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Security & Privacy

The most popular blog posts about security & privacy on Hacker News. 139 posts.

2012
95

GET /browser.exe

Jon Howell dreams of a new Internet. In this new Internet, cross-browser compatibility checking is a distant memory and new features can be unilaterally be added to browsers without having to convince the world to upgrade first. The idea which makes this Internet possible is so crazy, it just might work.

96

Chrome addons hacking: Bye Bye AdBlock filters

Continuing the Chrome extension hacking (see part 1 and 2), this time I'd like to draw you attention to the oh-so-popular AdBlock extension. It has over a million users, is being actively maintained and is a piece of a great software (heck, even I use it!). However - due to how Chrome extensions work in general it is…

102

Feudal Security

It’s a feudal world out there. Some of us have pledged our allegiance to Google: We have Gmail accounts, we use Google Calendar and Google Docs, and we have Android phones. Others have pledged allegiance to Apple: We have Macintosh laptops, iPhones, and iPads; and we let iCloud automatically synchronize and back up…

107

Disassembling the Woolworths Facebook scam

Who wants free stuff? C’mon, everybody wants a free lunch, right? Yes, yes they do and that’s precisely the trigger used in scams like this one. Recently I wrote about the mechanics of another Facebook scam [https://www.troyhunt.com/2012/10/she-did-what-in-school-mechanics-

112

The Twitter "Patent Hack"

Yesterday Twitter announced that they plan to amend the assignments agreements that they sign with their employees. They call this proposed amendment the Innovator's Patent Agreement. I've been aware of this effort inside of Twitter for a while and I like to call this move the "Twitter Patent Hack" because I think…

120

Daring Fireball: Cookies and Privacy

What I detect in Google’s behavior (and John Battelle’s more-or-less defense of it) is a sense of entitlement. That because in the past ad networks could track almost all users via cookies, they are entitled to continue tracking almost all users across the web via cookies, even when a large (and growing) number of…