This week's net.wars, "The Sutton effect", goes to the 25th Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, where researchers mull the costs of cybersecurity failures:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/06/05/the-sutton-effect/ #NetWars #security #economics
The Sutton effect
One of the enduring questions in cybersecurity is how much failures cost and who pays. Many companies see cybersecurity as a cost with no return; as in housekee
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "The sovereignty paradox", goes to Computers, Privacy, and Data Proetction 2026
#cpdp and finds a lot of discussions of European values:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/29/the-sovereignty-paradox/ #privacy #NetWars
The sovereignty paradox
The year since the 2025 Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection has made Europe more distinct as an entity. Two years ago, we were being chastised for paying in
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "First, do no harm", visits the UK's latest attempt to centralize the nation's patient data into a single database:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/22/first-do-no-harm/ #NetWars #health #privacy
First, do no harm
In the midst of the recent Labour leadership turbulence, on Wednesday May 13 Wes Streeting, who would resign from his position as the UK's health minister a day
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "The Arizona way of death", revisits a 1990s TV encounter with three immortals while reading Aleks Krotoski's new book, The Immortalists:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/15/the-arizona-way-of-death/ #NetWars #books #tescreal
The Arizona way of death
Sometime in the late 1990s, I was asked to be a token skeptic on a TV show featuring three people who claimed they were immortal.
The production team didn't t
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "The soul in the machine", considers Richard Dawkins' expressed belief that his interactions with Anthropic's Claude show that the chatbot is conscious:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/08/the-soul-in-the-machine/ #NetWArs #AI
The soul in the machine
One of the first things skeptics learn is to never assume that paranormal belief implies stupidity. Smart people believe questionable things all the time; intel
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "The railway and the balloon", goes to We Robot 2026, where law, culture, and robotics try to find common ground:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/05/01/the-railway-and-the-balloon/ #NetWars #WeRobot #robots #AI #law
The railway and the balloon
Is AI more like a train or a hot air balloon? Veronica Paternolli and Ryan Calo asked at this year's We Robot. Nineteenth-century hot air balloons were notoriou
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "Intimacy capitalism", goes to the We Robot 2026 workshop day, and finds new things to worry about:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/24/intimacy-capitalism/ #NetWars #WeRobot #AI #robots
Intimacy capitalism
Many non-human characteristics make AI attractive, Sue-Anne Teo said to open this year's We Robot: endless patience, long and detailed memory, and sycophancy. I
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Long Island AI
The peak of dot-com mania was identifiable even at the time: it was in January 2000, when AOL bought Time Warner for $183 billion. Peak podcast mania argiab;u c
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "Waste management", sees the planned obsolescence of early Kindles, Microsoft's "just for entertainment" Copilot, and AI-driven new cybersecurity threats:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/10/waste-management/ #NetWars #ai #environment
Waste management
This week, Amazon announced it would cripple a bunch of older Kindle models. Users will be able to go on reading the books that are already stored on their devi
net.warsThis week's net.wars, "The Silicon Valley chronicles", notes the likely pending deathe of Meta's Oversight Board and reviews the shift in Silicon Valley politics laid out in Jacob Silverman's book, Gilded Rage:
https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/04/03/the-silicon-valley-chronicles/#NetWars
The Silicon Valley chronicles
We should have seen this coming. At Platformer, Casey Newton reports that Meta has discussed pulling funding for the Oversight Board after 2028 after already re
net.wars