Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 13,067 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
Facebook Wants You To Snitch On Friends Not Using Their Real Name
A story about Facebook went around twitter last night that provoked quite a reaction in privacy advocates like me: Facebook, it seems, is experimenting with getting people to ‘snitch’ o…
Movie Subtitle Fansite Raided By Copyright Industry And Police
The movie subtitle fansite undertexter.se has been raided by the police and copyright industry. This marks an escalation of the war against sharing culture...
Shining a light on the digital dark age
Without maintenance, most digital information will be lost in just a few decades. How might we secure our data so that it survives for generations?
Covid-19 precautions for Stripe employees and customers
Online payment processing for internet businesses. Stripe is a suite of payment APIs that powers commerce for businesses of all sizes
State Terror, American Style
Forget about “soft autocracy”
The Difference Between ‘Violet’ and ‘Purple’ (2015)
<p class="indent">People say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s take a look at the two colours in comparison (there are various shades of purple and violet, and the following
Opt Out of Klout Now
Sites like Klout and Kred are perfect examples of social media frippery. A vaguely plausible "score" that you can use to justify your "investment" in tweeting all day long. When they're used as a silly little badge, or an informal competition with friends, they're a (mostly) harmless way of gamification. Of continual…
We want Texans to know their rights
Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. ALPRs are promoted as tools for keeping communities safe by finding missing persons and locating...
Bruce Lee and Me
A reflection on the 50th anniversary of my friend's death.
The people holding up the internet
Four billion phones ask one text file what time it is, kept by a UCLA lecturer in his spare time. We counted who maintains the code under your phone.
Thousands of Hip Hop Mix Tapes, Why Not
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been uploading thousands of Hip-hop Mixtapes into the archive. The resulting collection still has a way to go before it’s everything I have acquired a…
EFF's 100-Day Plan
The Trump presidency starts Friday. Here is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's agenda. In a matter of days, the United States will enter a new era. On Friday, President Elect Donald J. Trump will swear the oath of office, pledging to uphold the Constitution. But as EFF has learned in the course...
Searches for VPN Soar in Utah Amidst Pornhub Blockage
Utah's Google search volume for "VPN" is soaring following PornHub's decision to shut down access for the state in response to strict ID laws.
The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon
Some of the world’s largest Internet firms have taken steps to crack down on disinformation spread by QAnon conspiracy theorists and the hate-filled anonymous message board 8chan . But according to a California-based security researcher, those seeking to de-platform these communities may have overlooked a simple legal…
A New Internet Business Model?
Cloudflare launched 15 years ago this week. We like to celebrate our birthday by launching new products that give back to the Internet, which will do a lot of this week. But on this occasion we've also been thinking a lot about what's changed on the Internet and what has not.
Benzene detected in hand sanitizers
Learn how Valisure’s work in pharmaceutical quality and transparency was recognized in the U.S. Senate Aging Committee report, highlighting their collaboration with the Department of Defense and commitment to innovation.
The classifiers Anthropic puts in front of Fable are too zealous
COMBINE-lab develops algorithms, data structures, and software for high-throughput genomics.
Craigslist now asks for exclusive license when posting
I don't remember seeing this before at the bottom of the Craigslist posting form. I'm guessing this is the result of the Padmapper debacle?...
NP Complete 3rd Grade Math Problems (2018)
Leo’s third grade class got to try a Noyce Foundation math worksheet [1] the other day. They didn’t fare so well, but I gotta tell you, some of the problems are REALLY hard! In fact, on…