits which should complement but not replace existing approaches

   1922 words; a 10 minute read

6. The right thing for the wrong reasons: FLOSS doesn't imply security

   Posted 2022-02-02 23:16, updated 2022-03-17 23:32

   While source code is critical for user autonomy, it isn't required to evaluate software security or understand run-time behavior.

   4328 words; a somewhat long 21 minute read

7. Misinfo about Permissions Policy and FLoC

   Posted 2021-04-16 17:28, updated 2021-06-11 15:08

   Recently, people have been telling webmasters to add a Permissions-Policy header to their sites to opt out of FLoC. The reality of the situation isn't so simple.

   1505 words; a short 8 minute read

8. A look at search engines with their own indexes

   Posted 2021-03-10 12:51, updated 2022-09-16 21:20

   A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

   About 6 thousand words; a somewhat long 29 minute read

9. Keeping platforms open

   Posted 2021-02-23 11:54, updated 2021-03-02 23:04

   How open platforms become closed, and how standards-driven development can prevent it from happening.

   2546 words; a 12 minute read

10. WhatsApp and the domestication of users

    Posted 2021-01-27 16:13, updated 2021-12-13 15:26

    WhatsApp's rise and recent PR efforts highlight a class of business models that I call "user domestication".

    3192 words; a 15 minute read

11. Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks

    Posted 2021-01-12 00:03, updated 2021-12-01 22:01

    Using thermal physics, cosmology, and computer science to calculate password vulnerability to the biggest possible brute-force attack.

    2411 words; a 12 minute read

12. Best practices for inclusive textual websites

    Posted 2020-11-23 12:21, updated 2022-09-26 15:48

    A lengthy guide to making simple, inclusive sites focused on content before form. Emphasizes brutalist design and accessibility to include under-represented users.

    About 23 thousand words; a very long 1 hour and 51 minute read

13. Resilient Git, Part 1: Hydra Hosting

    Posted 2020-11-18 18:31, updated 2020-11-19 12:23

    Efficient redundancy via repository mirroring with nothing but git.

    524 words; a short 3 minute read

14. Resilient Git, Part 0: Introduction

    Posted 2020-11-17 13:13, updated 2020-11-19 12:23

    A seires on setting up resilient git-based project workflows, free of vendor lock-in.

    413 words; a short 2 minute read

15. Hello World

    Posted 2020-11-02 11:06, updated 2021-01-24 14:42

    Seirdy's obligatory inagural blog post, which is barely longer than this description.

    31 words; a short 1 minute read