opinion | Security through obscurity: hiding the unpleasant through bad writing

Verbal camouflage.

In his aptly named seminal book, “On Writing Well,” William Zinsser extolls the virtues of simplified, well-crafted prose. He crusades against the cloudy and the obtuse, which is used to both hide inadequacies and inflate the importance of people in power. “Clutter,” he writes, “is the disease of American writing.”

The State of New York might want to see a doctor.

news | Panama Papers source calls for whistleblower protection, criticizes groups in statement

The anonymous source of a large cache of documents collectively known as the "Panama Papers" issued a wide-ranging statement on Thursday criticizing several groups and calling for the protection of whistleblowers from prosecution. The statement was confirmed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper that first broke the story in conjunction with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

news | Apple store rallies reveal wider rights issue

A reporter interviews an activist outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. Credit: Author

NEW YORK—A small knot of about 20 people stood outside the flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue early Tuesday evening to show solidarity with Apple as it continues to fight a government request to unlock an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the shooter in the San Bernardino attacks. Although the debate centers around Apple’s refusal to bypass or disable security features in the shooter’s smartphone, activists at the rally revealed a deeper, ideological debate about privacy, security, and government overreach in the digital age.