Columns

FROM THE EDITOR: In an Uncertain Future, The Sun is Here for You

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From the editors: 

From our office on 139 W. State Street, we try to serve the public by producing consistent, comprehensive reporting. We continue to bring you recent, responsible reporting regarding changes to campus and to the city online as they happen. But due to circumstances bigger than The Sun, we will cease regular print production after spring break until the fall. If our papers feel thin these next two weeks, know that we reduce our production to lessen the burden on the staffers and editors who work silently behind the scenes to bring the pages to your hands. We aim to always bring the highest quality coverage we can; but as our student staff is scattered across the globe and governments recommend cutting nonessential in-person work, we find that the best way to communicate to our readers will be in our online coverage.

internet

Prof Shows How Your Internet Activity Is Being Watched

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While news of data leaks and malware attacks seem to be on the upswing, there are forms of web surveillance that reveal just as much data, only they are completely legal and receive much less publicity. On Sept. 5, Cornell’s Department of Computing and Information Science kicked off the first of a series of talks that aims to discuss the importance of technological advancements and the law in exploring surveillance, privacy and bias. Prof. Arvind Narayanan, computer science, Princeton University, was the first speaker of the series and presented his research with a talk entitled “Uncovering Commercial Surveillance on the Web.”

Commercial surveillance involves techniques used by companies to discreetly and legally trace the internet activity of users. Such surveillance is so widespread that it affects anyone who uses the internet, even for basic browsing.

80s

Stranger Things Puts the Science (And Much More) Back in Science Fiction

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When you watch Stranger Things, you are immediately transported into a relic of the 1980s. It was a time when adventure was sought out, science was deemed cool and heroism was somewhat synonymous with nerdiness. We are introduced to our heros — four boys around ten years old who strive for scientific exploration, fantastical adventure and unbreakable friendship — and, as viewers, immediately become attached to them. From the beginning of the first episode, there is an underlying element of supernaturalness that becomes much more overt later in the hour. However, unlike most shows for which the basis of the storyline is made up of supernatural events, this show isn’t nauseatingly cheesy or predictable.