Arrival’s Aliens Reflect How We Treat One Another

We React With Distrust and Paranoia, While They (Literally) Rise Above

In the recently released film Arrival, Earth is visited by an intelligent alien race, the heptapods, and the contact forever changes humanity’s sense of place in the cosmos. The movie offers an excellent examination of how we as a species might react to information that we are not alone.

We may not have to wait long. It looks increasingly possible that our search for signs of simpler forms of life in the universe could bear fruit in the next few decades. The discovery of even microbial alien life would be …

In California, Big Data Is Getting the Wrong People Arrested

Blame the Software—and a Lack of Incentives to Check for Errors

Managing information is central to the criminal justice system, and so it’s inevitable that mistakes happen. Names get confused, files lost. When these errors occur, the police can mistakenly arrest …

Just Because the RNC Says It Wasn’t Hacked Doesn’t Change Reality

When a Party Leader Implausibly Denies a Data Breach, We All Lose

Cybersecurity professionals are fond of saying that there are two kinds of companies: those that have been hacked and those that don’t yet know they’ve been hacked. Right now, the …

Facebook Could Fix Our Local News Problem

The Media Behemoth Is Perfectly Positioned to Lead Investment in Civic-Minded Journalism

Facebook may not be quite ready to stand up and say the words, “My name is Facebook and I’m a media company.” But it has begun to accept that its …

Why North Koreans Prefer Word of Mouth Over Email

In a Country Where Dissent Is Harshly Punished, a Digital Footprint Isn't Worth the Risk

Twenty years after it began changing lives in other countries, the internet isn’t even a concept for the average North Korean—so much so that most people in the country of …

Why the U.S. Should Stop Lecturing the World About “Internet Values”

Clueless Optimism and Bull-Headed Arrogance Make the World Safe for Big Tech, Not Real People

The World Wide Web might have been invented by a Briton working for a European research organization, but let’s face it: The internet is American. The world’s richest tech firms …