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What Data Does Facebook Collect When I’m Not Using Facebook, and Why?
Explaining more about the information we get from other websites and apps; how we use the data they send to us; and the controls you have.
Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
1682
Going Dark, and the era of law enforcement hacking
I’m coming down from spending a few days at Usenix Security, right here in my hometown of Baltimore. This means that my days have been taken up with two kinds of conversation: first, explaini…
1683
Humans who are not concentrating are not general intelligences
Recently, OpenAI came out with a new language model that automatically synthesizes text, called GPT-2. It’s disturbingly good. You can see some examples (cherry-picked, by their own admissio…
1684
Crunchyroll is destroying its subtitles
With the Fall 2025 anime season, Crunchyroll demonstrates zero respect for anime as a medium as the presentation quality of its subtitles reach an all-time low.
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Why don’t more people live close to friends?
A few theories why
1687
We ran a phone check at a Y Combinator event in SF
*the full story is now on the official clearspace blog
1688
What can LLMs never do?
On goal drift and lower reliability. Or, why can't LLMs play Conway's Game Of Life?
1689
Have Software Developers Given Up?
Over the last month I've had so many 'fails' from (mostly) large companies that my twitter timeline has started to read like failblog. Have we given up?
1690
Learning not to trust the All-In podcast
Gross incompetence or purposeful deception?
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Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you
[Note: I neither own nor have any trading position on any cryptocurrency. I was not compensated by any party to write this. The views expressed below are solely my own and do not necessarily repr…
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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...
1694
Gallup: 81% of Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence
It's not so much the volume of interactions Black Americans have with the police that troubles them or differentiates them from other racial groups, but rather the quality of those interactions.
1695
Let's make quality the norm again
A more circular economy is not only important for the environment. It can also strengthen consumer rights and improve societal resilience. In this report, we show how consumer policy can make circular choices easier, safer and more attractive for consumers.
1696
Archive your Reddit data before it's too late
I've written a tool for creating a searchable archive of all your Reddit data.
1697
I'm done with Google
My auntie is in hospital for christmas this year. It's been identified as flu, but it seriously affected her because she has a lot of heath problems inclu...
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Re-entry to US without backscatter or pat-down
On November 21, 2010, I was allowed to enter the U.S. through an airport security checkpoint without being x-rayed or touched by a TSA officer. This post explains how.
1700
Goodbye, Sourceforge
This page used to be a rant about SourceForge's shady practices around circa 2015, along with some basic comparison of other hosting services.
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Why do so many people want us back in the office?
After the sudden and miraculous shift to remote work – the office fightback has well and truly begun.
1703
The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public
This isn't innovation, it's tyranny
1704
“I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon”
Last Saturday, I read the 6,000-word New York Times piece, “Inside Amazon,” in the car on my way to the beach. I sat quietly in the front…
1705
Privacy doesn't mean anything anymore, anonymity does
Privacy is when they promise to protect your data. Anonymity is when they never had your data to begin with.
1706
How Tech Loses Out
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Hi everyone, This is a transcript of my presentation over at the European Microwave Week 2020, actually held in 2021. You can find the video here and the slides here. I’d like to thank Frank van Vliet, general chair of the EMW, for inviting me…
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Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting
On Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story about how its staff discovered and reported a security vulnerability in a Missouri state education website that exposed the Social Security numbers of 100,000 elementary and secondary teachers. In a press conference this morning, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said…
1709
I'm being cyberattacked by Tesla, Inc
A bungled Assetnote scan
1710
To buy a Tesla Model 3, only to end up in hell
Four months ago I decided to buy a Tesla Model 3. What promised to be an exciting adventure in the world of electric cars, and some of the most advanced technology brought directly from Silicon Valley, ended up becoming a nightmare from which I still have not found my way out.