City of Boston electronic poll books: they DO know what they’re doing!
Boston has robust plans in place to ensure that Poll Pad failures will not compromise an election, but I still have some concerns.
Category Archives: Computer Security
Prepared remarks: Center for American Progress panel on June 30, 2025
I am slated to appear tomorrow afternoon at a virtual panel hosted by the Center for American Progress entitled “Uniformed Disservice: How Trump’s Agenda Harms Veterans and Service Members“. Below is the outline of my prepared remarks. I encourage you to join me and the other panelists for an informative and challenging discussion.
Handle MFA like a pro so you don’t get locked out or let the bad guys in
Why you should use MFA, what about passkeys, what kind of MFA to use, how to make it easier to use, and how to protect yourself against being locked out of an account because of MFA.
WaPo article about Signal use by feds with me as lead-off hitter
This morning over at The Washington Post ([archive link]), Shira Ovide, Danielle Abril, and Hannah Natanson write about Signal use among federal workers. I’m the lede (funsies!). This is a great article capturing the mood among federal workers right now, and it makes relatively clear that while what Pete Hegseth et al are doing is… Read More »
TIME quotes me about DOGE and VA, gets stuff wrong
The TIME article contains two substantive errors, several minor errors, and a curious omission.
Mar. 13 NPR “Consider This” talks about risks of DOGE data access, with cameo by me
NPR’s Ailsa Chang; Elizabeth Lair of the Equity and Civic Technology Project at the Center For Democracy and Technology; Jonathan Kamens, late of the Department of Veterans Affairs; and University of Virginia law professor Danielle Citron, talk about the risks of DOGE having access to federal government data and how the Privacy Act of 1974 is being used to push back on it.
Online privacy protection for people in the resistance: DeleteMe, Block Party
If you can make it go from taking 30 seconds to 30 minutes for a bad actor to find something private about you online, you’ll dramatically decrease the number of people willing to go through the effort. Think of it like putting an alarm-system sign on your lawn to encourage burglars to skip your house.
Feb. 26 live CNN interview about VA.gov cybersecurity
I did a brief press appearance on CNN this afternoon to talk about my firing from the VA and what that means for VA.gov cybersecurity. Here’s the video, with a transcript below it. Transcript Jessica Dean: A warning from a fired cybersecurity official for the department of veterans affairs. He sounded the alarm, saying sensitive… Read More »
Astoundingly good “WIRED” article about my firing from VA and what it means
Author Lily Hay Newman does an incredible job capturing the high stakes of compromising the security of VA.gov.
Cutting ties with Google Ads
Ads from Google are too scammy and too intrusive. I should have turned them off long ago. Now I have. If you appreciate that, please consider kicking in a few bucks to make up for the lost revenue.