It is easy to be seen as either a genius or a crank. If you have a Ph.D., at least you somewhat lower the chances that you will be seen as a crank.

In Google's world, public space is just something that stands between your house and the well-reviewed restaurant that you are dying to get to.

For much of its existence, design was all about convenience. We wanted to hide technology so that users are not distracted into thinking about the tools they use.

A vibrant civil society can challenge those in power by documenting corruption or uncovering activities like the murder of political enemies. In democracies, this function is mostly performed by the media, NGOs or opposition parties.

My homeland of Belarus is an unlikely place for an Internet revolution. The country, controlled by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, was once described by Condoleezza Rice as 'the last outpost of tyranny in Europe.'

We need to start seeing privacy as a commons - as some kind of a public good that can get depleted as too many people treat it carelessly or abandon it too eagerly. What is privacy for? This question needs an urgent answer.

As economic life relies more and more on the Internet, the potential for small bands of hackers to launch devastating attacks on the world economy is growing.