Articles

These are all of my long-form articles. An Atom feed contains their full text. If that has any problems, I also have a legacy RSS feed.

Timestamp format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, as per RFC 3339. Sorted newest to oldest.

1. One-based indexing

   • Posted 2023-02-21 by Rohan Kumar.
   • 775 words; a short 4 minute read

   Should our array indices start at zero, or one? I argue that the less-popular one-based indexing is better to have in a high-level language.

2. The limited utility of the phrase “GNU/Linux”

   • Posted 2022-12-09 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-12-10.
   • 1627 words; a short 8 minute read

   “GNU/Linux” distinguishes Linux distributions primarily by the presence of GNU software, which is seldom the most meaningful or practical distinction.

3. Stylometric fingerprinting redux

   • Posted 2022-07-09 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-08-06.
   • 1456 words; a short 7 minute read

   Avoid de-anonymization through analysis of your writing style. Defend against machine- and human-driven stylometric identification.

4. An experiment to test GitHub Copilot's legality

   • Posted 2022-07-01 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-07-05.
   • 1521 words; a short 8 minute read

   A horrible idea to determine the legality of GitHub Copilot, or of re-creating proprietary speech synthesizers: create legal precedent that doesn't exist yet!

5. Two types of privacy

   • Posted 2022-06-25 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-06-26.
   • 2520 words; a 12 minute read

   "Privacy" can mean different things in different contexts. Tracking-reduction and tracking-evasion represent different goals with some conflict and overlap.

6. Best practices for inclusive CLIs

   • Posted 2022-06-10 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-12-13.
   • 2125 words; a 10 minute read

   A response to some problematic CLI UX advice, with alternative recommendations for designing more accessible CLI utilities.

7. A layered approach to content blocking

   • Posted 2022-06-04 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-07-07.
   • 1922 words; a 10 minute read

   My take on where Manifest V3 fits into the current ad-blocking landscape: it has some benefits which should complement but not replace existing approaches

8. The right thing for the wrong reasons: FLOSS doesn't imply security

   • Posted 2022-02-02 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2022-03-17.
   • 4343 words; a somewhat long 21 minute read

   While source code is critical for user autonomy, it isn't required to evaluate software security or understand run-time behavior.

9. Misinfo about Permissions Policy and FLoC

   • Posted 2021-04-16 by Rohan Kumar.
   • Last updated 2021-06-11.
   • 1505 words; a short 8 minute read

   Recently, people have been telling webmasters to add a Permissions-Policy header to their sites to opt out of FLoC. The reality of the situation isn't so simple.

10. A look at search engines with their own indexes

    • Posted 2021-03-10 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2023-03-13.
    • About 6 thousand words; a long 30 minute read

    A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

11. Keeping platforms open

    • Posted 2021-02-23 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2022-11-17.
    • 2546 words; a 12 minute read

    How open platforms become closed, and how standards-driven development can prevent it from happening.

12. WhatsApp and the domestication of users

    • Posted 2021-01-27 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2021-12-13.
    • 3192 words; a 15 minute read

    WhatsApp's rise and recent PR efforts highlight a class of business models that I call "user domestication".

13. Becoming physically immune to brute-force attacks

    • Posted 2021-01-12 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2021-12-01.
    • 2411 words; a 12 minute read

    Using thermal physics, cosmology, and computer science to calculate password vulnerability to the biggest possible brute-force attack.

14. Best practices for inclusive textual websites

    • Posted 2020-11-23 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2022-12-08.
    • About 23 thousand words; a very long 1 hour and 51 minute read

    A lengthy guide to making simple, inclusive sites focused on content before form. Emphasizes brutalist design and accessibility to include under-represented users.

15. Resilient Git, Part 1: Hydra Hosting

    • Posted 2020-11-18 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2020-11-19.
    • 524 words; a short 3 minute read

    Efficient redundancy via repository mirroring with nothing but git.

16. Resilient Git, Part 0: Introduction

    • Posted 2020-11-17 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2020-11-19.
    • 413 words; a short 2 minute read

    A seires on setting up resilient git-based project workflows, free of vendor lock-in.

17. Hello World

    • Posted 2020-11-02 by Rohan Kumar.
    • Last updated 2021-01-24.
    • 31 words; a short 1 minute read

    Seirdy's obligatory inagural blog post, which is barely longer than this description.