271
How Instagram closed my account and gave it to a football celebrity
My name is Andrés Iniesta and my only mistake was having the exact name and last name as a famous football player.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 580 posts.
272
If David Cameron bans secure encryption he can't intercept
8:30 : Wake up and get out of bed. Open the curtains to see the sun shining, put a dressing gown on and go downstairs to make some coffee.
273
274
The Web’s Cruft Problem
The Web's Cruft Problem is out. Stay connected to Telerik Blogs for .NET, JavaScript, cross-platform app development (and beyond) news and tutorials.
275
Buenos Aires Censors and Raids the Technologists Fixing Its E-Voting System
Buenos Aires is currently in the middle of electing its mayor and city council. With a first round that took place on July 5th, and a second round due on July 19th, the election is the first time Argentina's capital city has used an electronic voting system called Vot.ar, created by local company...
276
1.5 TB of Dark Net Market scrapes
Mirrors of ~89 Tor-Bitcoin darknet markets & forums 2011–2015, and related material.
277
Victory for CloudFlare Against SOPA-like Court Order
Striking a blow against the continuing effort to force service providers to serve as IP police, CloudFlare and EFF have pushed back against a court order that would have required CloudFlare to monitor its service to enforce a trademark held by a group of music labels. Last week, Judge Alison J....
278
Users Rationally Rejecting Security Advice (2009)
This paper, by Cormac Herley at Microsoft Research, sounds like me: Abstract: It is often suggested that users are hopelessly lazy and unmotivated on security questions. They chose weak passwords, ignore security warnings, and are oblivious to certicates errors. We argue that users’ rejection of the security advice…
279
The Gig Economy
Warning: This post touches politics. The comments will likely be incendiary and polarizing. Don’t go into the comments if you don’t want to be annoyed or irritated. Many in the tech industry are taking these comments by Hillary Clinton yesterday as an ‘attack on Uber and the tech sector’: Meanwhile, many Americans are…
280
The Electric Car
The electric car is going to take over the world. Soon. Let me explain. 75% of US consumers and over 85% of US millennials own smartphones. Perhaps more amazing is that 1/4 of people in the...
281
How Microsoft Bing Censors the Middle East
Shortly after Microsoft Bing launched in 2009, researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet...
282
Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from Cthulhu
Hugh Hancock here. Charlie is currently in a space beyond place and time, folded into manifold dimensions that ring like bone-carved bells. Or to put it another way, he's on public transport. So I'm filling in for the day - he'll be back shortly!
283
Firefox, you're supposed to be in my pocket, not the other way around
Personal blog of Julien (jvoisin) Voisin
284
285
286
If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear
Since 1851 Amsterdam had a registry that recorded the following innocent pieces of data about the residents: Name, Date of birth, Address, Marital Status, Parents, Profession, Religion, Previous Addresses and Date of Death if deceased. For many years this system served well and was kept meticulously up to date.
287
Is Kickstarter covering up a scam? An open letter to CEO Yancey Strickler
Dear Yancey, I love Kickstarter. When I backed my first project in 2012, I was happy and excited to be given the opportunity to support creators with my pledge. Since then, Kickstarter has been an …
288
289
An unexpected benefit of open-sourcing our code
Recently I was contacted by Dr. Igor Kozin from The Institute of Cancer Research in London. He asked about the optimal way to compile CloudFlare's open source fork of zlib.
290
291
CRISPR Gene Editing
CRISPR is a recently discovered genomic tool that could potentially revolutionize genetic modification and editing, including gene silencing, editing, activating, and other crucial functions. It has made a big splash in the synthetic biology community, and mentions of CRISPR have started cropping up elsewhere in the…
292
Why is finance so complex? (2011)
Lisa Pollack at FT Alphaville mulls a question : “Why are we so good at creating complexity in finance?” The answer she comes up with is the “ Flynn Effect “, basically the idea that there is an uptrend in human intelligence. Finance, in this view, gets more complex over time because financiers get smart enough to…
293
Minister No More
The referendum of 5th July will stay in history as a unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage. Like all struggles for democratic rights, so too this historic rejection of the Eurogroup’s 25th June ultimatum comes with a large price tag attached. It is, therefore, essential that the great…
294
The ICANN Public Comments on WHOIS Privacy
ICANN is currently considering a proposal that “domains used for online financial transactions for commercial purpose should be ineligible for [WHOIS] privacy and proxy registrations” [ PDF ]. Given the vagueness around what would count as “commercial purpose” (tip jars? advertising? promoting your Kickstarter?) and…
295
De-Obfuscating the Statistics of Mass Shootings
After the horrifying killings at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, President Obama once more had to speak publicly about a mass shooting.
296
Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.”
My translation of DIE ZEIT’s interview with Thomas Piketty is now hosted by TheWire.in. Read it here.
297
This Industry is Fucked
My least favorite topic in the world is 'Women in Tech', so I am going to make this short but I think it's something that needs to be said.
298
Greece
Greece is a remarkable country full of wonderful people, but along dimensions of development and governance, the place is plainly pretty fucked up. It has been fucked up that way for a long time, for decades at least . This has never been secret. Anyone who has visited Athens knows it has far more in common with…
299
Wage suppression in 10 charts
Wages for typical workers lag far behind productivity growth. It hasn't always been this way and does not have to be this way. These 10 charts outline the historical context of workers’ wage trajectories, and what can be done to fix the gaping disparities.
300
The Aol Chat Room Monitor Revolt (2014)
In 1999, America Online's volunteer chat room monitors sued the company for back wages. Do today's hot Internet companies risk the same fate?