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Combating abuse in Matrix – without backdoors
Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 423 posts.
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Portland passes low-density zoning reform
The reform sets a new standard: up to four homes on almost any lot, or up to six homes for price-regulated projects.
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Iceland radically cut teenage drug use
The relationship between people and the state has allowed an effective national programme to cut the rates of teenagers smoking and drinking to excess.
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Caltech Awards 10,000th PhD Degree
On Friday, October 30, Caltech conferred degrees on 51 graduate students by a vote of the Board of Trustees as part of a special allowance made for students impacted by coronavirus-related campus closures.
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Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030
The scientific consensus is clear. The world confronts an urgent carbon problem. The carbon in our atmosphere has created a blanket of gas that traps heat and is changing the world’s climate. Already, the planet’s temperature has risen by 1 degree centigrade. If we don’t curb emissions, and temperatures continue to…
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The Patent Office is “adjusting” to a Supreme Court ruling by ignoring it
In 2014, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Alice v. CLS Bank case. The Court held generic computers, performing generic computer functions, can’t make something eligible for patent protection. That shouldn’t be controversial, but it took Alice to make this important limitation on patent-...
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Zero-sum thinking on immigration will make America poorer
ZERO-SUM THINKING ON IMMIGRATION WILL MAKE AMERICA POORER Beatrice Magistro Nicolas Wittstock On June 23rd 2020, President Donald Trump imposed restrictions on several categories of visas for foreign workers until the end of the year. The proclamation his administration issued explaining this decision suspended…
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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
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US internet speeds 91% faster in 2020 according to user speed tests
Internet speeds in the US were more than twice as fast as Europe's in 2021.
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Drivers who keep their windows down are exposed to 80 percent more air pollution
Discover how Surrey researchers show driving with windows down increases exposure to air pollution by around 80%, with implications for health.
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Monopoly Technology Platforms Are Colonizing Education
Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.
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An Archive of a Different Type
It was supposed to be magazines.Elaine Wooton contacted me as many people do - in the middle of a shutdown and discard project, asking if the Internet Archive might want some of what is destined for deep storage or the trash compactor. In this case, she said, there might be some old journals and magazines
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72% of Americans say social media companies have too much political influence
Roughly half of Americans think social media companies should be regulated more than they are now, our survey found.
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Mailing lists are resistant to censorship
sourcehut is a network of useful open source tools for software project maintainers and collaborators, including git repos, bug tracking, continuous integration, and mailing lists.
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Victims of school bullying are at a higher risk of developing violent behavior
A University of Cordoba and University of Cambridge study analyzed what factors in childhood and adolescence increase the likelihood of having violent...
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Why Getting Paid for Your Data Is a Bad Deal
One bad privacy idea that won’t die is the so-called “data dividend,” which imagines a world where companies have to pay you in order to use your data.Sound too good to be true? It is. Let’s be clear: getting paid for your data—probably no more than a handful of dollars at most—isn’t going to fix...
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At least 11 cities use automated surveillance in the EU
At least 11 local police forces in Europe use computer vision to automatically analyze images from surveillance cameras. The risks of discrimination run high but authorities ignore them.
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Mozilla Is Crowdsourcing Research into YouTube Recommendations
Mozilla has built a browser add-on that transforms YouTube users into YouTube watchdogs YouTube recommendations can be delightful, but they can also be…
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The value of Tor and anonymous contributions to Wikipedia
According to a recently published research paper co-authored by researchers from Drexel, NYU, and the University of Washington, Tor users make high-quality contributions to Wikipedia. And, when they are blocked, as doctoral candidate Chau Tran, the lead author describes, "the collateral damage in the form of…
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America's Growth Ponzi Scheme
The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.
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COBOL underpins the entire financial system
COBOL is a coding language older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. How a computer language controls the financial life of the world.
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Website data leaks pose greater risks than most people realize
Students find website data leaks pose greater risks than most people realize