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In Memoriam: Ian Murdock
Docker is a founding member of the Blueprint Alliance, a 12-company reference architecture for securing AI agents, built around four governance questions.
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 268 posts.
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New Hacker News Guideline: Avoid Gratuitous Negativity
The HN team members are some of the most thoughtful people about online communities I’ve ever met. So I’m always excited when they have a new idea to try. This idea is simple. We’re updating the guidelines to add: “Avoid gratuitous negativity.” Critical thinking is good; shallow cynicism, on the other hand, adds…
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We are under attack
Fighting censorship with technology since 2011. We use AI to monitor censorship and expand free speech worldwide.
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A Decade-Old Gag Order, Lifted
More than a decade ago, a man named Nick Merrill approached the NYCLU and ACLU with an unusual request for help. At the time, Nick ran a small Internet access and consulting business, called Calyx, in New York City.
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Britons: You Have 72 Hours to Stop the Snooper's Charter
Update: You did it! After a forceful debate on Monday 26 January, in which many peers protested the introduction of these amendments, Lord Blair withdrew them from consideration. Directly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, we cautioned the public and politicians to be "wary of any attempt to rush...
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Two HN Announcements
The HN community feels like it owns HN, and we like it that way. HN has become an important institution in the tech community, and though it was initially developed for YC founders it’s clearly evolved into much more than that. We’ve always felt that the best way for HN to benefit YC is simply for it to maximally…
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EFF’s Game Plan for Ending Global Mass Surveillance
We have a problem when it comes to stopping mass surveillance. The entity that’s conducting the most extreme and far-reaching surveillance against most of the world’s communications—the National Security Agency—is bound by United States law. That’s good news for Americans. U.S. law and the...
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The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared
Today's release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions...
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VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation
Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GNU General Public…
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“Citizenfour” Awarded Oscar for Best Documentary in 2014
CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras' riveting documentary about Edward Snowden's efforts to shed light on gross surveillance abuses by the United States government and its partners, just won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Tonight's Oscar win recognizes not only the incredible...
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Researchers Could Have Uncovered Volkswagen’s Emissions Cheat If Not for DMCA
Automakers argue that it’s unlawful for independent researchers to look at the code that controls vehicles without the manufacturer’s permission. We’ve explained before how this allows manufacturers to prevent competition in the markets for add-on technologies and repair tools. It also makes it harder for watchdogs to…
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Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet
Facebook's Internet.org project, which offers people from developing countries free mobile access to selected websites, has been pitched as a philanthropic initiative to connect two thirds of the world who don’t yet have Internet access. We completely agree that the global digital divide should be...
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A Designer's War on Misleading Parking Signs
The story of a girl who got too many parking tickets, and dared to dream of a better tomorrow.
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Parents with annual family incomes below $125,000 will pay no tuition
News, research, and insights from Stanford University.
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Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation is filing suit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) of the United States. The lawsuit challenges the NSA’s mass surveillanc…
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EFF Wins Battle Over Secret Legal Opinions on Government Spying
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has won its four-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over secret legal interpretations of a controversial section of the Patriot Act, including legal analysis of law enforcement and intelligence agency access to census records. The U.S....
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Open Letter to Microsoft’s CEO: Don’t Roll Back the Clock on Choice and Control
Satya, I am writing to you about a very disturbing aspect of Windows 10. Specifically, that the update experience appears to have been designed to throw aw
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I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure
Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler. A settlement reached today in a lawsuit I brought against the police department makes it clear that it is not.
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Did the FBI Pay a University to Attack Tor Users?
The Tor Project has learned more about last year's attack by Carnegie Mellon researchers on the...
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Section 215 Expires For Now
Senate to Vote on USA FREEDOM Act Later in the WeekSection 215 has expired. At least for now.The law that the NSA used to authorize its collection of vast amounts of information about the telephone calls of ordinary Americans is no more. Even though it’s likely temporary, it’s a good thing and we...
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Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results
New cars, including the Mercedes A, C and E class, BMW 5 series and Peugeot 308, are now swallowing around 50% more fuel than their lab test results, new…
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Ruling from USPTO Invalidates All Claims Used to Threaten Podcasters
San Francisco - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invalidated key claims in the so-called “podcasting patent” today after a petition for review from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)—a decision that significantly curtails the ability of a patent troll to threaten podcasters big...
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Is This Justice? Charging an Eighth Grader with a Felony for “Hacking”
A 14-year-old eighth grader in Florida, Domanik Green, has been charged with a felony for “hacking” his teacher’s computer. The “hacking” in this instance was using a widely known password to change the desktop background of his teacher’s computer with an image of two men kissing. The outrage of...