Hello and welcome to Perilous Tech, the warning label for emerging technology. Established in 2020, this blog focuses on occasional thoughts at the intersection of technology, privacy, and humanity. I’m Nathan, a veteran researcher leading the fundamental and applied research team at a global cybersecurity company and a former Associate Professor at UAT, part of the University’s NSA/DHS Center for Academic Excellence.
Throughout my 25+ year career, I’ve focused on issues in software and product security, emerging technologies, and the impact of social technologies. I’ve discovered vulnerabilities in major products, identified new attack vectors, and built security tools. I’m also a creative, spending time in the music industry and working on my own art.
For over twenty years, I’ve presented at conferences around the globe on a variety of topics. Since 2009, I’ve served on the review board for Black Hat, evaluating research for inclusion in conferences worldwide. I’m currently the track lead for the AI, ML, and Data Science track.
Since I focus on risks, people often assume I hate AI. This isn’t the case. I’m also not a skeptic. I’m a critic. I’ve joked that I’m a hype critic. To avoid confusion, I’ve written a post about my perspective on AI and its advancement, which you can read here.
Content
I mostly focus on big-picture ideas rather than providing hot takes on current events. My hope is that the content on this site remains relevant for a longer time horizon than the ephemeral nature of current events.
I mainly write this blog for myself. I’m a firm believer in writing to refine your ideas (I write every day). However, you’ll see I post very little. With the posts I share, I hope to spur ideas and food for thought. I’m concerned about the impacts of technology on humanity and spend much of my time thinking about that. These are thorny issues that often don’t have simple answers.
I’m not providing medical advice. Use as directed.
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Contact
If you would like to contact me, you may do so by filling out the form on the Contact page.
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On Bluesky (Occasional Use)
Why a WordPress Blog and not <insert platform here>?
In short, I like owning my own content. This is somewhat of a dated concept these days. In addition to content ownership, many of these platforms can be relatively transitory. In my mind, it becomes something like, why a blog and not MySpace?
Sure, I may be sacrificing visibility for my ownership, but I’m fine with that. I’m writing content I hope will be valuable for years to come, not just a momentary blip in our short-attention-span world. This may be wishful thinking, but that’s what I hope.
100% Human
The insights and writing on this site are 100% human. I don’t use AI text-generation tools to write posts, and I don’t use tools like ChatGPT to refine my thoughts on topics. My thoughts are refined through reading, writing, and revision. The only AI-generated content on this site is some of the images used in posts and featured images.
Legal
No permission is given to scrape the content on this site and use it to train machine learning models.