Algorithms, Confidence, and Infrastructure

Tianyu Fang researched a long and detailed essay called Whose Domain Is It?, detailing the politics of the Internet’s domain names, especially the country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) that you might not realize are actually associated with countries. The unexpectedly popular ccTLDs can operate like a tourism effort, at least in terms of...

Most of the Internet is held together by best practices and good intentions, and WHOIS servers are one of those. One security company was investigating vulnerabilities in WHOIS and got a whole lot more than they bargained for: Each TLD (the bit at the end of the domain), you see, has a separate WHOIS server, and there’s no real standard to...

The UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius: Half a century or more after the UK relinquished control over almost all its global empire, it has finally agreed to hand over one of the very last pieces. It has done so reluctantly, perhaps, but also peacefully and legally. The Chagos Islands are also known as the British Indian Ocean...

A recent post from the American Alpine Club has me considering the potential duty of care that websites like AllTrails and Mountain Project owe to their readers. In The Prescription—July 2024, the editor Pete Takeda describes two incidents, one where two people were stranded due to their inexperience climbing snow, and another where one person in...

What’s next for you in your career? It’s tempting to focus on the bare minimum — staying employed — but identifying new areas of professional development or focus can help you grow your career and find whatever enjoyment you can from the capitalist toil that is an obligation of modern life. While I was at Splunk, Susan St. Ledger gave a talk...