Ben Adida
@benadida.com
I lead an incredible team building voting machines everyone can trust. https://voting.works
Optimistic about judicious uses of tech. Systems, security, privacy, cryptography, and the web are my jam.
Previously: Clever, Square, Mozilla, Harvard, MIT.
Optimistic about judicious uses of tech. Systems, security, privacy, cryptography, and the web are my jam.
Previously: Clever, Square, Mozilla, Harvard, MIT.
Wait. What was that book about again?
November 25, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Wait. What was that book about again?
I'm finding it a little distressing that AI video is coming of age right in sync with massive robotics advances, so I can't actually tell how scary the robots are right now, at least not from watching videos online.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
I'm finding it a little distressing that AI video is coming of age right in sync with massive robotics advances, so I can't actually tell how scary the robots are right now, at least not from watching videos online.
Reposted by Ben Adida
Avoiding public WiFi, QR codes, or public USB chargers doesn’t prevent you from being hacked. Happy to sign onto this open letter alongside 80+ cybersecurity veterans urging a shift from folklore to guidance that actually helps people avoid the most common attacks. www.hacklore.org
November 24, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Avoiding public WiFi, QR codes, or public USB chargers doesn’t prevent you from being hacked. Happy to sign onto this open letter alongside 80+ cybersecurity veterans urging a shift from folklore to guidance that actually helps people avoid the most common attacks. www.hacklore.org
Because it always feels dangerous *not* to follow security advice, the outdated and sometimes never justified security advice piles up.
Don't get bogged down by the hacklore.
hacklore.org
(Thanks to the always awesome @boblord.bsky.social for this initiative)
Don't get bogged down by the hacklore.
hacklore.org
(Thanks to the always awesome @boblord.bsky.social for this initiative)
Stop Hacklore!
hacklore.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Because it always feels dangerous *not* to follow security advice, the outdated and sometimes never justified security advice piles up.
Don't get bogged down by the hacklore.
hacklore.org
(Thanks to the always awesome @boblord.bsky.social for this initiative)
Don't get bogged down by the hacklore.
hacklore.org
(Thanks to the always awesome @boblord.bsky.social for this initiative)
It seems pretty clear to me that we're going to need something like c2pa to authenticate the chain of editing of real photos / videos. 10 minutes of playing with Nano Banana Pro and just, wow.
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
November 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM
It seems pretty clear to me that we're going to need something like c2pa to authenticate the chain of editing of real photos / videos. 10 minutes of playing with Nano Banana Pro and just, wow.
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Also, Google, can we go back to descriptive product names like "Google Photos" and "Google Docs"?
Reposted by Ben Adida
Trying to think of something serious to say about the “cryptographers lose the key for the cryptographer election” story and, mostly, hey: I just love that cryptographers are actually using the weird cryptography! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results.
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Trying to think of something serious to say about the “cryptographers lose the key for the cryptographer election” story and, mostly, hey: I just love that cryptographers are actually using the weird cryptography! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
The International Association for Cryptologic Research has used heliosvoting.org – my online voting system – for a number of years.
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
Cryptographers Held an Election. They Can’t Decrypt the Results.
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:40 AM
The International Association for Cryptologic Research has used heliosvoting.org – my online voting system – for a number of years.
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
This year, a trustee lost their secret key. The election has to be re-run.
Below, a few thoughts that didn't fit in the NYT piece.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...
Reposted by Ben Adida
One of the most interesting recent privacy developments is the deployment of big two-hop IP blinding VPNs by companies like Apple and Google. These systems are designed to ensure that even those companies can’t link web requests to IP addresses.
November 13, 2025 at 1:45 PM
One of the most interesting recent privacy developments is the deployment of big two-hop IP blinding VPNs by companies like Apple and Google. These systems are designed to ensure that even those companies can’t link web requests to IP addresses.
Sometimes, voter fraud does occur. It's rare, inconsequential, and harshly punished.
www.bangordailynews.com/2025/11/20/b...
www.bangordailynews.com/2025/11/20/b...
Hermon man accused of trying to vote twice in 2024 election
Brian Rafford attempted to vote for his uncle, Dale Rafford, according to the indictment.
www.bangordailynews.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Sometimes, voter fraud does occur. It's rare, inconsequential, and harshly punished.
www.bangordailynews.com/2025/11/20/b...
www.bangordailynews.com/2025/11/20/b...
"Adversarial Poetry". Today, I know just from that title where this paper is going. Five years ago, I would have had no clue.
What a weird world we live in.
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
What a weird world we live in.
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
arxiv.org
November 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
"Adversarial Poetry". Today, I know just from that title where this paper is going. Five years ago, I would have had no clue.
What a weird world we live in.
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
What a weird world we live in.
arxiv.org/html/2511.15...
Look if we're gonna slap AI on everything, could we do simple things like *really* great automatic slideshows in Google Photos? That take into account where people's faces are? That upscale/downscale automatically? Come on!
November 20, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Look if we're gonna slap AI on everything, could we do simple things like *really* great automatic slideshows in Google Photos? That take into account where people's faces are? That upscale/downscale automatically? Come on!
@voting.works is also helping the State of Pennsylvania run a post-election audit. Check out their fantastic new Auditing status page:
www.pa.gov/agencies/vot...
www.pa.gov/agencies/vot...
