Universities | Sebastian Spicker

2026

1 article

28 Jan 2026 Your Encryption Keys Are in Virginia: On BitLocker, the FBI, and Why European Universities Need Sovereign Software Microsoft confirmed last week that it produced BitLocker recovery keys to the FBI after a valid legal order. On eligible devices, Windows can back a recovery key up to a Microsoft account during setup. For European universities that handle research data, student records, and HR information under GDPR, this is not an abstract concern. It is a structural problem. The answer is not a technical workaround. It is sovereign, publicly funded, openly licensed software — and a principle that the EU has articulated but not consistently practised: public money, public code. open-sourcesovereigntyuniversities

2024

1 article

20 Aug 2024 The Invisible Entrance Fee: On Privilege, Education, and the Institutions That Reproduce Both Education is supposed to reward merit, yet German PISA outcomes remain strongly associated with socioeconomic background. Bourdieu’s theory of capital offers one account of how institutions can reproduce advantage; it is an interpretive framework, not the only causal explanation. educationprivilegeequity

2022

1 article

5 Jul 2022 Why Universities Need Their Own YouTube In June 2022 I presented on educast.nrw at the Tag der Lehre at HfMT Köln. This is the longer argument behind that talk: why universities should not outsource their video infrastructure to commercial platforms, and what a better alternative looks like in practice. educationvideoopen-source