Featured writing, bespoke insights, and career milestones.
Writing: Science communicators love to compare complex systems to 'the number of atoms in the universe.' It's a terrible analogy. Here is a proper tour of scale, mapping the journey from the quantized foam of the Planck length all the way to the formal axioms of set theory.
Writing: Theory without observation is just beautiful math; observation without theory is just raw data. Here’s how an extreme, X-ray-spewing microquasar in our own galaxy provided the exact physical data needed to prove the universe behaves like a hologram.
Writing: To bridge the gap between Einstein's curved spacetime and the discrete jumps of quantum spin, you have to look under the hood of how continuous symmetry works. The secret to quantum gravity lies in a 19th-century algebraic code: Lie Theory.
Writing: For nearly a century, physicists have struggled to unify Einstein's smooth fabric of spacetime with the discrete jumps of quantum mechanics. Here is a journey through the four monumental contributions of Abhay Ashtekar, the pioneer who rewired the math of general relativity and made modern quantum gravity possible.
Writing: After wrestling with Node.js memory limits and aggressive CSS resets, this site now supports lightning-fast, build-time mathematical typesetting with no client-side math renderer. Here is how I did it, and why beautiful equations matter.
Writing: We finally killed the long-lived developer API key, a massive victory for open-source security. But as NDSS 2026 and USENIX Enigma '25 revealed, attackers haven't given up—they've just moved to our build pipelines and flooded our vulnerability data. Here is what we must do next.
Writing: I take a look at the history of measuring time—from sand glasses to atomic clocks—and explain the clever physics behind using a smartphone speaker to force a digital wall clock to sync with the Internet's exact time.
Writing: At NDSS 2026, Dan Wallach outlined DARPA's ambitious plan to eradicate memory safety bugs using AI. He then talked about what happens after we solve memory safety and then need to secure hardware against physical decay. I take a look at how election security principles are scaling to protect the global Internet. (corrected on 8 May to recognize Dr. Shauna Sweet manages COOP.)
Writing: Climate change warms the Earth's surface, but it actually cools the upper atmosphere. This paradox is quietly making the space debris problem in Low Earth Orbit much worse.
Writing: I've officially joined a long-term wager on the future of Internet security: will quantum computers break current encryption before mathematicians break new quantum defenses?
Writing: Repurposing the Internet's naming system for public policy is blunt, costly, and counterproductive. Here are new resources for legal professionals to explain the technical realities of DNS to courts.
Writing: I finally sat down and built a unified, cross-platform dotfiles architecture to bridge my macOS machines and my Chromebooks. Here is how it works under the hood.
Writing: We have reached the final day of my NDSS 2026 Showcase. For Day 4, we end with a sense of awe at the mathematical ingenuity driving our field forward. This theme covers the breakthroughs that will define the future of privacy and secure computation.
Writing: For Day 3, we pivot from the edges of the network to its core. Today's theme looks at the plumbing of the Internet—the threat intelligence feeds, time synchronization protocols, and routing security systems that we implicitly trust.
Writing: Yesterday, I kicked off my showcase of the 2026 NDSS Symposium with Mad Science hacks. Today, we shift gears from the physical layer to the societal layer. Today's theme covers platforms and protocols that billions of people rely on daily.
Writing: The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), hosted by the Internet Society for over 30 years, is one of the premier venues for security research. Over the next four days, I'll break down a curated selection of the most remarkable papers from this year's lineup.
Writing: At the National Collegiate Security Conference LIII, I shared a simple core message with over 800 future global leaders: Internet governance is people, and the multistakeholder model is a technical necessity.
Writing: A mind-blowing breakthrough in cryptography allows Large Language Models to work with encrypted data from start to finish, preventing privacy leaks.
Writing: A battle over copyright law at the U.S. Supreme Court could cause Americans to lose their Internet access over a single allegation. Here is why the Internet Society filed an amicus brief.
I was honored to receive the 2025 IP3 Internet Protocol Award from Public Knowledge, alongside fellow honorees Dr. Alondra Nelson, Sarah Jeong, Alvaro Bedoya, and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.
Writing: NIST has released BRIO, a powerful open-source tool for testing and experimenting with BGP security mechanisms like ROV, BGPsec, and RPKI-to-Router.
