Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Affiliated Faculty, University Writing Program | University of Utah
rob@robertwgehl.org
A few days ago, I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, opened up my laptop, started up the Tor Browser, and read the New York Times. But I didn’t type in https://www.nytimes.com into the Tor Browser. I instead typed https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ [warning: that’s an onion link]. That 16 character alphanumeric address took me to the […]
Yesterday was a surprising, difficult day for a lot of us. For many of us based in the U.S., amidst whatever political feelings we were having, it spurred us to think hard about our own work and research agendas, and how they should shift to face new political realities. So some of us spent the day […]
If someone says “Dark Web,” the first thing to come to mind might be drugs. Or guns. Or hitmen for hire. Or worse, child pornography. Indeed, we are in yet another Internet moral panic, this time about mysterious Web sites that cannot be accessed with a standard browser, sites that have bizarre URLs such as […]
The last tweet you got may have been from a robot. A socialbot, to be exact. Like some neo-Asimovian science fiction story, networks of socialbots are beginning to spread across social media, liking, Tweeting, and friending unsuspecting humans, biding their time, gathering information, and subtly shaping our online lives. Moreover, these ‘bots are fascinating, and […]