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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 580 posts.
Two new technologies – the modular smartphone and USB 3.1 – are set to radically accelerate the convergence of everything to a single, in-pocket device. In fact, they are so revolutionary that they will change the entire way we think about mobile computing as the iPhone did earlier this millennium.
During the week of June 8th, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that the records of all current and past US federal employees had been compromised. That includes standard employment information - address, social security numbers, etc - of over 4 million people ranging from a random forest ranger to US…
Item: The W3C HTML Working Group charter is expiring . Item: Discussion on what to do is inconclusive . Item: Things are pretty quiet in the WhatWG. Conclusion: The best thing to do about HTML is nothing .
Laudable! Let's take a look at some of the changes that arise from this, through a simple case study: making an international phone call to a relative. Before abolishing time zones I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there? Google tells me it is currently...
I recently came across the following question posted by Paul Buchheit (the founder of Gmail): Assume that I'm going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the "common good". Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest it…
Posted by Fred von Lohmann, Copyright Legal Director More than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Some of those upl...
China's social score system is full of rumor and speculation. We clear up the misconceptions and explain how the credit system really works.
In my view, what's most outmoded within science, most badly in need of retirement, is the way we structure and organize scientific knowledge itself. Academic literature, even as it moves online, is a relic of the era of typesetting, modeled on static, irrevocable, toothpaste-out-of-the-tube publication. Just as the…
Andrew Lewman, our current Executive Director, is leaving The Tor Project to take a position at...
This summer, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced an amendment to the flawed Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA) that would make it even worse, by expanding the broken Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). EFF has proposed common sense changes to this federal anti-hacking law, many of which were...
The Graduate School of Education and the Computer Science Department engaged in a joint research project to advance new approaches to teaching.
A handful of lawyers practice law in the United States without a law degree, bypassing three years of hell (and thousands of dollars in college debt). Here's how.
This paper, by Cormac Herley at Microsoft Research, sounds like me: Abstract: It is often suggested that users are hopelessly lazy and unmotivated on security questions. They chose weak passwords, ignore security warnings, and are oblivious to certicates errors. We argue that users’ rejection of the security advice…
Striking a blow against the continuing effort to force service providers to serve as IP police, CloudFlare and EFF have pushed back against a court order that would have required CloudFlare to monitor its service to enforce a trademark held by a group of music labels. Last week, Judge Alison J....
Back to: Escape from the planet of the Ice Giants | Forward to: Even More Obligatory Author Shilling
Recently I was contacted by Dr. Igor Kozin from The Institute of Cancer Research in London. He asked about the optimal way to compile CloudFlare's open source fork of zlib.
What does it mean for a baby monitor to be safe? Some things are clearly essential: It should not explode; it should not release significant quantities of dangerous gasses; if it's designed to be placed within reach of a baby, it should not pose an electrocution or choking hazard. Less obviously, if it has data or…
It is the intelligent analysis of information that would be critical in a decade from now.
Terrorists, hackers, and journalists. According to a recent Guardian article covering new Snowden documents, British spy agency GCHQ considers all of these individuals threats—various levels of threats, but threats nonetheless. One intelligence report goes so far as to say, "Of specific concern are...
Once upon a time, a journalist never gave up a confidential source. When someone comes forward, anonymously, to inform the public, it's better to risk time incarcerated than give them up. This ethical responsibility was also a practical and professional necessity. If you promise anonymity, you're obliged to deliver…