Career Milestone: Reviewer and Committee Member, Enigma Track USENIX Security Symposium
Writing: I recently spoke with members of ISOC Nicaragua and UAM law students about how law, code, and the courts shape our digital future—and the critical need for professionals fluent in both law and technology.
Writing: A landmark decision from Brazil's Supreme Court (STF) fundamentally reshapes the landscape for platform liability in the country, declaring part of the Marco Civil's core safe harbor unconstitutional.
Writing: I recently received a cease and desist letter regarding an article on African Multistakeholderism. I will not be taking down my social media posts.
Writing: The 2024 Salt Typhoon cyber espionage campaign marks a watershed moment in state-sponsored cyber operations, delivering a clear answer to a long-standing debate in the security community: there is no safe form of "lawful access" or "good guys only" backdoor.
Writing: The US Solicitor General has filed an important amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to consider Cox v. Sony, arguing against a broad application of secondary liability for ISPs.
Writing: The Trump Administration has significantly amended the Biden Cybersecurity Executive Order (EO 14144), eliminating digital identity pilots and refocusing software supply chain directives.
Writing: In Gabagaba, Papua New Guinea, new Internet access is transforming lives. The community-led Gabaspot Network now serves about 5,000 people, opening doors to knowledge and opportunity.
Writing: India's proposed Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) rules could unintentionally harm users. The Internet Society submitted comments urging alignment with global best practices.
Writing: Another senseless threat to strong encryption, this time in Sweden. I'm sharing an important open letter urging the Swedish Riksdag to reject proposed data retention legislation.
Writing: Internet Society CEO Sally Wentworth and ISOC Brasil President Flávio Rech Wagner warn against weakening Article 19 of Brazil's Marco Civil da Internet in a new op-ed.
Writing: A broad coalition is urging Congress to amend the TAKE IT DOWN Act. While combating NDII is crucial, it must not incentivize platforms to compromise end-to-end encryption.
Writing: The Internet has been around for 50+ years and has become ingrained in many people’s daily lives. Trust in the Internet is crucial for it to provide opportunities and services, but since its inception, Internet trust has fluctuated. Let’s dive into Internet trust, what makes a trustworthy Internet, and why people should care.
Career Milestone: Steering Group Co-Chair NDSS Symposium
Writing: Internet Society CEO and President, Andrew Sullivan, testified in front of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law in support of Section 230.
Career Milestone: Program Chair USENIX Enigma
Writing: Imagine waking up in the morning, grabbing your hot cup of coffee, and scrolling your favorite blog post or website, only to find it looking like this: Images are missing. Video content is not there. Nothing but an empty black void staring back at you.
Writing: The Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium kicked off earlier this week. Attendees—virtual and remote—have enjoyed a simply amazing set of workshops, symposia, papers, and posters.
Writing: Every year, the Internet Society hosts one of the top conferences for computer and network security research, the Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium.
Writing: A month ago, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a “Notice of Inquiry” (NOI) around a subject close to our hearts: secure Internet routing. In this NOI, the FCC asked a series of questions to the public about how data is routed around the Internet, and what kinds of security controls, standards, and efforts exist to protect those routes.
Career Milestone: Distinguished Technologist, Security Portfolio Lead Internet Society Strategic individual contributor at the senior executive level whose work lies at the intersection of computer science, law, and policy. Lead two major strategic portfolios: the Open and Trustworthy Internet program, empowering policymakers and courts with technical expertise to defend Internet openness, and the…
Career Milestone: Member and Co-Chair, Advisory Council The Center for Democracy and Technology
Career Milestone: Senior Vice President, Strong Internet Internet Society Senior executive responsible for 5 of 8 ISOC projects. The Strong Internet portofolio includes work that seeks to strengthen the Internet, including time security, routing security, open standards, encryption policy, and Internet infrastructure policy. Responsible for a diverse, global staff of ~40 subject matter experts
Career Milestone: Member, Board of Advisors VotingWorks
Career Milestone: Program Committee USENIX Security 2019
Stan Adams and I released a paper describing qualitative interview research of world-class hackers to "take the pulse" of potential chilling effects they may face (work performed at the Center for Democracy & Technology).
Career Milestone: Member, Advisory Committee Center for Civic Design
Career Milestone: Member, Selections Board, Fellowship Program Aspen Institute, Aspen Tech Policy Hub
Apratim Vidyarthi, Benjamin C. Dean, and I published a paper outlining four important case studies in security research at the Center for Democracy & Technology.