Quinn Norton is a writer who likes to hang out in the dead end alleys and rough neighborhood of the Internet, where bad things can happen to defenseless little packets. She writes about hackers, humans, bodies, technologies, and internets.
"Useless in terms of… tactical details" -Stratfor
Where Murder Dances With Law A while back, maybe a decade and change ago during the Obama administration, I was drinking with some nerdy friends in a San Francisco hackerspace. We got to talking about National Security law, hacktivism, and terrorism. I had been Wired’s correspondent on Anonymous, and probably understood The hacktivist collective better […]
Yesterday, French Prime Minister Sebastian Lecornu gave the speech of his life. Tomorrow, he’ll find out if it worked. Update: It worked. Sebastian Lecornu survived the No Confidence vote. Next come the hard part: governing France. Something shifted in French politics, while Macron was off arm wrestling with Trump in Egypt. Lecornu, self-proclaimed Macron’s warrior […]
Every Manny for Himself (Apologies for the delay, Macron ran out my work day, went into my Saturday, but damn it, this is still France) After a mean girl spat, in which the leader of the ever-more-trending-hard-right Le Republicans, Retailleau, said he can’t be in a government with that bitch Bruno Le Maire, Lecornu gave […]
Another Season, Another French Prime Minister Blowing in the Wind. Back when we last visited the Dysfunctional 5th Republic of France, The young and fairly talented Gabriel Attal was the Prime Minister of the country as it went into Macron’s disastrous parliamentary elections. The elections went, well… disastrously. The final result yielded a parliament incapable […]
LLMs are Lead Part 4- Delusion, Psychosis, and Child Murder (Go to Part Three) This installment deals with self harm quite a lot. If you’re not in a good place right now, please skip this. If you or someone you know is suicidal, the suicide hotline in America is the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, […]
The America We’re Losing I have a fond memory of dropping my barely school-aged child off with a friend for babysitting. My friend, Simone, took my daughter’s hand and said “You’re going to learn the right way to misuse a roman candle!” I held up my hands, and shouted “ten!” to indicate how many fingers […]
Proteins, Factories, and Wicked Solutions Part 3- But What is AI Good For? (Go to Part Two)(Go to Part four) There are many frames and metaphors to help us understand our AI age. But one comes up especially often, because it is useful, and perhaps even a bit true: the Golem of Jewish lore. The […]
The Death of the Internet and Karim Khan’s Inbox The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan is not having a good year, and neither is the ICC in general. It was never an easy job, going after people who commit Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The ICC tries to prosecute crimes in opposition to […]
Why you should use Signal (But maybe ditch Whatsapp?) Pete Hegseth is Bad at His Job The Secretary of Defense and Fox Host Pete Hegseth keeps using Signal to talk about war plans with people he’s not supposed to be talking with at his day job. He also gets caught, because he’s bad at security […]
Protesting Safer in America It’s not looking good out there, and a lot of people in the coming months (and maybe years) will be taking the streets to show the government their displeasure. Protesting the Trump Administration is still legal, but there’s a lot you should know before you take your rights out for some […]