Welcome to Hack or Be Hacked
Greetings from a grumpy Japanese hacker wannabe
Hello there,
I am starting an English newsletter on Substack. I will write about how information technology affects society, focusing on technological solutions. The newsletter’s title, "Hack or Be Hacked," reflects my view that the only way to confront problems is with hacks. Or you will get (w)hacked.
I am a not-so-young hacker apprentice living in Japan. I have been involved in free software and open source for more than 20 years. I have been working on distributed networks and end-to-end cryptographic communication applications, such as I2P. More recently, I have been interested in generative AI.
You can find my 1-page web CV or more on about.me/mhatta.
My personal belief is that the variance should be maximized. Variance is the deviation from the mean or center. The greater the variance, the more diverse it is. The more diverse things are, the more robust it is.
However, recent information technology is moving in the direction of minimizing variance. The less variance there is, the more efficient it might be. But that would be the same path taken by bananas endangered due to loss of genetic diversity, or by Japan, which had a high degree of cultural homogeneity and experienced a slow decline.
I will try to post once a week. I am not a native English speaker. In fact, one of the reasons I started this newsletter is to practice my English. Please keep commenting if you notice anything, not only language. I am following Crocker's rules, by the way.
If you like what I wrote, please sign up now so you do not miss the new issue. Or even better, become a paid subscriber and support me! Sometimes I will occasionally post paid subscriber-only articles, which are more nuanced and controversial.
Again, welcome, and thanks for reading. And do not forget to tell your friends!