Today at 9am MT our skunk episode streams from Childrenshour.org but we are on the radio somewhere all day. Including right now! Our Stations page at our site has times of broadcasts and links. Let the 🦨 Skunk episode bring you joy and happiness. We need it!

We have cats and dogs as pets in the US. If we lived in a world without cats, could we imagine them? Probably not? So imagine another world that has a third animal that people commonly have as pets — an animal that doesn't exist today. What would that animal be like?

I recommend "Secret Mall Apartment," a documentary artists in Providence that transform an unused space in the Providence Place Mall into a secret apartment over the course of four years. Also a look into Michael Townsend's tapeart.com

The final syllabus for "AI, IoT and Cybersecurity" is now available! Download it from here: 1drv.ms/b/c/e53da78e... It's not too late to register! Register here: coursebrowser.dce.harvard.edu/course/artif...

I'm still looking for a few people to test-drive the labs that I put together for my "AI, IoT and Cybersecurity" course. You can find the labs on our GitHub site: github.com/Harvard-CSCI... Email me if you are interested!

ACM's new "Open Access" policy makes the articles in the ACM Digital Library open access, but perplexingly puts some bibliometrics behind a paywall. As an ACM Fellow, I have signed the petition asking ACM to make the bibliometrics Open Access as well. www.ipetitions.com/petition/res...

AI, IoT and CyberSecurity — Help test the labs! Looking for people to try the labs for Harvard CSCI E-11, AI, IoT and Internet of Things. Labs are free, but the grader and the course dashboard require either a Harvard account or a "course_key" to run. simson.net/csci-e-11-gi... Reply for details!

AI, Internet of Things, and Cybersecurity - SPRING 2026 We have published the first three pages of the syllabus for our Harvard Extension Course: simson.net/csci-e-11-sy...

Desktops from Naoshima (Japan's art island). I took some stunning photographs on my most recent trip to Japan. The ZIP file has 15 high resolution photos. (The photo with the birds was taken in Nagasaki.) simson.net/ref/2025/Jap...

NSF has awarded $1.3M to Sebastian Angel, Andreas Haeberlen, Brett Falk, Ryan Marcus and Pratyush Mishra at Penn under to develop a "Trusted Integration Data Exchange" based on privacy-preserving cryptography. Congrats! www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

NSF has awarded $1M to Miel Hostens at Cornell and Joao R Dorea at the University of Wisconsin under the "Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Practice (PDaSP)" program. This applies privacy-preserving data analysis to dairy farming! Congrats! www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

NSF has awarded $760K to Henry Corrigan-Gibbs at MIT CSAIL and Emma Dauterman at Stanford under the "Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Practice (PDaSP)" program. Congrats! www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

I will be co-teaching Artificial Intelligence, the Internet-of-Things, and Cybersecurity (CSCI E-11) with Geoff Cohen this spring at the Harvard Extension School. Details are at coursebrowser.dce.harvard.edu/course/artif.... Labs are on GitHub at github.com/Harvard-CSCI... . Registration open now!

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery has updated its peer review policy to make clear that faculty may not share articles they are reviewing with their students without explicit written permission of the current venue’s peer review leadership. www.acm.org/publications...

My first publication in Science! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

ACM published my TechBrief on digital transformation. Here is the press release in the @aaas.org EurekaAlert! New report urges governments around the world to achieve “Digital Transformation” www.eurekalert.org/news-release... And here is the tech brief: dl.acm.org/doi/book/10....

Sara is spilling the beans about Sascha! substack.com/@saraabramss...

In case you missed it, I wrote a fun review of "Our Dollar, Your Problem." You can find it on my new substack page: open.substack.com/pub/database...

I just finished Our Dollar, Your Problem and I am recommending it to all my friends. open.substack.com/pub/database...

Just published! How we reconstructed the individual-level records from the 2010 Census tables for tens of millions of people and reidentified millions using only commercially available data. hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/ntchx9im

My experience vibe coding, with citations and recommendations for making it safer. databasenation.substack.com/p/vibe-codin...

@bilawal.bsky.social has put together a 30-minute documentary on the history of Google Earth. Highly recommended. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMl...

