Donald Trump on Encryption

Many have forgotten the topic since it was in the news many months ago in early 2016, but encryption was at one point a controversial topic in the American news cycle.

Back in February, the FBI asked Apple, Inc to create a version of its iPhone operating system that would allow the investigators to hack their way into the iPhone 5C of the San Bernardino shooter. Apple refused, saying that the privacy of all of their customers is of paramount interest to them, and they were not going to aid the FBI in creating a precedent where they help law enforcement with anyone they want to get into the phone of.

This turned into a national conversation and debate over encryption, which reached critical mass in the following months. Encryption can be loosely defined in the context of consumer electronics as the process of encoding messages or information in such a way that only authorized parties can read it. In this sense, it means that it's almost impossible to get into someone's locked iPhone unless you have the encryption key (which only Apple has) or you know the password to get into it. Even law enforcement is helpless to get into a well-secured locked iPhone.

Later that February, this same debate became a political issue in the presidential primary. The new President-elect Donald Trump, then just contending for the Republican nomination, made a big splash when he came out against Apple and said he would boycott Apple devices if they didn't give the 'info' to the FBI.

I use both iPhone & Samsung. If Apple doesn't give info to authorities on the terrorists I'll only be using Samsung until they give info.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2016

Just like other parts of the campaign, he made a lot of headlines and received a lot of positive press for this stance, despite how popular of a brand Apple is.

What is worrying about this, though, is that encryption is actually a really important technology that is incredibly helpful for the tech community overall. Encryption is the only way we can keep classified information out of foreign hands as a nation. It's the only way we can have secure digital communications, ensuring the same privacy we have when we talk in person with one another.

The fact that our new President-elect was willing to roll over on privacy so easily just a matter of months ago as part of a publicity stunt is very concerning and we need to remain vigilant to show our public officials, especially our soon-to-be commander-in-chief, that privacy is not something to be violated at the first sign of inconvenience for the government.

Wind Energy and Its Incredible Improvements

Wind energy, at its core, is about using large, tall turbines with several protruding petals to harness the power of the air flow of wind, creating electricity mechanically. Other than the footprint of the turbines and the possible dangers of the moving petals to airborne wildlife, wind power has a very small environmental footprint and overall has an incredible potential to use nothing but the weather to help keep our grid running.

The real problem, though, is that it has always taken a lot of turbines to create a sustainable amount of energy. It's not exactly reasonable to cover significant portions of our land with humongous, poled machines if they're not going to create a required amount of energy to replace fossil fuels.

A wind turbine / CC by jonbgem

One of the biggest advancements in recent years in regards to wind turbines has been capacity per turbine. While many efforts in turbine technological evolution have been about maximizing the potential total energy output of the turbines themselves, recent advances have focused more on the maximizing the actual day-to-day output of individual turbines, lowering costs and creating the best return on investment that wind power has seen in years.

These sorts of breakthroughs are really important as the planet continues forward towards self-sustainability. The human race is going to find it very difficult to find itself eternally churning forward if we continue to rely on finite resources of any kind, especially ones that are actively harming our planet and making things actively worse for future generations.

This sort of imperative isn't just a moral one - moral imperatives are important, but in the end ineffective. This is a humanitarian imperative. Real change on renewable energy and its accompanying technology would be a seriously significant step forward for the human race, and that's an important factor to consider.

How VoIP Closed the Gap of Personal Communication

When it comes to historical significance, most would contend that the peak of communications technology was the telegraph or the telephone. The telegraph was the very first machine that allowed us to think of information as instantly transferable. It no longer had to be tucked away elegantly in a parcel, strapped to the back of a horse. We could transform a thought into just a few fragments of energy and transfer it along phone lines.

While these paradigm shifts were of great importance, another huge shift happened over the past decade or so that it seems a lot of us didn't even notice. This is the rise of Voice over IP communication or VoIP. Ever heard of Skype? Then you know what I'm talking about.

Skype, and many of the identical services like it, provide a way to easily connect with and actually see the person you're talking to. Like the video phones in The Jetsons, they give you a window into the facial expressions and room of the other person, creating a face-to-face conversation over long distances. While conversations over just voice are fine and dandy and were clearly very important on a technological level, Skype allows for a recreation of local, immediate conversation. It's much more intimate.

This opens up a lot of possibilities! Long distance relationships are infinitely easier, whether you're a couple hours away or an entire hemisphere. Doing interviews with someone becomes easier as you can see their hand gestures as they explain an important concept or their facial expressions as they attempt to inflect a certain tone. Parents with newborn children can call up the grandparents, creating those early, important visual interactions with family members despite them being on the other side of the nation. So many social possibilities are entertained just by this simple technological shift.

These are the little things we so often forget about when we keep our heads strapped forward, always looking to the newest thing. Parts of our social lives have changed dramatically due to technology, but we barely give thought to it because it seems like such a natural change. Video calls fit so naturally into so many of our lives, we don't really have to stress the innovation. I think that's a mistake! It's just another example of progress as our world continues to turn.