The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
March 19th, 2019 Dear Members of the European Parliament, The companies signing this letter to the European Parliament are urging you to vote against Articles 11 and 13 of the proposed copyright directive. The text of the trilogue agreement would harm the European economy and seriously undermine the ability of…
Update, 25 March: The Italian, Galician, Asturian, and Catalan Wikipedias have blacked themselves out today to protest the EU Copyright Directive. Other language versions of Wikipedia have chosen to show site banners above their content. Wikipedia’s volunteer editing communities make decisions like this independently…
For nearly a decade, we’ve been in discussions with the European Commission about the way some of our products work. Throughout this process, we’ve always agreed on one …
Twilio's CEO talks about trusted communications, reputation, robocalling, and making it safe to pick up your phone again.
Last month, Google announced that its Nest Secure would be updated to work with Google Assistant software. The problem? Google never told users its product had a microphone to begin with. Simple oversight or invasion of privacy? We break it down.
If you are a dairy farmer looking for ways to reduce your environmental impact, Hanskamp's CowToilet may be for you. This innovative system is designed to…
In cities all over America, we deter people from revitalizing neighborhoods by punishing them with higher taxes for improving their property. A change in how we tax property could fix these incentives.
In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? (Asked of independents: As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?)
This paper finds evidence that opioid availability decreases labor force participation while a large labor market shock does not influence the share of opioid abusers. We first identify the effect of availability on participation using the geographic variation in opioid prescription rates. We use a combination of the…
A team of researchers have examined the source code published as part of the SwissPost e-voting system, provided by Scytl, and discovered a cryptographic trapdoor.
On February 17, seven Blackwater-like security contractors were arrested in Haiti while driving in unmarked vehicles and transporting illegal weaponry and tactical equipment. They claimed to be on a government mission. Four days later the US “rescued” them. None are expected to face charges. What happened?
Some airlines and national aviation authorities have grounded their Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the wake of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 (ET302).
We are happy to announce that the European Commission has awarded €2 million to Proton AG, the parent company of Proton Mail and Proton VPN, to develop a suite of encrypted services.
In 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate exceeded Europe’s for the first time in decades. Apologists for European labor market regulation rejoiced, so I publicly bet that European unemployment would exceed U.S. unemployment over the next decade. The original authors I targeted turned me down, even after I offered a 1…
Item: In the past two years, Portland Public Schools has spent nearly $12.5 million of its scarce funds to clean up the air at Harriet Tubman Middle School. This money will buy an expensive state-of-the-art air filtration system that will make the air inside the school safe for students to breathe. Scientists from…
When we publicly demanded that Facebook stop messing with users’ phone numbers last week, we weren’t expecting the social network to double down quite like this: By default, anyone can use the phone number that a user provides for two-factor authentication (2FA) to find that user’s profile. For...
German Data Privacy Commissioner Ulrich Kelber is also a computer scientist, which makes him uniquely qualified to comment on the potential consequences of the proposed new EU Copyright Directive. The Directive will be voted on at the end of this month, and its Article 13 requires that online...
One teacher compares the life of a middle schooler in 2008 versus 2018. There is a startling difference. Learn what life looks like for middle schoolers today, and gain valuable tips on how to reclaim childhood for your kids in this digital age.
Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries despite paying much more for healthcare. What factors may explain this?
As a leader in the global movement toward open access to publicly funded research, the University of California is taking a firm stand by deciding not to renew its subscriptions with Elsevier. Despite months of contract negotiations, Elsevier was unwilling to meet UC’s key goal: securing universal open access to UC…
A few months ago, people across the world were asked “What is Wikimedia?” Almost no one answered correctly. But while “Wikimedia” may not be widely recognized outside our movement, there is a clear way to use our existing brands to better bring in the billions of people who have yet to join us in our….
This Research Brief presents updated data on crash risk using data on crashes from the US DOT in conjunction with data on driving mileage from the AAA Foundation's American Driving Survey.
Cancers are one of the leading causes of death globally. Are we making progress against them?
D ystopia is all the rage these days. Not only does it make for hit television, in the form of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle , but it is the concern of many popular fiction and Internet ruminations. Indeed, it has become a weaponized term in the culture, used against Donald Trump…
In most issues of EFFector, we give an overview of all the work we’re doing at EFF. Today, in light of recent developments at the U.S. Patent Office, we’re doing a deep dive into a single issue: recent changes to the patent system, and how it’s in danger of heading backwards.
