Writing

I write about privacy, digital rights, security, tech policy, and occasionally whatever else I feel like. No newsletter. No SEO. Just things I think are worth saying.

  • What Greatness?
    by ogawaken
    I am so fucking tired. And I mean that in the deepest, most bone-level way possible. I am pissed in equal measure, and I am done pretending this is normal or that measured language is going to fix it. If you’re reading this and you’re not furious, you’re either not … Read more
  • You Are the Democracy
    by ogawaken
    I got called for jury duty. I was genuinely excited about it. I know how that sounds. Most people treat a jury summons the way they treat a parking ticket — an inconvenience to survive and escape as fast as possible. They show up hoping to get dismissed. They rehearse … Read more
  • What Is There to Love?
    by ogawaken
    People ask me what I love about Louisiana. My genuine answer is “what is there to love?” That’s not cynicism for its own sake. It’s the conclusion you arrive at when you stop romanticizing the state’s culture long enough to look at what the data actually says. And the data … Read more
  • The Living Force and the Necessity of Darkness: Balance, Agency, and the Skywalker Legacy
    by ogawaken
    Abstract The conventional reading of the Star Wars saga frames Anakin Skywalker’s fall as a tragedy and his redemption as the fulfillment of a prophecy about restoring balance to the Force. This paper argues for a more layered interpretation: the destruction of the Jedi Order was not a deviation from … Read more
  • They Told You It Was Fiction
    by ogawaken
    George Orwell. Ray Bradbury. Alan Moore. Three different writers, three different decades, three different formats. One thing in common: they each sat down and tried to warn you. Not predict. Warn. Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949 after watching fascism and Stalinism operate up close. Bradbury published Fahrenheit 451 in … Read more
  • The Road Was Always Paved
    by ogawaken
    There’s a temptation to treat what’s happening to American democracy right now as a sudden break — a rupture, an aberration, a thing that came out of nowhere. It didn’t. What we’re watching is the endpoint of a road that’s been under construction for over forty years. We just weren’t … Read more
  • Tech Rackets We All Accept
    by ogawaken
    App Stores Are a Racket and We All Just Accepted It Let me say what a lot of people in tech are thinking but won’t put in writing because they work for someone who does business with one of these companies: app stores are one of the most successful long … Read more
  • Politics over Protection
    by ogawaken
    They Gutted CISA on Purpose, and Everyone Knows It Let’s not pretend this is about budget discipline. The Trump administration’s proposed FY2027 budget cuts CISA by somewhere between $361 million and $707 million — they can’t even get their own numbers straight — which drops the agency from roughly $3 … Read more
  • Lawn Chairs and Lag: A Love Letter to Esports Before the Lights
    by ogawaken
    Foreword — We Were the Spark We didn’t watch esports grow. We built it. We watched on laggy streams. We posted in forums at 3am. We flew across the country to compete for $500 and bragging rights. We tuned in when the stream went live—not for money, not for merch, … Read more
  • Microsoft Recall and the Price of Convenience
    by ogawaken
    There is a database sitting on Windows machines right now that contains a continuously updated, semantically searchable, AI-indexed record of everything the user has done on that computer. Every document opened. Every message read. Every website visited. Every password field that appeared on screen. Every draft written and deleted. It … Read more
  • Digital Lockdown: How Age Verification Laws Violate the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments
    by ogawaken
    An Opinion on Colorado SB 26-051, California AB 1043, and New York SB S8102A Introduction Colorado, California, and New York have all introduced or passed legislation requiring operating systems to report age brackets to app stores and websites, and in New York’s case, mandating that adults verify their identity through … Read more
  • You Bought It. You Don’t Own It. And That Was the Plan.
    by ogawaken
    Let’s be real about something: when you hand over money for a product, you should own that product. Not license it. Not subscribe to it. Not rent access to it pending the manufacturer’s continued goodwill. Own it the way you own a hammer or a chair or a book. You … Read more