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Last night my phone's screen started to fail. It turned out to be really good at failing, because by the time I got home, it was completely black. I rebooted the phone this morning and I can get in, at least. The worst part about a failing mobile phone is that you could lose all your multi-factor authentication data. If you've ever had to unwind MFA, one site at a time, you know what I'm talking about. The nearest T-Mobile store opens in half an hour. Cassie and I will be there.

Item the first: Bruce Schneier discusses how Russian censors have tried to shut down Telegram, an encrypted communications app: Russia has been trying to block Telegram since April, when a Moscow court banned it after the company refused to give Russian authorities access to user messages. Telegram, which is widely used in Russia, works on both iPhone and Android, and there are Windows and Mac desktop versions available. The app offers optional end-to-end encryption, meaning that all messages are...

Alexis Madrigal, closer to an X-er than a Millennial, rhapsodizes on how the telephone ring, once imperative, now repulses: Before ubiquitous caller ID or even *69 (which allowed you to call back the last person who’d called you), if you didn’t get to the phone in time, that was that. You’d have to wait until they called back. And what if the person calling had something really important to tell you or ask you? Missing a phone call was awful. Hurry! Not picking up the phone would be like someone...

We live in an era of ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity. I'm writing this on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, with all my current documents synchronized with OneDrive, and six browser tabs open on Chrome...on an airplane over Wyoming. I love in-flight WiFi. Sometimes. But right now, with three of my browser tabs spinning endlessly while I wait for them to download, and a Microsoft Excel document taking a few minutes to close (because it's uploading changes to OneDrive), I'm just trying to keep things in...