May 10, 2026
From Qubes to quibbles
Tracesofhumanity.org by Joanna Rutkowska
Security icon returns after 7 years — and the comments are already confused, curious, and chaotic
TLDR: Joanna Rutkowska, best known for serious security work, has returned after seven years with a new blog focused on humanity, values, and personal reflection. Commenters are split between heartfelt welcome-backs, total confusion, and fears that AI or vague philosophy could derail the comeback.
A famous computer security figure is back online after a seven-year silence, but instead of dropping a big tech manifesto, Joanna Rutkowska has launched Traces of Humanity — a deeply personal blog about big life questions, inner conflict, and balancing logic with love, beauty, community, and meaning. In plain English: the woman once known for intense digital privacy work is now writing about being human, and the internet is not sure what to do with that.
The comment section quickly split into camps. One side was warm and genuinely excited: a simple “Hi Joanna! Nice to hear from you” captured the comeback energy from longtime followers who remember her old work and are ready for whatever comes next. But the other side? Immediate side-eye. One baffled reader basically asked, “Wait, what is the context here?” while another went full blunt-force internet honesty, saying the new blog sounds like it could become “rambling about anything.” Ouch.
Then came the spiciest mini-drama: one commenter noticed a later post mentioning Claude, the AI assistant, and practically begged the universe, “please let this not be the incentive!” That one line injected instant modern-tech panic into the thread. So the vibe is deliciously mixed: part comeback tour, part existential rebrand, part "is this profound or chaotic?" spectacle. The real story isn’t just that Joanna is back — it’s that the audience is already debating whether this is a thoughtful reinvention, a midlife pivot, or the start of a very philosophical comment war.
Key Points
- •Joanna Rutkowska says she is returning to public writing after seven years with a new blog, Tracesofhumanity.org.
- •She identifies Qubes OS, started in 2009 and led by her for nine years, as part of her previous work.
- •Her earlier public writing from 2006 to 2018 focused on computer systems security, operating systems, and virtualization security.
- •She says her new blog will focus less on technical subjects and more on tensions between values such as rationality and humanism, freedom and love, and privacy and community.
- •Rutkowska states that she has not found definitive answers to human happiness and views struggle, uncertainty, and incompleteness as potentially central to humanism.