8791
How to catch a spy that is using a numbers station – The KGB Experience
From 2019 on, the Latvian National Archive offers access to various KGB documents.The Archive digitized operation cases and also special KGB training manuals.
Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 13,070 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
Any year
8792
How “Legal” Are Seed Libraries?
After the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture cracked down on a community seed library, hundreds of seed libraries in the U.S. are suddenly wondering if they are breaking the law. According to PA regulators, in order to give out member-donated seeds, the Simpson Seed Library in Cumberland County would have to put…
8793
The user experience problems of quadratic voting
In their seminal book, "Radical Markets," Eric Posner and Glen Weyl introduce quadratic voting to improve (or radicalize) democratic preference voting. They argue that by allowing voters to
8794
Swiss police automated crime predictions but has little to show for it
A review of 3 automated systems in use by the Swiss police and judiciary reveals serious issues. Real-world effects are impossible to assess due to a lack of transparency.
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Man Convicted Based on Erroneous Evidence Exonerated After 25 Years
(Charlotte, NC – March 2, 2016) Mecklenburg County District Attorney Andrew Murray filed legal papers on February 16th dismissing the indictments against Timothy Bridges, who wrongly served over 25 years for a rape and burglary, based in large part on the erroneous testimony of an FBI-trained state hair analyst who…
8797
Solar storm risk and EMP attacks
A Q&A style dialogue to separate fact from fiction.
8798
Justice-as-a-Service
There’s a new wave of customer empowerment coming. It’s called Justice-as-a-Service (JaaS), and you need to know about it because it benefits you – you just don’t know it yet. We’ve all...
8799
The Myth of Japanese Longevity
Bioinformatics, genomics, and Javascript
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8801
The first serious infowar is now engaged
by John Perry Barlow Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.We have no elected...
8802
Google steers Americans looking for health care into "junk insurance"
Being "the enshittification guy" means that people expect you to weigh in on every service or platform that has been deliberately worsened to turn a buck. It's an impossible task (and a boring one besides). There's too much of this shit, and it's all so mid – a real "banality of enshittification" situation.
8803
Letter to MIT community regarding support of students behind ‘Tidbit’
The following email was sent this evening to the MIT community by President L. Rafael Reif.
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8805
This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory
Значение ISO нелегальных фотографий находится в прямой зависимости от серьезности последствий задержания. Открытое акционерное общество «НПО Энергомаш имени академика В.П.Глушко» является ведущим предприятием в мире по разработке мощных жидкостных ракетных двигателей для космических…
8806
Dear Record Labels: Focus on Buyers, Not Thieves
Watch streaming video, find interesting podcasts, and discover classic music and new songs from independent artists.
8807
Of Course It's a Coup
Miss the obvious, lose your republic
8808
Mythology About Security
Ed Felton tweeted a few days ago: “Often hear that the reason today’s Internet is not more secure is that the early designers failed to imagine that security could ever matter. That is a myth…
8809
8810
The Invention of the Baby Carrot
Baby carrots are just regular carrots cut up and polished down. They're also the biggest thing to happen to carrots since orange. How did it happen?
8811
Why Our Super Bowl Ad Failed
Cards Against Humanity purchased a Super Bowl ad, but it was not successful.
8812
The communications systems at the US Central Command headquarters
A weblog about Signals Intelligence, Communications Security and top level telecommunications equipment
8813
Arguments Supporting Warrantless Surveillance Wither When Exposed to Sunlight
The government recently declassified a secret letter, written in 2002 laying out the executive branch’s initial legal justifications for the vast expansion of electronic surveillance after September 11, 2001. Like many others, it was written by former DOJ Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo,...
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Hi, I’d Like to Add Myself to the New Yorker (2016)
Personal site of designer Frank Chimero
8815
Before You Get Too Excited About That GitHub Study
Another day, another study purporting to find that Tech Is Sexist. Since it’s showing up here, you probably already guessed how this is going to end. Most of this analysis is not original to …
8816
Deceptions, Misinformation, and Word Games Used to Mislead About Surveillance
It’s been two months since President Barack Obama first said that he welcomes a debate about NSA surveillance, which he once again reiterated last week at his press conference. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to have a real debate about a subject when the administration constantly and intentionally...
8817
How Quickly Can the DoD Rebuild and Recast the Munitions Industrial Base?
The U.S. munitions industrial base should be rebuilt and recast for modern wars of precision and attrition. What is a realistic timeline for this goal? By analyzing DOD budget documents and industry announcements, this analysis provides a clearer picture of the planned future.
8818
The polls messed up
To continue our post-voting, pre-vote-counting assessment (see also here and here ), I want to separate two issues which can get conflated: 1. Problems with poll-based election forecasts.
8819
Starbucks, Google and Amazon: the tax crash of Monday afternoon
It is rare that US companies are ever held to account by their shareholders: US law does not encourage it. It is rarer still that they are held to account in the UK and yesterday's Parliamentary Accounts Committee hearing on the tax affairs of three of the biggest of them...
8820
The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero (2022)
Counterintuitively, businesses, customers, and society prefer having fraud to what they'd need to do to not have it.