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New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 13,066 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
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Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches
The case of David Miranda got a lot of attention around the world after UK authorities were accused of abusing an anti-terrorism law to evade the normal constitutional restrains on police power and question someone because of their political associations. Well, a very similar abuse of power appears to have happened…
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Don't trust me: I might be a spook
But the latest revelations scare me. It's one thing to find and exploit vulnerabilities in software; there's a lot of software out there which was written by developers with very little understanding of cryptography or software security, and it shows. If you care about security, we reasoned, stick to software written…
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Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go
In fiscal year 2014, the federal government will spend around $3.8 trillion. These trillions of dollars make up a considerable chunk - around 22 percent - of the US. economy, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That means that federal government spending makes up a sizable share of all money spent in the…
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Excess Automobile Deaths as a Result of 9/11
People commented about a point I made in a recent essay: In the months after 9/11, so many people chose to drive instead of fly that the resulting deaths dwarfed the deaths from the terrorist attack itself, because cars are much more dangerous than airplanes. Yes, that’s wrong. Where I said “months,” I should have…
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You are committing a crime right now (2012)
Are you reading this blog? If so, you are committing a crime under 18 USC 1030(a) (better known as the “ Computer Fraud & Abus...
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Doing Good in the Addiction Economy
The world is becoming ever-more addictive and distracting, showering us with short-term rewards. But we can still take control of those mechanisms in order to do good in the world, and make ourselv…
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PayPal Freezes Mailpile Campaign Funds
[ Update: PayPal have unfrozen the account, for now at least. Thank you for your support!]
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NSA Spying Documents to be Released As Result of EFF Lawsuit
In a major victory in one of EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, the Justice Department conceded yesterday that it will release hundreds of pages of documents, including FISA court opinions, related to the government’s secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the law...
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Court: Federal Law Allows Lying in TSA-Related FOIA Requests
Moments ago, the remaining claims in my lawsuit stemming from being illegally detained at FLL airport and then lied to about the existence of CCTV video of the incident, were dismissed. The questio…
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How much it's worth to be #1 on Hacker News for a day
Last Tuesday my blog post about using a standing desk for 2 years shot to number 1 on Hacker News for a brief but glorious 10 hours. Below I’ll explain how this impacted my traffic and sales.kamagra acheter Here’s my setup. My blog is of low-to-medium popularity, with wildly varying...
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Our Newfound Fear of Risk
We’re afraid of risk. It’s a normal part of life, but we’re increasingly unwilling to accept it at any level. So we turn to technology to protect us. The problem is that technological security measures aren’t free. They cost money, of course, but they cost other things as well. They often don’t provide the security…
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The Deal That Makes No Sense
Early this morning Microsoft acquired Nokia for €3.79 billion (plus €1.65 billion for patents). It is a deal that makes no sense. While industry observers love to pontificate about mergers and acqu…
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Developers are the autoworkers of our generation
Fifty years ago, an autoworker could provide a middle-class existence for his family. Bought a house. Put kids through college. Wife stayed home. He didn’t even need a degree. That shit’s over. Detroit just went bankrupt. No one’s got it better than developers right now. When
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Hacker News comments I'm tired of seeing
As a long-time reader of Hacker News, I keep seeing some comments they don't really contribute to the conversation. Since the discussions a...
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More on the NSA Commandeering the Internet
If there’s any confirmation that the U.S. government has commandeered the Internet for worldwide surveillance, it is what happened with Lavabit earlier this month. Lavabit is—well, was—an e-mail service that offered more privacy than the typical large-Internet-corporation services that most of us use. It was a small…
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Google CEO Eric Schmidt Dismisses the Importance of Privacy
Yesterday, the web was buzzing with commentary about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's dangerous, dismissive response to concerns about search engine users' privacy. When asked during an interview for CNBC's recent "Inside the Mind of Google" special about whether users should be sharing information with...
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Why You’ve Never Read “I Have A Dream”
(I know some people will be interested in a followup post to Don’t Fly During Ramadan . I plan on writing one, but this post happens to be timely.)
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Humor: Interview with an Ex-Microsoftie Who Used to Name OS Folders
—Sure is. I thought, "This is where we'll put the programs. On the file system. And since they're gonna be made out of files, I'll stick the word "Files" on the end. With a space in the middle. People are going to be typing this all the time, so they'll want it to be as long and descriptive as possible."
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Detaining David Miranda
Last Sunday, David Miranda was detained while changing planes at London Heathrow Airport by British authorities for nine hours under a controversial British law—the maximum time allowable without making an arrest. There has been much made of the fact that he’s the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter whom…