New Republic

[Commentary] Over the last 5 years, the Web has witnessed a dramatic degree of centralization and standardization. That mostly has made life simpler and easier. Heartbleed, the vulnerability in SSL encryption recently discovered, makes this clear, as did the National Security Agency spying revelations in June 2013.

Once upon a time, having an account compromised might only mean so much. But as we centralize more, and put more of our lives online and into consolidated accounts, the damage from being compromised is greater.

The standard advice is just to change your passwords more often. But what would actually make the web ecosystem less vulnerable is not just better security, but more diversity and more competition at every level, even among encryption standards.

As annoying as it may seem, we’re safer when we have more accounts, with different types of encryption, spread across multiple companies. Otherwise, as the analogy goes, if all the gold is stored at Fort Knox, a thief knows where to go.

[Commentary] Earlier this year, a mother wrote to Philip Galanes, the “Social Q’s” columnist for The New York Times, asking him what to do when her ten-year-old son called Siri a “stupid idiot.”

Stop him, said Galanes; the vituperation of virtual pals amounts to a “dry run” for hurling insults at people. His answer struck me as clueless: Children yell at toys all the time, whether talking or dumb. It’s how they work through their aggression.