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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
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The Cult Inside Google
I worked for Google for about three and a half years as a video producer. I was fired because I raised alarm about a doomsday cult that…
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An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox
On Wednesday we shared that we’re introducing a new terms of use (TOU) and privacy notice for Firefox. Since then, we’ve been listening to some of our
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Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble
Annual note to self – most of the world exists outside the tech bubble. —– We have a summer home in New England in a semi-rural area, just ~10,000 people in town, with a potato fa…
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Malibu homeowners foiled by $30K Kickstarter campaign
Can you believe it? Malibu homeowners intentionally obscure public beach access areas with fake signs and hidden access. This is not only ridiculously selfish, it is illegal. Enter this...
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The End of the DreamHost vs. DOJ privacy case
From beginner guides to advanced strategies, our experts share insider tips to supercharge your web presence.
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Oxford University breakthrough on global COVID-19 vaccine
The University of Oxford, in collaboration with AstraZeneca plc, today announces interim trial data from its Phase III trials that show its candidate vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-2019, is effective at preventing COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) and offers a high level of protection.
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Ring Doorbell App Packed with Third-Party Trackers
Ring isn't just a product that allows users to surveil their neighbors. The company also uses it to surveil its customers.An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable...
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BundesMessenger, a secure messenger for Germany’s public administration
BundesMessenger is a modified version of Element which we’re working with BWI to develop and maintain.
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The Case of Richard Glossip
September 2015 I used to think the debate about capital punishment was a matter of abstract questions like when it is permissible to kill someone. In practice it isn't. In practice the problem...
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Chat Control proposal fails again after public opposition
The European Union’s controversial Chat Control proposal has been withdrawn once again following intense public pressure. This marks another defeat for legislation that would have mandated scanning of encrypted messages across the EU.
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How to design a house to last 1000 years
At last, we’re finally ready to put together the design for our house. A fully specified design, with every detail and system described, is well beyond the scope of this newsletter (not to mention the scope of my knowledge). But we can give a high-level schematic design, laying out the basic building systems and how…
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German state moving 30k PCs to LibreOffice
Following a successful pilot project, the northern German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to move from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office to Linux and LibreOffice (and other free and open source software) on the 30,000 PCs used in the local government. As reported on the homepage of the…
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A member of our community is missing, help find him
Writing and Stuff from Isaac Z. Schlueter
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Adding a phone number to your Google account can make it less secure
Recently, account takeovers, email hacking, and targeted phishing attacks have been all over the news. Hacks of various politicians, allegedly carried out by Russian hackers, have yielded troves of data. Despite the supposed involvement of state-sponsored agents, some hacks were not reliant on complex zero-day…
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A mysterious voice is haunting American Airlines’ in-flight announcements
A mysterious voice is moaning and grunting on American Airlines' in-flight announcement systems, and nobody knows who or how they're doing it.
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Ghost boat with GPS leads father-son duo to man overboard
When Andrew and Jack Sherman discovered an unmanned boat nearly 40 miles off the coast, they used its Garmin chartpotter to find the captain.
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Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
This is a lightly edited transcript of my presentation today at the ACCSS/NCSC/Surf seminar ‘Cyber Security and Society’. I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to their conference & giving me a great opportunity to talk about something I worry about a lot. Here are the original slides with notes, which may be…
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Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021
In chapet 4 candidates welding abilities were sharpened at W-M corporation which makes created Iron articles even as pre-war American ancient Rarity phonies, sold at places like childan’s shop. the biggest interest from the Japanese has made an immense Marketplace for such things and no one addresses them intently.
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Police can’t demand you reveal your phone passcode then tell a jury you refused
The Utah Supreme Court is the latest stop in EFF’s roving campaign to establish your Fifth Amendment right to refuse to provide your password to law enforcement. Yesterday, along with the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in State v. Valdez, arguing that the constitutional privilege against self-...
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We were promised Strong AI, but instead we got metadata analysis
How simple structured data trumps clever machine learning
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I analyzed hospital price lists so you didn't have to
Blog for DoltHub, a website hosting databases made with Dolt, an open-source version-controlled SQL database with Git-like semantics.
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Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?
So-called age verification for social media is spreading across the world, framed as an effort to create a safer internet for children. In reality, age verification lays the foundation for a fully government controlled internet.
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5G: The outsourced elephant in the room
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. In a break from the usual GPS/Galileo, DNA and C++ posts, here is a bit on 5G and national security. It turns out that through PowerDNS and its parent company Open-Xchange, we know a lot about how large scale European communication service…
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Why Isn't Gatsby in the Public Domain?
When The Great Gatsby rolls out to theaters across the country this weekend, it will bring to the screen a story familiar to millions from a literary classic that's often dubbed the proverbial "Great American Novel." Here’s what many folks don’t know: even though the book was published nearly 90...
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