A clever PayPal Scam Someone just sent me ₱0.01 PHP to my PayPal account, causing PayPal to send me an email message that is the start of a clever phishing scam.

Someone sent me real money — ₱0.01 PHP.

It's a scam.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/clever...

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!

It’s never too late

Yay!

Is it of course you would want to take? That’s the comment that you’re qualified to make!

Everybody is qualified to comment on it. Is it clear?

Well, the class has started, and it is a success so far

thanks!

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?

Tape Art | Murals, Workshops, BOOM! Projector Sharing Tape Art with communities world-wide — museum and festival murals, community art projects, school workshops, and now in your home with the BOOM! Projector.

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...

GitHub - Harvard-CSCI-E-11/spring26: CSCI E-11 Class Repository for Spring 2026 CSCI E-11 Class Repository for Spring 2026. Contribute to Harvard-CSCI-E-11/spring26 development by creating an account on GitHub.

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!

Petition Restore Fully Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library Restore Fully Free and Open Access to the ACM Digital Library

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...

Please send to sgarfinkel@fas.harvard.edu

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!

Microsoft OneDrive

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...

Award Details - NSF Award Search Find award details and explore award abstracts and publications.

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/...

Award Details - NSF Award Search Find award details and explore award abstracts and publications.

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/...

Award Details - NSF Award Search Find award details and explore award abstracts and publications.

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/...

Artificial Intelligence, the Internet-of-Things, and Cybersecurity - Harvard Division of Continuing Education Course Browser In this course, we review use cases and challenges of three interrelated areas in computer science: cybersecurity (cyber), artificial intelligence (AI), and the internet-of-things (IoT). Students…

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 Peer Review Policy Peer Review Policy

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...

Platforms of power A legal scholar pushes for net neutrality and other actions to rein in tech monopolies

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

New report urges governments around the world to achieve “Digital Transformation” The Association for Computing Machinery’s global Technology Policy Council has released “TechBrief: Government Digital Transformation.” It is the latest in a series of TechBriefs&mda...

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....

To talk about Alexander Henry Strathmore’s early life is to give him a bit more biographical credit than he deserves. To talk about Alexander Henry Strathmore’s early life is to give him a bit more biographical credit than he deserves.

Sara is spilling the beans about Sascha!

substack.com/@saraabramss...

“Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead”, by Kenneth Rogoff What I'm reading, and why I'm recommending it to others.

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...

You can download it from mitdpbook.com

“Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead”, by Kenneth Rogoff What I'm reading, and why I'm recommending it to others.

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

A Simulated Reconstruction and Reidentification Attack on the 2010 U.S. Census Forthcoming. Now Available: Just Accepted Version.

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...