Auditing Election Results
Auditing Election Results
www.pa.gov
November 19, 2025 at 5:10 PM
@voting.works is also helping the State of Pennsylvania run a post-election audit. Check out their fantastic new Auditing status page:
www.pa.gov/agencies/vot...
www.pa.gov/agencies/vot...
@voting.works is proud to be helping Georgia audit their elections. Georgia has been one of the states on the forefront of rigorous post-election audits, a practice I hope every state adopts in the next few years.
A Risk Limiting Audit (like Georgia has done for several years under @GaSecofState Raffensperger) confirms the outcome of the statewide PSC race, showing the accuracy of Georgia’s election system. sos.ga.gov/news/raffens... (1/2)
Raffensperger: PSC Audit Confirms Accurate Vote Count | Georgia Secretary of State
County election officials in all of Georgia’s 159 counties hand counted randomly selected ballots as part of the statewide audit...
sos.ga.gov
November 19, 2025 at 2:14 PM
@voting.works is proud to be helping Georgia audit their elections. Georgia has been one of the states on the forefront of rigorous post-election audits, a practice I hope every state adopts in the next few years.
#hugops to the @cloudflare.social team.
November 18, 2025 at 2:25 PM
#hugops to the @cloudflare.social team.
I will never tire of this awesomeness.
November 18, 2025 at 2:19 AM
I will never tire of this awesomeness.
A shout-out to mail-tester.com, a fantastically useful tool to debug SPF/DKIM records for reliably sending out emails.
Newsletters spam test by mail-tester.com
mail-tester.com is a free online service that allows you to test your emails for Spam, Malformed Content and Mail Server Configuration problems
mail-tester.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:01 PM
A shout-out to mail-tester.com, a fantastically useful tool to debug SPF/DKIM records for reliably sending out emails.
The new Turing test is to ask an AI Chat bot to write you a joke about a particular theme. OMG they're all soooo bad. Like an uncanny valley of humor where you can kind of see why the AI finds it funny, but it's just not.
November 14, 2025 at 1:54 PM
The new Turing test is to ask an AI Chat bot to write you a joke about a particular theme. OMG they're all soooo bad. Like an uncanny valley of humor where you can kind of see why the AI finds it funny, but it's just not.
As much as it would be so convenient to vote on our phones, it's just not a safe thing to do.
That said, we also need more transparency in voting systems, in particular open-source software. So kudos to this team for open-sourcing their voting system.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
That said, we also need more transparency in voting systems, in particular open-source software. So kudos to this team for open-sourcing their voting system.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
Will People Trust Voting by Phone? Alaska Is Going to Find Out.
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 4:38 PM
As much as it would be so convenient to vote on our phones, it's just not a safe thing to do.
That said, we also need more transparency in voting systems, in particular open-source software. So kudos to this team for open-sourcing their voting system.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
That said, we also need more transparency in voting systems, in particular open-source software. So kudos to this team for open-sourcing their voting system.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...
Reposted by Ben Adida
Empathy is a simple but profound mechanism for building social cohesion, says @claireadida.bsky.social of @stanfordcddrl.bsky.social.
Using quantitative and field methods, Adida studies what creates or dissolves cohesion, and how that can be used to inform better policymaking.
Using quantitative and field methods, Adida studies what creates or dissolves cohesion, and how that can be used to inform better policymaking.
Meet Our Researchers: Dr. Claire Adida
Exploring how empathy and perspective-taking shape migration, inclusion, and public attitudes toward diversity with FSI Senior Fellow Claire Adida
ow.ly
November 11, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Empathy is a simple but profound mechanism for building social cohesion, says @claireadida.bsky.social of @stanfordcddrl.bsky.social.
Using quantitative and field methods, Adida studies what creates or dissolves cohesion, and how that can be used to inform better policymaking.
Using quantitative and field methods, Adida studies what creates or dissolves cohesion, and how that can be used to inform better policymaking.
Happy Election Day! More than 6 years of powering elections across America with @voting.works, it's just as exciting and inspiring as the first time.
November 4, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Happy Election Day! More than 6 years of powering elections across America with @voting.works, it's just as exciting and inspiring as the first time.
Genius. This reminds me of the time I guessed my French high school's minitel password (look it up) on the first try. It was the name of the school.
November 4, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Genius. This reminds me of the time I guessed my French high school's minitel password (look it up) on the first try. It was the name of the school.
Even as I am fairly optimistic about many uses of AI, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the security ramifications of the rapid expansion of agents + public web content + API access to private content.
I'm looking at you, new @github.com Slack app.
I'm looking at you, new @github.com Slack app.
October 28, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Even as I am fairly optimistic about many uses of AI, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the security ramifications of the rapid expansion of agents + public web content + API access to private content.
I'm looking at you, new @github.com Slack app.
I'm looking at you, new @github.com Slack app.
It's 2025, and we're still fully dependent on us-east-1 eh?
I know, it's super hard to change these dependencies. But also, ouch.
I know, it's super hard to change these dependencies. But also, ouch.
October 20, 2025 at 1:35 PM
It's 2025, and we're still fully dependent on us-east-1 eh?
I know, it's super hard to change these dependencies. But also, ouch.
I know, it's super hard to change these dependencies. But also, ouch.
I wrote about why the marketing tech standard of hashing PII is silly, and I abused DuckDB into being a hashing mill.
matthodges.com/posts/2025-1...
matthodges.com/posts/2025-1...
The Privacy Theater of Hashed PII
It takes a 2020 Macbook Air four hours to hash every North American phone number
matthodges.com
October 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM