And how to solve it, in theory and in practice Identity systems have traditionally been hierarchical directories. In organizations, central administrators define the rights that each user (or group of users) has on the system. And so, they need to know who the user is. One the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog That’s a big problem to…

More than a licence, we need to commit to a sustainable digital infrastructure. A (very) brief history of open software movements Both free software and opensource have had tremendous success. Steve Klabnik has provided a great historical review of the origin of free software with Stallman’s GNU announcement in 1983. …

But only if you can demonstrate your intent to drink it. The challenge (Kavka) What will you do at midnight? An eccentric billionaire places before you a vial of toxin that, if you drink it, will make you painfully ill for a day, but will not threaten your life or have any lasting…

Or what a fundamentally critical view of degrowth theory teaches you about the current crisis, and about capitalism in general. I’m no degrowth fanboy, quite the opposite actually. Degrowth’s narrative usually starts by evoking a catastrophic threat, or even a collapse, and many people firmly believe that covid-19 is a…

These two related concepts are fundamentally different, and complementary. I use them in my work in cybersecurity, but the current crisis better illustrates the point for the general public. How can we mitigate the damages from the next pandemic? This is a risk question, one that is typically studied by the likes of WHO and re-insurers. It requires the estimation…

We’re all the rage with big data and its potential. But data might actually be the new CO2, as previously analyzed in a Luminate blog post. Recently, the covid19 crisis adds more surveillance risks, as described by Yuval Harari. The European regulator has declared the situation changes drastically: We could…

A review of the critiques made about using blockchain for proving provenance and authenticity This post is an answer to a blockchain critique from Sebastien Meunier. I think it’s good when people try to take some distance from hype. Well, except when they’re saying something obviously wrong for the sake of making an argument. Blockchain bashing has become a sport, but let’s be fair…

Proof of stake (PoS) is a hot topic in the blockchain community. But will it work out as expected? A short primer on consensus history Why would we need Proof of Stake consensus algorithm, instead of Proof of Work? In short, the answer is two-fold : scalability and resource-efficiency. For a more elaborate answer, let’s start…