Just finished @hossenfelder.bsky.social's book, Lost in Math. I highly recommend for the author's lively writing style, and her key points are even more valid today then when the book was published in 2018. amzn.to/4kuVdmt

@benrothke.bsky.social has written a lovely review of #DifferentialPrivacy for his "book of the month" column at the RSAC Conference website. He notes that the book is available as an open source download from @mitpress.bsky.social . www.rsaconference.com/library/blog...

Has anyone noticed that ChatGPT as made Ted Rall a non-person? It simply will not answer any questions about Ted Rall. Someone should write about this. @tedrall.bsky.social

Anchor Bolts xkcd.com/3078

I'm talking about #differentialPrivacy on the SecureTalk podcast by @StrikeGraph. Website: www.securetalkpodcast.com Youtube: youtu.be/eZFgxKsFvYg?... Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4o9h... SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/user-7796943...

I stopped by the @mitofficial.bsky.social bookstore to sign some @mitpress.bsky.social books on #DiffeeentialPrivacy

#DifferentialPrivacy made the top position of @techreview's "Recent books from the MIT community" in the March/April edition. www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1...

I'm talking about #differentialPrivacy on the SecureTalk podcast by @StrikeGraph. Website: www.securetalkpodcast.com Youtube: youtu.be/eZFgxKsFvYg?... Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4o9h... SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/user-7796943...

Simson Garfinkel's addition to our Essential Knowledge Series, "Differential Privacy," is a robust yet accessible introduction to the idea, history, and key applications of differential privacy—the gold standard of algorithmic privacy protection: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255165... @simson.net

Differential Privacy (2026) my new book, is published by MIT Press today!!!! The soft cover and kindle versions are available now. The open access PDF should be available shortly!!! mitdpbook.com Amazon sent me this lovely email today.

My article MIT Prepares for Nuclear Attack was published in @technologyreview.com ! www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1...

The OpenDP project has published a Q&A with me on the occasion of the #DifferentialPrivacy book, which is launching on March 25: opendp.org/blog/qa-sims...

Simson Garfinkel's (high-level) intro to Differential Privacy (DP) book will be published in March at MIT Press. A well-written, insightful, and engaging non-technical intro to DP, with discussions, motivations, and historical context. Highly recommended! mitpress.mit.edu/978026255165...

Why is the @npr.org app using so much data? T

Apple Mail & Gmail Users: Are you tired of seeing thousands of autosave messages in your Gmail archives? I have written a program to delete them! Find it here; knowledge of python required. If there is interest, I can package this with a UI for the Apple App Store. github.com/simsong/remo...

@sleuthkitlabs.bsky.social's development branch of TSK now supports XFS. Thanks to everyone who helped. github.com/sleuthkit/sl...

We can simultaneously end the journalism crisis and provide AI with fresh training data. bit.ly/40lWVyG

"Analysts say Tesla's ability to track users at every point along a journey . . . demonstrates that manufacturers can now insert themselves into every moment of a person's driving experience, while also providing private information to law enforcement." foxbaltimore.com/news/nation-...

Fun facts about the history of noise that didn't make it into my upcoming book on differential privacy... www.linkedin.com/pulse/noisy-...

My 2024 Privacy and AI Cartoons and Blog Post Roundup teachprivacy.com/2024-highlig...

Simpler times for MIT: The 1939-1940 budget.

My article about Osiris, the MIT secret Society of the 20th century, has now been published In @technologyreview.com ! www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/23/1...

We have sold 387 copies of UNIX-HATERS on Amazon since bringing the book back to print. Thanks everyone! "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook: Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don’t think that is a coincidence." www.amazon.com/UNIX-HATERS-...

I'm watching the original Duck and Cover (1951) movie from. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqX... "Here's Tony going to his cub scout meeting. Tony knows that the bomb can explode any time of the year day or night. He is ready for it. " (flash) "Duck and cover! Atta boy, Tony!"

Having the virus scanner crash is never comforting.

#DifferentialPrivacy has a cover. Paperback ISBN: 9780262551656 Pub date: March 25, 2025 Publisher: The MIT Press 244 pp., 5 x 7 in, 22 b&w illus. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255165...

I'm registering for the AAAS 2025 conference and I got this question. Doesn't everybody have to put AFRICA?

Wow! I have a validated profile and all I needed to do was add a DNS entry…