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The origins of the use of [x] in UI design.
Law Students Fend Off a Patent Troll
A handful of Brooklyn Law students forced a patent troll to drop a meritless lawsuit.
We’re 10 today
On our tenth birthday we can look back on a year in which our free and open world map has gone from strength to strength, being deployed by large companies such as Apple, Mapquest and Foursquare, and relief organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and the American Red Cross.
The US Intelligence Community has a Third Leaker
Ever since the Intercept published this story about the US government’s Terrorist Screening Database, the press has been writing about a “second leaker”: The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration. The article cites…
US Sought Permission to Change Historical Record of a Public Court Proceeding
A few weeks ago we fought a battle for transparency in our flagship NSA spying case, Jewel v. NSA. But, ironically, we weren't able to tell you anything about it until now. On June 6, the court held a long hearing in Jewel in a crowded, open courtroom, widely covered by the press. We were even on...
Entitlement issues (2009)
I am home. My dog is happy to see me. The world is a good place and I am behind on work because American Airlines doesn't have proper power ...
We Will Fight Until The End
Buckyballs settled their lawsuit months ago . And news of Magnicube’s settlement comes today . They’re both out of the fight.
A Contrarian View of MITx: What Are We Doing?
I love MIT but confess being frustrated . The MITx announcement added to my frustration. As outlined below, I argued against OpenCourseWare (OCW) before it was announced. I was not persuasive and lost the debate. My view of how MIT should take advantage of the digital revolution was unusual then, but is more common…
Google tips off cops after spotting child abuse images in email
The Sophos Blog
Hate Your ISP? Maybe You Need Community Fiber
Brian Carver co-authored this post. Between the net neutrality debate and the Comcast/TWC merger, high-speed Internet access is getting more attention than ever. A lot of that attention is negative, and rightly so: Internet access providers, especially certain very large ones, have done a pretty...
Introducing EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month
Here at EFF, we see a lot of stupid patents. There was the patent on “scan to email.” And the patent on “bilateral and multilateral decision making.” There are so many stupid patents that Mark Cuban endowed a chair at EFF dedicated to eliminating them. We wish we could catalog them all, but with...
Let's Build a Traditional City and Make a Profit
Let's transform an old airport site into a Traditional City.
The Business of Fake Hollywood Money
Making fake cash is a risky line of work -- even if it's as a certified Hollywood prop master.
Don't Trust Google (2002)
Many people have been writing about Google this week - either in response to the Newsweek cover story , or to the recent Wired article about Google’s growing pains, and its happy motto: “Don’t be evil”.
A Traditional City Primer
The Traditional City simply refers to the pattern of development that human civilization has built in for millenia.
EFF Asks Judge to Rule NSA Internet Backbone Spying Techniques Unconstitutional
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today presented a federal court with a detailed explanation of how the NSA taps into the Internet backbone and requested the judge rule that the agency is violating the Fourth Amendment by copying and searching the collected data. EFF argues...
Diversity and Startups
Sexism in tech is real. One of the most insidious things happening in the debate is people claiming versions of “other industries may have problems with sexism, but our industry doesn’t.” Both men and women claim this, even though it keeps getting harder to do in the face of shocks like the Tinder texts. We know there…
Firm Inefficiency
Economists are often stereotyped as claiming that firms are very economically efficient, i.e., that they very effectively minimize costs and maximize profits.
Apple Confirms “Back Doors”, Downplays Their Severity
Apple responded to allegations of hidden services running on iOS devices with this knowledge base article . In it, they outlined three of the big services that I outlined in my talk. So again, Apple has, in a traditional sense, admitted to having backdoors on the device specifically for their own use.
State Laws That Stop Cities From Installing Fast Internet
For decades, municipal broadband operations have been subject to a minefield of restrictions and barriers designed to make the prospect of establishing or maintaining a community broadband network costly, difficult, and unsustainable. The Biden administration initially pledged that the Broadband Equity, Access, and…