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The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
Top law enforcement officials in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia told Facebook today that they want backdoor access to all encrypted messages sent on all its platforms. In an open letter, these governments called on Mark Zuckerberg to stop Facebook’s plan to introduce end-to-end...
I've just read This photograph is not free on Petapixel.com, and I should explain why I disagree with the author and decided to give away the picture below: The photo above is
We want to take this opportunity to thank all our UK customers for believing in our vision to build the bank the world loves to use.
Yesterday, June 15, 2026, a small and unimportant announcement appeared in Apple developer news: New domain for Sign in with Apple and iCloud+ Hide My Email. Long story short: now both Sign in with Apple and Hide My Email aliases are going to be issued on the @private.icloud.com subdomain. This makes it much easier to…
Last year I predicted there would be a significant (2008+) economic crash that year. The year is now 2026 and I was wrong. At the time my main argument was essentially this: The unemployment rate just follows these smooth curves, covid was an exception, and it was due to jump again. Not very scientific I […]
[ Update: PayPal have unfrozen the account, for now at least. Thank you for your support!]
On lobbying, corruption, and the same animal under two names
This morning we filed a new lawsuit in federal court against the United States government to stand up for what we believe are our customers’ constitutional and fundamental rights – rights that help protect privacy and promote free expression. This is not a decision we made lightly, and hence we wanted to share…
Polish translation I’m going to start with three data points. One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks…
March 2025
my show is canceled, business news reports
Originally designed as a decentralized ecosystem, the Web has undergone a significant centralization in recent years. In order to regain control over our digital self, over the digital aspects of our lives, we need to understand how we arrived at this point and how we can get back on track. This chapter explains the…
Data on over 1.5 billion Facebook users is being sold on a hacking-related forum, enabling cybercriminals advertisers to target users.
(For All Expenses)
Reflections on autonomy and the value of thinking for ourselves
The DMCA was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1998. It has a weird history. Its inception came from Bruce Lehmann, Microsoft's chief copyright enforcer, whom Clinton tapped to serve as his Copyright Czar. This was back in the "Information Superhighway" days, when Al Gore was holding hearings on the demilitarization…
Besök Ostindiefararen Götheborg i Göteborg och upptäck världens största oceanfärdiga träskepp. Boka biljetter och utforska historien bakom detta unika fartyg.
How a Pole sees the world in September 2026: a scrolling essay that follows one closed strait into fuel, food, bonds, defence and demography.
JD Stillwater, Science Ambassador's blog.
Stevan Harnad’s “Subversive Proposal” came of age last year. I’m now teaching students younger than Stevan’s proposal, and yet, very little has actually changed in these 21 years. On the contrary, one may even make the case that while efforts […] <a class="more-link"…
Applied Computer Science: On Murder Considered As STEM Field—using information theory to quantify the magnitude of Light Yagami’s mistakes in 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑡𝘩 𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑒 and considering fixes
In 2012, I signed the Cost of Knowledge pledge, and stopped reviewing for, and publishing in, all Elsevier journals. In the four years since, I’ve adhered closely to this policy; with a coupl…
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s…
I saw a doctor this week. Before the appointment, I was asked to sign a privacy policy consent form which started out this way
